What if Greatness in the wizarding world is not achieved by a mastery of magic, but of being really good at reasoning and rationality? Such is the discovery of Harry Potters Evans-Verres, a character dreamed up by fedora-wearing automaton, Eliezer Yudkowsky. Yudkowsky is not only the writer of a popular 660,000 word Harry Potter fan fiction - he also helmed a movement known widely in Silicon Valley as “Rationalism.” And so the Bay Area, which for years has attracted autistic computer engineers and finance bros in gilets working in meaningless start up jobs, has finally discovered a religion to hang its technology on. Their church? A forum website called LessWrong.com, where nerds come together to openly debate their ideas of the future, strategize how to hack their own minds, and hatch a plan to build AI as safely as possible. In this season premiere, Hannah and Maia discuss whether the Rationalist philosophy, which turns every aspect of the human condition into a game of 0s and 1s, is actually paving the way for a better future, or actively destroying it. With such ghouls as Sam Bankman-Fried, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Peter Thiel as its disciples, and a fringe death cult blaming LessWrong for their crimes, one has to think, maybe not? Tangents include: the Lindsay Clancy trial, Hannah’s hard-on for John Oliver, and Maia’s hard-on for John Steinbeck.
Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:
https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast
Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:
https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusic
SOURCES
Tara Isabella Burton, “Rational Magic,” The New Atlantis (2023).
Greg Epstein, Agnostic: How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, MIT Press (2024).
Klint Finley, “Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries,” Tech Crunch (2024).
Cade Metz, “Silicon Valley’s Safe Space,” The New York Times (2021).
Cade Metz, “The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion,” The New York Times (2025).
Evan Ratliff, “The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians,” Wired (2025).
Emily Shugerman, “This one internet subculture explains murder suspect Luigi Mangione’s odd politics,” San Francisco Standard (2024).
Tessa Stuart, “None of the So-Called Zizians Have Told Their Story: Until Now,” Rolling Stone (2026).
David Whelan, “The Harry Potter Fan Fiction Author Who Wants to Make Everyone a Little More Rational,” Vice (2015).