Aella

[[File:Aella 2023.png|right|thumb|165px|Aella]]{{LessWrong}}
{{Bronze}}
'''Aella''' (handle '''Aella_girl''') {{lived|1992}}<ref>Jessica P. Ogilvie, "When Camming Is the Family Business," ''Playboy'' 6 December 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20201112021903/https://www.playboy.com/read/when-camming-is-the-family-business-1</ref> is an [[United States|American]] sex worker, self-taught pollster, and [[LessWrong]] 'rationalist.' Like many rationalists, she posts prolifically; unlike many of them, she posts nudes and a very detailed story of her progression from a runaway from [[Fundamentalist Christianity|fundamentalist Christians]] working for a factory in [[Fun:Idaho|Idaho]], to a cam girl, to an [[Prostitution|escort]], to a sex researcher and paid blogger. Like many online sex workers, she analyzed her market and experimented with social media to find clients, but unlike many she shared some of this analysis and made it part of her brand. She is the LessWronger who hints most clearly that if you join the movement you can get mad laid.

== Media presence and role in the LessWrong subculture ==
Aella began to appear on social media to promote her sex work. Camming (performing on a webcam for tips or per-minute pay) is an extremely competitive business, and Aella was remarkably successful and able to move to Cambridge, MA. In December 2017 her business and life story were featured in ''Playboy'' and she announced her retirement from camming to focus on startups.<ref>Jessica P. Ogilvie, "When Camming Is the Family Business," ''Playboy'' 6 December 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20201112021903/https://www.playboy.com/read/when-camming-is-the-family-business-1</ref> While this was going on, she became involved in the LessWrong movement, first through websites, then meetups.

{{cquote|I started sex work in august 2012, i started reading lesswrong around 2014 and attended my first irl rationalist meetup 2015. i didn't start getting well known at all in ratsphere till maybe 2017|||Aella <ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1756871993717313605#m archived https://archive.ph/KuM8d</ref>}}

That meetup was to read [[Eliezer Yudkowsky|Yudkowsky]]'s ''Sequences'' at a university cafeteria in Seattle,<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1726798977377702343#m archived https://archive.ph/pE1k7</ref> and she considers "someone an (aspiring) rationalist mostly if they've read the sequences and make some ongoing effort to practice the art of rationality in their daily life."<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1879626761732018384#m archived https://archive.ph/pwjkM</ref> By November 2019 she explained "i live in the (San Francisco) bay (area) in a big rat (rationalist) group house."<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1198770876637794304#m archived https://archive.ph/8c2MU</ref> She had already experienced communal living in 2014, when she "lived in a house of accepting camgirls" and experimented on herself with [[LSD]].<ref>https://knowingless.com/2016/08/21/421/</ref> She began to publish long essays  with a focus on applied psychology and marketing such as "Maximizing Your Slut Impact: An Overly Analytical Guide To Camgirling"<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/maximizing-your-slut-impact-an-overly "Maximizing Your Slut Impact: An Overly Analytical Guide To Camgirling,"] ''Knowingless'' substack</ref> (2018) and "Becoming A Whorelord: The Overly Analytical Guide To Escorting"<ref>[https://aella.substack.com/p/becoming-a-whorelord-the-overly-analytical-guide-to-escorting "Becoming A Whorelord: The Overly Analytical Guide To Escorting,"] ''Knowingless'' substack</ref> (2021). [[Scott Alexander]] met his future wife at one of "Aella's weird parties" at the beginning of 2020.<ref>Scott Alexander, [https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/theres-a-time-for-everyone "There's a Time for Everyone,"] ''Astral Codex Ten'', 12 January 12 2022</ref>

After her webcam career, Aella tried a number of business ventures, including an online sex-toy store and a dating site in 2017,<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20201112021903/https://www.playboy.com/read/when-camming-is-the-family-business-1</ref> "a crypto ICO in Korea" circa 2019-2020, and selling a party game called Askhole with an Oxford dropout who went by the name Hrothgar (https://askhole.io/).<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20200427125408/https://knowingless.com/about/</ref> She worked as an escort to raise money and connect with clients as individuals rather than as an online crowd. She opened an OnlyFans account, where subscribers can sign up for exclusive access to content such as photos and video.

Aella continued to explore new subcultures and social scenes to see if one felt more right for her than the LessWrongers. She has blogged about her awkwardness in high-income circles,<ref>"Learning the Elite Class," ''Knowingless'' substack https://aella.substack.com/p/learning-the-elite-class</ref> about lurking in online communities for [[polyamory|polyamorists]],<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/why-your-polyamorous-friends-relationship "Why Your Polyamorous Friend's Relationship Sucks,"] ''Knowingless'' substack</ref> and about Geoff Anders' Leverage Research and "visiting a tightly knit group where my presence was somewhat a threat to the leader; I was an outsider, and some people in the group respected me"<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/frame-control?s=w "Frame Control,"] ''Knowingless'' substack</ref>. She has tweeted about how Harvard and MIT people in Boston "felt like very well designed school-completing robots"<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1889013001317179736#m archived https://archive.ph/Xcl8q</ref> (fair cop guv'nor), hippies, TPOT (this part of Twitter, a splinter movement),<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1693352862514925620#m archived https://archive.ph/zMt0e</ref> and uncertainty whether she was a rationalist or [[Postrationalism|postrationalist]] (another splinter movement).<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1534632331138453505#m archived https://archive.ph/Kj9Zy</ref><ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1643186538958954497#m archived https://archive.ph/TQATq</ref>

After getting into bitcoin in 2013, Aella lost significant sums of money to fluctuations in the [[cryptocurrency]] market<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1576079542359248896#m archived https://archive.ph/6kLyE</ref> and discovered that many people in crypto did not care about the technology as long as it produced something they could sell<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1400525767402872835#m archived https://archive.ph/bnPlo</ref> and that crypto exchanges were just as willing to discriminate against sex workers as banks were.<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1432405175155650561#m archived https://archive.ph/0ueTn</ref> By 2024 she had begun to invest in conventional assets.<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1820559098360053972#m archived https://archive.ph/MSsl1</ref>

In 2020 [[COVID-19]] arrived, and her OnlyFans boomed in popularity, allowing her to take a break from escorting. ''Business Insider'' reported that she earned as much as $100,000 in some months.<ref>Mark Sternberg, "A day in the life of an OnlyFans creator who makes up to $100,000 a month off explicit content," ''Business Insider,'' 3 September 2020 https://www.businessinsider.com/day-in-the-life-of-onlyfans-sex-worker-writer-entrepreneur-creator-aella</ref> By November 2021 she had moved from San Francisco to Austin TX.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20211120073245/https://knowingless.com/about/</ref> She returned to the San Francisco Bay Area by 2025 after failing to find a community which was open to both her sexuality and her challenges to social-justice orthodoxies and breaking up with a boyfriend.<ref>Helen Lewis, "The Internet's Favourite Sex Researcher," ''The Atlantic,'' 24 February 2025 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/aella-internet-sex-researcher/681813/ archived https://archive.ph/CuTka</ref>

At [[Hereticon]] 2022, an event in Florida sponsored by [[Peter Thiel]]'s Founders Fund, she met a reporter from the Libertarian website ''[[Reason (magazine)|Reason]]''.<ref>Nick Gillespie and Liz Wolfe, "Aella: Libertarian Sex Worker Turned Data Scientist," ''Reason'' Podcast, 27 April 2022 https://reason.com/podcast/2022/04/27/aella-libertarian-sex-worker-turned-data-scientist/ minute 18:30</ref><ref>Founders Fund, [https://medium.com/@foundersfund/hereticon-2bb9b23928d5 "Hereticon,"] https://medium.com/@foundersfund/hereticon-2bb9b23928d5</ref> She appeared on their podcast and web magazine to talk about sex work, sex workers' rights, and her data work.<ref>Nick Gillespie and Liz Wolfe, [https://reason.com/video/2022/04/20/meet-aella-the-libertarian-rationalist-sex-worker-turned-data-scientist/ "Aella: Libertarian Sex Worker Turned Data Scientist,"] ''Reason'' Podcast, 27 April 2022</ref><ref>John Stossel, "'I Have My Own Life': The Case for Legalizing Sex Work," ''Reason'', 14 September 2022 https://reason.com/2022/09/14/i-have-my-own-life-the-case-for-legalizing-sex-work/</ref> Appearances on many other podcasts to discuss similar topics followed.  As a bemused blogger who also polls followers about dating put it:

{{quotebox|Fun fact: this is also the episode that featured Lilly Philipps, the woman who filmed her 100-man gangbang, yet the clip that went viral was Aella asking a guy if he “knew what a correlation was.”<ref>"Many Such Takes: Elon's Baby, Aella on Whatever, Lori Spotting and More," ''Cartoons Hate Her'' Substack, 16 February 2025 https://www.cartoonshateher.com/p/many-such-takes-elons-baby-aella</ref>}}

In 2022 a stalker pretending to be a FBI agent attempted to kidnap Aella.<ref>Aella, "The attempted kidnapping at my house: I suspect he intended to get murdery," Knowingless substack, 12 October 2023 https://aella.substack.com/p/the-attempted-kidnapping-at-my-house</ref> She has blogged about how Internet fame and harassment, particularly on Twitter, hurt her and affected her at in-person events.<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and "how i learned to stop worrying and love the internet hate,"] ''Knowingless'' substack, 24 June 2023</ref>

In 2023 she was mentioned in a newspaper article on [[Manifest]] 2023, an event on prediction markets held at a center owned by an Effective Altruism organization in Berkeley.<ref>Kevin Roose, [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/technology/prediction-markets-manifold-manifest.html "The Wager That Betting Can Change the World,"] ''The New York Times'', 8 October 2023 archived https://archive.ph/StJyZ</ref> 

Among her romantic partners is Nate Soares, president of the [[MIRI|Machine Intelligence Research Institute]]<ref>https://mindingourway.com/about/</ref> and author of a fearmongering book on chatbots with fundraiser Eliezer Yudkowsky (the social graph of LessWrong and Effective Altruism is ''very dense'').<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/what-i-learned-from-my-date-me-experiment "What I Learned From My Date-Me Experiment,"] ''Knowingless'', November 15, 2021</ref><ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1680991111567876097#m archived https://archive.ph/J0bPI</ref>

In the aftermath of the 2024 US election, both Aella and Yudkowsky praised a proposal to breed or genetically engineer humans for intelligence ([[eugenics]] and [[transhumanism]]).<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1892664543307825517?mx=2 archive https://archive.ph/gy4tH</ref> The proposer was a software developer sure that mainstream bioscientists would just get in his way. Aella's take: "If you have a lot of money and are looking to do something actually good, this is probably where it should go."

In October 2025 she helped to organize a [[sex-positive]] event called Slutcon on the east side of San Francisco Bay with teachers ranging from sexologist and writer {{wpl|Carol Queen}} to eugenics-curious [[Evolutionary psychology|evolutionary psychologist]] {{wpl|Diana Fleischman}}.<ref>https://www.slutcon.com/ archived https://archive.ph/JOKX6</ref>

As of 2025 she runs a Substack blog named Knowingless https://aella.substack.com/, a twitter profile <code>@aella_girl</code>, and a Discord server https://discord.com/invite/PK2RhZbKpQ among mainstream platforms. Her Reddit profile <code>u/aella_girl</code> was suspended so is not available for browsing and her website at https://knowingless.com/ was sidelined when she moved to Substack in January 2022.

== Data work ==

{{cquote|I've been tracking my mood, habits, and biometrics (oura ring) for years. I fed all 2k+ days of data into claude and asked it for a report on what to do to improve my mood|||Aella <ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1873142655078838300#m archived https://archive.ph/MT4r1</ref>}}

Beginning in 2014 Aella began to dabble in polling and statistical analysis.<ref>https://reason.com/podcast/2022/04/27/aella-libertarian-sex-worker-turned-data-scientist/ minutes 37:00-40:00</ref> With the help of tutors she taught herself statistics and began to share polls on social media and collect numbers at events she attended and organized or about herself (the quantified self). Her spreadsheet of online polls begins in 2021. Most of her polls deal with sexuality, drugs, and mental health. Like articles on psychology in the magazine rack at the drug store, her blogs on her polls promise that readers will get better at sex and relationships:

{{quotebox|This is part 5 in my Good At Sex series, where I merge data with sex psychology analysis to discover how to make you wake up at 4am one night startled, it must have been the sound of bushes rustling; you flick on the lights and poke outside. Slowly you see dark, human shapes shuffling slowly towards you in the distance.

Women.

...Someone bangs on your door, a fist belonging to a woman you haven’t yet seen yet. “We’re horny,” a feminine voice breathlessly whines. “We need you to fuck us”.<ref>https://aella.substack.com/p/good-at-sex-sex-as-a-status-game</ref>}}

Your mileage may vary but Aella's advice is not bland. She plays with different ways to describe her research:

{{quotebox|I've started viewing some surveys as art - how do I construct a beautiful survey, that conveys something subtle and creative? How can I use data playfully, to illuminate things through novel expression? My chaos and ego death surveys are direct results of this question.<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1620047426743566336#m</ref>}}

Like [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]], '''Aella is an autodidact'''. Unlike him she is a competent statistician, but her analysis is still self-published without peer review. Data is mostly self-reported by her social media followers rather than measured from a random sample (and everyone lies about sex). While much academic psychology and sexology has the same problems, and her social media following lets her get very large samples, someone who wants to learn data science or understand human sexuality would be advised to start with a textbook or course by an actual statistician.

== The birthday gangbang ==

In 2024, Aella spread the word on the Internet about how she arranged to be held down and ravaged by at least 32 men for her 32nd birthday (since penises do not always cooperate, she arranged for a surplus of men). Birthday gangbangs are not uncommon in the porno world (nonbinary porn performer Jiz Lee organized a thirty-person orgy for their birthday in 2012 with a live video broadcast but without the consensual nonconsent).<ref>"CrashPadSeries Special: Jiz Lee’s 30th Birthday 30-person Orgy" https://www.jizlee.com/crashpadseries-special-jiz-lees-30th-birthday-30-person-orgy/</ref> To differentiate herself, Aella emphasized how she had sought volunteers on the Internet, and created a flowchart of the selection process which went viral on Twitter and became a meme. Several participants including a man<ref>Standard Deviant, "Aella's Birthday Gangbang," Light Rail substack, 1 March 2024 https://casualsex.substack.com/p/aellas-birthday-gangbang</ref> and a fluffer<ref>Harry and Randa, "What's It Like Being At a Gangbang? With Lucy Belmont," Good Hang substack, 15 March 2024 https://goodhang.org/p/whats-it-like-being-at-a-gangbang</ref> (woman who helped get the men erect) wrote blog posts or gave interviews about the festivities.

(Because Aella is not a Creative Commons fan, RationalWiki cannot share the graphic, but it is awesome).<ref>Aella, "My Birthday Gangbang: a slutistical breakdown," Knowingless substack, 1 March 2024 https://aella.substack.com/p/my-birthday-gangbang</ref>

== The dark side ==

{{cquote|i have some suspicion, have heard from some others, that their time exposed to rationalist culture was pretty damaging to them, particularly when they got into it young. My guess is this is a result of very high stakes + people acting out of terror rather than acceptance|||Aella <ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1727023431542350197#m archived https://archive.ph/uC5KT</ref>
}}

Part of Aella's internet presence serves as '''[[Children of God|flirty fishing]]''' for the LessWrong community ("if you join this movement, you can meet a wealthy and famous sex worker who organizes naked parties and orgies"). Once in this movement, people often become fascinated with race and IQ, eugenics, [[evolutionary psychology]], [[cryptocurrency]], and other dubious topics (or turn to the apocalyptic side of the movement and worry that humanity is on a narrow path between the End of the World and a posthuman intergalactic future- [[existential risk]] and [[transhumanism]]).<ref>One of the two major websites for the community feels the need to poll members about human biodiversity (the latest euphemism for [[racialism]]) and finds the median member is neutral on the idea: David Thorstad, [https://reflectivealtruism.com/2024/12/27/human-biodiversity-part-5-the-people-of-alexander/ "Human biodiversity (Part 5: The people of Alexander),"] ''Reflective Altruism'' blog, December 27, 2024</ref> The movement is full of people with a story about how they are going to save the world and just need helpers to provide cheap labour, donate money, or massage the leader's ego (or other sensitive parts) which sounds like [[affinity fraud]]. The movement sheds [[cults]] such as Leverage Research and the [[Zizians]] like an old tree sheds branches. Joining the movement to get laid has some risks that you won't learn about in [[Sex education|sex ed]]! 

{{cquote|I joined pickup artistry forums, reddit’s r/seduction, joined ‘game’ chat rooms where the men circled me like sharks around blood in the water. I learned about compliance testing, kino escalation, oneitis. I liked getting seduced well, and would sometimes explicitly identify a man’s techniques to his face before sleeping with him.||| Aella<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/this-practice-made-men-arouse-me "This Practice Made Men Arouse Me,"] ''Knowingless'' substack</ref>}}

Aella, like many rationalists, is fascinated by techniques for '''manipulating people and groups''', which they sometimes euphemistically describe as social dynamics.<ref>Geoff Anders, as quoted by lukeprog, [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/969wcdD3weuCscvoJ/introducing-leverage-research "Introducing Leverage Research,"] LessWrong, 9 January 2012 {{quotebox|One of our projects is existential risk reduction. We have conducted a study of the efficacy of methods for persuading people to take the risks of artificial general intelligence (AGI) seriously.}} </ref><ref>su3su2u1, [https://su3su2u1.tumblr.com/tagged/Hariezer-Yudotter/chrono "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality full review,"] Tumblr, ca. 2015. Archived at https://danluu.com/su3su2u1/hpmor/ {{quotebox|(Eliezer Yudkowski's Harry Potter fanfic) HPMOR is full of ideas I find incredibly suspect- the only character trait worth anything in the story (both implicitly and explicitly) is intelligence, and the primary use of intelligence within the story is manipulation. This leads to cloying levels of a sort of nerd elitism. Ron and Hagrid are basically dismissed out of hand in this story (Ron explicitly as being useless, Hagrid implicitly so) because they aren’t intelligent enough, and Hariezer explicitly draws implicit NPC vs real-people distinctions.}} su3su2u1 also noticed that [[evolutionary psychology]] and possibly [[neoreaction]] are portrayed as rational in this fanfic.</ref><ref>[https://dynomight.net/plans/ "Plans you're not supposed to talk about,"] ''Dynomight'' December 2021</ref><ref>Aella, "About," ''Knowingless'' https://knowingless.com/about/ {{quotebox|I also write a blog about various things, including enlightenment, narratives, social dynamics, and sex!}}</ref> Aella eagerly studied [[pickup artist]] techniques<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/this-practice-made-men-arouse-me "This Practice Made Men Arouse Me,"] ''Knowingless'' substack</ref> and wrote a long essay about a technique which she calls ''frame control''.<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/frame-control "Frame Control,"] ''Knowingless'' substack</ref> She explains how she played down her intelligence while camming, or manifests manic pixie dream girl energy for escorting clients, and the self which she presents on interviews with reporters at ''Reason'' is different from the self on her twitter profile.<ref>Nick Gillespie and Liz Wolfe, [https://reason.com/podcast/2022/04/27/aella-libertarian-sex-worker-turned-data-scientist/ "Aella: Libertarian Sex Worker Turned Data Scientist,"] ''Reason'' Podcast, 27 April 2022 minute 9:00 and following talks about manic pixie dream girl</ref> She is clearly very able to get people to give her attention and money. Buried in their endless posts, other leading rationalists usually explain that they have a secret agenda, whether [[Scott Alexander#Race_and_IQ|spreading ideas from 'scientific racism' and neoreaction]], or [[Sam Bankman-Fried|stealing all the money]], or using lessons in rationality or helping the global poor to build an audience then convince some of them to help fight Skynet and end death.<ref>Mollie Gleiberman, "Effective Altruism and the strategic ambiguity of ‘doing good’," ''IOB Discussion Paper'' 2023.01 (April 2023) https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:iob:dpaper:2023.01</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130202144128/http://betabeat.com/2012/07/singularity-institute-less-wrong-peter-thiel-eliezer-yudkowsky-ray-kurzweil-harry-potter-methods-of-rationality/?show=all Faith, Hope, and Singularity: Entering the Matrix with New York’s Futurist Set] by Nitasha Tiku (25 July 2012) ''Beta Beat, The New York Observer'' (archived from February 2, 2013). {{quotebox|Michael Vassar, the former president of Singularity Institute, who stepped down in January to pursue his idea for a personalized medicine startup–later bringing on Mr. Mowshowitz and Ms. Vance–admitted the nonprofit had learned to hide some of its more radical ideas, emphasizing rationality instead. As Mr. Yudkowsky put it, “There are plenty of people out there who would be interested in cognitive science-based thinking skills who wouldn’t necessarily buy into the whole 'save humanity' thing."}}</ref> So listen to them not like you would listen to an innocent nerd infodumping, but more like how you would listen to a used-car salesman or a preacher with an exciting opportunity for you.

{{cquote|u guys have a ton of rats and rat-adjacent, and poly rates in rat community is extremely high|||Aella <ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1738012897207525398#m archived https://archive.ph/DrIZD</ref>}}

Many problems in the LessWrong community seem connected to the '''many [[Polyamory|polyamorous]] and kinky relationships between members of the movement''', just as many problems are connected to members of the movement funding each other and not asking unfriendly questions. [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] used a polyamorous relationship with his coworkers to keep control of FTX as his fraud expanded, and people in the Bay Area scene have told even darker stories.<ref>Women with stories of abuse in these spaces include [https://medium.com/@itai.ilyich/if-i-cant-have-me-no-one-can-kathleen-rebecca-forth-born-april-11-1980-31c49ed15121 Kathleen Rebecca Forth] (CW suicide, sexual assault) and [https://medium.com/@zoecurzi/my-experience-with-leverage-research-17e96a8e540b Zoe Curzi] (CW cults). Others like [https://xcancel.com/RuffleJax/status/1009655791526338561#m Jax Romana] describe influential men who picked up a series of younger women at EA and rationalist movements and did not treat them well, telling her things like "I deserve a hot nubile college girl every year until I turn 40." ''Bloomberg'' reported on allegations of misconduct by five women at the LessWronger organization CFAR: Ellen Huet, [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-03-07/effective-altruism-s-problems-go-beyond-sam-bankman-fried "The Real-Life Consequences of Silicon Valley’s AI Obsession,"] ''Bloomberg'', 7 March 2023 archived https://archive.ph/lazEc ''Time'' magazine describes how the tendency of Effective Altruists to live, sleep, and work together can make it hard for young members to say no and hard to investigate abuse: Charlotte Alter, [https://time.com/6252617/effective-altruism-sexual-harassment/ "Effective Altruism Promises to Do Good Better. These Women Say It Has a Toxic Culture Of Sexual Harassment and Abuse,"] ''Time'', February 3, 2023 (Aella replied with [https://forum-bots.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2eotFCxvFjXH7zNNw/people-will-sometimes-just-lie-about-you a long essay] about how people had lied or been uncharitable about her so maybe the reporters were lying or being uncharitable about her friends). [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kz9zMgWB5C27Pmdkh/common-knowledge-about-leverage-research-1-0?commentId=Mmhe3jfhpzzbaiGSr A staffer at Leverage Research] defended the organization against accusations of sexual misconduct by saying that their (male) executive director had sexual relations with three (female) employees but there was no policy against this so this was fine (archived [https://web.archive.org/web/20240206093430/https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kz9zMgWB5C27Pmdkh/common-knowledge-about-leverage-research-1-0?commentId=Mmhe3jfhpzzbaiGSr Wayback Machine]). This topic is harrowing and a snarky wiki for making fun of bad ideas is not the place to explore it further</ref> You don't need to study psychology or read the ''Sequences'' to see that people have trouble being rational about people they are getting railed by or want to bone. As long as the LessWrong community doubles as an alternative lifestyle community, the drama and bad decisions will continue.

{{cquote|Among my friends who came to my attention for psychelics{{sic}} having had any significant impact on them, positive or negative, I would say the mean result has been overwhelmingly, heartbreakingly negative.  Please seriously consider not doing drugs.|||Eliezer Yudkowsky, 2024 <ref>https://x.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1857118345352618449 archived https://archive.ph/MqeGZ</ref>}}

Many problems in the LessWrong community seem connected to the '''use of drugs'''. Members often discuss prescription stimulants such as [[Adderall]], with a dedicated staff psychiatrist at FTX to prescribe pills and Scott Alexander going over the pros and cons for fellow travellers.<ref>Samantha Delouya, [https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-bankman-fried-drug-use-ftx-alameda-caroline-ellison-amphetamines-2022-11 "Sam Bankman-Fried disputed reports that FTX and Alameda employees were fueled by drugs,"] ''Business Insider'', 1 December 2022</ref><ref>Scott Alexander, [https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ "Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted To Know,"] ''Slate Star Codex'', 26 December 2017</ref> Aella has written that "before Adderall I was way less functional."<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1841259147662361054#m archived https://archive.ph/NXYnJ</ref> Alexander also warned readers that the evidence for the benefits of [[Psychedelic drug|psychedelics]] was not as good as fans make it seem.<ref>Scott Alexander, [https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/05/09/is-there-a-case-for-skepticism-of-psychedelic-therapy/ "Is There A Case For Skepticism Of Psychedelic Therapy?"] Slate Star Codex, 9 May 2019</ref> [[Nootropics]] (drugs that are supposed to make you smarter) are popular with community members, as are drugs with mixed recreational and medical uses such as ketamine and phenibut.<ref>Scott Alexander, [https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/01/2016-nootropics-survey-results/ "2016 Nootropics Survey results"], ''Slate Star Codex'', March 1, 2016</ref><ref>Scott Alexander, [https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/nootropics-survey-2020-results "Nootropics Survey 2020 Results,"] ''Astral Codex Ten'', 28 April 2021</ref><ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1874602106642108573#m archived https://archive.ph/z992I (January 2025, tracks occasional use of stimulants, alcohol, phenibut, ketamine, psychedelics, weed)</ref><ref>Kirsten Grind and Katherine Bindley, [https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-microdosing-ketamine-lsd-magic-mushrooms-d381e214?mod=hp_lead_pos7 "Magic Mushrooms. LSD. Ketamine. The Drugs That Power Silicon Valley,"] ''The Wall Street Journal'', 27 June 2023 archived https://archive.ph/dLzNC</ref> In 2022, some Austin-area rationalists tried [[methamphetamine]] as a substitute for Adderall.<ref>Alfred MacDonald, [https://alfredmacdonald.substack.com/p/vibecamp-and-its-consequences Vibecamp And Its Consequences], ''Alfred Macdonald Substack'', September 26, 2022:

{{quotebox|you might draw the line of “not good drugs” at psychedelics and think other class-equals are wrong. If so, fair. But where this becomes obviously organized by class is in the regard of MDMA. Note that prior to [https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/know-your-amphetamines Scott Alexander’s articles on Desoxyn], virtually no one talked about microdosing methamphetamine as a substitute for Adderall, which is more accurately phrased “therapeutically dosing” as the aim was to imitate a Desoxyn prescription. I know this because I was one of the few to do it, and you were absolutely thought of as a scary person doing the Wrong Kind Of Drug. MDMA, however, is meth; it’s literally its name: three-four-methylene-deoxy-methamphetamine. Not only is it more cardiotoxic than vanilla meth, it’s significantly more metabolically demanding.}}

Please do not take chemical or medical advice from a bloke with a Substack account!</ref> Aella is keen to ask questions about fans' use of psychedelics, and she was a heavy LSD user in 2014 who later decided that she had been an addict.<ref>Aella, [https://knowingless.com/2016/08/21/421/ "10 Months of Acid,"] ''Knowingless,'' August 21, 2016 archived https://archive.ph/RvDdI</ref><ref>https://knowingless.com/about/</ref> In her words:

{{quotebox|I wanted to figure out which drug was the best. But best drugs are relative - some people might really want infinite fractal pleasure, while others might want something that’ll tidy up their motivation to finish their PhD."<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/the-best-psychedelic-survey-results "The best psychedelic (survey results),"] ''Knowingless'' substack, 26 November 2024</ref>}}

Hardcore LessWrongers already seem to outsiders like they are in an altered state of consciousness on topics such as [[Roko's Basilisk]] or the [[Transhumanism|transhuman]] or posthuman future of humanity. The more drugs are used in the community, the more strange decisions it is likely to make.

[[File:Totally-normal-podcast.png|thumb|Would you see this podcast and sign up to be interviewed? Episodes have titles like "A Chat AI Addiction Transformed The Way I Understand Our Reality" and "Could Oppressing Men Resolve Fertility Collapse?" If not I guess you are not cut out to be a Rationalist influencer. From https://basedcamppodcast.substack.com/]]

{{cquote|this weekend! my friends threw a free use theme which im not very into (i like cnc) and so i didn't plan to go, so they secretly made it an omelas theme where i would get kidnapped, brought to the party, and get tortured in the basement to power the utopian party. but one of the organizers was my ex bf and then we broke up right before the party so they had to last-minute tell me it was happening because i was too sad to see him but it ended up fantastic and i got wrecked so hard, i feel amazing||| Aella<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1825733756466114767#m archived https://archive.ph/E9Shl</ref>}}

Many of the activities which Aella enthusiastically describes, such as consensual nonconsent gangbangs<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/how-my-consensual-nonconsent-orgies "How My Consensual Nonconsent Orgies Work,"] ''Knowingless'' substack, February 8, 2023 </ref> or being chased and wrestled into submission, are very '''emotionally and physically dangerous'''. Aella describes how she personally manages risk, but does not point fans to [[BDSM|kinky communities or frameworks]] such as "safe, sane, and consensual" or Risk Aware Consensual Kink, much as Yudkowsky ignores whole branches of philosophy so his ideas will seem unique. A budding kinkster would be wise to seek out local mentors and not just imitate an influencer on the Internet.

Aella is in to all kinds of '''[[woo]]'''. We at RationalWiki are against it, and even Aella wonders if other members of the movement are too mystical:

{{quotebox|im used to being the person arguing we should get naked and take LSD and realize Thou Art God, not the person sternly recommending you go read the Sequences and maybe conduct a double-blind experiment on your hypothesis that you can manifest things, but here we are<ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1643186536794710017#m archived https://archive.ph/NNqQn</ref>}}

Since 2011 there are Rationalist winter solstice festivals like in the [[Neopagan]] movement.<ref>Raemon, [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CGkZEQdeBZZXbBT7o/on-rationalist-solstice-and-epistemic-caution "On Rationalist Solstice and Epistemic Caution,"] LessWrong, 5 December 2018</ref> If you are drawn to Aella's polls and sex research, keep in mind that she is not a strict materialist who just happens to be naked on the Internet, but more like [[Jack Parsons]].

[[File:What-about-this-podcast-third.png|thumb|What about this podcast? Subscribe and you can hear British Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch on why we deserved to lose, and journalist Charlie Peters on the UNCENSORED truth about [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal grooming gangs] (CW mass child sexual abuse). If they sent you an email would you reply or dump it in the trash bin and have a stiff drink? The future of the white race and/or numberless posthumanity depends on your choices!]]

Aella identifies as [[Libertarian]].<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/becoming-a-whorelord-the-overly-analytical-guide-to-escorting "Becoming A Whorelord: The Overly Analytical Guide To Escorting,"] ''Knowingless'' substack archived https://archive.ph/XGviB</ref> While she presents herself as deeply concerned with individual liberty, she has appeared on media and at events with people such as [[Pro-natalism|pronatalists]] Simone and Malcolm Collins<ref>"Scientifically Speaking, What Mistakes Are Men Making in Bed? with Aella," ''Based Camp'' podcast, 9 February 2024 https://basedcamppodcast.substack.com/p/scientifically-speaking-what-mistakes</ref><ref>"The Logistics of Consensual Non-Consent Orgies," ''Based Camp'' podcast, 17 July 2023 https://basedcamppodcast.substack.com/p/based-camp-the-logistics-of-non-consensual</ref>, the shouty righties of TRIGGERnometry podcast,<ref>"Aella - Why I Became An Escort," TRIGGERNometry Podcast, 2024 https://player.fm/series/triggernometry/aella-why-i-became-an-escort</ref> or '''the assortment of race cranks, woo-peddlers, eugenicists, and far-right bloggers at [[Hereticon]]<ref>Max Read, [https://maxread.substack.com/p/make-alien-abduction-weird-again "Make Alien Abduction Weird Again,"] ''Read Max'', January 14, 2022</ref> and [[Manifest]]'''. As late as 2021 she responded to a post by [[Curtis Yarvin]] who also spoke at Hereticon 2022.<ref>Aella, [https://knowingless.com/2021/09/12/the-heart-of-circling/ "The Heart of Circling,"] ''Knowingless'' Substack, September 12, 2021</ref> Is she just fearlessly curious about all kinds of people and ideas? Sex workers run many many podcasts, since podcasts are harder to censor than social media, but as of February 2025 she does not seem to have appeared on any, nor on any news outlet with a feminist or radical leftist orientation (she was mentioned on a colleague's blog).<ref>Ada Hopper, [https://adahopper.com/blog/in-defense-of-silliness "In Defense of Silliness,"] August 14 (no year)</ref> Aella often posts about hippies, but she is drawn to their drugs and [[woo]] not their politics (and hippies can have crappy politics too).<ref>Aella, [https://aella.substack.com/p/how-to-be-good-at-sex-starve-her "How To Be Good At Sex: Starve Her Brain (pt1),"] ''Knowingless'', 18 October 2023</ref><ref>https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/1484261509437874176#m archived https://archive.ph/OY2fz</ref> While influential LessWrongers often present themselves as centrists or liberals, the thinkers they promote and engage with tend to be [[Libertarian]], reactionary, mammonite, and [[Neoreactionary movement|neoreactionary]].<ref>titotal, [https://titotal.substack.com/p/the-walled-marketplace-of-ideas-a "The walled marketplace of ideas: a statistical critique of SSC book reviews,"] ''Timeline Topography Tales'' Substack, 17 October 2024</ref>

== In short == 

If you are unsure whether to see LessWrong as a nerdy intellectual movement on the Internet, or an orgiastic cult with bases in California and New York City, you might want to get to know Aella as well as the long blog posts about philosophy or the solemn-sounding research institutes. If you want to get involved in the movement IRL, talk to people with experience with alternative lifestyles and how the communities around them can go wrong. Before sending her any personal information, take a good long look at her friends.

== See also ==

* [[Scott Alexander]] - Aella got him not just laid but married!
* [[Sex-positivity]]
* [[Sexual objectification]]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}
[[Category:Cryptocurrency]]
[[Category:Eugenics supporters]]
[[Category:Living people| ]]
[[Category:LessWrong]]
[[Category:Libertarians]]
[[Category:Rationalism]]

Categories: Cryptocurrency, Eugenics supporters, Living people, LessWrong, Libertarians, Rationalism