“Evil is bad, actually (Vassar and Olivia Schaefer)” by plex

Micheal Vassar's strategy for saving the world is horrifyingly counterproductive. Olivia's is worse. A note before we start: A lot of the sources cited are people who ended up looking kinda insane. This is not a coincidence, it's apparently an explicit strategy: Apply plausibly-deniable psychological pressure to anyone who might speak up until they crack and discredit themselves by sounding crazy or taking extreme and destructive actions. Here's Brent Dill explaining it: (later in the conversation he tries to encourage the person he's talking to kill herself, and threatens her death if she posts the logs. Charming group! I hear Brent was living in Vassar's garden recently, well after he was removed from the wider community for sexual abuse.) Examples Some of the people here I knew before their interactions with Vassar's sphere to be not just mentally OK, but unusually resilient people. Prime among them is Kathy Forth. Prior to her suicide, Kathy and I were friends. I witnessed her falls downwards from healthy and capable to anxiety to paranoia, as downstream of what I believe to be genuine sexual abuse she spiralled into a narrative and way of experiencing the world where almost everyone seemed [...] The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: April 21st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cY7J7KSSqrhB8t3hQ/evil-is-bad-actually-vassar-and-olivia-schaefer --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.