And yeah, they're extreme, but also made them more vulnerable to it and more likely to act out. (And also, thus, more likely to form a plot to murder their landlord)
When some psycho goes to an AI conference with a bomb vest on and their views are directly traceable to EA and LW then it absolutely will be their fault as it is the expected outcome from years of brainwashing that AI will bring about the end of the world and potentially eternal torment. It's the expected outcome from saying that using violence to stop it would be morally justified (which is, incidentally, also inherent to the AI God story: the idea is that it will forcibly prevent the creation of other super intelligences, and not by talking people out of it, it's always been a power and control fantasy).
It's unlikely to be the people at the top that will be pulling the trigger, they're going to be too busy enjoying the traditional fringe benefits of having a cult. It's the people at the bottom that haven't figured out that the purpose of any cult is locking other people into extreme views so that the people at the top of the power structure can control them and profit from them, so they can enjoy relative fame and having their interests catered to... the people who are marginal and at the edge, not too valuable to the cult themselves but electrified by its message.
It'll be that marginal member who's group approved drug use wasn't kept under control, who didn't find success in the cult group sex harem, etc. It'll always be the fault of the person who pulled the trigger, but also the fault of the people who put their finger on it.
Do you actually have a definition of "brainwashing" that isn't equivalent to "convincing" here?
I really shouldn't engage with you because you seem far more interested in the emotive connotations of words than the actual meanings of them but I'm admittedly a bit curious if you are aware of what you're doing.
(You clearly don't have any actual knowledge on the subject if you think there's any profit involved here, I know a lot of rationalists, our net donations to MIRI is $0. Various anti-malaria causes? Likely over a million)
Are you talking about anyone but the Ziz cult? They're very far removed from typical rationalist sphere think. Just because a schizophrenic psychopath reads a blog and spends all their time trying to manipulate other vulnerable isolated readers doesn't mean it's because of the bigger group they were trying to associate with. Those people are homeless self-proclaimed "vegan siths," hardly the employed MD / graduate types that ACX / lesswrong / EA is made of. If I go do something terrible, you and HN are hardly to blame.