Thanks for the link, and the summary. Somehow I don't find that at all surprising... but I still haven't found any other cause that I consider worth converting to.

At the time I converted, Singularitarianism was nowhere near a mass movement. It consisted almost entirely of the few of us in the SL4 mailing list. But maybe the size of the movement doesn't actually matter.

And it's not "being part of a movement" that I value, it's actually accomplishing something important. There is a difference between a general pool of people who want to be fanatical about a cause, just for the emotional high, and the people who are seriously dedicated to the cause itself, even if the emotions they get from their involvement are mostly negative. This second group is capable of seriously examining their own beliefs, and if they realize that they were wrong, they will change their beliefs. Though as you just explained, the first group is also capable of changing their minds, but only if they have another group to switch to, and they do this mostly for social reasons.

Seriously though, the emotions I had towards christianity were mostly negative. I just didn't fit in with the other christians. Or with anyone else, for that matter. And when I converted to Singularitarianism, I didn't exactly get a warm welcome. And when I converted, I earned the disapproval of all the christians I know. Which is pretty much everyone I have ever met in person. I still have not met any Singularitarian, or even any transhumanist, in person. And I've only met a few atheists. I didn't even have much online interaction with other transhumanists or Singularitarians until very recently. I tried to hang out in the SL4 chatroom a few years ago, but they were openly hostile to the way I treated Singularitarianism as another belief system to convert to, another group to be part of, rather than... whatever it is that they thought they were doing instead. And they didn't seem to have a high opinion of social interaction in general. Or maybe I'm misremembering this.

Anyway, I spent my first approximately 7 years as a Singularitarian in almost complete isolation. I was afraid to request social interaction for the sake of social interaction, because somehow I got the idea that every other Singularitarian was so totally focused on the mission that they didn't have any time at all to spare to help me feel less lonely, and so I should either just put up with the loneliness or deal with it on my own, without bothering any of the other Singularitarians for help. The occasional attempt I made to contact some of the other Singularitarians only further confirmed this theory. I chose the option of just putting up with the loneliness. That may have been a bad decision.

And just a few weeks ago, I found out that I'm "a valued donor", to SIAI. Though I'm still not sure what this means. And I found out that other Singularitarians do, in fact, socialize just for the sake of socializing. And I found out that most of them spend several hours a day "goofing off". And that they spend a significant percentage of their budget on luxuries that technically they could do without, without having a significant effect on their productivity. And that most of them live generally happy, productive, and satisfying lives. And that it was silly of me to feel guilty for every second and every penny that I wasted on anything that wasn't optimally useful for the mission. In addition to the usual reasons why feeling guilty is counterproductive

Anyway, things are finally starting to get better now, and I don't think I'll accomplish anything by complaining more.

Also, most of this was probably my own fault. It turns out that everyone living at the SIAI house was totally unaware of my situation. And this is mostly my fault, because I was deliberately avoiding contacting them, because I was afraid to waste their time. And wasting the time of some one who's trying to save the universe is a big no-no. I was also afraid that if I tried to contact them, then they would ask me to do things that I wasn't actually able to do, but wouldn't know for sure that I wasn't able to do, and would try anyway because I felt like giving up wasn't an option. And it turns out this is exactly what happened. A few months ago I contacted Michael Vassar, and he started giving me things to help with. I made a terrible mess out of trying to arrange the flights for the speakers at the 2009 Singularity Summit. And then I went back to avoiding any contact with SIAI. Until Adelene Dawner talked to them for me, without me asking her to. Thanks Ade :)

Um... one other thing I just realized... well, actually Adelene Dawner just mentioned it in Wave, where I was writing a draft of this post... the reason why I haven't been trying to socialize with people other than Singularitarians is... I was afraid that anyone who isn't a Singularitarian would just write off my fanaticism as general insanity, and therefore any attempt to socialize with non-Singularitarians would just end up making the Singularitarian movement look bad... I already wrote about how this is a bad habit I carried with me from christianity. It's strange that I hadn't actually spent much time thinking about this, I just somehow wrote it off as not an option, to try to socialize with non-Singularitarians, and ended up just not thinking about it after that. I still made a few careful attempts at socializing with non-Singularitarians, but the results of these experiments only confirmed my suspicions.

Oh, and another thing I just realized: Confirmation Bias. These experiments were mostly invalid, because they were set up to detect confirming evidence of my suspicions, but not set up to be able to falsify them. oops. I made the same mistake with my suspicions that normal people wouldn't be able to accept my fanatical Singularitarianism, my suspicions that the other Singularitarians are all so totally focused on the mission that they don't have any time at all for socializing, and also my suspicions that my parents wouldn't be able to accept my atheism. yeah, um, oops. So I guess it would be really silly of me to continue blaming this situation on other people. Yes, it may have been theoretically possible for someone else to notice and fix these problems, but I was deliberately taking actions that ended up preventing them from having a chance to do so.

There's probably more I could say, but I'll stop writing now.