Transhumanism is a cause of some folk visiting here despite being less interested in epistemic rationality as such, so I would expect an enrichment of self-identified transhumanists anong the authors of badly received posts. It's also a political tribe for a number of people, so there is room for mind-killing.
However, I'd be curious to see your links to examples.
Quite a few associations rooted in transhumanism have attempted (whether they did so successfully is questionable) to distance themselves from the crazy-sounding (to a mainstream audience) plain description of their original goals and beliefs, in an effort to attract more and better quality funding and following (such as academia).
Compare :
Longecity, formerly The Immortality Institute
Humanity+, formerly The World Transhumanist Association
The Singularity Institute remains named so, but seems willing to follow suit.
I think I'm observing an emerging pattern,...
I want to be stronger.
I want to outsource my weaknesses to those who are strong at them, and intake the workload that my strengths can take.
Like Tim Ferriss and A.J. Jacobs, I'd like to have someone working in synergy with me, to increase our productivity a lot.
....and I funded and direct an institute in Brazil (www.ierfh.org google chrome for translation) which aims in the general direction of Less Wrong folk orientation. Institute Ethics Rationality and Future of Humanity.
We work mostly in two broad areas: Transhumanism and Effective Altruism. We are currently outreaching and filtering people who are motivated smart and altruistic (it is ok to be altruistic only towards one future self). Some are researching and lecturing. Since February last, we grew to 31 members, more than I'd expect be interested on topics in the whole of Brazil, so that was great!
Here is the catch, because I live in Brazil, the assistant does not need to be in India! Nor cost as much as in the US!
But then which are the best places to find someone with this set of characteristics that Luke Muelhauser was looking for in his assistants? (link to my portuguese facebook share http://www.facebook.com/gdiego.vichutilitarian/posts/349182458498891)
Ultrasummary of abilities: Very good English command, goals that either pro-technology or pro-effective giving, minimally rational, somewhat rich (there is a niche of people who work to feel fulfilled more than for money, in Brazil, this correlates strongly with good english skills and all the abilities social class can buy), able to think by themselves when given tasks as abstract as "Find contact info of 5 researchers on happiness who published in 2010-2012, ask them whether they would like to jointly publish on topic x, tell me their thoughts."
How would you go about finding yourself/your institute an assistant? How to optimize for above-mentioned criteria?
Suppose my current strategy is posting job positions in undergrad walls. Can you improve it?
PS: technically this is not exactly an offer, because I know all Brazilians in Less Wrong, but if you feel like moving to São Paulo and would like to take the job, please do tell me! I recently met a Less Wrong couple going to Australia to optimize for beautiful landscapes. Coming here means optimizing for social relaxing environment, cuddly happy huggy people, and delicious yet quite expensive food.