In the last few days, a few people have newly joined LW, posting only in a welcome thread and in articles about Gleb_Tsipursky's "Intentional Insights" work. Their comments have been very enthusiastic about II.

Now here's the thing. Intentional Insights is based in the US. Everyone on its leadership team (I think) and advisory board is in the US. Most of its activity, so far as I can see, is focused on promoting ... whatever exactly II promotes ... in US-based media like the Huffington Post. But it just happens that two of these people are a brother and sister (I think) from Nigeria, and a chap from the Philippines. The last person I recall turning up on LW and gushing about how great II is and how wonderful GT's articles are was also from the Philippines. Isn't that odd?

(For the avoidance of doubt, of course there's nothing in any way wrong about being from Nigeria or the Philippines. I'm just asking: isn't this a rather improbable sequence of events?)

Now, Gleb has an answer, sort of:

In fact, many of the people who engage with Intentional Insights content are from developing countries, as we collaborate with international skeptic and reason-oriented organizations such as Atheist Alliance International.

It's not clear what range of organizations Gleb is referring to, but the specific one he names (AAI) is indeed an international organization -- but I don't see any sign that it's more active in (say) Nigeria than in the US. And none of these II fans who have turned up on Less Wrong has said anything about hearing of either LW or II through any other organization.

I think there is another obvious explanation, which is that these people are being paid to publicize II, and that the reason why the II-fans we see on LW come disproportionately from developing countries is that it's much cheaper to buy publicity from people in developing countries than from people in, say, the US or Western Europe.

Am I too paranoid?

... Oh, look. Twitter feed of LW user Sarginlove. The description on the Twitter account says "works for Intentional Insight". Take a look at Sarginlove's comments and tell me this isn't a deliberate attempt to look like someone not affiliated with II who's just seen their material and been impressed by it.

I don't know quite what Gleb is actually trying to do with II, but I think this goes beyond "weird and creepy" (the usual complaint on LW hitherto, I think) to "actively deceptive".