Many people in the rationalist and EA scene already know about this, including the LW administration, but they have been slow to take any action. Kaj "xuenay" Sotala's conduct and behaviour is far too dangerous to continue to pretend nothing is happening.

Kaj was my best friend who destroyed my life with psychological, emotional and sexual abuse and used several of his "friends" as instruments in that abuse (as well as other abuse of his other "friends"). He also endangered many people with his highly reckless behaviour and dishonesty regarding COVID in March 2020. A few months ago, he paid for me to have trauma therapy with an IFS/somatic experiencing therapist specializing in sexual abuse, which ironically made me understand much better how atrocious his behaviour towards me and several other people has been, and that it needs to be public, for my sake, the sake of public safety and the sake of his own mental health.

A lot of people probably won't believe me, as Kaj is such an idolized and beloved figure in the rationalist scene. People think that abusers are "bad people" who are easy to recognize, which sadly is very far from the truth. Most abusers are pleasant, even charming (and this has usually nothing to do with narcissism, most abusers are not narcissists). People are incredibly complex, including most of those who do serious harm to others - Kaj certainly has incredibly nice and pleasant sides, while sadly also sides that are extremely dishonest, sadistic and minimize, gaslight, control and manipulate others.

Unfortunately, I also idolized Kaj for a long time, as "everyone else seemed to do that" (I've never been a member of the rationalist scene, though you could call me rat adjacent, but several of his other friends also idolize him in dangerous ways). This was what allowed the abuse to happen in the first place - I was so convinced he could never really do bad things, or if he did, he could always fix his behaviour. Sadly, his real ability for introspection, let alone actual self-work, is severely limited, likely because of the severe dissociation he suffers from due to early childhood trauma.

In February 2020, Kaj participated in a TMI meditation retreat, even though his mental health was way too poor to attend (thanks, peer pressure...). He lied about his dissociative symptoms in the intake form, listing all of them as mild while many were severe,...

Posts

Wikitag Contributions

Comments

Posts

Wikitag Contributions

Comments