Rationalists from the UK -- what are your thoughts on Dominic Cummings?

The received view of him is as just another heartless Conservative with an extra helping of tech fetishism and deceit. In reality he is an odd accelerationist just using the Tories (Ctrl+F "metastasising"). Despite him quoting Yudkowsky in that blog post, and it getting coverage in all the big papers, people don't really link him to LW or rationality, because those aren't legible, even in the country's chattering classes. We are fortunate that he is such a bad writer, so that no one reads his blog.

Here's a speculative rundown of things he probably got implemented (but we won't really know until 2050 declassification):

• Doubling of the already large state R&D budget (by 2025). This will make the government half of all UK R&D spending. £800m ARPA like. £300m STEM funding already out.

• Pushed the COVID science committee into an earlier lockdown. Lockdown sceptics / herd immunity types likely to gain influence now.

• An uncapped immigration path for scientists

• Tutoring in state schools

• Data-driven reform of the civil service is incomplete and probably abortive. His remaining crew are "misfits", little influence. Associated data science, superforecasting and evidence-based policy with racists and edgelords. (One of those is on record as having a ridiculously negative view of LW.) Weirdo hiring scheme may mean Whitehall hiring even more staid in the short run.

• Something something bullying, norms, deception, centralisation of power. Whipping the Treasury probably not a good precedent.

• His hypocrisy probably weakened lockdown norms. This also wasted a huge amount of Boris Johnson's political capital during a public health crisis; I don't know how to evaluate that.