No one has every believed in the basilisk, save for maybe Yud. Everyone on LessWrong thought it was dumb from day one. LessWrong, now mostly dead, was a fun community full of smart people. That article is trying to make the place out as a cult, but no one bought any of that stuff, not even Roko. He was just playing around with local memes. It's pretty gross how this whole basilisk thing has turned out.
No, in the comments on the original basilisk post, Roko said he was in fact going through with the quantum gambling scheme that the post outlines. http://basilisk.neocities.org/ ctrl-F to "23 July 2010 06:52:40PM"
