SneerClub

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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.

AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)

This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.

[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]

founded 1 year ago

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I haven't seen people wilfully misunderstand all possible criticism of them so hard since the last time rationalists hit the headlines, with Scott Alexander (old.reddit.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why is it so hard for these dorks to admit that they don't actually care about being smart or rational and that they just want a bunch of other dorks to be friends with?

Do they just want some likemindedly dorky friends, or a sense of superiority over the normies/NPCs/whatever they call everyone else, complete with extensively footnoted justifications for why they are the cognitive aristocracy?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

@AllNewTypeFace @swlabr Because they are in it for the status boost. (at least that is what they accuse sneerclubbers of wanting to do, so I just go of the accusations are projections bit). And being part of the rich tech influencers groups is quite a bit of status.

They also convince themselves they are actually right, and we just are factually wrong.

See this, esp the first comment. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xMkDui7oCFZPaWYPp/retracted-a-really-simplistic-experiment-for-lesswrong-and-r (but the rest of the thread is also quite something)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ima sit here and imagine a world where SneerClub makes enough money to cover its own infrastructure, much less the literal fuckton of cash that gets thrown at EA and rationalist groups because there’s good money in carrying water for billionaires who need a smart-sounding excuse for doing a whole bunch of racism

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Since that does not seem likely to be the sort of answer you’re looking for though, if I wanted to bridge the inferential gap with a hypothetical Sneer Clubber who genuinely cared about truth, or indeed about anything other than status (which they do not), I’d tell them that convention doesn’t work as well as one might think. If you think that the conventional way to approach the world is usually right, the rationalist community will seem unusually stupid.

get in the fucking locker

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

wow the angry downvotes, much coolness so rational

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the downvotes and absolute lack of replies whenever SneerClubMod made a point they couldn’t pedantically dismiss are very noticeable

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@self @gerikson Combined with fact that they started this post as an invitation for dialogue, an attempt to bridge the gaps, but it quickly turns into reasoning from first feelings, and dismissal of the actual experts.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

* an invitation for monologue

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

@dgerard Yes, indeed, I unconsciously steelmanned it sorry.