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.]

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a riddle: why do people who hate reading books thrive on impenetrably long essays? (awful.systems)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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One of the first things about the LW crowd is how they just absolutely drown you in prose, from EY to SSC on down. There are several tactical advantages to this style for a group that is concerned foremost with winning debates, so it makes sense. I and many others find their refusal to edit off-putting and so don't engage, but I suppose that's part of the point too, to self-select a readership of freaks who put the work in to digest your entire stream of conscience.

But, it just occurred to me this morning, the readers of this drivel are often the same exact SV/STEM grads who don't just read fewer books than they should (who among us), but denigrate the activity as useless. They want the cliff's notes of any idea outside of their hothouse, but have endless attention for each other's first draft ramblings about any subject under the sun.

What explains this? How can someone with the (quite typical) obliterated attention span that prevents them from picking up an adult book slog through HPMOR or even like the average Scott Alexander post? Does it just calm down their addled brains to see "epistemic certainty: 37%" at the beginning of a tome?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I read a very good comment on, of all places, hackernews that described this as a method of developing commitment in readers by putting them through in essence self abuse. it was put in parallel to a sort of absorbtion of endless ecstatic trance ramblings that cults commonly put their members through. unfortunately I can't find the comment