this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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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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[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Sandifer had been busy during her time away from Wikipedia, writing an essay collection titled Neoreaction: A Basilisk. Five of the self-published book’s six essays (about ants, TERFS, Trump, the Austrian School, and Peter Thiel) were forgotten the day they were written. The sixth is Gerard’s masterwork. Sandifer starts the essay with quick critical overviews of Eliezer Yudkowsky, Curtis Yarvin, and Nick Land, then goes on a sprawling journey from William Blake to John Milton, with stops at Fanon, Debord, Butler, and Coates. This review describes the experience well. I can only describe it as leftist free association based on the prompt “Say whatever comes to mind, inspired by David Gerard’s obsession with Roko’s Basilisk and neoreaction combined with your own love of leftist theory.”

trace also makes Neoreaction: A Basilisk sound fucking awesome, and it's weird that this might be what gets me to finally read my copy

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

That review that he links to is not even very fond of Yudkowsky. They say they have a sort of "yes, and" response to Sandifer's book but TW probably interpreted it as "yes, but" and slurped it up to have some sort of criticism to the book. Makes me wonder how many posts that elaborate a bit on their opinions he even read. Or maybe he got confused whose book was being talked about.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

iirc Yud and lesswrong is also more of a sidenote in that essay, as the thing is about Neoreaction. A think Yud used to be not that a fan of (and that might even be in the essay itself). Perhaps the shift in attitudes towards LW can also be explained because they are more and more accepting of things like NRx and the line between them is made less and less clear. For example see this article esp the part about neoreaction a basilisk ;).

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Honestly, anyone who read the essay can see that the question of whether Yud approves is totally irrelevant to its thesis, but these people are incapable of reading styles of argument that don’t proceed by declarative statements about binary choices, except of course in those situations where something precious to them (such as their good standing at the “not a racist” club) might by at stake

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

Neoreaction: A Basilisk really is great, you definitely should tackle it soon!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

Do it, it's great, v edifying!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

The article on GamerGate is also awesome, but my favorite part is probably that it contains the very best article about Trump you're ever going to read.