Hello SneerClub. I was recently reminded of this place by Scott Aaronson’s post…
Just recently I ran across a new flavor of organized supernatural belief, and I wanted some help in thinking about it as a social phenomenon. I tried RationalWiki, and sure enough, they had an article about the thing (“pranic healing”), and I was able to post my question there. So, hooray for RationalWiki.
Then I had a look at “Recent changes” at RationalWiki, to see what else was current there, and I was struck that all the visible discussion (just in the preceding hours) was about history, politics, and politicized science. The articles on the paranormal, cults, and so on, are there, but they clearly no longer represent the main focus of RationalWiki.
This is not a criticism; I am hardly the first person to note that RationalWiki is as much about progressive politics as it is about snarky skepticism and debunking. That’s just how the balance of belief and interests adds up there.
Just to test the waters further, I looked up the article on “Transgender” and sure enough, there was no trans-skepticism there, instead it was an entirely sympathetic article, even including a link on “Avoiding offense” (amusing when you consider RationalWiki’s tone on just about every other topic).
Again, this is not a criticism, it’s just the reality of RationalWiki’s flavor of rationalism. But it made me think about the character of this place: what is its center of gravity, what topics verge on being off-topic, what are its internal contradictions, is there a shared sensibility apart from contempt for Less Wrong and all its works?
In the early days here, I posted something about rationalists in the traditional sense of the word, being persecuted in South Asia. As I recall there was one positive comment, but the post itself was demoted somehow (I’m not a regular redditor). So that’s data on what’s offtopic here.
Attitudes towards, and relationship with, RationalWiki, would be further data on SneerClub. I’m pretty sure that mockery of RationalWiki for its political and ideological views would be regarded, not just as off-topic, but as fighting words.
I tentatively diagnose the governing sensibility of this place as being that of progressive academia. That would account, rather directly, for the fact that Less Wrong gets criticized here when its politics is not progressive, and when its intellectual standards are not academic.
So what do you think, SneerClub? Do I have you right, or am I still missing something?
Because there is no rational justification for claiming that transition is not spectacularly effective at treating trans people. It’s really that simple.
I have had the sneaking suspicion that a good number of the people here have graduate training in STEM and are sick of the way rationalism misrepresents and treats our disciplines.
If you see RationalWiki being bad in the manner of self-proclaimed rationalists, then you’re welcome to make a submission here. It’s on-topic. But be warned that if their ‘badness’ you link consists of them not being transphobic enough for you, then expect a ban.
RW editor and RMF board member here. Given what the other half of the Great Skeptical Atheism Schism has ended up like, I’m entirely pleased with RW having ended up on the side of it that it has. YMMV. Also, if you go dredging through Recent Changes, you deserve everything you get.
This place, ehh there’s some tedious droning commies. Tedious droning commies happen.
Come off it, your data-gathering here was obviously impeccable…
I’m not sure what the stakes are in this question—why should there be much beyond “contempt” for the rationalist community?
We are, in so many words, simply a subreddit. Organized under the rough rubric Yudkowsky finished for his fanfiction detractors (see the sidebar), we are no more and no less than our own particularities here. For example, I am motivated by what I understand to be the rationalist’s slavish method(s) of discoursing that emphasizes masculine tone, faux disinterest, handcrafted heuristics, and “nerd” authoritarianism that purports to elevate the rationalist above politics, “the mind-killer.” The collective effect being a “community-think” as impenetrable as those of the “outgroup,” “blue tribe,” SJW, pomo, or non-STEM bug bears that rationalists are constantly wringing their hands over. Sneering then, for myself, is a particular act if refusal to play the “rationally correct” language-game—to pretend that politics has killed the mind.
I don’t think that this is some sort of shared purpose. Our subreddit is too small and we experience periods of inactivity, as the various visible rationalists enter or exit periods of activity. I’ve never read Yud’s fanfic, and I’ve never visited less wrong. I do follow people’s continuing engagement in the science!culture wars, and the accompanying inattention to progress in the humanities and idolatry of scientific authority. But I just don’t think that you’re going to find any deep moral or intellectual proclivities among us beyond our own individual biographies. So why both trying to group this small loose outgroup?
Howabout, silicon valley tech moguls are ruthless amoral businessmen, lets stop acting like they’re going to save the world by wasting trillions of dollars on glitzy space ace boondoggles and running the working class out of industries? Is that enough of a political affiliation.
Also, maybe cease endlessly “steel manning” and defending the far right and reactionaries and trying to impress them like they’re your alcoholic father. Acknowledge reality and see them for the populist psychopaths they are.
I’d like this subreddit better if it branched out a little. Add RationalWiki to the mix.
I’m getting tired of Scott Aaronson stuff. I come here to gloat over other people, but frankly all I feel for Aaronson is pity (that he is so, so socially ungifted) and jealousy (that he is a legitimately gifted mathematician).
Nothing in /r/sneerclub is a criticism, it’s just the reality. You say stupid shit, expect to be called stupid.
I’m a Marxist-Leninist.
Syndicalist. Interested in critical theory and anthropology and biology.