Off the top of my head:

1. Rationalists like to demonstrate how “contrarian” they are (and thus how clever and free-thinking they are) by arguing for reprehensible political positions. This attracts actual reprehensible people, just like the fake Voltaire quote would suggest (“Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company”).
2. A lot of Rationalists are socially awkward men, and socially awkward men tend to be both drawn to ordered hierarchies (as it’s easier to understand what everyone’s “place” is) and are fearful of political correctness (as their social awkwardness can cause them to not realize when they offend people).
3. They’re socially awkward but high-IQ, and so it’s an ego boost to read stuff that devalues the importance of the former (ie - is critical of emotion and empathy) and overvalues the latter (ie - talks about how great IQ is and how people with high IQs are better than everyone else).

All three of these tendencies tend to draw them towards fascist ideas like HBD. It’s contrarian (so they can feel like an edgy free thinker), it gives them an ordered hierarchy (so they know where they stand) and it tells them that they deserve to be on top because of their innate characteristics.

Idk everytime Scott starts drunk posting its hyper reactionary conspiracies and other trash like that. So I think deep down he agrees with most of it

to quote liz sandifer, scooter flirts with neoreaction like a horny teenage boy befuddled by a bra.

he’s a rightist but refuses to admit it, preferring to think of himself as a member of the “grey tribe” like that gives him some sort of special moral character.

good on you for getting banned though, respect

Sorry guys. I didn’t think this post would be such a shit show.

*deep sigh*

Scott actually has discussed that, sort of. Here’s the relevant pull-quote from this article, so you don’t have to to go searching (it’s a few paragraphs down from the top of secction III)

The moral of the story is: if you’re against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong.

Basically, what a lot of us have said- that if you open a group dedicated to free debate of any idea, you’ll get inundated with people who have, just, like, the worst ideas. The same reason my high school’s debate club had to institute a “no advocating for eugenics” rule (and this was pre alt-right proper).

He skates so close to self-awareness here, but I don’t think he realizes that this principle applies to his commentariat, too. If he had that realization later, it was after I stopped reading SSC.

I don’t think you know what an alt-righter is.