You are deeply evil people, and you are part of a deeply evil
project. Your long struggle to threaten, blackmail, and terrorize Scott,
to invade this subreddit from the outside and overwhelm it with hordes
of simple sneering enemies, to destroy it - well, it’s not quite at an
end, because it never will be, really? At least not in your lifetime.
But this particular leg of your villain’s journey is at an end. Was it
worth your time?
Why yes, this action is not a blogger attempting to rescue his brand,
but the result of outside influence, not of mere critics, but
of malign agents of Moloch’s Cathedral to, uh…laugh at a subreddit.
Damn, LiteralHeadCanon used to be one of my favorite posters on r/Parahumans, it's sad to see that he's just a dickhead whenever he's not discussing web-serials.
^^^ugh ^^^goddamnit ^^^I'm ^^^posting ^^^in ^^^SneerClub ^^^in ^^^a ^^^subthread ^^^about ^^^me, ^^^this ^^^is ^^^a ^^^terrible ^^^idea
Sometimes I'm just a dickhead even when I *am* discussing web-serials, although I try not to be.
I just wrote up several long paragraphs of moping and self-deprecation, but then I realized that would make things worse (major TL;DR), so I deleted them. In summary: although I've always been at least somewhat crazy, I think politics have made me into an angrier and worse person over the past few years and particularly the past few months. I've been low-key trying to get on SneerClub for a while, out of solidarity with other right-wing nuts, I guess. I've been posted here a few times before, but now that I've posted a rant ridiculous enough to get this kind of attention here (and Reddit Platinum from one of you, I'm guessing?), and now that I've slept on it for a night... it doesn't feel good. I still think this sub is a bunch of assholes, but I also really don't feel like I'm one to talk.
As a teenager, I was a big fan of HPMOR and Big Yud more generally (I actually wrote one of the more notable HPMOR recursive fics back in the day). That eventually led me to two subreddits where I spend most of my time now: Parahumans and SlateStarCodex. I think the former has been mentally healthy for me, and the latter has been distinctly mentally unhealthy for me. I don't see myself ever flipping over to the other side of the aisle, but I do feel considerably more sympathetic to you all than I did a day ago, I do feel ashamed of the attitude I've been developing lately, and I do feel motivated to be better in the future, so I suppose you can consider this a successful sneer on those grounds.
Well, this is quite literally the last thing I would have expected to see. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
For the record, I don't think you're *crazy*. I think that sometimes you act like a dickhead, and that most of the time your worldview is colored by a lens I disapprove of, but I don't think there's anything *intrinsically wrong* with you.
That being said, this comment makes me (half-jokingly, half-seriously) wonder about a lot of things.
I mean, from what you just said, there are at least two things that we both enjoy : Worm and HPMOR. I've read both too (okay, I never finished HPMOR, but I enjoyed the parts that I did read) and I consider that they have added important parts to my worldview and appreciation of literature in general. Adding to this, you said you enjoyed HPOMR as a teenager. HPMOR having started in 2010 and finished in 2015, you must be somewhere between your early and mid-twenties. Which is also my age. We probably have some other things in common, like having grown in a middle-class family, in a so-called "Western" country, etc.
So, I don't get it. How am I *here* sneering at r\/SSC while you're *over there* doing whatever the hell you do? What makes me more inclined to sneer at rather than to participate in the CW thread?
Is it my country? As far as I know, France isn't known to be especially left-wing, at least when compared to places like Sweden.
Is it my parents? I mean, my dad is a self-taught computer scientist who did, at one point, read and (probably) post on LessWrong. He was even the one to personally recommend me stuff like Worm, HPMOR, and (of all things) Three Words Collide. So if anything, he should have made me *more* predisposed to falling into the SSC rabit-hole.
So what went wrong? Why am I not a traditionalist, a HBD defender, or any of the other worldviews commonly found on SSC?
What happened to me that steered me towards here? And, more importantly, can I replicate that on other people?
I think the difference between our backgrounds is larger than you might realize, although I was startled by some of the parallels (in particular, my father is a self-taught software engineer, from the days when the field was relatively new and obscure - but he didn't introduce me to Less Wrong). I didn't really "fall into the SSC rabbit hole" - I spent my childhood in one of the most conservative parts of the country, in the aftermath of 9-11, with stridently Republican parents who were happy to talk about politics with me and who I deeply respected. I wore this fucking obnoxious Halloween costume to school when I was ten that was just a T-shirt with dozens of lame Republican talking points printed on it; it was to prove some kind of point to my shitty outspokenly leftist homeroom teacher but it still kind of makes me grimace at my ten-year-old self for thinking it was a good idea and my parents for agreeing. Ann Coulter was my introduction to political writing and my first celebrity crush; I still have an autographed book from her somewhere that I got as a present for my twelfth or thirteenth birthday (can't recall which). My parents and I would religiously huddle around the television at night on a regular basis around the start of the Obama administration to watch Glenn Beck in full chalkboard mode, and I thought he was going to be the guy who saved America.
If anything, I think my exposure to the rationalist community has tempered my politics and made them more moderate - not moderate, but *more* moderate than before. That's been reversing lately, but more due to external events (the 2016 election cycle being more intense than any before, personal crises in my life causing me to dig deeper into religion and start taking the idea that the end times are coming seriously). The SSC CW thread hasn't really sucked me further to the right itself - it's just an unusually right-wing part of the rationalist sphere where I can comfortably hang out and read and write about current events with people who are relatively likely to be sympathetic to my views and smart enough on average not to give me so much second-hand embarrassment as a place like T_D. I've tried to push the thread right (probably not to any notable results); the thread has only pushed me right insofar as it's gotten me to spend more of my time thinking and talking about politics.
I don't think that this is that common of a backstory for other people there, so I doubt my experiences are that representative or relevant for the question you're asking. I gather that the most influential rationalist figures live in the San Francisco Bay Area like Scott, and that most people in the SSC CW thread (and similar communities I've seen) moved to the right rather than having it as a starting point. Converts are *usually* the most zealous, after all; that's why you have so many people in the rationalist community who could hardly imagine actually being theist but still feel a deep yearning to take on various social technologies invented and maintained by religion, whereas the few who are unironic lifelong theists like me are generally pretty quiet about it. And that's why you have so many people who live in urban elite circles who "wake up"/"become redpilled"/whatever and become the kinds of people this sub sneers at, and so few people like me, I think.
I’m glad all our private messaging conversations with the r/ssc mods
finally convinced them to do this. I know they already changed the rules
for us, but they finally took the extra step we were looking for.
I thought us leftists were supposed to be the entitled ones who want
handouts? That entire thread is people bitching that they can no longer
coast on Scott’s name and reputation and have to make a CW thread that
stands on its own (ha!) merits.
Some of my favorite dramatic moments from this thread include:
> **I think we're building Brasilia here, and I think everyone knows it**.
>
>
>
>Kicking a mooch off your coach isn't fun for the mooch, but that doesn't make it a bad idea. Your interests, or mine for that matter, are not the ones that enjoy first priority.
>
>
>
>This is unfortunate but I can't blame Scott for not wanting to be associated with a bunch of witches (and people that tolerate witches)
>
>
>
> Ugh, just kill the thread with no attempt at a replacement. That would be far better than the slow death of a thousand cuts from normie immigration and ideological entrenchment that's sure to come now.
>
>
>
> I in no small part got modded for [gushing about Jordan Peterson](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/7ymhbm/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_february_19/dumictx/) and achieved the most Quality Reported comment for [criticizing toxic masculinity as term](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9qaqik/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_october_22/e8kaocb/). If that's not enough, well then I spent Christmas turning a living, breathing animal into sausage and [this](https://imgur.com/QgN2H3q). By hand, myself, every step of the way. Maybe I'm am not a traditional "conservative", but I certainly red tribe.
>
>
>
> Now, I'll take a page from your kind's playbook. This is my "ragequitting SSC because everything's fucked here and I give up on dealing with you people" post. It's not really ragequitting, though, because curiously, I'm *not* experiencing anger as I type and send this post - by this point, I'm mostly just laughing and feeling good and smug (and maybe a bit sad that things have worked out the way they did). Ban me and also go fuck yourselves for several decades
>
>
>
>I will continue posting here until you permaban me for whatever reason; this post was simply an invitation for you to permaban me if you so chose. Thank you very much for this opportunity to continue posting here about how firmly I disagree with your moderation and why I think the culture war should heat to a boiling point. I will not mind if you take that opportunity away, nor will I mind if you let me keep it.
AND OF COURSE, this post:
>Before we all go our separate ways, I think it's worth acknowledging the elephant in the forum: namely the force that continues to haunt this community and its founder with \**consequences\** for talking about "really weird stuff" as ZorbaTheHut calls it in his parent post. In one of the worst case scenarios, we can imagine a protest group outside our founder's place of employment chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, Scott Redacted has got to go" followed by the inevitable descent into un-employability in a field he has spent ten years training for.
>
>Now who would organize such a group against our intrepid leader - this jewish/atheist polyamorous psychiatrist, SF-raised and Berkeley residing? One who urged his readers to vote "anyone but Trump". Sounds like a prime candidate of everything Mike Pence is against. Or maybe Steve King in conjunction with the Heritage Foundation. Or maybe a soft target for provocateur who likes to take things out of context like Milo or the dastardly PewDiePie? Has Scott been smart to write pseudonymously to avoid the attention of *these people*?
>
>No, in fact there is only one threat model we know of in 2019 for those who hold opinions on the internet (who live outside of China, Iran, et al). I can't blame someone for protecting them self from their one and only threat, but I do wonder what you have left after once you ex-communicate a broad range of normal opinions - what remains are people that obsess over AGI and have puppy cuddle piles? That comes off harsh but I see the rationalist movement growing increasingly fringe in interests and behaviors while alienating its reliable allies; the exact failure mode taken by New Atheism.
>
>But it's Scott's choice at the end of the day, because he built this community out of his brilliant writings. I just don't understand why a man who fears the mob wants to dissolve the community he's built which is completely committed to diffusing the mob. And to all the commenters - thank you for making this place a true gem while it lasted. I have a feeling many of our paths will cross somewhere down the road.
Guys, it's a subreddit.
What’s sad is there is less than 2000 readers, subscribed to this
subreddit. And we have become the boogieman of the rationalists. The
SnereSnagas. With them gibbering like villains on Inspector Gadget or
something. “I’ll get you next time SneerClub. NEXT TIME! If I wasn’t a
lazy SOB, I’d do a dramatic reading of them.
To commemorate this occasion, I will be putting together the first
ever Sneervey so that we may navel gaze and obsess over ourselves. If
you have suggestions for questions you want to know what sneerclubbers
think about, then comment here. If they aren’t creepy and weird, I’ll
include them.
>What do the cool kids say on threads like this?
"Does this change include any self-reflection on Alexander or the community's part as to what it was they were doing that caused their entire community to get swallowed up by something that, on reflection, they're embarrassed to be associated with?"
Asking the difficult questions is cool, but at the same time I don't know if I'm really prepared to ask them, you know?
>As I'm sure everyone has noticed, the culture war thread has essentially grown to devour all of /r/SlateStarCodex. Also, we talk about **really weird** stuff here. That's intended, and it's something I like about this community; however, given the **weirdness**, Scott Alexander no longer wants it on /r/SlateStarCodex.
considering that the choice of action wasn't to ban all the racists(or whomever they wanted to distance from) but to completely remove the thread, I think the answer is pretty obvious
I can’t tell you my consistent policy because I don’t have a
consistent policy. My vague inconsistent opinion is that I want to
continue discussing CWy things, but it’s very hard, it has to be done
with a weirdness-point-style budget, and right now just having this
thread associated with SSC is consuming my entire budget and then some.
I’m hopeful that the thread can continue and thrive somewhere far
away from me.
.
Strong preference against anything with “SSC” or “Rational”, weak
preference against anything SSC-associated like Moloch.
I'm not a troll, I'm a legitimate communist. I just recognise that being a communist and being a troll is basically the same thing in a generally right-wing milieu.
Nothing sneerclub does is really "trolling" either, all it's doing is pointing and laughing, and most people here seem pretty sincere, thus the idea that I'm extending "solidarity" to all the "trolls" here is funny.
Good. Keeping Culture War around is basically broadcasting, besides
the obvious bigoted crap, that Scooter doesn’t believe in the Paradox of
Tolerance.
Ehhhhhh. While I'd like to think he did this because he finally understands what tolerating the intolerant actually leads to, it's more likely that he still considers people associating him/his brand with the primary topics of discussion on that subreddit (which he created, is nominally a moderator of, and has set rules for) unfair, and is just afraid that it will have some real-life consequences.
i’ll always remember where i was the day racism was finally vanquished
Why yes, this action is not a blogger attempting to rescue his brand, but the result of outside influence, not of mere critics, but of malign agents of Moloch’s Cathedral to, uh…laugh at a subreddit.
I’m glad all our private messaging conversations with the r/ssc mods finally convinced them to do this. I know they already changed the rules for us, but they finally took the extra step we were looking for.
in this moment i am euphoric
I thought us leftists were supposed to be the entitled ones who want handouts? That entire thread is people bitching that they can no longer coast on Scott’s name and reputation and have to make a CW thread that stands on its own (ha!) merits.
cool. i will consider resubscribing to /r/ssc again if every single person posting in the cw thread leaves and never returns
How, exactly?
🐍🐍🐍
We are definitely the best
o7
narrator voice…
What’s sad is there is less than 2000 readers, subscribed to this subreddit. And we have become the boogieman of the rationalists. The SnereSnagas. With them gibbering like villains on Inspector Gadget or something. “I’ll get you next time SneerClub. NEXT TIME! If I wasn’t a lazy SOB, I’d do a dramatic reading of them.
according to his tumblr, scott has had talks about the movie rights to “Sort by Controversial,” I wonder how much that is related to this
To commemorate this occasion, I will be putting together the first ever Sneervey so that we may navel gaze and obsess over ourselves. If you have suggestions for questions you want to know what sneerclubbers think about, then comment here. If they aren’t creepy and weird, I’ll include them.
[deleted]
What do the cool kids say on threads like this? Posting in epic thread, include me in the screenshot?
from their glorious leader:
.
I don’t post here much anymore but congratulations everyone. Troll solidarity!
Good. Keeping Culture War around is basically broadcasting, besides the obvious bigoted crap, that Scooter doesn’t believe in the Paradox of Tolerance.