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“SO there is a certain…manner of speaking that certain men adapt when talking about thing that are difficult, or challenging, or make them feel a feeling that they dislike etc. They want to position themselves as a serious intellectual but also someone who is wrestling with some kind of inner demons, making them even more intelligent and mysterious. it is particularly pronounced when they are trying to position their own pain or discomfort as the most important thing in the world while using very flowery language, the kind one might find in an overwrought fantasy novel.

Overworked vocabulary? Centering their feelings? Thinking they are smarter than they are? Can you imagine Rastling Majere from Dragonlance saying exactly those words?

Dying Wizard.”

-from a reply I made here, with thanks to the metamours who explained it.

We need more jargon, that we can more easily distinguish ingroup and outgroup. It’s working so well for the rationalists, isn’t it?*

Therefore, I propose “dying wizard” be added to our collective lexicon.

Given the techgnosis of their idealized religion, the inability to center anything other than their own feelings, and the absolute NECESSITY of somehow proving subjective, completely human, feelings to be objective and pillars of the universe, I feel it’s appropriate.

I MEAN UH with a .05% margin of error, I have proved it is appropriate. Or something.

*eta: this bit is deeply fucking sarcastic

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand SlateStarCodex. The racismphilosophy is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of rhetoric most of the points will go over a typical viewer’s head. There’s also Scott’s rationalist outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Eliezer Yudkowsky’s self-insert fanfic, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these points, to realise that they’re not just trite- they say something deep about SOCIETY. As a consequence people who dislike SlateStarCodex truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the value of Scott’s upholding of the “principle of charity”, which itself is a cryptic reference to not punching Nazisneoreaction. I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Scott Alexander’s genius wit unfolds itself on their computer screens. What fools.. how I pity them. 😂

And yes, by the way, i DO have a MIRI tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It’s for the ladies’ eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they’re within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 😎

This pains me. Take your upvote and go.
This is totally an example of "dying wizard" rhetoric.
Prff, real men have a SIAI tattoo. You poser.
Real men tattoo the entire copypasta onto their penis, but everyone who's ever seen it claims it just says "RAT."
Charity for these rationalists is simply the art of the very subtle troll. That is to say, I met your mother once and she was very pleasant.

Please, no ingroup jargon. “Sneer” is enough.

(that bit was DEEPLY SARCASTIC, no worries)
> Please, no ingroup jargon Bad news friend

There’s also smarm. And while I’m not sure how aware of it they are, they clearly consider cognitive decoupling as the ultimate virtue.

they like cognitive decoupling except without any sort of formal system to back it up, just ad-hoc justifications for whatever ruminations they want to prop up. they had no cognitive coupling in the first place. cognitive incels, if you will
Yeah, I've found a surprising number of people who claim to be super into philosophy who don't actually know any philosophical history etc, they just have a bunch of talking points they've heard on reddit and repeat endlessly. It's very weird.
Ah yes, that's the field of philosophy known as dunning-kruger.
those people exist for every possible field or interest out there and i hate them and they're probably 75% of the discussion on the internet
I suspect that they do have a system that they try to follow, which explains why they uncritically spout maxims as if they are the unquestionable truth. But they're afraid to make the system explicit because it would make them vulnerable, predictable and open to criticism. And regardless, cognitive decoupling is never fully decoupled. Even if their only premise is derived from two units combined equal twice the amount of one unit, the nature of language or the base 10 numbering system, it's still a contextual assumption.

new terms mean a new motte and bailey! what’s the other definition?

The other meaning is, of course, wizards deserve to die.
pull the trigger piglet

Can’t we come up with something a little more highbrow than Dragonlance, though?

It *is* highbrow, though. My eyebrows were very much raised to the furthest possible extent during my consumption of the series.
...no? Because that's the point? I mean I suppose we could go with ELMINSTER if you really wanted to...
No, no, it ought to SEEM highbrow and literary while still fundamentally being the exact same old claptrap. Kvothe from *The Name of the Wind,* that sort of thing.
It was a sneer of three parts.
If you like. I'm fond of unambiguously comparing Dying Wizard writers to Majere, though.
honestly Rothfuss is the Scott Alexander of fantasy writing and I won't be convinced otherwise
I just finished The Wise Man's Fear, and after hearing so much about how the Kingkiller Chronicles were literary versions of fantasy, this was deeply disapointing. The prose itself has some amazing moments, mainly in the form of pithy aphorisms, but Kvothe is basically a wish-fulfillment character, with every other character having all the depth of a puddle. The plot has the structure of one of those rational stories, all about getting stronger rather than self-improvement. The second half of tWMF is where this truly hits home. I was still holding out for the story to be a somewhat aware deconstruction of legendary figures, but coming down from the fairly good climax of the hunting section to the tropey genre-trash that fills the rest of the book was just painful. It was a fun bit of shlock that I held up to too high a standard, I guess. I just wanted to vent a little. N.K. Jemsin is next, hopefully she'll be better.

[deleted]

>“You cannot hide from danger. Death floats on the air, creeps through the window, comes with the handshake of a stranger. If we stop living because we fear death, then we have already died." \-Raistlin Majere > "I? Turn my back on the world? ... I am the world, as you well know, old friend! Countless times I have been born! Countless deaths I have died! Every tear shed - mine have flowed! Every drop of blood spilled - mine has drained! Every agony, every joy ever felt has been mine to share! "I sit with my hand on the Sphere of Time, the sphere you made for me, old friend, and I travel the length and breadth of this world chronicling its history. I have committed the blackest deeds! I have made the noblest sacrifices. I am human, elf, and ogre. I am male and female. I have borne children. I have murdered children. I saw you as you were. I see you as you are. If I seem cold and unfeeling, it is because that is how I survive without losing my sanity! My passion goes into my words.” \-Astinus of Palanthus Both of these are from Dragonlance. Please compare to Scooter's writing.
Damn, that's purple. I wouldn't say Scott is a good example of this style, but a lot of the stuff he likes to cite/reference – Yudkowsky, Moldbug, and of course *Moloch* – fits it to a T.
Alexander's infuriating reliance on that sort of grand metaphor, especially for those things - such as "Moloch", so-called - would be better addressed with a lighter urbanity, is easily one of the most orbital-rotation-inducing things about his prose style, principally because nobody'd think he had nearly as much worth saying if he didn't do it.
Yeah there are a million infuriating things about Scott's writing style but TBH I have never understood the wizard comparison. Perhaps because I have not read Dragonlance or, really, much high fantasy at all.