OK, so, sorry for the serious post. But it seems to me that (surprisingly, given the apparent composition of this subreddit) sneering is very under-theorized. So this is my attempt at a theory of sneering.
Specifically, I propose to identify the eigensneers: the axes of the sneer space, or the fundamental directions along which sneering occurs, such that any object of sneering can be characterized as a combination of these eigensneers.
Here is an incomplete enumeration of the basic sneers. I welcome additional suggestions:
Example: computer touchers and economists doing really bad epidemiology.
The phrase originates with Scott Aaronson, who is defending people against this charge. However, It Really Do Be Like That Sometimes: autodidact stemlord Dunning-Kruger assholes really do come up with horrible ideas on a regular basis.
Example: (I don’t have a personal favorite, any suggestions?)
This is like #1 in that it’s also people who don’t know how to read, but unlike #1 in that the ideas they come up with are at least Not Wrong, albeit typically a worse version of the original. (Often the ideas circulate in the water supply, making it easy for people who don’t read to believe they came up with them independently.)
In Barbrook and Cameron’s “The Californian Ideology”:
Capitalist entrepreneurs often have an inflated sense of their own resourcefulness in developing new ideas and give little recognition to the contributions made by either the state, their own labour force or the wider community.
A lot of sneers at Paul Graham are in this category. But my favorite example is the stupefying toxicity of Thiel’s “Zero to One” characterization of entrepreneurship, where the “zero” is the base of academic research, state-subsidized technological development, and open-source software that every tech startup relies on. Yes, your smartphone app for sending dick pics that disappear after 30 seconds is truly a creation ex nihilo! Go fuck yourself.
Credit to Lauren Morrill. I think this one is self-explanatory: we’ve all read /r/TheMotte posts that are so sociopathic they made our eyes bleed.
This has a descriptive and a prescriptive component. Descriptive example: most rationalist interest in evopsych. Prescriptive example (“holy shit guys people are complicated”): rationalists trying to fix any social institution (especially politics).
The name is a reference to Getting Eulered, but that’s not really what this is about: the classic example is Roko’s Basilisk. This covers all forms of “rationalist talks themself into a perverse conclusion, then doubles down relentlessly for the sake of consistency.”
I loved dgerard’s comparison of LessWrong to Laputa:
These people are under continual disquietudes, never enjoying a minutes peace of mind; and their disturbances proceed from causes which very little affect the rest of mortals.
Examples: too numerous to count, this appears to be an accelerating trend. Step 1: assume that the center of political discourse lies between the two American major parties. Step 2: write 10,000 words or more about how both sides are bad.
Inspired by @IamRageSparkle’s twitter thread and a Lindy West op-ed. This covers all forms of identifying with / making common cause with / being “charitable” to Nazis just because they adhere to your norms of civility.
Flip side of “polite Nazis”: this covers all gratuitous claims that someone’s perfectly dull center-right or libertarian viewpoints are being censored, when actually what’s happening is that they live in an open society and don’t like that people disagree with them.
This one is boring, but it’s everywhere. Someone develops a “contrarian” identity as a racist or a sexist. This becomes self-perpetuating: now they see confirmatory evidence for their “silenced” worldview everywhere, but any opposing view is propaganda from the “Cathedral” and it’s their duty to question it.
This is an excellent point on Thiel who believes that only singular contributions from a rarefied group of “the greats” are responsible for nearly all technological progress.
“Who hurt you,” a sneer for anything so contrived and suspiciously specific it could only be motivated by personal trauma – any time a rationalist inadvertently reveals their own damage in the course of making an argument. Ex: https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1281278762978508801?s=20
Their views always converge to Limbaugh/Hannity/Tucker over time. Anyone with half a brain should start questioning their contrarianism when their takes become indistinguishable from boomer facebook memes, but a casual glance at The Motte tells me otherwise.
My favourite one here is the entire history of Bitcoin.
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For reinventing the wheel, see tech bros discovering the need for editorial standards on facebook.
Also anarchists trying to figure out who’s taking out the trash and accidentally developing a state.
Isn’t vector 7 usually “both sides bad, but liberal side badder”?
What about “you’re not smart, you’re just hypergraphic”?
People think their argument in favour of (whatever) is amazing because they can write 100k words defending it. But that’s not better than doing it in 500 words.
Great research, certainly there is a rational framework for objective decision making to be derived from these basis vectors.
A suggestion for #2 could be the constant reinvention of seasteading as a vehicle to hose of money from people for whom a gated community is not enough, selling a dream of a racially pure community where everyone keeps the peace by keeping a constant number of unlicensed guns to their neighbors. Also at first wind blow they will call for assistance according to international maritime law, you know it.
Another suggestion for #5 would be the Mary sue book by Juli Zeh called “Gaming instinct” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaming_Instinct
That this author who is highly regarded in Germany and probably nowhere else could produce this self inserting bullshit about two characters being able to “socially manipulate” an entire high school without having her lunch coming up is totally beyond me. I’d like to believe there’s an additional point or twist to the book since I couldn’t make myself finish it but I think not.
Re #2, “high decouplers and low decouplers” is just lumpers vs splitters, whose name is approaching 200 years old.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters
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Nice to see a reference to Barbrook and Cameron in there
#2 reinventing the wheel
…surely the obvious example is verificationism/logical positivism?