I have mixed feelings.

This sub’s topic is defined only in opposition to another community, and the reigning tone is sneer. It’s not a place where people should expect to have a serious discussion about anything, even with like-minded others. (And that’s a perfectly valid kind of place to visit; pace Rationalists and other kinds of troll, not every forum on the internet is supposed to be a fair and cHaRiTaBlE venue for pseudointellectual debates about every damn thing.)

I think it’s great that there’s a thriving community here, because this is the offramp for casual participants in the Less Wrong / Slate Star Codex / Astral Whatever / Motte axis who eventually wonder am I the only one seeing something wrong here? (and in all likelihood they hear about this place through Mottehead conspiracy theories that we’re secretly writing their most embarrassingly upvoted posts as a false flag, so thanks for that). But the offramp shouldn’t be the final destination; there’s only so much antidote you need before the poison is out of your system. I myself wander away from this place often and feel a certain guilt when dramatic happenings like the Lügenpresse hatchet job indifferently descriptive NY Times article bring me back.

[deleted]

i mean, maybe a regular weekly/monthly off-topic thread? iunno, might be a bit like work

Yeah, this is also my favorite sub on Reddit.

I guess I’m one of those psychologically fucked up people Yudkowsky warned you about.

I also would appreciate hanging with this gang in a non-discussing-the-poop context!

I found this community fairly recently and I’ve only lurked so far. I’ve read a little bit of LW stuff, but didn’t stick to it.

I think what makes me really glad, after seeing the shitshows you guys present, is that the literary subgenre r/rational essentially formalized by HPMOR (which was what made me look into LW in the first place) seems to have evaded the taint of these rationalist communities despite still being open to rationalist writings. I honestly almost felt bad about it after reading posts on here, but even a small re-evaluation of the aforementioned sub helped me feel better about not accidentally getting the shittier ideas associated with the rationalist community stuck in my head through fiction.

I hope I tagged this right and did everything right if not let me know :)

Long time lurker, first time poster. Found out about this sub after reading enough SSC to get skeeved out.

The posts here remind me of the “olden days”, and I’m old enough to remember BBSes. Smart but not too smart. Erudite and witty but not overly so. Not taking itself very seriously, but sneering in a seriously effective way.

It’s a great oddball mix to be sure, and hard to pin down. But as soon as you can pin it down, that’s when you know it’s done for.

I know, I am pretty great…

But in terms of the “criticism” (it doesn’t read to me like a criticism, glad to have you here), this sub originates as an off-shoot of /r/badphilosophy founded by my personal friend, the artist formerly known as “/u/drunkentune”, with the explicit mission of diverting what was then a flood of Yudkowsky-related bad philosophy - so it’s natural there’s a quite specific focus I try to enforce when people get outside it

I helped start a discord server for /r/SneerClub which has a sort of broader scope and chattier feel and although I don’t use it much anymore for reasons unrelated to the server itself I can vet you to be a participant if that’s your ting

I’m mostly here to sneer, but I also really enjoy reading what others here have to say. Not sure if I have deeper thoughts than that. Within the framework that exists here, some interesting discussions still do happen.

Glad you’re here! I’m new myself : )

wish we had more content that was on brand for us? Idk, I feel that since we’re all here together we must have some similar tastes/interests.

Yeah I agree and disagree. I’m pretty with you in that I think lots of sneerclubbers have similar interests but, more interestingly, I get the feeling that a lot of us also share similar philosophies about the world. Like, sneerclub gives me big “nerds punching nazis” vibes and, even if sneering is pointless, its kind of therapeutic for me. I’ve been worn down by the process of having extremely long abstract pointless arguments with people who empirically don’t change their minds and its nice to cut through all that.

I’d love that sort of thing to have more of a brand and community.[1]

At the same time, sneerclub is sneerclub and the medium is the message. While I do occasionally see comments that are kinda like “should we really sneer at THAT?”, having internal debates about what sneerclub should sneer at feels wrong – like you’re attacking the very foundation of the thing. As a result, I’ll sometimes see an (arguably sneerworthy) sneer that bothers me in some way and not say anything because it feels inappropriate[2].

So even though I think a community of sneerclubbers (or even just a place where sneerclubbers start doing their own sneerclub aesthetic stuff) would be cool, I’m dubious that /r/sneerclub is the place to do it.[3] Sneers, a community, do not make.

Does that make sense?

[1] yeah yeah I know its called “regular person who just happens to be smart”, indulge me here!

[2] I get a similar vibe on circlejerk-style subreddits but, since these usually have clear principles, its never felt as alienating as it does here

[3] I also have the feeling that sneerclub is made up of multiple groups. The people here because Eliezer are not necessarily people here because TheMotte and vice-versa. I’m more part of the latter group fyi

Feel the same way, a lot of overlap in my interests with those of the rationalist community so it’s unfortunate it has the problems it does. Apart from sneerclub and theschism there’s also r/leftrationalism – not too active these days but still some good discussions once in a while. And for blogs, I like dePonySum’s blog for a lot of rationalist-adjacent discussion from a more leftist point of view.

So you’re saying you want to create a ShareClub?

There’s a discord which has more social stuff if you’d be interested