mods feel free to delete, im just curious. probably a stupid ask but im shooting my shot
ive been subbed here for a while now and basically enjoying it, yall pick on people i basically dislike for reasons i basically agree with. but i haven’t been able to figure out the theme here yet. lots of figures here i’ve never heard of, most seem to belong to the scientism camp, often with right-leaning tendencies. still i’ve always wondered what the general thesis of this sub is, and how wide or narrow the scope of the mockery is. and conversely, what are some consensus views among people here? this place has a lot of affinity with r/badphilosophy (my favorite sub), and through the mockery there some consensus views shine through (refreshing views I appreciate as a philosophy grad student).
so basically, what’s the story with this place?
[deleted]
It’s for experiencing the pleasure of realizing that a 14,000-word article about how feminism is bad can be dismissed with a single turn of phrase.
i think partly this sub exists because of the rationalist “strategy” of debate. the whole philosophy is built around nerds who fortify themselves with cognitive strategies so they can never (technically) lose arguments. thus, the appropriate response is to simply point and laugh.
I aim to misbehave
Coming in real late here. For me there are several reasons:
Entertainment.
Like a scientist in Half-Life once said: “aim for the head if you can find it”
Read the top comment on the sticky. And yes, this’ll probably get deleted
I aim to please.
I’m here because I think dying’s bad, but a lot of the people who want to “fight death” can be pretty out there.
So I come in here to see what buckets of cold water people throw on it. I often don’t buy the whole “single sentence throwdown” statements, but there’s a lot of problematic people in and adjacent to the lesswrong community that I wouldn’t have noticed without the sub.
The sub members could use a dose of humility, (well, so could the rationalist community) but there have been some REALLY FUNNY call-outs here. I treat it as a comedy sub borne out of some of the ludicrosity which stems from the grifters who have attached themselves to the transhumanist and artificial intelligence discussions.
[deleted]
I never understood either