r/SneerClub archives
newest
bestest
longest
Yudkowsky's at it again: mad investor chaos and the woman of asmodeus (https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/sj58nj/yudkowskys_at_it_again_mad_investor_chaos_and_the/)
posted on February 03, 2022 12:49 AM by u/unwiselifechoices
69

For those who don’t know, Yud’s currently RPing under the pen name Iarwain on a rationalist-run play-by-post site. The start of the shitshow can be found here: mad investor chaos and the woman of asmodeus.

The short version’s that a totally-not-a-self-insert from his ‘utopian’ hyper-rational world of dath ilan (outlined here, also corroborates the author’s identity) is dropped into Golarion, the setting of the Pathfinder RPG. The protagonist swiftly acquires a harem of math pets from the local wizard academy, starts building a cult, and embarks on a journey filled with eugenics, jargon, bad stats/econ lectures, and worse BDSM takes.

The long version has a hundred and eighty pages in the first thread alone, and will have your eyeballs doing backflips from rolling them so hard.

Enjoy, if that’s the right word?

u/blakestaceyprime 52 points at 1643858887.000000

The average IQ in Earth-equivalent terms is 143, after an unknown number of generations of “heritage optimization” pursued via positive government subsidies.

eugenics, why did it have to be eugenics

permalink
u/Soyweiser 27 points at 1643892554.000000
Dont worry, im sure the low heritage iq people (the hiq's) lived perfectly normal productive lives, just without children. This description about iq is from dath ilans description btw, a proclick if you want to sneer a bit. High levels of 'we would have flying cars if christianity didnt cause the dark ages' energy. > All humans (and other hominids, like chimpanzees) are cryopreserved upon death. Poor cephalopods and dolphins no Rationalist heaven for you.
permalink
u/Waytfm 33 points at 1643851660.000000

your username checks out, at least

permalink
u/redpandamage 20 points at 1643851473.000000

Got baited into reading this after it was linked on the Paizo forums in response to a question about alignment and was ambushed by it being a ratfic.

permalink
u/blakestaceyprime 29 points at 1643860600.000000
I was ambushed like that by HPMOR itself, way back in the day. Somebody linked to it saying words to the effect of, "Hey, this is a fun exploration of what Harry Potter would be like if he used science to study magic." Oh, that sounds possibly interesting, thought I. Like the sweet summer child I was. I knew 'nerd culture' could get bad, but I'd never seen it become a open sinkhole of psychological toxicity.
permalink
u/redpandamage 13 points at 1643894768.000000
Honestly, I had no business staying around as long as I did. At a certain point I realised there was definitely some weird rationalist stuff going on, but the system described was nightmarish, so I stupidly thought, ‘Ah, a deconstruction of rationalist tropes’, but no, Rationalist Utopia is just a dystopian nightmare of markets and eugenics with its only flaw being ‘not selfish enough’.
permalink
u/Soyweiser 4 points at 1643914433.000000
And if you think Rationalist Utopia isn't dystopian enough, you could easily imagine a dystopian story where a group of malicious (but, yes Rationalists im going to shock you, sub 140 IQ) people taking over most of the important parts of the government by not constantly 'cogniting over how much time you need to be signaling a signal for it to be costly enough to be an effective signal' and just stabbing people in the throat, when the are speaking in another run on sentence, and then just framing their political enemies for the murder so [the head cutter cryo police](http://eldrich.host/world/bestiary/titan-headhunter)(*) takes their brains away. And yes, run on sentences like the previous one. *: Yes, Dath Ilans good cops don't do this on non criminals of course, but this is what I was thinking off when I heard about the cryo police. (Misread the cryo police btw, it is worse, I thought it was cops who cut of your head if you do a murder, but nope it is 'people who help you get rid of the head if you do a murder').
permalink
u/scruiser 5 points at 1643923073.000000
Honestly, I have a hard time making fun EY for writing dath Ilan (although I’ll still mock dath Ilan itself), because at the point EY introduced the head taker cyronics division it felt like he was in on the joke too. For those that don’t want to read through 300 pages of forum roleplay, the surreptitious head takers precomit to not revealing any murders so that murderers will thus be incentivized to ensure their victims get cryopreserved. The rest of dath Ilan goes along with this to likewise avoid any “true” deaths and ensure everyone sapient gets cryopreserved.
permalink
u/Soyweiser 2 points at 1643927582.000000
Considering this all started with an april fools post, I don't think we should take it that seriously, and it is pretty much a joke anyway.
permalink
u/scruiser 3 points at 1643931010.000000
I wouldn’t go quite that far… to the extent dath Ilan is meant to be weird/funny instead of a dystopia or at least a failed utopia, the eugenics is a big yikes.
permalink
u/DELETED 2 points at 1643937898.000000
The weird cryohead politics sounds a lot more dystopian than the eugenics.
permalink
u/JimmyPWatts 9 points at 1643861459.000000
Gross error in judgement! Retreat!
permalink
u/N0_B1g_De4l 4 points at 1643906108.000000
Is it wrong that I still want to read something that's a good version of what HPMOR was sold to me as?
permalink
u/Plorkyeran 14 points at 1643928770.000000
There's been a variety of attempts. The basic problem with the idea is that the HP setting doesn't hold up to even the mildest scrutiny and by the time you've adjusted enough to make applying science to study magic be a sensible thing to do you have something that might as well just be an original story.
permalink
u/DELETED 4 points at 1643919382.000000
People foist these fics on the unsuspecting in the printsf sub. I've seen one person promoting Al\*corn under multiple posts unrelated to ratfic. I think she owns the site on which this RPG is unfolding.
permalink
u/blakestaceyprime 8 points at 1643927797.000000
Sigh. And meanwhile, my 80,000 words of *Daria-Sandman* crossover fic haven't even gotten a TV Tropes page.
permalink
u/DELETED 3 points at 1643940611.000000
Wait, an actual longfic that's a Daria/Sandman crossover? Is it on AO3? Does it have weird smut? Cause I'll totally read that and give you a signed-in kudos.
permalink
u/blakestaceyprime 4 points at 1643941304.000000
[Here's the series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/776577).
permalink
u/cashto 20 points at 1643858884.000000

I got about two pages in before realizing I was just reading HPMOR again and I didn’t enjoy it much the first time.

permalink
u/BlueSwablr 18 points at 1643861908.000000

Is there a reason why “dath ilan” is an anagram of thailand? If rats are planning to invade and take over thailand y’all gotta tell me

permalink
u/Soyweiser 5 points at 1643893574.000000
Invade? You misunderstand, when their plans are finished there is no reason to invade. ;)
permalink
u/shinigami3 17 points at 1643857969.000000

It’s good to see that saving the world is going well!

permalink
u/DELETED 12 points at 1643858043.000000

[deleted]

permalink
u/blakestaceyprime 4 points at 1643936067.000000
> bad stats/econ lectures ah, yes --- cryocurrency
permalink
u/runnerx4 3 points at 1643904183.000000
so Yudkowsky saw a few isekai and decided he wanted in?
permalink
u/JimmyPWatts 22 points at 1643850072.000000

What the ever living fuck

permalink
u/OisforOwesome 11 points at 1643924814.000000

I got precisely this far:

Mad Investor Chaos heads off, at a brisk heat-generating stride, in the direction of the smoke.  It preserves optionality between targeting the possible building and targeting the force-bubble nearby.

…before noping out at the realisation that 1. This is chuunbiyo edgelird fantasy for cultists and 2. If i continued I would be getting uncomfortable insights into what it is like to talk like this all the time.

permalink
u/noactuallyitspoptart 1 points at 1643874902.000000

Edit: apparently it’s kosher

As somebody in the reports kindly points out, if Yud is doing this anonymously then putting it up here shoots right past the boundaries of privacy over a(n allegedly) tacky messageboard fantasy thing, Max-Mosley-in-alleged-Nazi-themed-orgy style

Picking up Yudkowsky’s (public) dating profile is one thing, and there’s public interest in some of the other on-the-edge stuff here, but I need to know if this is kosher so I’m removing this until I get some reassurance and/or the post is edited/replaced

permalink
u/unwiselifechoices 13 points at 1643882360.000000
My take was that since Yudkowsky's mentioned the story on Twitter (which was posted [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/pyou3q/yud_really_wants_to_be_this_visitor_to_cheliax_huh/)) and he's [retweeting reviews](https://twitter.com/EricHerboso/status/1488160283268898824?cxt=HHwWkICz0ZP5gKcpAAAA) it's fair game. [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60042665-mad-investor-chaos-and-the-woman-of-asmodeus) and the LessWrong [article](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/dath-ilan) in the original post also publicly list him as the author. Regardless, my apologies if this violates the subreddit's rules.
permalink
u/noactuallyitspoptart 8 points at 1643888246.000000
If it’s public knowledge cool
permalink
u/blakestaceyprime 10 points at 1643875617.000000
Between [this excerpt posted at LessWrong](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cujpciCqNbawBihhQ/self-integrity-and-the-drowning-child) and [this about "dath ilan"](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/dath-ilan), it seems fair game to talk about, maybe without attributing authorship to be on the safe side.
permalink
u/noactuallyitspoptart 4 points at 1643875939.000000
Cool thing, cheers
permalink
u/redmilkwood 6 points at 1644541109.000000
Rationalist/adjacent takes on the world often make my blood boil, and I know this subreddit isn't and doesn't want to be a heart-on-sleeve discussion of how can they be so and what on earth and whyyyyy (how it goes in my head), but I really appreciate moments when people here show what it really fucking means to overcome bias - i.e., to treat people decently because they have inherent worth and dignity as human beings, regardless of whether they're smart or rich or think the same way we do. Thanks.
permalink
u/noactuallyitspoptart 14 points at 1643874407.000000

For those who don’t know, Yud’s currently RPing under the pen name Iarwain on a rationalist-run play-by-post site.

As if this sub wasn’t dorky enough, I am ashamed to be able to work out what that means, nonetheless assuming that a normal person would have any idea what anything in this posts means at all is kinda hilarious…

permalink
u/DELETED 6 points at 1643868637.000000

mad investor chaos and the woman of asmodeus

Before I saw the sub, I thought that’s going to be a new Helltaker game.

permalink
u/blakestaceyprime 8 points at 1643872326.000000
In the annals of great decisions, putting "investor" in the title is up there with "let's make this *Star Wars* movie about a trade dispute".
permalink
u/DELETED 3 points at 1643981023.000000
The trade dispute was just a cover for Lord Jarjar's rise to power.
permalink
u/MarxBroshevik 5 points at 1643869416.000000

I’m not sure I really “get” this website. It’s like a collaborative fiction thing and you allow a few posters to improvise a story line?

permalink
u/Soyweiser 13 points at 1643892926.000000
Yes that is what roleplay is in a way, collaborative fiction where everybody takes a role and specific character and stays in character. And only one person can decide (usually) what their character does. One or more people can also be the dungeon master (or your regional equivalent, think lintamande plays that role here), people who take the role of the rest of the world and all the non plaing characters (npcs) most of the latter are usually simply less important and fleshed out than the non dungeon master player characters. (Because the npcs are usually not the focus of the story else the DM would be writing a book). Which is different from something like the scp foundation, where the articles themselves are in character, but roleplaying in the forums isnt allowed and having a writer character is discouraged. Imho doing both is fine, it is just slightly funny, if not totally unexpected, that yud plays the same sort of character everywhere. (which a lot of people do btw)
permalink
u/loquinatus 5 points at 1643869521.000000

wait so why does his pofile picture keep shuffling though images of like Troubled Teen Bad Boy #7? Is that supposed to be who the character looks like??? The image description says riverdale, is that a riverdale character? Is riverdale a rationalist show? My impression was that it was a massive clusterfuck, which I guess would be on brand. Also uhm. https://glowfic.com/galleries/7544 that’s a Lot of pics of this dude

permalink
u/Soyweiser 7 points at 1643893863.000000
I assume that is just part of the medium a 'this is my characters facial expression atm' thing.
permalink
u/blakestaceyprime 5 points at 1643872461.000000
All I know about *Riverdale,* I learned from [Super Eyepatch Wolf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ-FRSXypUE). ... is a very Online sentence that I am now going to feel bad about typing.
permalink
u/DELETED 4 points at 1643853124.000000

Of which people only know it exists because of makin’s review

permalink
u/magictheblathering 1 points at 1644422936.000000
?
permalink
u/DELETED 2 points at 1644426171.000000
https://recordcrash.substack.com/p/mad-investor-chaos-woman-asmodeus
permalink