this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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SneerClub

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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.

AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)

This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.

[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]

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loving the EA forum on how the problem with spending the charity money on a castle was the public relations (forum.effectivealtruism.org)
submitted 1 year ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/sneerclub@awful.systems
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[–] maol@awful.systems 7 points 11 months ago (3 children)

a castle is not an "investment", it's a money pit.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

loved how they got the second castle in the Czech republic for a mere 4m EUR, and didn't at any point question why a whole fucking castle was on sale for just 4m EUR

[–] maol@awful.systems 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

They bought a second one? This is too much. I suppose Sam Bankman-Fried already proved EAies were terrible at picking investments when he decided to pursue purchasing Nauru (arguably the Most Unfortunate Island In The World) as a bolt-hole in case of apocalypse.

[–] Collectivist@awful.systems 3 points 11 months ago

When the second castle (bought by ESPR with FTX-money) was brought up on the forum, Jan Kulveit (one of the main organizers of ESPR) commented:

Multiple claims in this post are misleading, incomplete or false.

Then never bothered to actually explain what the misleading and false claims actually were (and instead implied the poster had doxxed them). Then under the post this thread discusses he has the gall to comment:

For me, unfortunately, the discourse surrounding Wytham Abbey, seems like a sign of epistemic decline of the community, or at least on the EA forum.

I guess Jan doesn't think falsely implying the person who is critical of your chateau purchase is both a liar and a doxxer counts as 'epistemic decline'.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 6 points 11 months ago

Big Elon energy there.

[–] cstross@wandering.shop 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

@maol 25 years ago I saw one for sale in the Scottish borders for £250K. An absolute steal—if you could afford the £25K/year for heating and the extra £100K+ to repair the leaky roof. Never mind the £50K to install double glazing and insulation and the £200K or so in renovation it urgently needed. Etc.

[–] maol@awful.systems 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's a reason there aren't any aristocrats living in the shagging things anymore - you need a big staff and a lot of resources to run them! They only made economic sense when there were throngs of peasants to work in them for cheap or free, and people had very different expectations when it came to energy, heating and lighting.

It's hard to see what OpenAI could have gotten out of this purchase, except the chance to fulfil their Bond villain fantasies.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 11 months ago

doesn't the money pit go around it? 🤔