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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TracingWoodgrains launches a defense of Manifest's controversial reputation, all without betraying a basic understanding of what the word "controversial" means. (forum.effectivealtruism.org)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by slopjockey@awful.systems to c/sneerclub@awful.systems

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...And if it weren't for that one joke by Hannibal, Bill Cosby would be very uncontroversial.

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[–] Pisha@lemmy.ml 18 points 6 months ago (5 children)

The author appears to now be planning a hitpiece on David Gerard:

With apologies for resurrecting an old thread: I am an independent writer exploring the potential to write an article focused on Gerard's Wikipedia-related history. I've reviewed the information here and the on-wiki behavior and controversies I can find, but if anyone has information I may have missed or other thoughts to share, I would welcome direct messages or replies. In particular, if anyone with an informed perspective is willing to chat at length on the record, I'd appreciate it. I'm an outsider to the whole Wikipedia ecosystem and trying to parse through thousands of pages of history and edits looking for key moments gets rather dense--it's quite easy for me to miss relevant info.

https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11466&start=50#p355881

I, for one, am just psyched to see what Jesse Singal's research assistant is going to tell us about the evils of Wikipedia.

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I tried to look up this Mr. Gerard's lurid wikipedia past expecting at least a torture dungeon or wiki-cult or something; but all I found were a bunch of people grumpy that they couldn't turn wikipedia articles into cryptocurrency ads.

Booring.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 17 points 6 months ago

don't forget the ones outraged they can't use the Daily Mail or the Sun as sources

[–] gnomicutterance@awful.systems 9 points 6 months ago

When I was listening to the most recent episode of the Maintenance Phase podcast which was all in on mocking J. Michael Bailey with a special dig at autogynephilia theories, I went to go see if David had any history policing weirdos on Bailey's wikipedia page, as an excuse to bring the episode in for a stubsack link. And he didn't, which means, once again, booring.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 15 points 6 months ago

ten years ago the wikipedia cranks had compiled lore on me, and some of it had a vague relation to anything that ever happened! Sure can't wait to see what a good faith rationalist researcher comes up with

[–] mawhrin@awful.systems 14 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

so now we have confirmation that tracing w. is (a) a petty, vengeful prick and (b) reads this; good. tracing, whoever you are, why don't you focus on some introspection, like consider what causes you to agree with obvious anti-scientific crap (scientific racism, hbd) and why do you prefer the company of fascists (proto, wannabe, true, disguised, and the illinois nazis) to the company of people who don't think genocide can be justified for any reason?

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

i must point out that i've barely interacted with the guy, if at all, and had previously considered him on the saner end of the rationalists from his reasonably coherent twitter

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

"wikipediocracy"? fucking seriously?

for all the good and bad bits that wikipedia has (and there are notably many of the latter too), a rulership is definitely not among that list afaik. wtf.

(e: I'm going purely off the domain name there, but holy shit what a name)

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 15 points 6 months ago

literally started by a guy who was banned for trying to set up a business to write wikipedia articles, and the evils of JIMMY WAAAAAAAAALES!!! still fill his spleen

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 9 points 6 months ago

aaaaand then I actually looked at the page. fuck me it's even worse.

[–] grumpybozo@toad.social 8 points 6 months ago

@froztbyte @sneerclub Well, if the vast majority of people in a community share a consensus reality and basic principles, you don’t need a formal governance structure to oppress hallucinating sociopaths.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 6 points 6 months ago

TW emailed me asking if I'd be willing to help with the piece. I declined (I can't see it being any sort of productive use of my time), but I expect he will cobble together something from the extant public records.