this post was submitted on 21 Aug 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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[–] gerikson@awful.systems 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

The only people mentioned who are not the usual rogue's gallery (MuskThielSBF) are Marx/Engels, JB Haldane, John Desmond Bernal (who??) and this fucking guy:

Max More was one of the libertarian thinkers (non-billionaire) who helped shape modern transhumanism.

Oh he's not a billionaire, obviously he is Of The Left.

(I quickly googled this dude of whom I have never heard and didn't find any obvious techfash red flags, but maybe he's better at hiding them than most others)

Anyway, extropianism!

like all arguments from first principles, the Extropians encountered problems when trying to extrapolate derivative principles, like political economy. While the Extropian ideas went in an anti-state direction, their logic leads just as naturally to the Enlightenment Left’s conclusion that humanity should take our collective future in hand through democratic deliberation or the guidance of “scientific socialism,”

"OK so right now it's basically fascist feudalism, but it could be socialism", got it.

More weird framings

But some effective altruists, most famously the crypto scammer and donor to the Democratic Party Sam Bankman-Fried,

Outside the "not all EAs!" crowd I haven't seen this before, but the authors are "democratic socialists" which basically means they hate the Democrats more than the GOP.

I can kinda agree on their take on Cosmism, which AFAIK is really fringe (I mean, I have heard of Fyodorov, but I have read a lot of SF), but even here they can't really refrain from oohing over the "weird and wonderful" Russian cosmists, while perfunctorily noting that they're all fascists now.

Russian Cosmists also prefigured a version of eco-philosophy, emphasizing the unity of all living beings and the interconnectedness of the universe. Cosmists believed that all forms of life, including animals and plants, were part of a universal whole. They advocated for the ethical treatment of all living creatures and the preservation of biodiversity.

The Izborsky Club explicitly condemns the technocratic “transhumanism” of Western thought, including individualism, rationalism, democracy, capitalism and transgender rights, as contrary to their “technocratic traditionalist” Cosmism. The Izborsky Club reflects the swirl of NazBol ideas in contemporary Russia, attempting to merge Russian Orthodoxy, Bolshevik authoritarianism and fascist “Eurasian” racial-nationalism. [....] In other words actual organized Russian Cosmists today despise TESCREAL ideas and their Western proponents.

But both Musk and Thiel hate trans people, but trans treatment is essentially transhumanism, how can we square this circle? It is a mystery.

[–] self@awful.systems 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Outside the “not all EAs!” crowd I haven’t seen this before, but the authors are “democratic socialists” which basically means they hate the Democrats more than the GOP.

the more I read, the more I get the sinking suspicion that the authors are cherry-flavored fascists who are particularly bad at smuggling their ideas under a thin guise of leftist thought

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Max More is a full on ancap libertarian, though in the context of technoprogressivism

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Going by the flow of nominative determinism, this is one remarkable and poignant name in that case