this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
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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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[–] ebu@awful.systems 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

there were bits and pieces that made me feel like Jon Evans was being a tad too sympathetic to Elizer and others whose track record really should warrant a somewhat greater degree of scepticism than he shows, but i had to tap out at this paragraph from chapter 6:

Scott Alexander is a Bay Area psychiatrist and a writer capable of absolutely magnificent, incisive, soulwrenching work ... with whom I often strongly disagree. Some of his arguments are truly illuminatory; some betray the intellectual side-stepping of a very smart person engaged in rationalization and/or unwillingness to accept the rest of the world will not adopt their worldview. (Many of his critics, unfortunately, are inferior writers who misunderstand his work, and furthermore suggest it’s written in bad faith, which I think is wholly incorrect.) But in fairness 90+% of humanity engages in such rationalization without even worrying about it. Alexander does, and challenges his own beliefs more than most.

the fact that Jon praises Scott's half-baked, anecdote-riddled, Red/Blue/Gray trichotomy as "incisive" (for playing the hits to his audience), and his appraisal of the meandering transhumanist non-sequitur reading of Allen Ginsberg's Howl as "soulwrenching" really threw me for a loop.

and then the later description of that ultimately rather banal New York Times piece as "long and bad" (a hilariously hypocritical set of adjectives for a self-proclaimed fan of some of Scott's work to use), and the slamming of Elizabeth Sandifer as being a "inferior writer who misunderstands Scott's work", for uh, correctly analyzing Scott's tendencies to espouse and enable white supremacist and sexist rhetoric... yeah it pretty much tanks my ability to take what Jon is writing at face value.

i don't get how after so many words being gentle but firm about Elizer's (lack of) accomplishments does he put out such a full-throated defense of Scott Alexander (and the subsequent smearing of his """enemies"""). of all people, why him?

Meditations on Moloch is “soul-wrenching”, apparently. Jesus fucking Christ.

In what world do these people grow up? “Oh my God, conflict exists between interests and values, things are hard, not every problem is tractable”.

There used to be a refrain that “Moloch” is effectively Siskind’s word for capitalism, because he can’t bring his libertarian heart to name what everybody understands. But that’s wrong, because Siskind’s view is no more than the shallowest Burkeanism. And the worst thing about every single anti-Utopian is that they all assume everybody else feels as mugged by imperfection as they do.

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