site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2409 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 25, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Is community drama Friday Fun?

Rationalist-adjacent blogger Dinomight is accusing rationalist-adjacent Twitter poaster Cremieux of plaigerizing his post on aspertame into a popular Twitter thread. This has now escalated to wall-of-text denounciations, involving characters such as LessWrong admins and our old friend TracingWoodgrains.

I'd be willing to cut Creamy some slack because he did link the post at the end, but the cope and seethe flameout makes me much less charitable.

Btw, has anyone heard the rumors that he is actually our very own TPO from the old country?

FWIW, I also vote +1 for Cremieux being TPO. Not 100%, but he is at the very least extremely reminiscent of him. The combination of being not only interested but strongly pro-HBD AND regularly using the concept of measurement invariance in particular to argue certain points. TPO also did that all the time. I should have noticed earlier, the connection just didn't come to mind.

Hmm, I’m not sure, and I say that as someone who perhaps along with @Rov_Scam interacted with him more than most back then. I searched Crem’s Twitter for 8 or 9 of the most common niche references TPO used to use, most had no results and the ones that did were vague at best. It would be remarkably disciplined. On the other hand, his career under that name did take off at about the same time he stopped posting here. The HBD stuff isn’t telling, many very online posters have that obsession.

The more telling thing would be posting style, but I don’t remember him having any particular quirks. I’d like to think I could recognize a Hlynka or an Ilforte, but not him.

I haven't heard of the guy, thus I haven't heard of the rumors, but having skimmed the Substack he almost certainly is the same person.

That is an insane guess. What are the million-to-one idiosyncrasies that you recognize in both?

It's not so much the idiosyncrasies but the whole picture. I don't know if you were around when he was still posting on the old SSC sub, but he had a single-minded focus on race science and would argue citing knowledge of highly specialized scientific theories and throw out citations as though they were punctuation. He exhibited the kind of knowledge that would suggest that he studies the sort of thing for a living, yet posted with a frequency that would seem to preclude any kind of employment at all. At the very least, I don't recall him ever mentioning any kind of credentials that would qualify him as an expert on genetics, or biology, or anything, really. So when someone starts a substack flogging the same horses in the same little corner of the internet, I'm bound to be suspicious. When that substack's about section is similarly devoid of reference to any qualifications, education, or training, it's raising some definite alarm bells.

What in your circles is denounced as fringe ‘race science’ we call HBD, and it was always very popular here, culminating when mods tried to ban it against the majority. This focus does not distinguish him. Everyone and their mom flogs the genetics horse to own the progs.

Most of what you read is written by people who seem to have a lot of time on their hands, and, if you curate wisely, requires a lot of specific knowledge the man on the street does not possess. The internet is full of these idle autists.

Besides, I seem to remember TPO living in liechtenstein, which would be hard to conceal as cremieux.

It's not that he posted about HBD insofar as he posted about little but HBD, shoehorning it into every discussion, no matter how irrelevant. 'm not sure what his alleged location has to do with anything.

Who was TPO, again? The penitent one?

TrannyPorno, prolific poster of yore, bete noire of the sneer club

Now that would be a twist.

Themotte has a sizeable presence on twitter.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats