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Notes -
It's right there in their sidebar, isn't it? They seem pretty comfortable owning the fact that they are exactly the kind of people Yudkowsky describes them as. They didn't take the name "Sneer Club" ironically; this is who they are, and who they apparently believe themselves to be:
So, yeah.
I don't think they're "failed" rationalists, and I don't think they do much damage. Sometimes they do egg one another into brigading, doxxing, or other more blatantly anti-social activities, but that's true of many spaces--the chan boards, drama boards, etc. Basically it is people who are upset with the rationalist community, for whatever reason (sometimes, good reason!), but for whatever reason that has become their whole identity, at least for a time. I have compared it in the past to various "ex-" religious communities (ex-Christian, ex-Muslim, etc.) who spend a ton of time and energy criticizing their former in-group. It seems like a pretty banal sort of activity to me, but as they say, there's no accounting for taste.
Wow I hadn’t read that, or imagined they were so self aware. I’m surprised a group of self styled bullies can actually grow like that, but I suppose there’s a place on the Internet for everyone.
I don't think they see themselves as bullies. Or if they do, they see their victims as people who genuinely deserve it. (I suppose most bullies do, but most bullies don't actually convince themselves their bullying is virtuous, whereas SneerClubbers do.)
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It's actually pretty common for internet communities to build up around the idea of disliking [group] or [thing] and spend copious amounts of time cataloging instances of events they believe makes such things or groups look bad. Endlessly.
I spent a lot of time observing these sorts of groups a while back and in the end they come across as, I guess, sad, since they never end up creating much of anything useful and for many of their members it seems to eventually become a damaging obsession.
So you're saying that you spent copious amounts of time cataloging instances of events you believed made such things or groups look bad. Endlessly.
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Reminds me of /r/fuckcars. God, that sub is a shitshow.
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You can watch it crystallizing in real time if you go to the CW thread and ctrl-f "Jew."
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