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Notes -
Why do you think sneerclub exists? Are they just failed rationalists or think they are actually damaging the rationality/post-rat sphere by complaining in their echo chamber?
For context sneerclub is a subreddit dedicated to 'dunking' on rationalist and rat-adjacent people.
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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