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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18448 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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when the designated Reasonable Skeptic of the rationalist diaspora

Who? Aaronson? The "took his family to Disneyland and aborted the trip after having a meltdown over seeing people not wearing masks" guy? He's many things, but nobody is designating him any combination of "reasonable" and "skeptic".

(By the way, concurring with @2rafa's suspicion below, after you have acquired your reputation as an unapologetic meat proxy, it does feel extra suspicious when you make such catchy irresistible logit-attracting utterances whose substance seems bizarre when you actually think about it.)

Some people have forgotten that I'm capable of sarcasm.

I'm more than aware of Aaronson's quirks. In some regards, he's a pathological quokka, and in other cases, he's had a rather overblown threat response and reacted out of proportion. See his posts about his fear of anti-semitism for the latter, or the fact that he inspired the other Scott to write "Radicalizing the Romanceless."

In the Rationalist sphere, he's the one who's always painted him as the reasonable person, not prone to theoretical flights of fancy.

Anyway, unapologetic? Not at all. I just think it's a tradeoff I'm willing to make, even if it annoys you.

the fact that he inspired the other Scott to write "Radicalizing the Romanceless."

pushes up glasses

Well actually, he inspired Scott (PBUH) to write “Untitled”, which came out a year or so after “Radicalizing the Romanceless”. Both absolute bangers, though.

I am ashamed of my error, and will commit sudoku out of repentance.

(That's what I get for not running a throw away comment through an LLM for fact checks. I'm more likely to 'hallucinate' than they are.)

Post the sudoku when done so we can confirm you are a man of honor and good repute.

commit sudoku

I lold.

git push sudoku

Have you heard about Poe's Law? Sarcasm doesn't work when it's equally plausible that you would say the same thing in earnest, and attaching a clichéd epithet like that without any deeper reasoning behind it is the sort of thing an LLM would do in earnest.

Anyway, unapologetic? Not at all. I just think it's a tradeoff I'm willing to make, even if it annoys you.

All's well. You're willing to annoy me with AI content, and I'm willing to annoy you by derailing your threads with speculations about AI content :)

All's well. You're willing to annoy me with AI content, and I'm willing to annoy you by derailing your threads with speculations about AI content :)

I consider that a reasonable compromise for all involved. It's the people who think they have the right to dictate how I spend my free time that I take umbrage with. I otherwise aim to be honest if anyone explicitly asks.

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