I haven’t read the whole thread yet, but so far the choice line is:
I like how you just dropped the “Vance is interested in right authoritarianism” like it’s a known fact to base your entire point on. Vance is the clearest demonstration of a libertarian the republicans have in high office. It’s an absurd ad hominem that you try to mask in your wall of text.
This hits a lot worse after JD Vance became Vice-Pres Elect
Or people could take away different things, especially since post-2014 (?) Scott approaches controversial issues much more cautiously and deliberately made known (Kolmogorov) that he was never going to fully honest around certain topics, inviting (deliberately or not, accurate or not) Straussian readings.
Ugh. These people seem sad and they make me sad.
What is controversial about Kolmogorov.
I’m pretty sure they’re referencing an old ssc post on “kolmogorov complicity” - referencing the Soviet scientist who either spoke out against the purges and got gulag’d or who realized that they were bad but didn’t say anything to avoid getting gulag’d and tried to protect his peers from the same fate. I forget if he was the example to follow or the counterexample, and I can’t be arsed to look it up.
Now imagine if instead of a Soviet citizen trying to steer your people away from stalinism you were a fascist living in a broadly progressive culture looking to steer the world away from liberalism and towards Yarvin and friends. I try not to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, but I’m not sure how Scott’s output meaningfully differs from what such a person would write. Honestly if he hasn’t written the kolmogorov complicity post outlining the whole concept I don’t know if I’d be more or less inclined to think he’s doing it actively.
Self-reply because a few hours later I could be arsed after all, and what I found was confusing.
To start with, this wasn’t a scooter original; it was a response to a post by a different Scott A, and according to a very brief examination (I read both the Wikipedia article and the talk page) it looks like it’s based on some questionable history. The story is that Andrey Kolmogorov kept quiet and used his influence to shelter Jewish academics and others from persecution under the purges. However, the most noteworthy example of his actions during the purges were his active testimony in the prosecution of his doctoral advisor, Nikolas Luzin. There’s some ambiguity about why he participated but the two theories appear to be that the cops forced him to do it by blackmailing him about a (historically disputed/unconfirmed) gay relationship he was in or that the whole thing was driven by personal animosity between Luzin and his students. Notably after being convicted it seems like Luzin wasn’t enough of a threat to Stalin to actually be properly disappeared or even fully removed from academia.
I don’t know enough about the relevant history to make a reasonable determination as to who’s right, but it’s telling that neither story meaningfully supports the idea that the Scotts seem to be pitching of keeping your head down and muddling through to protect you and yours under authoritarianism. If that “Kolmogorov Option” exists it’s only because you’re in a decently liberal society. Otherwise the authoritarian power of the state will be used against you either for their own purpose or as a tool by whoever can catch their ear and doesn’t like you, and all your attempts to avoid being the nail that sticks out will have been pointless.
If that “Kolmogorov Option” exists it’s only because you’re in a decently liberal society.
This would be very damning for what Scott is saying and implying here. (yes, im going a bit more conspiratorial here, esp considering his like of NRx (can’t recall if the leaked emails are around this period, but I feel like they were a few years later)), but I doubt Scott did that much research or read that deeply into it.
In general I find the least charitable explanations of any of Alexander’s behavior to be the most plausible
Downvoting because this is a link to Reddit instead of the original source.
Downvoting because you are a dorkus
your lack of situational awareness is alarming. stop driving, grab a coffee, put your feet up, and take a moment to actually fucking look at what you replied to
it may help
No
The situation is that we should always link to the source, not to another aggregator. This decreases the odds of it becoming a dead link. And that’s before even dealing with the issue that people here are typically explicitly avoiding Reddit.
Then add in that the linked video is a full 3 hours of a Joe Rogan video and no time stamp was provided to tell us what we should be looking for. I’d downnvote a second time just for that if I could.
The problem isn’t me, it’s a lack of awareness on your part.
the problem is that you post things here, though i guess that by the time i’m commenting it has been alleviated.
holy fuck how are you like this
“is it me, driveby poster, that is wrong? no, it must be everyone else who knows the sub that’s wrong”
like the thing I can’t figure out is, what in the fuck did they think we were quoting and reacting to?
actually nah I can figure it out, they saw a link to reddit and decided they had a cake to shit on
and as everyone knows, you can’t cut off a cake shit mid-log
what I appreciate (inasfar as something to laugh at) is that when this is pointed out they double down like it’s their life savings riding on the game
this isn’t wikipedia, and the point of this post was not in fact the thing you think it was, you utter and complete raging fuckwit
Look who AIs self confidence was modeled after.
this has me howling with laughter, thanks
The point of this post is ssc. Not vance. The problem is you.
Sneerclub is a point and laugh at the radicalizing Rationlists place not complain about the gop place. (And if you dont know what that is read the rationalwiki (not related to the Rationalists) on lesswrong).
imagine our drivebys reading the description for the place they
drop one outpost indifficulty: impossible
But the description is like 1/1024th of a ssc post. Who has time for that.
The point was SSCers reacting. Vance being an SSCer isn’t notable as he’s a Thiel creature. SSCers being confronted with the eyeshadowed mirror that is Vance is much more interesting because they spend a lot of time being nominally not exactly what Vance is.
We’re potentially one election - and one big mac-related cardiac arrest - away from our first nooticer president. The American Experiment is on the verge of failure.
Is this what Brits felt like with Dominic Cummings?
What a bastardization of that post, and Scott’s general views on the subject
Can someone summarize how this is a big misinterpretation or mistake?
I’m not in any way MAGA or trumpy or a culture war person [sure you are. E: one sort by controversial later and they are indeed a culture war person not a full time one but still], but I’m a long time SSC reader and I thought the post/article was about the fascinating and complete sorta morhph/takeover of the civic “ethos” or civic religion of the elite bluebloods of the USA.
From veneration of founders and founding fathers (up through Abe Lincoln, etc) as the sorta civic glue and religion that we are brought up on, to now embracing LGBTQ+ (not much emphasis on boring normal “L” and “G” [dog barks]) through parades, flags, police cars, crosswalks, holidayds, add campaigns, corporate slogans and logos, etc.
Is this not how most readers understood the article?
Hope this makes some sscers reconsider being a fan of scotts writing. (And yes there was pushback in the replies)
not much emphasis on boring normal “L” and “G”
“Look I’m not really saying G-word and L-word are normal, but I might be willing to invite them to my BBQs if they never mention it, hate rainbows, and allow straight people to cut in line ahead of them as a civic duty.”
Also wait is not even “B” ‘normal’ enough for this guy?
why is there a coherent community of people I hate? wtf >:(
They are also concerned about t levels in athletes, and IQ comes up. Which he defends with “If you think none of these tests are actually measuring anything of value, you must need to explain why they correlate so well with life outcomes related to cognition.”
I think a problem with ssc people is that they dont realize they are culture warriors.
Me acing Raven’s progressive matrix tests: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!
Me dropping out of uni: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
life outcomes related to cognition
My sides.
i see no evidence they don’t realise just fine
Yeah considering various culture war posts are clearly still up, including ones calling progressives going crazy it all is a lot of plausible deniability.
Kinda stretching the definition of “plausible”. It’s less about external deniability and more about internal rejection. They want to avoid thinking of themselves as fascist-adjacent right-wing loons without giving up on being one
B-but homophobia is a social phenomenon. It’s not real (genetic)!
They don’t like bisexuals.
They don’t think of bisexuals as including married monogamous people who just so happen to be bisexual. It’s a thing. They want to paint the queer community’s “normal people” as “unfortunately exclusively attracted to the same gender”
And yeah some people really want to find a reason to exclude trans people and not acknowledge that we’ve always been part of our communities.
It’s not that bi isn’t “normal-enough”. The half-clever shitheels have been trying to split off bisexuality under the guise of “they could pass so they aren’t really oppressed like homosexuals”. Keeping people divided to make it easier to oppress them and all that. Then you get people like this who probably have no conscious awareness of that intentional strategy but have been stewed in this shit-pot enough that they talk in terms of lesbian-gay with out even noticing.
Ya know, we used to joke about Ted Cruz being an alien and recording the shape of people’s skulls, as if that were unusual.
Ted Cruz For Human President was a different time.
“There was a post, [pause], I forget who wrote it” <- the kind of thing I have said several times attempting to avoid leaking rationalist-evidence-bits.
gotta keep that power level under wraps
“Leaking rationalist-evidence-bits” is an unexpectedly top-tier euphemism for the aftermath of digesting Wendy’s chili
Keep in mind that, for theologically conservative (“the Bible is historically and spiritually accurate”) Christians like myself,
rationalists whoo
I think we can all agree now that US Rationalists are basically all ex-Christians who are looking for the same thing but with the serial numbers filed off.
Tired: I can speak directly to god and will be taken to paradise.
Wired: the god we will create will run a simulation that is indistinguishable from what I am currently (therefore it is literally me) so my thoughts right now are being read directly.
I happened to be at mass today. There was a little explanation in the missalette that not only did Jesus’s death redeem the sins of everyone today, he also redeemed all the sinners who lived and died before Christ came. I dunno, it reminded me of the Roko’s Basilisk eternal judgment computer simulation…
Some of them are even returning to presumably evangelical churches.
Evangelicals with extra steps?
I could see the two fusing again or something.
More or less the plot of evangelion
Sedevacantist Catholic or Russian Orthodox more likely
Apparently for all the cosplaying of alt righters going Russian Orthodox, not that many actually go to church. ( Which is an important part). Thankfully for the priests who would have to deal with the madmen.
It’s the glitz of Catholicism with fewer of those pesky liberals around.
Also, some Orthodox monasteries had an enslaved workforce until well into the 19th century, which must appeal to neoreactionary scum.
I mean, I think actually having to interact with these loons would be a strong incentive to liberalize their theology which would be a good thing.
Ok now where does this fit on my red string chart that links david gerard to X Æ A-Xii/Techno Mechanicus
JD Vance is probably among us as we speak. He could be any username…
Is he you?
I wish, but no.
Regarding I appreciate he takes a moment here and there to read reddit and sees the content on this sub. Do you think tim walz does?
ahahahahahahahahahahahahh
The arguments in favour of Walz increase without bound.
Sweet: Comments talking about the specific situation of JD Vance referencing an SSC post.
Not Sweet: Any other references to JD Vance about anything unrelated, including the upcoming election, per the culture war rule.
I probably shouldn’t be looking for meaning in a rule that’s designed so that none of Scott’s fans associate him with the fascist shit he constantly and intentionally platforms, but what the fuck is this supposed to mean? don’t bring up the only reason anyone including Joe Rogan gives a fuck about JD Vance?
I especially want to be sure that everyone here is aware that the video thumbnail clearly shows that JD Vance was not seated upon, or otherwise interacting with, a couch. JD Vance was calmly seated in a standard office chair for the duration of this interview. Any posts containing out-of-context references to couches will be dealt with vigorously.
Well, he was already practically an SS-Mann without the neck lapels, so why be surprised about this?
