this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
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I’m a Vermonter and this shit is so insane. I wanna know what the people caught up in shooting the vermont border patrol agent were up to. What were they planning on doing in VT? Why were they armed to the teeth? Why did they have surgical equipment? What is the nature of their ties to Peter fucking Thiel?
I can’t quite comprehend what it is they even believe in. When I read that this cult had ties to Peter Thiel all my alarm bells in my head went off. He’s arguably one of the most powerful and dangerous men in America.
Technically he doesn't have connections to Thiel directly. They have connections to the lesswrong Rationalists (note, rationalwiki is not associated with the lesswrong Rationalists, and they don't like each other, this place is also on team rationalwiki). However enough Rationalists are (or are friends with) neoreactionaries (for a long time LW was one of the few places where they were sometimes welcome, or even talked about). But this is one of the places where (through heavy layers of snark and derision) you could learn about these groups.
However, as the lore is deep, very annoying, quite bad (A lot of IQ-anon type people), I suggest you don't start reading up on this. Ignorance once lost cannot be regained (There are also some very small (small as on low risk, but if you are one of the rare people high effect) mental health risks if you believe very specific things about skynet style AI and a few other silly beliefs). And you already got the important parts (Thiel and people close to him suck).
I think I lost some brain cells reading those links and I couldn’t even fully read them without closing the tab out of irritation lol.
What the actual fuck do these people believe????
hi, welcome to awful.systems and sneerclub! I see you've received your intro package!
but, yeah, common reaction. it'd be funnier if their ideas weren't presently so fucking influential in all the wrong places. :|
I’m trying to figure out if this cult is mostly aligned with Peter thiels nonsense or not. I’m still lost.
Or are these trans ladies and fellow cultists fighting against them?
The fact I can’t figure who is on what ideological team is uh… worrisome. I’m usually pretty good at that?
it's ..... hairy
this is a prior attempt by me at giving a (very) concise overview of the "main camp" (for lack of a better term). the zizians are a distinct, specific, extremist offshoot of these.
and I want to make clear that "extremist" there is really, really intense. because 'ole Yud himself has advocated nuking datacenters to "stop the AI"
thiel's linked in by......many strands. it's pretty accurate to say that many aren't known, and only some are. some things that are: these ideas are extremely popular with a lot of the kind of people who work at thiel-funded/thiel-connected companies (palantir, etc etc). there's also a strong link/correlation between the sort of shit that both thiel/yarvin say, and many of these
don't feel bad for not getting it from the getgo, nor should you feel bad about not wanting to dive in. much of their shit spans 2~3 decades (even longer when you account for the extropians and longtermists and shit...), so there's a lot
one other visible strand: thiel has kinda sorta grant program where he pays people to not to got to university and instead do anything else. this way he funded a couple of people from extended rationalist universe and some cryptobros
e: oh well
@skillissuer @sneerclub
"Here, I’ll fund some smart people to isolate them among like-minded fringe thinkers rather than mixing with a healthy normal range of opinions.”
if only
there's a bunch of people, some of which made technodystopian bullshit (like cryptobros or later ai) or went all in in bubbles (thiel fellowship is diverse in their hype, vr, tissue grown meat, cryonics, anti-aging drivel, pick your poison) which embedded them in sv financial circles, and all of them rub shoulders with, and have debts to, peter thiel (some literal, some in terms of favours)
and also they're isolated from normal academia and instead believe all that monumental extended rationalist universe horseshit. this also means that they never learned critical thinking in proper university but instead dwelt on forums dedicated to extremely verbose and badly written harry potter fanfic. all of that for a small price of 100k per head
make of that what you will
@skillissuer @sneerclub
It's like a reverse cult. All the isolation, but they pay *you*.
I mean if these people are even more extreme than “let’s turn the poors into biodiesel” … what the actual fuck.
I’m suspicious of AI… I think it can help in science research and medicine for novel solutions to difficult problems but should never be used by everyday people or by companies just trying to profit for the sake of profit, which is most companies under capitalism.
The people who quote chat gpt (and it’s competitors) answers in comments are people I wouldn’t mind turning into biodiesel. Ok not really but if they can’t/are too lazy to use their brain for basic shit what does that say about our society? Why are we outsourcing our ability to think and reason to a fucking overhyped algorithm????
Anyway. About to read your link and hopefully (no offense to you!) not lose any more brain cells than I have already trying to figure these weirdos out.
the sidebar has a link (the TESCREAL one) which may also be illuminating
as to the rest, yuuuuuup. that's why sneerclub and techtakes exist.