this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

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Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid!

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post, there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

This sneer sponsored by me getting surgery last Friday and being extremely sore


https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bkr9BozFuh7ytiwbK/my-hour-of-memoryless-lucidity

Surgery is the perfect opportunity to test one's "Am I in the matrix?" mental sigils and other fun rationalist mind games!

Several years ago, I was thinking about worthwhile precautions to take against strange scenarios and wanted a way to defend against erasure of my short-term memory, e.g. by the CIA or alien abductions.

Of course someone made a follow up post encouraging readers to experiment with dangerously large drug dosages for giggles.

This is presumably the sort of thing which is tough to get past an institutional review board these days, but easy to do yourself over the weekend with a friend or two.

Little mention that this might be a terrible idea, but at least someone pointed it out in the comments

Important notice: benzodiazepines are serious business: benzo withdrawals are amongst the worst experiences a human can go through, and combinations of benzos with alcohol, barbiturates, opioids or tricyclic antidepressants are very dangerous: benzos played a role in 31% of the estimated 22,767 deaths from prescription drug overdose in the United States.

Lesswrong and drug abuse. A match made in heaven.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Jesus, that second post.

[Benzos are] not only a great amnestic, it’s also apparently one of the most heavily prescribed drug classes historically, and used recreationally - which puts very strong lower bounds on the drug’s safety in practice, and means it’s probably readily available.

Yeah, because no widely used drug has ever turned out to be harmful, right?! Right?! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to huff some glue. After all, glue huffing is widely practiced recreationally - by kids, even - so it's probably safe, right?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Benzos

Apparently JBP might still be on benzos, after he tried the russian coma method (which seems to have blasted his mind further, he was already weird before, but now he just seems even dumber). So GG there LW.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

that's a very carefully worded comment. there's a reason why benzos were commonly prescribed in the past (but less so now)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

it sounds like what they're trying to do is Wada test, for no particular reason, with zero knowledge what they're trying to do or what tools do they need for that

about everything what could they learn from that is already described in psychiatry and psychology textbooks, but it's too hard for homeschooled first-principlers like them

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Nothing illustrates the difference between rational and Rationalist than ignoring the advice of trained professionals and instead roping in a SO to help perform ad-hoc personality tests. Dude's gonna need to work to keep that girlfriend coz it's unlikely he's going to find someone else willing to put up with his shit.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

this is peak 18-century science

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Inorite! “Here, let me replace my blood with blood from a horse, it should make me stronger”

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

we have mkultra at home

on the other hand, that's just speedrunning being jordan peterson

on the third hand, our very good friend apparently never had been drunk

on the fourth hand, our very good friend also didn't clock that maybe his ability to assess his own mental state was disturbed (it was) (severely)

on the fifth hand, this is an effect of many drugs, iv line suggests midazolam but maybe ketamine was an option. neither are exactly easily available for regular civilian (other benzos are)

first principling that benzos are completely safe, yeah way to go, 10/10. also not their first rodeo, but lwers on drugs would be megaminds on adderal, at least that's what could be noticed previously

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Several years ago, I was thinking about worthwhile precautions to take against strange scenarios and wanted a way to defend against erasure of my short-term memory, e.g. by the CIA or alien abductions.

What...

Makes you wonder if LW just attracts people with weird paranoid thoughts, or that you get more weird paranoid thoughts due to being a lot on lesswrong. Right

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

This is another example of how LW is a cult, if some other commenter had replied like this you’d expect the reply to be ignored but the respondent is of the same tribe, so author has no problem exposing them (and himself, by extension) as cranks to an appreciative audience (us).