If you have Neoreactionary views, your general politics will naturally be Neoreactionary. So some people wanted to talk about it. Why is that a problem?
The problem was they were not able to stop talking about it. Because they had no other platform than Less Wrong where they could present their ideas to wider audience and try recruiting new people.
Also they loved to pretend that the rationalist community as a whole somehow supports their political beliefs, despite the polls showing cca 3% support.
Then at some moment Eliezer became tired of being known as “the guy who hosts the neoreactionary website” and publicly disowned them. They moved their politics to their own website called “More Right” (as you see, they still couldn’t stop making hints that they are somehow connected with LW), so they finally had some other outlet.
(It also didn’t help their PR that the known vote-manipulator Eugine was their supporter. I know, that’s merely an argument by association, but it doesn’t help to keep the debate rational and try avoiding mindkilling, if one side has a member that keeps mass-downvoting everyone who disagrees.)
Thank you for the history. That was before my time. Or maybe I just missed that.
But this is consistent with my observations. It’s not really politics that is the target of the ban, it’s a certain type of politics.
as you see, they still couldn’t stop making hints that they are somehow connected with LW
By your own reporting, they were connected to the LW site. That’s where they came from, until they were booted off as untouchables. It’s part of their own history that LW was the incubator for their site. And given that they were booted from LW for their views, sticking a thumb in the eye of LW is entirely predictable. The name is triply appropriate, given the politics. It would have been too obvious and too good a name to pass up. I would have used it.
It’s not really politics that is the target of the ban, it’s a certain type of politics.
Nope, it’s a certain type of behavior.
And given that they were booted from LW for their views,
Nope.
sticking a thumb in the eye of LW is entirely predictable.
Yes, this attitude is a part of the behavior.
Generally, you guys love to behave like predators. Never take “no” for an answer, double down when someone refuses to debate with you (but when someone does, it’s obvious you don’t listen anyway), then switch to karma assassinations when arguments fail, or otherwise threaten revenge. You probably believe that this is the right (pun intended) strategy, and if only you stay persistent enough, everyone will sooner or later bend over and take it in the ass. Thus sayeth Gnon or whichever idiotic abbreviation you worship today.
Meanwhile, in the real world, being an asshole often works short-term, but in longer term, there are some complications. Such as being publicly recognized for what you are, and not being welcome among people who have higher standards of interaction.
By the way, you guys are much less different from the SJW predators than either side would admit, except that they are pros (because they were selected from a much larger pool of candidates) and you are mostly wankers. Just saying, because you are going to downvote this comment anyway.
But don’t mind me. Follow your own strategy and see where it leads you.
Downvoted for the kind of attitude actually described in Politics Is The Mind-Killer, the NRxs historically tending v to be the worst offenders is irrelevant.
Nope. Banning a certain type of behavior was used as cover for banning a certain politics.
Then at some moment Eliezer became tired of being known as “the guy who hosts the neoreactionary website” and publicly disowned them.
I don’t see behavior as the issue identified here, I see being associated with certain political ideas.
And given that they were booted from LW for their views, Nope
If you want to be nitpicky, then yes, they personally weren’t booted, just discussion of the offending ideas was booted.
you guys
Are you passing out honorary NR degrees? Don’t think I’m entirely on board, though they make a lot of good points.
love to behave like predators.
It’s predatory to discuss ideas.
It’s not predatory to prevent people from discussing ideas through institutional power.
double down when someone refuses to debate with you
Isn’t it inconvenient when people you disagree with won’t shut up? Don’t worry, you can probably make them.
being an asshole often works short-term, but in longer term, there are some complications.
Ah yes. Maybe I was around. I do recall discussing someone’s equivalence of “NR” = “Assholes”. Or maybe that was a PUA discussion. Basically, I disagree with you, therefore you’re an asshole.
And you’re right in the sense that having unpopular ideas often comes with a cost.
you guys are much less different from the SJW predators than either side would admit
Funny, you seemed just like a SJW predator to me. “Shut up” is also their answer to ideas they disagree with.
Just saying, because you are going to downvote this comment anyway.
Actually, I’ve upvoted one of your comments in this thread, hadn’t downvoted any others, and had no intention of downvoting this one. But don’t let that keep you from feeling persecuted by a mean old predator.
The LW announcement link discusses the motivation for launching More Right. I was linking at the (already deleted) motivation for later abandoning More Right and launching The Future Primaeval.
You’re unable to see the difference between “banish heretics” and “banish cult recruiters”? Or, more to the point, between “banish heretics” and “forbid cult recruitment”?
(I am not sure how good a metaphor either of these is for neoreactionaries on Less Wrong, but the two are quite different things and it’s in no way ambiguous which Viliam is arguing for.)
First, calling them a cult when they exhibited none of the means of indoctrination and control associated with cults seems inaccurate and a boo light.
Those who successfully banned discussion of NR ideas from LW seem more accurately called cult members, using the usual cult tactic of driving out ideas that challenged their cherished beliefs, thereby refusing to engage with critiques of their ideas.
On the flip side, the supposed NR “cult” was doing the rather uncultish thing of choosing to stay in the midst of ideas predominantly hostile to their own, until forced to take their discussion elsewhere.
As for “recruitment”, what do you mean? How is that different from wanting to discuss and share ideas that they found valuable?
To me, it sounds like Viliam disliked the ideas, disliked that others exposed to them found them attractive, and approved of having what power could be mustered to prevent those ideas from spreading at LW.
but the two are quite different things and it’s in no way ambiguous which Viliam is arguing for
It’s two ways to spin what he was proposing—shutting down ideas he disapproved of. A common sarcastic definitions of a cult is “religion I disapprove of”.
Those who successfully banned discussion of NR ideas
No one has successfully (or for that matter unsuccessfully) banned discussion of NR ideas on Less Wrong. Eugine has been banned again and again because he misbehaves again and again. advancedatheist was banned for allegedly suggesting that women should be forced to have sex with men they don’t want to have sex with[1]. I can’t offhand think of anyone else who has been banned lately, nor do I recall ever hearing any moderator say anything at all like “no discussion of NRx on LW”.
[1] It’s less than clear that that was his actual intent, but that’s the reason that was given. The fact that he had a narrow range of topics that he kept going on and on and on about (and kept being downvoted heavily for it, so it’s not like these were topics LW was crying out for opportunities to talk about more) presumably didn’t help.
There is, and has been for some time, more discussion of NRx ideas on LW than anywhere else I know of that isn’t explicitly a right-wing site.
disliked that others exposed to them found them attractive
It doesn’t look to me as if NRx advocates on LW are actually getting much traction. So maybe “disliked the idea that others exposed to them might find them attractive” would be better. But actually I think what Viliam wants to avoid is having LW used for that purpose, whether or not the “cult recruiters” have any success—the point being that being proselytized at is annoying, regardless of whether the proselytism is ever successful.
“religion I disapprove of”
Yeah, that’s a common complaint. But it doesn’t actually match how most people use the word “cult”. Very few people would call Christianity or Islam a cult, for instance, even among those who strongly disapprove of Christianity or Islam. (I don’t mean that that never happens. But it very seldom does.)
So, is Viliam using “cult” to mean “movement I disapprove of” here? I don’t think so. I think he’s using it to mean something more like “very small movement with extreme views that most here find unpleasant and/or highly implausible”. If you replace “movement” with “religion” and delete “here”, that’s a pretty good approximation to how “cult” is actually used.
I see little proselytizing for cryonics here; back in the OB days there was more of it, much of it coming from Eliezer, and yes I did find it a little annoying. (Only a little, because there wasn’t very much even then.) I’m a fan of EA myself, so am not in the right target audience to be annoyed by it. My impression is that most LWers are too. There’s maybe one bit of animal welfare advocacy a year.
None of this much resembles the situation with NRx, where it seems like any time anyone says anything about race or gender you can rely on someone coming along to point out the inferiority of black people and women. I expect it isn’t actually that bad, of course; these things usually feel worse than they are. But the proselytism to pre-existing support ratio is, I’m pretty certain, much higher for NRx than for those other things.
There is a traditional definition out of The Devil’s Dictionary
Yes, I already acknowledged that it’s a common complaint that people use the word “cult” that way. I am suggesting that that isn’t actually how people use it. (You are well aware that TDD is a big mass of snark and doesn’t in any useful sense purport to give actual definitions, I assume.)
I think it was just a pretty clear fnord.
Not a fnord but an overt criticism. (Possibly an unfair criticism, but that’s not the same thing as a fnord.)
None of this much resembles the situation with NRx, where it seems like any time anyone says anything about race or gender you can rely on someone coming along to point out the inferiority of black people and women.
First, I don’t think that’s true. Second, you’re conflating NRx and HBD/race-realism/etc. and these are quite different things. And I haven’t seen anyone pointing out the general inferiority of women in a long while. Inferiority in specific areas (like upper body strength), certainly, but I don’t see why this is a problem.
No, I’m observing that they seem to overlap a lot.
I haven’t seen anyone pointing out the general inferiority of women in a long while.
No, it’s usually just a claim that women are less intelligent, or (in the more nuanced cases) not so good at the kinds of thinking required for, say, science or mathematics.
Very few people would call Christianity or Islam a cult
No, I think that’s usually the point of the snarky definition of a cult as a “religion I disapprove of”, i.e. Christianity and Islam have the same characteristics as organizations called cults, but are not called cults because they’re popular.
“If you wake up tomorrow morning thinking that saying a few Latin words over your pancakes is going to turn them into the body of Elvis Presley, you have lost your mind. But if you think more or less the same thing about a cracker and the body of Jesus, you are just a Catholic.” -Sam Harris
So let’s take the Cult of Cryonics. What do you think “banish cult recruiters” might look like? I would bet that it would look like prohibiting discussions of cryonics and be indistinguishable from “banish the heretics” in practice.
And of course NRx isn’t a cult, Yvain’s offhand comment notwithstanding.
I don’t want LW to be a recruitment place for a political cult.
What do you mean by “cult”? Many people would consider the founding purpose of LW to be a recruitment place for a cult. Or do you mean you don’t want anything that might convert people to a political position different from yours?
The problem was they were not able to stop talking about it. Because they had no other platform than Less Wrong where they could present their ideas to wider audience and try recruiting new people.
Also they loved to pretend that the rationalist community as a whole somehow supports their political beliefs, despite the polls showing cca 3% support.
Then at some moment Eliezer became tired of being known as “the guy who hosts the neoreactionary website” and publicly disowned them. They moved their politics to their own website called “More Right” (as you see, they still couldn’t stop making hints that they are somehow connected with LW), so they finally had some other outlet.
(It also didn’t help their PR that the known vote-manipulator Eugine was their supporter. I know, that’s merely an argument by association, but it doesn’t help to keep the debate rational and try avoiding mindkilling, if one side has a member that keeps mass-downvoting everyone who disagrees.)
Thank you for the history. That was before my time. Or maybe I just missed that.
But this is consistent with my observations. It’s not really politics that is the target of the ban, it’s a certain type of politics.
By your own reporting, they were connected to the LW site. That’s where they came from, until they were booted off as untouchables. It’s part of their own history that LW was the incubator for their site. And given that they were booted from LW for their views, sticking a thumb in the eye of LW is entirely predictable. The name is triply appropriate, given the politics. It would have been too obvious and too good a name to pass up. I would have used it.
Nope, it’s a certain type of behavior.
Nope.
Yes, this attitude is a part of the behavior.
Generally, you guys love to behave like predators. Never take “no” for an answer, double down when someone refuses to debate with you (but when someone does, it’s obvious you don’t listen anyway), then switch to karma assassinations when arguments fail, or otherwise threaten revenge. You probably believe that this is the right (pun intended) strategy, and if only you stay persistent enough, everyone will sooner or later bend over and take it in the ass. Thus sayeth Gnon or whichever idiotic abbreviation you worship today.
Meanwhile, in the real world, being an asshole often works short-term, but in longer term, there are some complications. Such as being publicly recognized for what you are, and not being welcome among people who have higher standards of interaction.
By the way, you guys are much less different from the SJW predators than either side would admit, except that they are pros (because they were selected from a much larger pool of candidates) and you are mostly wankers. Just saying, because you are going to downvote this comment anyway.
But don’t mind me. Follow your own strategy and see where it leads you.
Oh, boy. Who’s that “you guys”? I don’t think bbdd is one of the NRx.
In any case, let me point out that you just threw a hissy fit. That wasn’t a good move… X-/
Sure. I’m going to spend the rest of the day offline, to clear my mind.
Downvoted for the kind of attitude actually described in Politics Is The Mind-Killer, the NRxs historically tending v to be the worst offenders is irrelevant.
Nope. Banning a certain type of behavior was used as cover for banning a certain politics.
I don’t see behavior as the issue identified here, I see being associated with certain political ideas.
If you want to be nitpicky, then yes, they personally weren’t booted, just discussion of the offending ideas was booted.
Are you passing out honorary NR degrees? Don’t think I’m entirely on board, though they make a lot of good points.
It’s predatory to discuss ideas. It’s not predatory to prevent people from discussing ideas through institutional power.
Isn’t it inconvenient when people you disagree with won’t shut up? Don’t worry, you can probably make them.
Ah yes. Maybe I was around. I do recall discussing someone’s equivalence of “NR” = “Assholes”. Or maybe that was a PUA discussion. Basically, I disagree with you, therefore you’re an asshole.
And you’re right in the sense that having unpopular ideas often comes with a cost.
Funny, you seemed just like a SJW predator to me. “Shut up” is also their answer to ideas they disagree with.
Actually, I’ve upvoted one of your comments in this thread, hadn’t downvoted any others, and had no intention of downvoting this one. But don’t let that keep you from feeling persecuted by a mean old predator.
FWIW, I agree despite being very unfavourably disposed towards their political views.
Apparently they’ve also splintered to another site:
http://thefutureprimaeval.net/
LW announcement on More Right—A Good Time Thread
http://lesswrong.com/lw/hcy/link_more_right_launched/
Too bad they already deleted the reasons why.
I believe there was some discussion of the motivation on the LW announcement link.
The LW announcement link discusses the motivation for launching More Right. I was linking at the (already deleted) motivation for later abandoning More Right and launching The Future Primaeval.
I saw that in there as well. That’s where I got the link for the new site.
In which way is this is a problem on an internet forum the purpose of which is to let people talk about things?
I know some people who can’t stop talking about existential risk or quantum immortality X-) Is that a problem, too?
If you want to say “I don’t want to be associated with people of such political beliefs”, well, just say so.
I don’t want LW to be a recruitment place for a political cult.
If the political cult is unable to find a better recruitment place, well, sucks to be them.
Banish the Heretics!
You’re unable to see the difference between “banish heretics” and “banish cult recruiters”? Or, more to the point, between “banish heretics” and “forbid cult recruitment”?
(I am not sure how good a metaphor either of these is for neoreactionaries on Less Wrong, but the two are quite different things and it’s in no way ambiguous which Viliam is arguing for.)
First, calling them a cult when they exhibited none of the means of indoctrination and control associated with cults seems inaccurate and a boo light.
Those who successfully banned discussion of NR ideas from LW seem more accurately called cult members, using the usual cult tactic of driving out ideas that challenged their cherished beliefs, thereby refusing to engage with critiques of their ideas.
On the flip side, the supposed NR “cult” was doing the rather uncultish thing of choosing to stay in the midst of ideas predominantly hostile to their own, until forced to take their discussion elsewhere.
As for “recruitment”, what do you mean? How is that different from wanting to discuss and share ideas that they found valuable?
To me, it sounds like Viliam disliked the ideas, disliked that others exposed to them found them attractive, and approved of having what power could be mustered to prevent those ideas from spreading at LW.
It’s two ways to spin what he was proposing—shutting down ideas he disapproved of. A common sarcastic definitions of a cult is “religion I disapprove of”.
I agree. “Cult” is not a great description.
No one has successfully (or for that matter unsuccessfully) banned discussion of NR ideas on Less Wrong. Eugine has been banned again and again because he misbehaves again and again. advancedatheist was banned for allegedly suggesting that women should be forced to have sex with men they don’t want to have sex with[1]. I can’t offhand think of anyone else who has been banned lately, nor do I recall ever hearing any moderator say anything at all like “no discussion of NRx on LW”.
[1] It’s less than clear that that was his actual intent, but that’s the reason that was given. The fact that he had a narrow range of topics that he kept going on and on and on about (and kept being downvoted heavily for it, so it’s not like these were topics LW was crying out for opportunities to talk about more) presumably didn’t help.
There is, and has been for some time, more discussion of NRx ideas on LW than anywhere else I know of that isn’t explicitly a right-wing site.
It doesn’t look to me as if NRx advocates on LW are actually getting much traction. So maybe “disliked the idea that others exposed to them might find them attractive” would be better. But actually I think what Viliam wants to avoid is having LW used for that purpose, whether or not the “cult recruiters” have any success—the point being that being proselytized at is annoying, regardless of whether the proselytism is ever successful.
Yeah, that’s a common complaint. But it doesn’t actually match how most people use the word “cult”. Very few people would call Christianity or Islam a cult, for instance, even among those who strongly disapprove of Christianity or Islam. (I don’t mean that that never happens. But it very seldom does.)
So, is Viliam using “cult” to mean “movement I disapprove of” here? I don’t think so. I think he’s using it to mean something more like “very small movement with extreme views that most here find unpleasant and/or highly implausible”. If you replace “movement” with “religion” and delete “here”, that’s a pretty good approximation to how “cult” is actually used.
Cryonics? EA? Occasional animal welfare?
There is a traditional definition out of The Devil’s Dictionary:
Religion—a large successful cult
Cult—a small unsuccessful religion
:-)
I think it was just a pretty clear fnord.
I see little proselytizing for cryonics here; back in the OB days there was more of it, much of it coming from Eliezer, and yes I did find it a little annoying. (Only a little, because there wasn’t very much even then.) I’m a fan of EA myself, so am not in the right target audience to be annoyed by it. My impression is that most LWers are too. There’s maybe one bit of animal welfare advocacy a year.
None of this much resembles the situation with NRx, where it seems like any time anyone says anything about race or gender you can rely on someone coming along to point out the inferiority of black people and women. I expect it isn’t actually that bad, of course; these things usually feel worse than they are. But the proselytism to pre-existing support ratio is, I’m pretty certain, much higher for NRx than for those other things.
Yes, I already acknowledged that it’s a common complaint that people use the word “cult” that way. I am suggesting that that isn’t actually how people use it. (You are well aware that TDD is a big mass of snark and doesn’t in any useful sense purport to give actual definitions, I assume.)
Not a fnord but an overt criticism. (Possibly an unfair criticism, but that’s not the same thing as a fnord.)
First, I don’t think that’s true. Second, you’re conflating NRx and HBD/race-realism/etc. and these are quite different things. And I haven’t seen anyone pointing out the general inferiority of women in a long while. Inferiority in specific areas (like upper body strength), certainly, but I don’t see why this is a problem.
No, I’m observing that they seem to overlap a lot.
No, it’s usually just a claim that women are less intelligent, or (in the more nuanced cases) not so good at the kinds of thinking required for, say, science or mathematics.
No, I think that’s usually the point of the snarky definition of a cult as a “religion I disapprove of”, i.e. Christianity and Islam have the same characteristics as organizations called cults, but are not called cults because they’re popular.
Note that “unpopular movement” and “movement I disapprove of” are very (and relevantly) different things.
So let’s take the Cult of Cryonics. What do you think “banish cult recruiters” might look like? I would bet that it would look like prohibiting discussions of cryonics and be indistinguishable from “banish the heretics” in practice.
And of course NRx isn’t a cult, Yvain’s offhand comment notwithstanding.
What do you mean by “cult”? Many people would consider the founding purpose of LW to be a recruitment place for a cult. Or do you mean you don’t want anything that might convert people to a political position different from yours?
We are not a phyg! We are not a phyg! We are not a phyg!
Because nothing says “we are not a phyg!” quite like having to rot13 the Unholy Word.
Perhaps that’s one reason why (to a very good approximation) no one actually does that any more.
I thought he said it pretty clearly. EY didn’t want to be associated with NR, untouchable heathens that they are.