I have no idea who is that guy, and I don’t really care, but that sentence was quite a surprise for me. Hands up, who is afraid of losing an audience (whom specifically?) to neoreaction, and what exactly are we doing to prevent such horrible hypothetical outcome? (Also, why I didn’t I get the memo? Should I feel offended?)
Too bad the author isn’t more specific about what exactly is the “niche sport” that both rationalists and neoreactionaries are supposed to practice, what kind of audience are they competing for, and what specifically are rationalists doing to win the hearts and minds of the potential neoreactionaries. It would be much easier to respond to specific accusations.
Let’s start with the “niche”. The first approximation is “smart contrarians”, but that seems too wide. Both groups are an outgroup to woke progressives, although for different (and kinda opposite) reasons: neoreactionaries identify as right-wing, rationalists say that politics is the mindkiller. What else?
What audience are we competing for? I suppose it is the smart contrarians.
What specific things are we doing to attract them, and specifically to prevent them from becoming neoreactionaries instead? (What things, that we are doing now, would we not do in a parallel universe where neoreaction never existed?) The only difference I am aware of is that we enforce the taboo on politics more strongly than we would in a parallel universe where neoreactionaries never tried to promote their politics on Less Wrong. But this answer does not make sense—if the author hates neoreactionaries, why would he be angry at Less Wrong for not providing a platform for them?
I am out of ideas. The remaining one—and now I feel like I am making a strawman—is that the author believes that in the parallel universe all rationalists would be super woke (or whatever is his preferred flavor of politics, I don’t know), but in this universe we are not, because we are competing for the non-woke audience against the neoreaction. But this is so wrong it is not even funny. So, what else is there?
In the meanwhile, my assumption is that the author apparently had some very confused ideas about rationalists, then he updated somewhat, but he still remains confused a lot.
I have no idea who is that guy, and I don’t really care, but that sentence was quite a surprise for me. Hands up, who is afraid of losing an audience (whom specifically?) to neoreaction, and what exactly are we doing to prevent such horrible hypothetical outcome? (Also, why I didn’t I get the memo? Should I feel offended?)
Too bad the author isn’t more specific about what exactly is the “niche sport” that both rationalists and neoreactionaries are supposed to practice, what kind of audience are they competing for, and what specifically are rationalists doing to win the hearts and minds of the potential neoreactionaries. It would be much easier to respond to specific accusations.
Let’s start with the “niche”. The first approximation is “smart contrarians”, but that seems too wide. Both groups are an outgroup to woke progressives, although for different (and kinda opposite) reasons: neoreactionaries identify as right-wing, rationalists say that politics is the mindkiller. What else?
What audience are we competing for? I suppose it is the smart contrarians.
What specific things are we doing to attract them, and specifically to prevent them from becoming neoreactionaries instead? (What things, that we are doing now, would we not do in a parallel universe where neoreaction never existed?) The only difference I am aware of is that we enforce the taboo on politics more strongly than we would in a parallel universe where neoreactionaries never tried to promote their politics on Less Wrong. But this answer does not make sense—if the author hates neoreactionaries, why would he be angry at Less Wrong for not providing a platform for them?
I am out of ideas. The remaining one—and now I feel like I am making a strawman—is that the author believes that in the parallel universe all rationalists would be super woke (or whatever is his preferred flavor of politics, I don’t know), but in this universe we are not, because we are competing for the non-woke audience against the neoreaction. But this is so wrong it is not even funny. So, what else is there?
In the meanwhile, my assumption is that the author apparently had some very confused ideas about rationalists, then he updated somewhat, but he still remains confused a lot.