SneerClub advertises itself as a place for bullies. This is the sidebar text, the thing the admin and subreddit-creator put in the metadata when creating the subreddit in the first place:
There’s a standard Internet phenomenon (I generalize) of a Sneer Club of people who enjoy getting together and picking on designated targets. Sneer Clubs (I expect) attract people with high Dark Triad characteristics, which is (I suspect) where Asshole Internet Atheists come from—if you get a club together for the purpose of sneering at religious people, it doesn’t matter that God doesn’t actually exist, the club attracts psychologically f’d-up people. Bullies, in a word, people who are powerfully reinforced by getting in what feels like good hits on Designated Targets, in the company of others doing the same and congratulating each other on it. E.g. my best guess is that RationalWiki started out as a Sneer Club targeted on homeopathy, and then they decided that since they were such funny and incisive skeptics they ought to branch out into writing about everything else, like the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
(Emphasis added. If you view it with new Reddit instead of with old Reddit, this quote is over the length limit and it shows only the start of it. Yes, this is blatantly in violation of Reddit policies; no, Reddit-the-org has never looked into it as far as I know.)
So I think there are two groups, which it’s important to distinguish. There are people there who actually think this way, who unironically think of themselves as bullies and are happy with that. And then there are people who hung out in the vicinity and got caught up in the bullies’ narratives, who would probably be horrified if they saw the situation clearly.
I think that the first group is not worth talking to; bridging that gap is impossible, and trying to do so will predictably lead to getting hurt. But the latter group, the people who were fed twisted narratives by the first group, is worth convincing. And the way to talk to that group is not much different from how one should talk to anyone else: earnestly and directly, with emphasis on points of disagreement and confusion.
The sidebar thing is a quote from Yudkowsky. Which they (may or may not) be consciously trying to emulate (possibly “sarcastically” according to SneerClubMod below… although something tells me they themselves wouldn’t see much difference between “bullying” and “sarcastically bullying” from the other end, since it’d be pretty beyond the realm of “gentle friend-to-friend” teasing.)
You might be under the impression that the quote was written after the subreddit was founded, as an accusation against the critics there. But no, the quote came first. Eliezer wrote a quote describing a negative archetype. Some people who fit that archetype decided the quote sounded cool. They made it their rallying flag.
SneerClub advertises itself as a place for bullies. This is the sidebar text, the thing the admin and subreddit-creator put in the metadata when creating the subreddit in the first place:
(Emphasis added. If you view it with new Reddit instead of with old Reddit, this quote is over the length limit and it shows only the start of it. Yes, this is blatantly in violation of Reddit policies; no, Reddit-the-org has never looked into it as far as I know.)
So I think there are two groups, which it’s important to distinguish. There are people there who actually think this way, who unironically think of themselves as bullies and are happy with that. And then there are people who hung out in the vicinity and got caught up in the bullies’ narratives, who would probably be horrified if they saw the situation clearly.
I think that the first group is not worth talking to; bridging that gap is impossible, and trying to do so will predictably lead to getting hurt. But the latter group, the people who were fed twisted narratives by the first group, is worth convincing. And the way to talk to that group is not much different from how one should talk to anyone else: earnestly and directly, with emphasis on points of disagreement and confusion.
The sidebar thing is a quote from Yudkowsky. Which they (may or may not) be consciously trying to emulate (possibly “sarcastically” according to SneerClubMod below… although something tells me they themselves wouldn’t see much difference between “bullying” and “sarcastically bullying” from the other end, since it’d be pretty beyond the realm of “gentle friend-to-friend” teasing.)
You people are obscenely delusional, that sidebar sarcastically links to an Eliezer Yudkowsky comment, and it is not against reddit rules to do that
You might be under the impression that the quote was written after the subreddit was founded, as an accusation against the critics there. But no, the quote came first. Eliezer wrote a quote describing a negative archetype. Some people who fit that archetype decided the quote sounded cool. They made it their rallying flag.
Why wouldn’t I take it at face value?
I knew the quote was written before the subreddit was founded, since it seemed like the “trope namer” for what they want to do.
I mod the subreddit, I’m aware of the history of the sidebar quote
Your interpretation of why we did that is incorrect
Then why did you do that?
Because it’s a funny example of Yudkowsky’s persecution complex, and therefore an amusing ironic self-appellation