Awkwardly reimplementing formal logic through obtuse fan fiction seems to be a core faith practice of these folks, so I think you’re onto something here

There’s maybe still a concise social history to be written of how all this crap congealed together. I’m particularly interested in the overlap between the AI doomers, the ancap libertarian weirdos who wanted to nail down their economics as capital-S Science™, and even the online poker grinders of the 2000s who aspired to become statistical-thinking robots. I hesitate to say any of this is undocumented, because the reams of posts are still out there, but a Michael Lewis-style pop history of it all would be a hoot. I understand Elizabeth Sandifer has it all well-covered from the ideological angle, and Adam Becker’s new book looks good too, but having something covering it from the forum/feed-poster angle might end up being the epitaph the movement deserves.

I would say that the in-group jargon is more of a retention tactic than an attraction tactic, although it can become that for people who are desperately looking for an ordered view of the world. Certainly I’ve seen it a lot in recovering Scientologists, expressing how that edifice of jargon, colloquialisms, and redefined words shaped their worldview and how they related to other people. In this case here, if you’ve been nodding along for a while and want to continue to be one of the cool guys, how could you not glomarize? Peek coolly out from beneath your fedora and neither confirm nor deny?

I will agree that the ratsphere has softer boundaries and is not particularly competently managed as a cult. As you allude to, too, there isn’t a clear induction ritual or psychological turning point, just a mass of material that you’re supposed to absorb and internalize over a necessarily lengthy stretch of time. Hence the most clearly identifiable cults are splinter groups.

I understand where he probably got the neologism “glomarize” from (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer) but his willingness to beat you in the face with it until you accept it is a big part of what makes his writing style so offputting. And, uh, this level of enthusiasm for specialized jargon continues to fail to overcome the cult allegations.

hmm, was groverhaus actually just an instance of convergent evolution among posters

Two cases that are a bit less clear, but still show some structural similarities: Peter Thiel, Sam Altman.

A bit less clear because these two have a bit more money to throw around, and damn would it be good if they started throwing some in our direction again

The man just can’t get a normal hobby. We tried Labubus, but he just sat there sweating all over everything and ranting about how it’s the inevitable scapegoat for the collapse of Western aesthetic sensibilities

Omarchy apparently doesn’t include Ruby or Rails by default

more EA on EA violence

these fools can’t successfully whack each other because they’re too busy whackin’ off

can we come up with a way to tag posts as “infohazard”

Allfather help me, I’ve got too much o’ th’ computer

Me and Charmander who lives on my keychain are never hanging out with you again!!!

EA SPORTS: If it’s in the game…

Sajam deviated from fighting games to do over an hour on this game, if you’d like to feel your brain gently melting out your ears:

https://youtu.be/G9s3QmIbVg8

Oh my god, the gacha anime-waifu horse racing phone game is real. Why did I have to find this out today, or ever. Better than 50% chance that Roko is a paypig for it

Over the last few years, I have fully gotten on board with the idea that the haunting vestige of the idea of people as property is one of the core weaknesses of American society, and the “western civilization” enthusiasts that promote its supremacy.

Of course, there are a lot of other people who have been on board with that point of view for centuries.

What with all the rapid innovation surrounding small modular reactors, I still firmly believe that I will be able to bolt a nuclear reactor to a DeLorean in my garage

Much the same mistake I (and many others) made trying to get into the series! Although I have to say that I’m still one of the philistines that gerikson brings up who’s read Phlebas and Player of Games and not much else.

Nitpicking, but at what point do we start calling it race pseudoscience? Letting the creeps have even a tiny bit of legitimacy is too much, especially as mainstream outfits are working overtime to legitimize them.

Unfortunately, I like my sanity and don’t want to delve far enough into the concept of “awarenaut” to form an opinion, so we’re just going to enact a default-deny policy on all that as well