So, the chatter over on Reddit sneerclub is that the author is a transphobic sex pest
https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/1maslci/sam_krissagainst_truth_also_against_rationalism/
I only know about the latter
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
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At this point in time, having a substack is in itself a red flag.
Here I thought this was just some rando with a substack but it looks like the backstory on this guy is pretty extensive. He's admitted to the sexual harassment allegations, so that's confirmed. Vice cut off ties with him, so I'm glad to see powerful men facing consequences for their actions for once, at least as long as they're left wing columnists which is still something.
The most extensive coverage on the drama seems to come from human vulture Ian Miles Cheong, who reported that then former and future first failson of the United States Donald Trump jr. was also paying attention to this rare case of a sex pest getting his just deserts.
I couldn't find anything regarding the transphobia claims, but I didn't feel like digging too deep either. I wouldn't be shocked if a smarmy marxist from Normal Island turns out to have Normal Island opinions on trans people, especially given the random Sonichu snipe in the OP.
This is not a place of honor…
Look: I’ve managed to get through an entire essay on rationalism without mentioning Roko’s basilisk even once, and frankly I think I deserve a bit of credit for it.
The effort this took is outstanding.
The targets are informed, via a grammatically invalid sentence.
Sam Kriss (author of the ‘Laurentius Clung’ piece) has posted a critique. I don’t think it’s good, but I do think it’s representative of a view that I ever encounter in the wild but haven’t really seen written up.
FWIW the search term 'Laurentius Clung' gets no hits on LW, so I'm to assume everyone there also is Extremely Online on Xitter and instantly knows the reference.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3GbM9hmyJqn4LNXrG/yams-s-shortform?commentId=MzkAjd8EWqosiePMf
I always had a vague outline of just how fucked up the rats are, but reading this put everything sharply into perspective for me. God damn, this was good.
Oh man, that was a chuckle and a half. Choice quotation:
We’re supposedly dealing with a group of idiosyncratic weirdos, all of them trying to independently reconstruct the entirety of human knowledge from scratch. Their politics run all the way from the furthest fringes of the far right to the furthest fringes of the liberal centre
Anyone know a good gladiator arena with aperol spritzes? I have a date to plan for the weekend!
This was a good read. I also read the post/story/essay that got the rats upset and it's good too.
https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-law-that-can-be-named-is-not
Yud's sputtering reaction can be read here among the comments here
Eliezer's response is especially stupid given that he has cited his fictional worldbuilding project like it is evidence (we have examples saved over on the reddit sneerclub).
a lot of which also exists on the archives here (although I guess now with that side also existing as frankenstein's monster there might be some funkiness going on)
Reaction ro Yud:
Soo... Care to have a word with Scott about Unsong?
And reply from what I assume is a lesswronger:
Extremely annoying to read something, halfway in discovering it's fake, then having to go back to re-update backwards on everything I "learned" from it
Re-update backwards
E: I keep thinking of Re-update backwards, how it is silly to have a special term for this (which prob means it has occurred often enough for them to think of one), and that it is silly to have to do this a lot because keeps happening and then not changing your behavior, how weird is your internet media consumption if you just assume everything you read on a blog is true. I would hope the first time people fall for that (I fell for adequacy [dot] org (I checked the actual link and got a red paged 'this site is dangerous' warning so not sure if the archive is still up, not used to those red paged warnings so didn't follow up on it) at the time, in my defense, I'm a fool) they start to be a bit less trustworthy of random stuff they read. But nope, re-update your priors backwards.
I'm a lurker who stumbled in here and read the comments out of fascination for this window into a strange online world.
If I didn't have a vague clue that this was about lampooning Silicon Valley's fart-sniffing "philosophers", I would be pretty certain "Re-update backwards" was clearly language invented by a cult to control their followers and separate them from the rest of the world.
Funnily enough it isn't even required by their purported bayesian doctrine (which proves none of them do the math), you could simply "update forward" again based on the new evidence that the text is part-fictional.
yes, sneerclub exists to ridicule these people (see sub sidebar for some links)
and yep, your takeaway about that language is exactly right. although every single one of them continues to swear at every opportunity that they're not a cult, even midway through praising their cultlord
Saw this posted to the Reddit Sneerclub, this essay has some excellent zingers and a good overall understanding of rationalists. A few highlights...
Rationalism is the notion that the universe is a collection of true facts, but since the human brain is an instrument for detecting lions in the undergrowth, almost everyone is helplessly confused about the world, and if you want to believe as many true things and disbelieve as many false things as possible—and of course you do—you must use various special techniques to discipline your brain into functioning more like a computer. (In practice, these techniques mostly consist of calling your prejudices ‘Bayesian priors,’ but that’s not important right now.)
We're all very familiar with this phenoma, but this author has a pithy way of summarizing it.
The story is not a case study in how rationality will help you understand the world, it’s a case study in how rationality will give you power over other people. It might have been overtly signposted as fiction, with all the necessary content warnings in place. That doesn’t mean it’s not believed. Despite being genuinely horrible, this story does have one important use: it makes sense out of the rationalist fixation on the danger of a superhuman AI. According to HPMOR, raw intelligence gives you direct power over other people; a recursively self-improving artificial general intelligence is just our name for the theoretical point where infinite intelligence transforms into infinite power.
Yep, the author nails the warped view Rationalists have about intelligence.
We’re supposedly dealing with a group of idiosyncratic weirdos, all of them trying to independently reconstruct the entirety of human knowledge from scratch. Their politics run all the way from the furthest fringes of the far right to the furthest fringes of the liberal centre.
That is a concise summary of their warped Overton Window, yeah.
To be fair, some character development does take place: by the end, Harry has learned how to not be so frightening, and how to use his powers of effortless domination more strategically. There is a general failure of self-awareness here I have not seen outside Sonichu. It makes for genuinely harrowing reading.
And just a couple paragraphs before that:
Reading HPMOR gave me a sense of crushing second-hand despair that I’ve only previously experienced when finding out things about Chris-Chan. It really is that bad.
(the real cognitohazard was the friends we made along the way)