Want to wade into the snowy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid.

Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned so many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

  • CinnasVerses@awful.systemsEnglish
    5·
    1 day ago

    AFAIK, the people in this space who have acknowledged using LSD and other psychedelics are gwern, Aella, and QiaochuYuan (during his rationalist phase). Scott Alexander hinted that he might have tried it, Eliezer Yudkowsky is interested in psychedelic therapy but also tells readers to please not use LSD. Can any of you name anyone else in this space who has talked about dropping acid?

    I don’t want to get into “A says that B dropped acid” in a StubSack thread.

    The 2016 Nootropics Survey results and Nootropics Survey 2020 Results suggest that it was popular with anonymous SlateStar readers.

    • corbin@awful.systemsEnglish
      4·
      23 hours ago

      Previously, on Awful, we considered whether David Chapman was an LSD user. My memory says yes but I can’t find any sources.

      I do wonder what you’re aiming at, exactly. Psychedelics don’t have uniform effects; rather, what unifies them is that they put the user into an atypical state of mind. I gather that Yud doesn’t try them because he is terrified of not being in maximum control of himself at all times.

      • CinnasVerses@awful.systemsEnglish
        4·
        22 hours ago

        Yud has posted:

        Among my friends who came to my attention for psychelics[sic] having had any significant impact on them, positive or negative, I would say the mean result has been overwhelmingly, heartbreakingly negative. Please seriously consider not doing drugs.

        He seems very worried about his tendency to procrastination (akrasia in LessWrong jargon) and inability to make himself exercise. So he is concerned about inability to control himself. So his public position is that LSD might have medical uses, but it has harmed people close to him.