In other news, I find it wild that big Yud has gone on an arc from “I will build an AI to save everyone” to “let’s do a domestic terrorism against AI researchers.” He should be careful, someone might this this is displaced rage at his own failure to make any kind of intellectual progress while academic AI researchers have passed him by.

disclaimer/framing: the 'ole yudster only came to my attention fairly recently, so the following is observation/speculation (and I'll need some more evidence/visibility to see if the guess pans out)

a few years ago I happened to deal with someone who is a hell of a grifter - in intensity, scope, impact. it was primarily through that experience which I gained handle on a number of things that've served me well in spotting it in other things. some things I've been observing under that light:

1. he's clearly talking out of his ass almost all the time
2. shell game applies
3. I think 'ole yuddy is aware that he's not as clever as he claims he is, and is very salty about that[0]

no-op line to make lemmy newline better

(1) and (2) means he has to continuously keep ahead of the marks ^W rats. the guy is fairly clearly some kind of widely read/informed, and can manage to deal with some kind of complexity[1] in concepts. but because (3) - he can never be as right as he wants to be, so he has to keep pivoting the grift to a new base before he gets egg on his face. his method for doing this is "abandon all hope" but practically it's an attempt to retcon history, and likely if anyone tried to really engage him on it he'd get ragey and blame them on working on "outdated information" or some other shit (because lol who needs acknowledging their own past actions amirite)[2]

[0] - this is a guess from my side, but all his "imagine a world in which einstein wasn't exceptional, because there's many of them" shit comes through to me in this way. anyone else?

[1] - not very well, of course, this is why the multi-million word vomits exist, but "some".

[2] - this is something I've seen with narcissists a lot - they can never be wrong, and "making them" be wrong (i.e. simply providing proof of past actions/statements) gets them going nuclear

Not just Scientology; Peoples Temple, Aum, or Shining Path all apply too.

Edit: they also have more money and political influence at this point then the above. this isn’t good imo.

Having lurked for a long time, sneerclub is aimed at people who already have a good idea of the horror of TESCREAL groups—the point isn't to attract new members, but catharsis for those of us that have had to deal with the TechBros/Facists etc.

and for sneering, the sneering is important.

Getting real for a moment, for me, I used to be in deep with these people and then my friends in the community commited suicide due the rampant sexual abuse and I got the hell out. Sneer club was the only place the reports of assault were taken seriously, while the TESCREALs all closed ranks.

It's all a way back for me now, but I love this place. That there is a tiny part of the Internet out there that calls these people on their shit and sneers gives me so much peace.

(For sneerclubbers reading this; thanks folks, you're the best! ✨️)

yeah, sneerclub is a sub for those who know too much about these bozos (I've been following them since 2010 good lord) to post negativity. The linked article is the easy introduction to their foolishness.

TESCREAL is becoming the accepted academic acronym - Transhumanism, Singularity, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, Longtermism - even though TREACLES was right there

We're a point-and-laugh-at-TESCREAL-people group.