The comparison with Tatsuya Ishida from Sinfest in the other thread was spot on - Just like Tats, Scott Aa is now depicting whoever disagrees with him as zombies.
SneerClub
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.]
See our twin at Reddit
A nice thread linked in the comments on Peter Woit's blog: https://xcancel.com/VikingFBR/status/1962222479008841730
Here's that thread without the line numbers:
In a deeply offensive and morally bankrupt essay “Deep Zionism”, Scott Aaronson presents the killing of Palestinian children as a moral duty, effectively endorsing the murder of 18,000+ Palestinian children in response to the murder of 36 Jewish children on 10/7/2023.
scottaaronson.blog/?p=9082
Aaronson: “Zionism…is the proposition that…you have not merely a right but a moral obligation to pull the lever — and that you can do so with your middle finger raised high to the hateful mob.” (Deep Zionism, 2024).
Aaronson’s claim is blunt: if your enemy hides among civilians, you are morally obligated to kill them anyway. He calls it not only justified but righteous and says you can do it with defiance: “your middle finger raised high.”
Aaronson writes (faithfully paraphrased): “The responsibility for those children’s deaths rests with their father, not with you.” In this framework, Israel has no responsibility for Palestinian children killed by its bombs or bullets. Aaronson even dismisses the urgent moral question of saving lives (faithfully paraphrased): “The correct question isn’t which choice will lead to fewer children getting killed right this minute.” For Aaronson, Palestinian lives in the present moment do not count.
This is not an abstract puzzle. Palestinian children have been killed in their homes, in schools, in hospitals, and in the streets. They were not “placed on tracks” by parents. They were intentionally killed where they lived and played.
Aaronson preemptively shuts down dissent: “I’m not opening the comments on this post, because there’s nothing here to debate.” Not reasoning. Not philosophy. Dogma.
To understand this posture, you need to know Aaronson’s self-story. He has long written about being a bullied nerd, ignored by women, and obsessing over feminism in his youth. He describes raising a “middle finger” as the key to his survival. In Aaronson’s words: “… I raised a middle finger to the Andrea Dworkins and Arthur Chus and Amanda Marcottes of the world. I went Deep Zionist on them.” Here, “Deep Zionism” is not about Israel; it’s his life strategy. What begins as adolescent grievance becomes Aaronson’s moral method. First against classmates, then against feminists, now against Palestinians. The same defiance that once excused his bitterness now “justifies” child killing.
This isn’t philosophy, it is autobiography turned into lethal dogma. Aaronson's grievances are universalized into axioms. The bullied nerd becomes the philosopher-king of violent righteous middle fingers.
In 2014, during another Gaza “war”, Aaronson wrote blog comment #439: “You shoot back… knowing in advance that you’ll almost certainly hit one or two … [children]… my moral intuition is perfectly comfortable with saying yes, your killings were ‘accidental’.” In that same 2014 comment (#439), Aaronson added: “…the children’s father, not you, bears the primary responsibility… He’s their de facto murderer.” Exactly the same absolution logic as Deep Zionism. Aaronson even wrote (#440): “…my desire to see other people deterred… is so staggeringly enormous that it counterbalances even my grief at seeing innocent children killed.” Deterrence outweighs grief at killing.
From 2014 to 2024, Scott Aaronson’s line is straight: redefine foreseeable child deaths as “accidents,” outsource blame entirely to Palestinians, and frame killing of children as righteous.
But both law and ethics reject this. In criminal law, foreseeable deaths are not “accidents.” In just war theory, proportionality and discrimination forbid treating civilians as expendable. Aaronson erases those safeguards. His framework is clear: Palestinian children’s lives do not count. Their deaths are someone else’s fault, never the fault of those who kill them.
The result is not philosophy. It is a ritual of absolution: kill children, call it accidental, flip the finger, and declare yourself righteous.
When a public intellectual says minimizing child deaths “right this minute” is the wrong question, believe him. Scott Aaronson puts zero value on Palestinian children’s lives. Deep Zionism is his confession.
In that same 2014 discussion, Aaronson volunteered that he still admired Werner Heisenberg for his science, acknowledging Heisenberg’s moral compromise working under the Nazis. But Scott Aaronson is no Heisenberg. Heisenberg was a genius of quantum mechanics, his name forever tied to physics itself. Aaronson, whatever his early promise, is a relatively minor figure in computer science, and now, a moral failure.
If you want a Nazi scientist analogy, the closer match is Philipp Lenard: a Nobel laureate who slid into ideological extremism, railing against “Jewish physics.” A man of some early talent but remembered mainly for his complete moral collapse. Like Lenard, Aaronson fuses grievance with ideology. Lenard turned physics into nationalism. Aaronson turns personal resentment into Zionist dogma. Both weaponize intellectual authority to sanctify cruelty.
Lenard was once respectable, then became a mediocrity defined by extremism. Scott Aaronson now steps into the same fate: remembered not for quantum complexity but for giving moral cover to child killing, land theft, and forced displacement.
This is why "Deep Zionism" matters. It’s not just one essay. It’s the culmination of a decade-long pattern: absolution of foreseeable child killings, grievance elevated into dogma, and now, intellectual authority harnessed to justify atrocity.
To understand this posture, you need to know Aaronson’s self-story. He has long written about being a bullied nerd, ignored by women, and obsessing over feminism in his youth.
My developing headcanon is that Scott missed out on a Birthright trip and this is a core aspect of his personality.
I’m acutely aware of how sheer numbers can create the illusion of argumentative strength. I know many people who were sympathetic to Israel immediately after October 7, but then gradually read the room, saw which side their bread was buttered on, etc. etc. and became increasingly hostile.
It can't be that they witnessed more and more acts of increasing violence and genocidal intent, must be they don't believe in anything.
JFC man, stop digging
Zionism, to define it in one sentence, is the proposition that, in the situation described, you have not merely a right but a moral obligation to keep digging—and that you can do so with your middle finger raised high to the hateful mob.
Peter Woit has weighed in on this second post as well in an update to his original response. Note that he has linked to the sneersub.
Here's the update text, with links preserved:
Update: More from Scott, it seems that those opposed to what Israel is doing in Gaza are “brain-eaten zombies”. He’s also convinced that the zombie problem is mainly academics in the humanities. I hear that there’s a statement about what is going on in Gaza signed by thousands of prominent scientists that will soon be made public. A lot of very prominent brain-eaten zombie scientists out there, it seems.
Of course he’s still not allowing comments on his blog. For other discussion of his blogposts, see here and here.
E: I don’t know anything about Woit, what should I know about him? I see that, despite his recent disagreements with Scott, he has links on his blog to sht-opt’ed and also other sneer club villain Sabine Hossenfelder. Also, he seems a little judgmental/critical of the pro-palestinian protest tactics. So my guess is: liberal academic that’s probably a little STEM brained, but not anything near problematic enough to be sneered at here.
Hossenfelder seemed like a normal science blogger and critic of string theory until some recent videos, and most people don't update their blogroll every year. And Woit links her sensible (but defunct) blog, not her out-there videos.
A lot of people in this world have connections going back 15 or 30 years but ended up on opposite sides (eg. Charlie Stross and Curtis Yarvin, or Laurie Penny and Scott Aaronson)
A lot of people in this world have connections going back 15 or 30 years but ended up on opposite sides
Ah, so we're living in the Earth: Shippuden universe. Got it. (jk)
And now Woit has banned ScottAa from his blog:
One reason people are not discussing the WWII analogy here is that, as I explained, I delete attempts to argue one way or another about justifying the mass murder of children through things like bad analogies. It’s the kind of thing you seem to really enjoy a lot, but makes me sick to my stomach. [...] Actually, that’s enough. If you want to carry on your arguments for killing children, and engage in lunatic rants about everyone being an antisemite, you have your own blog, can do so there.
Woit is a math guy at Columbia who is mostly known for calling string theory a crock of non-science. I don't think he's sneerable. Sometimes his opinions align with a remark by, e.g., Hossenfelder, but he's not ... brain-cooked by engagement algorithms like she is. I check in on Woit's blog occasionally to see if there's news in the world of math that I missed, and the sense I get is that he made the criticisms he wanted to make and would rather talk about things he finds more interesting, whereas Hossenfelder is desperate for those physics is a corrupt cabal clicks.
A defining property of a zombie is that it’s not alive, and thus that destroying it is not murder. Not sure if that was what he was going for.
Yeah, if I had to guess, it would be that that in part 3 of this shit, Scott begins advocating killing the "zombies". So what he's going for is "manufacturing consent".
I choose to believe that S.Aa wrote some antisemitic prompt into his LLM of choice to make the slop at the head of the post, causing himself extreme psychic damage.
Not saying anything new here: what’s on display is what we already understand about Scott. Aside from a few examples, Scott can only understand things in a narrow, zero-sum, chad/jock vs incel/nerd/nice-guy framework.
E: straight from the horse's fingertips:
Obviously I did not and would not generate that cartoonishly antisemitic image. One of Peter’s fans sent it to me, calling it a “diagram” that would help me understand the situation in the Middle East, trying to get a rise out of me. Now he’s sending me emails about how the image isn’t antisemitic, since it obviously only targets Orthodox Jews (!). Yes, I had to pick a name when I saved the image, so I called it “woitworldview.png.”
Hearsay, my original belief stands. (jk)
E2: in the comments of Woit's blog, the "cartoon guy" commented, owning up to generating the slop, with a pretty shitty comment that I will not replicate here. (Yes, I could continue the bit by saying this is a Scott sockpuppet. No, I will not be doing that.)
Hi Scott! I guess that you're lurking in our "living room" now. Exciting times!
The charge this time was that I’m a genocidal Zionist who wants to kill all Palestinian children purely because of his mental illness and raging persecution complex.
No, Scott. The community's charge is that you've hardened your heart against admitting or understanding the ongoing slaughter, which happens to rise to the legal definition of genocide, because of your religious beliefs and geopolitical opinions. My personal charge was that you lack the imagination required for peace or democracy; now, I wonder whether you lack the compassion required as well.
[Some bigoted religious bro] is what the global far left has now allied itself with. [Some bigoted religious bro] is what I’m right now being condemned for standing against, with commenter after commenter urging me to seek therapy.
Nope, the global far left — y'know, us Godless communists — are still not endorsing belief in Jehovah, regardless of which flavor of hate is on display. Standing in solidarity with the oppressed does not ever imply supporting their hate; concretely, today we can endorse feeding and giving healthcare to Palestinians without giving them weapons.
nah he's almost certainly talking about the post on old-sneerclub, the rationalists seem almost unaware this one exists.
Browsing that thread on old!SneerClub, I learned that a few months ago, ScottAa made a jokey post about being in some random "top 50" list of quantum-computing blogs, and the comment thread of that post escalated until he was saying this:
Aleksy #163: Please don’t take this the wrong way, but—I feel like the world would be a better place if you were not part of it.
My reasoning is as follows: when you single out a single UN member state, among all ~200 of them, as being illegitimate and having no right to exist—when, moreover, that state is literally the only thing standing between half the world’s Jews and their violent deaths in a second Holocaust—when it’s obvious to any fairminded person that, if you applied 10% of the same level of legal scrutiny to the founding events of other countries, the UN General Assembly would need to be swept nearly bare—when, finally, you needle a productive scientist over and over, commenting and emailing to ask why he hasn’t replied to you yet, taunting him that if he doesn’t then he’s effectively conceded the argument, etc. etc.—it’s clear that you’re making a negative contribution to the world.
I feel like, if you understood this, you’d see that the right and honorable thing to do would be to kill yourself as quickly as possible.
I hasten to add, however, that I’m not saying this out of any personal animus whatsoever towards you. It’s purely disinterested reason that’s led me to these conclusions. If you respond to me emotionally rather than rationally, that will show me that (alas) you weren’t ready for a logical, evidence-based discussion of these matters.
Never has a man had a more normal one
Yeah, they’re all not cool enough to know about this one.
I don't know how much this actually adds. Scott is still actively refusing to differentiate between people on the internet being mean to him and US-backed Israeli military forces murdering civilians through starvation. Indifference to the latter is justified through the former.
Also for all that he and others talk about "Israel’s current war of survival against the Iranian-led terror axis" it shouldn't be understated just how badly Iran was mauled in the recent bombing, to say nothing of the decapitation of Hezbollah. Israel and their US allies have demonstrated time and again that even where these groups that seek their elimination exist the notion of them actually having the ability to do so is absolutely absurd.
People sending him anti-Semitism (or talking about him using anti-Semitic language is fucked up, saw people do that sadly). Really hope nobody here did that.
Still dehumanizing people he disagrees with. And refusing to understand the people he disagrees with. (But he could have made those points without calling others zombies, or do a weird 'arabs dont get western freedom' bit).
And I dont get why he thinks we are allied with re random piece of shit in Lebanon because we said his trolley problem thought experiment is fucked up, and that the genocide in gaza should stop. (Also the annexation of the west bank).
You can be against different groups of assholes at the same time. The guy is splitting so hard.
E: the whole 'I hope they will grow up from this from the necessary devastation(*)' bit haunts me. He doesn't seem to get that the US put a lot of effort into rebuilding those countries. Which with stances like his is not something that is going to happen. (Also, see the west bank, Palestinians will likely not trust these efforts). It also took a long long time for the hatred to die down in Europe but esp the hatred from others towards Germans. (For a long while driving a car with German numberplates in The Netherlands was a risk as randomly people would cut you off, and my grandfather, who now is dead, mostly called German people by their WW2 slur, it took that generation mostly passing away for that to lessen sadly. At least these are my experiences and what I heard). I'm reminded of A.R. Moxons line: 'if you want to be friends, why aren't you friendly'(**). Unrelated, I'm also reminded of this post: https://forward.com/opinion/415250/from-the-river-to-the-sea-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-means/
*: I know it is not a thing people agree upon, but I think a lot of the devastation of the civilian infrastructure in ww2 was not necessary at all. It seems to be agreed upon that terror bombing actually has to opposite effect.
**: A similar thing could be said of the Hamas/Hezbolla people, but we in the west here do not support those groups.
I don't think anyone here would be the sort to do that. I think we have at least an implicit kind of "prime directive" against engaging at all and also our mods have done what feels like a good job keeping us free of rabid Nazis and their sympathizers. Like, I'm not going to claim it's impossible and I fully believe that someone somewhere sent him some truly vile shit as a result of this whole affair, but I would be legitimately shocked if it was any of our regulars.
Yeah same. According to Scott it was a 'Peter fan', so doubt it was somebody from here.
Really hope nobody here did that.
if anyone from here did then they’re fucking banned, but I need better evidence than none and a standard for anti-Semitism that doesn’t include views that are just anti-Zionist and anti-genocide with no hatred behind them
Someone claiming to be the "cartoon guy" showed up at Woit's blog to explain himself. He's an edgelord Reddit atheist, the type that we'd ban tout de suite after he leaves one slur-filled comment that we delete.
I hope no-one here emailed him, more in a “don’t debate fascists” way and also a “it’s a waste of time anyway, Saa is set in his ways and is probably unable to be deprogrammed” way.
He named the file after Woit, so either he was trying to be cute re naming, or he made this himself. Which is a wtf discovery. No idea why he doesnt just show emails.
The naming itself is already hitting the libel part. Imho.
E: he reacted on peters blog, scott named it, but it came from an email (and he calls the emailer "peters fan").
Public reminder that two thirds of American Jews support the Gaza genocide. ScottA is not an outlier, he's the norm.
That survey was taken over a year ago. Attitudes may have shifted somewhat by this point.
For context this is similar to the rate for evangelicals. About 50% of Republicans think Israel is either on the right track or should go farther, compared to 25% of Democrats.