this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
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SneerClub

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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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I was SA'd by Rationalists, AMA. (awful.systems)
submitted 22 hours ago by ivyastrix@awful.systems to c/sneerclub@awful.systems
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Hi, Ivy Astrix here. I saw some of my work referenced here so figured I'd pop in and do an AMA. I did harm reduction at Vibecamp 1/2, and Vibegala 1/2. Happy to answer what I can as long as it doesn't violate confidences or isn't in service of personal grievances.

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[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Hi, I am so sorry for what happened. I believe you and the other people with stories of abuse in these communities. Nobody should face unwanted sexual contact. I hope you have local support.

Could you tell us how closely the online communities you have met relate to pre-existing communities for kink, non-monogamy, and responsible substance use? Because I never met them in person I don't have a good feeling for the differences between LessWrong, EA, TPOT, Vibecamp, and Hereticon, but the Bay Area Rationalists don't seem like people who have a float at Folsom or sign their whole house up for a bondage workshop with people who have rigged for kink.com. It sounds more like a rationalist will sometimes ask a friend who is a kinkster or experienced substance user but not a rationalist for advice.

Is there anything you would like us to change about how we talk about all this?

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

thank you <3

from my perspective (which is being on twitter long before visa / life coaches showed up, i'm friends with some status451 blog people which had scott alexander in their blogroll) some people are in existing kink communities but for the most part it organically comes out of Rationalism.

I can only speculate as to why, I think the presence of high profile sex workers / the general fact that hedonism follows money and privilege. The Bay is polycule central and I think Rationalist communities just philosophize about it a lot more visibly. So I guess the tl;dr here is that there are probably a few experienced kink people but a lot of it is just organic rationalist practice, I think Slutcon is attempting to start more of an organized thing around that area.

So, substances: In general I think these communities lean towards psychedelics, but Ketamine is huge in the bay. At one of the parties I was at I ran into a notable AI researcher who told me we needed to postpone hanging out because they were in a pretty deep k-hole.

I think there's not a lot of overt / public facing harm reduction / responsible use, but some individual people know about things like testing for fent. From my experience Vibecamp has a GHB problem and I don't know what credentials their current medic has.

No drug shaming here but I think it's just not a priority for people, early on Vibecamp faced the 'what do we do about substances' problem and I can only speculate on what happens now but at least at the time of Vibecamp 2 I felt like there wasn't a really good handle on it.

TESCREAL is a good place to start from wrt conceptualizing these communities, there are differences between EA and Rats and what they do but there's a ton of crossover. TPOT has been many things since the pandemic but basically the group of Twitter users for mainly rationalists / post rationalists, with some woo people who don't talk about rationalism a lot.

Vibecamp population has also been a lot of things, it was really ambiguous at Vibecamp 1 and 2. Hereticon is an event series put on in Miami by Founders Fund, it became something different (and I didn't go to 2) but 1 was basically a gathering of a lot of cool internet people / some personalities you folks know about who did talks on various things.

Talk about things as you folks want to! I'm in a much better place now and honestly it was that bizarre reaction from these communities that did most of the damage closer to when everything happened.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Thanks so much for telling your story.

Having substance testing and trained medics is definitely important at an event where people want to alter their consciousness. GHB is a new name to me but you definitely need educated staff and clear rules at sexually charged events with substance use. It sounds like these spaces are starting to bring in some harm-reduction practices but terrible things still happen at their events and many leaders still try to cover up and blame victims.

Substance use is hard for me to understand since I have not met these people in person, but some Bay Area Rationalists seemed to think that LSD contributed to some bad situations, and reporters talk about workers and executives using ketamine.

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

GHB is one of many date rape drugs that people also consume recreationally, and yeah i'm not sure why they love it!

ket is definitely the drug of choice in the SF social scene, and wrt psychedelics I think there is not a lot of care put into them / some really childish perceptions of them, the Michael Vassar / Leverage situation is a whole thing but assuming it's as described, ie he was encouraging people to use drugs to 'hack' their own brains it creates a really bad situation wrt consent

honestly i think there's just a lot of untreated mental illness which gets idealized, adding psychedelics on top of that is not a great idea

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Young, confident men (like Internet Libertarians) and sheltered men (like wealthy tech workers and investors) often convince themselves that rules don't apply to them because they can prevent any mistakes with their big beautiful minds, whether that is investing or substance use or firearms safety or kink protocols. Sometimes they get a Darwin Award but other times they hurt other people.

I am glad you are in a healthier place now, breaking away from Rationalism communities can be hard.

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 4 points 38 minutes ago

That's really the best way to put it. The Sequences / Rationalism are based on an assumption they lead to a superior way of thinking (that Rationalists are better than normies), and most of the problems are downstream of that.

[–] self@awful.systems 6 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

I’m glad you’re able to join us. what you went through — both the acts themselves as well as the Rationalists defending each other and ostracizing you afterwards — breaks my heart. I have just a couple of questions for now:

  • are you ok with links to your previous writing on this topic being posted in this thread? this isn’t to establish proof (it’s already abundantly clear that you’re telling the truth, and we know the Rationalists have a history with both committing and systematically excusing SA), it’s just to provide further detail to anyone who wants it.
  • is there anything our community can do to help make it easier to discuss what happened?
[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 1 points 4 hours ago

Thank you for this, I really appreciate it <3

yes please do feel free to reference my work, I'm pretty realistic about the fact that once you talk publicly on something like this it's more or less open season

thank you for asking but I'm in a much better place now and talking about it doesn't bother me as much as it used to

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Seconding this. I'm really grateful that she's willing to talk about this here, and what confirmed stories like this we have show where the Rationalists really cross the line from being cringe and dumb to actively dangerous and malevolent. But also I have to confess that I'm not familiar with what she's written about it previously (or indeed any of her previous writings) and I don't want to ask anything that's been answered already, especially when careless questions risk prodding old pains.

Ed: I have since done the requisite work of a 10-minute google and longer substack dive but will hold off on specific references or links until we get a confirmation that she's okay with that.

Ed2: this is what I get for going straight into the edit without refreshing first. Foot, meet mouth. Egg, meet face. Etc.

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I've written about it from a lot of different angles, this is probably the most 'broad' and covers the entire ecosystem (but is long) : https://theasterisk.substack.com/p/reflecting-on-a-few-very-very-strange

you can check out my other posts if you like, they are more from a personal point of view in terms of what things felt like

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

I actually didn't refresh to see this until after I had read the pair of "A Normie Girl in Rationalist America" posts (Part 1) (Part 2) and wanted to echo the thanks for sharing your experiences.

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 1 points 2 hours ago

thank you <3

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 13 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I thought about it, and I don't think I have any real questions, first I hope your are ok. But that isn't really a question. And secondly I was thinking about how a lot of questions I could ask feel more about me wanting to after a group I dislike than helping a victim out. Even a question like 'Did their internal processes give you support and some justice at least?' is answered by you coming here and offering this AMA.

So, the questions I more have is are you ok? And do you currently have a support network that is helping you out with things?

And for the rest I just think that if you feel like there are things you want to share you should share those (I think looking at your post you seem to want to talk about the harm reduction methods at those events, but not sure. Any important lessons we could take from that?) but don't want to pressure people into that, and also don't think I personally can totally do justice to the severity of situations like that. (which is of course on the problems with the discourse around SA).

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 2 points 4 hours ago

thank you <3

I do have a lot more support now and have kind of come to a good steady state with things for the time being

I obviously have opinions on how Vibecamp handles things and the most direct thing I've ever heard from leadership (separate from this new safety team) is seeing a tweet about how they don't take reports at face value

and again, I would expect to be dragged on social media if I ever said that after someone was SA'd at my festival, I think the main problem is the bubble of unreality that surrounds the bay and that a lot of people there are really sheltered, and often people in positions of responsibility were just the first to put their hand up versus being qualified or able to do the job

ie the eventual safety team reach out included one of their ppl asking me to tell them what investigation vibecamp did, and i found out that they don't tell 'junior members' of the safety team about past things

so i mean imo just really fundamentally unserious and unwilling to admit they need outside help (I think CEA is in this same boat with what happened to Frances Lorenz) and I wouldn't ever bother reporting stuff if I was someone else who was going

wrt harm reduction it's something I've done for many years owing to being involved with canada's drug policy scene and cannabis legalization here, there's so much help available (there are local dancesafe orgs in a lot of places) that I think once your event gets big enough it's negligent to not have a plan around it

I think the thing to take away, if anything, is that you should decide your policy on it early and make it clear: are you searching bags of people who attend or are you providing drug testing on-site? these are extremes obviously but your strategy will flow from one end or the other

you might have to do it creatively based on the current vibe in your state wrt recreational drug use but people openly talk about it on twitter so i don't think there's any excuse for don't ask don't tell policies, those are how people get hurt / die

my big problem, i guess, with how vibecamp is run is this 'illegibility' thing which imo leads to negligence, like you're running a festival where attendees do programming that is a mix betweeen burning man stuff and a rationalist unconference, take that seriously instead of writing manifestos about memes

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Asking this question as a means of opening the door to the topic: given that you've seen some of your work referenced here, are there any corrections/grievances etc. that you have, either specifically towards sneer club or otherwise? Not trying to stir up drama, again, just wanting to open the door for those kinds of thoughts/responses.

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Not really, I wrote what I did because I thought it needed to be said and it's one perspective on things so as I said above, talk about things as you wish.

I don't know if anyone's watched this clip of Alex Jones' condensed views on things https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDa0q9-hmTE but I kind of view Sneer Club has the counterstrike against Rationalism's current unfettered playground (in the circle of truth I don't know a ton about you folks). I respect the difficult job CFAR, CEA and even Vibecamp have to do but their communities are so insular there's just not any accountability when something goes wrong (I would be ousted as a board member from my festival if I ever had done something like ignore someone reporting SA for 2 years).

I guess the only other thing is maybe that I don't think most people in these circles, even the ones I have differences with are intentionally evil or whatever and I wish they had a better way of governance or accountability than public Twitter / LessWrong / etc posts. These social vortexes are really intense and I think if they had more robust internal systems to deal with conflict a lot of stuff wouldn't happen / would get resolved a lot more cleanly.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 1 points 4 hours ago

Specifically, as to the Alex Jones thing, yes it has come up before. RE: everything else, I will have a think before any further response.

[–] lurker@awful.systems 8 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Jeez, I hope you're okay. Do you have any thoughts on the uptick in rationalism and its influence (thanks to AI)?

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 1 points 4 hours ago

doing better thanks <3

I think it's just the subject matter and proximity, MIRI has always been about AI etc and i think it's just the influx of money / power / etc due to how AI achieved escape velocity over the past few years

I think that rationalists are very good at marketing the aesthetics of math and probability without practicing the rigour and their personalities have an 'it' factor which is very influential towards impressionable 20-somethings that are trying to make their names in this era of the wild west

I've talked to other women and on the social side of things it's worse than LA entertainment industry name-drop / transactional culture, I think you have some ppl who are popular for the first time and just fall down this mean girl rabbit hole

ppl are looking for meaning in a time of social upheaval and rationalism gives them a blueprint via the sequences and a sense of belonging, cool parties and a semi-commune compound in lighthaven, it's so easy to get sucked into it (I was a normie with pretty diverse life experience out of tech and I still was)