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 3 weeks 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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[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 14 points 3 weeks 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 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

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

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

yikes

that feels/across as an intentional way to set that team up for future failure (and, at a guess, sets up a plausible excuse to yeet participants when they fuck up, combined with making things disappear)

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 5 points 3 weeks ago

It's possible but I think they just don't know what they're doing.

I think for event organizers there's a point at which you realize 'this is beyond us' and one of two things happens: you take some money from the nice to have pile and use it to make up that gap, or you learn at the expense of other people and I've never really been able to understand the decision process that leads to the latter.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

Anna Salamon confessed to hiding information from subordinates at CFAR before COVID to control them, and Duncan Sabien complained about a former employer (probably CFAR) making promises to keep him onboard then secretly breaking them. One thing that pisses me off about this space that there is the refusal to learn and change after people got hurt. I don't know what happened between Yudkowsky and his live-in protégé, or him and Jeffrey Epstein, but someone with those experiences should not be talking about sexual misconduct and abuse of power like he talks about it in 2026.

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

ty, I've heard her name here and there but didn't look too deeply into a lot of CFAR internals.

My master theory has become that there are really two groups of people, impressionable children in adult bodies, and a lot of people who have become post-economic via something else (startup exits, sex work, poker championships) and that gets used as social proof when it comes to convincing people they know what they're doing in other areas.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

That is why it is important hearing from people who have been in these spaces, because my impression was that the leading writers and organizers rely on wage or freelance income, often funded by grants and donations but sometimes by venture capital like when Substack gives bonuses to Scott Alexander. Many of them have jobs they love which pay USD $100k-600k/yr but I thought that below the very-rich (Thiel, Tallinn, McClave) only Curtis Yarvin was both living off capital and someone anyone outside the scene has heard of. However, I don't want to lead this conversation away from your experiences of sexual assault and poor responses by rationalists.

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 5 points 2 weeks ago

I think it's an important thing to be generally aware of; MIRI pays Yud ~600k/yr as chair of the board, emergent ventures gives out a lot of grants to adjacent ppl, etc

There's a lot of in-network stuff that happens too ie chaosprime was in a position to give vibecamp 18K, so I think the money part is important as it might allow some of the worst ppl to buy their way out of trouble

[–] self@awful.systems 9 points 3 weeks 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?
[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks 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 6 points 3 weeks 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 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks 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 2 points 3 weeks ago

thank you <3

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 6 points 3 weeks 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

[–] lurker@awful.systems 9 points 3 weeks 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 6 points 3 weeks 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)

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 7 points 3 weeks 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 3 weeks 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 2 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] corbin@awful.systems 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I hope that you've gotten to see a compassionate side of our community which is usually obscured by our existential requirement to critique rationalism. I would like to see an end to abuse and cults, and I worry that I'm not working enough towards that goal. Without asking you to animate any particular grievance, what more would you see us do? In particular, what inaction of ours frustrates you?

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

yes thank you <3

I think that in general there just needs to be more institutional attention on the situation that exists and every time I've talked to a journo there's been a point at 'this needs more national importance' and sadly sexual violence by community group members doesn't do it (and TIME / Bloomberg has already covered a lot of it)

I think an unfortunate truth is that there's only so much critique can do, ie I could write another 5 blogs on what happened to me and it's not really going to change anything. Vibecamp leadership has come down with a firm stance of not taking reports of sexual violence at face value and people can decide whether to attend based on that statement. The only thing that would make them really change is a civil lawsuit and any woman who does would face immense blowback (a friend of mine had a very publicized case in another group of people which she won, but she was insanely blacklisted in her industry).

When it comes to Rationalism in general, there is just too much money involved and it's the same problem of women coming forward about things that happen at Lighthaven wrt blowback. Fucked up things happening are also just normalized for them, from Brent Dill to Michael Vassar to Zizians, and Lighthaven becoming a creator house via https://www.plzdontkillus.com/ is happening because they realize they need better PR.

So I guess all of this is to say I don't think there's a lot SneerClub can do besides being data points for people curious about Rationalism that research it, reading between the lines of what journalists have told me they need a group of women to come forward and put their names behind their accusations or there has to be some bombshell money trail / scandal beyond what TIME / Bloomberg have reported on.

Staying on the right side of mentioning names I have personal grievances with: People in that ecosystem are talented at getting favourable media coverage and winning the narrative, there's not a lot to be done in the face of that other than try to give people a heads up on what they're walking into. Some will listen, some won't.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I fear that it will be like the lawsuits against churches in Canada or the Society for Creative Anachronism in the USA, where after decades of covering up for child abuse some survivors got some justice. It would have been better for everyone if they had just stopped and changed their policies the first time someone got hurt.

Content creator houses are new to me. Even Ozy Brennan suggested that there would be less situations like Leverage Research and the Zizians if rationalists stopped living in group homes and made sure to have social connections outside the movement.

I am glad you have some help and support in Vancouver, please let us know if there is anything else you would like us to do.

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 3 points 2 weeks ago

ty <3

i agree, and I think the 'AI is going to kill us so yolo' attitude from influential people is mainly why problems are avoided or hidden

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 7 points 3 weeks 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 8 points 3 weeks 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 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks 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 6 points 3 weeks ago (3 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 6 points 3 weeks 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 9 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

random memory time!

I recall one of the people from the original rave generation here (ZA) once telling me about them taking GHB in combination with something else (I forget what), with a positively-framed comment of “it makes you feel like your eyes are aflame” — never understood the appeal, especially for that. so much so I’ve never even wanted to look the compound up on psychonautwiki

the rest of your remarks wrt goings on over in the bay area echo impressions I’ve gotten from things. kinda surprised to hear ket is that big - any idea how recent it is? I wonder whether it came about following from the findings around ket as a positive treatment for depression?

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 5 points 3 weeks ago

I think it's definitely downstream of SV's brief love affair with psychedelics (publicly), ket clinics for depression, etc.

I didn't really start attending parties there until 2022 but I think it's been the nose candy of choice for that set for a while.

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 3 points 2 weeks ago

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

it shares some of bits of appeal with alcohol and benzos. some people also use it to ride out stimulant comedown, or at least to catch some sleep after stimulant use, and this goes for regular stimulants of amphetamine type but also for ketamine (and psychedelics. not sure how much crossover is out there, but it might be a different type of user). i heard that it also has some anabolic effect, but using it for pre-workout would be unwise

i don't know what kind of approach to workplace drug testing is/was out there, but ghb/gbl is a combination of being rather polar and having no chromophore which all else equal, means that its detection is harder/different compared to other drugs, and being metabolized quickly and also being formed naturally at low levels, which means that detection window is short. ghb lacks groups that typically react with reagent-type tests and instead custom-made strip tests are needed, or lab testing

there also might be general mindset that they're so rational, that it's impossible for them to use drugs in harmful ways (famous last words). some people just think of it as an another tool in their toolbox, and figure out that something is wrong only when they wake up strapped to a bed, with half of their face burned and iv line attached, in a psych ward two countries over, if ever

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

One thing I found really interesting in your recent more reflective writing was part of your experience with hereticon 1:

I think one of the hardest things you can do, and the greatest gifts you can give someone, is give the situation to them straight when they invite you somewhere. I would realize later that the ‘protection’ I felt in a lot of left-leaning circles was a lot more transitory and a lot less honest than what the supposedly irredeemable far-right conference had done for me.

One thing that I see in some broadly left-leaning communities when engaging with some of these concerns is to effectively dismiss the women who have been victimized, often with some reference to the face-eating leopard party. (This doesn't seem to happen as much here at awful.systems, which is one of many things I'll say in favor of our community's standards and practices of moderation and whatever else). This is obviously cruel and unfair to those women, but I want to ask about the underlying idea that the way that these social groups or organizations treat women who talk about SA in those communities is consistent with their general political ideologies, since it seems like there's something missing from that idea beyond the simple lack of empathy.

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 5 points 3 weeks ago

yeah i mean it's complex i think!

in general there is a code of silence and social harmony is always favoured, and i am actually a little torn on 'illegibility': it does make for cool spaces but it allows ppl in those spaces to avoid problems by never really stating those values

ie communities that don't have 'we support victims of sexual violence' codified anywhere and it's just an assumed thing which often turns out not to be true, normies handle it poorly, rationalists/etc handle it really poorly, i think Kathy Forth was really right in that you have to specifically want to handle it well to actually do that otherwise you are very likely to do more harm than good to vulnerable women

a major boggle I have is that there are some very bright lines in civil law as to what an event must do, especially that when drugs and alcohol or present they must plan for sexual assault happening and it just seems like there's no awareness of reality even when events have a lawyer

i think it's just that the stars have not yet aligned for someone to have a relatively winnable case such that these communities will be forced to have a reckoning because of the laws of the default world (this is why I'm very bearish on network states now, I've seen how they can be used as a way to dodge legal obligations)

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 4 points 2 weeks ago

There is a lot to process in your story because I am not familiar with all of these people and events. Sometimes Kill Yourself has a paragraph:

The people in the Canadian drug policy scene were infinitely better humans than most of those I met in San Francisco. There weren’t many, if any, vortexes of money, sex and power to make people crazy.

Canada has plenty of pockets of evil, from remote reserves where everyone knows who is abusing a child, to board rooms where corporations fleece the public and spend just enough on dividends and lobbyists to keep Parliament happy. But the Rationalist / EA / TPOT/ tech-bro space seems messed up and I hope people see that it is not safe and there are plenty of other scenes with articulate people or drugs or kink or whatever you are in to without all these sleazebags and grifters.