Fake answer: at some point in rat history they thought that Armenian people were genetically superior and decided to take traditional Armenian surnames as their handles, but they both simultaneously and serendipitously bungled the spelling. The names should actually be “Yvian” (pronounced yiv-yahn) and “Iarwian” (pronounced ee-arh-wee-yahn)
Real answer: probably a tolkien elvish name idk
actually I found this ancient text online that helps explain everything:
On his mighty steed Oververbosity, Eliezer is fast approaching the cliff edge overlooking the dreaded Chasm of Unreadability. His desire to cram more words and IQfulness into his text has deafened him to the wails of the Ghost of Editors Past, begging him to at least paste into Google Docs and fix a few squigglies.
In a moment of rational brilliance, he casts Bayesian Reasoning and epiphanisationalises that he can Just Add Metainfo to every line, exponentially increasing his QLAWPW (quality of life adjusted words per word), making him The Greatest Author. His loyal mount leaps into the air over the abyss, buoyed by clouds of self-delusion.
Of course, he crashes and falls into the chasm. But what's this? The miasma of unreadability... it's more clouds of self-delusion generated by the cult of TREACLES! He rises, unscathed, head three sizes bigger than before.^1^
1: Scholars are divided on whether this is because the toxic miasma mutated his sense of self-worth or if he hit his head on the chasm floor and it swelled. We will never know.
is this written by a grown man or a 14 year old emo kid
yes
(the MC is jughead from Riverdale lel)
Yeah, it's both impenetrable and punishing, which I think is in part due to the glowfic format (which I am new to). There's even a glowfic primer from LW!.
There is romance, there is sex, there are deliberately bad kink practices whose explicit purpose is to get people to actually hurt somebody else
The fact that this isn’t just a ratfic of My Immortal is cowardice to the highest degree
Also, I will mention it every time it comes up: “dath ilan” is an anagram of thailand and there just has to be a reason, dammit.
Ok, so to be clear, I would (perhaps naively) prefer it if we didn't have charities/NGOs and that governments would handle solving problems and helping people entirely. Of course, this is reductive; there are probably plenty of spaces where NGOs and charities are better suited for approaching some issues.
That being said, while money (or a lack thereof) is the main issue in solving many problems, you still need all kinds of work to make it effective. In the case of malaria prevention, a cause EA deems to be cost-effective, you still need to pay staff to carry out logistics to deliver whatever nets or vaccines you buy with money. You wouldn't want someone incompetent at the helm; that could cause your cost-effectiveness to go down. And how do you incentivize competent people to stay in leadership positions? There are plenty of ways, but executive bonuses will be at the top of that list.
Anyway, my main issue with EA has gotta be how it launders false morality and money into morality. The false morality is the X-risk shit. The money is the money from working in tech.
smug particles
Goddamn rats and their smug particles! (jk)
Thanks for bringing up the dogwhistles. We haven’t talked about the dog whistles enough here. My fave has gotta be him bringing up the school shooting one.
Scott: "Hmm, the reputation of the EA community that I am part of and love for some reason is tanking, due to the bad actions of its luminaries. What can I do to help? I know, I'll bring up 9/11"
Empty room: "..."
"And I'll throw out some made up statistics about terrorist attacks and how statistically we were due for a 9/11 and we overreacted by having any response whatsoever. And then I'll show how that's the same as when someone big in EA does something bad."
"..."
"Especially since it's common for people to, after a big scandal, try and push their agenda to improve things. We definitely don't want that."
"..."
"Also, on average there's less SA in STEM, and even though there is still plenty of SA, we don't need to change anything, because averages."
"..."
"Anyway, time for dexy no. 5"
tbh, weird energy coming from your responses, I am now disengaging.
true, just, something you don’t “necessarrily agree with” is a weird hill to die on
OTOH the format reminds me of having to read the pesterchum parts of homestuck, which is why I stopped reading it