Yvain comments on Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism - Less Wrong

147 Post author: Yvain 13 September 2010 09:36PM

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Comment author: Apprentice 14 September 2010 03:36:29PM 5 points [-]

The pleasure I get out of trolling atheists definitely has a meta-contrarian component to it. When I was a teenager I would troll Christians but I've long since stopped finding that even slightly challenging or fun.

Comment author: Yvain 14 September 2010 07:43:12PM 7 points [-]

Yes, I often find myself tempted to do that too. Although I understand on an intellectual level that creationism is stupid, it is hard for me to get worked up about it and I certainly don't have the energy to argue with creationists ad nauseum. I do find myself angry whenever an atheist makes a superficial or stupid point in defense of atheism, or when they get too smug about how much smarter they are than creationists.

My guess is that I have a sufficiently inflated view of my intelligence to be high enough that I have no need to differentiate myself intellectually from creationists, but I do feel a need to differentiate myself intellectually from the less intelligent sort of atheist.