Also because if you don't have a Twitter/X account or aren't logged in, you can't see the thread, only the initial tweet.

I like the reduced emotionality of LessWrong, but in this case it seems to me that socially excluding someone is inherently hurtful in a way that no website's social norms can override. And I'm not even convinced that if you could eliminate the sting of sneering entirely that you should. But if you wanted to, how would you recommend someone take actions that cause people to dismiss a comment without being sneering? Or even harder, to dismiss a person entirely?

I'm not sure about that. If you're engaging at the object-level, you're not dismissing. If you indicate that something is meta-level not valuable, that seems very hard to do non-hurtfully, since social exclusion is inherently hurtful. And maybe should be appropriately hurtful.

To mock or deride to make other people think less of the target of the sneering. The effect is to cause the community to dismiss the thing that was sneered at, if the sneering is successful.

Sorry, maybe we are miscommunicating; I don't think the act of softening your speech itself is sneering. Rather, I think you can appear to speak fairly politely and still be sneering. Subtle sneering, which is common on sites like LessWrong where unsubtle sneering is taboo.

As for inserting qualifiers: he who excuses himself accuses himself.

I acknowledge the possibility of having disagreements on the object level, I'm just trying to put forward the idea that sometimes higher-level disagreements are actually valuable, and that a community that only has object-level discussions would be overrun by bullshitters.

Polite, impolite -- it's all sneering. If I tell someone their post sucks, it doesn't matter whether I say it in so many words, or I use my manners and dress it up. I'm attempting to socially exclude them at the meta-level, rather than engaging with the post at the object level. (Different are the cases where someone actually breaks down at an object level what's wrong with someone's post, which I would not count as sneering!)

It's hard to have an object-level disagreement with you here without any in-context examples, but I'll say I'm very certain this sort of thing happens constantly on LessWrong, as everywhere. I don't think I'm just some oversensitive lunatic reading emotional overtones that aren't there. In general, the idea people are blind to social games is a lot more believable to me than that people are seeing them where they don't exist, since most social games happen unconsciously and ego-dystonically. I'm sure you don't believe you play such games, and I'm sure you're wrong. (Your use of italics betrays you!)

I can't speak to the specific case here, but I object to the anti-sneering sentiment in the comments here. I am pro-sneering (in moderation!) and think sneering is more than a zero-sum social signaling game.

In defense of sneering:

Too much sneering gets in the way of productive conversation, as does too little sneering. Sneering is how communities mark posts/comments/people as not worth engaging with. If you don't sneer, the bullshitters take over. You can't just respond to bullshitters with logical arguments, because they'll make ten posts in the time it takes you to respond to one, throwing up a smokescreen of bullshit you can never disperse.

When I sneer, I am saying "I think this post should be ignored." How the person responds to the sneer is important, as usually it's fairly uncertain whether a person should be excluded. A genuine, thoughtful response or a lighthearted quip is enough to defuse the sneer, whereas getting defensive, aggressive, or spewing further bullshit fails the "sneer test" in front of the audience. (The challenge-response nature of sneering is also a social game that is enjoyable beyond its mere utility in enforcing social norms, too. Enjoyable unless you're the type of person who would fail the sneer test!)

On Substack I recently sneered someone. (I was probably being overly bitchy even for the much more sneer-tolerant culture of Substack, but whatever.) I sneered, and they sneered back. Essentially, what they were signalling was: "You're testing me, but I don't see why I shouldn't be testing you. Your sneer test seems low-effort and not worth a serious response." After a bit of back and forth, I eventually said, "I tried to think of a comeback in the shower but I couldn't think of one, so I'll concede here." I lost the social status game of seeing who can outwit the other, but still passed the sneer test by being the sort of person who isn't emotionally captured by internet comments, or the sort of person who always has to be right. They responded, "Maybe we'll just be friends instead," thereby passing the sneer test themselves. "Seems that's the only option remaining," I finished. There was no object-level discussion in this case. I wasn't interested enough in the object-level discussion to return to it. But I would have been more willing to have an object-level discussion with this person in the future. Without this kind of sneering, I think object-level discussions become hard because you can't sort out who is worth taking seriously.

I don't think hard anti-sneering taboos work. They just drive sneering to become more subtle. LessWrong probably has less sneering than other platforms, but not much less. It's just a subtle-sneer culture. "Yeah, nice try buddy, but you don't know what you're talking about" wouldn't fly here (thankfully), but there's a lot of "I think this conclusion requires a more delicate analysis" (read: your analysis sucks) or "Please help me understand what I'm missing" (maybe genuine, but often meaning: "I'm pretty sure I haven't missed anything, and I want to signal that your criticism is unfounded by challenging you to provide justification you won't be able to").

Keep in mind sneering is a social behaviour and usually unconscious, so just because you don't think you're sneering doesn't mean you're not. Sneering may also have a plausible-sounding conscious justification ("I'm just asking for further clarification") at odds with the true unconscious justification. Especially in cultures like LessWrong's where naked sneering isn't tolerated, and sneering is thereby ego-dystonic.

Rather than being against sneering altogether, I'm against sneering when it's overly hostile, or when it too-often gets in the way of a productive object-level discussion (see: Twitter). There should in fact be a way to say "I don't think you've done your homework on this subject," or "Your critique is shallow and not worth responding to." I've heard people on LessWrong complain about feeling obligated to respond to even low-quality comments on their posts, because they look bad if they don't respond. Sneer! The answer is to sneer!

(I think Twitter might seem like a contradiction. It's a community with a lot of sneering and which is overrun with bullshitters. But the core community on Twitter are people who like bullshit and sneer to reinforce it. Sneering is a way for a community to exclude people who threaten the community's values, for better or for worse.)

Being on the receiving end of a good sneer isn't that bad if you don't take yourself too seriously, and the sneer isn't too hostile. Getting sneered is how you learn. Yeah, maybe I didn't put enough thought into that comment. Maybe that was overconfident. Okay, maybe I was being a dick there. Maybe I am full of shit this time. If every conversation happens at the object-level only, you're not getting any meta-level feedback. (Maybe you think you can invent some way of giving meta-level feedback on a stranger's post without sneering, but that sort of thing is usually equally emotionally hurtful to be on the receiving end of as a sneer, or even moreso, and I don't think you should discard the sneering Chesterton's fence until you're certain your way of delivering meta-level feedback is better.)

(Here is an example of me sneering someone on LessWrong what I believe to be an appropriate amount, for reference. I think my touch was too light, maybe, but only a bit. The parent is an example of what not to do.)

I'm not great with eye contact myself. I was planning at some point to burn some willpower for a few weeks to make it a priority, in the hopes it's easier after that.

I think I did activate these muscles too. Basically, I did a smile, and then moreso.