I appreciate the work that went into this post, but I do think you understate the link between LW and neoreaction. You say:
Gerard’s second project, to create an association in people’s minds between rationalism and neoreaction, was much more ambitious than the first. [...] Rationalists and neoreactionaries, on the other hand, were distinct and well-defined groups, neither of which particularly liked each other.[...] But Gerard had two cards to play: first, a glancing, single-sentence note in an article from the Reliable Source known as TechCrunch that neoreactionaries occasionally “crop-up on tech hangouts like Hacker News and Less Wrong, having cryptic conversations about ‘Moldbug’ and ‘the Cathedral,’”
Assuming this was true at one point, it seems to no longer be the case (and it’s also not a purely online thing anymore) as we could see recently with e.g. Manifest and Yarvin’s afterparty.
I appreciate the work that went into this post, but I do think you understate the link between LW and neoreaction. You say:
Assuming this was true at one point, it seems to no longer be the case (and it’s also not a purely online thing anymore) as we could see recently with e.g. Manifest and Yarvin’s afterparty.