This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Another day, another Guardian hit job.
The title reads "Sam Bankman-Fried funded a group with racist ties. FTX wants its $5m back"
Take a moment to form a hypothesis about what kind of group this could be. The KKK? Some fringe right-wingers? An Israeli lobby group?
Turns out their target of the day is Lightcone Infrastructure. Lightcone is running lesswrong, which is a grandparent of themotte.
I personally have only heard of lightcone in context of TracingWoodgrains' writings on the Nonlinear investigation conducted by Ben Pace and Oliver Habryka. (TIL that this is a name different from the handle of a former motte mod. In my defense, I did not read a lot from either of them. Blame my racist brain.)
Of course Trace's critique could not be more different from what the Guardian writes about lightcone.
They start off by linking the NYT article on Scott Alexander. I think it is the one where they tried to doxx him. Apparently the NYT does not like my adblocker or something, the only think I get (besides a picture which indicates that the NYT designers have way too much time on their hand) is the text "Silicon Valley’s Safe Space -- Slate Star Codex was a window into the psyche of many tech leaders building our collective future. Then it disappeared." -- I guess that is one way to phrase it. Of course, the Guardian gleefully doxxes Scott again, not that anyone cares (but it's the thought that counts).
Robin Hanson is apparently misogynistic. From the linked article, I would say it is either being tone-deaf or intentionally courting controversy. He even has sympathy for incels. The nerve of that man!
Apparently they found no dirt on Eliezer, which to me seems like a failure of investigative journalism. EY has written a lot more than the six lines Cardinal Richelieu would have required.
Then they come to the "extreme figures" present at Manifest 2024.
Jonathan Anomaly is apparently pro eugenics. Never heard of him. However, given that anything from "select embryos which do not have a genetic disease" to "encourage smart and successful people to have kids" can be called eugenics, and given that the article would cite the most damning quotation, I will assume that he is not a Nazi.
Razib Khan is a
journalistscientist and writer who got kicked out of the NYT because he wrote for some "paleoconservative" magazine. This matters only if you think that failing the NYT ideological purity test is some kind of fatal character flaw.I vaguely recall Stephen Hsu being discussed on slatestarcodex and from what I remember my conclusion was that he got cancelled for a lack of ideological purity -- calling for research into increasing human intelligence is not acceptable, and talking about race differences is even less acceptable.
Brian Chau is apparently an e/acc and thus probably the most controversial person from my personal point of view. But then, engaging in honest discussion with advocates of other positions is generally a good thing, so if Lighthaven is more inclusive than Aella's birthday party, I am kinda fine with it.
Of course, the narrative would not be complete without the specter of antisemitism, here in the form of a quote "[Hsu is] often been a bridge between fairly explicit racist and antisemitic people [...]". I think the rationalist community is a bad place for antisemites for the same reason why the marathon Olympics are a bad place for white supremacists.
In the end, the plug for this story -- lightcone having received money from SBF -- has no bearing on the bulk of the article, which is about how icky these ratsphere nerds are. It does not matter if SBF donated to the Save Drowning Puppies Foundation or to the Feed Puppies to Alligators Alliance -- either the donations can be kept or not.
Edit: fixed Khan's profession.
I'm not sure what to make of this hostility towards the article. What about it is wrong, exactly?
By normie ideological purity standards sympathy for incels from a man is misogynistic. Pro-HBD guys like Razib Khan and Stephen Hsu are racist. By objective measure standards, wanting smart and beautiful people to have more children is eugenic.
Reaching verboten conclusions through 'rational means' on topics long decided by the 'ruling class' doesn't protect you from the consequences. Even if you always imagined yourself an enlightened rationalist far above the boorish outcasts that, unlike you, must have reached these very same racist conclusions through some dark age anti-rationalist sorcery.
Though I doubt this will lead anywhere, as this sort of reporting is usually just about petty politics and interpersonal relations between the uncool kids from school, I wouldn't mind it actually doing some damage. Why should this group of smarts be exempt from the contempt of mainstream society? They have certainly proven themselves to being no better morally.
It seems like some humbling is in order. After all, the very same 'rationalist sphere' in question has proven time and time again that they stand firmly behind the principles of 'racism bad', 'misogyny bad' and all the rest. By what mechanism do they propose to defend themselves after their better part falls firmly on the wrong side of these things? Like, does it need spelling out to these big brained luminaries of ours? You can't call an entire race of people stupid just because you understand statistics and studied psychology. It doesn't matter how nuanced and detailed your blogpost is. Some wordcel is just going to copy paste your conclusion and now you're no better than the evil racists you spent 15 paragraphs trying to distance yourself from. And you know what? The wordcel is right! You did reach the same conclusion, after all.
Here is a Twitter thread listing some of the factual inaccuracies. https://x.com/ohabryka/status/1802563541633024280
Hsu claims no knowledge of cognitive differences between races caused by genetics. Has he said something different elsewhere? https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-controversial-views.html
To use Hsu's own words in a different context:
Sorry, Hsu, but claiming a neutral position on certain topics doesn't cut it.
Maybe as I grow older I also grow more stupid but I feel like a lot of people really needed that article by Eric Turkheimer on why race science is objectionable. Claiming that your interest is purely scientific or whatever isn't good enough. Because the wrong discoveries can do a lot of damage. You need to meet the moral/ideological/philosophical underpinnings of the progressive worldview head on. Otherwise you have no relevant objection to them crushing you when you go too far astray.
This article sucks. As a congenital leftist who doesn't like racism per se but has been convinced as to the validity of HBD, I was expecting something worth reading rather than "These beliefs are offensive because... you know, they just are, there's no point examining this further." This article isn't an attempt at explaining why race science is objectionable, it just assumes that it is and then proceeds from there. Yes, I know that answering these questions might make some people feel bad. That's not actually a reason to continually lie about it and engage in efforts at restorative justice that are doomed to fail because they're based on motivated thinking rather than a look at the evidence. If my car is refusing to start, should I simply ignore the fuel gauge showing empty because I don't want to believe that I'm out of gas and spend tons of money taking my car to mechanics to figure out the problem?
There's actually a lot of evidence that could settle this! The problem isn't that no scientific evidence proving Tabula Rasa is accepted, but that every single time you actually do the experiment you end up with evidence proving the opposite or a paper that doesn't replicate. What even is the point of raising this as a hypothetical when in other places in the article he flat out admits that his own side should ignore evidence in favour of ethical concerns? He's also destroyed his own ability to prevent that evidence - why exactly should I trust an article written by someone who says that on this particular topic it is a moral imperative to lie if the facts don't match up to his ideology?
No, it isn't fucking safe to say that! Watson would absolutely know more about genetics and evolution than Eric Turkheimer, or me, or most of the people on the motte. Hell, I will flat out say that I know more about genetics than Turkheimer despite his years of study, because in this article he doesn't even seem to know how genes work (see his section on how the legacy of slavery is why African americans do worse on IQ tests). Of course, I think there's a decent chance that he is aware and is simply lying about it - after all, the position he takes is that this is a matter of morality rather than evidence, so it doesn't matter what the facts say.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link