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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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https://benthams.substack.com/p/hordes-of-vultures-descend-on-bostrom

Bentham’s Bulldog discusses a recent apology letter from Nick Bostrom for saying the n-word as well as saying that blacks have lower average intelligence in an offensive way in the mid-nineties. Bostrom also says in the apology letter that he’s not really a supporter of eugenics as some claim. Despite apologizing, Bostrom is attacked still for reiterating he believes in IQ gaps and “handwaving” about eugenics.

The truth (cognitive and criminality differences) is in fact soft-racist using any non-perverted form of human morality.

The woke understand this (not it's truth value, but the logical conclusion if it were true) but their primary loyalty is to the black race so they'd rather enshrine it and it's vices as holy than see racism return. This shared moral assesment is why there was so little resistance from classical liberals to the woke takeover.

Rationalists (the top ones) are too smart to deny HBD (scientific racism), but being [insult against ingroup removed], they see nothing wrong with hurting good people who like them to help bad people (and their asociates) who hate them as long as total utilons increase. They are in fact offended that the woke would think they'd consider doing anything else. We've reached C.S Lewis reductio ad absurdum of total moral relativism, a previously implausible country in which "a man feels proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him". Conservatives are... irrelevant. They conserve whatever morality they are handed down, no matter how perverse and anti-racism as the raison d'etre of America was established long ago. Now they can't resist it, except by reifing it "Democrats are the real racists"!

I assume you're the same lepidus on the EA forum?

On the contrary, he's the same Lepidus as the one here on The Motte.

This is a whole lot of weakmanning. Stop making broad generalizations about "the woke" and rationalists without putting a lot more effort into substantiating your uncharitable hot takes.

I don't understand what more I'm supposed to do here. That's "perverted", is my opinion about a moral vision that tallies up total pleasure and suffering while ignoring whether it's experienced by a good person or a bad person. I believe low IQ and a temperamental disposition towards hurting others are bad traits, and that those posessing them have lower value. Rationalists regularly acknowledge that yes IQ differences exist, read and agree with Steve Sailer, and then mention how knowing all this doesn't change their moral assesment in any way. I suppose "moral mutants" was a bit harsh and I will remove it. My apologies.

You can state your opinions about perverted moral visions and rationalist thinking, but statements like "(the wokes') primary loyalty is to the black race so they'd rather enshrine it and it's vices as holy than see racism return" is certainly not true (at best, it's an uncharitable description of some woke people), and slipping in the crack about "the black race ... and its vices" is also sloppy and uncharitable. (It's one thing to talk about HBD, it's another to just baldly denigrate an entire group. Lots of people want to say things about Jews and blacks and wokes and Trump supporters and Muslims and Republicans and Democrats, and we do not look kindly on any statement that can be summarized as "They suck, all of them."). And yes, calling people "moral mutants" falls into the same category. You can talk about specific people or beliefs that you think fall into the category of "moral mutant." Saying "rationalists are moral mutants" is not specific.

but their primary loyalty is to the black race

I don't see how anyone could look at their rhetoric or their behavior and reasonably come to this conclusion. Seems to me that their primary loyalty (if one can call it that) is to politics.

It's actually pretty simple. The early liberal position was that blacks could and would reach equality with whites after the removal of discrimination and imposition of temporary positive discrimination. While some screwups were made early on - In the 90s, the Clintons and Joe Biden joined black leaders in pushing mandatory minimums and heavy law enforcement in black neighbourhoods, under the theory that neglect, tolerance of criminality, and retrograde welfare policies were the form of the racism that was keeping blacks down. And yet, inequality while reduced, wasn't fixed.

Blacks born to families making 200K were getting SAT scores equal to whites in families making 20K. The children of rich blacks were still going to jail at rates comparable to poor whites. At this point liberals could either:

  1. Choose to tolerate a world in which the vast majority of blacks, being judged by their actual abilities, would be found unequal to whites.

  2. Upgrade positive discrimination into pure anti-white racial hatred, crushing the white kulaks, taking their resources and representation in elite institutions away and giving these to blacks. Meanwhile, tar every positive white trait and figure as inherently evil (objectivity is white supremacy), while praising their black counterparts.

I don't need to mention which one they chose.

Qualifier: While Blacks are near the top of the totem pole, they are often outcompeted by other members of the Democratic coalition, which it needs to guarantee it's permanent power. Nonetheless, the fractures aren't as severe as anticipated. Latinos don't exactly like blacks, but they can deal with them through extra-political means while allying with them to continue squeezing whites.

"...their primary loyalty (if one can call it that) is to politics."

If it was, they'd take up a Bill Clinton style Law and Order campaign and pare it with at least making noises about immigration while pursuing extreme wealth redistribution and of course taking their cut at every step of the way. But more intuitively, do you think Dems are pushing trans kids because they think it polls well?

How, as our resident Christian, is it so hard for you to understand that people might be genuinely and unselfishly committed to an evil vision, for it's own sake.

And even outside of politics, it sure seems like transgenders/non-binaries/other gender minorities come above blacks.