site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31231 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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.

14
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Bird, for all his faults, is working in genetics, and is better-acquainted with the relevant literature than 95-99% of people pontificating on race and IQ. This isn't about domain experts: this is about the popular sentiment of EAs. IQ differences were common knowledge. I observe this changing.

People may feel arbitrarily strongly about racism, but Bostrom's claim was and is factual, and he is called out for not repudiating it. He maintains that Black people have lower IQs, and is not saved by couching it in polite, defensive and academic verbiage. They're not merely arguing that the attitude of his original text is inexcusable – they're saying he has not budged on the substance of that «racism».

Edit: here's a good example.

These views are widely repudiated, are based on a long history of racist pseudoscience and must be rejected, especially given their recent rise in popularity. By contrast, we will see in our examination of Bostrom’s apology that Bostrom not only endorses these views, but also leaves room for exactly the sort of pseudoscientific explanation that the rest of us have learned to condemn for what it is: scientific racism.

The view that racial differences in intelligence exist, have a genetic basis, and in fact explain racism was openly expressed by at least one other commentator, who was defended rather than attacked for expressing it.

As we have seen, that is not a fair characterization of the Extropians’ activities. Extropians at the time were actively involved in expressing and disseminating a range of offensive, racist and bigoted views. Bostrom’s email from 1996 should be read in the same context as any of these other expressions, as part of a movement suffused with bigotry that took its activities from the internet onto college campuses with a direct intention to intimidate almost half of the incoming MIT freshman class and cause them to feel unwelcome and undeserving of their status on campus.

A user recently submitted a comment which drew on the racist and scientifically dubious writings of Dr. Philippe Rushton and Dr. Arthur Jensen to argue that we should leave open the possibility of a significant IQ gap between racial groups grounded in underlying genetic causes.

Rushton’s own department issued the following statement characterizing his work:

[some goobledygook]

The article by Rushton and Jensen cited by this commentator (to which I will not link) was immediately repudiated by the scientific community. A response by the eminent psychologist Richard Nisbett showed:

J. P. Rushton and A. R. Jensen (2005) ignore or misinterpret most of the evidence of greatest relevance to the question of heritability of the Black–White IQ gap. A dispassionate reading of the evidence on the association of IQ with degree of European ancestry for members of Black populations, convergence of Black and White IQ in recent years, alterability of Black IQ by intervention programs, and adoption studies lend no support to a hereditarian interpretation of the Black–White IQ gap. On the contrary, the evidence most relevant to the question indicates that the genetic contribution to the Black–White IQ gap is nil.

Nisbett, “Heredity, environment, and race differences in IQ: A commentary on Rushton and Jensen (2005)“

This blog is not, and will never become a forum for airing discredited scientific theories in the support of racist ideology.

It looks like the time has come for me to introduce a comments policy to prevent future misbehavior. Comments are closed on this thread. If you want to discuss the content of this post, email me at ineffectivealtruismeditor@gmail.com.

Note how he cleverly (not really) shifts from IQ difference to genetics.

... huh, lukas gloor claims

Given the above, it seems possible to me that genetic influences also play a role. It seems plausible on priors (would be a coincidence if all groups are the same in all regards), we have some precedent for group differences (I think the research on Ashkenazi jews having higher average IQ is less controversial?), and it can't fill you with confidence in the other position when we can observe how some people are morally confused so they think the topic is so politically dangerous that they feel the need to lie about things (e.g., in the Sam Harris context, but also recent EA twitter threads I've seen go in that direction).

to positive score

Look, I'm not saying that blank slatism/IQ equality is an undisputed consensus. But you point to old hands, people who are aware of what I call common knowledge. This is the new school of EA.

The situation is developing quickly. I wonder what the equilibrium willl be. Probably the same one we had on /r/slatestarcodex post HBD and CW ban, mutatis mutandis.

I thought that account was satire but I guess not.

Repeat after me: "I unequivocally reject all forms of racist pseudoscience" and "people of color are not genetically inferior to anyone else". They are simple words. Say them.

Atheists would rather say that than the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of Light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end.

Reading most of today's EA forum posts, quite a few, including some from rationalists, take the various nuanced positions - "IQ differences are real but genetic differences aren't", from AnonymousCommentator to 82 upaltruisms, citing an APA report.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/frcAPFXwiCpNrECgQ/a-general-comment-on-discussions-of-genetic-group

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kuqgJDPF6nfscSZsZ/thread-for-discussing-bostrom-s-email-and-apology

Several 'open discourse is important' arguments, the usual 'IQ differences have no moral worth so rebutting racist claims by claiming differences don't exist misses the point', oliver habryka claiming that

Saying "all people count equally" is not a core belief of EA, and indeed I do not remember hearing it seriously argued for a single time in my almost 10 years in this community (which is not surprising, since it indeed doesn't really hold any water after even just a tiny bit of poking

I (and my guess is also almost all extrapolations of the EA philosophy) value people approximately equally in impact estimates because it looks like the relative moral patienthood of different people, and the basic cognitive makeup of people, does not seem to differ much between different populations, not because I have a foundational philosophical commitment to impartiality. If it was the case that different human populations did differ on the relevant dimensions a lot, this would spell a real moral dilemma for the EA community, with no deep philosophical commitments to guard us from coming to uncomfortable conclusions (luckily, as far as I can tell, in this case almost all analyses from an EA perspective lead to the conclusion that it's probably reasonable to weigh people equally in impact estimates, which doesn't conflict with society's taboos, so this is not de-facto a problem).

I do think the broader questions around engineering beings capable of achieving heights of much greater experience, or self-modifying in that direction, as well as the construction of artificial minds where its a huge open question what moral consideration we should extend them, are quite important, and something about your comment feels like it's making that conversation harder.

This coexists of course with stuff like bostrom is racist, which is basically being sexist, and as a woman that is not okay

also, from miles brundage, "Policy stuff at @openai"

Generalizing a lot, it seems that "normie EAs" (IMO correctly) see glaring problems with Bostrom's statement and want this incident to serve as a teachable moment so the community can improve in some of the respects above, and "rationalist-EAs" want to debate race and IQ (or think that the issue is so minor/"wokeness-run-amok-y" that it should be ignored or censored).

I barely knew about EA until a few years ago, so I wouldn't know if it used to be common knowledge. If so, my guess as to the cause is EA growing, and the new people they draw in being less rationalist contrarians and more ... normal, socially-driven, progressive people.

I skimmed a bunch of EA forum posts back to 2015 (couldn't find much about race/iq in search) and it seems different in many ways. When "Lila" writes a post about "Why I left EA" in 2017, it's because of "moral anti-realism, utilitarianism, and particularism", as opposed to sexual harassment. Admittedly, those were related to "fail[ing] to address violence and exploitation, which are major causes of poverty in the developing world. (Incidentally, I also think that they undervalue how much reproductive freedom benefits women.)" - but that's much better than "I'm tired."

It also feels a lot less careerist? And much more passionate, driven. Posts seem to be more about ideas and advocacy, and about the global poor, and less "I'm launching a think tank for connecting EA professionals to promising opportunities. For the moment, we're focusing on mental health interventions in shrimp and chickens."

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats