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 -
Robin Hanson wrote an article recently on how his politics have drifted. For those not familiar with his he was one of the early rationalist adjacent that likely filters a lot of people here. As a GMU professor he blogged like the rest of their Econ department and marginal revolution which was much bigger for leading people to SSC. Also early intellectual promoter of prediction markets like in the ‘90s and use to co-blog with Hal Finney.
A few highlights: “ While it is okay to fiercely resist the immediate decline of a cherished value today, like say democracy or gender-equality, 3 top LLMs agree that is now taboo to explicitly work to help your culture persist, reproduce, and have continued influence centuries into the future.”
“ I’m not especially into liberty, democracy, legal due-process, or immigration, beyond their instrumental values in achieving other things.”
A lot of comments on cultural drift and risks with that. The second comment strikes me because I feel like I’ve been thinking about those issues a lot lately. And I feel like I too am moving to a political philosophy of common goodism and the other ideas are just means to achieve the good. Perhaps this is just the standard libertarian to fascism pipeline but I do think a lot of people are questioning whether America is still on a workable path. It’s easy to be a liberal-libertarian when society is broadly good/stable but in harder times more pragmatic ideas emerge.
Then he just comments on things everyone else has noticed - parasitic classes in big cities (often unions) just crushing QOL for the non-rich.
I use to read Hanson a lot, but I only read him a few times a year now. Some of his early insights turned out coming true. It’s interesting to me how minds that shared a lot of common thinking patterns end up developing similar conclusions today. Democracy, Liberty, due-process, and immigration were likely things I viewed as very positive a decade ago. Now I would likely consider them unimportant.
Hanson
I've not seen anyone talk about it but his statement that aliens are likely on Earth domesticating humanity to keep us from expanding further is insane and calls into question how his reasoning skills have developed over the years. Religious nutjobbery is one thing, but embracing alien conspiracies shows a broken mind.
I don't think you or @stoatherd understand what Hanson was doing in that post.
He likes to play around with ideas and hypotheticals. He is not claiming to be correct about aliens. He is specifically saying he might not be correct. Reread these two disclaimer paragraphs, I've helpfully bolded the relevant area:
You should read the rest of his post like you read a hard sci fi author. All the steps and things happening need to be plausibly true not actually true. He is telling a story where aliens could be plausibly true.
Possibly true; though on a meta level, me and magicalkittycat actually agreeing on something should be considered a rare and special kind of evidence.
No, I don't think his disclaimers cover it.
First, in Hanson's original post where he outlines his "key positions, 2026", he says explicitly: "There’s a good chance some UFOs are aliens". No disclaimer, no playful hypothetical framing. There's no reason to regard it as some kind of sci-fi mental exercise; he literally lists it as one of his key positions.
Second, the aliens post itself makes specific claims prior to that limited-scope disclaimer, such as "we now accept ball lightning, even though evidence for it is weaker than for UFO". Couple this with his general attitude of contempt in those paragraphs -- e.g. his physics teachers "arrogantly" told him to write off UFOs. Then add in things like "I browsed UFO evidence and found it to be much stronger than stuff on ghosts or telepathy", or his titular "What the Hell!" reaction to US military reports of UFOs. This isn't someone who's meekly trying to go "hey, I just want to flag this up as a not-literally-impossible hypothesis".
Third, his disclaimer is scoped to his specific explanation of aliens, rather than to the general "UFOs are caused by aliens" explanation. His language in general assumes (though he's ambiguous about it) that the evidence for alien-type-UFOs is so strong that we should all be going "what the hell!" rather than "hmm, why is this US military report claiming something that's almost certainly not true"/
Fourth, it's a very weak disclaimer. "I'm not claiming this as fact; I'm saying it isn't crazy". I generally like disclaimers of this form! But they can't be coupled with content that clearly is claiming the thing as a likely fact. "There's a good chance some UFOs are aliens" is much stronger than "this isn't literally crazy". He's doing a motte and bailey: when he presents his high-level beliefs, it's the strong version ("good chance"); then, when justifying stuff, he retreats to the weak version ("not crazy").
I think you're just wrong about this.
I know the kind of mode of discussion you're pointing to. My canonical model for this is "irreducible complexity" -- when a creationist says "the human eye is so complex it couldn't have possibly evolved". In that mode, it suffices to come up with any plausibly true mechanism by which the eye could have evolved; you don't need to prove it.
So I get exactly what you're describing, and I agree that it's a valuable mode of argumentation, and needs to be recognised when it's in play...
... and I just don't think Hanson is doing it. A narrowly-scoped "I'm just saying this isn't crazy", coupled with everything else, isn't enough to credibly signal that mode. Here's an example of how I'd signal it, in Hanson's position:
He wouldn't have to phrase it like that, obviously. But if he's trying to convey "hey, I don't actually believe this, it's just a toy sci-fi exercise", then he's done a very bad job that seems inconsistent with his general ability to communicate. If I tell a Young Earth Creationist "There's a good chance the human eye formed via gene sequence B857-X223", and then subsequently make an argument for that specific explanation, I don't get to fall back on "but I only need a plausible explanation for the human eye; it doesn't have to be that specific one".
I keep reading more of his stuff and keep seeing more disclaimers. While you keep reading his stuff and keep dismissing more of his disclaimers.
Here he is in a another post:
For a second I thought this disclaimer you wrote for him was something he wrote. What you wrote here is my interpretation of what he is saying.
Here he is again calling these "weird" ideas.
And the best piece of evidence is his words on other posts:
UFOs as US PsychOp
So he explicitly considers the "government hoax" explanation as most likely.
I could not find the writing you were talking about that is more recent. Much of this seems to be back in 2022/2023. He was added to the advisory council on UAPs in June 2026 but i couldn't find any output from that group. Perhaps now that he is part of the government he can update on the likelihood of the government hoax explanation.
He has written a bunch of stuff about aliens. Which might suggest he believes they are true, but he has also written possibly one of the best explanations for the non-existence of intelligent alien life: The Great Filter. I think he honestly likes thinking about and playing around with strange ideas. I went to GMU and have met Robin Hanson a few times, I've also known people who interacted with him a great deal (like fellow professors). The impression is the same: weird guy likes weird ideas. His public persona is really only the tip of the iceberg. And his publicly listed views on wikipedia include prediction markets (two decades before they were cool), incel sympathy, cryonics, the great filter (aliens), and a future society of brain emulations (his age of em book).
There are some people I feel safer pegging my views on a particular topic to whatever they say is correct. For example, I'll trust Scott Alexander on plenty of things. I think he will do honest research and come to the best possible conclusion given the evidence on plenty of topics. Psych meds are one of those topics. Robin Hanson is someone I'd feel comfortable pegging my views on aliens to. If he has recently updated his views from the ones expressed in his 2021-23 blogposts I'd be inclined to believe him without looking at any of the evidence. I still think you are both reading him uncharitably, or reading something I haven't seen.
That's ok, because I'm not making a claim about Hanson's entire oeuvre. I'm talking about the two specific posts I got pointed to. If he has disclaimers elsewhere, that's not really relevant to my criticism of those posts.
Let me point to exactly which posts I'm talking about:
I am criticising these posts. If you've found him saying other things elsewhere, then that's fine, but it doesn't change the contents of these posts. If I write a post saying "Bigfoot is real", and someone criticises it for insufficient evidence, it's unreasonable to point to a different post where I say "maybe Bigfoot is real, maybe he isn't".
You are making this up.
I dismissed, in detail, exactly one disclaimer he made. Where are these multiple disclaimers I'm dismissing? I gave a pretty thorough explanation of why that disclaimer doesn't discharge my criticisms; it's not very charitable to round that off to me just generally dismissing his disclaimers, because I haven't done that.
[EDIT: to be fair, you presented a pair of adjacent disclaimers in a single block quote, which I handled as a single disclaimer. But it's still untrue to claim that I "keep dismissing more of his disclaimers"]
... and he explicitly considers "there's a good chance some UFOs are aliens".
Could you please address this quote from him directly? There are no disclaimers attached to it. Do you agree that Robin Hanson believes there is a good chance some UFOs are aliens? If not, why did he say he did?
His two claims are compatible, obviously. Maybe he thinks government hoax is 60% likely, and aliens are 30% likely. I think "a good chance" must mean at least 10%.
And I consider that to be ridiculous. I'm not criticising him for some strawman position of "I 100% believe UFOs are aliens". I'm criticising him for considering it a "good chance". That's an extraordinary position.
Yes, that's fine! The Motte is full of weird guys who like weird ideas. I have nothing against that. What I'm doing is literally reading his words and assessing whether they're reasonable. Where disclaimers exists, or where he's going into a hypothetical, I'm very happy to come along with his ideas and explore what they would mean. But he isn't making disclaimers when he says there's a good chance some UFOs are aliens, or for any of the other places I'm criticising him. I'm not going to give him a blanket pass to assume everything he says is a hypothetical just because he likes weird stuff.
There's a massive problem with doing this on the topic of aliens (not specific to Hanson).
If, say, a fitness expert tells you "make sure you eat lots of vegetables after a workout", it's reasonable to peg your beliefs to their claims. But if they say "make sure you smash yourself in the face with a brick every day", the dominant hypothesis should be "this person is mistaken".
So when an "expert on aliens" (?) tells you "there's a good chance UFOs are aliens", then your prior on UFOs being aliens should be so low that "this expert is mistaken" should be strongly in play! I'm not saying you should dismiss what they say out of hand -- it's reasonable to take their belief as evidence. But you shouldn't "be inclined to believe him without looking at any of the evidence".
I'm literally just quoting him, and I've linked to the posts. If he doesn't think there's a good chance UFOs are aliens, it's his fault for saying he does; that's not a lack of charity from me.
If you are unsure about what some public intellectual is saying, or is there is maybe a difference in interpretation between us, it would make sense to me to look at other things they have said on the topic. By not being willing to read other things on the topic you are dismissing disclaimers or other ways of explaining how he might have a more nuanced take. And you don't even have to go read them or find them, I've been providing them.
After going through a lot of Hanson blog posts on Aliens yesterday I think I have a much better grasp on what has happened. Some key things:
Back in 2020-2023 Hanson has a bunch of posts on Aliens and UFOs. Some key takeaways is that he thinks the government hoax angle is the most likely explanation for instances of UFOs that can't easily be explained away. He thinks the government hoax angle is 2 orders of magnitude more likely than nearby aliens coming to visit us. The 2021 blog post "UFOs -- What the Hell?" is from this early period. Its him toying around with the idea and having fun and not taking it too seriously. Because his given likelihood for UFOs being explained by aliens around this time period is like 1 in 10000.
In between now and then two major pieces of evidence are what changed his mind.
The first piece of evidence is directly linked in the "My Politics" post. Its about Pre-Sputnik Earth-Orbit Glints. Basically a telescope survey of the sky before humans were launching things up there found a bunch of glints in orbit around the earth.
The Second is that the government started saying there are aliens. Not exactly that, but they started admitting and presenting evidence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. Its not just a single "report" like you were describing it where one author might be coincidentally wrong. It was more of a meta study that had to be signed off on by a bunch of people. I haven't found Hanson speaking about this directly on his blog, but he is on a government panel in charge of similar releases, and he has definitely read these reports.
I get what happened, you see him say something that seems completely crazy. You follow his first link, thinking that justifies his craziness. Instead he treats it with a dismissive almost silly attitude.
I'm telling you he badly curated the links here. He does treat it with a serious attitude, he does have posts where he goes over the evidence. And many posts with the theoretical explanations for various things.
He does acknowledge that this will make him sound crazy.
My priors on aliens are not as low as yours. There is nothing physically impossible about aliens existing. Travel between stars is slow but not impossible. It would be like hearing that there is a one time use pill that cures 90% of depression cases. My priors on that being true would be really low. But its not physically impossible. I'd check what Scott Alexander has said about it, because I'd probably not be the best at digesting all the evidence. I'd still take a shot at reading some of the evidence, but I know in the back of my head I'm just not as qualified as them. I'm doing the same thing here.
I don't know what it would take for you to change your mind on alien likelihood. I would just say consider the fact that it is not a package deal. Someone can believe aliens are possible and still think faster than light travel/comms are impossible. The aliens don't have to be little green men, or any other hollywood stereotypes.
Why do you consider the possibility so infinitesimally low? Is there some physical law you think it is violating?
I'm not.
Again, and you keep ignoring this, he explicitly says "there's a good chance UFOs are aliens".
I am not unsure about what he's saying. I've been pretty clear about this. He directly, literally, explicitly states his position. Why are you inventing this idea that I'm unsure what he's saying?
Dude, I don't know how to explain it to you any more simply than I already did.
I am evaluating what he said in those two posts. I don't have to read a person's entire set of works to criticise specific posts!
This has nothing to do with me "not being willing to read"; you've completely invented that, as you've invented several other positions for me to hold.
Then blame Hanson, because that's his description: "a U.S. military report says that intelligently controlled UFOs with amazing abilities seem real to them".
I am literally relaying his words, and you keep assigning blame to me for direct quotes from Hanson! If he subsequently found other reports, that's fine; but I'm criticising his post based on the words inside it!
Why do you think my priors are low? The only comment I've made on alien existence is "If aliens exist -- which I think is plausible". Where are you getting "stoatherd has a low prior on aliens?"
Evidence.
This is a nice line, but it seems to be from a different argument entirely.
The possibility of what, exactly? Aliens existing, or aliens specifically interacting with Earth, typically via UFOs?
Why are you inventing yet another position for me, that I consider the possibility (of whichever thing you're talking about) "infinitesimally low"?
I asked you a specific question in my last comment: when Hanson said "there's a good chance UFOs are aliens", did he mean there's a good chance UFOs are aliens?
You gave a pretty detailed rundown of how you think Hanson's views have evolved (which I appreciate). I think the implicit answer to my question was "yes", but please correct me if I'm wrong.
Given that, can you please acknowledge that you're now completely moving the goalposts? Because you claimed I was being uncharitable, and I was misinterpreting a hypothetical (with disclaimers!) from Hanson -- that he didn't actually believe the thing that I was saying he did.
Now you're saying he does believe that thing. And you're trying to prosecute the case that the thing is reasonable. That's fine, but can you please notice that you've entirely shifted the argument?
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link