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 -
Michael Lind, Eugenicons and the Motte.
Recently, Michael Lind, a notable political commentator and anti-immigration activist, took a stab at what he termed the "eugenicons". The most prominent of which being men like Charles Murray, Steve Sailer, Bo Winegard and guys like Richard Hanania, whose face is prominently plastered over the article.
Linds piece paints these "eugenicons" as being not just factually wrong and out of their element with regards to the science, but also politically ineffective. As Lind sees 'race realism' and the libertarian ethos it allegedly expresses itself through these men to be "utterly incompatible" with broadening the appeal of the modern Republican party to working class Americans of all races. Lind, being a bit of a ‘soft’ materialist in the old Marxist sense, has a preferred view of the public as being in a bit of an economic class struggle. Though his view is far more principled and sophisticated than what you generally find among big L Americans Leftists.
Lind’s article is worth a read, and so are the various responses. The two better ones being from Steve Sailer and Brian Chau
Charles Murray did not respond in length, but remarked after reading Linds article that
Sailer, like Murray, voiced his disappointment that the article by Lind was not composed of anti HBD arguments of higher quality. And took issue with the view Lind expresses with regards to the state of the scientific literature at this time. Maintaining that Lind is far behind the curve on just how heavily the evidence has been falling on the side of HBD in recent years and that he also mischaracterizes some of the HBD positions as strict determinism. Pointing out that social causes have a very clear effect, as he cites his new favorite chart of various fatalities rising in line with the 'happening' of George Floyd.
These are all familiar notes for HBD folks, but they focus on facts and details over the broad stroke narrative. Something Brian Chau points out and extrapolates on. And it’s a worthwhile endeavor, given that someone whose been in the game for as long as Lind is probably not going to have his broader political viewpoint or his fondness for the American working class dissuaded by, as he put it:
It’s a fair position to hold, I suppose, so where does Lind get his ideas from?
As Chau sees it, Lind is working from a presupposition of political representation. That is, Lind sees himself representing the American working class. To that end it is no surprise he dislikes the HBD creed, given it is inherently divisive to the multiracial America. Something modern day classical Marxists have been pointing at for a long while, to little effect as they continue to support mass immigration, unlike Lind.
On that note Lind ties Libertarianism and HBD together, showing just how these two ideas are compatible. As Lind puts it:
This is certainly an observation. I think it would be easy, like Chau does, to point out that of the 4 big “eugenicons” only Hanania is ostensibly libertarian and otherwise poke holes in it. But I think that draws us away from the truth value of the statement as it relates to Lind and his position as a representative of the working class American. In a broad class interest narrative, there is an obvious pathway where the notion of free market success correlates with ‘superiority’. At the very least, if we value success in modern society, and we place some stock in the notion of heritability of traits, we end up with an undeniable truth. The lower classes are inferior to the superior upper classes. But as it relates to the "eugenicons", again, it’s not necessarily a truth anyone of the 4 mentioned, Sailer, Murray, Winegard and Hanania, are guided by politically.
Lind goes too far then, or does he? You don’t have to to go full send Capitalist Darwinism or whatever. Most people have the self reflection to look at themselves as a less than perfect part of a greater whole. Or that would be my view. Except that is the minority view of a National Socialist. So I think, to the extent American politics exist as is represented in media, Lind might be more correct than not here. And if “eugenicons” are not viscerally racist in their soul, I’d argue they do have to contend with the old ghost of “Social Darwinism”. Merely pointing at The Bell Curve and HBD as a truth can’t qualify as just another feather of truth in the cap of HBD folks. In the words of Eric Turkheimer, this truth could rival the atom bomb.
Chau's criticism of Lind is that Lind is not seeking truth but instead seeking to represent a class of people. To that end, if there is a truth that can harm them it’s not his duty to have that truth guide him but to shield the people from it. They are stronger together, class solidarity and all that. And through that lens Chau contextualizes some of Lind’s more extravagant misrepresentations of HBD ‘truths’. It’s simply not Lind's job to represent this truth. Lind is representing a class of people. Protecting both its class interest as well as its dignity, at the very least.
Beyond this you will have to read Chau’s article as he takes broader issue with the worldview Lind expresses.
On the whole I find Lind’s position to be stronger than I had suspected after seeing the "eugenicons" pile on him for the various errors and factual misrepresentations made. So long as Lind is accurately representing the people he feels with, his position will remain strong. Particularly since it is dealing with immediate problems that are likely to result from the HBD 'atom bomb' being released on the public. I had always assumed that biological truths would lead people towards something like ethno-nationalist 'democratic' socialism. But I’m now more willing to believe that America could surprise me if the bomb was dropped on them.
On that note it is not clear to me if Lind’s representing of the multiracial American working class is for its protection or ours.
I feel deep disconnect with Lind and with what appears to be your beliefs. It is not, in fact, good to lie. It is worse to congratulate yourself for your lies on the basis of some is-ought confusion. The self-servingly populist, paternalistic – no, probably even maternalistic – posture of a portly mother hen shielding her simple-minded salt-of-the-earth «electorate» from «shock jocks» with their nasty statistical tables, which Lind adopts, is despicable; hypocritical, condescending, emasculating and evokes every sadistic impulse I have. So it's a bit hard to engage in good faith.
But, just to remark on one strategic detail.
Turkheimer at al (see e.g. the discussion about HBD trutherism as x-risk factor here) imagine themselves arguing from a place of wise pessimism: they cannot let this infohazard be mainstreamed, the risk of degenerate social developments from its implications in people's minds is too great, thus white lies are necessary. Naturally, this is optimistic about the counterfactual development in the condition of HBD denialism. But more than that, this is wildly and irresponsibly blithe with regard to eventual failure. That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch comes to mind::
Sailer gibes at liberals for the attitude mocked here, and I believe he's literally correct about a fraction: the predilection to High Modernist social engineering schemes plus callousness toward muh inbred Flyover Country hicks and badly hidden fear of «urban youth» (or what's the term now?), if reinforced with a theory of biological differences between groups, would make at least a minority de facto genocidal. But the rest are just making a foolish mistake. Pegging your ideological commitment to a contingent practical fact which does not inform that commitment is bad praxis; is egoism. Do you just double down in on rhetorical suppression, burnishing your Respectable Person creds in the process and hoping it never fails? What if it does and you've cleansed the debate of any principled opposition to that which you're trying to prevent? Your side gets routed. I won't go so far as to say that «anti-eugenicons» create a self-fulfilling prophecy, modern Americans at large really won't be willing to «kill all the poor» or some such. But they are sowing the seeds of chaos and conflict greatly surpassing the current culture war, and they cannot credibly take responsibility for those seeds never sprouting; indeed they cannot even legibly discuss the issue.
I've been observing the AI safety debate lately, and it irritates me there as well: in contrast to doomers with their bizarrely abstract takes on «the space of Optimization Processes in full generality», many AI optimists only have weak arguments contingent on minutiae of engineering and overconfident physical estimates, like «the brain is near Landauer limit already» (it's not, Yud is 100% right it's OOMs from the mark). E.g. George Hotz seems to believe we shouldn't air strike datacenters because AI just can't get that much smarter than George Hotz, certainly not soon. He'll crumple like tissue paper when this is falsified. The creationism debate comes to mind as well.
Denying facts is morally wrong and strategically wrong. You can only do that when your side is so overwhelmingly advantaged, there's no point to caring. Well, this is the case sometimes.
Probably not for American anti-immigrationists, though. Good luck proving to some Vivek Ramaswamy that, since Sailer is a poopyhead and HBD is not true or at least not handshakeworthy, America shouldn't grant citizenship to millions of qualified third Worlders.
(this turned into a bit of a ramble as I'm having trouble expressing this, hope its readable)
I think most of the modern western world is how it is today precisely because of the extreme amounts of information and truth suppression.
I can't argue against the fact that most people in the west genuinely believe every single ounce of propaganda that is poured into their heads. A lot of which isn't just some pie in the sky stuff about morals and ideas but things that are in direct conflict with everyday realities and basic common sense. Yet people either believe the propaganda or contextualize what their lying eyes are seeing to not go against the broad narrative of the propaganda.
Propaganda works. Lying works. If I want mass immigration from the third world, what truth can aid me? Why rely on any truth? Why hope that the masses share my grand and noble vision for the EuroAfrican future when they are so short sighted and stupid? I can just lie to them and they will eat it up like children watching a toy commercial.
I don't believe this is an issue you overcome with ideals and values about truth. If you want society to function, you lubricate it with lies. This works. I want my society to function. I don't want mass immigration. Why contort myself to fit the truth into the heads of those who don't want to bear it? Just replace the lie already in their heads with another one.
I guess what I am trying to get at there is that I don't believe in human ontological moral innocence. I have no reason to believe that, if left alone, people will gravitate towards good. That if I remove one layer of lies there is a truth waiting under it. That under the skin of these ethno-masochist bobble heads there is a National Socialist waiting to be free.
I want European ethnicities to continue to express themselves, evolve, survive and thrive. I genuinely don't have a 'true' argument for why Estonia shouldn't be flooded with brown people.. Sure, I might believe it will be bad and that non-stop mass immigration will lead to the end of the native ethnic expression of themselves, both culturally and genetically, but... What even is that? My belief? Why do I care? Why should it be more important than the belief of EU bureaucrats on the goodness of EuroAfrica? I've never even met an Estonian. What if someone doesn't share my belief? What if they already believe the propaganda that diversity is our strength and that Estonia will be better after a few million third worlders?
To put it another way, it literally doesn't matter to me how truly statistically bad my ingroup is. So long as they are my ingroup I care about them. Anyone trying to get me to dislike my ingroup through statistics and crime rates is evil. And me not bowing down to their tricks is noble and good. As an example: It's bad for your economy. Ok, to borrow your own line of thinking, would it be good to ethnically replace Estonians if it was good for the economy? What if I just believed that being open to mass immigration was what made me a good person. Is that true? Would that belief offset the truth of mass immigration being bad for the economy? I mean, what good is an economy for if it's not bettering the lives of people.
To reach some conclusion from this ramble, truth just isn't a part of the game here. Even if you care about it. It's just your personal preference. It's not more inherently valuable than the 'delusions' of your outgroup. And more importantly, the mechanism by which you get people to believe in the truth is not necessarily based on any truth.
I might not like Eric Turkheimer and I might personally despise his brazen lies. But on a bigger picture level, where we drop our own ego and just look at the world as it is, guys like him and Lind are much closer to having their truth out there than any boorish HBD truth seeker ever will be, and they are more honest and self aware of their intention. They represent something good. World peace, the working class, human dignity, being kind. Your justifications, on the other hand, are what? Truth uber alles, because... It will out someday, probably? And it's good anyway even if it might be bad after all the lies we told about it?
My question to you and someone like Sailer would be this: Who will enforce the view that we shouldn't kill all the untermensch after the truth gets out? Why should someone believe that when the truth is that they are parasites making the lives of everyone else worse? Surely we should ensure, with propaganda, that people believe the 'correct' thing, right?
It seems rather straight forward to me that you would do this by doing the exact thing Turkheimer and friends have been doing for decades.
The alternative to HBD is not people treating each other well, it's the continued search for a reason that some groups do worse than others. I think you may be aware of some of the other popular theories and they imply some troubling things.
Can you speak more plainly? What are the other popular theories you're talking about?
Active and widespread racial discrimination seems like a pretty popular theory.
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