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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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Spending any time talking to anti-Semites will teach you that one of the major causes of anti-Semitism is the behavior of organizations that claim to be acting in the interest of the Jewish people. Therefore, I've suspected for awhile the ADL knows that its "efforts" to fight anti-Semitism make people more anti-Semitic, but are okay with this outcome, because it means more funding for them.

Feel like this requires a hidden premise that the ADL's actions increase anti-semitism on net. Taking some action that reduces anti-semitism by X but increases it by Y where X > Y is a perfectly rational thing to do from the perspective of wanting to reduce anti-semitism.

Having accepted this premise, something else occurred to me recently: why assume it's just the ethnic grievance organizations doing it? What if most organizations that claim to be fighting a problem are indifferent to the problem at best and actively stoking it at worst? Do environmentalist organizations push to warn the globe faster? Do AI alignment organizations push for more powerful AI? This is an open-ended question, but it's something on my mind and I'd love to know you guys' thoughts.

I think you should not assume this about any group, you should demand evidence. It seems to me "this group is opposed to the thing they loudly say they are opposed to" is a more parsimonious prior than "this group is secretly indifferent to/in favor of the thing they loudly say they are opposed to" approximately 100% of the time.

You are correct. Trying to form a mental model that takes these sorts of people at face value drives me mad, because it is so illogical to me, that I'm looking for an alternative that puts less of a workload on my brain and makes them more comprehendible.