Not all rationalists are equally bad. Some are violent white nationalists, while others just encourage them. Yes, it's still that Twitter thread, but dear Lord did you know you can just stop tweeting
(https://twitter.com/robinhanson/status/1122905797325881344)
I can understand trying to say “hey there were definitely degrees of
badness among Nazis/slaveowners/generally bad people” but that doesn’t
actually mean they were secretly good people who happened to
accidentally do a few bad thing
even IF (and this is being very charitable) he’s going for
“people who generally did bad things/did a few REALLY bad things were
also capable of doing good things and that should not be dismissed”
Yeah, there was actually a SSC post that I remember being kinda good about this. Scott pointed out that the Nazis didn't go straight from zero to gas chambers, and that we shouldn't dismiss claims that people might be fascist just because they haven't done genocide yet. Of course, he continued in the noble rationalist tradition of engaging in exactly zero introspection, and hasn't considered that "defending putting children in cages" and "talking excitedly about how Science says that black people are inferior" might be steps on the road to ethnic cleansing.
On the other hand, there is a Spanish tourist in the next bed over from me but one who is loudly talking on her phone at like 8.30 AM what the fuck is wrong with people?
I'm not sure he's "going for" anything else than the first part of your first paragraph (and naming a subcategory of that phenomenon) in this Twitter thread. Although he's probably also fascinated by the backlash he gets from people who think he's "going for" various things, so he might have been fishing for those reactions from the start. He mostly uses Twitter to gather poll data and get a sense of the zeitgeist. When he wants to spread ideas, he uses his blog.
Eh, I’m kind of sympathetic to Robin here - he’s clearly a dumbass,
but the left’s inability to have any nuance regarding
shades-of-badness is how you end up with centre-right politicians (who,
don’t get me wrong, certainly have bad politics etc) or even leftists
who don’t toe the party line being called fascists or nazis, and the
people who see those claims get turned off from the left.
Even though in this particular case, where the least bad slaveowner
or nazi was probably irredeemably bad, if you’re willing to make that
distinction explicit that means you’re much more likely to recognize
shades-of-badness in less extreme cases.
i just criticised you. either that's a criticism of the left or you're not a leftist. your call buddy \*teleports behind you with katana of logic upraised\*
These comments exist in a context, and that context is that slavery exists in shades-of-badness, and that Sally Hemmings' slavery counts as less bad than the usual kind of bad. I think the left will survive without that kind of nuance, thanks.
> but the left's inability to have any nuance
lol appealing for nuance from THE LEFT, that monolithic hive-mind
> even leftists who don't toe the party line
Tell us more about the party line.
if you're trying to insinuate that im not actually a leftist i dont really care to defend my anticapitalist bonafides absent any specific criticisms.
i'm happy to rephrase as "there's a worrying trend among leftists of abandoning nuance when criticizing public figures" if that's a statement you like more
here's the thing, while I kinda get what you're saying....why try and make that distinction for cases like slaveowners and Nazis, when you can just make them for less extreme cases
it's literally easier to convince people to make those distinctions with less egregious cases, than it is to jump to Nazis and slaveowners and work your way backwards
But the "less extreme cases" are exactly the ones that are controversial. And discussions of those often quickly degrade into comparisons with...Nazis and slavery. So it's actually nice to be able to say that "yeah, actually Hitler was worse than (most) concentration camp guards, were worse than regular soldiers, were worse than Jewish collaborators, were (similarly bad as?) regular German citizens who publicly hailed Hitler and closed their eyes and ears to the holocaust (90% of the population)."
You don't have to aspire to either, but if you have to choose, please please try to become a despondent sheep rather than Hitler.
I don't disagree with you necessarily (I think that there are less extreme cases than that-you can look at rehabilitation vs punishment in the US justice system at large as a suitable discussion point IMO), but the thing is that this absolutely was not the way to go about it. Not the right medium (Twitter tends to be bad for longer discussions IMO) and not the best (or even *good*) wording.
and the doubling down on doesn't really help
Yeah, he's probably just fishing for outrage, trying to figure out how and why people react to controversial statements. That's what he mostly uses Twitter for.
Hello Aleksanderpwnz, can you please answer the questions I have given you regarding David Friedman's intellectual fraud?
I have detailed your tasks here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/bh9sy0/nsfw_how_a_generation_of_wouldbe_political/elyajw3/?st=jv37sr5r&sh=c20d3a08
Cheers.
Hey, I already put that in my to-do list. It looked a little daunting to go through all the primary sources right away, but I will hopefully get to it.
(Not that I think I have any obligation to dig through anything. I'm not claiming you're wrong about anything; I just told you what impression I got from reading the original thread.)
It's not daunting at all. It's like 5 pages of text. You don't even have to read it to confirm what I'm saying is true, you can simply ctrl+F. I refrained from writing a longer criticism of Friedman precisely so that it *would* be easy for people like yourself with no prior knowledge of Marx to confirm that what I'm saying is true.
The impression you got was wrong for a number of reasons. Firstly, you don't seem to know anything about Marx. For anyone who's even read an elementary introduction to Marx's work what Friedman did is extremely obvious. I hate to be elitist about this stuff, but seriously, we're talking about the Manifesto, not Capital Vol. 2 or something. Secondly, you apparently didn't bother to read the primary sources I provided. Given this entire debate is about the fidelity of primary sources and the importance of not altering citations so as to change the meaning of the original text, this seems particularly egregious on your part. How can you even get an "impression" if you're not even engaging with the discussion? And that brings me to the final point, you don't even seem to have an awareness of what was said in the discussion between Friedman and I. "Friedman forgot to put an ellipsis between two paragraphs when he quoted Marx one time in 1974!)" as you said in another post. However, this is not exactly what happened. Friedman misquoted Marx in 2019, I spotted it and called him out, and using google another poster found that this was actually a lie repeated from the 70s in one of his books. This is not one lie that he told 45 years ago, this is a lie he's told at least two times over 45 years.
You have no obligation to "dig through" anything. However, if you're going to say what your "impression" is, then I think you have some obligation to read the discussion and sources in question.
> but the left's inability to have any nuance regarding shades-of-badness is how you end up with centre-right politicians
I love it when people just come straight out with this shit and literally just never check, like you could be 70 years old, 80 years old, still saying this shit and never looked at a single chart or any shit that makes this case.
What the fuck is your problem with checking and then reflecting on the facts?
What the fuck is your problem with reading the whole sentence instead of cutting it in the middle of a phrase to make it sound like i'm saying something i'm not?
>the left's inability to have any nuance regarding shades-of-badness is how you end up with centre-right politicians...being called fascists or nazis
you cut out the last part to make it sound like i was saying the lack of nuance leads to centre right politicians being in power.
But you explicitly said that that that is how you end up with centre-right politicians, that's literally what you said happens: what came after doesn't change the fact that that's what you said, indeed the way you allegedly nuance that position afterwards only affirms that point further.
Why are you a coward?
?????
do you understand how sentences work?
this is like if i said "global warming leads to more species going extinct" and you tried to argue with me that i was wrong because i said "global warming leads to more species"
>do you understand how sentences work?
Buddy, your sentence structure is horrible. Here's what you probably meant to say:
>Eh, I'm kind of sympathetic to Robin here - he's clearly a dumbass, but the left's inability to have any nuance regarding shades-of-badness is how you end up with centre-right politicians [fragment omitted] being called fascists or nazis, and the people who see those claims get turned off from the left.
That fragment I omitted contained both a parenthetical not separated by commas, and an actual statement in parenteses. It was ambiguous whether you meant what I just quoted, or were making a list of things the left has caused.
So, maybe next time you write a 6-clause sentence that someone misinterprets, say "I don't understand, I actually meant this: [concise sentence]", and avoid the slapfest.
Yeah, it's reddit, not an essay.
The more important point I made was: when someone asks you to explain, try answering with something other than 'can you fuckin read' or the like. Wastes less time.
yes, yes it was clearly the *leftists* who made the totally-not-Nazis turn into Nazis, and were probably responsible for Hanson's shitty tweet stream, if you *really think* about it
What's the point of replying to a comment owning them for the most aggressive misinterpretation you could make from their comment? What do you get out of this? It's like yelling at a shadow or something.
Leftists can easily detect shades-of-badness. I have done so many times. If being called a fascist is the worst thing that happens to you, count yourself lucky.
I guess I don't see why calling people "fascist" is really a bad thing. I suppose I'm kind of disturbed by the PC police out there telling the left-wing what they can and can't say.
The problem with that is twofold:
1. That "fascist" political thought has never had a particularly unified theory, and indeed there's plenty of cryptofascists who actually thrive in the ambiguity. Look up what some historians call the "fascist minimum" for discussion regarding this problem.
2. It's funny to call people "fascists" and even funnier when right-wing babies start crying about it.
Of course, scolds with no sense of humor like yourself will always tut-tut the left for saying insulting things. You can just be happy that we're not sending them to prison just yet, I suppose?
Some evidence that it's a bad idea might be nice. I've already made my point that it's both funny and historically accurate; which you agreed with. So from here you don't really have anything left to fall back on unless you can show me it's "bad to do".
I don't have any studies to link you or anything. I think playground-style insults are probably bad for the reputation of the anticapitalist left in a time when it needs to present itself as a meaningful alternative to the people who feel abandoned by mainstream liberalism and could fall to the right. Please god don't follow up with that fucking amber frost article about vulgarity
Ok, so you have no proof. Thank you, I'm glad you admitted it. Can I ask if you're just repeating something you heard elsewhere with no critical thought? Or did you come up with this tremendously false "insight" (which you admit has no historical basis, is not based on any evidence, and is unfunny scolding) yourself?
Additionally, can you explain how someone a "fascist" is a "playground-style" insult? Were you ever called a fascist as a child? I consider it as more of a funny adult insult.
I probably heard it somewhere else, thought about it, and decided it made sense to me. Don't know though, I don't keep track of the provenance of every specific thought I have. You're the person calling it "tremendously false" without explaining why it might be so, even though I gave some justification.
I mean that insulting people is playground-style, not that specifically calling someone a fascist is playground style. I thought that would be obvious (like you said, children don't tend to call each other fascist).
>I probably heard it somewhere else, thought about it, and decided it made sense to me. Don't know though, I don't keep track of the provenance of every specific thought I have. You're the person calling it "tremendously false" without explaining why it might be so, even though I gave some justification.
No, you didn't give any justification at all. You agreed with my historical argument, you agreed with me that it's funny, and you admitted you didn't have any evidence. So basically this is just some random thought you had that you decided to type into a reddit comments box without actually thinking about if it was true or not. Can you explain to me why you did that?
>I mean that insulting people is playground-style
People of all ages insult each other all the time. This is especially true in the field of politics, which is what we are currently talking about.
>No, you didn't give any justification at all. You agreed with my historical argument, you agreed with me that it's funny, and you admitted you didn't have any evidence. So basically this is just some random thought you had that you decided to say without actually thinking about if it was true or not.
Your "historical argument" doesn't support calling people fascist willy-nilly (if you think it does you're gonna have to make it more clear). I agreed with the statements you gave me but don't agree that they support your argument.
Whether something is funny or not is a completely different axis to whether or not it's a good idea to do. I'm not sure why you keep bringing this up. I don't think I ever claimed it wasn't funny.
I think acting stereotypically immaturely (tossing out fuzzy insults instead of explaining why you disagree with something) reflects poorly on whatever groups you're presenting as a member of (not unique to leftism and calling people fascists). I think this is a problem because it seems like the left needs to attract more people for it to succeed. You clearly think this doesn't reflect poorly on the left and/or it's not a problem.
>Your "historical argument" doesn't support calling people fascist willy-nilly (if you think it does you're gonna have to make it more clear). I agreed with the statements you gave me but don't agree that they support your argument.
Who's calling people "fascist" "willy-nilly"? Can you give me an example?
>Whether something is funny or not is a completely different axis to whether or not it's a good idea to do.
Using humor can often cut to the heart of the matter. Basically you're saying that we have to censor ourselves constantly in case a right-winger gets offended and becomes even more fascist. So we're not allowed to insult our opponents now? Sorry, unless you're trying to make "the left" as unattractive, humourless, stifling and grey as possible that's not going to ever work.
>I think this is a problem because it seems like the left needs to attract more people for it to succeed. You clearly think this doesn't reflect poorly on the left and/or it's not a problem.
Yes, I don't think it's a problem because the kind of people who get offended about being called "fascists" are typically shut-in nerds who are completely useless in every way. I live in the real world where people insult each other all the time in politics and "maturity" (by which you mean po-faced dourness) has nothing to do with success.
You just 'think,' when part of Trump's appeal is playground-style insults like 'Crooked Hillary'?
> anticapitalist left
yeah ok you don't give a shit about the anti-racist left, you've made that abundantly clear by showing up to defend a tweet about how some slaveowners weren't so bad, fuck out of here
i'm using the term "anticapitalist left" to distinguish the left from dems and liberals. of course any meaningfully anticapitalist left would be anti-racist.
what do you get out of assuming the most nefarious possible intentions of the person youre talking to. dont you think strasserites or whatever have better things to do than defend robin hanson on sneerclub
>dont you think strasserites or whatever have better things to do than defend robin hanson on sneerclub
Given that we've literally had Strasserite-types do that, no?
The people who I called frauds (e.g. David Friedman) deserved that label and I am willing to provide evidence once again. Scott Alexander would prefer to censor free-speech rather than actually have a rational conversation. I encourage all SneerClubbers to call David Friedman a fraud and Scott Alexander a nepotist who engages in censorship to protect his blogging buddies. I encourage SneerClubbers to do that because it's correct. If you think it's incorrect you can simply provide a convincing counter-argument.
This only helps to highlight the difference between Sneerers' crime of "calling whole groups of people horrible names" and rationalists' crime of "being violent white nationalists."
https://twitter.com/haircut_hippie/status/1122912722629353472
maybe robin hanson’s confusion over slavery stems from all the different people who have owned him on twitter
….wow
I can understand trying to say “hey there were definitely degrees of badness among Nazis/slaveowners/generally bad people” but that doesn’t actually mean they were secretly good people who happened to accidentally do a few bad thing
even IF (and this is being very charitable) he’s going for “people who generally did bad things/did a few REALLY bad things were also capable of doing good things and that should not be dismissed”
this is certainly not the way to go about it
Usul, we have ratios the likes of which even God has never seen.
you just KNOW that he’s sure his thinking is nuanced and complex. dumbass
We’re now at the point where Brad DeLong is straight up calling another economist a monster. Nobody ever tell him he can stop tweeting.
he will never log off
~keep tweeting, keep keep tweeting on~ ~i keep tweeting, i keep keep tweeting on~
Eh, I’m kind of sympathetic to Robin here - he’s clearly a dumbass, but the left’s inability to have any nuance regarding shades-of-badness is how you end up with centre-right politicians (who, don’t get me wrong, certainly have bad politics etc) or even leftists who don’t toe the party line being called fascists or nazis, and the people who see those claims get turned off from the left.
Even though in this particular case, where the least bad slaveowner or nazi was probably irredeemably bad, if you’re willing to make that distinction explicit that means you’re much more likely to recognize shades-of-badness in less extreme cases.
Not all SneerClubbers are equally bad. Some are calling whole groups of people horrible names unfairly, while others just encourage them.
Which self-identified “rationalists” are violent white nationalists? I can’t think of a single one.