I’ve been trying to find for ages this SSC post I read that was my
first ping that Scott wasn’t just some starry-eyed innocent libertarian
who was just too civil to tell the HBD people on his blog to go away.
For the most part, he’s very slimy about obfuscating his connection to
actual HBD stuff, which is why I didn’t notice for a long time and
thought he was just a guy who was very rigorous about methodology
(though always aimed at showing that women are bad at STEM and that
black people don’t actually have it bad…).
But he made this post about ideas you’re not supposed to have, and
guilt. It went something like, “one of my friends came crying to me
because he had come to a horrible conclusion. He told me he was
anti-racist 100%, but he thought the evidence for racial differences
among IQ was too strong for him to ignore.” He never went on to say
whether he thought it was correct or incorrect to believe that
differences among IQ were racially-based, and I found that really
suspect, but I was in a weird depressive period of my life and for
whatever godforsaken reason this blog was speaking to me in other ways,
so I just filed that in a “that’s very weird” place and moved on.
After realizing that he’s not a starry-eyed innocent libertarian but
very much a slimy guy who takes great care to only say just enough that
it’s not directly incriminating, I went back to look for this post that
was surprisingly frank about his views on HBD, but I was not able to
find it again. I’m annoyed because he writes so damn much that looking
for anything that isn’t one of his well-known posts is pretty
difficult.
>I went back to look for this post that was surprisingly frank about his views on HBD, but I was not able to find it again. I'm annoyed because he writes so damn much that looking for anything that isn't one of his well-known posts is pretty difficult.
He also edits his pieces a lot, even years later, so you might have to look at an archived page or whatever.
I too used to believe he was a "starry-eyed libertarian", naive as hell, but ultimately motivated by some kind of commitment to liberal free discussion, all the way up until the Steve Hsu incident. I don't think he was *always* concealing his beliefs (his anti-neoreactionary FAQ looks completely sincere), but by 2020 this is what he had become.
(Note in how few posts from the past two years he actually revealed, on the object-level, how he felt about particular political questions. One definitely got the sense that he was either intellectually withdrawing, hiding, or changing)
It's like, of all the people in the world, Steve *fucking* Hsu. Of all the causes Scott could have rallied his troops around. It no longer looked like a weird coincidence that Scott's punches always seemed to go in one direction. This is what he really cared about, deep down at the core: Race/IQ stuff and making sure that people could lend credence to white supremacy without repercussion. This was who he was. He finally let the mask slip.
dude idk why you guys are so surprised there is literally hbd blogosphere overlap with rationalist blogosphere. and it kinda makes sense, they are both amateurs trynna reinvent academic disciplines.
>making sure that people could lend credence to white supremacy without repercussion.
I guess that would explain why he wrote this?
https://web.archive.org/web/20200220221540/https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/28/ssc-endorses-clinton-johnson-or-stein/
You guys keep complaining about right wingers reading SSC, maybe you should be glad they are reading stuff like this from people they respect and who are actually trying to convince them they are wrong?
No, though this is basically a more elaborate version. The post I read was surprisingly short by Scott's standards, and had to do either with a hypothetical friend or an actual real life friend.
The first time I read Kolgomorov complicity, the thought that it had anything to do with HBD totally went over my head the first time I read it - I thought it was supposed to be some sort of discussion of how scientific censorship works or something. I had never encountered this particular brand of race/sex/IQ bundling together, so I was unable to see that the dogwhistles were doubly layered.
Did you ever see episode 7 “The Weekend” in season 1 of
Homeland? Aired back in 2011 or 2012? The one where Carrie and
Brody take a road trip and stop at a bar?
Well, some guy with an “88” tattoo in Fraktur font hits on
Carrie. He tries to play it off like it was his jersey number back in
high school, but Carrie calls him on it with a smile, and the neo-Nazi
fuckwit thinks she might be down with the cause. Instead there’s a
barfight.
Jump ahead to 2018. There’s a prison guard in Massachusetts who’s
been photographed with an “88” in Fraktur font on his arm. And
his boss tries
to play it off as his college football jersey number. The people who
saw it and objected to it manage to get this guy to cover it up when
he’s at work.
I mean, you or I might say that this is obvious bullshit, but the
objectors did all they could for the time being. But what does “Scott
Alexander” say when this excuse comes to light?
You’ll have to scroll down here
a little bit to see his response:
This month in dog-whistling: Internet flies into a frenzy when alert
sleuths discover that a Massachusetts prison guard has an
arm tattoo containing Known White Supremacist Number 88. Hundreds of
online comments and various threats to the guard’s physical safety
later, the guard clarified he played college football with uniform
number 88. Relevant groups still say they’re proud of challenging the
“privilege” of people who can use the number 88 without caring how
offensive it is.
When I read that, I remembered thinking that “Scott Alexander”, a man
who makes his living as an actual psychiatrist, someone who is, among
other things, supposed to be able to see through threadbare lies,
probably was dumb enough to believe that absurd cover story. I
also remember thinking that it would have been less embarrassing for
“Scott Alexander” if “Scott Alexander” actually were a secret,
full-blown neo-Nazi who was just taking the piss.
(Edit: 23 hours after original posting, minor edits to correct
grammatical errors)
“You don’t get to be a hyper-influential thinker and attract
a fanbase full of nazis and stay anonymous. Sooner or later,
someone’s gonna ask,”hey, what’s with all the nazis”, and at that point,
any goodwill that would keep you anonymous is out the window -
rightfully so.”
Seconded, this is really one hell of a thread. I've never seen anyone take Scott down in such a thorough and... rational... manner.
Like, what more is there to say about SSC?
Wait do you not understand that he doesn't actually consider himself a "low-decoupling conflict theorist"? This is a bit because EY likes silly terminology like this, it's not a serious self-identification. Please, it's crucial to me that you understand this very basic and obvious fact about the world.
How can people see [this tweet](https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/1275653548773179392) and not get that?
(It is pretty damning that in the 'In Favor of Niceness, Community, and Civilization' post Scott doesn't even entertain the idea that he might have been joking btw, as always, no steelmanning of the left)
e: Holy shit Arthurs tweets are on point, like about a lot of things, not just this linked thread.
Hey, if you had to strong man Arthur Chus position, what would it be?
Here’s my notes from his last day or two of epic tweets. I’m trying to
steelman it.
The primacy of human experience is the arbiter of truth with
fomenting of dignity and respect as primary goals of social
structures
Dissent and individual identities are encouraged and sought for
fulfilment.
All other factors are secondary. Competence is secondary to the
primacy of dignity
Statistical truths may also be secondary if it clashes with dignity
and respect.
Studying human intelecutual capabilities are antethesis to the
primacy of dignity and should not be done, because it fosters a false
measure of worth that problematically clashes with dignity and respect
for all
Anyone with opposing positions to the primacy of these goals should
be punished and shamed into irrelevance.
These principals allow a safe space for most people and thus a better
world.
Uh…yeah. They don’t like being accused of weird nazi shit. For most
people it’s a pretty upsetting thing to be accused of.
I know this is sneer club, this is what happens here. But it’s not
exactly a surprise that nerds don’t like being bullied. You haven’t
exactly cracked the Da Vinci Code here
Shouldn't nerds simply out-argue their opponents with facts, logic and reason? Honestly, I think the evidence is mounting that Scott Alexander is a jock with very little interest in an open debate.
1. I'm not Arthur Chu and I have no interest in what Arthur Chu argues (he is not a Marxist).
2. I tried arguing logically against SSCers and Scott Alexander personally banned me for exposing that one of his buddies falsified citations.
SSCers aren't nerds interested in logic and reason, they're jocks. Scott Alexander has no interest in nerdy scholarly arguments, he just enjoys censoring true nerds like myself.
Very good thread.
I’ve been trying to find for ages this SSC post I read that was my first ping that Scott wasn’t just some starry-eyed innocent libertarian who was just too civil to tell the HBD people on his blog to go away. For the most part, he’s very slimy about obfuscating his connection to actual HBD stuff, which is why I didn’t notice for a long time and thought he was just a guy who was very rigorous about methodology (though always aimed at showing that women are bad at STEM and that black people don’t actually have it bad…).
But he made this post about ideas you’re not supposed to have, and guilt. It went something like, “one of my friends came crying to me because he had come to a horrible conclusion. He told me he was anti-racist 100%, but he thought the evidence for racial differences among IQ was too strong for him to ignore.” He never went on to say whether he thought it was correct or incorrect to believe that differences among IQ were racially-based, and I found that really suspect, but I was in a weird depressive period of my life and for whatever godforsaken reason this blog was speaking to me in other ways, so I just filed that in a “that’s very weird” place and moved on.
After realizing that he’s not a starry-eyed innocent libertarian but very much a slimy guy who takes great care to only say just enough that it’s not directly incriminating, I went back to look for this post that was surprisingly frank about his views on HBD, but I was not able to find it again. I’m annoyed because he writes so damn much that looking for anything that isn’t one of his well-known posts is pretty difficult.
Did you ever see episode 7 “The Weekend” in season 1 of Homeland? Aired back in 2011 or 2012? The one where Carrie and Brody take a road trip and stop at a bar?
Well, some guy with an “88” tattoo in Fraktur font hits on Carrie. He tries to play it off like it was his jersey number back in high school, but Carrie calls him on it with a smile, and the neo-Nazi fuckwit thinks she might be down with the cause. Instead there’s a barfight.
Jump ahead to 2018. There’s a prison guard in Massachusetts who’s been photographed with an “88” in Fraktur font on his arm. And his boss tries to play it off as his college football jersey number. The people who saw it and objected to it manage to get this guy to cover it up when he’s at work.
I mean, you or I might say that this is obvious bullshit, but the objectors did all they could for the time being. But what does “Scott Alexander” say when this excuse comes to light?
You’ll have to scroll down here a little bit to see his response:
When I read that, I remembered thinking that “Scott Alexander”, a man who makes his living as an actual psychiatrist, someone who is, among other things, supposed to be able to see through threadbare lies, probably was dumb enough to believe that absurd cover story. I also remember thinking that it would have been less embarrassing for “Scott Alexander” if “Scott Alexander” actually were a secret, full-blown neo-Nazi who was just taking the piss.
(Edit: 23 hours after original posting, minor edits to correct grammatical errors)
I love your thread
“You don’t get to be a hyper-influential thinker and attract a fanbase full of nazis and stay anonymous. Sooner or later, someone’s gonna ask,”hey, what’s with all the nazis”, and at that point, any goodwill that would keep you anonymous is out the window - rightfully so.”
Perfect.
your twitter thread is awesome actually
https://twitter.com/budgetplayer/status/1275837278154358786
Twitter is the absolute worst way to have intelligent discussion
Yikes that Arthur Chu is nasty
Hey, if you had to strong man Arthur Chus position, what would it be? Here’s my notes from his last day or two of epic tweets. I’m trying to steelman it.
The primacy of human experience is the arbiter of truth with fomenting of dignity and respect as primary goals of social structures
Dissent and individual identities are encouraged and sought for fulfilment.
All other factors are secondary. Competence is secondary to the primacy of dignity
Statistical truths may also be secondary if it clashes with dignity and respect.
Studying human intelecutual capabilities are antethesis to the primacy of dignity and should not be done, because it fosters a false measure of worth that problematically clashes with dignity and respect for all
Anyone with opposing positions to the primacy of these goals should be punished and shamed into irrelevance.
These principals allow a safe space for most people and thus a better world.
Uh…yeah. They don’t like being accused of weird nazi shit. For most people it’s a pretty upsetting thing to be accused of.
I know this is sneer club, this is what happens here. But it’s not exactly a surprise that nerds don’t like being bullied. You haven’t exactly cracked the Da Vinci Code here