posted on February 14, 2021 04:41 PM by
u/carbunkles__
32
u/Soyweiser28 pointsat 1613337129.000000
Silicon valley isn’t full of fascists, but there are a non zero
amount. More so in the less wrong community.
You know who used to post in LW? Mr Skull himself
(from hbomberguy fame), here is his profile
with the last message being pretty telling. (other messages of him are
doing the ‘you just call everybody a fascist’ defense in 2009 (ahead of
the curve), also pretty funny somebody else going ‘Downvoted for use of
the term ’race realism’ (that’s verbal bullying).’).
E: more ontopic, is he really using ‘number of people who fill out a
survey’ as an argument for ‘this many people read it regularly’? Clearly
he is more rational than the rationalists. (E2: Interestingly, this also
means that a lot of Scotts writing is actually not that valuable, if
only a very small subset of people reads his blog, then his blog posts
which are about getting data from his surveys (he has quite a few) are
also not useful, we can’t have it both ways).
‘They banned President Trump’ This was after giving him special
rights to break the TOS. People have literally been banned for just
saying the same thing Trump has. What is this bullshit.
“But generally, the Rationalists don’t seem very political to me.”
That creates the risk of them becoming Mittlaufers.
>other messages of him are doing the 'you just call everybody a fascist' defense in 2009 (ahead of the curve)
Given that Chris Hedges published *[American Fascists](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Fascists)* in 2007, not as ahead of the curve as one might think. On the other hand, Hedges was talking about American Christians, so it’s still a bit out-of-place that someone like Davis Aurini would be getting defensive over such an accusation at that point in time.
The useful thing about consistency is that I can cover for not
keeping track of which chud is which by asking the same question no
matter who got linked.
“Is this the rape apologist or the rape apologist apologist?”
Someone has no idea what response rate you get from online strangers
on a billion-question survey:
In comparison, Siskind’s survey
of his readers in 2020 got about 8,000 responses, while a
Redditor in 2016 estimated that the blog had about 3400 regular
readers. About 7,500 people signed the petition urging the
Times not to reveal Siskind’s name.
So even if Slate Star Codex’s regular readership was four times as
large as the largest of these numbers, that would still mean that a
maximum of only 8.3% of Silicon Valley could have regularly read the
blog — or a much smaller percent of the overall nationwide tech
industry.
Why doesn’t he start with the r/ssc subscriber count and work up from
there?
OFC course it isn’t “full” of them but the amount of them and their
positions of power is fucking scary. I worked in media and it has a few
of them like Gavin McInnes but it’s not like he’s likely to be your EIC.
Whereas in tech you have people who fascists who remain in powerful
roles within tech like Balaji Srinivasan and Peter Thiel.
I mostly like noah because he’s very enthusiastic about the welfare
state. But his takes here are dumb, assuming that people who respond
“liberal” or “centrist” to a survey can’t buy into Charles Murray racial
bullshit, and where he says “I haven’t seen evidence that Nazi ideas
have taken root among the rationalists”…. I’m sure he hasn’t read the
motte, but that’s where rationalists are, so it’s evidence. Then he says
“I haven’t seen evidence that Rationalist ideas have been more than a
very niche influence in the world of tech” yet links to Yglesias, who
makes the exact opposite argument!
People who used to work at Google got
in his replies to point out that actually plenty of the lib
centrists in SV like to talk about race and IQ all the time, and he was
being reasonable in response, but then deleted those tweets…
lol, there are definitely SSC fans (and discussion thereof) at Google, but no one is debating race science on the mailing lists. They do have an HR department.
and according to the twitter thread, there were at least three other people who did similar things, and also got fired. What about that is unbelievable to you?
> What about that is unbelievable to you?
Absolutely nothing. I think we're talking past each other here.
You're right that "no one is debating race science on the mailing lists" is too strong a statement. But most if not all of those people got fired. So I think that "plenty of the lib centrists in SV like to talk about race and IQ all the time" is also too strong a statement.
In my experience, the people who were interested in doing this do not tend to be the lib centrists. Which of course does not mean that they aren't racist, but that's not how it gets expressed.
The people on Twitter were talking about the time period ~2010 to 2015 or so, I don't work in silicon valley and have never set foot there thank God, so if you don't think it's like that anymore, or ever was, fair. Seems to me that the number of people who engage with HBD strictly online via SSC and themotte is much larger than the number of California tech randos who would be vocal about it. And it's the online people who are a problem, to me.
Apparently with this blog Noah was just trying to [defend his Bay-Area friends](https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1362157039959511040), not Scott. He could have mentioned that!
I get what you mean here for the most part but when you get to the last sentence I can't vibe with the "persistent autism." What do you actually mean, rather than just using "autism" as a generic insult? Is it a lack of social skills thing? Unwillingness to understand other people's perspectives? (I think most of the people here feel the same way re: calling rationalists autistic... there's plenty of better arguments to make than calling people we don't like autistic.)
Yea but being obsessed with IQ doesn’t make them fascist?
Let me explore this a bit:
Depends on what kind of an obsession they have with IQ.
Rat #1 thinks that “IQ is a good explanation for differences in
social outcomes.”. It’s wrong, but I would say it does not warrant the
label “fascist”.
Rat #2 thinks that “The only thing wrong with skull measuring was we
weren’t measuring the right thing”. This absolutely warrants the label
“fascist”.
And now rat #1 provides a platform and a cover for #2. So there is
some truth to using “fascist” to describe #1, if only to say
that they normalize and pave the way for fascist talking points.
And while part of the ignorance of rat #1 is fueled by preference
towards very simplistic models and explanations for human behavior
(which is not a right-wing exclusive thing), another part of it IS
fueled by a right-wing political leaning, right-wing media consumption,
and to a certain extent, class conciousness(since the rats mostly score
high on IQ).
So there is more of a gradient between rationalist and fascist than a
clear boundary.
And the rats lump liberal democrats and communists together in the
“Blue Tribe”, but then they insist there is an extremely clear boundary
between rationalists and fascists, and how dare you imply otherwise.
Yeah, the way I see it: the problem with people who care a lot about race and IQ is that firstly, they are simply incorrect, which doesn’t bode well for the “rationalist thinking makes you Less Wrong™️” hypothesis, and second, it’s both a signifier of, and possibly a gateway to, messed up thinking that tends toward the fash. (see also: Mensa)
I actually saw a group of neoreactionaries all agreeing that they first found out about it through the rationalist blog sphere.
Eh, as someone with at least some training as a historian I need to have a more narrow view of what fascism is (in that its a difficult-to-pin-down yet specific ideology, not just generic racism or even genetic essentialism or authoritarianism) but I dont think the skull-measuring is even particularly central to fascism: Its just something lots of fascists (but also lots of non-fascists) were into because the early 20th century was terrible.
There is definitely overlap between rationalists and fascism in various ways, (in affinity if nothing else, if two people come together and share skull-measuring tips they will probably end up sharing other things too)
Yeah, being obsessed with Jewish conspiracies isn't what made the Nazis fascists either. But anyone who doesn't see the connection is playing dumb, and *they're just racists not fascists!* is kind of missing the larger point.
Yes, I understand. If you were to go by Umberto Eco's 14 traits of Ur-fascism, it doesn't fit.
I believe I was thinking in fact of the particular type of phrenology that the Nazis practiced, which attempted to formalize an undesirable "other" along racial lines, as oppsed to the more general phrenology of attempting to predict mental traits from skull shape. (Ironically, IQ lines up more with the former, because it naturally splits into a binary: high IQ(desirable) vs. low IQ(undesirable)).
The formalization of the "racially undesirable" would touch at least 2 of Umberto Eco's points:
5. Fear of difference.
10. Contempt for the weak.
one of my absolute favorite books on the history of silicon valley is
Surveillance Valley by Yasha Levine (https://surveillancevalley.com).
It’s not conspiracy wank, he digs up some genuinely interesting bits of
history I hadn’t heard about. Like, did you know there were student
protests when the first cross-university computer links were being put
in in the 60s? The students said “wow this is obviously going to be used
for mass surveillance”. Of course they were ignored.
anyway silicon valley is absolutely full of fascists, lmao at this
blog post
is this an opinion regarding the tech industry as a whole or SV specifically? Is there a reason why people seem to single out SV in these conclusions over the tech industry? Is it just the biggest congregation of rationalists in an area?
I’m pretty sure a big part of the reason (besides the history, which I can echo the rec for Surveillance Valley for) is that SV is where a lot of the money around tech is concentrated. It’s hard to find a venture capital funded company that doesn’t have at least one investor from the area, and harder still to find an investor there that doesn’t have personal rationalist ties.
I see, perhaps I'm misinterpreting the statement but when people say stuff like "silicon valley is full of fascists" are they speaking about random people in SV or the people who wield a lot of power? It's no surprise that the Thiel school of technocrats has a lot of links to fascism but (speaking purely anecdotally here) I can't say I've met many openly rationalist types in big tech that know what HBD or effective altruism.
I mean, periodically you get your James Damores or what have you, loud and proud nrxers. but I think a lot of it is more the dreary middle-class sort of fascism where you don't even know you hate the underclass, you just carry out the motions of their oppression.
I wonder how many of the people who throw around “fascist” could
correctly describe corporatism or concepts like proletarian nations and
plutocrat nations. Well naturally corporatism is when corporations run
everything, right, so we’re already fascist. Just like how Marxist
“alienation” is when you’re lonely. If only there was a way to look this
stuff up.
>"Centrist"
That's the joke?
I sometimes feel like those fans from the [Lollapalooza episode](https://youtu.be/wwFfkyZg3RA?t=01m28s) of The Simpsons since I can't tell if someone's being sarcastic anymore. Post-postirony with cynicism characteristics hath broken me.
Silicon valley isn’t full of fascists, but there are a non zero amount. More so in the less wrong community.
You know who used to post in LW? Mr Skull himself (from hbomberguy fame), here is his profile with the last message being pretty telling. (other messages of him are doing the ‘you just call everybody a fascist’ defense in 2009 (ahead of the curve), also pretty funny somebody else going ‘Downvoted for use of the term ’race realism’ (that’s verbal bullying).’).
E: more ontopic, is he really using ‘number of people who fill out a survey’ as an argument for ‘this many people read it regularly’? Clearly he is more rational than the rationalists. (E2: Interestingly, this also means that a lot of Scotts writing is actually not that valuable, if only a very small subset of people reads his blog, then his blog posts which are about getting data from his surveys (he has quite a few) are also not useful, we can’t have it both ways).
‘They banned President Trump’ This was after giving him special rights to break the TOS. People have literally been banned for just saying the same thing Trump has. What is this bullshit.
“But generally, the Rationalists don’t seem very political to me.” That creates the risk of them becoming Mittlaufers.
No mention of the NRx? Odd.
The useful thing about consistency is that I can cover for not keeping track of which chud is which by asking the same question no matter who got linked.
“Is this the rape apologist or the rape apologist apologist?”
Someone has no idea what response rate you get from online strangers on a billion-question survey:
Why doesn’t he start with the r/ssc subscriber count and work up from there?
OFC course it isn’t “full” of them but the amount of them and their positions of power is fucking scary. I worked in media and it has a few of them like Gavin McInnes but it’s not like he’s likely to be your EIC. Whereas in tech you have people who fascists who remain in powerful roles within tech like Balaji Srinivasan and Peter Thiel.
I mostly like noah because he’s very enthusiastic about the welfare state. But his takes here are dumb, assuming that people who respond “liberal” or “centrist” to a survey can’t buy into Charles Murray racial bullshit, and where he says “I haven’t seen evidence that Nazi ideas have taken root among the rationalists”…. I’m sure he hasn’t read the motte, but that’s where rationalists are, so it’s evidence. Then he says “I haven’t seen evidence that Rationalist ideas have been more than a very niche influence in the world of tech” yet links to Yglesias, who makes the exact opposite argument!
People who used to work at Google got in his replies to point out that actually plenty of the lib centrists in SV like to talk about race and IQ all the time, and he was being reasonable in response, but then deleted those tweets…
There was a (now deleted) comment here that said
Let me explore this a bit:
Depends on what kind of an obsession they have with IQ.
Rat #1 thinks that “IQ is a good explanation for differences in social outcomes.”. It’s wrong, but I would say it does not warrant the label “fascist”.
Rat #2 thinks that “The only thing wrong with skull measuring was we weren’t measuring the right thing”. This absolutely warrants the label “fascist”.
And now rat #1 provides a platform and a cover for #2. So there is some truth to using “fascist” to describe #1, if only to say that they normalize and pave the way for fascist talking points.
And while part of the ignorance of rat #1 is fueled by preference towards very simplistic models and explanations for human behavior (which is not a right-wing exclusive thing), another part of it IS fueled by a right-wing political leaning, right-wing media consumption, and to a certain extent, class conciousness(since the rats mostly score high on IQ).
So there is more of a gradient between rationalist and fascist than a clear boundary.
And the rats lump liberal democrats and communists together in the “Blue Tribe”, but then they insist there is an extremely clear boundary between rationalists and fascists, and how dare you imply otherwise.
🤢🤢🤮
one of my absolute favorite books on the history of silicon valley is Surveillance Valley by Yasha Levine (https://surveillancevalley.com). It’s not conspiracy wank, he digs up some genuinely interesting bits of history I hadn’t heard about. Like, did you know there were student protests when the first cross-university computer links were being put in in the 60s? The students said “wow this is obviously going to be used for mass surveillance”. Of course they were ignored.
anyway silicon valley is absolutely full of fascists, lmao at this blog post
I wonder how many of the people who throw around “fascist” could correctly describe corporatism or concepts like proletarian nations and plutocrat nations. Well naturally corporatism is when corporations run everything, right, so we’re already fascist. Just like how Marxist “alienation” is when you’re lonely. If only there was a way to look this stuff up.
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