posted on December 14, 2022 04:48 AM by
u/GaiusLeviathanXV
86
u/GaiusLeviathanXV65 pointsat 1670993433.000000
I wish I had found this back when the NYT article came out, people
were saying that Cade Metz was full of shit for saying that Scott was
aligned with Murray.
Lol he also picked Tulsi.
Think there is only one name on there I dont think is meh and that is the self defense pick.
> Everything else can be filled by randomly selected black women so that I can brag about how diverse I am.
Euh
On that note, he also chose the real guy behind The Last Psychiatrist as his would-be surgeon general, in case you didn't know (who also described himself as a "hardcore Republican" in the same lecture that led to him getting doxxed. I think TLP was better at hiding his politics, though the sexism definitely leaks through into his work).
Realistically though they'd probably just point out that Scott says he'd hire "randomly selected black women" (because qualifications don't matter when they're black?), even though it's for the express purpose of appearing "diverse".
> leaks
Lmao, speaking as somebody with enough problematics of his own to deal with, I’d call it raw misogyny
The black women thing, and the way you put it, does point to something I always find genuinely fascinating I only really see (in my limited POV) with the rationalist crowd. Albeit bearing in mind we’re talking about highly stereotyped avatars now, not actual people we can quote offhand. And that’s that you *will find* pluralities, even majorities, of any one rationalist crowd saying “look at this obviously sarcastic jab, how can you possibly say he’s being sarcastic”, I don’t know what particular thing causes that to happen but it’s always funny.
I had a reply but i think I’d rather just pull the usual “let’s not do the imputing ASD to people we’re already talking about in terms of stereotypes thing” yellow card
for what it’s worth I’m sure there are some people where this is ASD behaviour, but I’m highly doubtful it’s enough, especially given how variably ASD is expressed, to really call it here
Also if they couldn't deny that these folks are racist, you'd only get to "there's nothing wrong with being racist as long as its evidence based, of course racism is associated with people who weren't rationalist and thus did it wrong".
They know it's horseshit but they also know most people won't check, and that their centrist to right wing audience will believe the "the left is calling us racists again for no reason" shtick.
the policy ideas are more hit or miss, but between of course murray,
tulsi, thiel, musk, and especially the anonymous bitcoin guy as treasury
secretary, the cabinet appointments are making me actually cringe to
read written even semi-seriously
Trying to name the Bitcoin Guy as Treasury Secretary is so stupid it wraps back around to kinda funny for me. Has anyone even managed to communicate with him in the past, like, ten years? It's like saying your pick for Secretary of the Interior is the guy who posted some greentext you thought was funny back in 2006. How the fuck are we tracking him down to give him the job?
Nobody knows who the guy really is, even if there are a few likely suspects (iirc one of them is in jail). He has not talked since he created the whole shit, and owns a huge amount of bitcoin (so much that imho if it were to ever move a little bit, it would cause a massive crash in the market as suddenly there is another huge supply of bitcoin and the bitcoin market already has a 'no real dollars' problem (and now a 'no real bitcoins' problem, which is amazing that the cryptogoldbugs behind cryptocurrencies have recreated fractional reserve banking, but worse (as is the tech tradition))).
You really get the impression here that he never mentally developed
from that teenage “I know best and if only I was in charge everything
would be perfect” mentality
I was kind of hoping for a bit more investigation of the idea of having to navigate political structures when you're placed into a particular position (namely, the position of newly elected President Trump).
Like, it's not just "what would you do as president?" but "what would you do as president under this set of constraints?" Back at the beginning of his term, a lot of people were still kind of in awe of Trump a bit since he had pulled off what everybody said he could never do. So if you isekai'd into Trump you would have some latitude to get away with doing weird things and still have Republican politicians support you. You'd tell them, "My instincts won me the unwinnable election, and now you want to question me? Go fuck yourself."
But if you tried to do things that were *too* weird there would still be the risk of being removed from office. The idea of operating within a political reality that's a bit different from most other American politicians was the interesting thing to me. And maybe some of Scott's answer is premised on that idea, but he wasn't super-explicit about what would be different from him assuming the presidency under other circumstances.
Fun fact is that in Russia, the president does get to decide who the second in the line of succession is.
Yeltsin chose Putin for being particularly unlikely to go after Yeltsin or his family, then resigned so that Putin could run as incumbent.
If Putin chooses a successor, it'll be an even worse piece of shit. The place has not taken power away from anyone in 31 years now.
I'm not sure if he's ever admitted it directly, but it's been brought up in the SSC comments multiple times [this one for example](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/prisons-are-built-with-bricks-of-law-and-brothels-with-bricks-of-religion-but-that-doesnt-prove-a-causal-relationship/#comment-160091)
Well, he himself wrote the 'jokes can be used to justify the things they joke about' post. So he knows how jokes work and why people go 'euh wtf dude' at jokes.
I don’t know if Murray was the worst choice. The Stephen Hsu pick for
NIH gives off all the wrong vibes. The fact that he would pick two,
mostly out and out racist in his cabinet, how could you not think
anything other than Scott also holds the same ideas.
- Tell Russia that if they can defeat ISIS, they can have as much of
Syria as they want, and if they can do it while getting rid of Assad
we’ll let them have Alaska back too.
…….
.- Agree with Russia and Ukraine to partition Ukraine into Pro-Russia
Ukraine and Pro-West Ukraine. This would also work with Moldova.
Oh, so rational foreign policy is when NATO does the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 2.0. Not even, the Russians get even more
goodies!
I wonder if there’s any connection between his political leanings and
apparent desire to just roll over to appease the ambitions of the
Russian government. Hmmmmm… must be my imagination.
He's a rationalist, i.e. among the most gullible people on the planet.
Go back to February 25th there is probably a post outlining why Russia is actually not invading Ukraine, despite the invasion having already been well underway by that point, simply because Russia said they weren't.
If you want to interpret him generously, then you can point to fact
that Murray is an advocate of negative income tax – and speculate that
Alexander’s support for basic income might have lead him to sympathize
with Murray on that point while at least partially misunderstanding his
ideology overall. Obviously Murray is pro negative income tax out of a
far right perspective, hoping to undermine and replace other welfare
programs. According to the following review, he has also misunderstood
or misrepresents studies on negative income:
https://basicincome.org/news/2020/06/review-of-charles-murrays-in-our-hands-a-plan-to-replace-the-welfare-state-from-2009/
So I’m not saying Murray is a good choice for any position of power.
My point is just that you can interpret Alexander as naive and
uninformed about Murray’s other goals and policies. He might otherwise
be similarly far right to Murray, but it doesn’t seem like a
open-and-shut case.
Charles Murray’s claim to fame is the “Bell Curve” book about race and IQ
rationalists all either secretly or openly believe in it and therefore is why their high priest wants to put that bastard in charge of welfare
I'm well aware of Murray's claim to fame. The scenario you present is possible, that Alexander does belive in the idea of innate IQ-differences between races -- and that is why he sympathizes with Murray.
It's also possible that he sympathizes with him for other reasons, while either naively misunderstanding or tolerating his racial beliefs as a necessary evil.
I would suggest that, given the giant pillar of smoke\* that's been climbing the heavens over LessWrong/SSC for a decade now, that the most parsimonious explanation for Scott's behavior is that he has sympathy with Murray's views on heritability of intelligence, and more specifically his views on the racial differences of IQ he is famous for.
If Alexander wanted to find a negative income advocate, it would be relatively trivial for him to find one that was literally anyone other than noted advocate of racial theories of identity, Charles Murray.
\*that much smoke means there's fire, where fire equals "race realism"
you are bending over backwards for him for no reason whatsoever
this is like saying if someone likes Trump it only means they liked Operation Warp Speed and not all his other odious activities
I'm not saying the positive interpretation is necessarily true. Nor even more probable. Just pointing out that it exists.
My reason is that I occasionally try giving people the benifit of a doubt or at least point out how that could be done.
Maybe it’s genetic
In any case, when I first arrive in a sub I don’t know, I tend to read the room before commenting
In this context your original comment seems unwarrantedly hostile to the atmosphere of people who know Siskind’s online presence incredibly well making fun of him; you also give the impression of being a know-it-all
As the president and founding member of [ToBeFairrrrrrrClub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G19B7lTgwCE) myself, I thought it was funny -- hardly hostile.
I don't think you necessarily deserve the downvotes, at least not initially. I appreciate when people try to keep the sneer quality high.
Truth is, this wasn't a particularly easy one to sneer at. It's a whole lot easier when someone says something patently ridiculous in total earnestness. In this one, Scott is obviously trying to be cheeky on all the picks, and leaving it wide open for interpretation what he "really" meant for each one. The sneer here is really maybe 10% at the text itself, and 90% at the context.
Really sucks that Murray is the only person to ever talk about and promote negative income tax. If only there was a secondary person he could have picked without all this negative racist baggage. So yeah sucks. Nevertheless
On one hand, SneerClub entering Eternal September is annoying. On the other hand, “why can't we just have civil debate??” concern trolls getting owned is funny as hell.
In any case, why speculate about Siskind's motivations, when we can do some [research](https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001) and know?
No I'm referring to implying that people who reach another conclusion are dumbasses. You might be 100% correct on Alexander, it still doesn't seem nice to call people who are wrong dumbasses.
Not that I'm saying that the alternative interpretation of him as misinformed is correct. I'm presenting it as a possibility. Also, this alternative explanation doesn't make him come of as well informed/intelligent. So its not like any of the alternatives are flattering.
Can you provide us with a nicer way of calling you a dumbass?
https://www.freethesaurus.com/dumbass
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/idiot
Which of these would you prefer?
Somebody calling you a dumbass *and* idiot with the use of a free online thesaurus is not targeted harassment at you, dipshit
Block them if you’re that upset
But they have discerned the facts and made an extremely logical case, and I've never seen Scott Alexander make any sort of rebuttal to them. It is Scott Alexander's fans who behave more like a mob, unable to engage with any sort of reasoned criticism of Scott's positions.
I wish I had found this back when the NYT article came out, people were saying that Cade Metz was full of shit for saying that Scott was aligned with Murray.
the policy ideas are more hit or miss, but between of course murray, tulsi, thiel, musk, and especially the anonymous bitcoin guy as treasury secretary, the cabinet appointments are making me actually cringe to read written even semi-seriously
You really get the impression here that he never mentally developed from that teenage “I know best and if only I was in charge everything would be perfect” mentality
I sent him this ask lol.
He thinks the president, on January 20, decides who the vice president is?
Not to be dumb, but is this definitely real? I don’t know much about how Tumblr works, is this confirmed his account?
I don’t know if Murray was the worst choice. The Stephen Hsu pick for NIH gives off all the wrong vibes. The fact that he would pick two, mostly out and out racist in his cabinet, how could you not think anything other than Scott also holds the same ideas.
Steve Hsu is yet another race realist right-winger lunatic and he wants that guy to head the NIH
lol
Oh, so rational foreign policy is when NATO does the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 2.0. Not even, the Russians get even more goodies!
I wonder if there’s any connection between his political leanings and apparent desire to just roll over to appease the ambitions of the Russian government. Hmmmmm… must be my imagination.
I kept reading this and it just kept getting worse, holy shit
Wait, all his geopolitical stuff is just ‘allow people to do genocides’?
With 20/20 he would have been worse than Trump.
I had to do a web search for Charles Murray. Oh geez, he’s The Bell Curve guy.
Ew. Someone was not shoved in enough lockers as a kid
🤮
If you want to interpret him generously, then you can point to fact that Murray is an advocate of negative income tax – and speculate that Alexander’s support for basic income might have lead him to sympathize with Murray on that point while at least partially misunderstanding his ideology overall. Obviously Murray is pro negative income tax out of a far right perspective, hoping to undermine and replace other welfare programs. According to the following review, he has also misunderstood or misrepresents studies on negative income: https://basicincome.org/news/2020/06/review-of-charles-murrays-in-our-hands-a-plan-to-replace-the-welfare-state-from-2009/
So I’m not saying Murray is a good choice for any position of power. My point is just that you can interpret Alexander as naive and uninformed about Murray’s other goals and policies. He might otherwise be similarly far right to Murray, but it doesn’t seem like a open-and-shut case.
Good choice