Comment by DagAgren
6 years ago
I'm getting the feeling you may not be presenting the discussion or the reactions to it entirely honestly here.
6 years ago
I'm getting the feeling you may not be presenting the discussion or the reactions to it entirely honestly here.
I sympathize. For whatever reason, many people take any sort of nuanced, academically-formal discussion about highly contentious topics involving politics, society, etc. as prima facie evidence of dishonesty. This peculiar sort of naïve anti-intellectualism is actually quite common across the culture-wars spectrum. I'm not saying that this is what you're doing here: I'm saying that this alone is reason to be highly skeptical wrt. the prevailing rumors within the 'left' about people on SSC being horribly bigoted, racist etc.
I cannot stand the smug "we're objective academics that base our beliefs on nuanced logic and facts" of, to add insult to injury, self-declared "rationalists". That most are seemingly demographically and politically homogeneous are just the weirdest coincidence.
Dogwhistling doesn't stop being so just because you wrap it in an overly verbose academic sounding language. I think it's time for some introspection if this is all it takes for mainly young privileged [white] men to start considering race science and the likes as unfortunate but actually true. Exactly the same thing can be seen with figures like Jordan B Peterson.
Factual and useful observations don't stop being factual and useful just because some people might seek to exploit them as dogwhistling signals. If you've got a problem with malicious dogwhistling, deterring people from exploring these issues is exactly the wrong response. You want to do the opposite, so that honest, careful, nuanced inquiry drowns out any attempt at subverting the discussion.
(For instance, it was historically common to see expressions of concern about e.g. monopolistic industry and large business, damage to the environment, mass poverty etc. being used as dogwhistles obliquely referencing socialist views about the purported inherent evils of capitalism and the market economy, contrasted with bureaucratic central planning and control of the means of production. You don't see this to anything near the same extent nowadays, because most people who talk about these things are factually addressing the issues - often from a broad 'centrist/neoliberal' POV - not dogwhistling about unrelated stuff. So this can actually work.)
> That most are seemingly demographically and politically homogeneous are just the weirdest coincidence.
Demographically homogenous, yes this is a real issue that SSC folks are quite aware of. But it's also an issue about political discourse in general, not merely its awowedly-rationalist subset. Politically homogenous, not really. The whole reason debate was so vigorous within SSC was its lack of that kind of homogeneity.
12 replies →
> I cannot stand the smug "we're objective academics that base our beliefs on nuanced logic and facts" of, to add insult to injury, self-declared "rationalists".
The rationalist community has that tendency, but they also possess a willingness to listen to people no matter how cooky/bigoted/ignorant their opinions are, and that is very humble and empathic. SSC is the prime example of that ethic.
> I think it's time for some introspection if this is all it takes for mainly young privileged [white] men to start considering race science and the likes as unfortunate but actually true.
Calling for introspection among people with whom you share some mutual bond or allegiance is fair. Telling strangers on the Internet that they need to do some "introspection" on account of their wrongthink after judging them on the basis of their race and sex is pretty arrogant and despicable.
3 replies →