By that logic Jews should be worried that they are discriminated against on LW every time someone links to a neo-nazi blog, or to a site that has materials critical of Israel or, say, of Jewish dominance in Hollywood?
Should women feel unwelcome here if someone links to Larry Summers remarks on genetic differences between genders?
Any of those things really does provide Bayesian evidence the relevant groups will have lower status in a community. There are tradeoffs between making a place pleasant for various people and the ability to talk about various subjects. Even if strict general epistemic norms are applied (which would throw out most articles from political sites anyway), relaxing taboos to allow even clinical discussion signals unusual priorities. If avoiding offense or increasing participation of a group is a very high priority, then people will only bring up such evidence if they are relevant to some other very important need.
You seem to be in an argument about where to set the tradeoff seem to be making a claim about where to set the tradeoff, and I wouldn’t say positions become necessarily “irrational” across a wide range.
Any of those things really does provide Bayesian evidence the relevant groups will have lower status in a community.
Sure does. Then again, the WSJ is a complete right-wing garbage politically, but is quite good at economics, so it’s not so that unusual to get some tidbits of wisdom from unsavory sources.
If avoiding offense or increasing participation of a group is a very high priority
I would not expect this forum to bend over backwards to avoid accidentally offending people. The rule of thumb for an online discussion is “do not offend and do not be easily offended”.
I wouldn’t say positions become necessarily “irrational” across a wide range.
Right, where to set the boundary is a personal preference and not an issue of rationality. Expecting others to move their boundary upon your request might be.
There are tradeoffs between making a place pleasant for various people and the ability to talk about various subjects.
For instance: Making it pleasant for fundamentalist Christians makes it hard to talk about biology, because in order to make fundamentalist Christians comfortable you have to lie about biology. Making it pleasant for white-supremacists probably implies not having any informed conversations about the experiences of nonwhite people, since the nonwhite people are not likely to stick around to defend their very existence against the white-supremacists. Making it pleasant for misogynists pretty much implies not having any conversations with much input from women, at least on topics where sex is relevant; making it pleasant for homophobes means not talking about homosexuality in anything but condemning terms; and so on.
It seems safe to conclude that we already know quite a lot about what various supremacist and hate groups have to say, thanks to those views’ significance in history — and that today, we would prefer the input of the much larger and more interesting fraction of humanity that those groups would choose to exclude.
A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other designated sector of society.
I’m not sure you saw my point here. Yes VDARE is a politically oriented site, its goal being immigration restriction thus duh some people with racist attitudes are probably writing for it. Selectively applying such standards for the discussion of some policy issues seems like a bad idea. I can see your point if I was citing someone with a very poor reputation who happens to be right, but I don’t at all agree citing someone who is ok when it comes to data and its interpretation, who happens to have written for a magazine that sometimes isn’t ok.
Here is a statement of editorial policy from VDARE:
We’ve said repeatedly that VDARE.COM is not a White Nationalist webzine—but that we do publish White Nationalists because we regard their focus on white interests as at least as legitimate as Black Nationalism, Hispanic Nationalism, Zionism, etc…and as an inevitable development in the Brave New America created by mass immigration.
Based on this, I don’t know if I’d classify VDARE as a hate group, but I would classify it as racist.
The disclaimer I’ve quoted comes before a piece written by Jared Taylor. VDARE goes on to describe him as “perhaps the most brilliant and accomplished figure among White Nationalists”. This is a man who has written elsewhere: “Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization—any kind of civilization—disappears. And in a crisis, civilization disappears overnight.” It might be denotationally accurate that he is one of the most brilliant and accomplished White Nationalists, but I don’t like the connotations.
It might be denotationally accurate that he is one of the most brilliant and accomplished White Nationalists, but I don’t like the connotations.
In that case I recommend you make it possible for people to discuss said denotations without automatically being lumped with said connotations. See Eric Raymound’s post on not ceding the truth to racists.
Your approach of “we should/shouldn’t say X in order to include/exclude certain groups” seems to miss something. Specifically there frequently is a fact of the matter regarding X and that should also be a very important consideration.
My approach is not “we should/shouldn’t say X” at all. It is, rather, “if we want to learn about people of category Q, we should listen to (and welcome) those people themselves, in preference to people of category P who make conjectures about people of category Q. And people of category Q often don’t have much patience for being conjectured about in ways that are not only unflattering, but have long ago been debunked.”
For instance, if you want to acquire information about the experiences, psyches, and motives of women, you’re better off listening to women rather than listening to misogynistic pick-up artists. If you want to learn about black people, you’re better off listening to black people rather than listening to white raci(ali)sts. And so on.
(This is, by the way, part of why I think we shouldn’t use religion as a cheap example of irrationality. Religion is a lot more complicated than many skeptics’ models of it would suggest.)
being conjectured about in ways that are not only unflattering, but have long ago been debunked.
Really, could you direct me to where and when this debunking happened? When I look around I see a lot of evidence for these conjectures and a lot of incoherent arguments against them backed up by claims that it’s evil to even consider the possibility that the conjectures are correct.
Yes, I would be deeply worried if people linked to neo-nazi blogs. There is, of course, a difference between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism.
As for Hollywood, my understanding is that most people who are worried that the Jews are over-represented in Hollywood, are worried for anti-semitic reasons. Certainly, it’s rare to see someone comment on it without invoking anti-semitic stereotypes or tropes in the process.
And why should anyone link to Larry Summers if not to make women feel unwelcome? He’s not a famous geneticist, or a famous rationalist, or a famous expert in the world of sex-differences, or really anything else. He’s mostly famous for is this speech, which is full of shoddy reasoning and anecdotal evidence.
I sympathize with your reaction. But one can go overboard with this: if the heuristics disqualifying potential sources for a view are too aggressive, then no one will be qualified to present that view, even if it turns out to be right. For instance, the disqualifying description of Summers in the above comment is questionable:
Larry Summers...He’s not a famous… expert in...really anything else. He’s mostly famous for is this speech,
He won the John Bates Clark medal, awarded to the best economists under 40, basically the Fields medal of economics. He is almost universally acclaimed as brilliant within the economics profession, was Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury, a major economic adviser for the Obama administration, and Chief Economist of the World Bank.
He’s not a famous geneticist
Is that your real objection? Both James Watson and Francis Crick, who shared the Nobel Prize for their work on the DNA double helix, have expressed pro-eugenics positions, and the view that genetic explanations of ethnic differences in IQ are plausibly to likely significant. I.e. the most famous geneticists ever. Will Shockley, who won a Nobel in Physics for invention of the transistor, also got in a lot of trouble for pro-eugenics positions, and his views on race and IQ. Would you be OK with comments linking to and citing them on their controversial views? Or discussing the reactions to those views?
I find such a request irrational.
By that logic Jews should be worried that they are discriminated against on LW every time someone links to a neo-nazi blog, or to a site that has materials critical of Israel or, say, of Jewish dominance in Hollywood?
Should women feel unwelcome here if someone links to Larry Summers remarks on genetic differences between genders?
Any of those things really does provide Bayesian evidence the relevant groups will have lower status in a community. There are tradeoffs between making a place pleasant for various people and the ability to talk about various subjects. Even if strict general epistemic norms are applied (which would throw out most articles from political sites anyway), relaxing taboos to allow even clinical discussion signals unusual priorities. If avoiding offense or increasing participation of a group is a very high priority, then people will only bring up such evidence if they are relevant to some other very important need.
You seem to be in an argument about where to set the tradeoff seem to be making a claim about where to set the tradeoff, and I wouldn’t say positions become necessarily “irrational” across a wide range.
Sure does. Then again, the WSJ is a complete right-wing garbage politically, but is quite good at economics, so it’s not so that unusual to get some tidbits of wisdom from unsavory sources.
I would not expect this forum to bend over backwards to avoid accidentally offending people. The rule of thumb for an online discussion is “do not offend and do not be easily offended”.
Right, where to set the boundary is a personal preference and not an issue of rationality. Expecting others to move their boundary upon your request might be.
For instance: Making it pleasant for fundamentalist Christians makes it hard to talk about biology, because in order to make fundamentalist Christians comfortable you have to lie about biology. Making it pleasant for white-supremacists probably implies not having any informed conversations about the experiences of nonwhite people, since the nonwhite people are not likely to stick around to defend their very existence against the white-supremacists. Making it pleasant for misogynists pretty much implies not having any conversations with much input from women, at least on topics where sex is relevant; making it pleasant for homophobes means not talking about homosexuality in anything but condemning terms; and so on.
It seems safe to conclude that we already know quite a lot about what various supremacist and hate groups have to say, thanks to those views’ significance in history — and that today, we would prefer the input of the much larger and more interesting fraction of humanity that those groups would choose to exclude.
I don’t think VDARE is a hate group.
What is a hate group?
Wikipedia definition:
Yes. VDARE is not a hate group. It is politicaly incorrect. This is not racist.
My opinion on the site:
Here is a statement of editorial policy from VDARE:
Based on this, I don’t know if I’d classify VDARE as a hate group, but I would classify it as racist.
The disclaimer I’ve quoted comes before a piece written by Jared Taylor. VDARE goes on to describe him as “perhaps the most brilliant and accomplished figure among White Nationalists”. This is a man who has written elsewhere: “Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization—any kind of civilization—disappears. And in a crisis, civilization disappears overnight.” It might be denotationally accurate that he is one of the most brilliant and accomplished White Nationalists, but I don’t like the connotations.
In that case I recommend you make it possible for people to discuss said denotations without automatically being lumped with said connotations. See Eric Raymound’s post on not ceding the truth to racists.
I agree. It is not honest intellectually to stop discussion.
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell.
Your approach of “we should/shouldn’t say X in order to include/exclude certain groups” seems to miss something. Specifically there frequently is a fact of the matter regarding X and that should also be a very important consideration.
My approach is not “we should/shouldn’t say X” at all. It is, rather, “if we want to learn about people of category Q, we should listen to (and welcome) those people themselves, in preference to people of category P who make conjectures about people of category Q. And people of category Q often don’t have much patience for being conjectured about in ways that are not only unflattering, but have long ago been debunked.”
For instance, if you want to acquire information about the experiences, psyches, and motives of women, you’re better off listening to women rather than listening to misogynistic pick-up artists. If you want to learn about black people, you’re better off listening to black people rather than listening to white raci(ali)sts. And so on.
(This is, by the way, part of why I think we shouldn’t use religion as a cheap example of irrationality. Religion is a lot more complicated than many skeptics’ models of it would suggest.)
Really, could you direct me to where and when this debunking happened? When I look around I see a lot of evidence for these conjectures and a lot of incoherent arguments against them backed up by claims that it’s evil to even consider the possibility that the conjectures are correct.
Yes, I would be deeply worried if people linked to neo-nazi blogs. There is, of course, a difference between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism.
As for Hollywood, my understanding is that most people who are worried that the Jews are over-represented in Hollywood, are worried for anti-semitic reasons. Certainly, it’s rare to see someone comment on it without invoking anti-semitic stereotypes or tropes in the process.
And why should anyone link to Larry Summers if not to make women feel unwelcome? He’s not a famous geneticist, or a famous rationalist, or a famous expert in the world of sex-differences, or really anything else. He’s mostly famous for is this speech, which is full of shoddy reasoning and anecdotal evidence.
I sympathize with your reaction. But one can go overboard with this: if the heuristics disqualifying potential sources for a view are too aggressive, then no one will be qualified to present that view, even if it turns out to be right. For instance, the disqualifying description of Summers in the above comment is questionable:
Take a look at his wikipedia article.
He won the John Bates Clark medal, awarded to the best economists under 40, basically the Fields medal of economics. He is almost universally acclaimed as brilliant within the economics profession, was Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury, a major economic adviser for the Obama administration, and Chief Economist of the World Bank.
Is that your real objection? Both James Watson and Francis Crick, who shared the Nobel Prize for their work on the DNA double helix, have expressed pro-eugenics positions, and the view that genetic explanations of ethnic differences in IQ are plausibly to likely significant. I.e. the most famous geneticists ever. Will Shockley, who won a Nobel in Physics for invention of the transistor, also got in a lot of trouble for pro-eugenics positions, and his views on race and IQ. Would you be OK with comments linking to and citing them on their controversial views? Or discussing the reactions to those views?