Except that it is a defense against the point #3. One might also do, say, a thought experiment with alien civilisations untouched by whites’ hands and unaware about the oppression system.
The points #1, #2 and #4 can, in principle, be checked experimentally or thought-experimentally.
#2 implies that elite-generated information pieces propagate false beliefs which are status symbols and undermine civilisation. The original author of the term “luxury beliefs” also implied that the elites know that the beliefs are false anddon’t live according to said beliefs (e.g. claim that “monogamy is kind of outdated” while planning to become happily married). But the effects of raising kids alone or in a family can be learned by actually studying the two sets of kids.
#4 has the safetyists claim that humans are highly likely to create an AI who will take over the Earth and do terrible things like genocide or disempowerment. In order to refute said claim, one would have to explain why P(genocide or disempowerment|ASI is created)* value loss is smaller than the benefits[1] of having the ASI or that P(genocide or disempowerment|ASI is created) is negligible (think of estimates of P(LHC destroys the Earth or the universe)).
#1 requires that the gender identity expresses in something (e.g. by having a biological boy consistently prefer girly things, to play girly roles, etc.) IIRC proponents of the gender identity theory imply that conflict between the identity and social roles damages the psyche, and opponents claim that one has to rule out things like gender identity change being a suboptimal strategy against other unendorsed urges (see, e.g. Fiora Starlight’stestimony) or outright a social contagion. One could, in theory, check the social contagion hypothesis by placing a new transfer transgender student into a collective of kids trained on different data sets.
One might also do, say, a thought experiment with alien civilisations untouched by whites’ hands and unaware about the oppression system.
Even though their supposed oppressor classes are unlikely to look like white males, that doesn’t guarantee the absence of platonic toxic whiteness & masculinity.
What #1,#2,#4 have in common is that it is harder to check experimentally unless you are immersed with the area and the potential difficulty of publishing your results threatening to invalidate the dominant narrative.
The other part is that partisans of the narrative overfocus on the other side’s bad arguments because of most people not being able to check the arguments, and to be frank the entire area is a mess that I’m not willing to go down, and I instead focus on less-charged topics.
Like, all 4 of the examples are great demonstrations of why you need to be able to steelman your opponent, and one of the central problems in politics is people are trapped in a loop of destroying bad arguments instead of focusing on good arguments.
Except that it is a defense against the point #3. One might also do, say, a thought experiment with alien civilisations untouched by whites’ hands and unaware about the oppression system.
The points #1, #2 and #4 can, in principle, be checked experimentally or thought-experimentally.
#2 implies that elite-generated information pieces propagate false beliefs which are status symbols and undermine civilisation. The original author of the term “luxury beliefs” also implied that the elites know that the beliefs are false and don’t live according to said beliefs (e.g. claim that “monogamy is kind of outdated” while planning to become happily married). But the effects of raising kids alone or in a family can be learned by actually studying the two sets of kids.
#4 has the safetyists claim that humans are highly likely to create an AI who will take over the Earth and do terrible things like genocide or disempowerment. In order to refute said claim, one would have to explain why P(genocide or disempowerment|ASI is created)* value loss is smaller than the benefits[1] of having the ASI or that P(genocide or disempowerment|ASI is created) is negligible (think of estimates of P(LHC destroys the Earth or the universe)).
#1 requires that the gender identity expresses in something (e.g. by having a biological boy consistently prefer girly things, to play girly roles, etc.) IIRC proponents of the gender identity theory imply that conflict between the identity and social roles damages the psyche, and opponents claim that one has to rule out things like gender identity change being a suboptimal strategy against other unendorsed urges (see, e.g. Fiora Starlight’s testimony) or outright a social contagion. One could, in theory, check the social contagion hypothesis by placing a new transfer transgender student into a collective of kids trained on different data sets.
What #1,#2,#4 have in common is that it is harder to check experimentally unless you are immersed with the area and the potential difficulty of publishing your results threatening to invalidate the dominant narrative. See also @TsviBT’s discussion of graceful deference to experts and @Noosphere89′s discuaaion of ways for people to turn ideologically crazy.
Said benefits could also be outweighed by Intelligence Curse-like risks.
Even though their supposed oppressor classes are unlikely to look like white males, that doesn’t guarantee the absence of platonic toxic whiteness & masculinity.
Indeed.
As it happens, I had a bit of a back-and-forth with the author in the comments.
The other part is that partisans of the narrative overfocus on the other side’s bad arguments because of most people not being able to check the arguments, and to be frank the entire area is a mess that I’m not willing to go down, and I instead focus on less-charged topics.
Like, all 4 of the examples are great demonstrations of why you need to be able to steelman your opponent, and one of the central problems in politics is people are trapped in a loop of destroying bad arguments instead of focusing on good arguments.