Insofar as they were trying to make Manifest a conference for exploring interesting ideas, I would argue for including Hanania as one of the most effective critics of conservatism, ie. see this article where he tells conservatives to stop believing misinformation/running scams.
Insofar as the focus was on growing the prediction market community, I think it is important to conduct outreach both to the left and to the right. And Hanania is one of the figures on the right who can draw the smarter conservatives to a conference like this.
Bear in mind the Johnson bills Hanania is criticising in the opening sentence of that article include the bills that finally allowed Black Americans to be able to vote in the US and outlawed racial discrimination. Can you really not see why a former secret white nationalist at the very least edging close to “bans on explicit discrimination against Black people and letting Black people vote causes crime and is therefore bad” might disgust a lot of people?
Bear in mind that none of this legislation was about crime. Some of it was facially race neutral anti-poverty stuff. But the Civil Rights Act of 1964 just outlaws explicit discrimination against people on the basis of their race or gender, and creates some bureaucracy to enforce this. (Look it up if you don’t believe me.)
But the Civil Rights Act of 1964 just outlaws explicit discrimination against people on the basis of their race or gender, and creates some bureaucracy to enforce this.
You might think this from reading the text, but that is not how it has been interpreted. Title VII has also been interpreted to address disparate impacts, which are not explicit discrimination. (it also outlaws discrimination on religion and national origin in most sections, and only outlaws sex discrimination in Title VII, not in any other part of the act.)
I could write a law that bans some kind of discrimination and also mandates the clubbing of baby seals.
And whenever anyone criticises the latter element, I could self-righteously proclaim, “How can you criticise this bill, surely you’re against discrimination?”
Hanania doesn’t criticise anything specific about the bills directly or offer a clear thesis for why they led to a rise in crime. There’s no analogy to clubbing seals here. The strong implication imo is that giving more freedom to black people itself led to bad things happening because black people (according to Hanania) have a bad culture. Which is a different and much more offensive (to many) thesis.
(I agree that this is then used as a segue to a pretty insightful and biting critique of conservatives, which is the main point of the article. And I can see the pragmatic value of his argumentative approach for reaching racist conservatives. But I don’t think that does much to defend against a charge of racism here.)
I am not maintaining it is impossible for anyone to criticise any law that includes an anti-discrimination portion. If, say, Jason Brennan criticised anti-discrimination law on the grounds that it generated inefficient bureaucracy that did more harm than good, I wouldn’t be offended.What I am claiming is that people are rightfully suspicious when someone with Hanania’s overall track record makes the particular criticism of it he did.
Insofar as they were trying to make Manifest a conference for exploring interesting ideas, I would argue for including Hanania as one of the most effective critics of conservatism, ie. see this article where he tells conservatives to stop believing misinformation/running scams.
Insofar as the focus was on growing the prediction market community, I think it is important to conduct outreach both to the left and to the right. And Hanania is one of the figures on the right who can draw the smarter conservatives to a conference like this.
Bear in mind the Johnson bills Hanania is criticising in the opening sentence of that article include the bills that finally allowed Black Americans to be able to vote in the US and outlawed racial discrimination. Can you really not see why a former secret white nationalist at the very least edging close to “bans on explicit discrimination against Black people and letting Black people vote causes crime and is therefore bad” might disgust a lot of people?
Bear in mind that none of this legislation was about crime. Some of it was facially race neutral anti-poverty stuff. But the Civil Rights Act of 1964 just outlaws explicit discrimination against people on the basis of their race or gender, and creates some bureaucracy to enforce this. (Look it up if you don’t believe me.)
You might think this from reading the text, but that is not how it has been interpreted. Title VII has also been interpreted to address disparate impacts, which are not explicit discrimination. (it also outlaws discrimination on religion and national origin in most sections, and only outlaws sex discrimination in Title VII, not in any other part of the act.)
It’s got nothing to do with crime is my main point.
Sorry, this isn’t a very strong argument.
I could write a law that bans some kind of discrimination and also mandates the clubbing of baby seals.
And whenever anyone criticises the latter element, I could self-righteously proclaim, “How can you criticise this bill, surely you’re against discrimination?”
Sorry, this isn’t a very strong analogy.
Hanania doesn’t criticise anything specific about the bills directly or offer a clear thesis for why they led to a rise in crime. There’s no analogy to clubbing seals here. The strong implication imo is that giving more freedom to black people itself led to bad things happening because black people (according to Hanania) have a bad culture. Which is a different and much more offensive (to many) thesis.
(I agree that this is then used as a segue to a pretty insightful and biting critique of conservatives, which is the main point of the article. And I can see the pragmatic value of his argumentative approach for reaching racist conservatives. But I don’t think that does much to defend against a charge of racism here.)
I am not maintaining it is impossible for anyone to criticise any law that includes an anti-discrimination portion. If, say, Jason Brennan criticised anti-discrimination law on the grounds that it generated inefficient bureaucracy that did more harm than good, I wouldn’t be offended.What I am claiming is that people are rightfully suspicious when someone with Hanania’s overall track record makes the particular criticism of it he did.