I think your coverage of Scott Alexander’s alleged association with HBD is both unfair and unethical. This is evidenced in part by the fact that you lead your post about him with an allegedly leaked private email. You acknowledge deep into your post that you are largely basing your accusations on various unconfirmed sources yet you repeatedly summarize your claims about him without such disclaimers. Even if the email was real, it seems to form almost the entire basis of your case against him and you don’t know the context of a private email. Taking the email at face value, it does not say the things you imply it says.
I don’t know Scott personally but I have been a reader of his blog and various associated forums for many years. Contrary to your characterization, he has in fact actively pushed back against a lot of discussion around HBD on his blog and related spaces. I think your posting about him undermines your credibility elsewhere.
David offered Scott an opportunity to comment, and Scott turned it down. You can see that David also offered Julia an opportunity to comment on a short quote included in the blog post, and he ran the four-paragraph statement she provided which included context for the quoted material. Moreover, the leaked e-mail is not new, and Scott has had both the time and the platform to contextualize it if he wished to do so.
If Scott has made public statements clearly inconsistent with the e-mail that David missed, then it would be much more helpful to show the receipts rather than vaguely assert that he has “actively pushed back against a lot of discussion around HBD on his blog and related spaces.” Even accepting that assertion at face value, a history of pushing back against some unspecified elements of HBD discussion isn’t inconsistent with the views expressed in the e-mail or otherwise discussed in David’s post.
My discussion of Alexander is based on a number of sources. One of the primary sources is the email that you mention, though I do not think it is accurate to say that this source forms almost the entire basis of my case.
I do not publish documents whose authenticity I have significant reason to doubt, and in this case I excluded several documents because I could not confirm their authenticity to my satisfaction. In the case of the email that you discuss, my reasons for posting the email are as follows.
First, to my knowledge Alexander has never denied authorship of the email. This would, presumably, be a natural first step for someone who did not write it. Second, I asked publicly for credible denials by anyone, not just Alexander, of the authenticity of the email and found none. Third, I wrote personally to Alexander and offered him the opportunity to comment on the authenticity of the email. Alexander declined.
I am surprised by your comments about disclaimers. My intention was to include enough disclaimers to make a tax lawyer blush. For example:
First, The quote which leads the article does include a disclaimer: it is cited as stemming from an “(Alleged) email to Topher Brennan”.
Second, The preliminary notes to the article directly express my attitudes towards authenticity, and offer to publicly apologize if I am wrong in attributing views to Alexander or anyone else. (So far, no one has offered any evidence that I was wrong, or even attempted to offer any sort of denial, evidenced or not.). I wrote: “A note about authenticity. I have done my best to verify that the cited views in this post are the work of the authors they are attributed to. This is difficult because Alexander has alleged that some of the most troubling comments attributed to him are not his. My policy has been to stick with the sources whose authenticity I am most confident in, and to the best of my knowledge the authenticity of all passages quoted in this post has not been publicly disputed by their alleged authors. (Alexander declined a request for comment on the authenticity of passages quoted in this post). However, I am conscious of the possibility of error. While I have closed comments on all posts in this series, I am highly open to correction on any matters of fact, and if I am wrong in attributing any views to an individual I will correct them and publicly apologize. You can reach me at reflectivealtruismeditor@gmail.com.”
Third, immediately before presenting Alexander’s email I write: “I am not able to confirm the veracity of the email, so readers are asked to use their own judgment, but I am also not aware of credible attempts by anyone, including Alexander, to deny the veracity of this email (Alexander declined to comment on the veracity of the email. I did check for other credible attempts to deny its veracity.).”
These are not the only disclaimers included in the article, but I think that they are more than adequate and included in the proper places.
You seem skeptical of some of the implications that I draw from this email. I quote the email in full, then draw six implications, giving evidence for each. If you are concerned about some of these implications, you are of course welcome to say which implications you are concerned about and give reasons to think that they do not follow.
I do acknowledge that Alexander has pushed back against some of the worst excesses of race science, including neoreaction. For example, I wrote: “I would be remiss if I did not remind readers that not all of Alexander’s contributions to this space are bad. Alexander has penned one of the most successful and best-known criticisms of the excesses of the reactionary movement, in the form of his 2013 “Anti-reactionary FAQ“, which has inspired useful follow-ups from others. Alexander does write some posts supportive of the cause of social justice, such as his “Social justice for the highly demanding of rigor,” though the implication that rigor is not already present in discussions of social justice may not be appreciated by all readers. Alexander has drawn attention to the real and important phenomenon of sexual harassment perpetrated by women, or against men. And we will see below that Alexander calls out Richard Hanania for his strange obsession with office romance.”
All of these behaviors are consistent with the conclusions that I draw in the article. I do not, and will not say that Alexander has never done anything to push back against racism or sexism. That would be a bald-faced lie. It is possible to push back against some bad behaviors and beliefs on these fronts while engaging in other troubling behaviors and holding other troubling beliefs.
“I think your posting about him undermines your credibility elsewhere.” This seems worryingly like epistemic closure to me (though it depends a bit what “elsewhere” refers to.) A lot of Thorstad’s work is philosophical criticism of longtermist arguments, and not super-technical criticism either. You can surely just assess that for yourself rather than discounting it because of what he said about an unrelated topic, unless he was outright lying. I mostly agree with Thorstad’s conclusions about Scott’s views on HBD, but whilst that makes me distrust Scott’s political judgement, it doesn’t effect my (positive) view of the good stuff Scott has written about largely unrelated topics like whether antidepressants work, or the replication crisis.
I’d also say that the significance of Scott sometimes pushing back against HBD stuff is very dependent on why he pushes back. Does he push back because he thinks people are spreading harmful ideas? Or does he push back because he thinks if the blog becomes too associated with taboo claims it will lose influence, or bring him grief personally? The former would perhaps indicate unfairness in Thorstad’s portrayal of him, but the latter certainly would not. In the leaked email (which I think is likely genuine, or he’d say it wasn’t, but of course we can’t be 100% sure) he does talk about stratigising to maintain his influence with liberals on this topic. My guess, as a long-time reader is that it’s a bit of both. I don’t think Scott is sympathetic to people genuinely wanting to hurt Black people, and I’m sure there are Reactionary claims about race that he thinks are just wrong. But he’s also very PR conscious on this topic in my view. And it’s hard to see why he’s had so many HBD-associated folk on his blogroll if he doesn’t want to quietly spread some of the ideas.
I think your coverage of Scott Alexander’s alleged association with HBD is both unfair and unethical. This is evidenced in part by the fact that you lead your post about him with an allegedly leaked private email. You acknowledge deep into your post that you are largely basing your accusations on various unconfirmed sources yet you repeatedly summarize your claims about him without such disclaimers. Even if the email was real, it seems to form almost the entire basis of your case against him and you don’t know the context of a private email. Taking the email at face value, it does not say the things you imply it says.
I don’t know Scott personally but I have been a reader of his blog and various associated forums for many years. Contrary to your characterization, he has in fact actively pushed back against a lot of discussion around HBD on his blog and related spaces. I think your posting about him undermines your credibility elsewhere.
David offered Scott an opportunity to comment, and Scott turned it down. You can see that David also offered Julia an opportunity to comment on a short quote included in the blog post, and he ran the four-paragraph statement she provided which included context for the quoted material. Moreover, the leaked e-mail is not new, and Scott has had both the time and the platform to contextualize it if he wished to do so.
If Scott has made public statements clearly inconsistent with the e-mail that David missed, then it would be much more helpful to show the receipts rather than vaguely assert that he has “actively pushed back against a lot of discussion around HBD on his blog and related spaces.” Even accepting that assertion at face value, a history of pushing back against some unspecified elements of HBD discussion isn’t inconsistent with the views expressed in the e-mail or otherwise discussed in David’s post.
Thanks!
My discussion of Alexander is based on a number of sources. One of the primary sources is the email that you mention, though I do not think it is accurate to say that this source forms almost the entire basis of my case.
I do not publish documents whose authenticity I have significant reason to doubt, and in this case I excluded several documents because I could not confirm their authenticity to my satisfaction. In the case of the email that you discuss, my reasons for posting the email are as follows.
First, to my knowledge Alexander has never denied authorship of the email. This would, presumably, be a natural first step for someone who did not write it. Second, I asked publicly for credible denials by anyone, not just Alexander, of the authenticity of the email and found none. Third, I wrote personally to Alexander and offered him the opportunity to comment on the authenticity of the email. Alexander declined.
I am surprised by your comments about disclaimers. My intention was to include enough disclaimers to make a tax lawyer blush. For example:
First, The quote which leads the article does include a disclaimer: it is cited as stemming from an “(Alleged) email to Topher Brennan”.
Second, The preliminary notes to the article directly express my attitudes towards authenticity, and offer to publicly apologize if I am wrong in attributing views to Alexander or anyone else. (So far, no one has offered any evidence that I was wrong, or even attempted to offer any sort of denial, evidenced or not.). I wrote: “A note about authenticity. I have done my best to verify that the cited views in this post are the work of the authors they are attributed to. This is difficult because Alexander has alleged that some of the most troubling comments attributed to him are not his. My policy has been to stick with the sources whose authenticity I am most confident in, and to the best of my knowledge the authenticity of all passages quoted in this post has not been publicly disputed by their alleged authors. (Alexander declined a request for comment on the authenticity of passages quoted in this post). However, I am conscious of the possibility of error. While I have closed comments on all posts in this series, I am highly open to correction on any matters of fact, and if I am wrong in attributing any views to an individual I will correct them and publicly apologize. You can reach me at reflectivealtruismeditor@gmail.com.”
Third, immediately before presenting Alexander’s email I write: “I am not able to confirm the veracity of the email, so readers are asked to use their own judgment, but I am also not aware of credible attempts by anyone, including Alexander, to deny the veracity of this email (Alexander declined to comment on the veracity of the email. I did check for other credible attempts to deny its veracity.).”
These are not the only disclaimers included in the article, but I think that they are more than adequate and included in the proper places.
You seem skeptical of some of the implications that I draw from this email. I quote the email in full, then draw six implications, giving evidence for each. If you are concerned about some of these implications, you are of course welcome to say which implications you are concerned about and give reasons to think that they do not follow.
I do acknowledge that Alexander has pushed back against some of the worst excesses of race science, including neoreaction. For example, I wrote: “I would be remiss if I did not remind readers that not all of Alexander’s contributions to this space are bad. Alexander has penned one of the most successful and best-known criticisms of the excesses of the reactionary movement, in the form of his 2013 “Anti-reactionary FAQ“, which has inspired useful follow-ups from others. Alexander does write some posts supportive of the cause of social justice, such as his “Social justice for the highly demanding of rigor,” though the implication that rigor is not already present in discussions of social justice may not be appreciated by all readers. Alexander has drawn attention to the real and important phenomenon of sexual harassment perpetrated by women, or against men. And we will see below that Alexander calls out Richard Hanania for his strange obsession with office romance.”
All of these behaviors are consistent with the conclusions that I draw in the article. I do not, and will not say that Alexander has never done anything to push back against racism or sexism. That would be a bald-faced lie. It is possible to push back against some bad behaviors and beliefs on these fronts while engaging in other troubling behaviors and holding other troubling beliefs.
“I think your posting about him undermines your credibility elsewhere.” This seems worryingly like epistemic closure to me (though it depends a bit what “elsewhere” refers to.) A lot of Thorstad’s work is philosophical criticism of longtermist arguments, and not super-technical criticism either. You can surely just assess that for yourself rather than discounting it because of what he said about an unrelated topic, unless he was outright lying. I mostly agree with Thorstad’s conclusions about Scott’s views on HBD, but whilst that makes me distrust Scott’s political judgement, it doesn’t effect my (positive) view of the good stuff Scott has written about largely unrelated topics like whether antidepressants work, or the replication crisis.
I’d also say that the significance of Scott sometimes pushing back against HBD stuff is very dependent on why he pushes back. Does he push back because he thinks people are spreading harmful ideas? Or does he push back because he thinks if the blog becomes too associated with taboo claims it will lose influence, or bring him grief personally? The former would perhaps indicate unfairness in Thorstad’s portrayal of him, but the latter certainly would not. In the leaked email (which I think is likely genuine, or he’d say it wasn’t, but of course we can’t be 100% sure) he does talk about stratigising to maintain his influence with liberals on this topic. My guess, as a long-time reader is that it’s a bit of both. I don’t think Scott is sympathetic to people genuinely wanting to hurt Black people, and I’m sure there are Reactionary claims about race that he thinks are just wrong. But he’s also very PR conscious on this topic in my view. And it’s hard to see why he’s had so many HBD-associated folk on his blogroll if he doesn’t want to quietly spread some of the ideas.