âI think your posting about him undermines your credibility elsewhere.â This seems worryingly like epistemic closure to me (though it depends a bit what âelsewhereâ refers to.) A lot of Thorstadâs 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 Thorstadâs conclusions about Scottâs views on HBD, but whilst that makes me distrust Scottâs political judgement, it doesnât effect my (positive) view of the good stuff Scott has written about largely unrelated topics like whether antidepressants work, or the replication crisis.
Iâd 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 Thorstadâs portrayal of him, but the latter certainly would not. In the leaked email (which I think is likely genuine, or heâd say it wasnât, but of course we canât 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 itâs a bit of both. I donât think Scott is sympathetic to people genuinely wanting to hurt Black people, and Iâm sure there are Reactionary claims about race that he thinks are just wrong. But heâs also very PR conscious on this topic in my view. And itâs hard to see why heâs had so many HBD-associated folk on his blogroll if he doesnât want to quietly spread some of the ideas.
âI think your posting about him undermines your credibility elsewhere.â This seems worryingly like epistemic closure to me (though it depends a bit what âelsewhereâ refers to.) A lot of Thorstadâs 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 Thorstadâs conclusions about Scottâs views on HBD, but whilst that makes me distrust Scottâs political judgement, it doesnât effect my (positive) view of the good stuff Scott has written about largely unrelated topics like whether antidepressants work, or the replication crisis.
Iâd 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 Thorstadâs portrayal of him, but the latter certainly would not. In the leaked email (which I think is likely genuine, or heâd say it wasnât, but of course we canât 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 itâs a bit of both. I donât think Scott is sympathetic to people genuinely wanting to hurt Black people, and Iâm sure there are Reactionary claims about race that he thinks are just wrong. But heâs also very PR conscious on this topic in my view. And itâs hard to see why heâs had so many HBD-associated folk on his blogroll if he doesnât want to quietly spread some of the ideas.