If some of the quotes from Scott Alexander seem particularly poorly reasoned, I would encourage readers to click through the original source. Some examples:
From Thorstad:
In late 2022, following continued reporting on scandals within the effective altruism movement, Alexander wrote an essay entitled “If the media reported on other movements like it does effective altruism.” Alexander suggested that a variety of ridiculous results would follow, for example:
Mark Zuckerberg is a good father and his children love him very much. Obviously this can only be because he’s using his photogenic happy family to “whitewash” his reputation and distract from Facebook’s complicity in spreading misinformation.
Mark Zuckerberg is a good father and his children love him very much. Obviously this can only be because he’s using his photogenic happy family to “whitewash” his reputation and distract from Facebook’s complicity in spreading misinformation. We need to make it harder for people to be nice to their children, so that the masses don’t keep falling for this ploy.
From Thorstad:
Scott Alexander was once asked whom he would name to various high positions in the US government if Alexander were the president of the United States. A number of Alexander’s picks are troubling, but most to the point, Alexander says that he would appoint Charles Murray as welfare czar. (After listing a few more picks, including Stephen Hsu, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk, Alexander says that: “Everything else can be filled by randomly selected black women so that I can brag about how diverse I am.“)
You wake up on the morning on the 20th of January to find that you are now Donald Trump, on the day of your inauguration as president. (Investigation reveals there is another you still practising medicine in Michigan as normal fwiw.) As president, what do you do with the powers available to you? How do Congress, the media, and the public respond? How do you respond back?
My cabinet/related picks:
Attorney General: Preet Bharara Commerce: Peter Thiel Defense: James Mattis State: Tulsi Gabbard Housing & Urban Development: Matt Yglesias Homeland Security: Anonymous Mugwump Health & Human Services: Julia Wise Transportation/Energy: Elon Musk Treasury: Satoshi Nakamoto Education: Eva Moskowitz Veterans Affairs: David Petraeus Agriculture: Buck Shlegeris Labor: Bernie Sanders
White House Chief Of Staff: Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg Head of NIH: Stephen Hsu Surgeon General: Dr. Chris Ballas Head of FDA: Alex Tabarrok Welfare Czar: Charles Murray Chair of Federal Reserve: Scott Sumner Budget Director: Holden Karnofsky Head of CIA: Philip Tetlock
Everything else can be filled by randomly selected black women so that I can brag about how diverse I am.
First order of business: in addition to being my Secretary of Labor, Bernie Sanders is now vice president. I don’t care what he does with the position, it’s just so that the Republican Congress knows that if they impeach me, they’re getting a pacifist Jewish socialist as the leader of the free-world.
Was ignoring that Zuckerberg is indeed using nice pictures to improve his reputation.
Was seriously endorsing Murray for welfare czar.
Reading the original I see that neither is true: the Murray pick was absurdist humor, and the Zuckerberg thing was that good things are good even if Zuckerberg does them.
- Build Trump’s wall, because it’s a meaningless symbol that will change nothing, but it’ll make Republicans like me, and it will make Democrats focus all their energy on criticizing that instead of anything substantive I do.
Maybe absurdist humor is not the right description, but it’s very clearly not meant to be a serious post.
Having now read the whole thing, not just the bit you quoted originally, I think it is sort of a joke but not really: a funny, slightly exaggerated rendering of what his real ideological views actually are, exaggerated a bit for comic effect. I don’t think Thorstad was majorly in the wrong here, but maybe he could have flagged this a bit.
Fair enough, this does make me move a bit further in the “overall a joke” direction. But I still think the names basically match his ideological leanings.
Do you mean Bernie Sanders, Peter Thiel, or “Anonymous Mugwump”? I can’t think of an ideological leaning these three have in common, but I don’t know much about Mugwump
Thiel and Sanders don’t have much in common, but Scott has stuff in common with Thiel and Sanders. (I.e. he shares broadly pro-market views and skepticism of social justice and feminism with Thiel, and possibly pro HBD views, although I don’t know what Thiel thinks about HBD, plus an interest in futurism and progress, and he shares redistributive and anti-blaming the poor for being poor economic views with Sanders.)
My reading of the post (which is contestable) is that he chose the people as a sort of joke about “here is a controversial or absurdly in-group person I like on this issue”. I can’t prove that reading is correct, but I don’t really see another that makes sense of the post. Some of the people are just too boring choices-Yglesias, for the joke to just be that the list is absurd.
If some of the quotes from Scott Alexander seem particularly poorly reasoned, I would encourage readers to click through the original source. Some examples:
From Thorstad:
Original quote:
From Thorstad:
Original quote:
Don’t see a significant difference.
I do, reading Thorstad I thought Alexander
Was ignoring that Zuckerberg is indeed using nice pictures to improve his reputation.
Was seriously endorsing Murray for welfare czar.
Reading the original I see that neither is true: the Murray pick was absurdist humor, and the Zuckerberg thing was that good things are good even if Zuckerberg does them.
“the Murray pick was absurdist humor” What makes you think that? I would feel better if I thought that was true.
Honest question, have you read the linked post?
Maybe absurdist humor is not the right description, but it’s very clearly not meant to be a serious post.
Having now read the whole thing, not just the bit you quoted originally, I think it is sort of a joke but not really: a funny, slightly exaggerated rendering of what his real ideological views actually are, exaggerated a bit for comic effect. I don’t think Thorstad was majorly in the wrong here, but maybe he could have flagged this a bit.
I’ll let readers decide, just adding some reactions at the time for more context:
Fair enough, this does make me move a bit further in the “overall a joke” direction. But I still think the names basically match his ideological leanings.
Do you mean Bernie Sanders, Peter Thiel, or “Anonymous Mugwump”? I can’t think of an ideological leaning these three have in common, but I don’t know much about Mugwump
Thiel and Sanders don’t have much in common, but Scott has stuff in common with Thiel and Sanders. (I.e. he shares broadly pro-market views and skepticism of social justice and feminism with Thiel, and possibly pro HBD views, although I don’t know what Thiel thinks about HBD, plus an interest in futurism and progress, and he shares redistributive and anti-blaming the poor for being poor economic views with Sanders.)
Then I’m sure he has stuff in common with Mugwump as well (and with you, me, and Thorstad)
My reading of the post (which is contestable) is that he chose the people as a sort of joke about “here is a controversial or absurdly in-group person I like on this issue”. I can’t prove that reading is correct, but I don’t really see another that makes sense of the post. Some of the people are just too boring choices-Yglesias, for the joke to just be that the list is absurd.