I imagine people inclined to defend Scott are often a) People who themselves agree with HBD or b) people who don’t really have an opinion on it (or maybe even disagree with it)* but think that Scott arrived at his “belief” (i.e. >50% credence) in HBD by honest inquiry into the evidence to the best of his ability, and think that is never wrong to form empirical beliefs in this way. I don’t think people could believe Scott rejects HBD if they actually read him at all closely. (Though he tends to think and talk in probabilistic terms rather than full acceptance/rejection. As you should!) In the Hanania review he explicitly says he puts “moderate probability” on some HBD views, which isn’t that different from what he said in the Brennan email.
As to WHY people think a) and b), I’d say it is a mixture of (random order, not order of importance):
1) People like Scott and that biases them.
2) People want to defend a prominent rationalist/EA for tribal reasons.
3) People have a (genuinely praiseworthy in itself in my view) commitment to following the evidence where it leads even when it leads to taboo conclusion, and believe that Scott’s belief in HBD (and other controversial far-right-aligned beliefs of his) have resulted from him following the evidence to the best of his ability, and therefore that he should not be condemned for them. (You can think this even if you don’t think the beliefs in question are correct. My guess is “the views are wrong and bad but he arrived at them honestly so you can’t really blame him” is what less right-leaning rationalists like Kelsey Piper or Ozy Brennan think for example, though they can speak for themselves obviously. Maybe Eliezer Yudkowsky thinks this too actually, he’s condemned rationalisms far-right wing in pretty strong terms in the past, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he rejects every HBD belief I guess.)
4) A faction of rationalists (and therefore EAs, and also I guess *some* EAs who aren’t rationalists are like this, though my guess is much less) are just, well *bigoted*: they enjoying hearing and discussing things about why women/Black people are bad, because they like hating on women/Black people. As to WHY they are like that, I think (though I may be typical minding here**), that an important part of the answer is that they feel rejected socially, and especially sexually, for their broadly “autistic” personality traits, and also believe that the general culture is “feminizing” against the things that people-mostly, not entirely men-with that type of personality tend to value/overvalue, truth-seeking, honesty even when it upsets people, trying to be self-controlled and stoical. (I actually agree that certain parts of US liberal culture HAVE probably moved too far against those things.)
**I have autism, and have recently acquired my first ever girlfriend aged 37, and even as my considered belief is that they are in fact quite unfair to feminists in many ways, a lot of the feelings in Scott’s Radicalizing the Romanceless and Untitled posts are very, very familiar to me.
Disagree votes are going to be predictably confusing here, since I don’t know whether people disagree with the main point that most people who defend Scott do think he is friendly towards HBD, or they just disagree with something else, like my very harsh words about (some) rationalists.
I imagine people inclined to defend Scott are often a) People who themselves agree with HBD or b) people who don’t really have an opinion on it (or maybe even disagree with it)* but think that Scott arrived at his “belief” (i.e. >50% credence) in HBD by honest inquiry into the evidence to the best of his ability, and think that is never wrong to form empirical beliefs in this way. I don’t think people could believe Scott rejects HBD if they actually read him at all closely. (Though he tends to think and talk in probabilistic terms rather than full acceptance/rejection. As you should!) In the Hanania review he explicitly says he puts “moderate probability” on some HBD views, which isn’t that different from what he said in the Brennan email.
As to WHY people think a) and b), I’d say it is a mixture of (random order, not order of importance):
1) People like Scott and that biases them.
2) People want to defend a prominent rationalist/EA for tribal reasons.
3) People have a (genuinely praiseworthy in itself in my view) commitment to following the evidence where it leads even when it leads to taboo conclusion, and believe that Scott’s belief in HBD (and other controversial far-right-aligned beliefs of his) have resulted from him following the evidence to the best of his ability, and therefore that he should not be condemned for them. (You can think this even if you don’t think the beliefs in question are correct. My guess is “the views are wrong and bad but he arrived at them honestly so you can’t really blame him” is what less right-leaning rationalists like Kelsey Piper or Ozy Brennan think for example, though they can speak for themselves obviously. Maybe Eliezer Yudkowsky thinks this too actually, he’s condemned rationalisms far-right wing in pretty strong terms in the past, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he rejects every HBD belief I guess.)
4) A faction of rationalists (and therefore EAs, and also I guess *some* EAs who aren’t rationalists are like this, though my guess is much less) are just, well *bigoted*: they enjoying hearing and discussing things about why women/Black people are bad, because they like hating on women/Black people. As to WHY they are like that, I think (though I may be typical minding here**), that an important part of the answer is that they feel rejected socially, and especially sexually, for their broadly “autistic” personality traits, and also believe that the general culture is “feminizing” against the things that people-mostly, not entirely men-with that type of personality tend to value/overvalue, truth-seeking, honesty even when it upsets people, trying to be self-controlled and stoical. (I actually agree that certain parts of US liberal culture HAVE probably moved too far against those things.)
*My guess is that Matthew Adelstein/Bentham’s Bulldog is probably a Scott-defender who thinks HBD is wrong: https://benthams.substack.com/p/losing-faith-in-contrarianism
**I have autism, and have recently acquired my first ever girlfriend aged 37, and even as my considered belief is that they are in fact quite unfair to feminists in many ways, a lot of the feelings in Scott’s Radicalizing the Romanceless and Untitled posts are very, very familiar to me.
Disagree votes are going to be predictably confusing here, since I don’t know whether people disagree with the main point that most people who defend Scott do think he is friendly towards HBD, or they just disagree with something else, like my very harsh words about (some) rationalists.