People don’t reject this stuff, I suspect, because there is frankly, a decently large minority of the community who thinks “black people have lower IQs for genetic reasons” is suppressed forbidden knowledge. Scott Alexander has done a lot, entirely deliberately in my view, to spread that view over the years (although this is probably not the only reason), and Scott is generally highly respected within EA.
Now, unlike the people who spend all their time doing race/IQ stuff, I don’t think more than a tiny, insignificant fraction of the people in the community who think this actually are Nazis/White Nationalists. White Nationalism/Nazism are (abhorrent) political views about what should be done, not just empirical doctrines about racial intelligence, even if the latter are also part of a Nazi/White Nationalist worldview. (Scott Alexander individually is obviously not “Nazi”, since he is Jewish, but I think he is rather more, i.e. more than zero sympathetic ,to white nationalists than I personally consider morally acceptable, although I would not personally call him one, largely because I think he isn’t a political authoritarian who wants to abolish democracy.) Rather I think most of them have a view something like “it is unfortunate this stuff is true, because it helps out bad people, but you should never lie for political reasons”.
Several things lie behind this:
-Lots of people in the community like the idea of improving humanity through genetic engineering, and while that absolutely can be completely disconnected from racism, and indeed, is a fairly mainstream position in analytic bioethics as far as I can tell, in practice it tends to make people more suspicious of condemning actual racists, because you end up with many of the same enemies as them, since most people who consider anti-racist a big part of their identity are horrified by anything eugenic. This makes them more sympathetic to complaints from actual, political racists that they are being treated unfairly.
-As I say, being pro genetic enhancement or even “liberal eugenics”* is not that outside the mainstream in academic bioethics: you can publish it in leading journals etc. EA has deep roots in analytic philosophy, and inherits it’s sense of what is reasonable.
-Many people in the rationalist community are for various reasons strongly polarized against “wokeness”, which again, makes them sympathetic to the claims of actual political racists that they are being smeared.
-Often, the arguments people encounter against the race/IQ stuff are transparently terrible. Normal liberals are indeed terrified of this stuff, but most lack expertise in being able to discuss it, so they just claim it has been totally debunked and then clam up. This makes it look like there must be a dark truth being suppressed when it is really just a combination of almost no one has expertise on this stuff and in any case, because causation of human traits is so complex, for any case where some demographic group appears to be score worse on some trait, you can always claim it could be because of genetic causes, and in practice it’s very hard to disprove this. But of course that is not itself proof that there IS a genetic cause of the differences. The result of all this can make it seem like you have to endorse unproven race/IQ stuff or take the side of “bad arguers” something EAs and rationalists hate the thought of doing. See what Turkheimer said about this here https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/15/15797120/race-black-white-iq-response-critics:
’There is not a single example of a group difference in any complex human behavioral trait that has been shown to be environmental or genetic, in any proportion, on the basis of scientific evidence. Ethically, in the absence of a valid scientific methodology, speculations about innate differences between the complex behavior of groups remain just that, inseparable from the legacy of unsupported views about race and behavior that are as old as human history. The scientific futility and dubious ethical status of the enterprise are two sides of the same coin.
To convince the reader that there is no scientifically valid or ethically defensible foundation for the project of assigning group differences in complex behavior to genetic and environmental causes, I have to move the discussion in an even more uncomfortable direction. Consider the assertion that Jews are more materialistic than non-Jews. (I am Jewish, I have used a version of this example before, and I am not accusing anyone involved in this discussion of anti-Semitism. My point is to interrogate the scientific difference between assertions about blacks and assertions about Jews.)
One could try to avoid the question by hoping that materialism isn’t a measurable trait like IQ, except that it is; or that materialism might not be heritable in individuals, except that it is nearly certain it would be if someone bothered to check; or perhaps that Jews aren’t really a race, although they certainly differ ancestrally from non-Jews; or that one wouldn’t actually find an average difference in materialism, but it seems perfectly plausible that one might. (In case anyone is interested, a biological theory of Jewish behavior, by the white nationalist psychologist Kevin MacDonald, actually exists [have removed link here because I don’t want to give MacDonald web traffic-David].′
If you were persuaded by Murray and Harris’s conclusion that the black-white IQ gap is partially genetic, but uncomfortable with the idea that the same kind of thinking might apply to the personality traits of Jews, I have one question: Why? Couldn’t there just as easily be a science of whether Jews are genetically “tuned to” (Harris’s phrase) different levels of materialism than gentiles?
On the other hand, if you no longer believe this old anti-Semitic trope, is it because some scientific study has been conducted showing that it is false? And if the problem is simply that we haven’t run the studies, why shouldn’t we? Materialism is an important trait in individuals, and plausibly could be an important difference between groups. (Certainly the history of the Jewish people attests to the fact that it has been considered important in groups!) But the horrific recent history of false hypotheses about innate Jewish behavior helps us see how scientifically empty and morally bankrupt such ideas really are.′
All this tends sadly to distract people from the fact that when white nationalists like Lynn talk about race/IQ stuff, they are trying to push a political agenda to strip non-whites of their rights, end anti-discrimination measures of any kind, and slash immigration, all on the basis of the fact that, basically, they just really don’t like black people. In fact, given the actual history of Nazism, it is reasonable to suspect that at least some and probably a lot of these people would go further and advocate genocide against blacks or other non-whites if they thought they could get away with it.
Materialism is an important trait in individuals, and plausibly could be an important difference between groups. (Certainly the history of the Jewish people attests to the fact that it has been considered important in groups!) But the horrific recent history of false hypotheses about innate Jewish behavior helps us see how scientifically empty and morally bankrupt such ideas really are.
Coincidentally, I recently came across an academic paper that proposed a partial explanation of the current East Asian fertility crisis (e.g., South Korea’s fertility decreased from 0.78 to 0.7 in just one year, with 2.1 being replacement level) based on high materialism (which interestingly, the paper suggests is really about status signaling, rather than actual “material” concerns).
The paper did not propose a genetic explanation of this high materialism, but if it did, I would hope that people didn’t immediately dismiss it based on similarity to other hypotheses historically or currently misused by anti-Semites. (In other words, the logic of this article seems to lead to absurd conclusions that I can’t agree with.)
All this tends sadly to distract people from the fact that when white nationalists like Lynn talk about race/IQ stuff, they are trying to push a political agenda
From my perspective, both sides of this debate are often pushing political agendas. It would be natural, but unvirtuous, to focus our attention on the political agenda of only one side, or to pick sides of an epistemic divide based on which political agenda we like or dislike more. (If I misinterpreted you, please clarify what implications you wanted people to draw from this paragraph.)
I want to note that within a few minutes of posting the parent comment, it received 3 downvotes totaling −14 (I think they were something like −4, −5, −5, i.e., probably all strong downvotes) with no agreement or disagreement votes, and subsequently received 5 upvotes spread over 20 hours (with no further downvotes AFAIK) that brought the net karma up to 16 as of this writing. Agreement/disagreement is currently 3⁄1.
This pattern of voting seems suspicious (e.g., why were all the downvotes clustered so closely in time). I reported the initial cluster of downvotes to the mods in case they want to look into it, but have not heard back from them yet. Thought I’d note this publicly in case a similar thing happened or happens to anyone else.
Yeah the voting on these posts feels pretty bizarre. Though I try not to worry about that. It usually comes out in the wash to something that seems right.
I was concerned that after the comment was initially downvoted to −12, it would be hidden from the front page and not enough people would see it to vote it back into positive territory. It didn’t work out that way, but perhaps could have?
both sides of this debate are often pushing political agendas. It would be natural, but unvirtuous, to focus our attention on the political agenda of only one side
I don’t see why it is helpful, or even interesting, to point out that some humans have goals and that other humans have opposing goals.
Are you saying genocide of ethnic minorities is good? I’ll assume not.
Are you saying we should sagely reserve judgment on whether genocide of ethnic minorities is good or bad because being haughty and aloof on this topic is the rational and sane way to stay above the icky, monkey-brained realm of politics? Unfortunately, this is not too far off from how some people actually think, but I’ll assume you don’t think that way.
Are you merely pointing out that some people are pro-genocide and some people are anti-genocide and, hey, those are both agendas? If so… what is the point of saying that?
I’m saying that you can’t determine the truth about an aspect of reality (in this case, what cause group differences in IQ), when both sides of a debate over it are pushing political agendas, by looking at which political agenda is better. (I also think one side of it is not as benign as you think, but that’s besides the point.)
I actually don’t think this IQ debate is one that EAs should get involved in, and said as much to Ives Parr. But if people practice or advocate for what seem to me like bad epistemic norms, I feel an obligation to push back on that.
you can’t determine the truth about an aspect of reality (in this case, what cause group differences in IQ)… by looking at which political agenda is better.
David definitely wasn’t saying that you can determine the empirical truth that way. If that’s the claim you think you were responding to, then I think you misinterpreted him in a really uncharitable and unfair way.
It’s entirely possible that I misinterpreted David. I asked for clarification from David in the original comment if that was the case, but he hasn’t responded so far. If you want to offer your own interpretation, I’d be happy to hear it out.
Imagine someone runs up to your house with a can of gasoline and some matches. They start talking about how there are bad men living in your walls and they need to burn the place down. Now, the fact that this person wants to burn you house down doesn’t allow you to determine whether there are bad men hiding in your walls. But focusing on that epistemological point would be a distraction.
The salient thing to notice is that this person wants to burn your house down.
The salient thing to notice is that this person wants to burn your house down.
In your example, after I notice this, I would call the police to report this person. What do you think I should do (or what does David want me to do) after noticing the political agenda of the people he mentioned? My own natural inclination is to ignore them and keep doing what I was doing before, because it seems incredibly unlikely that their agenda would succeed, given the massive array of political enemies that such agenda has.
The macro question is what to do about white supremacists in general in society. I will leave that topic to another place and time.
The micro question is what to do about white supremacists on the EA Forum. I think we should ban them.
I think @titotal very eloquently described the Nazi death spiral problem. If you don’t take a hard stance against white supremacists, you signal your welcomingness to white supremacists and you signal your unwelcomingness to people who don’t like sharing a community with white supremacists. This runs the risk of a range of bad outcomes from severe reputational damage to destroying the effective altruist community as we know it.
Any links to where Scott Alexander deliberately argues that black people have lower IQs for genetic reasons? I’ve been reading his blog for a decade and I don’t recall any posts on this.
I should probably stop posting on this or reading the comments, for the sake of my mental health (I mean that literally, this is a major anxiety disorder trigger for me.) But I guess I sort of have to respond to a direct request for sources.
However, for years at SSC he put the dreaded neo-reactionaries on his blogroll. And they are definitely race/IQ guys. Meanwhile, he was telling friends privately at the time, that “HBD” (i.e. “human biodiversity”, but generally includes the idea that black people are genetically less intelligent) is “probably partially correct or at least very non-provably non-correct”: https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001 . That is technically still leaving some room for agnosticism, but it’s pretty clear which way he’s leaning. Meanwhile, he also was saying in private not to tell anyone he thinks this (I feel like I figured out his view was something like this anyway though? Maybe that’s hindsight bias): ‘NEVER TELL ANYONE I SAID THIS, not even in confidence’. And he was also talking about how publicly declaring himself to be a reactionary was bad strategy for PR reasons (“becoming a reactionary would be both stupid and decrease my ability to spread things to non-reactionary readers”). (He also discusses how he writes about this stuff partly because it drives blog traffic. Not shameful in itself, but I think people in EA sometimes have an exaggerated sense of Scott’s moral purity and integrity that this sits a little awkwardly with.) Overall, I think his private talk on this paints a picture of someone who is too cautious to be 100% sure that Black people have genetically lower IQs, but wants other people to increase their credence in that to >50%, and is thinking strategically (and arguably manipulatively) about how to get them to do so. (He does seem to more clearly reject the anti-democratic and the most anti-feminist parts of Neo-Reaction.)
I will say that MOST of what makes me angry about this, is not the object-level race/IQ beliefs themselves, but the lack of repulsion towards the Reactionaries as a (fascist) political movement. I really feel like this is pretty damning (though obviously Scott has his good traits too). The Reactionaries are known for things like trolling about how maybe slavery was actually kind of good: https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/07/why-carlyle-matters/ Scott has never seemed sufficiently creeped out by this (or really, at all creeped out by it in my experience). But he has been happy to get really, really angry about feminists who say mean things about nerds**, or in one case I remember, stupid woke changes to competitive debate. (I couldn’t find that one by googling, so you’ll have to trust my memory about it; they were stupid, just not worth the emotional investment.) Personally, I think fascism should be more upsetting than woke debate! (Yes, that is melodramatic phrasing, but I am trying to shock people out what I think is complacency on this topic.)
I think people in EA have a big blind-spot about Scott’s fairly egregious record on this stuff, because it’s really embarrassing for the community to admit how bad it is, people (including me often; I feel like I morally ought to give up ACX, but I still check it from time to time) like his writing for other reasons. And frankly, there is also a certain amount of (small-r) reactionary white male backlash in the community. Indeed, I used to enjoy some of Scott’s attacks on wokeness myself; I have similar self-esteem issues around autistic masculinity issues as I think many anti-woke rationalists do. The currently strongly negative position is one I’ve come to slowly over many years of thinking about this stuff, though I was always uncomfortable with his attitude towards the Reactionaries.
*[Quoting Scott] ’Earlier this week, I objected when a journalist dishonestly spliced my words to imply I supported Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve. Some people wrote me to complain that I handled this in a cowardly way—I showed that the specific thing the journalist quoted wasn’t a reference to The Bell Curve, but I never answered the broader question of what I thought of the book. They demanded I come out and give my opinion openly. Well, the most direct answer is that I’ve never read it. But that’s kind of cowardly too—I’ve read papers and articles making what I assume is the same case. So what do I think of them?
This is far enough from my field that I would usually defer to expert consensus, but all the studies I can find which try to assess expert consensus seem crazy. A while ago, I freaked out upon finding a study that seemed to show most expert scientists in the field agreed with Murray’s thesis in 1987 - about three times as many said the gap was due to a combination of genetics and environment as said it was just environment. Then I freaked out again when I found another study (here is the most recent version, from 2020) showing basically the same thing (about four times as many say it’s a combination of genetics and environment compared to just environment). I can’t find any expert surveys giving the expected result that they all agree this is dumb and definitely 100% environment and we can move on (I’d be very relieved if anybody could find those, or if they could explain why the ones I found were fake studies or fake experts or a biased sample, or explain how I’m misreading them or that they otherwise shouldn’t be trusted. If you have thoughts on this, please send me an email). I’ve vacillated back and forth on how to think about this question so many times, and right now my personal probability estimate is “I am still freaking out about this, go away go away go away”. And I understand I have at least two potentially irresolvable biases on this question: one, I’m a white person in a country with a long history of promoting white supremacy; and two, if I lean in favor then everyone will hate me, and use it as a bludgeon against anyone I have ever associated with, and I will die alone in a ditch and maybe deserve it. So the best I can do is try to route around this issue when considering important questions. This is sometimes hard, but the basic principle is that I’m far less sure of any of it than I am sure that all human beings are morally equal and deserve to have a good life and get treated with respect regardless of academic achievement.
(Hopefully I’ve given people enough ammunition against me that they won’t have to use hallucinatory ammunition in the future. If you target me based on this, please remember that it’s entirely a me problem and other people tangentially linked to me are not at fault.)’
** Personally I hate *some* of the shit he complains about there too, although in other cases I probably agree with the angry feminist takes and might even sometimes defend the way they are expressed. I am autistic and have had great difficulties attracting romantic interest. (And obviously, as my name indicates I am male. And straight as it happens.) But Scott’s two most extensive blogposts on this are incredibly bare of sympathetic discussion of why feminists might sometimes be a bit angry and insensitive on this issue.
Personally, I think fascism should be more upsetting than woke debate!
I’m not very familiar with Reactionary philosophy myself, but was suspicious of your use of “fascism” here. Asked Copilot (based on GPT-4) and it answered:
As an AI, I don’t form personal opinions. However, I can share that Reactionary philosophy and Fascism are distinct ideologies, even though they might share some common elements such as a critique of modernity and a preference for traditional social structures.
Fascism is typically characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which is not necessarily present in Reactionary philosophy. Reactionaries might advocate for a return to older forms of governance, but this does not inherently involve the authoritarian aspects seen in Fascism.
(Normally I wouldn’t chime in on some topic I know this little about, but I suspect others who are more informed might fear speaking up and getting associated with fascism in other people’s minds as a result.)
Also, I’m not Scott but I can share that I’m personally upset with wokeness, not because of how it changed debate, but based on more significant harms to my family and the community we live in (which I described in general terms in this post), to the extent that we’re moving half-way across the country to be in a more politically balanced area, where hopefully it has less influence. (Not to mention damage to other institutions I care about, such as academia and journalism.)
(Yes, that is melodramatic phrasing, but I am trying to shock people out what I think is complacency on this topic.)
Not entirely sure what you’re referring to by “melodramatic phrasing”, but if this is an excuse for using “fascism” to describe “Reactionary philosophy” in order to manipulate people’s reactions to it and/or prevent dissent (I’ve often seen “racism” used this way in other places), I think I have to stand against that. If everyone started excusing themselves from following good discussion norms when they felt like others were complacent about something, that seems like a recipe for disaster.
Two major themes of neo-reactionary ideology seem to be authoritarianism and white supremacy.
There is definitely some overlap between people who identify with neo-reactionary ideas and people who identify with explicitly neo-Nazi/neo-fascist ideas.
I should probably stop posting on this or reading the comments, for the sake of my mental health (I mean that literally, this is a major anxiety disorder trigger for me.)
I am with you on this. I have had to disengage for mental health reasons. This stuff affects me quite seriously. I may or may not check back in on this post again. I may have to go as far as completely disengaging from the EA Forum on both this alt and my main account for an indefinite period, maybe forever.
i don’t know your specific situation, but I will speak on a general dynamic.
The psychologist Elaine Aron has a hypothesis that there is a neurological subtype called the Highly Sensitive Person that is unusually sensitive to sensory and emotional stimuli. This can include being unusually unsettled if other people appear to be in pain or discomfort or unusually disturbed by depictions of violence or suffering in TV or movies.
Some have suggested that Aron is describing autism or a form of autism. I’m not sure what’s true. Some people and some psychometric tests have told me that I’m a Highly Sensitive Person and that I’m autistic.
Aggressive environments or aggressive subcultures can shake out people who are particularly sensitive in this way. When that happens, I believe a certain kind of wisdom and temperance is lost. The soft, gentle side of people must be preserved and a community should be such that particularly soft, gentle people can be included and welcomed without losing their softness and gentleness.
Aristotle talked about practical wisdom (phronêsis). “Practical wisdom” makes me think about the contrast between my analytic philosophy courses in ethics and the social work elective I took in undergrad. First, the atmosphere of the courses was just so different. The philosophy classes usually felt kind of cold, sometimes kind of mean. Social work was a culture shock for me because the people were so palpably kind and warm. Second, my social work professor had been involved in real moral issues deeply and directly. Those included HIV/AIDS activism, dealing with violence in schools, and counselling couples navigating infidelity. I was so impressed with his practical wisdom. How do I assess that he had practical wisdom? I don’t really know. How do I decide when an ethical argument seems rational? I don’t really know, either.
The contrast between my ethics courses and that social work course is a microcosm of so much for me. It’s that same contrast you see in the EA movement where, for example, you have the absurd situation where people take the principle of impartiality or equal consideration of interests so seriously that they concern themselves with shrimp welfare but, in practical terms, their moral circle doesn’t fully include women.
Tying it all back together, a movement that can’t align itself:
with democracy, against fascism
with women, against sexism
with people of colour, against white supremacy
with core moral decency, against Nazis
is morally bankrupt, has lost the plot, jumped the shark, utterly, disastrously failed.
One part of the causal story of how that could happen is if you have an influential element of the subculture that disdains softness and gentleness and disdains soft, gentle people. I don’t think you can have future-proof ethics if you don’t, like, care about people’s feelings.
Going a step deeper, I think people’s disdain for empathy and sensitivity often involves a wounded, tragic history of other people not treating their feelings and experiences with empathy and sensitivity and an ongoing sense of grievance about that continuing to be the case. A lot more could be written on this topic, but I don’t have the time right now and this comment has already gotten quite long.
As of October 30, the post was a week old and solidly negative in karma (-14). I don’t think people were finding the post at this point through the frontpage at that age and karma. There was a big change from that date to November 5 (+23), cause unknown. The other big change was March 13 to 29 (+18 to −16), probably motivated by David’s tweet. My guess is that the 37-point positive jump was also motivated by some sort of off-Forum mention. It’s unclear whether this net change represents authentic evidence of the broader community’s views vs. people inclined to be favorably disposed seeing it off-Forum vs. possible brigading.
But even after going up to +24, I doubt the post re-emerged on the frontpage given that it was about two weeks old at this point. In other words, it’s likely that relatively few people saw it after this point unless they were specifically looking for it or found it incidentally when searching for something else. Therefore, I would not infer much of anything from it “remained positive for 4 months.”
I do concur that “[t]he voting pattern does not suggest the EA community quickly and thoroughly rejected the post.”
Good points. The 38+ point uptick suggests a decent sized group of accounts that were pretty coordinated. Assuming they’re legit accounts that worries me about whatever this subgroup is.
(Edit: actually, it looks like the post was on October 28 - so it was only 2 days old before it saw the uptick at some later point. It still seems likely that users would have to look for it to find it, but I’m less confident of that now)
I think it’s kind of weird that the bar is no longer “<0 karma” but “quick and thorough rejection”. I didn’t even see the article until this whole thing came up. People are allowed to think articles you don’t like have merit, it’s one of the benefits of hidden voting.
I can imagine why someone would upvote that. But overall I think it was an article I wouldn’t recommend most people spend time on.
It feels like you want there to be some harsher punishment/censorship/broader discussion here. Is that the case?
I think it’s kind of weird that the bar is no longer “<0 karma” but “quick and thorough rejection”.
This doesn’t strike me as weird. It is reasonable that people would react strongly to information suggesting that a position enjoys moderate-to-considerable support in the community.
Let’s suppose someone posted content equivalent to the infamous Bostrom listserv message today. I doubt (m)any people of color would walk away feeling comfortable being in this community merely because the post ended up with <0 karma. Information suggesting moderate-to-considerable support in the community would be very alarming to them, and for good reason! They would want to see quick and thorough rejection, at a bare minimum, in order to feel safe here.
I’m not expressing a view that Mr. Parr’s posts were of the same nature as the listserv message containing the slur. Where they are on the continuum from appropriate content to listserv-equivalent is likely a crux for many in this conversation, so my point here is to illustrate that whether you think “<0 karma” is enough likely depends on where you place Mr. Parr’s posts on that continuum.
I take your (and others’) argument to be that the negative score showed the forum “worked as it should” and that the community in some holistic sense rejected the post’s claims. That argument is very weak if it is based solely on the score being slightly negative (since that could be obtained just by 51% of votes). The argument is strong if the negative score is strong and signals robust rejection. Roughly, the voting pattern was:
Group A—early rejection, −14 score at least
Group B—subsequent support, +38 score at least (possible selection effect, unknown)
Group C—later rejection, −44 score at least (strong selection effect from David’s tweet)
Around 40% of vote points were supportive, without adjusting for Group C’s selection effect (again, very rough). That’s a way higher fraction than I would have expected (I would have guessed maybe 5%, and hoped for less). I agree people are allowed to like posts I don’t like. But this pattern suggests a much higher proportion of the forum support views which I personally think are hot garbage. I’m not saying anything should happen as a result of this. This is just another instance of a reason for me to move away from the EA community. It may be such a reason for others too.
Do you want to discuss it? I can understand value people would have taken from the post even while disagreeing with its general thrust. Also it’s pretty hard for those people to suggest why they supported it if that’s gonna tar them with being a racist, so it’s possible they have reasons I can’t guess.
I guess there is the possibility of brigading though that always seems less likely to me than people seem to think it is.
It also seems plausible that people saw it as some kind of free speech bellwether, though that seems mistaken to me (you can just downvote the bad stuff and upvote the good).
Below are the vote scores of the October ‘Genetic Enhancement’ post from internet archive snapshots. The post saw an early negative reaction, then a robustly positive one over the following week (+38 change, at minimum). It remained positive for 4 months. On March 13, David Thorstad tweeted about it, which was correlated with a significant decline. The voting pattern does not suggest the EA community quickly and thoroughly rejected the post.
Oct 28 = +4
Oct 30 = −5
Oct 30 = −14
Nov 5 = +23
Nov 5 = +24
Nov 6 = +24
Nov 6 = +24
March 13 = +18
March 29 = −16
March 29 = −20
April 4 = −13
April 5 = −15
April 10 = −15
People don’t reject this stuff, I suspect, because there is frankly, a decently large minority of the community who thinks “black people have lower IQs for genetic reasons” is suppressed forbidden knowledge. Scott Alexander has done a lot, entirely deliberately in my view, to spread that view over the years (although this is probably not the only reason), and Scott is generally highly respected within EA.
Now, unlike the people who spend all their time doing race/IQ stuff, I don’t think more than a tiny, insignificant fraction of the people in the community who think this actually are Nazis/White Nationalists. White Nationalism/Nazism are (abhorrent) political views about what should be done, not just empirical doctrines about racial intelligence, even if the latter are also part of a Nazi/White Nationalist worldview. (Scott Alexander individually is obviously not “Nazi”, since he is Jewish, but I think he is rather more, i.e. more than zero sympathetic ,to white nationalists than I personally consider morally acceptable, although I would not personally call him one, largely because I think he isn’t a political authoritarian who wants to abolish democracy.) Rather I think most of them have a view something like “it is unfortunate this stuff is true, because it helps out bad people, but you should never lie for political reasons”.
Several things lie behind this:
-Lots of people in the community like the idea of improving humanity through genetic engineering, and while that absolutely can be completely disconnected from racism, and indeed, is a fairly mainstream position in analytic bioethics as far as I can tell, in practice it tends to make people more suspicious of condemning actual racists, because you end up with many of the same enemies as them, since most people who consider anti-racist a big part of their identity are horrified by anything eugenic. This makes them more sympathetic to complaints from actual, political racists that they are being treated unfairly.
-As I say, being pro genetic enhancement or even “liberal eugenics”* is not that outside the mainstream in academic bioethics: you can publish it in leading journals etc. EA has deep roots in analytic philosophy, and inherits it’s sense of what is reasonable.
-Many people in the rationalist community are for various reasons strongly polarized against “wokeness”, which again, makes them sympathetic to the claims of actual political racists that they are being smeared.
-Often, the arguments people encounter against the race/IQ stuff are transparently terrible. Normal liberals are indeed terrified of this stuff, but most lack expertise in being able to discuss it, so they just claim it has been totally debunked and then clam up. This makes it look like there must be a dark truth being suppressed when it is really just a combination of almost no one has expertise on this stuff and in any case, because causation of human traits is so complex, for any case where some demographic group appears to be score worse on some trait, you can always claim it could be because of genetic causes, and in practice it’s very hard to disprove this. But of course that is not itself proof that there IS a genetic cause of the differences. The result of all this can make it seem like you have to endorse unproven race/IQ stuff or take the side of “bad arguers” something EAs and rationalists hate the thought of doing. See what Turkheimer said about this here https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/15/15797120/race-black-white-iq-response-critics:
’There is not a single example of a group difference in any complex human behavioral trait that has been shown to be environmental or genetic, in any proportion, on the basis of scientific evidence. Ethically, in the absence of a valid scientific methodology, speculations about innate differences between the complex behavior of groups remain just that, inseparable from the legacy of unsupported views about race and behavior that are as old as human history. The scientific futility and dubious ethical status of the enterprise are two sides of the same coin.
To convince the reader that there is no scientifically valid or ethically defensible foundation for the project of assigning group differences in complex behavior to genetic and environmental causes, I have to move the discussion in an even more uncomfortable direction. Consider the assertion that Jews are more materialistic than non-Jews. (I am Jewish, I have used a version of this example before, and I am not accusing anyone involved in this discussion of anti-Semitism. My point is to interrogate the scientific difference between assertions about blacks and assertions about Jews.)
One could try to avoid the question by hoping that materialism isn’t a measurable trait like IQ, except that it is; or that materialism might not be heritable in individuals, except that it is nearly certain it would be if someone bothered to check; or perhaps that Jews aren’t really a race, although they certainly differ ancestrally from non-Jews; or that one wouldn’t actually find an average difference in materialism, but it seems perfectly plausible that one might. (In case anyone is interested, a biological theory of Jewish behavior, by the white nationalist psychologist Kevin MacDonald, actually exists [have removed link here because I don’t want to give MacDonald web traffic-David].′
If you were persuaded by Murray and Harris’s conclusion that the black-white IQ gap is partially genetic, but uncomfortable with the idea that the same kind of thinking might apply to the personality traits of Jews, I have one question: Why? Couldn’t there just as easily be a science of whether Jews are genetically “tuned to” (Harris’s phrase) different levels of materialism than gentiles?
On the other hand, if you no longer believe this old anti-Semitic trope, is it because some scientific study has been conducted showing that it is false? And if the problem is simply that we haven’t run the studies, why shouldn’t we? Materialism is an important trait in individuals, and plausibly could be an important difference between groups. (Certainly the history of the Jewish people attests to the fact that it has been considered important in groups!) But the horrific recent history of false hypotheses about innate Jewish behavior helps us see how scientifically empty and morally bankrupt such ideas really are.′
All this tends sadly to distract people from the fact that when white nationalists like Lynn talk about race/IQ stuff, they are trying to push a political agenda to strip non-whites of their rights, end anti-discrimination measures of any kind, and slash immigration, all on the basis of the fact that, basically, they just really don’t like black people. In fact, given the actual history of Nazism, it is reasonable to suspect that at least some and probably a lot of these people would go further and advocate genocide against blacks or other non-whites if they thought they could get away with it.
*See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/eugenics/#ArguForLibeEuge
Coincidentally, I recently came across an academic paper that proposed a partial explanation of the current East Asian fertility crisis (e.g., South Korea’s fertility decreased from 0.78 to 0.7 in just one year, with 2.1 being replacement level) based on high materialism (which interestingly, the paper suggests is really about status signaling, rather than actual “material” concerns).
The paper did not propose a genetic explanation of this high materialism, but if it did, I would hope that people didn’t immediately dismiss it based on similarity to other hypotheses historically or currently misused by anti-Semites. (In other words, the logic of this article seems to lead to absurd conclusions that I can’t agree with.)
From my perspective, both sides of this debate are often pushing political agendas. It would be natural, but unvirtuous, to focus our attention on the political agenda of only one side, or to pick sides of an epistemic divide based on which political agenda we like or dislike more. (If I misinterpreted you, please clarify what implications you wanted people to draw from this paragraph.)
I want to note that within a few minutes of posting the parent comment, it received 3 downvotes totaling −14 (I think they were something like −4, −5, −5, i.e., probably all strong downvotes) with no agreement or disagreement votes, and subsequently received 5 upvotes spread over 20 hours (with no further downvotes AFAIK) that brought the net karma up to 16 as of this writing. Agreement/disagreement is currently 3⁄1.
This pattern of voting seems suspicious (e.g., why were all the downvotes clustered so closely in time). I reported the initial cluster of downvotes to the mods in case they want to look into it, but have not heard back from them yet. Thought I’d note this publicly in case a similar thing happened or happens to anyone else.
Yeah the voting on these posts feels pretty bizarre. Though I try not to worry about that. It usually comes out in the wash to something that seems right.
I was concerned that after the comment was initially downvoted to −12, it would be hidden from the front page and not enough people would see it to vote it back into positive territory. It didn’t work out that way, but perhaps could have?
I don’t see why it is helpful, or even interesting, to point out that some humans have goals and that other humans have opposing goals.
Are you saying genocide of ethnic minorities is good? I’ll assume not.
Are you saying we should sagely reserve judgment on whether genocide of ethnic minorities is good or bad because being haughty and aloof on this topic is the rational and sane way to stay above the icky, monkey-brained realm of politics? Unfortunately, this is not too far off from how some people actually think, but I’ll assume you don’t think that way.
Are you merely pointing out that some people are pro-genocide and some people are anti-genocide and, hey, those are both agendas? If so… what is the point of saying that?
I’m saying that you can’t determine the truth about an aspect of reality (in this case, what cause group differences in IQ), when both sides of a debate over it are pushing political agendas, by looking at which political agenda is better. (I also think one side of it is not as benign as you think, but that’s besides the point.)
I actually don’t think this IQ debate is one that EAs should get involved in, and said as much to Ives Parr. But if people practice or advocate for what seem to me like bad epistemic norms, I feel an obligation to push back on that.
David definitely wasn’t saying that you can determine the empirical truth that way. If that’s the claim you think you were responding to, then I think you misinterpreted him in a really uncharitable and unfair way.
It’s entirely possible that I misinterpreted David. I asked for clarification from David in the original comment if that was the case, but he hasn’t responded so far. If you want to offer your own interpretation, I’d be happy to hear it out.
Imagine someone runs up to your house with a can of gasoline and some matches. They start talking about how there are bad men living in your walls and they need to burn the place down. Now, the fact that this person wants to burn you house down doesn’t allow you to determine whether there are bad men hiding in your walls. But focusing on that epistemological point would be a distraction.
The salient thing to notice is that this person wants to burn your house down.
In your example, after I notice this, I would call the police to report this person. What do you think I should do (or what does David want me to do) after noticing the political agenda of the people he mentioned? My own natural inclination is to ignore them and keep doing what I was doing before, because it seems incredibly unlikely that their agenda would succeed, given the massive array of political enemies that such agenda has.
The macro question is what to do about white supremacists in general in society. I will leave that topic to another place and time.
The micro question is what to do about white supremacists on the EA Forum. I think we should ban them.
I think @titotal very eloquently described the Nazi death spiral problem. If you don’t take a hard stance against white supremacists, you signal your welcomingness to white supremacists and you signal your unwelcomingness to people who don’t like sharing a community with white supremacists. This runs the risk of a range of bad outcomes from severe reputational damage to destroying the effective altruist community as we know it.
Any links to where Scott Alexander deliberately argues that black people have lower IQs for genetic reasons? I’ve been reading his blog for a decade and I don’t recall any posts on this.
I should probably stop posting on this or reading the comments, for the sake of my mental health (I mean that literally, this is a major anxiety disorder trigger for me.) But I guess I sort of have to respond to a direct request for sources.
Scott’s official position on this is agnosticism, rather than public endorsement*. (See here for official agnosticism: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-cult-of-smart)
However, for years at SSC he put the dreaded neo-reactionaries on his blogroll. And they are definitely race/IQ guys. Meanwhile, he was telling friends privately at the time, that “HBD” (i.e. “human biodiversity”, but generally includes the idea that black people are genetically less intelligent) is “probably partially correct or at least very non-provably non-correct”: https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001 . That is technically still leaving some room for agnosticism, but it’s pretty clear which way he’s leaning. Meanwhile, he also was saying in private not to tell anyone he thinks this (I feel like I figured out his view was something like this anyway though? Maybe that’s hindsight bias): ‘NEVER TELL ANYONE I SAID THIS, not even in confidence’. And he was also talking about how publicly declaring himself to be a reactionary was bad strategy for PR reasons (“becoming a reactionary would be both stupid and decrease my ability to spread things to non-reactionary readers”). (He also discusses how he writes about this stuff partly because it drives blog traffic. Not shameful in itself, but I think people in EA sometimes have an exaggerated sense of Scott’s moral purity and integrity that this sits a little awkwardly with.) Overall, I think his private talk on this paints a picture of someone who is too cautious to be 100% sure that Black people have genetically lower IQs, but wants other people to increase their credence in that to >50%, and is thinking strategically (and arguably manipulatively) about how to get them to do so. (He does seem to more clearly reject the anti-democratic and the most anti-feminist parts of Neo-Reaction.)
I will say that MOST of what makes me angry about this, is not the object-level race/IQ beliefs themselves, but the lack of repulsion towards the Reactionaries as a (fascist) political movement. I really feel like this is pretty damning (though obviously Scott has his good traits too). The Reactionaries are known for things like trolling about how maybe slavery was actually kind of good: https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/07/why-carlyle-matters/ Scott has never seemed sufficiently creeped out by this (or really, at all creeped out by it in my experience). But he has been happy to get really, really angry about feminists who say mean things about nerds**, or in one case I remember, stupid woke changes to competitive debate. (I couldn’t find that one by googling, so you’ll have to trust my memory about it; they were stupid, just not worth the emotional investment.) Personally, I think fascism should be more upsetting than woke debate! (Yes, that is melodramatic phrasing, but I am trying to shock people out what I think is complacency on this topic.)
I think people in EA have a big blind-spot about Scott’s fairly egregious record on this stuff, because it’s really embarrassing for the community to admit how bad it is, people (including me often; I feel like I morally ought to give up ACX, but I still check it from time to time) like his writing for other reasons. And frankly, there is also a certain amount of (small-r) reactionary white male backlash in the community. Indeed, I used to enjoy some of Scott’s attacks on wokeness myself; I have similar self-esteem issues around autistic masculinity issues as I think many anti-woke rationalists do. The currently strongly negative position is one I’ve come to slowly over many years of thinking about this stuff, though I was always uncomfortable with his attitude towards the Reactionaries.
*[Quoting Scott] ’Earlier this week, I objected when a journalist dishonestly spliced my words to imply I supported Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve. Some people wrote me to complain that I handled this in a cowardly way—I showed that the specific thing the journalist quoted wasn’t a reference to The Bell Curve, but I never answered the broader question of what I thought of the book. They demanded I come out and give my opinion openly. Well, the most direct answer is that I’ve never read it. But that’s kind of cowardly too—I’ve read papers and articles making what I assume is the same case. So what do I think of them?
This is far enough from my field that I would usually defer to expert consensus, but all the studies I can find which try to assess expert consensus seem crazy. A while ago, I freaked out upon finding a study that seemed to show most expert scientists in the field agreed with Murray’s thesis in 1987 - about three times as many said the gap was due to a combination of genetics and environment as said it was just environment. Then I freaked out again when I found another study (here is the most recent version, from 2020) showing basically the same thing (about four times as many say it’s a combination of genetics and environment compared to just environment). I can’t find any expert surveys giving the expected result that they all agree this is dumb and definitely 100% environment and we can move on (I’d be very relieved if anybody could find those, or if they could explain why the ones I found were fake studies or fake experts or a biased sample, or explain how I’m misreading them or that they otherwise shouldn’t be trusted. If you have thoughts on this, please send me an email). I’ve vacillated back and forth on how to think about this question so many times, and right now my personal probability estimate is “I am still freaking out about this, go away go away go away”. And I understand I have at least two potentially irresolvable biases on this question: one, I’m a white person in a country with a long history of promoting white supremacy; and two, if I lean in favor then everyone will hate me, and use it as a bludgeon against anyone I have ever associated with, and I will die alone in a ditch and maybe deserve it. So the best I can do is try to route around this issue when considering important questions. This is sometimes hard, but the basic principle is that I’m far less sure of any of it than I am sure that all human beings are morally equal and deserve to have a good life and get treated with respect regardless of academic achievement.
(Hopefully I’ve given people enough ammunition against me that they won’t have to use hallucinatory ammunition in the future. If you target me based on this, please remember that it’s entirely a me problem and other people tangentially linked to me are not at fault.)’
** Personally I hate *some* of the shit he complains about there too, although in other cases I probably agree with the angry feminist takes and might even sometimes defend the way they are expressed. I am autistic and have had great difficulties attracting romantic interest. (And obviously, as my name indicates I am male. And straight as it happens.) But Scott’s two most extensive blogposts on this are incredibly bare of sympathetic discussion of why feminists might sometimes be a bit angry and insensitive on this issue.
I’m not very familiar with Reactionary philosophy myself, but was suspicious of your use of “fascism” here. Asked Copilot (based on GPT-4) and it answered:
(Normally I wouldn’t chime in on some topic I know this little about, but I suspect others who are more informed might fear speaking up and getting associated with fascism in other people’s minds as a result.)
Also, I’m not Scott but I can share that I’m personally upset with wokeness, not because of how it changed debate, but based on more significant harms to my family and the community we live in (which I described in general terms in this post), to the extent that we’re moving half-way across the country to be in a more politically balanced area, where hopefully it has less influence. (Not to mention damage to other institutions I care about, such as academia and journalism.)
Not entirely sure what you’re referring to by “melodramatic phrasing”, but if this is an excuse for using “fascism” to describe “Reactionary philosophy” in order to manipulate people’s reactions to it and/or prevent dissent (I’ve often seen “racism” used this way in other places), I think I have to stand against that. If everyone started excusing themselves from following good discussion norms when they felt like others were complacent about something, that seems like a recipe for disaster.
Neo-reactionary ideology seems like a close match for fascism. The Wikipedia article on it discusses whether it is or isn’t fascism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
Two major themes of neo-reactionary ideology seem to be authoritarianism and white supremacy.
There is definitely some overlap between people who identify with neo-reactionary ideas and people who identify with explicitly neo-Nazi/neo-fascist ideas.
I am with you on this. I have had to disengage for mental health reasons. This stuff affects me quite seriously. I may or may not check back in on this post again. I may have to go as far as completely disengaging from the EA Forum on both this alt and my main account for an indefinite period, maybe forever.
i don’t know your specific situation, but I will speak on a general dynamic.
The psychologist Elaine Aron has a hypothesis that there is a neurological subtype called the Highly Sensitive Person that is unusually sensitive to sensory and emotional stimuli. This can include being unusually unsettled if other people appear to be in pain or discomfort or unusually disturbed by depictions of violence or suffering in TV or movies.
Some have suggested that Aron is describing autism or a form of autism. I’m not sure what’s true. Some people and some psychometric tests have told me that I’m a Highly Sensitive Person and that I’m autistic.
Aggressive environments or aggressive subcultures can shake out people who are particularly sensitive in this way. When that happens, I believe a certain kind of wisdom and temperance is lost. The soft, gentle side of people must be preserved and a community should be such that particularly soft, gentle people can be included and welcomed without losing their softness and gentleness.
Aristotle talked about practical wisdom (phronêsis). “Practical wisdom” makes me think about the contrast between my analytic philosophy courses in ethics and the social work elective I took in undergrad. First, the atmosphere of the courses was just so different. The philosophy classes usually felt kind of cold, sometimes kind of mean. Social work was a culture shock for me because the people were so palpably kind and warm. Second, my social work professor had been involved in real moral issues deeply and directly. Those included HIV/AIDS activism, dealing with violence in schools, and counselling couples navigating infidelity. I was so impressed with his practical wisdom. How do I assess that he had practical wisdom? I don’t really know. How do I decide when an ethical argument seems rational? I don’t really know, either.
The contrast between my ethics courses and that social work course is a microcosm of so much for me. It’s that same contrast you see in the EA movement where, for example, you have the absurd situation where people take the principle of impartiality or equal consideration of interests so seriously that they concern themselves with shrimp welfare but, in practical terms, their moral circle doesn’t fully include women.
Tying it all back together, a movement that can’t align itself:
with democracy, against fascism
with women, against sexism
with people of colour, against white supremacy
with core moral decency, against Nazis
is morally bankrupt, has lost the plot, jumped the shark, utterly, disastrously failed.
One part of the causal story of how that could happen is if you have an influential element of the subculture that disdains softness and gentleness and disdains soft, gentle people. I don’t think you can have future-proof ethics if you don’t, like, care about people’s feelings.
Going a step deeper, I think people’s disdain for empathy and sensitivity often involves a wounded, tragic history of other people not treating their feelings and experiences with empathy and sensitivity and an ongoing sense of grievance about that continuing to be the case. A lot more could be written on this topic, but I don’t have the time right now and this comment has already gotten quite long.
As of October 30, the post was a week old and solidly negative in karma (-14). I don’t think people were finding the post at this point through the frontpage at that age and karma. There was a big change from that date to November 5 (+23), cause unknown. The other big change was March 13 to 29 (+18 to −16), probably motivated by David’s tweet. My guess is that the 37-point positive jump was also motivated by some sort of off-Forum mention. It’s unclear whether this net change represents authentic evidence of the broader community’s views vs. people inclined to be favorably disposed seeing it off-Forum vs. possible brigading.
But even after going up to +24, I doubt the post re-emerged on the frontpage given that it was about two weeks old at this point. In other words, it’s likely that relatively few people saw it after this point unless they were specifically looking for it or found it incidentally when searching for something else. Therefore, I would not infer much of anything from it “remained positive for 4 months.”
I do concur that “[t]he voting pattern does not suggest the EA community quickly and thoroughly rejected the post.”
Good points. The 38+ point uptick suggests a decent sized group of accounts that were pretty coordinated. Assuming they’re legit accounts that worries me about whatever this subgroup is. (Edit: actually, it looks like the post was on October 28 - so it was only 2 days old before it saw the uptick at some later point. It still seems likely that users would have to look for it to find it, but I’m less confident of that now)
I think it’s kind of weird that the bar is no longer “<0 karma” but “quick and thorough rejection”. I didn’t even see the article until this whole thing came up. People are allowed to think articles you don’t like have merit, it’s one of the benefits of hidden voting.
I can imagine why someone would upvote that. But overall I think it was an article I wouldn’t recommend most people spend time on.
It feels like you want there to be some harsher punishment/censorship/broader discussion here. Is that the case?
This doesn’t strike me as weird. It is reasonable that people would react strongly to information suggesting that a position enjoys moderate-to-considerable support in the community.
Let’s suppose someone posted content equivalent to the infamous Bostrom listserv message today. I doubt (m)any people of color would walk away feeling comfortable being in this community merely because the post ended up with <0 karma. Information suggesting moderate-to-considerable support in the community would be very alarming to them, and for good reason! They would want to see quick and thorough rejection, at a bare minimum, in order to feel safe here.
I’m not expressing a view that Mr. Parr’s posts were of the same nature as the listserv message containing the slur. Where they are on the continuum from appropriate content to listserv-equivalent is likely a crux for many in this conversation, so my point here is to illustrate that whether you think “<0 karma” is enough likely depends on where you place Mr. Parr’s posts on that continuum.
I take your (and others’) argument to be that the negative score showed the forum “worked as it should” and that the community in some holistic sense rejected the post’s claims. That argument is very weak if it is based solely on the score being slightly negative (since that could be obtained just by 51% of votes). The argument is strong if the negative score is strong and signals robust rejection. Roughly, the voting pattern was:
Group A—early rejection, −14 score at least
Group B—subsequent support, +38 score at least (possible selection effect, unknown)
Group C—later rejection, −44 score at least (strong selection effect from David’s tweet)
Around 40% of vote points were supportive, without adjusting for Group C’s selection effect (again, very rough). That’s a way higher fraction than I would have expected (I would have guessed maybe 5%, and hoped for less). I agree people are allowed to like posts I don’t like. But this pattern suggests a much higher proportion of the forum support views which I personally think are hot garbage. I’m not saying anything should happen as a result of this. This is just another instance of a reason for me to move away from the EA community. It may be such a reason for others too.
Yeah maybe?
Do you want to discuss it? I can understand value people would have taken from the post even while disagreeing with its general thrust. Also it’s pretty hard for those people to suggest why they supported it if that’s gonna tar them with being a racist, so it’s possible they have reasons I can’t guess.
I guess there is the possibility of brigading though that always seems less likely to me than people seem to think it is.
It also seems plausible that people saw it as some kind of free speech bellwether, though that seems mistaken to me (you can just downvote the bad stuff and upvote the good).