The downvotes are probably because, indeed, the claims only make sense if you look at the level of something like “has Scott ever said anything that could be construed as X”. I think a complete engagement with SSC doesn’t support the argument, and it’s specifically the fact that SSC is willing to address issues in their whole without flinching away from topics that might make a person “guilty by association” that makes it a compelling blog.
Not to be rude, but what context do you recommend would help for interpreting the statement, “I like both basic income guarantees and eugenics,” or describing requiring poor people to be sterilized to receive basic income as “probably better than what we have right now?” Because those seem fairly clear.
I think that a lot of these comments are subtle is what makes them so concerning. If I ran a cooking blog where I talked about cooking 95% of the time, and 5% of the time talked about eugenics, the cooking community would be justified in being deeply concerned about associating with me. What’s concerning is precisely that a large portion of our community finds a blog that unflinchingly endorses something like eugenics compelling. Analysis is never without values, and SSC has been explicit in its values at many points, as cited above.
Do you find it frightening that in defending the blog, people who associate with a community that wants the world to be better openly threatened journalists? Or that we overlap with a community that has endorsed neo-Nazi slogans like the 14 words?
Not to be rude, but what context do you recommend would help for interpreting the statement, “I like both basic income guarantees and eugenics,” or describing requiring poor people to be sterilized to receive basic income as “probably better than what we have right now?”
The part from the middle of that excerpt that you left out certainly seems like relevant context: “Even though I like both basic income guarantees and eugenics, I don’t think these are two things that go well together – making the income conditional upon sterilization is a little too close to coercion for my purposes. Still, probably better than what we have right now.” (see my top-level comment)
The downvotes are probably because, indeed, the claims only make sense if you look at the level of something like “has Scott ever said anything that could be construed as X”. I think a complete engagement with SSC doesn’t support the argument, and it’s specifically the fact that SSC is willing to address issues in their whole without flinching away from topics that might make a person “guilty by association” that makes it a compelling blog.
Not to be rude, but what context do you recommend would help for interpreting the statement, “I like both basic income guarantees and eugenics,” or describing requiring poor people to be sterilized to receive basic income as “probably better than what we have right now?” Because those seem fairly clear.
I think that a lot of these comments are subtle is what makes them so concerning. If I ran a cooking blog where I talked about cooking 95% of the time, and 5% of the time talked about eugenics, the cooking community would be justified in being deeply concerned about associating with me. What’s concerning is precisely that a large portion of our community finds a blog that unflinchingly endorses something like eugenics compelling. Analysis is never without values, and SSC has been explicit in its values at many points, as cited above.
Do you find it frightening that in defending the blog, people who associate with a community that wants the world to be better openly threatened journalists? Or that we overlap with a community that has endorsed neo-Nazi slogans like the 14 words?
The part from the middle of that excerpt that you left out certainly seems like relevant context: “Even though I like both basic income guarantees and eugenics, I don’t think these are two things that go well together – making the income conditional upon sterilization is a little too close to coercion for my purposes. Still, probably better than what we have right now.” (see my top-level comment)