andrewducker | Interesting Links for 25-11-2022

I am confused by the Less Wrong thing.

The philosophy is providing new ideological cover for old-style racism and other bigotries.

Yes, sorry, I should be more clear about what I'm confused about.

I knew that that group had drifted in to some weird hard right view points (at which point I stopped paying attention to them).

What I'm confused about is this. What I'm seeing when I follow the link is a bunch of toots (are they toots?) saying the same thing. And I'm not sure why people are doing that or what it's for.

Aah, what you're seeing there is a content warning. Click on the top one and you should see what's under it.

Aha!

That's sad. When I paid attention to Scott Alexander I generally found him interesting

It's not quite as sad as the implications of the most interesting analysis of why you might get noticiable difference in measured IQ between Westerners and Sub-Saharan Africans - that Sub-Saharan Aficans are much, much more likely to have been malnourished at exactly the time and in exactly the way that most impact brain development, that they are much, much more likely to have had severe fever from a preventable infectious disease at the time that that most impacts brain development and that they are much, much likely to have suffered some severe emotional trauma by witnessing or experiencing violence or parental loss at an age where that is most likely to impact brain development.

Absolutely. I'm totally in favour of looking at population groups, and understanding what's going on with their development. But not in the rather reductive manner that's going on there.

(And I am also sad, because I liked a fair bit of what Scott wrote, although I also got annoyed by it regularly.)

what's going on with their development.

I'm just left wanting to shout at the scientific racists:-

There are two common factors that Sub-Sharahan people of colour share that are not as commonly shared by Westerners.

One is that their skin is darker.

The other is that the places they live have been systematically robbed over hundreds of years, sometimes so badly as to cause famine, leading to a situation where they are still today poor and often unstable.

I wonder which common factor might best explain what is going on with their physical development...

Does your system not show the little "SHOW MORE" button after each of the identical toots? That's what clued me in as to what was going on here, after being initially as puzzled as you were.

It does.

And I can see it now that Andy has pointed it out to me.

I fear I may have mentally filled Mastodon under "weird and difficult" and that's colouring my ability to interact with it.

Following the link to Scott's explanations of his actions, he's admitting that he's largely convinced by "HBD" (Human Biodiversity -> "people are diverse", but as "scientific racism", rather than, say, neurodiversity), and also that he wants to encourage the spread of (Neo-)Reactionary thought, which you can read about here and is about as lovely as you'd expect.

Another astonishingly ugly thing. Was never quite comfortable with a lot of that stuff, glad they 'outed' themselves to confirm that I am really just not interested in that movement.

That article seems to attribute most of this to a guy called Moldbug, whom I've only ever previously heard of through Scott Alexander's posts, of whom Scott's opinion seems to be that he finds Moldbug fascinating but mostly disagrees with him.

If, as accused in various deep-down places in #5, Scott A. is secretly pushing eugenics and scientific racism, my reading of his posts is that he's doing so secretly enough that it doesn't come across. Scientific racism is a stupid philosophy characterized by jumping to entirely unwarranted conclusions in a way that Scott A. doesn't. I've read The Bell Curve, which is scientific racism, and the difference seems pretty obvious to me.

(I read The Bell Curve, by the way, in response to a conversation with friends who said it wasn't racist. I wanted to see for myself. I came back afterwards and told them that yes it is, and why.)

It is deeply saddening to read that about Scott: I found him a very engaging and entertaining conversationalist at the Pembury but...

Yes this does seem to be true.

I regret that I have recommended and promoted his work.

Interesting Links for 25-11-2022

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject