Statement on New York Times Article

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[Senator Josh Hawley (Banned)]

Sounds like a chicom smear campaign to me, but ok.

[Fabian Destouches]

If this is the one comment not deleted in this chain I really don't want to know what the others said (meaning I really do want to know).

[ChestertonsTopiary]

I love the idea that Josh Hawley reads SSC and posts trollollollolloll comments

[Legionnaire]

I scrolled towards the comments wondering how bad they'd be, and laughed really hard when I was immediately met by a wall of "deleted".

[Evan Þ]

I, too, sometimes wish the Presidency would be abolished if there's no other way to choke off our Imperial Presidency.

[averagethinker]

> This seems like a weirdly brazen type of falsehood for a major newspaper.

This seems like a validation of your skepticism about the NYT.

[marxbro1917]

Remember that I've pressed Scott Alexander many times on his sloppy citations and he rarely fixes his mistakes. If we're being sceptical about NYT I think we should also be sceptical about Scott Alexander himself.

[averagethinker]

The whole context of this discussion and the quote I excerpted is about truth and falsehood. Scott backed up his claim with evidence. You have made a completely baseless and tone-deaf accusation. I have no idea who you are or what you have "pressed" on anyone. If you'd like to make a claim, please detail it with evidence.

[marxbro1917]

>Scott backed up his claim with evidence.

Scott recently coined the term "Marx's Fallacy". When pressed he never found any primary source showing that Marx had committed this supposed fallacy.

[averagethinker]

This is so meta. Do you fail to see the irony of how you're making vague and poorly cited claims about Scott all within the context of the NYT doing the same?

Nevertheless, I will do my best to lead you through the process. I doubt I will have much interest in getting into the minutia of Marx; but, at a process level, the basic point is that when you claim that people should be skeptical of someone, you must provide evidence. To begin, "Scott recently coined" and "never found any primary source" are not very helpful because they don't show Scott's actual words or their context. It would be helpful if you could link to, or quote, the evidence for the points you're trying to make. Linking is better because quoting often leaves out relevant context.

[averagethinker]

And sorry I'm being so harsh and blunt, but this goes back to my point about your tone-deafness. If someone is vulnerably writing about a tough and emotional subject -- while they're being attacked -- that's the _worst_ time to attack them with vague and evidence-less claims.

[marxbro1917]

Here's Scott's claim:

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-of-legible

You can ctrl+f "fallacy" and find the section I am referring to quite quickly. I did not provide a citation because blogs do not have page numbers and this was a very recent mistake that I assumed everyone would know about by now. I should not have assumed this, you're correct. Often it takes a long time for knowledge of Scott's mistakes to disseminate among his readers.

Now, I have asked Scott Alexander for a citation regarding this supposed "Fallacy". He never replied or cited any place where I could find this fallacy.

In Scott's recent humour article on Cryptocurrencies Scott made a joke that doesn't really make sense if you're familiar with Marx's criticisms of money and the commodity form. In response Scott admitted that his knowledge of Marx was based on "gestalt impressions". I replied asking if he often writes blogs based on things he has only vaguely thought about. I don't know how to link individual comments but you can find it here if you ctrl+f "gestalt":

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/list-of-fictional-cryptocurrencies/comments

Certainly, given this exchange I have my doubts that Scott Alexander will even be able to give me a citation regarding "Marx's Fallacy" - I have doubts that Scott Alexander has ever read Marx at all, let alone has any interest in treating his political philosophy charitably. Seems like he's more interested in making poorly-thought-out jokes about the material rather than engaging with the out-group.

[averagethinker]

Great! In my opinion, you should apologize to Scott for -- at least, initially -- making a public claim, without evidence, that people should be skeptical of him in the midst of him being attacked by The Great Octopus.

As far as the content of your criticism, let's start with quoting Scott's basic claim:

> What I sometimes call Marx's Fallacy is that if we burnt down the current system, some group of people who optimized for things other than power would naturally rise to the top.

I went to my bookshelf and found my copy of the Communist Manifesto (ISBN 978-1-85984-898-2) that I haven't looked at for a while. Skimming to section "II. Proletarians and Communists," Marx writes:

"The Communists are distinguished from other working-class parties by this only:

1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.

2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

[...]

The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: the formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat."

So here we have direct support of Scott's premise of "if we burnt down the current system" in Marx's quote: "overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy".

I think the beginning of the Marx quote above (the two points defining communism) sufficiently supports Scott's fallacy argument. Marx claims, with profound naïveté, that all the communists are about is representing the interests of the proletariat and Marx doesn't wrestle with the obvious and historically observable problem that those that tend to reach for political power, tend to optimize for it.

Is Marx the first profoundly naïveté political theoretician on this point? No. Is it fair to name the fallacy after him? In my opinion, yes. In my opinion, he was one of the main people directly responsible for the deaths and murder of hundreds of millions of people due, in part, to his profound naïveté about the nature of political power. I fully support Scott's cute summary of this as Marx's Fallacy and I think Marx's own words provide sufficient evidence. I see no reason to be skeptical of Scott based on what you're claiming. I think when it comes to homicidal murderers, it's okay to use summaries and gestalt rather than wading through meandering, original primary sources. I did not enjoy reading The Communist Manifesto's ramblings when I first read it.

[marxbro1917]

I don't think Marx would regard the proletariat reaching for power as a problem. Neither is he "naive" on this issue, he actively supports the proletariat overthrowing bourgeois power. So he's not committing any fallacy here; you just disagree with his political aims.

[Melvin]

So to clarify, are you of the opinion that the way Communism worked out in practice (ie mass murder, torture, famine etc) was basically what Marx wanted in the first place?

[averagethinker]

The way I interpret Scott's Marx Fallacy is that intentions don't matter. See my attempted logical construction in my other reply to marxbro1917.

[marxbro1917]

Let's look at what Scott claims is Marx's Fallacy:

"What I sometimes call Marx's Fallacy is that if we burnt down the current system, some group of people who optimized for things other than power would naturally rise to the top."

What would it mean to "burn it all down"? Marx doesn't advocate for people to burn everything down - he sees communism as arising from the conditions that capitalism itself has created. This includes seizing (not burning) the means of production - the "commanding heights" as some have put it. There are also other phenomena that arise under capitalism that Marxists saw as useful - e.g. unions, mass poltical parties, etc. The idea that his position is just "burn it all down" is a pretty obvious misrepresentation.

[averagethinker]

Let's define Marx's fallacy somewhat more formally as what I think Scott was getting at:

Premise 1 (P1): If a political system is burned down and those leading the burning say that they're not optimizing for power, then we can believe that they're not optimizing for power (consciously or not).

Premise 2 (P2): Marx writes that the leaders of the proletariat revolution are not optimizing for power.

Conclusion: Therefore, we can believe that Marxian communists will burn down a political system without optimizing for power.

I'm not enough of a logician to name this type of fallacy, but the obvious problem -- what I called Marx's profound naïveté -- is premise 1: revolutionary leaders saying that they're not optimizing for power cannot be believed.

[marxbro1917]

As a great poet and historical materialist once said; "we didn't start the fire"

[Azure]

As a Utopian Socialist I'm not really a fan of Marx, though I think he prefigured some interesting stuff (I agree with people who suggest that even if Keynes didn't read Marx, his ideas look like they were influenced by Marx being in he water supply, for example. Peter Singer also credits Marx with really popularizing the idea that we might refer to as Moloch.)

But to be fair to Marx, he wasn't completely devoted to 'revolution' as we commonly think of it (in the way that might suggest 'burn it all down'), and suggested that that in some democratic societies transition away from capitalism could come about through democratic means, which we would hope to be less disruptive and Stalintastic.

We could criticize Marx for declining to write recipes for the cookshops of the future and not having a clear idea of how that transition could work. You might argue that this wasn't Marx's goal, and that he wrote on capitalism, why he thought it was bad, and the ways he thought it would become unstable and undermine itself. Apologists will say that he was 'descriptive rather than prescriptive'. I don't think this holds up given the emphasis on philosophy as a tool to change the world. He is defnitely overly optimistic about the ability of violent revolutions to not be terrible.

There are traditions that aren't exactly Marxist but were heavily influenced BY him, incorporating the idea that capitalism is inherently unstable and would ultimately cause its own collapse, that are MORE credible. Anarchist ideas of dual-power (building a new world within the shell of the old) address the biggest problem with revolution by building alternate social systems while the state and capital still exist to serve the interests of the currently marginalized, having them waiting in the wings to pick up the slack when capitalism starts to fall, letting people see an alternative exists so they don't feel pressured to enact capitalism, and making the conflict between the capitalist state and what hopes to be its successor more localized, lower stakes, and incremental.

I am not an anarchist and am skeptical of dual power's effectiveness in a large economy given its inherent locality, but it at least gives an idea of what a Marx-adjacent idea that doesn't involve destabilizing everything at once and creating a violent, viciousness-optimizing environment might look like.

[stale]

Dude, nobody gives a shit about some random comment that anyone made about marx. Move on with your life and stop obsessing over this.

[marxbro1917]

I will not "move on" when the truth is at stake.

[David Piepgrass]

While I disagree with marxbro, that's a horrible, toxic, ugly comment (and, like marxbro, I do not "move on" when the truth is at stake.)

[Harald]

The case for how it is fair or logical to call it "Marx's fallacy" hasn't really been made here. All I see is: (a) Marx favored, or rather welcomed, revolution; (b) any optimistic revolutionary is probably committing this fallacy. But the same can be said of those who stormed the Bastille, or of Tom Paine. "The optimistic revolutionary's fallacy" would be better, then - not only because it is fairer and more accurate, but also because it leads us to examine more assumptions, including ones many people here probably feel comfortable with.

[David Piepgrass]

To repeat Marx:

"2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they [the Communists] always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

[...]

The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: the formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat."

He also said: "The working class, in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society."

So: the communists wish to "overthrow the bourgeois". However, to do this they must take power away from them, and hold that power, lest the bourgeois take it back. Who would hold the power? Movements always have leaders. Marx seemed to expect that the communists in general, and the leaders of the revolution in particular, would "always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole", i.e. that a group of people who optimizes for the ideals of communism, rather than for their own power, would naturally rise to the top. I have read little Marx, but everything I've heard is consistent with the view that this is honestly what Marx thought.

You could argue that the fallacy is something else. For example, Ayn Rand had an overwhelming focus on The Individual and seemed not to recognize social institutions as having any importance in society. Perhaps Karl Marx's fallacy was an opposite affliction in which he reified The Group in his mind as though it were a physical entity, and did not recognize the individual as having any importance, so that when he said the working class would overthrow the ruling class and abolish class differences, he literally thought that the group would act exactly as though it were a single entity and not a collection of individuals.

(For reference here is what Scott said: "What I sometimes call Marx's Fallacy is that if we burnt down the current system, some group of people who optimized for things other than power would naturally rise to the top.")

[David Piepgrass]

Sorry, I see now that you were actually just saying that others have made the same fallacy. Whoops. Point taken. (I'm leaving this comment up only because I wasn't 100% satisfied with averagethinker's attempt to explain the fallacy.)

[Tom]

Thank you for excerpting the relevant text. I think we're too deep into the weeds.

Scott states "What I sometimes call Marx's Fallacy...". Someone then demands a "citation regarding this supposed 'Fallacy'".

Um, when someone says "What I sometime call" then it does not demand a citation. Someone's personal saying doesn't need to be academically rigorous.

This is basically the kind of bad faith distraction that wastes people's time. A reader is demanding citations, but we can be very confident this reader will not be satisfied with any amount of citation. The reader could still claim that there is not such thing as "Marx's Fallacy" because that specific term is not in the literature or that Marx did not say exactly those words (translated).

[marxbro1917]

>Someone's personal saying doesn't need to be academically rigorous.

If you're going to accuse someone of committing a fallacy, you should have some evidence that they committed that fallacy.

This isn't an academic level of rigor, it's basic manners and charitability. Marx is an outgroup thinker and I don't think he deserves to be misrepresented.

[Jazzle]

This comment is a slam dunk. This refutes the foundation of Marx's premise perfectly.

[Adrian]

The quote is, "What I sometimes call Marx's Fallacy is that if we burnt down the current system, some group of people who optimized for things other than power would naturally rise to the top."

This is a foundational belief of all Marxists, regardless of whether Marx stated it explicitly. Marxism has never had a plan for achieving "true communism" other than "kill all the bourgeoisie and burn down the system". The fact that we have millions of revolutionaries around the world eager to destroy their civilization, none of whom have any workable plans past the "kill people" step, proves that this is the case.

Marx never stated it explicitly because he was writing at a time when every philosopher knew Hegel and Rousseau, and could see all the places Marx was invoking Hegel and Rousseau. Rousseau and Hegel both asserted this fallacy, Rousseau via his ridiculous doctrine of the "Common Good", and Hegel by positing a "Weltgeist" ("world spirit"; that is, God) who always makes sure that things get better after a revolution.

If you think you /don't/ believe this Marxist fallacy, then please explain what you think the Marxist plan is for building a better, more-just system after destroying the current one.

[marxbro1917]

Marxists have plenty of plans. We can look at places like Cuba and the USSR and analyse their plans and build off their successes while learning from their mistakes.

[Adrian]

By "plan" I don't mean a series of goals, but things like:

- a governmental structure, with mechanisms to choose and dismiss leaders and prevent tyranny

- an economic structure, with mechanisms for figuring out how to allocate the nation's resources, what to produce, who decides what to produce, what each person will do, where they will live, and what things they'll get to use

- an artistic structure, explaining who chooses what movies, music, books, and paintings get made, how the artists are paid, and how to allow innovation, diverse opinions, and also continued work in traditional art forms, providing a balance of entertainment, speculation, education, and challenging mental questions

The governmental structure is the easiest. The economic and artistic infrastructure is theoretically impossible under communism, since it's ideologically committed to preventing people from getting what they want, and to forbidding art that might encourage a diversity of thought.

[Adrian]

When I say it's committed to preventing people from getting what they want, I mean that it assumes everyone wants the same things, and therefore goods can be produced without a free market by which people can signal their preferences for different goods.

When I say it's committed to forbidding art that might encourage a diversity of thought, I mean that Marxism presumes that everyone shares the same interests and goals, which is impossible if diversity of thought exists.

[marxbro1917]

The main way Marxists plan to prevent tyranny is by abolishing capitalism. The economic structure is communism. The artist structure is easy; by giving people freedom from the drudgery of capitalism we are releasing the creativity and diversity of the proletariat.

[Reality]

The USSR had to set prices using Sears catalogs. Communism can’t even partially work without a capitalist system to ape. Every country you love also had to build walls and/or have secret police to hold their citizens in. Think about that.

[Internaut]

I wish we'd set prices using the Sears catalog.

If you adjust one of their kit houses for inflation it's about 40-50k and those houses today actually retail at 500k, even 1000k. Bit of a plot hole.

I've seen so many mid-wit arguments for why this is - a lot of people have forgotten prices are supposed to go downwards if general living standards are improving.

[Naim Miah]

Marx was strictly against a government run by the few, an aberration of Lenin. Lenin wanted an authoritarian state with socialist policies. Lenin, after a free election that voted communist out of power, genuinely believed that the people didn't know any better.

More so, Marx was clear that a workers revolution should only be staged in an industrial society. USSR was 90% agricultural when Lenin took power. The numbers are similar for China when Mao reunited China.

[Reality]

Amazingly, every single communist regime in history went the same murderous route. It’s almost like Marx had a fallacy, or something.

[A.]

This link is absolutely going to trigger somebody, but I can't seem to find a more neutral source that's not horrible. Stop reading it after the punchline.

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/12/08/aoc-bernie-and-a-capitalist-walk-into-a-bar/

[Bettybowho]

Maybe I’m missing something, a blog is generally someones opinion. News is factual reporting. Scott is a blogger the NYT is supposed to be news.

[mobile]

True Marx's Fallacy has never been tried.

[murphy]

Google harder.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/13/book-review-singer-on-marx/

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red-plenty/

"Hegel viewed all human history as the World-Spirit trying to recognize and incarnate itself. As it overcomes its various confusions and false dichotomies, it advances into forms that more completely incarnate the World-Spirit and then moves onto the next problem. Finally, it ends with the World-Spirit completely incarnated – possibly in the form of early 19th century Prussia – and everything is great forever.

Marx famously exports Hegel’s mysticism into a materialistic version where the World-Spirit operates upon class relations rather than the interconnectedness of all things, and where you don’t come out and call it the World-Spirit – but he basically keeps the system intact. So once the World-Spirit resolves the dichotomy between Capitalist and Proletariat, then it can more completely incarnate itself and move on to the next problem. Except that this is the final problem (the proof of this is trivial and is left as exercise for the reader) so the World-Spirit becomes fully incarnate and everything is great forever. And you want to plan for how that should happen? Are you saying you know better than the World-Spirit, Comrade?

I am starting to think I was previously a little too charitable toward Marx. My objections were of the sort “You didn’t really consider the idea of welfare capitalism with a social safety net” or “communist society is very difficult to implement in principle,” whereas they should have looked more like “You are basically just telling us to destroy all of the institutions that sustain human civilization and trust that what is basically a giant planet-sized ghost will make sure everything works out.”"

[Eugene Norman]

He is not citing Marx directly, of course, but Marx clearly either didn’t believe that his future society was going to be a tyranny or pretended to not believe it. Either way it was a tyranny everywhere it was tried out. Which wouldn’t have surprised conservatives, moderate socialists or anarchists at the time. Especially the latter.

[BornInTheUSSR]

Since your have 1917 in your alias, I assume you're fluent in Russian: Here is the first stanza of Soviet Russian translation of The International (This is cannon. I was taught to memorize and perform as a schoolchild). Please note the last 4 lines, товарищь.

Вставай проклятьем заклейменный ,

Весь мир голодных и рабов !

Кипит наш разум возмущённый

И в смертный бой вести готов.

Весь мир насилья мы разрушим

До основанья , а затем

Мы наш мы новый мир построим,

Кто был никем тот станет всем!

https://pesni.guru

[John from FL]

Gah...this again?

[Obsidian]

MarxBro's been doing this for years on SSC diaspora sites until his inevitable ban. His output is astonishing.

[Anna Rita]

I'd suggest reading this to understand the objection being made: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/13/book-review-singer-on-marx/

(Yes, I know this isn't a primary source.)

[marxbro1917]

Singer doesn't do a particularly good job showing the extent of Marx's criticisms of classical political economy.

"Marx does not challenge the classical economists within the presuppositions of their science."

Marx didn't challenge economists on certain presuppositions, but he took some of those presuppositions to places that were truly uncomfortable to most economists, which I think becomes a challenge in and of itself. On other presuppositions he did openly challenge them, first that comes to mind is Jean-Baptise Say

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch03.htm#s9

Some of my other criticisms of Scott in this article are readable here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/gc27k5/author_reacts_to_ssc_book_review/fpbulfv/

I am thinking of writing a much longer piece that would put these criticisms into a more formal and rigorous manner.

[Azure]

This, specifically "took some of those presuppositions to places that were truly uncomfortable to most economists", was always one of the places where I thought Capital was weakest.

The focus on surplus value and expropriation was written in such a way that I kept feeling like Marx was agreeing that there was a 'natural law' style correct distribution but arguing that the Lockean idea of who owned what simply got this 'natural law' wrong.

This always struck me as a much weaker argument than jumping straight into the immiseration of the working class and other more consequential arguments, and I've never been sure whether Marx actually believed in a 'natural law' of 'proper' distribution, or if it was a rhetorical device used only to address Locke's influence.

[marxbro1917]

I don't think Marx's arguments ever approach "natural law" style arguments (someone may correct me here, I'm not as familiar with Locke and others in this vein), surplus value is just about how value is produced and distributed. I don't think Marx is interested in "this is how it should be" style moral arguments. The ownership aspect only becomes important because Marx shows that capitalist production of surplus values has many internal contradictions.

[gorf]

I wonder what the median number of blog readers one needs to accumulate is before you end up with someone whose entire purpose in life is to pretend to find misquotings of Marx in your writings and get really angry about them

[marxbro1917]

I didn't "pretend" to find misrepresentations of Marx, I actually found them.

[murphy]

Marx believed that once you got the capitalists out of the way the world would magically snap into a more optimal pattern.

Surprise surprise in the real world this did not work out well. Just because you don't like it you throw a fit when its pointed out.

Not everyone has your same hero-worship for marx.

[marxbro1917]

>Marx believed that once you got the capitalists out of the way the world would magically snap into a more optimal pattern.

Where does Marx say he believes in magic?

[Eugene Norman]

Well the State withers away, magically, for one.

[marxbro1917]

Where did he say that this had anything to do with magic?

[Jack Forrest]

There was no primary source - read the original comment - he wrote :

" What I sometimes call Marx's Fallacy"

It's his "opinion".

Please, say that you understand this.

You must have read the original comment at one point, and continue to post drivel regarding it - either you don't understand that it's his opinion or you understand and have an agenda to spread lies.

Either way, there appears to be little hope for you. The most we can hope for is that you go away to attack other "anti-marxist" comments somewhere on the internet. You add nothing to any discussion, except for misunderstanding and lies.

[marxbro1917]

>There was no primary source - read the original comment - he wrote :

>" What I sometimes call Marx's Fallacy"

>It's his "opinion".

Why name it after Marx then? If we're allowed to just list random opinions that we disagree with "Fallacies" and then name them after out political opponents... well... that's a level of pettiness I don't want to associate with Scott Alexander. That's why I'm hoping he will come through and actually list some Marxist citations here.

[Jack Forrest]

I'm sorry, we can't be here to explain everything that you're offended to.

I'm going to create a cocktail called "Marx's twist", and I will never explain why I named it such, and I owe no one an explanation.

You don't deserve an explanation either, but you're free to be offended by it if it doesn't reach your high, marxist standards.

Again, no one care.

[marxbro1917]

>Again, no one care.

This is what I call "Jack Forrest's Fallacy". Many people do care about the truth, and I'm one of them.

[Jack Forrest]

Ah, you misinterpret what I wrote: I don't mean that people don't care about the truth, I mean that people don't care about your constant complaining that Mr Alexander isn't propagating marxist thought according to you, after you misinterpreted comment he made - and continue to misinterpret even after people have shown you that you're wrong.

So, so tiresome. Good bye.

[marxbro1917]

Sometimes the truth can be tiresome. Not everything has to be flashy and exciting like capitalist advertising for children, and I consider discussion of political philosophy to be a dry but ultimately rewarding subject. Good bye.

[imagineeverythingatonce]

You know, Jack, I think you might have something here. As far as I have been able to find - and in my many years of imbibing - there is no such cocktail in existence in any meaningful way named the Marx's Twist. I do believe you have organically and magically cornered a niche market.

This might be the most delicious opportunity for a supposed capitalist to capitalize off of a communist. My god, the irony! The mysterioso surrounding the origin and meaning of Marx's Twist would no doubt garner a hive of buzzing interest in this new cocktail amongst the set. And considering the ever increasing popularity and success of Marx's ideals the upside is exponential. You could literally have it all - for yourself.

However, I don't feel that you as a supposed capitalist deserve an explanation as to why it and you would fail miserably and be forced to return to a level below the prior grind you tried to extract yourself from. If I were to invent a dessert named after you after this occurred, I would call it Jack's Justice Desserts.

But because I am charitable I will give you a hint. Communists are very good at sussing out the origins of things while capitalists are not very good at hiding the origin of things.

[mjharding]

As someone who is politically left and who just joined this thread I'm seeing a whole lot of righteous indignation being heaped on marxbro/Marx/communism, which coming from a group who identify as "rationalists" strikes a chord in me. If Scott "sometimes call[s] it the Marx fallacy" maybe he should explain why he calls it that? In doing so maybe he would come to terms with the ignorance of that belief that he's seeing as fact? Maybe he would then realize that he has been operating from an ideological mindset that he maybe didn't even know about?

Maybe 3/4 of the posts ranting against Marx should actually read Marx and not just spout urban legends of Marx?

Sure, it's Scott's "opinion," but isn't opinion the thing that rationalists should be skewering on their sword of rationality?

[David Piepgrass]

Please don't assume comments on the blog come from "rationalists".

Also, I never call myself a rationalist and am suspicious of those who do. I *aspire* to be rational. I'm not very good at it, it is merely that I have taken specific steps to improve my skills, and would encourage others to do the same. I am still wrong on a regular basis and I expect to continue being wrong, but crucially, I am open to correction and I am often the first person to mention my mistakes to myself.

As to the issue at hand, I do not rant against Marx (nor generally read Marx, because the day has only 24 hours and there are so many great writers from the 21st century who I already don't have enough time to read). I did mention an alternate interpretation of Marx's fallacy which, while not treating Marx as correct, would make Scott's interpretation of Marx incorrect.

[mjharding]

Hi David,

Good point about preconceptions. I think, coming from the NYT article, that I had some assumptions for sure; however, it seemed that these assumptions were validated by statements made in many of the comments, but point taken!

On the other hand, yeah, if you do see yourself as "rational"--there really should be scare quotes around this concept--and you have not read what you are freely commenting on, then there's a problem (not the individual you, but the general you).

You're right about the whole 24 hour thing.

[David Piepgrass]

To clarify a bit, SSC (and presumably ACX) has a yearly survey. One question in 2020 was 'Do you identify as a Less Wronger or "aspiring rationalist"?', and only 13.2% said "yes" (40.6% said "sorta"), which is a strong reason to expect commenters here NOT to represent 'aspiring rationalists'. Surprising that I'm the first to mention this statistic here.

So, sometimes I comment here not because I have much knowledge to offer, but just because I feel like the discussion is too flippant, childish or politicized and I'd like to add a voice that sounds like a 'cooler head', lest observers think there aren't any, which would harm the reputation of my favorite blog.

Survey data:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/01/20/ssc-survey-results-2020/

[David Piepgrass]

(sadly, sometimes I start out a bit hotheaded, and make mistakes when coolheaded. I fix my mistakes when editing is allowed, and I can only hope Scott is sufficiently pestering SubStack to add editing.)

[Jazzle]

Oh I see. You're a communist. Bye.

[Jack Forrest]

No, dearie, I abhor the autocracies that are the CCP and the russian temporary, Mr Putin. Communism, IMO, is a failed ideology (or is it a policital structure?), and marxism, being the progenitor of both, is suspect.

user marxbros1917 appears to be a communist (and I don't mean that in a demeaning McCarthyist way, but in a 21st century "Communism is the enemy of the West's rationalist and democratic thinking" way.)

[Anonimoose]

Oh boy. I get it you're a Marx stan and all, but chill out a bit.

[Spherb]

"I have no idea who you are or what you have "pressed" on anyone."

Marxbro has, rather infamously, been banned from Slate Star Codex on something like 10+ separate occasions due to creating numerous alts after his initial ban. A few years later, he still regularly complains about this on a certain unfriendly subreddit. I don't think this line of conversation is going to lead anywhere productive.

[averagethinker]

That's useful to know, thanks.

[marxbro1917]

I have only been banned on Scott's previous blog once, and it was for proving that someone had misquoted Marx in a book they published (!). For this commitment to truth and proper citations I was censored.

I think I was banned from the subreddit by the moderator who posts the Unabomber Manifesto everywhere and calls himself an "ethno-utilitarian". And yes, it was hard to have a productive conversation with that guy moderating the sub, but I tried my best.

[Spherb]

Thank you for the correction--the alts were actually on the SSC subreddit, and there were actually 26 of them over the course of 3 months if the ban registry is correct.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not sure that you're necessary wrong about Scott misinterpreting Marx. I barely know anything about him myself. However, "I've pressed Scott Alexander many times on his sloppy citations and he rarely fixes his mistakes" is not an entirely accurate summary of the backstory. (Plus, Scott maintained a list of major mistakes* at the top of his old blog, which I think puts him at least a couple of standard deviations above the average blogger in that regard even if he's not perfect.)

It looks like you're getting a second chance on ACX, and I personally wouldn't mind seeing more Marxists on here. That said, I would recommend easing way off on repeatedly bringing up things you think Scott got wrong in the past, because not backing off when you should have was what got you banned in the first place.

*https://web.archive.org/web/20200204213326/https://slatestarcodex.com/mistakes/

[marxbro1917]

I'm not going to go through that list item by item but I'm familiar with point 25 because I was one of the people who corrected him.

Even here Scott is hedging his bets and unable to fully admit his fault:

"Some people brought up that this phrase may usually be used in a way opposite to the way I was describing it. See the comments for discussion, but given the potential error I excised it from the post."

There was no "may usually" or "potential error" here. He straight up misunderstood an intra-left discussion and ploughed ahead with his article. Then when it was pointed out that this was a mistake he excised it from the post without any consideration to how he was able to make the mistake in the first place and how that extremely basic mistake might change how he approaches the issue in general.

But no, just delete one sentence, say there is a "potential error" and move on, I guess.

This typifies Scott's sloppy thinking in this specific area of study.

[mjharding]

I just read an interesting article on Joan Didion that called her to task for calling herself to task. The writer argued that because Didion admitted to her mistakes, she was able to be more gentle with herself than an outsider would be; however, in the end, Didion is just spinning another story rather than coming to terms with her biases. Lol.

[murphy]

You're a member of the sneerclub hate-group?

There is no point in anyone trying to get through to you.

[Obsidian]

As the mod in question, I invite everyone to read this thread decide for themselves whether banning marxbro1917 from an online discussion space is likely to improve the quality of discussion.

You might be inclined to believe that there is something you're not getting, that it must be possible to productively deal with this entirely civil fella. Not so. This is the entirety of the MarxBro act, and after many years it's still exactly the same.

[marxbro1917]

>whether banning marxbro1917 from an online discussion space is likely to improve the quality of discussion.

What it will do is make the discussion one where Scott misrepresents his political opponents and then nobody notices (or is too polite to bring it up). I'm basically functioning as the boy who says 'the emperor has no clothes' when it comes to citations.

You may find discussion of citations extremely boring and generally not "fun". But it's a valuable conversation to have if you want your discussion based in reality.

[imagineeverythingatonce]

Alternatively, you could ban everyone that counters marxbro1917 in defense of Scott Atlas. Did I get his name right? I didn't read the NYT article. Only his rebuttal on reference from Dave Weigel who applauded the rebuttal. Immediately saw 7 deleted posts. Easily determined both he and his stacks were trash. Remembered I had Mon off and was lucky enough to find a thread attempting to discuss the merits of socio-economic systems.

The end result would still be harmony either way would it not? You could try it as a social experiment in fascism. Either way you get a fascist alt-right insurrection-stan freedomthinker kick out of it. Such joy! You could call it The Path to Joyful Fascism by Scott Atlas.

Or you collectively or Mr. Atlas could attempt to have intellectually honest discussion with non-facsimile receipts about all of the items discussed above and below.

Now, after my first day here, I hate Dave Weigel for dragging me to this costume party without getting my two drink minimum. And also now I just hate Dave Weigel and I can't wait to let him know. Also I don't know what to do with the rest of my Mon off. I also can't wait to renew my subscription to the NYT just to spite Scott Atlas.

On a positive note I hope all you opposers do finally obtain your associate's degrees. Pro-tip: use the cliff notes for your manga stylized textbooks on the histrionics of communism if you want to really impress the professor.

On an even more positive note, please tell the cubano with the abuelo, as I could not locate their reply, that I sincerely apologize for making them relive an appropriated past trauma. No one knows better than them.

[David Piepgrass]

I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm pretty sure it's not this blog. Scott is on-record as a Biden supporter and I, for one, spent the last four years marvelling at how many people approve of that lying buffoon, Donald Duck or whatever his name is.

[Edward Scizorhands]

Did you try having everyone just ignore it?

[Internaut]

My policy has been equal opportunity extremism short obvious criminality line-crossing so I don't approve of banning on general principal - but I think you should go easier on Scott because it is actually very difficult to nail it every time if you want to be a generalist. If you wanted Scott to do a deep dive into Communism and maybe write "Communist political philosophy in a planet sized nutshell" or just have a more accurate bead when touching left wing topics you're probably going about it the wrong way.

Marx is even denser than Moldbug - it's a big investment of time and mental energy - if you were more charitable and made up a series of concise points connected to real world evidence that your model is more accurate on some dimensions - I think you'd get a better reception from the SSC community. Just alleging "Scott got this wrong" and "Scott got that wrong" - it's not how you get a quality dialectic is it.

[marxbro1917]

>Marx is even denser than Moldbug - it's a big investment of time and mental energy

I'm a big believer in the necessity of hard intellectual work when we're talking about these kinds of political and philosophical issues. When Scott Alexander comes along, makes an extremely obvious mistake, then excuses himself by saying he has a "gestalt impression" of Marx, then never actually quotes Marx or attempts to read him - then let's just say I find that lacking rigor, to say the least. This is just one incident among many where Scott has shown he doesn't want to engage with leftist thought. We've gone from intellectual precepts like reason, charitability, steelmanning and sources to.... making jokes (that don't even make sense) on a blog?

[biff (Banned)]

So, somebody should knock his and Siskind's heads together like Moe, is what I take from this. The people are all just so goddamned tedious. If the Internet didn't exist, nobody would have ever heard of any of them. And our politics wouldn't be so completely insane.

[ChestertonsTopiary]

Marxbro is the ur-sealion.

[Edward Scizorhands]

Do not feed the troll.

[hnau]

"Sloppy citations" (not distortions or falsehoods?) on a private person's blog, even an influential one, is a different animal from the world's second-largest print media company being deliberately misleading in an article we know they had months to fact-check.

And that's assuming your accusation is fair. Scott tracked mistakes on his blog and was quite good about flagging them when pointed out to him. (I assume you're referring to the blog since the substack is like 10 posts old, but Google doesn't show any comments from your handle-- did you change it?) No offense, but I trust Scott's conscientiousness much more than I trust "marxbro1917" to actually pick out errors as opposed to ideological disagreements.

[marxbro1917]

I pointed out an error on this blog as recently as yesterday and Scott Alexander has not given any sort of retraction or even admitted his mistake.

[hnau]

I checked and-- yep, it's just you pushing Marxist ideology. Over that lame "RedCoin" joke of all things. It's not clear what correction you even think Scott should make (to a fiction humor post!). Even more ludicrous than I'd expected. Thanks for the entertainment.

I'd like to believe that you're a fair representative of a Marxist viewpoint, but out of charity I'm going to have to assume from here on out that you're a parody account trying to mock and discredit it.

[marxbro1917]

If asking for citations as simply as "where did Marx say that?" strikes you as a parody, then I think you're simply not treating Marx's politics charitably. Marx is an outgroup thinker and I think he deserves to at least have his ideas discussed properly rather than people just make up positions he didn't actually hold.

[Melvin]

If there's anyone in history who doesn't deserve to have his ideas discussed properly, it's Marx.

Maybe it's not the most rational thing but I reckon anyone whose ideas have already killed more people than the population of most countries (ie Marx and Hitler) is someone that I'm comfortable simply dismissing rather than attempting to take seriously.

Maybe there's some gems in there somewhere, but it's unlikely. Marx gives us three things: (a) motherhood statements about how sad it is that some people are rich and some are poor, (b) predictions about "historical inevitabilities" which didn't happen, and (c) implied policy prescriptions, which have killed millions. Fuck him.

[marxbro1917]

>If there's anyone in history who doesn't deserve to have his ideas discussed properly, it's Marx.

I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup

[Jib]

OK, I think you are confusing Marxism with Leninism. Marx believed in liberal democracy, he just thought it was a step, not the end. He believed you needed liberal democracy, then socialism then you you would have the institutions and traditions in place to move to communism. Liberal revolution -> social revolution -> communal revolution. He and Engels and most of the 19th century communist believed applying communism to a nation as backward as Russia would be a disaster.

It was Lenin who went with the revolutionary vanguard approach to communism. A small cadre of true believers could force Russia straight through liberalism and socialism into the workers paradise. Mao adapted the same model. Anytime you get a vanguard of true believers trying to fast forward a society through social change you get lots and lots of death. Regardless of ideology.

Not that Marx was right, he was a good economist of capitalism (and a fan of Adam Smith for what its worth). The rest was interesting as a 19th century historical artifact and if it was not for Leninism would be as forgotten as most other 19th century philosophers are,

[Vampyricon]

"Maybe there's some gems in there somewhere"

Here's one: "Religion is the opiate of the people."

[Nicodemus Rex]

Here's another: "history repeats itself ... first as tragedy, then as farce."

[Reality]

Fair point

[Matt H]

People quote this all the time, but if you read it in context you'll realize he was saying something more nuanced.

<quote>

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

</quote>

[mjharding]

Say what you want about his economic theory, you gotta admit that the man could write.

[sourcreamus]

A fanatic is someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. He made a joke about your hero, get over it. The comment section will instantly improve the moment you are banned. Until then drink a big cup of shut the hell up.

[marxbro1917]

I'll suggest that if I started making such uncharitable "jokes" that reflected my own political stances in the comments I would be banned very quickly.

I'm simply asking Scott to extend the same charity to Marx that I extend to Scott Alexander. I don't think that's unfair.

>Until then drink a big cup of shut the hell up.

This comment doesn't seem true, kind or necessary. As far as I can tell there's no reason to say this.

[sourcreamus]

It is true and necessary, people read this blog for Scott's genius and the interesting comment section, not to hear you whine about a perceived slight no one else cares about in the slightest.

[marxbro1917]

Not citing things properly is not just a "perceived slight". And if people don't care about proper sourcing and charitability then I think that's a bad reflection on the rest of the Rationalist community, not me.

[mjharding]

Genius? I'm not here to become an acolyte; I'm here to read interesting takes on topics that interest me and also to develop an interest in topics that should interest me. I would think that Scott can take care of himself.

[Reality]

What’s the difference? You can’t be a Marxist with anything approaching a rational viewpoint. Anyone with cursory search space optimization knowledge knows a planned economy is doomed to failure.

[mjharding]

"You can’t be a Marxist with anything approaching a rational viewpoint."

O.M.G. Did you really just write this?

[mjharding]

(and people are actually "liking" it?) I thought this site was populated by 'rationalists." Marx's analysis is inherently rational in Das Kapital. It's dialectical reasoning for god's sake!

[imagineeverythingatonce]

This place is not what anyone thinks it is. But it is exactly what I think it is. As soon as one recognizes a space you should inherently know how to exit. Be surprised by nothing.

[mjharding]

What I think something is is usually not what it is until I think about my thinking; at this point it kind of is what I think it is, but I won't know for sure until I think some more about the distance between recent and earlier thoughts.

And what's this about an exit?

[David Piepgrass]

Please don't assume comments on the blog come from "rationalists". Many/most of them don't identify with rationalism, this is not "rationalist central" (regardless of what the NYT says) and I share your dismay about how flippant, careless and disrespectful most commenters are acting.

That's not Scott. This is Scott:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-community-and-civilization/

[Biff Wiss]

remember that i've pressed a sloppy citation on your mama many times too

[Ross L Gould]

based and grey tribed

[Jack Forrest]

The NYT is a media source that aims for neutral truth reporting.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, with one arm being publishing facts.

This blog consists of the thoughts of one man. Though many of us trust him, we understand that he is not infallible. As one person his views will not be "neutral" on all, or necessarily any, topics, just as anyone's views may or may not be.

Your many comments in this topic are almost all centered about your hatred that marxism has been misrepresented by Mr Alexander, as though he owes you, as though he must not write anything regarding marxism that you have not vetted.

He doesn't owe you anything. He is not a universal source of truth on any topic, and the reasonable people who read this blog realise this. You, it appears, don't.

If he wrote something about marxism that you disagree with, he doesn't have to agree with you or renounce his words. You are not a source of truth and neither is this blog.

Do you scour the internet sniffing for blogs and social media posts that offend marxism, to reply in earnestness that THEY ARE WRONG, MARXISM IS FOR THE GREATER GOOD, WITH MARXISM THE WORLD WILL BE A BETTER PLACE (and marxbro1917 will be one of the cornerstones of this change, he will be in the politburo, where he belongs, where he has been destined!)

Your rabid is perpetuating the stereotype of marxists as a bunch of loony sociopaths.

Ironically, out of most of the readers here, you would benefit the most from an intensive course of psychotherapy with Mr Alexander to delve deep into your psyche to determine why you base your character so much around marxism. Are you poor and have identified with marxist philosophy? Did you have a difficult childhood, your father blaming his woes on capitalism? Are you young and unemployed and angry, or older, redundant and bitter?

We don't really care, though if you pay a psychotherapist, at least they might pretend to care and help you, then you can straighten yourself out.

Marxism is not the answer to anything, except as a punchline.

Good luck.

[marxbro1917]

>Your rabid is perpetuating the stereotype of marxists as a bunch of loony sociopaths.

The idea that simply asking someone to provide citations is the behaviour of a "sociopath" shows how disconnected from rationality some people have become. Marx is an outgroup thinker and he deserves to have his works read charitably.

[Jack Forrest]

Few people care abut marx here, and your histrionic comments push people further away.

No one "deserves" to be read - there is no deep ethical need for everyone to be "read".

YOUR opinion is that he should be read, and you are pushing this opinion onto Mr Alexander.

This is not the place for this. He can talk about whatever the hell he wants, and he can ignore marx, write posts about marx that you disagree with or make jolly fun of him.

Create your own blog and talk about marx till the peasants come home from the fields. No one here cares. You are very tiring.

[marxbro1917]

>Few people care abut marx here, and your histrionic comments push people further away.

I've had some positive comments and PMs on reddit. People here also push the little 'heart' button beneath my comments. I think there's something of a climate of fear where people don't want to contradict Scott Alexander on things like citations. Hopefully there will be a lot more criticisms and discussion on this important matter going forward.

[Anonimoose]

> I think there's something of a climate of fear where people don't want to contradict Scott Alexander on things like citations.

Press X to doubt. Pressed X so hard it broke the controller.

[get_kranged]

Dude, it's not the content of any individual comment, it's the number of comments. The sheer amount of time you've spent responding basically the same thing on almost every branch of this thread is terrifying.

[marxbro1917]

How is it terrifying you?

[Thomas Sewell]

For those who are already familiar with SSC, please continue to take this article as another piece of evidence that by default ALL articles are approximately this distorted/false and not to trust newspaper articles (nor TV news) in general without independent confirmations of the facts.

[mjharding]

As a rationalist, wouldn't you want to withhold your judgment until you know why the editors released his name? I think that Jasper Jackson has the right idea.

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2020/06/why-new-york-times-threatening-reveal-blogger-scott-alexander-s-true-identity

[Thomas Sewell]

My comment had nothing to do with them releasing his name. It's about accuracy. In an article with 8-10 major points, four are misleading or wrong, as is the general "narrative" of the piece.

Many people have the experience of reading a news story about their profession, or about a topic they know well, or have direct experience with the events of, and noticing that it's distorted.

The point is that it's not _just_ those news stories which are that way. It's almost all news stories, people just have a tendency to not notice when they're relying on the journalist to be accurate rather than knowing the subject themselves.

[TGGP]

Why did they release his name? The paywall blocked me from seeing beyond the headline.

[autantonym]

The relevant passages:

> But none of the above means the NYT has any imperative to reveal Alexander’s identity. So why would it?

> One theory is that the publication is simply imposing its rules without much thought to the consequences. Alexander has been deemed not to meet the threshold for anonymous sourcing, and thus a piece about his blog must reveal his identity. The NYT does invest a lot of importance in its procedures and processes, and like any large organisation it can sometimes apply them in ways that ride roughshod over the views of those it deals with.

> There is another possibility, of course, one that many of Slate Star Codex’s most ardent defenders seem to have discounted based entirely on Alexander’s say-so. The NYT could believe that the real identity of the author is too integral to the story it wants to run to leave out, and that the story is important enough to justify the potential damage it might do to him. Alexander has said that he doesn’t believe this to be the case, and there is no indication otherwise from those who the reporter spoke to for the story. But we frankly won’t know until it is published, or indeed dropped entirely.

> Those jumping to Alexander’s defence appear to be doing so based on their long-standing relationship with his work and him. They presumably trust him because they know him, either his real identity or simply through his work. That’s not a luxury the rest of us have.

> At this point in time, with the information we have, it is difficult to see how Scott Alexander’s full name is so integral to the NYT’s story that it justifies the damage it might do to him. But before we make that call, it might be a good idea to have more than his word to go on.

[TGGP]

The story has now been published, and as far as I'm aware the possibility discounted on Alexander's say-so was indeed not supported. No new information made his actual surname integral to the story.

[Matt H]

Beware Gell-Mann Amnesia!

[darwin]

I feel like taking the articles which come to my attention *because* they are very distorted and then assuming all articles are that distorted is falling into some form of selection bias.

Surely we should expect the articles that become famous and stir up huge backlash because of how inaccurate and distorted they are, are very likely to be more inaccurate and distorted than the average article?

I don't think this is the same case as Gell-Mann amnesia, which is just about reading a neutral article on a topic you know. This is a case of reading *notorious, famously bad* article on a topic you know, not an average, unremarkable article.

[imagineeverythingatonce]

Q is the way!

[Chris Brown]

I recognize this article and the process leading up to it has caused you a substantial amount of distress. As someone who was not aware of your original blog (and now wishes I had been) I didn’t take away a negative impression, more that you were open to any viewpoint as a jumping off point for discussion. I’m now a subscriber as a result.

[Evan Þ]

Glad you're here!

Did you join over the last few weeks, or did you actually come here from the NYT article?

[Chris Brown]

I’m here as a direct result of the NYT article being published. So perhaps “there is no such thing as bad publicity” is a truism after all.

[Nate]

Probably you’re somebody more thoughtful than the median reader. Plenty of others will just code it “oh Scott Alexander; isn’t he problematic? I heard he was a racist. Can’t remember where. Anyway pass the stuffing.”

[Shaked Koplewitz]

Or as a plot twist, they'll just remember him as Siskind because of the article's insistence on using his last name, saving his pseudonym from the association.

[Elias Håkansson]

The insistence on using his until literally just now unknown last name is such a strong signal. That tells you everything you need to know about their motivations. The NYT always wins and they want you to know it.

[Evan Þ]

Or some editor's really, really out of touch with the internet.

[mjharding]

or some editor has a demanding and meticulous process to follow for publication.

[Red the Second Hand]

If it's as true as it seems that the journalist truly didn't want to write a smear article, and that NYT pressured him to do so, could it be possible that he used Siskand on purpose for this very reason?

I'm probably looking to deep into it, but it's worth a thought.

[mjharding]

I didn't get the smear otherwise I wouldn't be here; although I am NOT getting the sense that "people [on this site] like to have good faith discussion about ideas" unless there is some unconscious sorting process about which ideas are worth having a good faith conversation about and which are not.

[doesntliketocomment]

This probably isn't the best thread to find that on, assuming what you are looking for is a "good faith conversation" about the NYT. Keep in mind the community is rebuilding, and people here are still angry that the actions of the NYT caused the previous nexus of the community to be suddenly destroyed. If I may be permitted an overwrought comparison, it's like expecting a reasoned and impartial discussion about the motives of the Mongols in 14th century Baghdad.

Looking at your comments elsewhere in this thread, I see there's a lot on Marxism, there used to be some regular marxists over at SSC but I'm not sure if they all made the transition over. If you would be interested in my own thoughts on Marxism, I believe that many of his ideas were good for the time (and place) thy were conceived, but are in need of revision. Unfortunately many modern academic Marxists I've encountered seem to be unwilling to make that concession.

[mjharding]

Hey doesntliketocomment,

Thanks for the explanation about the NYT reception. As far as Marx goes, if you've read him then I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Marxist academics do receive Marx's ideas with your thinking in mind, which is to say that they build on what he didn't develop and speculate on what he was silent about; however, since it's a critique of a fully capitalistic system and we are still invested in such a system, the fundamentals of the critique have not change. I don't know what academics you have been talking to.

[doesntliketocomment]

I should rephrase, by "academic Marxists" I don't mean political scientists, economists, ect. or those who have made rigorous studies of political systems or Marx their career, but more those from very nebulous cultural studies areas that hang on to marxism as more of a marker of being against the status quo.

It's been a long time since I read Capital, and I wouldn't want to embarrass myself by trying to be too specific, but my overall recollection is that it was focused on systems with less regard for the individual incentives that promoted capitalism at the individual level, and very specific to the working conditions and production of the time, made it feel very remote when I read it.

[Jack Lecter]

I think you're right, but I'm not sure how much it matters.

People who like to have good-faith discussion about ideas are valuable. If the NYT article brings Scott into contact more of those, at the cost of making people who don't think about stuff feel like he's vaguely problematic, I'd call that a win.

[Kenny Easwaran]

I think the majority will think "what's this boring article about some random website?" and skip to one of the other sections. It's only a fraction that will react positively or negatively to the article.

[Lambert]

That's probably a good thing, selecting for more thoughtful than average readers

[TGGP]

Scott's objection wasn't simply that people at dinner would hear he was "problematic". It's that his patients might google his real name and find that article rather than something specific to his professional life.

[Drek]

I’m also a new subscriber, but that’s because I’m racist. Hey!

[Viliam]

Everyone's a little bit racist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Az4UuTW0Pw

[BioLogical]

Also now subscribed based on the NYT article. I think most people with functional critical thinking skills could see the piece as more of a beacon to hitherto-unheard of corner of the internet that seems like it has a great community of like minded individuals. Having read a few older blog posts, I'm glad I found it, and looking forward to reading many more.

[deleted]

deleted

[Alsadius]

I'm not sure if that was really bad sarcasm, or even worse seriousness.

[marxbro1917]

It looks like a joke to me, and you've already set the precedent that uncharitable jokes are ok if they're funny. I warned you about this at the time.

[Godsauce]

It wasn’t funny, so it’s not exempt from being charitable.

[Alsadius]

I don't mind salty humor, I just request that it actually be humorous.

There's nothing immoral in what he said, I just think it was bad as a joke (assuming he was joking).

[marxbro1917]

The humour of jokes is subjective so I think this seems like a rule designed to allow people to arbitrarily enforce things. In practice this will lead to the allowing of jokes that poke fun of outgroups (e.g. Marxists) while censoring jokes that poke fun of the Rationalist ingroup.

[Alsadius]

Nobody is suggesting censorship. I'm not banning the guy, I'm just saying that his joke was bad.

[marxbro1917]

I'll refrain from making jokes for the moment but I may have to eventually unleash some humour if this is the new normal in the comments section.

[Alsadius]

I strongly encourage that. And not ironically. Humour really helps lubricate the interactions between different groups, as long as it's not nasty partisan humour.

The best political comment sections I've ever seen (SSC and Megan McArdle when she was at Bloomberg) were ones that were heavily leavened with non-political issues. It's a lot easier to treat that terrible Outgrouper like a human being when they had your back last week on the topic of pineapple on pizza, and your favourite new band is one they introduced you to a month ago.

[Rand al'Thor]

In Soviet Russia, joke laughs at you!

[imagineeverythingatonce]

People are in fact suggesting censorship and bans throughout this entire thread. Most recently my a mod.

[Vampyricon]

Judging from their other comments, seriousness.

[Jack Forrest]

Hope you forgot a /s, otherwise the comments section doesn't bode well if people such as yourself continue to peddle lies, either consciously as a bad faith actor or because you don't understand. Either way, I hope there's an implied /s.

[Jqmark]

Agreed. I found this from the NYT article. I think you should have had your name left out of the article just as a freaking courtesy. There was no need to include it. But I am glad I found the blog.

[mycelium]

The old blog has years and years of thoughtful analysis.

[Emily P]

Same. Hopefully you got a nice bump in subscriptions.

[Edward Scizorhands]

As another positive, the NYT story reminded me I hadn't yet pulled out my credit card to support Scott.

That has now been remedied.

[Higgi]

I agree with Chris. I didn’t take a terrible view of the article but could see the slant. I’d never heard of this or the previous site before the NYT article. In fact, the post about COVID today, I forwarded to my text thread with guys we discuss all aspects of life.

As a physician, I agree with his article though humans are terrible about predictions so who knows really. There funny Yogi Berra quotes on this. Either way, a good starting point for open discussion.

[Alex V]

Thanks for putting this up, I want to comment near the start and say that racism doesn't belong around Scott. Yes, there are sometimes weird positions brought up here, but arguing with someone who thinks we should have a king is NOT the same as wanting one; it's actually the opposite.

People hear from the NYT should read some old stuff before trying to mess with Scott, he's a really nice guy who is trying to help people through thinking.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

I have enormous respect for Scott. I've met him in person and thought he was very kind. I've been to his house and found a lovely community of people I could cozy up with for years. The community around him is 90% the best people I've ever met.

But I can't deny that racism swirls around this community with alarming frequency. Have you *read* this blog's forums? Spent time on the pre-CW-ban subreddit? There is a not-small number of people (some of whom are mods of those spaces and thus carry implicit endorsement) who agree, point blank, with the statement "black people are dumber in a general sense because of genes black people carry". Or "Ashkenazi Jews are smarter in a general sense because of genes Ashkenazi Jews carry".

Scott is, at a minimum, tolerant of that. I'm scared he actually believes it. If he doesn't, he ought to say so, clean up his house, and stop complaining about people who notice the current state of his house and ask how it got here. If he does, then he doesn't have the right to complain when the NYT implies that he's a racist, because he is.

[rerumantiqua]

I think people are less saying that it is *untrue* Scott believes those things (even though that is the verbiage they have chosen) but that no one should say it in the New York Times even though it's true

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

No one who thinks that has any right to accuse people who don't want to be racist of being afraid of the facts.

[Benchpressbro]

I don't think believing those statements makes someone a racist. Those are just empirical facts. You can believe them and still support equal rights and opportunity and judging people as individuals no matter their race.

[rerumantiqua]

The article doesn't even say believing those thing is racist! The characterization is as controversial and potentially dangerous - both surely true whatever else you think about these ideas. People don't like the article but it's not because it is inaccurate or even misleading, more the opposite - it reveals accurate and important information about a public figure in a way that may change overall opinion of him in a net negative direction

[Benchpressbro]

I was responding to the person I replied to not to the article. He used the word racism.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

> I don't think believing those statements makes someone a racist.

The fact that "I don't think believing black people are inherently genetically inferior makes someone a racist" is a statement anyone here takes seriously is a better proof of my point than anything I could say.

Even if it weren't: "black people are inferior" + "meritocracy" = "we should treat black people worse".

[Benchpressbro]

If it helps you understand my view better, I also believe that height is positively correlated with IQ and that this link is likely somewhat genetic in origin (for example lower mutations load increases both). Does this make me a heightest? I don't think so. I don't support judging someone's intelligence based upon their height and I recognize that there are smart and dumb people of all different heights. My thoughts and race and intelligence are the same.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

> I don't think so. I don't support judging someone's intelligence based upon their height

Then you're not much of a Bayesian, are you? Or do you, nominal defender of the Grand Search for Truth with a capital T, balk at incorporating that Truth-with-a-capital-T into the way you look at the world?

Suppose you knew, without any doubt, that the racial IQ difference were true and responsible for all the inequality we see. Would you have a black surgeon operate on your kid, recognizing that even if both distributions are truncated by some sort of certification, the means of the people who meet the given standard will still be different? Would you let them be what stands between you and X-risk? Let them tell you what charity to donate to?

[al]

Speaking of, if you truncate the two distributions where you think A had a lower mean than B, the means are actually reversed post-truncation! Plot it on paper if it’s not clear, but A has a skinnier but longer tail at the point of truncation. Intuitively this means that someone from population B has to be only sort of unusual to clear the filter, while someone from population A has to be very unusual (and there’s more variance, so they’re more likely to be very very unusual). So yeah, in your example if these are the things you believe you should go with the surgeon!

[Eric Rogstad]

I think this is true if you're able to truncate on the exact thing that you care about, but not necessarily if you're using a proxy.

If what you actually care about is imperfectly correlated with the thing you can measure, then the expected result reverts a bit toward your prior.

(So in the real world we'd have (at least) two effects going in opposite directions.)

[Benchpressbro]

This depends on the prior distribution. Exponential distributions are scale invariant so for an exponential the initial mean is irrelevant once you have fixed a lower bound. For distributions which fall off more quickly than an exponential (like a normal) a higher initial mean will cause a higher mean after truncation. For distributions which fall off less quickly than an exponential (like a power law) you will see the reverse trend

[Benchpressbro]

> Would you have a black surgeon operate on your kid

It would depend on his record as a surgeon.

I'll take the bait here for a little bit and say that in a hypothetical scenario where the only piece of information I have about the doctor is his race I would prefer the non black doctor.

But that's not how the world works. In the real world I have access to information like their track record as a surgeon and their graduation rank in med school and this information makes race irrelevant.

To point to another example we can observe that blacks are on average worse than whites at math and thus they have lower average math SAT scores. However blacks with a math SAT score of 700 are exactly as good at math as whites with a math SAT of 700 (this is likely true for every score except 800) and so even though race and math ability correlate once I know someone's math SAT score observing their race gives me exactly zero new information about their math ability. I like to say that the evidence from the SAT scores dominates the evidence from race.

Race is a dominated predictor of almost everything we might truly care about and thus even though it correlates with many things it is not a good basis upon which to discriminate.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

> However blacks with a math SAT score of 700 are exactly as good at math as whites with a math SAT of 700

This is just mathematically false. The SAT has error (they cite a standard error of measurement of approximately 30 - https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-characteristics-reliability-difficulty-completion-rates-2015.pdf), and therefore should properly be viewed as evidence that updates some underlying prior. If the prior is different, the posterior will be too. The same goes for any evidence, although sufficiently strong evidence makes the difference small enough not to matter.

But in many cases you don't have that much evidence. 90+% of the applicants to a job get filtered out at the first step with very little evidence available, for example.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

(Clarification: false under the assumption of different prior beliefs.)

[Dweomite]

You are assuming the math test and the race are independent pieces of evidence. It's possible for one piece of evidence to make another mathematically irrelevant through "screening off"; see https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5yFRd3cjLpm3Nd6Di/argument-screens-off-authority-1

Of course, with real life being messy, claims of "no effect" should normally be assumed to mean "within measurement error of zero", not "is literally exactly zero".

[PeterFG]

> in a hypothetical scenario where the only piece of information I have about the doctor is his race I would prefer the non black doctor

Really? I'd be wary of the blind arrogance of the white doctor, who may have arrived in that position via nepotism, wealth and/or other means of bypassing quality checks. Give me the black doctor any day.

[p.]

What even is "black" or "white" in this context? Especially if people here want to draw some conclusions based on genetics? There's no "black" or "white" group. There's huge diversity within groups that share some similar characteristics.

[Sizzle50]

This post belies a complete lack of understanding of medical school matriculation in the United States to the point that it borders on fantasy

Please do look at med school acceptances vs MCAT scores by race: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-chart-illustrates-graphically-racial-preferences-for-blacks-and-hispanics-being-admitted-to-us-medical-schools/

[Reasoner]

Suppose there were 2 surgeons, one Black and one White. You have reason to believe the White surgeon is better but you'll be accused of racism if you select them. Your kid's life is at stake. Who do you select?

Equal treatment, racial harmony, etc. are worthwhile goals. But they aren't the *only* worthwhile goals, and it's always possible to concoct some scenario where some other goal becomes more important. It's like the trolley problem--it is generally good to avoid being responsible for someone else's death, but if being responsible for someone else's death allows you to save 4 lives, it can be a worthwhile tradeoff.

IMO this is what separates extremists from everyone else. If you're willing to sacrifice everything else in favor of your One True Moral Principle, you might be an extremist. (Unless your One True Moral Principle is something very generic like "minimize suffering". Then you might have a case to make for yourself.)

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

The white one, obviously, and almost anyone who claims otherwise is lying. This is precisely why I don't buy the "noooo this is just harmless academic discussion" bullshit. Belief in difference implies discriminatory behavior.

[PeterFG]

I'd be wary of the blind (dangerous) arrogance of the white doctor, who may have arrived in that position via nepotism, wealth and/or other means of bypassing quality checks. Give me the black doctor any day.

[autantonym]

Does this make you more or less racist? Does it make you more or less virtuous? Why?

[David Friedman]

On your black surgeon question, that depends what other evidence I had. If all I knew about two surgeons was that one was black and one white and both had passed whatever the relevant certifying requirements are, and if I believed that the certifying requirements were applied equally to blacks and whites (neither affirmative action nor discrimination against blacks), and if I believed that the average intelligence of blacks was lower and there were no other relevant characteristics (dexterity, say) that went the other way, I would prefer the white surgeon.

You apparently agree with the logic of that, by what you said. Do you regard doing that as racist? Do you object to it, and if so why?

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

> Do you regard doing that as racist? Do you object to it, and if so why?

Yes, yes, and because doing it is creating a permanent genetic underclass that will suffer in perpetuity through no fault of their own.

[Kerani]

No, that assumption is not creating a permanent genetic underclass. Under the premise that you're operating under, it was God (or the evolutionary process) that created the underclass - the people you are calling racist are just *noticing* this.

I myself recommend a different path. Instead of falling into the fallacy that the worth or inferiority of fellow humans - including you and me - is based on intelligence (or breeding, or nationality) - choose something else. I recommend their innate humanity, and suggest striving to see no individual as more (or less) precious than another.

There are many left leaning people who have articulated this principle - recently among them the avowed socialist Freddie de Boer, who out right rejects using the metric of intelligence as a sole foundation for building a just society.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

All of that sounds great and all in the utopia you apparently live in, but *I* live in a world run by Moloch that will absolutely exploit anyone it can.

[David Bahry]

>"Do you regard doing that as racist?"

It wouldn't be taste-based discrimination (Gary Becker 1957), but it would be statistical discrimination i.e. racial profiling (Edmund Phelps 1972; Kenneth Arrow 1973).

One problem with profiling is that it can cause vicious cycles: "beliefs of employers, teachers, and other influential groups that minority members are less productive can be self-fulfilling, for these beliefs may cause minorities to underinvest in education, training... The underinvestment does make them less productive..." (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2138769).

[MugaSofer]

This argument proves too much; you're now actively arguing in favor of racism! By the same logic,

a) heightism would be justified. Do you personally make sure to always choose the tallest doctor?

b) racism would be justified IRL; not because of genetic differences, but because black people have poorer childhood nutrition, education etc.

In reality, the signal of group-based differences (genetic or not) is generally swamped by the noise, especially in cases such as race where there are long-standing tribal prejudices.

Noise like: what if the black doctor has a slightly better record? What if he needed a slightly higher innate IQ score to overcome the disadvantage of being surrounded by "inferior" blacks? What if the white doctor is really short, and therefore a subhuman dullard?

[MugaSofer]

Not that I don't think it's important that scientific racism is false - I do - but I do think it's also worth emphasizing that even if it were true, the prejudices which produced it would still be unjustifiable. There are lots of situations where we *do* know a group is worse off in some way (e.g. disability), and the solution is never to treat them like crap.

[истинец]

>heightism would be justified. Do you personally make sure to always choose the tallest doctor?

Do you mean because height is correlated with IQ? Because if so, then yes, it makes sense that a taller doctor would, on average, be very slightly smarter than a shorter colleague, all else being equal. If there was absolutely no cost in automatically picking a taller doctor, and you have absolutely no other information, then yes, it makes sense to pick a doctor based on height. In practice, it's obviously not worth the hassle.

I'm not seeing why you're posting this as if it's some horrific unthinkable proposition?

[murphy]

>"even if both distributions are truncated by some sort of certification"

If someone has passed a fair certification then there's no problem.

there was a somewhat famous study that's a case study in how to do bad stats: they showed that height was uncorrelated with basketball ability.

The problem was that they did this by looking only at people who were in the NBA.

For those people who actually make it into the NBA height is uncorrelated with basketball ability, that kind of cutoff means you're selecting for people who are able to make it above the cutoff line.

So even if such an IQ difference was real, (I have by doubts but this is a hypothetical) for people who made it past the selection process for surgeons it's irrelevant so long as the selection process if fair.

[murphy]

this may be a bit harsh and uncharitable but reading the other comments by "Wtf happened to SSC?"

What the fuck is wrong with Wtf happened to SSC??

After reading their other posts... all the criticisms seem to be of the form "but I believed X then I would also believe [horrible thing] or do [horrible thing] so if you don't claim that X is false you must also believe [horrible thing] and do [horrible thing]"

As if that's the only option. like if you believe that head injuries can cause cognitive problems then you must, logically, reject anyone with scalp scars from every job interview on the off chance they've had head trauma.

There is another option: you can do the decent thing and treat others decently and fairly regardless of any vague statistical trends.

We are not slaves to utility.

[Aapje]

I think that a major reason why many people get very upset over claims of a link between race/IQ link, but not links between race/height, race/disease or such, is their belief that low IQ people are inferior and deserve far worse outcomes than high IQ people.

These people can't imagine not being racist to black people if they are less smart, because their own ego, as well as their justification for their own good fortunes, is built upon feeling superior because of their IQ.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

I don't believe that at all. The fact that I don't is precisely why I'm so far to the left economically. My good fortunes are because I got lucky, and I feel horrible about that. People shouldn't be made to suffer just because the dice came up differently for them.

Even without extra problems, I don't think low IQ (which for the sake of this post, I'll treat as an accurate proxy for general intelligence) people *deserve* worse outcomes. I think they'll get them by default, the same way people who tend to be depressed or sickly do. They'll have a harder time understanding themselves or what they want or need. They'll struggle to solve the daily problems all of us encounter. Their lives are already hard enough.

I think our economic system will make it even worse, by making a 10% difference in ability the difference between thriving and being cast out. It's Moloch again. A company that builds 10% more widgets doesn't just get 10% more of the market. In many cases, they get ALL of the market. A person who is 10% less capable doesn't just get 10% less ability to participate in our economic system.

Highly competitive systems magnify differences because they're driven by relative, not absolute, ability. And that means that relative difference immediately, and necessarily, drives oppression, no matter how much everyone here swears up and down that ruthlessly self-interested competitors will find it in their heart to ignore it.

As I said above: "black people are less capable" + "meritocracy" = "we should treat black people worse".

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

But our economic system IS a slave to utility, and does not appear to be going anywhere.

In fact, I would argue that companies already do exactly what you're presenting as an absurd example. That's why resume gaps matter. Yes, sometimes they indicate someone who was un-hireable for some other reason, but they're also an excellent proxy for "this person had an extended illness".

It's shocking to me how a community so devoted to thinking about incentive structures is willing to stick its fingers in its ears and pretend that this is a purely intellectual debate that no one would ever instantiate into racist policy.

[Aapje]

They are actually a possible indication of a lot of other negative things too, like being imprisoned, being deemed not worth hiring or favoring other things (like parenting) over doing that kind of work.

In general, a reason why there is a negative judgment of work history gaps is that those correlate with things that employers quite logically consider negative (they don't like employees who get seriously sick, who commit crime, who are not committed to doing the job, etc).

A common response to employers having those preferences is to make it easier for people to hide that they have negative attributes, which in turn creates incentives to discriminate based on things that correlate with those negative attributes. However, those correlations tend to be imperfect and thus harm people without those attributes (while benefiting those with those attributes). It's an arms race with the cost of making it harder for companies to assess the value of employees, which depresses pay and demand for workers.

And the more you seek to disinform employers by lying to them, the less they will trust your information. Instead, they will trust their own experiences and stereotypes more.

So if you actually want to minimize stereotyping, you should make it easy for people to judge people accurately. If you don't like their judgments, you can try to counteract them in different ways than by trying to deceive them (for example, by offering a tax discount when they hire an ex-criminal).

Of course, it's currently much more popular to think that you can reduce discrimination, while also increasing the chance that people with negative attributes are hired, by deceived employees. What could ever go wrong?

[Aapje]

> Would you have a black surgeon operate on your kid

That has pretty much nothing to do with the average IQ of black people, but is all about the standards that medical schools uphold.

If they have high and equal standards at admission and graduation, then there is no reason to believe that a black doctor is worse. If they practice affirmative action, where they lower the barriers for less talented black people, then it would be logical to be wary of black surgeons.

I would argue that a medical system run by the average SSC reader is going to result in far less discrimination of black surgeons than one run by the average NYT reader.

[mjharding]

But what is IQ? It's a concept that spurred some tests that more or less "worked" for the situation they were created for. We all know that humans are intelligent, but how we choose to measure that intelligence is a story all by itself. And, what IQ tests are we talking about here because they all come in different shapes and sizes and measure different aspects of this thing that we call intelligence. There's also the fact that no one IQ test can capture the full measure of this complex thing called human intelligence. To take such a muddied concept and then add height into the mix seems naïve

[peak.singularity]

Yeah, it's a shame that rationalists aren't more critical about IQ and meritocracy itself, those should be questioned too :

https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39

TL;DR : People are bad at statistics, so IQ is mostly a fraud. It might still be helpful to measure *low* intelligence. (Which IIRC it was actually created for by USA's military ?)

[Alsadius]

No, because you're neglecting the extremely important difference between statistical distributions and individuals.

For a simple example, let's say that blue-eyed people roll two standard dice and take the higher result, while green-eyed people roll two dice and take the lower result, and that those results will have some measurable impact on their lives. Obviously, you should expect blue-eyed people to do better on average - almost a third of them are 6's, after all, while very few green-eyed people are.

But if you look at a random person of each eye colour, there's about one chance in eight that the green-eyed person rolled higher. That's still a pretty large number. If you're hiring for employees where die rolls matter, you'd expect to see a lot of good blue-eyed applicants, but you'd also expect to see a proportion of green eyes as well. Simply ignoring the green-eyed would be foolish, because you'd be giving up a substantial chance at the best candidate. You judge the individual, not the eye colour.

Now, humans can be biased. Perhaps in this world we'd want to encourage sunglasses at interviews, to make sure that the interviewer wasn't paying too much attention to their eyes. That'd be a reasonable bias-reducing step. But we shouldn't expect that it'd get the workforce up to 50/50. It just means that any individual green-eyed person can go as far as their die roll will take them. It doesn't achieve equal outcomes for groups, but it does achieve fairness on an individual level.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

I work in the hiring industry. In fact, I work on mathematical models in the hiring industry. We rely on signals far weaker than your example all the time.

Hiring is very error prone. You can't practically gather enough data to actually know what each person rolled. So you are incentivized to - and therefore all sufficiently competitive organizations WILL - set a prior based on your best beliefs about the population.

If you gather the same evidence from an interview for a blue-eyed person and a green-eyed person, and if you do not think you gathered infinite evidence, you will therefore (rationally!) conclude that your best estimate is that the blue-eyed person is better. On an *individual* level, the green-eyed person has lost out on a job to an equally-skilled blue-eyed person.

[Alsadius]

I can't speak to real-world hiring practices in as much detail as you can, so I'll defer on that point.

I guess I'll express my actual thesis more directly, then - even if race/gender/etc. provides some Bayesian evidence of fitness for a given task, we should ignore it as a matter of policy. The evidence is too weak, and the failure modes too unjust, for it to be a plan we encourage.

But you can't simply declare math or data to be anathema in order to make that happen. That isn't sane or sustainable. You need to actually make a policy case. The libertarian theorists who seem vaguely disgusted by the idea that you'd ever consider a collective like race in an individual-level decision are a far better model than that. So is King's famous "content of their character" quote, and so is blinded hiring (when practical), and a bunch of others.

This is a policy case that can be made very successfully. Looking at race is immoral, so even if the data implies a population-level difference, we should ignore that and consider the individual. You don't need to crucify people for testing the populations.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

So your claim is "no, really, businesses will totally just ignore this because it's immoral"?

Well, that's alright then. It's not like people ever do anything immoral to get ahead. I mean, if we, say, figured out we were poisoning thousands of people or slowly killing the very Earth beneath our feet or exposing the data of millions of people or backing evil regimes of your choice or something like that, we definitely would just have to tell them it's immoral and they'd immediately stop.

Intense competition + difference = discrimination.

(And most of the racists around here are actively against such restrictions in the first place.)

[Alsadius]

My claim is "if we build a strong societal norm that this is immoral, then even a cold-blooded business immune to public choice theory still generally won't do it, for fear of being punished for acting immorally".

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

We have strong societal norms against embezzlement or evicting sweet old ladies or employing child labor or outsourcing your factories to some staffed by oppressed ethnic minorities. Companies do all of these things anyway, although they may do them slightly less than they otherwise would.

Also, I believe you've just made the basic case for cancel culture.

[Luke G]

Do you believe businesses using racial priors in their hiring is a significant cause of the underrepresentation we see?

I've done a lot of recruiting at a big company, and my observation was that HR were really going out of their way to recruit from underrepresented groups (at least for junior positions in my division). I don't know if this is typical or not. I figured they were strongly incentivized for both legal reasons and social signaling.

[murphy]

>"So your claim is "no, really, businesses will totally just ignore this because it's immoral"?"

In the EU sex is a protected characteristic. You can't charge people more for a sandwich on the basis of being female or similar.

There's good data that shows that young men are more dangerous drivers and more likely to get into accidents.

As a result auto insurance companies were offering women lower prices. It went to court and it came back that they aren't allowed do that now.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-pay-price-of-eu-gender-ruling-bhh52cj05rf

You absolutely can say "XYZ is true and provides signal" while also saying "but you're not allowed use that because society has decided that you're not allowed use that, also harsh penalties if you break the rules"

it's better than trying to pretend you live in the most convenient world where everything that would be most convenient for fair social policy is also true.

[Aapje]

> Well, that's alright then. It's not like people ever do anything immoral to get ahead.

If you believe that, then why do you think that lying to them will help?

After all, they can then still get ahead by acting on the truth, but pretending to believe the lie.

[magic9mushroom]

Hold on, I think you may be committing a fallacy here.

In the hypothetical A that the prior is true (i.e. that blue-eyed people are in general more skilled than green-eyed people) and the hypothetical B that this prior is relevant (i.e. that blue-eyed people are in general more skilled than green-eyed people *even matching for* the various more direct evidence you have), then... the prior is true and relevant i.e. when comparing a blue-eyed person and a green-eyed person with the same direct evidence of skill, the blue-eyed person is *more likely than not* to have a higher *true* skill level than the green-eyed person.

This means that the green-eyed person has *not* lost out on a job to an equally-skilled blue-eyed person, but to a blue-eyed person with equal *evidence of skill* who probably (by hypothetical assumption B) has higher skill. This is not an injustice.

(By inverting the statistics, you could show that when comparing *equally-skilled* green-eyed and blue-eyed people, the blue-eyed people usually have lower *evidence* of that skill, and assuming a Moloch-optimised algorithm that plus the eye-color evidence would reduce to a coin flip.)

[Morpho]

While I disagree with the specific assertion, I agree with the general argument, which is that your belief of what is morally right is separable from your belief in the objective truth of a matter.

To use a less offensive example: it is, I think, not in question that things like heritable disorders, including especially terrible ones that effectively guarantee unhappiness for sufferers, are in fact heritable. But I don't think that there is serious moral or political support to be found even for very restricted forms of eugenics such as forcibly forbidding carriers of especially terrible heritable disorders from having biological children on humanitarian grounds. (And to be clear, I also do not support such a measure.) Are those who believe in the actual heritability of heritable disorders but do not support forced sterilization/etc. eugenicists too? (There's a counter-argument in here regarding _why_ such a person wouldn't support forced sterilization, and I hope for someone better-read than me to find a better example.)

I have a fuzzy memory of reading a passage where Bertrand Russell made the exact same argument regarding either gender differences or sexuality (I forget which). It was something along the lines of "even in the imaginary case where someone proves conclusively that X are smarter or more capable than Y, it still would be morally repugnant to support policies that formally elevate X over Y".

Why should the objective truth, one way or the other, dictate whether you believe that people of all races deserve equal opportunity and treatment? Would you give in if someone proved against all odds thirty years from now that black people are genetically predisposed to have lower IQ? "Well, it can't be helped that it would be morally repugnant to support treating blacks as inferior in society - the facts go this way, so I suppose this way it is." Many aspects of our morality are aspirational ideas that uphold what ought to be true, not what is true, because it would be wrong to use even objective truths to justify moral evil.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

I'd still have less of a problem with it even if they weren't, but most racists are also basically pro-the-economic-system-we-have. Our current economic system says that if you're less capable, you deserve to suffer and die in a despairing hell you have no meaningful hope of escaping. If we then say black people are less capable...

Basically, I think you can believe any two of "we should treat black people equally", "black people are less capable", and "we should treat people according to their capability". But you can't believe all three - and most racists claim they believe the second and third.

[Morpho]

I don't dispute that most racists believe the second and third beliefs you cited, and I think you know I wouldn't as well, because they are stated in a way that is overly convenient for your position and not accurate to what my counter-position is trying to argue. I haven't called it a humanoid figure made from the dried stalks of cereal plants, but it really is.

The statements closest to yours that are accurate to what my counter-position is trying to argue are: "we should treat black people equally", "black people may be less capable, equally capable, or more capable", and "we should treat people according to their capability, if there existed a generally applicable method to measure capability that is sufficiently hardened (i.e. difficult to exploit) to use as formal policy", plus an implied fourth, "no such method exists".

I don't think it's really in question that everyone involved in this conversation (the poster you were originally responding to, you, me) at least professes to believe in #1, so that leaves the others.

My previous post provides an argument about why I think it is possible to believe #2, #3, and #4 simultaneously. If I understand correctly, you are asserting that it is impossible to believe #2 while also believing in #3 + #4. I don't agree, and I don't feel that you have provided any argument or evidence to support your position.

[Morpho]

For what it's worth, I think that #2 will actually resolve to "black people are equally capable" and the current evidence already supports that reasonably well. But I think that forbidding discussion on #2 will weaken the argument for the just policy, which is that people of all races deserve equal opportunity and treatment, because the opponents of that policy will forever be able to point a finger and say "you have ignored this potential crack in your reasoning, and the solidity of your argument is undermined". The way to make them eat their words is to look the question straight in the face, and say "no matter how that question resolves, it does not change whether our position is morally just".

I guess I don't understand your actual position on this, from your posts so far. I think one that would be compatible is "the belief that group X is intrinsically unequal to group Y is inseparable from policies that lead to unequal treatment of X and Y, and thus as a matter of pragmatism we should regulate that belief itself". I wouldn't agree with that, but I also think that it is not a meritless position and that you could make a serious and reasonable argument for it. But I feel that you are currently arguing some other unclear position and using (intentionally or not) the lack of clarity as an advantage.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

> The statements closest to yours that are accurate to what my counter-position is trying to argue are

I don't buy it. If you assign a high probability to "black people are of >= inherent ability to white people", the horrific size of racial gaps in literally every element of our society would imply that discrimination is a HUGE problem (or perhaps that there is some convenient cultural explanation, but that does not seem to be a common opinion here).

But this community usually doesn't buy that implication. In fact, it has more venom for people who do than it does, in practice, for almost anyone else.

> and "we should treat people according to their capability, if there existed a generally applicable method to measure capability that is sufficiently hardened (i.e. difficult to exploit) to use as formal policy", plus an implied fourth, "no such method exists".

I don't think the racists here would say they imply the fourth at all. They'll tell you proudly that they think we've got it, and it's "are you black?". In fact, someone in this very thread thinks so, but assures me that no, they definitely don't want to *use* this test that from a single bit of information shifts your estimate of someone's IQ 15 points, oh goodness me no, that would be ever so terrible!

Even if the fourth does save us right now, that would imply that further study is in fact dangerous in itself, because the point of that study would be to *generate* such a method if one exists. It's like trying to develop an "oppress half the population forever" button and assuring me that no one would ever actually press it, they just want to see if it works.

(For the record, I am a leftist in part because I believe we'll eventually make just about everyone victim to #4 and thus need to kill #3 as fast as possible.)

[Morpho]

Sorry, I posted too fast before I fully developed my point, so we've probably been writing in parallel. I hope my reply below addresses the argument you are making re: further study being dangerous in itself, and you've also resolved some of my uncertainty about your exact position.

I think #4 is likely to always hold true, or at least until humanity achieves digital transcendence or something like that. I could offer arguments about that but I think we've reached a fundamental disagreement here.

If we unwind this stack a bit... The original thing was whether it's possible to question #2 (sorry for all this reference back to an arbitrary list that I made, I don't have a better short-form version) and not be a racist. I think that a lot of people who do question #2 are racists, in light of what you've said. I just think that it's also possible to take at least some people at face value when they say that they question #2 because of the benefits of epistemological humility, not because they are racists.

Whether people in the SSC comments are mostly composed of the former or the latter, I don't know.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

> Whether people in the SSC comments are mostly composed of the former or the latter, I don't know.

Well, I came back to the new blog, went to the comments, and the literal first argument I got into turned out to be with this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Sailer

Sooo...

[Kerani]

>>>Our current economic system says that if you're less capable, you deserve to suffer and die in a despairing hell you have no meaningful hope of escaping.

A bit melodramatic, isn't this? Also not accurate - the concepts of "deserved outcomes" and that of "predictable outcomes" are similar but not the same.

By your phrasing, you seem to imply that people who are less capable *should not* be at a disadvantage to those more capable when in competition for jobs. Is that right or do you mean something else?

If you mean "when in competition for social standing" rather than jobs...could you expand on what that looks like?

[PS]

Actually, I think this might not be quite true. You might believe all three if you interpret "treat people equally" as meaning "equality of opportunity" (probably in one of its more extreme forms), not "equality of outcome".

[Dweomite]

Out of your three statements, two are prescriptive (saying how we ought to behave) and one is a factual claim about the nature of reality.

Surely you're not arguing that we ought to pick a side on the factual claim based on what we think of the prescriptive claims?

If you remove the politically-changed context and just say "here's three statements, one is factual and two are prescriptive, and there's a contradiction if you believe all three", then it seems obvious to me that the intellectually honest procedure would be to decide the factual claim based on evidence and then pick your stance on the prescriptions in light of that conclusion.

[Obsidian]

Your comment conflates intelligence with inherent moral worth. It both completely destroys the distinction your interlocutor was making, and is functionally racist in a world where he's right. I do not know if we live in that world, but either way I'd prefer if you didn't put words in people's mouths.

[Sandro]

Nothing you've said follows.

Firstly, no one equated "less intelligent" with "inferior". That was your strawman.

Secondly, empirical facts about populations don't entail facts about a specific individual from that population. Acting as if the latter were true would be racism, but the former is not. The fact that people still confuse this basic point is frankly depressing.

[David Piepgrass]

He didn't say "I don't think believing black people are inherently genetically inferior makes someone a racist". Nevertheless, I find his comment and its popularity to be quite disturbing, and he didn't even disagree with how you framed it!

I disagree that "black people are inferior" + "meritocracy" = "we should treat black people worse". Obviously I reject the first statement ("black people are inferior"), but also you misunderstand "meritocracy". Meritocracy ends in "ocracy", so it is a word about who makes decisions, not about how people are treated. The local school janitor deserves our respect and we should treat him well, but that doesn't mean he should be a principal or CEO or governor.

[Ivo]

Stating the fact that “Blacks on average score lower on IQ tests and part of the difference seems genetic in origin” isn’t racist. But only racist beliefs can turn that into a statement like “black people are dumber [..] because of genes". The word ‘dumber’ has broader connotations and I doubt swiping culture and history under the rug is accidental either.

Word choices and sentence construction tell you things people try to hide.

[David Piepgrass]

> "Those are just empirical facts. "

Ugh. Holy crap guys, this is the kind of thing that might have made the NYT publish their hit piece in the first place.

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a million people of two races A and B take an IQ test. Suppose the average IQ of A is different from the average IQ of B.

First of all, you can't just SAY the averages are different without any evidence. I have not personally seen that data, most people have not seen that data, it's highly controversial and therefore you have to cite evidence - scientific papers and such - if you want anyone to believe you. If people believe you without any evidence, it's not a good sign.

Second, "black people are dumber in a general sense" is a VERY different statement than "the average IQ of black people was measured in several studies to be lower than the average IQ of white people."

The first statement sounds like straight-up racism, as if you're saying "a given person of race Black is dumber in a variety of different ways than a given person of race White". You should know perfectly well that (1) this is untrue (because bell curves) and (2) some people would interpret your statement this way because you worded it so carelessly.

The worst part about this is that there are 56 Likes on a comment saying "Those are just empirical facts." No, they are carelessly-worded remarks that can easily be interpreted as white supremacy.

I do hope most of those 56 likes were people who have seen studies and interpreted the phrases in a charitable non-white-supremacist way, but even in that case, their carelessness on this topic is disturbing.

[Gbdub]

“who agree, point blank, with the statement "black people are dumber in a general sense because of genes black people carry". Or "Ashkenazi Jews are smarter in a general sense because of genes Ashkenazi Jews carry".”

I believe that black people have darker skin because of genes they carry. I believe that they are more likely to suffer from sickle cell anemia. Is that racist?

I believe that IQ may be, at least in significant part, moderated by genetics.

Is it impossible to comprehend that there might be reasons beyond racism to consider that genetically distinguishable populations may measurably differ in general intelligence?

That’s the thing about rationalism and “believing in science”. You aren’t allowed to dismiss possibly factual things just because the implications of them being true would be uncomfortable. And that’s what you do when you dismiss Charles Murray types as merely “racist”.

[Alsadius]

Exactly. Racism isn't about there being differences between races - obviously, there's a few(at minimum, in appearance). Yeah, it's a spectrum, and no sharp dividing lines, but there's clearly a range.

Racism is what happens when you start giving a shit about those differences, when there's no good reason to give a shit. Racism is a choice people make in terms of how they act. The real world is not itself racist, nor are measurements of it. People's beliefs and actions are where racism lives.

[A.]

Here's an explanation that I always wanted to try to see if that works for somebody.

So there is a minimal median difference in some value, such as IQ, among different races or ethnic groups. It causes the tails of the distribution above some extreme value to be much bigger in one group than in the other. That's why there are so many famous Ashkenazi scientists.

But the thing is, this has no importance whatsoever for any half-way realistic situation, for any situation that's likely to come up in practice! The fact that there is a minimal median difference in the population does absolutely nothing for you when looking at two job applicants - in fact, if you don't know that there's such a difference, you'll never get enough data to notice it, because you'll never see enough applicants, and because the other factors will completely overwhelm it.

Now, if you are an alien star force that has an hour to take from Earth, which is about to get destroyed, a million of the best residents optimized by some preferred parameter that you cannot measure or predict individually, that's a completely different story, and you'll have to optimize by race...

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

The difference in outcomes right now is far from minimal, even far from the tails.

A median black SAT math score is approximately 15th percentile for white test-takers. A black median income family makes $41,511 a year, a white one makes $65,902. Taken at face value, this implies that being black imposes a penalty of about 1 standard deviation on your life outcomes.

If that's genetic, it's relevant at all levels, from Congress to Billy Bob's Brake Repair Shop.

[A.]

Except that there are so many environmental factors at work here that it's really strange to assume that this would be genetic. I can't produce the links now, but I think there's been plenty of attempts to quantify how the environmental factors influence outcomes.

Nobody said that everything was right with the world. The claim was that minimal median racial IQ differences exist and are not important.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

> Except that there are so many environmental factors at work here that it's really strange to assume that this would be genetic.

And yet, here we are. And remember, the people who believe in genetic differences almost universally reject (and in fact actively oppose) those who think that racism might be a large part of those environmental factors.

[Luke G]

> And remember, the people who believe in genetic differences almost universally reject (and in fact actively oppose) those who think that racism might be a large part of those environmental factors

I don't think that's true. Like many polarizing issues, the loudest people are on the extreme sides (either rejecting genetic differences or rejecting racism as an explanation), and the middle (wisely!) stays silent.

[anon1234]

Yes, because the theory that "racism might be a large part of those environmental factors" just doesn't fit the facts, as far as I can tell. Yes, there are plenty of hardcore racists in America - but not enough to cause the observed effects. The percentage of black students in an American school has zero correlation with the average performance of those black students. In other words, school integration and desegregation bussing - which might be thought to influence the extent of racism - has no effect at all on black performance. Educational interventions to try to uplift poor people's life chances, like Head Start, have had a meagre-to-nonexistent effect on long-term educational performance (though they have had a positive effect on emotional self-control). This suggests that IQ reverts to the genetically-determined level by adulthood, and efforts to combat supposed institutional and/or individual racism causing racial IQ differences by bringing in better teachers or better-funded school systems are doomed to failure. Children of sub-Saharan African immigrants - who tend to be higher in both socioeconomic status and therefore probably IQ than the average sub-Saharan African - do very well in both the US and UK, suggesting that in neither country is racism holding black people back at school. Rather, Occam's Razor suggests that the low IQ of many black children is holding them back at school.

[MostlyCredibleHulk]

That depends on the definition of "racism" and "oppose", which in this case may need expanding. Say, if we talk about educational outcomes - if you define racism as "considering race to be one of the significant criteria in gatekeeping access to education", then I think the only place where it actually happens now (i.e. race is considered as such) is the affirmative action. While one can argue affirmative action actually does hurt people it is set out to help (not sure if it's true but there's certainly some argument towards it). I don't think many people you talk about oppose the idea it's a bad thing to make race a major factor, as much as they oppose the idea that this is what is causing the detrimental effects we are obverving.

Even if there were people who actually think one has to reject, for example, qualified black applicants to an university because their race has lower median IQ (and thus, by their theory, they would be more likely to fail) - those are definitely not the people that have - or had for many decades - any weight in any decisions concerning admissions to the university. So it makes sense to oppose the idea that people who believe in genetic differences have any causal relationship to whatever detrimental effects we can observe. Same of other particular situations.

So I think the link here works in a different way. For people that are "woke", it's an article of faith that any statistical difference between races, detrimenal to the non-white people, is caused by racism, and there can be no discussion about it. For people that aren't "woke", once you start to actually picking apart this claim, you quickly arrive to the conclusion that the causal link between "genetic inferiority" belief - however wrong or stupid it or it's practical implications may be - and the detrimental statistical outcomes is just not there, and it's not possible to establish any causal chain for it. Thus, they are driven to reject this claim not because they agree with the theory of "genetic inferiority", but because they can see the "racism" explanation just does not work - at least not in the way presented by the "woke" - and thus acting as if it were true will not produce the results we desire. As we can amply witness nowdays - it seems like the more we fight "racism" the more race-obsessed the culture is becoming, without actually improving the same things we set out to improve - poor still remain poor, however much the wokerati are screaming on twitter.

[Gbdub]

“ The fact that there is a minimal median difference in the population does absolutely nothing for you when looking at two job applicants”

Which is why you should not do that! (of course, that logic would equally apply to median racial differences in “privilege” and yet race is quite often used to select one individual over another in the form of affirmative action)

But the population wide values are relevant in terms of policy. (Spitballing here - I don’t fully endorse this but it’s a reason IQ population differences might matter): One thing IQ does seem to map quite well to is academic achievement. So a society wide push to increase the importance of traditional academic achievement (i.e. making every student believe college is the only path to success, making every job require a college degree) is going to disproportionately hurt those in the lower IQ population. And a policy to artificially award the markers of academic success to a few isn’t going to close the actual achievement gap, or help those left behind. An alternative approach would be needed.

More simply, you note that long tails exist. Well, that means that populations with lower median IQ are going to be very underrepresented among the top academic performers (such as PhDs in the hard sciences). This is a natural consequence of the underlying distribution, and not necessarily indicative of any discrimination (or again, any “inferiority” when comparing random members of each population). So if you try to modify these results based on an assumption of discrimination, you are probably going to fail.

[MostlyCredibleHulk]

Yep, this is why racism is stupid. But somehow people think that by screaming at and hounding people that discuss population genetics and inheritability of certain traits, they actually are helping people that are poor. Even though there's neither theoretical nor empirical causal link between those, and I see no reasonable way why banning certain genetical research and even discussion about it would do anything to help those people.

[mjharding]

Wait. What? The "real world is not itself racist"?

Not to be pedantic, but define real and world.

While I agree that racism is rooted in beliefs, it's not just about individual actors here. It's also not just about negative beliefs. If I and my group do not think about group X in our planning then group X will not benefit directly from whatever our planning produces. If, on the other hand, I am subconsciously primed to consider group Y as my ingroup...

My point is that the average hypothetical person doesn't go around thinking who they give or don't give a shit about--they act on autopilot.

[Steve Sailer]

Being compared to Charles Murray is a compliment.

[Alsadius]

Of course you would say that.

[PeterFG]

This article from Yale explains how people with high IQ (like George W Bush) have other kinds of intellectual deficiencies - https://som.yale.edu/news/2009/11/why-high-iq-doesnt-mean-youre-smart

[Eric Rogstad]

Do you consider it racist to even ask the question of whether differences in IQ between groups has a genetic component, or is it only racist to consider the matter settled in the affirmative?

Is it about asking the question at all, or just being confident that the answer comes out a certain way?

(A priori it seems like a reasonable question. Almost everything in life is influenced by genes. Distributions of genes differ between groups. I've seen people claim that due to certain kinds of evolutionary pressure, general cognitive function should end up being equal across groups, but I don't think there's consensus that this argument is correct. So, given our current state of knowledge, I don't see how someone could be absolutely certain that genes play no role in group cognitive differences. Unless you just take it as an axiomatic article of faith.)

[Reality]

Leftism is a religion, after all.

[Jack Forrest]

By your definition agreeing with anything is a "religion", including bashing "leftism"

[C. Y. Hollander]

He didn't give a definition of religion, but I suspect the one he had in mind, was something like sense 2 at https://www.dictionary.com/browse/religion?s=t: "a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects", with the added stipulation that these fundamental beliefs or practices are expected to be accepted on faith, and the corollary that questioning them constitutes heresy and is considered sinful in and of itself.

By such a definition, it would not be simply *agreeing* with a given set of beliefs, but rather considering it morally wrong to disagree with them, that constituted religious behaviour. Without going into whether that's a legitimate way to construe the word "religion" or what commonly-held beliefsets might be described this way, I'll say I think it's a coherent concept which is clearly distinct from simply having beliefs of whatever kind.

[anon1234]

> I've seen people claim that due to certain kinds of evolutionary pressure, general cognitive function should end up being equal across groups, but I don't think there's consensus that this argument is correct.

It isn't correct, because of the separation of populations by the Sahara Desert, the Pacific Ocean in the case of Australia, and so on, meant that different population groups such as Australian Aborigines and white people weren't competing directly for anything until very recently in evolutionary terms.

[Randomstringofcharacters]

ASking questions isn't inherently racist. But what questions you ask, and what you think deserve debate, is not value neutral.

E.g. If I host a debate on the topic "Is Hillary Clinton a pedophile?" I can maintain neutrality and calmly discuss the arguments for each side and their merits. But by having that discussion at all I'm giving credibility and attention to the question.

Likewise there are a lot of people in rationalist adjacent online spaces who, purely in the spirit of intellectual inquiry of course, want to have debates about whether certain races are genetically inferior, whether women are dumber than men, whether 'sexual degeneracy' is leading to the downfall of western civilisation, etc.

It is not conspiratorial to notice people employing very basic rhetorical techniques

[Aapje]

Rather significant theories and policies are based on certain premises. Debating the validity of those premises seems like the right thing to do.

And I'm not sure what rhetorical techniques you are referring to. You seem to object to considering those questions at all.

[Jack Lecter]

*Do* people debate whether women are smarter than men? I mean, I'm sure this has happened once in SSC's nine-year history, but I can't say I remember ever seeing it, so it hardly seems common enough to be worth mentioning.

[Aapje]

I don't remember anyone ever arguing that women are less smart, but just people (including Scott) arguing that women are not less smart, to no opposition.

People do regularly argue that men and women have a different distribution and that there are thus more very dumb and very smart men.

It's pretty clear to me that there are a lot of people who only or disproportionately care about the top tier of society. So for these people, arguing that there are fewer very smart women is presumably the same as arguing that women are less smart.

[Jack Lecter]

That makes sense!

My impression was that there's some good evidence for the greater variability hypothesis, but not for women being less smart overall or on average, so it seems weird to conflate them. Like accusing someone of pushing Lamarkian evolution, when what they're actually arguing for is Darwinism- if you just oppose all discussion of evolution, why mischaracterize the discussion this way?

But disproportionately caring about the top tier would explain it, and now that you mention it I think I have seen this mentality in the wild.

Incidentally, looking forward to getting to read your comments again. I feel like I learned stuff from you on the old blogx certainly enjoyed getting your perspective, at least.

[Lengii]

Insinuating that the relevant sum of activity concerning the race/gender questions is a spat over supremacism is a great example of the exact rhetorical technique you're trying to accuse the hbders of. And honestly, what's anyone supposed to say to that? It's not as if "a lot" or "rationalist adjacent" makes so concrete the accusation such that someone could defend against it.

There many imminent non-"supremacist" reasons to care about the race/gender/whatever questions which have been spelled out countless times (which is enough to dismiss the whole suggestion that this must be hbders' seekrit dishonest plot). There are many well-known friends of the blog who have good discussions without doing anything like what you're insinuating (like Hsu). None of that's addressed because it wasn't really the point of your post (use of weaselly language like "a lot" and "rat-adj" at conveniently crucial points gives it away) and going into further length just gives this angle more attention than it deserves.

There are a lot of anti-hereditarians who want to talk about -- and only talk about -- dogwhistles for "inferiority," vaguely scary rhetoric, whatever. That this happens to pattern-match the same "fill-in-the-lines" hackery that comprises most of the NYT's opinion pieces is just a coincidence, of course, and not its own, much more cynical game.

[MostlyCredibleHulk]

It is quite scary that people seriously argue that "didn't immediately ban everybody on the forum on a different platform that also discusses Scott's work and which Scott doesn't even moderate, who ever agreed with a statement I consider racist" and "is a racist". So much fallacy in this one. And the entitlement of the idea that Scott owes you an explanation and "house cleaning" just because you have a completely baseless and irrational suspicion... smh

[eddy]

Right!! I can't defend either of those statements about race because I think a lot of people who make them probably are racist on some level, or may not have the best intentions re: "intellectual honesty" like they often claim, but it's ludicrous to hold Scott responsible for the fact that people who hold those views have been allowed to comment on an entirely different platform that happens to host discussion of his blog. What does this person expect public intellectuals to do, spend all their free time scouring the internet for any questionable content posted by people claiming to be their fans and then go on a crusade to remove such people from the internet? If they did that they'd have no time to write anything of value.

[ChestertonsTopiary]

Isn't your second statement, about Ashkenazim, pretty mainstream? It doesn't imply any sort of racist values, it's a question of fact that needs to be examined on the merits.

[anon1234]

Well we can take the same thing discussed elsewhere in this thread about employer discrimination against black people and refashion it slightly to apply it to Ashkenazi Jews and gentile whites. Suppose you have three applicants for the same position. Two happen to be Ashkenazi Jews (and you know this) and one appears to be a white gentile. The position requires a very high level of intelligence. The white gentile's resume is similar to the other two's, but slightly less impressive on its face, but it is still theoretically possible that he could be the most intelligent and most suitable candidate. But you apply Bayesian reasoning and decide that mostly likely the two Jews are going to be the smartest, and you decide to interview those two and keep the gentile in reserve. You are particularly impressed by the vocabulary and rhetorical skills of one of them, and you decide to hire him without even interviewing the gentile. Was this wrong? I would say it was a practical mistake - the Bayesian justification is very weak, and the verbal fluency is also weak evidence of intelligence. This is especially so given that the applicant is Ashkenazi Jewish and Ashkenazi Jews tend to be above average in verbal intelligence, but not always exceptional in other dimensions of intelligence. But it was also a moral mistake and (in most countries in the West) would have been a legal mistake as well. It is wrong to discriminate against applicants on the grounds of race, because people of all races should be given a fair shake. And maybe it's easier for members of a particular racial group (white gentiles, in this case) to see this when racial discrimination is turned against them, instead of in favour of them as has historically been the case.

[Evesh U. Dumbledork]

He ought to nothing

[marxbro1917]

Agreed. Keep the comments open and the free speech flowing.

[Evesh U. Dumbledork]

That would be an ought, so you are not agreeing.

[marxbro1917]

Ok then... Scott Alexander ought to do nothing and stand perfectly still.

[Evesh U. Dumbledork]

Most often, I move because I can and want to, not because I ought to.

[darwin]

He already *did* shut down the forums where that stuff was happening ask that it be actively modded out of the official forum. I think you're asking for things that already happened years ago.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

He didn't do that because he had a problem with the ideas. He did it because the CW was overtaking everything else. Which if anything makes me think less of him: he cares more about people not shouting than about not being bigoted against tens of millions of people.

[Nicodemus Rex]

> "Ashkenazi Jews are smarter in a general sense because of genes Ashkenazi Jews carry."

The issue is that this statement is actually, self-evidently *true* -- no comment on the first statement) -- and *your* issue is that you're too smart for your own good (like Syme from 1984), and can't help apophatically referring to thoughtcrime even when you ostensibly don't believe it. Be careful out there, seriously.

[Randomstringofcharacters]

As far as I'm aware noone has given any convincing evidence that the effect is genetic not environmental. The observation that a subsection of the population who do a disproportionate amount of formal education do better on standardised tests is banal, and exactly what you would expect without a genetic component.

You can observe that the group is ethnically related, and so probably shares a disproportionate amount of genes, but that doesn't really prove anything. And given that intelligence to the extent its genetic is likely a complex polygenic phenomenon, and the historical admixture of populations, the justifications for it being genetically linked to a particular group seem like just so stories that rely on simplified historical narratives, rather than anything rigorous.

So scepticism is warranted

[peak.singularity]

Yeah, people tend to forget that it's hard to cleanly separate genetics and memetics.

[David Friedman]

by "dumber in a general sense" do you mean all black people are dumber than all white people or that the average intelligence of black people is lower, and of Ashkenazi higher, than of whites in general? I don't think I have seen anyone argue the former. Lots of people believe the latter, and some here are willing to say so.

Do you disagree? If so, why? What is the evidence that all such groups have the same average IQ, or the reason why, without evidence, you would expect it?

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

I meant that the people I am complaining about make that claim on a distributional level, i.e., for any fixed level of intelligence x, that P[X_ashkenazim > x] is >> P[X_black > x], and that this would remain the case even if all socioeconomic differences between the two were erased.

I don't reach the question. I think everyone who has made a confident claim in favor of racism has ended up looking like a fucking idiot at best and a genocidal monster at worst in the eyes of history, which is enough for me to start from a very strong assumption that it isn't true. Racism is to social theory what naive communism is to economics: everyone who promotes it argues no, really, it'll work this time as long because no one would ever be a jerk, and they just keep being wrong and producing Jim Crow and concentration camps and redlining.

[Kerani]

What isn't true? That people don't differ, one from the other and groups from groups, on very real measures on multiple parts of our biology that inherited from our ancestors? Or is the "not true" that you are reaching for something else?

Or are you fixed on the idea that there are some variable things that we inherit from our ancestors - like skin color and the shape of our teeth - and other characteristics that we are granted, whole and unchanged - from God? Because I'll go with that, sure - its part of my faith that we are all equally prized and beloved children of the Creator. However, with God as my witness, I'm here to tell you that intelligence - along with cowardice, patience, and all the other virtues and vices - is not something that we all get the same dose of.

[anon1234]

This person isn't saying that it isn't true. He or she is sticking their fingers in their ears and literally refusing to engage with the question, because muh consequences.

[None of the Above]

If only it were possible to give IQ tests to representative samples of both groups so you could just find out the answer, rather than reasoning about what answers you must never allow yourself to get on moral grounds....

[FluffyBuffalo]

If your interpretation of being non-racist requires you to believe certain factual statements about the world regardless of whether they're true or not, you're doing it wrong.

[Jack Lecter]

I legit found the "It's a religion" framework helpful here, although I suppose at this point it's common enough that bringing it up risks introducing more heat than light.

I used to assume I was misunderstanding these people somehow. The reminder that, yeah, people have historically regarded certain beliefs as mandatory regardless of evidence closes the gap. And I think it's running on the same basic software.

[Jack Forrest]

Empty words without evidence. Personally, I've had enough empty, baseless words over the past 4 years.

[Carl Pham]

Whether or not black Africans are on average dumber than white Europeans is simply an measurable fact, like whether or not they are taller on average, or run faster, or live longer, or have larger or smaller spleens. So there's no "believe" involved -- it's not a creed or faith or political philosophy to which one can swear allegiance or condemn.

And one can be persuaded by what evidence there is on the point one way or the other, and whichever way you go does not make you a racist *unless* (1) you refuse to consider powerful evidence against your point of view, or (2) you allow your conclusions about intellectual ability to create moral conclusions of social worth, which would be the same as concluding that beautiful women are inherently more honest than their homelier sisters, or that taller men are more virtuous, or fat people are evil, and so on.

Although parenthetically it's a mystery why anyone would even be tempted that way. We do not generally think smarter people *of the same race as ourselves* are morally superior, right? Nobody thinks Einstein was necessarily a more noble and upright character than some much less intelligent Jewish German guy who happened to empty the wastebaskets at Princeton -- we would have to talk to both people to find out. So why anyone thinks *even if* black people are a smidge less intelligent on average than white people (and Jews or Asians a smidge more intelligent) this leads to *any* consideration of moral or social worth for anyone is beyond me.

[Internaut]

Something I was thinking the other day.

There are a large number of people who are both casually racist and also fair-minded on other dimensions in the working class. In elite circles too - because they own and influence society they often have some noblesse oblige even if having a belief in some type of superiority. The most overtly bigoted statements you'll hear come from these groups - but this doesn't seem to be strongly connected to persecution.

Maybe then the real issue is that the middle class behaves totally differently when it discriminates - maybe it's more likely to convert any bias into a universal principal and become tyrannical.

[Mr. Doolittle]

There are some discussions where intelligence matters to a much higher degree than in most other discussions. Rationalist circles will treat intelligence as more important than many other groups, as intelligence correlates very strongly with ability to think rationally.

I think we also see these discussions a lot in regards to politics, because of the Affirmative Action (fix the effects of previous racism) stance verses the Color Blind (create a world without racism, even if it doesn't directly fix previous wrongs) approach. This is a very quick and dirty breakdown, but I think conveys my point.

[dionysus]

Racism exists in our world, including in the democratic world. In fact, it is quite common. As long as it's common, and as long as democracy is something we value, racists must be allowed to make their arguments openly. A dictatorship can declare certain ideas off-limits, but a democracy just isn't capable of that. Voters can be silenced on the Internet or TV, but they can't be silenced in the privacy of a voting booth. If we decide reducing racism is a social good, the only option in a democratic society is to engage with and convince racists to change their mind. That's not compatible with forcing them underground so that nobody knows who they are, let alone what they believe and how they came to believe such nonsense. For my part, I'm glad that Scott's forum is one of the few places in the world where racists and anti-racists can still freely engage in respectful conversation.

[DABM]

' A dictatorship can declare certain ideas off-limits, but a democracy just isn't capable of that'

This is conflating two different things: 1) Can *the government* restrict free speech in a democracy (answer, yes: Germany is a liberal democracy and bans the display of Nazi symbols) and 2) Can a private blog restrict free speech in a democracy (answer: much more obviously yes, and indeed, Scott does, since he bans people for posting garbage that just insults people and doesn't even try to advance a rational argument, and once banned temp-banned Steve Sailer for sealioning about immigration where it wasn't relevant.)

Now, this is not the *end* of a discussion about what views should and shouldn't get banned, but it is the beginning of it. I.e. Some woke people just say 'free speech just means the government can't ban your views, therefore its fine for any private actor to restrict speech anyway they like' and that is very implausible. But there's no quick route to the conclusion that private actors (or even the state) should never be censors either. These are complicated issues.

[dionysus]

Governments and private blogs can both restrict free speech. What they can't restrict, unless someone invents a mind-reading device, is free thought. Racism doesn't go away just because governments or private blogs refuse to engage with it, any more than capitalism or socialism do.

[magic9mushroom]

I mean, yes, it's definitely true to say that Scott tolerates that claim.

As for whether he believes it, I'd say no. He explicitly said in "Reactionary Philosophy..." that "it sort of creeps me out even in a “let me clearly explain a hypothesis I disagree with” way", and what anti-oppression-narrative arguments he did put forward (which can only dubiously be attributed to him given the post's nature) were all in the "black culture might value academic success less causing less academic success" bin or in one case the "people living in actual Africa have lower outcomes because they are starving and/or literally suffering from tropical diseases" bin.

As for whether he should "clean up his house"... well, that comes down to the ethical question of "should we let people evangelise for ideologies we disagree with". Scott says yes, as long as they're polite about it. You don't. That seems to be an actual disagreement on the quantitative value of free speech, not a mistake.

[Wtf happened to SSC?]

I don't think it is a mistake. But I think it's terrible ethics to value politeness over decency.

[magic9mushroom]

Could you define "decency" to me? Because my personal experience is that someone can be harmless and charitable in daily life and also anti-miscegenation.

Also, I'm interested in your ethical reasoning (utilitarian, Kantian, whatever). Could you explain to me why Scott's approach is bad?

[imagineeverythingatonce]

First and last day here. It is astonishing that a marxist is repeatedly rebutted with derision while racism grows and thrives here. Only one person is responsible. That person is Scott Atlas.

[e-tp-hy]

Marxism presides as a thinly-veiled excuse over many millions of lives lost in inter-class genocide while cultists(I'm sorry for this) like yourself keep prescribing it as the only possible cure to the threat of the modern "systemic racism" windmills purely because it's the one popularly available gap for its ideas to be currently shoved into. I'm saying that as someone from an ex-communist country, which in your eyes probably makes me and my ancestors less than human proving the point.

IMHO The most appropriate social system is whichever one can allow the greatest number of people with various individual outlooks to coexist with one another, yet communism requires perfect, authoritarian one might say, ideological conformity by repression if necessary to remain stable - see what happened to the soviet NEP, while capitalism allows you to partake of its goods without pledging absolute loyalty to the system and go around proselytizing through the very channels it provides. The lack of mutual policing is a feature, not a bug, and in a communist society you don't end up with mere public 'derision' as a consequence of disagreeing with the commonly accepted line be it the economy, politics or even basic facts of nature - recall Lysenkoism and the fate of cybernetics. It couldn't even achieve any sort of racial harmony - antisemitism easily reemerged within the soviet system at the highest levels the very moment it was convenient.

And as far as art and literature goes...a good piece to read on the topic would be https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/natan-sharansky-doublethink

But then again, the only way to rationalize communism that I personally see is to vilify any dissenters a priori so I doubt the read would be persuasive to you, even if stories like that are dime a dozen. In a way, modern marxism appears to me as a sort of a counter-enlightenment reaction, reaching for the supposed glory of its imaginary utopias of the past, all of which failed in practice or turned authoritarian like modern Russia or China. That's all I have to say here.

[Jack Forrest]

Similar situation occurred when Sam Harris was discussing race/IQ.

[Will C]

As a long time SSC reader, I hope this does not violate the "don't want to think about this further" or whether the lack of a "call to action" was intended to be proscriptive, but today I finally got off the fence about whether or not to be a paid subscriber

[marxbro1917]

A better solution to poverty would be building an economic system that didn't require poverty and unemployment. You align yourself with Charles Murray here and strawman the people who thinking planning a better system is possible. This does seem quite conservative, to say the least.

The New York Times is a banal centrist newspaper, but I don't not think that it's unfair that they connected you to Charles Murray. If you wish to make the case that this is "unconnected" then you'll have to show how you can disconnect Charles Murray's opinions on IQ and class from his opinions on IQ and race. As far as I can tell you only did this by using a "55 year old Kentucky trucker" - a job and location that is coded as white. This is a surface-level change using an example smartly chosen to reduce flak, not a deep difference in your actual analysis.

[marxbro1917]

I'm also unsure that Scott Alexander should be complaining so much about "brazen falsehoods" given that you've admitted you've written articles with only a "gestalt impression" of the subject in question, and when pressed for citations you come up empty-handed.

[Elriggs]

The article was an obvious gag piece

[marxbro1917]

A gag that deliberately misrepresents the outgroup. These kinds of thoughtless jokes just serve flatter the biases that already exist against outgroup thinkers like Marx. Instead of engaging with Marxist thought, Scott instead writes tribal and petty jokes.

[Elriggs]

I’m confused on your goal regarding all these comments. What do you care about? How do you think these comments will achieve that?

[marxbro1917]

I care about the truth and I hope my comments will get SSC (ACT) readers to think more critically about how Scott Alexander has misrepresented Marxist thought.

Surely if we're critical about the NYT we can also be critical of Scott Alexander's blog.

[Godsauce]

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

[Jack Forrest]

He ferments disorder at parties with the goal of insurrection. Why should the host dictate the nibbles selection? Revolution!

[DABM]

I mean, the whole point of this blog is not to dismiss people for being anti-social when they 'go on' about an unpopular view. It's hypocrisy to apply this to the normies, but not yourselves.

[Jack Forrest]

I agree, however read all of marxbros1917 comments -he misinterpreted something that Mr Alexander wrote ("Marx's fallacy or something) and has spammed these comments with 30+ comments on Marx, including replying to other comments that didn't mention Marx and attempting to insert his complaints that Marx isn't represented as he would like him to be. Outside opinions are welcome, however someone spamming comments about his personal pet project is tiresome, and he appears to have an ideolical ulterior motive.

[DABM]

Fair point, he is being a bit obsessive. But I think it is better to err on the side of responding seriously none the less.

[Godsauce]

This comment section about a NYT article that misrepresented Scott Alexander and his blog/this community now has almost twice as many references to Marx as it does to the Times. While I am impressed at this guy’s skills at trolling, I actually care about the topic at hand, and if it were my party, I would have ejected him for ruining it. If that makes me a hypocrite, I supposed nobody is perfect.

[marxbro1917]

People should be allowed to pursue their won avenues of interest. In this case, I have pointed out that Scott regularly misrepresents Marx. If Scott Alexander wants a more responsible press that discusses a variety of worldviews then he should look inwards and think about how his own writings have massive bias against leftist political philosophy.

I mean, look at what Scott did in the blog entry. He complains about being associated with Charles Murray, yet he posts a picture of Walter Duranty in an attempt to associate him with the New York Times. That's an attempted smear and guilt-by-association just as ridiculous as anything in the Cade Metz article.

[Apodidomi]

Yes, i generally hold Dave Chapelle accountable for his bits. “Enough with the humor, Dave. Cite your sources or get off the stage, you son of bitch.”

[marxbro1917]

I'm suggesting here that Scott Alexander would not like it if his critics were to dispense with our sourced argumentation and politeness and instead just started raining jokes down on him mercilessly.

I am asking Scott to do the same for thinkers like Marx who are outgroup. The "jokes" Scott wrote show a deep ignorance about the political positions Marx actually held. So much so that it appeared like Scott Alexander would not be able to pass an Ideological Turing Test on the matter.

[V Paul]

I can’t tell if your many comments on this are serious. Many people, including Marxists and probably Marx himself couldn’t explain Marx’s political positions because they changed, were contradictory, and his theories were heavily dependent on now obscure 19th century philosophy. His writing is virtually incomprehensible and not worth studying in any event. I’m really surprised that anyone who has [tried] reading and understanding Das Kapital could believe there is anything worthwhile in Marx. Is this is your thing more power to you but at the same time the effort might be better spent on other things.

[marxbro1917]

>Many people, including Marxists and probably Marx himself couldn’t explain Marx’s political positions because they changed, were contradictory, and his theories were heavily dependent on now obscure 19th century philosophy.

Then you can show me where Marx advocated for a simple equal distribution of currency, as Scott Alexander implied. Using primary sources, please.

[V Paul]

I can’t believe I’m actually doing this since you’re definitely just doing this for fun.

Scott said: “Karl Marx always said that communism would be a non-hierarchical economic system that prospered after the state withered away.”

Critique of the Gotha program or Das Kapital obviously. Probably in a bunch of other letters too that I’m too lazy to look up right now. It shouldn’t be too hard to find.

[ChestertonsTopiary]

How much time do you spend bravely defending Marx in the ACT comments section ever day, on average?

[marxbro1917]

On average? Not that long, maybe an hour or two. There's the added benefit of re-visiting Marxists texts. It's strange to me that Scott Alexander is quite prolific yet I'm ridiculed for being a prolific writer also. Perhaps I should be writing longer form pieces myself? Really bring together my thoughts into one centralized place.

[Luke G]

It being interesting to hear your thoughts for a change, instead of just remarks how other people get it wrong. I'm probably not the only one who's struggled to figure out what's really Marxism and what's just strawman or tropes (and lack the will to actually read the texts myself). Maybe you're in a position to correct some myths and provide some insight.

[Obsidian]

People have been asking him for an effort post for years, still we wait.

[TimG]

I'm actually quite curious: how do you see Marxism applying to the modern society? Like, in a paragraph or two: how would the US be different if Marx (or maybe better: you) had your way?

[истинец]

Don't feed the trolls

[ploppy sloppydog]

I don't know much about Marxism, so i'm gonna try to get some answers by employing Cunningham's law, and posting my thoughts which are quite likely misguided, so someone can correct me :)

Maybe there are some policies that could be interesting to explore for modern USA:

* housing: It seems like a lot of areas that housing stock has turned into a market for speculators that are driving prices into the millions and simultaneously homelessness is rampant. I would say something is not working well here.

Maybe exploring ideas could be interesting such as :

- Community driven housing groups - Building and managing housing stock in their own area. I heard about the idea in this video recently and am intrigued to learn more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vfx1kQlmOk&ab_channel=UnlearningEconomics.

- Land value tax (as far as I know Marx advocated for one)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

American corporations currently do some things that aren't always a good idea for the company and its workers, such as stock buybacks.

* workers owning (or participating in) the means of production

In some countries if a company is big enough, the workers automatically get to elect a few worker representatives to the board of the company. I think the worker representitives will tend to give a more healthy direction to the company, and avoid taking unnecessary risks that benefit only stock holders.

I'm not the OP, but I feel in general that when people are thinking about communism often compare modern american society to the agrarian society of russia 100 years ago with its famines. They never imagine that capitalistic societies could and have been responsible for famines as well, and other suffering in the world. Also I get the impression that they feel that if we had a comminist country now, it would somehow revert to using donkey powered agriculture and forego any technology. And often people seem to think that communism and totalitarianism are one and the same or always go together.

I think it would be great to look at history and learn from things different societies have tried rather than villifying other ideas or systems. Is any country ever a pure example of capitalism, communism or any other system?

Is america capitalist even though tesla and spacex received so much government funding? even though the banks were bailed out by public funds back in 2009? A lot of what USA does doesn't feel very capitalistic and free market but rather socialism for rich bankers and capitalism for the poor.

[Jack Forrest]

The deluge of comments he has posted on marxism makes me think he has a mental health issue.

[marxbro1917]

If you added up all my comments on Marx here I suspect it would only amount to a couple thousands words at most. If you were to compare the amount of words I write to the amount of words Scott Alexander writes I think he would come out on top most days. Have you ever accused Scott Alexander of having a mental health issue based on the "deluge" of writings he posts?

[magic9mushroom]

As of my writing this (admittedly a few days later), your comments on this post contain 6,710 words. I didn't count your blockquotes of other people, and I didn't count URLs - those are not your words.

Not saying this is good or bad - just updating you on the number.

[Deiseach]

Ah, marxbro. For you it is forever 1867. As a fan of Sherlock Holmes, I empathise; are we too not forever 1895 as Starrett says? (Though to my personal tastes in the Canon, it is always 1880s):

221B

By Vincent Starrett

Here dwell together still two men of note

Who never lived and so can never die:

How very near they seem, yet how remote

That age before the world went all awry.

But still the game’s afoot for those with ears

Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:

England is England yet, for all our fears–

Only those things the heart believes are true.

A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane

As night descends upon this fabled street:

A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,

The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.

Here, though the world explode, these two survive,

And it is always eighteen ninety-five.

[marxbro1917]

Are we just copy/pasting literature now? Here's a poem I enjoy

Alone I stand in the autumn cold

On the tip of Orange Island,

The Xiang flowing northward;

I see a thousand hills crimsoned through

By their serried woods deep-dyed,

And a hundred barges vying

Over crystal blue waters.

Eagles cleave the air,

Fish glide under the shallow water;

Under freezing skies a million creatures contend in freedom.

Brooding over this immensity,

I ask, on this bondless land

Who rules over man's destiny?

I was here with a throng of companions,

Vivid yet those crowded months and years.

Young we were, schoolmates,

At life's full flowering;

Filled with student enthusiasm

Boldly we cast all restraints aside.

Pointing to our mountains and rivers,

Setting people afire with our words,

We counted the mighty no more than muck.

Remember still

How, venturing midstream, we struck the waters

And the waves stayed the speeding boats?

[Evan Þ]

I didn't realize Mao was such a good poet. Wish he'd stuck to that. Long as we're copy-pasting poetry, I'll put in an entry too. The whole thing's too large to quote, but here's a fragment:

I would that I might with the minstrels sing

and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.

I would be with the mariners of the deep

that cut their slender planks on mountains steep

and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,

for some have passed beyond the fabled West.

I would with the beleaguered fools be told,

that keep an inner fastness where their gold,

impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring

to mint in image blurred of distant king,

or in fantastic banners weave the sheen

heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

I will not walk with your progressive apes,

erect and sapient. Before them gapes

the dark abyss to which their progress tends

if by God's mercy progress ever ends,

and does not ceaselessly revolve the same

unfruitful course with changing of a name.

I will not treat your dusty path and flat,

denoting this and that by this and that,

your world immutable wherein no part

the little maker has with maker's art.

I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,

nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.

[marxbro1917]

He did stick to it. Here's one from 1961, 36 years after Changsha

Wind and rain escorted Spring's departure,

Flying snow welcomes Spring's return.

On the ice-clad rock rising high and sheer

A flower blooms sweet and fair.

Sweet and fair, she craves not Spring for herself alone,

To be the harbinger of Spring she is content.

When the mountain flowers are in full bloom

She will smile mingling in their midst.

[sadtoot]

i love this. i wish all flame wars were poetry readings

[Deiseach]

Ah sir! A poetry exchange! You leave me starry-eyed with wonderment and pleasure! Let me try and find something good in exchange - from the Metrical Dindshenchas, which is a collection of poems explaining place names:

Port Láirge [Lárac is an Irish word meaning "limb or thigh", hence the derivation from the thighbone washed up here; also the moral of the story - don't get involved with mermaids, it'll only end badly]

There is here a limb from the body of a king:

over the streaming currents the sea bore him

towards the noble love, long-limbed, winsome,

of hundred-wounding Cithang's only son.

From Inis Aine of the heroes

Rot ever-fierce, won his goal,

the chieftain renowned in every land:

he was a gentle border-champion.

By