I have question: how do you determine the difference between a circlejerk and one side of any given issue being actually right?
np.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bl7xh0/cult...Posted May 6, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC
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np.reddit.com
I don't think it's humanly possible to have a space on the internet more conducive to civil discourse than the SSC offshoot subreddits. If a particular demographic simply can't bear to participate to the point they have to run away in order to protect their sanity/virtue then I'm tempted to believe they're simply the weakest link.
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if you squint sneerclub is an ssc offshoot that rationalists can't participate in.
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I don't think it's humanly possible to have a space on the internet more conducive to civil sneering than the SneerClub. If a particular demographic simply can't bear to participate to the point that they have to break the rules and get banned then I'm tempted to believe they're simply the weakest link.
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This doesn't really work when you consider that the most rationalist SSC member (myself) was banned for simply being too rational. I was so nerdy and Marxist that I exposed David Friedman's decades-old intellectual fraud and to protect their sanity/virtue/jockness they forbid me from posting. Shame.
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Shoved in a locker for their sins. Rip marxbro
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I wanted to make a whole thread out of it, it's just golden how deluded he is.
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If a particular demographic simply can't bear to participate to the point they have to run away in order to protect their sanity/virtue then I'm tempted to believe they're simply the weakest link.
What is blatant survivorship bias? I wonder why so many people feel they have to "run away" to "protect their sanity?" Must be their inferior rationality. There's no other possible explanation.
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Facts and logic. REKT
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basically, but if you don't have those then the side with the most callipers is the most rational and correct
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putacaliperonit
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By that reasoning, the Holocaust is a circlejerk. So yeah, let's not go overboard in being sure things are circlejerks.
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A definition of "circlejerk" that includes Holocaust history is probably exactly what r/TheMotte is looking for.
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Fuck you're right
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lmfao
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So, I actually agree with this comment. I know it usually isn't kosher to agree with TSOS (those subject to our sneers), but everything this guy said is fundamentally correct, if somewhat tangential to the actual question of determining a circle-jerk or not.
If you don't think these questions can be answered scientifically, I guess the commentator's attempt to frame everything as rigorously empirical will seem foolish, but...there's nothing wrong with trying to be scientific.
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everything this guy said is fundamentally correct
Yeah dude there's just no way for us to know if racism is part of our culture
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That’s not how science is conducted.
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I do think questions can be answered scientifically, that's why we have Marxism.
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You'd think Yudkowsky would be really into an immortal science.
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I tried to wade through that comment, but honestly I gave up. I'm sure that process and those heuristics are fine in particular circumstances where you can't trust anyone on anything, but for the most part it felt like solipsistic navel gazing.
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He's right about experimental design and alcohol, ridiculously wrong about racism.
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There is when you're trying to apply it to questions it not necessary for though. You don't need to conduct a rigorous double-blind falsifiable study to prove 'systemic racism' is real because all ti requires is basic logic;
- Racism existed once
- Racist laws and rules were made
- These rules and laws had Actual Effects
- When the laws and rules were eventually undone these Actual Effects did not disappear overnight.
And that's before you remember that people are still racist. Honestly the position that systemic racism doesn't exist is what needs to be proven because the reverse is such a patently obvious position. This is where so many 'rationalist' fail are their own supposed goal, they keep trying to 'eliminate' biases when what actual scientists do is try and account for them.
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If only there was some system for taking into account "prior" estimates when evaluating new evidence...
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This sounds like a good idea. Lets make a system for it, lets call it priorianism.
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Priorentology
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Funny because that comment instantly set off my crank meter. For SOME reason cranks tend to capitalize or BOLD words which then don't add much to the text. To ME it always looks like old style gossip magazines who would capitalize words FOR maximal emotional content.
It is also a bit long for basically saying 'it is hard to determine the truth'. But well, I can't blame people for being verbose.
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Oh gosh, is there systemic racism in the US? Oh, oh gosh, it's all just--just so complicated. So complicated. What is the evidence? Theoretically it exists. Have I read it? No, but I am sure it couldn't give someone confidence in the idea that racism exists. I mean, what even is racism, really, when you think about it, which I haven't?
I think this reply gets at the core of the issue, where the other reply failed
when someone’s correct, they have evidence, and talk about that evidence. When someone’s circle-jerking, they carefully avoid addressing the evidence, and instead enter into prolonged pontification based on the assumption they’re right, often pontificating specifically about how stupid and evil people are for disagreeing.
the fact that rationalists forget that they're supposed to have evidence for their assertions really speaks to the failure of the whole project, doesn't it
Uh, have you even read the entire back catalogue of Mankind Quarterly?
That's why a sneer is better than a wanky "debate"
(I'm the commenter in question)
Hey, look at it this way: I'm talking to a lot of people who are adamant that racism basically doesn't exist or is overexaggerated or whatever, and I'm trying to say the kind of thing necessary to get them to take seriously the idea that it does. I think that the average commenter there is overly sure it doesn't because they're wrapped up in hating scary progressive types, and I think that centering the debate on what kind of evidence it should take to get them to be as sure as they are - centering the debate on something science-y for comparison - might help stop them from immediately dismissing the other side.
Yeah, I'm debating rather than sneering; call that a flaw of mine if you like.
Hours later, let me also give a serious response.
You may already know about this, but recently Jair Bolsonaro announced that he was going to have Brazil's government stop funding sociology and philosophy. Needless to say, this has a lot of academics in a tizzy, with open letters and such being penned. But let me narrow in on a comment left on a popular philosophy news blog:
This is absolutely moronic.
Building up the best version of your opponent's argument then attacking that may be a great way to do philosophy. But it works for philosophy for certain reasons. One aspect of this is the social context. Philosophy is done by a relatively small group of scholars with specialized training and common background knowledge. And the institutions of philosophy are set up to encourage productive knowledge-building (though they are not perfect...). Another factor is the sorts of questions philosophers work on. There's little material at stake on, say, which account of proper names is the right one. So there's less motivation for intellectual dishonesty.
Both of these fail wildly for debates in the popular sphere about funding of academia. An op-ed along the lines of "Bolsonaro doesn't like philosophy, here's Wittgenstein's criticisms of philosophy, and here's why I think Witty's criticisms fail, which is why Brazil shouldn't pull funding" is gonna have nil impact. Norms of discussion which are effective inside philosophy aren't appropriate in other contexts. Nevertheless, some presume that because a tactic is good in one sphere it must be good in other spheres.
To bring things around to the current topic, certainly something can be gained from conversations or 'debates' about race. I've personally benefited here. But in order for this to work those involved need to have sufficient common ground. People who deny the existence of systematic racism in the US aren't in the same epistemic world as those of us who recognize this obvious fact. It's possible to get someone to move between epistemic worlds, but it's neither quick nor easy, and reddit is a shit forum in which to attempt it. Even worse, a lot of the deniers are acting in bad faith. Their primary concern is not the truth. In particular, a lot of them want debates because it gives their beliefs an air of legitimacy. Compare the trend of creationists trying to get biologists to debate them.
Debating racists in the motte doesn't make them better people. It only helps them out. So yes, I do consider it a flaw to debate them. Perhaps the flaw is a personality flaw—being so arrogant one thinks one can avoid the pitfalls—perhaps it is intellectual—not seeing the pitfalls. But it's a flaw nonetheless, like the flaws in those who think intra-philosophy norms are the way to respond to Bolsonaro.
Ironically, Wittgenstein is at the core of Bolsonaro's opposition to philosophy!
It's a great analogy. Bolsonaro isn't making an argument against philosophy and social science. He's making a power play. His resources are guns and petroleum money. Trying to respond with academic rigor is dangerously irrelevant. Right-populist power plays need to be defeated, not conversed with.
Similarly, the tech bros are ultimately not in a conversation with the rest of us. They, the ones that matter anyway, have a point of view, cash, and the ears of billionaires. They simply aren't going to listen to us. So they need resistance not conversation partners.
Also some of them are hilarious.
First - thanks for responding!
'Course I think that this is ridiculous, yeah, and I think that responses within academia will do nothing to address why he did this. I'm not sure what the proper response to this is at all, though. I mean, presumably there does have to be one - rather than just pointing and laughing? If he's acting out an anti-intellectual strain of populism, then pointing and laughing seems like the worst possible thing to do, right? Not that I know what the correct response is.
Some people are extremely obviously operating in bad faith; I assume it's connected to something broken in their personal lives, and I move on. But some people just seem like they've never heard arguments in the language they speak - like they're genuinely not aware that non-stupid versions of the left-y arguments that they love to hate actually exist. Sometimes, arguments and facts that are obvious to me (because, in at least some cases, I've lived them) are thought-provoking and hard to refute for them.
We're certainly agreed on this, especially the last part. But ceding the space feels like losing, you know? If there's no one offering moderate opposition, it'll only get worse. Maybe on some level you want it to get worse to validate your reactions to it; maybe you even think that that's actually the best possible outcome, to scare off the moderates so they're not dragged down the rabbit hole. I don't know.
TP0 doesn't post in this subreddit. Is he losing?
That's a serious question, by the way. In order for losing ground to be a loss, that ground has to have productive potential for your purpose. Some places clearly do not have productive potential; look at the way the rationalists sneer at r/politics, this is something they've figured out. I spent a year in r/slatestarcodex (concurrently with you) and established pretty decisively to myself that there isn't anything to be gained there. Can you honestly look at your surroundings - the fact that Namrok and the_nybbler are top posters - and say you're making things better?
This is a serious post in large part because I think you're an intelligent and good user who's spending a lot of time shouting into the void and hearing it reject you. This isn't a matter of finding 10 innocent posters in Sodom, either - there are plenty of self-identified 'rationalists' who aren't lost causes, but you're fighting on poisoned territory and it's not even clear to me you're doing the 'providing an off-ramp for innocents' strategy very well.
Not sure where you're getting the idea that I think pointing and laughing is the proper response here, but let's set that aside.
Pointing and laughing hasn't been a good strategy here—not sure who's trying it though...—but raising outrage has had some success, leading to various events being canceled, e.g. the fête at the American Museum of Natural History. Of course, this hasn't and won't remove Bolsonaro from the presidency. But that's a much bigger issue.
As for what I think should be done to counter the international rise of rightwing authoritarianism, I think Friedrich Engels by way of Rosa Luxemburg put it best: Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism. What's necessary is a robust left alternative to both fascism and the continued failures of neoliberalism. I'm doing my small part in this larger project, but it's not something that'll happen through reddit.
Sometimes, you can't stop a group from getting worse and the only option is to work outside the group to limit its influence. Even though sneerclub doesn't exist to do anything productive, we have had some small victories on this front. Multiple times I've seen sneerclub posts linked in response to SSC being discussed elsewhere, showcasing the awfulness Scott Alexander associates himself with.
As for your comment downthread:
You're giving cover to the racists and crypto-racists. Revisit Scott's blog post where he announced the migration of r/SSC to the motte. He defends himself and the culture war thread by pointing to a supposed diversity of opinion. Sneerers may claim the CWT is full of racism, but aktshually it has people from all across the spectrum!
Don't mind if I do.
Saying that we can't know with any great confidence if there is systemic racism doesn't really help people understand that yes, there is racism. This does in fact illustrate a flaw in how many people debate: they feel compelled to accept some ridiculous element of their idiot interlocutor's worldview in order to appeal to them. The sneerer, on the other hand, is free to mock all aspects of idiotic worldviews, especially ones that suggest you need to perform some kind of scientific experiment to measure the quantity of systemic racism in the US rather than, oh I don't know, read one history book? (Or talk to a few non-white people, but I'm not getting my hopes up too much for the users of r/TheMotte.)
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If they're so confident that the other side is 'not debating' or whatever you can simply tell them a Stalinist who was open to debate (me) has been permanently banned from almost all 'Rationalist' spaces for stating his opinion. Suggest that they lift this ban so I can post again and they can experience true rationality.
They were right to ban you. All your posts are vapid and get annoying and you're probably an American kid who calls themself a "Stalinist".
My upvotes suggest otherwise. I don't think it is correct to characterize my posts as "vapid" - my posts have a number of unique flourishes which make each one a joy to read. They also offer substantive points, for example, offering definitive proof that David Friedman is an intellectual fraud. Regarding "annoying"; if people find the truth annoying then I cannot help them. However, I think that's not a very good reason to ban someone when the entire community is supposedly built around seeking the truth at any cost. They banned one of the few posters who has actually read Marx because it was simply "annoying" to deal with a person who knew what they were talking about. Is it any wonder that the entire Rationalist community is now so beset by poor reasoning? This sad state of affairs could have been avoided if they had not banned me for being "annoying" and had made me a Moderator instead.