KKK-style racist / politically correct liberal / “but there are scientifically proven genetic differences”
If I failed to notice that there are scientifically proven genetic differences I would be missing a far more important part of reality (evolutionary psychology and the huge effects of evolution in the last 20,000 years) than if I failed to notice that being a bigot was bad and impeded moral progress. That said, if most people took this position, it’d result in a horrible tragedy of the commons situation, which is why most social scientists cooperate on the ‘let’s not promote racism’ dilemma. I’m not a social scientist so I get to defect and study some of the more interesting aspects of human evolutionary biology.
Awareness of genetic differences between races constitutes negative knowledge in many cases, that is it leads to anticipations that match the outcomes more badly than they would have otherwise. If everyone suspects that genetically blue-haired people are slightly less intelligent on average for genetic reasons, you want to hire the most intelligent person for a job and after a very long selection process (that other people were involved in) and you are left with two otherwise equally good candidates one blue-haired and one not, the egoistically rational thing is not to pick the non-blue haired person on account of that genetic difference. The other evidence on their intelligence is not independent of the genetic factors that correlate with blue hair, so any such genetic disadvantages are already figured in. If anything you should pick the blue haired person because extreme sample selection bias is likely and any blue haired person still left at the end of the selection process needed to be very intelligent to still be in the race. (so no, this isn’t a tragedy of the commons situation)
It’s pretty much never going to be the case that the blue hair is your best information on someone’s intelligence, even their clothes or style of speech should usually be a better source.
Even for groups “genetic differences” can be pretty misleading, tallness is a strongly heritable trait and nevertheless differences in tallness can easily be dominated by environmental factors.
misogyny / women’s rights movement / men’s rights movement
No opinion. Women seem to be doing perfectly fine. Men seem to get screwed over by divorce laws and the like. Tentatively agree more with third level but hey, I’m pretty ignorant here.
Depends on what is meant with womens and mens right movement, really.
The fact that men are treated unfairly on some issues does not mean that we have overshot in treating women fairly, weighting these off against each other is not productive and everyone should be treated fairly irrespective of gender and other factors, but since unfair treatment due to gender is still existent tracking how treatment varies by gender may still be necessary, though differences in outcome don’t automatically imply unfairness, only that it’s a hypothesis that deserves to be considered.
conservative / liberal / libertarian
What can I say, it’s politics. Libertarians in charge would mean more drugs and ethically questionable experiments of the sort I promote, as well as a lot more focus on the risks and benefits of technology. Since the Singularity trumps everything else policy-wise I have to root for the libertarian team here, even if I find them obnoxiously pretentious. (ETA: Actually, maybe more libertarians would just make it more likely that the ‘Yeah yeah Singularity AI transhumanism wooooo!’ meme would get bigger which would increase existential risk. So uh… never mind, I dunno.)
(Not mentioning tragedy of the commons since non-crazy Libertarians usually agree that government of some level is necessary for those)
Government competence vs. private sector competence is a function of organization size, productive selective pressures, culture etc. and even though the private sector has some natural advantages it doesn’t dominate universally, particularly where functioning markets are difficult to set up (e. g. high speed railway lines). Regulation may be necessary to break out of some Nash equilibriums, and to overcome momentum in some cases (e. g. thermal insulation in building codes, though there should be ways to receive exemptions when sensible). I also don’t see some level of wealth distribution as inherently evil.
herbal-spiritual-alternative medicine / conventional medicine / Robin Hanson
Too ignorant to comment. My oxycodone and antiobiotics sure did me good when I got an infection a week ago. My dermatologist drugs didn’t help much with my acne. I’ve gotten a few small surgeries which made me better. Overall conventional medicine seems to have helped me a fair bit and costs me little. I don’t even know what Robin Hanson’s claims are, though. A link would be great.
Basically: No evidence marginal heath spending improves health and some evidence against, cut US health spending in half.
IMO the most sensible approach would be single payer universal health care for everything that is known to be effective and allowing people to purchase anything safe beyond that.
*don’t care about Africa / give aid to Africa / don’t give aid to Africa
Okay, anyone who cares about helping people in Africa and can multiply should be giving their money to x-risk charities. Because saving the world also includes saving Africa. Therefore position 3 is essentially correct, but maybe it’s really position 4 (give aid to Earth) that’s the correct one, I dunno.
I understood “don’t give aid to Africa” as “don’t give aid to Africa because it’s counterproductive”, which depends on the type of giving, so I would read your position as a position 4.
Obama is Muslim / Obama is obviously not Muslim, you idiot / Patri Friedman5
Um, Patri was just being silly. Obama is obviously not a Muslim in any meaningful sense.
Ok, useless is the wrong word here for position 2, but position 4 would be that it shouldn’t even matter whether he is a Muslim, because there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim in the first place (other than being a theist).
My comment was largely tongue in cheek, but:
Awareness of genetic differences between races constitutes negative knowledge in many cases, that is it leads to anticipations that match the outcomes more badly than they would have otherwise. If everyone suspects that genetically blue-haired people are slightly less intelligent on average for genetic reasons, you want to hire the most intelligent person for a job and after a very long selection process (that other people were involved in) and you are left with two otherwise equally good candidates one blue-haired and one not, the egoistically rational thing is not to pick the non-blue haired person on account of that genetic difference. The other evidence on their intelligence is not independent of the genetic factors that correlate with blue hair, so any such genetic disadvantages are already figured in. If anything you should pick the blue haired person because extreme sample selection bias is likely and any blue haired person still left at the end of the selection process needed to be very intelligent to still be in the race. (so no, this isn’t a tragedy of the commons situation)
It’s pretty much never going to be the case that the blue hair is your best information on someone’s intelligence, even their clothes or style of speech should usually be a better source.
Even for groups “genetic differences” can be pretty misleading, tallness is a strongly heritable trait and nevertheless differences in tallness can easily be dominated by environmental factors.
Depends on what is meant with womens and mens right movement, really. The fact that men are treated unfairly on some issues does not mean that we have overshot in treating women fairly, weighting these off against each other is not productive and everyone should be treated fairly irrespective of gender and other factors, but since unfair treatment due to gender is still existent tracking how treatment varies by gender may still be necessary, though differences in outcome don’t automatically imply unfairness, only that it’s a hypothesis that deserves to be considered.
(Not mentioning tragedy of the commons since non-crazy Libertarians usually agree that government of some level is necessary for those) Government competence vs. private sector competence is a function of organization size, productive selective pressures, culture etc. and even though the private sector has some natural advantages it doesn’t dominate universally, particularly where functioning markets are difficult to set up (e. g. high speed railway lines). Regulation may be necessary to break out of some Nash equilibriums, and to overcome momentum in some cases (e. g. thermal insulation in building codes, though there should be ways to receive exemptions when sensible). I also don’t see some level of wealth distribution as inherently evil.
http://hanson.gmu.edu/EC496/Sources/sources.html
Basically: No evidence marginal heath spending improves health and some evidence against, cut US health spending in half. IMO the most sensible approach would be single payer universal health care for everything that is known to be effective and allowing people to purchase anything safe beyond that.
I understood “don’t give aid to Africa” as “don’t give aid to Africa because it’s counterproductive”, which depends on the type of giving, so I would read your position as a position 4.
Ok, useless is the wrong word here for position 2, but position 4 would be that it shouldn’t even matter whether he is a Muslim, because there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim in the first place (other than being a theist).