I don’t know about Eric S. Raymond, but yeah I’d describe John Derbyshire as racist. He describes himself as a (mild) racist and a (mild) white supremacist, incidentally. Do you think he is not racist?
Raymond says Derbyshire uses “racist” ironically. “I think his ‘racism’ is a snook being cocked at bien pensants. He doesn’t think or act like a racist; he’s got a Chinese wife, and he’s not fixated on any racial group being inferior.”
It’s quite possible he’s using the word ironically, I’ll admit. However, he’s still a racist. The claim that he doesn’t think or act like a racist is false, Chinese wife notwithstanding. I have read the article that got him fired from the National Review, and it qualifies as both thinking and acting like a racist. I know Raymond would consider this evidence of a lack of intelligence on my part, but I guess I’ll just have to learn to live with his opprobrium.
As Raymond says you are conceding the truth to real racists.
This might be a convincing argument if I didn’t think Derbyshire was a real racist. But I do. I also probably have a different assessment of the truth than Raymond does.
The use of “racist” is generally very wide and means several different meanings, their only common point is that they are boo lights that are hard to get rid of once someone accuses you of them.
I can’t give you necessary and sufficient conditions for someone to qualify as a racist, if that’s what you’re looking for. I can give you a general (although probably not exhaustive) sense of attitudes/beliefs that I would consider indicators of racism, and I can point at examples of people I consider racist. Given your subsequent request for a taboo on the word I’m not sure what purpose this would serve, but I’ll do it if you’d like.
Can I in the future expect you to stick to the same usage?
If by this you mean something like “Can I expect you to set down a definition of racism and accept in the future that only people meeting that definition are racist?”, then the answer is “no” unfortunately. Like I said, I don’t think I can articulate a necessary and sufficient set of criteria for identifying racists. If you’re asking if I can be expected not to be disingenuous and slippery in the future, then the answer is “yes”, I think.
Can we continue this conversation while holding to a rationalist taboo on “racist”?
Sure. I’m not the one who introduced the word into the discussion. But I’m not sure what this conversation is about, exactly. Would you like me to tell you what I find objectionable about Derbyshire without saying “racist”?
ETA: I’m not sure how advisable it is to continue this conversation, actually. I don’t think discussion of this specific point contributes much to the community, and it is the kind of political clutter that people have objected to in the past. The situation seems to be this: I find certain things Derbyshire says morally repugnant and indicative of a culpable prejudice against black people. You (I’m assuming, otherwise this is just a semantic debate about the word “racism”) don’t. I’m sure you’ve read the sorts of arguments I would make before and been unconvinced. I’m fairly sure I’ve read the sorts of argument you would make and been unconvinced. I doubt either of us is going to get anything substantive out of this discussion, and the mind-killing potential is huge. So let’s drop it, yes?
I’m sure you’ve read the sorts of arguments I would make before and been unconvinced.
Yes because I think the strong moral revulsion the average Western person has towards “racism” comes from ethics based on sacredness (I recommend your read Tinkerbell ethics series by Sister Y to see what I mean by sacred) and not due to consistent application of utilitarian ethics.
Not to say lots of “racism” might not reduce overall or average utility, but the same could be said of the targets of other emotionally charged arational revulsions. For example some people are revolted by sexual promiscuity or material inequality and proceed to sometimes build convincing utilitarian arguments against them.
But clearly their bottom line was written before the rationalized argument.
I’m not trying to put you down here, everyone has sacred spots like that. And we probably share the kinds of spots we have if not their intensity. I’m emotionally disturbed by a high enough setting of “racism” too and I’m pretty sure a high enough level of sexual hedonism might be emotionally disturbing to you.
So let’s drop it, yes?
I can see how these debates might be counter-productive, but are you sure? I find debates on ethics fun. :)
Yes because I think the strong moral revulsion the average Western person has towards “racism” comes from ethics based on sacredness (I recommend your read Tinkerbell ethics series by Sister Y to see what I mean by sacred) and not due to consistent application of utilitarian ethics.
Oh, I have no problem admitting I’m not consistently applying utilitarian ethics. I’m far from a utilitarian. And I’ll also readily acknowledge that some of my moral reactions stem from intuitions about sacredness. I don’t think this means they are wrong or misguided.
I can see how these debates might be counter-productive, but are you sure? I find debates on ethics fun. :)
I do too, sometimes, but again, I know a number of readers won’t be too happy with this discussion dominating the recent comments. Also, this thread is already getting a bit too fighty for my liking (you’re not responsible for this), so it’s probably in my best interest to bow out.
I find certain things Derbyshire says morally repugnant and indicative of a culpable prejudice against black people.
What moral theory are you using to make this judgement? Also what exactly to you mean by “prejudice” and how does it differ from a Beysian prior?
Also since you won’t state your definition of racist, let me ask you some questions about it. Is someone who believes group X has lower average IQ, for example, then group Y a racist? Does it matter how much lower? Does it matter if he has evidence? Does it matter if this belief corresponds to reality? Is the person still morally culpable in some/all of the above cases?
As for me, if someone believes that group X has higher average IQ than group Y and that belief is not caused by them having seen evidence that group X actually has higher average IQ than group Y, I’d call them racist.
Hint: If someone’s belief that white people have higher average IQ than black people was based on evidence that white people have higher average IQ than black people, they’d very likely believe that East Asians and Ashkenazi Jews have even higher average IQ. If they don’t also believe that, I’d strongly suspect their belief is based on something else.
If someone’s belief that white people have higher average IQ than black people was based on evidence that white people have higher average IQ than black people, they’d very likely believe that East Asians and Ashkenazi Jews have even higher average IQ. If they don’t also believe that, I’d strongly suspect their belief is based on something else
I agree with this assessment, since such a person is likely just searching for good things to say about one group and bad things to say about another.
I meant what I said about not wanting to continue the conversation, but since you’re asking me questions, I’ll give you (some) answers. I hope you won’t hold it against me if I don’t answer further questions, though.
What moral theory are you using to make this judgement?
None. I don’t think morality admits of theoretical systematization. I’m sympathetic to moral particularism.
Is someone who believes group X has lower average IQ, for example, then group Y a racist?
No. I believe there are differences in average IQ between racial groups, and I don’t consider myself a racist.
Derbyshire’s belief in racial IQ differences is not why I think he’s a racist. It’s things like advising his children not to assist black people in distress, and offering as a reason a single news story about some black people who killed a man who was helping one of them. Or advising his children not to go to an event where there will be a large number of black people, and offering as support a single news story about a shooting at an event with a large number of black people. Or asserting without evidence that 5% of all black people are ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to harm them, and that 50% of blacks will passively go along with this 5%. Or saying that one should scrutinize a black candidate for political office much more carefully than a white candidate. These are all claims he makes in the column that got him fired.
According to the data in your link, 12.9 % of murders of white people were committed by black people. Black people constitute 12.6% of the population. I don’t see how this particular data makes it reasonable to advise white children not to help apparently distressed black people, or to believe that 50% of black people will go along with white people being harmed on purely racial grounds, or to believe that black candidates to political office should be scrutinized with more care.
The male-female differential in commission of violent crimes is greater than the black-white differential. Do you really believe that Derbyshire thinks male candidates to political office should be held up to greater scrutiny than female candidates, or that he advises his children not to attend events where there will be a large number of men?
According to the data in your link, 12.9 % of murders of white people were committed by black people. Black people constitute 12.6% of the population.
Well, whites interact more with follow whites then with blacks.
Let’s put it this way. Assuming you live in the US, walk through the nearest black neighborhood at night, every night for about a week. If you aren’t willing to do this, why not?
It is a good thing but it does not follow direct from “refining the art of human rationality”. This needs us to examine fearlessly and rationally all questions even uncomfortable, and that follows direct from “refining the art of human rationality”. You are right it does help this to have more varied people here.
I actually think it does follow. Understanding what people of different races experience is, apparently, a major cognitive blind spot. For instance, lots of people think that racism was a problem forty years ago, but isn’t a problem today. But what did people forty years ago think?
Sure,we’ve probably made progress since then. But if there is still widespread discrimination, would you notice? If you read the recent post from gwern on the psychology of power, you’ll notice that this is just another application of a common set of biases.
There is, of course, also the issue of women; someone else brought up Larry Summers. Having women involved makes teams more effective—that’s instrumental rationality right there. And, of course, we have a fair number of philosophical debates here. It’s well known that women have different philosophical intuitions than men. I would not be at all surprised to learn that the same is true of people of color. As Jef Raskin notes (in a completely different context), intuitive means familiar. Having had a different set of experiences would, of course, change what is familiar. To the extent that our debates rely on intuition, perhaps without our even noticing it, it’s extremely valuable to get a different perspective.
When you link to people like VDARE, you are sending a very strong signal that you would really rather not have people of color here. Nobody likes to be part of a community where their ethnicity or gender is a reason to dismiss them as just not that smart. And this is an especially rough burden on people who are more likely to dissent from the local consensus by reason of their differing intuitions and experiences.
If you really, instrumentally, care about having people of color read Less Wrong, and you really care about coming to the correct conclusions, you ought to do what you can to make this a less unpleasant space to be around. Otherwise, you’ll be excluding a bunch of interesting people and missing a bunch of useful data, and you’ll never even notice.
By the same logic, should we stop promoting atheism since it makes religious people uncomfortable, and religious people definitely bring different perspectives?
The history is, of course, a bit different there. And religion is a matter of belief, rather than something immutable.
Finally, I am bothered by some of the discourse around religion—the sort that is merely racism by another name. I am aware of the standard arguments for the unique awfulness of Islam, but they seem to me to be related to the fundamental attribution error. The reasonable argument against religion is error theory. The rest is a waste of time.
1) People of different races provide different perspectives so we shouldn’t make them feel excluded.
Well, religious people also provide different perspectives, and this effect is much stronger for religion.
We can’t avoid the perspective of religious people, because they are the vast majority of the world. So there is no special need to make them feel welcome (nor is there a special need to make them feel unwelcome). Also, if we look at this in terms of networks of evidence, the rationality node screens off everything from religion, which is not at all true of the perspectives of women and people of color.
2) Not making people feel bad is intrinsically valuable.
This applies equally to religious people.
Have you read the comments to this? This is where the history and state of the world come in. If you are a religious person, and you are bothered by Less Wrong, hey, there’s very nearly the entire rest of the world for you to feel comfortable in. But if you are a woman and you are bothered, where can you go? There is no place on earth free of sexism.
Also, of course, some religious people are offended by the very existence of atheists who are vocal about their beliefs. It is, of course, hard to get them to admit this—usually, it is framed in terms of “tone”. But “tone” is a function of the listener as much as the speaker, and when someone’s views are being attacked, they are more likely to hear the tone of the argument as angry. Similarly, it can be hard to hear the difference between “You’re wrong”, and “You’re an idiot.”
I do think that the comments on Less Wrong sometimes go out of their way to attack religious people, and I do think that this is an error. But I don’t think you could have Less Wrong without having a population of vocal atheists. We could, however, do entirely without the vocal racism.
We can’t avoid the perspective of religious people, because they are the vast majority of the world.
Well, LW has done a remarkably good job of it.
Have you read the comments to this? This is where the history and state of the world come in. If you are a religious person, and you are bothered by Less Wrong, hey, there’s very nearly the entire rest of the world for you to feel comfortable in. But if you are a woman and you are bothered, where can you go?
Just about anywhere else given the prevalence of PC in our culture.
Also, that bit where I was at a conference with ESR, and he pulled one of the attractive young, female organizers onto his lap. Maybe she was into it and maybe not, but she didn’t really have much choice but to be polite to one of the GoHs. So, I’m not really a big fan of ESR.
Do you call John Derbyshire or Eric S. Raymond racist?
I don’t know about Eric S. Raymond, but yeah I’d describe John Derbyshire as racist. He describes himself as a (mild) racist and a (mild) white supremacist, incidentally. Do you think he is not racist?
Raymond says Derbyshire uses “racist” ironically. “I think his ‘racism’ is a snook being cocked at bien pensants. He doesn’t think or act like a racist; he’s got a Chinese wife, and he’s not fixated on any racial group being inferior.”
As Raymond says you are conceding the truth to real racists.
It’s quite possible he’s using the word ironically, I’ll admit. However, he’s still a racist. The claim that he doesn’t think or act like a racist is false, Chinese wife notwithstanding. I have read the article that got him fired from the National Review, and it qualifies as both thinking and acting like a racist. I know Raymond would consider this evidence of a lack of intelligence on my part, but I guess I’ll just have to learn to live with his opprobrium.
This might be a convincing argument if I didn’t think Derbyshire was a real racist. But I do. I also probably have a different assessment of the truth than Raymond does.
Can you tell me what the word “racist” means?
The use of “racist” is generally very wide and means several different meanings, their only common point is that they are boo lights that are hard to get rid of once someone accuses you of them.
I can’t give you necessary and sufficient conditions for someone to qualify as a racist, if that’s what you’re looking for. I can give you a general (although probably not exhaustive) sense of attitudes/beliefs that I would consider indicators of racism, and I can point at examples of people I consider racist. Given your subsequent request for a taboo on the word I’m not sure what purpose this would serve, but I’ll do it if you’d like.
If by this you mean something like “Can I expect you to set down a definition of racism and accept in the future that only people meeting that definition are racist?”, then the answer is “no” unfortunately. Like I said, I don’t think I can articulate a necessary and sufficient set of criteria for identifying racists. If you’re asking if I can be expected not to be disingenuous and slippery in the future, then the answer is “yes”, I think.
Sure. I’m not the one who introduced the word into the discussion. But I’m not sure what this conversation is about, exactly. Would you like me to tell you what I find objectionable about Derbyshire without saying “racist”?
ETA: I’m not sure how advisable it is to continue this conversation, actually. I don’t think discussion of this specific point contributes much to the community, and it is the kind of political clutter that people have objected to in the past. The situation seems to be this: I find certain things Derbyshire says morally repugnant and indicative of a culpable prejudice against black people. You (I’m assuming, otherwise this is just a semantic debate about the word “racism”) don’t. I’m sure you’ve read the sorts of arguments I would make before and been unconvinced. I’m fairly sure I’ve read the sorts of argument you would make and been unconvinced. I doubt either of us is going to get anything substantive out of this discussion, and the mind-killing potential is huge. So let’s drop it, yes?
Yes because I think the strong moral revulsion the average Western person has towards “racism” comes from ethics based on sacredness (I recommend your read Tinkerbell ethics series by Sister Y to see what I mean by sacred) and not due to consistent application of utilitarian ethics.
Not to say lots of “racism” might not reduce overall or average utility, but the same could be said of the targets of other emotionally charged arational revulsions. For example some people are revolted by sexual promiscuity or material inequality and proceed to sometimes build convincing utilitarian arguments against them.
But clearly their bottom line was written before the rationalized argument.
I’m not trying to put you down here, everyone has sacred spots like that. And we probably share the kinds of spots we have if not their intensity. I’m emotionally disturbed by a high enough setting of “racism” too and I’m pretty sure a high enough level of sexual hedonism might be emotionally disturbing to you.
I can see how these debates might be counter-productive, but are you sure? I find debates on ethics fun. :)
Oh, I have no problem admitting I’m not consistently applying utilitarian ethics. I’m far from a utilitarian. And I’ll also readily acknowledge that some of my moral reactions stem from intuitions about sacredness. I don’t think this means they are wrong or misguided.
I do too, sometimes, but again, I know a number of readers won’t be too happy with this discussion dominating the recent comments. Also, this thread is already getting a bit too fighty for my liking (you’re not responsible for this), so it’s probably in my best interest to bow out.
What moral theory are you using to make this judgement? Also what exactly to you mean by “prejudice” and how does it differ from a Beysian prior?
Also since you won’t state your definition of racist, let me ask you some questions about it. Is someone who believes group X has lower average IQ, for example, then group Y a racist? Does it matter how much lower? Does it matter if he has evidence? Does it matter if this belief corresponds to reality? Is the person still morally culpable in some/all of the above cases?
As for me, if someone believes that group X has higher average IQ than group Y and that belief is not caused by them having seen evidence that group X actually has higher average IQ than group Y, I’d call them racist.
Hint: If someone’s belief that white people have higher average IQ than black people was based on evidence that white people have higher average IQ than black people, they’d very likely believe that East Asians and Ashkenazi Jews have even higher average IQ. If they don’t also believe that, I’d strongly suspect their belief is based on something else.
I agree with this assessment, since such a person is likely just searching for good things to say about one group and bad things to say about another.
I meant what I said about not wanting to continue the conversation, but since you’re asking me questions, I’ll give you (some) answers. I hope you won’t hold it against me if I don’t answer further questions, though.
None. I don’t think morality admits of theoretical systematization. I’m sympathetic to moral particularism.
No. I believe there are differences in average IQ between racial groups, and I don’t consider myself a racist.
Derbyshire’s belief in racial IQ differences is not why I think he’s a racist. It’s things like advising his children not to assist black people in distress, and offering as a reason a single news story about some black people who killed a man who was helping one of them. Or advising his children not to go to an event where there will be a large number of black people, and offering as support a single news story about a shooting at an event with a large number of black people. Or asserting without evidence that 5% of all black people are ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to harm them, and that 50% of blacks will passively go along with this 5%. Or saying that one should scrutinize a black candidate for political office much more carefully than a white candidate. These are all claims he makes in the column that got him fired.
Well that’s a start. What about differences in propensity to commit violent crimes?
Near as I can tell, your complaint about Derbyshire is that he takes the implications of this difference seriously and is willing to openly say so.
According to the data in your link, 12.9 % of murders of white people were committed by black people. Black people constitute 12.6% of the population. I don’t see how this particular data makes it reasonable to advise white children not to help apparently distressed black people, or to believe that 50% of black people will go along with white people being harmed on purely racial grounds, or to believe that black candidates to political office should be scrutinized with more care.
The male-female differential in commission of violent crimes is greater than the black-white differential. Do you really believe that Derbyshire thinks male candidates to political office should be held up to greater scrutiny than female candidates, or that he advises his children not to attend events where there will be a large number of men?
Well, whites interact more with follow whites then with blacks.
Let’s put it this way. Assuming you live in the US, walk through the nearest black neighborhood at night, every night for about a week. If you aren’t willing to do this, why not?
Let me ask you a question: do you actually care whether people of color are comfortable at Less Wrong? If not, why not?
It is a good thing but it does not follow direct from “refining the art of human rationality”. This needs us to examine fearlessly and rationally all questions even uncomfortable, and that follows direct from “refining the art of human rationality”. You are right it does help this to have more varied people here.
I actually think it does follow. Understanding what people of different races experience is, apparently, a major cognitive blind spot. For instance, lots of people think that racism was a problem forty years ago, but isn’t a problem today. But what did people forty years ago think?
“[I]n mid-August 1969, forty-four percent of whites told a Newsweek/Gallup National Opinion Survey that blacks had a better chance than they did to get a good paying job—two times as many as said they would have a worse chance?.
Sure,we’ve probably made progress since then. But if there is still widespread discrimination, would you notice? If you read the recent post from gwern on the psychology of power, you’ll notice that this is just another application of a common set of biases.
There is, of course, also the issue of women; someone else brought up Larry Summers. Having women involved makes teams more effective—that’s instrumental rationality right there. And, of course, we have a fair number of philosophical debates here. It’s well known that women have different philosophical intuitions than men. I would not be at all surprised to learn that the same is true of people of color. As Jef Raskin notes (in a completely different context), intuitive means familiar. Having had a different set of experiences would, of course, change what is familiar. To the extent that our debates rely on intuition, perhaps without our even noticing it, it’s extremely valuable to get a different perspective.
When you link to people like VDARE, you are sending a very strong signal that you would really rather not have people of color here. Nobody likes to be part of a community where their ethnicity or gender is a reason to dismiss them as just not that smart. And this is an especially rough burden on people who are more likely to dissent from the local consensus by reason of their differing intuitions and experiences.
If you really, instrumentally, care about having people of color read Less Wrong, and you really care about coming to the correct conclusions, you ought to do what you can to make this a less unpleasant space to be around. Otherwise, you’ll be excluding a bunch of interesting people and missing a bunch of useful data, and you’ll never even notice.
I will consider your post.
By the same logic, should we stop promoting atheism since it makes religious people uncomfortable, and religious people definitely bring different perspectives?
The history is, of course, a bit different there. And religion is a matter of belief, rather than something immutable.
Finally, I am bothered by some of the discourse around religion—the sort that is merely racism by another name. I am aware of the standard arguments for the unique awfulness of Islam, but they seem to me to be related to the fundamental attribution error. The reasonable argument against religion is error theory. The rest is a waste of time.
I don’t see what either of those have to do with your stated reasons.
Near as I can tell your arguments are:
1) People of different races provide different perspectives so we shouldn’t make them feel excluded.
Well, religious people also provide different perspectives, and this effect is much stronger for religion.
2) Not making people feel bad is intrinsically valuable.
This applies equally to religious people.
We can’t avoid the perspective of religious people, because they are the vast majority of the world. So there is no special need to make them feel welcome (nor is there a special need to make them feel unwelcome). Also, if we look at this in terms of networks of evidence, the rationality node screens off everything from religion, which is not at all true of the perspectives of women and people of color.
Have you read the comments to this? This is where the history and state of the world come in. If you are a religious person, and you are bothered by Less Wrong, hey, there’s very nearly the entire rest of the world for you to feel comfortable in. But if you are a woman and you are bothered, where can you go? There is no place on earth free of sexism.
Also, of course, some religious people are offended by the very existence of atheists who are vocal about their beliefs. It is, of course, hard to get them to admit this—usually, it is framed in terms of “tone”. But “tone” is a function of the listener as much as the speaker, and when someone’s views are being attacked, they are more likely to hear the tone of the argument as angry. Similarly, it can be hard to hear the difference between “You’re wrong”, and “You’re an idiot.”
I do think that the comments on Less Wrong sometimes go out of their way to attack religious people, and I do think that this is an error. But I don’t think you could have Less Wrong without having a population of vocal atheists. We could, however, do entirely without the vocal racism.
Well, LW has done a remarkably good job of it.
Just about anywhere else given the prevalence of PC in our culture.
If the prevalence of PC were actually sufficient for women to feel comfortable, we wouldn’t have blogs like this.
I’m not interested in calling someone a racist or not a racist. I’m interested in whether someone’s behavior makes people uncomfortable. So, yeah, I’m bothered by both of their behavior.
Also, that bit where I was at a conference with ESR, and he pulled one of the attractive young, female organizers onto his lap. Maybe she was into it and maybe not, but she didn’t really have much choice but to be polite to one of the GoHs. So, I’m not really a big fan of ESR.
You are changing topic and dodging answer. Does ESR have “racist material”?
I’m not dodging at all—I just haven’t paid attention to ESR in years (that conference was in 2005 or 2006), so I have no idea what he posts.