Stalin saved far more lives than he took. In fact, Czarism was three times more deadly on a per capita basis than the average for the Stalin years. Plus, Stalin set a world record for the fastest doubling of life expectancy in any land. This amazing feat was only broken by Mao in 1976. Therefore, based on those records, I hold that Stalin and Mao were two of the greatest humanitarians that the world has ever known.
When I stumbled upon this it was at 3 karma, though I’m not sure where it will be now. I would argue what LessWrong traditionally likes is metacontrarianism of any kind. As more evidence of this I’d like to point out that metacontrarian left wing arguments by users like Multiheaded are well liked too.
I think you are wrong on this. The argument in this thread was about making mainstream conservatives unwelcome not the cobbled together right-y ideologies people here come up with. To quote GLaDOS on why I think the distinction matters:
Even many of our libertarians are probably left libertarians and nearly all of our high quality right wing thinkers are somewhat eclectic, eccentric and often aren’t really conservative in the small c sense of the word. Examples include machinations like Anarcho-Capitalism, Moldbuggian Progressivism-curing Rationalist Uberfact, Eugenic Aristocratic Monarchies or Multi-universe spanning TDT zombie computational theocracies (something like that! ^_~ ).
She’s not making any of that up I swear. That isn’t far right, that’s weird right.
Intellectual hipsters indeed. I’m not sure such fun ideas cooked up by a handful of enthusiastic rationalists really help us offset the bias, rather than just adding their own dose of political craziness to the mix.
Standing where we do as a community, means that our bias against ideas and arguments because of their tribal affiliation will not feel like being unfair or irrational from the inside. I have little idea how to fix this or even if it is wise to fix it considering how the mysterious but probably real w-force continues to do its magic over time. It may hurt our status bad enough to stop us from “Refining the art of human rationality” (yay! ^_^) in other ways.
My head feels funny, and I can’t tell whether I have trouble expressing my thoughts clearly or if they’re hopelessly disorganized to begin with. But I feel compelled to attempt sensible replies to your comments, so here goes(Jetzt Mit Bulletpoints!)...
mainstream conservatives feeling unwelcome
In the US context, I would take mainstream to mean religious. In that case, LW is an atheist site, which is only attractive to atheists and religious eccentrics who enjoy arguing with atheists. US demographics being what they are, LW won’t be welcoming to mainstream anyone, though the right end of the political spectrum will be most affected by this.
eclectic, eccentric, and weird right vs. far right
I think the overlap between “weird right” and “far right” (and “weird left” and “far left”) is extensive, to the point that it’s rare to have one without the other. Political intellectuals almost always espouse eclectic and eccentric views, and are almost always on the fringes compared to the political rank-and-file. A politically centrist intellectual is a politically apathetic intellectual. My point here, assuming I have one, is that “he’s weird-whatever” isn’t a rebuttal to “he’s far-whatever.”
meta-contrarianism
I agree with your general point. The difference in my take is that I think LW, especially in earlier times, has tended to express meta-contrarian views that align with the general politics of the techie-right. A rough description of what I’d consider the techie-right cluster: pro-libertarian, anti-gun-control, anti-religion, anti-environmentalist, pro-hard-sciences, pro-evopsych, pro-mainstream-economics, anti-the-rest-of-academia.
That Stalinist Guy
Uh, yeah, well...exception that proves the rule, that was central to my point, but I equivocated “few or no” etc...nah OK, you got me there. I even remembered TGP’s endorsement and still had that obvious hole in my argument. Didn’t know he had ever posted here though.
I think the overlap between “weird right” and “far right” (and “weird left” and “far left”) is extensive, to the point that it’s rare to have one without the other. Political intellectuals almost always espouse eclectic and eccentric views, and are almost always on the fringes compared to the political rank-and-file. A politically centrist intellectual is a politically apathetic intellectual. My point here, assuming I have one, is that “he’s weird-whatever” isn’t a rebuttal to “he’s far-whatever.”
I kind of have to concede this point. I do still think the connotations of the kind of far and weird positions you are likely to see on LW are better matched by the weird left/right rather than the far right/left.
“Even if utterly disagree with them they practically define themselves into demographic irrelevancy and are very unlikely to cause any damage. ”
vs.
“Aggh this is memeticall virulent! Must stomp on their face with my boot for forever!”
Maybe this is because I’m European. In Slovenia calling someone far right is usually always calling that person a dangerous nationalist or even a crypto-fascist. The implied context is that they should be suppressed or arrested since we don’t have free speech. A dope smoking libertarian isn’t called Far Right but a capitalist lap dog. ;)
I agree with your general point. The difference in my take is that I think LW, especially in earlier times, has tended to express meta-contrarian views that align with the general politics of the techie-right. A rough description of what I’d consider the techie-right cluster: pro-libertarian, anti-gun-control, anti-religion, anti-environmentalist, pro-hard-sciences, pro-evopsych, pro-mainstream-economics, anti-the-rest-of-academia.
This seems like a good description and I agree LW is friendly to such stances. I think the main reason for this is that this cluster is disproportionately present among programmers and transhumanists. Many prominent early posters (I can’t help but think of Michael Vassar) obviously fir into that frame as does Eliezer himself to a moderate extent.
Maybe this is because I’m European. In Slovenia calling someone far right is usually always calling that person a dangerous nationalist or even a crypto-fascist. The implied context is that they should be suppressed or arrested since we don’t have free speech. A dope smoking libertarian isn’t called Far Right but a capitalist lap dog. ;)
Yeah, that’s a very different context from the US. I don’t have much direct experience of Slovenia, but I do have some familiarity with Serbia (my Mom’s from there), so I hope you aren’t too offended if my mental model of Slovenia is a smaller, richer, much less screwed up Serbia. In the US, capitalist lap dogs are generally lumped in with dangerous nationalists and crypto-fascists. It doesn’t work the same when you’ve got some experience with really dangerous nationalists, like in 90′s former Yugoslavia.
Yeah you might want to reconsider that:
When I stumbled upon this it was at 3 karma, though I’m not sure where it will be now. I would argue what LessWrong traditionally likes is metacontrarianism of any kind. As more evidence of this I’d like to point out that metacontrarian left wing arguments by users like Multiheaded are well liked too.
I think you are wrong on this. The argument in this thread was about making mainstream conservatives unwelcome not the cobbled together right-y ideologies people here come up with. To quote GLaDOS on why I think the distinction matters:
She’s not making any of that up I swear. That isn’t far right, that’s weird right.
My head feels funny, and I can’t tell whether I have trouble expressing my thoughts clearly or if they’re hopelessly disorganized to begin with. But I feel compelled to attempt sensible replies to your comments, so here goes(Jetzt Mit Bulletpoints!)...
mainstream conservatives feeling unwelcome
In the US context, I would take mainstream to mean religious. In that case, LW is an atheist site, which is only attractive to atheists and religious eccentrics who enjoy arguing with atheists. US demographics being what they are, LW won’t be welcoming to mainstream anyone, though the right end of the political spectrum will be most affected by this.
eclectic, eccentric, and weird right vs. far right
I think the overlap between “weird right” and “far right” (and “weird left” and “far left”) is extensive, to the point that it’s rare to have one without the other. Political intellectuals almost always espouse eclectic and eccentric views, and are almost always on the fringes compared to the political rank-and-file. A politically centrist intellectual is a politically apathetic intellectual. My point here, assuming I have one, is that “he’s weird-whatever” isn’t a rebuttal to “he’s far-whatever.”
meta-contrarianism
I agree with your general point. The difference in my take is that I think LW, especially in earlier times, has tended to express meta-contrarian views that align with the general politics of the techie-right. A rough description of what I’d consider the techie-right cluster: pro-libertarian, anti-gun-control, anti-religion, anti-environmentalist, pro-hard-sciences, pro-evopsych, pro-mainstream-economics, anti-the-rest-of-academia.
That Stalinist Guy
Uh, yeah, well...exception that proves the rule, that was central to my point, but I equivocated “few or no” etc...nah OK, you got me there. I even remembered TGP’s endorsement and still had that obvious hole in my argument. Didn’t know he had ever posted here though.
I kind of have to concede this point. I do still think the connotations of the kind of far and weird positions you are likely to see on LW are better matched by the weird left/right rather than the far right/left.
“Even if utterly disagree with them they practically define themselves into demographic irrelevancy and are very unlikely to cause any damage. ”
vs.
“Aggh this is memeticall virulent! Must stomp on their face with my boot for forever!”
Maybe this is because I’m European. In Slovenia calling someone far right is usually always calling that person a dangerous nationalist or even a crypto-fascist. The implied context is that they should be suppressed or arrested since we don’t have free speech. A dope smoking libertarian isn’t called Far Right but a capitalist lap dog. ;)
This seems like a good description and I agree LW is friendly to such stances. I think the main reason for this is that this cluster is disproportionately present among programmers and transhumanists. Many prominent early posters (I can’t help but think of Michael Vassar) obviously fir into that frame as does Eliezer himself to a moderate extent.
Yeah, that’s a very different context from the US. I don’t have much direct experience of Slovenia, but I do have some familiarity with Serbia (my Mom’s from there), so I hope you aren’t too offended if my mental model of Slovenia is a smaller, richer, much less screwed up Serbia. In the US, capitalist lap dogs are generally lumped in with dangerous nationalists and crypto-fascists. It doesn’t work the same when you’ve got some experience with really dangerous nationalists, like in 90′s former Yugoslavia.