Imagine instead some crank racist psuedoscientist who, in the process of pursuing their blatantly ideologically-motiviated fake “science”, happens to get really interested in the statistics of the normal distribution, and writes a post on your favorite rationality forum about the ratio of areas in the right tails of normal distributions with different means.
Can you say more about why you think La Griffe du Lion is a “crank racist psuedoscientist”? My impression (based on cursory familiarity with the HBD community) is that La Griffe du Lion seems to be respected/recommended by many.
Thanks for asking! So, a Straussian reading was actually intended there.
(Sorry, I know this is really obnoxious. My only defense is that, unlike some more cowardly authors, on the occasions when I stoop to esotericism, Iactually explain the Straussian reading when questioned.)
In context, I’m trying to defend the principle that we shouldn’t derail discussions about philosophy on account of the author’s private reason for being interested in that particular area of philosophy having to do with a contentious object-level topic. I first illustrated my point with an Occam’s-razor/atheism example, but, as I said, I was worried that that might come off as self-serving: I want my point to be accepted because the principle I’m advancing is a good one, not due to the rhetorical trick of associating my interlocutor with something locally considered low-status, like religion. So I tried to think of another illustration where my stance (in favor of local validity, or “decoupling norms”) would be associated with something low-status, and what I came up with was statistics-of-the-normal-distribution/human-biodiversity. Having chosen the illustration on the basis of the object-level topic being disreputable, it felt like effective rhetoric to link to an example and performatively “lean in” to the disrepute with a denunciation (“crank racist psuedoscientist”).
In effect, the function of denouncing du Lion was not to denounce du Lion (!), but as a “showpiece” while protecting the principle that we need the unrestricted right to talk about math on this website. Explicitly Glomarizing my views on the merits of HBD rather than simply denouncing would have left an opening for further derailing the conversation on that. This was arguably intellectually dishonest of me, but I felt comfortable doing it because I expected many readers to “get the joke.”
Can you say more about why you think La Griffe du Lion is a “crank racist psuedoscientist”? My impression (based on cursory familiarity with the HBD community) is that La Griffe du Lion seems to be respected/recommended by many.
The entire HBD community is seen as racist pseudoscientists by many.
Are the HBD community respected themselves?
Thanks for asking! So, a Straussian reading was actually intended there.
(Sorry, I know this is really obnoxious. My only defense is that, unlike some more cowardly authors, on the occasions when I stoop to esotericism, I actually explain the Straussian reading when questioned.)
In context, I’m trying to defend the principle that we shouldn’t derail discussions about philosophy on account of the author’s private reason for being interested in that particular area of philosophy having to do with a contentious object-level topic. I first illustrated my point with an Occam’s-razor/atheism example, but, as I said, I was worried that that might come off as self-serving: I want my point to be accepted because the principle I’m advancing is a good one, not due to the rhetorical trick of associating my interlocutor with something locally considered low-status, like religion. So I tried to think of another illustration where my stance (in favor of local validity, or “decoupling norms”) would be associated with something low-status, and what I came up with was statistics-of-the-normal-distribution/human-biodiversity. Having chosen the illustration on the basis of the object-level topic being disreputable, it felt like effective rhetoric to link to an example and performatively “lean in” to the disrepute with a denunciation (“crank racist psuedoscientist”).
In effect, the function of denouncing du Lion was not to denounce du Lion (!), but as a “showpiece” while protecting the principle that we need the unrestricted right to talk about math on this website. Explicitly Glomarizing my views on the merits of HBD rather than simply denouncing would have left an opening for further derailing the conversation on that. This was arguably intellectually dishonest of me, but I felt comfortable doing it because I expected many readers to “get the joke.”