I asked him if he was ever going to write his mega-rebuttal, and he said “it’s on my list of things to do, but that list also includes ‘write a perfect philosophical language’ and ‘reach enlightenment’.” So I think that’s a pretty clear “maybe”.
He has explicitly said that he’s not willing to engage with HBD, in a way that shocked me and broke my model of him as a reasonable rationalist.
To be honest… if I had a blog, especially one linked to my real name and real-life identity, I would probably do the same thing that he seems to be doing and refuse to talk about race. Unfortunately, it seems hard to imagine that with the current evidence we have today, a true rationalist could get farther than the position of “it seems very unlikely that there are significant mental differences between races”, and yet that’s essentially the right edge of the Overton window. If that’s his reason for not discussing the topic, he can’t go out and say it, because that’s essentially like admitting he’s outside of the window.
Unfortunately, it seems hard to imagine that with the current evidence we have today, a true rationalist could get farther than the position of “it seems very unlikely that there are significant mental differences between races”, and yet that’s essentially the right edge of the Overton window. If that’s his reason for not discussing the topic, he can’t go out and say it, because that’s essentially like admitting he’s outside of the window.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Are you saying that the correct position is outside the window or inside it? (IMO we have pretty overwhelming evidence on all lines of inquiry that a certain position is correct, and that position happens to be quite outside of “civilized” discourse.)
I don’t feel confident enough to say what the correct rational position given the evidence is, not having fully examined the evidence myself, but I cannot imagine that the correct position is comfortably inside the Overton window.
I asked him if he was ever going to write his mega-rebuttal, and he said “it’s on my list of things to do, but that list also includes ‘write a perfect philosophical language’ and ‘reach enlightenment’.” So I think that’s a pretty clear “maybe”.
To be honest… if I had a blog, especially one linked to my real name and real-life identity, I would probably do the same thing that he seems to be doing and refuse to talk about race. Unfortunately, it seems hard to imagine that with the current evidence we have today, a true rationalist could get farther than the position of “it seems very unlikely that there are significant mental differences between races”, and yet that’s essentially the right edge of the Overton window. If that’s his reason for not discussing the topic, he can’t go out and say it, because that’s essentially like admitting he’s outside of the window.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Are you saying that the correct position is outside the window or inside it? (IMO we have pretty overwhelming evidence on all lines of inquiry that a certain position is correct, and that position happens to be quite outside of “civilized” discourse.)
I don’t feel confident enough to say what the correct rational position given the evidence is, not having fully examined the evidence myself, but I cannot imagine that the correct position is comfortably inside the Overton window.