Chiming as someone who has consistently heard great things about his writing, but was personally put off by his politics.
I think it’s useful to understand:
How he’s achieved this level of real-world influence, f it’s conditional on engaging in “dark arts”, and if so if those “dark arts” have to be used for nefarious aims. For example, I would feel much more favorable towards his ability to manipulate the public if he was using it for causes I agree with on the object-level. So either Dominic’s abilities only work for “evil”, which would be interesting to understand, or they’re actually general purpose with potential good uses as well.
How rationality can be misused, and if so, if this implies the rationality community has a responsibility to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
...the upshot being: I still haven’t read a lot of his stuff, but I feel somewhat guilty about this and plan to get around it eventually.
That all seems fair—I was just surprised and disappointed to see one obviously important explanation of why people were put off by Cummings be completely ignored in the post.
Sorry, I deliberated for a while on whether to include it, but for a number of reasons decided I wanted to just ignore the politics-as-mindkiller and focus on everything else. Ideally I would have mentioned something about this, I just felt like addressing it in any respect would immediately lead to discussion about politics-as-mindkiller and not help. Also I didn’t think this post would get much publicity. Still don’t really regret it.
I will say though, here, I think >90% of the value I got from his writings was orthogonal to ideology-level politics. I think operational-level politics is super interesting and with some effort we should be able to talk about it orthogonally to ideology-level politics, even if we are not yet at the level of being able to talk about ideology-level politics without being mind-killed.
It seesm to me that the only way to make that judgement is to actually read Cummings describe his cause.
What grounds do we have for taking that description at face value? I don’t think that even his supporters believe his qualities include scrupulous honesty.
Generally, it’s hard to judge whether someone does things for causes you agree with or don’t agree with when you don’t know what the causes are.
One way to do this is to trust the people when they claim to tell you what their motives are. But Cummings spends his time talking about how politicians need to lie about that, and talking about how to do that type of manipulation well. And ceteris paribus, I will trust someone less if they say they study how to lie effectively. I’m not saying I don’t trust Cummings—I think he’s relatively honest, and extremely / unfortunately so for a political figure—I’m saying that I don’t think encouraging people to learn the skills he wants to teach is a good thing for enhancing trust more generally.
Cummings and honesty...I have a real problem with this idea; Cummings presents as the archetypal, self-serving liar. The repetition of denial regarding one’s words or behaviour, with frequent changes in the actual substance of that denial, does not make it true. Is Cumming’s ability to obfuscate so exceptional?
I remain a Remainer (never thought Brexit a good idea, its popularity was largely dependent on misinformation and xenophobic rallying, combined with disadvantaged, ignored swathes of the least advantaged drawing attention to their plight by flexing a weakened muscle).
Here in Northern Ireland one may still watch how the unfinished business of Brexit, in terms of the NI Protocol, sold by Cummings & his Conservative friends, is working out. As in the rest of the UK, Brexit has been handled in such a way that there are serious shortages of workers (eg abattoir operators, careworkers, nurses, lorry drivers, fruit pickers etc the lists go on exacerbated by years of austerity and Tory rule) and goods; the decimation of freedom of movement means no more opportunities for ease of working/studying /research/expertise or collaboration with our EU neighbours, and there’s also the matter of excessive import and export paperwork which has resulted in businesses going to the wall. All of these problems are a direct result of Brexit: all economic research predicted the deterioration of economic well-being and industrial growth, and yet such prospects were ridiculed as ‘fear mongering’ by Tories, specifically Cummings in his role as advisor to Johnson et al.
When one considers Cumming’s own behaviour, in both words and actions, as he sold the UK public the myth of ‘Brexit benefits,’ there appear to be multiple irregularities.*
Nowhere more clearly can one see the truth of Cumming’s character than through his own behaviour, and the subsequent manipulation, and obfuscation, he employs to ensure he remains unaccountable.
In what has come to be known as ‘The Scandal of Barnard Castle,’ those things Cummings said he meant and did, have been reported in multiple different iterations by himself, and by his wife, ‘Spectator’ journalist and Commissioning Editor, Mary Wakefield.
Instrumental in formulating Lockdown Rules, Cummings broke them along with his wife and then proceeded, over a protracted period, to tell various stories about their actions and how they were ‘blameless.’
The UK media published an account of Cummings’ first version of events regarding possibly contracting COVID and travelling from London to the North East of England thereby having broken Lockdown Rules. Cumming’s wife then published a different account in ‘The Spectator;’ Cummings proceeded to hold a special press briefing providing yet another account at Downing Street’s Rose Garden; his wife recorded a different version for BBC Radio 4. Most recently Cummings said via Twitter that the real reason for his behaviour was that he felt he and his family were not safe in London. Cummings wriggled as he lied, as he repeatedly failed to admit that he had broken Lockdown rules.
To attempt clarity: Cummings broke the very rules he helped put in place when UK citizens could not leave home for anything other than work, no visiting dying relatives, in Care Homes or hospitals. The formats in which he brazenly lied with the support of Johnson, and through manipulating the media, is deeply concerning as the facts of his misinformation have not been conveyed to the public via mainstream media. There appears to be no holding government officials or ministers to account, the more they say something the more ‘true’ it is.**
Cummings has no interest in truth-telling. If one wilfully conjures stories in order to present one’s own actions and intentions, over time, in the best light, one is simply a charlatan. Cummings wants to be seen as rigorous, rational and insightful, cognisant of that which matters to humanity at this moment in history. He attaches himself to those capable of rigour while he is capable only of unseemly politicking.
As in the rest of the UK, Brexit has been handled in such a way that there are serious shortages of workers (eg abattoir operators, careworkers, nurses, lorry drivers, fruit pickers etc the lists go on exacerbated by years of austerity and Tory rule) and goods;
There’s shortage of goods everywhere else in Europe too. COVID-19 lockdowns produced shortages everywhere. It’s politically convenient to blame it all on Brexit but not very honest.
Nowhere more clearly can one see the truth of Cumming’s character than through his own behaviour, and the subsequent manipulation, and obfuscation, he employs to ensure he remains unaccountable.
Do you honestly think that his behavior is significantly different then that of the average political actor is put into a similar situation?
There appears to be no holding government officials or ministers to account, the more they say something the more ‘true’ it is.**
There’s little way to hold government officials to account politically given that ministers have no power to fire them. To the extend that one is interested in that, there would need to be civil service reform and that’s one of the things Cummings is fighting for even if it’s not a battle he won.
Cummings proceeded to hold a special press briefing providing yet another account at Downing Street’s Rose Garden; his wife recorded a different version for BBC Radio 4. Most recently Cummings said via Twitter that the real reason for his behaviour was that he felt he and his family were not safe in London.
This suggests that Cummings changed his story, if you listen to his interview from May 25, 2020 he already said that he worried about his family not being safe at home at the time.
It wasn’t his only reason, but in the real world people often do things for complex reasons involving multiple different parts.
In spite of one hearing that there are supply shortages everywhere, the shelves are filled with goods and there are no closed petrol stations in the rest of Europe. The UK really is doing worse, it’s as though Brexit has been a supreme act of self-harm.
Lying about driving the length of the country and having days out when you allege you thought you had COVID..… Cummings was involved in making it illegal to move around the UK during a lockdown; this is intentional, and not trivial. Producing multiple stories about one’s actions and baldly stating those lies again from the PM’s garden to a TV crew, to the nation is inexcusable.
When people involved in government lie on TV and in the newspapers, and evidence appears so the liar changes their story, one learns a good deal from that person’s actions.
In a position of power the liar, who has not been challenged by the journalists and is safe within the Tory enclave, may lie ‘for complex reasons involving multiple parts.’
Cummings like any self-serving Tory ( some of whom have been given millions, others billions throughout the pandemic) remains untrustworthy. Even though he went to a lot of trouble to muddy the waters the fact remains, his words cannot be trusted.
Cummings says there were lies told and ‘dirty tricks’ used by Leave and Remain during the referendum. There is evidence of illegal activity and multitudinous untruths told by the Leave Campaigners, where is any evidence of Remain resorting to this?
Being given multiple platforms and outlets to speak truthfully and to admit he broke Lockdown rules, Cummings is a man who chose to stretch and alter his lying strategy. If caught out he has repeated the lying just changed the details. Cumming’s behaviour is unconscionable.
Chiming as someone who has consistently heard great things about his writing, but was personally put off by his politics.
I think it’s useful to understand:
How he’s achieved this level of real-world influence, f it’s conditional on engaging in “dark arts”, and if so if those “dark arts” have to be used for nefarious aims. For example, I would feel much more favorable towards his ability to manipulate the public if he was using it for causes I agree with on the object-level. So either Dominic’s abilities only work for “evil”, which would be interesting to understand, or they’re actually general purpose with potential good uses as well.
How rationality can be misused, and if so, if this implies the rationality community has a responsibility to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
...the upshot being: I still haven’t read a lot of his stuff, but I feel somewhat guilty about this and plan to get around it eventually.
That all seems fair—I was just surprised and disappointed to see one obviously important explanation of why people were put off by Cummings be completely ignored in the post.
Sorry, I deliberated for a while on whether to include it, but for a number of reasons decided I wanted to just ignore the politics-as-mindkiller and focus on everything else. Ideally I would have mentioned something about this, I just felt like addressing it in any respect would immediately lead to discussion about politics-as-mindkiller and not help. Also I didn’t think this post would get much publicity. Still don’t really regret it.
I will say though, here, I think >90% of the value I got from his writings was orthogonal to ideology-level politics. I think operational-level politics is super interesting and with some effort we should be able to talk about it orthogonally to ideology-level politics, even if we are not yet at the level of being able to talk about ideology-level politics without being mind-killed.
Thanks—that seems plausible. But again, I think not mentioning the obvious reason for people’s distaste led to a clearly incorrect claim.
Generally, it’s hard to judge whether someone does things for causes you agree with or don’t agree with when you don’t know what the causes are.
It seesm to me that the only way to make that judgement is to actually read Cummings describe his cause.
What grounds do we have for taking that description at face value? I don’t think that even his supporters believe his qualities include scrupulous honesty.
One way to do this is to trust the people when they claim to tell you what their motives are. But Cummings spends his time talking about how politicians need to lie about that, and talking about how to do that type of manipulation well. And ceteris paribus, I will trust someone less if they say they study how to lie effectively. I’m not saying I don’t trust Cummings—I think he’s relatively honest, and extremely / unfortunately so for a political figure—I’m saying that I don’t think encouraging people to learn the skills he wants to teach is a good thing for enhancing trust more generally.
Cummings and honesty...I have a real problem with this idea; Cummings presents as the archetypal, self-serving liar. The repetition of denial regarding one’s words or behaviour, with frequent changes in the actual substance of that denial, does not make it true. Is Cumming’s ability to obfuscate so exceptional?
I remain a Remainer (never thought Brexit a good idea, its popularity was largely dependent on misinformation and xenophobic rallying, combined with disadvantaged, ignored swathes of the least advantaged drawing attention to their plight by flexing a weakened muscle).
Here in Northern Ireland one may still watch how the unfinished business of Brexit, in terms of the NI Protocol, sold by Cummings & his Conservative friends, is working out. As in the rest of the UK, Brexit has been handled in such a way that there are serious shortages of workers (eg abattoir operators, careworkers, nurses, lorry drivers, fruit pickers etc the lists go on exacerbated by years of austerity and Tory rule) and goods; the decimation of freedom of movement means no more opportunities for ease of working/studying /research/expertise or collaboration with our EU neighbours, and there’s also the matter of excessive import and export paperwork which has resulted in businesses going to the wall. All of these problems are a direct result of Brexit: all economic research predicted the deterioration of economic well-being and industrial growth, and yet such prospects were ridiculed as ‘fear mongering’ by Tories, specifically Cummings in his role as advisor to Johnson et al.
When one considers Cumming’s own behaviour, in both words and actions, as he sold the UK public the myth of ‘Brexit benefits,’ there appear to be multiple irregularities.*
[*https://www.politico.eu/article/15-things-uk-vote-leave-promised-on-brexit-and-what-it-got/]
Nowhere more clearly can one see the truth of Cumming’s character than through his own behaviour, and the subsequent manipulation, and obfuscation, he employs to ensure he remains unaccountable.
In what has come to be known as ‘The Scandal of Barnard Castle,’ those things Cummings said he meant and did, have been reported in multiple different iterations by himself, and by his wife, ‘Spectator’ journalist and Commissioning Editor, Mary Wakefield.
Instrumental in formulating Lockdown Rules, Cummings broke them along with his wife and then proceeded, over a protracted period, to tell various stories about their actions and how they were ‘blameless.’
The UK media published an account of Cummings’ first version of events regarding possibly contracting COVID and travelling from London to the North East of England thereby having broken Lockdown Rules. Cumming’s wife then published a different account in ‘The Spectator;’ Cummings proceeded to hold a special press briefing providing yet another account at Downing Street’s Rose Garden; his wife recorded a different version for BBC Radio 4. Most recently Cummings said via Twitter that the real reason for his behaviour was that he felt he and his family were not safe in London. Cummings wriggled as he lied, as he repeatedly failed to admit that he had broken Lockdown rules.
To attempt clarity: Cummings broke the very rules he helped put in place when UK citizens could not leave home for anything other than work, no visiting dying relatives, in Care Homes or hospitals. The formats in which he brazenly lied with the support of Johnson, and through manipulating the media, is deeply concerning as the facts of his misinformation have not been conveyed to the public via mainstream media. There appears to be no holding government officials or ministers to account, the more they say something the more ‘true’ it is.**
[**https://bylinetimes.com/2020/05/23/bearing-false-witness-how-mr-and-mrs-cummings-broke-the-ninth-commandment/]
Cummings has no interest in truth-telling. If one wilfully conjures stories in order to present one’s own actions and intentions, over time, in the best light, one is simply a charlatan. Cummings wants to be seen as rigorous, rational and insightful, cognisant of that which matters to humanity at this moment in history. He attaches himself to those capable of rigour while he is capable only of unseemly politicking.
I would like to humbly suggest that you break blocks of text that are this big into multiple paragraphs.
Thanks. Good point.
There’s shortage of goods everywhere else in Europe too. COVID-19 lockdowns produced shortages everywhere. It’s politically convenient to blame it all on Brexit but not very honest.
Do you honestly think that his behavior is significantly different then that of the average political actor is put into a similar situation?
There’s little way to hold government officials to account politically given that ministers have no power to fire them. To the extend that one is interested in that, there would need to be civil service reform and that’s one of the things Cummings is fighting for even if it’s not a battle he won.
This suggests that Cummings changed his story, if you listen to his interview from May 25, 2020 he already said that he worried about his family not being safe at home at the time.
It wasn’t his only reason, but in the real world people often do things for complex reasons involving multiple different parts.
In spite of one hearing that there are supply shortages everywhere, the shelves are filled with goods and there are no closed petrol stations in the rest of Europe. The UK really is doing worse, it’s as though Brexit has been a supreme act of self-harm.
Lying about driving the length of the country and having days out when you allege you thought you had COVID..… Cummings was involved in making it illegal to move around the UK during a lockdown; this is intentional, and not trivial. Producing multiple stories about one’s actions and baldly stating those lies again from the PM’s garden to a TV crew, to the nation is inexcusable.
When people involved in government lie on TV and in the newspapers, and evidence appears so the liar changes their story, one learns a good deal from that person’s actions.
In a position of power the liar, who has not been challenged by the journalists and is safe within the Tory enclave, may lie ‘for complex reasons involving multiple parts.’
Cummings like any self-serving Tory ( some of whom have been given millions, others billions throughout the pandemic) remains untrustworthy. Even though he went to a lot of trouble to muddy the waters the fact remains, his words cannot be trusted.
Cummings says there were lies told and ‘dirty tricks’ used by Leave and Remain during the referendum. There is evidence of illegal activity and multitudinous untruths told by the Leave Campaigners, where is any evidence of Remain resorting to this?
Being given multiple platforms and outlets to speak truthfully and to admit he broke Lockdown rules, Cummings is a man who chose to stretch and alter his lying strategy. If caught out he has repeated the lying just changed the details. Cumming’s behaviour is unconscionable.