What you’re suggesting amounts to saying that on some topics, it is not OK to mention important people’s true views because other people find those views objectionable. And this holds even if the important people promote those views and try to convince others of them. I don’t think this is reasonable.
As a side note, it’s funny to me that you link to Against Murderism as an example of “careful subtlety”. It’s one of my least favorite articles by Scott, and while I don’t generally think Scott is racist that one almost made me change my mind. It is just a very bad article. It tries to define racism out of existence. It doesn’t even really attempt to give a good definition—Scott is a smart person, he could do MUCH better than those definitions if he tried. For example, a major part of the rationalist movement was originally about cognitive biases, yet “racism defined as cognitive bias” does not appear in the article at all. Did Scott really not think of it?
What you’re suggesting amounts to saying that on some topics, it is not OK to mention important people’s true views because other people find those views objectionable.
It’s okay to mention an author’s taboo views on a complex and sensitive topic, when they are discussed in a longer format which does justice to how they were originally presented. Just giving a necessarily offensive sounding short summary is only useful as a weaponization to damage the reputation of the author.
Huh? Who defines racism as cognitive bias? I’ve never seen that before, so expecting Scott in particular to define it as such seems like special pleading.
What would your definition be, and why would it be better?
Scott endorses this definition:
Definition By Motives: An irrational feeling of hatred toward some race that causes someone to want to hurt or discriminate against them.
Setting aside that it says “irrational feeling” instead of “cognitive bias”, how does this “tr[y] to define racism out of existence”?
What you’re suggesting amounts to saying that on some topics, it is not OK to mention important people’s true views because other people find those views objectionable. And this holds even if the important people promote those views and try to convince others of them. I don’t think this is reasonable.
As a side note, it’s funny to me that you link to Against Murderism as an example of “careful subtlety”. It’s one of my least favorite articles by Scott, and while I don’t generally think Scott is racist that one almost made me change my mind. It is just a very bad article. It tries to define racism out of existence. It doesn’t even really attempt to give a good definition—Scott is a smart person, he could do MUCH better than those definitions if he tried. For example, a major part of the rationalist movement was originally about cognitive biases, yet “racism defined as cognitive bias” does not appear in the article at all. Did Scott really not think of it?
It’s okay to mention an author’s taboo views on a complex and sensitive topic, when they are discussed in a longer format which does justice to how they were originally presented. Just giving a necessarily offensive sounding short summary is only useful as a weaponization to damage the reputation of the author.
Huh? Who defines racism as cognitive bias? I’ve never seen that before, so expecting Scott in particular to define it as such seems like special pleading.
What would your definition be, and why would it be better?
Scott endorses this definition:
Setting aside that it says “irrational feeling” instead of “cognitive bias”, how does this “tr[y] to define racism out of existence”?
fyi I think “racism as cognitive bias” was a fairly natural and common way of framing it before I showed up on LessWrong 10 years ago.