Imagine you are a philosopher in the 17th century, and someone accuses you of atheism, or says “He aligns himself with Baruch Spinoza”. This could easily have massive consequences for you. You may face extensive social and legal punishment. You can’t even honestly defend yourself, because the accusation of heresy is an asymmetric discourse situation. Is your accuser off the hook when you end up dying in prison? He can just say: Sucks for him, but it’s not my fault, I just innocently reported his beliefs.
Wait a minute. Please think through this objection. You are saying that if the NYT encountered factually true criticisms of an important public figure, it would be immoral of them to mention this in an article about that figure?
Does it bother you that your prediction didn’t actually happen? Scott is not dying in prison!
This objection is just ridiculous, sorry. Scott made it an active project to promote a worldview that he believes in and is important to him—he specifically said he will mention race/IQ/genes in the context of Jews, because that’s more palatable to the public. (I’m not criticizing this right now, just observing it.) Yet if the NYT so much as mentions this, they’re guilty of killing him? What other important true facts about the world am I not allowed to say according to the rationalist community? I thought there was some mantra of like “that which can be destroyed by the truth should be”, but I guess this does not apply to criticisms of people you like?
Wait a minute. Please think through this objection. You are saying that if the NYT encountered factually true criticisms of an important public figure, it would be immoral of them to mention this in an article about that figure?
No, not in general. But in the specific case at hand, yes. We know Metz did read quite a few of Scott’s blog posts, and all necessary context and careful subtlety with which he (Scott) approaches this topic (e.g. in Against Murderism) is totally lost in an offhand remark in a NYT article. It’s like someone in the 17th century writing about Spinoza, and mentioning, as a sidenote, “and oh by the way, he denies the existence of a personal God” and then moves on to something else. Shortening his position like this, where it must seem outrageous and immoral, is in effect defamatory.
If some highly sensitive topic can’t be addressed in a short article with the required carefulness, it should simply not be addressed at all. That’s especially true for Scott, who wrote about countless other topics. There is no requirement to mention everything. (For Spinoza an argument could be made that his, at the time, outrageous position plays a fairly central role in his work, but that’s not the case for Scott.)
Does it bother you that your prediction didn’t actually happen? Scott is not dying in prison!
Luckily Scott didn’t have to fear legal consequences. But substantial social consequences were very much on the table. We know of other people who lost their job or entire career prospects for similar reasons. Nick Bostrom probably dodged the bullet by a narrow margin.
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”?
Imagine you are a philosopher in the 17th century, and someone accuses you of atheism, or says “He aligns himself with Baruch Spinoza”. This could easily have massive consequences for you. You may face extensive social and legal punishment. You can’t even honestly defend yourself, because the accusation of heresy is an asymmetric discourse situation. Is your accuser off the hook when you end up dying in prison? He can just say: Sucks for him, but it’s not my fault, I just innocently reported his beliefs.
Wait a minute. Please think through this objection. You are saying that if the NYT encountered factually true criticisms of an important public figure, it would be immoral of them to mention this in an article about that figure?
Does it bother you that your prediction didn’t actually happen? Scott is not dying in prison!
This objection is just ridiculous, sorry. Scott made it an active project to promote a worldview that he believes in and is important to him—he specifically said he will mention race/IQ/genes in the context of Jews, because that’s more palatable to the public. (I’m not criticizing this right now, just observing it.) Yet if the NYT so much as mentions this, they’re guilty of killing him? What other important true facts about the world am I not allowed to say according to the rationalist community? I thought there was some mantra of like “that which can be destroyed by the truth should be”, but I guess this does not apply to criticisms of people you like?
No, not in general. But in the specific case at hand, yes. We know Metz did read quite a few of Scott’s blog posts, and all necessary context and careful subtlety with which he (Scott) approaches this topic (e.g. in Against Murderism) is totally lost in an offhand remark in a NYT article. It’s like someone in the 17th century writing about Spinoza, and mentioning, as a sidenote, “and oh by the way, he denies the existence of a personal God” and then moves on to something else. Shortening his position like this, where it must seem outrageous and immoral, is in effect defamatory.
If some highly sensitive topic can’t be addressed in a short article with the required carefulness, it should simply not be addressed at all. That’s especially true for Scott, who wrote about countless other topics. There is no requirement to mention everything. (For Spinoza an argument could be made that his, at the time, outrageous position plays a fairly central role in his work, but that’s not the case for Scott.)
Luckily Scott didn’t have to fear legal consequences. But substantial social consequences were very much on the table. We know of other people who lost their job or entire career prospects for similar reasons. Nick Bostrom probably dodged the bullet by a narrow margin.
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.