The flourish of HBD books and talk in the years around 2000 was, to switch metaphors, early growth from seeds too soon planted.Had the shoots been nourished by a healthy stream of scientific results, they might have grown strong enough to crack and split the asphalt of intellectual orthodoxy.But as things turned out, the maintenance crew has had no difficulty smothering the growth.
Even the few small triumphs of HBD—triumphs, I mean, of general acceptance by cognitive elites—have had an ambiguous quality about them.
For example, Freudian psychoanalysis (defined by Nabokov [33] as people’s belief“that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths [34] to their private parts”), which was radically nurturist in its “explanations” of human personality development, is now defunct, thanks to developments in pharmacology.
But, while this anti-nurturist victory has diminished the quantity of nonsense in the world, like one of Robert E. Lee’s [35] battles it has not been followed by any significant occupation of enemy territory. In the applied human sciences pure “blank slate [36]” nurturism is still entrenched. Educationists, for example, insist that given the right environment, any child can do anything [37]. In criminology, even the boldest of conservative writers tell us that illegitimacy and fatherlessness are the root causes, as if those factors themselves were uncaused.
My very first post on this site was about the mistreatment of Stephanie Grace related to the new chilling and shrinking of acceptable discourse in the late 2000s after the 90s thaw mentioned in the article.
I was impressed by the reasonableness of the discussion. And I continued to be impressed at how well LessWrong handled matters like these where for almost two years. However making the same post today on this site as a new member wouldn’t be as well accepted as it was back then. If this had been the case then I would have taken the claim that this community is one “dedicated to refining the art of human rationality” with a larger grain of salt, I’m unsure if I would have lingered since I had read most of the sequences at that point but was unsure about whether to participate.
So since I’m unsure if it would be appreciated in the community had I arrived today why do I remain? Well in the mean time I’ve grown to greatly respect the sanity of many excellent commenter’s and several people generating good articles post do post here, some have arrived after I started participating. And it is the most civil and intellectually honest internet forum I’ve ever seen. But despite this I’m unsure if it is rational of me to do so.
Speaking to some other people from here, who make comments like “more people follow your writing than mine can you please comment on my post?” or people using me as a go to example for some matters, apparently I’ve become a sort of Schilling point for a subculture within the rationalist subculture. I feel kind of sad about this. I preferred it back when Vladimir_M filled this role, he was far worthier than me.
I think we are at the start of a long winter in the West, only technological progress can keep us afloat if it won’t falter. And even if it doesn’t uFAI is the overwhelmingly likely outcome. I think I need a strong drink.
From watching you for a while, I think you’re driven to off-handedly forecast doom and gloom because it suits your identity as someone strongly dissatisfied with their current world, signaling contrarianism and wallowing in dignified pessimism. And of course elitism and despair look cooler to you, and form a coherent narrative.
And I’m not going to judge this as something negative, or implore you to fix some “problem” with your personal feelings, I just suggest that you keep a skeptical perspective on your self-narrative somewhere in the back of your mind. As you surely already do.
I’ve looked at this argument so many times from so many different angles that I would be very surprised if I hadn’t in previous correspondence with you talked about it in very similar terms. I think I’ve given it its proper weight, but I guess readers may not be aware of it so you pointing it out isn’t problematic.
John Derbyshire Wonders: Is HBD Over?
My very first post on this site was about the mistreatment of Stephanie Grace related to the new chilling and shrinking of acceptable discourse in the late 2000s after the 90s thaw mentioned in the article.
I was impressed by the reasonableness of the discussion. And I continued to be impressed at how well LessWrong handled matters like these where for almost two years. However making the same post today on this site as a new member wouldn’t be as well accepted as it was back then. If this had been the case then I would have taken the claim that this community is one “dedicated to refining the art of human rationality” with a larger grain of salt, I’m unsure if I would have lingered since I had read most of the sequences at that point but was unsure about whether to participate.
So since I’m unsure if it would be appreciated in the community had I arrived today why do I remain? Well in the mean time I’ve grown to greatly respect the sanity of many excellent commenter’s and several people generating good articles post do post here, some have arrived after I started participating. And it is the most civil and intellectually honest internet forum I’ve ever seen. But despite this I’m unsure if it is rational of me to do so.
Speaking to some other people from here, who make comments like “more people follow your writing than mine can you please comment on my post?” or people using me as a go to example for some matters, apparently I’ve become a sort of Schilling point for a subculture within the rationalist subculture. I feel kind of sad about this. I preferred it back when Vladimir_M filled this role, he was far worthier than me.
I think we are at the start of a long winter in the West, only technological progress can keep us afloat if it won’t falter. And even if it doesn’t uFAI is the overwhelmingly likely outcome. I think I need a strong drink.
From watching you for a while, I think you’re driven to off-handedly forecast doom and gloom because it suits your identity as someone strongly dissatisfied with their current world, signaling contrarianism and wallowing in dignified pessimism. And of course elitism and despair look cooler to you, and form a coherent narrative.
And I’m not going to judge this as something negative, or implore you to fix some “problem” with your personal feelings, I just suggest that you keep a skeptical perspective on your self-narrative somewhere in the back of your mind. As you surely already do.
I’ve looked at this argument so many times from so many different angles that I would be very surprised if I hadn’t in previous correspondence with you talked about it in very similar terms. I think I’ve given it its proper weight, but I guess readers may not be aware of it so you pointing it out isn’t problematic.
Pretty easy to test.