Even if Zack happens to be right, the fact that people do not update about something they don’t care about and which cannot be sufficiently simply explained, is not evidence of them being “fake”, “corrupt”, “epistemically rotten”, “enemy combatants”, or any other hysterical hyperbole.
The complexity you complain about is not Zack’s fault. His detractors engage in endless evasiveness including God-of-the-gaps style arguments as ChristianKI pointed out, and walking back an entire LW sequence that was previously non-controversial, simply because it has become politically inconvenient. The reception is so hostile that Zack is required to go practically all the way back to first principles, even needing to briefly revisit the modus ponens.
Phrases like “epistemically rotten” and “enemy combatants” are not a hysterical hyperbole to describe that. Zack chooses these terms because he is too agreeable to call a spade a spade and point out that the rationalist community has become outright evil.
I think it’s also worth emphasizing that the use of the phrase “enemy combatants” was in an account of something Michael Vassar said in informal correspondence, rather than being a description I necessarily expect readers of the account to agree with (because I didn’t agree with it at the time). Michael meant something very specific by the metaphor, which I explain in the next paragraph. In case my paraphrased explanation wasn’t sufficient, his exact words were:
The latter frame [“enemy combatants”] is more accurate both because criminals have rights and because enemy combatants aren’t particularly blameworthy. They exist under a blameworthy moral order and for you to act in their interests implies acting against their current efforts, at least temporary [sic], but you probably would like to execute on a Marshall Plan later.
I think the thing Michael actually meant (right or wrong) is more interesting than a “Hysterical hyperbole!” “Is not!” “Is too!” grudge match.
The complexity you complain about is not Zack’s fault. His detractors engage in endless evasiveness including God-of-the-gaps style arguments as ChristianKI pointed out, and walking back an entire LW sequence that was previously non-controversial, simply because it has become politically inconvenient. The reception is so hostile that Zack is required to go practically all the way back to first principles, even needing to briefly revisit the modus ponens.
Phrases like “epistemically rotten” and “enemy combatants” are not a hysterical hyperbole to describe that. Zack chooses these terms because he is too agreeable to call a spade a spade and point out that the rationalist community has become outright evil.
I think it’s also worth emphasizing that the use of the phrase “enemy combatants” was in an account of something Michael Vassar said in informal correspondence, rather than being a description I necessarily expect readers of the account to agree with (because I didn’t agree with it at the time). Michael meant something very specific by the metaphor, which I explain in the next paragraph. In case my paraphrased explanation wasn’t sufficient, his exact words were:
I think the thing Michael actually meant (right or wrong) is more interesting than a “Hysterical hyperbole!” “Is not!” “Is too!” grudge match.
I guess it’s just not very clear to me why Michael Vassar doesn’t consider them to be highly blameworthy.