“A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop” • Hacker News Board

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#341

Post by Rk0bizaN » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:37 PM UTC

obstinate wrote: post #265

13thLetter wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nominal consequences"?!! Eich lost his job. The scientist was forced to make a tearful apology on national television on what should have been the proudest day of his life. Would you be comfortable with losing your job and being humiliated world-wide because some mob was offended at you? If not, why not? Not that it matters, but you palmed a card there by equating holding the same position on gay marriage as Barack…

"Lost his job." Boo hoo, he's still insanely rich, and could probably get a job anywhere less progressive and public than Mozilla. Also, no public indication that he was compelled to leave, although I'll grant you there's a better than even chance that that was the case. "Forced to make a tearful apology" Rather say that he made a tearful apology, because he regretted his wrong action and felt apologetic. Or, if you…

Where'd you get the idea that Eich is insanely rich? http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#342

Post by cactusface » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

theorique wrote: post #332

cactusface wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different races cannot interbreed, but only because they are geographically isolated. Different species cannot interbreed (generally speaking), even if they are not geographically isolated. Humans are not geographically isolated. Geographical barriers have contributed to the creation of population groups, but these are distinct from races in that there is a mechanism for DNA to move between them (somebody takes a tri…

"Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, or racial superiority, or alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races." The first three actions refer to value judgments ("better" / "worse" - compared to what? for what purpose?). Most people would agree that science should steer a…

The problem is only that there are not discrete categories. For starters, how do you classify children of parents belonging to two discrete racial groups? And their children? And so on and so forth. Well, people have been spreading their genes around the globe for a long time, and the upshot is we all belong to the same racial group. Sure, there are clusters, but there are not purebreeds.

Further, culture / ethnicity is just a much more accurate way to classify people than genotype or phenotype. I don't have a source for this, but I believe the best way anthropologists have come up with to group people is by the kind of food they eat.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#343

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

devalier wrote: post #339

tptacek wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your choices of what to quote are telling. For instance, one of those quotes is preceded by a lengthy (and thinly veiled) Derbyshire-esque description of black people as social ill. Shortly after it, we have these cheerful grafs: This is the trouble with white nationalism. It is strategically barren. It offers no effective political program. You can be as smart as you want and think about white nationalism forever, a…

" There's also the historical context of this post, which is William Saletan's idiotic Slate posts about rational IQ variation. " When I first read that Saletan post I found it pretty convincing. And when I did much more follow-up reading, reading lots of books and journal articles from all sides, it seemed like the preponderance of the evidence is on the side of there being significant ethnic based variation. For ex…

There is no possibility that you will convince me, and so I think that particular discussion is not a good use of either of our time. No part of the obstacle you'd face in trying involves other people's opinions of me; I feel very comfortable with the subsets of people that incline towards and against taking me seriously.

If it helps, you can think of my opposition to the notion that blacks are somehow intellectually inferior to whites as religious, and you might just as productively spend your time trying to convert me to Zoroastrianism.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#344

Post by 13thLetter » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:42 PM UTC

irickt wrote: post #306

13thLetter wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is saying otherwise. Please put that argument away. What everyone here is saying is that the policies and policing they are carrying out is _wrong_.

If you stipulate that argument then you agree that it is only for the group to judge what is right and wrong with regard to its members. Outsiders opinions are irrelevant.

Does that apply to, say, the state of California when it votes to ban gay marriage?

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#345

Post by Pinatubo » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:46 PM UTC

Dain42 wrote: post #301

13thLetter wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nominal consequences"?!! Eich lost his job. The scientist was forced to make a tearful apology on national television on what should have been the proudest day of his life. Would you be comfortable with losing your job and being humiliated world-wide because some mob was offended at you? If not, why not? Not that it matters, but you palmed a card there by equating holding the same position on gay marriage as Barack…

Eich didn't just hold the same nominal position on marriage, though. He donated a large sum of money to actively (and successfully for a time) strip his coworkers of their legal rights. Not only did his position on marriage not change, but he expressed no regret over the actual, tangible harm that he helped to cause to his numerous gay and lesbian coworkers. It doesn't sound quite as soft when you put it that way. Th…

At the time Eich made his financial contribution to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign, there was no legal right for gay people to marry in California, so saying that he "stripped his coworkers of their legal rights" is a gross exaggeration of the effect of a perfectly legal, and at the time mainstream campaign contribution (Eich's position on gay marriage was the same as Obama's at the time).

He also apologized repeatedly for offending his coworkers, so it's incorrect to say he "expressed no regret."

In fact, I think the vilification of Eich neatly demonstrates why Proposition 8 won at the ballot box. Religious people were frightened that their religious beliefs would first be rebranded as bigotry, which would then give their ideological opponents the opportunity to punish them. The fate of Eich seems to confirm these fears.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#346

Post by cwyers » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:55 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #340

devalier wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am familiar with the Nehemiah Adams reference. Keep in mind that Moldbug's blog is trying to provide a corrective to our default view, and so Adam's account is his favorite, shock therapy, corrective book in a world where we are already marinated in the view that southern slavery was an unmitigated horror. In world where slave-holder ideology ran supreme, perhaps his favorite book might be something else. The key q…

I recoil from the idea that the view of southern slavery as unmitigated horror needs correction. Meanwhile, I don't have to defend every sentence in Nehemiah Adams, because the context in which Yarvin chose to cite him (approvingly, as one of his favorites ) is as a rebuttal to the idea that slavery was harmful to blacks. If someone's being unfair to Adams in this situation, it's Yarvin.

I think, if anything, we tend to underestimate how southern slavery has continued to contribute to horrors that still continue well over a century after its abolition:

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case...

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#347

Post by 13thLetter » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:57 PM UTC

Dain42 wrote: post #301

13thLetter wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nominal consequences"?!! Eich lost his job. The scientist was forced to make a tearful apology on national television on what should have been the proudest day of his life. Would you be comfortable with losing your job and being humiliated world-wide because some mob was offended at you? If not, why not? Not that it matters, but you palmed a card there by equating holding the same position on gay marriage as Barack…

Eich didn't just hold the same nominal position on marriage, though. He donated a large sum of money to actively (and successfully for a time) strip his coworkers of their legal rights. Not only did his position on marriage not change, but he expressed no regret over the actual, tangible harm that he helped to cause to his numerous gay and lesbian coworkers. It doesn't sound quite as soft when you put it that way. Th…

"On the other hand, if he was not going to be able to effectively run the foundation and there were schisms forming in the community that's so essential to the continuation of the foundation's work...what are you, as Mozilla, to do?"

We hear this a lot, but I have to wonder to what extent the schisms would have formed if Mozilla had firmly said that people's political views outside of the workplace are irrelevant, rather than looking weak at the first breath of complaint.

I do agree with you that society does this all the time but many of the things society does are counterproductive, and this is little different. Is Mozilla stronger now that it's made clear that it views half the population of the United States as an active enemy, purely on the basis of their political views?

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#348

Post by lexcorvus » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:58 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #338

yebyen wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to consider the audience of this blog post. Many of the readers may in fact be white nationalists looking to Moldbug for justification for their ideals, and I'd speculate the post is written how it is because it's just not helpful to tell them their concerns are flat-out invalid. I am not here to defend this position, I am simply here to say I find it to be something other than indefensible.

If you read more broadly about "neo-reactionism", it's not hard to reach the conclusion that white supremacy --- or some intellectual abstraction isomorphic to it --- is one of its defining features. They're like the Non-Threatening Boys Magazine version of white power.

it's not hard to reach the conclusion that white supremacy --- or some intellectual abstraction isomorphic to it --- is one of its defining features

On the contrary, it's impossible to reach that conclusion if you read even cursorily. For example, neoreactionaries generally accept the results of mainstream academic studies concluding that Chinese are on average more intelligent than Europeans, and that European Jews are on average more intelligent than European Gentiles. These are not views traditionally associated with "white supremacy," to say the least.

P.S. +1 for the reference to one of my favorite sly Simpson's jokes.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#349

Post by devalier » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 7:00 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #343

devalier wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" There's also the historical context of this post, which is William Saletan's idiotic Slate posts about rational IQ variation. " When I first read that Saletan post I found it pretty convincing. And when I did much more follow-up reading, reading lots of books and journal articles from all sides, it seemed like the preponderance of the evidence is on the side of there being significant ethnic based variation. For ex…

There is no possibility that you will convince me, and so I think that particular discussion is not a good use of either of our time. No part of the obstacle you'd face in trying involves other people's opinions of me; I feel very comfortable with the subsets of people that incline towards and against taking me seriously. If it helps, you can think of my opposition to the notion that blacks are somehow intellectually…

There is no possibility that you will convince me

Is there any possible evidence, any possible information, that could convince you that genes for IQ were not equally distributed among the races?

For my sake, there would be plenty of possible information that would convince me of the idea of neurological uniformity across ethnic groups, for example: studies of cross-racial adoption that showed the gap being erased, the existence of at least one black nation or city turning into Taiwan or Singapore, a closing of the gap in IQ tests, etc, etc.

If I can be convinced by evidence, but you cannot be convinced by evidence, then it is you who has a religious belief, and not me.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#350

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

yarvin9 wrote: post #250

colinhb wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm guessing it's either: > (a) all human beings are born with identical talents and inclinations. > (b) human beings may be born with different talents and inclinations, but these talents and inclinations are distributed identically across all living populations. Or: (c) The inter-group variation in the talents and inclinations of human beings is completely dominated by the intra-group variation. In other words, "…

I think if you read (b) again, you'll see that it's exactly the same hypothesis as your (c).

[deleted]