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One of Scott's commentators (Stacey Jeffery) writes: That’s not because he necessarily said anything actually sexist or actually racist, but because he said th

by dzdt 9y ago

One of Scott's commentators (Stacey Jeffery) writes: That’s not because he necessarily said anything actually sexist or actually racist, but because he said the kinds of things that you usually only hear from sexist people, and in particular, the kind of sexist people who are also racist. That is the big thing I saw as well. I think there is an analogy to the body's defenses against viruses. The body recognizes certain shapes from the outside surface of viruses and attacks anything sharing those shapes. The memo was chock full of ideas and phrases that match those used by the worst kind of bigots. If you look at the plain meaning of the words it isn't so bad. But most people's response is based on the pattern-matched shape evaluation instead.

manyoso 9y ago
Agreed. And I understand the impulse. The irony is that this is in many ways the same tendency that powers racism, sexism, stereotypes in general. This very human impulse to label and identify and place in groups of known friends and enemies even based on incomplete data and uncertainty. I have no doubt that for many SJW's they labeled this guy a sexist and misogynist nearly instantly based just upon the subject matter. I also have no doubt that many members of the alt-right did so as well and identified him as one of their own. For me, the memo is incomplete data and not dispositive. But the impulse still tugs in the back of my head...
cmiles74 9y ago
Aaronsen mentioned this as well, friends and colleagues warned him about this "dogwhistling" (a term I've never heard before). The concern was that because he wasn't clearly stating his position, people would assume the worst. This was much the same criticism leveled against Donald Trump. Because he did not clear denounce the racist activities in Charlottesville, he could be interpreted as implying support. Personally, I am not seeing the lack of things that are actually sexist in Damore's memo. His one-sided and dishonest interpretations of his sources alone make his sexism clear and it's the same kind of dishonest interpretations we see from the racists and the sexists.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  “Dogwhistling” isn't failure to clearly state a position, it's using recognized in-group code to signal one meaning to a target group while hoping to avoid notice by a different group. In Trump's case, specifically, echoing the “Unite the Right” marchers call to respect history while making the “many sides” statement was pointed to as dog-whistle support for the alt-right groups. (The weak statement itself was also called out, but it wasn't the weakness or vagueness of the statement that was the basis of the “dogwhistle” characterization.) Not sure what the specific alleged dog-whistles were in Damore's memo.
  - manyoso 9y ago
    There has been no claim that I have seen that Damore was dog whistling. Scott said that he was motivated to write this linked post by others who feared his previous post might be interpreted by others as a dog whistle to the alt-right.
    - clavalle 9y ago
      Damore at one point mentioned in passing IQ as also having statistical truths that are taboo to talk about. I took that as a dog whistle reference to 'The Bell Curve' since that is the most famous treatise for that view and a support of the conclusions that it made. Or I could be just reading too much into it and extending Damore's thesis into race, too, is unfair. That's the secret sauce of dog whistles...plausible deniability.
      - manyoso 9y ago
        Right, it makes us doubt our usage of this powerful heuristic to instantly identify people as friends or enemies. That heuristic is what powers racism and stereotyping. That's the irony! People combatting racism (completely understandably) want to use the same technique of quickly identifying friends and enemies to identify racists. And dog whistling interferes with that. It makes us uncertain and doubts our usage of it. In my view, it is this uncertainty that we as a species need to get better at. You want to combat racism? Find ways to make them doubt the heuristic too.
vowelless 9y ago
> I think there is an analogy to the body's defenses against viruses. The body recognizes certain shapes from the outside surface of viruses and attacks anything sharing those shapes. This is quite scary. This is probably how racism begins in the first place. Here, your defence mechanism seems to help you find bigots. But the same process probably is used by bigots to be prejudiced against others based on their "shapes". Imagine a bigot who has been tuned to view brown people as potential threats. Even if they interact with a brown person nominally, their "defense mechanism" will concoct a reality based on the "pattern matching ". I think this is a very scary sentiment and that we should try to go beyond prejudice and this type of defense mechanism. We should debate with each other without appealing to our own prejudices. There are many good arguments against the memo. I don't think it helps to be instantly prejudiced against it. We can address it reasonably.
abecedarius 9y ago
It's totally natural to react that way. But it's part of a loop where more ordinary people with any sort of doubts about facts stay silent lest they be treated like those with the vilest hates, and so free speech on the matter becomes a more-informative sign of vileness, and around the loop until an equilibrium is reached. There's a book on this dynamic from the 1990s, referenced here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification You might think this an OK way to reach a needed consensus, but I doubt it -- Kuran's book mentioned he thought some kind of electoral revolt was likely if the U.S. kept on its course.
deleted 9y ago
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by dzdt 9y ago

manyoso 9y ago

Agreed. And I understand the impulse. The irony is that this is in many ways the same tendency that powers racism, sexism, stereotypes in general. This very human impulse to label and identify and place in groups of known friends and enemies even based on incomplete data and uncertainty. I have no doubt that for many SJW's they labeled this guy a sexist and misogynist nearly instantly based just upon the subject matter. I also have no doubt that many members of the alt-right did so as well and identified him as one of their own. For me, the memo is incomplete data and not dispositive. But the impulse still tugs in the back of my head...

cmiles74 9y ago

Aaronsen mentioned this as well, friends and colleagues warned him about this "dogwhistling" (a term I've never heard before). The concern was that because he wasn't clearly stating his position, people would assume the worst. This was much the same criticism leveled against Donald Trump. Because he did not clear denounce the racist activities in Charlottesville, he could be interpreted as implying support. Personally, I am not seeing the lack of things that are actually sexist in Damore's memo. His one-sided and dishonest interpretations of his sources alone make his sexism clear and it's the same kind of dishonest interpretations we see from the racists and the sexists.

dragonwriter 9y ago
“Dogwhistling” isn't failure to clearly state a position, it's using recognized in-group code to signal one meaning to a target group while hoping to avoid notice by a different group. In Trump's case, specifically, echoing the “Unite the Right” marchers call to respect history while making the “many sides” statement was pointed to as dog-whistle support for the alt-right groups. (The weak statement itself was also called out, but it wasn't the weakness or vagueness of the statement that was the basis of the “dogwhistle” characterization.) Not sure what the specific alleged dog-whistles were in Damore's memo.
- manyoso 9y ago
  There has been no claim that I have seen that Damore was dog whistling. Scott said that he was motivated to write this linked post by others who feared his previous post might be interpreted by others as a dog whistle to the alt-right.
  - clavalle 9y ago
    Damore at one point mentioned in passing IQ as also having statistical truths that are taboo to talk about. I took that as a dog whistle reference to 'The Bell Curve' since that is the most famous treatise for that view and a support of the conclusions that it made. Or I could be just reading too much into it and extending Damore's thesis into race, too, is unfair. That's the secret sauce of dog whistles...plausible deniability.
    - manyoso 9y ago
      Right, it makes us doubt our usage of this powerful heuristic to instantly identify people as friends or enemies. That heuristic is what powers racism and stereotyping. That's the irony! People combatting racism (completely understandably) want to use the same technique of quickly identifying friends and enemies to identify racists. And dog whistling interferes with that. It makes us uncertain and doubts our usage of it. In my view, it is this uncertainty that we as a species need to get better at. You want to combat racism? Find ways to make them doubt the heuristic too.

vowelless 9y ago

> I think there is an analogy to the body's defenses against viruses. The body recognizes certain shapes from the outside surface of viruses and attacks anything sharing those shapes. This is quite scary. This is probably how racism begins in the first place. Here, your defence mechanism seems to help you find bigots. But the same process probably is used by bigots to be prejudiced against others based on their "shapes". Imagine a bigot who has been tuned to view brown people as potential threats. Even if they interact with a brown person nominally, their "defense mechanism" will concoct a reality based on the "pattern matching ". I think this is a very scary sentiment and that we should try to go beyond prejudice and this type of defense mechanism. We should debate with each other without appealing to our own prejudices. There are many good arguments against the memo. I don't think it helps to be instantly prejudiced against it. We can address it reasonably.

abecedarius 9y ago

It's totally natural to react that way. But it's part of a loop where more ordinary people with any sort of doubts about facts stay silent lest they be treated like those with the vilest hates, and so free speech on the matter becomes a more-informative sign of vileness, and around the loop until an equilibrium is reached. There's a book on this dynamic from the 1990s, referenced here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification You might think this an OK way to reach a needed consensus, but I doubt it -- Kuran's book mentioned he thought some kind of electoral revolt was likely if the U.S. kept on its course.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]