8 ms·

Pinker is much more nefarious (and you can know that by going to his talks, as I have, where he's more loose-tongued than in his books). He places such emphasis

by pron 9y ago

Pinker is much more nefarious (and you can know that by going to his talks, as I have, where he's more loose-tongued than in his books). He places such emphasis on the fact that the world is getting better as a rebuttal to "complainers" and political activists. The problem is not with his premise but with his conclusion. The world has been getting better (to the extent that it has) because people complain and are dissatisfied, and because they take political action to make the world better. The world has not been getting better on its own; people have made it better through political struggle.

mseebach 9y ago
There is a certain rather loud, rather fashionable kind of "activist" who are if not directly claiming that everything is awful, then strongly evoking symbolism and imagery to that effect. To fix this, they want to take broad, radical action, basically to affect revolution. This approach is indefensible given the actual state of the world, and these activists are either confused about the facts, or cynically manipulating their followers for personal power. If they get their way, things will get worse, quickly. These are the people Pinker is rebutting. There is also a kind of activist that work towards fixing specific problems, including Gates, but certainly also a great many people of lesser means and public profile, and does indeed improve the world in the way you describe. I have no doubt that Pinker respects these.
- jahnu 9y ago
  Any examples of this kind of activist? Are they particularly common?
  - pron 9y ago
    Sure. From the plebeians of ancient Rome, through the French revolutionaries and American abolitionists and feminists of the 19th century, to the feminist suffragists[1] of the early 20th century. [1]: One of the things I always find hilarious is the constant refrain among conservatives is "well, the old generation was right but this one has gone too far!" despite the constant decline in the fervor of feminist activism for over a century now. :)
    - haberman 9y ago
      It's not just conservatives saying that, it is also people who have been feminists their whole lives: https://areomagazine.com/2016/12/29/why-i-no-longer-identify-as-a-feminist/ https://areomagazine.com/2016/12/29/why-i-no-longer-identify... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/am-i-a-bad-feminist/article37591823/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/am-i-a-bad-feminist/...
      - pron 9y ago
        Yep, for centuries (millennia, actually) the pattern is the same. A social change movement is invariably viewed as having "gone too far", but in order to be perceived as reasonable, the critics invariably say that the previous generation was right. Don't get me wrong: movements certainly can and do go "too far"[1], but in about 100% of the cases, the political activism that has brought us where we are was viewed as having gone too far (the American revolution and the abolitionist movement included). In general, conservatives (like Pinker) pretty much always get the history wrong (the facts, the interpretation, and usually both), while liberals are usually wrong about the future (and I say this as a radical leftist). That's why it's easy to poke fun at conservatives who write history (certainly those who, like Pinker, are not professional historians), while liberals are always surprised of the turn of events (for good or bad; when liberals -- including myself -- are optimistic I'm worried, and when they're pessimistic I know I can relax). [1]: Feminists not so much; there's been a constant decline in the fervor feminist activism over the past century, but certainly, say, the French revolutionaries. Feminism has always been special for many understandable reasons. It is almost always the most timid form of social activism, yet almost always perceived as the most radical.
        haberman 9y ago
        > Don't get me wrong: movements certainly can and do go "too far"[1], but in about 100% of the cases, the political activism that has brought us where we are was viewed as having gone too far (the American revolution and the abolitionist movement included). Sure, by some. It's also true that in about 100% of cases where people have argued for legitimately bad social change (eugenics, communism, prohibition, etc.), those people (and their allies) cast their opponents as immoral and regressive. It's like Carl Sagan said: "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." Today on Twitter I saw a conservative arguing that people who deny the personhood of a fetus are like slaveowners who denied the personhood of slaves. As a radical leftist, I doubt you'd agree with that. But this person is just as convinced as you that they are the progressive on this issue. So we need a better heuristic than "people arguing social change are probably right." Some are right, others are not.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  Can you give some examples of prominent activists who want radical changes?
- pron 9y ago
  > This approach is indefensible given the actual state of the world, and these activists are either confused about the facts, or cynically manipulating their followers for personal power. Except that, as any student of history knows, the current state of the world is what it is thanks almost entirely to people just like that (although historians generally view them in a better light than you do because of what they've achieved, despite always being presented by conservative forces in the same light as you view them).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - pas 9y ago
    My technophile bias is showing, but I'm not convinced that any, all, and every past and present student of history thinks that progress is due to violent/radical revolutionaries, and that they are/were the good guys (gals) - even if revolutions were necessary for change. However, it's seems very evident that to extract even some minuscule progress from a conservative power structure a very strong anti-conservative force is usually a must, and that is usually not a moderate progressive force, but a very blunt radical one. Again, however, that doesn't mean that the best course of action is a violent tabula rasa, even if things are currently shit. But, it can be argued that a moderate force simply bounces back without much effect, but even the recent events of the last decade make that argument very unconvincing. (As big changes are easily usurped by blind populism, leaving no room to critical evaluation of possible policy proposals.)
    - pron 9y ago
      > and that they are/were the good guys (gals) - even if revolutions were necessary for change. While my training as a professional historian was cut short, I know enough to say that historians are very much trained not to judge or categorize people into good or bad. That has nothing to do with the fact that most social change has been achieved through political struggle. > Again, however, that doesn't mean that the best course of action is a violent tabula rasa, even if things are currently shit. I try not to prescribe a course of action based on the past. I note that Pinker's assessment is judgmental, i.e., he considers the main trend to be positive, yet at the same time he's judgmental against activists. My point is that you can't hold both views at once.
haberman 9y ago
I don't think Pinker is against activists making the world better. But activists need to convince people that their ideas actually will improve things. Lots of activists have made the world better, but some have made it worse, despite having good intentions (see: eugenics, communism). If you're trying to sell people on the idea that status quo institutions like capitalism are bad, you have to compare it to the alternatives. You can't just say "bad things happen under capitalism, therefore we need to do away with it." That's comparing capitalism vs. utopia, but utopia doesn't exist, for all kinds of practical reasons. Pinker makes the case for what the world as we know it has achieved. An activist who thinks another system would be better has to convince people that their alternative will achieve more.
- sooheon 9y ago
  > An activist who thinks another system would be better has to convince people that their alternative will achieve more. Not necessarily according to Pinker's cherry picked statistics. Plantation owners were not going to achieve more by freeing their slaves, at least according to their own accounting.
  - haberman 9y ago
    Sure, if someone else thinks other statistics are relevant, they can cite those. I agree that a plantation owner would probably have cited statistics that didn't capture the harms of the fact that they are enslaving people.
- pron 9y ago
  "The world" hasn't achieved anything on its own. People of precisely the kind Pinker dislikes and dismisses are those who have achieved those things for our world. They achieved it not by convincing others through theory, but through their strong beliefs. You're right, sometimes they failed miserably, but even those who've brought us to where we are today were ridiculed just as those who've failed.
benbreen 9y ago
I think you're not being charitable to Pinker here - he's not in my view "nefarious," and he's arguing his points in good faith. That said, I agree with you. I read Better Angels in its entirety and thought parts of it were very convincing. Others were deeply, provably wrong to anyone who is a professional historian (for instance, he let a bunch of Harvard RA's loose on some non-peer reviewed books purporting to statistically describe fatalities in wars that are very poorly documented, then used this faulty data to draw huge, misguided conclusions, like WW1/WW2 being less damaging in aggregate than the An Lushan rebellion). I actually really enjoy Pinker's writing style and he is clearly brilliant (as I learned when I tried to spar with him a bit in a Q&A and he casually parried what I thought was a devastating counter-example!) But IMO his intelligence is actually his downfall when it comes to this particular argument. He's convinced himself that everything is getting better, and he is indeed very convincing on certain aspects of this point. The problem, as you say, is with the scale of his conclusions. Certain things like the use of the death penalty and rates of infant mortality really are going down, demonstrably. Other things, like the risk of massive destruction due to a stolen nuclear weapon or EMP or a Nick Bostrom-style evil AI, or even just a generalized societal decline due to economic inequality and environmental degradation, are almost certainly getting worse. Pinker is so self-assured as a writer and thinker that he runs the risk of giving us all a false sense of complacency and a license to ignore these very real problems.
- pron 9y ago
  Maybe he's arguing in good faith, but his conservative views are so deeply entrenched that even he fails to see how conservative he is. Such an extreme ideology that you yourself cannot distinguish from what you perceive to be neutral reasoning is the primary sign of a weak critical mind. I find Pinker to be one of the weakest public minds of our times for that reason, and for that I find him terribly boring. A writer who is so far behind the reader in understanding his own text makes the reading boring rather than interesting.
  - pas 9y ago
    Could you expand on what do you mean conservative here? Also, could you recommend some public minds whom you consider strong?
euyyn 9y ago
What problem do people in this conversation have distinguishing current state from current rate? Complain that things are bad and fight to improve them? Sure. Complain that things are getting worse over time? It's false in a global sense, and in most specific senses too.
- pron 9y ago
  But this is precisely where Pinker is wrong. Political change is not meant to be a scientific study. It is a movement towards a goal based on values.

by pron 9y ago

mseebach 9y ago

There is a certain rather loud, rather fashionable kind of "activist" who are if not directly claiming that everything is awful, then strongly evoking symbolism and imagery to that effect. To fix this, they want to take broad, radical action, basically to affect revolution. This approach is indefensible given the actual state of the world, and these activists are either confused about the facts, or cynically manipulating their followers for personal power. If they get their way, things will get worse, quickly. These are the people Pinker is rebutting. There is also a kind of activist that work towards fixing specific problems, including Gates, but certainly also a great many people of lesser means and public profile, and does indeed improve the world in the way you describe. I have no doubt that Pinker respects these.

jahnu 9y ago
Any examples of this kind of activist? Are they particularly common?
- pron 9y ago
  Sure. From the plebeians of ancient Rome, through the French revolutionaries and American abolitionists and feminists of the 19th century, to the feminist suffragists[1] of the early 20th century. [1]: One of the things I always find hilarious is the constant refrain among conservatives is "well, the old generation was right but this one has gone too far!" despite the constant decline in the fervor of feminist activism for over a century now. :)
  - haberman 9y ago
    It's not just conservatives saying that, it is also people who have been feminists their whole lives: https://areomagazine.com/2016/12/29/why-i-no-longer-identify-as-a-feminist/ https://areomagazine.com/2016/12/29/why-i-no-longer-identify... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/am-i-a-bad-feminist/article37591823/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/am-i-a-bad-feminist/...
    - pron 9y ago
      Yep, for centuries (millennia, actually) the pattern is the same. A social change movement is invariably viewed as having "gone too far", but in order to be perceived as reasonable, the critics invariably say that the previous generation was right. Don't get me wrong: movements certainly can and do go "too far"[1], but in about 100% of the cases, the political activism that has brought us where we are was viewed as having gone too far (the American revolution and the abolitionist movement included). In general, conservatives (like Pinker) pretty much always get the history wrong (the facts, the interpretation, and usually both), while liberals are usually wrong about the future (and I say this as a radical leftist). That's why it's easy to poke fun at conservatives who write history (certainly those who, like Pinker, are not professional historians), while liberals are always surprised of the turn of events (for good or bad; when liberals -- including myself -- are optimistic I'm worried, and when they're pessimistic I know I can relax). [1]: Feminists not so much; there's been a constant decline in the fervor feminist activism over the past century, but certainly, say, the French revolutionaries. Feminism has always been special for many understandable reasons. It is almost always the most timid form of social activism, yet almost always perceived as the most radical.
      - haberman 9y ago
        > Don't get me wrong: movements certainly can and do go "too far"[1], but in about 100% of the cases, the political activism that has brought us where we are was viewed as having gone too far (the American revolution and the abolitionist movement included). Sure, by some. It's also true that in about 100% of cases where people have argued for legitimately bad social change (eugenics, communism, prohibition, etc.), those people (and their allies) cast their opponents as immoral and regressive. It's like Carl Sagan said: "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." Today on Twitter I saw a conservative arguing that people who deny the personhood of a fetus are like slaveowners who denied the personhood of slaves. As a radical leftist, I doubt you'd agree with that. But this person is just as convinced as you that they are the progressive on this issue. So we need a better heuristic than "people arguing social change are probably right." Some are right, others are not.
enraged_camel 9y ago
Can you give some examples of prominent activists who want radical changes?
pron 9y ago
> This approach is indefensible given the actual state of the world, and these activists are either confused about the facts, or cynically manipulating their followers for personal power. Except that, as any student of history knows, the current state of the world is what it is thanks almost entirely to people just like that (although historians generally view them in a better light than you do because of what they've achieved, despite always being presented by conservative forces in the same light as you view them).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pas 9y ago
  My technophile bias is showing, but I'm not convinced that any, all, and every past and present student of history thinks that progress is due to violent/radical revolutionaries, and that they are/were the good guys (gals) - even if revolutions were necessary for change. However, it's seems very evident that to extract even some minuscule progress from a conservative power structure a very strong anti-conservative force is usually a must, and that is usually not a moderate progressive force, but a very blunt radical one. Again, however, that doesn't mean that the best course of action is a violent tabula rasa, even if things are currently shit. But, it can be argued that a moderate force simply bounces back without much effect, but even the recent events of the last decade make that argument very unconvincing. (As big changes are easily usurped by blind populism, leaving no room to critical evaluation of possible policy proposals.)
  - pron 9y ago
    > and that they are/were the good guys (gals) - even if revolutions were necessary for change. While my training as a professional historian was cut short, I know enough to say that historians are very much trained not to judge or categorize people into good or bad. That has nothing to do with the fact that most social change has been achieved through political struggle. > Again, however, that doesn't mean that the best course of action is a violent tabula rasa, even if things are currently shit. I try not to prescribe a course of action based on the past. I note that Pinker's assessment is judgmental, i.e., he considers the main trend to be positive, yet at the same time he's judgmental against activists. My point is that you can't hold both views at once.

haberman 9y ago

I don't think Pinker is against activists making the world better. But activists need to convince people that their ideas actually will improve things. Lots of activists have made the world better, but some have made it worse, despite having good intentions (see: eugenics, communism). If you're trying to sell people on the idea that status quo institutions like capitalism are bad, you have to compare it to the alternatives. You can't just say "bad things happen under capitalism, therefore we need to do away with it." That's comparing capitalism vs. utopia, but utopia doesn't exist, for all kinds of practical reasons. Pinker makes the case for what the world as we know it has achieved. An activist who thinks another system would be better has to convince people that their alternative will achieve more.

sooheon 9y ago
> An activist who thinks another system would be better has to convince people that their alternative will achieve more. Not necessarily according to Pinker's cherry picked statistics. Plantation owners were not going to achieve more by freeing their slaves, at least according to their own accounting.
- haberman 9y ago
  Sure, if someone else thinks other statistics are relevant, they can cite those. I agree that a plantation owner would probably have cited statistics that didn't capture the harms of the fact that they are enslaving people.
pron 9y ago
"The world" hasn't achieved anything on its own. People of precisely the kind Pinker dislikes and dismisses are those who have achieved those things for our world. They achieved it not by convincing others through theory, but through their strong beliefs. You're right, sometimes they failed miserably, but even those who've brought us to where we are today were ridiculed just as those who've failed.

benbreen 9y ago

I think you're not being charitable to Pinker here - he's not in my view "nefarious," and he's arguing his points in good faith. That said, I agree with you. I read Better Angels in its entirety and thought parts of it were very convincing. Others were deeply, provably wrong to anyone who is a professional historian (for instance, he let a bunch of Harvard RA's loose on some non-peer reviewed books purporting to statistically describe fatalities in wars that are very poorly documented, then used this faulty data to draw huge, misguided conclusions, like WW1/WW2 being less damaging in aggregate than the An Lushan rebellion). I actually really enjoy Pinker's writing style and he is clearly brilliant (as I learned when I tried to spar with him a bit in a Q&A and he casually parried what I thought was a devastating counter-example!) But IMO his intelligence is actually his downfall when it comes to this particular argument. He's convinced himself that everything is getting better, and he is indeed very convincing on certain aspects of this point. The problem, as you say, is with the scale of his conclusions. Certain things like the use of the death penalty and rates of infant mortality really are going down, demonstrably. Other things, like the risk of massive destruction due to a stolen nuclear weapon or EMP or a Nick Bostrom-style evil AI, or even just a generalized societal decline due to economic inequality and environmental degradation, are almost certainly getting worse. Pinker is so self-assured as a writer and thinker that he runs the risk of giving us all a false sense of complacency and a license to ignore these very real problems.

pron 9y ago
Maybe he's arguing in good faith, but his conservative views are so deeply entrenched that even he fails to see how conservative he is. Such an extreme ideology that you yourself cannot distinguish from what you perceive to be neutral reasoning is the primary sign of a weak critical mind. I find Pinker to be one of the weakest public minds of our times for that reason, and for that I find him terribly boring. A writer who is so far behind the reader in understanding his own text makes the reading boring rather than interesting.
- pas 9y ago
  Could you expand on what do you mean conservative here? Also, could you recommend some public minds whom you consider strong?

euyyn 9y ago

What problem do people in this conversation have distinguishing current state from current rate? Complain that things are bad and fight to improve them? Sure. Complain that things are getting worse over time? It's false in a global sense, and in most specific senses too.

pron 9y ago
But this is precisely where Pinker is wrong. Political change is not meant to be a scientific study. It is a movement towards a goal based on values.