5 ms·

Your skepticism is well warranted. Unfalsifiable theory, dogma you can't question, purity tests, good vs evil, original sin, heresy, excommunication, self-flage

by Reedx 6y ago

Your skepticism is well warranted. Unfalsifiable theory, dogma you can't question, purity tests, good vs evil, original sin, heresy, excommunication, self-flagellation and so on... It's a religion and Kafkatrap, but not yet widely recognized as such. Further explanation: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/intellectual-fraud-robin-diangelos-white-fragility/ https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/intellectual-fraud-robin-d... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/why-third-wave-anti-racism-dead-end/578764/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/why-third-... https://www.wsj.com/articles/jonathan-haidt-on-the-cultural-roots-of-campus-rage-1491000676 https://www.wsj.com/articles/jonathan-haidt-on-the-cultural-... https://unherd.com/2020/01/modern-politics-is-christianity-without-redemption/ https://unherd.com/2020/01/modern-politics-is-christianity-w... http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

avs733 6y ago
I find it interesting you choose the word 'explanation' as opposed to 'counter argument'
- DagAgren 6y ago
  He also chose the word "kafkatrap", a word coined by a notorious racist.
  - textgel 6y ago
    Using a kafkatrap against an opponent you can't beat in debate when they have just pointed out the tactic is probably ill advised; perhaps try something else; Ad hominem or motte and bailey for example.
    - DagAgren 6y ago
      "Kafkatrap" is a meaningless term, beyond "stop calling me a racist just for saying racist things". Acting like it's an accepted logical fallacy is ridiculous. It's a term ESR made up because people kept rightly calling him a sexist and racist and he didn't like it and threw a tantrum.
      - textgel 6y ago
        Well lets see... oh that's odd, that meaningless term appears to have a real meaning https://debate.fandom.com/wiki/Kafka_Trap https://debate.fandom.com/wiki/Kafka_Trap . Now why would you be willing to lie about that? Seems it's a perfectly accepted logical fallacy; and the only people who deny it are the sjw crowd largely because it is such a favoured tactic within their ranks.
        DagAgren 6y ago
        https://www.dictionary.com/browse/kafkatrap?s=t https://www.dictionary.com/browse/kafkatrap?s=t https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kafkatrap https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kafkatrap https://dictionary.cambridge.org/spellcheck/english/?q=kafkatrap https://dictionary.cambridge.org/spellcheck/english/?q=kafka...
        textgel 6y ago
        Yes those are dictionary's for definitions of words not a repository of debate tactics; if you'd checked you'd also notice that there's no entry for "motte and bailey falacy", "Appeal to Ignorance" or "appeal to authority"; funnily enough it doesnt prevent those existing either.
        DagAgren 6y ago
        https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/logic_in_argumentative_writing/fallacies.html https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/... Still not seeing it.
        textgel 6y ago
        Well yes if you purely limit yourself to a single college of liberal arts list of definitions then you won't, however search engines are your friend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies And desperately clinging to any page-not-found of whatever website you can find to display it isn't exactly the most secure display of debate.
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    Ironically, you're employing a fallacious debate tactic (ad-hominem attack) while incorrectly trying to label a different debate tactic fallacious.
  - Reedx 6y ago
    It describes a fallacy and have no idea who coined it. First learned of it on HN, actually. You don't know who coined "coined", but they may well have been a racist. Are you going to stop using it if so? Does that mean it's no longer useful for communication? Are you going to investigate every word on the chance it might've been and strike those from the lexicon?
    - DagAgren 6y ago
      It is, in fact, not useful for communication, because it does not honestly communicate anything. It exists only to undermine people who try to call you out on making bigoted remarks. It was coined by ESR, and is popular mainly with people with a strong affinity for bigotry, like him, and also libertarians.
toasterlovin 6y ago
Don’t forgot literal washing of feet and prostration in public gatherings! Some of the scenes from these protests bear an uncanny resemblance to Easter services.
GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
To be clear, I don't think Anti-racism isn't a kafkatrap or "religion". I take issue with the polite white-centric material made to further coddle and remove liability from future racist incidents.
taurath 6y ago
Newdiscourses seems to be a website dedicated /entirely/ to taking down the author and the book. A sampling of their articles over the past 2 weeks: "In Defense of the Status Quo" "White Silence is NOT Violence" "A Principled Statement of Opposition to Critical Race Theory" "Eight Big Reasons Critical Race Theory is Terrible for Dealing with Racism" Further investigation shows the site owner, James Lindsay makes his entire living being an activist against gender studies and critical race theory. There's an extraordinary amount of resources dedicated to pushing back against the Robin Diangelo. Having heard her speak and having read at least a bit of her book, most of it is showing white people that all the things that we've tried over the past 10, 20 years are clearly not working. There's little improvement in inclusiveness in traditional white/male dominated cultures, such as the engineering teams at FAANGs for instance. Its insisting that you do something actually about it rather than patting yourself on the back for doing what you think is the right things. It takes a great amount of twisting about to ignore the main points, and all of the writers you linked have done so. What you call the "dogma" of dealing with a racist culture I call people lived experience. Its heartbreaking to me how very conservative-minded and flat out defensive on issues of inclusion and race the HN community has been when the subject of race is allowed to be a thread.
- blub 6y ago
  In order to have a complete picture, one also has to ask which "foo/bar dominated" cultures are inclusive if white/male dominated ones aren't. As far as I'm aware, the majority population in any country, irrespective of skin color is intolerant to various degrees toward minorities, ranging from genocide and internment camps to harassment and minor discrimination. The US is certainly not leader of the pack, but not exactly terrible either, when one looks at the constant amount of outrage. It seems to me that a group of people in the US concerned about the topic of race in their country is projecting its distorted view of things on the planet and has furthermore chosen an approach which is doomed to fail. Good luck with that, but maybe this time the US could try to not also damage the rest of the world in the process of fighting a war on abstract nouns. Edit: Someone in a nuked comment said "Why on earth does one have to make a broad comparison of cultures to rank badness at racism before dealing with this instance? And are you saying 'inclusion' is quantitative or something? " Because by doing this comparison one can check if the problem of bias is universal (yep) and ingrained (yep), therefore suggesting that focusing on black vs. white in the US is counterproductive. Instead we should do research into individual and systemic biases and see how those could be kept under control. Punishing individuals is hilariously bad. In fact there's a direct parallel between this and safety engineering, where clueless organizations will punish an employee which made a mistake while they continue to lumber from incident to incident.
marliechiller 6y ago
im so glad i didnt have to scroll too far to see rebuttle to the cult handbook that is "white fragility". Thank you for your post and links

by Reedx 6y ago

avs733 6y ago

I find it interesting you choose the word 'explanation' as opposed to 'counter argument'

DagAgren 6y ago
He also chose the word "kafkatrap", a word coined by a notorious racist.
- textgel 6y ago
  Using a kafkatrap against an opponent you can't beat in debate when they have just pointed out the tactic is probably ill advised; perhaps try something else; Ad hominem or motte and bailey for example.
  - DagAgren 6y ago
    "Kafkatrap" is a meaningless term, beyond "stop calling me a racist just for saying racist things". Acting like it's an accepted logical fallacy is ridiculous. It's a term ESR made up because people kept rightly calling him a sexist and racist and he didn't like it and threw a tantrum.
    - textgel 6y ago
      Well lets see... oh that's odd, that meaningless term appears to have a real meaning https://debate.fandom.com/wiki/Kafka_Trap https://debate.fandom.com/wiki/Kafka_Trap . Now why would you be willing to lie about that? Seems it's a perfectly accepted logical fallacy; and the only people who deny it are the sjw crowd largely because it is such a favoured tactic within their ranks.
      - DagAgren 6y ago
        https://www.dictionary.com/browse/kafkatrap?s=t https://www.dictionary.com/browse/kafkatrap?s=t https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kafkatrap https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kafkatrap https://dictionary.cambridge.org/spellcheck/english/?q=kafkatrap https://dictionary.cambridge.org/spellcheck/english/?q=kafka...
        textgel 6y ago
        Yes those are dictionary's for definitions of words not a repository of debate tactics; if you'd checked you'd also notice that there's no entry for "motte and bailey falacy", "Appeal to Ignorance" or "appeal to authority"; funnily enough it doesnt prevent those existing either.
        DagAgren 6y ago
        https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/logic_in_argumentative_writing/fallacies.html https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/... Still not seeing it.
        textgel 6y ago
        Well yes if you purely limit yourself to a single college of liberal arts list of definitions then you won't, however search engines are your friend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies And desperately clinging to any page-not-found of whatever website you can find to display it isn't exactly the most secure display of debate.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  Ironically, you're employing a fallacious debate tactic (ad-hominem attack) while incorrectly trying to label a different debate tactic fallacious.
- Reedx 6y ago
  It describes a fallacy and have no idea who coined it. First learned of it on HN, actually. You don't know who coined "coined", but they may well have been a racist. Are you going to stop using it if so? Does that mean it's no longer useful for communication? Are you going to investigate every word on the chance it might've been and strike those from the lexicon?
  - DagAgren 6y ago
    It is, in fact, not useful for communication, because it does not honestly communicate anything. It exists only to undermine people who try to call you out on making bigoted remarks. It was coined by ESR, and is popular mainly with people with a strong affinity for bigotry, like him, and also libertarians.

toasterlovin 6y ago

Don’t forgot literal washing of feet and prostration in public gatherings! Some of the scenes from these protests bear an uncanny resemblance to Easter services.

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago

To be clear, I don't think Anti-racism isn't a kafkatrap or "religion". I take issue with the polite white-centric material made to further coddle and remove liability from future racist incidents.

taurath 6y ago

Newdiscourses seems to be a website dedicated /entirely/ to taking down the author and the book. A sampling of their articles over the past 2 weeks: "In Defense of the Status Quo" "White Silence is NOT Violence" "A Principled Statement of Opposition to Critical Race Theory" "Eight Big Reasons Critical Race Theory is Terrible for Dealing with Racism" Further investigation shows the site owner, James Lindsay makes his entire living being an activist against gender studies and critical race theory. There's an extraordinary amount of resources dedicated to pushing back against the Robin Diangelo. Having heard her speak and having read at least a bit of her book, most of it is showing white people that all the things that we've tried over the past 10, 20 years are clearly not working. There's little improvement in inclusiveness in traditional white/male dominated cultures, such as the engineering teams at FAANGs for instance. Its insisting that you do something actually about it rather than patting yourself on the back for doing what you think is the right things. It takes a great amount of twisting about to ignore the main points, and all of the writers you linked have done so. What you call the "dogma" of dealing with a racist culture I call people lived experience. Its heartbreaking to me how very conservative-minded and flat out defensive on issues of inclusion and race the HN community has been when the subject of race is allowed to be a thread.

blub 6y ago
In order to have a complete picture, one also has to ask which "foo/bar dominated" cultures are inclusive if white/male dominated ones aren't. As far as I'm aware, the majority population in any country, irrespective of skin color is intolerant to various degrees toward minorities, ranging from genocide and internment camps to harassment and minor discrimination. The US is certainly not leader of the pack, but not exactly terrible either, when one looks at the constant amount of outrage. It seems to me that a group of people in the US concerned about the topic of race in their country is projecting its distorted view of things on the planet and has furthermore chosen an approach which is doomed to fail. Good luck with that, but maybe this time the US could try to not also damage the rest of the world in the process of fighting a war on abstract nouns. Edit: Someone in a nuked comment said "Why on earth does one have to make a broad comparison of cultures to rank badness at racism before dealing with this instance? And are you saying 'inclusion' is quantitative or something? " Because by doing this comparison one can check if the problem of bias is universal (yep) and ingrained (yep), therefore suggesting that focusing on black vs. white in the US is counterproductive. Instead we should do research into individual and systemic biases and see how those could be kept under control. Punishing individuals is hilariously bad. In fact there's a direct parallel between this and safety engineering, where clueless organizations will punish an employee which made a mistake while they continue to lumber from incident to incident.

marliechiller 6y ago

im so glad i didnt have to scroll too far to see rebuttle to the cult handbook that is "white fragility". Thank you for your post and links