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I'm reading it as a criticism of views, not a criticism of people, which seems like an important difference. If your best friend growing up is now a white supr
by geofft 6y ago
I'm reading it as a criticism of views, not a criticism of people, which seems like an important difference.
If your best friend growing up is now a white supremacist, and for various reasons you want to keep being friends with them - maybe you're trying to talk them out of it, maybe you know they've got some deep personal trauma that you can help with and you want to be compassionate about that, whatever - I think there's a pretty good argument that that's your business. (To be clear, I think there's also a pretty good argument that you should ensure you're not effectively making them think that you support their positions or actions, though, but that's beside the immediate point.) There's good reasons to choose to be friends with them and that's your judgment.
If you link to their white supremacist writings, though, you're giving a platform and publicity to white supremacist writings. You're not amplifying or supporting them as a person: you're amplifying the messages they're communicating. And so the moral weight of that is in fact on you.
I think the article does do a pretty good job of talking mostly about views and not people, though it is obviously easiest to refer to views by the people who espouse them (especially in the case of personal blogs, which is what most of these are). The article is not trying to say that it's newsworthy that Sam Altman is best buddies with Elon Musk who married to Grimes who hangs out on a discord with Scott Alexander. The article is not trying to say that the NYT of the future will create simulations of Grimes just to cancel her.
The article is trying to say that, for instance, it's newsworthy that OpenAI is heavily influenced by Rationalist rhetoric about the urgency of building a friendly AI that implements your worldview, and that the worldview of this Rationalist community happens to be a worldview that gets an uncomfortable amount of support from white supremacists (and not just in the "We like this" sense, in the "This argument supports our argument" sense).
- jessedhillon 6y agoThis discussion is incomplete unless it also comprehends that the definition of white supremacy (or x-phobia, patriarchy, misogyny) in elite and academic circles has expanded incredibly, to the point where it bears no relation to any reasonable person's understanding of these terms. Despite this, apparently well-intentioned people try to have conversations about these concepts, but the terms no longer have shared meaning. It's not clear whether SSC is being denounced for associating with cross-burners, or just with those who believe merit exists. In elite discourse, both of those positions are now white supremacy.
- sjg007 6y agoUmm.. there's definitely evidence of white supremacy in scientific research, especially older work now discredited.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jessedhillon 6y agoDid I say otherwise?
- rayiner 6y agoAnd for people who think it’s just some wackadoos who use “white supremacy” in this way, behold FCPS (the school board in the Virginia county where I grew up). https://www.baconsrebellion.com/wp/anti-racist-teacher-harasses-minority-parents https://www.baconsrebellion.com/wp/anti-racist-teacher-haras.... People railing against the “white supremacy” of a high school (the one I went to) that’s overwhelmingly Asian. This isn’t Berkeley California. It’s a historically Republican county that went for Bush against Gore and only narrowly went for Kerry four years later.
- jessedhillon 6y agoSimilarly, this is an astonishing (and infuriating) interview with SF board of ed president Gabriella Lopez: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-san-francisco-renamed-its-schools https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-san-francisco-ren... Even for SF, this is extreme. Side note, for years I used to see the name "rayiner" and roll my eyes at the "reactionary libertarian" opinions expressed. In the past year though, I myself have come much closer to where you've consistently been. Part of it is the rapid leftward drift of major institutions -- media, workplace, education -- during the Trump years, and the distinct absence of any kind of critical discussion of this phenomenon. The other part is probably that I'm now at the point of having children soon. Either way, I now feel that the most sane and practical thing to advocate for is that there should be less institutional power available to be captured by extremists. In this case, it should matter a lot less that the school board is composed of lunatics, or that the NYT is trending towards naked culture war propagandism.
- soheil 6y ago> OpenAI is heavily influenced by Rationalist rhetoric The sheer number of hoops you had to jump through to be a NYT apologist is just mind numbing. No, OpenAI isn't influenced by Grimes' chat messages on discord to mind-control us.
- geofft 6y agoI specifically said the Grimes connection isn't the point being made. OpenAI is in fact influenced by, if not rooted in, Rationalist rhetoric about AGI and alignment: https://openai.com/charter/ https://openai.com/charter/ Are you claiming it is not??
- soheil 6y agoI think you're missing the point. It is the NYT that is making those absurd links and for you to defend it is indescribable and grim.