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The case for his support for HBD-flavored racial supremacy is somewhat strong I don't think this is accurate at all. The case for his belief in HBD differences

The case for his support for HBD-flavored racial supremacy is somewhat strong I don't think this is accurate at all. The case for his belief in HBD differences is strong. But I don't think you'll find evidence of him translating that to supremacy or any kind of racial ranking, especially across all dimensions. In fact, I think you'll find that he disavows any such conclusions.

tptacek 4y ago
He links approvingly to articles that appear to do exactly that, all the while saying that his public statements don't match his private feelings. Respectfully, I believe my own lying eyes.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > ... all the while saying that his public statements don't match his private feelings Except that's not what he's doing, at all. There's no evidence that his links are intended to show approval either. A straightforward reading of what we've got is that he's probably been asked to discuss HBD in the previous (unseen by us) exchange and that's what he's doing, citing sources of HBDers' views.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    That beggars belief. Not only does he cite them approvingly, but he takes the time to distinguish between which ones he finds particularly well-founded, and uses them as the summation for his first and primary argument, followed by "NEVER TELL ANYONE I SAID THIS, not even in confidence". Again: the mail is right there for everybody to read.
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      We don't need to guess what the author's thinking. we know what his first and primary argument is since he tells us directly: he thinks HBD is worth discussing because a few of its claims are either likely to be true or hard to prove as not-true. (And his cautious framing of even this limited issue is revealing enough. One idea he's very clearly not entertaining, not even in private is "HBDers are 100% right about everything!") I'm not sure what's your evidence for rephrasing "well-founded" as an expression of approval, given this previous context. The easiest way by far of reading that exchange is that the author is simply pointing to sources, not approving of them.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        It's true, he doesn't think HBD-ers are 100% right about everything: Alexander is careful to point out that's he's not as sure about HBD's predictions vis a vis the four Albion's Seed English migrations to the US, in contrast to his other links, or the "absolute nuggets of gold" that include the HBD information he gleaned from neoreactionaries. How much attention do you want to keep drawing to this email? I'm happy to keep talking about it, but then, you know what I believe about Alexander at this point, so you can see why.
        zozbot234 4y ago
        This is where you might be missing some important context about Alexander's views. Namely, he's the guy who literally wrote a point-by-point refutation of neoreaction. And he clearly says in his email messages that he cares about debunking really bad neoreactionary ideas such as the ludicrous notion that we should all be collectively asking for a new king, like the frogs in Aesop's tale. So why not just credit the simplest explanation, that he's disappointed at not being able to do the same with a non-trivial portion of HBD claims? Do we really need to believe that this guy is secretly a huge racist who believes in fixed hierarchies of moral worth among races, when literally everything he writes publicly takes the very opposite as its starting point?
        tptacek 4y ago
        Look, I know I sound glib here, and I'm trying not to be, I promise I am, but the funniest part about this is: (1) I agree, Alexander isn't a supporter of neoreaction-ism, and (2) One of the few valuable bits of information he claims to have gleaned from them is NRx-flavored HBD! You get how that's essentially saying "well, I definitely don't think we should create a global monarchy, but those people do seem to have a point about the suitability of Africans for chattel slavery", right? That's what NRx-flavored HBD is. (I mean: it's really what all HBD is, but the NRx people are explicit about it.) But don't just take my word for it. One of the two "more" well-supported links he cites is to Steve Sailer's blog! I am not here to call you a racial supremacist for enjoying Alexander's writing, for whatever that's worth to you. I like a lot of Christopher Hitchens writing. That doesn't make me, personally, an alcoholic. (I edited this a bunch, but tried not to change the meaning of anything I wrote previously. Sorry if that was annoying.)
ineptech 4y ago
[flagged]
- CWuestefeld 4y ago
  Yeah. It's a little disappointing. I've always found his posts around cryptography especially to be very interesting, and he clearly knows at least as much about it as anyone else. So finding that he can be so close-minded and judgmental in other areas makes me sad.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    The person you're responding to is wrong. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=author%3Atptacek%20scott%20alexander&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Maybe they have me confused with someone else, maybe they're referring to the person who brought Alexander's flirtations with racial supremacy up on the first place ('tweren't I), or maybe they've concluded that not looking warmly on Alexander's claims of being "doxxed" by the NYT equates to believing he's a white supremacist. But, as you can see: Alexander is not a topic I find myself talking about all that much about on HN. Regardless: the mail is right there for all of us to read, and I reach the obvious conclusions having read it. I'm not as interested in Scott Alexander's moral failings as I am in other people's feeble defenses of HBD-ism; unlike Alexander, HBD is generally problematic, and does tend to demand a response. Finally: if you go looking through the 'dang comment archives, you'll find that we're not supposed to be litigating our posting histories or trying to dig up dirt on thread participants at all. Instead of replying to that comment warmly, you might have instead considered flagging it. I have trouble with this rule too --- there's a person on HN who fervently believes authenticated encryption is a bad thing, and I have a hard time not bringing that up in every cryptography thread they're in --- so I'm certainly not high-horsing you about it. At any rate, though: I'm right about the authenticated encryption thing, and whoever that rando is upthread, they're not right about me.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      ... in fact, if you dip into the Alexander doxxing thread, you'll find the person you're replying to made the same false allegation last year, too. That's a weird fixation to have, but everyone's got their hobbies, I guess.

tptacek 4y ago

He links approvingly to articles that appear to do exactly that, all the while saying that his public statements don't match his private feelings. Respectfully, I believe my own lying eyes.

zozbot234 4y ago
> ... all the while saying that his public statements don't match his private feelings Except that's not what he's doing, at all. There's no evidence that his links are intended to show approval either. A straightforward reading of what we've got is that he's probably been asked to discuss HBD in the previous (unseen by us) exchange and that's what he's doing, citing sources of HBDers' views.
- tptacek 4y ago
  That beggars belief. Not only does he cite them approvingly, but he takes the time to distinguish between which ones he finds particularly well-founded, and uses them as the summation for his first and primary argument, followed by "NEVER TELL ANYONE I SAID THIS, not even in confidence". Again: the mail is right there for everybody to read.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    We don't need to guess what the author's thinking. we know what his first and primary argument is since he tells us directly: he thinks HBD is worth discussing because a few of its claims are either likely to be true or hard to prove as not-true. (And his cautious framing of even this limited issue is revealing enough. One idea he's very clearly not entertaining, not even in private is "HBDers are 100% right about everything!") I'm not sure what's your evidence for rephrasing "well-founded" as an expression of approval, given this previous context. The easiest way by far of reading that exchange is that the author is simply pointing to sources, not approving of them.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      It's true, he doesn't think HBD-ers are 100% right about everything: Alexander is careful to point out that's he's not as sure about HBD's predictions vis a vis the four Albion's Seed English migrations to the US, in contrast to his other links, or the "absolute nuggets of gold" that include the HBD information he gleaned from neoreactionaries. How much attention do you want to keep drawing to this email? I'm happy to keep talking about it, but then, you know what I believe about Alexander at this point, so you can see why.
      - zozbot234 4y ago
        This is where you might be missing some important context about Alexander's views. Namely, he's the guy who literally wrote a point-by-point refutation of neoreaction. And he clearly says in his email messages that he cares about debunking really bad neoreactionary ideas such as the ludicrous notion that we should all be collectively asking for a new king, like the frogs in Aesop's tale. So why not just credit the simplest explanation, that he's disappointed at not being able to do the same with a non-trivial portion of HBD claims? Do we really need to believe that this guy is secretly a huge racist who believes in fixed hierarchies of moral worth among races, when literally everything he writes publicly takes the very opposite as its starting point?
        tptacek 4y ago
        Look, I know I sound glib here, and I'm trying not to be, I promise I am, but the funniest part about this is: (1) I agree, Alexander isn't a supporter of neoreaction-ism, and (2) One of the few valuable bits of information he claims to have gleaned from them is NRx-flavored HBD! You get how that's essentially saying "well, I definitely don't think we should create a global monarchy, but those people do seem to have a point about the suitability of Africans for chattel slavery", right? That's what NRx-flavored HBD is. (I mean: it's really what all HBD is, but the NRx people are explicit about it.) But don't just take my word for it. One of the two "more" well-supported links he cites is to Steve Sailer's blog! I am not here to call you a racial supremacist for enjoying Alexander's writing, for whatever that's worth to you. I like a lot of Christopher Hitchens writing. That doesn't make me, personally, an alcoholic. (I edited this a bunch, but tried not to change the meaning of anything I wrote previously. Sorry if that was annoying.)

ineptech 4y ago

[flagged]

CWuestefeld 4y ago
Yeah. It's a little disappointing. I've always found his posts around cryptography especially to be very interesting, and he clearly knows at least as much about it as anyone else. So finding that he can be so close-minded and judgmental in other areas makes me sad.
- tptacek 4y ago
  The person you're responding to is wrong. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=author%3Atptacek%20scott%20alexander&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Maybe they have me confused with someone else, maybe they're referring to the person who brought Alexander's flirtations with racial supremacy up on the first place ('tweren't I), or maybe they've concluded that not looking warmly on Alexander's claims of being "doxxed" by the NYT equates to believing he's a white supremacist. But, as you can see: Alexander is not a topic I find myself talking about all that much about on HN. Regardless: the mail is right there for all of us to read, and I reach the obvious conclusions having read it. I'm not as interested in Scott Alexander's moral failings as I am in other people's feeble defenses of HBD-ism; unlike Alexander, HBD is generally problematic, and does tend to demand a response. Finally: if you go looking through the 'dang comment archives, you'll find that we're not supposed to be litigating our posting histories or trying to dig up dirt on thread participants at all. Instead of replying to that comment warmly, you might have instead considered flagging it. I have trouble with this rule too --- there's a person on HN who fervently believes authenticated encryption is a bad thing, and I have a hard time not bringing that up in every cryptography thread they're in --- so I'm certainly not high-horsing you about it. At any rate, though: I'm right about the authenticated encryption thing, and whoever that rando is upthread, they're not right about me.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    ... in fact, if you dip into the Alexander doxxing thread, you'll find the person you're replying to made the same false allegation last year, too. That's a weird fixation to have, but everyone's got their hobbies, I guess.