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Except that he isn't spreading it. What his detractors claim is that he secretly believes in some variety of "scientific racism", which makes him a Bad Person.

by gjm11 4y ago

Except that he isn't spreading it. What his detractors claim is that he secretly believes in some variety of "scientific racism", which makes him a Bad Person. Maybe he does and maybe it does, but believing something secretly isn't spreading it. I guess it depends on what "it" is. He has (not very often, but more than zero times: see https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science-fair-project/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid..., specifically section III) said positive things about the idea that Ashkenazi Jews are on average unusually smart, perhaps as a result of evolutionary pressure arising from centuries of persecution. This isn't usually what people mean by "scientific racism", and it doesn't seem obviously very infohazardous to me. (Maybe a bit infohazardous. I can see ways in which you could start there and end up being Just Plain Racist. But I haven't seen much evidence that this is in any way common.)

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
In a recent post he said that people couldnt handle the scientific fact that black people are more criminal. Let me just dig out the exact quote so I'm not paraphrasing: > True facts can be hyperstitious slurs. “Black people commit more crime” [...] This leads to another sort of vicious cycle: half of people understand it’s a true fact that they’re not supposed to say for signaling reasons, the other half have never heard it before and assume it must be a vicious lie, and you end up with situations where someone notices that some police department arrests more blacks than whites, accuses that specific police department of racism, and everyone is afraid to explain what’s going on. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/give-up-seventy-percent-of-the-way https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/give-up-seventy-percen... It's a classic from the "I'm not racist, black people are just scientifically interior and I can't let that fact go unacknowledged" school of race-"realism". And how you get people like Steve Sailer to be regular commenters, saying things like: > It's OK to be white" was created to be a wholly unobjectionable statement that is still widely objected to. The goal is to demonstrate that wokeness is driven by anti-white racist animus. It works. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Steve_Sailer https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Steve_Sailer
- woooooo 4y ago
  You're kinda proving the point here. Scott said that if someone mentions this 100% true and uncontroversial statistic without also including a bunch of defensive verbiage, most people will shoot the messenger. He didn't say anything about anyone being inferior, you attributed that to him.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Yes it's so clever how he manages to skirt so close to saying it that people like Steve Sailer feel comfortable commenting, but without actually stating it clearly in amongst his multi-thousand word rambles. Probably didnt have room to clarify. It's all very teenage edgelord. He's triggering the libs with "facts" like black people commit more crime and attracting an audience of people who think that "the jews control the media", "being gay is a disease" etc. How smart and intelligent of him.
    - woooooo 4y ago
      Why is "facts" in quotes? I'll note, again, the passage you linked wasn't about crime rates or african americans. It was about your reaction you're having here.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        Yes it was. He was claming "black people commit more crime" is a valid thing to say, that you can't because woke people can't cope with the truth, though he'd probably be upset if someone said "women get paid less than men". Oh, you're implying they get paid less for the same work, when really they just choose not to be CEOs because they love babies so much, he'd say, because he knows there's a whole bunch of political baggage that goes along with the "fact" that women are paid less. He's more than smart enough to know what he's doing when he says these things.
        woooooo 4y ago
        You're doing the thing though, for 3 posts in a row. You're not handling the truth. You're not ruminating on the societal factors that give rise to these statistics, you're freaking out at the fact that this guy mentioned them at all. Exactly like he said you would.

by gjm11 4y ago

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

In a recent post he said that people couldnt handle the scientific fact that black people are more criminal. Let me just dig out the exact quote so I'm not paraphrasing: > True facts can be hyperstitious slurs. “Black people commit more crime” [...] This leads to another sort of vicious cycle: half of people understand it’s a true fact that they’re not supposed to say for signaling reasons, the other half have never heard it before and assume it must be a vicious lie, and you end up with situations where someone notices that some police department arrests more blacks than whites, accuses that specific police department of racism, and everyone is afraid to explain what’s going on. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/give-up-seventy-percent-of-the-way https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/give-up-seventy-percen... It's a classic from the "I'm not racist, black people are just scientifically interior and I can't let that fact go unacknowledged" school of race-"realism". And how you get people like Steve Sailer to be regular commenters, saying things like: > It's OK to be white" was created to be a wholly unobjectionable statement that is still widely objected to. The goal is to demonstrate that wokeness is driven by anti-white racist animus. It works. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Steve_Sailer https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Steve_Sailer

woooooo 4y ago
You're kinda proving the point here. Scott said that if someone mentions this 100% true and uncontroversial statistic without also including a bunch of defensive verbiage, most people will shoot the messenger. He didn't say anything about anyone being inferior, you attributed that to him.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Yes it's so clever how he manages to skirt so close to saying it that people like Steve Sailer feel comfortable commenting, but without actually stating it clearly in amongst his multi-thousand word rambles. Probably didnt have room to clarify. It's all very teenage edgelord. He's triggering the libs with "facts" like black people commit more crime and attracting an audience of people who think that "the jews control the media", "being gay is a disease" etc. How smart and intelligent of him.
  - woooooo 4y ago
    Why is "facts" in quotes? I'll note, again, the passage you linked wasn't about crime rates or african americans. It was about your reaction you're having here.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      Yes it was. He was claming "black people commit more crime" is a valid thing to say, that you can't because woke people can't cope with the truth, though he'd probably be upset if someone said "women get paid less than men". Oh, you're implying they get paid less for the same work, when really they just choose not to be CEOs because they love babies so much, he'd say, because he knows there's a whole bunch of political baggage that goes along with the "fact" that women are paid less. He's more than smart enough to know what he's doing when he says these things.
      - woooooo 4y ago
        You're doing the thing though, for 3 posts in a row. You're not handling the truth. You're not ruminating on the societal factors that give rise to these statistics, you're freaking out at the fact that this guy mentioned them at all. Exactly like he said you would.