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Comment by cooper12 | Hacker News Reader

Holy shit that link you shared was so frustrating to read. To think of all the productive things a great intellectual like Chomsky could be doing with his time. Instead he generously chose to engage someone who had already made their conclusion and just wanted to "debate" without actually ceding to any points (take a shot any time OP says "liberal" or "PC"). He even hints at OP's "intentional ignorance" many times too... What a patient soul to debate someone whose entire education on race issues was some /pol/ infographic and right-wing blogs. OP could have taken some time to read some pre-existing literature, to learn the opposing side's arguments and especially when corresponding with an academic, to read their prior writing. Instead we have this..... the state of public discourse on the web 2.0.

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Most people do stuff like this to sharpen their teeth.

There's a great recording on Youtube of a biology grad student debating Kent Hovind on the broad subject of evolution. Even though Hovind is essentially a confidence man, the conversation is enlightening nonetheless because the grad student knows his shit and gives some surprising lucid explanations that I haven't heard in other general audience discussions of evolution.

Also, most people rely on a kind of "smell test" to keep from engaging with certain types of arguments. That can quickly create a moral hazard where the person being avoided misrepresents people's reluctance to engage as proof that he/she is a noble dissident with the courage to speak the truth.

When someone like Chomsky, Ken Miller, Glenn Greenwald, or another intellectual engages directly with such people it pushes them into a corner where they either have to deliver the goods, change the subject, or commit a fallacy.

In a debate, Greenwald forced one of the former NSA directors into such a situation when the response was, "Collect everything doesn't really mean collect everything." Trusting nature of most people being what it is, these forced errors have value.

> Instead he generously chose to engage someone who had already made their conclusion and just wanted to "debate" without actually ceding to any points (take a shot any time OP says "liberal" or "PC").

Chomsky was not prepared to cede any points either. In many places, he does not respond to the probing questions asked of him at all (this is assuming the poster didn't add them in afterwards) instead opting to insult the poster.

Poster:

    1: By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today?
    2: For example, how is white supremacy responsible for single-parent families in the American black community? Allegedly single-parent rates have skyrocketed since the Civil Rights Movement.

Chomsky:

    Racism is quite extreme today, and by many measures increasing. I don’t know what cocoon you live in.
    Perhaps you are completely unfamiliar with racism and its impact, in particular, the extreme racism experienced constantly by African-Americans. If so, I would suggest that you learn something about the world, and then you will understand the mechanisms very well. If you don’t want to have direct experience – which is not that hard –then at least look at the literature.
    Again, try following your own logic. It’s not genes, so it is circumstances. Do you perceive any circumstances beyond the extreme white racism that it takes real effort to be oblivious to?

> He even hints at OP's "intentional ignorance" many times too.

Hinting at ignorance is not helpful unless you show a path away from ignorance. Saying that something is obvious or trivial (as Mathematicians say) is not helpful. If it is truly obvious, just provide evidence.

Now this is not to criticize Chomsky, he is still replying rather than remaining silent. And with his limited time, it doesn't necessarily make sense for him to give a solid argument in that case, but his argument in that link wasn't convincing.

> Chomsky was not prepared to cede any points either.

That was patently clear from the thread. His followers also showed a complete lack of intellectual honesty, by trying to avoid any of the points made in the thread and instead trying to dismiss with paternalistic non-sequiturs such as "Why should Chomsky waste time shoring up your self-imposed ignorance?"

When a cult-like following forms, they do behave like a cult.

I mean if you're just going to give non-argumentative question-begging, why even respond? I think Chomsky was wasting Chomsky's time more than the kid.

Chomsky had stated earlier that there are experts to read who cover such things. The kid kept asking variations of the same question. If I were Chomsky I would have been done after a couple of responses.

"These 'experts' agree with me" is not an argument. Indeed, clearly Chomsky did not want to engage the argument so ceasing responding would have been logical.

That's a pretty good argument to me. I defer to Wiles and other mathematicians on FLT. Full stop, that's sufficient to me.

The purpose of an argument is to show why something is true. Saying an 'expert' believes something is true does not show why it is true nor that it is true. Deferring to Wiles is just ceasing to argue.

I know I should be "deferring to Wiles" here too, since you are oblivious to what's being said in response. There are certain things that we take for granted: like gravity. Or a round Earth. If some flat-earther comes over and starts asking you to prove that the Earth is flat, or that gravity is not just little gremlins pulling on your jeans, then I think it's safe to "defer to an expert".

"Why some people are poor" is not as conclusively understood as the curvature of the earth.

I see it as being more along the lines of there have been entire books written on the subject by people with more expertise than me that can cover the matter in far greater detail than a mere email. If the questioner is truly curious, then he has a resource to indulge his curiousity. If the questioner is acting in bad faith, then all of the information in the world isn't going to change his mind.

Its called Appeal to Authority, and it is considered a logical fallacy - basically the opposite of Argument Ad Hominen.

You're only committing a "appeal to authority" fallacy if you contend that something is true because the person saying it is "an authority." Pointing out that someone is clueless on a topic and suggesting they read the literature and gain some baseline knowledge is not the same thing at all.

As to whether it is, as someone said above, "simply ceasing to argue" one can rightly say "so what?" None of us owe some random person on the Internet our participation in their argument. Time is valuable and it's entirely reasonable to check out of an argument or discussion and say "here, go read these books" if you don't stand to gain anything from continuing the dialog.

"These 'experts' agree with me" is not an argument.

What's your point in saying so? I would guess that Chomsky could care less about winning an Internet "argument" with some random dude. From his point of view, it's entirely reasonably to say "go read the literature and come back when you're more informed". If the other party doesn't want to do that, they have no moral claim to Chomsky's continued participation in the discussion.

Simply that it was odd that Chomsky continued the conversation when he didnt want to actually explain his point of view. His point that "why some people are poor" is well settled science answerable with a literature review is not being honest either.

There's immense difference between ignorance and intentional ignorance - for intentional ignorance showing a path isn't helpful, since the problem is taking a step on the obvious path.

The example questions you included are just not even wrong and are themselves loaded with racism. It would take hours or days of remedial education just to get the person asking them up to speed on the history and circumstances around black Americans' experiences to the point where the racism in his questions could be addressed. And that assumes he's honestly curious and not just spouting racism disguised as a question on purpose.

In such a forum there just isn't a point to treat the poster as coming from a place of honest discussion.

> The example questions you included are just not even wrong and are themselves loaded with racism.

What about the first question, "By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today?", is loaded with racism? It is asking for how white supremacy directly affects black culture. I do not see how even the assertion "There is not a mechanism by which white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today." instead is racist. It may not be an educated viewpoint, but I do not see it as racist.

Besides whether the question is racist, a good answer to the question could be very illuminating. You could probably fill a book responding to that question.

Readable version...

Poster:

> 1: By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today?

> 2: For example, how is white supremacy responsible for single-parent families in the American black community? Allegedly single-parent rates have skyrocketed since the Civil Rights Movement.

Chomsky:

> Racism is quite extreme today, and by many measures increasing. I don’t know what cocoon you live in.

> Perhaps you are completely unfamiliar with racism and its impact, in particular, the extreme racism experienced constantly by African-Americans. If so, I would suggest that you learn something about the world, and then you will understand the mechanisms very well. If you don’t want to have direct experience – which is not that hard –then at least look at the literature.

> Again, try following your own logic. It’s not genes, so it is circumstances. Do you perceive any circumstances beyond the extreme white racism that it takes real effort to be oblivious to?

More from Chomsky.

> Why were you and your friends raised in a different non-ghetto culture? Agreed, it has absolutely nothing to do with genes. Rather, it has everything to do with extreme white racism, which includes refusal to acknowledge what has been created by a history of 400 years of vicious slave labor camps which were the source of a large part of our wealth and privilege, a culture of white supremacy that is the most extreme in the world, beyond South Africa, as comparative studies have shown, and very powerful effects right to the present moment. Including what is sometimes called “intentional ignorance”.

Worth noting that the questioner was pretty much stonewalling him by asking the same question over and over. That's not how to have a constructive dialogue.

That's not really accurate. Chomsky's "key statement" at the very beginning of the thread refers to studies that have demonstrated "white supremacy that is more rampant here even than it was in apartheid South Africa." That, despite the experience of racism being a naked fact that anyone with eyes can see should they make a modicum of effort to break out of their "white racist cocoon". But these studies would presumably detail how white supremacy works, for those that need it explained.

He implies that these studies are readily available, alongside "a huge literature of professional criminology," for anyone willing to look. What he's facing here is an interlocutor that isn't interested in doing the research or following logic, just citing right-wing op-eds.

That's why whenever I speak to someone and they have a strong opinion I like to ask them how many books they've read on that subject. It's almost always zero. You can pretty much instantly discard anyone like that as it's a decent baseline litmus test. If you really cared about something, you would read at least one if not multiple books on the subject. Anything less is just laziness and someone who wants to get an endorphin rush from anger or other emotions.

What you described is a lot better (read some pre-existing literature, to learn the opposing side's arguments and especially when corresponding with an academic, to read their prior writing). But usually even bad books are going to blow a DuckDuckGo search out of the water on quality. Especially for those who aren't astute enough to identify good and bad information.

I've found that the book medium invites for a lot of opinions from an author and usually selective references to prove some point. Sort of the same reason that when you read scientific papers, you don't want to just read those written by a single lab.

When I want to find out how something works I usually read a meta analysis or a review in a highly rated journal in the field. That way you get to see everyone's opinions and arguments on the subject. They are usually written to be more or less accessible for people not in the field.

I think it pays to read long-form book reviews about a book if one is concerned that the book has the sort of flaws you mention. I read "From Bauhaus to Our House," a book by Tom Wolfe on modern architecture, and then I went to the local university library and looked up reviews about it. I found many pointers to follow, of which only a few could be followed up that day. Plus in that case I could have researched the various architects mentioned in the book.

I've made my mind about Nazism, because it strikes me as an abominable philosophy. I haven't read any books about it though. Would you dismiss anything I said about it until I read Mein Kampf? Most people have only read a handful of books. If they were limited to expressing their views on those topics, there wouldn't be very much said about anything in society. I'm not sure society would benefit from that.

>I've made my mind about Nazism, because it strikes me as an abominable philosophy. I haven't read any books about it though. Would you dismiss anything I said about it until I read Mein Kampf?

I think that you're using the theme of nazism as a way to make an opinion from a protected standpoint -- it's difficult to refute what you say without sounding sympathetic to nazis.

But i'll say it anyway : I think you, and anyone else in the same boat, hold less authority on a topic without being well-versed on said topic.

It's really that simple for me.

Don't stop speaking to or throw out the opinions of folks uneducated on a topic, just weigh them appropriately along with the expert opinions.

"Making up your mind" without educating yourself on the topic is dangerous, no matter which side you start leaning towards.

I'm not telling you to go pick up 'Mein Kampf' -- not by a long shot -- but to condemn all books on the topic is frighteningly naive as a societal habit. It propagates a certain kind of sneaky "head-in-the-sand" behavior that may lead to even more strife in our world, and prevents the great historic feedback-loop of the knowledge of our past preventing historical repetitions of our worst atrocities.

Well, Godwin is Godwin.

I think a better example would be Marx's Das Kapital. I probably wouldn't waste any time talking to someone about 20th century political & economic history/theory who dismisses it out of hand.

And I can tell you the vast majority of Americans will dismiss it. The standard response to "I've read it" is: "What, you're a commie?"

That's a very interesting anecdote. About 15 years ago I went to my local library and checked out every book by Marx that I could get. One of the librarians said "why would you want to read THAT". She looked actively disgusted.

I'm not a Marxist, but I have read Marx and Engels. If I had to be pidgeonholed into any political ideology that would be the vein I'd choose. I probably most appreciate Peter Joseph from the Zeitgeist Movement, which is similar and derided as "Communism with robots". But at least I've read a few treatises on the subject. I also went to Moscow about a decade ago, simply because I didn't want to form a strong opinion about a world power that everyone thinks they know about- without actually at least stepping foot on their soil myself.

In sum, people need to put their mind where their mouth is.

Yes thank you. You gave a much better example than I did. I just chose Nazism because Charlottesville was fresh in my mind.

You have an opinion about Nazism. You certainly do know less than someone who has read Mein Kampf, so your opinion is to be discarded versus someone like Noam Chomsky's. Who probably has read Mein Kampf. As long as you accept that, and accept why some outsider would take Chomsky's take on Nazism over yours, then we're on the same page.

I do think society would benefit greatly if we cut out the masses who have strong opinions on subjects they haven't even bothered to read.

Your Nazism opinion for example, doesn't sound like it's based on much other than trendiness. If it were 1935 and you were in the environment where it were popular- someone like yourself would probably would be Sieg Heiling with your jackboots on, in all seriousness.

I'd like to think I wouldn't be a brownshirt, because that makes me feel better. But I guess its definitely possible if I didn't make up my own mind about things and I went with the crowd.

> If you really cared about something, you would read at least one if not multiple books on the subject.

I'm not sure how true that is anymore. If by "book" you mean "monothematic long-form treatise by a small number of authors" then I have read essentially zero books in the past year, although I have done a great deal of reading otherwise. Research papers, magazines, blog posts, Wikipedia articles, cherry-picked single chapters of books can in aggregate absolutely stand in for a few books. And then there are sources of knowledge that go beyond reading, such as personal experience, original research, attending talks, etc.

I think your test would be more accurate if you asked more generally how they learned what they know about the matter.

It probably doesn't apply to you, or a few others in the minority. If you're intelligent enough to be able to identify credible sources vs those which are not, then you're probably better off. I offered that up as a low-bar. That said, usually if you're truly into a given subject you'll eventually find a book by someone that you really want to read.

Example for me other than Marx & Engels that I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, is my passing interest in European Celts. I enjoy reading about Iron Age Europe, so I've had a hard time resisting books on the subject. Caesar's Druids by Miranda Aldhouse-Green was a recent book that I read and something I couldn't pass up. While I accept your statements and agree, I still think the same will be for you if you're truly serious about a given subject.

That's a pretty pathetic litmus test. I would rather engage someone who has read individual research papers, blogs from researchers, etc than books.

Nearly all of the best programmers I have met have never read a book on the languages in which they are experts.

Books are not conducive to learning about a whole field, they are just a way for authors to lecture you on their world view.

I agree, it is a pathetic litmus test. It still sounds like a very high bar for the majority of people though, right. Good luck finding people who have even read one book on a subject they're so angry about they'd punch you over it. It really demonstrates interest, not expertise, and potentially not even a well rounded opinion as you stated.

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