Hacker News Reader

Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

Video begins with this Eric touted as a founder/coiner of "The Intellectual Darkweb" which as far as I can tell is something like a new political brand. I don't think it's appropriate for any political branding to appear as a part an exposition of Science & Math positions (or otherwise) on HN. IE, HN usually isn't a platform for any political position.

Vaguely skipped forward and found speculation about like Tom Lahrer as a marker for intelligence. I like Tom Lahrer but this all seems way outside the concrete AI and compiler articles I come to HN for.

View on HN

The Intellectual Darkweb absolutely belongs on HN when they're talking about interesting stuff. There are people from the left and right in the IDW - it's quite intellectually diverse.

That said, I don't agree with the premise that because somebody is open about their political beliefs, they can't say or do "anything that good hackers would find interesting." [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I don't think the claim that the "intellectual darkweb" includes a broad range of political positions holds up to any scrutiny - the many prominent members of the group (Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro) are strongly identified with right wing politics and not one left wing of similar significance appears.

Well, there's also Sam Harris, Brett Weinstein. Both are strongly left wing.

Indeed. Its far from being a right wing group.

Ahem ... that's not really my understanding what left means. Sam Harris is definitely not left wing (see his discussions with a progressive: Glen Greenwald).

Brett Weinstein seems to be, but he's an exception.

The dark web was assoicated with Alex Jones (now he vanished from their website)

In addition, Peterson, Weinstein, Harris ... etc see themselves as libertarians. Freedom of speech advocates. Yet, they just speak out when somebody of their tribe is restricted (see the Patreon debate or the Evergreen State College issues). If it's about somebody not in their "tribe", e.g. refusing a Pro-Israel Oath they are awfully quiet. https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/israel-texas-anti-bds-la...

Real left wing, progressives (Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Amy Goodman) will defend freedom of speech even for people that they don't share a cause of opinions with. For example: Greenwald defended Neo-Nazis as a lawyer on freedom of speech grounds.

Can't take the dark web serious. It's just another tribe pushing their agenda. Sam Harris is pro war against terror and talks about the US foreign politics as a "gentle, benevolent giant". Check what US does in Venezuela right now. And Compare Sam Harris actions to Jeremy who went undercover in Iraq ;) Edits: grammar

I think those are fair criticisms, tho Dave Rubin does defend free speech to the extreme. He calls himself a free speech absolutist. Ben Shapiro is quite a free speech absolutist as well (when he's not accusing people of being anti semitic lol).

I do wish the others would be as rock solid as Rubin and Greenwald tho. I actually consider Greenwald to be part of the the IDW because he asks the questions that you're not supposed to ask, and does real journalism, and defends real free speech.

> Check what US does in Venezuela right now.

As a Venezuelan, I’m curious to know what you mean by this.

I'm yet to be convinced that the adjective "intellectual" in "Intellectual DarkWeb" holds up to any scrutiny either. I think history shows we should be suspicious of movements that claim the intellectual high-ground (or moral high-ground) in their name - even when I am sympathetic to their conclusions.

Examples include: The "Brights", the "Rationalist" Societies, "Euthanasia" (translating to 'good death').

The "Intellectual" DarkWeb is populated by many examples fringe figures whose contributions are considered laughable in their own claimed fields, Stephan Molyneux being a complete joke in Philosophical circles but impressing his teenage and tech-trained audience is a prime example. Christina Hoff Sommers is another figure whose brand of feminism seems far more widely supported by people who've never taken the time to read a book by a single other feminist. Sam Harris's forays into Moral Philosophy and Free Will again do not find a sympathetic audience of any significant size among people who actually study these subjects and know much about them. Jordan B Petersen is an unusual case because his noteriety and audience is far more to do with his political statements (attacking trans people, misogynist comments, claims of a conspiracy of Post-Modern Marxists) that are substantially separatable from both his academic work (Maps of Meaning) or his weird self-help manual (even though this shoehorns in his conspiracy theorizing).

Peterson never attacked trans people. This reflects poorly on how much you actually know about him.

Agrees. If you actually watch his interviews his main issue was with the law, not trans people.

That might be a bit more convincing if it was some gigantic tome of a proposal that was only relevant to trans people in some tangental aspect.

Instead, this 1-page bill is entirely about trans people, and adding them to a long list of groups already protected from discrimination by law. It is 1 page long. It adds 4 words to passages of existing law.

Here [1] is the entire text of it, read it for yourself.

Peterson has no comparative problems with the existing law protecting discrimination for the following groups: race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability.

He does, however, specifically believe that extending these same protections already offered to everyone else to trans people amounts to a threat to society.

[1] https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/AnnualStatutes/2017_13/F...

You posted a reference to the law. Good start. Now post a reference to what he actually said.

Jordan Peterson rose to prominence by publicly misrepresenting and demonizing Canadian House Bill C-16, a bill which extends human rights protections to Transgender people.

No, he was specifically opposed to compelled speech, not the trans protection piece. Read his interviews.

There is no compelled speech in the bill, see the full text. If you have the misapprehension that there was, would that be something you got from Jordan Peterson?

The name was chosen very carefully for a specific purpose, nothing to do with proclaiming moral high-ground. Eric explains the various meanings in a video he uploaded to his channel [1].

I would argue Molyneux is not remotely part of the IDW. I haven't heard anyone within it say anything remotely positive about him or willing to associate with him. Eric's brother, Bret an evolutionary biologist, regularly mocks Molyneux and explains why his interpretation of evolutionary theory is wrong [2][3][4][5].

Also part of the IDW name originates from Eric's observation that mainstream academics unwilling to either publicly debate his findings or defend theirs. When those findings could potentially decrease the impact of their work or demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor [6]. He's noticed this in other fields too, like biology with Bret's theory on cultural evolution. Only just this year did he get a chance to debate Dawkins.

[1] 'Why the "Intellectual Dark Web" has such a crazy name': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr0OX6ai4Qw

[2] https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/1070217128211443712

[3] https://twitter.com/bretweinstein/status/1070127960009564160

[4] https://twitter.com/bretweinstein/status/1103765054191656963

[5] https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/1070150469895413760

[6] Eric's talk at Stanford from 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_brHQRMu9k

Reply on news.ycombinator.com