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Comment by memexy | Hacker News Reader

I didn't take very good notes but if you want to point me to the archive and posts you think are good I will be happy to go through them and outline what associations are being made and why.

I stopped reading SSC after I noticed certain patterns and decided I did not want those ideas rattling around in my head. So I gave you a high level impression / outline of what conclusions I reached without providing the actual trail of evidence that lead to it. If you want more precision then you will need to point me to specific posts of his so we can argue about them because even the people defending him are not providing any actual arguments for why his writing was good. They're providing very high level impressions shaped by an echo chamber.

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"certain patterns" is still not an outline so it's hard for me to pick a set of posts.

But let's go with this one:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200202214359/https://slatestar...

since I suspect that will comfortably draw out our underlying disagreements (and if you don't know who Phedre no Delauney is, the Kushiel's Dart novels are fantastic and you've missed out).

From the post you link to:

"Why not assassinate prominent racist and sexist politicians and intellectuals?"

I would definitely qualify these kind of straw-men as a "certain pattern" of language designed to incite rather than for insight.

When it's a reply to somebody speaking of war and weapons and given as a disapproving extrapolation ad absurdum of that attitude, I don't see that it's intended to incite so much as to elucidate the idea that incitement is itself a bad thing.

andrewprock already found an example and I agree with his assessment. If you have snippets that you think are worthwhile then feel free to post them. Associating assassination with people, even as a question, is sinister. A polite and kind person would not make that association or even ask the question because it implants the idea in the reader's mind and they start thinking antagonistically towards certain groups that he's suggesting should be "assassinated".

It's terrible and dreadful writing (it elicits terror and dread in the reader).

Should people ask taboo questions? Yes, they should ask such questions in private conversations with people they trust. When the interpretation is out of your hands then you need to be really careful what information you are making available to the public / audience. It's clear he doesn't think through the logic and wants to come across as smart. It's juvenile. Adults speak with intent and they address people directly and respectfully. I have never seen any adult conversations on SSC, I've only ever seen people that are peacocking their intelligence.

Let me quote perhaps the most important part of the essay and the part that I believe truly defines this ethos.

-- begin quote

When I was young and stupid, I used to believe that transgender was really, really dumb. That they were looking for attention or making it up or something along those lines.

Luckily, since I was a classical liberal, my reaction to this mistake was – to not bother them, and to get very very angry at people who did bother them. I got upset with people trying to fire Phil Robertson for being homophobic even though homophobia is stupid. You better bet I also got upset with people trying to fire transgender people back when I thought transgender was stupid.

And then I grew older and wiser and learned – hey, transgender isn’t stupid at all, they have very important reasons for what they do and go through and I was atrociously wrong. And I said a mea culpa.

But it could have been worse. I didn’t like transgender people, and so I left them alone while still standing up for their rights. My epistemic structure failed gracefully. For anyone who’s not overconfident, and so who expects massive epistemic failure on a variety of important issues all the time, graceful failure modes are a really important feature for an epistemic structure to have.

-- end quote

I read the humility and desire to not to harm even when you're wrong inherent in that passage as the exact opposite of "peacocking intelligence" - and I find your choice to use PUA terminology to describe the behaviour to be either unintentionally gross or deliberately unkind depending on whether or not you were aware that was what you were doing.

Yes. I was aware of my characterization and the word peackocking (to make a vainglorious display; strut like a peacock) was used before it was co-opted by PUA community (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/peacocking).

Let's rewrite that paragraph and use fewer emotionally charged words.

As a younger person I thought transgenderism was about seeking attention. But being trained in the liberal arts I decided to question this assumption and not act antagonistically towards them because of my personal interpretation of their situation.

As I got older I realized my initial assumption about attention seeking was incorrect and I took responsibility for and corrected my beliefs.

I guess it could have turned out differently if I hadn't been trained in the liberal arts. So I'm glad my training included keeping an open mind and accepting people different from me and with different life circumstances.

Same exact content, none of the emotional baggage and vainglory.

Notice all the words I took out because I knew they would elicit negative reactions in the reader: stupid, dumb, mistake, very very angry, upset, homophobic. He repeated those words enough times that a perceptive reader would have picked up on the subtext of him trying to distance himself from those negatively valenced words. He's not trying to educate the reader, he's trying to put distance between himself and certain associations. That's why it's not good writing. It's about him, it's not about the reader. And in his attempt to "peacock" he's putting associations into the reader's mind that are detrimental to the reader's thought processes all the while elevating himself as a paragon of goodness. As the term "peacock" suggests, his writing is vainglorious.

That rewrite completely loses the point though.

The point is not "accepting people different than me", it's "having suitable principles to still fight in favour of people I might otherwise rightly or wrongly dislike".

You completely removed the part where he not only didn't act antagonistically towards them but actively opposed other people doing so as well.

And that part was the single most important part, and the principle he was arguing in favour of.

If you think your rewrite was the same exact content, then I'm afraid I don't think you understood what he was saying at all.

> If you think your rewrite was the same exact content, then I'm afraid I don't think you understood what he was saying at all.

Bingo!

He's obviously not a very good writer. I don't need to argue for freedom of speech and equal rights and justice for all because in my world those are givens. I don't need to justify to myself or others why those truths are self evident. Nor do I need to recount a story about being young and stupid. Everyone used to be young and stupid, that's also a given. There is no need to write it on a blog and show how you're so much better than what you used to be. Let your actions show how you are better. I don't need to be told when I can infer directly from someone's actions whether they're good or not. Words are deceptive, actions are truthful.

I don't put words like "very stupid", "angry", "I'm afraid", "fearful", etc. in my writing because I don't identify with those things and I don't want anyone reading my words to identify with them either. If I intend to say something then I say it without flowery language about my youth or emotionally charged words because I reserve those words for private conversations with people that I trust.

> I don't need to argue for freedom of speech and equal rights and justice for all because in my world those are givens.

The article was about somebody who was arguing that using falsified numbers about rape statistics was not only acceptable feminism but was actually a good thing and that anybody who disagreed with that deserved to be destroyed.

Speaking as somebody who believes that the truth is quite sufficient justification for feminism to win, and that lying serves only to hand our enemies means to attack us, I believe that sadly we live in a world where that argument does need to be made.

I would prefer to live in a word where these arguments don't need to be made. I would prefer to live in a world where those truths are self evident.

But we don't yet, as both Adria Richards and David Shor have found out to their detriment. So making the argument that we should continues to be valuable.

Then there are better ways to make those arguments. Recounting stories about being "young and stupid" is not one of those ways.

I am entirely fine with you believing that there are better ways to make those arguments - in fact, given any specific argument is almost certain to be imperfect, one would assume that there are.

But I would note that "there are better ways to make those arguments" is quite a distance from your original position.

What was my original position? More precisely, what did you think was my original position?

> It's hard to explain but his intention in much of his writing was coded. He would consistently use certain keywords and phrases to make certain associations and when you follow through the logic it becomes very sinister.

Yes, and you provided an example of such associations with "youth", "stupidity", "anger", "fear", "transphobia", "homophobia", "atrocity", "anger at others", "anger with self", "dislike of others", "opposition to others", etc.

> When I was young and stupid, I used to believe that transgender was really, really dumb. That they were looking for attention or making it up or something along those lines.

> And then I grew older and wiser and learned – hey, transgender isn’t stupid at all, they have very important reasons for what they do and go through and I was atrociously wrong. And I said a mea culpa.

> The point is not "accepting people different than me", it's "having suitable principles to still fight in favour of people I might otherwise rightly or wrongly dislike".

> You completely removed the part where he not only didn't act antagonistically towards them but actively opposed other people doing so as well.

What word other than "sinister" would you use to characterize the cluster of words I quoted which are implicit in the writing I quoted?

> andrewprock already found an example and I agree with his assessment.

But do you have a dispute for the counterpoint from mst? If so, what is it?

Which counterpoint? Several such points have been made already. Do you have a specific one in mind?

You apparently know which one it was, and can look up the response. It isn't a very long response either.

I'm not going to quote it here, because it gives you a chance to talk about it at me rather than with the original person who brought up the counterpoint.

So then you weren't asking the question in good faith. When I asked you to clarify you dodged the question. I wouldn't ask if I knew, I asked because I didn't know what you were referring to.

If you want me to talk to you then make a direct point instead of confused remarks about what I know and don't know and conversations I had with other people that were unrelated to you.

> So then you weren't asking the question in good faith.

Yes, I was.

> When I asked you to clarify you dodged the question. I wouldn't ask if I knew, I asked because I didn't know what you were referring to.

If you didn't know what I was referring to, then you didn't know who you were referring to when you said the following: >> andrewprock already found an example and I agree with his assessment.

> If you want me to talk to you

I have no desire for you to talk to me: that was exactly why I asked you to respond to the other person and not me.

> If you want more precision then you will need to point me to specific posts of his so we can argue about them

This was basically a random selection because I'm curious to hear what your objections actually are:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190102011649/https://slatestar...

> Popular consensus believes 100% X, and absolutely 0% Y.

He already starts off with antagonism. Where is the data for this? How does he know what the popular consensus is? Why is he drawing such a sharp delineation between "popular" and their association with X and Y?

> A few iconoclasts say that X is definitely right and important, but maybe we should also think about Y sometimes.

Seems like he thinks he's an iconoclast and the people that associate with that will start to act out iconoclastically themselves and if you look at the comments you will notice that. They're modeling what Scott is outlining in the post.

> I can see why this pattern is tempting.

How clever of him to notice this pattern and point out it is tempting.

> If somebody said the US should allocate 50% of its defense budget to the usual global threats, and 50% to the threat of reptilian space invaders, then even though the plan contains the number “50-50” it would not be a “moderate” proposal.

He's making a really weird analogy. This is not what people argue about and he has created an extreme view that does not exist by comparing a position to "space invaders".

Anyway, I'm not reading further. I'm already convinced he's not making any worthwhile point here. He's using emotionally charged language to draw the reader in and make them identify with him. It's a poor tactic. It only works on people that don't notice it. And I think this is the most damning evidence against him, as a psychologist he should know this is what he's doing by making these statements. He doesn't speak / write like someone that has knowledge of human psychology. He speaks / writes like someone that uses knowledge of human psychology to confuse his audience.

Please note that Scott Alexander is a psychiatrist, not a psychologist.

The two professions are quite different.

Yes, thanks for pointing it out. Both types of professionals receive training in understanding the human psyche so my point remains unchanged

> A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are medical doctors, unlike psychologists, and must evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments, or strictly psychiatric. A psychiatrist usually works as the clinical leader of the multi-disciplinary team, which may comprise psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, and nursing staff. Psychiatrists have broad training in a bio-psycho-social approach to assessment and management of mental illness.

> A psychologist is a person who studies normal and abnormal mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior by experimenting with, and observing, interpreting, and recording how individuals relate to one another and to their environments.

Yes, I am aware of the difference.

I have a doctorate in psychology, which gives me a PhD. It does not qualify me to prescribe drugs and save the lives of people on airplanes, which is something that a psychiatrist could be reasonably asked to do.

While psychiatrists spent time understanding physical and mental disorders, psychologists spend time understanding cognitive and behavioural aspects of humanity and running experiments (most of which are extremely difficult to control).

They are completely different things, like.

Which part of my statement about being trained in the human psyche was incorrect? Also, I didn't ask about your credentials and they're irrelevant to whatever point you're trying to make. I have a graduate degree in math. Have we dispensed with the credentials now?

I feel like you may be getting upset, which I am sorry for.

I am mentioning my credentials because I have been complaining about people not distinguishing between psychologists and psychiatrists for many, many years. I am a little triggered by such comparisons.

The human psyche (incidentally not a word you ever hear in psychology (and potentially psychiatry) classes) is large, and psychologist and psychiatrists focus on very different things.

Like it's fine if you don't see a difference between the two subjects, but others do as they are very, very different.

I guess the closest analogy would be if I called you (a mathematician by training, i assume) a statistician.

Many people might not see the difference between the two roles, but I am relatively confident that you would.

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