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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   36912 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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That's the rub, isn't it? Any time you make a venue to attract intelligent people founded on a certain set of principles, if you succeed, those principles will inevitably be challenged, because intelligent people (who you wanted to attract) always challenge principles and ideas. Perhaps by its original standards this place would have stayed better if it had stayed dumber, because dumb people listen and obey.

There may be a correlation between intelligence and contrarianness, but I think you're going a step beyond that and asserting a correlation between intelligence and aggression, or between intelligence and lack of charity.

I find that much more doubtful.

I will repeat my recent reply to a very similar objection for efficiency's sake in response to you:

Maybe not, but I'm not sure that the agreeable are generally more intelligent than the "disagreeable" (assuming in this case that a mere propensity for dissent and adversarial analysis is equivalent to the psychological trait of disagreeableness, but I won't get into the weeds of dissecting that now) either. That means that at a minimum, if you try to draw intelligent people to your platform, you will attract both kinds. In fact, if even just 5% of intelligent people are somewhat "disagreeable" (or actually disagreeable), that's still enough people in raw terms to force every janny online into a jumble daily.

So while I was perhaps asserting such a correlation (not sure if I want to commit to that or explain more nuance, but it's not super important), and I am perhaps wrong if I was, it's still worth nothing that no such correlation is required for "aggressive", "charity-lacking" (by your standards, as by my standards the mods here often lack the most charity when modding others' posts) people to be all up in your intellectual discussion venue (based on subjective frequency of appearance).

I haven't asserted that agreeability correlates with intelligence either. In fact, I just said that I think plausibly intelligence correlates with being contrarian.

But being contrarian, or even just disagreeableness simpliciter, is not the same thing as being a passionate culture warrior who seeks heat rather than light. I don't particularly care to discuss moderation here, particularly since, in my experience, culture and implicit norms are vastly more important than explicit rule enforcement.

Where I object to what you're saying is that I think you're defending a pugilistic, uncharitable approach to discussion, which I think is opposed to a goal like actually learning. I think a measure of charity, of good-faith curiosity and desire to understand different perspectives, is necessary for intellectual growth, and that's what I think is lacking in what you advocate.

That doesn't mean I think people should be dishonest, passive, or should feign agreement. Forthrightness is an intellectual virtue. But that is still a long way away from a Hitler-like "fire and brimstone" approach.

It may be that fire and brimstone are more persuasive - indeed, if your goal is to sway the public, they almost certainly are. In your top comment, you described Hitler as a 'great rhetorician', and indeed he was. But rhetoricians optimise for persuasiveness, rather than truth-seeking. 'Winning' in the sense of swaying more of an audience is something you may sometimes want to aim for. But here is supposed to be a place about 'winning' in the sense of learning and increasing your understanding.

That's why I think the aggressive, militant approach is wrong here. Soldier mindset, to use Galef's term, may be great for soldiers - but we're not soldiers. This is not a barracks.

I think the main conflict between us here is I don't see my "pugilistic" (good description) approach as inherently uncharitable. Can you point out where you think I lacked sufficient charity in terms of inaccurately or mendaciously characterizing things?

If I attack someone fiercely for what they've actually done that's truly terrible, then I've given them as much charity as they deserve, which is none, which means I've still been optimally charitable. Nor has the revelation of the truth been harmed. In fact, it's been enhanced by accurate characterization.

I'd argue that in the top post here you go beyond merely not being maximally charitable. You also engage in what I'd argue is childish name-calling. I won't criticise e.g. calling Scott's argument 'facile', which I think is within bounds, but how do you justify phrases like "ever since he let himself be fully chastity caged by Ozy and co."? That's a childish insult that is entirely unnecessary to the point you're actually making.

That seems to be to be more aggression than the minimum needed for truth-seeking or truth-speaking.

For what it's worth, I am in no way sympathetic to Scott's lifestyle or that of the Bay Area rationalists. You describe them as "weird Berkeley polysex people" above, and as it happens I fully agree that their lifestyles are deserving of contempt, particularly as regards so-called 'polyamory'. But when that is not germane to the point being made, I omit it.

That's a childish insult that is entirely unnecessary to the point you're actually making.

  1. It's not childish as children generally do not have knowledge of what a chastity cage is or what being in one would mean.

  2. It is entirely true and also entirely necessary to the point I am making in that sentence as it is one of the main central criticisms of him worth being made these days.

Is it? By whom?

I have no idea whether or not it is literally true that Scott Alexander wears a chastity cage. Frankly I think that's an absurd thing to even discuss - there's no way it could be relevant to any argument he makes, and the norms of politeness I learned as a child were that it's rude to closely enquire into somebody else's sexual life anyway. I don't want to know what Scott Alexander's sexual fetishes are. I just don't.

At any rate, my understanding was that we were discussing cancellation, courtesy, and how much charity to show to those who disagree with us.

You do realize that it's not a literal comment, right? It means that Ozy and the other social justice types in his polysquad or whatever have restricted his intellectual and literary output more and more to that which does not offend left-wing/transsexual sensibilities. It is his mind that is in the chastity cage, not his penis (well maybe that too but I have no idea).

If it were his penis, that would still be a valid criticism, but that's not the criticism I was making.

I took the phrase "it is entirely true" to be an assertion that it is true in every particular.

But if you grant that it's just a salacious, I would say needlessly offensive or aggressive, way of saying "I believe Scott is too influenced by left-wing or social-justice-oriented thinkers", then I think that just makes my point for me. You expressed that point in a needlessly aggressive way.

"You are too influenced by socially left-wing thinkers" and "you let your girlfriend lock you in a chastity cage" are not equivalent statements, even if you mean the latter as a metaphor for the former.

Put it this way. If you told me "you're too influenced by the left", I'd respond by curiously asking what you mean, and what blind spots you think I might have. If you told me "you're a beta sissy cuck", I'd punch you in the face. Make sense?

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