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The eugenics angle comes from the infamous Timnit Gebru, among others.
Curiously, Gary Marcus (famous for his poor critiques of mainstream machine learning, and vague advocacy for neurosymbolic approaches) is also at risk of cancellation in a similar manner now. He has angered the same Timnit Gebru and some other ladies by not mentioning a diverse enough list of names of (mostly misguided, in his opinion) AI researchers in his recent interview with Ezra Klein (see decent commentary) – and for having a backbone, but only barely (but still more than Bostrom; always pitiful to see scared autistics)*. One of Gebru's allies has provided an exceptionally apt formulation of woke logic of power:
To wit. If you challenge our accusations, in whole or even in part, you are erasing our lived experience/silencing marginalized voices/perpetuating the iniquity etc. and are an enemy of progress, as expected of a privileged old white cisheteronormative dude (and to think we gave you a chance to prove you're different from that ilk!); thus you shall be destroyed. If you kowtow and acknowledge our accusations, you cede your moral agency to us, and as an ignorant, oafish «ally» with his heart in the right place who strives to do better, you will have to unquestionably assist us in struggles to come.
Or to quote Land's 2013 masterpiece again:
Or in terms a child would get: heads I win, tails you lose.
Poor bastard:
Well! Color me surprised.
Note the smug Domingos.
Bentham's bulldog is also guilty of dancing to their tune: what's the point of quoting Mother Jones as a gotcha? Whom is this supposed to win over? (Incidentally, here's a good refutation of that article.)
Some people say that wokeness is a religion. For the narrow circle of true believers, perhaps; and for conformists of little faith who go by Cuius regio, eius religio, arguably; but it's also much cruder than that. This is wokeness in practice, and it is not some cute alternative belief system from the academic hothouse that is poorly compatible with our philistine mores, but the cold logic of school bullying, the tactic of muggers who goad you into a rhetorical pitfall where you'll willingly part with your possessions to not get «rightfully» beaten, the dialectics of a Russian prison heart-to-heart with your rectum at stake. This is naked power-seeking, two-bit hostility of chronically defecting bad actors who think it clever to ignore plebeian rules of coexistence; systematic social parasitism and predation. And the proper reaction to this is what a tattooed thief-in-law would get for trying to quiz and then rape a law-abiding citizen in public.
Of course these people are not the problem. The problem is – to loan a page from their book – the «moderate majority» which isn't willing to recognize their epistemic terrorism for what it is and support actual victims. It would be perfectly reasonable for Marcus to reply with some variant of «oh piss off you psychotic witch» – except his own academic environment would disown him for it, rather then murmur «indeed, what the hell». He is, after all, presumed to need the status of an «ally» that these people have taken upon themselves the authority to assign; he can be threatened with its revocation. Gebru is higher-status than a mere professor emeritus who is a meritless superstar in his own right. Jeff Dean could politely defend her firing, but Jeff Dean is a crucial figure in an existentially important project for the world's premier corporation. Can Bostrom's clout measure up? Like everyone in this network, he's a lame duck after the fall of FTX, and he's probably irrelevant from now on.
For my part, I'll say that if these people define racism as a belief that black people have lower average IQ than other major population groups, then okay, I'm racist. If they define racism somewhat more rigorously, as a belief that black people have lower IQs for innate genetic reasons, I'm still racist: the evidence is just overwhelming. If they ever wish to destroy me for those views, it'll be useless to attempt to backtrack like Bostrom tries to do with his talking from both sides of his mouth.
If they ever attempt to convince others that this implies support of racial discrimination on my part, all I can do is recognize this as unjustified malice that does not merit charity, and insist in turn that their political platform has no place in a polite society.
° Says Bostrom:
There's nothing to think about, though. As of January 2nd, and in following with the NIH barring data access for political reasons, the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium has updated their restrictions on reusing their data. Now they've included a prohibition on using their PGS/PRS/GPS for prenatal or preimplantation genetic testing: «Investigators may not use these data to develop any type of risk or predictive test for an unborn individual».
I really think you're in a bubble, considering the context his response was very heterodox. He mentioned some true things about other factors that affect IQ, apologized for his language, but said he'd "like to leave it to others" to determine if genes play a factor in IQ. He's getting dragged for this, and others have called it brave, I don't think it's fair to call Bostrom spineless.
I'd like to know exactly how you guys would have responded, maybe you can think of something better. But I feel like you're all just anonymous internet guys who don't have realistic standards for people who are trying to actually be effective and powerful and have more important priorities than culture warring.
Well okay, let's check his «apology» one more time. First of all I think his original text does not merit any apologies because it already included necessary caveats for its context, and only dishonest actors would insist on demanding things be justified outside of their original context. Moreover, affirming the taboo power of the «n-word», as if it were some automatically acting evil spell that harms Blacks, is both sadly hilarious and constitutes a social harm by infantilizing the body politic – akin to lead emissions. But that's an edgy aside.
The fuck? It's the same picture. Maybe it's him who's in a bubble. Is he actually under the impression that his attackers are misinformed but well-meaning peasants with pitchforks, or maybe dumb niggers who can be hypnotized with a string of multisyllabic words and thus miss the implication? They aren't. This was bound to only make them more bloodthirsty. Does he, truly, «repudiate» it completely, or simply regret its presentation and some fluff? Clearly the following. So he has lied. He does what a Mottizen with a particularly spicy and poorly-supported take can do when backed into a corner: erect a Motte that the charity rule prohibits dismissing out of hand, and keep both the dignity of standing for one's truth and the appearance of being a reasonable interlocutor. Only he's not on the Motte (could someone invite him?), he's exposed to Twitter where this waffling is instantly called out. I agree with wokes that he's insincere. This is worse than saying nothing: he's scared out of his wits, so he simultaneously affirms their moral superiority and his guilt, but does not let go of the issue of his alleged guilt.
Bruh. So he supports eugenics in the sense currently wielded – and loathed – by progressives. Reminder, he wrote the apology in advance, knowing that somebody was rummaging through his trash:
Why did he bring up eugenics on his own?
He should have let them make the first move. Scott near-painlessly shook off Topher Brennan publicizing his old emails (also affirming HBD, and even giving some credit to neoreactionaries!) precisely because he didn't bend over backwards to apologize, and certainly didn't try to anticipate what to defend from.
I admit I'm more of a fighting-with-a-waiter guy than a power-maximizing guy. Sorry that my limited experience suggests he's not going to become more powerful as a result of this whimpering. Let's wait and see, shall we?
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