1/ Current Affairs recently complained that the Intellectual Dark Web doesn’t address their strongest arguments for Social Justice, so I will see what they have to say and give it a go. /thread
@SamHarrisOrg @curaffairs @CHSommers @benshapiro @jordanbpeterson @RubinReport
@SamHarrisOrg @curaffairs @CHSommers @benshapiro @jordanbpeterson @RubinReport
2/ First of, you fail to acknowledge the possibility that your Social Justice beliefs are themselves logically incoherent. Seeing how you frequently can’t tell us what you mean by the many words that you yourselves have made up, I don’t think that’s an unfair charge.
3/ Okay, so are you implying he’s wrong? Will you be explaining why at any point in this article? I sure hope you’re not just going to dodge the criticism and move on to discuss a more extreme author who writes about ‘liberal fascism’ instead. That would be a shame.
4/ I agree. Of course, it’s still the case that any societal issue has to be reducible to the level of individual suffering, because any ‘noble cause’ that is disconnected from actual human wellbeing would inevitably be used to justify evil behaviour. Wouldn’t you agree?
5/ Yes, we are aware of the concept of externalities. In fact, people like Sam Harris write quite a bit about the dangers of runaway optimization processes – only for people like you to mock them for it. I’m honestly baffled by your criticism here.
6/ No we don’t. “Social justice” serves to distinguish from concepts of e.g. legal justice. It's a perfectly serviceable term. Why do you feel this compulsive need to define everything to death?
7/ “Misapplying the definition of socialism to trigger the libs.”
8/ I agree. So would any other actual liberal, like Sam Harris. Are you doing that thing where instead of actually talking with the other side, you’re just deciding what we believe and arguing based on that? Because that’s what you originally accused us of, remember?
9/ True! So, you’re against enforcing equality then? You would oppose affirmative action on these grounds? Please tell me you’re not making the argument that because forced equality is an oxymoron, it is therefore okay for you to try and enforce equality.
10/ It’s not so much that we ignore it, but that it keeps failing to replicate. For example, implicit bias training just keeps falling flat on its face. It’s you guys who keep ignoring niggling details like ‘the facts that we’re quoting aren’t actually true”.
11/ This seems to contradict the finding that wealth does not carry over after a few generations. Please read this article: slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/26/com…
12/ But both the offending parties and the victims are all dead. There is literally no difference between being born a poor white guy with bad parents vs being born black with similar prospects. There is still a pretty good argument you could make here, but you’re not making it.
13/ See, Jim Crow is an infinitely better example to use than slavery. So why did you insist on focussing on the much weaker example? It’s almost like you’re not really interested in reaching out to us and just want to make the most extreme case possible.
14/ Black people overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Do you think politics might skew people’s views in the age of hyper-partisanship? Will you even bring up the possibility? No, you’re just going to say that the only alternative is that black people are crazy. Okay then.
15/ Yep, there sure are some systemic inequalities, like the drug war which we liberals are 100% against. Do you accept that implicit bias is a red herring and that we should therefore focus on policies like these rather than try to control people’s minds?
16/ Doesn’t the employer bias against black people disappear if you give them access to e.g. their criminal history? And don’t female students get higher grades for the same work, and aren’t women more likely to be hired for the same job?
17/ Really? You seriously cannot disentangle individual privilege from the notion of group privilege? You can’t see a difference between “most white people have X” and “to be white is to be X”?
18/ I have always been sympathetic to charges of racism, since it’s a real issue. But are you really going to tell me that we are the ones who decided that you ought to have 72 different genders? Or that I’m sexist if I don’t know them all by heart?
19/ You are literally attacking the weakest possible criticism (youtube clickbait!) you can find even as you criticize us for not engaging with your strongest argument. How come you never bring up socialists who disagree with you on Social Justice, like Secular Talk?
20/ Again, how can you possibly pretend that this is what the argument is about? You are just blatantly defending yourself against the hyperbolic claim you could find, purely because it’s easier than addressing the real criticism.
21/ Again, you make no attempt to engage with the actual argument. The very question is whether or not female labour really IS undervalued. To pretend that the discussion is about whether this is deserved is blatantly dishonest.
22/ Liberals would also say this is ridiculous. Why is it that everything you disagree with becomes a conservative viewpoint? And again, if you think people should be paid for raising children, then you should be arguing that for ALL genders.
23/ Did you hear a lot of abused men coming out? No? Then, if it’s true that abused men face equal or greater pressure not to speak up, doesn’t that disprove your assumption about power differentials? How come you don’t feel the need to address this argument?
24/ And this is what drives me nuts about all of this. You are guilty of literally everything you accuse us of: Bigotry, dickishness, and dishonesty. And in the very article in which you protest that we don’t address your arguments, you never once engage with our main arguments.
25/ Our team has always tried to engage with you, from the very start. When Scott Alexander invited you to dialogue, you blew him off. When we make arguments, you ignore them in favour of a strawman and attack us on a personal level. If you want to change that, change. /fin
