Crémieux Profile picture
Oct 19, 2023 18 tweets 6 min read Read on X
America's most controversial philosopher has been banned from his campus at SUNY Fredonia.

The university says they have to do it because if he stays on campus, there's a risk he'll inspire terrorism.

Let's look through some of this man's philosophical contributions!🧵 Image
One of his contributions is the idea that it is morally permissible to discount women's applications.

Indeed, the strong form of this argument says that people are obligated to discriminate against women. Image
He has also argued for a policy of killing people. Specifically, killing bad people.

"Just War" theory may say assassination is bad, but, Stephen argues, that needs to change. Image
Much of Stephen's work is philanthropically defending the defenseless and other of society's victims.

For example, he's a defender of people who have a romantic preference for Asians. Image
He sometimes delves into heavy topics, like the conditions under which trash talk is moral and permissible. Image
He's willing to say the things that no one else will, like that slavery is OK and it's not clear why it isn't, speaking as a liberal. Image
Speaking of slavery, he's also talked about reparations.

TL;DR: no one owes them; it's not clear who inherits the right to them; if said right existed, it's dispersed among many and it's less plausible with each generation; and since slave descendants do a lot of crime... QED. Image
He's willing to take this further and make it into a full-blown principle: if you can't quantify the damage, you're not owed anything. Image
He's willing to argue that sexual fantasies—non-perceptual thoughts that are sexually arousing—aren't immoral, unless you're a consequentialist. Image
Without him, would we understand the morality of faking orgasms? Image
Should we torture people during interrogation?

He argues that it's not morally impermissible. There are many scenarios in which it's fine, but this ultimately hinges on whether it works. Image
In fact, he's written an entire book-length defense of torture. Image
Many colleges have taken a turn against hazing and sought to ban the practice.

He argues that, since hazing involves informed consent, they should permit it. Image
He's argued that being religiously pro-life doesn't really make sense.

How can abortion be killing and it still be wrong to harm abortion doctors? Something doesn't add up! Image
He's argued, rather than comparing population means, we should compare population totals, size differences and all, for health cost-benefit analyses.

Say a minority group suffers from a rare but treatable disease. Why treat it when you can give out aspirin to majority members? Image
One of the arguments for affirmative action is that it promotes experiential diversity on college campuses.

But, he argues, this is probably not justifiable, and the idea that minority beliefs will rub off on majorities doesn't even seem relevant. Image
He's also argued that it's not exactly clear why Americans are grateful to veterans and, in fact, they shouldn't be! Image
So why is Stephen Kershnar being kicked off campus?

The campus police chief claimed—rightly or wrongly—that his presence was a danger to others.

You know who might be willing to argue this case?

Stephen Kershnar. Image

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More from @cremieuxrecueil

Jul 2
I've seen people mentioning that Europe's heat-related death issue is larger than American gun violence—true!

But people neglect saying how many heat-related deaths America has.

Approximately 1% of what Europe does even though America is hotter and Americans are less healthy! Image
Those factors mean Americans are more at-risk for heat-related deaths, even after accounting for Europe being a little older than America.

So let's be clear:

Europeans die from heat at relatively high rates; Americans survive it with technology. Image
Image
What technology?

It's the terraforming technology of air conditioning.

Install A/C and the heat-related deaths will mostly disappear, if Europe can keep their grid operational. Image
Read 7 tweets
Jul 2
What happens when scholars get canceled?

They end up publishing fewer papers and they receive fewer citations.

In other words, scientific productivity falls🧵 Image
Tons of scholars have been cancelled in recent years.

That is, they've received professional backlash for expressing views that people deem "controversial, unpopular, or misaligned with prevailing norms." Image
Cancellations happen outside of academia, but it's very bad in it.

Large portions of the academy dislike the freedom of speech. Many of those free speech opponents have high agency and the clout to cause material harm to people they dislike = particularly bad cancel culture. Image
Read 13 tweets
Jun 28
You must pick one:

Double the productivity of the bottom 20% or double the productivity of the top 1%:
Double the productivity of the bottom 40% or double the productivity of the top 1%:
Double the productivity of the bottom 60% or double the productivity of the top 1%:
Read 7 tweets
Jun 27
Phenotyping is the vast, minimally-explored frontier in genome-wide association studies.

Important thread🧵

Briefly, phenotyping is how you measure people's traits. Measure poorly, get bad results; measure well, get good results.

Example? Janky knees. Image
The janky knee example refers to osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, which occurs when the cartilage between bones is worn down, so bones start rubbing against each other.

This ends up being very painful. Image
Everyone with this condition isn't necessarily diagnosed with it.

This is especially true for men, who tend to just ignore this (and many other conditions) more often than women do.

This is, in a word, annoying, because it means that if you study it, sampling is likely biased. Image
Read 35 tweets
Jun 25
ADHD is a condition that's suffered from diagnostic drift: it's been defined more leniently over time, so more people are getting diagnosed.

One way to see this is to look at the benefits of taking ADHD medication. As prescription rates increased, the benefits have declined. Image
Another way to understand diagnostic drift is to look at the factors that promote it.

For example, school accountability laws lead to more diagnoses and, as a result, more psychoactive drug prescriptions.

Schools are pressured by law into making this happen. Image
An even more direct way to understand ADHD's diagnostic drift is to look at what types of diagnoses happen over time.

The increase has been more about non-severe ADHD than clinical ADHD. In other words, people with less and lesser symptoms are getting diagnosed. Image
Read 4 tweets
Jun 24
I have a story to break.

Columbia is still practicing racially discriminatory admissions in defiance of the Supreme Court's ruling in SFFA v. Harvard.

Newly-leaked data shows they still prefer less-qualified Blacks and Hispanics over more-qualified Asians🧵Image
Columbia has made a big show of "complying" with SFFA v. Harvard by noting that their 2024 batch of admits involved slightly less discrimination:

Fewer Black and Hispanic students, more Asian students.

That's what should happen, because Asian students tend to perform better.Image
But, with this leaked admissions data, we can see that race still predicts admissions.

With fair admissions, race should not have a significant effect, and it should not be directionally consistent.

And yet, in this data, it's clear Columbia still discriminates against Asians. Image
Read 14 tweets

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