
My Enlightenment Fanaticism - apsec112
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4892
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737min
This topic and post needs more attention. The comments so far show how badly
this dialog is needed here on HN, and elsewhere.

Scott Aaronson is smart, left-of-center and thoughtful. It’s well worth
reading

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jariel
The issue is that there is only 'one side'. Nobody dares counter the arguments
of the mob, lest they face the wrath, and have to live on the brand and make
it as an 'outsider' such as David Peterson, for the rest of their careers.

The 'one side' has enough quasi-radical and aggressive voices with 'useful
fodder followers' who probably are not as far fetched, I think a lot of
personal politics, with an ever increasing sense of righteousness and
entitlement.

If Chomsky had real integrity, instead of refusing to sign, he would have come
to Pinker's defence and taken a stand. If he's too afraid, well then who will?

Most of the press is taking a side, corporations are mostly just fearful.

This is not a meme, it's an 'existential' deal as the movement purports to
literally change what the our institutions are, and what the meaning of the
Truth is.

It's disturbing also because many of us are otherwise quite sympathetic to
many causes, but what happens if you're given a choice of either supporting
the 'radical liberation and overthrow of the Enlightenment' vs. possibly some
plain, centre-right voice, who's maybe not very interested in progress but has
other, pragmatic concerns?

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chrisco255
This is now the second article or so on the HN front page that attempts a
vigorous defense of free speech but then immediately undermines that by
spending ink on Trump. Modern conservatives aren't responsible for cancel
culture and elected Trump precisely as a counter-reaction to cancel culture.
The attempt to unify progressives and classical liberals is weird to me, as I
see the far left evolving into something resembling a puritanical religion. If
you want a moderate middle of the road that respects all sides of debate and
discussion, then center-right and center-left should unify against the
extremes. Nothing else will work, in my opinion.

~~~
michaelcampbell
> Modern conservatives aren't responsible for cancel culture and elected Trump
> precisely as a counter-reaction to cancel culture.

I'd like to see some data behind this assertion. Even what proportion of Trump
voters used "anti cancel culture" as even ONE of, if not the main, reason why.
Vs. "not hillary", or he was the name on the Republican side of the ballot, or
"he says what he thinks" or "the wall"

~~~
diffrinse
On election night I recall the CNN anchors interviewing voters and getting
"He's a straight shooter"/"honest" a whole lot.

What's ironic about America is that working class White and Black folk are
both weary of white-collar professionals telling them what to do. Strangely,
neither group thinks of businessmen or other instances of rich people as
white-collar (both groups express veneration for the "businessman"/"hustler"),
as somehow closer to themselves and values than middle-class professionals
(like Obama).

Class underwrites so much in this country, but because class discussion has
largely and for the most part been verboten since the 50s, we instead get this
weird conflation of race and class.

This gets even more interesting when you realize Official BLM is just the
bourgeois representation of working-class Black interests and there are many
many YouTube videos of those Black interests expressing exactly that[0].

Of course, people think all Black people must be one big monolith, both owing
to de facto segregation and the loudest minority problem, (they simply don't
know enough Black people) because that's what Bourgeois profiteers want you to
think; just like how people still actually think there was an clear, firm
relationship between the protests and the riots, as much as protesters want to
claim there is in order to hold some vague threat of further violence when
they in all likelihood were not also the ones doing the rioting and vice
versa.

[0] Here's one:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9YcB1pJ69A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9YcB1pJ69A)

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recursivedoubts
it was foolish to think that this would stop where we personally thought "the
line" was

i hope we have all learned a valuable lesson here

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stillbourne
If you were a true enlightenment fanatic you would know that even the
proponents of freedom of expression didn't support universal toleration. Not
even John Locke supported pure universal toleration, although in his case he
wanted to silence the voices of atheists. You confuse the idea that your
freedom to express your mind with the idea that your expressions have no
consequences. In the case of this article has the "Purity Posse" gone to far?
Absolutely! But that does not mean that his work is not above scrutiny. You
need to also understand the position of the other side too. Let us peer into
the ugly side of racial injustice and the concept that the super predator
juvenile detention system that was part of and is still part of the school to
prison pipeline. Do you deny the fact that those concepts and systems are not
inherently racist and oppressive systems that piggy back on our very justice
system? Most the supporting evidence for those concepts were coached in
pseudo-scientific psychobabble. The only way to pursue justice is to find
those cornerstones that uphold the system and remove them. Sure trying to
cancel Pinker is wrong and misguided but the proponents of racial justice are
approaching the problem in the only way they know how. In this case they are
wrong, but would they be wrong about other researchers that have written work
that is antithetical to racial justice in America?

This article is so unbalanced. It defends Pinker but it doesn't bother trying
to even understand his detractors in this case. Just goes on a diatribe that
sounds so much like all the other white persecution complex arguments I hear
all the time.

~~~
jariel
This is a gaslighting the argument a little bit.

1) "You confuse the idea that your freedom to express your mind with the idea
that your expressions have no consequences. "

There is no confusion. This is a straw-man - nobody is denying that 'speech
should have no consequences'.

Pinker and others are being attacked for making very reasonable, civil claims,
not any kind of fanaticism which deserves 'consequence'.

2) "Do you deny the fact that those concepts and systems are not inherently
racist".

Are you implying people can't disagree with your Orthodox Truth?

I'm not an academic, but I would. Guns are far more disproportionately likely
to kill young black men, does that make guns racist? Juvenile systems and such
problems exist basically all over the world, there are racial elements but
that doesn't make them racist. It's a complicated problem.

3) "Sure trying to cancel Pinker is wrong but the proponents of racial justice
are approaching the problem in the only way they know how."

The 'only way they know how' is to crush ideas, dismiss facts, destroy
individuals, the Truth, our most trusted institutions in pursuit of their
Orthodoxy? That's 'the only way they know how', and a defence of the approach?

4) "The only way to pursue justice is to find those cornerstones that uphold
the system and remove them. "

Yes, this is the scary zealotry we're concerned about. First, it's entirely
possible that systems can achieve reform without fanaticism, and second, it's
also fair that there is debate, consternation, dialogue, experiments.

Fanatical ideas are great, fanatical movements are not.

~~~
stillbourne
> Are you implying people can't disagree with your Orthodox Truth?

I'm not stating a truth, I am not interested in the truth, I am interested in
the facts. Do you deny the existence of institutional racism inherent in the
justice system?

> Guns are far more disproportionately likely to kill young black men, does
> that make guns racist?

A gun is not a person and does not have an opinion. The only indisputable fact
of a gun is that the direction you point it in shoots bullets when the
operator pulls the trigger.

Also deflecting the question of racial injustice by bringing up black on black
violence is bullshit. What are the crime statistics on white on white
violence. The _science_ shows that _poverty_ is the leading indicator of gun
violence not race. The fact that poverty is higher in black neighborhoods is
also an indisputable _fact_ and the cause of black poverty has a lot to do
with systemic racism in America. These are not _truths_ save your truths for
you ministers. These are facts...

