> When people refer to racist views at SSC they don't mean that literally as a rule, they're just disparaging uncomfortable views about very well defined issues in social science and the like, that have zilch to do with superiority or supremacism of any sort, naziism etc. Shooting the messenger, basically.
Do please specify what those "uncomfortable views" actually are.
The one that comes up the most, relating to 'race' specifically. is opposition to the claim that the comparatively low numbers of BIPOC minority folks in high-skill industries (such as 'tech') are indicative of a systemic racist bias within those industries. The broad consensus among SSC commenters is that this is a pipeline problem, and that concerns should thus be directed earlier in the pipeline. People do disagree, even vocally at times, about what the actual problem is and how to best address it.
Some observers have used this to argue that SSC commenters hold racist views towards BIPOC minorities. Obviously, this is not really the case.
There are other cases where prevailing narratives of systemic racism towards BIPOC folks were examined in careful and nuanced ways, generally with interesting, even compelling results. Unfortunately, some people don't like it when their simplistic views are challenged in such a way.
I sympathize. For whatever reason, many people take any sort of nuanced, academically-formal discussion about highly contentious topics involving politics, society, etc. as prima facie evidence of dishonesty. This peculiar sort of naïve anti-intellectualism is actually quite common across the culture-wars spectrum. I'm not saying that this is what you're doing here: I'm saying that this alone is reason to be highly skeptical wrt. the prevailing rumors within the 'left' about people on SSC being horribly bigoted, racist etc.
Factual and useful observations don't stop being factual and useful just because some people might seek to exploit them as dogwhistling signals. If you've got a problem with malicious dogwhistling, deterring people from exploring these issues is exactly the wrong response. You want to do the opposite, so that honest, careful, nuanced inquiry drowns out any attempt at subverting the discussion.
(For instance, it was historically common to see expressions of concern about e.g. monopolistic industry and large business, damage to the environment, mass poverty etc. being used as dogwhistles obliquely referencing socialist views about the purported inherent evils of capitalism and the market economy, contrasted with bureaucratic central planning and control of the means of production. You don't see this to anything near the same extent nowadays, because most people who talk about these things are factually addressing the issues - often from a broad 'centrist/neoliberal' POV - not dogwhistling about unrelated stuff. So this can actually work.)
> That most are seemingly demographically and politically homogeneous are just the weirdest coincidence.
Demographically homogenous, yes this is a real issue that SSC folks are quite aware of. But it's also an issue about political discourse in general, not merely its awowedly-rationalist subset. Politically homogenous, not really. The whole reason debate was so vigorous within SSC was its lack of that kind of homogeneity.
> You want to do the opposite, so that honest, careful, nuanced inquiry drowns out any attempt at subverting the discussion.
The problem with this crowd's writings is that they are overly verbose and unnecessary lengthy in some sort of war of attrition. And as the saying goes, it takes 10x more time to refute bullshit than to produce it.
> Politically homogenous, not really.
Just a quick very unscientific glance at twitter regarding this "attack" produces 10 right-wing types for every 1 centre-right, 0 remotely left. Even worse if we use the EU left-right spectrum. Being right or hard-right is not politically diverse even though this crowd seems to believe so.
> And as the saying goes, it takes 10x more time to refute bullshit than to produce it.
Have you actually read anything from SSC?
His posts obviously had a lot of effort put into them. Reading them is much easier.
My recommendation: If you want to know how Scott Alexander thinks, read what Scott Alexander wrote, not what people on twitter wrote about him. Especially if they didn't read the piece either. Although I guess you'd have to use internet archive now.
Personally, I'm voting Green this fall and I love his writing.
Hi. EU-leftist generally-pro-SJ type here. I'm a big fan of Slate Star Codex. I just sent an email to the NYT about what a bad idea publishing Scott's real name would be.
I don't think a "quick very unscientific glance at Twitter" is a very effective way of finding out what Scott's readership is like. (I suspect a fair fraction don't use Twitter at all.)
Even a single personal anecdote is good evidence when the claim in question is "basically everyone there is right-wing". As someone else mentioned, there are in fact readership surveys there every now and then, and guess what?, they also produce results wildly inconsistent with what you're claiming.
Here are some numbers from the 2019 survey (it's not the latest one but it's the latest whose results I could readily get at).
"Where do you think you fall on a classic political spectrum?" (1 = far left, 10 = far right). Most common result is 3, at 25.6%. Next most common is 4, at 20.6%. The "left half" 1-5 has about 66% of the responses. 2.2% are 1 (far left) versus 1.6% at 10 (far right).
"With which of these political descriptions do you most identify?" with 7 options (libertarian, conservative, liberal, social democratic, marxist, neoreactionary, alt-right; I have no idea why "socialist" wasn't an option). Largest group, at 31.8%, is "social democratic". Next, at 29%, is "liberal" (which of course is a term with many meanings, but it was clarified as "for example, the US Democratic Party"). Note that these two already constitute a majority. Next, at 21.6%, is "libertarian". Alt-right and neoreactionary between them look like they come to maybe 8% or so, which for sure is a lot relative to how many alt-rightists and neoreactionaries there are in the population at large, but it's still a small minority.
"American political parties", asking about registered affiliation: largest group is "not registered" at 35%, next is Democratic Party at 31%, next is "not American" at 20%, next is Republican Party at 10%, next is Libertarian Party at about 3%.
Some other politically-charged topics:
Global warming (1-5 from "requires strong action" to "does not require action"): 1>2>3>4>5, 1+2 at about 73%, 4+5 at about 13%.
Immigration (1-5 from "should be stricter" to "should be more open"): 1+2 at about 23%, 4+5 at about 50%.
Feminism (1-5 from "very unfavourable" to "very favourable"): 1+2 at about 29%, 4+5 at about 47%.
These do not indicate a community whose range of political views amounts, as you put it, to "right or hard-right".
It is a community with more extreme rightists than average. (8% neoreactionary + alt-right!) It is a community with more people willing to be negative about feminism than its general leftishness would suggest. (29% with unfavourable views of feminism. Not terribly different from the figure for the US as a whole in the 2016 survey at http://files.kff.org/attachment/topline-methodology-washingt... though.) It is a community with more tolerance for kinda-racist[1] "human biodiversity" views than average. (The survey asked about favourable/unfavourable views of "human biodiversity", clarified as "eg the belief that humans differ genetically in socially relevant ways", and the responses were pretty much symmetrically distributed.) So your perception that SSC is a wretched hive of scum and villainy isn't completely without basis in reality, but a better description would be "mostly reasonable and decent people, with something of a leftward lean overall -- but with a small contingent of sometimes very loud right-wing crazies, and more tolerance than most leftish places for some ideas beloved of right-wing crazies". Which might be enough to make you hate it, of course, but it's not the same thing as "almost entirely rightists" which is how you portrayed it.
[1] Only kinda-racist? Well, (a) it's possible to hold those views and also think that discrimination against (say) black people is stupid and evil, and I'm fairly sure some SSC commenters hold roughly that position, and (b) strictly speaking "differ genetically in socially relevant ways" is obviously true, because e.g. the colour of your skin is socially relevant if you live in a society with any racists in it. But if you'd prefer the "kinda-" deleted, I understand and I suggest you pretend I didn't write it. That won't much change my meaning.
> Even a single personal anecdote is good evidence when the claim in question is "basically everyone there is right-wing".
Uhm, no.
Thanks. I wouldn't be too comfortable using a community that's often accused of being alt-right/light's own polling to prove that they're not. But assuming this is true it's particularly interesting how these tendencies can co-exists within both "social-democrats" and academics (usually left leaning afaik).
FYI, SSC actually has demographic surveys of its readership. Of course, the blog is down now, but I bet if you search the Internet Archives you can find some. As I recall, there were quite a number of dimensions along which the readership could be classified as diverse.
Of course, if you are hell-bent on judging the man and his readers along those demographic dimensions where they aren't diverse, or even just your own assumptions about the kind of people that read SSC, then carry on.
We have above mentioned demographics. We have controversial topics that seemingly panders to this particular demographic's confirmation bias. We have an academic pseudo-intellectual writing style that usually concludes in conservative or reactionary conclusions, much to this particular demographic's liking.
But however, this is all just a coincidence and simply based on unbiased facts.
> We have controversial topics that seemingly panders to this particular demographic's confirmation bias.
Race and gender are minor topics within SSC. You could say that the community has an undue emphasis on the culture wars, but it also has a unique way of addressing those debates which - to many participants - justifies that very emphasis. And if it's as uniformly right-wing ("conservative or reactionary") as you posit, it certainly goes to strenuous lengths to disguise this fact to the casual observer, specifically wrt. culture-wars discussion.
> I cannot stand the smug "we're objective academics that base our beliefs on nuanced logic and facts" of, to add insult to injury, self-declared "rationalists".
The rationalist community has that tendency, but they also possess a willingness to listen to people no matter how cooky/bigoted/ignorant their opinions are, and that is very humble and empathic. SSC is the prime example of that ethic.
> I think it's time for some introspection if this is all it takes for mainly young privileged [white] men to start considering race science and the likes as unfortunate but actually true.
Calling for introspection among people with whom you share some mutual bond or allegiance is fair. Telling strangers on the Internet that they need to do some "introspection" on account of their wrongthink after judging them on the basis of their race and sex is pretty arrogant and despicable.
> need to do some "introspection" on account of their wrongthink
Did you miss the if statement? If someone is on so shaky ground wrt their ethical boundaries that all it takes is some fancy wording for them to actually consider race science legitimate, they should indeed to take some time for introspection.
Anyway, according to your comment history you definitely fit the introspection mold. Zero surprises there.
No, but it's not clear to me what work that 'if' is doing. Is this just a purely hypothetical, or do you just assume the antecedent is always true? Do you perhaps take a middle path and concede the possibility people might be persuaded by "race science" for reasons other than mere "fancy wording"?
> they should indeed to take some time for introspection.
Or they could engage in dialogue with people who disagree with them but exercise good faith, which is exactly what happens on SSC.
> Anyway, according to your comment history you definitely fit the introspection mold. Zero surprises there.
If I aggravated you enough that you feel the need to dig through my comment history, I apologize. But don't presume to know my inner mental states. My tone is definitely hostile, but I consider it an fair response to your rather dismissive (and largely false) characterization a group of people I (and many others here on HN) have come to greatly respect.
Do please specify what those "uncomfortable views" actually are.