slopjockeyTracingWoodgrains launches a defense of Manifest's controversial reputation, all without betraying a basic understanding of what the word "controversial" means.
He also wants us to know that Hannania is much less right than he’s made out to be.. Richard gave him a signal boost and is cool with gay people! Unfortunately, Tracey hasn’t grasped that “right winger” is simply a metonym for “thinks blacks are the second least domesticable African animal after zebras”
Why so many “racists” at Manifest? — EA Forum
Comment by Isa - (This comment is more of a general response to this post and others about Manifest than a response to what Austin has specifically said here) I am a black person who attended Manifest, and I will say that I almost didn't attend because of Hanania, but decided to anyway because my interest in it outweighed my disagreements with his work. I walked past a conversation he was having where he was asked why he thinks "minorities [black people] perform so poorly in so many domains," which did not feel great, but I also chatted to someone who runs a similar twitter as him and briefly told him my issues with it, which he was receptive to. I overall prefer cultures that give me space to have those sorts of conversations, but I do flinch a bit at the fact that my demographic is on the receiving end of so much of this. Many of the "edgy" people were super nice to me, I had fun conversations about other things with some of them, and their presence didn't take away from my overall experience. I felt fine after those interactions, but many people wouldn't. Perhaps they don’t “belong” at manifest, but that explanation isn’t very satisfying to me. I think I'm much more tolerant of this sort of dynamic than many super reasonable people, including other black people. I'm personally fine engaging with critiques about how the Civil Rights Act has ushered in some not-so-great policy decisions over the last half century. “Woke Institutions” might just be civil rights law in action (according to Hanania) but the civil rights law is also, like, the reason why I have basic rights. I think it's completely reasonable for a black person to see arguments like that and think to themselves "what the actual fuck? The person who wrote that book is probably racist, and a conference hosting him might be racist too.” I think it is good to be curious about the world and interested in exploring unanswered questions so long as this is the true motivation. I take most people's self-reports about their i
deborahHe also wants us to know that Hannania is much less right than he’s made out to be
Also he doesn’t grasp that people hate Hanania because he’s a racist, not because of where he falls on the forced left/right spectrum.
YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAMPeople like TW are the perfect distillation of the booksmart Slate Star Codex fan class, who are so completely sealed in their bubble that they aren’t even in touch with major parts of themselves anymore. They lose, or never developed, the capacity to even simulate a theory of mind which would make appropriate sense of what the other person is saying. Brains like a Frank Gehry building supported by warped tent poles of Scott Alexander heuristics sticking out at odd angles from each other.
“Yeah, they’re good people; we would hang out more, but my brain isn’t leaking out of my ears”
Not to get too corny about it, but there are people in this world who think “don’t condescend” means “be nice about other people’s shortcomings” and people who think it means “you might fucking learn something if you would just stop condescending to people you perceive as having shortcomings”, and the first group is completely oblivious to the difference