Jun
27th
2017
Inspirational quote for supervillains · 6:03am Jun 27th, 2017
I don’t want civil war. I want this country to survive long enough to be killed by something awesome, like AI or some kind of genetically engineered superplague. Right now I think going out in a neat way, being killed by a product of our own genius and intellectual progress – rather than a product of our pettiness and mutual hatreds – is the best we can hope for. And I think this is attainable! I think that we, as a nation and as a species, can make it happen.
--Scott Alexander, "Against Murderism"
I'm doing my part. Are you? 
Well, that was a fascinating article.
Embracing the murderism framework would be a far too boring way to bring the world to its knees. Looks like we better get cracking on that gray goo...
4584462
Change "racism" to 'jihadi' and "murderism" to 'terrorism' in the text and suddenly it reads a great deal differently, doesn't it?
It's really, really hard to separate tribalist impulses from this sort of argument. Because when you change those words out, suddenly it's a lot harder to accept his point. Because 'liberalism' in its heyday was never exactly an isolate state of kumbaya, was it? Very, very liberal Victorian Britain still sacked and burned the littorals in poorly-governed sections of the (mostly Muslim) world in order to put down piracy and destroy the slave trade. They also were the foremost drivers in the construction of the Empire. So no, liberalism was not solely a machine for domestic tranquility. It was also a mechanism for separating differences that can be tolerated - mostly internal - from those which could be properly, vigorously, and ferociously otherized. And that was what made it work.
It was, after all, the nonconforming evangelicals like Wilberforce who pushed for the destruction of the slave trade. The beneficiaries of the liberal truce.
The ones who constantly cry 'racism' see that bundle of out-group concerns as an existential threat. I, being who I am, disagree strenuously. I find the recent upsurge in blatant racism ugly, and disgusting, and unsettling. But existential? No, it's just the return of very bad manners from exile. The jihadis, and all those wild kids who have drifted towards the extremist version of jihadism, aka Daesh? Those strike me as existential, at least in potential. Are there vast armies of jihadis gathering to destroy Rome? Well, no, not really, although in the fevered imaginations of the Daesh sympathizers, there are.
But then, I'm more likely to encounter head-chopping videos and angst about same than whatever equally button-pushing craziness the racism-is-an-existential-threat-to-my-values crowd are collectively using to get themselves het up and furious.
Look, destroying the world takes time, dude.
4584478
This is a disingenuous attack. The liberal humanists in Britain opposed much of British colonialism. The battle in Parliament over the Empire's colonialist policies in China was bitter, and the liberals lost. And I don't see anything wrong with some sacking and burning to end piracy and slavery.
The appearance of political humanist liberal sentiment in Britain was a major turning point in history, when public opinion for the first time was sometimes able to effectively make state policy more humane. It is very fashionable nowadays to attack it, but most of these attacks have their own dark political motives.
Again, an enumeration of the actual things done would show this to be an uncharitable interpretation. The major differences that the Victorian Britains "otherized" and would not tolerate were:
- slavery
- piracy
- the Indian practice of burning widows alive
- the Thuggee religion, which required massive numbers of ritual murders of innocent strangers
- honor killings
- the Indian caste system
I see no evidence of any upsurge in blatant racism. All polls of Americans show, to the contrary, that racism in America continues its downwards path to extinction. I only see an upsurge in people using the label "racist" and in media focus on racism.
But the post doesn't, I think, deal with the fact that the word "racism" itself prevents any meaningful discussion of racism. It bundles together and makes it impossible to separate the context-free definition from what should be a context-sensitive moral judgement. This is characteristic of the philosophy known as Rationalism, which is literally insane, but which all American politicians, religious authorities, and humanities professors subscribe to. Trump's victory, I think, occurred mainly because he's too stupid to be a Rationalist, so all the other non-Rationalists in the US thought he was at least not insane.
To have any meaningful discussion of racism, the definition of a racist act must be separated from a contextual judgement of whether that particular act is good or bad. For instance, say you're making immigration decisions, and you have two applicants to immigrate but can admit only one of them. One of them is a Syrian Muslim, the other an atheist from New Zealand. Your data indicates that the Muslim is seven thousand times as likely to commit some terrorist act once in the US. Choosing the one from New Zealand is--well, not racist, since these are decisions about nationalities and localities, not races, but it is the sort of decision that people call "racist". Within the context, however, it's absurd to call it immoral.
The really big question is how the basic ethical operating assumption of all peoples of all places and times on Earth outside of present-day Europe and America, that their primary moral duty is to help those close to them--family, friends, tribe, nation, and race--has suddenly gone from being the greatest virtue to the greatest evil. What makes us so confident in disagreeing with the entire rest of humanity and labeling them evil? And how far will we extend the evil tag--when will it become evil to be patriotic, to root for your home team, or to hope your kid wins the spelling bee?
[The main reason is the history of the American south, but another factor, I think, is the idea that we live in a post-scarcity economy, so we can afford to help everyone. This was a reasonable approximation of the American and European economies until 1970. Though Japan has had a similar economic boom, and has never questioned that its racism is a virtue.]
But we haven't actually abandoned the basic human principle that racism is a virtue; we've subtly recontextualized it. It's still perfectly acceptable, even virtuous, for blacks to associate politically, vote, and choose which firms to give their business to on the basis of race. All our thinking about race presumes a larger context of oppressed and oppressor with which to determine which racist acts are good and which ones are bad, because it's based on thinking about the American south of the first half of the 20th century. It makes no sense to try to apply this way of thinking to international politics.
You expect far, far too much of your fellow man.
4584562
Capital-L Liberal. Gladstone was the captain of state who oversaw most of the later inflection points in the expansion of the Empire, such as the occupation of Egypt. And Palmerston, who headed the drive which resulted in the First Opium War, ended his career in politics as Prime Minister for the newly-formed Liberal Party.
"Liberal humanist" is not synonymous with 19th Century Liberalism, after all. The phrase barely even makes sense in the language of the times.
4584572
Ignoring the term "Liberalism", since not only am I unfamiliar with its use here and in the article, I don't believe its exact definition is terribly important to the article's case.
I disagree that Terrorism could cleanly slot into wherever he said "murderism", as he was arguing that racism made for a rather poor causitive factor in explaining human behavior, while calling someone a racist is a great shorthand for labeling someone as irredeemably evil. I rather agree with these points, myself.
4584592 4584478
I agree. "Terrorism" is still a good causative explanation for human behavior, at least if we take the word of terrorists for it. "Racism" was also a good causative explanation at one time, and still is, for some people, but it's so over-used now that it's more often counter-productive.
"Terrorist" could go the same way--the FBI has certainly been trying to take it that way, to extend the definition of "terrorist" to cover civil disobedience, for instance, or acts that can be "terrorist" without any requirement for intent, such as when someone breaks into a computer without knowing it belongs to the government.
4584562
BTW, it looks like you updated your reply after I commented further, and I have to explain that I likewise approve of this sort of 'othering'. I'm not a fan of Edward Said, and I was being somewhat sarcastic. The British Empire was something of a mixed bag, and I go back and forth over its civilizational worth depending on the day and whatever generational consequence happens to churn to the surface on a given week.
It was a definite improvement on most other contemporary Imperial projects, the less said about, the better.
I prefer natural disaster. That way it's no one's fault. Win win!
4584572
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I don't understand. "Humanism" began in the 14th century. "Liberal humanism" originated in the late 17th century, in Britain. "Liberalism" in 19th century Britain was related, tho I don't know the specific differences. I am pretty ignorant about that part of history. But you can't define liberalism by what prime ministers do; they make compromises. And Palmerston wasn't even a Liberal during the opium war.
I think our main disagreement with 19th century liberalism is that they thought different things were good. A lot of British colonialism was in the name of liberal humanism, in the semi-sincere belief that they were making life better for people in India and other colonies. And when your liberal humanists are Christian rather than atheist, it must work out differently.
4584761
Wouldn't you rather it be a surprise?
I forget where I read it, but someone pointed out that as technology gets more advanced, a smaller and smaller group of people are capable of causing huge catastrophes. Thus, to prevent this, over time, you must wipe out all groups which would create/harbor groups of said size, meaning that any species that makes it to being truly advanced would have to master serial genocide without destroying themselves.
Kind of a depressing thought.
But hey, anyone who pulls off serial genocide to save the world is clearly a proper supervillain.
Incidentally, good news on this front!
pics.me.me/rob-lach-follow-v-lachrob-hey-google-exactly-what-kind-14606863.png
I swear, I keep missing these for some reason.
"But if there’s some group out there who aren’t connected to normal human values at all, some group that’s deliberately rejected reason; if they’re willing to throw liberty and safety under the bus in pursuit of some kind of dark irrational hatred which is their only terminal goal – then the whole project falls apart."
There's no applicable 'If' in that sentence. There *is* a group, or more properly, a group of groups allied under one constantly shifting banner, which meets all of those criteria. I'll stop there, since I don't want to get political, and poking that bear in a pony forum is a bad idea. (particularly on an older thread)