Konkvistador comments on Open Thread, August 16-31, 2012 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 15 August 2012 03:25AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 20 August 2012 07:34:44AM *  5 points [-]

"Salterism refuted: removing wheels from racial Idealist heads"

I found that post a fun and interesting one too, I think I'll probably be linking to it in the future when I see some unfortunate comments by otherwise intelligent people elsewhere online.

struck me as amusingly Quirrellish — as opposed to Malfoyish.

Heh, yeah that's a good way to put it.

It does appear that almost all racialists are looking for excuses to hurt others ­— to justify defection and other loser moves in Prisoner's Dilemma, Chicken, and other payoff matrices — by inventing wrongs done to them either by members of other races; or by the existence, visibility, or prosperity of other races.

This is just basic tribalism no? We should emphasise it is hardly unique to racialist sentiment, indeed it prevades a large fraction of the human experience. One can see it quite clearly whenn it comes to nationality, religion, language, philosophical positions, partisan affiliation, culture, taste (be it in sex, food, architecture,...) and even sports team fandom.

This seems almost as if an imaginary foe is running a "divide-and-conquer" strategy against humanity: running K-means clustering, reifying the clusters, and trying to convince members of one cluster that they can't trust and should defect against members of another cluster. We know well from the history of organizations and intelligence agencies — and from history in general! — that this sort of thing is a significant risk.

I do find this amusingly ironic however. I can easily imagine say a pro-Black racialist disparaging those who are promoting local tribes and nationalities as engaging in a divide and conquer strategy against the Black race.

Clearly you sir are displaying speciest tendencies. ;)

Comment author: fubarobfusco 20 August 2012 03:54:20PM 2 points [-]

I can easily imagine say a pro-Black racialist disparaging those who are promoting local tribes and nationalities as engaging in a divide and conquer strategy against the Black race.

Economic classes might be a more frequent example than "tribes and nationalities". Historically, there has also been the argument made by some on the Left — especially anarchists such as the IWW — that racism is capitalism running divide-and-conquer against the working class. "Who benefits when white workers and black workers can't organize together because of racial tensions between them? The bosses do!"

Clearly you sir are displaying speciest tendencies. ;)

"You might cooperate with a Pebblesorter on the Prisoner's Dilemma, but would you want your son to marry one?"

Comment author: [deleted] 20 August 2012 05:03:48PM *  5 points [-]

Economic classes might be a more frequent example than "tribes and nationalities".

Right some racialist have also argued against class divisions. Most infamously the you-know-whos.

Historically, there has also been the argument made by some on the Left — especially anarchists such as the IWW — that racism is capitalism running divide-and-conquer against the working class. "Who benefits when white workers and black workers can't organize together because of racial tensions between them? The bosses do!"

I heard this argument not on race but on nationality attributed as a position held by some socialists in the aftermath of World War One. It was one of the basis of some quite elaborate explanation of cultural forces as tools of the ruling class. I find it somewhat amusing how right-wing Moldbuggianism (which is basically endorsed by James_G) is very similar to such notions just with a different idea of who the ruling class is.

Looking at this from the leftist perspective though I find the Chomsky-ite argument on race and capitalism far more convincing:

"See, capitalism is not fundamentally racist — it can exploit racism for its purposes, but racism isn’t built into it. Capitalism basically wants people to be interchangable cogs, and differences among them, such as on the basis of race, usually are not functional. I mean, they may be functional for a period, like if you want a super exploited workforce or something, but those situations are kind of anomalous. Over the long term, you can expect capitalism to be anti-racist — just because its anti-human. And race is in fact a human characterstic — there’s no reason why it should be a negative characteristic, but it is a human characteristic. So therefore identifications based on race interfere with the basic ideal that people should be available just as consumers and producers, interchangable cogs who will purchase all the junk that’s produced — that’s their ultimate function, and any other properties they might have are kind of irrelevent, and usually a nuisance."

Can you imagine a racist Coca-Cola Company in a global economy? Thought I sometimes wonder if their commercials would be slightly less subtly disturbing then.

Comment author: Multiheaded 21 August 2012 01:21:46AM *  3 points [-]

I think that cultural hegemony is a reasonable and far from overwrought explanation for many social phenomena... but racism isn't one of them. So I also think Chomsky's right on this.

Right some racialist have also argued against class divisions. Most infamously the you-know-whos.

Lip service mostly. Nazi policies generally moved to the right since the break with Strasserism and the purge of the SA, and the "Proper"/"German"/"Volkish" social hierarchy espoused by propaganda was (for all its utopian or faux-medieval motifs) in practice directed at recreating the class structure of Bismarck's Prussia, which was viewed through rose-tinted glasses by many at the time.

True, when the conservative aristocrats showed some resistance, they were chastised (and the July plot brought an anti-aristocratic pseudo-populist turn), but when they went along with the new regime, the Nazis helped secure their position. The non-Jewish industrial and financial elites got a pretty sweet deal at first, and enjoyed it before being dragged into a suicidal war.

Comment author: [deleted] 21 August 2012 05:55:38AM *  4 points [-]

Lip service mostly. Nazi policies generally moved to the right since the break with Strasserism and the purge of the SA, and the "Proper"/"German"/"Volkish" social hierarchy espoused by propaganda was (for all its utopian or faux-medieval motifs) in practice directed at recreating the class structure of Bismarck's Prussia, which was viewed through rose-tinted glasses by many at the time.

True, when the conservative aristocrats showed some resistance, they were chastised (and the July plot brought an anti-aristocratic pseudo-populist turn), but when they went along with the new regime, the Nazis helped secure their position. The non-Jewish industrial and financial elites got a pretty sweet deal at first, and enjoyed it before being dragged into a suicidal war.

Right, but one could use many of the same argument against post WW2 social democrats no? The quality of life of the German working class much improved in the 1930s.

Again I wasn't arguing they did that much on their stated beliefs but I said they where an example of racialists arguing against class divisions.

To give another example from Fascists rather than Natonal Socialists (I think there is a notable difference) listen to this speech by Sir Oswald Mosley.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 20 August 2012 11:32:47PM 2 points [-]

Right some racialist have also argued against class divisions. Most infamously the you-know-whos.

Rather common among nationalists in general, not just racial ones; see the use of "class warfare" rhetoric today.

Can you imagine a racist Coca-Cola Company in a global economy?

"Racism" means too many different things. A Coca-Cola company whose views of the market were clouded by racial prejudice would be at a competitive disadvantage. But one that participated in systems of racial privilege would not necessarily be.

To cherry-pick a famous example from history — the Montgomery bus service of Rosa Parks fame was not owned by Southern race-haters, but by National City Lines, a front company for General Motors and Firestone Tire. It still participated in a system of racial privilege by enforcing segregated seating. Doing so was kind of an obvious business move for NCL, since segregated seating was required by Alabama law.

Comment author: [deleted] 21 August 2012 05:49:50AM *  1 point [-]

Doing so was kind of an obvious business move for NCL, since segregated seating was required by Alabama law.

Right but regulatory capture means that most business would not only have a financial interest lobby against such laws to boost profits but also probably be quit effective at them.

To give an example requiring a larger number of toilets because segregation was required by law in your factory was clearly a unwanted expense, especially for investors coming in from the outside.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 22 August 2012 07:45:23PM 2 points [-]

It sounds like you're suggesting regulatory capture effects would have led NCL to eventually lobby against segregation laws in order to make more money by better serving black Alabamians.

But isn't it at least as credible that regulatory capture would have led NCL to lobby for the maintenance of segregation to deter competition from upstarts offering desegregated service to those who wanted it?

Regulatory capture usually offers to explain established businesses supporting regulation, or favoring forms of "deregulation" that end up entrenching them at the expense of new competition. So this might explain it if NCL had lobbied for anti-discrimination laws (thus forbidding whites-only competitors) but I don't see how it would predict supporting merely the removal of segregation laws.

This line of thinking leads me to wonder how much predictive power the "regulatory capture" idea actually has ...

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