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gjm comments on 2012 Survey Results - Less Wrong
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What idea do you think I'm doing that to?
(It seems clear to me that there are ideas that can reasonably be described as "racist ideas". For instance, the idea that black people are fundamentally inferior to white people in abilities, character, and personal value, and that this means they should be segregated to keep them out of the way of superior white people. Or the idea that the right thing to do with people of Jewish descent is to put them into concentration camps and kill them en masse. So if you're saying that merely using the words "racist ideas" is proof of error and confusion, I think that's wrong. On the other hand, if there's some actual idea you think I'm wrongly describing that way, then let's hear what idea that is.)
I've seen both quite often.
But let's suppose for the sake of argument that (1) Andrew Hickey was in fact intending to dismiss MTGandP as quickly as possible and to get him (note: actually I have no idea whether MTGandP is male or female; indeed the name rather suggests a collective) to drop the subject, and that (2) such behaviour is very atypical on Less Wrong. What then? How does this indicate "creeping censorship of right-wing ideas"?
The most it indicates, being as uncharitable as possible to AH, is that one person (AH) is trying to intimidate another person (MT) out of talking about an idea that AH considers racist. How do you get from "AH tries to intimidate MT out of talking about the idea that black people might have inferior intelligence" to "LW exhibits creeping censorship of right-wing ideas"? No one was censored. There was no deluge of people agreeing with AH and telling MT to shut up. The idea in question isn't, at least according to others in this thread who appear sympathetic to "right-wing-ideas", particularly a right-wing one anyway.
In the ancestor you wrote:
What work is the word "racist" doing in that paragraph that couldn't be better done by the word "wrong"?
The fact that MT's post is at -7 and AH's comment is at +4 rather than the other way around suggests the problem isn't limited to AH.
The word occurs several times in different contexts; I take it (from what you've said elsewhere here) that you're referring to the instance where it prefixes "ideas". The work it's doing that couldn't be better done by "wrong" is specifying the particular variety of allegedly-wrong ideas I'm saying I think MTGandP isn't trying to promote.
... indicates that there are some other people who think MTGandP's post wasn't very good (which might be for many reasons), and that there are some other people who agree with AH (which also might be for many reasons).
I repeat: How does any of this amount to "creeping censorship of right-wing ideas"? What specific right-wing ideas? How are they being censored?