Scott, known on LessWrong as Yvain, recently wrote a post complaining about an inaccurate rape statistic.
Arthur Chu, who is notable for winning money on Jeopardy recently, argued against Scott's stance that we should be honest in arguments in a comment thread on Jeff Kaufman's Facebook profile, which can be read here.
Scott just responded here, with a number of points relevant to the topic of rationalist communities.
I am interested in what LW thinks of this.
Obviously, at some point being polite in our arguments is silly. I'd be interested in people's opinions of how dire the real world consequences have to be before it's worthwhile debating dishonestly.
Done. I think the most significant point Chu made which didn't come across in the other summaries was that "some ideas are inherently dangerous and must not be allowed to spread", and that neoreaction is among those.
So I guess that a lot of the disagreement come down to how dangerous you believe the ideas are. A big reason I feel comfortable reading Moldbug looking for interesting points of view is that his ideas have lost so thoroughly---regardless of his feelings that black people would be better off as slaves, the probability that slavery will be reinstated in America is basically zero (except perhaps in a complete collapse of civilization). If I believed that discussing Moldbug carried an appreciable risk of destroying modern liberal society, then I wouldn't.
(Indeed, since the pseudo-nazi revival in Greece in recent years, I have felt a bit less comfortable about Moldbug too. Suddenly, liberal democracy seems slightly less secure).
Does Moldbug actually believe that?