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MichaelAnissimov comments on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? - Less Wrong
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I personally think that many of them are confused. Given that it's a liberal society, I respect people's decisions to do what they want. Yes, strong families are beneficial. Various alternative lifestyles get in the way of that. Eventually societies need to choose between maximizing personal freedom and having strong families. This is a tradeoff that most liberals have yet to really consider seriously.
Is there any reason Strong Families are incompatible with alternative lifestyles? The modern conception of the nuclear family as the main unit is itself something barely 50-100 years of vintage. What's the in practice difference between say, a polyamorous group raising children together in a stable situation and a large, extended family with various cousins and so on?
Or to make it even simpler, I see no strong reason to say "you shouldn't be gay" when you could be saying "Hey gay guys, you should form a monogamous pairbond and raise children together for 18 years".
Well, what's the difference in practice between polyamorous relationships and family ties?
The fact that their internal dynamics are completely different.
Because:
1) The child is deprived of a mother (or father). And yes the two play different roles in bringing up children.
2) Gays aren't monogamous. One obvious way to see this is to note how much gay culture is based around gay bathhouses. Another way is to image search pictures of gay pride parades.
This user seems to to spreading an agenda of ignorant bigotry against homosexuality and polyamory. It doesn't even temper the hostile stereotyping with much pretense of just referring to trends in the evidence.
Are the upvotes this account is receiving here done by actual lesswrong users (who, frankly, ought to be ashamed of themselves) or has Azathoth123 created sockpuppets to vote itself up?
Hi. I'm a kneejerk moderate who has found Aza's comments a rare view into a world I do not know. I vote him/her up often, since I am benefited by this knowledge. I do not vote people up because I agree with them or, in this case, vice versa. I believe s/he is an asset to the site.
Care to explain exactly why I should be ashamed of myself?
I've suspected Azathoth123 of upvoting their own comments with sockpuppets since having this argument with them. (If I remember rightly, their comments' scores would sit between -1 & +1 for a while, then abruptly jump up by 2-3 points at about the same time my comments got downvoted.)
Moreover, Azathoth123 is probably Eugine_Nier's reincarnation. They're similar in quite a few ways (political views, spelling errors, mannerisms) and Azathoth123 started posting prolifically roughly when Eugine_Nier got banned.
Well, firstly I'd like to say that I certainly don't think we should ban homophobia (unless we ban all politics), and I also think that some of the things Azathoth123 says are intelligent and worthy of upvoting.
Having said that,
I've been downvoted for saying stupid things (by LW standards) and this is ok. But arguing with Azathoth123 is the only time I think I've been downvoted for saying things just because someone disagrees with the politics. Yesterday I posted two replies to him, neither was antagonistic or problematic in any way I can see, but still both have been downvoted. I have noticed this repeatedly.
What's more, this isn't going to help him spread his politics. People will stop being willing to talk to him (I've certainly grown tired of it), and it also reflects badly on other NRxers.
Futhermore, given that the large majority of LWers are socially liberal, I find it surprising that some of Azathoth123's comments get so many upvotes. It doesn't fit my model of the average LWer, even when filtered to assume that more consevatives are talking to him. I'd say maybe 70% confidence that he's using sockpuppets based on that, rising based on what you and others have said.
In itself, heavy upvoting of Azathoth123's comments doesn't make me suspicious. Eugine_Nier often got lots of upvotes, and I don't recall suspecting them of self-upvoting when they were posting under that name. (Though I have now started to wonder.) Other neoreactionary-leaning commenters like Konkvistador, Vladimir_M, Athrelon, and GlaDOS have solidly upvoted comments as well, and I've no reason to believe any of them have ever self-upvoted.
(Your other observations mostly align with mine.)
I don't think you can easily lump all of NRx under one banner. Criticism of democracy is fairly accepted on LW, and HBD (as an 'is' statement, not as a justification for discrimination) is seen as plausible. OTOH I don't think there is much support for homo/transphobia here, and its certain comments on this subject which seemed to get an unreasonably large number of upvotes.
Do you have a counterargument to go with your insults. Also, while you're on the subject could you define what you mean by "bigotry" and why it's a bad thing. In my experience these days it usually means "he's using a Bayesian prior based on a category I don't like".
Or is this simply the kind of comment you now need to occasionally make to keep the Australian thought police of your case? If so, I'd like you to know that I sympathize with your position and hope Australia desides to re-embrace free speech.
So are children raised in orphanages. Where do you think children adopted by gay couples come from?
And yet empirically children raised by gay couples don't end up much worse adjusted than those raised by straight couples, and more generally parenting seems to have very little effect on children when controlling for genetics and nonshared environment.
Or rather anyone who publishes a study saying otherwise gets the "evil homophobe" treatment to encourage others to self-censor.
Why do studies that do find that it all comes down to genetics and nonshared environment not get the "evil racist" treatment?
As long as they bend over backwards to avoid mentioning the potential racial implications. Otherwise, they do.
As for why studies showing the connection between race and things like IQ are now becoming "slightly more mainstream", probably because people have been noticing these things for decades and it's becoming increasingly obvious.
bathhouses and pride parades are a shitty example, but I'll admit that gay guys don't seem to be monogamous after I looked around for studies.
What are the internal dynamics you think are optimal for child-rearing?
I don't know the details and I'm guessing neither does anyone else in this thread. However, stability is good, as well as being raised by people to whom Azathoth has given a desire to care about the child's future, as opposed to who are conditioned to regard the child as a rival for their children.
That'd be an argument against all adoptions and orphanages, not just gay adoptions.
The argument is weaker since ordinary adoptions are better at providing stability.
Different doesn't mean worse.
Most changes to working systems make things worse. Which means the burden of proof is on you to explain why the change you're advocating doesn't make things worse.
I'll point out, again, that no one is making traditional child rearing arrangements unavailable, so it is not so much a change to "the" system as allowing other systems to operate.
That's independent of the question of whether this the non-traditional arrangements are better or even workable.
Also, I'd be much more willing to tolerate them if there were schools I could send my children to where they weren't encouraged to "find of if they're gay" or "find out if they're trans".
Also if progressives are so in favor of "allowing other systems to operate", why to they freak out whenever some hamlet in the Bible Belt decides to teach creationism?
If non traditional arrangements are unworkable then they die out,. Why be afraid of things you think are doomed to fail? Why oppose things that work?
Why? Because it's all imprinting? Heterosexuality is right because it is an inherent default, yet, so un-inherent that the rumour of an alternative will convert people?
There's a difference between teaching creationism and teaching only creationism.
The question is what they'll take out with them when they do fail.
Not all imprinting but there's certainly some of that.
No, heterosexuality (and monogamy) is right because it is an effective system for raising children.
It will convert some people and cause others to mess up their lives. Also what these "find out if you're gay" programs are doing is much more than "a rumour of an alternative".
Also note how you've shifted from "please allow these other systems to operate" to "let us expose all children to these other systems".
Well even the former causes progressives to totally freak out.
[Edit: fixed, thanks OtherDavid].
Indeed. So provide some evidence they'll take anything out.
There's no logical connection between "X is effective at Y" and "X is mandatory on everybody".
The existence of celibate priests , spinsters and other non breeders has not historically destroyed any societies.
Evidence...evidence...and evidence?
(And notice how anomalous your claims are. In every other case, everybody, including conservatives, can understand the difference between teaching-about and teaching-to. Nobody thinks telling kids about Henry VIII will turn them into wife murderers)
Nothing has changed.
I think you meant "even the former."
That is, I think the way the argument you're making is supposed to go is that progressives are so inimical to traditional lifestyles and belief systems that we are not even willing to allow them even to be discussed, which is why we freak out when anyone even tries to discuss them.
Am I mistaken?
(To be clear: I am not interested in debating the merits of teaching creationism, teaching only creationism, encouraging heterosexuality, encouraging non-heterosexuality, etc. But if I've misunderstood you and you actually meant what you said in that last sentence, I'm intrigued.)
Sexual diversity is real; creation science is not. Schools must teach what is true.
In what sense? It's real in the sense that there are people who engage in gay sex and people who claim to be "really" the opposite gender. There are also people who rape, people who believe in creationism and people who believe themselves to be "spiritually" some animal.
That doesn't mean we should endorse their behaviors or take their claims at face value.
People who sleep with their same sex do not necessarily identify as homosexuals, and definitely not all homosexuals identify as transgender. They are not the same phenomenon, they must not be confused, and the fact that you confuse them reveals a lot about your suitability to have this discussion.
No valid argument exists to equal homosexuality per se with, respectively, violating others' autonomy, being ridiculously misinformed, or having a psychiatric disorder.
When I went to school (not that long ago) there was no mention of homosexuality in school sex education by law, and there was homophobic bullying. Even the most liberal teacher said "if two pupils were in a gay relationship, we'd cross that bridge when we came to it". Despite this, some of my school friends were gay, and plenty of people of my age are gay.
Do you have a link to back up this claim of schools teaching children to "find out if they're trans"? There's a difference between preaching tolerance and preaching advocacy.
Depends on where I went to school in a liberal state and what I describe was definitely going on.
Do you mean that at your school people were teaching children to "find out if they're trans"? If so, then please do describe what was going on.
You seriously don't know what you're talking about.
I think the stereotype is that male gays are promiscuous while lesbians are the opposite. Given this, would you be in favour of letting lesbians adopt?