DanArmak comments on Suppose HBD is True - Less Wrong
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Comments (178)
If you mean that you deliberately politicized this post to trap Eugine, I feel that you went against LW discussion norms, and I would rather you hadn't done it. (I'm not entirely sure what you meant; at first I thought you meant you made some claims you didn't believe to draw out Eugine, such as saying HBD would not be important even if it were true, but I hope this is wrong.)
I already noticed, before you made this comment, that you weren't just presenting arguments trying to convince people, but also deliberately vilifying a position you disagree with. I noted to myself that I felt uncomfortable engaging with your post, and wondered why you wrote it that way.
E.g., you call a plausible empirical claim "racist bullshit". You made weak arguments in the OP that I'm not sure anymore were made seriously, and we wasted time refuting them. You used derogatory language about anyone who might disagree with you, before anyone actually did so in this thread. You didn't bother to give a concrete definition of HBD in your post before saying you greatly disagreed with it.
This kind of discourse makes the discussion unpleasant and unproductive, in a way that goes against accepted LW norms, and I hope you wouldn't behave that way on a post made in good faith.
You have said that you prefer to actively avoid knowing or publicizing some (potential) truths if they would politically support your enemies. This may be a valid political strategy, but I strongly feel that it should not be executed on LW. If there is some truth you'd rather remain hidden, then you can remain silent about it.
There has been some good and serious discussion in this thread. I enjoyed it and chose to engage with it, as did several other regular LW commenters (e.g. Lumifer, gjm, cousin_it, buybuydavis) who are definitely not Eugine sockpuppets. But now I feel your behavior poisoned the discussion for me and the other participants. The next time I respond to an LW post, I don't want to wonder if I'm talking to someone who's deliberately making politicized, non-rational arguments, or saying things they don't actually believe in, as part of some ploy unrelated to the actual discussion.