Comments on: Someone Writes An Anti-Racist FAQ

By: Douglas Knight

Douglas Knight — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 23:44:07 +0000

Here is a bookmarklet that finds permalinks on pages that use jquery (and other constraints), such as xenosystems.

By: Douglas Knight

Douglas Knight — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 23:14:16 +0000

The time period for my last sentence is the same. Around 1920, England made infanticide by mother a separate crime from murder, with lesser penalties. That suggests increasing tolerance, but I claim that it was a concession to the existing practice of not prosecuting infanticide and juries choosing to rule insanity or simply not guilty. That allows the modern system in which mothers are convicted of the crime, but usually given suspended sentences, instead of the old system of nullification. Insanity is a common result today in some European countries. (But most infanticide is probably just labeled SIDS or otherwise not prosecuted.)

As for the documenting attitudes, even over the past two centuries, that’s difficult. Sorry.

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By: Reader

Reader — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 16:13:22 +0000

I stopped reading when I found that his principal source was Nicholas Wade. I don’t think there is a more criticized person, other than Rushton maybe, who has delved into this topic with the pretense of expertise.

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By: Randy M

Randy M — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 14:28:43 +0000

Well if the movie 300 has taught me anything…

I mean, you’re probably right that I wasn’t thinking about cultures of other times. But I would be interested in seeing sources about Americans & Europeans ofrecent times being more open to the practice (rather than, say, stoicism about unavoidable infant mortality).

(Your last sentence doesn’t jive with what came immediately before unless you are shifting with it to a much more recent time frame?)

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By: Douglas Knight

Douglas Knight — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 13:58:40 +0000

Randy:

As can be seen in the openness to contemplate infanticide, there isn’t such a bright line at birth anymore.

I think you are very much mistaken about the history of infanticide. As far as I can tell, Europeans and Americans have become much more negative about infanticide over the course of the 20th century. The laws have softened a bit, but only to match the existing practice.

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By: Randy M

Randy M — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 13:46:33 +0000

“Any later than that and you have a chance for people to bond with the baby.”

Have you known many expectant parents?

And anyhow, this is a really weird objection, since presumably the ones who bond with it wouldn’t take the option to kill it.

Plus, I think you’ve just given liscense to quietly eliminate transients and mental patients, and to expand capital punishment beyond what porportional justice would suggest.

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By: Randy M

Randy M — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 13:40:25 +0000

This confused me until I realized Claymore is also an explosive device. I imagine it is not hard to assess the damage of the other kind of Claymore.

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By: Zathille

Zathille — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 04:29:05 +0000

Andrew: Specifically, they mean Neoreactionaries, which are a better-defined school of thought that is usually represented by bloggers like Mencius Moldbug amongst others. I’d suggest you read ‘Reactionary Phylosophy in an enormous, Planet-sized nutshell’ as an inroduction and maybe MoreRight as a blog that showcases their thinking.

On a related note, what definition of Reactionary are you, yourself, using?

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By: Said Achmiz

Said Achmiz — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 01:37:12 +0000

Heh. That’s well and good, but you seem to be missing the step where you explicitly explain how to evaluate world states. To wit:

Fear and chaos, you say? And that’s… bad? What makes it bad? (Is it because of the bad consequences of such a world? If so, what makes those consequences bad? And so on.)

Well, whatever evaluation function you apply to world states, that tells you a world of constant fear and chaos is bad… it’s not the only possible evaluation function. Others are possible. Infinitely many others! Some people might use an evaluation function that looks at a world where fetuses are killed left and right, and says that world is bad. Not, like, bad because of the consequences, but just… inherently bad.

From your comment I infer that you hold some variety of utilitarian views, where suffering is inherently bad (i.e. avoidance of suffering is a terminal value), and all other values are instrumental. It’s certainly not the case that everone shares that specific set of terminal values, so assuming that hardly gets you to a sensible account of rights.

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By: ADifferentAnonymous

ADifferentAnonymous — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 00:30:02 +0000

How about this: we grant rights to classes of beings based on the consequences of granting those rights.

What does the world look like if we allow murder of adults? Constant fear and chaos.

What does the world look like if we allow murder of fetuses? Pretty ok. Even if the fetuses are conscious and intelligent, if the procedure is painless then no actual suffering results. There’s no fear or trauma either since the fetus couldn’t know it’s in a pro-choice country even if it could understand the concept.

Immediate infanticide? Pretty similar, actually. Any later than that and you have a chance for people to bond with the baby. You get into atrocity territory if you allow murder of children old enough to understand and fear the concept.

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