I got carried away and made a mistake

In which I apologize to Gideon Lewis-Kraus

In my recent article on the debate around how much Scott is to blame for the rise of neoreactionary thought, I made a reference to an article from 2020 in the New Yorker, written by the author Gideon Lewis-Kraus. I attributed to the author of the piece a subtle underlying bias in supporting the idea that Scott was “responsible for platforming” Yarvin. Upon further reflection and discussion, I realized I got carried away and that the author of the piece was more descriptive than normative and that I might have read too much into his writing, partially because I was so used to hearing people blame Scott for “platforming neoreactionaries”. One of the things that Scott encouraged in his writing was good epistemic hygiene and admitting when one was wrong. Well, I think I was wrong here.

I apologize to Gideon Lewis-Kraus for this mistake and edited my article to reflect the fact that he was merely describing objections to Scott, not necessarily taking a side or another. To be clear, that does not mean I do not think Scott has been unfairly maligned and that the “Great Man Theory of Platforming” is unfortunately very prevalent. It’s just that the specific article I was quoting was merely describing the stances of different sides, as opposed to taking a position.

The previous version is in the footnote¹, but the new one reads as follows (I am only including the relevant parts of the article):

One of the main accusations against Scott comes from those who blame him for “platforming” neoreactionaries like Yarvin. How did Scott do that? Did he run events with Curtis as the headline speaker, heaping praise on him? No. To many, Scott seems to be guilty of not completely refusing to engage with neoreactionaries, something that stains Scott by association, despite him arguing against them.

To better understand this debate, I recommend an article from 2020 in the New Yorker, written by the author Gideon Lewis-Kraus. The piece discusses Scott’s “doxxing” by the NYT⁴, but also does a pretty good job at summarizing the interests of the rationalist community for a broad audience and brings up both the arguments pro and against Scott and the rationalists’ involvement in the spreading of neo-reactionary thinking. The paragraph below is particularly relevant, with the sentences written in bold and italic illustrating the main points of criticism against Scott that are often brought up by those who consider him guilty of “platforming” Yarvin:

“Many rationalist exchanges involve lively if donnish arguments about abstruse thought experiments; the most famous, and funniest, example, from LessWrong, led inexorably to the conclusion that anyone who read the post and did not immediately set to work to create a superintelligent A.I. would one day be subject to its torture. Others reflect a near-pathological commitment to the reinvention of the wheel, using the language of game theory to explain, with mathematical rigor, some fact of social life that anyone trained in the humanities would likely accept as a given. A minority address issues that are contentious and at times offensive. These conversations, about race and genetic or biological differences between the sexes, have rightfully drawn criticism from outsiders. Rationalists usually point out that these debates represent a tiny fraction of the community’s total activity, and that they are overrepresented in the comments section of S.S.C. by a small but loud and persistent cohort—one that includes, for example, Steve Sailer, a peddler of “scientific racism.” (…) Alexander has long fretted over the likelihood that the presence of these fringe figures could tarnish the reputation of the blog and its community. In late 2013, he published “The Anti-Reactionary FAQ,” a thirty-thousand-word post now regarded as one of his first major contributions to the rationalist canon. The post describes the world view of a group, centered around a figure called Curtis Yarvin, also known as Mencius Moldbug, whose “neoreactionary” views—including an open desire for the restoration of feudalism and racial hierarchy—contributed to the intellectual normalization of what became known as the alt-right. Alexander could have banned neoreactionaries from his comments section, but, on the basis of the view that vile ideas should be countenanced and refuted rather than left to accrue the status of forbidden knowledge, he took their arguments seriously and at almost comical length—even at the risk that he might lend them legitimacy. Ultimately, he circumscribed or curtailed certain “culture war” threads. Still, the rationalists’ general willingness to pursue orderly exchanges on objectionable topics, often with monstrous people, remains not only a point of pride but a constitutive part of the subculture’s self-understanding.”

Who knows? maybe without this “platforming” that Scott facilitated, we would have never had Curtis Yarvin. Of course, this is completely backwards. Elon Musk is much more of a Great Man of History than Scott Alexander is a Great Platformer of neoreactionaries, in the sense that the latter role probably had much less causal impact on Yarvin’s rise⁵.

There is a meta-discussion to be had here: in this mainstream vs fringe debate, it is easy to get carried away and ascribe to individuals general views that one associates vaguely to the faction to which they belong. I believe it is generally true that Scott has been unfairly maligned by the mainstream. However, I let this impression cloud my judgement when it came to discussing a specific article written by an actual individual, which was, as mentioned before, much more descriptive than normative. This is exactly what I have been criticizing the mainstream for doing when discussing people like Scott — doing a vibe-based assessment based on vague feelings and assumptions instead of unbiasedly engaging with the actual material! And now I am guilty of it!

Such behaviour is responsible for the polarization that I abhor and I am genuinely sorry for taking part in it, albeit in a small way. I believe this is what happened here and it was a mistake to take part in this type of fallacy. I think it is inevitable that, as a writer, one would much such mistakes. Here is a post whose whole purpose is to acknowledge one such mistake and sincerely apologize for it. And to add to this: the SSC community is one that normalized this practice of admitting epistemic failures of this kind— so I guess hurray to Scott & co for that.

Anyway, to add to all of this, it seems the “Great Man Theory of Platforming” has somewhat been broken. Curtis Yarvin will be debating very respectable Dr. Danielle Allen, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard. And she does not seem to be just *any* professor — her CV is remarkable in a very legible to the mainstream way. As an aside, twitter user AlicefromQueens has an interesting thread about how she might have been passed over as President of Harvard over Claudine Gay.

1. Let’s take for example an article from 2020 on Scott Alexander’s “doxxing” by the New York Times in the New Yorker, by the author Gideon Lewis-Kraus. Lewis-Kraus might be right about some points he makes about NYT’s editorial practices, some of the corrections he brings to assertions of members of the tech elite and how it’s impossible that Cade Metz (the author of the famous NYT article) could have promised Scott "mostly positive coverage” — I really do not understand the subtleties of these things well enough to comment. But I want to emphasize something else in this article, namely that the “Great Man Theory of Platforming” subtly underpins it.

The author recognizes that Scott was among the first to openly counteract Curtis Yarvin’s ideas through his “Anti-Reactionary FAQ”. But he also seems to accuse him of helping neoreactionaries through what one might broadly call “platforming” (the word is not used as such in the article, it’s me who describes the main objections the author seems to have in this way).

How did Scott do that? Did he run events with Curtis as the headline speaker, heaping praise on him? No. Scott seems to be guilty of not completely refusing to engage with neoreactionaries, something that stains Scott by association, despite him arguing against them. The author is smart enough to not directly spell out several things, but there is a clear strain of accusation subtly running through his piece:

Alexander could have banned neoreactionaries from his comments section, but, on the basis of the view that vile ideas should be countenanced and refuted rather than left to accrue the status of forbidden knowledge, he took their arguments seriously and at almost comical length—even at the risk that he might lend them legitimacy. Ultimately, he circumscribed or curtailed certain “culture war” threads. Still, the rationalists’ general willingness to pursue orderly exchanges on objectionable topics, often with monstrous people, remains not only a point of pride but a constitutive part of the subculture’s self-understanding.

Who knows? maybe without this “platforming” that Scott facilitated, we would have never had Curtis Yarvin. Of course, this is completely backwards. Elon Musk is much more of a Great Man of History than Scott Alexander is a Great Platformer of neoreactionaries, in the sense that the latter role probably had much less causal impact on Yarvin’s rise⁴. Musk’s tech empire would not have happened without Musk. However, Yarvin’s ideas would have penetrated anyway, sooner or later. After all, he was completely deplatformed, ignored, cancelled etc by most mainstream publications and academia, yet his ideas did penetrate to the highest level of US political thought in the end. This shows there was appetite for such ideas, an appetite driven by deeper forces, as well as technology (the internet). Yet, despite this nearly universal deplatforming, somehow, we are led to believe that, another at the time unknown, anonymous blogger (Scott) engaging in a dialogue that was mostly critical of Yarvin’s ideas, might have dramatically changed culture in very, very bad ways. When I say “we are led to believe”, I do not just mean through the Gideon-Kraus article — so many critiques of Scott that I have read ultimately mention his engagement with neoreactionaries as some sort of mortal sin.