Tag: trainwreck

In which R. Scott Bakker conclusively demonstrates that he isn’t merely hypocritical, ignorant, morally blind, and philosophically inept, he also happens to be a confirmed liar:

By way of disclosure, I have to say that I’m most interested in the way you’ve changed your answers to these questions since the last time. We actually speculated about how you might change your rhetorical tactics. You seem to have moved from a bald (and quite embarrassing, I think you realized in retrospect) assertion of exceptionalism (IQ, social regard – I think you even managed to work your wife’s fertility in there!) to one that has more cognitive qualifications (which is something I predicted – my conceptual model must have been bang on that day!).

To which I replied: “As I recall, the previous questions were different, Scott. Why on Earth would you expect me to provide the same answers to different questions? I’ll suppose I’ll have to look up your previous questions and compare them. And before I do, let me point out that this will have some seriously negative implications for your credibility and intellectual honesty if those two sets of questions are not identical.”

I’ve been engaging with Bakker long enough now to know that he is a slippery intellectual snake, and while I’m not perfectly consistent over time, I don’t customarily change my answers to the same question without either admitting or realizing I have done so. So, his claim that I had changed my rhetorical tactics immediately triggered my BS radar. I went back and looked at every single question both he and his readers asked me, and thanks to his description, I had no trouble identifying the one to which he was referring, which I answered in the post entitled The Wangst that Comes After.

Wängsty: “What makes him think he’s won the Magical Belief and Identity Lottery?”

Oh, I don’t know. Out of nearly 7 billion people, I’m fortunate to be in the top 1% in the planet with regards to health, wealth, looks, brains, athleticism, and nationality. My wife is slender, beautiful, lovable, loyal, fertile, and funny. I meet good people who seem to enjoy my company everywhere I go. That all seems pretty lucky to me, considering that my entire contribution to the situation was choosing my parents well. I am grateful and I thank God every day for the ticket He has dealt me. If I’m not a birth lottery winner, then who is? The kid in the Congo who just got his hands chopped off and is getting raped for the fourth time today? To paraphrase the immortal parental wisdom of PJ O’Rourke, anyone in my position had damn well better get down on their knees and pray that life does not become fair.

First, let me say that I’m not embarrassed by my answer to that question in the slightest. I wouldn’t change a word of it if I were asked it again. But I wasn’t. And to prove that, let’s take a look at the questions that I subsequently answered. Here is the complete list of questions Bakker asked of me in the latest go-round. Do you see anything about the Magical Belief and Identity Lottery?

1. Granting two things, that the technologies that science made possible have transformed our world in the past three centuries, and that science, as another human institution, nevertheless suffers many flaws, you’re saying your non-scientific account of science demonstrates that science is not to be trusted… what? At all? More than non-scientific accounts? No differently than non-scientific accounts? [Bakker doesn’t understand that technology drives science more than science drives technology. And it was not a “non-scientific account” that demonstrated peer-reviewed, published science papers from top science labs are about 11 percent reproducible. -VD]

2. Lastly, I will ask you – this one time – to refrain from verbally abusing any one on this site but myself. Are we clear on that? [Sure, we’re clear that you asked. – VD]

3. Are you ever puzzled by the way it always seems to be the other guy that’s wrong? For us outsiders, we can only assume, absent any relevant information, that you are at best ‘in the right’ a fraction of the time (just like everyone else), but that you are duped into thinking you are pretty much right all the time (just like everyone else). What makes you special? My personal instinct – one that I think many others share – is to be skeptical of an individual the degree to which they impress themselves. Why should I make any exception in your case?

So Bakker is trying to claim that a question about the uniqueness of my identity and beliefs is exactly the same as a question about the unusual success of my public track record and thereby score some cheap rhetorical points by claiming that two very different answers to two different questions were actually two different answers to the same question. He then goes on to make the risible claim that this somehow supports his conceptual model and that he had predicted my behavior. But his claims aren’t simply false, they are shamelessly dishonest. While I knew from the start that Bakker was somewhat of a charlatan and prone to intellectually carelessness as well, until now, I only suspected that he would be willing to knowingly lie in support of his utopian ideology. And the sheer stupidity of lying about such an easily checked statement tends to support one of my other suspicions, which is that Wängsty is more educated than intelligent.

Nor can Bakker claim that “what makes you special” is synonymous with his Lottery question, because it was asked in the context of why I believe I am right more than others are, as one can easily see in my answers to him.

Wängsty: Are you ever puzzled by the way it always seems to be the other guy that’s wrong?

That’s hilarious. When I make my annual economic predictions at the start of the year, I always score my predictions from the previous year. Sometimes they’re very good, such as the time I was only off on the change in the median existing home price by $300 when the chief economist for NAR was off by more than $40,000. Sometimes they’re not, such as when I didn’t anticipate the BLS playing games with the employment-population ratio in order to keep the unemployment rate down. But it’s not enough to be stupid, you have to be completely ignorant to think that anyone who meddles in economics could possibly think he’s right all the time. I only wish I was. Unlike academia, there are significant financial penalties for being wrong in the markets. But in general, your question is rather like asking if Bill Belichick if he’s ever puzzled that the other team always seems to lose. He’s a good football coach. I’m a good recognizer of patterns. I’ve been writing op/ed columns for 11 years. My track record is all out in the open and it speaks for itself. I don’t always get it right – I still can’t believe Hillary Clinton didn’t win the nomination – but in that same election, I was the only commentator in a field of 100 to correctly predict that Sarah Palin would be McCain’s vice-presidential choice. And this time around, I correctly anticipated Romney would be the Republican nominee; time will tell if my outlandish prediction that Obama will not be the Democratic candidate in November is correct as well. And note that I made that prediction about 18 months ago; my track record is not a result of playing it safe and obvious.

What makes you special? My personal instinct – one that I think many others share – is to be skeptical of an individual the degree to which they impress themselves. Why should I make any exception in your case?

Because I’m really that good. Look, a lot of people ignored me back in 2002 when I urged them to stay out of the housing bubble and buy gold instead. After housing crashed and gold went from $275 to $1750, a lot of those people subsequently decided that they at least ought to pay attention. Strangely enough, no one is laughing at my prediction of massive worldwide economic contraction anymore. What makes me special? I am not sure. There are certainly others smarter than I am, and more successful than I am. But what I’m very good at is forcing myself to only look at what is there, rather than what I want to be there. In retrospect, most of my errors have been caused by failing to sufficiently adhere to that principle, and that’s how I often pinpoint my interlocutors’ weaknesses: look at what they desperately want to believe is true and you’ll probably find a logical or factual error there. But what many of my readers find amusing about your accusations of certainty is that I have quite openly changed my mind about a number of significant ideological issues. Can you honestly say the same?

It may be illuminating to keep this in mind as I proceed to pin down the snake and vivisect his Moral Uncertainty Principle, armed with little more than a superintelligence and a peculiar definition of “certainty”. Those who find this whole thing amusing will no doubt be interested to know that Mr. Moral Uncertainty appears to have a fairly serious obsession that the alien rape monsters of The Prince of Nothing were not enough to sate, as it appears rape is a major theme of his science fiction work as well.

The discussion at R. Scott Bakker’s Three Pound Brain has continued and sprouted numerous branches, and yet Wängsty himself has thus far resolutely refused to provide any definition of “certainty” or “uncertainty” despite the fact that his entire philosophical framework appears to rest upon them.  Here is but one of several comments that I have made there in answering the various questions of his commenters even as Bakker continues to avoid answering mine.

Why is he so reluctant to provide definitions for his central terms?  Is he afraid that his entire philosophical edifice will tumble to the ground if he exposes it to criticism?  Or is it only that the certainty of a definition would be less moral than the uncertainty of a non-definition, so he is simply attempting to abide by the ethos of his doubt-filled creed?

First, I’d like to point out that I’ve been answering many questions, whereas Scott still hasn’t deigned to define
certainty or uncertainty for us, which has prevented us from proceeding
with the main subject. So, how about it, Scott? Are you cool with the
dictionary definitions or is Delavagus correct and you have something
else in mind?

Just for the sake of clarity, you advocate attempting to convince
all women to voluntarily not work. You don’t advocate forcing them to
not work, right?

I don’t think it’s necessary to force anyone not to work. Most women
of the important class don’t really want to, not after they have actual
experience of it. But I would go a little farther than simply
attempting to convince women, I advise removing the incentives that
encourage women to enter the labor force and provide them with
incentives to bear and raise children instead.
The basic problem is that since the doubling of women in the labor
force from 1950 to 1975, and concomitant reduction of wage rates,
married women who don’t want to work are forced to if they wish to
maintain the standard of living a one-income family once had.

Is this [changing  positions on the drug war] really an example of you being (proven) wrong, though? It was incompatable with your beliefs.

Yes. A friend pointed out the logical inconsistency to me.

Is there some method by which you could be shown to be wrong on
the womens rights (or even shown to not be so certain of how it aught to
be)? You seem to say your belief changed – but what was the changing
method and can anyone else have a hand in that?

Of course. But it’s unlikely, since I’ve looked at it in more depth
than most. The method involved looking at the societal effects over the
course of the last 90 years, and it rapidly became clear that the
predictions made by opponents of women’s suffrage were largely correct
and those made by its supporters were incorrect. Furthermore, there are
a whole host of problems, mostly rooted in economics, that were never
anticipated by either side.

Seems a legacy argument? Legacy, Eg: Well, if we give all these
slaves freedom, who will work the plantation! Economic ruin! Thus
slavery aught to continue.

No, you’re making the mistake of confusing a forward-looking
perspective with a retrospective one. In the correct analogy to the
case we’re discussing, we’re considering that pro-slavery argument from
amidst the economic ruins. As it happens, that pro-slavery argument was
subsequently proven wrong by events, as were the pro-suffrage
arguments.

if we assume that women are technically human, and we assert that
we value human liberty, shouldn’t we support their desire to work as
much as we would support a man’s desire to smoke some nice (almost)
harmless weed due to both being a special case of general human liberty ?

Not necessarily. This is the common error committed by many of my
fellow libertarians. For example, consider open borders. That
seemingly libertarian position is actually anti-freedom, as there would
be nothing to stop China from sending 30 million Chinese to the UK and
55 million to the USA, gaining voting rights, then voting to sign a
treaty of surrender to the Chinese government. Maximizing human liberty
in the aggregate is not perfectly synonymous with maximizing all
individual human liberty.

However, if he supports bypassing persuasion and going straight
for coercion, things take a decidedly ominous turn. But relying only on
persuasion immediately suggests the practical improbability of the
proposition, and this is why I think it’s proper to feel uneasy about
even theoretically suggesting it. What really is the point to suggesting
a counterfactual that has no chance of being realized?

There is a long gap between persuasion and coercion. As I said, I
favor incentives, not force. But it’s not a counterfactual that has no
chance of being realized. The coercion and oppression of Western women
by force will come if their behavioral trends are not changed, and
changed in the next 30 years. The socio-sexual and demographic trends
are fairly clear. Who would have imagined, in 1973, when wages peaked
and the divorce/abortion equalitarian program was implemented into US
law, that there would be honor killings in the USA and Europe only
thirty years later?
Societies that rest upon structural incoherencies always collapse
sooner or later. Feminist equalitarianism is actually a less coherent
and less realistic ideology than Soviet communism was, and it probably
won’t last the 72 years that the Soviet system did. It’s only been 39
years and the problems are rapidly building up throughout the West.

If one is to believe them. This is an incredibly amusing letter from a white, deeply liberal, very not-racist woman who is deeply concerned about the insufficient profits of a prospective hip-hop club proprietor:

My name is Jennifer McMillen, and I live only a few doors down from the proposed site of Prime 6. Like most of the folks at the CB6 meeting on Monday night, I too have been concerned about the impending entrance of Prime 6 into our community and our daily lives.

I’m not generally the type of person that speaks up, (I remained silent during the entire Monday night meeting), but in this situation, I’m hopeful that I’ve stumbled onto a solution that makes so much sense for *both* parties that I’m beyond excited to share it with all of you.

First, let me explain what’s at the heart of this conflict: I know for a fact that there’s no single type of establishment (or type of bar/club patron for that matter) that Park Slopers would inherently view as “undesirable.” I don’t think anyone would deny that Park Slopers are about the least “racist” people on the planet.

What IS causing strife in this situation is that over the last ten years, Park Slope has become a family-oriented and family-centric community. This can be annoying at times – believe me, as someone who has chosen not to have children, I’m more than aware of the self-entitled attitude that often pervades parts of our community.

Nevertheless, it’s just a fact that in this neighborhood, family comes first.

Prime 6 has to realize this – but at the same time – Park Slope families need to realize that this is a free country, and that Prime 6 has a right to exist. Furthermore, no one can legally stop the owners from doing what it is they’re going to do.

So here’s the gist of my big idea: Isn’t there some middle ground between this spot being a stroller repair shop and it being a full-on hip-hop club?

No one can change the fact that Prime 6 WILL exist – they have their liquor license, and nothing’s going to deter them from opening. BUT: What if owner Akiva Ofshtein could be convinced that his business will see far more financial success as a different kind of nightlife establishment. Instead of focussing on hip-hop and urban entertainment, what if Prime 6 embraced some of the more indie local artists of ALL races who live and perform in the area.

Now, why might this devoutly anti-racist woman imagine that having an establishment devoted to “hip-hop and urban entertainment” would not be compatible with families or white spinsters like herself? What could the problem possibly be?

The only difference between white “racists” like John Derbyshire and avowedly anti-racist whites like Ms McMillen is that the latter completely lacks self-awareness. The observable and provable reality is that every single mentally functioning adult on the planet is racist because racism, in its most commonly recognized form, is nothing more than the possession of a functioning pattern-recognition capacity.

But the woman’s solution is even more amusing than the self-delusion. What a surprise that a liberal white woman would believe that an “indie” club would be more popular than an urban one. After all, doesn’t everyone love, love, love Tori Amos and Sarah Mclachlan?

Peggy Noonan gets the vapors:

But the real war is against women in American public life, in politics and media most obviously, but in other spheres as well. In this war, leaders who are women are publicly demeaned and diminished based on the fact that they are women. They are the object of sexual slurs, and insulted in sexual terms. The words used are vulgar, and are meant to tear down and embarrass. Every woman in American public life knows of it. They talk about it in private. They’ve all experienced it.

Here are some of the words that have been hurled the past few years at public figures who are female: “slut,” “whore,” “prostitute,” “bimbo.” You know the other, coarser words that have been used. But the point is, these are not private insults. They are said in public. This is something new in American political life, that women can be spoken of this way.

Wait, I thought they wanted equality… they wanted equality, right? So, why shouldn’t one call a slut a slut? Now, I am thankfully not privy to the details of Ms Sandra Fluke’s sex life, but given that we know she is a 30 year-old unmarried woman who claims to spend $3,0001,000 on birth control annually, I think that “slut” is probably a significant understatement. According to the Internet – that same Internet which Ms Noonan holds responsible for giving her the vapors – a box of 12 Trojan Magnum XL Condoms is $9.29.

So, we can conclude that if Ms Fluke requires $1,000 annually, she must be having sex around 3,8751,292 times per year. Frankly, it’s amazing that she has any time to attend her law school classes, much less testify before Potemkin Congressional panels.

Noonan claims openly expressed male contempt for women is “the real war on women”, which is more than a little ironic, as her argument is only likely to generate more contempt, especially among the sort of men who tend to believe that the abortion of millions of female babies every year is an activity much more deserving of the title.

This is an actual dialogue from the comments that I felt deserves to survive the heat death of CoComment:

Agnosticon: There’s a lot of mens rea in this argument. [The Divine Hiddenness argument.] It is basically a legal analogy. A rational disbeliever allegedly does not have “guilty mind” and should therefore still be worthy of salvation, however he isn’t, a contradiction. Rational justification here is equivalent to non culpability, while that may not be full justification, it is not unjustified either, it occupies a gray region. I think the argument rests on the assumption that God would be wise enough to perceive this and avoid it, but He doesn’t, hence no God.

VD: It is a stupid and logically invalid argument, as I will demonstrate when I get around to it. And, as I have pointed out on many occasions, legal and moral culpability are two very different things. Regardless, arguing about the fact of God’s existence on the basis of Man’s law is self-evidently stupid.

Agnosticon: At least it doesn’t question beg, as does arguing for the existence of God based on God’s Law.

VD: There is no “at least”, it’s simply invalid. And who is arguing for the existence of God based on God’s Law? If you still think I’m doing that, you’re simply demonstrating your intellectual limitations again.

Agnosticon: I’m not saying that. I’m just anticipating some circularity in the rebuttal to the [Divine] Hiddenness argument, but I’ll wait until you give it.

As a general service to commenters here, let me recommend that you read this and contemplate the wisdom of not publicly attempting to defend an argument that you have made by comparing it favorably with an argument that someone else has not actually made, but that you anticipate them making. Even if an argument is intrinsically flawed, you can’t burn a bloody strawman until the straw is gathered and assembled.

And on a tangential note, I’d be curious to know what the regulars here deem the over/under on the percentage chance that Agnosticon can successfully anticipate the structure of my arguments, much less the actual argument itself?

Gay activists really don’t appear to be all that intelligent. Simply because they’ve been permitted to prance out of the closet with impunity for a few decades across a decadent and declining West, they suddenly think they can start discriminating against the majority of the population who believe, on the basis of considerable material evidence, that homosexuals are an immoral, abnormal, and disease-ridden section of the citizenry:

A restaurant in Knoxville, Tennessee refused to serve state Sen. Stacey Campfield, the man who sponsored the state’s “don’t say gay” bill, compared homosexuality to bestiality, and most recently told Michelangelo Signorile that it’s virtually impossible to spread HIV/AIDS through heterosexual sex. “I hope that Stacy Campfield now knows what if feels like to be unfairly discriminated against,” the Bistro at the Bijou wrote on its Facebook wall on Sunday.

Don’t get me wrong. As long as they leave the children alone, I have nothing for or against gays, and I completely support the right of the Bistro at the Bijou to not serve anyone it doesn’t want to serve. I’m a libertarian and I fully support everyone’s right to parachute into Hell, (or for our godless friends, into the Void), in the specific manner of his choosing. Of course, I also support the right of everyone else to choose not to do business with anyone, for any reason, and I am under the impression that, by definition, the population demographics don’t tend to favor the abnormally oriented. It strike me as being akin to bringing a toothpick to the battle of Kursk.

There is some seriously perverse illogic being exhibited here if the gay community thinks it can successfully justify practicing active discrimination against its political opponents while simultaneously decrying everyone else’s ability to exert their Constitutional rights of free association. And it also demonstrates a stunning lack of foresight – although I suppose that’s not really all that stunning among a community dumb enough to actively fight against quarantining the confirmed carriers of a lethal sexual disease – as one would think they would be far more concerned about importing millions of potential voters who believe homosexuals should have walls dropped on them than they are about the fairly conventional opinions of a state legislator.

The consequences of a Straight-Queer discrimination war are just too terrible to contemplate. Think about those poor straight Hollywood actors, choreographers, interior decorators, Broadway playwrights, elementary school teachers, and Republican senators, who would all find themselves shunned by their peers. I have no doubt it would make life very uncomfortable for Rand Paul and at least five or six other men across the country.