Bi-Weekly Discussion - What Is "Responsible Heterodoxy"?

Details

This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join.

Here's the link to the event: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89764871330?pwd=SmFicWk0YWFvUGZ2YnZZZzVYZ0RaZz09

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WHAT IS "RESPONSIBLE HETERODOXY" IN POLITICS?

INTRODUCTION:

In this meetup, we'll discuss the development of "heterodox" intellectual spaces and alternative media outlets in recent years and the various debates that have arisen around how they interact with "orthodox" or "legacy" institutions (i.e. mainsteam media outlets, academia, the entertainment & publishing industries) on the one hand and extremists & conspiracy theorists on the other hand. Essentially, we're looking at the roles "heterodox" groups play in the "marketplace of ideas" in our polarized political environment, and the debates over the ethics of what's recently been dubbed "responsible heterodoxy" by the British journalist David Fuller.

As we'll see, most of these recent debates have revolved around two groups, the group of public intellectuals known as the "Intellectual Dark Web" (i.e. Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, Joe Rogan, Bret & Eric Weinstein, Heather Heying, Claire Lehmann, etc.) and the group of bloggers known as the "rationalist community" (i.e. Eliezer Yudkowsky's LessWrong blog, Scott Alexander's SlateStarCodex and AstralCodexTen blogs, Julia Galef's Rationally Speaking podcast). However, as we'll see, there's a fair amount of overlap with debates over certain trends in libertarian groups, as well as over the emergence of new online platforms like Substack, Clubhouse & Spotify and the growing list of journalists who've become fed up with legacy news outlets & defected to them (e.g. Bari Weiss, Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Katie Halper, Jesse Singal, Katie Herzog, etc.).

In the 1st section, we'll look at the debate over the danger of "reflexive contrarianism" in heterodox intellectual spaces whenever culture war issues are being discuss, as well as how this can be incentivized by "audience capture" (i.e. telling your audience what they want to hear) and "monetizing outrage" (i.e. getting more clicks by harping on the most outrageous examples of bad behavior by people on the other side).

In the 2nd section, we'll look at the role of debate in "heterodox spaces", along with the question of whether debate is useless in cases where someone is arguing in what's been called "bad faith". While "bad faith" technically means they don't actually believe what they're saying, it's also used to indicate other problematic tactics like the use of ad hominem arguments, strawmanning, "gotcha" tactics that rely on out-of-context quotes, "Gish gallops" packed with misinformation, etc.

In the 3rd section, we'll look at the debate over Ben Shapiro's catchphrase "facts don't care about your feelings", accusations that heterodox intellectual spaces are filled with autistic "logicbros" (Ben Burgis's term) devoid of empathy, and how this relates to data scientist John Nerst's distinction between two different cognitive styles he calls "decoupling" and "contextualizing".

In the 4th section, we'll look at the debate over whether heterodox intellectual spaces that traffic in "taboo" topics (particularly those related to race, immigration, gender, or sexuality) inevitably become pipelines to right-wing extremism, or whether this is merely a combination of the "guilt by association" and "slippery slope" fallacies.

RELEVANT MATERIAL FROM PAST MEETUPS:

Way back in June of 2016, we had a meetup on the social psychology of what used to be called "Cultural Libertarians", i.e. the anti-P.C. movement that eventually bled over into the IDW. We looked at the dangers of knee-jerk contrarianism due to psychological reactance, as well as the risk of adopting the "just world hypothesis" as a counter to the SJWs' "mean world syndrome".

Back in July 2019, we had a meetup entitled "Alternative Media & The Overton Window" where we considered whether various alternative media outlets can provide a "counter-public sphere". In the 3rd section of that meetup, we discussed the podcasters & bloggers affiliated with the "Intellectual Dark Web" (IDW) in relation to what Eric Weinstein called his "Four Quadrant Model" of the media, as well as Aaron Huertas's critique of "reactionary centrism".

Back in Aug. 2020, we had a meetup entitled "Is Cancel Culture a Real Threat?" where we looked at whether attempts to control the social environment through deplatforming, firing & blacklisting people for objectionable speech is harming the "marketplace of ideas". The IDW was largely fueled by early concerns over these trends, but the number of journalists & scholars who openly opposed cancel culture exploded after the open letter in Harper's in July 2020, giving rise to new groups.

Back in Jan. 2021, the Philly Political Agnostics had a meetup entitled "Can & Should We Be Politically Agnostic?" In the 4th section, we discussed the debate since 2016 over what has become known as "enlightened centrism" and the IDW, and whether they're more open-minded than their critics.

Also in Jan. 2021, we hosted a discussion entitled "Can & Should We Be 'Free Thinkers'?" After comparing two different methods of "free thinking" - i.e. reasoning from first principles vs constructing hybrid models from other people's theories - we looked at how this might apply to thinking about debates over public health responses to the COVID pandemic, racial disparities in policing & the criminal justice system, and contested elections. One of the major takeaways was the while it's conceivably possible to be a free thinker in multiple domains, it's also easy to end up becoming a crank without even realizing it if you don't have enough intellectual humility & awareness of your own tendencies towards motivated reasoning.

We had a meetup back in Aug. 2021 entitled "What Happened to the 'Intellectual Dark Web'?" where we discussed the rise of the IDW from some high-profile discussions over the value of religion in the modern world and the growing illiberalism & censoriousness on the political left. We looked at how disagreements over Trump, the COVID pandemic and the 2020 election caused the IDW to fracture, and considered some possible successors in the "enlightened centrism" media space.

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DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos & articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of some of the major debates over alternative media & online spaces that embrace a "heterodox" perspective. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the numbered videos linked under each section - the videos come to about about 48 minutes total. The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I've listed some questions under each section heading to stimulate discussion. We'll try to address most of them, as well as whatever other questions members raise. I figure we'll spend about 30 minutes on each section.

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I. THE DANGERS OF "REFLEXIVE CONTRARIANISM" & "AUDIENCE CAPTURE" & "MONETIZING OUTRAGE" IN THE CULTURE WAR:

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1a) Dave Fuller w/ Eric Weinstein, "What Happened to the IDW and Dave Rubin?" (video - 13:51 min, start at 6:48)
https://youtu.be/f0iHlb95Pt8&t=6m48s

1b) Freddie Sayers w/ David Fuller, "What happened to Jordan Peterson?" (video - 47:02 min, listen from 15:42 to 22:50)
https://youtu.be/ekGjOMqWrPg&t=15m42s

Eric Weinstein, "A responsible heterodoxy has an interest in the health of orthodoxy."
Daniel W. Drezner, "The Ideas Industry meet the Intellectual Dark Web"
Fredde deBoer, "Joe Rogan, Parody of the Open Mind - a free speech warrior by default, a mind that looks open in contrast"
Geoff Shullenberger, "I Beg to Differ: The rise of online contrarians on Substack exposes a dysfunctional media ecosystem"
Seth Moskowitz, "The Reactionary Trap: It’s not just a right-wing phenomenon. Thinkers on the left, beware."
Kevin Vallier, "The Contrarian Trap: The Source of the Liberty Movement’s Dark Side"
Cathy Young, "How the IDW Can Avoid the Tribalist Pull"
Cathy Young, "The Problem with COVID Contrarianism: 'Establishment' opinion can certainly be wrong. But especially on issues of science and medicine, anti‐establishment dissent can become a path to crankdom."
Sam Kriss, "In defence of lazy kneejerk contrarianism"

II. THE ETHICS OF DEBATE, THE QUESTION OF "BAD FAITH" & THE B.S. ASYMMETRY PRINCIPLE:

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2a) Dave Fuller w/ Bret Weinstein, "Bad Faith Changes Everything" (video - 4:21 min.)
https://youtu.be/p4ak2e8W9Hw

2b) Sam Harris, "Why Sam Harris Refuses to Debate Bret Weinstein About Vaccines" (video - 5:13 min.)
https://youtu.be/WzKLu7QWVsQ

III. THE CLASH BETWEEN FACTS & FEELINGS/VALUES, DECOUPLING VS CONTEXTUALIZING, & THE "LOGICBROS" MONKER:

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3a) Sam Harris, "Values and Facts" (video - 2:39 min.)
https://youtu.be/h_mKD4TOT8Q

3b) Josh Pelton, "Less Wrong, Rationality, and Logicbros" (video - 8:53 min, start at 0:58)
https://youtu.be/Gtg9tQ4mqLc&t=58s

John R. Wood, Jr., "The Problem with 'Facts not Feelings'"
Atticus Goldfinch, "Actually, facts do care about your feelings: Pursuing objectivity requires being cognizant of your biases, not pretending they don’t exist."
Robert Wright, "Sam Harris and the Myth of Perfectly Rational Thought: The famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it."
John Nerst, "A Deep Dive into the Harris-Klein Controversy [over Race & IQ]" (Decoupling vs Contextualizing)
Berny Belvedere, "Facts Man is a Fiction: Annie Lowrey [in The Atlantic] is right about this type of person being really obnoxious. But his problem isn’t the facts."
Robin Hanson, "Why Economics Is, And Should Be, Creepy" (response to Jordan Weissmann's Atlantic article)

IV. TABOO TOPICS & THE DEBATE OVER WHETHER HETERODOXY IS AN ON-RAMP OR OFF-RAMP TO EXTREMISM:

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Jason Calacanis w/ Cade Metz, "Cade Metz on his controversial Slate Star Codex article" (video - 1:38:32, listen from 46:20 to 60:28)
https://youtu.be/bcRU1jAFnls&t=46m20s

Joel Finkelstein, "On Jordan Peterson, the Alt Right and Engagement Across Difference"
Rebecca Lewis, "Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube"
Ed West, "Is Jordan Peterson a gateway to the alt-right? A new study suggests maybe — but it's still better to engage than to demonise"
Liz Wolfe, "YouTube Algorithms Don't Turn Unsuspecting Masses Into Extremists, New Study Suggests" (response to study by Annie Y. Chen, Brendan Nyhan, et al.)
Paris Martneau, "Maybe It’s Not YouTube’s Algorithm That Radicalizes People: In a new report, Penn State political scientists say that it's not the recommendation engine, but the communities that form around right-wing content."
Nick Gillespie, "Is There Really an 'Insidious Libertarian-To-Alt-Right Pipeline'?" (response to Matt Lewis's Daily Beast article)
Robby Soave, "What The New York Times' Hit Piece on Slate Star Codex Says About Media Gatekeeping" (response to Cade Metz's NYT article)

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Bi-Weekly Discussion - What Is "Responsible Heterodoxy"?