Ahh. I wasn't sure what made this a bizarro #lolbrooks until you pointed out the mundanity of simply engaging those with differing viewpoints. It's sad that it's considered brave, but it's true. I'd ask your thoughts on what one of the commenters on Murphy's site said in response to this piece: I'd nominate Charles Murray as such a person. In The Bell Curve, he laid out a theory of how the world works: That cognitive skills increasingly determine whether a person can find a remunerative career, and that the potential to develop such skills varies widely at birth, consigning those without such gifts to become part of a permanent underclass. As a caring solution, he recommended a universal basic income. Given what's happened to him since, it's hard to argue that he didn't genuinely risk himself on solving the problem.> In my view, this tradeoff between being correct about how the world works and caring for each other enough that we can cooperatively change it in the direction of peace and abundance for all—this is perhaps the most vexing and urgent puzzle for a genuine revolutionary left today. Yet remarkably I am not aware of a single person genuinely risking themselves on solving it...
Charles Murray is a racist shithead. By engaging the "intellectual" through a frame of "research" you ignore the remarkable curve-fitting performed by Murray - if your core argument is that people fail because they're inferior, the rest of us do not benefit from acting as if you've contributed to the conversation. Unfortunately, most of these discussions are basically finches squawking at each other. If you can't say what you're trying to say in such a way that your waitress understands you, you have nothing to say.
Except it's not, at least in the specific way he means. Nick Land has gotten a lot of attention from the left, or at least accelerationists on the left. Moldbug less so, because blowhard bloggers aren't very interesting, but Nick Land wasn't a complete nutjob in the 90s so he got plenty of attempts at charitable reading when he came back all yay corporate feudalism.It's sad that it's considered brave, but it's true.
I haven't read The Bell Curve. It sounds a bit irresponsible if what I've read of it is true. IMO the failure of the left has much to do with navel gazing debates around the paradox of respecting differences and not wanting anyone to be treated differently. Just like the critiques of The Bell Curve point out, why you are doing it matters most. If a white guy in a group of black people dropped his keys before leaving, should you mention his skin tone in describing him? Yes, you should. It's idiotic to build a world so fragile. Now if you are sussing out why someone scored highest on the chem exam, then what the hell are trying to do? Murphy's comrades need such assurances of care because they, not so unlike Murray, are constructing differences, for ostensibly* different reasons, but to a similar effect. Their observance (creations really) of sacred differences are paralyzing and patronizing. *Yeah, ostensibly. I'm not convinced base tribalism doesn't underpin most of the motivations (comrades?).