152 Comments

1. There are words, and there is flawed reasoning, and then there is the impact of those words. You hit the nail on the head by criticizing Beale’s comment that women shouldn’t vote because they have biases toward tall handsome men. What about corresponding bias within men? And this is the crux of the matter: Beale takes single research data points and applies them to complex systems in a way which is not supported by the data. Women prefer tall men. But in the absence of competing influences, such a point is meaningless. Maybe they prefer rich men more than tall men? And maybe they prefer smart men more than rich men? And maybe they prefer funny personable men more than all of the others? And taking all of the various data points and looking for a broad conclusion is still impossible, because isolating all of the influences is nigh impossible.

   Still, for Beale, if women like tall handsome men, there are no other data points of merit.

   So there is flawed reasoning based on incomplete or biased assumptions of data. This makes one then ask: Why does Beale make this mistake and what impact does this thinking have?

   Well, I can’t speculate why all of Beale’s interpretations of incomplete data on complex subjects tends to lean toward a male-dominant, Western-centric bias, but as the bias I presume mirrors Beale’s own background, my best guess is that it is based on a cultural preference for his own “kind,” as it were.

   The impact is ultimately seen in the adoption of such thought. As it is now, Beale is considered a fringe crank. His only real exposure is via the relatively irrelevant politics of SF fandom. I mean, seriously, the Hugo debacle didn’t even make it to the front page of Reddit. So Beale’s kind of harmless. Like a minor league David Duke.

   But, for the sake of a thought experiment, let’s assume that Beale becomes a thought leader or he rallies others to be his vanguard using less “give offense” language (to use your phrase).

   Then we have a situation where his flawed logic leads to true horror. Women lose the right to vote, which would elevate communal good (as seen by his peers) over individual liberty. I could do a similar rundown of his other biased interpretations of incomplete data, but the common thread here is that Beale is a Libertarian’s nightmare. Individual liberty subsumed for a nationalist agenda.

   Which leads me to my final point: The only way that Beale’s opinions are not anti-Libertarian is if you believe that those you are forcing by violence to not vote or have fewer rights (ostensibly women and Blacks) do not deserve individual liberty. And that is ultimately the horror that people see in Beale. His beliefs (again, based on single data points generalized to explain complex systems) lead to the tyranny of women and some minorities.

2. John, this took real courage on your part. You went to the lion’s den. You have touched the untouchable. And risked the wrath of many in the process. I think Vox says some things I don’t agree with. In some cases, I strongly disagree with. But I am glad you gave him a chance to answer some questions in a neutral forum — if for no other reason than to make the man behind the infamy a little bit plainer.

3. I had a rather epic debate with Vox over our blogs once on economics. I love the guy. But what you have to keep in mind with Vox is… the rhetoric of offense as you call it is actually a defense mechanism he’s developed over years of being attacked. When writing he lays deliberate traps. These traps are designed to make those people who skim until offended jump. That way he can easily weed out those who just want to yell Racist! at him from those who actually want to discuss the ideas.

   on a specific note… remember Vox didn’t say “women shouldn’t vote.” he was said women voting in representative democracy is sub-optimal… but he also said twice that he doesn’t favor representative democracy at all but direct universal democracy. In other words… he thinks everyone should get to vote on everything.

   Anyway thanks for doing this. It was fun to see someone actually dare to communicate with Vox. The man isn’t hiding anything. He isn’t lying about anything, and he isn’t out there stalking the internet harassing anyone. He said what he said about NK only after she’d said much worse about him for years.

   Somehow that almost always gets ignored though.

4. It’s been said by more than one observer that, if iodine supplements were made widely available and used in sub-Saharan Africa, that the mean IQ of the populations there could be boosted by as many as 10 percentage points. Nutrition does play a part – – but genetics seems to, also.

5. No offense, but while commendable to seek actual dialog, John, by doing so, didn’t risk any sort of wrath by Vox or the Dread Ilk at all. However, the jury is still out on whether he will face the wrath of those who do believe Vox is the devil. Be prepared, John.

   “What about corresponding bias within men?”

   Please. While men do have their own biases, voting on the basis of perceived hotness is not one of them. And, if you were reading, you’d note that Vox even advocated that suffrage be restricted to a limited subset of men. Does that not sufficiently address your question?

6. Jake… except you missed the part where Vox said, twice, that he favors universal direct democracy… a system where everyone would vote on everything. Sounds libertarian to me.

   When talking about limiting the vote he was talking about doing so in the context of system he doesn’t even support.

7. Bravo.

8. This was an excellent interview. You did a job of asking questions and follow up questions for the purpose of getting information. Well done.

9. Thanks for this, John. You showed class and courage.

10. Seems to be perfectly fine viewpoints as a base. I suppose that we would have to triple verify before implementing laws in regards to it though. His views are a lot more sensible then #KillAllMen, that’s for sure.

11. John,

    You need to ask, “Why does Vox use the rhetorical approach in is blog?” When you look closely, he only uses it AFTER he’s been the target of rhetorical attacks. Up to that point, Vox will engage much as he as done with you, but as soon as the, “You’re a big poopy head!” comments are launched, the gloves come off.

    One can’t battle the rhetoric with dialectic reasoning. The emotional driven person is usually not capable of reason and can only reply with insipid SJW labels.

12. Jake, your understanding or (small l) libertarianism is too inaccurate for words. Libertarian philosophy as espoused by its modern representatives and early progenitors rejects political activity entirely. Libertarianism could no more be subsumed by a nationalist agenda than Carl Watner’s Voluntaryists be subsumed by Murder, Inc.

    This is not to mention that equating the right to vote with individual liberty is a complete inversion of thought from Bastiat to Mises and Rothbard to Higgs. If you can point to a system where expanding the franchise led to more liberty (not a system of political spoils, a la Title IX, but actual liberty of the “less red tape, fewer detailed laws, a shrinking of the state’s overarching regulatory behemoth”) I’d be interested in see it.

    Liberty and politics are mortal enemies. Universal suffrage simply led to where we are today, a place where people pull voting levers based on which charismatic charlatan promised them the most swag to be taken by force from unnamed (but deserving) victims.

13. “People lie along a bell curve for all sorts of things”

    Bell curve?

    Tooting the dog whistle already, are we?

    Sad to see this. You should be ashamed.

14. Well done, John. It’s amazing what we can learn when we take the time to talk, and when we are able to cultivate some level of dispassion. I tip my hat to you, sir.

    All the best,
    G

15. oh, bravo, well done.

    *standing ovation*

    Vox directly says “note that I favor universal direct democracy” and all you hear is “don’t allow the women and homies to vote”.

    even though the voting rights of Blacks ( or any other nominal minorities, including East Asians ) weren’t even discussed in this article.

    which follows flawlessly from your thought experiment in which a ‘thought leader’ is held hostage to the purported ideas of his followers.

    Individual liberty subsumed for a nationalist agenda.

    this statement is simply incoherent. also, amusing.

    i suppose you are also sent into paroxysms at the thought of the internationalist agenda?

16. John, I appreciate the post and your approach to it. Just to focus on one small part of it, anytime I hear someone use the term “IQ” without an explanation, I wonder what they mean by it.

    It’s been 30 years since my psych classes and almost as long since I was involved in Mensa. Maybe things have changed, but back then IQ was considered a very hand-wavy, difficult to isolate thing. Mensa literature said IQ tests were a poor judge of intellect, but the only way they had to quantify it.

    When I took my qualifying tests, the guy sitting across from me finished first in every test but one. I was the first to complete that one, and it was the only test in which others complained about how hard and unfair it was. The test? Making change on cash transactions, something I had a few thousand hours of experience with as a teenager. In other words, I’d been trained to take that test.

    (As an aside, of the two IQ scores I received that day, the higher one put me in the second percentile, and the lower one–which included the change-making test–put me in the first percentile. So I’m on uncertain ground when people talk about IQ, but when people talk about absolute scores with no reference–which is the norm–I find it completely meaningless.)

    Based on my casual science-podcast listening, I’d guess that these days discussions involve types of intelligence are more meaningful than those involving general IQ.

17. I came over from Vox tweeting this by the way First time visitor. I’ll check out more of this blog later I like what I’ve seen so far.

    I just want to give my two cents on Vox’s viewpionts.

    >IQ differences among races

    I am inclined to agree with this although I can’t be sure because I’m not informed enough. I don’t think it means it would morally justify racism though like some people think. We’re not allowed to treat for example mentally retarded people poorly because they have lower mental capabilities right? Not to compare people of certain races with mentally retarded people but you get what I’m saying.

    >Immigration

    I think Vox is spot-on about immigration. Like the United States for example, its always had immigration but a mix of different immigrants. Immigration today is dominated by Mexicans. Now there’s nothing wrong with Mexicans but because they’re the dominant group and the immigration of Mexicans to the US is massive, its causing a huge changing of the ethnic makeup. Plus the fact that many Mexicans living in the US have more of a loyalty to Mexico than the United States. (sorry but its true)

    Putting it another way the US has always had a diverse diet of immigrants but now its one kind of immigrant that’s being ingested: Mexicans.

    >Birth rate

    I also agree with his general point. The problem seems like this: women having more equality and getting jobs and careers has been great for women and to a extent society. But a huge downside is the lower birth rate, children being put in daycares instead of being raised by their mothers, etc. This comes at a societal cost but because if feminists nobody is really allowed to discuss it.

    I’m not sure what the solution is to the birthrate problem but I would guess it would involve massive tax incentives for children and stay at home moms. Essentially women need to give up those privileges for the good of the nation. I’m not saying they should be forced but lets understand the stakes here: its the fate of nations. US, Europen nations.

    >women vote for hunks

    I don’t know. I mean I’m the furthest thing from a feminist but even I think that’s unfair. And lets face it men vote for the same bullshit reasons (Bush is just a regular guy you can have a beer with, Guy X just looks more “presidential”). Voting for presidents have always been about superficial things, men and women.

    Also there’s a reason why presidential candidates are raising huge sums of campaign money. Campaign money buys tv ads and tv ads get you votes to a laughably predictable rate. The way tv ads influence male voters is no different than female voters.

18. Nicely done, John.
    I am a regular reader of Vox’s blog, but do not consider myself one of the “Dread Ilk”, his loyal readers. I read him mostly because he discusses things that interest me (games, publishing, 4th generation war, Sci Fi etc) in a unique, need I say blunt, manner.
    But as you point out, he is far from being Satan.
    I would like to know how is it we (the Western World) have turned into a society that seemingly cannot tolerate extreme or uncomfortable positions from other people?
    Not that long ago the philosophy of life was generally “if it doesn’t pick my pocket or break my leg, it is not my business.” (I think that is from Ben Franklin).
    How come we cannot return to that?

19. Kudos to you, John Brown, for conducting an investigation and then—zounds!—writing intelligently and dispassionately about it. Being fair and rational can get you in trouble, but you’ve shown that you’re more interested in truth than staying out of trouble. Thank you for that.

20. Here’s my take on this. The rhetoric of offense is different than the rhetoric of explication. The latter is meant to explain. The former’s goal is to cause injury. It has no interest in sharing ideas. It only has interest in injuring someone, either to try to gain relief from an attack or to beat someone into submission, or because seeing folks get all riled up provides amusement.

    It’s the second one for Vox. The only way to possibly handle someone like PZ Myers is to humiliate and beat them into submission that no one else wants to associate with them and their positions. Why? Because Myers complete oeuvre is based on two things: intellectual dishonesty and using social pressure to force others to conform to those dishonestly derived positions.

    You can’t argue with someone like PZ Myers in a substantive and sober way. Your only option is to so publicly humiliate them so that everyone runs from what they say. BTW, Myers is just one example of tens of thousands of very prominent people with whom the rhetoric of offense is the only viable strategy.

    I wonder if IQ tests really measure intelligence or just one type of problem solving.

    My independent conclusion is that IQ tests for an array of mental traits that is key to operating in the context of an advanced and complex civilization. Steven Pinker has offered the same opinion. Logically, this would imply that someone with an IQ measuring 150 today would not have any advantage living 50k YBP and would probably be at a disadvantage.

21. @ Jake Kerr

    women shouldn’t vote because they have biases toward tall handsome men. What about corresponding bias within men?

    Men have no corresponding biases. Female sexual attraction tends toward status and power whereas male attraction tends toward youth and fertility. The first has direct political consequences while the second does not.

    Still, for Beale, if women like tall handsome men, there are no other data points of merit.

    That’s correct, they have no merit. Today’s mass media driven politics necessarily focuses on physical image to the exclusion of everything else. For example, the sort of sexy-funny that attracts women is pretty much confined to settings that are far more intimate than an image on a TV screen. Ditto for everything else on your list.

    male-dominant, Western-centric bias

    A female-dominant theory of politics will quickly get conquered because males will have no investment in it and will not be interested in defending it. And a society populated by mostly Westerners with axiomatically going to be Western-centric. Are you surprised that political discussion in China is Chinese-centric? Seriously?

    Beale’s own background, my best guess is that it is based on a cultural preference for his own “kind,” as it were.

    This interest is universal, natural and unalterable.

    Individual liberty subsumed for a nationalist agenda.

    You are operating from the assumption that more voting = more liberty. The conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premise and Vox has made lengthy and detailed arguments explaining why this reasoning is incorrect.

    The rest of your comment is effeminate hand-wringing.

22. “Women lose the right to vote, which would elevate communal good (as seen by his peers) over individual liberty. ”

    Voting does not necessarily equal liberty.

23. I’m not convinced men aren’t affected by charisma

    Charisma isn’t necessarily a bad thing, e.g. Pericles and Churchill. Charismatic leaders can motivate large-scale pursuit of a desirable social good, such as defense of country. And you seem to be implying that sexual charisma exhaustively subsumes all kinds of charisma, which is definitely not the case. Just because I find myself charismatically drawn to a man doesn’t mean I want him to bend me over and take me.

    When you throw male sexual charisma into the realm of politics you are going to get huge percentages of the female population simply voting with their libido. That simply doesn’t happen with men, unless a party decides to nominate Hayden Panettiere as their running mate. Even then, I doubt most men are going to vote for her based on her sexual charisma because men innately understand that women are attracted to men who lead them, versus being attracted to men they lead.

24. Thanks for the interview. Now let’s see the reactions. I find with most subjects in life, those who stop reasoning, use false arguments, appeal to authority and call names do so because they have lost the debate.
    Most people still think the emperor has nice clothes on.

25. I’m a fan of Vox Day. I think his ability to face relentless opposition in order to challenge the dominant narrative is one of the most important and precious things we have in our society. I commend you for reaching out to him and giving him a fair shot at expressing his opinions

    I happen to believe he is generally correct on most of his points. I’m sure that many of his opinions could use a few tweaks, and the search for truth should always be informed by a dispassionate evaluation of the evidence, but his views certainly correspond more to my lived experience than the current progressive dogma does.

    What I do find particularly problematic however is this great fear, commonly seen amongst progressives, and nicely exemplified by Jake Kerr’s post above, that “His beliefs will lead to the tyranny of women and some minorities.” I find this view particularly short-sighted and intellectually dishonest.

    If his beliefs are correct, they should be adopted. If his beliefs are incorrect, they should be rejected. To adopt or reject them based on their presumed effect on minorities is ridiculous.

    Facts are one thing. Values are another. Our task is to assess the facts, decide of our values, and create a society which recognizes facts and promotes our values. For myself, and I suspect for Vox Day, whatever the facts are, our values do not allow for the tyranny of minorities.

    Perhaps more importantly, to do the opposite and let our values dictate what the facts are will actually lead to greater suffering, not just for “minorities” but for everybody. We can cheat reality a little bit, a couple of times, but it always comes back to bite you.

    Right now progressives are the dominant group and hold about 100% of cultural power. People want to follow the progressive dogma and signal to others that they are “progressiver-than-thou”, facts be damned. It is very rewarding to promote blacks/gays/women and to insult whites/heteros/men. Vox Day is pointing out the flaw in this view, and I am extremely thankful he has the courage to do so.

26. Good interview. Kudos for going direct to the source. Several years ago, I started at the same point with questions and skepticism. The science of genetics is fascinating and challenges a number of conventional social beliefs.

    VD has always responded in a consistent manner to the other person’s attitude. He responds in kind to those that attack with rhetoric, but no facts. He has rational and logical discussions with those who seek rational and logical discussions.

27. On the race/IQ thing.

    1. Lots of people want to argue that intelligence is highly differentiated, so you have different kinds of intelligence — “storytelling intelligence,” “visio-spatial intelligence,” “verbal intelligence,” etc. Or they will lump qualitatively different capacities with intelligence and claim they are different forms of intelligence. Like “emotional intelligence” or Howard Gardner’s ridiculous set of multiple intelligences (which he doesn’t seem that interested in studying in any concrete way.)

    The problem is nearly all forms of actual intelligence are positively correlated. Sure, some folks have more verbal intelligence while others are better at math (and vice versa), but the existence of “g” is pretty well proven.

    And g correlates very very well with all sorts of outcomes. Income, chances of going to prison, even your chance of getting into an automobile accident. And that scales up — a city where the average IQ is 105 will be a more pleasant place to live than a city where the average IQ is 90. (It’s an open question as to whether a group with an average IQ of 90 can actually maintain a city.) In fact, if you control for differences in IQ, the black/white income gap goes away. Actually, blacks make a tad more at the same IQ levels. Being a black person in America with an IQ of 125 is a pretty easy gig right now.

    Of course IQ tests aren’t perfect, and of course they miss all sorts of interesting things. But in general smarter is better, and IQ tests do a good job of measuring smarts. IQ is the best predictor of job performance, with conscientiousness being second.

    One (partial) exception to this, by the way, is people with very, very high IQs. Not based on those stupid online IQ tests (which give flatteringly high results) but people with real measured IQs over 150. They are sometimes so beaten down by the whole school thing that they tune out or become rebellious.

    2. Sure, some early childhood stuff matters. You want to make a kid profoundly retarded, regardless of his or her genetic potential? Easy! Lock the kid in a box for the first 12 years of life, not exposing said kid to any linguistic input. Unlike Tarzan, real feral children don’t do well at all.

    Likewise, you can reduce a kid’s IQ by systematic starvation or by fortifying his breakfast cereal with lead. Getting rid of leaded gasoline may well have been one of the most beneficial environmental policies ever.

    It’s easy enough to reduce IQ. So I guess one way to close the racial gap would be to make all the white and Asian kids eat the leaded breakfast cereal. Aside from the damage to the individual kids, the ensuing collapse of civilization would be a lot of fun for fans of Mad Max.

    But does that mean that kids are like molten plastic, easily molded into little geniuses? Sorry, no. Twin and adoption studies show that exposure to highly stimulating upper middle class environments produces, well, . . . a little. The biggest environmental change you can make is changing the whole family, and it doesn’t appear to make that much difference to adult outcomes. It may speed some kids up a bit — at seven, the intervention looks great. But by the time they’re 20, not so much.

    Some of the folks who are into this whole race/IQ thing are a bit noxious as people. But the evidence is overwhelming.

28. Here’s the thing I can say about having witnessed Vox interacting with a vast array of people: he will mirror the level of civility you offer him. Always. The problem comes in that people conflate incivility with disagreement, for example, taking offense to the very notion that female suffrage is mistaken. This is a position, it is either correct or incorrect but, in itself, is not uncivil.

    Most of the responses to Beale’s position, here, is that the position is, itself, fundamentally uncivil. These responses, themselves, are almost uniformly uncivil and, in return, Beale answers this incivility with the rhetoric of offense. Note, that the genesis of this sort of exchange lies in the perception that opposing female suffrage is fundamentally uncivil.

29. Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence. Vox is Aristotelian in temperament, choosing deduction over experimentation in many cases.

    And as you appear note, he presents as a troll in his forum for the egoboo.

30. First, that was interesting, John, and thanks.

    Then we have a situation where his flawed logic leads to true horror.

    I think this is a fair heap of hyperbole. Can you honestly say that not getting to vote is “true horror”? Especially when that now-non-voting group consistently voted for less individual liberty?

31. I’m not convinced men aren’t affected by charisma.

    how nice. now maybe you’d like to point out where Vox asserted this?

    you do realize that one of his most favorite quotes is MPAI ( most people are idiots ), yes?

    Nor am I convinced that women can’t be long-term thinkers.

    how nice. now maybe you’d like to point out where Vox asserted this?

    Second, do you believe large numbers of males will vote based on sexual attractiveness as well when females are running for office?

    *pinches bridge of nose*

    women are attracted to a wider array of social, emotional and visual cues than men are, but in general women prefer men who have money, intelligence, status and social influence as well as physical appearance. sometimes, in spite of physical appearance ( Anna Nicolle Smith and J. Howard Marshall only being one of the most extreme examples of this ). you’ll note that many of those attributes listed don’t typically get maximized ( rock stars tend to jump the line ) until a man is in his 30s to 50s.

    you know. when they tend to be running for political office.

    the ‘height and hair’ criteria come into play because political opponents are nominally equivalent on the rest of the female attractiveness metrics simply by being placed on a stage next too each other.

    that you don’t LIKE this is purely irrelevant to the FACT that pollsters know that women have been voting this way since at least the notorious Kennedy-Nixon debates. and it actually seems to go back to Harding, the first nominee post-suffrage.

    “The campaign also drew on Harding’s popularity with women. Considered handsome, Harding photographed well compared to Cox. ”

    as for height alone, there’s actually an entire wiki page devoted to that:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heights_of_presidents_and_presidential_candidates_of_the_United_States

    you’ll note that, post suffrage, post Wilson, the taller candidate has won 16 of 24 elections with 2 more elections having been between candidates of the same height and 2 more having a delta of an inch or less.

    this is a significant change from Wilson and prior elections when 12 of 33 elections went to the taller man with 2 being men of the same height and another 2 being an inch or less in delta. 3 were uncontested, although at 6′-2″ Washington was a giant of a man for his time. they don’t have heights for the loser in 4 of the old elections.

    men, otoh, value youth and beauty ( which is in large part a function of youth ). few indeed are the women who can be characterized as beautiful or ‘sexually desirable’ over 40. Angela Merkel? Hillary Clinton? Madeleine Albright? it is to laugh.

    so to sum up, regardless of the exact proportion of men who conform to MPAI, the idea that they’re going to vote in any significant numbers for female candidates based on their desirability is absurd.

    the women candidates for whom this would be an issue would be dismissed simply as too callow and inexperienced to make a serious nominee. the same as the men of similar age, <35.

32. Speaking of single data points, are you drawing your conclusions about the totality of Beale’s view on these matters from just this one article? If so, I might suggest that you are underestimating the amount of data he’s bringing to his conclusions.

    For my part, I am skeptical of several of his conclusions, but I’ve read his blog for a couple years now and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the man, it’s this: he is not short on willingness to engage in the minutiae, and if he’s got an opinion, it is likely grounded in a robust set of relevant data. This doesn’t make him right, and it doesn’t make his ideas on some of these subjects salient, but it does make him formidable as a debater.

    As a final thought in response to what you’ve said, I believe you’ve overstated the reach of your premise in saying that his ideas would lead to “tyranny” for certain groups. Of course, perhaps there are other ideas in your mind that lead you to this conclusion, which I think is likely given human nature, but just based on what you’ve said, it is not a logical necessity.

    Cheers.

33. I agree that in some instances Mr. Beale extrapolates to an illogical conclusion, but you might forgive him this excess as you indulge in the same behavior. Many of us have beliefs that lead us to draw conclusions that are not completely supported by the facts. Our individual experiences also cause us to extrapolate limited data, to what seems to others to be unsupported understandings. For example, my personal experiences of who is likely to commit crimes in New York city is not in agreement with movies that show a preponderance of roving white street gangs with mohawks, so I believe–based only empirical evidence–that roving white street gangs with mohawks are not actually responsible for the crime rate in NYC.

    I also propose a thought experiment. Those who post comments do not rely on hypotheticals that are based on “flawed logic.”

    I find it interesting that you conjecture others will be influenced by his ideas, whether they be rational or erroneous. Are we to understand that there are a preponderance of easily influenced individuals, unable to differentiate between his opinions or marching orders? Perhaps my living near a city has avoided me the opportunity to observe pitchfork-wielding villagers.

    As to your final point, nowhere in his answers did Mr. Beale advocate violence to achieve change in the political system or culture in general. He posits several times a belief in direct democracy, a system which seems unlikely to deprive women of suffrage in that there are more actually slightly more women than men. So who are these people who are experiencing the horror that they may be deprived of their liberty under a system that allows everyone the right to vote? I don’t see women and some minorities being subject to a tyranny of any sort when women and some minorities are in fact the majority in our country and would be able to electorally overwhelm any of those with a “male-dominant, Western-centric bias.”

34. “No. I’m very skeptical about a lot of them”

    +

    ” and a number that seem flat out wrong to me”

    Why don’t you offer to debate him and see if your beliefs can stand up to scrutiny?

35. “Still, for Beale, if women like tall handsome men, there are no other data points of merit.

    So there is flawed reasoning based on incomplete or biased assumptions of data. This makes one then ask: Why does Beale make this mistake and what impact does this thinking have?”

    I always keep my eye out for Strawman arguments. Way too many people seem to prefer to hit strawmen, rather than actual opponents (and of course real ideas). Here we have a classic. “Let’s start with the assumption that someone I disagree with must think a particular way.”

    “Well, I can’t speculate why all of Beale’s interpretations of incomplete data on complex subjects tends to lean toward a male-dominant, Western-centric bias, but as the bias I presume mirrors Beale’s own background, my best guess is that it is based on a cultural preference for his own “kind,” as it were. ” This one is particularly amusing. Beale is relatively open about his life — he is of American Indian descent, and living in Europe. One of the problems with Strawman arguments — reality tends to bite back when ignored.

    “The impact is ultimately seen in the adoption of such thought. As it is now, Beale is considered a fringe crank. His only real exposure is via the relatively irrelevant politics of SF fandom. I mean, seriously, the Hugo debacle didn’t even make it to the front page of Reddit. So Beale’s kind of harmless. Like a minor league David Duke.” Another classic, the ad hominem attack. Perhaps there are people who find such attacks valuable, but for me it is just a warning sign that the user is attempting to avoid the merits (if any).

    And of course, like any good Strawman argument we have the terrible consequences, attributed not to the straw but to the actual opponent:
    “Then we have a situation where his flawed logic leads to true horror. Women lose the right to vote, which would elevate communal good (as seen by his peers) over individual liberty. I could do a similar rundown of his other biased interpretations of incomplete data, but the common thread here is that Beale is a Libertarian’s nightmare. Individual liberty subsumed for a nationalist agenda.”

    All of this of course leads to the final point:
    “Which leads me to my final point: The only way that Beale’s opinions are not anti-Libertarian is if you believe that those you are forcing by violence to not vote or have fewer rights (ostensibly women and Blacks) do not deserve individual liberty. And that is ultimately the horror that people see in Beale. His beliefs (again, based on single data points generalized to explain complex systems) lead to the tyranny of women and some minorities.”

    I must admit I found this final point amusing. Note that in the main post, we see Beale arguing for direct democracy, specifically including women. Which rather suggests that the line of argument Jake assumes Beale would take is not at all real. Which is after all where strawman arguments normally lead.

36. Thanks John – just a note of explanation re: the tone Vox often takes. He’s been very clear on multiple occasions that he believes that responding to an emotionally-loaded questions or attack with passionless logic is a losing proposition. So if you come at him with rhetorical guns blazing, he’ll roll out the nukes in response. If you seek to give offense, he will offer it in return at a much higher volume. So if you’d sought to conduct your discussion here couched in insult or deceit, you would have received the kind of response he gave to – say – NK Jemisin. He would have actively tried to offend you in reply and he would have matched your insulting tone with an injurious one. He’ll amp it up. every. single. time.

    But if you seek civility and discourse absent an agenda, he’ll provide that in response – as he largely did here. Disagree with him while remaining calm and debating the actual data and you’ll get the Vox you see above. Controversial? Sure. Insulting? Not so much.

37. Debate? Skepticism simply means I have questions, reservations, and doubts. Before I could debate I’d need to examine evidence. My comments were meant, not as a refutation, but as a report of my first reactions.

38. Um, read my post again. I freely admit I haven’t looked at evidence. The purpose of this post was not to arrive at the truth of his beliefs. Also, I never mention “tyranny” or anything like it. I don’t know where you’re getting that.

39. Did we ever really tolerate extreme positions as a whole? In Europe, the wars and bloodshed over the reformations were numerous. In the 1830s and then 1840s, Mormons were mobbed, raped, murdered, and driven from Missouri and then Illinois. Later in that century North and South went to war. Looking at that, it kind of seems we’re a bit more tolerant today.

40. This was well done piece and I applaud your open-mindedness in speaking with him.

    When Vox writes, “African-American men are 500 times more likely to possess a gene variant that is linked to violence and aggression than white American men,” he is referring to MAO-A, the gene that encodes the enzyme monoamine oxidase A, which is related to aggression. 5% of young African American men surveyed in a National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health carried the 2R version of MAO-A, subsequently known as the “warrior gene” because of its correlation to aggressive behavior. Only 0.1% of European-American young men carried the gene, hence the “500 times more likely”. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18212819

    This study, and many of Vox Day’s other views on the cultural impact of genetic differences, are discussed in depth by the recent book “Our Troublesome Inheritance,” by Nicholas Wade (former Science Editor for the NY Times).

    Steven Pinker’s “The Blank Slate” and Charles Murray’s “The Bell Curve” are also very informative in terms of presenting unpleasant data points that contrast with more positive narratives of the human condition.

    PS It should be clear from the above that when Vox wrote, “It is not that I, and others, do not view her [NK Jemsin] as human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens),” he was actually saying that Jemsin was a more pure strain of homo sapiens sapiens than Europeans, who are actually hybrids with neanderthals. I am sure everyone who claimed otherwise will rush to apologize to him.

41. That’s an excellent point. We never did. We only change what is deemed “extreme”.

    In the middle ages, it was extreme to deny the divinity of Christ, and those who did were punished.

    In the 1950s, it was extreme to support communism, and those who did were punished.

    In 2015, it is extreme to oppose gay marriage, and those who do are punished.

    Some people can handle different opinions, alot of people cannot. Those in power invariably allow *some differences* over trifles, but never over their source of power – the divinity of Christ, the evil of communism, or the promotion of diversity…

    Most people follow the dogma of those in power and attack anyone who deviate from it.

42. A long time ago I was looking into the men’s rights movement in order to write about it on my blog. I ran into Vox Day and was instantly pissed off. But he was very interesting on a lot of different subjects, so I kept reading.
    Since then I have seen that he simply has no ability to be subtle. His style is harsh and at first he seems close minded. But I have seen his point of view change on more than one subject. He is shockingly open minded froi a man so hard nosed. He seems to have zero concern for what we think of his ideas. No thought is off limits just because people will scream that only the evil ones think like that. He doesn’t care. In most cases Vox Day is far more open minded than his haters. And they really are haters.
    Congratulations for being brave. As you already pointed out, some people will now think you a blasphemer for treating Satan fairly. And for the recorded he still pisses me off.

43. I’ve been lurking in Vox’s blog for years now, and I think I was able to comment maybe once or twice. I was interested in this man who was obviously intelligent yet obviously wrong about so much. In fact, being a Christian, the only thing I seemed to agree with him on is his views on theism.

    But what I learned from following his blog for so many years now is that the guy knows his stuff. People criticize him without even knowing what he’s actually said or done because this or that guy from the internet says he’s a crank who had said such and such offensive things. But what I often find is that the people who say Vox is a crank also seem to be the usual personalities who wake up in the morning actively searching for something to be outraged about.

44. Not you, John; we’re following up Jake’s message above, which states that Vox is operating off a single data point and would lead to tyranny over women.

45. I’m going to be out to pick up my lovely daughters from the airport. If your comment is not approved for a while, you know why.

46. And the bigger question is does it matter in literature?

    If Vox or those published by him write great stories (he’s on my to read list but so are about 300 books so I haven’t read any of his works to judge) should we judge the story based on the author’s beliefs?

    Sure I might not want to buy his works but there are libraries where I can read them for free.

    For the sake of hugos or any other award content not character should be the sole premise of judging.

47. Good job.

48. A great article, and one that took courage to write.

    Since you mentioned “Guns, Germs and Steel” and seem interested in the subject of genetic differences between groups, let me recommend “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History” by Nicholas Wade. It’s an excellent survey of the research being done in this area, and contains information on many of the points touched on by both you and Vox Day: Amazon Link

49. Your counterexample of Mormon women’s education vs. fecundity is a terrible control. Mormons believe deeply in the importance of family and have a long tradition of larger families AND emphasis on education. They’re pretty much the only sub-group of US women who are reproducing at or above replacement rate.

    The education levels and birth rates both have causal relationships with religion. They’re the exception, not the rule.

50. Geez, when I started reading this there were three comments, now there are over 30… you’ve got your work cut out for you….

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