[djsumdog]

It is hardly an alt-right publication. I got started on Quillette from the podcast Wrongspeak. They don't do regular episodes anymore, but they tackled a lot of really hard questions.

I don't agree with everything on Quillette, but their arguments are at least well thought out. There's a lot I don't agree with in this one (the author justifying Ferguson's non-deterministic models as even remotely acceptable is absolutely not-even-wrong from a data sciences perspective; not to mention we don't have the original code; not to mention the code had race conditions).

I'd suggest reading a few of their articles first. I don't see how you can see them as alt-right. They're a bit right of center, but they're pretty much centrists.

[ryan_lane]

The point of alt-right is to act as a bridge between extremist views and modern conservative views. Most alt-right sites have a mix of reasonable articles, conspiracy theories, and somewhat extreme articles. The comment sections of these sites often lead to more extreme information, with the sites actively allowing it, and often encouraging it. The YouTube recommendation loop is a good example of how this works.

Sending traffic to any alt-right site helps recruit people to extremism.

[djsumdog]

Fine, but Quillette is still hardly the publication you think it is. I've never read anything hateful or right-wing on their site. Their articles always seem reasonable.

I think there's another side of this; the fear of ideas. Brenden O'neil does a great talk on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtWrljX9HRA

[ryan_lane]

You're emphasizing what I'm saying. They have a mix of articles that range from slightly conservative leaning, to promoting eugenics. Since you find their posts to mostly be reasonable, the ones that are a little more right also seem reasonable, and with enough of that, the ones that are even more right become more reasonable too. It's meant to slide people further and further to the right, making them even more receptive to the extremely far right stuff that's in the comment sections. You're the target audience.

[mistermann]

> promoting eugenics

Can you provide an example?

[mistermann]

-2, yet no replies. As per usual.

-- Perhaps such questions "should not even be dignified with a reply"? Whereas, hateful and unsubstantiated (beyond meme-level of "eeeeeeeverybody knows") assertions are "dignified by default", provided they are directed at the proper "subculture-specific outgroup du jour" that is.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...

https://www.quora.com/Is-the-phrase-I-am-not-even-going-to-d...

[>> Is the phrase 'I am not even going to dignify that with a response' a response?]

[> Yes, it is a response. It's a way of saying that you are wrong while simultaneously cutting off any possibility of having you defend your views. There are times when it is socially appropriate to say this, as for example when someone makes an outrageous, false statement designed to be hurtful. But there are other times when it's just a manipulative tool.]

-- Or, is it perhaps "not worth their time", due to the assertion being "self-evident", not unlike how many things in life 'are(!)' "self-evident" (again, within specific subcultures). Like, say, "black people 'are' violent", "Mexicans 'are' lazy", "Jews 'are' greedy", and so on?

https://www.google.com/search?q=racial+sterotype+examples

-- Or, is it perhaps a lack of depth in domains such as psychology and neurology, where one can easily learn that there is often a stark difference between objective/shared reality, and perception of reality - which is of course, highly susceptible to invalid/inaccurate data in one's custom mental model of reality, as a result of "Occam's Razor rules-of-thumb", stereotypes, memes, propaganda, and many other complex psychological phenomena?

https://www.google.com/search?q=difference+between+reality+a...

-- Or, is this an example of an imbalance between ego and self-confidence?

https://www.google.com/search?q=imbalance+between+ego+and+se...

-- Or, are the downvoters unable to formulate a reply? As in, their subconscious, System 1 mind instantaneously produces an answer to the very complex question of whether Quillete "is(!), for a certain exceptional* definition of "is")" "promoting eugenics", but their conscious, System 2 mind is unable to* even produce a post-hoc rationalization for the answer?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kahneman-excerpt-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology)

https://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2013/11/14/post-hoc-rati...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_intuitionism

-- Or, is it something else?

So many (timeless) questions, so few answers.

So much emotional passion to "do the right thing" and "spread the good word" (educate the small-minded, unthinking(!) others), so little interest in whether one's assessment of the situation is actually accurate.

[ryan_lane]

I linked to the rationalwiki article which has a number of examples, including eugenics, but ok.