[asabjorn]

I asked you a simple question about your position, since you claimed I was in error about it. This is not a complex logical argument:

Do you believe or not believe that "people are not defined by group identity" and that "redistributing resources and position based upon group identity is wrong"?

If you do not want to answer that is fine, but treating people differently based upon unchosen identities is not “making sure everyone is treated equally”.

[chalst]

I'm inclined to think that people do not have a consistent group identity, and I strongly believe there is more to what we are than our social relations. Nonetheless, social motivations are very powerful, and I respect some people who have attempted to understand selfhood from a sociological point of view. So with respect to your first question, I don't believe it, but I don't insist that my way of looking at the matter is right.

With respect to the second, I think far too little effort is made to resolve the lasting wounds of historical injustices, but I don't think that the attempt to tackle these wounds primarily through redistribution is politically wise. In fact, the attempt to tacle something like the aftermath of slavery in this way is certain to create massive political counterreation and is quite likely to result in new injustices.

Do you understand what the problem is with your approach to argument that I have criticised you for repeatedly?

[asabjorn]

So considering that "people are not defined by group identity", how do you justify "redistributing resources and position based upon group identity" as right?

Sounds a bit unfair and unequal to redistribute someone’s assets and resources due to an equity group identity marker that makes no sense.

> Do you understand what the problem is with your approach to argument that I have criticised you for repeatedly?

I can definitely be less complex in my explanations and less verbose. The line of thought here seem more effective, I’ll probably repeat that in the future to get past the critical social justice habit of using a Motte and Bailey tactic deceptively.

I don’t know if you did it consciously or in error, but the Motte is supposed to be compatible with the Bailey and not something entirely different.

I think you fell into the trap of CSJ apologists to rely on redefined common terms that sound more moderate to non-believers, but isn’t. If I redefine “apple” to mean “lemon” that doesn’t make it any less bitter.

Do you see this problem in the argument you have been making?

[chalst]

You have entirely misread what I wrote. I have answered two questions of yours and made no argument, so the problem lies entirely with the fantasy argument you claim I made but is based on massive extrapolation from what I wrote. The problem in the argument is yours.

You have not answered my question.

[chalst]

> So considering that "people are not defined by group identity", how do you justify "redistributing resources and position based upon group identity" as right?

I doubt it is possible, but I don't discourage people who understand the problems facing a democratic redistribution-intense solution that goes along ethnic lines. However, a requirement for success in a healthy democracy is the acquiescence of the group who lose out. The attempt to end slavery resulted in a war, and Reconstruction gave many blacks a system that was actually worse than what they had before. (Another injustice caused by a political elite too keen to achieve peace).

Generally, as I understood Bernie Sanders pointed out, the attempt to rectify racial injustices by redistribution risks creating racial hatred and new injustices. I am, as I said before, against attempts to impose this kind of solution top-down.

However, something like a wealth tax is far simpler and as it happens, quite a bit of old wealth does derive from slavery and, for instance, if the US were to improve and expand its social programs for the poor to, say, the level here in Germany, that would make a massive difference for the poor communities that have least been able to recover from the effects of slavery.

Such a form of redistribution could be formulated in colour-blind, wealth-based terms. It's still difficult to impose top-down, it's not enough to heal the wounds of slavery, but this measure is much less socially divisive than what you, ignoring things I have previously told you, wrongly guessed I had in mind.

> I think you fell into the trap of CSJ apologists to rely on redefined common terms that sound more moderate to non-believers, but isn’t.

I didn't manage to come up with a plausible guess as to what you might have meant by the motte and bailey in the paragraph before the sentence I highlighted, but I wonder if you still believe that sentence after reading what I wrote above.

My general impression is that you are a devoted foot soldier in the culture wars and have no intention of looking inside yourself and becoming more honest. A shame, since you seem to be not dumb and have a certain persistence. You've learned a few argumentative techniques that have a good chance of improving your effectiveness in the fights you choose to pick, which will do it's bit to make the culture wars even less rational. I think this state of affairs is actually a threat to democracy. However, while I did not enjoy our exchange and have low expectations of what you will go on to do, I do have a certain hope in the redemptive power of logic, and I do not regret the effort I have put into this conversation.

[asabjorn]

> Generally, as I understood Bernie Sanders pointed out, the attempt to rectify racial injustices by redistribution risks creating racial hatred and new injustices. I am, as I said before, against attempts to impose this kind of solution top-down.

You did express support in another comment for the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and inclusion) identity-based redistribution initiatives that are currently deployed.

Why did you do this when you think "distribution risks creating racial hatred and new injustices"? Why do you support having corporations enforce top-down DEI initiatives when you are "against attempts to impose this kind of solution top-down"?

>I doubt it is possible, but I don't discourage people who understand the problems facing a democratic redistribution-intense solution that goes along ethnic lines. However, a requirement for success in a healthy democracy is the acquiescence of the group who lose out. The attempt to end slavery resulted in a war, and Reconstruction gave many blacks a system that was actually worse than what they had before. (Another injustice caused by a political elite too keen to achieve peace). > However, something like a wealth tax is far simpler and as it happens, quite a bit of old wealth does derive from slavery and, for instance, if the US were to improve and expand its social programs for the poor to, say, the level here in Germany, that would make a massive difference for the poor communities that have least been able to recover from the effects of slavery.

We already established that you do not agree with critical social justice that identity groups such as race has salience, so that means it is not just to punish an individual for identity group sins, but if I get you correctly you support using slavery as a justification to redistribute wealth.

Is it correct that you believe in that an individual having wealth in the US is a good signifier for an individual acquiring it through the family history of slavery? If not, how can redistribution of wealth because of slavery be right?

I agree that huge landowning wealth in labor intensive unpleasant farming, such as cotton and tobacco primarily, often relied on slaves and indentured servants (numerous Irish and English came to the US like this). However, as far as I know the more numerous industrial fortunes were not build upon slaves.

Most landowning Americans, those were the voting citizens, owned small dirt farm and struggled to make ends meet using their own family's labor. After Europe decimated itself in WWII a larger amount of Americans from all backgrounds gained a modicum of assets through factory work. Critical social justice and Bernie Sanders activism also seek to redistribute both of these groups wealth.

> My general impression is that you are a devoted foot soldier in the culture wars and have no intention of looking inside yourself and becoming more honest.

Most of the time I've tried to get clarity on your opinion, because you said that you did not believe critical social justice was determinative while still being apologetic about its major doctrines and supporting it's equity initiatives.

I am pretty honest about my position. Although I believe we need more group aspects in our life to have a good human life, I don't believe the solutions pushed are good solutions. I think critical social justice is pushing something equivalent to the Chinese model, a merge of communist and fascist principles, and I am not interested in living through that. I've studied up on most of it's major literature, and understand the rhetorical tactics used for apologetics for its doctrines.

[chalst]

> Most of the time I've tried to get clarity on your opinion

Which must have been frustrating for you, seeing as I was resisting being pinned down on what I regarded as overspecific details not related to the reasons for my original intervention in these HN subthreads.

To be clear, my original concern was to avoid a lowering in the standard of discourse here on HN, and I did not intervene to criticise you directly, only to criticise what I took to be a complaint of criticisms of you that I took to be entirely without merit. I don't like what I have seen of the New Discourses content (one of the links you provided I particularly disliked), but I actually value the fact that HN is a place that people who agree with Lindsay and Pluckrose can argue. For this to work well, though, standards of argument need to be maintained.

[chalst]

> We already established that you do not agree with critical social justice that identity groups such as race has salience...

This is rather stronger than what I wrote. I don't think that race is coherent in the sense that there is the relationship between observable hereditable traits and the psychology and morality of the individual that racist intellectuals require. However, if you drop the dodgy biology, clearly ethnicity matters a great deal to how people find their way into or find themselves excluded from groups, what ethnicities we take there to be and what we make of them has been profoundly influenced by the debunked race theories of yesteryear.

In short, race does matter, unfortunately.

[chalst]

> You did express support in another comment for the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and inclusion) identity-based redistribution initiatives that are currently deployed.

I think you will find that if you check what I wrote before, you have got me wrong, again. I think there are successful DEI exercises, but my general impression of them is equivocal. Some do good, some do evil.

[chalst]

> I am pretty honest about my position.

This is normal honesty: you say what you think, and your feelings are in harmony with your thoughts. It is good enough for normal life, but it is not what I mean by intellectual honesty, and it has led you astray in arguing here on HN with people who demand that special kind of honesty.

[chalst]

> Is it correct that you believe in that an individual having wealth in the US is a good signifier for an individual acquiring it through the family history of slavery? If not, how can redistribution of wealth because of slavery be right?

I think redistribution of wealth from the rentier class to those whose communities face upheaval, exploitation and decimation because of the creative destruction of capitalism that benefits rentiers at the expense of commodity labour, is and of itself just. If it happens to hurt those who today have profited from slavery, well, that's a class of misfortune that I might regard as just deserts. I think trying to actually target these beneficiaries in a precise manner is, for the kind of reason you gave.