I am still subscribed to slatestarcodex on reddit, and this piece of garbage popped up on my feed. I didn’t actually read the whole thing, but basically the author correctly realizes Trump is ruining everything in the process of getting at “DEI” and “wokism”, but instead of accepting the blame that rightfully falls on Scott Alexander and the author, deflects and blames the “left” elitists. (I put left in quote marks because the author apparently thinks establishment democrats are actually leftist, I fucking wish).
An illustrative quote (of Scott’s that the author agrees with)
We wanted to be able to hold a job without reciting DEI shibboleths or filling in multiple-choice exams about how white people cause earthquakes. Instead we got a thousand scientific studies cancelled because they used the string “trans-” in a sentence on transmembrane proteins.
I don’t really follow their subsequent points, they fail to clarify what they mean… In sofar as “left elites” actually refers to centrist democrats, I actually think the establishment Democrats do have a major piece of blame in that their status quo neoliberalism has been rejected by the public but the Democrat establishment refuse to consider genuinely leftist ideas, but that isn’t the point this author is actually going for… the author is actually upset about Democrats “virtue signaling” and “canceling” and DEI, so they don’t actually have a valid point, if anything the opposite of one.
In case my angry disjointed summary leaves you any doubt the author is a piece of shit:
it feels like Scott has been reading a lot of Richard Hanania, whom I agree with on a lot of points
For reference the ssc discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1jyjc9z/the_edgelords_were_right_a_response_to_scott/
tldr; author trying to blameshift on Trump fucking everything up while keeping up the exact anti-progressive rhetoric that helped propel Trump to victory.
He’s such a complete moron. He doesn’t want to recite “DEI shibboleths”? What does he even think that would refer to? Why shibboleths?
To spell it out, that would refer to an antisemitic theory that the reason (for example) some black guy would get a medal of honor (the “deimedal”) is because of the jews.
I swear this guy is dumber than Trump. Trump for all his rambling, uses actual language - Trump understands what the shit he is saying means to his followers. Scott… he really does not.
I don’t think Scott Alexander is entitled to get annoyed about excessive anti-racism programmes in the workplace given that he is well known to be very racist.
Hell, maybe he has done an above-average number of unconscious bias trainings and DEI workshops and racism book clubs, but it’s because he keeps talking about how black people are mentally inferior at work and making him do training is cheaper than firing him.
I seriously doubt he ever worked anywhere like that, not to mention that he’s too spineless to actually get in trouble IRL.
Is he an employee somewhere with a HR department? I thought he was either self-employed (and thus only answerable to potential clients) or living comfortably off some kind of Thielian racism stipend.
I honestly don’t know, and if anyone tries to find out he might delete his blog again. If he is on a Thiel sinecure or running his own business, he shouldn’t be using the first person