User talk:Pinkerite

Welcome

What is going on? World Blogs Clogs Elections The Bar (talk) (talk) (talk) (talk) (hic) Welcome to RationalWiki, Pinkerite! Check out our guide for newcomers and our community standards! Tell us how you found RationalWiki here! If you are interested in contributing: Read what our articles are intended to be Check out the to-do list See our help page and Wikipedia's formatting cheatsheet If writing a new article, consider writing up a draft And most importantly: Pull up a goat and have some fun!

Bongolian (talk) 07:07, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Are you the actual Pinkerite?

Cuz if so you do the lord's work. Amen. Carthage (talk) 20:20, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

wow thanks - but no more than the gang at RationalWiki, which is far more influential - which is why the Manhattan Institute is so mad at you all. Pinkerite (talk) 21:09, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Sysop

Message from the RationalWiki Ministry of Demotion and Personal Impediment Dear Pinkerite, We are gently informing you about how we have demoted you to the rank of sysop. You have received a mop and bucket to clean up messes here. No questions are allowed here. If you have any further inquiries, please refer to the enclosed pamphlet So you are now a sysop. At your leisure, please go to the dungeon Room 202 to see the reward mops and hammers you can work towards having! Sincerely,

Carthage (talk) 18:30, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks? Pinkerite (talk) 04:20, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Everyone here that's not a troll or vandal gets sysop at some point. Sysops don't have real community authority. Carthage (talk) 05:25, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Pinker

Could you help improve the Steven Pinker article, cuz so far our article glosses over his connections to the racialist movement. Carthage (talk) 18:34, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Happy to help - I'll get on that soon. Pinkerite (talk) 18:38, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Bit of advice for responding. You don't need to create new sections to respond. Just format with :. Carthage (talk) 18:39, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your formatting assistance here and elsewhere, much appreciated. Pinkerite (talk) 18:52, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Oh, it's cumulative, and you don't need to create space between responses. So, your response to me would in this context be formatted as <nowiki:::</nowiki> because it's the third response in the thread. Carthage (talk) 18:59, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

E. O. Wilson

Just a heads up if you create an E. O. Wilson page. There was a previous version of such a page that was deleted. The consensus reason seemed to be that page was highly-skewed towards his racialism to the point of hyperbole, and was unlikely to be improved by the creator of the page (Draft talk:E. O. Wilson). A new page on him should have some sort of summary of his scientific work to start with. Bongolian (talk) 19:44, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I will take a shot at making an improved version. Pinkerite (talk) 20:11, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Jerry Coyne

Our article on Coyne is hot garbage. Can you update it when you have the time? Carthage (talk) 13:07, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Sure, thanks for asking. Pinkerite (talk) 16:26, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Proposition

I take it you are Generalrelative on Wikipedia who has recently been going after Richard Lynn, Is there any chance we can debate you on Ed Dutton's discord? LuteCurrie (talk) 13:43, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

No I am not Generalrelative on Wikipedia, and when I want to go after Richard Lynn, I do it on Pinkerite. Pinkerite (talk) 16:25, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Question: why are racialist misogynist ghouls such chickenshit cowards? Pinkerite (talk) 18:52, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

LuteCurrie is a real person, he writes for racist Mankind Quarterly, he has sock-puppets on Wikipedia. He wrote a flattering biography of Emil Kirkegaard at imdb [1]. However, Mikemikev is known to impersonate others on here, including Currie. My talk-page is locked to new users, that is the best way to get rid of trolls. Johns (talk) 15:41, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I still haven't received a response from Dutton after trying to contact him via the college email address listed on his website. I will report when he responds, or in a week or so, whichever comes first. The last items posted (before it was removed - thanks moderators) on the topic was from someone referring to me as Catlady, so it was either Kirkegaard or one of his pathetic goons.Pinkerite (talk) 16:08, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

UPDATE: well it's been over a month now, and I tried two different email addresses to contact Dutton and ask him what this "debate you on Ed Dutton's discord" is all about - but dead silence.

Aporia

I noted you mentioned Aporia on your website recently, I am creating an article for Aporia on RationalWiki. Should be up in the few days. Johns (talk) 15:35, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Great! I'm looking forward to the completed article! Pinkerite (talk) 16:03, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Not completed but see Aporia Magazine. Johns (talk) 01:39, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Fantastic! And so timely! Pinkerite (talk) 01:58, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I noticed that many Wikipedia articles for eugenicists and intelligence researchers contain little to no criticisms of their ideas for the most part. For example, Curtis Dunkel [2], Gregory Clark [3], Richard J. Haier [4], Earl B. Hunt [5], Helmuth Nyborg [6], Edward M. Miller [7], Paul Irwing [8], Rex Jung [9], Herman H. Spitz [10], Lee Jussim [11], Heiner Rindermann [12], Donald Templer [13], Paul Bloom [14], David C. Geary [15], Joseph Renzulli [16]. A lot of these have appeared on the Aporia podcast. Usually Wikipedia is reliable in this area but there seems to be some serious omissions here. Based on what I can see Helmuth Nyborg needs his own RationalWiki article. Johns (talk) 21:52, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

In my experience Wikipedia editors are impossible, especially if you want to include criticisms of someone. I've added Nyborg to my ever-growing to-do list. I'm so glad there's a Rational Wiki for Aporia, it is rapidly becoming the foremost gathering of race pseudoscience ghouls and blatant racists, second only to the International Society for Intelligence Research. I keep wondering when Steven Pinker will appear on Aporia, so many of his old buddies - Winegard, Sailer, Razib Khan, etc. have appeared there.Pinkerite (talk) 15:57, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Image uploads

Images from recent commercial films are not likely to be public domain. In such cases, you should use the Fair Use licensing. I have updated the File:DICAPRIO.jpg licensing, accordingly. Bongolian (talk) 02:18, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Pinkerite (talk) 02:27, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Tireless worker

		Tireless Worker Award
		For outstanding work on the E. O. Wilson page.

A couple of minor points:

• I put in a couple of "citation needed" tags where I could not find the citations, and where it would be appropriate.
• You've frequently relied on Internet Archive links for copyrighted books. These may not be stable links due to the lawsuit against Internet Archive, which had an unfavorable initial ruling for the Archive regarding copyright infringement. The lawsuit is currently on appeal.[17]

Bongolian (talk) 03:33, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the kudos and info. I'll keep watching for what happens with the Internet Archive lawsuit, ready to change the links if necessary. And thank YOU for the improvements you've made to the E. O. Wilson article! Pinkerite (talk) 03:37, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

"Manhattan Institute Death Star"

Isn't it the other way around, given that the Manhattan Institute is the one funding City Journal? Carthage (talk) 08:27, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right, it's not a good analogy. I'll remove it. Pinkerite (talk) 15:03, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Nina Paley

For a long time I only knew of her because of her galaxy-brained centrist "both sides bad" video on the Israel-Palestine conflict. She'd prolly make for a good article. Carthage (talk) 15:09, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah... I might start out with adding a section to Kiwi Farms about people who have defended or supported that org. She is definitely an example of an especially noxious form of self-righteous and feckless TERF Pinkerite (talk) 15:18, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

She hasn't kept much of a following. I put her in the ignore bin, myself. Chillpilled (talk) 16:57, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

She's very friendly with the wingnut sociobiology network, as I documented, as well as being a Kiwi Farms apologist, and she's notable enough to have a Wikipedia entry. She deserves some mention, although possibly just as part of the KF article, not her own article. Pinkerite (talk) 17:23, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Wpl

When using {{wpl}}, the first parameter is for the Wikipedia page you want to link to, the second is for what the link displays as on RW, and the third is for punctuation directly after the link so that the logo will go after the punctuation, which looks better and is proper formatting. E.g. {{wpl|Example|This is an example|.}} becomes This is an example. I notice you are often adding ||.}} to the end of the template for no apparent reason; only do that if you want a period to show after the link, as otherwise it makes the formatting/punctuation confusing. You can see the documentation for more details. Plutocow (talk) 05:15, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

thanks Pinkerite (talk) 07:11, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

A modest critique

I find myself disagreeing with a few points of your latest blogpost. The first one I'll mention is this:

Capitalism was not created by a bunch of heartless monsters out to destroy the world. It evolved in response to the problems of daily human existence.

I don't find many socialists, at least no one who actually knows their shit, disagreeing with this. Many of the "evils" of capitalism are conducted out in the open as the result of banal, heartless economics. People becoming homeless because they became priced out of the housing market. Indigenous peoples being kicked off their land and brutalized in order for an oil pipeline to be built or for more monocultural plantations and ranches to be set up. No one is seriously invoking conspiracy here, because there's no need to.

And the claim that capitalism led to "the spread of slavery" is easily disputed by the many and varied forms of slavery that have existed outside of the age of capitalism.

This is a truthism. American slavery absolutely was perpetuated through the profit motive. A big reason why the Founding Fathers decided to preserve slavery was because the slave system was the foundation of their livelihoods. If slavery was abolished they'd lose their privileged economic status. I think the argument that slavery predates capitalism is both an irrelevant truism and an example of whataboutism, because it ignores local conditions.

Capitalism is just a collection of human-value exchange mechanisms, basically an accounting system, which is being mistaken for the actual root causes of human error and weaknesses and bad judgment.

I think you're mistaking markets with capitalism itself. Capitalism requires a community of displaced laborers with no other option but to sell their labor or starve. This problem wasn't found in feudalism, which required a community of landed laborers. You note this in your article too:

The death of feudalism — a hierarchical system often seen as oppressive that kept poor people bonded to their masters’ land, which they farmed in exchange for a place to live and military protection — also left rural British peasants with no homes and no work, which eventually funneled them away from the countryside and into urban centers. These former farm workers then had to sell their labor in a newly competitive work environment in order to survive, while the state worked in concert with the new capitalists to establish a maximum wage and “clamp down on beggars.”

Capitalism is a socioeconomic system that is distinguished by its reliance on a class system of landless laborers who don't own the means of production.

As for Watson's claim that capitalism is responsible for "runaway climate change" I think that's a case of "correlation is not causation." While climate change may have happened during the age of capitalism, humans destroying their environment and the phenomenon of unintended consequences also exist outside of capitalism.

I think this is also an irrelevant truism. Capitalism incentivizes environmental degradation through the profit motive today. Just because this isn't a phenomenon unique to capitalism doesn't mean the relevant social conditions that cause eco-catastrophe today are the same as ones prior. Different times, different systems, different conditions, although there are undoubtedly similarities. All the negative externalities of ecological degradation are shunted onto the ones not responsible, or less responsible, for the damage. For example, the global south will overwhelmingly bear the brunt of climate change despite wealthy nations overwhelmingly contributing the most to global emission rates ([18]).

Feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong or misinterpreted your article in any way. Best regards, Carthage (talk) 16:27, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

First, thanks for reading the blog. Second you've given me a lot to consider, but just to start with one item: "This is a truthism. American slavery absolutely was perpetuated through the profit motive." - depending on how narrow your definition of "profit" is - is there any other reason for slavery? Pinkerite (talk) 16:46, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

There could be many, certainly. But I find a lot of those reasons to be justifications, if we decide to include wider global contexts for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade then a lot of the slave trade, on the African side, was fueled through a need to fund wars between and within the powers of West and Central Africa at the time. Historically the slave system in the New World was set up because of the mass deaths of the indigenous population previously used as a source of unfree labor, but by the time of 1776 slavery was definitely perpetuated through the wealth-generation it provided. A lot of the anti-black and white supremacist propaganda and policies being promoted at the time was pushed from the top-down because of economic, social, and political interests as Prof. Ibraham X. Kendi notes:

[Kendi] demonstrates that self-interested discrimination gives birth to racist ideas, not the other way around.

People who benefited from slavery spread the idea that black people were inherently inferior and better off under the hand of a white Christian master. People today explain deficits in education by talking about deficits they see in black children rather than deficits in educational systems or tax, hiring, housing and other policies and practices that disadvantage black families. ([19])

Washington actually devised a fairly ingenious method to keep his slaves while the national capitol was in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania law dictated that any slave present in the state for six months or more would be declared free. Washington got around this by sending his slaves with his wife back to Mt. Vernon every six months so he could keep his slaves, and therefore his wealth. Incredibly ghoulish. Carthage (talk) 17:04, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

The issue at hand is not the methodologies of the American slave system, but rather my wondering what other motives exist for slavery outside of "profit." The American system is only one variation on slavery. There are many other examples of slave systems, from the ancient Egyptians, ancient Hebrews, Amerindians, Greeks, Romans, Africans, etc. etc. which occurred outside of the capitalist system we are talking about (said to have begun in 16th century Europe.) And slavery was rarely based on enslaving people based on ethnicity - so slavery does not always have to do with "racist ideas" per the Kendi quote. Pinkerite (talk) 17:25, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

(EC) True, but Kendi is specifically talking about the American system. One can also ascertain that the usage of forced prison labor as a source of cheaper labor than free labor is born out of the profit incentive. This specifically can also serve the dual purpose of slavery as a legal punishment, which itself also has a storied history. Another reason for slavery is to escape debt. Carthage (talk) 17:31, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I know Kendi is talking about the American slave system - that's my point - it's not relevant to the issue at hand - at least the issue I thought was at hand: whether any form of slavery has ever existed without the profit motive. Slavery as a punishment is a possible alternative to profit, but does it exist outside of the capitalist system? As far as I'm aware, slavery as punishment is exclusively the result of the peculiar phraseology of the 13th Amendment. I'd be interested in other examples if you have them. Slavery as a source of cheap labor means somebody's profiting, even if it's the state.

It could depend on how you define "profit" - I maintain that slaves were always some form of "profit" if you define profit as some benefit to the slave owner. The point being that it isn't only Capitalism that has provided a motive for slavery, as Watson seems to suggest.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

In the Roman world there were many different ways someone could be forced into slavery. These included children born into slavery, people captured in war, individuals who were sold or self-sold into slavery and infants abandoned at birth. Less common were children sold by their parents, people being enslaved for debts or as punishment for crimes and people who were victims of kidnapping and piracy. We know of two slavery markets in the city of Rome. One was by the Temple of Castor in the Forum, the other near the Saepta Julia in the Campus Martius.

- Slavery in Ancient Rome - British Museum.

In the case of the Romans slavery as punishment for a crime wasn't common but it wasn't unheard of. Of course there could still be a profit motive at play, since the definition of slavery is unfree labor. Carthage (talk) 17:55, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd bet there was a profit, in that slaves who were enslaved as punishment were probably put to work for the state or perhaps the aggrieved party. Pinkerite (talk) 18:04, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah. Typically slavery only benefits one party, and that isn't the slave. Carthage (talk) 18:09, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I can't argue with that. :-) Pinkerite (talk) 18:12, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Nooceleration

Anatoly Karlin was recently attacking you on Wikipedia on about 10 pages before being ban-hammered. He now claims to be a far-leftist [20] but this reads as a hoax. It looks like satire to me, do you know anything about this? 157.245.35.63 (talk) 17:34, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the update - I'm glad to hear Anatoly Karlin was banned from Wikipedia. Do you have more information about what he was saying about me and where on Wikipedia he said it? Pinkerite (talk) 17:44, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Karlin has had about 50 blocked accounts on Wikipedia. The comments I saw were left on general relative's talk-page and several others but have been deleted by admins. He was asking you and another user to have his Rational Wiki article updated claiming that he and Hanania have been unfairly libelled as far-right when they are apparently now far-left. I find it hard to believe he is now pro-LGBT and far-left. I believe his manifesto is a hoax, he still claims to support eugenics and race realism so he hasn't really changed, if you click on his Tweet he has copied a line from Hanania. He seems to be copying Hanania "Why I Used to Suck, and (Hopefully) No Longer Do" essay. 109.123.74.178 (talk) 17:58, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Wow is Karlin really that delusional? Anybody who looks at his recommended blogroll can see it's chockablock full of right-wingers and racist ghouls. And wow is he mad at Rational Wiki - keep up the good work, Rational Wiki! Pinkerite (talk) 18:37, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Andreessen

Who, or what, is Andreessen? Carthage (talk) 16:57, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Marc Andreessen, techno-fascist

Moved

I moved your Richard Haier‎ work over to the draftspace. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 17:12, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Pinkerite (talk) 17:26, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Hmm

For some reason I can't reach your website. Is it down? Carthage (talk) 21:40, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

It seems to be working OK for me just now. Pinkerite (talk) 21:49, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Award

		Tireless Worker Award
		For your work on reviving the Richard Haier article

--Goatspeed. _{Stalk me}CircularRasoning^{See my latest prototypes} 01:45, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Pinkerite (talk) 01:56, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Helmuth Nyborg

I created an article for Helmuth Nyborg which is not yet complete. I know you were planning on creating it. After this month I have decided to permanently give up creating or editing biographies for racial pseudoscientists and articles related to race and intelligence. I may update the Aporia Magazine from time to time but I will cease updating anything else in this topic area. The topic is very boring and no longer interests me, you create an article then you find someone else, it's just a playpen of idiots. There is always one more. My editing will go back to my original focus, debunking low-carb and carnivore diet nonsense. There are a couple of eugenicist and racialist pseudoscientists who would qualify for an article - Malcolm and Simone Collins, Jordan Lasker "Cremieux", Guy Madison and Sebastian Jensen from OpenPsych. I don't have time to create them all but there are a lot of sources on the Collins couple in the Guardian newspaper. Johns (talk) 22:51, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Understood

I certainly don't blame you for getting tired of writing about race pseudoscience ghouls, they are truly monotonous and predictable. But thank you for the Nyborg article and the Aporia Magazine article, both important pieces of work. I look forward to reading all your articles. Pinkerite (talk) 01:10, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, they are all pretty much saying the same garbage, a broken record. Richard Lynn, Roger Pearson, Arthur Jensen, J. Philippe Rushton are all dead. Their arguments are just being recycled by middle aged researchers who in turn are now being parroted by younger researchers who mostly now use pseudonyms that are associated with the incel community and use openpsych journal or self-publish their crap on substack. Charles Murray and Helmuth Nyborg will probably die soon. Quillette looks mostly dead these days. The younger race pseudoscience clones hang their hope on Edward Dutton but he is a lunatic. The only places they have left to publish are Mankind Quarterly and OpenPsych. The London Conference on Intelligence is still active and is heavily associated with Aporia Magazine. The race pseudoscience field reminds me of cold fusion and parapsychology, it's basically a scientific dead end, no replication or new testable hypotheses just fantasy and junk science from a small group of charlatans who quote each other infinitum. Johns (talk) 01:43, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Twitter links

Because of the ephemerality of links from Shitter, can you please use archived versions of tweets as citation material? Carthage (talk) 17:02, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. I will fix that soon. Pinkerite (talk) 17:07, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I already replaced the Shitter links on Steven Pinker's page with archived versions, so you don't need to worry about that. Carthage (talk) 17:09, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

OK - great! Thanks a lot. :-) Pinkerite (talk) 17:10, 23 September 2024 (UTC)