Someone who feels injustice, but hasn't had the time or resources to codify it into a calm rational treatise is said to be speaking from emotion. Someone who merely experiences base greed, but is able to justify it to themselves as righteous and deliberate and socially beneficial with a bunch of babble, is considered rational.

And so, the idea that the rigid set of discursive boundaries that LessWrongians impose upon themselves may favor a political outcome (the status quo) seems ridiculous to you, because you use "rational" as a compliment and "emotional" as an insult.

Can you find me an influential LessWrongian who describes making emotional decisions based on greed as "rational"?

Based on my reading, a profit seeker obeying his gut and losing money is irrational. In contrast, a social justice type observing that assortative mating causes inequality and therefore attempting to reduce educated women's marriage choices is rational. But maybe you've read more than me, and can figure out what I missed?

And so, the idea that the rigid set of discursive boundaries that LessWrongians impose upon themselves may favor a political outcome (the status quo)...

This is a completely new critique of the Less Wrong crowd. The normal critique, and the specific one you cited, claim that Less Wrong is too far from the status quo and concerns itself with things like the singularity.

Adding to my confusion is that in the very post you criticize, Yudkowsky explicitly advocates fixing intelligence deficits with "sufficiently advanced technology, biotech or nanotech". How is fixing every person with an IQ < 150 using nanotechnology remotely preserving the status quo?

(Note also that Yudkowsky is explicitly advocating that if genius isn't uniformly distributed, as social justice types claim to believe, we should explicitly change the world to make it so.)

I can't seem to post a reply, so I'll wrap it up here.

I'm criticizing an ecosystem. Yudkowsky-types noodle with weird hypotheticals, others with elitist views get validation. Fantasizing of fixing our current issues with futuristic tech, using it as a yard-stick to criticize ie: a collective black identity from forming a political block, is not explicitly pro-status quo but ends up being so in practice.

I'm not very familiar with the subject matter, but do you realize that this concluding argument is very weak?

Firstly, I don't think I've seen mentioned an instance where Yudkowsky seems to be trying to prevent a collective black identity from forming a political block.

Secondly, you've suggested that the mechanism by which Yudkowsky's material end up as bullets for people who desire to perpetuate prejudice is where the prejudiced party misrepresents Yudkowsky (thereafter, Y). Therefore, your reasoning goes, Y and the LW commenters are guilty for engaging in subject matter that are ripe for appropriation.

Unless I'm mistaken, your accusation is one that is pretty unjust in itself. You are accusing Y with a moral crime for Y&LW's association with (racially) prejudiced groups that have misrepresented Y as prejudiced. This is despite that Y has neither affirmed this association nor mentioned anything prejudiced, his crime being entertaining "weird hypotheticals". Rather, if such a thing has occurred, isn't Y a victim of the prejudiced groups himself?

So the only criticism here is that views of various people on LW forum do not conform to the mainstream social justice outrage narrative, where everything needs to be politicized and "status quo" must be fought?

That's sort of the entire point of "Politics is the Mind-Killer" statement, a point which Bond also missed - LW community wants to focus on effective ways to deal with actual problems, as opposed to doing politics. They're not criticizing "a collective black identity", speaking against them "forming a political block". They're not talking about it. It's besides the point of that article and mostly besides the point of the entire community, which tends to focus on how to make things better for everyone.

Frankly, I find it funny to see accusations of racism aimed at people who are known to seriously, and not just as a figure of speech, consider humanity as one great family who are in it together. But then again, everyone of us who is not outraged is secretly a racist and supports the enemy.

Also consider the core statement of the Mind-Killer article:

"Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back—providing aid and comfort to the enemy. People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there's a Blue or Green position on an issue."

It's perfectly OK to avoid that kind of political discussions. I'd say it's weird to actually partake in them.

I'd love to reply to you all (ie: siblings) but this discussion is just sprawling (not a fan of "tree-and-leaf" fanning arguments, I much prefer linear forums), and I just can't put in the time.

FWIW, you strike me as a good person, as do many LWers. I wish I could communicate to you the nuance of my issues with statements like "humanity as one great family", but I'm a newbie at the study of ideology myself, so I wouldn't do a good job.

À la prochaine!