Epistemics (Part 9: Ironic authenticity)

If you’ve spent much time on social media, you’ve seen this tactic before: someone trying to slip out of their rhetorical bind by claiming that their offending statement had been a joke, and that you’re just being hypersensitive. That thing where someone wears irony as a defense, hiding their true motives? What is that? That, friend, is Poe’s Law: On the internet, it’s impossible to tell who is joking. In other words, it’s the thinking person’s ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Emma Grey Ellis, “Can’t take a joke? That’s just Poe’s law“

1. Introduction

This is Part 9 in my series on epistemics: practices that shape knowledge, belief and opinion within a community. In this series, I focus on areas where community epistemics could be productively improved.

Part 1 introduced the series and briefly discussed the role of funding, publication practices, expertise and deference within the effective altruist ecosystem.

Part 2 discussed the role of examples within discourse by effective altruists, focusing on the cases of Aum Shinrikyo and the Biological Weapons Convention.

Part 3 looked at the role of peer review within the effective altruism movement.

Part 4 looked at the declining role of cost-effectiveness analysis within the effective altruism movement. Part 5 continued that discussion by explaining the value of cost-effectiveness analysis.

Part 6 looked at instances of extraordinary claims being made on the basis of less than extraordinary evidence.

Part 7 looked at the role of legitimate authority within the effective altruism movement.

Part 8 looked at two types of decoupling.

Today’s post discusses a type of ironically authentic speech that sits uncomfortably between the authenticity of direct assertion and the deniability of an ironic joke. I characterize the relevant type of ironic authenticity and explain why it is used, then give two examples of how this strategy has recently been used within and around the effective altruist community.

2. Ironic authenticity

There is a phenomenon that goes by many names. Erin Stoner calls it a Schrödinger joke. For Stone, Schrödinger’s jokes are extreme and ironic statements, which admit two plausible readings: as irony, and as direct speech. Because of this strategic ambiguity, the jokes, like Schrödinger’s cat, are stuck in a state of limbo: they are neither jokes nor assertions until they are heard by an audience. To the in-group, they will be heard as direct assertions. By the out-group, they will be heard as ironic jokes, or at least if they are not, members of the in-group will be sure to complain.

The internet calls it Poe’s law: there is, on the internet, often no credible way to determine whether a statement is made in earnest. Purveyors of extreme views exploit this ambiguity to avoid criticism for their views.

I call it ironic authenticity. I use this term because the discourse in question combines a strong dose of irony with something very much like authentic assertion. It is, to put a crude handle on things, not quite assertion, but not quite irony either. And this is done with a point: the irony in question is not mere play, but a deliberate attempt to test boundaries or evade responsibility.

In more detail, instances of ironic authenticity have at least three key characteristics. The first is moderate irony. Statements are made with a sprinkling of irony that gives credence to a reading on which they were meant ironically. But at the same time, they are made with a good deal of directness, leaving open an interpretation on which the statements are literally asserted.

A second characteristic of this phenomenon is ideological proximity: speakers use moderate irony to say something that is ideologically similar to many things that they believe. The speaker may, or may not believe precisely the thing that they said, but it is likely that their beliefs do not fall too far short of their assertions. If listeners were to agree with the literal contents of what was said, it is unlikely that the speaker would be dismayed by this outcome.

The final characteristic is risky speech: what is said ironically is something that would be dangerous to say unironically. For example, the opinion in question may be considered rude, racist, or in exceptionally poor taste. Because the contents cannot be asserted unironically, there is pressure to assert them with at least a moderate amount of irony.

Perhaps more characteristics could be added, or the above characteristics could be modified, but I hope that the combination of moderate irony, ideological proximity and risky speech should suffice to point readers in the direction of the phenomenon that I am after.

3. Benefits of ironic authenticity

Ironic authenticity conveys at least three benefits on its proponents. First and most obviously, it gives them plausible deniability. If readers like what they see, then the contents can be taken at face value. But readers who take offense can be told that they have failed to see the joke. This, perversely, creates an opportunity to paint critics as uninformed, uncharitable or lazy readers when they may, in fact, have grasped the speaker’s intention and meaning fairly well. This benefit is known to users of ironic authenticity. For example, Nick Fuentes (of “your body, my choice” fame) once told his viewers:

Irony is so important for giving a lot of … cover and plausible deniability for our views … You know, when it comes to something like Holocaust revision … this is a subject that you cannot deviate from the popular consensus on but you also … can’t really tell the truth … You need a little bit of maneuverability that irony gives you. … Irony is a very important … linguistic and rhetorical weapon so that we can be subversive … I use sardonic humor to convey a point subversively … I do literally on my show say just kidding that’s a joke, whatever, but the point is made.

A second benefit of ironic authenticity is that it allows speakers to gradually shift the Overton window. Making statements that lie just outside of the Overton window with a veneer of irony allows speakers to gradually sensitize readers to those statements, creating precedent for later unironic uses. The cloak of irony also provides an excellent opportunity to test the boundaries of the Overton window to determine whether previously unsafe statements may now be safe to assert directly. If a speaker turns out to have gone too far, they can retreat without significant losses, but if their risky speech turns out to be successful, they can build on that speech until it gains at least very nearly the character of a direct assertion.

This use of ironic authenticity to test and shift the Overton window is increasingly recognized by scholars. In one of the best-known recent articles on alt-right humor, Viveca Greene writes:

Groups associated with the alt-right have employed both irony and satire and, in doing so, widened the “Overton window” of acceptable political discourse. In the post-civil rights and subsequent ostensibly color-blind eras, white supremacy, and particularly racist humor, was thought to take a covert form in the “frontstage” (multiracial spaces whites occupy) and an overt form in the “backstage” (any space occupied only by whites); however, in our current age, toxic white supremacist discourses are moving from backstage to front-stage, a transition facilitated by the alt-right’s use of new media and ironic or satiric communicative styles.

A final benefit of ironic authenticity is that it builds social community. Those who are `in’ on the joke can share a collective laugh, often bonding at the expense of outgroups whom they know very well to have been non-ironically attacked. In this way, even when ironic speech looks to have made few inroads among outsiders, it may play an important role in strengthening communities receptive to the ideas being shared. Viveca Greene and Amber Day put the point this way:

Through collective laughter, satire can … help build a sense of community for those in on the joke. As such, it can be a powerful tool for those … who wish to challenge oppressive ideologies, to change the terms we use to conceptualize an issue, or to push otherwise niche issues into the mainstream.

Because ironic authenticity provides plausible deniability, allows speakers to push and probe the Overton window, and builds community among those sympathetic to the contents of ironic discourse, there is great temptation for authors of a certain bent to indulge in it.

Below, I examine two uses of ironic authenticity in the effective altruist and rationalist communities. The first, due to Scott Alexander, uses ironic authenticity to discuss some surprisingly controversial ideas about how the United States government might be run. The second, due to the effective altruist blogger Bentham’s Bulldog, uses less offensive though still troubling language to assess criticisms of effective altruism.

4. A hypothetical Trump cabinet

Scott Alexander was once asked:

You wake up on the morning on the 20th of January to find that you are now Donald Trump, on the day of your inauguration as president. (Investigation reveals there is another you still practising medicine in Michigan as normal fwiw.) As president, what do you do with the powers available to you? How do Congress, the media, and the public respond? How do you respond back?

Alexander responded:

My cabinet/related picks:

Attorney General: Preet Bharara
Commerce: Peter Thiel
Defense: James Mattis
State: Tulsi Gabbard
Housing & Urban Development: Matt Yglesias
Homeland Security: Anonymous Mugwump
Health & Human Services: Julia Wise
Transportation/Energy: Elon Musk
Treasury: Satoshi Nakamoto
Education: Eva Moskowitz
Veterans Affairs: David Petraeus
Agriculture: Buck Shlegeris
Labor: Bernie Sanders

White House Chief Of Staff: Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg
Head of NIH: Stephen Hsu
Surgeon General: Dr. Chris Ballas
Head of FDA: Alex Tabarrok
Welfare Czar: Charles Murray
Chair of Federal Reserve: Scott Sumner
Budget Director: Holden Karnofsky
Head of CIA: Philip Tetlock

Everything else can be filled by randomly selected black women so that I can brag about how diverse I am.

First order of business: in addition to being my Secretary of Labor, Bernie Sanders is now vice president. I don’t care what he does with the position, it’s just so that the Republican Congress knows that if they impeach me, they’re getting a pacifist Jewish socialist as the leader of the free-world.

Second order of business is to get Robin Hanson to set up a national prediction market to help me figure out all my other policies. All other orders of business conditional on approval from national prediction market and from new CIA head Philip Tetlock. Then:

– Legalize marijuana and hallucinogens, lessen penalties for other drugs. Replace prison sentences for nonviolent crimes with corporal punishment.

– Build Trump’s wall, because it’s a meaningless symbol that will change nothing, but it’ll make Republicans like me, and it will make Democrats focus all their energy on criticizing that instead of anything substantive I do.

– Tax the rich. Maybe a Georgist land tax?

– Get rid of most occupational licensing restrictions. I’m probably too chicken to get rid of medical licensing entirely, but make it way easier to become a nurse-practitioner, and vastly expand the amount of stuff nurse practitioners can do. Allow psychologists to prescribe most psychiatric medication.

– Declare War On College. Forgive all existing student loans, then refuse to give out any new ones. Prohibit the government from asking about college degree when hiring new employees, and put pressure on private industry to follow suit for any position less absolutely-requiring-of-specialized-knowledge than doctor or engineer. Increase government loans to boot camps, online courses, et cetera.

– If Tabarrok hasn’t already solved everything about prescription medication by this point, do it myself.

– If Yglesias hasn’t already solved everything about urban housing by this point, do it myself.

– Carbon tax, with the money going into massive investment into ways to sequester atmospheric carbon.

– Basic income guarantee if possible, otherwise just sneakily increase income tax credits and stuff so that nobody notices.

– Tell Russia that if they can defeat ISIS, they can have as much of Syria as they want, and if they can do it while getting rid of Assad we’ll let them have Alaska back too.

– Agree with Russia and Ukraine to partition Ukraine into Pro-Russia Ukraine and Pro-West Ukraine. This would also work with Moldova.

– Recognize Somaliland.

– Tell Saudi Arabia that we’re sorry for sending mixed messages by allying with them, and actually they are total scum and we hate their guts. Ally with Iran, who are actually really great aside from the whole Islamic theocracy thing. Get Iran to grudgingly tolerate Israel the same way we got Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc to grudgingly tolerate Israel, which I assume involves massive amounts of bribery. Form coalition for progress and moderation vs. extremist Sunni Islam throughout Middle East. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

– Tell China that their artificial islands in the South China Sea are stupid and if they don’t stop, then we’ll show them what real artificial islands look like. If they call our bluff, send Patri Friedman over with ten billion dollars in state funding to create seasteads in whichever spots are most inconvenient for China.

– Eliminate the penny.

– Probably other things, I would have to think.

There is, here, a smattering of irony. Alexander suggests that he would appoint Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of bitcoin, as treasury secretary, and Anonymous Mugwump, a foreign policy blogger, as Homeland Security secretary. Alexander is, perhaps, a bit tongue-in-cheek when he suggests that “Everything else can be filled by randomly selected black women so that I can brag about how diverse I am.”

There is, on the other hand, a great deal of authenticity here. Effective altruists, of whom Alexander often speaks fondly, snag two spots (Julia Wise and Holden Karnofsky). Forecasters land one, in Philip Tetlock. Figures known for public brushes with race science snag two spots (Stephen Hsu, Charles Murray) — Alexander has publicly supported Hsu, and been criticized by the New York Times for his comments about Murray.

Even the irony contains a healthy grain of authenticity. A sharp foreign policy blogger and a cryptocurrency pioneer may lack the experience necessary for cabinet service, but they are hardly foreign to the type of individual that Alexander might suggest. And the remark about randomly selected black women did not arise in a vacuum: we saw in Part 4 of my series on human biodiversity that Alexander has been often critical of feminists and advocates of racial justice.

This passage has, then, all of the hallmarks of ironic authenticity. Alexander makes at most moderate use of irony to express opinions that are, on the whole, ideologically proximate to views he has expressed elsewhere, and there is a definite prevalence of risky speech. As with most exercises of ironic authenticity, one could be forgiven for thinking that these remarks, while at times playful, reflect a good deal of Alexander’s own opinions. When Alexander was pressed on these opinions, he reacted rather differently:

Here Alexander takes full advantage of the deniability afforded by ironic authenticity. With absolutely no argument of any kind, nor any attempt to address the clear similarities between the stated choices and Alexander’s own expressed views, Alexander weaponizes humor to attempt to shut down criticism of some rather deplorable opinions about how the country should be governed.

The closing comparison to Trump’s own discursive practices is, in today’s political climate, bone-chilling. It is no accident that most of the sources I used to characterize the contemporary practice of ironic authenticity discussed far-right political movements in the United States. Trump is no stranger to the strategy. For example:

Is Trump speaking earnestly in these posts? One hopes that his posts are not completely literal – even on Trump’s world view, it is hard to find credible grounds for locking up Bill Gates. But at the same time, there are excellent grounds to think that Trump holds and has expressed a non-ironic desire to punish political opponents. How much of his most outrageous behavior is irony, and how much authenticity? It is frustratingly hard to tell, and that is, one suspects, at least part of the point.

5. Criticism of effective altruism

A milder use of ironically authentic speech was recently posted by an effective altruist blogger, Matthew Adelstein (Bentham’s Bulldog). (For a related incident, see another blogger’s recent piece, “I believed the drowning child argument until I heard these unassailable criticisms. Now I give all my money to DEI trainings.”).

In an essay entitled “How I learned that you should push children into ponds: Lessons from the critics of effective altruism,” Adelstein proposed some slightly unorthodox interpretations of what might be gleaned from critics of effective altruism:

Effective altruism, the capitalist ultracapitalist movement in favor of capitalism and capitalism, is a white cishet settler colonialist movement. It talks a big game about doing good effectively but then some people in the movement said bad things in 1996—so how good can it really be? It talks about helping people, but many people in the movement are white—sounds like white saviorism to me! The movement is partially about longtermism, making the future go well by reducing existential risks, but that sounds pretty weird and involves big numbers.

[Insert several paragraphs of sneering].

Effective altruism tries to do good effectively, but Sam Bankman Fried was involved with the movement, and he was a bad hombre. Also, doing good by preventing kids from getting malaria involves saving—sounds like WHITE SAVIORISM, the horrifying consequence of white people trying to do good things.

After reading Alice Crary’s very serious complaints about the fact that EA “positions rich people as ‘saviors’ of the poor,” I knew I had to act differently. That is why, when this morning I saw a poor black child drowning in a river, I ignored him entirely. While his parents called on me to save him—for they were too far away—I knew better than to engage in white saviorism. Hadn’t these people ever heard of colonialism? Who am I to position myself as a savior of the poor?

I no longer work a job or go to school. After all, Sam Bankman Fried worked a job and went to school. I now decide upon my stock portfolio by throwing a dart at a dart board. As I learned from the wise sage Alice Crary, the world is more complicated than objective, numerical metrics. For this reason, rather than relying on racist numerical metrics, I now put all my money in Doge Coin. Using objective metrics is problematic in charitable giving, one should trust their gut; my gut is that Doge Coin is going to the moon!

I learned from Freddie deBoer that EA is trivial—everyone supports doing good effectively. Similarly, putting one’s money in stocks that are likely to pay off is trivial—everyone supports it. When I put my money in doge coin and when you put your money in general funds, we are the same. We are both involved in effective investment—you just have the hubris to think you’re the only one doing it.

From Leif Wenar I learned that effective altruism has a perverse hero complex and that it’s a terrible thing because it’s possible to think of several downsides to it. For this reason, I encouraged my friend who was a cancer surgeon to stop treating people for cancer. Doesn’t he know that radiation has downsides? He wasn’t convinced, but that was no doubt his hero complex speaking.

Wenar also taught me that it’s arrogant for EAs to think of themselves as being responsible for saving lives via giving to the against malaria foundation. If an EA funds anti-malarial bednets, they’re not responsible for saving lives. Instead, whoever put up the bednets is responsible for saving the lives. This is why, when I saw my friend choking, I didn’t perform the Heimlich maneuver—after all, if I did so I wouldn’t get credit for saving his life. Instead, Henry Heimlich would get the credit. Boy do I love making Parfit’s first mistake in moral mathematics.

From Lyman Stone, I learned that EA isn’t effective because since it started getting involved in anti-malarial work, progress has stagnated. Owing to this principle deducible from pure reason that correlation is causation, I decided to start the mayhem and death political party, dedicated to killing all five-year-olds. Since they were born, at around the time of Corinavirus, progress on fighting disease stagnated!

After learning from the vitalists that EA makes us coddled and soy, preventing people from having toughening, formative experiences like dying of malaria, I decided to drown a puppy in a local pond. Hopefully, doing so would toughen its character, rather than allowing it to succumb to modern frailty.

From Mary Townsend, I learned that claims that one can do good by donating are eeeeeevil. As she says:

That one could become good through monetary transactions should raise our post-Reformation suspicions, obviously. As a simple response to the stipulation of a dreadful but equally simple freedom, it seems almost designed to hit us at the weakest spots of our human frailty, with disconcerting effects.

That’s why, when a man holding 100,000 people at gunpoint was going to kill them all unless I gave him a penny, I didn’t give him the penny. Sorry 100,000 people, wouldn’t want my attempt to good through monetary transactions to raise post-reformation suspicions.

Over time, however, I learned this wasn’t enough. From the critics of EA, I learned that one is morally required to be neutral in situations of injustice. But it isn’t enough to do nothing. If fighting malaria is white saviorist capitalist colonialism that makes there be more malaria and causes people to become coddled, then it isn’t enough to do nothing.

That’s why I’ve decided to start injecting poor children with malaria. Because the EAs are doing such evil things, someone needs to start doing the opposite. If I inject enough kids with malaria, maybe that could stop white people from being positioned as saviors of the world’s poor. Instead, such an action is an important first step in grappling with the reality that white people are often villains from the perspective of the global poor.

As I learned from Wenar, I can’t be responsible for their deaths. After all, the most proximate cause of their deaths is the doctor that fails to treat them and the mosquito that bites them. I’m wholly without blame and saying I am blameworthy devalues the work of mothers who put up malaria nets.

Because malaria nets are so bad, I’ve started ripping down malaria nets. If malaria net actions by EAs have caused more malaria, as Lyman Stone claims, then we should start ripping down malaria nets. In the name of justice, fighting capitalism, and ending colonialism, I’ve started injecting children with malaria.

I spent years pulling children out of ponds. But now I realize doing so is morally wrong. To offset my negative impact, I’ve started pushing children back into ponds. Such will bring about a global anti-capitalist revolution, for we all know that it’s just one effective altruism movement away from becoming reality. I hope one day you’ll join me, and the world will live as one.

This was, Adelstein hastened to add, clearly satirical. Those of us who criticized such an uncharitable approach towards some of the world’s foremost thinkers were told that we had failed to see the joke.

Certainly there is at least a moderate use of irony throughout this post, considerably more so than in the passages by Alexander considered in the previous section. But at the same time, there is a good deal of authenticity.

In a widely upvoted post on the EA Forum, Adelstein wrote:

I remember when I was out tabling for the effective altruism club at my University, some woman came up and started trotting out braindead anti-effective altruism arguments—something about tech bros and SBF and white saviorism. The other very reasonable and responsible EAs at the club were saying things like “hmm, yeah, that’s a very interesting criticism, well, if you want to come to a meeting, we’d be happy to discuss it.”

I wanted to scream! These aren’t serious criticisms. This is complete bullshit.

Spend enough time listening to the criticisms of effective altruism and it becomes clear that, aside from those arguing for small tweaks at the margins, they all stem from either a) people being very dogmatic and having a worldview that’s strangely incompatible with doing good things (if, for instance, they don’t help the communist revolution); b) people wanting an excuse to do nothing in the face of extreme suffering; or c) people disliking effective altruists and so coming up with some half-hearted excuse for why EA is really something-something colonialism.

I don’t want to be too mean about this, but the criticisms are unbelievably dumb. They are confused to a really extraordinary degree. The reasoning is so exquisitely poor that it’s very clearly motivated. I don’t say that about other subjects—this is the only subject on which the critics don’t have any half-decent objections. And yet despite this, lots of effective altruists treat the criticisms as serious.

In this passage, Adelstein expresses particular concern over the prevalence of “braindead” criticisms involving “something about tech bros and SBF and white saviorism”. Adelstein then decides to propose that all criticisms of effective altruism, “aside from those arguing for small tweaks at the margins”, stem from dogmatic and extreme worldviews, apathy, or half-hearted rationalizations for existing dislike of effective altruism. When I confronted Adelstein about this, he was decidedly unapologetic (some of my colleagues have asked me not to link to the relevant passage, as Adelstein is still an undergraduate).

From this, what can we learn about Adelstein’s later essay on lessons from critics of effective altruism? It is true that the essay is shot through with irony. But for all that, the views are at least moderately authentic to its author. We encounter almost the same “braindead” mixture of allegations of white saviorism and criticisms of Sam Bankman-Fried in the first two full paragraphs. We turn next to criticisms of Alice Crary, with responses not entirely dissimilar to those made by Adelstein in his essay “Alice Crary’s embarrassingly bad criticisms of effective altruism.” (See also responses to Lymon Stone, “Why Lyman Stone’s Criticism of Effective Altruism Is Bad. Lyman stoned?“, Leif Wenar, “On Leif Wenar’s Absurdly Unconvincing Critique Of Effective Altruism. Listing three downsides is not a serious objection.” and The Bulwark, “The Bulwark’s Article On Effective Altruism Is Quite Bad. Bentham’s bulldog brutally bashes bulwark but bulwark’s bashed by Bentham’s bulldog” among others.)

From there, we get a series of exaggerated descriptions of famous criticisms and tongue-in-cheek responses. But for all of their exaggeration, the described criticisms bear more than a surface similarity to challenges raised directly by these authors, and the mocking responses bear more than a surface similarity to arguments that effective altruists might make in response.

It might seem that risky speech is not involved in taking aim at critics of effective altruism, since Adelstein’s audience is largely friendly to the effective altruism movement. But within the context of this movement, unfair dismissal of criticism is taken to be a cardinal sin – indeed, while Adelstein’s post about the “braindead” woman concerned about white saviorism remains regrettably popular, the post which headlined this section was quickly chased off of the EA Forum.

I think that viewing this speech through the lens of ironic authenticity helps us to see how the post, while not directly assertoric, makes something in the neighborhood of a direct attempt to float similar ideas for discussion. In this vein, I am glad to see that at least on the EA Forum, the post was not met with a kind reception.

6. Conclusion

How should we react towards unacceptable language couched in the form of ironic authenticity? It is not, perhaps, direct speech. In this sense, it may be right to say that proponents should not be treated identically to someone who had directly asserted all of the same words.

At the same time, those who make use of ironic authenticity know exactly what they are doing. They are using irony to make otherwise-risky statements, testing whether those statements fall outside of the Overton window and if so, warming us up for a day in which they may no longer fall outside of that window. The statements they make are often quite proximate to their own expressed views. What they gain through the use of ironic authenticity is deniability and the ability to bond with others against the targets of their mockery.

At a minimum, we should demand a much higher standard of evidence for the proponents of ironic discourse to distance themselves from the contents of what is said or the consequences of their speech. To simply assert, without evidence, that the contents are entirely satirical or ironic and seek to end matters there is in many cases a dishonest and evidentially-ungrounded attempt to avoid responsibility. To play along with such assertions is at best an exercise in motivated reasoning and at worst an exercise in deliberate obscurantism.

To the extent that ironic authenticity is often deliberate, we might further consider what the authors of such words intended to do with them, or reasonably should have expected would come from their use of these words. We can be held responsible not only for what our words say, but also for what our words do. In this sense, there is no need to show that troubling suggestions have been directly asserted to suggest that harm has been caused or that recompense should be made.

I do not want to tell readers exactly how they should react to online speech. In particular, I suspect that many of my readers are much less willing than I am to punish speech. But I do hope that we can all agree on the fact that ironic authenticity is often as much a spurious attempt to muddy the waters as a genuinely exculpatory factor. And although in both of the above cases I have already been accused of uncharitably misinterpreting the above authors for holding them responsible for their words, I hope that we might do more in the future to consider the possibility that those who use ironic language may still be ideologically proximate to, and normatively responsible for their words.