December 11, 2006

Comment Ban Poll--Gladwell vs. Sailer

Malcolm Gladwell, he of "blink" and "tipping point," is holding a plebescite on whether or not to ban Steve Sailer from the comment section of his blog.

Gladwell doesn't like Sailer's willingness to argue for empirical, and sometimes inherited, differences between what are defined as races.

"Racism" has become an emotionally charged term. It in fact has a number of different meanings. Sailer thinks there are more inherited statistical differences between races than is currently fasionable. Sailer's not rude, doesn't advocate depriving individuals of rights based on race, or politically economically discriminating against individuals based on their race, as does the President of the University of Michigan. I don't see the problem, but then I don't write popular science books with goofy titles, and so don't have a reputation in that field to defend.

Personally, I'd love to have the traffic Gladwell does, even if it included some trolls and critics. Eating my heart out.

Incidentally, Sailer doesn't allow comments on his own blog.

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