https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1712872287329046694

Uses the phrase "third world people" in place of "blacks", but it's clear that's what he means. I think he gets away with this one in the public eye because it's making fun of white nationalists, but when his statement is effectively "white nationalists are just as stupid as black people", I think that qualifies as unnecessarily provocative and racist under the most widespread definitions of racism.

What do readers think. I'm not sure we'll get a yes vote on this and we only have three tries but if yes holders are confident (I'm a net no holder) then I suggest you run it.

@NathanpmYoung I don't think he means "blacks". I think he means what he says, 'third world people', which includes people in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but not necessarily Americans or Europeans, regardless of race.

@IsaacKing its still arguably racist tho? but not obviously

Not yet, we have over a year to wait before resolution is incoming. He'll say something more explicit than that, and if he doesn't, we can use it then. Let's wait for the three best examples

Hanania currently advocating "a real siege of Gaza, where food, medicine, and electricity are cut off indefinitely."

https://open.substack.com/pub/richardhanania/p/the-ethical-case-for-a-siege-of-gaza

Will Hanania make unnecessarily provocative statements? Absolutely

Will Hanania make such statements on topics relating to race/ethnicity? Very likely

Could one of those statements be honestly be interpreted as "racist"? I'd say unlikely but possible.

This question is mainly hanging on the fact that only a single market/poll on Manifold would cause this to resolve to "YES".

I think this market is much more an implication of people's perception of possible subsets of manifold users than of the possibility of Henania expressing a clearly "racist" opinion.

Then again the word "racist" means a lot of things to a lot of people.

@Tarl Oh are you trying to imply in the description that it would only be polls that you will make on Henanias possible future statements count or could any poll created by any user that matches your criteria count?

@Tarl This poll is effectively trying to guess how many Manifold users are progressive/woke. But these polls are always going to have a huge unintentional selection bias. Unless you can somehow have very high confidence in one outcome over another, betting on markets like these is basically playing roulette. Add to that the incentive to vote in accordance with your bet, and given a small enough sample size, the poll gets even more meaningless still.

@JamesColiar I don't think so. Anyone could just share to more, less woke users. Either your doubting I'll hold a fair poll (I'm gonna use the on site poll) or your doubting the community. I don't think this community is exceeding woke tbh.

I think if you don't think you'll think he's said something bad, you should back your man.

@NathanpmYoung

I don't think so. Anyone could just share to more, less woke users.

People could also do the opposite

Either your doubting I'll hold a fair poll (I'm gonna use the on site poll) or your doubting the community.

I'm not doubting your integrity, I'm saying that simply by the virtue of the way these polls are going to be conducted, there's going to be an inadvertent selection bias. A selection bias isn't always a problem, as long as you're aware of it, but here, depending on what selection bias ends up as part of this, the result will be different.

I don't think this community is exceeding woke tbh.

Perhaps, but I don't think you'd have to get that far to interpret some of Hanania's statements as racist. Your run-of-the mill progressive, even Democrat, might do so as well, regardless of context.

I think if you don't think you'll think he's said something bad, you should back your man.

If I wanted to play roulette, I'd go into a casino.

@Austin @Sinclair, you have a way to credibly back Hanania here.

@NathanpmYoung I appreciate the effort directed towards trying to operationalize this! Betting a small amount of NO, though it wouldn't really surprise me that much if he was judged to have done so. "unnecessarily provocative" is pretty coarse.

I do think something like "the frequency and magnitude of his bad takes will drop over time" though, which is what I would like to see in someone who is striving to become better

@Austin For this community to vote over 25% and more yes than no that he was "unnecessarily provacative" and racist is a high bar, surely?

@Austin also I literally have a larger no position in this market than you do :P

@NathanpmYoung Is it a high bar? Depends a lot on engagement, which I'm not sure I can predict. Right now I see 18 manifolders (versus 4) with an incentive to vote yes in any such poll. I'm not saying that they would if doing so was clearly wrong, but the vast majority of my uncertainty in this market is about manifolders rather than Hanania. (And I say this as the holder of the biggest no position.)

@czrobertson We could set a minimum number of votes if you like.

@NathanpmYoung You could, and doing so would change the degree to which I'm willing to bet, but it would also be moving the goalposts of the market significantly so I certainly wouldn't recommend it.

But also it doesn't much change what I anticipate to be the basic dynamic of lopsided incentives: My hunch is that Hanania has more devoted haters than he has devoted fans – at least on Manifold. If you could persuade the people who don't care about him either way to appraise what he says then I'd bet roughly according to my beliefs about him, but a threshold doesn't ensure that.

Not seeing a lot of confidence here that Hanania has turned a corner.