Oh, lord. This for two paragraphs was an interesting article --- is there something political or controversial about deuteranopia? But, no: it's just a culture war appeal.
What seemed to be missing was a critical and self-aware statement of why his critics may be right or at least his strongest argument.
Without such honesty, any apologia is hollow.
In response to the hollowness, I did some googling on racial color blindness and I now am very convinced of its connection to white supremacy. This author had my attention for 10 minutes and was too abstract for me to really learn anything at all.
In fairness: purposeful vagueness isn't going to get me engage with your monetized content, so I didn't click on any of their videos.
In other words you'd want him to repent and accept the orthodoxy, before you'll consider listening to his possibly-heretic theories.
Whether he is right or wrong is fundamentally irrelevant. TED accepted his talk, reviewed it, fact-checked it, like all other talks; and then bowed to political pressure and quietly moved away from it. That's not a good look, regardless of what the speech might be about. To be fair, it could be worse - they could have kept it completely hidden - but it's still not great.
Yes, it's like you've never had a serious discussion on any issue before. If you can't in good faith defend the opposing position in the manner in which your opponents themselves view the issue then you'll never be convincing. It is the only way you won't be arguing against a straw man. You'll notice that my point is symmetric and makes reference to which side might be an orthodoxy. This doesn't mean you have to both-sides yourself; you don't have to take the "what if some races are just superior" position unless you're arguing with someone who believes that.
When you explain why you think color blindness isn't the right approach you start by saying why it is good, the benefits, why it's reasonable for someone to believe it to be the right way forward and then talk about its flaws.
> What seemed to be missing was a critical and self-aware statement of why his critics may be right or at least his strongest argument.
I imagine for any talk (or any theory) about just about anything (worth giving a talk about) will have critics (and reasonable critical arguments.)
But, generally, I wouldn't think that that in itself is a good reason to (to some extent) censor his talk.
> In response to the hollowness, I did some googling on racial color blindness and I now am very convinced of its connection to white supremacy.
As someone who is maybe older than the typical HNer (maybe) this is cognitively dissonant to me. When I was younger, Progressives were striving for color-blindness (and MLK famously called for such a thing in his most famous speech.)
Hate groups are fantastic at co-opting previously reasonable ideas. Some examples:
- Woke
- The OK hand symbol
- Gay - turning a word that literally means "Happy" into a slur
- The Punisher symbol - He is not a police-adjacent vigilante.
- The US Flag (stars and bars, to be specific)
So, yeah, as a fellow older HNer, it's hard to see these kinds of re-defining ideals we once ascribed to. But it's happening, and that reality is the one we have to live in.
Even the author doesn't believe in racial color blindness¹. This TED Talk is content marketing for his personal brand, his business doing speaking engagements² ($10-20K each), and his forthcoming book, and he's just upset that his YouTube view count shows that few people care what he thinks about the topic.
¹ "Taking that viewpoint seriously — while ultimately refuting it — was the express purpose of my talk."
I don't know why he'd say that, when he ended the talk literally saying it's the best way to govern a multi-racial society and that we should use it right now as much as possible.
On his twitter Coleman says that his youtube views were what he was expecting, it's the view directly from the TED Talk website that seemed surprisingly low.
He doesn't have to address his debate opponent's points in their favor for them. He filmed an actual debate allowing them to do so themselves. He espoused in this article a willingness to discuss with his critics at any time in case they make a point that changes his mind. How that can be viewed as anything other than good faith is beyond me.
The phrase has been co-opted; its meaning has changed. As happens with all languages, a phrase is not defined once and never changes, much to my chagrin.
I don't find the talk novel, interesting or insightful, as it's a boring claim about an obviously ideal situation would be good in an ideal world, but that doesn't make it below TED's normal standards.
The mentioned debate on the topic could be good, but I didn't see a link to it.
I watched this debate a couple of weeks ago and Coleman won every round.
I was surprised that Jamelle Bouie agreed to debate him, since anyone who has paid any attention to Coleman Hughes knows that he is a world-class thinker and debater. Coleman is one of the sharpest public intellectuals alive.
Jamelle must have known he was going up as a sacrificial lamb, especially since Jamelle had to argue in favor of racial discrimination. I mean, sheesh.
I haven't followed all the details yet but I thought the reply by
Chris Anderson @TEDchris was very thoughtful and I now find myself in an indeterminate state for what the controversy was exactly https://twitter.com/TEDchris/status/1706792437098676224
TED talks have platformed literal fraudsters many times. It's just rich, well connected people roleplaying some idea of a "thought leader" organization.
TED is a well-oiled feel good scam that pretends that you can learn something that will change your life/your mind by watching a 15 minutes video.
It has managed to instill in the popular culture that those videos are educational. No, they are not. It’s simply a brand earning a lot of money on the free speakers hoping to get some Karma and organizers paying lot of money to just have the brand.
(I gave two TEDx talk myself. Not TED, of course but still)
So TED only platforms people whose ideas they explicitly agree with 100%. It’s sad and disheartening to see institutions that are supposed to promote different ideas become another casualty in the culture war.
I thought the video he posted showed two extremely intelligent men that had a huge depth of the topic. It was one of the very best things I have seen in HN in years- besides LLMs of course.
Readit News
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness is not the same as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_color_blindness
Sigh.
---
To the moderators: Please consider changing the title to "Why Is TED Scared of Racial Color Blindness?"
Without such honesty, any apologia is hollow.
In response to the hollowness, I did some googling on racial color blindness and I now am very convinced of its connection to white supremacy. This author had my attention for 10 minutes and was too abstract for me to really learn anything at all.
In fairness: purposeful vagueness isn't going to get me engage with your monetized content, so I didn't click on any of their videos.
Whether he is right or wrong is fundamentally irrelevant. TED accepted his talk, reviewed it, fact-checked it, like all other talks; and then bowed to political pressure and quietly moved away from it. That's not a good look, regardless of what the speech might be about. To be fair, it could be worse - they could have kept it completely hidden - but it's still not great.
When you explain why you think color blindness isn't the right approach you start by saying why it is good, the benefits, why it's reasonable for someone to believe it to be the right way forward and then talk about its flaws.
I imagine for any talk (or any theory) about just about anything (worth giving a talk about) will have critics (and reasonable critical arguments.)
But, generally, I wouldn't think that that in itself is a good reason to (to some extent) censor his talk.
> In response to the hollowness, I did some googling on racial color blindness and I now am very convinced of its connection to white supremacy.
As someone who is maybe older than the typical HNer (maybe) this is cognitively dissonant to me. When I was younger, Progressives were striving for color-blindness (and MLK famously called for such a thing in his most famous speech.)
- Woke
- The OK hand symbol
- Gay - turning a word that literally means "Happy" into a slur
- The Punisher symbol - He is not a police-adjacent vigilante.
- The US Flag (stars and bars, to be specific)
So, yeah, as a fellow older HNer, it's hard to see these kinds of re-defining ideals we once ascribed to. But it's happening, and that reality is the one we have to live in.
Now that that ground is conquered and secured, it is time for new conquests.
¹ "Taking that viewpoint seriously — while ultimately refuting it — was the express purpose of my talk."
² https://www.aaespeakers.com/keynote-speakers/coleman-hughes
The viewpoint he's taking seriously while ultimately refuting is that "color blindness is, in fact, a Trojan horse for white supremacy."
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/16/martin-luther-king-dream-sp...
The mentioned debate on the topic could be good, but I didn't see a link to it.
I was surprised that Jamelle Bouie agreed to debate him, since anyone who has paid any attention to Coleman Hughes knows that he is a world-class thinker and debater. Coleman is one of the sharpest public intellectuals alive.
Jamelle must have known he was going up as a sacrificial lamb, especially since Jamelle had to argue in favor of racial discrimination. I mean, sheesh.
It has managed to instill in the popular culture that those videos are educational. No, they are not. It’s simply a brand earning a lot of money on the free speakers hoping to get some Karma and organizers paying lot of money to just have the brand.
(I gave two TEDx talk myself. Not TED, of course but still)
Dead Comment