PhilGoetz comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

97 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 11:23PM

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Comment author: wnoise 26 September 2011 02:38:53AM 0 points [-]

The first is a singularly useless definition satisfied by everyone. Everyone believes that the distribution of skin color differs between black people and white people.

I'd propose a third definition: "someone who treats different people differently based on their race."

Comment author: PhilGoetz 27 September 2011 02:01:25AM *  1 point [-]

Everyone believes that the distribution of skin color differs between black people and white people.

I think this makes the first definition a singularly useful one, because people who think about it and try to be consistent must either find some way in which skin color is a qualitatively different kind of property than every other property people have, or they must admit they are racists.

Comment author: wnoise 27 September 2011 02:54:17AM 0 points [-]

It's useful as a polemical tool, not useful in describing the ordinary meaning of the word, that describes actual clusters of common characteristics observed out in the world. I'm uninterested in using definitions constructed for polemical purposes instead of describing empirically observed clusters.