Jonathan_Graehl comments on Some Thoughts Are Too Dangerous For Brains to Think - Less Wrong

15 Post author: WrongBot 13 July 2010 04:44AM

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Comment author: WrongBot 13 July 2010 03:41:42PM 6 points [-]

My motivation in writing this article was to attempt to dissuade others from courses of action that might lead them to become bigots, among other things.

But I am also personally terrified of exactly the sort of thing I describe, because I can't see a way to protect against it. If I had enough strong evidence to assign a probability of .99 to the belief that gay men have an average IQ 10 points lower than straight men (I use this example because I have no reason at all to believe it is true, and so there is less risk that someone will try to convince me of it), I don't think I could prevent that from affecting my behavior in some way. I don't think it's possible. And I disvalue such a result very strongly, so I avoid it.

I bring up dangerous thoughts because I am genuinely scared of them.

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 13 July 2010 04:30:34PM 5 points [-]

Why should your behavior be unaffected? If you want to spend time evaluating a person on their own merits, surely you still can.

Comment author: WrongBot 13 July 2010 06:30:54PM 1 point [-]

Just because I'll be able to do something doesn't mean that I will. I can resolve to spend time evaluating people based on their own merits all I like, but that's no guarantee at all that the resolution will last.

Comment author: [deleted] 13 July 2010 06:46:30PM 6 points [-]

You seem to think that anti-bigots evaluate people on their merits more than bigots do. Why?

If you're looking for a group of people who are more likely to evaluate people on their merits, you might try looking for a group of people who are committed to believing true things.