= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Konkvistador comments on Some Thoughts Are Too Dangerous For Brains to Think - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (311)
On reflection, I think I have an obligation to stick my neck out and address some issue of potential dangerous knowledge that really matters, rather than the triviality (to us anyway) of heliocentrism.
Suppose (worst case) that race IQ differences are real, and not explained by the Flynn effect or anything like that. I think it's beyond dispute that that would be a big boost for the racists (at least short-term), but would it be an insuperable obstacle for those of us who think ontological differences don't translate smoothly into differences in ethical worth?
The question of sex makes me fairly optimistic. Men and women are definitely distinct psychologically. And yet, as this fact has become more and more clear, I do not think sexual equality has declined. Probably the opposite - a softening of attitudes on all sides. So maybe people would actually come to grips with race IQ differences, assuming they exist.
More importantly, withholding that knowledge could be much more disastrous.
(1) If the knowledge does come out, the racists get to yell "I told you so," "Conspiracy of silence" etc. Then the IQ difference gets magnified 1000x in the public imagination.
(2) If the knowledge does not come out, then underrepresentation of certain races in e.g., higher learning stands as an ugly fact sans explanation. Society beats its head against a problem of supposed endemic racism for eternity, when the real culprit is statistical differences in mean IQ. Even though - public perceptions be damned - statistical IQ differences should have all the moral weight of "pygmies are underrepresented in basketball."
Knowing about (potential) racial IQ differences is dangerous; so is a perpetual false presumption of racism resulting from ignoring those differences if they exist. Which one generates the most angst, long-term? I don't know. But the truth is probably more sustainable than a well-intentioned fib.
I think we are seeing that among the for now (fortunately) small group of relatively intelligent unconformist people who change their opinion on this subject once looking at the data.
It biases them towards unduly sympathetic judgements of everyone else who happens to hold the same opinion.
or
or eventually
Leaking unconfromist, driven, principled (as in truth seeking even when it costs them status) intelligent people to otherwise unworthy causes? This may prove to be dangerous in the long term.
One can't overestimate the propaganda value of calling out a well intentioned lie out as a lie and then proving that it actually is, you know, a lie. Our biases make us very vulnerable to be overly suspicious of someone who has been shown to be a liar. This is doubly true of our tendency to question their motives.