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gjm comments on Rationality Quotes April 2012 - Less Wrong
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Negative subconscious attitudes aren't the same thing as (though they might cause or be caused by) conscious opinions that such-and-such people are inferior in some way.
Ah yes - it's extra-weird that someone isn't allowed in that framework to have conscious racist opinions but not be a jerk about it.
If one has conscious racist opinions, or is conscious that one has unconscious racist opinions (has taken the IAT but doesn't explicitly believe negative things about blacks) but doesn't act on them, it's probably because one doesn't endorse them. I'd class such a person as a Racist1.
I don't think not being an "insensitive jerk" is the same as not acting on one's opinions.
For example, if I think that people who can't do math shouldn't be programmers, and I make sure to screen applicants for math skills, that's acting on my opinions. If I make fun of people with poor math skills for not being able to get high-paying programmer jobs, that's being an insensitive jerk.
That's true. I was taking "racist opinions" to mean "incorrect race-related beliefs that favor one group over another". If people who couldn't do math were just as good at programming as people who could, and you still screened applicants for math skills, that would be a jerk move. If your race- or gender- or whatever-group-related beliefs are true, and you act on them rationally (e.g. not discriminating with a hard filter when there's only a small difference), then you aren't being any kind of racist by my definition.
ETA: did anyone downvote for a reason other than LocustBeamGun's?
(ETA: I didn't downvote, but) I wouldn't call gender differences in math "small" - the genders have similar average skills but their variances are VERY different. As in, Emmy Noether versus ~everyone else.
And if there is a great difference between groups it would be more rational to apply strong filters (except for example people who are bad at math, conveniently, aren't likely to become programmers). Perhaps the downvoter(s) thought you only presented the anti-discrimination side of the issue.
I think in most cases the average is more important in deciding how much to discriminate. But I deleted the relevant phrase because I'm not sure about that specific case and my argument holds about the same amount of water without it as with it.
EDIT:
Huh, I was intending to say that it's acceptable to discriminate on real existing differences, to the extent that those differences exist. Not sure how to fix my comment to make that less ambiguous, so just saying it straight out here.
Not to mention a bad business decision.
That too, thanks for pointing it out.
Indeed. For some reason I'm not sure of, I instinctively dislike Chinese people, but I don't endorse this dislike and try to acting upon it as little as possible (except when seeking romantic partners -- I think I do get to decide what criteria to use for that).
Can you expand on the difference you see between acting on your (non-endorsed) preferences in romantic partners, and acting on those preferences in, for example, friends?
As for this specific case, I don't happen to have any Chinese friend at the moment, so I can't.
More generally, see some of the comments on this Robin Hanson post: not many of them seem to agree with him.
I don't understand how not having any Chinese friends at the moment precludes you from expanding on the differences between acting on your dislike of Chinese people when seeking romantic partners and acting on it in other areas of your life, such as maintaining friendships.
Yes, the commenters on that post mostly don't agree with him.
That said, I would summarize most of the exchange as:
"Why are we OK with A, but we have a problem with B?"
"Because A is OK and B is wrong!"
Which isn't quite as illuminating as I might have liked.
Since I'm not maintaining any friendships with Chinese people, I can't see what it would even mean for me to act on my dislike of Chinese people in maintaining friendships. As for ‘other areas of my life’, this means that if I attempt to interact with a Chinese-looking beggar the same way I'd behave I'd interact with an European-looking beggar, to read a paper by an author with a Chinese-sounding name the same way I'd read one by an author with (say) a Polish-sounding name, and so on. (I suspect I might have misunderstood your question, though.)