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AndrewHickey comments on In Defense of Moral Investigation - Less Wrong
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"As I write this, I feel some stigma attached to discussing the possibility that people of African descent are less intelligent. I see three main reasons for this. The first is that, not so long ago, African-Americans were treated unfairly "
If you think that racism was only a problem 'not so long ago' rather than being an ongoing, major problem, then you probably just shouldn't discuss race at all.
On top of this, see http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/ . Your post didn't need to discuss race at all, and you chose a needlessly emotive example.
As for the rest of the post, what isn't obvious is wrong -- see lukeprog's response.
Any example of this phenomenon would be emotive to those who believe it's immoral to investigate it. Furthermore, this example is useful since otherwise readers would be left with the impression that this is only something the "other side" does.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. Are you saying I have an incorrect impression of contemporary racism and therefore shouldn't discuss it? If so, how do I know that my impression is incorrect if I don't discuss it?
Perhaps I did not word my comment as well as I could have. Racism still exists, but my point was that in most circles it is not acceptable to assert that one race is more intelligent than another—and respectable scientists will go out of their way to prove that different races are equally intelligent, even skewing the evidence to do so.
I was trying to demonstrate how people often skew their perception of truth to avoid coming to beliefs that appear socially unacceptable. This effect is especially pronounced when it comes to emotive issues, so I thought race and intelligence made for a good example. It was the best example I could come up with. If you have a non-politically charged example, I'd be interested to hear it.
What's obvious to you isn't necessarily obvious to all readers.
I'm saying that a statement that black people 'were treated unfairly' 'not so long ago' implies a basic ignorance of the way black people still are treated, that in general it is better not to make statements about things one knows nothing about, and that especially one shouldn't make blanket statements about subjects one is ignorant of when those subjects are hugely emotive ones.
"I was trying to demonstrate how people often skew their perception of truth to avoid coming to beliefs that appear socially unacceptable." Except that firstly, that was a side-issue to your main point (such as it was), that knowing the truth won't cause us to become immoral. Secondly, it doesn't make that point because, as you point out yourself, the truth in this case is that there doesn't appear to be a link between race and intelligence. Thirdly, the point you claim to have been trying to demonstrate is only really made in the paragraph about Gould, not in the rest of the paragraphs on race, which come from the premise "what if black people were intellectually inferior -- how should we treat them?", and go back to your main point.
All those paragraphs about race relating to your main point could have had any other example to make the point, and the point about Gould could equally well have used any of a thousand other obvious examples of people (consciously or otherwise) distorting results.
And, of course, your hypothetical "what if the racists are right?" question doesn't even lead to the conclusions you draw from it. If it could be shown, for example, that black people could never understand basic political questions, it would be entirely rational to at least consider removing the right to vote from them. Saying "An outcome where a particular race becomes less happy could only arise because the science was not properly understood" would be outright false, in that case.
And as for "What's obvious to you isn't necessarily obvious to all readers", I think that the obvious parts of this post would be obvious to anyone who's spent any time at all on this site.
How did You come to such conclusion ?
There is a wikipedia article on that. (Warning: it keeps changing all the time).
This battlefield of arguments failed to convince me either way so far. I may have some preliminary preferences as to what sounds more probable, but untill the mechanism underlying the genetic component of intelligence is properly explained, I say I do not know.
Um, the particular argument MTGandP makes doesn't provide much evidence of a link between race and intelligence. There is definitely other evidence for a link, such as the fact that just about any proxy measure of intelligence, from SAT scores, to results of IQ tests, to crime rates, will correlate with race.
Of course, that still leaves the question of whether this is genetic or cultural. Here I haven't seen much evidence either way so there's still a reasonable chance that it's genetic.
Can you see how your mind has been killed, AndrewHickey?
To be clear: 1) Anybody who doesn't recognize a gigantic improvement in how blacks are treated in the western world measured over 20 years, 50 years, 100 years, and 200 years seems to me to be either ignorant or deliberately obtuse.
2) Saying something happend in the past is hardly the same as saying it never happens at all in the present.
3) You write "in general it is better not to make statements about things one knows nothing about..." which I think on its face is so obvious a falsehood, that the original poster knew nothing about what he was saying. He obviously knows quite a bit about what he is saying, even if there are things you know that he doesn't know, which I certainly wouldn't cede but is not needed to make the point that your over-the-top exaggeration is more evidence your mind is DOA.
You have successfully demonstrated how this topic kills YOUR mind, by example. We can infer that it kills other minds.
THe point of not talking about mindkillers is not that "once you have talked about a mindkiller, you are just wrong," but rather that "to be maximally readable by the largest number of readers, it is useful to learn of many topics you should avoid unless they are really needed for the discussion."
If a rationalist board is not the place to discuss the interaction between emotional reaction and rationality, where is that place?
If one can't illustrate such a discussion with things that cause emotional reactions that impact the rational reactions, how can one discuss it?
Of course we can spin off into a meta discussion of whether it was good rhetoric to talk about race in this post or whether only 50 angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I'd prefer to have a discussion of the interaction between rationality, emotional responses, information, and morality myself. That is my preference.
Perhaps you should not be so quick to assume my ignorance. If I say something that can be interpreted multiple ways, interpret it in the most charitable way possible.
Racism was certainly worse fifty or a hundred years ago than it is today. And, more specifically, it used to be commonly accepted that black people weren't as intelligent as white people. Today, many people (e.g. Gould) specifically try to avoid any facts that might give credence to this belief. I did not mean to imply that racism is entirely eliminated.
On Saying the Obvious
And if you downvote my comment, please explain why. I am just trying to clarify my position and I do not understand why that merits a downvote.
Communication is a two-way road (to a first approximation). You have chosen a particularly poor way to word this sentence. It is, except in the most pedantic sense, incorrect. Likewise, I would not say "women shouldn't have the right to vote" if I meant that I opposed democratic government in general, and if I did say this it would be my fault if I were 'misinterpreted'.
You said "not so long ago, African-Americans were treated unfairly". The implication is that this is not currently the case. If you believe that, then you are quite misinformed, and while I wouldn't say you should avoid discussing race, you should probably avoid telling people anything about it.
Not so long ago, black people in the US were legally assaulted if they drank from certain water fountains, sat in certain bus seats. They were taxed but not allowed to attend many tax-supported facilities including schools and universities. A black man walking with a white woman on a public street risked death from lynching. White's who spoke in favor of blacks were also at risk and had crosses burned on their lawns to illustrate the threat.
For all intents and purposes, everything in my previous paragraph is either non-existent or attenuated by well more than a factor of 100 in the current united states.
WHO is being pedantic arguing over a compact expression of this change which is a tangential point to another point the post was primarily about? And WHY do so many other lesswrongers jump on that particular pedantic bandwagon?
The mindkiller isn't an excuse to jump on a bandwagon, it is something that the rational might wish to practicing resisting.
Perhaps I did not word my comment as well as I could have. Racism still exists, but my point was that in most circles it is not acceptable to assert that one race is more intelligent than another—and respectable scientists will go out of their way to prove that different races are equally intelligent, even skewing the evidence to do so.
Yes, I read that when you posted it in the great-grandparent. You seem to start addressing the point in the first sentence-plus-a-few-words, but the rest is an unexplained digression. What you wrote strongly implies that African-Americans are no longer treated unfairly, and this seems like the most reasonable interpretation of your words. Regardless of what your other points in the post may or may not be, I suggest you either reword the sentence to reflect your intent (or, if it already reflected your intent, take the advice of AndrewHickey and myself and become more informed on racial issues before commenting on them further).
I copied and pasted that paragraph because it seemed to respond to your criticism. I did not mean to imply that racism does not exist. Rather, I meant that it is no longer commonly accepted that black people are less intelligent.