army1987 comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (5th thread, March 2013) - Less Wrong

27 Post author: orthonormal 01 April 2013 04:19PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 27 April 2013 11:18:15AM 2 points [-]

According to Wikipedia, "racism is usually defined as views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct biological groups called races and that members of a certain race share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable, more desirable, inferior or superior."

I think that “group as a whole” is the key word. Men are taller than women in average, and being tall is usually considered desirable; is pointing that out sexist? I'd say that until you treat that fact as a reason to consider a gender “as a whole” more desirable than another, it isn't.

Comment author: Kawoomba 27 April 2013 11:40:37AM 1 point [-]

Most people do consider a gender as a whole more desirable than another ... (and can also supply some "facts" on which that preference is based).

Comment author: [deleted] 27 April 2013 12:15:19PM *  1 point [-]

Doesn't contradict what I said, because I never claimed that most people aren't sexist. (And BTW, I'm not sure whether what you mean by “desirable” is what was meant in WP's definition of racism. I'm not usually sexually attracted to males or Asians, but I consider this a fact about me, not about males or Asians, and I don't consider myself sexist or racist for that.)

(EDIT: to be more pedantic, one could say that the fact that I'm normally only attracted to people with characteristics X, Y, and Z is a fact about me and that the fact that males/Asians seldom have characteristics X, Y and Z is a fact about them, though.)

Comment author: Document 27 April 2013 11:50:45AM *  1 point [-]