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Lumifer comments on Unpopular ideas attract poor advocates: Be charitable - Less Wrong
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Well, actually most people advocating for the idea that races have genetic differences in IQ are racists because that idea falls under the standard definition of racism.
It falls under a definition of racism, but another definition is "hatred or intolerance of another race or other races."
Let's ask the hive mind :-) Google, what is the definition of racism? Google says:
Genetic IQ differences clearly qualify.
Note that this is a subject so fraught with subjectivity that Wiktionary had to include half a page of usage notes. I don't think arguing semantics is going to get anyone very far.
Agreed, I would argue that at this point the word "racism" has no coherent meaning, whether it ever had a coherent meaning is open to debate.
As with many other words — such as "liberal" and "set" — it has rather a lot of meanings and if you are either ① unsure of which one someone means, or ② think you know which one someone means but that meaning makes their sentence ridiculously false, then you are better off asking for clarification than guessing.
The problem is not that "racism" has no coherent meaning. No word carries inherent meaning; and many words quite safely carry multiple or ambiguous meanings without causing problems, because hearers don't panic and throw elementary principles of decent communication out the window when they hear them.
When someone says "set" and a hearer isn't sure whether they mean "set" in the Zermelo-Fraenkel sense or the game sense, the hearer typically asks.
But when someone says "racism", many hearers are likely to react incredibly poorly, even exhibiting the physiological responses of a person who is threatened or becoming enraged.
We might better ask, "Why do they respond so badly to this particular word?" I suspect the answer has a lot to do with fear of being accused of something vile. And I suggest that the poor rationality practice is at least as much on the part of hearers who let this reaction run away with them instead of finding out what is meant, as on the part of speakers who use the word without further explanation.
I thought the definition that someone got from Google elsewhere in the thread was fine. The only thing that definition leaves out is what people believe about the claim that "racism" labels. Some believe that it is true and some believe that it is false, the strength of their belief either way varying in proportion to their desire to exclude from discussion the question, "is this true or false?"
Generally, they are being accused of a belief that their accuser thinks is vile, so vile that the very question of whether it is true is also vile, so vile that it must never be discussed, and it is quite clear without further explanation that that is what is meant.
I think "mindkill" is a better term here.
Genetic IQ differences clearly qualify as something that ALL members of EACH race possess that is SPECIFIC to that race?
That definition is really quite strong. Not even a belief that all black people suffer from some degree of mental retardation would satisfy it. The belief that there are genes correlated with lower IQs that are more prevalent among black people certainly would not.
Anyone want to explain what they found wrong with my comment?