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knb comments on Less Wrong’s political bias - Less Wrong Discussion
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Your main point is basically wrong. Political differences really are about values. Parties do differ in their factual claims, but these claims are usually merely to undermine the other sides' advocated policies. It's funny that you brought up this evil "racist party" as an example, since racism is obviously about preferences rather than facts. The fact that your friends agree they are awful doesn't mean their preference is wrong, it just means your friends don't share their values. It's hard to believe you don't realize this, but I guess most people are unable to take the outside view of their own beliefs.
Mainly, it seems like you just want another place to complain about how evil, stupid, and racist your political enemies are. Are there not enough places to do that online?
Preferences can be wrong, in particular if they are caused by mistaken factual beliefs. It's the same principle as with mistaken emotions: correctness conditions on factual beliefs extend to correctness conditions on consequences of those beliefs, so that consequences of incorrect factual beliefs are potentially suboptimal, and corrections to the beliefs could be propagated as corrections to their original consequences.
Is it? If I publicly state that the mean IQ of black people is about a standard deviation below the mean IQ of white people, I will be labeled a racist in an instant. Which preferences did I express?
It depends on where you state that, and which words you use.
Of course, preferences can be inferred from what facts you choose to publicly state. For example, if you publish a pamphlet all about crimes committed by blacks, people can infer from that something about your goals (i.e. to encourage distrust of blacks).
Perhaps some people would claim merely believing black IQ is lower is racist. But this clearly is not the sense in which Sophronius was using "racist." It is Sophronius' context to which my comment applies.
In case it wasn't clear to you, Sophronius was referring to the Dutch Freedom Party. Whether they are "racist" or not simply depends on your definition of the word. You could use the term "nationalist," or whatever. It doesn't matter. The word "racist" is just being used as a shorthand about their beliefs. It is clear that the salient point of disagreement between liberals like Sophronius and the Dutch Freedom Party is their values.
That wasn't evident to me at all, I was reading you as making an observation about racism in general. Sophronius clearly wants to discuss issues beyond those specific to Dutch politics.
Sophronius' desires aside, I am interested in your thoughts about knb's answer to your actual question.
Whether racism is about preferences or facts? Though there is a variety of definitions, I think it's mostly about beliefs (which may or may not be based on facts and which may or may not be expressed as preferences).
OK. Thanks for clarifying.
A preference for saying politically incorrect things?
And is that preference racist?
Political arguments usually involve falsifiable factual claims which may or may not be wrong.
It's possible that political differences are, at their core, really about values, but political debates are often more about fact rather than values, possibly because people might be embarrassed to publicly state their actual values and/or want to convince people with other values.
For instance, if you are in the upper class and don't particularly care about the welfare of strangers, then it is probably in your best interest to advocate for tax cuts funded by cuts of public expenses on things you are unlikely to benefit from, such as public healthcare.
But of course very few people are going to openly claim that they want public healthcare cuts for their personal interest. They will argue that the taxation level is so high that it stifles economy, that public healthcare is inefficient, that it creates "death panels", etc.
Factual claims are made to justify a policy as serving the public interest.
Even if I disagree with the assertion that this article is merely for that purpose, you raise a compelling argument: Upvoted.