VoiceOfRa comments on Open thread, Oct. 5 - Oct. 11, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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If you focus on labels instead of on individuals, you're a bigot.
If your treatment of people is based on tribal allegiances, real or imagined, instead of what they've actually done, you're a bigot.
If you already have an opinion on someone you've just met, based on appearances only, before you've bothered getting to know them, you're a bigot.
If you blame an entire category of people for the actions of select outliers, you're a bigot.
If you believe all members of an arbitrarily defined category of people behave the same way or think the same way or can be expected to respond in the same way, you're a bigot.
If there's a group of people you especially like to hate, you're a bigot.
If you're an identity essentialist, you're a bigot.
If you believe there are "superior" and "inferior" classes of people, you're an über bigot.
This is what Baysian logic requires that you do.
I don't believe I've seen anyone do this. (Hint: sex, race, religion, etc., aren't arbitrary categories).
I have murderers and child-molesters.
Ok, now define "identity essentialism", I'm have a hard time coming up with a definition that's not largely true.
Does it matter if this is actually true for the metric under discussion.
Only for such a broad value of "opinion" that Bayesian logic requires you to have an opinion about the number of apples in a tree you haven't seen.
I take it you never interact with people you haven't interacted with before.
Sometimes I do, but then I update my beliefs about them based on the evidence (or at least I try to -- I'm not a Platonic spherical perfectly rational being). In any event, even with people I haven't interacted with before I usually have more information than "appearances only", e.g. where we are, who introduced us to each other, and whether I have already heard of them before.
Assuming someone introduced you and this isn't someone you're passing on the street.
I was assuming that by "interact" in the great-grandparent you meant more substantive stuff than passing each other on the street. If you weren't, my point still stands: Bayesian logic requires one to have an opinion about strangers passing in the street, but only in the way it requires one to have an opinion about the triple point pressure of copper.
And hope they don't mug you as you do, for starters.
I somehow doubt that "opinion" in "If you already have an opinion on someone you've just met, based on appearances only, before you've bothered getting to know them" was meant to include stuff as vague as "they're probably not going to mug me", but whatevs -- tapping out.
Religion does sound pretty arbitrary to me.
There you go.
Ok, except this definition makes "identity essentialism" true.
Evidence?
Don't be silly.
Well, it's not like all member of the same sex/race/religion/etc. behave the same way or think the same way or can be expected to respond in the same way, either.
Not all, but most and their responses can be more similar than you'd think.
How do you know how similar I'd think their responses can be?