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TheOtherDave comments on Don't Get Offended - LessWrong
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Just to clarify the claim, because language can be slippery... if we chose humans at random and until we found 1000 who believe whites are superior to blacks, and we looked at their history, I expect the majority of them came to that position prior to reviewing empirical correlations between race and IQ among a statistically significant population. I understand you to be saying that you expect the majority came to that position only after reviewing empirical correlations between race and IQ among a statistically significant population, either personally or through reading the reports of others.
Have I understood you correctly?
We can get into debates about what constitutes "statistically significant" but yeah I suspect most of the racists[1] around today came to that conclusion after reviewing correlations between race and intelligence (and related behaviors) in most cases from their own experience using their system I.
OK, thanks for clarifying.
For my own part, most of the people I've met personally whom I've identified as racist[1] with regards to white and black people have not met very many black people at all, so I doubt that's true of them for any reasonable standard of statistical significance (1).
But of course the racists I've knowingly met might not be representative of racists more generally.
(1) Many were also racist[1] with regards to the superiority of whites to other non-white races, such as Native Americans and Asians, as well as with regards to the superiority of "whites" to other identifiable subcultures that include Caucasians, such as gays and Jews. All of which contributes to my sense that they are not arriving at their beliefs based on observation at all.
The south (at least during Jim Crow) wasn't nearly as segregated as the north in terms of where people lived, so white southerners had many occasions to observe their black neighbors.
In fact it's not at all hard to notice the correlation between say race and a lot of behavior traits, for example the the black neighborhood is the one where you're more likely to get mugged. I'm not sure about Asians, as for Jews is their complaint that Jews are stupid or that they're secretly running the world?
It wasn't that Jews are stupid. Mostly it seemed to be that Jews are evil, which I suppose one could argue isn't a question of superiority at all, though it sure felt like one. I actually haven't run into the secret-world-domination thing in person very often at all, though I'm of course acquainted with the trope.
And sure, I'm perfectly willing to believe that the south during Jim Crow was less geographically segregated than the north, and thus provided more opportunities for inter-group observation.
That's my point. They're complaints about different out-groups are limited by what their system I's would find plausible.
Just to make sure I understand your claim: as I understand it, you would predict that if we raised the people I'm referring to in an environment where "Jews are stupid" was (perhaps artificially) a prevailing social belief, they would tend to reject that belief as they came to observe Jews, because their system Is would find that belief implausible, because Jews are not in fact stupid (relative to people-like-them, as a class). But if we raised them in an environment where "blacks are stupid" was a prevailing social belief, they would not tend to reject that belief as they came to observe blacks, because their system Is would find that belief plausible, because blacks are in fact stupid (relative to people-like-them, as a class).
Yes?
Would you also expect that if we raised them in an environment where "Jews are evil" was a prevailing social belief, they would not reject that belief as they came to observe Jews, because their system Is would find that belief plausible, because Jews are in fact evil (relative to people-like-them, as a class)? Or does the principle not generalize like that?
This is basically correct.
As for Jews, I'm not sure they know many Jews, but they've probably noticed that a lot of Jews are in high positions in Academia, Finance and Politics. This is inconsistent with them being stupid but not with them being evil.
For all that such people know, Jews might be conspiring to help each other into high positions even though they aren't unusually smart compared to gentiles.
What you describe is more or less the standard negative stereotype of Jews (basically being Slytherines), and in any case what you describe is closer to the common notion of 'evil' than 'stupid'.
Wait... I took “come to racism” to refer to people who used to be non-racist[1], but become racist[1] as adults. OTOH, many (most?) randomly-chosen racists[1] probably have been so ever since they've had any opinion either way on the matter, which they probably uncritically absorbed from their sociocultural environment while growing up and have had it cached ever since. These two groups of racists[1] are probably very different (just like you wouldn't expect converts to Islam to be representative of Muslims in general -- would you?); in particular, I suspect that most racists are the way you describe here, but most “converts to racism” are the way Eugine_Nier says. (See also “Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism” by Yvain.)
Ah!
Yeah, with that unpacking, I find the claim much more plausible.
Yeah, that's my expectation.
No doubt.
I find that much more plausible than the claim that most racists[1] are the way Eugine_Nier says.
I'm not sure I believe it even so (as compared to, say, converting to racism after a traumatic experience with a member of race X), but at this point I'm just telling just-so stories about hypothetical people I don't have much experience with, so I don't put much weight in my own intuitions.