Cyan2 comments on Leaky Generalizations - LessWrong

20 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 November 2007 09:16PM

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Comment author: Cyan2 23 November 2007 01:05:00PM 4 points [-]

Constant, a reply in brief:

"unkind words literally kill people dead"

Incitements to violence by leading citizens may plausibly be inferred to cause death. This is not usually classed as a bullshit inference.

"the unkind words you quote were... cherry-picked"

You say cherry-picked, I say representative of government policies that were actually carried out. Tomato, tomahto.

"native americans were on their side entirely without sin... never gave whites any reason to think of them as enemies."

As Nick Tarleton noted, I never made that claim.

By "damning", I meant, "worthy of condemnation as harmful, illegal, or immoral." (That's pretty much straight from the dictionary.)

Let me just add, genocide is something humans do -- everywhere, at all times in history. (Chimps too, less efficiently.) The natives were no better or worse than the settlers, only more poorly equipped.