I guess I learn better from manuals than from random experimentation :)

saying a theorem is wrong because the hypotheses are not true is bad logic.

If the objection is true, and the hypothesis is false, that seems like a great objection! If, on the other hand, he provided no evidence towards his objection, then it seems that the bad logic is in not offering evidence, not attacking the hypothesis directly.

Am I missing something, or just reading this in an overly pedantic way?

Internally I am generally the same, but I've come to realize that a rather sizable portion of the population has trouble distinguishing "all X are Y" and "some X are Y", both in speaking and in listening. So if someone says "man, women can be so stupid", I know that might well reflect the internal thought of "all women are idiots". And equally, someone saying "all women are idiots" might just be upset because his girlfriend broke up with him for some trivial reason.

You missed the point...

My conclusion still holds if you simply need mathematicians in the top 10%, for example, only the analysis is slightly more complicated.

So you agree that, in the original example, you're more likely than not just being a racist? Because you certainly seem to be moving the goal post over to "top 10%" ...

faul_sname's definition

That link does not appear to point to a definition.

Fair, and thank you for calling me on it.

I get the impression that a majority of LessWrong readers are in major US cities, so I'm leaving it up as useful to them :)

"Harm that is both genuine and unfair", then? Income taxes are 'fair' (and I would find it baffling to call that 'harm' unless they somehow came as a surprise), getting fired is offensive if it's done solely because your manager doesn't like you, but fair (and therefor not offensive) if it's because you failed to do the job. I think getting mugged is a good thing to get outraged about - we want to make that happen less!

Apologies if my tone was overly critical or hostile. It was a cool suggestion, and I'm glad I heard it. I just don't think it's a practical suggestion for most people, given the other alternatives out there these days :)

I'd disagree. The connotations of Eugine's statement was to dispute HaydnB's original point, "When someone says something offensive to you - they're racist, homophobic, sexist - it seems like you should be offended by that. "

The last one should be read as "ALL" Irish people, my bad :)