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Notes -
https://benthams.substack.com/p/hordes-of-vultures-descend-on-bostrom
Bentham’s Bulldog discusses a recent apology letter from Nick Bostrom for saying the n-word as well as saying that blacks have lower average intelligence in an offensive way in the mid-nineties. Bostrom also says in the apology letter that he’s not really a supporter of eugenics as some claim. Despite apologizing, Bostrom is attacked still for reiterating he believes in IQ gaps and “handwaving” about eugenics.
I think he needs to argue why more explicitly. There's no particular reason the truth can't have negative repercussions, such as lowering the status of black people, which I think most would agree would be racist.
Which is not an argument for censorship in my view, whatever can be destroyed by the truth should be, and so on. But it's a tricky bullet to bite, in this environment where preserving the clout of certain groups is oh-so-important.
I think what he's getting at with that line is that "the truth is value neutral."
"Black people in aggregate are less smart on average than white people" as a statement doesn't really imply any judgment of the situation one way or the other.
To different people this statement can have different connotations. I can think of two obvious value-laden judgments one could make in response to the above statement.
1: "and therefore they are the strictly inferior race and can rightfully be subjugated."
2: "and therefore they are more vulnerable to exploitation and should be given extra assistance in order to make up for this difference."
And one is not proven racist for reciting a fact, but rather for the arguments and conclusions one draws from that fact.
Of course people reading that statement will probably already have a preferred interpretation in mind and thus will read it with that interpretation in mind, and judge the speaker accordingly.
I think you're giving the critics too much credit here. The sin is in the truthful statement, not its implications.
"All races have equal intelligence" is axiomatic to the woke. Challenging other people's deeply held convictions is considered boorish. You wouldn't go up to a Muslim and talk about Mohammed's 10 year old wife. You wouldn't spit on the graves of a Confucian's ancestors. And you don't talk to the woke about racial differences in intelligence.
But valuing the truth is axiomatic to rationalists. Which I suspect means that they and wokes will ever be friends.
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