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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 that in casual English usage, definitions are subject to political adjustment, and "no true Scotsman" is an acceptable inference principle: "a is an instance of A, and A can't be B" doesn't mean that a is not an instance of (firm and immutable in its extension), but rather that either the definition of A or the definition of B, whichever holds less force and significance, ought to be adjusted to break the chain of inference.
To the extent "no true Scotsman" is intuitively felt to be a fallacy at all, it is on the basis of this adjustment being done too readily and to accommodate overly insignificant special cases. If someone asserted that those Scotsmen who sided with the Plantagenets were no true Scotsmen, few would bat an eye. The assertion you quote, I imagine, is trying to do something similar, in that it asserts that being The Truth(tm) is a sufficiently major exception that adjusting the definition of racism around it does not debase the importance of the latter.
Good comment, but then, this makes it sound like he should have said "The truth cannot be racist*", with the asterisk expanding out into the kind of impossibly nuanced argument that would allow one to claim "yes, they are generally dumber than you, but you should still respect them!".
I mean, can one respect someone while simultaneously claiming they're duller? Seems like it would take some real contortions, common-sensically, once you feel someone is not at least your equal, you don't respect them. Sure, you can still feel compassion for them, but it sounds very disempowering to say "whites should be compassionate towards blacks". Arguably, that's the attitude wokes take, but I think that's the reason they often say things that sound awfully racist.
It seems to me that you treat respect as purely binary, in the sense that you either respect someone or don't.
I claim otherwise, that there are varying degrees of respect, and that all it takes to be a decent-ish person is to extend a minimum level of respect to everyone unless they provide a reason to withdraw even that.
I respect otherwise normal people with below average intelligence, say a hard working janitor with 90 IQ. I wouldn't insult them, denigrate them, deny them any basic rights such as political representation, their wage, a right to speech etc.
Do I respect them less than say Von Neumann? Obviously, as do most people in general when they explicitly state that they have "great respect" for person X, a qualifier that would be pointless if there was only a singular level of respect that is either given or withheld.
As far as I'm concerned, treating other people politely, refraining from insulting them, and such is perfectly adequate. And that it by no means is a form of disrespect to advocate that a 140 IQ person is more appropriate/worthy of being assigned a job and wage that shows the scarcity of their cognitive labor than a 80 IQ person is, while still respecting both.
The problem is, people are asking for more than that. But yes, it is true respect is a spectrum and not a binary. It would be interesting if the case of the janitor could generalize to race relations, but it doesn't seem like it can because of the commitment to equality. It still seems impossible to attempt to use an analogy like that to handle a genetic explanation for the black IQ gap.
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