We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12160669 and marked it off-topic.
I've sent a message to [email protected].
So whenever that is, I'll be eager to discover which phenotypic traits represent themselves on the spectrum of intelligence. I also wonder what concentration of melanin correlates with laziness and also about the particular hair texture and eye shape that can indicate poor driving skills. We can also demystify the relationship between nose size and financial proficiency (after factoring out penis size, of course).
Note that my position does not hinge on crossing my fingers and hoping that the future of science corresponds with my sense of morality. My position weathers any outcome.
Great, you've espoused the ostensible position of every person who isn't a self-identified racist.
> The position that differences aren't possible
Differences are clearly possible and readily apparent, my point is that any definitive conclusions drawn from correlations to "race" are of dubious merit because our racial definitions (as defined by the government and thus as it relates to policy) are imprecise heuristic amalgamations of apparent phenotypes. Skin tone, hair texture, facial structure in addition to language pretty much constitute the entirety of racial identity, so the impulse to group abstract polygenic characteristics like intelligence into what is essentially an individual's outward appearance doesn't lead to much in the way of profound insight. It's like trying to draw conclusions about road safety by measuring the correlation between car color and rate of receipt of speeding citations.
These differences are already used very widely in discussions about policy, as you noted, and that's exactly part of the reason why it should be fair game to fully investigate those differences.
I mean any conclusions that follow from a baseline assumption that certain races are genetically predisposed towards abstract characteristics. For example "we should target white communities for voluntary firearm buy-back programs because white people are genetically pre-disposed to firearm suicide." We know that white people are statistically more likely to commit suicide and statistically more likely to use a gun to do it, we also know that genetics play a large role in suicide risk, what does not follow is that the common genetic factors that culminate to express the phenotypes that are unscientifically identified as "white" necessarily imply the existence of genetic factors that increase suicide risk.
You might ask, "Well what's the practical difference? In your example we should still target white people for the buy-back because the statistics show the population we define as white is the most vulnerable". To this I say, that's ok, we collected data on "white" people so targeting them for assistance is the best we can do, but it doesn't mean that we cannot do better in the future by disentangling the specific genetic factors that increase suicide risk from the opaque genetic category of "white" people.
> It's not a coincidence you can pass people by on the street and readily identify 95% of them as being "white", "Asian", "Indian (/Pakistani/etc)", "black", etc, and that if multiple people perform this task, the agreement will be very high. It's obviously shared genetics that are causing these groupings
Right, what I'm saying is that walking down the street and categorizing people into races based on how they look is a crude and unscientific (but efficient) method for grouping people with some shared genetics. Obviously, shared genetics are at the root of these groupings because genetics are the foundation of all phenotypes, but it is not a given that the presence of the phenotypes used to define arbitrary categories like "white" or "black" or "indian" necessarily account for the genetic factors that culminate to make someone more or less prone to violence, or intelligence, or an affinity for musical composition.
> These differences are already used very widely in discussions about policy, as you noted, and that's exactly part of the reason why it should be fair game to fully investigate those differences.
Investigate away, I have no problem with that, we use racial categories because they are practical, what I reject is the hypothesis that we will one day be able to prove that there is an intrinsic link between the particular genes that cause the expression of a given phenotype and the specific polygenes that constitute complex characteristics like intelligence.
Not sure what you're referring to here but I did not use the word superior or make any references to superiority in any of my replies, but I think it's ironic that you accuse me of using smugness as an argument when you only responded to the first sentence of my reply (to tell me I'm smug) instead of the paragraph describing the argument.
> I was clearly distinguishing between those who hold that position because they think there are no significant differences and those who would maintain that position if uncomfortable differences were discovered.
What I'm telling you is that "those who hold that position because they think there are no significant differences" is a strawman. Once again, everyone except self-identified racists (they do exist) claim that all people should be treated equally and it is fallacious for you to claim a monopoly on this position because you believe it to be an inevitable truth that some races are genetically predisposed to stupidity.
I would like to highlight how this argument engenders emotional hyperbole, though. My position is that there are likely uncomfortable genetic differences to be revealed ahead. You characterize this view as the "inevitable truth that some races are genetically predisposed to stupidity."
I'll just have to leave it to others to decide if I said anything at all like that.
> We're almost certainly going to discover less palatable differences between races -- e.g. around intelligence.
I read that as "we are almost certainly going to discover, for example, that some races are more intelligent than other races". From this statement it follows that we will be able to prove that some races are "more intelligent" and some races are "less intelligent", thus it seems fair to conclude that you're asserting that the genetic factors that cause someone to fall into a specific racial category predisposes them to a certain level of intelligence. From that position we can conclude that if an individual displays the phenotypic traits that meet the definition of one of the less intelligent races, it follows that this individual would be genetically predisposed to less intelligence, also known as stupidity.
I do notice that you said "almost certainly", not "inevitably" so I apologize for that, but please let me know if I have otherwise misinterpreted your position.
On the other hand, people who believe that there is such a correlation have a convenient excuse to consider themselves objectively superior while smugly granting rights to the inferior races.
Is it possible that you're not really a white supremacist, and that you're just leaving your mind open to whatever the science determines? Maybe. But if that's the case, the burden is on you to convince us clearly and thoroughly that you are not a racist.
It's okay though because race Y is better at other things. They are better at physical labour for example.
It's just basic nature. Should cause no controversy at all.
There is baggage associated with your argument, and it didn't originate from me. You can't deny that. What you can do is acknowledge the baggage and disavow it. You have not done so, which leads me to suspect that you might be comfortable with the baggage.
As far as I can tell, all you have contributed to this conversation are the assertions that inherent racial differences "almost certainly" exist and that those who disagree have a world view that is inconsistent with universal basic rights, followed by affectedly exasperated claims that anyone who disagrees with you is simply too encumbered by hang-ups and complexes to understand your reality. Do you understand that even if your position is genuinely non-racist, you have completely failed to communicate that? Part of communication is recognizing the broader context in which our words will be interpreted and addressing that context. We do not have the privilege of communicating in a vacuum.
Put another way, and charitably assuming that you are not a white supremacist, what's different between what you have said and what a white supremacist would say if they were trying to be oblique about it?
> once we start thinking that one is better than the other, we get hierarchy, and we get superiority
...with a rebuttal that argues against drawing that conclusion on the basis that uncomfortable discoveries do not imply a hierarchy.
In other words -- and note how absurd this is -- you're saying that my position, which is that differences need not and should not imply a hierarchy, implies not only that I do think there is a hierarchy, but that it's a hierarchy with whites on top.
You drew the exact opposite conclusion from very plain words.
Bluntly: the game you're playing -- you're a white supremacist until you say otherwise! -- is gross. I've said absolutely nothing to imply that I am one. (Again, I actually said exactly the opposite.) Your attempt to hold me hostage is absurd.
And before you respond that I still haven't denied it: Knock it off. This is not how adults disagree.
It's only surprising to you because you're ascribing to me views I don't hold.
Second, though my details are in my profile, your use of my name is clearly meant to be threatening and is therefore over the line. A comment like that is simply out of line.
Fine, you're just a terrible communicator then.
> Second, though my details are in my profile, your use of my name is clearly meant to be threatening and is therefore over the line.
Bullshit. For a guy who demands that everything he writes be taken 100% literally, you sure are quick to read extraneous meaning into what I wrote.
This makes me despair. How many times must history repeat itself?
You may be able to acknowledge just the difference, but I stick to what I said earlier: it's a slippery slope. And I'm not talking about dissimilarities in physical features like Irish vs Kenyan legs, but things like comparing intelligence in different races opens up Pandora's Box. Intelligence is not the only factor that makes up who we are, but it is easily and so often turned into a debate where it seems that it's the only thing that matters.