True, but in case of uncertainty and unimportance it is better to go for the kinder ones.
By unimportance I mean: lacking the power to solve problems, or the problems lack urgency. Uncertainty is a clear term.
To put it differently, if racism is true, the only thing I could change about my behavior or the world is to be an asshole with people of color. This is a change not worth doing.
E.g. I don’t have the kind of power to e.g. set limits to immigration. If I had the power, I still don’t see it is urgent or important. Even if it is urgent and important, I would be uncertain about my beliefs, or whether it is the right approach, or what is the right way to execute it.
So if the diamond in the box is that racism is true, all I could really do with it is to be bitter and hateful. Would a truth with utility like that worth investing time into to find out? Yeah, that is largely why I was originally interested in “red pill” stuff then backed out of it in disgust. Any truth that’s main utility is to be an ass online is not really worth finding out.
Ultimately I do not agree with the litany—I do not agree with truth having an absolute value, which may be the biggest heresy on LW :) Truth is a tool, not an absolute. Truth is neat little gadget that makes predictions that come true. Like a Geiger-Müller. Some predictions you can use, some not. If it is not about a diamond I could sell but a piece of driftwood in the box, do I really care if it is really there or not? Why?
Truths are motivated. Geiger-Müllers are made not only by science but the desire to know if you are in dangerous radioactivity. Reasoning, categories are motivated. The statement “there is a tiger in your room” does not simply mean “I predict you will find one if you open the door”, it also means “please don’t open that door, I don’t want you mauled”.
To put it differently, if racism is true, the only thing I could change about my behavior or the world is to be an asshole with people of color.
Um, no. You may want to look at what you said in the grandparent and this thread more generally. You were trying to figure how to improve the education systems and general problems of some countries. In order to do that you were trying to determine the cause of the problem. Along the way you were prepared to reject a possible hypothesis because “it would be for me uncomfortably close to racial superiority theories”.
So if you really care about improving the situation in say Romania you need to figure out why it is the way it is, as in what is the true (in the absolute sense) situation. In order to do that, you can’t reject hypotheses simply because they make you feel uncomfortable.
Okay, fair point. Still. If society deterioriate while their racial-ethnic make up does not change at all or very little (they are no the most tempting immigration targets and so on) there seems to be little point in dwelling on that—if you see a change in an outcome then any variable that did not change cannot really be a causal factor, now can it?
You were the one “dwelling on that” by calling Salemicus’s theory “uncomfortably close to racial superiority”. Whether his theory is actually “racist” (to the extent that word even has a coherent definition) is irrelevant, the point is that your first reaction was to dismiss it not for any logical reason but because of your hangup about thinking any thoughts that pattern match to “racism”.
I just want to add, for my own sake, that I was in no way advocating anything resembling “racial superiority.” Rather, my explanation for the relative success of some societies over others is institutional.
True, but in case of uncertainty and unimportance it is better to go for the kinder ones.
By unimportance I mean: lacking the power to solve problems, or the problems lack urgency. Uncertainty is a clear term.
To put it differently, if racism is true, the only thing I could change about my behavior or the world is to be an asshole with people of color. This is a change not worth doing.
E.g. I don’t have the kind of power to e.g. set limits to immigration. If I had the power, I still don’t see it is urgent or important. Even if it is urgent and important, I would be uncertain about my beliefs, or whether it is the right approach, or what is the right way to execute it.
So if the diamond in the box is that racism is true, all I could really do with it is to be bitter and hateful. Would a truth with utility like that worth investing time into to find out? Yeah, that is largely why I was originally interested in “red pill” stuff then backed out of it in disgust. Any truth that’s main utility is to be an ass online is not really worth finding out.
Ultimately I do not agree with the litany—I do not agree with truth having an absolute value, which may be the biggest heresy on LW :) Truth is a tool, not an absolute. Truth is neat little gadget that makes predictions that come true. Like a Geiger-Müller. Some predictions you can use, some not. If it is not about a diamond I could sell but a piece of driftwood in the box, do I really care if it is really there or not? Why?
Truths are motivated. Geiger-Müllers are made not only by science but the desire to know if you are in dangerous radioactivity. Reasoning, categories are motivated. The statement “there is a tiger in your room” does not simply mean “I predict you will find one if you open the door”, it also means “please don’t open that door, I don’t want you mauled”.
Um, no. You may want to look at what you said in the grandparent and this thread more generally. You were trying to figure how to improve the education systems and general problems of some countries. In order to do that you were trying to determine the cause of the problem. Along the way you were prepared to reject a possible hypothesis because “it would be for me uncomfortably close to racial superiority theories”.
So if you really care about improving the situation in say Romania you need to figure out why it is the way it is, as in what is the true (in the absolute sense) situation. In order to do that, you can’t reject hypotheses simply because they make you feel uncomfortable.
Okay, fair point. Still. If society deterioriate while their racial-ethnic make up does not change at all or very little (they are no the most tempting immigration targets and so on) there seems to be little point in dwelling on that—if you see a change in an outcome then any variable that did not change cannot really be a causal factor, now can it?
You were the one “dwelling on that” by calling Salemicus’s theory “uncomfortably close to racial superiority”. Whether his theory is actually “racist” (to the extent that word even has a coherent definition) is irrelevant, the point is that your first reaction was to dismiss it not for any logical reason but because of your hangup about thinking any thoughts that pattern match to “racism”.
I just want to add, for my own sake, that I was in no way advocating anything resembling “racial superiority.” Rather, my explanation for the relative success of some societies over others is institutional.
What do you mean by that, are you saying race isn’t correlated with IQ, or anything else important?
Or are you merely saying that the subject isn’t relevant to the original discussion?
I expressed no opinion on race, because it wasn’t relevant.