It’s true that you can be technically correct on the details while misleading others about the whole. Misleading people is bad and should be avoided. (Incidentally, news is misleading because of sample bias.)
It’s also true that “being fair to the people you’re judging” and “optimizing for your own predictive performance” are two different kinds of fairness. I explained how they constitute mathematically contradictory values in my book review of The Alignment Problem. Paul Graham wrote a good article on the subject too.
As far as I know, the modern movements in support of gender and racial equality originate from all the way back when women and racial minorities were completely subjugated by white male authority. I feel fairly certain that one doesn’t need group difference denial to see that this is wrong and immoral.
But this then seems to have birthed movements that have made group difference denial obligatory, which then seems to have increased the expectations for equality and the demands for policies to achieve it.
The pendulum swings. The pendulum swings back.
Do I know where we would end up if we freely acknowledged innate group differences? I have to admit that I don’t. Do I even know where we should end up?
I don’t know where we’ll end up either but the best place to end up is probably somewhere our epistemics are grounded in reality. Otherwise, how could we know we’re in a good place? Empiricism and transparency have a great historical track record. I project this will continue.
(And what about backlash? If it’s discovered that academics and activists have been lying about these topics for decades, what will the reaction to that be?)
In this situation, that which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
I think ultimately, I agree, hence why this was a side-point to my original comment, rather than being the main focus. The distortions today seem quite big and growing ever bigger, and it seems like the median peace/equality benefits are probably small enough to not be worth the cost. But I do think it is appropriate, within some group that understands the importance of figuring out the truth, to also speak up clearly about the potential downsides of it. (If nothing else, we should spend some time thinking of the potential negative tail of worst case scenarios.)
Potentially relevant to the discussion: I ran a poll among my twitter followers, and 50% did not want differences between people to be revealed, I assume because they thought it would make themselves or the world worse off. I don’t know for sure how my twitter followers compare to the general population, but I suspect they would be more positive towards differences between people being revealed.
There is a lot to unpack in your comment.
It’s true that you can be technically correct on the details while misleading others about the whole. Misleading people is bad and should be avoided. (Incidentally, news is misleading because of sample bias.)
It’s also true that “being fair to the people you’re judging” and “optimizing for your own predictive performance” are two different kinds of fairness. I explained how they constitute mathematically contradictory values in my book review of The Alignment Problem. Paul Graham wrote a good article on the subject too.
The pendulum swings. The pendulum swings back.
I don’t know where we’ll end up either but the best place to end up is probably somewhere our epistemics are grounded in reality. Otherwise, how could we know we’re in a good place? Empiricism and transparency have a great historical track record. I project this will continue.
In this situation, that which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
I think ultimately, I agree, hence why this was a side-point to my original comment, rather than being the main focus. The distortions today seem quite big and growing ever bigger, and it seems like the median peace/equality benefits are probably small enough to not be worth the cost. But I do think it is appropriate, within some group that understands the importance of figuring out the truth, to also speak up clearly about the potential downsides of it. (If nothing else, we should spend some time thinking of the potential negative tail of worst case scenarios.)
Potentially relevant to the discussion: I ran a poll among my twitter followers, and 50% did not want differences between people to be revealed, I assume because they thought it would make themselves or the world worse off. I don’t know for sure how my twitter followers compare to the general population, but I suspect they would be more positive towards differences between people being revealed.
How many people answered the poll?
26