Saying “Neo reactionaries are evil racists” or “Socialist regimes killed the most people!” is just as inflammatory as “black people are less intelligent than whites”. And what use does it serve?
Well, two of those three statements are falsifiable statements that are useful for making predictions about the future.
Well. All three of them are falsifiable, barring quibbles over definition.
“Socialist regimes killed the most people!” may or may not be useful for making predictions—it’s not useful for making predictions about, say, the USSR—because it doesn’t exist now. But on the other hand, it created chains of cause and effect still in existence, and we would like to predict those.
“Neo reactionaries are evil racists” seems the most subjective, in that we are more confused about “evil” than “killing” or “intelligence”. But as long as we taboo “evil”, I don’t see how it could possibly be a useless-for-prediction, impossible-to-falsify statement.
“black people are less intelligent than whites” pretty clearly has the most confounders and controversy, but it’s certainly falsifiable in principle, and both sides would argue that it has already been tested, I think.
On the gripping hand, all three seem like prime candidates for political mind-killing.
“Neo reactionaries are evil racists” seems the most subjective, in that we are more confused about “evil” than “killing” or “intelligence”. But as long as we taboo “evil”, I don’t see how it could possibly be a useless-for-prediction, impossible-to-falsify statement.
You’d have to taboo “racists” too though.
(And tabooing “evil” is an almost FAI-complete problem, anyway.)
Well, two of those three statements are falsifiable statements that are useful for making predictions about the future.
Well. All three of them are falsifiable, barring quibbles over definition.
“Socialist regimes killed the most people!” may or may not be useful for making predictions—it’s not useful for making predictions about, say, the USSR—because it doesn’t exist now. But on the other hand, it created chains of cause and effect still in existence, and we would like to predict those.
“Neo reactionaries are evil racists” seems the most subjective, in that we are more confused about “evil” than “killing” or “intelligence”. But as long as we taboo “evil”, I don’t see how it could possibly be a useless-for-prediction, impossible-to-falsify statement.
“black people are less intelligent than whites” pretty clearly has the most confounders and controversy, but it’s certainly falsifiable in principle, and both sides would argue that it has already been tested, I think.
On the gripping hand, all three seem like prime candidates for political mind-killing.
You’d have to taboo “racists” too though.
(And tabooing “evil” is an almost FAI-complete problem, anyway.)