It’s an exaggerated version of how (e.g.) some women or black people might feel on coming to LW and finding (e.g.) people vigorously defending the idea that it’s perfectly sensible for an otherwise identical job application to be viewed as evidence of lower competence if it comes from a woman, because women are so much less able than men that all the other information on the application doesn’t screen off sex from competence.
Would you apply the same logic to someone with a low IQ who objects to people thinking that its acceptable to reject an otherwise identical low IQ applicant to favor of a high IQ applicant? Also quite frankly the application you described had very little other useful information that its not at all surprising that it doesn’t screen of sex.
Or writing in a manner that simply takes it for granted that black people are unintelligent and prone to crime.
Is your argument that if we pretend these differences don’t exist they’ll go away. Also as far as crime, as a rational black person should be more worried about getting killed by my fellow blacks than by “white racists”.
But I think it’s entirely defensible to say that some real demographic groups are likely to experience something similar in kind, although distinctly less in intensity, here, and to be concerned that that will produce an effect similar to the one fubarobfusco describes.
Just out of curiosity, would you be willing to apply the same logic to all the stuff on LW that could make Christians feel uncomfortable?
Would you apply the same logic to someone with a low IQ who objects [...]?
I’m not sure what specific logic you mean. The particular reason fubarobfusco described for trying not to make Foos feel too unwelcome was that they might contribute useful insights less correlated with non-Foos’ than that of the non-Foos who might be discouraged by being asked not to be too mean about the Foos. That doesn’t seem to apply very well to “people with low IQ”, who—whatever else may be said about them—are probably not well equipped to contribute novel insights into the topics discussed on Less Wrong.
The evidence that (at least for many jobs) IQ correlates strongly with job performance is rather stronger than the alleged evidence that sex correlates strongly with job performance, so saying “it’s OK to be reluctant to hire people with lower IQs” would likely be less hurtful to someone with (admittedly) low IQ than saying “it’s OK to be reluctant to hire women” sounds to many women.
the application you described had very little other useful information
I don’t want to re-litigate that one in this thread, so I’ll just mention that I disagree.
Is your argument that if we pretend these differences don’t exist they’ll go away.
Obviously not. (This is not the first time you’ve speculated about what thinking underlies something I’m saying, and got it badly wrong. You might want to stop doing it; it doesn’t seem to work well.)
My argument is that if, every time any question related to race comes up, the thread in question is flooded with people saying “those awful black people are stupid and criminal—stay away from them!” then black people who are not stupid or criminal (of which there are plenty) are likely to be put off, and that would be a shame because they are likely to have useful things to say.
would you be willing to apply the same logic to all the stuff on LW that could make Christians feel uncomfortable?
I think there’s rather less of that these days than there was once. If you want, you can read what I wrote on roughly that topic back in 2009. Other than that: Yes, I would apply the same logic. No, that doesn’t mean I think no one on LW should ever criticize religion. (Neither do I think that no one on LW should ever express the opinion that women, or black people, or people called Eugine, or people with blue eyes, are less intelligent / more criminal / etc. than the rest of the population. In particular, I certainly don’t think they should be forbidden to.)
Would you apply the same logic to someone with a low IQ who objects to people thinking that its acceptable to reject an otherwise identical low IQ applicant to favor of a high IQ applicant? Also quite frankly the application you described had very little other useful information that its not at all surprising that it doesn’t screen of sex.
Is your argument that if we pretend these differences don’t exist they’ll go away. Also as far as crime, as a rational black person should be more worried about getting killed by my fellow blacks than by “white racists”.
Just out of curiosity, would you be willing to apply the same logic to all the stuff on LW that could make Christians feel uncomfortable?
I’m not sure what specific logic you mean. The particular reason fubarobfusco described for trying not to make Foos feel too unwelcome was that they might contribute useful insights less correlated with non-Foos’ than that of the non-Foos who might be discouraged by being asked not to be too mean about the Foos. That doesn’t seem to apply very well to “people with low IQ”, who—whatever else may be said about them—are probably not well equipped to contribute novel insights into the topics discussed on Less Wrong.
The evidence that (at least for many jobs) IQ correlates strongly with job performance is rather stronger than the alleged evidence that sex correlates strongly with job performance, so saying “it’s OK to be reluctant to hire people with lower IQs” would likely be less hurtful to someone with (admittedly) low IQ than saying “it’s OK to be reluctant to hire women” sounds to many women.
I don’t want to re-litigate that one in this thread, so I’ll just mention that I disagree.
Obviously not. (This is not the first time you’ve speculated about what thinking underlies something I’m saying, and got it badly wrong. You might want to stop doing it; it doesn’t seem to work well.)
My argument is that if, every time any question related to race comes up, the thread in question is flooded with people saying “those awful black people are stupid and criminal—stay away from them!” then black people who are not stupid or criminal (of which there are plenty) are likely to be put off, and that would be a shame because they are likely to have useful things to say.
I think there’s rather less of that these days than there was once. If you want, you can read what I wrote on roughly that topic back in 2009. Other than that: Yes, I would apply the same logic. No, that doesn’t mean I think no one on LW should ever criticize religion. (Neither do I think that no one on LW should ever express the opinion that women, or black people, or people called Eugine, or people with blue eyes, are less intelligent / more criminal / etc. than the rest of the population. In particular, I certainly don’t think they should be forbidden to.)