Hmm, it seems like you might be treating this post as an allegory for religion because of the word “agnostic”, but I’m almost certain that it’s not. I think it’s about “race science”/”human biodiversity”/etc., i.e. the claim “[ethnicity] are genetically predisposed to [negative psychological trait]”.
Before I do that, though, it’s clear that horrible acts have been committed in the name of dragons. Many dragon-believers publicly or privately endorse this reprehensible history. Regardless of whether dragons do in fact exist, repercussions continue to have serious and unfair downstream effects on our society.
While this could work as a statement about religious people, it seems a lot more true for modern racists than modern religious people.
Given that history, the easy thing to do would be to loudly and publicly assert that dragons don’t exist. But while a world in which dragons don’t exist would be preferable, that a claim has inconvenient or harmful consequences isn’t evidence of its truth or falsehood.
This is the type of thing I often see LessWrongers say about race science.
But if I decided to look into it I might instead find myself convinced that dragons do exist. In addition to this being bad news about the world, I would be in an awkward position personally. If I wrote up what I found I would be in some highly unsavory company. Instead of being known as someone who writes about a range of things of varying levels of seriousness and applicability, I would quickly become primarily known as one of those dragon advocates. Given the taboos around dragon-belief, I could face strong professional and social consequences.
Religious belief is not nearly as taboo as what this paragraph describes, but the claim “[ethnicity] are genetically predisposed to [negative psychological trait]” is.
Even if it wasn’t meant to be an allegory for race science, I’m pretty sure it was meant to be an allegory for similarly-taboo topics rather than religion. Religious belief just isn’t that taboo.
Hmm, it seems like you might be treating this post as an allegory for religion because of the word “agnostic”, but I’m almost certain that it’s not. I think it’s about “race science”/”human biodiversity”/etc., i.e. the claim “[ethnicity] are genetically predisposed to [negative psychological trait]”.
While this could work as a statement about religious people, it seems a lot more true for modern racists than modern religious people.
This is the type of thing I often see LessWrongers say about race science.
Religious belief is not nearly as taboo as what this paragraph describes, but the claim “[ethnicity] are genetically predisposed to [negative psychological trait]” is.
May be a Rorschach… For me, of the dozen or so things i thought about replacing dragons with, “race science” wasn’t one of them
What did you think of?
Even if it wasn’t meant to be an allegory for race science, I’m pretty sure it was meant to be an allegory for similarly-taboo topics rather than religion. Religious belief just isn’t that taboo.