This is “TheRationalist”’s only post on this forum. It is very short; they claim to “tear down” two substantial normative views, but allot each only a single brief paragraph. They define no ambiguous terms and cite no sources for their empirical claims. The claims being made are already very well-understood, and they bring no new insights to the table.
If this person is not simply a troll, then they have not yet learned to make charitable arguments. Engaging charitably with this “argument” is cooperating with a defector.
If I moderated here, I would immediately terminate this person’s account with the expectation that if they make an alt, they will put more effort into their next attempt. I am very supportive of racists studying rationality (it’s a great way to challenge your beliefs!) but not of allowing them to lower the mean quality of conversation.
Hello. I love feeding trolls!
>But when is it enough?
The self-interested 0-sum answer is that while one is below the median, more equality is preferable, and while one is above the median, it is not. On the population level, this all evens out. But it incentivizes the individuals who feel a threat towards their above-median status to fight increasing equality.
For example, a white person whose categorical superiority to people of color is threatened will attempt to equivocate categorical and meritocratic superiority by adding a layer of justification to their worldview. A hugely popular example is moving from the self-justifying belief “whites are superior” to the argument “whites have statistically higher IQ’s according to this data, and higher IQ is equivalent to superiority, ergo whites are superior.”
The weakness of this approach is that the latter argument is based on empirical observations of time-sensitive data. It’s not categorical; it needs a continuous supply of experimental confirmation, and is therefore labor intensive to maintain. There are three main ways to ease the burden: fabricating information wholecloth, using biased data collection/analysis techniques, and supporting social policies that maintain statistical confounders between whites and non-whites.
Interestingly, a person with firm belief in the meritocratic superiority of whites does not feel threatened, and has no reason to make arguments supporting the superiority of whites over non-whites. It is only those who understand on some level that they are reliant on categorical superiority who feel compelled to make arguments.