I appreciated your original comment and upvoted it. I’ll just add something now in response to this pushback.
I’m not suggesting that Nick should claim that all groups no matter what have identical results in IQ tests, or that there’s zero genetic contribution to IQ.
If you are apologizing for a statement that is easily read to mean you believe white people are superior to black people (“I like this comment and think it is true”), and then in your apology you say something like:
“Well, are black people actually worth the same as white people? I leave that to experts to debate the question”
Then it’s very reasonably going to be interpreted as not a genuine apology for holding harmful views, and “primarily just trying to do damage control for using a racial slur, or preemptive PR work for some other reason, as opposed to apologizing for actually holding those views.”, which is why I linked that quote.
Even in the original email, Bostrom makes clear that differences in intelligence do not alter the moral value or human dignity of each person.
For him, as for many, the issues of intelligence and moral worth are distinct; he never claims that black people are worth less, you are ascribing your own notion that IQ=moral worth, and then blaming him for not responding to it.
Thanks for the reply. That makes sense! I feel like Bostrom said a bit more than you describe here to make it clear that he doesn’t hold the view that white people are superior. So, to me, while “I like this comment” seemed like an extremely unfortunate phrasing on his part, the context at least made clear that he liked how the comment is “bold and edgy” rather than liking something about alleged differences between white and black people.
That said, you’re right that it’s important to make these things really clear in an apology and he could have said more on the topic. Other people have also had negative reactions to the apology (e.g., Habiba here), so maybe I’m in a minority. I read the apology and thought it wasn’t bad. I agree it could’ve been better (e.g., he could have written something like the paragraphs I wrote on how we should be very clear that group averages don’t have moral significance) .
(I’m sometimes not sure whether it’s good to make apologies really long. If I ever had to apologize for something pretty bad, I’d be tempted to write a very long statement – but that may come across as self-absorbed and overly defensive. It just seems hard to get this right and I feel like Bostrom’s apology at least hit a few aspects of what I’d expect an acceptable apology to contain.)
Other people have also had negative reactions to the apology (e.g., Habiba here), so maybe I’m in a minority.
My sense is that many people thought the apology was reasonable. Your comment and Ofer’s comment, both of which defend the apology as reasonable, have both 65 Karma which makes them among the most upvoted comments in this whole discussion (both statements are made Jan 13, 11:23 CET). I also think Bostrom’s apology is reasonable (needless to say, I share your and Ofer’s negative reaction to the original email.)
I think it’s much riskier, reputation-wise, to state that one had a positive reaction to the apology than to state that one had a negative one, so we will see more of the latter. I think votes are in this case a more accurate reflection of people’s views.
Yeah, I basically strongly agree Habiba’s post, thanks for linking it.
This part especially:
“So while it would be okay to say something wrong one time on the internet. It is also okay for me and other people to be upset, uncomfortable, angry, disgusted, or even scared that someone who looks at questions about the future of humanity and writes about morality does not and did not display a sensitivity to this context.
It is pretty reasonable to be mistrustful when someone espouses views (whether callously or even in polite language) that were espoused in much the same way by people throughout history who used those views to justify terrible things.
I would be uncomfortable and upset to be part of a community where discussing issues like race/intelligence was not carried out with the empathy and rigour that the subject requires or where people commonly held views on race/intelligence that I consider to be wrong and extremely harmful.”
I appreciated your original comment and upvoted it. I’ll just add something now in response to this pushback.
I’m not suggesting that Nick should claim that all groups no matter what have identical results in IQ tests, or that there’s zero genetic contribution to IQ.
If you are apologizing for a statement that is easily read to mean you believe white people are superior to black people (“I like this comment and think it is true”), and then in your apology you say something like:
“Well, are black people actually worth the same as white people? I leave that to experts to debate the question”
Then it’s very reasonably going to be interpreted as not a genuine apology for holding harmful views, and “primarily just trying to do damage control for using a racial slur, or preemptive PR work for some other reason, as opposed to apologizing for actually holding those views.”, which is why I linked that quote.
Even in the original email, Bostrom makes clear that differences in intelligence do not alter the moral value or human dignity of each person.
For him, as for many, the issues of intelligence and moral worth are distinct; he never claims that black people are worth less, you are ascribing your own notion that IQ=moral worth, and then blaming him for not responding to it.
“easily read to mean”
Thanks for the reply. That makes sense! I feel like Bostrom said a bit more than you describe here to make it clear that he doesn’t hold the view that white people are superior. So, to me, while “I like this comment” seemed like an extremely unfortunate phrasing on his part, the context at least made clear that he liked how the comment is “bold and edgy” rather than liking something about alleged differences between white and black people.
That said, you’re right that it’s important to make these things really clear in an apology and he could have said more on the topic. Other people have also had negative reactions to the apology (e.g., Habiba here), so maybe I’m in a minority. I read the apology and thought it wasn’t bad. I agree it could’ve been better (e.g., he could have written something like the paragraphs I wrote on how we should be very clear that group averages don’t have moral significance) .
(I’m sometimes not sure whether it’s good to make apologies really long. If I ever had to apologize for something pretty bad, I’d be tempted to write a very long statement – but that may come across as self-absorbed and overly defensive. It just seems hard to get this right and I feel like Bostrom’s apology at least hit a few aspects of what I’d expect an acceptable apology to contain.)
My sense is that many people thought the apology was reasonable. Your comment and Ofer’s comment, both of which defend the apology as reasonable, have both 65 Karma which makes them among the most upvoted comments in this whole discussion (both statements are made Jan 13, 11:23 CET). I also think Bostrom’s apology is reasonable (needless to say, I share your and Ofer’s negative reaction to the original email.)
I think it’s much riskier, reputation-wise, to state that one had a positive reaction to the apology than to state that one had a negative one, so we will see more of the latter. I think votes are in this case a more accurate reflection of people’s views.
Yeah, I basically strongly agree Habiba’s post, thanks for linking it.
This part especially:
“So while it would be okay to say something wrong one time on the internet. It is also okay for me and other people to be upset, uncomfortable, angry, disgusted, or even scared that someone who looks at questions about the future of humanity and writes about morality does not and did not display a sensitivity to this context.
It is pretty reasonable to be mistrustful when someone espouses views (whether callously or even in polite language) that were espoused in much the same way by people throughout history who used those views to justify terrible things.
I would be uncomfortable and upset to be part of a community where discussing issues like race/intelligence was not carried out with the empathy and rigour that the subject requires or where people commonly held views on race/intelligence that I consider to be wrong and extremely harmful.”