“There is a racial gap on IQ test scores and it’s really disturbing. We’re working really hard to fix it and we will fix it one day—but it’s a tough complicated problem and no one’s sure what angle to attack it from.”
“Black people score worse than white people on IQ tests.”
“Black people have lower IQs than white people.”
“Black people are dumber than white people.”
The first statement would be viewed positively by most, the second would get a raised eyebrow and a “And what of it?”, the third is on thin fucking ice, and the fourth is utterly unspeakable.
2-4 aren’t all that different in terms of fact-statements, except that IQ ≠ intelligence, so some accuracy is lost moving to the last. It’s just that the first makes it clear which side the speaker is on, the second states an empiricism and the next two look like they’re… attacking black people, I think?
I would consider the fourth a harmful gloss—but it doesn’t state that there is a genetic component to IQ, that’s only in the reader’s eye. This makes sense in the context of Bostrom posing outrageous but Arguably Technically True things to inflame the reader’s eye.
“Poor people are dumber than rich people.”
I think people would be mad at this, because they feel like poor people are being attacked and want to defend them. They would think, ‘Oh, you’re saying that rich people got there by being so smart and industrious, and if some single mom dies of a heart attack at 30 it’s a skill issue.’ But no one said that.
“People who go to worse schools are dumber than those who go to better schools.”
And this would be uncontested.
“Vaccines cause an increased rate of heart cancer.”
If someone says that, you’d probably assume they were pushing an antivax agenda and raise an eyebrow, even if they can produce a legitimate study showing that. (I don’t think there is, I made up that example.) So I am sympathetic to being worried about agenda-pushing that is just saying selectively true statements.
Man, this shit is exhausting. Maybe CEA has the right idea here: they disavow the man’s words without disavowing the man and then go back to their day.
“There is a racial gap on IQ test scores and it’s really disturbing. We’re working really hard to fix it and we will fix it one day—but it’s a tough complicated problem and no one’s sure what angle to attack it from.”
“Black people score worse than white people on IQ tests.”
“Black people have lower IQs than white people.”
“Black people are dumber than white people.”
The first statement would be viewed positively by most, the second would get a raised eyebrow and a “And what of it?”, the third is on thin fucking ice, and the fourth is utterly unspeakable.
2-4 aren’t all that different in terms of fact-statements, except that IQ ≠ intelligence, so some accuracy is lost moving to the last. It’s just that the first makes it clear which side the speaker is on, the second states an empiricism and the next two look like they’re… attacking black people, I think?
I would consider the fourth a harmful gloss—but it doesn’t state that there is a genetic component to IQ, that’s only in the reader’s eye. This makes sense in the context of Bostrom posing outrageous but Arguably Technically True things to inflame the reader’s eye.
“Poor people are dumber than rich people.”
I think people would be mad at this, because they feel like poor people are being attacked and want to defend them. They would think, ‘Oh, you’re saying that rich people got there by being so smart and industrious, and if some single mom dies of a heart attack at 30 it’s a skill issue.’ But no one said that.
“People who go to worse schools are dumber than those who go to better schools.”
And this would be uncontested.
“Vaccines cause an increased rate of heart cancer.”
If someone says that, you’d probably assume they were pushing an antivax agenda and raise an eyebrow, even if they can produce a legitimate study showing that. (I don’t think there is, I made up that example.) So I am sympathetic to being worried about agenda-pushing that is just saying selectively true statements.
Man, this shit is exhausting. Maybe CEA has the right idea here: they disavow the man’s words without disavowing the man and then go back to their day.