From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Tue Sep 10 2002 - 09:47:27 MDT
On Tuesday, September 10, 2002, at 03:33 am, Lee Corbin wrote:
> Harvey writes
>
>> That is why it is so scary to me to see racial profiling, group
>> judgments, eugenics, selective child killing, and The Bell Curve
>> discussed on this list as if they are reasonable positions within our
>> philosophy.
>
> Well, since several of us certainly defended the propriety
> of some of the above, it indeed does sound as though you're
> looking for a fight. I for sure am not the slightest bit
> ashamed of having started a number of threads on several
> of the above subjects.
This is exactly what my next sentence was meant to do, make it clear
that I was not looking for a fight:
>> (And no, this is not an invitation for all the racists to come out of
>> the woodwork and demand that I offer real scientific proof that these
>> viewpoints are wrong. I'm not playing that game.)
However, it was both inflammatory and unfair to make these statements
and not be willing to fight for them. It's just that I am sometimes
too tired of this topic to put in the energy to always play fair.
Sometimes I just give up.
> Are you insinuating
> that there exist frequent posters to this list who are racists,
> or that for having begun several of the above mentioned threads
> that I am a racist? Please accept those as rhetorical questions
> whose answers are surely in the negative.
It is good that they are rhetorical. I would not directly accuse
anybody on this list of racism. However, even sincere inquiry into
these topics does seem to fall into the possibility of "What if the
racists are right?" Demands to prove racialist theories wrong would
imply that maybe they are right. Defense of books and authors that
are so commonly accused of racism implies that maybe they aren't
racist. (And usually people who argue that something isn't racist are
really arguing that it is accurate and miss the fact that they are
arguing for racism. They usually equate racism with wrong or bad, so
where they believe in a particular claim, they tend to totally miss
its obvious racist position.)
> I denounce racism, and all the intolerance that it engenders.
> In fact, I denounce almost all kinds of intolerance, and I
> continue to be pleased that the Extropian list tolerates
> a wide variety of viewpoints, with no impositions of "political
> correctness" or censorship. I am equally pleased that no
> racists ever post to this list (so far as I know), and that
> I agree wholeheartedly with Greg Burch's statement about
> the *non-existent* connection between racism and Extropianism.
It depends how you define racism. In my never-ending quest for
consistency, I cannot see how someone can argue for any of the topics
I mentioned above (racial profiling, group
judgments, eugenics, selective child killing, and The Bell Curve)
without being racist. I am careful to not specifically say such
people are or must be racists. However, I don't see how these
theories could possibly be true without resulting in racist theories.
Furthermore, I do not believe that these theories are true
scientifically speaking. (I do not resort to political correctness,
which states that certain topics are disallowed because they are
offensive rather than that they are untrue or off-topic.)
I do not believe that "races" is an acceptable scientific concept.
There are only superficial differences between "races", and variation
between races is as large or larger than differences between them.
The concept is blurry. There is too much interbreeding for true races
to remain even if they once existed. For transhumanists today, nobody
should be considered limited to their biological definitions anyway.
Almost all scientists reject this concept, and it is not rigorously
defined enough to define a falsifiable test as to what is a race, who
is in each race, and where division lines between races can be drawn.
Anybody who tries to define race is a "racist" or "racialist". They
try to establish that there are fundamental differences between races
that can be measured, and especially that should define social policy
along racial lines. For example, if blacks commit most crimes, maybe
we should have different laws for them then for other races. Or, if
Jews are at the root of a country's problems, maybe they should be
exterminated for the good of everyone else. Or, if Asians are smarter
than other races, maybe they should make all of the decisions for the
rest of the world.
I personally believe "racism" is a false and negative position.
However, this is not required for the definition of racism. This
would be like christians claiming that they aren't a religion like the
others because they are true. Most people who promote these theories
want to understandably avoid the word. However, they tend to argue
for the truth of their statements as if this were a proof against
racism. Even if racist theories were true, they still would be
racialist related and relating to race. Arguing for the truth of a
position does not mean it is not racist. For the term racist to have
any meaning, it must be measured separately and not be attached to the
truth or accuracy of a claim. We can't assume that racist=false and
nonracist=accurate. This leads to neonazis claiming that Hitler
wasn't racist because we should kill all Jews. This is a non sequitur
and should be avoided.
> I also have no intention of shying away from expressing myself
> here on any number of topics that some might consider verboten,
> if I happen to feel like it. Indeed this is and should remain
> an open forum.
Again, my claims are that certain topics, especially political ones,
are off-topic and unsolvable by this list. This is not censorship or
political correctness. It is simply that such discussions seem
fruitless and never amount to anything. It would be very easy to
argue that the President of the United States would have a great
impact upon the future and therefore we should all come to a consensus
on what single person we all will support for the job. However noble
and correct this sounds, I have no faith that such a conversation
could ever reach consensus. Therefore, I would argue very strongly
against initiating such a conversation. As far as I can tell, certain
topics can only generate heat, waste time, and indirectly suppress
on-topic posts.
(However, in the interests of completeness and fairness, I will
quickly respond to those who question my complaints about The Bell
Curve in another post. I think the goal must be to stay rational and
calm, and to not degenerate into ad hominem or arguments.)
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:55 MST