> If I were to guess, the types of conversations that happen in these places that aren't gutter racism (they're eating the dogs etc) are going to be eugenics-adjacent, "enlightened" scientific racism instead. At least, that's what I've noticed among rationalists online.
This statement is proof for the need of this rule. Everyone who disagrees with the "one truth" is obviously a racist who is aligned with the worst of the other side. There can be no deviation or nuance. No debate, or benefit of doubt.
That is a deeply toxic view that in the past I only saw in the right. Maybe it was my own blindness. But now I see it all over the left as well.
Meh. I have seen these debates long enough to see that there is a lot of truth in that judgement. We are supposed to give infinite benefit of the doubt to people even after it is super clear what it is that they are saying. I have seen these paranoid SJW accusations to .... turn out truth enough times already.
Turns out, people who say these things are the ones who actually listen with comprehension to what is being said in those circles.
> Meh. I have seen these debates long enough to see that there is a lot of truth in that judgement.
There are fair cases of dog-whistle racism. But that is the person who is indeed racist and not necessarily everyone who falls to the whistle or happens to be next to that person. The problem is that this approach creates divisive politics.
Typically division would make sense if you're cutting off the terrible people. Unfortunately, current western politics is cutting off half of the population with a blunt instrument.
A lot of these snap judgements block our ability to self reflect. How can you tell if you're in a cult or an echo chamber?
How do you know your confirmation bias isn't lying to you?
> The problem is that this approach creates divisive politics.
No, this approach is making the existing division visible. The other approach is to politely ignore it and not talk about it, if you are anti racist be silent about what you see. Allow them to promote its politics and representants, do not object, do not point out to the obvious.
And that is pretty much how abortion protections got removed - "reasonable mainstream" was mocked for telling the truth and supposed to pretend republicans do not plan to destroy them until it was inevitable.
This is the only effective way to end racism and hate. The problem is that you pool too many people together as "racist" which eliminates the power of the word and sends them into a position of "I'll be hated by the left no matter what I do so I'll go full on".
This strategy has objectively not worked. More Latinos voted for Trump in this election even though his rhetoric got MUCH worse. He wants to deport 18M people and revoke citizenship. Yet, they still voted for him in much larger numbers. Women whose rights were denied voted for him. Why?
You can say they're all stupid and indeed there are quite a lot of those. But the fact is that saying to a person that he, all his friends, family and community are evil and racist doesn't bring that person to your side. It pushes them further down that bad path. It might be satisfying to confront a person in a "good vs. evil" scenario, but that doesn't fix the problem and makes everything worse.
Calling things what they are is talking about it. What you want is to enable one side and castigate the other for telling anything mildly bad about the one choose side. If many people are racists, yep that word will cover many people. There is nothing weird or wrong about it.
Latinos who voted for Trump did it because they are very conservative, have a thing against blacks/arabs and like Trumps personality. Effectively very similar reasons to why non latinos vote for Trump.
> Women whose rights were denied voted for him. Why?
Trump is a lot more popular among men then among women. That is the first thing. Second, yes there are women who deny some rights like abortion for women, that is not shocking new development or something.
> But the fact is that saying to a person that he, all his friends, family and community are evil and racist doesn't bring that person to your side. It pushes them further down that bad path.
Pretending racism is not racism and enabling racism and enabling it does not make these people less racist either. It makes you more like them and it makes middle more like them.
Indeed, what happens and happened is that their opinions are the ones primary being heard, those who oppose are mocked by those who want to be seen as enlightened. What happens is that their real goals are ignored untill they achieve them.
> Pretending racism is not racism and enabling racism and enabling it does not make these people less racist either
Again. Not what I said.
I think what you heard me say is appeasement. Which is VERY MUCH not what I said. I said you should avoid instant judgement which goes against the basic process of persuasion.
I said talking to people and not judging them immediately. Asking instead of confronting. If you start by calling someone a racist his shields go up and he won't listen to you. What did you accomplish by the attack?
Nothing. You didn't change his mind. You preached to the quire. People who hear you either agree with you and people who disagree with you think you're an ahole. Everyone digs deeper into what they already believe and become more entrenched/hostile.
If your goal is to keep people in their positions and prevent change then sure, that would work. You can virtue signal and position yourself as the "good guy".
My goal is to understand people and communicate with them. Even people who might be "bad" or uninterested in communicating/changing their mind. To do that I try to interact without being too judgemental. That's hard sometimes when I read some pretty horrible stuff from some people. E.g. I had a recent debate where a guy implied that me and all of my family should be dead or homeless (I'm an Israeli) so that's hard to reconcile and indeed we didn't reach a reasonable understanding because I feel he wasn't open to another point of view. He was just looking to prove his point (which is pretty insane if his point is I should die).
But it's still a conversation worth having. Understanding what drives a person to a racist position and asking the right questions can sometimes help them along the path of better understanding.
Around 2014 a friend of mine was running from Gazan missiles every night with his kids. His son started bedwetting again and his kids were very scared. They lived in the south very close to Gaza and it is indeed a dangerous area. Back then iron dome wasn't as good and the alarm times are very short. He exclaimed that as far as he cares the IDF should bomb the hell out of Gaza. Fck them for coming after his kids.
If you would have confronted him as a racist he would have become more enraged and probably would have moved to the right.
I asked him how a Palestinian father in Gaza would feel about that. He initially gave some kickback on that so I stressed the difference between Hamas and the civilian population which made him see that his statement was of rage that doesn't represent who he is.
I'm not saying you should tolerate racism. I'm saying you should understand people, listen to their motivations and logic. Talk to them individually and understand where they are coming from. Snap judgements are very problematic and overly simplistic.
I will add: Trump did not won by being nice and accommodating to leftists. Trump won by being accusatory and aggressive. Trump won by treating "suckers" badly.
Trump winning is the ultimate proof that what you suggest is a loosing strategy.
I brought up eugenics because I’ve seen this before and you stepped up to bravely defend it against accusations of wrongthink. I think you’re telling on yourself here.
> If I were to guess, the types of conversations that happen in these places that aren't gutter racism (they're eating the dogs etc) are going to be eugenics-adjacent, "enlightened" scientific racism instead. At least, that's what I've noticed among rationalists online.
I responded without talking about Eugenics at all... My problem was with this phrase of yours:
> "If I were to guess, the types of conversations that happen in these places"
That's a pretty problematic phrase. You're "guessing" what they're saying then judging them to be guilty based on your imagination.
Notice you're blaming me for that in this thread even though my response didn't mention that in any way. You chose to interpret that as me supporting Eugenics. That's projection. That isn't me.
That is a problematic way to look at life and at people in general.
Given that we now have tools that can fix some serious genetic errors, and enable even people who were dealt very bad cards in life, to live a healthy life - and given that this sector of biology is constantly evolving towards more capabilities, I would argue that it makes more sense to study genetic diseases and disorders than ever.
100 years ago, when genetics was unchangeable, the only solution to any genetic problem was heavy-handed: stop that individual from procreating. I agree that this is basically fascist (though even social democrats weren't immune to this).
But in 2050, we might be able to fix terrible things like Huntington's Chorea with a single shot. Which is fascinating, but it also needs some honesty. In the late 20th century, there was a lot of activism that tried to pass off seriously debilitating diseases as "being differentially abled" etc. While I can understand them wanting to stop eugenic thinking from seeping in, this attitude becomes counterproductive when tools are being developed to actually help the sick people. Similar to anti-vaxxerism, in fact.
People like Charles Murray think people like me are subhuman for having low IQ and being non-white, the conversations I'm hearing aren't about curing disabilities they're about the "wrong type" of people procreating.
Weird that you got "curing disabilities" from my comment on "scientific racism" though. That reaction kinda concerns me.
Not everywhere is America (in fact, 96% of humanity is outside the US) and local conditions, sensibilities and conflict topics vary.
Here I live in a nation that was considered non-Aryan by the Nazis and destined to become a nation of illiterate slaves for their Master Race. During their 6 years of rule here, their plans were only mitigated by their need to win the war first, for which they needed the local industry to be operable - hard to square such necessity with repressions against the workers themselves. But they did succeed in murdering parts of our intelligentsia.
So yeah, race-based repression is evil, I am with you on this.
But I am also close to a doctor who prescribes hearing aids for children and the main context in which I hear the word "eugenics" is her problems with the deafness advocates, who want to prevent deaf kids from hearing. And they play the "eugenics" card incessantly.
I am sick of them, they are at best severely misguided, at worst evil people. And if enough people say that "helping kids hear is eugenics", they will drown out the racialists in public discourse, at least locally.
This statement is proof for the need of this rule. Everyone who disagrees with the "one truth" is obviously a racist who is aligned with the worst of the other side. There can be no deviation or nuance. No debate, or benefit of doubt.
That is a deeply toxic view that in the past I only saw in the right. Maybe it was my own blindness. But now I see it all over the left as well.