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This is a smear taken out of context. What Bostrom actually had to say is both accurate and mild: > “I have always liked the uncompromisingly objective way of

This is a smear taken out of context. What Bostrom actually had to say is both accurate and mild: > “I have always liked the uncompromisingly objective way of thinking and speaking: the more counterintuitive and repugnant a formulation, the more it appeals to me given that it is logically correct,” the quoted excerpt begins. “Take for example the following sentence: Blacks are more stupid than whites. I like that sentence and I think it is true. “But recently I have begun to believe that I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that. They would think that I were a ‘racist’: that I _disliked_ black people and thought it is fair if blacks are treated badly. I don’t. It’s just that based on what I have read, I think it is probable that black people have a lower average IQ than mankind in general, and I think that IQ is highly correlated with what we normally mean by ‘smart’ and ‘stupid’. I may be wrong about the facts, but that is what the sentence means for me. For most people, however, the sentence seems to be synonymous with: ‘I hate those bloody n------!!!!”

myko 2y ago
I don't think this helps his case, but I do appreciate seeing the email in question
- helboi4 2y ago
  Every time race comes up on HackerNews i am shocked at how horrifyingly racist (some) users of this site are. Not only did a user somehow think that this context would exonerate this very racist man, both you and I are getting immediately downvoted for disagreeing. There was a post last week or so that was so full of racist comments it just got taken down. I wonder what on earth brings together HackerNews and racism like this.
  - empath-nirvana 2y ago
    It's because the people who run the site tolerate it and ban/warn people for making comments like yours.
    - baobabKoodaa 2y ago
      Give me one single example of a ban like that
  - zo1 2y ago
    You know, topics like this are not always black and white. There is a full-range, nuance and discussion. I'd also wager that the downvotes here are because this flame-bait kind of comments are not appropriate for HN, or if they are appropriate then some might not think it's contributing to the discussion anyways. Me, I think the refusal by some to admit (or accept) that the full-context post adds to the discussion and to instead double-down and cry more racism is definitely not constructive. I'm honestly getting tired of these "race card" low-blows and one-sided thinking shutting down conversation.
    - helboi4 2y ago
      I'm not sure what you think about my comments is flame bait. I'm having a discussion about whether or not these comments are racist, since someone brought them up. This is not pulling out the "race card". I made absolutely no "low-blows". Stating that calling black people lower IQ than whites is very much racist is not an unreasonable thing to say. I have no problem with anyone bringing up context. I just think implying that anything about the statement is "accurate" is racist. I'm not sure what is so contraversial about stating that saying white people are inherently smarter than other races is a white supremacist talking point. And its not just me, anyone saying absolutely anything in support of the idea that what this guy said was bad is being downvoted. No matter how restrained their comment. I would also much rather people replied to me rather than just downvote. That would be a discussion.
    - daveguy 2y ago
      > I'd also wager that the downvotes here are because this flame-bait kind of comments are not appropriate for HN, or if they are appropriate then some might not think it's contributing to the discussion anyways. It's odd to me that calling racism racism when a parent called it not racism is either non-contributing or inflamatory. Seems to me it is warranted.
      - exo-pla-net 2y ago
        An assertion without rationale is noise or worse. "That's racist; cancel them!" falls in the latter category. It's the mindless baying of the rabble. You don't engage with the rabble, as there's no fixing stupid. You just hope they shut up, so that you and the other adults can think, and you hope that the rabble burns down someone else's house. Analogously, there's not much to be gained from engaging with someone shouting "Allahu Akbar; death to infidels!" That's drone purview. I hope that helps.
  - itronitron 2y ago
    Some words of wisdom passed on to me from a very knowledgeable person who was in turn given this knowledge when starting their career. "This organization (group of people) represents a random sample of the population. Traits that occur within individuals in the population will therefore occur within some individuals in this organization (group of people.)"
busterarm 2y ago
It also leaves out that the university investigated and came to the seemingly-rare conclusion that the controversial statement didn't indicate that he's a racist.
chkaloon 2y ago
Bryan Caplan should take a clue from his bit of introspection.
Maro 2y ago
I have no agenda for or against Nick Bostrom. It's a full paragraph quote from the Wikipedia article, with a link.
- gwern 2y ago
  Are you trying to imply that Wikipedia articles by definition have no agenda and no one quoting a Wikipedia article can have an agenda either?
  - exo-pla-net 2y ago
    gwern! FWIW, I read what you have to say in the same, careful way that I read Bostrom. You're a treasure.
helboi4 2y ago
Thats.... still racist? Why does he think black people have a lower IQ? Nigerian immigrants to the US are some of the most successful immigrants. Like... black people just do not have lower IQs and to say so is considered very dangerous rhetoric for a reason. The reason we even have pervasive belief that black people are stupider is because it was convenient rhetoric for the colonial powers pillaging Africa and treating black people as subhuman cattle. It's not a claim based on fact, nor is it a benign thing to say. ...IQ tests are also wildly flawed measures of intelligence anyway, but let's not even get into that.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- frozenseven 2y ago
  >Why does he think black people have a lower IQ? Because of every study that's ever been done on this topic? Pointing this out isn't racist. >Nigerian immigrants to the US are some of the most successful immigrants. Typically those immigrants come from among the smartest few %.
  - neffy 2y ago
    It of course depends on how you cut and slice it, and also on the categorisation of black - but we are talking about approximately 2-3 billion people there if we include India, Indonesia, Africa and the rest of the world. Can you point to a study that has comprehensively assessed that total population? Or just a few studies by Americans, who make their own racial biases, which from a cynical perspective can be boiled down to rampant and cruel exploitation over several centuries, abundantly clear in the articles concerned? Immigrants across the world tend to be a slightly self selecting class of folks - why would black immigrants be any different on that front?
    - frozenseven 2y ago
      South Asians are a wholly different and distinct group. Most Indonesians are South-East Asian, except for Chinese migrants and those living on the island of New Guinea. Africa is a continent, not a race. What you're saying is all over the place. And I'm not here to discuss politics.
shafyy 2y ago
Sorry, but how does this make it better? If something, it makes it worse. And you describing his statement as "accurate and mild" is also not great.
MisterBastahrd 2y ago
It isn't a smear. His qualifying remarks indicate that he's either too stupid, arrogant, or bigoted to understand or care how context works, and thus has no business running a hot dog stand, much less an institute. Even disregarding that, publicly revealing his thoughts and framing them in such a fashion shows he has no common sense.
woopsn 2y ago
What Bostrom said is that he completely repudiates these remarks and that they were disgusting. Leave it at that.
beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago
An academic would need to be incredibly stupid to think that that's a good thing to say in writing or out loud. The idea that you can "just" say these things is almost entirely the purview of people who coincidentally just so happen to not say or refer to all of the contextual and explicative ideas around them, making pointing to IQ without them essentially meaningless at best and racist at worst. It's also not really "accurate or mild", as Bostrom himself stated in his apology for the email that: > I completely repudiate this disgusting email from 26 years ago. It does not accurately represent my views, then or now. The invocation of a racial slur was repulsive. I immediately apologized for writing it at the time, within 24 hours; and I apologize again unreservedly today. I recoil when I read it and reject it utterly.
satvikpendem 2y ago
How is this "both accurate and mild?" If anything, it makes Bostrom seem even more racist, harkening back to the 20th century notion of scientific racism, which, regardless of whether you put a pseudoscientific spin on it, is still racism.
IncreasePosts 2y ago
I wonder if these people ever paused to consider they aren't as smart as they think they are, if they're just figuring out some basics of human communication in their mid 20s that my 8 year old has known for years.
- gizajob 2y ago
  Bostrom has always had the air of knowing he’s phenomenally intelligent and absolutely brilliant and almost certainly the smartest person in any room. Yet his work smacks of grind and storytelling rather than genius.
  - Syzygies 2y ago
    Your comment lead the poker player in me to watch a few videos of Bostrom speaking, such as his TED talk. He has clearly worked hard to become conversant in these ideas, but I don't detect any original provocative thought.
  - exo-pla-net 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - gizajob 2y ago
      The fuck are you on about
      - exo-pla-net 2y ago
        [flagged]
        gizajob 2y ago
        You seem to be using my post as a mirror for the same. I really have no idea what your strange dialogue in Simpson's-parody English is about or where it comes from, or the need, from me basically commenting "Nick Bostrom is not a genius". I also have zero clue what you mean by "[T]he whole “smash the patriarchy” movement might overlook that we actually live in a matriarchy, and this is just what it imperceptibly looks like." I've never written anything like this. I work at Google.
itronitron 2y ago
The additional context you provide suggests that the smear was taken out of context in order to hide the fact that the smear was in fact covering a skid mark over a shit stain.
- malfist 2y ago
  Yeah, I don't get how that context makes anything better. All it says to me is Bostrom is trying to claim he's not racist because he knows his racist view will get him called a racist and therefor he's not racist. The argument doesn't make sense. You don't get to claim your view that black people are inferior to "mankind" isn't racist just because someone calls you a racist
  - golergka 2y ago
    Depends on how you define racism: is it a descriptive (this is a fact about the world that I consider to be true: this group is smart, that group is not) or perceptive (this is what I want to see in the world: this group should be given privileges, that group should not) view? In the email, his own statement is the former, and his assumed definition of racism clearly only relates to the latter.
  - sandspar 2y ago
    He said that black people have lower IQ, which is true. You are the one who translated that to "black people are inferior". You are the one who is equating intelligence with superiority. You are projecting this belief onto him. Reasonable people can simultaneously believe two truths: "black people have lower IQ" and "black people are not inferior".
daveguy 2y ago
Bostrom's original statement was not remotely accurate or mild. The statement, "Take for example the following sentence: Blacks are more stupid than whites. I like that sentence and I think it is true." -- is a classic example of racism. It is racist to the core. Not only that, Bostrom knew at the time racism like that would make things more difficult for him and he was correct. Sometimes cancel culture is deserved. At least he eventually apologized for it.
- sandspar 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - daveguy 2y ago
    No. It is not.
throw7 2y ago
I suppose we could also say IQ highly correlates with social ineptitude. Who could've known people wouldn't like you if you made repugnant statements... surely not 'smart' people!
- robocat 2y ago
  > IQ highly correlates with social ineptitude Does it? Being socially ept requires high intelligence. However people that deeply apply their brains to social situations are often unrecognised as being bright in wider society. Although they may well be highly rewarded. And I suspect the very skilled often hide their skill because it's a hidden weapon in political or business negotiations. It is really hard to see applied IQ and you need to be very trusted for someone to explain their thinking: plus you need to be EQ smart to spot others that are EQ smart (and the +ve side of Dunning-Kruger causes problems too). I think you are alluding to the stereotype of social ineptitude of geeks or academics. Personally I have found that focusing your IQ too tightly into one narrow discipline is not that smart. Really smart geeks seem to also be highly socially capable: IQ is general intelligence. Some of the smartest people I know left school at 15: you won't have highly academic discussions with them because it usually doesn't interest them but their raw IQ shows up in a bunch of other unobvious ways. Disclaimer: I'm a geeky slow learner - a redundant disclaimer given I'm making comments on HN. Edit: given we are on HN, here's a good example of Paul Graham deeply recognising someone as smart and socially epter than himself: https://www.paulgraham.com/jessica.html https://www.paulgraham.com/jessica.html
mise_en_place 2y ago
Most people are not ready to have an honest discussion about the correlation between race and IQ. It sadly gets muddied by various political ministrations. But it seems like a genuine effect that should be studied more. If we truly want equality of opportunity, we must understand what is causing certain races to be on the left side of the normal distribution. Is it nutrition? Social status? Lack of parenting? A combination of these? Bostrom's only crime there was hoping for an honest, curious, and intellectual discussion.
- cauch 2y ago
  But these honest conversations are occurring. For example, scientists have honestly looked up the "biology" or "DNA" hypothesis. But this hypothesis is not very strong: - why a "color-of-the-skin" would be linked to IQ when a "color-of-the-eye" would not? (and also: why some people are so interested in IQ and color-of-the-skin but are not interested as soon as the genetic factor is something less "visible to the eye"?) - how could there be IQ disparity based on skin color when the human DNA is so strongly mixed that between two white men and one black man, one of the white can easily be genetically closer to the black than the other white? There is no "DNA of Black Men" group: the DNA of black men is as diverse as the one of the white men and mixes totally with the one of the white men. - why black men placed on different social situations are scored so differently on IQ when they have very similar DNA (same family or even twins separated at birth) - why white men placed on different social situations are scored so differently on IQ? If you use white men as a way to predict IQ based on sociological factors, you get a formula that also predict black IQ, so science would say that color-of-the-skin is not the relevant factor here. There are works about IQ and skin colors for ages now, and the discourse seems to always go backwards with people saying "sure, but let's forget that we know it does not make more sense and try again". This is those people who stop the honest, curious and intellectual discussion. And I'm pretty sure the first reaction to this would be "it's all lies", because instead of an honest, curious and intellectual discussion, a lot of people who want to have this discussion are in fact more interested of pushing for one particular answer. For different reasons, but I think one of these reasons is the same as why the EA movement was popular despite being so flawed: those people want to think of themselves as very deep and very smart, they want to see "counter intuitive and repugnant" things and stroke their ego by explaining how smart they are for not finding it counter intuitive or repugnant. The problem is that they sometimes just take things that are counter intuitive and incorrect, and they force them into "look at me, I'm smart, it's counter intuitive and yet I dare to consider it". It's basically what the Bostrom says: he says himself that he is attracted by the idea black people have lower IQ because it is the rebel thing to do. But being the rebel thing to do does not mean that it is scientifically correct or scientifically smart (it can sometimes be, and sometimes not be, you have the same odds throwing a coin). Saying "women are biologically less apt to choose their leaders and therefore it makes sense they don't have the right to vote" or "the position of stars in the sky is affecting our lives based on in which months people were born" are both as "counter intuitive" and "repugnant" as the Black IQ discussion. Also, it's a bit strange, because in the case of the Black IQ question, the hypothesis of "I see black men failing more often, so I guess they are not as smart", is not counter intuitive at all. It is people who have considered this hypothesis and realised it's simplistic and the truth is more complicated who went further than the basic intuition.
arduanika 2y ago
The philosopher David Thorstad keeps a blog with critiques of EA and related ideas. His writing strikes me as fairly patient and in good faith. (Or at least, it's more measured than some of my own comments on this thread!) He wrote this good dissection of the Bostrom email controversy, and why the apology doesn't cut it: https://ineffectivealtruismblog.com/2023/01/12/off-series-that-bostrom-email/ https://ineffectivealtruismblog.com/2023/01/12/off-series-th... That said -- it did happen way back in the 90's. There has to be a place for forgiveness, even for imperfect people offering imperfect apologies. My sense is that there's plenty of other things to criticize that are more recent and more central to this general school of thought.
pessimizer 2y ago
This context makes it worse. I was imagining a bunch of different framings that would make it sound thoughtful, but I've literally heard the same thing from Klansmen in Arkansas. Literally, not figuratively. That last sentence is a symptom of people thinking that the only important issue is whether they're good people or not. He's saying that saying dogs are stupider than humans is not the same as hating dogs. Who cares what he hates? The question is who he hires, and who he gives the benefit of the doubt to. Not hiring dogs isn't hating dogs either.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I don't understand you position. Are you saying the question of if dogs are stupid is irrelevant, off limits, and if you know the answer it is unethical to say it? Suppose dogs (your choice) are stupider. How should someone behave?

myko 2y ago

I don't think this helps his case, but I do appreciate seeing the email in question

helboi4 2y ago
Every time race comes up on HackerNews i am shocked at how horrifyingly racist (some) users of this site are. Not only did a user somehow think that this context would exonerate this very racist man, both you and I are getting immediately downvoted for disagreeing. There was a post last week or so that was so full of racist comments it just got taken down. I wonder what on earth brings together HackerNews and racism like this.
- empath-nirvana 2y ago
  It's because the people who run the site tolerate it and ban/warn people for making comments like yours.
  - baobabKoodaa 2y ago
    Give me one single example of a ban like that
- zo1 2y ago
  You know, topics like this are not always black and white. There is a full-range, nuance and discussion. I'd also wager that the downvotes here are because this flame-bait kind of comments are not appropriate for HN, or if they are appropriate then some might not think it's contributing to the discussion anyways. Me, I think the refusal by some to admit (or accept) that the full-context post adds to the discussion and to instead double-down and cry more racism is definitely not constructive. I'm honestly getting tired of these "race card" low-blows and one-sided thinking shutting down conversation.
  - helboi4 2y ago
    I'm not sure what you think about my comments is flame bait. I'm having a discussion about whether or not these comments are racist, since someone brought them up. This is not pulling out the "race card". I made absolutely no "low-blows". Stating that calling black people lower IQ than whites is very much racist is not an unreasonable thing to say. I have no problem with anyone bringing up context. I just think implying that anything about the statement is "accurate" is racist. I'm not sure what is so contraversial about stating that saying white people are inherently smarter than other races is a white supremacist talking point. And its not just me, anyone saying absolutely anything in support of the idea that what this guy said was bad is being downvoted. No matter how restrained their comment. I would also much rather people replied to me rather than just downvote. That would be a discussion.
  - daveguy 2y ago
    > I'd also wager that the downvotes here are because this flame-bait kind of comments are not appropriate for HN, or if they are appropriate then some might not think it's contributing to the discussion anyways. It's odd to me that calling racism racism when a parent called it not racism is either non-contributing or inflamatory. Seems to me it is warranted.
    - exo-pla-net 2y ago
      An assertion without rationale is noise or worse. "That's racist; cancel them!" falls in the latter category. It's the mindless baying of the rabble. You don't engage with the rabble, as there's no fixing stupid. You just hope they shut up, so that you and the other adults can think, and you hope that the rabble burns down someone else's house. Analogously, there's not much to be gained from engaging with someone shouting "Allahu Akbar; death to infidels!" That's drone purview. I hope that helps.
- itronitron 2y ago
  Some words of wisdom passed on to me from a very knowledgeable person who was in turn given this knowledge when starting their career. "This organization (group of people) represents a random sample of the population. Traits that occur within individuals in the population will therefore occur within some individuals in this organization (group of people.)"

busterarm 2y ago

It also leaves out that the university investigated and came to the seemingly-rare conclusion that the controversial statement didn't indicate that he's a racist.

chkaloon 2y ago

Bryan Caplan should take a clue from his bit of introspection.

Maro 2y ago

I have no agenda for or against Nick Bostrom. It's a full paragraph quote from the Wikipedia article, with a link.

gwern 2y ago
Are you trying to imply that Wikipedia articles by definition have no agenda and no one quoting a Wikipedia article can have an agenda either?
- exo-pla-net 2y ago
  gwern! FWIW, I read what you have to say in the same, careful way that I read Bostrom. You're a treasure.

helboi4 2y ago

Thats.... still racist? Why does he think black people have a lower IQ? Nigerian immigrants to the US are some of the most successful immigrants. Like... black people just do not have lower IQs and to say so is considered very dangerous rhetoric for a reason. The reason we even have pervasive belief that black people are stupider is because it was convenient rhetoric for the colonial powers pillaging Africa and treating black people as subhuman cattle. It's not a claim based on fact, nor is it a benign thing to say. ...IQ tests are also wildly flawed measures of intelligence anyway, but let's not even get into that.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
frozenseven 2y ago
>Why does he think black people have a lower IQ? Because of every study that's ever been done on this topic? Pointing this out isn't racist. >Nigerian immigrants to the US are some of the most successful immigrants. Typically those immigrants come from among the smartest few %.
- neffy 2y ago
  It of course depends on how you cut and slice it, and also on the categorisation of black - but we are talking about approximately 2-3 billion people there if we include India, Indonesia, Africa and the rest of the world. Can you point to a study that has comprehensively assessed that total population? Or just a few studies by Americans, who make their own racial biases, which from a cynical perspective can be boiled down to rampant and cruel exploitation over several centuries, abundantly clear in the articles concerned? Immigrants across the world tend to be a slightly self selecting class of folks - why would black immigrants be any different on that front?
  - frozenseven 2y ago
    South Asians are a wholly different and distinct group. Most Indonesians are South-East Asian, except for Chinese migrants and those living on the island of New Guinea. Africa is a continent, not a race. What you're saying is all over the place. And I'm not here to discuss politics.

shafyy 2y ago

Sorry, but how does this make it better? If something, it makes it worse. And you describing his statement as "accurate and mild" is also not great.

MisterBastahrd 2y ago

It isn't a smear. His qualifying remarks indicate that he's either too stupid, arrogant, or bigoted to understand or care how context works, and thus has no business running a hot dog stand, much less an institute. Even disregarding that, publicly revealing his thoughts and framing them in such a fashion shows he has no common sense.

woopsn 2y ago

What Bostrom said is that he completely repudiates these remarks and that they were disgusting. Leave it at that.

beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago

An academic would need to be incredibly stupid to think that that's a good thing to say in writing or out loud. The idea that you can "just" say these things is almost entirely the purview of people who coincidentally just so happen to not say or refer to all of the contextual and explicative ideas around them, making pointing to IQ without them essentially meaningless at best and racist at worst. It's also not really "accurate or mild", as Bostrom himself stated in his apology for the email that: > I completely repudiate this disgusting email from 26 years ago. It does not accurately represent my views, then or now. The invocation of a racial slur was repulsive. I immediately apologized for writing it at the time, within 24 hours; and I apologize again unreservedly today. I recoil when I read it and reject it utterly.

satvikpendem 2y ago

How is this "both accurate and mild?" If anything, it makes Bostrom seem even more racist, harkening back to the 20th century notion of scientific racism, which, regardless of whether you put a pseudoscientific spin on it, is still racism.

IncreasePosts 2y ago

I wonder if these people ever paused to consider they aren't as smart as they think they are, if they're just figuring out some basics of human communication in their mid 20s that my 8 year old has known for years.

gizajob 2y ago
Bostrom has always had the air of knowing he’s phenomenally intelligent and absolutely brilliant and almost certainly the smartest person in any room. Yet his work smacks of grind and storytelling rather than genius.
- Syzygies 2y ago
  Your comment lead the poker player in me to watch a few videos of Bostrom speaking, such as his TED talk. He has clearly worked hard to become conversant in these ideas, but I don't detect any original provocative thought.
- exo-pla-net 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - gizajob 2y ago
    The fuck are you on about
    - exo-pla-net 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - gizajob 2y ago
        You seem to be using my post as a mirror for the same. I really have no idea what your strange dialogue in Simpson's-parody English is about or where it comes from, or the need, from me basically commenting "Nick Bostrom is not a genius". I also have zero clue what you mean by "[T]he whole “smash the patriarchy” movement might overlook that we actually live in a matriarchy, and this is just what it imperceptibly looks like." I've never written anything like this. I work at Google.

itronitron 2y ago

The additional context you provide suggests that the smear was taken out of context in order to hide the fact that the smear was in fact covering a skid mark over a shit stain.

malfist 2y ago
Yeah, I don't get how that context makes anything better. All it says to me is Bostrom is trying to claim he's not racist because he knows his racist view will get him called a racist and therefor he's not racist. The argument doesn't make sense. You don't get to claim your view that black people are inferior to "mankind" isn't racist just because someone calls you a racist
- golergka 2y ago
  Depends on how you define racism: is it a descriptive (this is a fact about the world that I consider to be true: this group is smart, that group is not) or perceptive (this is what I want to see in the world: this group should be given privileges, that group should not) view? In the email, his own statement is the former, and his assumed definition of racism clearly only relates to the latter.
- sandspar 2y ago
  He said that black people have lower IQ, which is true. You are the one who translated that to "black people are inferior". You are the one who is equating intelligence with superiority. You are projecting this belief onto him. Reasonable people can simultaneously believe two truths: "black people have lower IQ" and "black people are not inferior".

daveguy 2y ago

Bostrom's original statement was not remotely accurate or mild. The statement, "Take for example the following sentence: Blacks are more stupid than whites. I like that sentence and I think it is true." -- is a classic example of racism. It is racist to the core. Not only that, Bostrom knew at the time racism like that would make things more difficult for him and he was correct. Sometimes cancel culture is deserved. At least he eventually apologized for it.

sandspar 2y ago
[flagged]
- daveguy 2y ago
  No. It is not.

throw7 2y ago

I suppose we could also say IQ highly correlates with social ineptitude. Who could've known people wouldn't like you if you made repugnant statements... surely not 'smart' people!

robocat 2y ago
> IQ highly correlates with social ineptitude Does it? Being socially ept requires high intelligence. However people that deeply apply their brains to social situations are often unrecognised as being bright in wider society. Although they may well be highly rewarded. And I suspect the very skilled often hide their skill because it's a hidden weapon in political or business negotiations. It is really hard to see applied IQ and you need to be very trusted for someone to explain their thinking: plus you need to be EQ smart to spot others that are EQ smart (and the +ve side of Dunning-Kruger causes problems too). I think you are alluding to the stereotype of social ineptitude of geeks or academics. Personally I have found that focusing your IQ too tightly into one narrow discipline is not that smart. Really smart geeks seem to also be highly socially capable: IQ is general intelligence. Some of the smartest people I know left school at 15: you won't have highly academic discussions with them because it usually doesn't interest them but their raw IQ shows up in a bunch of other unobvious ways. Disclaimer: I'm a geeky slow learner - a redundant disclaimer given I'm making comments on HN. Edit: given we are on HN, here's a good example of Paul Graham deeply recognising someone as smart and socially epter than himself: https://www.paulgraham.com/jessica.html https://www.paulgraham.com/jessica.html

mise_en_place 2y ago

Most people are not ready to have an honest discussion about the correlation between race and IQ. It sadly gets muddied by various political ministrations. But it seems like a genuine effect that should be studied more. If we truly want equality of opportunity, we must understand what is causing certain races to be on the left side of the normal distribution. Is it nutrition? Social status? Lack of parenting? A combination of these? Bostrom's only crime there was hoping for an honest, curious, and intellectual discussion.

cauch 2y ago
But these honest conversations are occurring. For example, scientists have honestly looked up the "biology" or "DNA" hypothesis. But this hypothesis is not very strong: - why a "color-of-the-skin" would be linked to IQ when a "color-of-the-eye" would not? (and also: why some people are so interested in IQ and color-of-the-skin but are not interested as soon as the genetic factor is something less "visible to the eye"?) - how could there be IQ disparity based on skin color when the human DNA is so strongly mixed that between two white men and one black man, one of the white can easily be genetically closer to the black than the other white? There is no "DNA of Black Men" group: the DNA of black men is as diverse as the one of the white men and mixes totally with the one of the white men. - why black men placed on different social situations are scored so differently on IQ when they have very similar DNA (same family or even twins separated at birth) - why white men placed on different social situations are scored so differently on IQ? If you use white men as a way to predict IQ based on sociological factors, you get a formula that also predict black IQ, so science would say that color-of-the-skin is not the relevant factor here. There are works about IQ and skin colors for ages now, and the discourse seems to always go backwards with people saying "sure, but let's forget that we know it does not make more sense and try again". This is those people who stop the honest, curious and intellectual discussion. And I'm pretty sure the first reaction to this would be "it's all lies", because instead of an honest, curious and intellectual discussion, a lot of people who want to have this discussion are in fact more interested of pushing for one particular answer. For different reasons, but I think one of these reasons is the same as why the EA movement was popular despite being so flawed: those people want to think of themselves as very deep and very smart, they want to see "counter intuitive and repugnant" things and stroke their ego by explaining how smart they are for not finding it counter intuitive or repugnant. The problem is that they sometimes just take things that are counter intuitive and incorrect, and they force them into "look at me, I'm smart, it's counter intuitive and yet I dare to consider it". It's basically what the Bostrom says: he says himself that he is attracted by the idea black people have lower IQ because it is the rebel thing to do. But being the rebel thing to do does not mean that it is scientifically correct or scientifically smart (it can sometimes be, and sometimes not be, you have the same odds throwing a coin). Saying "women are biologically less apt to choose their leaders and therefore it makes sense they don't have the right to vote" or "the position of stars in the sky is affecting our lives based on in which months people were born" are both as "counter intuitive" and "repugnant" as the Black IQ discussion. Also, it's a bit strange, because in the case of the Black IQ question, the hypothesis of "I see black men failing more often, so I guess they are not as smart", is not counter intuitive at all. It is people who have considered this hypothesis and realised it's simplistic and the truth is more complicated who went further than the basic intuition.

arduanika 2y ago

The philosopher David Thorstad keeps a blog with critiques of EA and related ideas. His writing strikes me as fairly patient and in good faith. (Or at least, it's more measured than some of my own comments on this thread!) He wrote this good dissection of the Bostrom email controversy, and why the apology doesn't cut it: https://ineffectivealtruismblog.com/2023/01/12/off-series-that-bostrom-email/ https://ineffectivealtruismblog.com/2023/01/12/off-series-th... That said -- it did happen way back in the 90's. There has to be a place for forgiveness, even for imperfect people offering imperfect apologies. My sense is that there's plenty of other things to criticize that are more recent and more central to this general school of thought.

pessimizer 2y ago

This context makes it worse. I was imagining a bunch of different framings that would make it sound thoughtful, but I've literally heard the same thing from Klansmen in Arkansas. Literally, not figuratively. That last sentence is a symptom of people thinking that the only important issue is whether they're good people or not. He's saying that saying dogs are stupider than humans is not the same as hating dogs. Who cares what he hates? The question is who he hires, and who he gives the benefit of the doubt to. Not hiring dogs isn't hating dogs either.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
I don't understand you position. Are you saying the question of if dogs are stupid is irrelevant, off limits, and if you know the answer it is unethical to say it? Suppose dogs (your choice) are stupider. How should someone behave?