[dionidium]

Pick any metric. It doesn't matter. The position that differences aren't possible is a position that crumbles when the evidence shows otherwise. My position, on the other hand, is that all people should be afforded the same basic rights, regardless of their differences.

Note that my position does not hinge on crossing my fingers and hoping that the future of science corresponds with my sense of morality. My position weathers any outcome.

[homogeneous]

> My position, on the other hand, is that all people should be afforded the same basic rights, regardless of their differences.

Great, you've espoused the ostensible position of every person who isn't a self-identified racist.

> The position that differences aren't possible

Differences are clearly possible and readily apparent, my point is that any definitive conclusions drawn from correlations to "race" are of dubious merit because our racial definitions (as defined by the government and thus as it relates to policy) are imprecise heuristic amalgamations of apparent phenotypes. Skin tone, hair texture, facial structure in addition to language pretty much constitute the entirety of racial identity, so the impulse to group abstract polygenic characteristics like intelligence into what is essentially an individual's outward appearance doesn't lead to much in the way of profound insight. It's like trying to draw conclusions about road safety by measuring the correlation between car color and rate of receipt of speeding citations.

[quicknir]

I don't know what you mean by "definitive conclusions". Any conclusions that will be made will naturally be statistical in nature, and obviously the boundaries between groups are fuzzy in many cases. That does not mean that groups do not exist. It's not a coincidence you can pass people by on the street and readily identify 95% of them as being "white", "Asian", "Indian (/Pakistani/etc)", "black", etc, and that if multiple people perform this task, the agreement will be very high. It's obviously shared genetics that are causing these groupings, and if shared genetics are leading to statistically significant identifiable observable characteristics in one area (appearance), it's reasonable to ask if they are leading to other statistically significant differences.

These differences are already used very widely in discussions about policy, as you noted, and that's exactly part of the reason why it should be fair game to fully investigate those differences.

[homogeneous]

> I don't know what you mean by "definitive conclusions"

I mean any conclusions that follow from a baseline assumption that certain races are genetically predisposed towards abstract characteristics. For example "we should target white communities for voluntary firearm buy-back programs because white people are genetically pre-disposed to firearm suicide." We know that white people are statistically more likely to commit suicide and statistically more likely to use a gun to do it, we also know that genetics play a large role in suicide risk, what does not follow is that the common genetic factors that culminate to express the phenotypes that are unscientifically identified as "white" necessarily imply the existence of genetic factors that increase suicide risk.

You might ask, "Well what's the practical difference? In your example we should still target white people for the buy-back because the statistics show the population we define as white is the most vulnerable". To this I say, that's ok, we collected data on "white" people so targeting them for assistance is the best we can do, but it doesn't mean that we cannot do better in the future by disentangling the specific genetic factors that increase suicide risk from the opaque genetic category of "white" people.

> It's not a coincidence you can pass people by on the street and readily identify 95% of them as being "white", "Asian", "Indian (/Pakistani/etc)", "black", etc, and that if multiple people perform this task, the agreement will be very high. It's obviously shared genetics that are causing these groupings

Right, what I'm saying is that walking down the street and categorizing people into races based on how they look is a crude and unscientific (but efficient) method for grouping people with some shared genetics. Obviously, shared genetics are at the root of these groupings because genetics are the foundation of all phenotypes, but it is not a given that the presence of the phenotypes used to define arbitrary categories like "white" or "black" or "indian" necessarily account for the genetic factors that culminate to make someone more or less prone to violence, or intelligence, or an affinity for musical composition.

> These differences are already used very widely in discussions about policy, as you noted, and that's exactly part of the reason why it should be fair game to fully investigate those differences.

Investigate away, I have no problem with that, we use racial categories because they are practical, what I reject is the hypothesis that we will one day be able to prove that there is an intrinsic link between the particular genes that cause the expression of a given phenotype and the specific polygenes that constitute complex characteristics like intelligence.

[delazeur]

False dichotomy. People who currently assume that there is no correlation between skin pigmentation and intelligence are unlikely to stop believing in equal human rights if genetic studies were to prove them wrong.

On the other hand, people who believe that there is such a correlation have a convenient excuse to consider themselves objectively superior while smugly granting rights to the inferior races.

[dionidium]

It's always the people most against innocuous suggestions about the possibility of differences that use words like "superiority." That is your hang-up, not mine.

[delazeur]

Look, if you're going to go around blowing white supremacist dog whistles then you don't get to act surprised when people call you a white supremacist.

Is it possible that you're not really a white supremacist, and that you're just leaving your mind open to whatever the science determines? Maybe. But if that's the case, the burden is on you to convince us clearly and thoroughly that you are not a racist.

[dionidium]

Yours is an unfortunate if predictable reply that demonstrates how (generally) broken this discussion is. I don't think it's possible to dispassionately read into my comment what you have. You're plainly layering a bunch of your own stuff on top of my argument.

[serge2k]

Everyone gets the same rights, but it's important we acknowledge that race X is smarter than race Y.

It's okay though because race Y is better at other things. They are better at physical labour for example.

It's just basic nature. Should cause no controversy at all.

[dionidium]

It's important to develop a human rights philosophy that is resilient to uncomfortable discoveries about genetics.

[delazeur]

Quiet you, we're supposed to be subtler than that!

[delazeur]

> You're plainly layering a bunch of your own stuff on top of my argument.

There is baggage associated with your argument, and it didn't originate from me. You can't deny that. What you can do is acknowledge the baggage and disavow it. You have not done so, which leads me to suspect that you might be comfortable with the baggage.

As far as I can tell, all you have contributed to this conversation are the assertions that inherent racial differences "almost certainly" exist and that those who disagree have a world view that is inconsistent with universal basic rights, followed by affectedly exasperated claims that anyone who disagrees with you is simply too encumbered by hang-ups and complexes to understand your reality. Do you understand that even if your position is genuinely non-racist, you have completely failed to communicate that? Part of communication is recognizing the broader context in which our words will be interpreted and addressing that context. We do not have the privilege of communicating in a vacuum.

Put another way, and charitably assuming that you are not a white supremacist, what's different between what you have said and what a white supremacist would say if they were trying to be oblique about it?

[dionidium]

I was responding to this original assertion:

> once we start thinking that one is better than the other, we get hierarchy, and we get superiority

...with a rebuttal that argues against drawing that conclusion on the basis that uncomfortable discoveries do not imply a hierarchy.

In other words -- and note how absurd this is -- you're saying that my position, which is that differences need not and should not imply a hierarchy, implies not only that I do think there is a hierarchy, but that it's a hierarchy with whites on top.

You drew the exact opposite conclusion from very plain words.

Bluntly: the game you're playing -- you're a white supremacist until you say otherwise! -- is gross. I've said absolutely nothing to imply that I am one. (Again, I actually said exactly the opposite.) Your attempt to hold me hostage is absurd.

And before you respond that I still haven't denied it: Knock it off. This is not how adults disagree.