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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.

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.

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 3620 days ago

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.

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

Why does your "philosophy" have to presume that such hypothetical uncomfortable discoveries are actual fact? Why can't you accept that we don't understand genetics nearly that well and that human rights aren't based on genetics? Why do you believe that people who disagree with you are basing their philosophies on genetics? I don't believe a person with Downs Syndrome is entitled to fewer rights, for example.

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

> 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?

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.