5 ms·

Let me sharpen the dilemma: Are some people better than others, or not?

by Kednicma 6y ago

recursivedoubts 6y ago
Unfortunately that makes the dilemma less clear, although more emotionally powerful. Good rhetoric, bad dialectic.
- Kednicma 6y ago
  Hey, if you can't handle the bull, then don't be a bullfighter. The answer's pretty dirt simple, although you don't like it: Humans are broadly just one single race, one single species, with roughly the same cognitive abilities as each other. We've been this way for thousands of years, possibly tens of thousands. The major developments in human history since then have been technological and cultural. Edit: Could you show us more? In particular, could you show how my reasoning is faulty? I know how Socrates would handle my dilemma, for example. Look, the fact is that meritocratic beliefs eventually boil down to eugenics and race realism at some point. Eventually we start saying that individuals can have their merit measured, and we move to a totally utilitarian society ala Gattaca. I don't particularly care whether you want this, but it's ridiculous to do; it would bring about the ruin of our gene pool. Because I think that this is a bad outcome, sure, I'm motivated to use reason to examine it. But also, it's only because of reason that I'm able to tell that the outcome will be bad! Don't get upset at reason just because it shows you what you didn't want to know. You seem to know "the truth". Want to share?
  - recursivedoubts 6y ago
    Ad hominems are not useful dialectically either. Your emotionalism is leading you away from the truth, which will lead to bad reasoning and, therefore, bad outcomes. Edit: "Look, the fact is that meritocratic beliefs eventually boil down to eugenics and race realism at some point." This is one place, among many, where your reasoning is faulty. This may be a limiting case of meritocracy (I am not committing to that, but I can see the argument). But I am not arguing for pure meritocracy. Rather I am arguing for giving both luck and merit proportional consideration, and varying that proportion over success curves. This is more complex than the manichean viewpoint you are arguing, but I believe it conforms with reality more closely. I oppose both eugenics as well as racial reasoning (race is such a broad genetic category as to be meaningless in most discussions) on both logical and religious grounds.
  - mistermann 6y ago
    > In particular, could you show how my reasoning is faulty? I'll give two: - you believe things to be true that you have no way of knowing are true. - you seem to believe you can predict the future.
dsnr 6y ago
If by „better“ you mean better cognitive abilities, then yes, some people ar better in this regard.
- Kednicma 6y ago
  Okay, could you show it? In particular, while you can point to something like the g-factor, can you show that the g-factor exists? It is currently completely hypothetical that such differences exist. For a good example of evidence, look at the Flynn effect. One way to read the effect is that people dramatically got smarter over the past century, but...how? What exactly actually changed? The biggest correlate is education, suggesting that the quality of schooling is far more important than any innate ability. Edit: Ah, you believe in IQ. I presume that you won't simply let me win the argument just because of my high IQ, though? So IQ isn't everything. More importantly, though, note that IQ also correlates with sex and skin color, but a cursory look at the genes says that that correlation must be spurious. So indeed what we see is that IQ actually correlates with quality of education, which then goes on to correlate with both sex and skin color thanks to the sexism and racism inherent in our educational system.
  - dsnr 6y ago
    The fact that there has been measured an increase in average IQ of the world population, doesn‘t mean that the differences between individuals don‘t exist. Look up some studies and you will see that there are huge differences in IQ, and intelligence is the number one predictor of an individual‘s success.

Let me sharpen the dilemma: Are some people better than others, or not?

recursivedoubts 6y ago

Unfortunately that makes the dilemma less clear, although more emotionally powerful. Good rhetoric, bad dialectic.

Kednicma 6y ago
Hey, if you can't handle the bull, then don't be a bullfighter. The answer's pretty dirt simple, although you don't like it: Humans are broadly just one single race, one single species, with roughly the same cognitive abilities as each other. We've been this way for thousands of years, possibly tens of thousands. The major developments in human history since then have been technological and cultural. Edit: Could you show us more? In particular, could you show how my reasoning is faulty? I know how Socrates would handle my dilemma, for example. Look, the fact is that meritocratic beliefs eventually boil down to eugenics and race realism at some point. Eventually we start saying that individuals can have their merit measured, and we move to a totally utilitarian society ala Gattaca. I don't particularly care whether you want this, but it's ridiculous to do; it would bring about the ruin of our gene pool. Because I think that this is a bad outcome, sure, I'm motivated to use reason to examine it. But also, it's only because of reason that I'm able to tell that the outcome will be bad! Don't get upset at reason just because it shows you what you didn't want to know. You seem to know "the truth". Want to share?
- recursivedoubts 6y ago
  Ad hominems are not useful dialectically either. Your emotionalism is leading you away from the truth, which will lead to bad reasoning and, therefore, bad outcomes. Edit: "Look, the fact is that meritocratic beliefs eventually boil down to eugenics and race realism at some point." This is one place, among many, where your reasoning is faulty. This may be a limiting case of meritocracy (I am not committing to that, but I can see the argument). But I am not arguing for pure meritocracy. Rather I am arguing for giving both luck and merit proportional consideration, and varying that proportion over success curves. This is more complex than the manichean viewpoint you are arguing, but I believe it conforms with reality more closely. I oppose both eugenics as well as racial reasoning (race is such a broad genetic category as to be meaningless in most discussions) on both logical and religious grounds.
- mistermann 6y ago
  > In particular, could you show how my reasoning is faulty? I'll give two: - you believe things to be true that you have no way of knowing are true. - you seem to believe you can predict the future.

dsnr 6y ago

If by „better“ you mean better cognitive abilities, then yes, some people ar better in this regard.

Kednicma 6y ago
Okay, could you show it? In particular, while you can point to something like the g-factor, can you show that the g-factor exists? It is currently completely hypothetical that such differences exist. For a good example of evidence, look at the Flynn effect. One way to read the effect is that people dramatically got smarter over the past century, but...how? What exactly actually changed? The biggest correlate is education, suggesting that the quality of schooling is far more important than any innate ability. Edit: Ah, you believe in IQ. I presume that you won't simply let me win the argument just because of my high IQ, though? So IQ isn't everything. More importantly, though, note that IQ also correlates with sex and skin color, but a cursory look at the genes says that that correlation must be spurious. So indeed what we see is that IQ actually correlates with quality of education, which then goes on to correlate with both sex and skin color thanks to the sexism and racism inherent in our educational system.
- dsnr 6y ago
  The fact that there has been measured an increase in average IQ of the world population, doesn‘t mean that the differences between individuals don‘t exist. Look up some studies and you will see that there are huge differences in IQ, and intelligence is the number one predictor of an individual‘s success.