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>I have no expertise on this topic but it seems to me that some people are truly smarter than others Ironic that if you say this almost anywhere (academia, Red

>I have no expertise on this topic but it seems to me that some people are truly smarter than others Ironic that if you say this almost anywhere (academia, Reddit, your local bar) people immediately assume you're talking about Eugenics, accuse you of racism and try to get you fired.

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
I’m kind of confused because I’ve never heard of “some people are smarter than others” to be a eugenicist position. That’s more for stuff like “we should have IQ minimums to become parents” or something.
- korroziya 4y ago
  Slightly related: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    > While his hope was that everybody was equal, he added, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true". I mean, that's pretty clearly racism.
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      This is why I don’t take anyone who says “you can’t talk about X anymore” seriously.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  At the time of eugenics “some people are smarter than others” was self evident. Now we’re entering an era where “all inequality is due to systemic racism” where the act of finding a cause that isn’t systemic racism is in effect acting in support of that very system. Which makes it unfalsifiable and thus not a theory but a new religion.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    You’re constructing a straw-man argument. Nobody believes the thing you think you are refuting.
    - cjbgkagh 4y ago
      The book The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality by Kathryn Paige Harden does. It’s written by a progressive for progressives. It’s not logically sound and admits to taking such a position on faith in the service of being anti-racist.
      - jeffbee 4y ago
        [flagged]
        cjbgkagh 4y ago
        I assumed you were stating that no-one believes the second point not that no-one believes the first point. Yes, she takes the view that individually some people are smarter than others due to purely random factors, a combinations of variants, she also takes the view that the important variants for intelligence are basically equally distributed among races. Thus the inter racial group differences must be due to racism. The book is an attempt to split the difference and in doing so spells out the explicit biases that must be taken on faith. Which is what makes it interesting. The book as gotten quite a bit of push back on the "some people are smarter than others" aspect which demonstrates that there exist people that believe that some people are not inherently smarter than others. I should have been more explicit on my second message but your response was trite and I assumed in bad faith.
syzarian 4y ago
I don't know why you are down voted. I've been accused of racism for saying that some people are smarter than others. I guess it is a given for some people that a person's worthiness is tied to their intelligence. I hold no such view but I guess people assume that since I think some are smarter than others then there must be a racial component to said belief. I would never say to colleagues at my university that I hold the belief that some people have more intellectual talent than others. Amongst certain vocal subgroups of academia an unassailable core belief they hold is that all people are equal in intellectual abilities and that only external factors contribute to any divergence in perceived intellectual talent or in knowledge.
- chaxor 4y ago
  If someone says that the phrase 'some people are smarter than others' is racist, that's specifically them being racist, (as they're the ones who brought race into it in their own mind) not the speaker of the phrase.

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago

I’m kind of confused because I’ve never heard of “some people are smarter than others” to be a eugenicist position. That’s more for stuff like “we should have IQ minimums to become parents” or something.

korroziya 4y ago
Slightly related: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  > While his hope was that everybody was equal, he added, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true". I mean, that's pretty clearly racism.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    This is why I don’t take anyone who says “you can’t talk about X anymore” seriously.
cjbgkagh 4y ago
At the time of eugenics “some people are smarter than others” was self evident. Now we’re entering an era where “all inequality is due to systemic racism” where the act of finding a cause that isn’t systemic racism is in effect acting in support of that very system. Which makes it unfalsifiable and thus not a theory but a new religion.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  You’re constructing a straw-man argument. Nobody believes the thing you think you are refuting.
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    The book The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality by Kathryn Paige Harden does. It’s written by a progressive for progressives. It’s not logically sound and admits to taking such a position on faith in the service of being anti-racist.
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - cjbgkagh 4y ago
        I assumed you were stating that no-one believes the second point not that no-one believes the first point. Yes, she takes the view that individually some people are smarter than others due to purely random factors, a combinations of variants, she also takes the view that the important variants for intelligence are basically equally distributed among races. Thus the inter racial group differences must be due to racism. The book is an attempt to split the difference and in doing so spells out the explicit biases that must be taken on faith. Which is what makes it interesting. The book as gotten quite a bit of push back on the "some people are smarter than others" aspect which demonstrates that there exist people that believe that some people are not inherently smarter than others. I should have been more explicit on my second message but your response was trite and I assumed in bad faith.

syzarian 4y ago

I don't know why you are down voted. I've been accused of racism for saying that some people are smarter than others. I guess it is a given for some people that a person's worthiness is tied to their intelligence. I hold no such view but I guess people assume that since I think some are smarter than others then there must be a racial component to said belief. I would never say to colleagues at my university that I hold the belief that some people have more intellectual talent than others. Amongst certain vocal subgroups of academia an unassailable core belief they hold is that all people are equal in intellectual abilities and that only external factors contribute to any divergence in perceived intellectual talent or in knowledge.

chaxor 4y ago
If someone says that the phrase 'some people are smarter than others' is racist, that's specifically them being racist, (as they're the ones who brought race into it in their own mind) not the speaker of the phrase.