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> To be clear, as always, I am not defending the Tuskegee experiment, the people who did it, their views, or anything of the sort. But it looks to me as though

> To be clear, as always, I am not defending the Tuskegee experiment, the people who did it, their views, or anything of the sort. But it looks to me as though you are tirelessly excusing the researchers and spending many hours starting from the conclusion that there was nothing racist about what went on at Tuskegee and then reasoning backwards. All humans are capable of racist actions, but some uphold the moral duty to fight against that tendency more conscientiously than others.

somenameforme 2y ago
Having logical, or indeed even sympathetic, reasons for doing bad things does not excuse doing bad things. This is the entire point, and how history should be studied, because it emphasizes the underlying lessons to be learned. In this thread every attempt to paint the researchers as evil racists is relatively easy to factually rebuke. And it's because they weren't. They easily could have been you or I. And this is why it's so important to study history and actually try to genuinely understand the perspective of bad individuals. Basically the entirety of evils in human history is people saying 'Okay, I know I'm doing bad things. But I'm a good person and I have very good, exceptional, reasons for doing these bad things. And once this is over we'll have a much better world for everybody, so it's okay in this instance.' And a lot of the times, the logic and rhetoric used is appealing. This is why it's so absolutely important to understand it, study it, and endeavor to never fall into such rationalization ever again. Because after all is said and done, this grand utopia we envision at the end will likely never come to pass, or anything even like it - whether or not we succeed, yet all of these evils done in the name of the pursuit of such absolutely do come to pass.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  I think I see the confusion. We're saying that "racist" is a useful description of a type of human thought / behaviour. You seem to think it's a demonising invocation of Godwin's Law that's incompatible with empathy. One level more meta, though: if, as a society, we treat racist behaviour as inexcusable, that makes it less likely to occur. Treating racists as "reasonable, but mistaken" is actually in the neo-Nazi playbook. (I understand the impulse, though: I used to do it myself, until I realised that I was making up historical "facts" in order to justify the attitudes of racists. I really don't want to believe that some people are bad people… but racism is a choice, a habit; not a mere mistake about the facts. Ignoring that legitimises it.)
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    The issue is you're not "making up" anything. One group had a syphilis rate of 30%, about an order of magnitude higher than everybody else. Race, to me, is simply another group, and should be treated as such. So imagine if it turned out that blondes had had a syphilis rate an order of magnitude higher than everybody else. Would it have fundamentally changed things? I don't think so. And indeed at such point we would likely have all sorts of colorful quotes about blondes. Is that hairism, or now somehow not a grave offense because it's a different group?
    - wizzwizz4 2y ago
      > The issue is you're not "making up" anything. Reread what you're ardently defending, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40974970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40974970 Your abstract point is (mostly) valid, but you keep trying to tie it back to "and therefore that isn't racist". I described it as ¾ disproved by basic observation. You're defending the other ¼, then acting like that justifies the original claims. I'll assume good faith, and ask: are you aware that you're doing racist propaganda? (I have literally heard these exact arguments, third sentence onwards, from self-professed White Supremacists.)
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        Please elaborate and tell me what exactly you think I'm defending or not, as opposed to just linking to somebody quoting some Wiki editor. Because otherwise I have no idea what you're saying. And I couldn't care less who agrees or disagrees with my views. When formulating a view I always engage in the same pattern - look to the falsifiable facts and data on any given issue and come to the conclusion that I think is the most logically and factually well supported. Wherever that leads is what I tend to believe. Others say they do the same of course, but I can't help but notice so few seem people comparably obsessed with reading (or providing) sources on information (and the scarce time it is provided, it often tends to be from the TellMeMyOpinionIsRight.com type sources), which makes me doubt the overall sincerity of most on this.

somenameforme 2y ago

Having logical, or indeed even sympathetic, reasons for doing bad things does not excuse doing bad things. This is the entire point, and how history should be studied, because it emphasizes the underlying lessons to be learned. In this thread every attempt to paint the researchers as evil racists is relatively easy to factually rebuke. And it's because they weren't. They easily could have been you or I. And this is why it's so important to study history and actually try to genuinely understand the perspective of bad individuals. Basically the entirety of evils in human history is people saying 'Okay, I know I'm doing bad things. But I'm a good person and I have very good, exceptional, reasons for doing these bad things. And once this is over we'll have a much better world for everybody, so it's okay in this instance.' And a lot of the times, the logic and rhetoric used is appealing. This is why it's so absolutely important to understand it, study it, and endeavor to never fall into such rationalization ever again. Because after all is said and done, this grand utopia we envision at the end will likely never come to pass, or anything even like it - whether or not we succeed, yet all of these evils done in the name of the pursuit of such absolutely do come to pass.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
wizzwizz4 2y ago
I think I see the confusion. We're saying that "racist" is a useful description of a type of human thought / behaviour. You seem to think it's a demonising invocation of Godwin's Law that's incompatible with empathy. One level more meta, though: if, as a society, we treat racist behaviour as inexcusable, that makes it less likely to occur. Treating racists as "reasonable, but mistaken" is actually in the neo-Nazi playbook. (I understand the impulse, though: I used to do it myself, until I realised that I was making up historical "facts" in order to justify the attitudes of racists. I really don't want to believe that some people are bad people… but racism is a choice, a habit; not a mere mistake about the facts. Ignoring that legitimises it.)
- somenameforme 2y ago
  The issue is you're not "making up" anything. One group had a syphilis rate of 30%, about an order of magnitude higher than everybody else. Race, to me, is simply another group, and should be treated as such. So imagine if it turned out that blondes had had a syphilis rate an order of magnitude higher than everybody else. Would it have fundamentally changed things? I don't think so. And indeed at such point we would likely have all sorts of colorful quotes about blondes. Is that hairism, or now somehow not a grave offense because it's a different group?
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    > The issue is you're not "making up" anything. Reread what you're ardently defending, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40974970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40974970 Your abstract point is (mostly) valid, but you keep trying to tie it back to "and therefore that isn't racist". I described it as ¾ disproved by basic observation. You're defending the other ¼, then acting like that justifies the original claims. I'll assume good faith, and ask: are you aware that you're doing racist propaganda? (I have literally heard these exact arguments, third sentence onwards, from self-professed White Supremacists.)
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      Please elaborate and tell me what exactly you think I'm defending or not, as opposed to just linking to somebody quoting some Wiki editor. Because otherwise I have no idea what you're saying. And I couldn't care less who agrees or disagrees with my views. When formulating a view I always engage in the same pattern - look to the falsifiable facts and data on any given issue and come to the conclusion that I think is the most logically and factually well supported. Wherever that leads is what I tend to believe. Others say they do the same of course, but I can't help but notice so few seem people comparably obsessed with reading (or providing) sources on information (and the scarce time it is provided, it often tends to be from the TellMeMyOpinionIsRight.com type sources), which makes me doubt the overall sincerity of most on this.