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Are racism, misogyny, and superstition useful or useless? Now one could argue that those things are not right or left wing. There is no epistemology for what an

by analog31 10mo ago

Are racism, misogyny, and superstition useful or useless? Now one could argue that those things are not right or left wing. There is no epistemology for what any given ideology -- political or religious -- consists of. An apologist can simply deny that "negative" things are part of their ideology.

nis0s 10mo ago
> Are racism, misogyny, and superstition useful or useless? Someone can just call you racist, misogynist, or whatever. Those labels don’t mean anything anymore because they’re used as weapons to shut down anyone who is ideologically opposed to you. Are some people racist or misogynistic, yes. But when you use these labels carelessly for anyone who says something you don’t like, you pave the way for actual racists and misogynists because they can call you unreasonable, inaccurate or unreliable. And what is an apologist, exactly? If you’re unable to come up with a different way to look at something, that doesn’t make someone else who looks at the same thing in a different way an apologist. These are just political smears of the incurious or browbeaters. Just because the leftists happen to align themselves with pro-social values that I prefer, like anti-racism or anti-misogyny, doesn’t mean they’re right about everything.
ndsipa_pomu 10mo ago
> Are racism, misogyny, and superstition useful or useless? Obviously, they're useless and counter-productive. There's no rational reason to think that there is a significant difference between people with different skin/eye/hair colour or between genders, but it's obviously a simplistic tribal belief. What we end up getting is a huge amount of wasted talent because of tribal politics - imagine how many Einstein-like intellects have died in poverty with no access to education. It seems to me that people use racism and misogyny to help them stockpile wealth which is a big detriment to society - rather than working together, we have people working against other people. Even the idea of "races" is itself flawed and has no meaningful basis apart from "they look different".
- nis0s 10mo ago
  > Even the idea of "races" is itself flawed and has no meaningful basis apart from "they look different". Agreed. There are genetic differences between families (think: extended blood relatives, but even those differences change after enough generations), but they’re hardly along racial lines.

nis0s 10mo ago

> Are racism, misogyny, and superstition useful or useless? Someone can just call you racist, misogynist, or whatever. Those labels don’t mean anything anymore because they’re used as weapons to shut down anyone who is ideologically opposed to you. Are some people racist or misogynistic, yes. But when you use these labels carelessly for anyone who says something you don’t like, you pave the way for actual racists and misogynists because they can call you unreasonable, inaccurate or unreliable. And what is an apologist, exactly? If you’re unable to come up with a different way to look at something, that doesn’t make someone else who looks at the same thing in a different way an apologist. These are just political smears of the incurious or browbeaters. Just because the leftists happen to align themselves with pro-social values that I prefer, like anti-racism or anti-misogyny, doesn’t mean they’re right about everything.

ndsipa_pomu 10mo ago

> Are racism, misogyny, and superstition useful or useless? Obviously, they're useless and counter-productive. There's no rational reason to think that there is a significant difference between people with different skin/eye/hair colour or between genders, but it's obviously a simplistic tribal belief. What we end up getting is a huge amount of wasted talent because of tribal politics - imagine how many Einstein-like intellects have died in poverty with no access to education. It seems to me that people use racism and misogyny to help them stockpile wealth which is a big detriment to society - rather than working together, we have people working against other people. Even the idea of "races" is itself flawed and has no meaningful basis apart from "they look different".

nis0s 10mo ago
> Even the idea of "races" is itself flawed and has no meaningful basis apart from "they look different". Agreed. There are genetic differences between families (think: extended blood relatives, but even those differences change after enough generations), but they’re hardly along racial lines.