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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   33693 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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I'm struggling with this one and it bothers me. Not quite a stereotype but at work most of the time people come off as smarter and more competent when I interact with them one on one, then through project managers. So if I'm screaming at an email chain that so and so is a fucking idiot I try to go talk to them in person and things end up better.

I asked google and got these fun responses from the AI:

Many stereotypes are not true, including stereotypes about intelligence, gender, and race:

Intelligence: The stereotype that Asian Americans are intelligent is not true.

Gender: The stereotype that women are not as competent as men is not true.

Race: The stereotype that African Americans are less educated is not true.

Race: The stereotype that African Americans are less educated is not true.

It bothers me that I have no problem imagining a woke person asserting that this stereotype is false, and then in the next breath asserting that lower rates of educational attainment among African-Americans is one of many metrics demonstrating the extent to which the US is still a systemically racist country. It should not be possible for a mentally sane person to simultaneously believe "owing to systemic racism, African-Americans have lower rates of educational attainment than white Americans" and "the notion that African-Americans are less educated than white Americans is a false and harmful stereotype".

Like, if you believe that African-Americans are less likely to get an education because of racist policies or teachers or how assessment procedures, that directly implies that African-Americans are less educated than white Americans! The latter "stereotype" cannot be false without completely invalidating the former assertion.

Related: https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/if-you-believe-in-structural-racism-16c

It should not be possible for a mentally sane person to simultaneously believe "owing to systemic racism, African-Americans have lower rates of educational attainment than white Americans" and "the notion that African-Americans are less educated than white Americans is a false and harmful stereotype".

Why not?

I'm reminded of a past therapist who thought it was unhealthy to care about whether your beliefs are consistent with reality, or with each other, and that "rationalists" are all mentally ill, because not only do most people believe things simply because their peer group believes them, this is how sane people are supposed to acquire all their beliefs. Don't think about it, just believe whatever's popular to believe because it's popular. As social animals, the most important thing in life is fitting in, and therefore one should choose one's beliefs entirely in line with that goal.

It's why she said I should stop being an atheist and start going to church — because atheism is "weird" and believing in God is more popular, therefore belief in God is automatically more sane.

Thus, in her view, if it's popular (and high status) to simultaneously believe "owing to systemic racism, African-Americans have lower rates of educational attainment than white Americans" and "the notion that African-Americans are less educated than white Americans is a false and harmful stereotype," then holding both beliefs is "mentally sane" despite their contradictory nature, and that even stopping to think about them enough to notice that they contradict each other is bad for your mental health, and should be avoided. "Sanity" is uncritically embracing vox populi, vox Dei.

I wonder what your therapist would have made of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Doublethink promotes wellness?

Psychiatry is all about normalcy. If the people saying that have power over you, it's an evidence that you are less sane than them.

Wait, what?

I asked Grok. It spit out lots of similar "false" stereotypes including this one:

Women are naturally better at nurturing and childcare: While some women might excel in these areas, many women do not feel an innate drive for motherhood or might not exhibit traditionally nurturing behaviors.

When I pushed back strongly, it did admit that women are, in fact, more nurturing then men but refused to do it in an unqualified way, always adding "it's important to remember" platitudes to the end.

So much for a based AI any time soon I guess.

Some days I wish people (or AIs) would actually think through their statements instead of just saying things that support their side on the topic of conversation.

African Americans aren't less educated? I guess it's mission accomplished for Affirmative Action, and all of the stats about race and educational attainment must be simply mistaken. Same with race/sex and medical treatment, as well as many other minor issues.

It's one of the things that really turned me off of social justice causes and their supporters.

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