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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4046 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 26, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Jump in the discussion.

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But what can you do with that information

Refute the presumption that difference in outcome is evidence of discrimination.

Would it be a better world on net?

As stated above: no one can answer that.

But, let's say it wasn't: should we necessarily care? If you're the guy missing out on university and job placements and harangued for keeping the blacks (but not the Asians somehow) down, you may just want it over with and fuck the world (who honestly cares about "the world on net" in any serious way besides EA-types tbh?)

I dislike utilitarians in large part because of this very line of thinking. Those questions are far too hard to answer. You presume to know the answer, that the world would necessarily be worse, and then use that assumption to justify elite control.

In deontology, there is no justifying or downplaying the noble lie. In utilitarianism there is. That is the difference.

More broadly, you can permit evil so long as you think it'll work out in the end. Dangerous way to think when predicting the future is as hard as it is.

A world in which we do not conspire to lie to people for political purposes. If it's not okay for the CDC or WHO to lie to the public about facemasks or vaccines in the context of COVID because they think they know what's good for us, why should it be okay for them to lie to us about heredity? If we don't trust people with the truth, then why have a democracy at all?

Individuals learn to deal with the fact that they are too short to play in the NBA or not smart enough to win a Nobel prize in physics. Inhabitants of small countries learn to deal with the fact that they will never be a great power and need to play the game of geopolitics more wisely than superpowers that can blunder from one mistake to the next with few consequences. We all must come to terms with our own mortality. I don't see how this is any different, and in fact it may not even need to be an eternal truth if we invest in embryo selection technology.

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