/ratanon/ - Rationalists Anonymous

>>7751

>HBD is racist

You don't have a very clear idea of what racism is. (Or, rather, you might, but I believe you're incorrect)

HBD is racialist, which means that you believe races exist (and, of course, this implies that races have different qualities. What else would it mean for races to exist?).

Racism is when you believe that one person's utility can be worth less than another person's utility, based on race.

These are often confused because most people are not good at utilitarianism, and because racism implies racialism.

>>7752

Let's be real. Racism, racialism, race realism, scientific racism, HBD: these are all synonyms. The only reason the other terms exist is to evade the thought police (and it doesn't work very well…try explaining to your normie friends that you're a "racialist, not a racist" and tell me how it goes).

>Racism is when you believe that one person's utility can be worth less than another person's utility, based on race.

Your definition implies all racists are utilitarians, which is clearly not the case.

>>7753

His definition does not imply that, people still have utility and beliefs about it if they're not utilitarians, because utility is a word to talk about something real-ish.

You're equaly confused on the racism issue, that normies think HBD = racism just shows how brainwashed they are. This is not a democratic issue…

>>7754

>people still have utility

>utility is a word to talk about something real-ish.

I'll believe you when you show me a device that observes/measures utility.

>>7755

Come on, I think utilitarianism is retardedly autistic but it doesn't take that much cognition to understand what anon was trying to say.

As to measuring utility, get me a whip and take your pants off, Kek.

Taboo "racism".

When I was in kindergarten there were two black brothers. One was a cool dude and the other one ate his own boogers.

Never had anything against black people up through college. Then I started reading and agreeing with Steve Sailer and I still didn't get anything against black people.

What do you really want, OP?

>>7752

What about a utilitarian who agrees that utility doesn't depend on who is experiencing it, but who also thinks that HBD is true and that a society without black people would contain greater happiness and less suffering? By that definition, they wouldn't be a racist, right?

(pic unrelated obviously)

>>7757

I agree, this whole thread needs to taboo that word.

>>7759

The thread so far is a clumsy flail in the direction of "taboo that word", plus a retarded tangent about "utility" that demands word-tabooing.

So, it's a fucking shit-show, that's what this thread is. Has anyone in /ratanon/ actually read the sequences? Fuck!

Anyway, on-topic, normalising "racism" seems the best strategy to stop being retarded about race, given existing retarded ideas about race in the cultural milieu (i.e. that it doesn't even exist except when whitey is an imperialist).

>>7760

If I hadn't read the sequences, how would I know to taboo words?

(I skipped the quantum mechanics section, but the people I talked to said this was OK)

>>7761

Well, yeah, that was hyperbole, and directed at the rest of the thread more than at you, I meant that a distressing proportion of /ratanon/ seems to lack the insights from the sequences.

>>7762

The sequences are garbage, nothing new in them just buzzwords and cultish behaviour. Seriously if people want to argue something then do so, "Read the sequences!" is cringe worthy.

>>7756

I have no idea what anon was trying to say. The notion that you can quantify and meaningfully sum pleasure and suffering is as silly as quantifying and meaningfully summing the experience of the color red and the experience of hearing the note D#.

I don't see why a non-utilitarian would believe in these moronic absurdities, and so any talk of "utility" is literally meaningless.

>>7764

You can use lotteries to extract cardinal utilities. For example, "would you prefer one ice cream for certain or a 10% chance of sex with Kate Upton?" Of course, two issues complicate that: 1) humans aren't very good at reasoning under uncertainty (see prospect theory), 2) decision-utility and hedonic-utility are not exactly the same. Kahneman has some papers on those issues (and he discusses them in the last few chapters of TFS).

I don't think it's totally ridiculous to assume that a 50% chance of electrical shock pain is a priori half as bad as a 100% chance of electrical shock pain, and if you accept that then it doesn't take too many extra assumptions to get to additive utility. (e.g., a risk-neutral, non-masochist person would prefer a 50% chance of three pain-shocks over a 100% chance of two shocks)

The people who think only ordinal preference rankings are valid (i.e. Austrians) are the moronic ones, IMO.

>>7763

even if they _are_ garbage, they're slightly warmed over used Kleenex instead of flaming disposable diaper garbage. Getting _all_ of /ratanon/ up to snotrags-tier from flaming shit-tier would be an improvement.

As an aside, I didn't notice any "hao 2 kult" or "kults r good" in the sequences. Can you point out where this stuff was? The harem parts of Sword Art Online flew over my head, so I can't trust my cult-dar at all.

>>7764

You can declare that it's silly, but as long as you can understand the silly idea enough to have a meaningful discussion about it, there still shouldn't be any problem with understanding the meaning of "racists think black people's utility is worth less".

>>7766

Well, there is stuff in the sequences relevant to the cult question - "Every Cause Wants To Be A Cult", "Cultish Countercultishness" - but mostly that's addressing the concerns of people crying "cult" at the sequences which they were doing even back in '07.