My Thoughts on Bostrom's "Apology for an Old Email"

I've also downvoted other things that promote one-dimensional tribalist conflict on this issue. In general I don't support escalation to even-more-clearly-defined battle lines; this is precisely how conflicts become worse.

Leaving aside some object-level stuff about Bostrom's views, I still think the apology could be much better without any dishonesty on his part. This is somewhat subjective but things that I think could have been better:

• Don't frame the apology at the beginning as almost purely instrumental i.e. not like "I will get smeared soon, so I want to get ahead of the game". This makes everything come across as less genuine. 
• "What about eugenics? Do I support eugenics? No, not as the term is commonly understood." - This is just not a useful thing to mention in an apology about racism, or at least, not in this way. Usually, if someone says "Don't think of an elephant" then you do think of an elephant. The consequence is now people are probably more likely to think there is a link between Bostrom and eugenics than if this was written differently.
• And some other points that Habiba mentioned in her post e.g. "I am deeply uncomfortable with a discussion of race and intelligence failing to acknowledge the historical context of the ideas’ origin and the harm they can and have caused."

In my opinion it just highlights some basic misunderstandings about communication and our society today, which (I think) was proven by the fairly widespread negative backlash to this incident.

I don't agree, and here is why:

I never claimed animus had anything to do with this (1). 

What I claim is that this belief is harmful and untrue, and celebrating "epistemic integrity" in such cases - as with Holocaust denial - doesn't make any sense. 

Your claim that "blacks are less intelligent.." is pretty much as widely discredited as Holocaust denial (2), supported with as sparse evidence as the latter.  So, why then are there so many eager to overwhelmingly consider the dubious evidence "for", rather than the mountain of mainstream evidence "against"?  It's likely not because of any conscious animus (which I do not claim) but most likely because, as with much unknowing prejudice, it is simply personally convenient. 

Many of those that tend to defend Bostrom's position happen to be white and/or highly committed to both EA and Bostrom - making the finding seem personally convenient in a way that biases them towards accepting  scientifically discredited truths, even when that is socially unacceptable (this is the same case with holocaust deniers, who reject the event, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, because it directly challenges their problematic personal world views). What this means is that some may be stubbornly committed to these beliefs because it reinforces problematic prejudices they already hold (ie. to be White and told on average you are more intelligent etc.), and sometimes it is just more convenient for other reasons (ie. to be a committed follower of Bostrom wishing to remain loyal). Whatever the case, there's definitely a lot more going on here than a stoic consideration of the evidence, because the mainstream, widely accepted consideration of the evidence does not support the claim. I'd encourage those on the fence to reflect more on where their biases lie in what kind of evidence they choose to accept rather than reject. There is nothing noble about doubling down on beliefs that are both actively harmful and disproven, in order to maintain a personally convenient worldview.   

I suspect you are someone that will remain stubborn in your beliefs despite any contradicting evidence, so I won't engage further in this debate. Just know that at this point, ignoring the mountain of contrary evidence to this problematic belief reveals more about your prejudices that you may be comfortable to admit.

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(1) The literal dictionary definition of racism is "the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another."  This is how it is widely understood and experienced - the definition of racism does not require animus, but just a stubborn belief in meaningful racial differences and hierarchy. Race scholars have written about this at length and I have personally experienced many pleasant people with objectively prejudiced and problematic beliefs. The belief that "black people are on average less intelligent than white people" is considered by many (including myself, and pretty much every race scholar) to be a racist belief. You are entitled to hold a racist belief, of course, but it doesn't make sense to deny it as such for personal comfort or whatever other arbritrary reasons, or to distort the definition of racism by falsely claiming that because you hold no personal animus to Black people, you cannot adhere to explicitly racist beliefs. 

(2) The "scientific evidence" you link to has been widely discredited as pseudo-science, to the point where much of that work has been rescinded from publication (if it was even ever peer-reviewed in the first place). Many of those that work on race science were found to have had an explicit racist agenda, and manipulated findings for the purpose of promoting it. I won't do the work of repeating what many others have discussed - you can check out the appendix of this blog post for that research: https://ineffectivealtruismblog.com/2023/01/12/off-series-that-bostrom-email/

The current top-voted comments on the original post are: 1) a moderator asking people to remember community norms, 2) a commenter asking people to be kind and charitable, and 3) someone who says "The original email (written 26 years ago) was horrible, but Bostrom's apology seems reasonable" and criticises the author of the post for attempting to stir up drama.