EA has become big enough to weather such a storm, especially since stemming against the ever-increasing number of calls for struggle sessions should become a central EA cause area. People need to be able to speak their minds and be judged by their deeds and impact, not by some demonstrably uncharitable reading of their thoughts. The latter seems motivated mainly by an attempt to stir up a denunciation rally, likely because somebody didn't like the intellectual content Bostrom is known for.

It is also important to keep adult public discourse policing sane enough that no one gets lambasted for saying or writing something like "People seem to react equally enraged by someone wondering aloud about specific IQ differences in populations, as by someone shouting 'I hate those bloody n-words!!!'". People get riled up over this as if this was some teenage utterance of the form "I know I am not supposed to say 'n-word', and therefore I would never say 'n-word', even if someone, whom others might call a 'n-word' were to walk by and complain to me that people often call him a 'n-word', especially since his grandmother has been called 'n-word', much like his mother who has also been called 'n-word' ..." and so forth, specially compiled to strafe a taboo. Obviously one should intervene in such a case. Doesn't mean adults shouldn't be able to spell out the term when they talk about it while not using it as a slur. Preemptively treating people like children is what ruins modern discourse.

And the musings on population differences, well, a lot has been said and written about those. Concluding they may very well exist isn't necessarily malevolent. Instead, an honest discussion about this might be the key to solving the genuine problems of those populations in a way that affirmative action and explaining away certain facts haven't. The intellectual dishonesty on this topic runs incredibly deep and is far more expansive than just population differences and race. Think a politician talking about 'the uneducated' as a social class, that's pretty much acceptable. Speaking about the 'intellectually challenged' however is wrongthink, the overlap between these two groups equally in the realm of career-ending topics for all but the most established scientists. The missteps science in its infancy made with these topics cannot be grounds to suppress a rational discussion of how to deal with inherent human differences for the benefit of all forever.

(this comment previously got deleted by the moderators because it contained 'n-word' several times, a decision with which I vigorously disagree)

Got both, my bad, was only looking in my email inbox, not in pms from this forum.

@Lizka Not the case, I haven't received any message from you.

Apart from racial slurs the original email contained  "I like that sentence." I'm sure that's explained by not being neurotypical and enjoying being contrarian/edgy (see this comment), but I still find it jarring. I think that's a natural reaction.

Him writing he likes the sentence is in no way equivalent to writing he likes the fact. The sentiment obviously stems from the fact that is rather difficult to publicize such a thought and hence having 'come out' comes along with some 'pride'. But yes, cretain religious conservatives might find the other metaphorial jarring as well. So what.

Why is it that people either have to be unreasonable in one direction or the other? In my view, you're being just as one-sided here as "the mob" if you make it seem like no one is facing racial adversity. Lots of people are facing adversity for all kinds of reasons, racism is some of it, as are other problems (e.g., mental illnesses are a big problem that's arguably underrated and happens to affect people from all kinds of backgrounds).

People have been amplified in victimising themselves by a tidal wave of you-know-what for more than a decade now, despite the things being complained about being in decline ever since the sixties. People face all kinds of adversity in the modern world, most of outweight racial adversity by far.

When you imagine the Venn diagram of people who talk a lot about group averages vs people who have actively sought to improve the situation of socio-economically disadvantaged groups, I'd say the intersection isn't that large. Charles Murray happens to be in the intersection (and it's awful and unfair how people have shunned him), but this doesn't change that the intersection is rather small according to my perception. 

Yeah, so let's not make decent people shy away from discussing these matters publicly with a problem solving mindset any more than we already do. Character assassination by Venn diagramm helps no one but the baddies, both on the left and on the right.

Unless people here have a far better story than "Eugenics is horrible because eugenics!" behind their usage of the word 'horrible' with respect to Bostrom's words I suggest they stop using it. This is the EA forum after all and we ought to do better here than circular logic.