I made the question about me, and I stated something more firmly threatening than anything Jordan Neely was said to do. Most wouldn't justify my death for it.

I suspect the value placed on my life far exceeds that granted to his, and that's the difference.

https://twitter.com/rasmansa/status/1656600846849695751

Credit to those who don't think I deserve to be killed in my hypothetical, but also don't think there's any evidence presented justifying the killing of Jordan Neely.

I respect valuing life, including for the poor and mentally ill.

This has been explained so many times, but let's do so in a mini thread.

1. Sex maps well onto human biology. "Race" maps terribly onto human biology.

2. There are identified mechanisms at play for sex, notably things like testosterone. "Dark skin" isn't an equivalent.

https://twitter.com/EPoe187/status/1638176521788506112

This kind of stuff has been explained to Bo many times, and he actually does get it. This is a rhetorical and political tactic though. It works by demanding that people accept the premise that race is biologically real, a position rejected by genomics and biological anthropology.

Those who think individuals obviously differ in innate characteristics, find the allegation of being "blank slatist" odd, not realizing that the term is now primarily used to reference rejection of specific claims about "group differences". This significant difference in referents causes a lot of confusion and conflict. I reject many standard claims about biological race and race differences, and thus end up being labeled a blank slatist.

One really weird personal IQ test artifact: my dad only graduated high school. He has 8 descendants. 3 of them tested above 130 on professional IQ tests. His brother managed to get a Doctor of Theology degree, was the only kid from his area to ace a standardized test, and 2 of his 3 kids also tested above 130 on an IQ test.

Another of his brothers has a grandchild who also tested above 130.

The statistical requirement to claim that two groups differ is much higher than just showing that their means differ.

This is such a complicated and counterintuitive thing for people to get, and I find few good lay explanations. I'm definitely not the best person to explain this either. I've tried to come up with a simple explanation and... It doesn't come out that way.

I'm hoping a statistics person will do a better job.

“To refer to the African population, is to refer to something that doesn’t really exist, because it’s a conglomerate of several populations, each of which is as different and as large as the ones they’re being compared to.” - @JonathanKaplan

race.undark.org/articles/a-fie… This is a really good article on scientific racism, how they distort science to claim credibility for their belief system, and how scientists are pushing back.

One of my most wild discussions on here was when a Quillette editor tried to argue that half of Africans are intellectually disabled.

Racism does weird things to people's brains. Famous scientific racist and admitted racial eugenicist Arthur Jensen once came up with his own reason why he thinks black people are just better suited to being intellectually disabled. 🙃

These ideologies are so vile.

https://twitter.com/rasmansa/status/1278361925672452097?t=Egn4fPVXYDse92C9HN7kRQ&s=19

Moral cowardice, masquerading as virtue. "As reporters, our job is to observe, not participate"

Absolutely shocking perspective. My eyes couldn't roll any harder.

Sigh.

The idea that Jewish people "control" the levers of power around in the world is stupid. People should stop.

https://twitter.com/StopAntisemites/status/1588562461363384320

The idea that black people are "the real Jews" is stupid. People should stop.

Y'all have Jewish ancestry. Human genealogy is cool that way. But, that doesn't make everyone Jewish.

Black Jews exist, they aren't being helped by the attempt to co-opt Jewish identity.

One of the reasons I'm not a fan of performative antiracism is that Cambridge University will publish a statement saying they are against racism on their campus, then pay a pseudoscientific racist to represent them on campus. The paper actually displayed in the screenshot above is one calling out yet another organization for publishing pseudoscientific racism in the name of "presenting the controversy"

That paper can be found here.
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

What I've enjoyed the most on Twitter over the last year are the DM chats I've been involved with, both groups and individual. What I've hated the most on Twitter is how they decided that I must see tweets that are liked by people I follow, or are by people followed by those I follow.

This actively discourages me from following people I disagree with, because I see content to the right of them.

John suggests that dreadlocks are the primary reason why Kendi is well known. As a person with dreads, this is the first I've heard them described as a societal advantage.

https://twitter.com/JohnHMcWhorter/status/1581469329891082240

In the US, it's still legal to deny employment to people with deadlocks. This is in addition to issues of being judged by them and having comments made about them. There are some laws being put in place to stop this though.

Antiracism, and social justice in general, must be driven by both justice and love. 1/ A person who is simply a member of some societally privileged group is no less deserving of our love or empathy.

Justice doesn't seek to destroy the innocent, and love must abide even for those who are not innocent. 2/

"Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism" board member Andrew Sullivan shares known pseudoscience in an attempt to advance racism. There's so much communicated by that tweet by Andrew Sullivan and the racism that drives him, and it would take a much larger thread to go through it all.

One basic point: dataset is known to be fraudulent, created by a eugenicist who claims "weaker races" should be phased out

A lot of times we'll see a position attributed to us that we just think to be ridiculous.

It's hard to know how to handle without assuming bad motives in return. Something like this has happened multiple times

A: "You believe X"
B: "X is a ridiculous thing for anyone to believe. I certainly don't"
A: "You're confused, or you're lying"

I created this position to highlight the chess concepts of "pins" and "forced moves"

Here, it's white to move.
#chesspunks First, the black Queen is pinned to her King. If she moves, he dies. So she must stay in place or the player find some other way to eliminate the threat.

The pin isn't immediate though... because the white Rook is in the way. But, if that Rook moves, it's on!

If you want to build your chess skills, I highly recommend lichess.org/practice.

Lichess is 100% free and practice exercises are great. #chesspunks Don't worry about solving every puzzle. A lot of the ones I encountered were really hard to see.

I'd also advise pairing your practice with googling the tactic when you struggle with it.

Understanding what a "fork" is in chess makes it easier to find them.

I am uncomfortable being told what is "free" "black thought" by an account that is only 3/5ths black. There's a long and ugly history of white folks telling black folks what are "free" and "unfree" thoughts for them to have.

I grant no credibility to this attempt at blackfishing. These men have their own voices, yet they pretend to a "black" one as @FreeBlckThought instead.

The best approach I can think of is to grant agency.

I think people say that they think, and audiences gather around them when the thoughts align with their own. Those holding the thoughts should by default be treated as sincere.

https://twitter.com/lastpositivist/status/1570823395419508736

The thing that bothers me the most is a weird argument from authority fallacy that I've called out several times.

I'll see "it's not bigoted because this other X agrees with me", or "how dare you argue with an X about topic Y".

I don't understand those pushing the idea that slavery was not a profitable enterprise, as if slavery was a burden these countries undertook.

It's a position that defies even basic logic.

https://twitter.com/nhannahjones/status/1570232639289958401

There seems to be some confusion. People are telling me that the countries themselves weren't making profit from slavery, just the powerful individuals.

1) no, that's what I'm saying is illogical and
2) wow do I have some bad news for you about how capitalist societies work

The post World War II effort to redeem eugenics continues with the tactic of defining it so broadly as to make it apply to innocuous things. For his information, trying to get rid of a genetic disease isn't itself eugenics. It's how one goes about doing so that will get the label applied.

Trying to prevent people with unvalued traits from reproducing is eugenics. Giving people options in mate selection is not.