Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> Unfortunately I agree with Eliezer. My (very limited) experience of
> discussing with racists show that they are not particularly fond of
> having their views of the world disturbed. However, I noted that they
> are indeed rather susceptible to biological arguments, which makes
> them even more upset when you start throwing some transhumanist ideas
> at them. They usually retreat to cultural superiority instead, which
> was the reason I had the Doctor add memetic engineering.
>
> Seriously, I don't think we will be very successful at "curing"
> racists by arguments like this. It is not much a question about
> rationality but rather dealing with an emotional worldview. But
> technologies like above may of course make that worldview ever more
> untenable.
Having spent time in the military (which attracts both minorities and dumb rednecks) as well as out west, I can from experience state that racism is in fact a matter of ignorance. Ignorance is curable. Granted if an ignorant person is bombarded with the same stupid ideas for long enough, it becomes more difficult to enlighten them.
--
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