Hacker News Reader

My understanding is that Spandrell considers himself a "race realist."

Please don't bring right-wing racist thought into HN.

I didn't see anything right wing or racist in the original quote, did you?

It was an interesting observation regardless of who made it.

When we quote someone, we usually include the context of the quoted person. The same sentence is different when said by Dalai Lama and Usama bin Laden.

Sure, you would cite the name of the person you were quoting, just as the OP comment did.

But you certainly could quote bin Laden here if it were relevant and interesting. It doesn't mean you agree with him or the terrible things he did.

I don't know anything about Spandrell or what else the person has said or written, so all I had to go by was the quote itself. I found it interesting and thought-provoking.

Not that I agree with all of it. I especially do not like the concept of an IQ scale. Different people are good at different kinds of things, and I think IQ is a dangerous oversimplification.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com