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Comment by julianapostate | Hacker News Reader

The word racism is meaningless to many people now. the definition is too encompassing and by denouncing it, particularly in conversation with a political activist, you have no clue what you are signing up for.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/dictionary...

From the linked article: Merriam-Webster captures this as well, noting that racism can mean “a political or social system founded on racism.”

So by denouncing racism I am literally denouncing the entirety of civilization I guess.

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> So by denouncing racism I am literally denouncing the entirety of civilization I guess.

Considering the "denouncings" have included the US Constitution, Magna Carta, Greek philosophers, and math+science in general, this is more correct and scarier than almost anyone has thought through.

Exciting times ahead!

Is the entirety of civilization truly founded on racism or is just a part of it founded on racism? If it's only a part then what is wrong with denouncing the racist portion of civilization? How important is that portion?

To be honest… civilisation – at least, the parts the can be described as “a political or social system founded on racism” – isn't that great.

If we just eliminated the government, eliminated all hierarchies larger than 100 people, eliminated all nations and laws and institutions… well, most of us would probably die very quickly. But that doesn't mean that what we have now is even in the top 20% of possible ways that civilisation could be.

> top 20% of possible ways that civilisation could be.

This sort of an unmeasurable goal. I think we’re certainly in the top 20% of civilization from any time in history. Or top 20% ever attempted.

It’s hard to tell how good all possible civilizations can be.

Yeah; what I wrote was absurd. Most civilisations can trivially be improved; we're definitely pretty high up the possibilities. I meant we're not in the top 20% of feasible possible civilisations anybody currently alive would want to put into place (which is a qualitative claim, not a quantitative one).

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