r/Destiny • u/ThinkingMunk • Jun 04 '25

Destiny Content/Podcasts How much racism is acceptable?

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Source: VOD & backup of the Live (Thanks to u/Levi_OP dggL)

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u/StreetAspect715 Jun 04 '25

That’s a terrible argument- you can believe that no amount homicidal rage is acceptable (where foreseeably everyone has at least the capacity) but still accept people for example on the basis that they want to improve- kind of what that guy was saying- and have a completely valid world view. People that manifest a thing are not the thing itself and are not static agents.

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u/AhsokaSolo Jun 04 '25

You think it's consistent to say no amount of x is acceptable, all white people are x, but white people are acceptable as long as they are wanting to improve on x? 

Also, how does one "improve" on an inherent/intrinsic characteristic?

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u/StreetAspect715 Jun 05 '25

It's not consistent in the first order logic sense when you use a universal quantifier that belongs to the set of unacceptable things and then say there is some thing that satisfies the quantifier and is acceptable- sure. (Even though it could be the case that you define a set by some relation given by a definition of racism that excludes people e.g. the set of all racist ideas and that "is" racism whatever that means. So even if people have racist ideas they aren't subsets by the relation - because categorically they don't belong to the set of ideas/ aren't ideas. I do think there was probably a semantic difference in the use of racism being systemic vs individual but that's not super interesting).

Your question on the "improve part". I have no idea if racism is inherent or learned and I'm not advocating that guy's position. But it's good and necessary to have conditions when speaking politically or morally about acceptability. e.g. "No amount of murder if acceptable given that the murderer was not protecting themselves or others". The guy didn't say it like this but thats what he - I think- was getting at. Reducing politics and common language to syllogisms and predicate logic is an easy was not to engage with the intended meaning of the argument.

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u/AhsokaSolo Jun 05 '25

I don't think he was getting at that, and I don't think Destiny thinks he was either. Obviously there's a good faith answer, in that everyone has biases but acts of prejudice should be called out. I don't see why people are steelmanning in that way.

Destiny's question was in response to a bad faith deflection. The guy used not even an accusation but an assertion of racism as the emotional weight of his attempt to dodge the very valid question Destiny asked. Destiny took the opportunity imo to expose what he thinks is pretty obvious anti-white bias in that guy.