There is an interesting type of a logical error, called ad hominem. I say “interesting” because it’s frequently misunderstood. Let me demonstrate.

A: The fundamental constants of the Universe appear to be finely tuned, because any variance would preclude the existence of the kind of Universe that would make our existence possible. Since this is too unlikely to be the result of chance, the explanation that the Universe was deliberately created with those properties and with a goal of producing us, is actually the most probable one.

B: This is all religious bullshit, you believe in a talking snake and therefore nothing you say should be taken seriously.

This is argumentum ad hominem, a logical fallacy that attempts to refute the argument by attacking the person that makes the argument. Since credibility of the person making the argument is irrelevant (if a known criminal says that 2+2=4, this is not false), the argument stands. But let me show a different example.

A1: There can’t be a space station in orbit because the Earth is flat.

B1: You can take an amateur telescope and observe the space station in orbit. You can also use a parabolic satellite antenna to narrowly constrain the position of telecommunication satellites in orbit.

A2: That doesn’t prove anything.

B2: You’re an idiot and further discussion with you is pointless.

This is not argumentum ad hominem, because it isn’t an argument, it’s the conclusion based on the displayed properties of the other party. If instead of B1 one immediately wrote B2, it would be ad hominem. However, since A1 was refuted by B1, this essentially concludes the argumentation loop – an argument was offered and it was decisively refuted. Since A doesn’t concede this, B2 is no longer an attempt to disprove A’s argument (because none remains), it is a conclusion about the state of affairs and is perfectly legitimate. For instance, if a person desires admittance into MENSA, is rejected because his IQ is tested to be 80, and someone tells him he’s too fucking stupid to join, that’s not ad hominem. That’s a legitimate conclusion that was expressed in a way he might find unpleasant, but is valid nevertheless. When you tell someone he failed at mathematics because he spent all free time playing Call of Duty on his gaming console instead of learning maths, and he responds that you’re fat and ugly and therefore your argument is false, that is ad hominem.

And that brings us to our false dichotomy: are you an egalitarian or a racist?

Do you believe that races are irrelevant and people are basically the same, or do you believe that racial origin decisively determines one’s properties?

My position is that I don’t know. People are obviously not all the same, or you wouldn’t have qualification exams at colleges and job requirements and interviews later on. It is obvious that if there is a bar defining qualifications, some will pass and some will fail. So, believing that this is right and proper, I am obviously not an egalitarian, but a meritocrat. In my opinion, all privileges are derived from personal qualities and contributions. In my opinion, if you have a difficult entrance exam, which consists of mathematics and physics problems, and the only students who pass on merit are Koreans, Chinese and Europeans, this is not racist against the Africans. It would be racist against the Africans if you’re disqualified from even taking the test if you’re black, or if you have points deducted from the final result if black. But if the test is same for all, and one race consistently fails, this is not racist. Furthermore, making conclusions about that race based on the displayed results isn’t racist either. If it’s OK to praise the Asians for demolishing the test, it’s perfectly OK to ridicule the Africans for failing miserably. What actually is racist is to make easier admittance conditions for the Africans, because it is assumed that they are too stupid to qualify on merit. This essentially amounts to conceding that they are inferior as a race, but saying that both superior and inferior races should be equally distributed among the students because then it’s somehow not racist.

Any kind of quota for employment or admittance into any kind of institution, based on criteria such as race, sex, sexual orientation or similar things, is racism (or sexism or whatever-ism). There is no difference between preferential quotas for blacks and “no niggers allowed here” rule. If you think blacks are equal, make equal rules for all. If you advocate preferential rules for blacks, it means you think they are inferior as a race but you happen to have a pet race and you want it to succeed. This just happened to be Hitler’s motive for committing all sorts of crimes – he had a pet race, aryan, and wanted it to succeed. Since it seemed to fail compared to the Jews, he decided to clear the way for the aryans by introducing the rules that closed the doors for Jews and opened them for aryans. The way to solve this is not to hate Hitler, it is to abandon the idea of trying to help some failing group by introducing special rules. Instead, we should make sure that the rules are just, and if someone consistently fails, allow him to. Don’t make rulings that define if races are equal or different. Make fair rules and allow people to either win or lose. You don’t even have to introduce preferential criteria for the particularly capable or talented individuals – if they are capable, they’ll manage just fine on their own. But certainly don’t try to prevent those on the bottom from failing, because that’s the worst thing you can possibly do. That’s the kind of thing that destroys societies, states and civilizations. In fact, if there’s anything we can learn from nature, it’s that a species thrives if a predator consistently kills the least fit specimen. You don’t actually have to reward the most capable ones – just kill the worst ones, and the species will thrive. Capitalism is actually the opposite – it has special rewards for being the most capable specimen, and that seems to work better for human societies. If a society allows the poor to simply die off, it creates a great incentive to not be poor, which creates incentive to master marketable skills, which then creates competition for the top places in everything, resulting in general improvement of the society. If there’s any lesson to be learned from history, it’s that providing free bread for the poor creates an attitude that it’s a perfectly acceptable option to be poor, and then the society dies. So yeah, if introduction of meritocracy shows that race and gender are irrelevant, great. If they show that races and genders are good at different things, great. If it shows that some group is consistently inferior, let it die off.

I have no problem with Jews ruling in finances, Africans ruling in basketball, Whites ruling in science, or Asians ruling in engineering. It’s not some racist conspiracy, it’s what happens when you allow people to succeed on merit – you learn that there actually may be a difference between the races, or you learn that there isn’t any. If there happens to be a master race that will consistently outcompete others, so what? I don’t see anyone objecting to our species out-competing the Neanderthals. I don’t see anyone objecting to the fact that those who were able to digest grains and milk survived better in the early Holocene than those who weren’t. So suck it up.