[ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things.

[William Flynn Wallace]

We are witnessing a classic case of throwing the baby out with the
bathwater.  Who is doing it?  Fanatics and purists, to whom any tinge of
badness is enough to demonize the whole person.  Why do they get the
press?  Obvious - they are shouting the loudest and then of course TV loves
them.

What does this say about the opinions of the average person?  Nothing,
absolutely nothing. But public officials cannot, anymore, just ignore the
extremists.  They have to do or say something to validate the opinions of
the extremists.

I knew about Thomas Jefferson -  the debt, slaves, and his black mistress.
None of that made any difference to me.  On balance (and who is interested
in that anymore) he is one of the greatest people in history, and so was
old George (to a much lesser extent, IMO).

But we can go too far with this excusing.  To still have a monument to the
founder of the KKK - well, that's well beyond the pale (and who knows the
meaning of 'pale'?)

bill w

On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 8:37 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
> Keith Henson via extropy-chat
> Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2020 10:34 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things.
>
> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> snip
>
> >...> Ja we get that, and we get Jefferson for the same reason: both those
> guys were slave owners and got rich (by the standards of the day) as a
> result.
>
> >...You really should check the history.  Jefferson died deeply in debt.
> He left instructions to free his slaves, but his will was overturned and
> the
> slaves sold because he was in debt.
>
> Keith
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> Ok cool thanks for that.  I wasn't aware of it, but that was my own fault:
> I
> have visited Monticello (another family history tour) and there were
> lectures and displays.  That factoid would likely have been mentioned
> somewhere but I missed it.
>
> We got the library of Congress out of the deal.
>
> spike
>
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> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
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>
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