Questionmark
No bio...
User ID: 442
Questionmark
8mo ago
Holocaust denial is a factually incorrect position to take that bears an implicit threat against Jewish people. Given the fact that threatening statements are already acceptably considered 'beyond the pale' I don't see this as a free speech issue. It is instead explicitly codifying the idea that 'yes we know what you're doing, so cut it out' -- the venn diagram of people who deny the holocaust and hold anti-semitic views is practically a circle. Since it simply builds off of an already acceptable principle, why does it matter if a specific type of factually incorrect statement is explicitly legislated against?
Questionmark
2mo ago
Right, but we're discussing the individual heritability of intelligence here, not the race-level heritability, so this is an area where the scientific consensus disagrees with the comment you linked. See e.g. this review, finding intelligence to be highly heritable through genes. This isn't a HBD guy, this is ". A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Plomin as the 71st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.[1] He is the author of several books on genetics and psychology." and "Plomin was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to scientific research.[8]". There is a tremendous amount of mainstream literature on the heritability of intelligence, a lot of back and forth between various camps, and the consensus has ended up that there are large genetic components.
I don't doubt that intelligence is heritable; however on a group level there is very little actual diversity within the human population given the fact that our most common ancestor is very recent, and HBD is making claims about the average intelligence of different groups.
The simple way to settle this would be to:
A. Discover the genes responsible for intelligence. B. Genetically test a significant number of various groups to get a baseline rate of their presence. C. Derive the genetic difference in intelligence between groups.
Has anyone actually done this?
Questionmark
2mo ago
If humans go on long enough a perfect sex change will indeed be possible at a genetic level. Would anyone living hard in the trans debate still have a problem with it then? How could they?
In my opinion, and the 'mainstream' tracks this as well, the current hormone mix is good enough for many transwomen to be indistinguishable from ciswomen. They may not all be 'pretty'; but the majority of them will have the hormonal and physical appearance of women as far as their secondary sex characteristics are concerned. The whole 'transwomen are women' and all that...
In general this debate is quite well settled at least from the perspective of the establishment and mainstream professional opinion. People may have issues with it, but I don't see this being overturned and I would predict that trans-rights will be even more embedded over time as the phenom becomes more normalised.
Questionmark
8mo ago
This is simply a specific implementation of 'anti inciting to violence' provisions of speech, clearly defined and accepted within constitutional law consistantly around the world in most democratic countries, in order to make it easier to specifically target a clearly delineated type of person -- neo-nazis.
Which part do you have a problem with?
A. Laws restricting speech with respect to things like inciting or the promotion of violence etc exist? B. Holocaust denial is automatically considered to be 'hate speech'; whether by means of common law/case precedence or explicit laws to that effect? C. Censorship exists?
This isn't about preventing some 'unpopular truth' from coming out, it's a specific mechanism being used to target a specific hateful counter-culture.
Questionmark
2mo ago
I decided to weigh in properly first, before I respond to anything below.
I find it incredibly ironic that this topic which deals with a whole host of complex environmental, social, cultural and yes genetic factors that are interlinked is being reduced to what amounts reductive reasoning. The genetic biomarkers that indicate genetic lineage also indicate significant non-genetic differences or environmental and social causes as well. The genetic markers that indicate race also point to factors such as: blood serum lead levels; air quality/pollution exposure; poverty and its associated effects and a complex interplay between sub-cultures and the wider society around them. The argument in a nutshell is: HBD -- they are poor because they are stupid; whereas the mainstream position is that they are stupid because they are poor and discriminated against both presently and historically.
There is considerable evidence demonstrating that fetal exposure to maternal psychosocial experiences contributes to the determination of children’s neurodevelopmental trajectories (Bale et al., 2010). Data generated largely over the last two decades shows that when pregnant women experience significant stress, anxiety, or depression (each of which are frequently indexed by cortisol levels), their children are at increased risk for biobehavioral characteristics conceptualized as potential precursors to psychopathology
Also
The results of the study revealed that children who were living in poverty and whose parents lacked nurturing skills were likely to have less gray and white matter in their brains.
The researchers say that white matter is usually linked to the brain’s ability to transmit signals between cells and structures, while gray matter is associated with intelligence.
The MRI scans also revealed that poor children had two key brain structures that were smaller, compared with wealthier children. These were the amygdala – a structure linked to emotional health – and the hippocampus – an area of the brain linked to memory and learning.
Furthermore, it was found that children in poverty were more likely to experience stressful life events, such as moving house or schools, which can have an impact on brain development.
See: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/268066#Improving-parental-nurturing-skills-vital
See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1893020/
The American Black population is simply exposed to a greater level of stress, and this affects them both individually as well as socially within their segregated communities. They are affected both at a personal level and by the effects of this psychopathology on a wider level within their communities as they are exposed to crime at a much higher rate than the rest of the non-Black population. These effects are passed down both through both genetic expression as well as their cultural environment. These factors carry down through multiple generations as unless the environmental causes can be ameliorated, they will persist into future generations as long as the environmental factors that caused it are still present.
Questionmark
2mo ago
See:
“data also show that any two individuals within a particular population are as different genetically as any two people selected from any two populations in the world” (subsequently amended to “about as different”). Similarly, educational material distributed by the Human Genome Project (2001, p. 812) states that “two random individuals from any one group are almost as different [genetically] as any two random individuals from the entire world.”
Here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1893020/
In a nutshell, if you take a White or Asian person, they are about as different or as similar as say two White people are.
Questionmark
2mo ago
This is obviously false. Consider someone living in brazil, 7000 years ago. Their only real chance of spreading genes outside the americas came in the 1500s. That's certainly not enough time. Secondly, it's irrelevant—that everyone at some point shared ancestry doesn't mean everyone is the same along any particular trait. This is really obvious when you consider that this would apply just as much to visual racial markers.
Even historically isolated populations have had significant selection pressure and intermixture with Eurasian peoples. The average age of the most common past ancestor has been put at between 5,000 and 15,000 years ago, so in biodiversity terms human beings are closer to Cheetahs than they are to Chimpanzees. There isn't a significant amount of 'diversity' within the population to start with.
Okay? Two different responses to that. (1) If race is just something we made up, that doesn't stop us from doing statistics on it, and that doesn't mean that the stats can't tell us averages of the people who happen to be in whatever made-up categories we throw them into. This is especially relevant when people are already drawing up racial stats on representation or whatever—there should be no problem with using the same categories, to show that it's actually not all discrimination! (2) Race isn't perfect, but it does act as a proxy for genetically closer clusters of people.
It also acts as a proxy for environmental and sociocultural factors as well. Melanin levels as far as I am aware have little to know direct impact on brain development, but it still has a clear and measurable effect on social and cultural factors.
I'm not familiar with how the Gaussian-by-construction biases things; I do find this a plausible concern but don't know enough stats to figure out what things like that would do. But that doesn't void it as a measure entirely, that just means that you can't really compare gaps very well. One standard deviation might mean different things at different places along the scale, but that doesn't mean that the order is invalid.
I.Q. tests are designed for instance to give men and women the same I.Qs on average -- 100. Recent 'gains' by women that raised their relative I.Q. compared to men, IIRC 100 vs 104, would that indicate that women as a group are smarter than men on average, or does in indicate that the factors that lowered women's I.Q. in the past were removed and the test's adjustment hasn't taken that into account yet?
Questionmark
2mo ago
The effects of epigenitics, microbiota, and environmental cells are just quite small. The evidence just isn't there. Environmental confounding is very well addressed by existing studies. "lack of an actual genetic explanation" - again, complex traits are extremely polygenic.
Quite frankly given the high level of motivated reasoning I see behind the HBD debate I doubt that the proponents of this theory are more careful than the academics who point at other factors. I would have to see significant actual evidence that they indeed have taken these things into consideration.
There are significant and obvious causal factors, like for instance lead exposure:
Overall, Black children had an adjusted +0.83 µg/dL blood Pb (95% CI 0.65 to 1.00, p < 0.001) and a 2.8 times higher odds of having an EBLL ≥5 µg/dL (95% CI 1.9 to 3.9, p < 0.001). When stratified by risk factor group, Black children had an adjusted 0.73 to 1.41 µg/dL more blood Pb (p < 0.001 respectively) and a 1.8 to 5.6 times higher odds of having an EBLL ≥5 µg/dL (p ≤ 0.05 respectively) for every selected risk factor that was tested. For Black children nationwide, one in four residing in pre-1950 housing and one in six living in poverty presented with an EBLL ≥5 µg/dL. In conclusion, significant nationwide racial disparity in blood Pb outcomes persist for predominantly African-American Black children even after correcting for risk factors and other variables.
See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7084658/
And how exactly do they account for the elements that are not well studied? Like for instance volatile organic compounds in the air and poorer air circulation/higher CO2 levels at home? Being poor puts people closer to environmental contaminants that have large and well-known effects on the overall intelligence of people.
Questionmark
2mo ago
Spending a few hours compiling a long and detailed post debunking HBD is particularly uninteresting to this forum and would be like trying to teach a pig to roller-skate, a waste of time and annoying to the pig; however, on the other hand spending a few hours proving how strong the genetic effect is on the population would be wonderfully received. I invite you to spend the time and that post-doc giving all the people here what they want to see, they will love you for it. Go on, I would love to see some actual evidence for this phenomenon.
Questionmark
2mo ago
But you keep bringing this up as evidence that genes can't matter, for which it is only very weak evidence.
I'm bringing it up because genes do matter, but there simply isn't nearly as much diversity within the human population which means the overall effect of genetics cannot be large on a population level. It tempers the overall impact of any kind of diversity, the fact that we humans are so similar. I simply do not believe that HBD as seemingly commonly held in this forum is nearly strong enough as a concept to use it as a battering ram to dismiss or deflect the mainstream or the left wing's position on this matter.
Questionmark
4mo ago
roughly 80% of divorces are initiated by the wives c) in cases where the wife is college-educated, that figure is 90%. In other words, in cases of marriages that fail, modern women are more likely than not to voluntarily put themselves in a disadvantageous life situation.
Why do you frame it as a disadvantage? Marriage on average raises a man's self reported happiness level and on average lowers the woman's. It's an institution that on the face of it benefits men's happiness over women; and the reverse is true whereby divorced women are significantly happier than divorced men. In terms of gender dynamics the 'bicycle needs the fish more than the fish needs the bicycle', men need women more than women need men. The fundamental cause of this divorce disparity is that men aren't bringing enough into their relationships on average and they are incapable or unwilling to bridge this gap, hence leading to a greater number of women filing for divorce. Men as a collective simply haven't adjusted to the new reality where they need to bring more than a decent paycheck to a relationship.
Questionmark
2mo ago
Relevant traits such as height, weight, intelligence etc? Compare Europe with Japan, they are very similar and yet separated by thousands of kilometers.
I see this HBD talk here constantly, yet it seems everyone assumes that it is true without bringing evidence, where is the proof for such a bold claim?
Questionmark
2mo ago
If demographics really are destiny, then the one side that actually has the greatest reason to destroy or undermine democracy is the GOP. There are a number of verifiable claims for instance that they deliberated deregistered voters and attempted to minimise voter turnout by making it harder for some demographics that vote Democrat to exercise their rights. If the demographic wave washes away any chance for the GOP as it currently exists to ever wield power again, that will give them all the right motivation and incentive to prevent that from happening. The GOP can reform and form a new coalition to oppose the Democrats, but it might mean free reign in the foreseeable future for the Democrats to unroll their entire wish-list of changes like Healthcare and social spending that the GOP ideologically and institutionally opposes. Once that happens, it would be incredibly difficult for them to reverse as the changes would likely be incredibly popular with the broader American public.
Questionmark
2mo ago
Y'all know I love my hobby horse, even if it's beaten into an absolute paste, and I admit at having ongoing puzzlement as to why 2020 stolen election claims retain so much cachet among republican voters and officials.
It is because they are unified in their collective belief in sacred beliefs in opposition to facts and logic. It's like a social acid trip, people who cannot believe in the world around them clustering around sacred beliefs and the rejection of a crazy reality that they cannot accept. They want someone to tell them that no they aren't crazy, it's the other side that is truly crazy and that they are the sane ones. They go through the motions, maybe they enjoy some good 'belief theatre' whereby they can see a sick person wheeled on stage and then 'healed' to walk off it again; but when they get sick they usally don't rely on merely prayer as they take full advantage of advanced medical science instead.
Questionmark
2mo ago
The average height of a Chinese man is 170cm and the average height of a European man is 180cm. The difference between the two is only a little above 5% on average with recent males being 175cm which indicates that much of this disparity is not genetic, but environmental. This represents populations that are separated by the largest continent in the world.
See: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202110/1235772.shtml
How much difference would you accept as reasonable based on genetics? Clearly, one standard deviation is too much. A half maybe?
Honestly, probably less than half a standard deviation but probably not nothing. It's not really that important though, because I believe that there are significant gains that can be had if the environmental influences are taken into consideration and ameliorated.
Questionmark
2mo ago
Modern humans are a lot alike--at least at the genetic level--compared with other primates. If you compare any two people from far-flung corners of the globe, their genomes will be much more similar than those of any pair of chimpanzees, gorillas, or other apes from different populations. Now, evolutionary geneticists have shown that our ancestors lost much of their genetic diversity in two dramatic bottlenecks that sharply squeezed down the population of modern humans as they moved out of Africa between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago.
See: https://www.science.org/content/article/how-we-lost-our-diversity
Questionmark
2mo ago
For instance, I doubt it’s “stress” that causes whites to have lower math scores than East Asians in America.
Culturally, they have been dealing with things like 'civil service exams' for literally over a thousand years. It's so culturally ingrained into them that they tend to out-study their European brethren. When they reach higher education this over-performance tends to evaporate.
Questionmark
5mo ago
I think one fundamental core issue at the heart of the trans debate is who or whom ought to have the authority to define key cultural concepts such as gender and sex. Is it the experts who have taken the time to clearly delineate the particular issues or the visceral/emotional reactions of the people who have to live in and with the consequences of the expert's decisions?
Questionmark
2mo ago
Bush made a list of three countries he regarded as threats, rhetorically justified pre-emptive strikes and then invaded one in 2003. In 2003 North Korea left the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to pursue nuclear weapons whole-heartedly. The connection seems pretty clear.
Arguably Iran too has already got the bomb, or is pretty close to the threshold, and not quite politically committed to crossing that line yet. It seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy that has continued to act to destabilise both South East Asia and the Middle East.
Questionmark
2mo ago
It's because the sclerotic voting system has ceded significant power to the establishment of each party through the presence of safe seats and the internal selection process. Influence is worth serious bucks, and special interests and lobbyists have significant influence within the local body politic. Nancy Pelosi for instance, is an institution herself within the Democrat party. The same goes for Joe Biden, but Bushes are no better either, nor Kennedys. The business of politics is the biggest business around, with the government wielding a massive budget. At a time when voters themselves have less impact than ever, they are presented with hand-picked options that will change fundamentally nothing about how politics itself will be run.
Questionmark
2mo ago
Yes absolutely.
Questionmark
2mo ago
I wish my comment on this topic hadn't been nixed by the reset, but anyhow in brief:
expect deflections about multiple intelligences or street smarts here. Doesn't withstand much scrutiny but is still more a more poplar stance than you'd expect.
Well, it does apply; however, the coalition on the left are heavily into a one size fits all approach -- higher education -- due to their own deep investment within the educational establishment or having been a product of it. The professional management class (PMC) simply does not respect anyone without a higher education, nor do they respect blue collar vocations or vocational education. Immigration isn't a big deal for people who have jobs with high cultural context (much of the PMC/white collar workforce) and they have significant barriers to entry to their professions. On the other hand, unrestricted migration and the closing of many blue-collar workplaces along with the heavy restrictions on development in heavy blue coded states means that there are narrow windows in both aptitude and time for a young 'disadvantaged' person to potentially rise up and get away from grinding poverty should they have been unfortunate enough to be born into it. All that extra money being poured into education (administration bloat) is essentially a blue coded jobs program with exceedingly little to show for it in terms of ameliorating poverty and hardship.
Questionmark
3mo ago
The right thinks systemically when it comes to HBD, the left thinks individually. The left thinks systemically about privilege, the right thinks individually about privilege. If you define "the right" as people who think individually, you are drawing a line that excludes a lot of people who both self-define as "right wing" and would be identified as such by a vast majority of people.
HBD is such a niche concept that I would hazard a guess that fewer than 1/100 self-identified right wing people would even know what the initialization means.
Questionmark
1yr ago
Petition: We are all special snowflakes and we deserve special characters in our user names.
¿Can we please have special characters in our names? I think it would add cool customization to usernames and it ought to (naively) be a simple change to the website.
I don't have time for this right now, but I'll leave my flag in the sand and say HBD is wrong. I'll just leave this quote here I found on reddit that does the same job as me taking the time:
More options
Context Copy link