ShariaHeap
3mo ago
Great post, much appreciate your summary which I wholeheartedly agree with. The funny thing is I originally found the Motte when I was infuriated with Freddie for one of those earlier posts, whereby I googled if anyone had commented on the web, and actually found a place I could rant where I wasn't immediately kicked off. And here we are today, with the same games being played!
I hold no particular animus or deep feelings against Freddie, but he is a fraud in my view. It's obviously fine to have whatever blog policy you want, but to block people from talking about an issue and then proceed to talk about it 'alot' is insulting to his subscribers and just plain tyrannical.
The only saving grace he might have with it is cognitive dissonance - the post you dug up in DID speaks to this as well ( I didn't know about that one) - he all but lays out the case that trans is a culture bound syndrome and now because of his tribal and familial roots is realising he can't square what he knows to be true with the orthodoxy he's supposed to subscribe to. Reading his latest made me feel like I was watching someone wet themselves in public, so poor and fumbling was the argumentation in places.
I get annoyed with the fragmentation technique which actually hides what is going on. First posit the 'trans person' and then smear categories and argue on a rights basis. In between anything will do-sand in the face. It's just like heads of a hydra - I mean, can you count all the spurious stuff that is been brought up around this shit: endless queerying of biological sex, made up ideas of third genders or historic trans people, adolescent identity badges and flags, the extreme sensitivity to... third person pronouns, gender identity theory justification, rights issues and medical treatment model at the same time, social constructivism, gender performance, gender souls/essences, etc. If you collate what people have said to justify trans you will understand that is an 'empty' term. The arguments shift over time, and different individuals use conflicting and incoherent explanations to argue for it.
But it's pretty simple what is going on. A new group of people has been created in society and activists are having the rights of this group supercede those of others, by making a nonsense category, gender identity, supercede biological sex. Activists, progressive zealots, money makers, politician, handmaid women, and a lot of (mainly male) weirdos have been setting this up behind our backs but some people have realised what is going on and have something to say about it.
It's still finely poised but I predict the trans lobby will start to lose ground. This is because there is no coherence, no meaning to be found in trans. On the other hand, if you gain a perspective, you can actually understand, and even admire, the emergent systems at play. If enough people in society value reality we will have to act in concert to defend it. Otherwise, what lies ahead after abandoning reality?
ShariaHeap
3mo ago
I'm not sure on selection of prosocial genes, will think on this - Fukuyama puts it culturally with regard to practises of Roman Catholic church disrupting familial inheritance etc
ShariaHeap
3mo ago
Francis Fukuyama has some interesting political philosophy that tries to do big picture, Jared Diamond style analysis of why some regions have a less stable history in terms of whether a central ruler governing the local areas of its domain was able to assert power over long periods.
In this analysis, India is noted as being unstable in terms of central government, instead suffering waves of conquest by foreign powers from the North, I forget the historical elements. This led to, or exists alongside, to cultural tendencies towards nepotism, with family being more important than society broadly speaking. This is pretty awful paraphrase probably but the idea of different peoples having different cultural tendencies is not unusual.
But I think the power of culture is that, people, especially second-generation often grow up adopting the customs, and culture, of the country they live in. Such is cultural development for everybody. I think America still has a culture of meritocracy that should maintain, I mean presumably cultures are constantly at risk of change due to other, but often don't change. In any case, cultures are increasingly merged.
ShariaHeap
3mo ago
Yes it was a hunch based on tail effects but realised after posting that would be safer bet with just black-non black.
How normal are the tails though? If you adjust your thresholds, what is the sensitivity to your estimate? I contend there is still a chance you have majority non-blacks, let's forget about the sexes...
My point running alongside the white majority question is that if you find the explanatory factor at the root of OPs HBD motivation, then you should apply your theories, policies on the basis of that factor, so you would run it across all races.
I don't know what the policies are for people like OP but whatever they are I'd be more inclined to agree with them if they were universally applied, it wouldn't be scientific to do it any other way.
And yes I'm aware there does exist racial favouritism in regards to university admission etc and I'm against that too.
ShariaHeap
3mo ago
But if you make all the low IQ people slaves again, most of them would be white men.
Is that really what white supremacy is arguing for these days?
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Well there's no particular moral judgement from my side. Im just not familiar with much of this world and these things on the internet that pop into being seem so arbitrary - I mean presumably anything can become an object of desire and identification through conditioning. I'm left feeling overwhelmed that we will have any shared high level culture or values remaining, or whether the future is just atomised norms and behaviours.
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
I don't know what you've described as I haven't had first person experience of any of this stuff but is it fair to say your summary is 'shit is weird, I'd like it to be weirder'?
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Yeah, I can imagine finding it humorous to get the internet a-stir with these things, and there is a legitimate point you can make so sounds credible.
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
I dunno, this seems basic information theory. Meta can't be decoded without other info, ie if you share the signal as another meaning there is no way for the receiver to disambiguate, without extra info.
Now your Bayesian based on his work etc leads you to conclusion X. But you also have to account for his potentially hiding his true views. Perhaps he's hiding his true depth of nazi feeling, trying to fly undercover with a few subtle references here and there?
Perhaps he actually doesn't know his own Nazi sympathies because coming from 4chan world he has constantly engaged with meta that can't be unambiguously decoded as meta, and his mind is the same superposition?
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
I don't have time for the back and forth research game, but why the conviction?
How did major international reviews find the evidence to be inconclusive and low quality but you state the opposite as fact?
Some studies that have been held up as gold standard such as the early Dutch puberty blockers studies have been shown to have major methodological flaws such as not accounting for the fact that people would transition in the pre/post survey instrument, thus rendering some of the items equivocal/unreliable. Recent studies have shown that even on its own merits it is inconclusive on showing improvement.
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Yes, I agree, there's a reversion to slogan type simplification thing.
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Well genes obviously impact outcome but it's whether there is a long term association with a particular ethnicity/culture grouping over time that I need more on. I mean I know there are lineage studies and various IQ research that does show group difference, but culture and socioeconomic factors are confounders presumably.
I know that various people will come on with this paper and that paper which tie the whole thing up, but there's a lot of links and difficult science to think about before I would start to assign attribution to various parts.
Also, like perhaps a lot of issues, it's not framed in a way that lets in much light. It's kind of, 'I've looked into it all and this is the result'. Ive also seen research being misunderstood, so extrapolating an interesting contrast experiment with a rare gene population being mixed with normal population and seeing a change in properties being extrapolated to racial mixing generally.
Finally, when it goes with what looks like basic prejudices and stereotypes one has to ask is their motivated reasoning. How hard has the person thought about complex genetics and statistics to form their view, or have they run with a view they like?
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Even if racial divergence may have ended, on net, around the Neanderthal age
What is your basis for this claim? That is do you have stats, human diversity measures, genetic maps, local histories to back it up?
An evolving system will always be diversifying (that is what the mutation does) and there's also surely a lot of racial mixing. Are the Sumerians a distinct racial, ethnic, cultural grouping now? Are the famous English local rivalries really between Picts, Angles, Saxons, Norman's, Vikings?
Please enlighten me.
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
What is the interesting stuff?
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
I think there is a lurking leftist middle that probably exists here, at least I am one, and I certainly don't believe in HBD as it's typically used. The difficulty is that the world is complex and it's hard to build and formulate the kind of critique necessary to capture nuance and rebut the plethora of arguments hoarded by the HBD side.
I think the tribal thing is overdone with left v right, the problem is the failure of people to think for themselves. I mean your claim that all blue is pro-immigration seems unlikely, or is evidence of some serious group-think. Immigration is a complex, and contextual issue. If half the population has one view on it, that's stupid.
I'm broadly in favour of diversity and different cultures existing as a plurality but words like multiculturalism and for that matter diversity are ruined for me as they have a monolithic group think sense about them.
I see this site as having plenty of people from the left who escaped from this kind of mindless group think.
HBD isn't mentioned all that much these days.
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Yes, that's true - the buck stops domestically for such places that volunteer for mass immigration from war-torn places.
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
I imagine it's strategic foreign policy driven by national interest, access to resources etc. Basically having geopolitical influence in a region.
But individual instances of the mongering are more contingent and serve more localised benefits such as the military industrial complex, profiteers.
The actual instances of intervention are often due to power politics of some form and the consequences down the road ultimately reveal that the various strategic rationalisations are just a facade and the only reason that remains is that the US seeks to be ruthless and brutish to peoples all over the world, to show that is maximus brutish/ruthless and sustain itself as a hegemony, with the most likely aim to turn regions into shitholes, to reduce their potential for power, or ideally set them up as useful clients and to hell with whoever gets murdered locally as a result.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of civilians are killed in indiscriminate bombing and millions flee. In Syria a client state of a relatively weak rival power remains, the region is broadly thrown into turmoil, raising potential stochastic damage down the track. Next, do the same with Iran...
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Yes, this makes sense as a strategy. Having some experience of it from both sides I've noticed there's a perception of moral righteousness you can hold onto (exploit?) that starts out comforting against a background say of stress, confusion or pain
As to always a male behaviour surely thats laughable. My friends relationship has the tendency to pattern as him doing something a bit egregious (being too hungover to take kids somewhere) and her punishing him with silent treatment for the appropriate length of time...
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Much of the refugee migration was out of Iraq, Syria destruction so off the back of US war mongering and lingering cold war stuff. We shouldn't forget these root causes when we champion the next intervention.
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
I think it can start for a myriad of reasons but thinking can lock itself in somewhat and become self-referencing to continue the behaviour regardless of origin. It could be they are seeing through us phoney adults....
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Reinforces to me that one of the biggest groups for Dunning-Kruger is research psychologists...
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
I think I'm getting it, unsuccessful black people: bad, successful black people: bad.
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Oh right, I wasn't really meaning not having religious schools, I was thinking for public schools, public funds to have an expectation of secularity. I'm also in favour of charter schools with different perspectives etc.
ShariaHeap
4mo ago
Yes, definitely agree with the need for the mythic element in society and something shared. I think we have to take on the insights of post-modernism around grand narratives, post colonial critiques etc but have to bring back/integrate with 'greatness'.
I've always been partial to liberal and cosmopolitan values to celebrate within a national spirit of democracy. But we are all beyond the naive stage with people now somewhat aware of the propaganda that has underlied previous national narratives and therefore sensitive to it. Also, it's hard to inspire if we all suspect things have gone awry with plutocracy, inequity, ie the disappearing American dream is no longer a central national myth.
Very compelling and cogent read. Thanks for the post. I agree, seems obvious to me now that we are in a dynamical system where we need to push and release to get balance. Child care, criminology, whatever it just seems basic that you cant just slide over to one end of the scale and expect good results...
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