somedude
3mo ago
Oh, so you just call everything you disagree with on the subject of race "HBD" whether the stated reasoning has anything to do with genetics or not. Brilliant. Let me guess, you read their minds and decided you could disregard everything they were saying in favor of your own imagined "real" version of their arguments.
No, progressive Democrats are not HBD advocates. They generally get really agitated whenever anyone brings up HBD as an explanation for anything. Stop posting like anyone else knows or gives a shit about your personal imaginary versions of what everyone thinks.
somedude
3mo ago
Sure, and you can argue that alchemy deserves more credit for being the primitive precursor to chemistry, but I'm still not going to be terribly sympathetic when someone tells me I'm being close-minded about the existence of the philosopher's stone.
somedude
3mo ago
All of civilization and the foundation that allowed science to be developed and flourish, perhaps?
I'm sorry, I meant what have you brought us that is in any meaningful way distinguishable from people believing in fantasy. Human beings make shit up constantly, and even in a world where magic was real and we had a way to tell, you'd still expect there to be a lot more chaff than wheat.
Do you have any way to offer us of telling them apart? Any way to separate the "real" magic from the shit that's actually just people making things up? What are the precepts of this non-materialist brand of science, how were they arrived at, and what makes you think they're true? Or are we just supposed to sort of blandly and noncommittally nod our heads at literally everything?
Generally I want a revival of religion, I want atheism to be a thing of the past and I want materialists to acknowledge arguments and admit they don't know instead of sneering. It seems that's too much to ask, however.
It really is. If this is what non-materialists want, then their arguments are going to need to get much, much, much better. When someone like me brings up "experimental insights" and "testable theories" and such, you need to understand that what we're really asking, what those words literally mean, are "Can we create any set of circumstances where your beliefs about reality being true or false make any discernable difference?"
If the answer is no, then yeah you're going to have to go to the back of the line. Sorry, but the number of things that would fit into the space you're trying to carve out is functionally infinite, they can't all be true, and you're not offering me any decent way to tell which are supposedly which.
somedude
3mo ago
A couple centuries ago, give or take, human beings began interrogating the universe in an organized fashion we call "science" and in the process unlocked incredible powers beyond the wildest dreams of their ancestors. Now we can travel places by flight, cure terrible diseases, speak and view across vast distances, rain unfathomable destruction on our enemies, etc. etc. etc.
How far am I supposed to bend over backwards extending charity to all the sorcery that turned out to not actually work? Magical beliefs have been with us since we climbed down from the trees, and after thousands of years we have what? What have you brought us? A handful of anecdotes and some just-so rationalizations for why no one can find any decent evidence when they go looking for it.
To be honest, I'm not sure what non-materialists even want from us materialists. They aren't bringing any experimental insights, they aren't bringing any testable theories, and they don't have any magic that works. Do they just want to get snorted at less when they relate their ESP anecdotes at a party or on an internet forum? I don't know what they expect me to do with what they've given me other than shrug.
Personally I think that if human beings had evolved with the ability to read minds, summon ghosts, teleport, whatever, there would be a bunch of boring guys getting degrees in it by now, explaining how it all works. There would also be a bunch of fantasists griping that whatever specific Harry Potter thing didn't make the cut was actually real too, and those damn scientists with their genetics and neurobiology and ghost summoning were just too pigheaded to see it.
Your personal moral convictions regarding HBD posters don't seem to be especially interesting or important to anyone, and I'm not sure why you would have ever expected otherwise.
Why don't you spend a little bit less time repeating them to an apparently disinterested audience, and a little more time doing things like backing up your ludicrous claims? You stated here that "those were pushing DEI back during the Bush administration have transitioned to pushing HBD now" while in this post last week you said "those Anti-policing pushes have been spearheaded by the same class of people who are spearheading HBD awareness, namely secular progressive Democrats."
I want you to either defend these claims, by which I mean name actual names and cite actual evidence of progressive Democrats "spearheading" and "pushing" HBD, or flatly shut the fuck up and stop lying. I'm tired of watching you have these arguments with your feet firmly planted in Bizzarro World.
somedude
3mo ago
Imagine the partisan-flipped alternate universe version of this. Bunch of progressives sitting around an internet forum all baffled while one of the other users rants about conservative Republicans pushing their LGBT ideology. When someone says they support LGBT he gets really combative and insists they're really a conservative, when someone asks exactly which Republicans support it he feigns blindness.
I mean this is just getting stupid. He insists on inserting himself into these conversations but then also insists on holding them in a fantasy world that only he inhabits.
I don't think it's a coincidence at all those who were pushing DEI back during the Bush administration have transitioned to pushing HBD now that their chief opponents are secular academics rather than conservative Christians.
Like who?
Either start naming some Bush-era pushers of DEI who have transitioned to pushing HBD or stop foisting your hallucinations on us. You're constantly saying goofy shit like this while everyone else scratches their heads. Like this post from last week.
Yes and it's no coincidence that those Anti-policing pushes have been spearheaded by the same class of people who are spearheading HBD awareness, namely secular progressive Democrats.
Like... what? Progressive Democrats are spearheading HBD awareness? Gosh all the progs I hear from on Twitter and Reddit sure will be surprised, so why don't you just go ahead and list some of these progressive anti-policing Democrat HBD advocates for us?
somedude
3mo ago
Your argument seems to imply that it if you abduct a child from a society in which some number of forced child brothels exist, and then keep that child in your basement and rape them every day, you haven't committed any sin because that was something that could have happened to them in their society anyway. True or false?
If someone from America goes to visit Kidfuckistan, purchases a bunch of child prostitutes, brings them to America, and starts his own child brothel, I can't imagine anyone around here arguing that he shouldn't be thrown into prison for eternity at the very least.
At the same time, once the guy was in the slammer and everything, it would be pretty weird if the kids grew up and decided they were proud Kidfuckistani-Americans and the two weeks they spent as prostitutes in the US before the FBI kicked in the door were a historically unique evil.
somedude
3mo ago
I guess every job in society should just be handed out by lottery then, since figuring out if someone would be good at something or not is apparently impossible. That sure does make hiring easier. Every time say... a civil engineer... quits or retires we can just replace them with someone who was working at McDonald's the day before. Have fun next time you're driving across a bridge.
somedude
3mo ago
Yeah, I feel you on this. I don't have anything against these kinds of farfetched hypothetical "What if magic was real?" conversations, they can be useful points of comparison for sussing out why one holds particular real-world opinions, but I groan whenever a transhumanist hyper-optimist strolls into a discussion about HBD or gender and starts talking about how the problem can be solved by magical Ninja Turtles biotech within a timeframe short enough to even be relevant to current social issues.
somedude
3mo ago
Sure they're still hedging their bets, but in the process they're learning that A) it doesn't actually take the heat off them and B) nobody really cares anyway. Zaslav going out of his way to make sure the public knows Rowling is directly involved in the new show, even as the headlines about her dunking on the trans community flow, is a significant signal.
Everything isn't the gay rights battle. Social media is a lot more ubiquitous now than it was ten or fifteen years ago, and frankly the trans community uses it to be their own worst enemy in ways that are uniquely their own.
somedude
3mo ago
I don't. Seven or eight years ago I think it was South Carolina tried to pass a bathroom bill and the entire media and a shitload of huge companies and sports leagues and such all flipped their wigs and threatened to basically boycott the state until it caved in and the bill was gutted. You'd think they passed a bill to legalize slavery.
Nowdays, not so much. There isn't as much media hoopla, companies are way less eager to wade in, and bills have passed in a number of states. That's not the way this was "supposed" to go. If anything, the last couple of controversies have actually put the boycott shoe on the other foot.
I mean thanks to Hogwarts Legacy it's now been conclusively shown that progressives flipping out on social media over "transphobia" can be safely ignored while promoting your mass-market media product. Sure enough, Rowling sits on Twitter shitposting at trans activists all day like it's 4chan and that hasn't stopped the head of Warner Bros from publicly touting her involvement in the new HP show as a positive.
Compare that with the shitstomping Bud Light took for letting a mere hint of transgender activist marketing waft in the general direction of their product. Behind the scenes people have clearly had serious conversations reassessing what they do and do not need to care about in regard to public opinion. The amount of shits given about progs mad at transphobia has visibly plummeted.
Besides, statistically it's not like the people saying "trans women are women" would actually date one. The number of straight people willing to even countenance such a thing is essentially just a lizardman's constant, and even among the rest of the LGB community the proportion is shockingly low. This is a social/political signalling meme, not something people are living when the lights go out. Memes like that can have great power to be sure, but eventually they run their course.
somedude
3mo ago
Except the LGBT movement wasn't part of my outgroup at first, the religious weirdoes bitching about it were. That outgroup predicted that the LGBT movement would escalate with a series of increasingly unreasonable and disgusting demands, and sure enough here we are.
So no, I didn't apply a heuristic of "my outgroup will demand something disgusting" whatsoever. Rather a movement that was at first nominally part of my ingroup started demanding to teach queer theory to kindergarteners and keep children's "gender transitions" secret from their parents.
somedude
3mo ago
The religious types told me that the LGBT squad wouldn't be content to just win and go sit down, but rather would return with a new set of worse and disgusting demands. They were correct. Pointing out that they didn't guess the exact flavor correctly isn't that interesting to me.
I don't need you to "buy it", I'm just telling you why I will absolutely never give the LGBT movement another inch under any circumstances.
somedude
3mo ago
I mean, my memory is that the slippery slope people were not talking about transgenderism back then, they were talking about bestiality and pedophilia becoming accepted and mainstream.
"Sure they said next I'd put poop in your Cheerios, but look this is clearly just pee!"
I don't think you understand what a massive blackpill it is for some of us to see the LGBT movement try so hard to include kids in their agenda. Watching them flip their wigs over a law preventing them from teaching their ideology to children below the third grade, or whatever, was bad enough. The fact that the first person to say "hey maybe the parents don't need to know" wasn't instantly exiled and nuked from orbit is, unto itself, a dog-fucking level offense in my eyes.
somedude
3mo ago
Much like Walterodim, I supported gay marriage back in the day, and have come to deeply regret that support in light of the transgender movement that followed. I too consider all the "crazy" religious slippery slope doomcasters to have been vindicated.
somedude
3mo ago
If only we had some kind of example to use as evidence one way or the other. Like say a famous historical case where someone came into a non-academic setting where actual results really mattered, and lowered the requirements in regards to standardized intelligence testing.
That sure would tell us something about how this all works, don't you think?
somedude
3mo ago
The historical event in question was raised, both times, as a counterexample in direct response to your opinion that tested intelligence is unrelated to actual intelligence. You've repeatedly failed to even attempt to defend that opinion or engage with the example in any relevant way. That's called losing an argument.
The squirming just makes you look worse. I mean you understood the question when Aardvark asked it months ago, you just blurted out "no" while neglecting to include any sort of actual reasoning. I don't know what you think you're going to type here that covers for the fact that you still don't have any.
So you're telling us you don't understand why a historical example of someone lowering requirements on a standardized mental aptitude test, to disastrous results, might be even the least bit relevant to your own position that standardized mental aptitude tests don't mean much? That's really the angle you're actually going with here?
Okay well, good luck with that. This has become farcical enough that I'm content with the L you've been handed here. All that's left to do now is to wait for the next HBD thread in however many weeks, let you start your usual routine, and then show everyone my one weird trick for making you forget how to parse English.
somedude
3mo ago
Here, I'll just link to the last time someone brought up McNamara in response to your specious opinions on IQ and you shamelessly dodged. I'll walk you through it so there's no confusion.
Aardvark2:
You're a military man. So tell me why McNamara's moron corps were bad at real-life tasks they were assigned, and damaging to other units' morale even though all what they were different is just worse result on paper-and-pencil test?
You:
Do you really think rationalists are any better at "real-life tasks"? Likewise, if you know many military men you know that the name McNamara is a dirty word. There's a reason that his is one of the only red headstones in Arlington.
Generic sneer aimed at rationalists, twee anecdote that doesn't even try to answer the question. Someone notices.
zPvQINBQvfFR:
Wouldn't that suggest that people who think IQ measures something real and useful in real life might have a point? Guy comes up with idea of lowering the threshold on a mental aptitude test to fill a manpower shortage, and now his name is considered cursed for generations. This sure seems consistent with mental aptitude tests mattering in real life."
Boy it sure does, doesn't it? Someone decided that those silly standardized tests don't really reflect actual human ability, and gambled on that notion in a field where results actually matter. The ensuing trainwreck seems like a big challenge for someone who seems to believe essentially the exact same thing, so let's see how you responded.
You:
No. If anything Robert McNamara illustrates my point that it is possible for someone with a high iq to be a complete moron.
Wow, stunning rebuttal. Sure McNamara conducted a nearly perfect experiment on how much standardized intelligence tests matter in real life, sure the results were directly opposite to what your worldview predicts, but on the other hand you said "No."
Like what do you imagine that people think when they see stuff like this? Your little crack about McNamara being a high IQ moron isn't actually a point. The notion that high IQ people can't make terrible mistakes isn't a belief anyone holds that you're refuting. Meanwhile you have literally zero explanation for why this huge body of evidence shouldn't count. Just "No."
You'll do this kind of stuff, and at the same time act like it's really strange and disconcerting that HBD holds so much sway around here. I hate to break it to you, but it's largely because you and so many others of similar persuasion make bad arguments and lose constantly.
That's what it's called when you sit around pretending to not understand the questions, or play off contrary evidence with a joke that doesn't answer anything, or just abandon an exchange when it's pointed out that nothing you're saying is supported by the facts. Losing an argument. You do it constantly, and it makes an absolutely mockery of the superior air you work so hard to give off.
somedude
3mo ago
By the way, if you're tired of me and my historical ignorance and sloppy thinking, you can always go ahead and respond to Nybbler here where you actually lost the argument like three days ago. You know people notice when that happens, right? It sort of typifies the anti-HBD discourse on this forum.
somedude
3mo ago
Yeah my bringing up this concrete example of the consequences of disregarding intelligence testing, in response to your meandering asspulled dismissal of IQ, is just a vapid dunk. I'm sure you could totally explain how it doesn't invalidate your worldview if only someone worded things just right. Oh well, maybe next thread.
But seriously, pretty sure last time someone brought it up you just joked that McNamara was a high IQ moron and refused to engage. We all know you've got nothing.
This seems to be a great time to bring up one of my favorite subjects when it comes to this debate. You know it, you love it, it's McNamara's Morons.
For those of you who might have missed this little tangent, during the Vietnam War, Secretary McNamara decided to lower the required score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test to as low as the tenth percentile in order to raise a bunch of cannon fodder for the Army. Shockingly, this experiment was a catastrophe. You can read the Wikipedia article here.
Now this particular instance, of someone coming into a complex field that actually intersects with reality and lowering the required scores on standardized intelligence tests, causing disaster to ensue, would seem to be a significant data point when it comes to the relevance of standardized intelligence testing.
I mean, you'd think so, right? Nonetheless I have been chasing this dude around the forum like the Terminator trying to get him to make a post that engages with the example in any meaningful way, to absolutely no avail, all while he continues to bang his drum about how meaningless standardized tests are.
If you happen to click, make sure you expand the comments on that second link. Look at where he goes "How is this an argument against individual merit?" out of literally nowhere, just completely arguing with someone who only exists in his imagination.
At this point I don't really expect any kind of worthwhile response, but I may as well throw this out there if he's going to continue to post about the subject and expect to be taken seriously.
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