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I have a somewhat alternate theory to the standard HBD concept, one that may not be original but I haven't seen before, although I haven't delved the HBD forums much.
The standard HBD argument is that different races have different IQs, and that is the primary factor leads to all sorts of different outcomes. Instead of IQ causing so many differences, which I think might be true but is a lesser factor, I think different races are domesticated to different degrees. I read the book The Goodness Paradox about a year ago, and it was about how while humans kill each other in vastly larger scales than any other animal, we're also much less likely to try to tear each other's faces off in the woods than any other animal. The author first divides violence into two categories: reactive and pre-mediated. Sometimes violence is pre-planned and calculated, like a sniper watching carefully for the moment to take the shot. Other violence is reactive, like someone punches you or even just insults your mother and you hit back before you even think. The author presents a simple answer: That there is a relatively straightforward evolutionary process through which animals are domesticated, and domestication leads to much lower rates of reactive violence. The mechanism is that the animal is essentially forever childlike mentally. But not just mentally, also physically; that's why dogs look like wolf cubs, and domesticated foxes have converged on similar traits like floppy ears.
I think black people are similar, in that they are a more "adult" human. They tend to be physically bigger and stronger. I often see black women called masculine, and that is the explanation for why they're less attractive and do worse on dating apps- but I think it makes more sense to call them more adult(whatever the opposite of neotony is). Black women are well known for large secondary sexual characterics like big ass and breasts, that's hardly masculine. And east Asian women by contrast, a race widely considered more on the high end of genetics by HBDers, tend to be more neotonous, with smaller secondary characteristics and young looking faces. And their men tend to be smaller and less physically strong. So I think it's quite plausible that that domestication mechanism, while probably not the sole factor, is a sizeable one in making black people have such higher rates of crime and east asians such lower rates of crime.
I think you're actually wrong there- whites are on average more physically imposing and have more facial hair, musculature, etc. I think you're also grossly oversimplifying the domestication process; the gene most associated with domestication is a thing that occasionally occurs in humans and causes williams syndrome, a rare developmental disorder. Insofar as animal intelligence can be measured, dogs are dumber than wolves, cattle and sheep are dumber than aurochs and mouflon, etc, etc- the opposite of whites and asians vs blacks.
Whites and Asians having more domesticated traits also needs a causative mechanism which doesn't run into obvious flaws- eg complex civilization as a domesticating force doesn't account for the middle east today.
Selection pressures on humans within historic times are interesting to talk about. But, I think domestication is definitely the wrong approach.
Despite making up 13% of the population, 53% of NFL players are black
I think there are multiple factors at work for different civilizations/races being succesful. I think HBD is part of the reason for civilizational differences, but I buy into the WEIRDest People in the World cousin-marriages leading to clannish honour culture being why the Middle East is behind the West. I know there's a complexity penalty for theories that incorporate multiple factors like this but it still looks the most plausible to me for why the Middle East is so backwards.
I think it seems very likely that all humans have been domesticated compared to our primitive great ape ancestors. Whether some races are more domesticated than others is a more open question. But I think it's quite plausible that they are.
???
This is a complete non-sequitur. NFL players are in no way selected purely for how physically imposing they are, and the person you're replying to was actually correct - whites have a higher average height than blacks as well as a lower level of obesity.
I think that there is a significant correlation between being an American football player and being physically imposing. As a proxy for 'this guy looks buff, better not mess with him', you could do worse than football player.
A 'complete non-sequitur' would have been if they had said 'blacks are strongly over-represented in /chess/, hence they are more physically imposing'.
Of course, there are a zillion confounders. Getting into the NFL probably means specializing in football in college, which is a decision hinging not only on other cultural factors. And it is not like most black males end up in the NFL either, so it could be that blacks simply have a larger variance.
There's some correlation to be sure, but using it as the metric is pointless when you have more relevant information available. Sure, you could do worse, but you could also do much better - why inject noise into the conversation for no reason? The political, commercial and social concerns that go into someone being selected as an American football player add so much noise that there's just no point using it for this kind of reasoning. When you look at the actual averages, white men are taller, in better shape and have greater physical function. It isn't even a matter of variance either - when you look at competitions selecting for strength, the top contenders have names like "Hafþór JúlÃus Björnsson", "Benedikt Magnússon" and "Mariusz Zbigniew Pudzianowski".
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