This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
What would you consider to be sufficient factual evidence to shift your views on HBD in various directions?
In order for the question to make sense, it is probably helpful to think of one's position on HBD along two axes, as in the Political Compass test, and one discrete parameter that would make less sense on an axis. You're also welcome to point out omitted positions.
x-axis, ranging from 0 to 10, where moving right indicates agreement with the statement: Human populations have significantly different average levels of intelligence, and this becomes far more pronounced in the right tails of the distributions.
y-axis, same range as the x-axis, but measured as 10 * perceived percentage of genetic contribution to the difference above. If you attribute some of the difference to the interaction of genetic and environmental influences, give that half the weight for simplicity.
Parameter z: How does intelligence correlate with the moral worth of a person? This can take on one of a few values:
(-1) Negatively
(0) Not at all
(1) Positively
(i) The moral worth of a person is dependent on their actions or beliefs, and intelligence only provides bounds on their culpability or merit.
I’m somewhere near neutral on the question and I think most of it is due to confounding factors— education access, nutrition and health care, environmental factors, and culture. It’s almost impossible in my mind to get a pure genetic signal when there are so many factors that we also know affect intellectual capacity that I don’t think we have a smoking gun here. As a minor factor, maybe, but not with the importance some HBD types give it. You’d almost have to have a large cohort of swapped babies raised by other populations to really tease out the genetics. I don’t see anyone willing to do that.
As far as moral worth, I’m firmly in the equality camp. A human should have all the rights that go along with being human.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption_Study
Isn't this kind of it?
I mean yes, but I’d consider a 10-15 IQ test differential to be fairly minor, it’s one σ at best. It’s there, but unless you’re doing high level stuff, I don’t think most people would be able to tell the difference at a glance between IQ 115 and IQ 100. At lower IQ it makes a difference sure, but for average IQ levels it’s not that much.
Right but it feels like you're assuming that somehow white people have no gains to be made. I think that assumption would fail on the same grounds you would fail those who presume that blacks have no gains to be made.
I'd argue that in the developed world, nobody has any gains to be made. We've removed lead from gasoline, famine and malnutrition are distant memories. In terms of IQ, we've picked all the low-hanging fruit. If there was a way to actually increase a child's IQ beyond avoiding stressors like malnutrition or poisoning, the tiger mothers and educational establishment would have found it by now.
I don't disagree. I just think it's easier to argue the point that there is no stated upper limit given by folks that argue what MaiqTheTrue argues. Since their position, in my experience of arguing against similar ones, is ultimately not based on objective thinking or anything related to the real world but rather moral preference.
When you push motivated egalitarians far enough they will simply resort to impossible to prove theories and assumptions, be that prenatal environment, systemic racism or whatever else. It's much quicker to simply ask them why they expect all of their confounding factors that can never be tested to only be able to affect black people. It helps highlight how the proposition that we could possibly increase IQ doesn't do much for equality.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link