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What is the value of HBD being true?
I was talking to my psychiatrist about this. He seemed amenable to HBD, he has heterodox opinions, but he was curious as to why I was curious.
I think that most people at the motte generally accept that IQ scores aren't evenly distributed among groups, but what is the counter argument to: "Why does it matter?" and "in the past, when we've focused on differences, it ends badly".
Scott thinks it matters because he believes that our resistance to using IQ tests is based on the fact that favored classes do poorly. I think he's right; we have our (heavily discredited, but still used) hypothesis of multiple intelligences. And the Nazis developed their own hypothesis of multiple intelligences, "practical" and "theoretical", because they realized that their favored class "aryans" performed more poorly than their hated class "jews".
What do you think of the idea that multiculturalism needs a "great lie" in order to function? Subconsciously, progressive whites know that black people broadly aren't as intelligent; they downshift their speech around black people more than conservatives do. I don't think this is because conservatives are less "racist", but because they aren't willing to make themselves less competent to cater to black people. But what if it goes mainstream, and from subconscious to conscious? My most honest thought is, I don't know what comes next. Because I don't know, it could be worse. I have to admit that's a possibility. But I don't think we'll ever get a satisfying conclusion by lying. But I would like to harvest some thoughts here. Are we setting up for another holocaust if we push this mainstream, or is that just more nonsense?
I think that recognizing that IQ differences are a thing would open the door to separating classes by aptitude. I think the primary resistance to this is that you'd see the wrong concentrations in the high aptitude and low aptitude groups. Currently, in CA, the new (old) thrust is that talent isn't real, aptitude isn't real. I think that a denialist approach will probably do damage by not challenging each type of student appropriately. And we have a tendency to be willing to disadvantage higher performing students, like cutting AP math classes because of "white" (asian) supremacy. We know that students learn best when around other students who are their peers in terms of academic ability. I don't think this would be persuasive to a hardened woke, though. I think that even if they knew IQ differences were real, and genetic, they would resist this because they would see it as harmful to low aptitude students.
Group differences in IQ being genetic could be a strong pro-welfare position. But that also makes me uncomfortable. Should we really make it even easier for the low IQ to further outbreed high IQ people? But I'm just rediscovering eugenics. Should that be a bad word? In the past, strong selection (cultural, and biological) probably led to Britain escaping the malthusian trap (see "Farewell to Alms" for more details). What could we accomplish if we again constrained reproduction to push for the kinds of traits that get shit done? Where I'm sitting, it looks like we're caught in a sort of trap. What problems could we solve if we tried to create better people? Maybe intelligent species die in their planetary crib because once they reach a level of sophistication supported by their biology, they engineer ways to decouple reproduction from the stuff that matters, and as a result, they fail to achieve anything more. They maybe succeed in creating a comfortable way of life, but not an innovative one. So, a society like ours, that favors Nick Cannons over Von Neumanns. Still working through this line of thinking, any thoughts?
White and Asian kids are being raised, from my view, to be sacrificial lambs. I see it as a modern, woke retelling of the White Man's Burden. If Black kids weren't raised to blame White kids, and to turn their feelings of inferiority into weapons, I think that would be good for them. And it would certainly be good for White kids to not grow up internalizing that any disparity is their fault. Same with Asians, they aren't even White but they get hit with this shit the most. But again, this isn't going to be convincing to a woke. Can this be framed in a way that they will understand? Or is that structurally impossible? My view of things is that the White guilt narrative allows White elites to outmaneuver other Whites by allying with non-Whites. If this is true, being completely correct means nothing as long as this alliance is paying dividends.
More generally, a principle I believe in is: it's much harder to solve a problem when you're deliberately ignorant to the cause. We didn't solve anything in the '60s, I think we put off the problem, and we'll have to pay, with interest, but I'm not totally sure the form this will take.
Just a specific response on my phone (sorry in advance) to your second paragraph, seeing as my partner is a psychiatrist and I've mentally ruled out discussing the subject with him anymore.
It's impossible to overstate (at least as a generality) how fucked up psychiatrists are personally, how much they suffer from imposter syndrome, how inferior they feel in income, status, knowledge and career trajectory to their peers, and among the brighter ones, like my partner, the ugly knowledge that as soon as a pathology has an identified physical substrate it ceases to be in their purview ... So a priesthood, really, and not one that has worked in any measurable outcomes, including those of sufficient importance to arguably constitute the field's raison d'etre (e.g. how are those suicide rates going, etc?).
I know my partner feels intense shame for not getting into surgery, and for that matter, getting a second-round offer years ago. He would go to tatters if he didn't have Gardner's silly theory of multiple intelligences to fall back on, as much as he recognises psychometrics as useful statistically and forensically.
I can't bring myself to go to parties with psychiatrists anymore but when I did, it seemed like my partner comprised the minority of maybe 20 percent of registrars who were seemingly straight white men. Of course this may not be true elsewhere in the world but this exodus indicates that the profession will only further decline in esteem IMHO.
I think my psych is an odd one. He doesn't buy the multiple intelligences hypothesis, or a lot of the other stuff he's supposed to. He doesn't see trans clients anymore, because he's skeptical of the affirmation first model, and feels that psychs are put in a no win scenario.
He told me a story about a friend of his, another psych, who works at a hospital. One of his friend's residents had a trans patient that wanted to surgically transition. The resident wasn't sure what to do, so he asked her. She said she wasn't sure either, and referred the case to their gender center (or whatever they call it now). She was informed, in no uncertain terms, that if they ask for it, they get it. Then she found her responsibilities curtailed. So he doesn't touch it with a ten foot pole.
He believes in hbd, and believes that the black community has been taught to externalize their problems.
He's also really critical of feminists, after he clashed with them on campus because of sex based research into the brain that he was doing. He buys into red pill-lite ideas.
He's still mostly a NYT liberal, but he has to keep his mouth shut about a lot of topics (and has plenty of stories about how he's gotten into trouble because he couldn't)
I think you're right about the trajectory of the field. If I had to get a younger psych I probably wouldn't bother. They won't let guys like that in anymore.
One working definition of a professional I came across in my readings for an upcoming exam -- people occupied in a position wherein their clients lack the wherewithal to judge the merits of their abilities. Of course this is a fairly wide continuum, and the therapeutic relationship matters most of all even if it's based on misunderstandings, pretenses, irrelevancies etc.
I tried to get my partner to start reading the Motte culture war thread and Kiwifarms because it was obvious he was being actively hindered by just having been too old/busy to keep up with the nomenclature and dogma. He called me in exultation after his last (nth) exam prior to full college membership where the question involved an Aboriginal woman having trouble meeting eye contact. "I can answer this!" he must have giggled before writing about Jung, Lacan, maybe even some Male Gaze nonsense .... I had to be the one to tell him he had failed again, that the question was designed to both be simple (special cultural needs for special groups -- in any case, he'd already been assumed to have any amount of technical knowledge as he had been doing it since his early 20s) as well as a plausible way to keep out those who haven't had the time and inclination to keep up with the mores of the day.
So I am trying to compile a sort of culture war compendium, or at least stick map of the deadliest minefields, for his benefit and maybe those of some of his colleagues down the line. If anyone has any ideas about how to go about this, let me know. A lot of people don't "get" the clues to the zeitgeist in wacky articles I might link to, it may as well just be The Onion as far as they're concerned.
Your boyfriend sounds amazing lol. I'm glad he has you as a minder to fend off the quokka-poachers.
Thank you. I am pretty weird and trouble-prone and he keeps me sane, happy and loved etc. He has always known about my financial circumstances and supported me during periods of "the outs" with my family and I don't think he actually believed me when I said what's mine is his -- at least not when I would get serious money. So I look forward to surprising him in less than two weeks when I get my inheritance for meeting my last condition and while I have not come up with a definite plan it will involve me studying and memorizing every detail of his face when he realises that the biggest hurdle is done in life and he can live, work, travel, etc. for as long as he lives. It will end up being the best or worst decision of my life -- obviously he will become capable of walking away and enjoying himself in his own way (sex with much better looking younger people) because he will be totally independent but I doubt it, and if he did he'd have earned it anyway for years of loyalty, and in any case I won't hold him hostage by doling out monthly sums. I also worry the money will destroy his incentive to study for his career exam and he may blame me on some level for not just keeping my mouth shut a few months longer. Which is admittedly my selfishness not my desire to help so much. So hard to decide what to do --- ugggh. Maybe I'll organise things somehow to give him all but a few percent in property so that he gets slow regular returns to live off and can't make any spur of the moment bad decisions on a roulette wheel. Or just tell him he gets only a few thousand a week until he meets his own exam goal, and allow that time to adjust to a new lifestyle? Or be an asshole and just say that though the money is his and in trust with me for the duration of our relationship only and I am just a stopgap in case he gets drunk and tries to buy a submarine? I feel like a total killjoy already...
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