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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.
Just a quibble, but don’t psychiatrists make bank?
It's usually the lowest paid medical speciality in my country. Vying with general practice. Again, this is region-specific, but given that the program here is usually a couple years longer than GP one (in reality, still longer as required placements/experience don't necessarily match up with jobs at hand, e.g. fifty hour intensive talk therapy sessions and write-up of the same, the aforementioned college exam failure rate being on some level designed to maintain a cheap labour force, and requirement for a further postgraduate master's degree, which is unusual here but not unprecedented (years ago I heard 50 percent of opthamologists have PhDs. What a waste of time and potential.
My boyfriend lives in a privatised "council flat" which means he has 10 years of university education to live next door to literal meth addict single mothers who haven't yet been moved out from $800,000 USD shitholes into still cheaper outskirting areas. He does choose low-paying work he believes in (prisons, youth reform stuff) but his $110K/annum wouldn't be lower than thirtieth percentile I don't think. It seems unjust to me but he is genuinely unbothered to wake up to a new crack pipe on his lawn from time to time ... Anyway I'm twelve days away from my inheritance and I plan on surprising him with the news that I was serious in saying what's mine is yours and giving him the option to retire or do something new. I get insane with anger when I hear about the constant bullshit ("Where's your pronoun badge?) and abuse (propinquity to the scum of the earth) he has to deal with so I just would be happiest paying for him to find a nicer house and improve his cooking and gardening but that conversation will inevitably come across as controlling or condescending. Currently I planning to help him study for one more shot early next year and drawing up a guide for him of pitfalls (all social, he's impeccable as a doctor) and if he fails, fuck it, let worse people do it.
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