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 -
There's a bunch of handwringing downthread about how the real problem with low TFR is dysgenics and not shrinking populations. I've got some data to push back on that: https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-money-more-babies-whats-the-relationship-between-income-fertility
The US is a meritocracy, which means that income and IQ are correlated- and we see a dysgenic fertility for native blacks(but they're shrinking as a percent of population and not that high of one to begin with) and a eugenic fertility for native whites. The latter statistic is interesting because we know that the conservative white fertility rate is higher than the liberal white fertility rate, while incomes run in reverse- which indicates either east asia tier fertility for lower middle income blue tribers or african tier fertility for wealthy red tribers(and no, from 10,000 feet red tribe and conservative/blue tribe and liberal are not different things, even if they might be in individual cases. At least not post-Trump). Hispanics look like they have a dysgenic fertility pattern, but anecdotally they do lots of tax fraud so the income statistics might be off, and also I'm guessing recency of arrival leads to a looser income/IQ correlation. Still, it might be dysgenic. Asian fertility is low but broadly eugenic.
That gives an overall picture which is actually relatively encouraging- the largest group has a eugenic fertility pattern, people that are hard to categorize have a eugenic fertility pattern, and two poor minority groups have dysgenic looking patterns, but one of them might not actually be dysgenic.
Realistically concern about dysgenics is concern about either a) the browning of America or b) the likelihood of a majority black world. And I'm not claiming either to be unconcerning, but upwards mobility still exists in Latin America. Latin America manages to filter its higher IQ individuals into roles that are necessary to the functioning of society. There is an industrial society south of the border. It's poorer, produces less innovation, and has higher crime rates, but life is OK by global standards. It sucks a lot worse for an untalented individual to live in Brazil than in the US, that's true. But it is very much not a third world country with third world problems. The browning of America is manageable, and the effect is overstated anyways because blacks(who have the lowest IQ) aren't growing as a percentage of the population.
A majority black world, on the other hand, is likely, but immigration enforcement is getting harsher and Africa is hard to get out of. This is, in other words, likely a mostly African problem- and Africa's fertility is still declining. Particularly if the breeder hypothesis(and Lyman Stone's simulation suggests it tops out at 33% of population- still enough to strongly influence societal direction) turns out to be true, the concern in 2100 will be less about enormous numbers of black migrants reaching Europe and more about the Dutch Calvinists getting enough votes to institute a theocracy. It's true that random African peasants don't contribute much to civilization but keeping them in Africa is eminently doable.
Dysgenics is an overhyped problem, just like overpopulation was in the seventies. The real problem? Pensions, tax receipts, instability in central and west african shitholes that have a surplus of young males and no ability to manage agricultural production, general population contraction.
I think you are massively over-interpreting the data.
There is some correlation between income and IQ (which is in turn correlated with genetics). Likely, there are different effects at play here: Rich caretakers will invest more in educating which will lead both to higher IQ and better paying jobs, but of course a lot of high-paying jobs (STEM, law, medicine, etc) also have some implicit IQ requirements.
There is at least some correlation to number of children between generations, parts of it purely cultural. Kids who grew up in large families are more likely to have many children themselves. On the other hand, a significant part of incomes are from inheritance. Most people living in cities spend a huge fraction of their income on rent, and most landlords did not earn their properties through the work of their hands but through inheritance. It stands to reason that a single child whose mother was 40 when she gave birth will on average inherit more money than one born to a five-kids family whose mother gave births between 20 and 35, even if either ones parents owned exactly the same amount.
You look at the income to fertility curve of blacks in the US and conclude that they true for blacks in Africa. If the relationship between IQ and fertility in each ethnicity was constant, then 10k years (perhaps 400 generations) ago blacks should have been very smart and whites really dumb given that today their intelligence is roughly similar. This is nonsense.
The source in the plot is cited as "American Community Survey". I am not sure if they are affiliated with the IRS and telling them their income is a bad idea if you are cheating on taxes. Just dismissing Hispanics because "anecdotally they do lots of tax fraud" feels epistemically bad, if you believe that tax fraud is significantly affecting the data, then your data is useless, unless you have statistics showing that 99% of the Hispanics cheat on taxes and only 1% of the non-Hispanics.
I disagree with your value-loaded adjectives 'dysgenic' and 'eugenic'. All things being equal, a person with a higher IQ is probably more beneficial to society than one with lower IQ in most scenarios. But what you are actually measuring is parental income, which is somewhat correlated to IQ, which then has a strong genetic component. As you use these adjectives, the implications are that a successful drug dealer reproducing is good while a person working an unglamorous job (such as a truck driver) is bad.
As this is the CW thread, we should also discuss how Dobbs will affect this curve. My prediction is that it will mainly increase the fertility of the lower income population. We are selecting not only for parents who were not able to use birth control successfully, but also for people who lack the resources or executive function to travel to another state to terminate their pregnancy. If the IQ 135 math student gets pregnant by accident (not terribly likely, imho), her professor parents will pay for a trip to another state. If the IQ 90 high school dropout raised by a single mom with a substance problem, who discovered sex and booze when she was 14 finally gets pregnant (a more likely scenario), she might not have the financial and executive resources to go on a trip to a blue state.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link