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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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why are the children of our elites so consistently idiots and drug addicts

Do have evidence that they're disproportionately idiots and drug addicts? I strongly expect the opposite.

If the HBD-Tards' and Woke-Cels' theories about race were accurate, this ought to have translated into quick and easy victory

The Allies had more than double the GDP of the Axis powers every year of the war. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that racial differences (if they exist) can trump a 2x advantage in production. It was even more lopsided regarding raw population counts. Even beyond that you're attempting to infer causation (or lack thereof) based on a correlation of n=2. That's absurd.

If racial purity is supposed to lead to superior intelligence and intelligence is supposed to result in greater production (amongst other things) what does Germany and Japan falling way behind on production tell us?

They were not way behind on production per person, which really ought to be the far more relevant metric to evaluating HBD.

But this is all moot, because, again, you are using a lack of correlation to infer a lack of causation, and you are using n=2. That is sloppy reasoning and can't let you draw any conclusions.

Sorry I'm muddying your rigorous analysis with silly things like logic.

you are using a lack of correlation to infer a lack of causation

Yes, that is exactly what I'm doing. While correlation does not prove causation, causation requires correlation, which is why the two are so often conflated.

In symbolic terms; if A is always found in the presence of B, this does not prove that A causes B. B could instead cause A, or both B and A could be a product of a third unidentified factor C. However if A does in fact cause B, "If A then B" will be a logically true statement, and thus lack of correlation (IE A in the absence of B) is actually very strong evidence against causation.

Wrong.

Causation does not require correlation.

Consider the causal network

B = A

C = -A

D = B+C

There will be no correlation between B and D, even though B causes D.

An HBD advocate might say IQ causes greater output/capita but fewer people (via lower birth rates). This would cause an unknown correlation between IQ and total GDP.

Moreover, again, a correlation with n=2 is not even good evidence of correlation - especially when you are literally cherrypicking to prove your point.

even though B causes D.

This might be a language barrier issue but that is not what you wrote. An equality is not an implication, and implications are not commutative.

That said I think I understand what you're trying to say and I don't think it matters. As like I said to @sansampersamp by acknowledging the presence of a 3rd unidentified factor that can overpower heritability you've effectively falsified the the bulk of the HBD-advocate's claims and rendered their policy proscriptions moot.

This might be a language barrier issue but that is not what you wrote. An equality is not an implication

In the above, I'm using equality in the way typical in programming, not mathematics. Setting B = A, then setting C = -A, then setting D = B+C. In this way, any change to B causes a change to D. This is one of the two most common ways to use the "=" symbol across countries and languages.

Indeed, it's probably worth pointing out that causation is not an implication - a distinction you seem unclear on.

acknowledging the presence of a 3rd unidentified factor that can overpower heritability you've effectively falsified the the bulk of the HBD-advocate's claims

Even ceding everything else, how can the mere existence of a factor that can occasionally have a larger effect than genes, "falsify" HBD? Like, an HBD-advocate might think a black man will statistically beat an asian man in a fight due to being geneticlly stronger. If you give an asian man a gun and they shoot a black man, how exactly have you disproven HBD?

causation is not an implication

Causation is absosultly an implication, "If A then B" is the literal definition of causation.

Even ceding everything else, how can the mere existence of a factor that can occasionally have a larger effect than genes, "falsify" HBD?

Because it's not the motte that matters it's the bailey when people talk about "HBD" the claim being made is not that certain traits are heritable the claim being made is that genetics has such an outsize effect on that it's pointless to consider any other.

"If A then B" is the literal definition of causation

The definition of implication is this truth table:

A B A -> B

T T T

T F F

F T T

F F T

Crack open any textbook on logic or math. That is the literal definition. There is also a separate notion of "entails". These are basic concepts in the field of formal logic.

The definition of "causation" is more complex and debated, but the two are definitely not equivalent since logical implication can work backwards in time and causality can not. Logical implication can also work instantly, whereas causation is limited by the speed of light.

Edit: more to the point, I literally provided an example above where B causes D but has no correlation ("implication")

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