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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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Is cultural intervention honestly any more palatable than genetic pessimism to the opponents of hbd? Stop doing damage to society and you can examine the issue at your leisure. But if you're going to impose large costs on me and mine you need to have real receipts.

But also, that groups vary in average just trivially follows from the idea that different individuals can vary on the same measures. Any randomly selected group will vary to some degree just due to internal variance and it takes very little selective pressure to make that variance larger. It would require some kind of miracle for groups that were isolated for thousands of years to not vary somewhat and then we're just haggling on price.

Is cultural intervention honestly any more palatable than genetic pessimism to the opponents of hbd?

I'm not sure what exactly what you're asking here. But if you're asking whether I think having a common culture/values matters more to building healthy communities racial homogeneity? or do I believe that growing up in a middle-class two-parent household has a greater effect on a child's life outcomes than the melanin content of their skin? the answer is "Yes, Absolutely."

You are of course aware we are able to control for being raised middle class and having a two-parent household, correct? I think you know what I mean by cultural intervention, are the opponents of HBD wiling to tell underperforming groups that they are raising their kids wrong and need to be forced to change how they raise their kids? Not that I would support this even if it would work, it would be a monstrous thing. But that's what you mean by a culture explanation right?

You are of course aware we are able to control for being raised middle class and having a two-parent household, correct?

I am aware, the question is are you?

Am I aware of what? That your proposed examples are baked in already? why would this support your position?

Essentially what @PutAHelmetOn said, by controlling for factors that are not genetics you are effectively baking the assumption that genetics is the primary causal factor into your study.

As for whether the cultural explanation is "monstrous" well that's one of the fundamental points of disagreement between the blue tribe and the red.

This seems like a confused idea around what controlling for factors means. If the difference persists after the controlling then those factors are not responsible for the difference. If the difference goes away then the controlled factors are shown to actually be causal. If you could control 100% of non genetic factors you'd have an exact measure of the genetic component's impact. If you could control 100% of genetic factors then you'd get an exact measure of environment.

This seems like a confused idea around what controlling for factors means. If the difference persists after the controlling then those factors are not responsible for the difference. If the difference goes away then the controlled factors are shown to actually be causal.

Yes, I get that and my point is that this cuts both ways. IE when you control for genetics the differences don't go away. A cynic such as myself might suspect that this is why HBDist seem to hate talking about effect sizes

IE when you control for genetics the differences don't go away.

source?

FWIW, there's large environmental differences between rich countries (like yours) and poor countries, but this usually isn't talked much about.

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