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I won't say that this is a troll, since themotte has seen real people with such an opinion and it doesn't matter that someone is a new user when the entire site is new. On the other hand, this is certainly an inflammatory post without evidence, and doesn't belong here for that reason alone. Even though it does show some "evidence", the evidence is for something extremely narrow; the general claim
makes a very broad inflammatory claim that is not supported by the evidence provided, even if you were to assume it's true.
(And Nazis tend not to report evidence accurately anyway.)
I think the problem is that thanks to certain disgruntled former Mottizens and some other interested parties, there's a reputation floating around that the Motte is a refuge for right-wingers (and this means far-right, Neo-Nazis, etc.) so that anyone who is inclined to the far-right, Neo-Nazi, "Holocaust never happened", "HBD is real science that proves some populations are the natural inferiors to white people", types think that this is a refuge that will welcome them rocking up with "hey, anyone run the real numbers on the claimed death camps? you'll be surprised!"
It's the witch problem, as has often been discussed.
(Re: disgruntled former Mottizens, there's a certain person who hangs around on /r/Drama who likes to give their take as to why they were run off the Motte for bravely standing up to the right-wingers, instead of 'how I flounced off in a huff', and according to them this is a wretched hive of scum and villainy that probably at least hums the Horst Wessel Lied under our breath as we post).
I mean it kind of inherently is, due to the overton window for most of Reddit being like 90th percentile Left to 40th percentile Left, which also produces a lot of the 'I was kicked out of the Motte for speaking truth to grotty Right Wingers, but can't possibly be wrong since the rest of Reddit agrees with me' dynamics.
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Which guy is that?
Biggest flounce I remember was iprayiam, but I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple.
If you remember a certain someone who was constantly predicting that this time Trump was going to jail for sure. I think, but I am going on shaky memory, that the final flounce was triggered in part by a prediction that "within two weeks Trump will be in jail" and of course, longer than two weeks later, not at all, and a lot of people were asking this person "remind me again, when is it Trump is going to jail?"
But the retconning over on /r/drama is fun to read, even if it's not quite how I remember things going down. Definitely still has an entire apiary of bees in the bonnet about the motte.
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Sounds like he’s talking about Impassionata.
Obligatory disclaimer 😁
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For instance, I think the Lynn/Vanhanen IQ map is for the birds, especially since the 2012 version had to do some tidying up re: Irish IQ jumping up from 90 to 100 (the mainland still remains that bit smarter, even with the new colour codes however, Rule Britannia!) because the data is lousy. Lynn relied a lot on "I don't have IQ test results for this place, but the archipelago near it has this result, so that's close enough" and fudging bad studies.
So while HBD may exist, I think a hell of a lot of the conclusions drawn are jumping someplace that is not steady ground. Are African nations that naturally low in IQ, or is it test-taking ability? Are some of the results (e.g. China) cherry-picked because they only let their brightest take the tests? Do we have any reliable modern data?
We also put a lot of our eggs into the basket of "More IQ means better all round", when we're measuring mathematical ability mostly or solely. Being a whizz at maths does not necessarily mean this is the guy to run the country.
I think the issue is that IQ is measuring how intelligent one has managed to become. But racists like to use it to determine what one is capable of becoming. There was a very interesting case of the Dan Everett and the Piraha amazonian tribe (I can't find the article now, I believe it was in the Times or similar but it was more than a decade ago). He claimed that the tribe had no numbers in their language (only "many", "few") etc. and were completely incapable of learning to count.... if they learned after about 16 years of age. If they learned before then they could count just fine.
Of course there is much more evidence than this about forming connections before a certain age, etc. My point is that even if Africa truly has "naturally" low IQs, this is almost certainly do to with education and if that were fixed the IQs would rise. So again, the issue is that certain people try to look at IQ and point at something genetic but that's not remotely implied by IQ unless you could ensure the study group had the exact same education as the higher groups.
It can't have been much more than a decade ago. I'm failing to find it too, but I did find a 2005 paper where Everett still says "if I am correct that the Piraha˜ cannot count (something that will require much more experimentation to determine)".
He also recounts his wife attempting to teach counting to eager Piraha students over eight months of daily classes without success. If it turns out that their adults are so hopelessly innumerate but their children can learn then that's got to be one of the most amazing facts (whether about brain plasticity or Sapir-Whorf, either way) I've ever heard.
These days, we prefer the name "linguistic relativity hypothesis". Sapir-Whorf has some ugly ties to the Nazi's: they incorrectly used the theory as evidence for Aryan superiority (which is silly if you know German and some other language). Their usage was ridiculous but, like pedophiles, just the mention of their name taints the subject, hence the name change (and, of course, it more accurately states what the theory is about).
I should do a better job of keeping various articles that discuss the theory as it's kind of a pet favourite of mine. In my own life I've noticed Swiss-german native speakers tend to have a problem distinguishing smell and taste. They use the same word for both.
... and the plan is to ameliorate that with a damnatio memoriae on an ethnically Jewish scientist?
I'm not trying to shoot the messenger, thank you for the information ... but I do really hate it every time I see a bit of evidence for the conspiracy theory that modern anti-racism is hopelessly infiltrated by 4chan trolls.
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I agree with the criticism of Lynn's IQ measures, but the "More IQ means better all round" has held up pretty well, at least as far as "better intelligence" is concerned.
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Rather lazily copy-pasted content from an old /r/CultureWarRoundup post as well.
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It's all the very fine people from /r/drama.
The other day someone asked if Holocaust denial was off limits, so when Zorba replied with "not per se...", it was only a matter of time before someone tried to push the limits.
Nah, being fair to /r/Drama, they have a certain style that is identifiable and it's not this guy.
Yeah, because the whole comment has been copy-pasted. Pretty sure dramanauts know ho to use CTRL+C and CTRL+V.
Just plain copy-paste wouldn't be enough for a dramanaut, they would need to spice it up.
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No, that guy wasn't one of us. The rdrama style is pretty distinct, feeding off of people's preconceptions and leaning into the absurdity of modern discourse. It also features plenty of coded language, which I see none of here.
Actually I don't think I've seen anyone from there trolling since the initial launch, only people participating in good faith, which is interesting to see. Our style really works best on people who don't think too hard about what they read, so I think you guys are mostly off the hook.
The style that rdrama posts and then upvotes internally so it's visible may be distinct, but there's an obvious selection bias here in that the poster may very well just have been a low-quality rdrama user.
For all we know there could be a bunch of crap posts made by rdrama, like potentially this one, that just never rise to visibility there - resulting in a massively inflated view on what stuff actually gets produced.
I don't really know how to convince you guys that this isn't the case, but it isn't. Call it a woman's intuition, or at least something like that.
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As others pointed out, the comment has been copy-pasted from another sub, so appeals to style make no sense here.
You're just gonna have to take my word for it, that isn't how rdrama operates. As a subject matter expert, I know that guy wasn't one of us. Whether or not you decide to believe me is up to you.
According to your fellow drama appreciator, there's a guy over there with an axe to grind, who's pastime it is to convince people, that everyone here is a nazi.... I might need a bit more than "trust me, bro".
Could also be sneerclub, but I don't see what they'd get out of it now that we're off redit.
No, it's not even that person, because they have a unique style and cannot resist poking the bear. If they were doing it, it wouldn't just be straight up copy and paste, it would include some bait to get us all going so that they could then snip out reactions out of context and run back to show everyone their bouquet of wild flowers.
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I can't really say more, sorry. Trade secrets.
I suspect some dramanauts are already pissed at me.
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I mean are the figures correct is a fair argument. Does Israel used the holocaust as a political weapon to defend it's actions is also a fair question. Did the holocaust occur at all is an unfair question. The top comment seems to fall within fair but misguided or very likely incorrect.
As I age, I find myself slowly converting to something resembling Hlynkaism.
I mostly agree with you, hell I'd go even further, in and of itself, I don't think it's all that wrong to debate whether it happened at all or not.
But that's missing the point: what sort of person posts something like this as his opening move, on the day we move offsite?
Edit:
Very "well meaning, but misguided" vibes from that one.
All right, I concede. It's a troll.
(I don't actually disagree with Hlynka all that much, though he seems to hate me for some reason.)
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eh who cares. I am not here for the quality of the people I am here for ideas that I wouldn't here in the main culture sphere and then to process those ideas on my own terms to come to my own conclusions about them. Between you and me, I think the majority of this sites membership is made up of very bulliable people. Yet I shall be polite, for I come here for ideas, not the people's natures.
I'm sorry, an internet person talking about how bulliable people are is a bit much.
Hey I never said I was an exception to the rule, i am just further proof of the rule being true.
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