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This is kinda sneery but I've always wondered how the IQ realists here square the fact that high IQ is more corelated with liberalism than with any marker of social success; and that low IQ is more corelated with conservatism than with any marker of failure (other than getting charged for felonies).
I guess it just sucks to suck
One, rather liberal, answer is that conservatism is based on relatively unsophisticated heuristics for minimizing risk from novelty, exposure to outsiders and attempts at independent thinking – things beneficial for navigating modern society. Smarter people tend to be confident that they're better than that, and they're kinda right (thus, left).
Another, rather illiberal, answer is that IQ is relevant because it predicts comprehensive success at navigating society, from school to retirement. One of the most important components of such a success is generally avoiding pissing off people stronger than you. IQ is required to figure out their preferences regarding your behavior and modify it accordingly. In most cases it's far too frustrating and cognitively taxing to maintain a separate personality and worldview that's grounded in selfish preferences and unbiased exploration, so the mask becomes the face and people contort themselves into the form expected of them on the inside as well. «IQ realists» tend to be disagreeable, and are either good enough to maintain appearances while saying their true beliefs on anonymous forums, or don't care about the cost, or think they can afford it.
Would there have been a cost for you to be an IQ realist in Russia?
Not as much as in the West/US, probably – I've always been open about this aspect of my views when asked, and, being able to argue for them politely and with discretion, got decent reception in most groups worth mentioning.
It may be a transient thing, the blessing of Millenials, the only generation that knew a sliver of freedom. Among zoomers and alphas there is growing (I believe) opprobrium evoked by beliefs coded as racist and "chud", because in a sense we are all living in America; and old people are of course influenced by the Soviet Marxist dogma (even though they overwhelmingly do not identify as Marxists), which is identical to the modern American dogma with regards to population differences and expected returns to nurture vs. nature.
IQ specifically is something of a dirty word, which is often justified with a reference to an article «The very best IQ test» by mathematician Vasiliev that made fun of test items in an error-filled translation of Eysenck's popular book «Test your IQ». I gather the original was also bad.
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