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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   19629 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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I don't think Corbyn is antisemitic. I think he's just simple-minded enough to believe the narrative "Hamas are freedom fighters, therefore they are good" and isn't capable of reasoning about it more deeply (not that I think this is a good reason to support Hamas, but that's another topic). It's the same way he was probably exposed to the idea that capitalism is bad because of inequality or something when he was a teenager and therefore decided the USSR is good, and hasn't been able to update his thinking since then.

There is also the famous 'white people rule the world' left-wing meme complaining how almost all top CEOs, media people, politicians etc. are white, and then the far-Right got hold of it and pointed out that almost all of those are Jewish and if anything gentile whites are underrepresented.

As an aside, while it's entirely fair to point out such disparities much if not most of the online right really tell on themselves by being unable to stomach that the reason whites outperform blacks - average IQ differences - is most likely behind their own underperformance relative to Ashkenazis. Watching these people tie themselves in knots trying to avoid this conclusion looks a lot like a progressive journalist reaching for esoteric theories of structural racism to explain why there aren't more black professors at MIT.

that the reason whites outperform blacks - average IQ differences - is most likely behind their own underperformance relative to Ashkenazis

I'm happy to bite that bullet, personally - the evidence is that Orientals and Ashkenazim have higher IQs than average gentile whites, and this explains much of their over-performance.

I do also suspect that there is quite a lot of conscious and unconscious discrimination going on - reading people like Scott and Zvi and the various Jewish columnists I read makes me realise that their Jewishness is sotto voce very very important to them, and my experience in real life backs that up. Humans tend to show ingroup bias unless there is lots and lots of explicit structure / ideology to prevent it, and given that Jewish people often tend also to be highly competent as you say, I wouldn't be surprised if non-Jews had to climb a higher bar to be meritorious in the eyes of Jewish bosses. I don't have any proof for that, of course, but that's why I don't like the taboo around Jewish over-representation. It prevents us from having conversations that we need to have.

TLDR: Ingroup preference can only get you so far if you don't have the raw merit to back it up, but I'd be surprised if some ingroup preference wasn't also in play.

the evidence is that Orientals and Ashkenazim have higher IQs than average gentile whites, and this explains much of their over-performance.

define "much". From what I've seen they have a slightly higher IQ, but also a much higher in-group preference and organization. It's the latter that seems to explain most of their success. This leads to the twitter meme of "check the early life section" where so-and-so famous person is always like "born into a jewish family, he attended an elite school and then quickly got promoted."

That's a very fair position.

I don't care about religion (it's all kind of silly) or ethnicity but I've been scolded a few times for holding that idea. Told to check my privilege and so on... Why is it wrong to turn that back around?

It's more about those progressive journalists being consistent. Apply that same lense to yourself.

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not on the side of people telling you to check your privilege.

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