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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24124 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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I believe in evolution and genetics. Human populations evolved in certain environments and selected for population groups best fitted to their environment. This even occurs over small time frames. There are literally American genes now. https://x.com/levelsio/status/2058242736436781113?s=46 DRD7-4R gene “wanderlust gene” is higher in Americans than their source populations. Overall genetics control for a lot of IQ, Athletic, and personality traits.

I currently have not yet made up my mind with regards to HDB. I am still open to listening to various sides about this. Just seems to me like there are plenty of other more complex variables that lead to different outcomes than just genetics.

It probably would be fair to say modern immigrants to America have higher “wanderlust gene” too though immigration is easier today. But overall there are genetic profiles that better fit with American culture. We should only bring these people in.

Uhhhhhhh, easier? maybe less racists (looking at the Chinese Exclusion Act) but I think most would say the immigration process has gotten more complex and difficult and regulated over time. Mamdani came over to the US pretty early, looks like 1998 when he was seven, when would be the cutoff for you?

So are genetics just a way for you to filter for the values/creeds that you think is "American"? Like a hard filter unlike the citizenship test?

But overall even if people are a genetic fit they also need to want to culturally assimilate with the American culture. For this I would criticize Vivek because he still doesn’t get American culture. Though he does seem to try so I probably wouldn’t exclude him from emigrate but I don’t like him as a politician.

Sounds good, seems like the citizen test needs an update. Don't worry, every test will be gamed to hell and back and for sure the ones who pass would give the correct answer. Also this is starting to sound like a violation of the first amendment ("If you don't like hotdogs you are not an American").

I wouldn’t be opposed to Indian immigration but we have probably done too many too fast and allowed ethnic enclaves and favoritism to develop and need to pause it for a while. Italians definitely took a long time to assimilate. And thus we paused Italian immigration for decades.

Sure, nationality can be a proxy for "genetics" which can be a proxy to "culture".

South Africans like Musks are probably very high quality immigrants. Genetically very similar which would include a similar selection effect for the wanderlusts gene.

In the translation hobby group, it is an accepted theory that translators translate only the good stuff and the bad stuff don't get translated. To me, seems like all the smart and brilliant people already left early (Musk, Sacks) and it's not like there was a backlog of brilliant South Africans awaiting immigration before.

This isn’t just a race thing. Orthodox Jews fit with America in a lot of ways, but some of them do build enclaves and use a lot of government services which is bad. There are a few examples where they take over entire towns, have low median income (use welfare), but also have good things like non-existent social disorder/crime. Like an urban version of Amish. So wanting to be one culture I think is very important in immigrant groups.

I believe Indians also have low social disorder/crime and they don't use a lot of government services, they do do enclaves though, where are they ranked compared to Orthodox Jews for you? And briefly searched it up but seems like most Orthodox Jews are at least 3rd generation.

Many would fine these to be repugnant conclusions but it does seem like genetics have a huge effect on a countries gdp and culture. You can’t just be a creedal nation. The people in a country matter a lot.

Like I said before, seems like genetics is your chosen proxy for the creeds and values you like.

And we should probably favor immigrants that benefit the native population. Citadel head of hft is a Chinese math Olympiad guy who’s very smart. But that’s a zero sum game and doesn’t have spillover effects for the rest of the economy. He really just took a seat that would have went to another American but his algorithms are slightly faster but creates no real excess value. I’d favor visas for people that do things that expand real economic output. I’d still let him in but would only approve visas for like doing battery tech research at Tesla.

There are plenty of arguments on how HFT is not a zero-sum game and does provide economic benefit to America. At the very least, one can argue that the gigantic profit these HFT firms have in other countries inject lots of liquidity into American financial markets, which proxies for liquid into the "real economic output" making parts of the economy.

And also, does that mean "economically beneficial" also affect the original standard of "genetics and cultural assimilation"? Maybe not at the same level but it's certainly a condition.

Anyway, I'm still not quite sure what is your "desired state" vs "minimally acceptable".

For the "desired" state, are you expecting that:

  1. all aspiring citizens to submit their DNA for analysis
  2. an even stricter and more complex civics test
    1. that somehow would dictate/solve for what it means to be "an American"
  3. and a trusted authority to handle both of the above

What about the "minimally accepted"? what is the next small step in our reality that you would like to happen?

  1. Yes dna testing would work. A simpler method would be to limit immigration to historical population groups outside of a small amount of elite talent.

  2. I don’t know if the civics test needs to be stricter but you probably should have a lie detector type thing to verify honest.

In my view the evidence for HBD is incredibly strong. It’s almost like water is wet. It’s why others were arguing with a moderator that it’s silly to make posters include fbi crime stats everytime they say something hbd adjacent.

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