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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1j1ye6n30no

(Non pay wall link)

Tragic end.

I feel bad for the dude - honestly a hearty laugh is all I want when people violate social norms like this and show us how frankly evil our institutions can be.

Sure I can blame the dude for every lie told but it only permeates my life several levels deep … the association of someone like Arday and my life only really touches when the walks start crumbling down.

What gets me mad is the institutions.

It’s their fault! Every step of the way someone, anyone, could have stepped in and stopped folly.

But things snowball and here we are.

I don’t even know what I’m supposed to learn from this, and I don’t know how I can help make the world a better place than I left it. People used to change the world I feel like, and I’m only changing the people around me … which is something!

I’m 100% reading the biography about this.

This was always going to happen with DEI implementations.

We need to have an honest conversation about IQ and IQ subtypes and figure out a way to make it palatable to the masses.

Maybe different nomenclature maybe not so numerical (at least to the public).

People who are word/verbally tilted (I think the term wordcel is a degrading) don't really understand the world like shape rotators (also hate using that word) but we still have an obligation to help them as our fellow man.

Wasn't nearly everything Arday said lies and we have no idea if he had a high verbal IQ or not?

There is a place for the high verbal IQ- they are less good at making machines, but they do understand the world. We don't really know if Arday is among their number or not.

Interestingly enough I think it's those with high verbal tilt who are susceptible to lies and manipulation under specific conditions. The specific conditions being widespread societal belief DEI is a good thing with no tradeoffs and the larger liberal thinking.

Out of all the IQ subtypes, verbal IQ is not necessarily wrapped around truth. It's the ability to move through the realm of words. You can move through the realm of words amazingly but if you don't have the other IQ subtypes that allow you to figure out ground truth then you are at the mercy of those who create your language, media, books, movies, newspapers.

Jordan Peterson is an example. I think his IQ may be high across the board but I think his verbal IQ is off the charts. He's poetic,expansive,complex but he refuses to answer simple questions and sometimes gets tripped up in word games of his own creation. Plus he's chosen the bible as his foundation probably since childhood. So his extremely high verba IQ is contained by this extremely large volume of text the origins and authors and veracity of which we have been arguing about for millennia.

My point wasn't that verbal IQ is a useless or inferior subtype my point is that it has it's limits like all things do.

So it's not about whether or not Arday had high verbal tilt (I would argue its high because it was high enough to get into Cambridge with a little boost from affirmative action, sob story , white guilt and the general current society).

This type of thing is extremely unlikely to happen at MIT or Caltech or any Chinese university simply because admission is based on shutting up and multiplying.

In American schools, affirmative action isn’t a “little boost” but a massive one. It appears to be the same at Cambridge.

Even for the math/logic heavy departments/universities?

Yes

Oh. That's.... Novel. Please do elaborate.

First, see the data in the Harvard discrimination case (ie there is no indication it applied for one discipline and not the other / was massive).

Second, see this paper. https://download.ssrn.com/2026/1/6/6024495.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEFgaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIQCPi3eq6hZdHEVNImNMF2hJBLmgkmE6%2FRT5ZarT9sutVAIgMbPnypMHrtORqkGyYAV1upKV5mPl6rTBVP02gArqE3EqvQUIIRAEGgwzMDg0NzUzMDEyNTciDPb0ZAG4XNnF5jHS3CqaBf2Bnm8V6Wnrp7NgXNhJ7eQAgIFNI2S3gJqpFnU5pNNX3nIA1FTeJKFG59bb%2FGejfzpylYJT4ifb0woX%2FisPJAyo2kwTEVCRICgDMjc%2FyvReLZr9uSoc5oQbCaY4iXGtBmkSPqZXGS4eAx1NvZewg7JtrUtMhCpe74N1QSEtUv9JokiDXCAZuXU5qg4LaGPWOKzRoQpgAmyVz6aCrZQxftJgOP2qDHC1OdJeu5iZzBuMOiOOYLSJZj8VXwgsuocF2uOrUjohJKW%2BbX8t%2BJPht7tiUO5fZcKKZXdJuf7S9OJrU4q6KLmbGAG3EfV%2F0%2BsndQCeWAIYe6UD0hqMUSUgKPbNvXTTGvBY6JQMrtAZkJS2vXXis6ZBWoFYDHDC9jy7jQydjOO4MnbyWPTRr8pR%2Bd6rq%2B%2BXfo14y6HQKrCRZNaVwXwR0ULPl6Wri0qzZ1hZTuA2%2FdcxKSUnz0%2BNjeRYJu%2BC2zlny60DHUFGa%2FC5ZMHRhic7hwaIpPS1VvOKXImKhgPExwbHhJ0R4cktgS59kEUWhx6v4JWlF%2B3nlXRDFsE2V128roh323yPC7Z0OkCs1ETPbUwFKV%2B35HuzELNH4JOutxjbV59X4pYd810hASAgY0AQJzX6UOZR1kPFzdj5D6d3oTuvsnsrcZQw%2B8lPj7Qa0tMtZVabwI%2B%2B09gO7J%2B4Z0LsK5aRv1OlFTpqO6%2BNyC%2FAMtUanvp1RP1EagVz2%2FzDOPbKJIxbaQgUesNu%2BS2OtKnmBlALvlbJZAkcTelglMtTNZxZIyw0Mpmqj5HvG7JgEZg%2FCgaM30i8VA9NqGnKo8z6K0Iytwqnrje1hU5O0iV6wzyvIRq0%2Bn1Qqg9f8zyGrPisc8BN9mhQ2a0m3A%2BwK0u9j1kmmO1AAjDr9oPUBjqxAT2p9Dkhh8adBpycw%2BbSC4va59yLMC3d2eiIW3J9NgFx76FhSgyR%2F8m39jbhZuPBXedLZ9ZGrACdMF4MctNXDv56l1LW4h7Rbh367cpAJ%2F%2Bs%2BwJh8Dd9GFDW2ESkmrGuO4kDjJHyx420S13GzyepdLedbgPcW3IaaQ%2Bnyo2sFeU2mUHBHhdyFybFY0gIlThrdC0%2B%2B6bW6TgRaBeTxwtqJelTGofp6dwPu3MLgN9nxETnPg%3D%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20260816T001255Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAUPUUPRWEYRCL7CD2%2F20260816%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=a88b601adf4a5f6a83c475949877a85926853b4f09cc176dfa299d5d1a7ad2dc&abstractId=6024495

Estimates about a 12 point LSAT jump for being black in competitive schools. 12 is very large.

More comments

So it's not about whether or not Arday had high verbal tilt (I would argue its high because it was high enough to get into Cambridge with a little boost from affirmative action, sob story , white guilt and the general current society).

I haven't seen his papers yet, but if they're anything like the brief excerpts posted here: https://www.themotte.org/post/3874/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/468719?context=8#context

I can't assume his verbal IQ to be high. Even dimwits are able to pick out certain 'effective' words and terms from the zeitgeist.

Fair enough. That was a leap in logic.

I'm quite dreamy and high empathy and I want everyone to flourish and I'm the perfect demographic for the CRT stuff in theory. But I'm way more a shape rotator than I am verbally titled and so when I read the CRT stuff it has little/no effect because I can't even grasp the underlying structure. It's like looking at a foreign language. I don't think it's good or bad I literally, physically, actually can't understand it.

The way to write CRT is to assume ACAB- Assigned Cain At Birth.

You now imagine yourself on trial for the murder of Abel. CRT writings are the evidence of mitigating factors your team of defense attorneys brings to defend you in a modern court of law.

Not guilty because of mental deficiency or undiagnosed psych condition relative to Abel, especially one you can blame Abel or his father for intentionally causing (PTSD being the most popular; you have a right to never be under any stress whatsoever, just as Abel is never under stress). Not guilty because mens rea isn't there- why would you go and kill him, you can make sacrifices just as pleasing in your own alternate way relative to your own cultural and racial circumstances, no reason to kill him over this one. (And you do have conventional achievements, but they were not recognized as a scheme of Abel- even if you had killed him, he would have deserved it. Basically, his entire existence is an expression that reality itself hates you, and why should you ever accept that?)

It doesn't matter whether the arguments presented are even coherent, or if they're just filibusters- the judge is bound by his own laws to consider every single thing you say. You're playing to the gallery; if you are found guilty, they too will be convicted. Better to act now assuming you're right before case law can be established, right or wrong.

I have a weird brain with verbal things. I believe it shows up here as I am atrocious with grammar. Other places I’ve been accused of English as a foreign language a few times. In college I took a business writing course as an elective to try to improve a weakness and received my lowest grade all 4 years a C+. I still remember the professor marking up a paper saying I wrote it 60 minutes before class when in fact I probably spent 8 hours on it. I can make people laugh in person with word play probably in a Jewish way. But I struggle a lot with grammar and structuring longer thoughts. I had a 720 verbal SAT which I think test more reading comprehension and vocabulary. Not a great score but not the complete retard I believe I am with grammar.

When people talk of shape shifters I am not sure where I fit in.

In normal life I am also a very disorganized person. Feels like that fits in with having bad grammar as an ability. An issue with being able to create structure.

IMO taking courses in college to improve weaknesses I’ve heard is not a smart thing to do. It’s one thing I would agree with people on getting rid of grades as you should take things geared towards strengths and things where you’re a novice. But allowing few P/F courses while still getting credit solves most of that issue.

I would be curious if anyone else believes they have this type of brain? In college I noticed math professors often had completely disorganized offices (maybe philosophy too).

You should type in what you just said into any ai app with the sentence " Please do an IQ subtype analysis on the above paragraph."

You have a spiky cognition profile

It seems like your working memory and processing speed might be a little off. Could be ADHD heavily compensated by the rest of your powerful brain.

Apparently your profile would be good as a comedian, a trial lawyer, sales person or academic.

You can read his papers. They're full of basic typoes and solecisms. No wordcel academic would have passed him if he was a first-year PhD student, except for the specific circumstances of the case.

It's hard to know how smart Arday was, because he obfuscated so much: claims of autism and developmental delay, claims of non-verbal, claims of illiteracy, claims of epilepsy after an assault, testicular cancer in his proposal for the memoir peddled to Simon and Schuster which then morphed into brain tumour(s), etc.

I think he was clever, but not outstanding, and lazy/dishonest enough that he saw how society was holding out claims of disability and racism to him as a shortcut to getting where he wanted to be, rather than relying on native intelligence and hard work, so he took the easy path. And this worked for him, so he kept looking for short cuts even when that involved increasingly baroque levels of confabulation. Eventually he would have been found out, and he was, and this is the end result.

We need to have an honest conversation about IQ and IQ subtypes and figure out a way to make it palatable to the masses.

"The masses" like DEI in the same way they like all good things that seemingly don't have tradeoffs. But, in this case, they aren't the biggest problem: people in the academy apparently love this shit. The average person would likely have laughed off Arday's claims, the academy and media swallowed them uncritically.