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When people both here and elsewhere say that HBD is true but that society should still treat people as individuals or practice colorblindness, I get really mad. I don't disagree with them, but I still get mad
Because what I want to say in response is that that isn't good enough because your premise was supposed to wrong! The edifice that was used to justify anti-blackness for centuries was supposed to be completely discredited, put into the dustbin of history. You can’t enslave, discriminate, oppress, and demean a people based on the assumption that they’re inferior and then…turn out to be right. That’s not fair!
But I can't express that belief because of how obviously irrational it is. It's a demand for cosmic justice, not a real intellectual rebuttal. Yet I can't help it
Every time you post, you repeat this lament. At this point, I am not sure you're not a troll.
But taking you at face value: what do you want? What are you asking here? What do you want people to say?
Either HBD is true or it's not. If it is true, then it doesn't matter whether it's "fair" in some cosmic sense. Of course it's not. No one is promised fairness. It's not fair some people are born into loving families in first world countries and other people are abandoned at birth in a slum. You are dealt the hand you're dealt. What other justice is there but "treat people as individuals"?
You can advocate for fair treatment. You can advocate for help to redress historical injustice. You can argue against the premise. But shaking your fist at reality because reality is unfair seems... really pointless.
I can understand it. HBD has a few unfortunate implications and in many ways I'd wish it wasn't true, but as a white guy from an entirely white family in a predominantly white country, it's also true that for me, personally, it's not so bad. Whites are pretty middle-of-the-pack-to-upper-middle in most attributes, particularly IQ, so learning that these attributes are less socially changeable than one might want them to be kinda sucks conceptually, but "my people" are already in an OK place.
Now I imagine being a bright-eyed, above-average (whether IQ/conscientiousness/etc.) black guy, who learns the history of Africa, who may think that, well, they have still a long way to go, but fundamentally we just need to mirror the western approach and over time we will get to a comparable place. It's going to be hard, no question, but it's definitely doable, and basically just a question of time.
Then you learn HBD, get convinced, and suddenly all of this is an open question again. Sure mirroring the west to some degree is probably good, but it will not get them to the same place. It's unclear whether it's even doable at all. Possible solutions all sound awful, whether eugenics or de-facto non-black governance or just simply accepting that black-run countries will be consistently worse.
Personally, I think we just need to accept the bullet of genetic engineering, but I know a lot of people feel very squeamish about it, especially when applied to humans, and it's at least understandable to feel that way for historic reasons.
I agree that it would be a bitter pill to swallow. I don't blame the OP for being upset at this reality, if it is reality and if he has become convinced of it.
But I guess I just don't see the point of "Life is unfair!" posts. The Motte is mostly for discussing ideas and testing hypotheses. The OP doesn't really present anything to debate. Maybe he's hoping someone will talk him out of the HBD conclusion? (In this place, not likely.) Otherwise, a vent about existential angst is at best more appropriate for Wellness Wednesday or Small Scale Questions.
If you accept HBD but reject inidvidualism, you wind up where our enthusiastic ethnonationalists are. "Tribal and clannish" is just signaling you want war.
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