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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026

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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

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!

Let us assume HBD is correct.

That does not make it acceptable to enslave, discriminate, oppress, or demean a race of people - all people deserve a baseline of dignity and respect.

I'd also question the implicit assumption which seems to be built in that IQ is what makes someone superior/inferior. Is the 120 IQ person superior to the 119 IQ person? 110 IQ? 100 IQ?

Yes, I am aware on a population level, IQ is correlated with better outcomes, etc. but it is shocking to me that you have not come across lower IQ people who are wonderful, pro-social, and valuable members to society; or higher IQ people who are monsters. This is why judging people as individuals is incredibly important on the individual level. On the policy level where you do need to be concerned about population level issues, there would be better ways to account for HBD than using race as a proxy for something you could target more directly.

That does not make it acceptable to enslave, discriminate, oppress, or demean a race of people - all people deserve a baseline of dignity and respect.

I wouldn't go that far. I think it is ok for my fellow citizens and for people with genes or cultural traits I find valuable, but why do so for the rest? With what the afghani coward that didn't put resistance to the Taliban takeover deserves dignity and respect for crossing my border illegally? The FGM supporter? The honor killing enabler? The "refugees" in Ceuta that started sexually assaulting the few women that actually crossed?

Do you think that Europe and UK would be a better or worse places now if we had sunk the boats?

I think there is a conflation that in order to have a baseline of dignity and respect you cannot punish crime or have to be a bleeding heart.

I am fine deporting people. I am fine with upholding the borders. I am fine locking people in prison for the rest of their life if their crime is severe enough. That doesn't mean everything is on the table though against people - I don't think it is justifiable to torture them, kill their entire family for their crimes, etc.