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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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HBDers are ideological descendants of the Eugenics movement, which was as progressive as it gets. The Jim Crow South did not invent racism against Africans, and it did not have a monopoly on it in its own time. That being said, I am pretty sure the Jim Crow South did have a fair amount of ideological cross-pollination with the racialist end of the Progressive movement.

HBDers are ideological descendants of the Eugenics movement, which was as progressive as it gets.

I don't think this is true.

The "scientific" theories behind HBD are certainly descended from the eugenics movement. But early eugenicists were, as you say, progressive and thought their ideas would improve the human race. They thought this would be good for everyone, including blacks. They weren't trying to breed black people out of existence or marginalize them or just consign them to their miserable plight as hopeless inferiors.

Modern HBDers, by contrast, are at best indifferent and at worst hostile to the plight of non-whites. Their approach is not one of trying to improve race relations or the human race. They're tribalists, and HBD offers a convenient narrative why Our Tribe is superior and Their Tribe is awful.

Why do you put ‚scientific‘ in quotes if you (gun to the head) believe in HBD yourself? The idea that psychometry/HBD is ‚pseudo-science‘ is a giant gift to white supremacists. Center-left elites who reject HBD on ‚moral grounds‘ have aligned themselves with falsehood, and from then on the Truth shall be their enemy.

Entire discussion‘s bulverism. I shouldn‘t have to prove that I love everyone, my motives are pure, my ideological predecessors‘ moral status is beyond reproach, and my future policies will be beneficial to all, before society deigns to proclaim HBD true or false.

Why do you put ‚scientific‘ in quotes if you (gun to the head) believe in HBD yourself?

Because I think there is a certain amount of "I Fucking Love Science"-level understanding in the HBD crowd, where they say they are just being race realists, but while the science might support "black IQ scores are lower on average," it does not support Dread Jim-style racial hot takes.

If I started talking about ‚The so-called 'scientific' theory of evolution‘, what does that imply about the truth of the theory?

‚I just mean some kooks misuse it.‘

Charitably, I could buy that.

However, you, @FCfromSSC and the ‚don‘t tell‘ crowd are so uncomfortable with the truth that you defend white lies/lies by omission on this subject. You do not want the truth known, you have aligned yourself with liars, so when you repeat their lies, I find the charitable explanation lacking. When people tell you they might lie, believe them.

Let me rephrase: you reluctantly believe that HBD is true, but you really want to say/justify saying that HBD is false. So when you say something that looks a lot like ‚HBD is false‘ , I suspect a gap between your words and your beliefs. That is not unreasonably uncharitable on my part. Whoever excuses lies, voids their right to charity.

Whether HBD is true or not(although I believe it is obviously true), whatever Jim said, what if anything is to be done about HBD, those things don‘t concern me nearly as much as lies.

However, you, @FCfromSSC and the ‚don‘t tell‘ crowd are so uncomfortable with the truth that you defend white lies/lies by omission on this subject. You do not want the truth known, you have aligned yourself with liars, so when you repeat their lies, I find the charitable explanation lacking. When people tell you they might lie, believe them.

You are projecting many sentiments onto me that I have not expressed or defended. I do not want "the truth" hidden, I have not aligned myself with liars, and I do not (knowingly) repeat lies. Apparently you have assumed that I support the "Noble Lie" ("we all know HBD is true but we should pretend it isn't because it would be bad for society"), and that is not what I advocate.

Let me rephrase: you reluctantly believe that HBD is true, but you really want to say/justify saying that HBD is false.

Incorrect. At most, you could say that I wish HBD were false, but have reluctantly concluded that it is true (but the extent to which it is true is still unknown).

So when you say something that looks a lot like ‚HBD is false‘ , I suspect a gap between your words and your beliefs. That is not unreasonably uncharitable on my part.

No, it's flatly false.

I hope getting that rant off your chest felt righteous and vindicating, but it was completely misdirected.

Come on, I disagree with all my friends.

Nybbler, Dase and I have asked you in other threads what your position is: lie, self-delusion, silence, or truth, but you refuse to answer. Going off heuristics, you have a propensity to attack the motives, associates and preferred policies (or lack of policies) of one side (which you believe to have the truth on its side) while defending the other. You just lament what you know to be true and the negative consequences that would result if this truth became more widely known. Honestly, what does your position look like to you?

Okay, just for calibration purposes, here is an example of an HBD comment from this thread. Do you think this is a good example of an argument well-founded on facts, solid evidence and intellectual rigor?

[EDIT] ...This thread turned into a bit of a free for all, but this comment and this one might be relevent.

It is an example of poorer quality of argument, but also I need to say I saw this argument repeated by anti-HBD people before. E.g. Vladimir Fridman claimed that slave owners selected for 'buffon-like' behavior in slave