This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
How convenient, it's just the culture. Will you also argue that culture can make a chihuahua into a hunting dog? Will an improved culture of running put Europeans at the top of the 100m sprints? Will changes to black culture mean they start getting many Fields Medallists or STEM Nobel Prizes?
Genetics is real. Evolution is real. These things will remain real regardless of what you think about them, that's the beauty of material reality.
It takes culture to even determine that there should be "hunting dogs" at all, and to start the project of breeding them. We are the product of the cultures of yesterday - who they decided to reward, what traits they regarded as high-status, etc.
More options
Context Copy link
Who would have thought in 100 AD that at some point the world's top scientists would be from Britain and Germany?
The Germans often inflicted crushing defeats on the Roman Empire (most famously at Teutoburg but in many other battles), persuading Rome that they shouldn't try to conquer that territory. If the armies of sub-Saharan Africa obliterated two entire American or British divisions that would be very strong evidence that they were peers of British or American civilization.
Furthermore, there has been considerable demographic change in Britain since 100 AD. Anglo-Saxons weren't even there yet.
The German victories over the Romans happened back when despite huge differences between the two sides, they were not very different in military technology. So the German victories over the Romans cannot be directly compared to modern clashes between European and African armies. An African army of the ancient Roman time period would probably have defeated a Roman army in some cases too, especially with the advantage of terrain such as the Germans had at Teutoburg.
The Romans respected German bravery and military prowess, but I think that very few Romans of that time period would have thought it anything but extremely unlikely that the backwoods savages east of the Rhine would eventually lead the world in science and technology.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
To me it seems that the Koreans genes have sharply diverged around the mid 1950-s. So is with the German genes in the mid 1940s
North Korea has excuses. Being cut off from world markets and having your trading ships stolen by the US does causes problems with energy production, as does 70 years of Stalinism. Maintaining an extremely large military with a nuclear missile program does distort their economy.
What excuse does South Africa have?
The same that Moldova, Serbia, Albania and Bosnia have despite being lily white? Corruption and incompetence sometime in tandem with the case of south africa a bad case of revanche desire that couldn't be either ignored or satisfied.
People that win power and people that best use power is two different sets. Especially if the formerly oppressed majority don't have the administrative capacity to run the country. So everyone in power started stealing - the same happened in every slavic country in the eastern block. We couldn't fall as far as south africa not because we were smarter but because EU invested quite a lot in us and they just didn't want too much chaos on the borders.
I don't think that the majority of SA problems are because of the IQ gap between the populations. There are enough black people there to produce equally smart as number and IQ people as the indian and white minorities
Human populations don't (only) cluster genetically based on skin color. Race is a bad, lossy, over used heuristic. Grab a group of 130+ IQ Serbs, or Arabs, or Nigerians, and you'd have a much performance along most metrics we value. Indians in the US e.g.
More options
Context Copy link
Is there urban cholera in Moldova? Have there been semi-regular power outages for over a decade in Albania? Serbian unemployment rate is about 10%, a third of South Africa's. And then there are the crime figures, which speak for themselves.
Russia is doing far better than South Africa, despite the ire of the international community and a lack of EU funding.
There's dysfunction and then there's DYSFUNCTION.
More options
Context Copy link
They're swarthy, though.
But in any case corruption is as explicable by HBD as IQ.
Yes.
100IQ barely literate swarthy and greasy mobsters handing suitcases full of cash - third world corruption.
130IQ well educated lily white political operatives, businessmen, academicians and experts handing book promotions, well paid lecture tours, exclusive investment opportunities and business deals, prestigious academic or think tank jobs etc... - Western freedom, democracy and rule of law working as intended.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I can see you're being facetious. I'm pretty sure that outside of some HBD strawmen, nobody claims that only genetics matters for group outcomes. Unlike the mainstream narrative, we simply claim that it's important and claim trying to analyze and predict outcomes without even considering genetics is a doomed endeavor. It certainly leads to stupidity like the endless hunt for ever more subtle systemic racism (racism of the gaps, as I prefer to call it), when genes-blind attempts to mitigate the disparity fail.
Am I? In history we have couple of unwilling experiments when a nation is split in half by culture. But we also have the formation of ethno states of Europe with massive population swaps after wwI and the fall of ottoman empire (and even before that - 1860-s/70-s). And until communism came the slavic ethnostates were chugging along somewhat nicely and in pack and catching up to the western european societies. Something that we couldn't reproduce after the fall of the iron curtain. Of course big part of the old elites were slaughtered, but they were also slaughtered during ottoman times.
I believe in HBD as in your genes influence your IQ, but when I look around the world to me it seems that the culture matters quite more on a state level.
I can see how lower average IQ can easily cripple a state if you don't produce enough talented people to run the place, but from mine first hand experience - it is corruption that matters much more.
I have some bad news for you - the culture is also a product of genetics. Culture does have a role to play, but I highly doubt you were talking about rates of cousin marriage and the prevalence of manorialism several centuries prior. You can actually get a pretty accurate idea of the levels of corruption in European countries by determining whether they fall inside or outside the Hajnal line, which also correlates with a bunch of other features. If you want to learn more, I recommend checking out the following article: https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/big-summary-post-on-the-hajnal-line/
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes it's the culture. The same country, comprised of the same people, and subject to the same material and economic constraints can be a dynamo under one regime's leadership and a complete basket-case under another's.
Ironically your dog example only reinforces my point, you really should have chosen a Pomeranian or a Yorkie because chihuahuas are hunting dogs. The material reality is that the difference between Paris Hilton's Purse Puppy and a Mexican Rat-Catcher is in the upbringing rather than the breed.
Chihuahuas are not meaningfully hunting dogs - they're tiny! A quick search will show this. They lack the physical qualities needed for hunting, it's not what they're for, not where their comparative advantage lies. That's why they're not routinely listed as hunting dogs. Catching rats is not what people mean by hunting.
South Africa worked relatively well when it was run by whites and works poorly now that it is run by blacks. That's not a cultural change, it's a change of who is in control. If it was a cultural change, what was the cultural change? If the cultural change that caused the deterioration is 'a popularization of the idea of letting blacks run the country' then what use is the concept?
Dachshunds are also tiny, and yet the name means "badger hound" and they were explicitly bred that way in order to get down in badger warrens and drag those ferocious pests out by the entrails.
Great - but chihuahuas were not bred for hunting, they were bred to be companion animals (or food). Everyone classifies it as a toy dog, or companion dog.
Yes! But my point was that it could become a hunting dog with less effort than you'd think (though it would take directed effort or a long-ass time and a lot of random luck) to get it there.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
And yet they hunt.
Ah Hlynka, the next time a hunter advertises that they're looking for a hunting dog, you're welcome to show up and sell them on a chihuahua. After all, they hunt! What is a deer but a very large rat after all?
While I am tempted to point you towards @arjin_ferman's posts I am going to refrain, and instead point out that the concept of what constitutes a hunting dog is culturally constructed.
The obvious question being what are you hunting, and what are you looking for in a dog? Are you looking for an affable and kind companion who will fetch you the ducks you've shot? if so you're looking for some flavor of retriever. If you are looking for a dumb bitch who'll make a lot of noise and flush the prey out of the bush, you're looking for something like a basset hound or beagle. If you are looking for a vicious little bastard who will chase your prey down a narrow passage through wich you cannot follow than some breed of terrier or a chihuahua is your go to.
Accordingly, the obvious question that must be asked is what exactly do you think being "a hunting dog" entails beyond being a hunter?
More options
Context Copy link
Oh boy... have you considered that a nerdy doctor transhumanist getting into a pissing contest about hunting with a gun-toting redneck might not end well?
If I was in the States, you bet that I'll be packing. God made me a nerd, Samuel Colt made me equal.
If it's me with an AR-15 and my dogs versus Hlynka with his hunting chihuahua..
I'm sorry, are we talking about a pissing contest about hunting, or are we talking about an actual no-shit duel? Samuel Colt makes good guns, but he can't change the way god made you.
He can change your entire topology.
More options
Context Copy link
I fail to see any pissing contest about hunting at all, given that Hlynka is claiming that Chihuahuas are hunting dogs, and I'm pointing out that for the purposes of hunting, they're pretty much the last on the list.
In a duel, I'll take my chances.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
And yet they're not hunting dogs.
I'm still eager to hear what you think the culture change was in South Africa. Come on, be specific!
I'm far from an expert on this, but didn't the majority of post-colonial Africa succumb to CRTesque grievance politics?
More options
Context Copy link
What is a "Hunting Dog" if not a "Dog who Hunts"?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Control doesn’t imply culture. Just because the right decisions were made previously doesn’t mean culture engendered those decisions.
It sorta does. Will to power is a cultural variable.
No doubt they intersect somewhat but will to power is not the same as culture. I guess what I’m getting at is that you have two populations (A and B). Both populations could have similar cultures today and yesteryear but which culture is in charge can change leading to a different out come. So it wasn’t so much a change in culture but whose culture mattered.
Granted, changing whose culture matters probably affects each populations’s culture somewhat. But I still think who decides is more important than simply saying culture.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link