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 -
Europe is a possible counter-example both to various naive forms of HBD and also to the notion that ethno-nationalism is an advantage.
Europe is much more white than the US and is also much more ethno-nationalist than the US, yet it lags the US significantly both in GDP per capita (although I am not convinced that this is a very good metric) and also, it seems to me, in economic innovation (Europe is responsible for almost no major software companies).
Some possible counterarguments:
"The best talent of Europe came to the US." - But Germany, for example, has a higher average IQ than the US does. In any case, the IQ difference between the US and Europe, in either direction, does not seem to be large enough to be significant.
"Europe has been dealing with the aftermath of WW2." - But that does not explain why Europe had WW2 to begin with, or why the US was not comparably harmed by its Civil War. The US Civil War killed a comparable fraction of the US population to what Europe lost in WW2, but the US Civil War did not fundamentally slow the trajectory of US economic or geopolitical rise.
"Europe has been shackled by socialism." - But similarly to my objection to #2, this does not explain why Europe is, to begin with, more fond of socialism than the US is.
Am I getting something wrong? Is Europe more innovative than I give it credit for?
One model I think works is that innovation = genius + reach.
Let's clone Archimedes and put him in Sub-Saharan Africa. How much GDP will he generate as a sheep-herder in Mali? My guess is - not that much more than a normal sheep-herder.
Now put him into a computer-science class at Stanford graduating in 1990. The same genius could easily generate billions in GDP.
The United States has a more strongly-connected market than Europe. A genius in the US can impact the world much more strongly than one in a small European country. That European may not even be a native English speaker. And Facebook for Luxembourg isn't exactly going to take off, is it? Not that it matters. As you rightly point out, the best ones often go to the US anyway.
The better question, IMO, is what about China? China has more than 3x the population of the US and an average IQ that is perhaps 5 points higher. I'm not going to do the math right now but I believe this would imply that China has something like 10x as many 145 IQ people as does the U.S.
If these people can connect with each other in meaningful ways, it's possible that Chinese-language research and technology will outstrip English-language equivalents in a completely irreversible way. There is no greater reservoir of high IQ people on the planet than China. These would-be world shakers are kept back by either the CCP or some fundamental attribute of Chinese culture/genetics. I think it's probably the CCP. Overseas Chinese like Terrance Tao perform as would be expected based on IQ.
My neighbors are Chinese and both are very intelligent working in high skilled fields. One is a biomedical engineering PHD working in research and the other is a math professor at a not-quite-Ivy level university. They blame Chinese culture at the base level for this and the actions of the CCP being a reflection and institutionalization of that same culture. Its similar to what we call "crab bucket" mentality, but not exactly that. According to them you can become wealthy in China, and many do, but after you reach a certain level of success it actually makes your life worse. If you achieve a level of financial success in China of say 1 million USD a year of more all of you immediate family will quit their jobs confident in the fact that you will support them indefinitely. Your parents, especially your mother, will expect their own standard of living to be comparable to yours immediately if not sooner. You'll be expected to at the least "find jobs" for dozens of cousins and other socially important members of your family's Guanxi ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi ). Your success wont be your success, it will be everyone's good fortune. So there is no point in working harder and smarter just to have an objectively worse life by becoming wealthy; your family and patronage network will never stop having their hands out as long as you have something to take.
Their solution was moving to the US and lying about how much they make. They send a few hundred USD a month to their parents, which is more than the parents make and represents the majority of their extended families income. If their parents knew how much they actually made they would demand much, much more. They still have to field relentless demands that they get family members into the US somehow, and they have to explain that the US doesn't work that way and they can't just "put in a word" with immigration or otherwise grease the wheels.
More options
Context Copy link
I mean a big part of it might be that a higher percent of Chinese geniuses go into things that don’t directly contribute to the bottom line(like bureaucratic ass kissing).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link