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I don’t really disagree with you at all. I think the answers to these positions are nuanced, though, and I think that the message that pushing HBD sends to members of lower performing groups is detrimental to social cohesion and to a well-functioning economy because it inevitably leads to backlash.
And it is relevant that when you ask HBD proponents what policy implications they draw from it there are usually a substantial number of them, even though HBD by itself doesn’t prescribe any particular policy, it’s just an explanation. And in a rare moment of agreement with Darwin / @guesswho, I think we should be honest that this is actually in large part about black and white people in America and their relations. And so if we listen to a lot of HBD proponents like Murray and ‘accept’ it and dismantle those programs that largely benefit those communities, and abolish / criminalize affirmative action and so on, do we really think that the social problems we see in black communities are going to improve? That issues with eg violence are going to improve? It just seems very unlikely to me.
I’m not saying the current system is good because it isn’t. But I often think HBD activists are very naive about the reasons why stuff like affirmative action was implemented (often by politicians who were pretty racist). It wasn’t because of Robin Di Angelo logic, it was often because they didn’t want to see the country burn.
A more generally reactionary view lets you propose programs that might actually work, once you're no longer putting effort into ones that don't work! One of those is just genetic enhancement - just like it's easier to replace a broken machine than to fix one, we know the genetic 'recipe' for whatever kind of people we want, and we can just birth more of those. There's no reason this has to hurt ethnic pride - there are plenty of well above-average black people on any quality, one can just use their genes. Even if you can't say HBD, universal genetic enhancement still works.
It's not gonna happen, but the best way to solve the criminal underclass (as a relatively small % of the black population) is just paternalistic interventions into criminal communities. Think moldbug's proposal of "give Black churches sovereignty over black criminal youth". I think if you gave some elite absolute sovereignty and let them be totally unclouded by political affiliation - whether progressive, conservative, or wignat - they wouldn't find the issue that hard to resolve on a technical level. But, yeah, that's just not happening, at all.
So even with the significant restrictions of liberalism, I think it's highly likely that a smart and driven elite with accurate beliefs could significantly improve things. In terms of crime, just imagine police that just used technology and strength of numbers to effectively enforce laws around drugs, theft, assault, with a focus on rapid and consistent prevention and punishment, even if the punishments weren't that harsh. The hour-level action of stealing or dealing would just become unappealing, and it'd plausibly stop happening. This isn't even, really, a HBD belief, but it's the kind of thing an Effective Altruist in a political culture that actually understood that affirmative action and anti-racism just don't work anymore might get behind.
And, honestly, I don't think ethnic underrepresentation in positions of power is itself a huge issue. Ethnic nationalism in America is just much less intense than it is in Nigeria. Representation of minorities in the media or politics is most of what the average person notices, and that comes naturally anyway as minorities cluster physically and being a pop star or comedian isn't as g-loaded as being an engineer. I think all of the push for higher minority representation in positions of actual power comes from other elites, and there won't be any riots if that just becomes deemphasized because elites don't care anymore.
Yes, I pretty much completely agree with you, and I think Hanania and Moldbug’s ideal policies are probably similar, he’s just saying that tying them explicitly to HBD is poor political strategy.
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Problem is that the anti-HBDers are not standing in place: recent anti-policing pushes have made black communities worse off.
It's not simply "keep what works even if you have to lie about it". The other theory has motivated policy that is now not only hurting black people but affecting others, with no sign of stopping.
The latter is a much less attractive status quo.
A black guy gets shot by police at the wrong time and the country may burn anyway.
Yes and it's no coincidence that those Anti-policing pushes have been spearheaded by the same class of people who are spearheading HBD awareness, namely secular progressive Democrats. The party of Woodrow Wilson and the KKK never changed sides, just their branding.
No, they are not, unless you’re referring to second order effects. The Twitter Nazis are mostly secular republicans with fratboyish views on sex and libertarian-ish economics. This is indeed not exactly tradcon, but it’s also a poor fit for what progressives believe. Blue tribe I will believe, but that’s not synonymous with progressive.
I think you're wrong.
It's a simple fact of US politics that if you support race-based discrimination, you vote Democrat, or maybe Libertarian if you are an edgy /pol/ rDrama type. The GOP are a distant 4th or 5th choice after the Greens and CPUSA, and have been since Bush I elevated Thomas to the USSC back in '91.
It’s true that actually existing racism as government policy is mostly a democrat thing. But it’s also true that the Twitter Nazis are libertarian frat boys who don’t like blacks much. That’s nearly the opposite of progressive; their non race based beliefs aren’t progressive either.
Yes, they have in common a belief that racial discrimination is sometimes good. That’s a single shared belief between people who don’t have anything else in common, fight endlessly over that belief, and got to it by completely different routes.
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If secular progressive Democrats were spearheading HBD awareness, it would already be taught as gospel in elementary schools. This claim is simply nonsense.
I think his point is that yelling "DON'T THINK ABOUT ELEPHANTS" at the top of your voice on every street corner is going to make people start looking around for elephants.
I think that assuming this to be intentional is in violation of Hanlon's Razor, though.
To think progressives are deliberately promoting HBD because they're old-South style racists playing 11-d chess is actually impressively deranged.
I don't think it's "deranged" so much as a plain reading of the text.
Look around. Who do you see pushing for more racial "consciousness" or "consideration" in US Government policy? It isn't Conservative Christians, or Reagan-style "Big Tent" Republicans. It's Midwestern Democrats, edgy blue-tribe socialists on Twitter/in the media, and various other flavors of secular progressive. Look at where the racial tensions have boiled over in recent years, it's progressive strongholds like Minneapolis, Chicago, San Fransisco, and New York.
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And it burned anyway. More than once. Perhaps a different approach is necessary.
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Wouldn't HBD being accepted in this case simply solve the problem by enforcing the laws now that it would no longer be "racist" to do so? That's even assuming the racial spoils programs aren't just replaced by income based programs which would largely affect similar groups.
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You can subsidize the underclass without wrecking meritocracy and lighting money on fire for interventions that won’t work.
Keep in mind in the essay Hanania lists Murray as a good example, not a dumb HBDer. There’s also decent evidence that appeals to my libertarian biases that the various government interventions hurt more than they helped. Sowell writes a lot about this.
So if all Hanania is saying is “be like Murray and not an edgelord” then I don’t disagree with that, I’m just confused a bit by how he framed his essay.
I gotta say it’s a bit funny to think HBD types as unaware of the racial imbalance in “mostly peaceful protests” and such.
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