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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28474 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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Second, many better tools already exist (standardized tests, colorblind policy, merit based immigration vetting). HBD is a worse substitute than existing policy frameworks.

HBD isn't a policy tool. It's merely an observation about the world. Standardized tests, colorblind policy, merit based immigration vetting are all compatible with HBD, it merely predicts that the results will be racially "disparate".

And since the disparate impact is one of the main arguments against merit-based policies, HBD is relevant as a defense thereof.

And since the disparate impact is one of the main arguments against merit-based policies, HBD is relevant as a defense thereof.

How so? If the argument is that IQ tests are forbidden in hiring because they cause blacks to be hired less often, thus denying them "equal employment opportunity," the reason why they do so is irrelevant. HBD is a defense against the claim that "disparate impact" is evidence of "invidious discrimination," but I've seen people make the case that much of the legal and academic sectors aren't actually making this claim — they take eliminating "disparate impact" regardless of the cause to be the goal, at which point HBD is irrelevant. Explaining why the disparate impact occurs, how it's a product of biology, does not excuse the disparate impact.

But the disparate impact doctrine is much harder to defend without "all races are equal", so it makes sense as a first step.

But the disparate impact doctrine is much harder to defend without "all races are equal",

Is it, though? I suppose it's not clear on what you mean by "disparate impact doctrine." I'm probably going to have to do that effort-post. But there's a difference between the "disparate impact is evidence of the racial discrimination that civil rights law is intended to fight" position, and the "we define 'racism' as the existence of disparate impact, and the purpose of civil rights law is to achieve racial equity regardless of causes."

There is the view that blacks should not be "overrepresented" in the prison population even if they commit more crimes — even if they are genetically predisposed to higher crime. I've seen someone actually argue and defend this view. It is the position that it doesn't matter if "all races are equal" or not — in cultural terms, genetic terms, whatever — it is our moral duty as a society to make them equal in terms of life outcomes, regardless. That this is what the "fairness" moral axis demands. That "equity" is a terminal moral goal, good in-and-of-itself, and either you share that fundamental moral value, or you don't (in which case, you are a racist moral mutant and an enemy to be defeated).

Yes, both of these are arguments against meritocracy in practice. The former is refuted by HBD, and while the latter is not, it's also weaker, because it relies on a moral axiom that is harder to defend and less shared in the mainstream.

Hence, HBD weakens the case.

and less shared in the mainstream.

And what does "the mainstream" matter? So long as the elites share this moral value, they don't have to defend it, they just have to forcefully impose it on the powerless peasant masses.

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