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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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As a black person...I really really really don't want HBD to be true

This doesn't mean I think it's wrong. It's just that I think that the conclusions you'd have to draw from it being correct are just so awful for me.

I view it as nothing short of tragic that a people who suffered so much due to being viewed as inferior, who struggled for so long to be viewed as equals and treated with dignity, who endured all kinds of injustices in the hope that we would overcome...only for science to prove that it was fruitless all along. It's so dispiriting the possibility that all the problems in our community: crime, poverty, ignorance, are intransient. How are you supposed to deal with that without becoming utterly nihilistic?

I'll probably have a longer more essay-type post for next week's thread but I just want to get my raw emotions about it out here before then.

It's just so unfair. It fills me with anger and sadness and rage and I can't stop thinking about it. I don't want it to be true...I don't want it to be true. It's so unfair

Why not?

If your IQ is, say, 130, it's going to be 130 regardless of what the rest of your group's is. It doesn't mean anything for you personally. If anything it means you lucked out harder than otherwise.

The only reason I care for it is as a means of destroying the blank slatist idea that there must be parity of outcomes between groups, and thereby eliminating the unjust affirmative action policies that unfairly hold the brilliant back to promote the mediocre above their competence.

Yes, it massively sucks that so many resources have been wasted on chasing an impossible, pointless mirage. But if the best time to fix the mistake was decades ago, the second best time is now. Any policies founded upon falsehoods will be ineffective compared to ones founded on truth.

I’m guessing OP cares about their community’s well-being, not just their own intelligence.

That was always beyond his influence.

No but "your community and all their future generations are condemned to poverty and violence" is decidedly more depressing than "your community was hurt in the past due to no fault of their own, but is slowly building a better life, generation by generation".

Which is a great story for a generation, but what happens when you try to signal clearly that you aren hurting them and they're still mired in poverty and violence?

Now they think you're hurting them when you've stopped and blame you for their poverty and violence.

I'm making the specific point that "Why do you care if HBD if true if you got yours?" is an insane response to somebody talking about how belief in HBD shapes their view of their community.

Imagine if OP was talking about how his family has a heritable disease and half of them die before they're 40. It'd be insanely callous to say "Why do you care? You tested negative for the disease, right?"

If someone is bad at something and you calously tell them they're bad at it it's not the kindest thing.

But if you tell them they're actually really good at the thing and their lack of success is because their opponent was cheating, and you'll help them avoid cheating opponents, that may work for some time But years later when they're still bad at the thing and remain unsuccessful how long will they keep trying before they start blaming you for being part of the whole cheating edifice.

Your heart being in the right place isn't going to help the fact that they still fail and you watching for cheating didn't prevent that outcome.

Where did I endorse affirmative action or lying?