Voyager
2yr ago
If IQ does not exist or is not important, why does the left put so much effort into saying it does not matter. What difference would it make if blacks score lower than whites if these tests are meaningless?
That seems unfair in the exact same way as the mirror questions usually leveled in the other direction, that you're indeed arguing against right here.
If IQ is meaningless, that means there's a test that measures nothing important but people use it to judge your capability, in some cases even your moral worth as a person. People argue against helping the disadvantaged citing the meaningless number, arguing it implies they deserve their disadvantage. You also believe that disadvantage is actually due to racism.
If that reasoning is false, it seems very worthwhile to push against, just like "outcome differences between races are due to racism, therefore we need to fight this racism" is worthwhile to push against.
It's probably false, but honestly believing it's true makes speaking for it consequent, maybe even morally imperative. "If you really believed X you would shut up about it" is as unconvincing as always.
Voyager
2yr ago
It's also not in the interest of clarity. I wouldn't have known who "the BPD slut" is supposed to be - I'd have to (look up Gamergate and) take a guess from context. If a name is used instead, I either know who is being referred to or can easily look it up.
Or maybe the antisemites actually mean "rootless cosmopolitan bankers" and just think they're identical with jews.
Q: "Why don't you just say jews, if you clearly mean it?"
A(ntisemite): "I don't specifically mean jews. Well, obviously they are jews, but if they weren't that wouldn't change anything, and if jews weren't attacking white christians I wouldn't have a problem with them. So I'm talking about the actual core of the issue."
But this also means one could complain about ruthless cosmopolitans without identifying them with jews - the entire position works without any reference to jews.
So we can't actually know a priori whether a given mention of "ruthless cosmopolitans" refers to jews.
And if you keep insisting "obviously it has to mean jews" it starts sounding a lot like "rootless cosmopolitans obviously are jews", and at this point you're reinforcing the narrative you're supposedly attacking.
It's like the old joke about the man who gets arrested after saying "Nicholas is an idiot" in Moscow, and when the defends himself claiming he meant a different Nicholas, not the beloved Tsar, the police responds with "Liar! When you talk about an idiot, you can only mean the Tsar!"
At the very least the connection "rootless cosmopolitans=jews" is embedded in your worldview, which is a dangerous situation, and the more you talk about and say "Please join me in fighting the popular perception that everyone from Comoros is a flaming gay", the more you're spreading the malicious meme.
So people who don't have this connection in their worldview, and don't want it to, become increasingly suspicious, while the actual antisemites are secretly gloating.
You can't very well fight against the perception that comorans are gay while calling "Man, Comorans are weird" a homophobic dogwhistle.
Voyager
2yr ago
I don't think it's signaling so much as an actual difference in world-view. If you believe in the 'colorblindness' idea of justice, all races means all, and specifically mentioning certain races is sus. If you believe that non-whites are invisible and antiracism means specifically working to improve their lot and racism against whites is impossible, it's the other way around.
Voyager
2yr ago
you blindly copied it from someone who did use it to mean Jews.
Suppose I did - does that imply anything? After all, the whole point of a dogwhistle is supposed to be that it's unrecognizable to non-dogs. So I read the term, take it at face value, because the implication is obscured (or because I encountered out of context), think it's a good description, and reuse it without being aware of the original speaker's meaning.
The end result is the same as coming up with it by myself: I'm using the term at face value and it's not a dogwhistle.
Voyager
2yr ago
It's true that with an unsympathetic audience you would want to lead with other arguments. But here on The Motte, we should be more concerned with finding the truth more than convincing the audience.
And a true argument being dismissed without consideration of the facts, worse, dismissing the person who brought it up, is an unacceptable state of being. At least here, we can do better than that.
Especially as this is a meta discussion - we're not arguing whether "HBD is true", but what it and discussing it implies. And for what it's worth, I seem to have convinced my audience - you. Your previous comment suggested that bringing up HBD implies bad motivations - you going back on that is a success.
Voyager
2yr ago
It’s a thoroughly uninteresting topic, unless when used to provide flimsy justifications for racist practices.
Close. It's a thoroughly uninteresting topic, unless when used to refute flimsy justifications for racist practices.
I don’t care whether or not Blacks have better or worse IQ than Whites on average — I’m dealing with people, not with averages.
Which is commendable, but only as long as you're actually dealing with people, not averages. When one is collecting statistics about racial outcomes, averages matter. If one is concluding racist discrimination from unequal outcomes while denying alternate explanations of average differences, they're likely wrong, and HBD might explain the mistake, so bringing it up corrects a mistake. HBD is only one of several possible confounders, mind, but if you actually want to make sure you're right, you need to consider all the ways you could be wrong.
And if one falsely concludes one racial group is discriminated against, and installs practices like, for example, Affirmative Action quotas while getting the target number wrong due to failing to consider average differences, that is racial discrimination, and that's why HBD can be important to prevent racial discrimination.
(And to be clear, racial discrimination is still a possibility, but you can't know that from just the statistics. You need to either ignore racial outcome statistics, or, among other confounders, consider HBD. Only when you're eliminated all possible confounders (or use an entirely differend method) you can actually conclude discrimination.)
You're assuming 'society' is monolithic, which is strange when we're talking about intrasocietal political disagreement. That society puts resources into helping low IQ people only tells us which faction "won" in that specific policy question. That doesn't mean other people can't believe differently, and it doesn't mean these people can't be influential elsewhere.
More options
Context Copy link