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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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The 1990s race blind society was a good Schelling point. I think we can and should go back there.

As I’ve pointed out a million times before, it was not a good Schelling point, because it was inherently unstable. It required a massive, society-wide coordinated effort to pretend not to notice something that’s obvious. And more specifically, it required black people to participate in that coordination, and to sacrifice a huge amount psychologically as a result. This is a culture with multigenerational stories of (what they consider) grievous mistreatment that has never been made right, and which (as they see it) is directly responsible for the profound differences in achievement and prestige between themselves and other racial groups.

In their minds, white people spent 400 years playing the racial identity politics game and cheating egregiously at it, and then the second blacks had a window where they could have attained parity (let alone the upper hand) whites decided that it was no longer okay to see race, that game is over with, we should just let bygones be bygones.

A plurality of blacks were willing to temporarily accept this new paradigm because they earnestly believed that, given a procedurally (if not materially) level playing field, blacks would inevitably start to move toward parity with whites. Thirty years later that absolutely has not happened, and shows no signs of even getting closer to happening. Why on earth would blacks accept the same “return to colorblindness” when it manifestly did not produce tangible results for them? It was built on a lie. HBD-aware whites disagree with blacks about what exactly that lie was, but neither side fails to recognize that it was indeed a lie.

In their minds, white people spent 400 years playing the racial identity politics game and cheating egregiously at it, and then the second blacks had a window where they could have attained parity (let alone the upper hand) whites decided that it was no longer okay to see race, that game is over with, we should just let bygones be bygones.

OK, I could have a number of objections to this description, but let's say it's mostly accurate. What's the alternative? Have 400 years of anti-white racism? Including against whites which had zero part in playing that game - either because they didn't have access to the benefits of the game, which weren't ever spread equally, as they aren't even in racially homogeneous societies, or because - which is very frequent case in America - their ancestors weren't even in America when the game has been played. Yet, somehow they need not to suffer for the sins of some dead people that share the skin hue with them? If not 400, how many years of racism is enough? How many years of racism would not create a completely broken culture integrating this racism and depending on it? How and who would decide that this is the moment we're even and now we can stop being racist to either side?

Let's look at human history. How the wars end? Sometimes they never do, but sometimes it happens. Do the warring sides carefully calculate who hurt whom, how many times, and hurt the other side back until the account is at precisely zero? Or do the decide, one day, that we should stop hurting each other, and whatever grievances we had in store, we are not going to hurt each other over them anymore? I think that's the only way to end a war. It may not please everyone, but I see no other way.

Let's say you say - that's not enough. For the fact that black businesses were refused loans at the racist times, nobody now can ever refuse a loan to a black-owned business. Would it make black businessmen more successful? I don't think so. First of all, any shrewd business would just hire a black person to do nothing but serve as a token - and that's not going to benefit genuine black-owned businesses and also would put a giant asterisk next to the name of every prominent black businessman. Second, banks either find a way to refuse loans they don't want to give, or will be forced to spread the risk - raising interest rates to everyone, and the weakest businesses would be those who will be hurt. Third, criminals sure will be attracted by the prospect of guaranteed loans, and honest businessmen will have trouble competing with crooks, since the banks would be forbidden from distinguishing between them, leaving to eventual washing out of honest business. So, did we improve the situation or did we make it worse?

Just stopping racism may be not satisfactory to many, but I don't see any way of stopping racism outside of stopping it. All other ways will just be hurting a lot of people and not improving anything.

If you’ve read my previous posting on race, you will already know my answer: racial separation of blacks and non-blacks. American blacks go their own way, and forge the best polity they can without the specter of racial wounds from the past weighing them down.

Black-white conflict will never cease in this country so long as blacks continue to lag so far behind other races, which will always be the case barring either a seismic shift in their culture and folkways, a highly effective application of eugenics, or some combination thereof. Since those things are extremely improbable, the alternative is separation.

We don’t have to keep having these fights into perpetuity. However, I think I’ve made a persuasive case that the peace terms you are proposing - unilateral disarmament by blacks, despite no structural changes that could plausibly lead to a future favorable outcome for them - are unrealistic and unsustainable.

American blacks go their own way,

Go their own way where? Liberia? I don't see them doing that voluntarily, why would they go to some shithole, they are as American as everybody else (and more than myself, a relatively fresh immigrant, for example). Or just ethnically purge Atlanta and ban whites from every coming in there? Why Atlanta then and not New York or Santa Monica? How that's supposed to work without destroying every principle of American society? I mean sure, if you imagined you are building a simulation from scratch, you could add a rule "black and whites live separately" and see if it works. But this simulation has already been running for a while, and I can't even begin to think that "their own way" would mean in this context. What if they think their own way is keep living in America, just as they did - does it mean whites have to get out?

Black-white conflict will never cease in this country so long as blacks continue to lag so far behind other races

I don't think it's true. A lot of countries have ethnically heterogeneous population, and a lot of countries have a lot of issues and concerns connected to that. But nowhere (at least not among developed countries) it's as central to literally everything as in America. And it is getting worse. Which also, paradoxically, means it is possible for it to be better - because it has been. And it has been deliberately made worse, for very practical partisan political reasons. If Americans, as a culture, find in themselves to sacrifice their partisan interests to their common culture interests, if they still want to make it better and not just to win over the other team, no matter the cost - it is possible for it to be better. Will it be all ok and nice? No. Shit's probably will be going on for decades, and there would be low-key racism and low-key hatred for a long time. But it can be much better than it is now, and the only thing that is really necessary if for people to want to make it better.

unilateral disarmament by blacks, despite no structural changes that could plausibly lead to a future favorable outcome for them

The only way there could be "future favorable outcome for them" is a racist regime actively (and by our current standards, absolutely outrageously) discriminating against people who are not them. Nothing less would make a dent. Even if that were possible, it may persist for one generation, while people who saw the reverse regime are still alive and still feel guilty for it. The next generation would not feel this guilt. They will inevitably demand justice. And then what? How do you give them justice? The only way you know?

Go their own way where? Liberia?

No, certainly not. The American Colonization Society - the last hope this country ever had of solving this issue once and for all - failed to seal the deal. Black Americans are not going to be deported to Africa. They would never do so willingly, and nobody would countenance the sort of coercive measures necessary to force them there against their will. I’m not advocating it, nor is anybody else.

No, the goal is simply to accelerate the process already taking place: blacks willingly consolidating their population in a handful of Southern states. This remigration is already taking place, and nobody is forcing anyone to do it. Blacks actually do want to live around their own people, when economic circumstances allow them to do so. Let them achieve such a supermajority in these places, along with strengthening the political domination they already have in most of the places I’m talking about, and then we can work on formalizing and reifying things from there.

Or just ethnically purge Atlanta and ban whites from every coming in there?

The ethnic purge of whites from the places I’m talking about has already happened. The white population of Atlanta proper is minuscule. The white presence in the suburbs can only hold for so long before whites do what they’ve always done in this country whenever blacks start to gather strength: move somewhere else. Whites will of course still be able to travel to Atlanta - just as I can travel to Toronto, or London, or Paris, or Shanghai. It’s just that the actual citizenship and the power that comes with it will be formally restricted to blacks. Atlanta will be a black city the way that Tokyo is a Japanese city, even though Tokyo contains thousands of non-Japanese visitors at any given time.

But nowhere (at least not among developed countries) it's as central to literally everything as in America.

Right, the racial history of America really is unlike that of any other country on earth. No other country contains a population of this size which is still visually and culturally this distinct and which is only in the country as a direct result of centuries of chattel slavery and subjugation. Other countries have minority populations with grievances against the empowered majority - First Nations in Canada, Aboriginals in Australia, even the Ainu in Japan - but none of them have anything remotely like the power and numbers that American blacks have. (The closest comparison, I suppose, would be the Māori in New Zealand.)

Which also, paradoxically, means it is possible for it to be better - because it has been

When? When was it better? People can literally only point to a roughly 15-year period. In the entire 400 years of black-white relations in the history of this country, we’ve had not even twenty years of sustained peace. (And even this period saw its share of flare-ups.) This does not paint the picture you think it does.

Blacks are not mere puppets of powerful partisan operators that can toggle levels of racial grievance up and down with a magical dial. They are responding to reality as they perceive it, which is informed by their actual lived experiences. They correctly perceive that whites largely do not like them, do not want to live around them, and would coordinate to take harsh action against a large portion of the black population if offered a roadmap to do so.

Hell, the halcyon days of the 90’s and 00’s you wish to depict as a colorblind success was also the time when by far the largest proportion of the black population was incarcerated. That was the only way to maintain the illusion of peace! By literally locking away the most execrable 10% of the black male population out of the sight of white people for a decade. The second blacks started successfully agitating against mass incarceration and the worst elements of the black population were once again thrust out in front of whites’ eyes, that’s when race relations fell apart again.

But it can be much better than it is now, and the only thing that is really necessary if for people to want to make it better.

Oh! What an idea! This whole time, I’ve been trying to make things worse! Why did nobody consider trying to make it better?!

We’ve tried everything in the book to make it better. We’ve tried everything from Jim Crow segregation, to colorblindness, to affirmative action and No Child Left Behind, to active anti-white discrimination. We’ve tried mass incarceration and mass de-incarceration. The one thing that never got fully implemented along racial lines was eugenics, but it’s not like many intelligent and important people (both white and black) didn’t discuss it. (Look into what W.E.B. Dubois had in mind as far as that was concerned.) I’m not going to say that none of it has made a dent. That would be dishonest. But you yourself admit that it hasn’t made anywhere near enough of a difference. What fresh new solutions do you propose, beside sweeping this stuff under the rug and praying really hard that nobody notices the lump?

Go their own way where?

I disagree fundamentally with some of @Hoffmeister25's axioms, but in the formulation of the problem he's more or less straightforwardly correct. Blacks will never accept being an underclass any more than whites would, and there is no reason to believe that any solutions inside the Overton window can actually extricate them from their underclass status.

As for solutions, here's a modest proposal I wrote awhile back. As a list of things that are never going to happen, I think there's much to commend it.

I have previously proposed Reverse-Segregation: give blacks an area that they control completely, where every public official and government position must be held 100% by black people, by law. Grant this area leave to write its own laws as it sees fit, irrespective of the American constitution, and grant it leave to enforce and adjudicate those laws as it sees fit, completely outside the jurisdiction of the rest of American jurisprudence. Fund it with a per-capita percentage of all outlays legitimately payable to black Americans equivalent to the percentage of black Americans who actually live within it. People, white or black, can move there if they want, and leave if they want; no one can be kept there against their will, and no law-abiding citizen be prevented from going there by the rest of America if they choose to go. Then declare that outside this zone, racism has been solved. Blacks get the exact same legal status as everyone else. No AA, no hate crime laws, no special privileges, we implement pure colorblind enforcement of the letter of the law. Race-based discrimination is equally illegal no matter which race it's applied to. If certain words are evidence of bias, they're evidence regardless of who speaks them. Claims of bias will no longer be entertained unless they come with ironclad evidence. And if anyone doesn't like this, there's a place they can move. Welfare can even continue outside the zone as well, we just use cellphone data to track who's inside and who's outside and apportion the money appropriately. Anyone not-black who wants to can move inside the zone, they just can't hold office or vote for anyone who isn't black, presuming the zone decides to keep voting. Maybe even throw in something about the zone expanding if its population rises too high.

I think Hoff would not be wildly enthused with a plan like that, but I wonder if he'd take it. I wouldn't be wildly enthused for it either, and my expectation is that the zone would either turn into a corrupt shithole or what many now would consider a draconian police state in fairly short order. The idea of enforcing "racism is over" outside the zone is likewise laughably unrealistic; blues will never, ever let that weapon be pried from betwixt their fingers.

In any case, I think he's right that the colorblind 90s aren't coming back. Some problems don't have acceptable solutions. We can in fact keep right on burning social cohesion trying to bail water with sieves until things actually fall apart in a serious enough way to leave us with more pressing concerns.

Blacks will never accept being an underclass any more than whites would,

True, and that's why the only solution is to abandon the framework where the measure of equality is the equality of statistical outcomes between races (or any other large population-wide categories, for that matter). This framework is not something that is inevitable and it's not something that is necessary. I don't care how many people who have the same eye color as me and the same nose length as me are rich and how many are poor. I care if I'm rich or poor, I care about whether my family and my friends are rich or poor. I care about whether I could be prevented from being richer or made poorer by unjust means. But wide-area statistical frameworks are meaningless to me - unless they are made meaningful by adopting them as political and cultural framework that is dominant in the society. There's no inherent reason why US should have adopted the racial framework. To be an "underclass" you should first be a "class", and "classes" are entirely arbitrary. Stop obsessing about them and the problem will be gone.

give blacks an area that they control completely

Who are "they"? Any man that can prove a drop of African blood? That's much more people than you think. What happens to other people living there, if they don't want to live in the racist paradise? What does it mean "control completely" - does it secede from the US? What happens to people that want to keep living in the US and keep being US citizens and keep having US laws? I don't see why for example a black professor at local university would suddenly want to subject himself to a regime that may not be able to sustain any universities at all. Doesn't he have any rights?

Grant this area leave to write its own laws as it sees fit

Areas can't write laws. People write laws. Who will be choosing these people? Will it be mass combat or lottery or how are you planning to choose those people? What if there would be 10 groups of people writing ten competing sets of laws - which group is the real one that gets the full control? How this control would be enforced - will US army and police participate if armed conflict happens? Will it blockade the area if there would be threat of violence spreading out? What about if they decide to build a giant meth factory and ship it to the US? Or even much worse, a giant generic drugs factory, without respecting any US drug patents? Will there be a complete trade embargo?

Then declare that outside this zone, racism has been solved. Blacks get the exact same legal status as everyone else

They already have this status, why we need the racist paradise to achieve what we already have?

No AA, no hate crime laws, no special privileges, we implement pure colorblind enforcement of the letter of the law.

Again, we can do it right now - why we need the racist paradise? What if the blacks don't want to live in the racist paradise, but want to keep living in New York and California, only better than they live now? I'm not sure what exactly having the racist paradise zone achieves. If you have a mechanism that can stop the racial grievances, I don't see why you can't use it without that, and if you don't have that mechanism, what did you achieve then?

I think he's right that the colorblind 90s aren't coming back

The past is never coming back, but we're coming into the future, and it can be made better than the present, if there's a will.

True, and that's why the only solution is to abandon the framework where the measure of equality is the equality of statistical outcomes between races (or any other large population-wide categories, for that matter).

Humans form tribal feelings for other people who seem like them. Humans are predisposed to perceive those who share their race as "like them". This can be overridden, but the effect is real and overriding it is not easy, especially when the environment seems threatening. Blacks have an environment that seems threatening, and there is no plausible way to get them to stop forming tribal attachments to others of their race. And this is doubly so when one of the tribes outputs a constant firehose of propaganda about how all their misfortunes are the fault of the other tribe, who hate them explicitly because of their race.

I don't care how many people who have the same eye color as me and the same nose length as me are rich and how many are poor.

I care when people say that whites should be discriminated against or disadvantaged, because I'm white. I care when people hurt or kill white people explicitly for their skin color, because, again, I'm white. I mostly don't care how rich other whites are, because I'm doing pretty okay. If whites were an underclass, and I had reason to believe that the upper classes were keeping us down on purpose, I would definitely care about that.

I care about whether I could be prevented from being richer or made poorer by unjust means.

And they manifestly were being made poorer by unjust means, and they've been told for decades that they still are being made poorer by unjust means. Our whole society is built on propagating that idea. Why would they not believe it?

To be an "underclass" you should first be a "class", and "classes" are entirely arbitrary.

It could be argued that "Jew" is an arbitrary class. But if the Nazis have settled on a definition that includes you, and are actively trying to exterminate you, recognizing the arbitrary nature of "class" doesn't resolve the problem.

In the same way, Blacks are, as the saying goes, "less likely", and not by a small margin. It is not in their individual or collective interest to reject group identity as arbitrary, because then most of them would still be in the same miserable position, only now they'd be alone, with their community ties severed. For most of them, that would very likely put them in a strictly worse position, and this fact is sufficiently obvious that they simply aren't going to do it.

Who are "they"?

The actual, current black community, or whoever they choose or designate from among that community. If it's actually a problem, let Oprah and Obama pick a panel to get the ball rolling. It doesn't really matter who they are, so long as they're unambiguously recognized as black by other blacks. The point is that it not be me or you, because if it's us, we'll be blamed for any bad outcomes that result. Many Blacks see themselves as a separate group, and the point is to give that group absolute power to do things its own way while insulating anyone who doesn't want to participate from the consequences.

What does it mean "control completely" - does it secede from the US?

Effectively, yes. The people inside run it however they want with zero interference from the rest of the country, but with the current level of funding that the occupants would otherwise receive under our current system, and possibly significantly more. They can keep our laws or write their own, interpret our laws however they want or discard them entirely. Let them do things exactly as they think they should be done. If they want to ban private property or institute full communism or legalize murder of white people or make everyone attend their local Baptist church on Sundays, that's fine: everyone there is there because they want to be, and if they don't like it they can leave at any time.

What happens to people that want to keep living in the US and keep being US citizens and keep having US laws? I don't see why for example a black professor at local university would suddenly want to subject himself to a regime that may not be able to sustain any universities at all. Doesn't he have any rights?

...You have fundamentally misunderstood the proposal. No one of any race has to go there, at all, ever. Participation is entirely voluntary. It's a place where the only legitimate legal authority is expressly reserved for its black occupants, carte blanche, but where no one at all is actually required to go, and funded out of the outlays we'd already be providing to the percentage of the population who chooses to live there voluntarily, plus however much extra is required to sufficiently sweeten the pot. The people who believe that US society is founded on white supremacy and structural racism would now have an alternative that has had any plausible influence of white supremacy removed, while sacrificing as few of the advantages of American citizenship as possible. Meanwhile, everyone else can move on with their lives according to colorblind rules. If someone in the rest of the country complains about racism, you now point out to them that if they have a problem, there's an alternative easily available to them, and if they keep complaining, you mock them mercilessly until they shut up.

Areas can't write laws. People write laws. Who will be choosing these people?

It would not be my place to say, nor yours either. The point would not be to create what you or I think of as good governance. The point would be to create, as explicitly as possible, governance by Blacks on their own terms and in their own way, as an explicit alternative to the system governing the rest of the country.

What if there would be 10 groups of people writing ten competing sets of laws - which group is the real one that gets the full control?

That would be for them to sort out. The whole point is that they're in charge of this area, with no plausible legacy of white supremacy and racism to hinder them. Intervening in any way other than the unambiguously positive, ie providing a steady supply of cash, would be completely counterproductive.

Will it blockade the area if there would be threat of violence spreading out?

Their authority is absolute inside the border and null outside it. People who want to leave can at any time, but are subject to standard colorblind US law as soon as they cross the border. That probably should handle any actual problems short of weapons of mass destruction.

What about if they decide to build a giant meth factory and ship it to the US?

We check goods at the border and confiscate contraband. We don't do anything to those inside manufacturing the meth, we just don't let them export it to the rest of the country. Ditto for whatever other hypothetical; treat it like a foreign country, but with more leniency than usual. If they decide to make low-cost drugs and export them to the rest of America... that might not actually be a bad thing.

They already have this status, why we need the racist paradise to achieve what we already have?

The point is that many of them don't believe that colorblind society is actually operating in good faith, so you need to give them a demonstration of good faith, and that demonstration of good faith needs to actually resolve the concerns in a reliable way without opening the rest of us up to exploitation. Reparations are an example of an exploitable demonstration of good faith. This would cost less and be highly resistant to exploitation, and offer a good chance to actually resolve the majority of the distrust.

...The rest of your questions seem to be predicated on people being forced to live in such a zone, rather than being offered a free choice to live there or not as they see fit, so I'll end it here.

Racial grievances have more to do with the fanning of racial grievances than with actual grievances. Or, put it another way, blacks seemed happier about their status in the 1990s than they do today, even though today they benefit from much greater affirmative action.

People are bound to notice that blacks do worse in society. Here is the menu of choices for how to deal with this problem. I think there's a clear winner.

  1. Blacks do worse because they have lower IQ on average (this is the truth, but I just don't think it's something that can be accepted by black people if explicitly said).
  2. Ignore the problem (this is the 1990s solution)
  3. Blacks do worse because of terrible racism in society. Until blacks do just as well as whites we have to tear down every structure of society. (We are here).

In an ideal world we'd be at #2. Scientists and policy makers would understand that #1 is the truth but it's not super polite to talk about it.

Don't want #2? Well, I hope you've enjoyed the last 10 years of racial grievance politics. Because the next stop is Brazil then South Africa.

No, In an ideal world we would be at a point where racial Difference in IQ are acknowledged and an attempt is made to "help out" the underperformers. (Affirmative action without the pretense of "systemic racism" and without scapegoating whitey for failure to achieve).

Further the affirmative action would be scaled by "personal" IQ so you would be able to help out white trash/trailer park dwellers at the same time.

The problem with affirmative action is that most jobs aren't just sinecures meant to provide someone with a socially approved level of status and monetary support; they are shit that actually needs to get done, and shoving an 85-IQ black guy into the civil engineering position in the name of equality is going to fuck up your building. Generalize, and the more affirmative action you have, the more you fuck up your economy and your government.

Welfare/UBI doesn't that have problem, but it has the alternate problem that unearned wages destroy people. Freed from the responsibility to work for a living, they revert back to pathological r-selection, like Spiegelman's monster. The males compete for women based on who can be the biggest thug rather than who can be the best provider; the women compete for males based on who can be the most sexually available rather than who can be the best mother. You get generation after generation of single mothers and criminals who think of welfare not as charity for which they should be grateful, but as a their entitled birthright.

The best solution is to just admit the truth about HBD, do nothing to promote equality, and let blacks carve out the best lives they can on the idea that everyone can contribute to society thanks to comparative advantage. But in order do that, you need to get rid of things like the minimum wage and zoning that forbid people from making a living if their productivity is not high enough.

And if black envy stoked by race hustlers is never going to accept that they are going to end up on the lower end of society through no fault of white's own, then the only alternative is physical separation. Let the blacks have their own country (carved out of Southern states, most likely) and let the whites have their own country, and never the twain shall meet.

When encountering HBD for the first time, this sort of thing was also my conclusion on what a good, fair system would work like. From what I can tell, one of the most prominent mainstream faces of HBD, Charles Murray, largely follows the same reasoning, leading to him supporting UBI (which isn't IQ-based affirmative action, but is meant to alleviate some of the same problems, by guaranteeing that no matter how bad you are at making money due to any reason, including low intelligence, you have some guaranteed income you can depend on for survival).

This is one reason why I find the argument that HBD needs to be suppressed, lest people use it to justify racism. Believing that belonging to a race that happens to have average high IQ or even having high IQ oneself entitles one to greater rights and privileges than those who don't happen to belong to such a race or don't happen to have high IQ is something separate and distinct from believing that different races have different average IQ, and the latter doesn't cause the former.

Because the next stop is Brazil then South Africa.

We'll never be South Africa because we're never going to have a black majority.

Probably not, but there's a > 50% chance the world will be majority black by the end of century.

The population of Nigeria today is greater than the population of the entirety of Africa in 1950. Around 2060, Nigeria will surpass the population of the U.S. unless there are open borders.

And while Africa's growth rate is slowing, the developed world is slowing even faster.

So never say never.

blacks seemed happier about their status in the 1990s than they do today

Did they? I wasn't watching the news back then, but Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson seem to have had a lot of racial grievances then, to the point of starting racial pogroms targeting Koreans and Jews.

Guys like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were around but they were also well outside the mainstream, and widely mocked as racist grifters. Recall that Obama's association with Jeremiah Wright was actually seen as something of a scandal back in the day.

Yes, I think so. I don't have data from the 1990s, but in 2001 70% of black adults were satisfied with race relations in America. That persisted until 2013 before collapsing to just 33% by 2021. Thanks Obama?

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1687/race-relations.aspx

The best way to improve race relations is to stop talking about it so damn much.

The added irony is that the election of Obama was sold at least in part as the final nail in the 'The U.S. is racist" coffin by accepting a black president over another stodgy white guy.

Like the symbolic importance was there, even if we grant that not all racism would evaporate and in fact certain racists would be inflamed by his election.

The lesson that instead seems to have been imparted is "IDENTITY POLITICS ARE EFFECTIVE!" and Obama himself ended up fanning racial animosity. I had such a turning point at the Cool Clock, Ahmed moment where he intentionally brought attention to a trumped up racial incident on the side of the grifters.

We sure felt (to me) ready to move 'past' deep racial grievance as a nation circa 2010, but I fear that it has turned into a spectacular method of forcing others to do what you want, so sociopaths will of course leverage this as much as they can.

Remember: anyone who actually remembered what racism actually was retired by 2010 (assuming an age of 20 in 1950, they’d be 65 in 2015).

Thus there was nobody there to fact-check the sociopaths. Due to the conditions that enabled racism to be abolished not persisting, the sociopaths naturally re-instituted racism.

Unfortunately, ignoring the problem is not stable, because there will always be someone who breaks the taboo and blames racism. Which means that explanations like (1) (which include "culture" as well as HBD, the common element being that the problem lies with blacks, not whites) must remain, if not on the table, at least at the ready to respond to such violations. There's no static equilibrium but there can be a dynamic one... but not if you allow the supertaboo of racism to cover all (1)-style explanations.

If the elite can be convinced of HBD, then they can punish people who break norms. So, yeah, I guess the ideal would be to convert the elite and then feed race blind pablum to the masses.

A free society will always have race baiters like Cornel West and Al Sharpton. But in the 1990s, it felt like the damage caused by these people was more contained.

But in the 1990s, it felt like the damage caused by these people was more contained.

You mean the decade of the Rodney King riots, “superpredator” discourse, and OJ Simpson?

Yep. It was actually pretty great. At the start of the decade, crime was near all-time highs thanks to 2 decades of urban decay and lax law enforcement.

A tough-on-crime approach put so many murderers in jail that the murder rate fell by nearly 50%. Many major cities like New York saw even larger gains with a corresponding urban renewal that (temporarily) stemmed the white flight to the suburbs.

Had the policies of the 1990s been allowed to persist until today, the U.S. would have the lowest murder rate in 100 years, maybe ever.

A tough-on-crime approach put so many murderers in jail that the murder rate fell by nearly 50%. Many major cities like New York saw even larger gains with a corresponding urban renewal that (temporarily) stemmed the white flight to the suburbs.

Had the policies of the 1990s been allowed to persist until today, the U.S. would have the lowest murder rate in 100 years, maybe ever.

Right, I don’t disagree with any of this, I’m just trying to understand what you think are the reasons for why America stopped pursuing those policies. You refer to “race baiting” and “fanning the flames”. Okay, yes, obviously fuck Al Sharpton and Cornel West. But why do you think so many people (both black and white) were susceptible to their messaging? How do we get people to stop taking them seriously?

My basic theory is that blacks in this country are always going to go through cycles of militancy and complacency, and whites are always going to react with their own cycles of hardness and softness. I’m seeing early signs that whites might be ready to shift to a period of hardness, but this will inevitably soften once the proximate causes (Floyd-style race riots, racial grifters overplaying their hand, etc.) fade from memory.

In other words, like I said, the 90’s colorblindness wasn’t bad - I’d be perfectly fine living in it indefinitely, even if it would require me to really hold my tongue at times, especially since I have been on the receiving end of black criminality multiple times in my life - but it was not built to last. The inherent tensions and historical wounds between blacks and whites will continue to recur until either real parity is achieved - perhaps through serious and targeted eugenics and gene therapy - or separation is achieved.

I know, my position is basically "let's try it again and maybe it will work this time". But that's a legitimate position I think. We touched the stove and we got burned. Maybe next time we won't touch the stove. At least until the memory starts to fade again.

I know, my position is basically "let's try it again and maybe it will work this time".

I don't think "maybe" needs to be the extent of the plan, though. The transformation from the colorblind 90s to the ever-present race conflict of today didn't happen spontaneously. It was done due to people openly and explicitly pushing for this to happen. We can try again, but excise those elements this time.

Now, that's easier said than done, as it would likely require a great reformation of academia such that they all - not just the "hard" fields - actually take concepts like empiricism and logic seriously. And the forces that pushed this in the first place will continue to innovate, to come up with new, creative techniques to subvert our ability to see individuals as individuals. But having been burned once, we're at least somewhat better equipped to notice and stop these guys before it's too late.

Unfortunately, getting anything like this seems a pipe dream at this point. It'd also be working uphill, since it seems that race consciousness and racism is the human default. Which is one reason why academia had such an easy time turning their ostensibly antiracist efforts into scaffolding to support overt racism.

What about option 4: Political and geographic separation?

That's a stable equilibrium but there's not really a path from here to there ever since the American Colonization Society went bust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colonization_Society

Just learned that they only dissolved in 1964. That's surprisingly recent. I wonder who the last person who moved to Liberia was. Huge and obvious own goal.

In any case, if you look at trends in demographic movement, there is always movement away from black majority areas and to white majority areas. All racial groups want to be near whites. So you're not going to get segregation without violence. For me, I'll take 1990s race-blind society please.

In any case, if you look at trends in demographic movement, there is always movement away from black majority areas and to white majority areas. All racial groups want to be near whites.

Brookings claims otherwise, with blacks moving back to the South.

(makes me wonder if there is strife between the "returned" northerners and the southern blacks... my guess would be yes)

I'm not going to take the time to try to find taboo information on Google right now, but I recently saw data showing that when you look at Census blocks there is a huge correlation between white percentage and positive net migration (and the opposite for blacks).

This is obvious right? All the blackest cities in America are shedding population. All the exurbs are growing.

If a black person moves from Detroit to the Atlanta suburbs they are moving from a black area to a white one. "The South" being used as a stand-in for blackness is a blunt instrument and wrong.

Sounds like a race war-complete option. Alternatively, you can always geographically separate yourself on an individual basis.