Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
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User ID: 732
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
1d ago
Jimmy Kimmel would be the other obvious one. (EDIT: Actually, no! Another one like Meyers who just looks and acts Jewish. A crypto-gentile!) And then Larry King, Sally Jessy Raphael, and Ricki Lake before that. (Also Jerry Springer and Maury Povich, if you consider those talk shows.)
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
1d ago
Seth Meyers
As far as I’m aware, Seth Meyers is only 1/8 Jewish (through his paternal grandfather) and I’m not sure that he was even raised with any connection to Jewish culture. He grew up in Michigan and then in New Hampshire. His wife is Jewish, and they’re raising their kids Jewish because of her, but as far as I’m aware everything he’s said about it is that he doesn’t think of himself as Jewish at all.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
1d ago
Again, you’re asking everyone to just play along with these retarded polite fictions, in the belief that if everyone just converged on the right metapolitical narrative, there would no longer be any compelling material/geopolitical reason for conflict. Any person with a modicum of historical knowledge of the region would be well-aware of the extremely complicated cultural, linguistic, and political realignments within the patch of territory currently known as “Ukraine”. Putin’s casus belli isn’t made any more or less valid by Zelenskyy refusing to conduct an interview in a language which everybody already knows that he speaks. Nor is Ukraine’s desire to resist forceful reabsorption into the Russian Federation made any more or less justified by crafting an easily-falsifiable narrative about the proud and independent history of the Ukrainian/Ruthenian-speaking nation. None of these things are actually materially important.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
2d ago
Everyone I've seen, including Zelensky and myself, has seemed rather confused/upset by Fridman's very strong desire to do the interview in Russian, since the symbolic concerns seem to obviously outweigh those.
It’s not clear to me at all why these “symbolic concerns” should “obviously” outweigh the fairly straightforward practical reasons why an interview conducted in a language both participants speak fluently would be more intimate, more personable, and less stilted than one conducted via interpreters. And in this situation reinforces one of the central arguments of the Russian-sympathetic side; having Zelenskyy conduct the interview in the language he grew up speaking would inspire uncomfortable questions about why he grew up speaking Russian, despite growing up in Ukraine (supposedly a nation with deep historical pride and cultural distinctiveness), and why (as I understand it) he only felt compelled to become fluent in Ukrainian as an adult.
I don’t have a strong dog in the Ukraine-Russia fight, and I have assiduously avoided wading into previous Motte discussions of the conflict, which have shocked me with their low quality, contentiousness, and total lack of intellectual charity. I’m just pointing out how Zelenskyy’s “symbolic” posture in this interview could be fairly described as a method of maintaining the polite fiction — Ukraine has always been culturally distinguishable from Russia, Ukrainian cities don’t have any deep Russian history, Russianness has always been imposed upon Ukraine, etc. — which the larger global community has been asked to respect since the invasion began. I can understand why he’s doing it, but can you understand why it doesn’t strike neutral observers as “weird” for Fridman to want to put aside that artifice for the sake of what he hoped would be an incisive interview?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
2d ago
the fact that the op specifically excluded Berbers makes me think they're ones planning the motte and bailey rather than opening themselves up to it.
What does this mean? Berbers are not black. As far as I can tell, none of the major Berber tribal groups have major Sub-Saharan admixture; whatever admixture they do have comes through their interbreeding with Gulf Arabs, who themselves have some African ancestry via the history of the slave trade. Ancient depictions of Berbers, and medieval depictions of groups like the Guanches, consistently show them as fair-skinned with pale hair and beards. Arguably the most famous modern person of Berber ancestry, soccer player Zinedine Zidane, could pass for a white Italian guy.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
2d ago
I’ve seen the whole thing. Like many male millennials, I discovered the “shocking, extreme, gory, etc.” parts of the internet — Rotten.com and the like — when I was in middle school, so I’ve developed a fairly strong stomach for this type of content.
Like everything Kulak posts, his description of the film and its significance is bombastically overstated, emotionally overwrought, but with a kernel of truth. The film does indeed make a persuasive case that there is a lot of fucked-up stuff going on in India. The only part that I found tough to watch was the part where people are literally eating shit, but obviously there’s plenty in there to trigger nearly anyone’s distress. The lower-caste people of the subcontinent really do seem to be profoundly dysfunctional and unpleasant, and there’s ample footage of their problems to cherry-pick and compile into a worthy propaganda reel.
My mother and father traveled to the subcontinent on their honeymoon, and my mother found it a fairly distressing place. She’s spoken about the leering behavior of the men on the trains, how she felt as though at any moment they might begin pawing at her like a pack of hyenas surrounding a dying elephant. She complained about the shocking poverty she saw, the overall levels of filth, and the several times she witnessed people openly shitting in public areas. This was in the very early 90’s, so presumably some things about the country have improved since then. The footage in the film appears, based on video quality, to mostly be filmed more recently than that, though, so clearly many of the problems have not gone away.
I also want to take a road trip through India at some point — mostly to visit ancient architectural sites, and also to see some of the more modern architectural delights bequeathed on the country by British administrators — but I know I’m going to have to carefully plan my itinerary to maximally avoid exposure to the grosser aspects of the place. Maybe I’ll have more objective anecdotes to convey here once I’ve done so. It’s certainly not the worst country on Earth, if for no other reason than it still contains the remnants of a legacy of magisterial glory from its past, and enough intelligent and clear-eyed individuals who have so far committed themselves to preserving it. If they start blowing up Mughal and Zoroastrian monuments out of some revisionist Hindu nationalist vendetta, then I’d be willing to comfortably call it a contender for the worst.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
5d ago
Actually as far as I’m aware, citizens of most Gulf Arab countries have a non-negligible amount of African admixture from the days of harem slavery. African female slaves were not made infertile the way African male slaves were. I think in places like Yemen in particular the African admixture is particularly significant.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
5d ago
They had built in assumptions about what level of knowledge people taking the tests had at a very minimum.
I certainly don’t dispute that — I myself cannot make heads nor tails of the sample question from the Bennett test you provided, presumably because I have close to zero familiarity with the relevant concepts and terminology.
However, I will again point out that these tests were being used as a filtering mechanism for the non-menial job departments at a major energy company. I find it a priori very plausible that there was a good reason for Duke Power hiring executives to believe that some level of prior familiarity with these fields of knowledge was important for determining eligibility for transfer to those departments.
Also, since the score thresholds for the Bennett test were also set to the score for the median high school graduate, it’s entirely possible that the question you linked is one that the vast majority of the tested employees would have gotten wrong, while still managing to obtain the minimum required score. Without knowing what the median score was, it’s tough to gauge whether the chosen score threshold was reasonable and fair, or whether it was unnecessarily onerous in a way that could have been expected to unfairly exclude otherwise-qualified candidates.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
6d ago
"The freaking Soviets" would go on to enact Loudness
Incorrect, Loudness was a Japanese project.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
6d ago
So, to be clear, I don’t know if the Wonderlic specifically has these diagnostic blind spots. Like I said, the data Rushton was working with was spotty and relied on extrapolating scores from data that was less than fully standardized. It’s quite plausible that the Wonderlic does not consistently produce such counterintuitive results; it is probably fairly accurately sorting individuals into broad tiers of cognitive ability. IQ is important even for a truck driver and a janitor. A truck driver could jeopardize company property by being more likely to crash the truck, or expose the company to financial/insurance issues by failing to consistently observe traffic laws. A janitor could fail to lock up a room full of expensive equipment, opening up the company to burglary or things like that. Things like this are absolutely worth guarding against by ensuring you’re hiring conscientious, intelligent, mentally flexible individuals.
I totally agree with you about why blacks would not trust the motives of a company which had previously explicitly discriminated against them. That being said, it’s worth delving into the specifics of the policies which got Duke Power into legal trouble. The Duke Power station in question did hire black employees — it just restricted them to the Labor department. In 1955 it added an additional stipulation, requiring a high school diploma for employment in any department other than Labor. (It also offered to pay two-thirds of the tuition for a high-school equivalency training for employees without a diploma.) Now, again, I think requiring a high school diploma or its equivalent for jobs requiring significant cognitive labor is a pretty reasonable bare-minimum failsafe! They still hired menial laborers without a high school diploma. You didn’t need to be a smart cookie to be a janitor at Duke Power.
Then, in 1965, after the Civil Rights Act took effect, they added two employment tests — the Wonderlic IQ test and a test of mechanical aptitude — for employees (black or white) who wanted to transfer from Labor to a higher-paying department. The score thresholds were set at the median for high-school graduates. Again, they were not asking for geniuses. They were asking people to meet a cutoff achieved by 58% of white employees.
Only 6% of blacks met that cutoff! Only 6% of black adult employees were at the cognitive and aptitude levels of the median high school graduate. The ones who did could be promoted at the same level as their white counterparts. Do you have specific reason to believe that both the Wonderlic and the Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test were wildly mis-measuring the relative cognitive abilities of black employees vis-a-vis white employees?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
6d ago
It’s absolutely true that one of the people I’m talking about could function extremely well in any number of jobs which just require one to be amiable and to perform basic tasks. Such a person would not be able to perform the job tasks required of an employee of an energy company, where even minor screwups can have catastrophic effects on an entire region. Like, if Wendy’s was demanding a Wonderlic test, I would think that’s a bit excessive. If the company that runs the power grid for an entire region demands it, that strikes me as a reasonable failsafe. Do you want the company responsible for your electrical power to hire individuals who can charm an interviewer, but who can’t do basic mental arithmetic, who can’t reason through rudimentary logical scenarios, and who is incapable of any outside-the-box thinking?
I agree with you that a test which assigns the same IQ score to a glue-eating retard and a more-or-less functional person is failing to capture the whole picture. However, it’s still capturing an extremely important part of the picture when we’re talking about jobs requiring considerable cognitive labor.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
6d ago
There’s something you’re missing here. The social scientist and psychologist J. Philippe Rushton, who wrote (controversially) about race differences in intelligence and psychology, noticed an interesting phenomenon. He was discussing the large differences in average measured national IQ, and a student asked him how, if the average IQ of some African countries is in the low 70s (below the threshold under which a person is considered mentally retarded in the United States), those countries are able to sustain basic infrastructure and to maintain a semblance of functionality. They’re not thriving by First World standards, but the average citizen of one of those countries is able to adequately carry out day-to-day adult responsibilities, to hold down a job, to attend to children, etc. It’s not what you would expect from a society populated by the kids you see eating glue in American special education classes, to say the least. So, what is the IQ test failing to capture?
Now, of course, one can simply question the validity of the IQ test in question, assume that the average IQ of those countries is in fact considerably higher than measured, and obviate the whole discussion. (And, in fairness, many have pointed out flaws in Rushton’s work, such that it’s plausible that some of his data may have relied on questionable extrapolation from limited data.) However, let’s assume for a moment that the data we have on average IQ differences between groups is at least relatively reliable — and I do believe this is the case, given how consistent the broad patterns in measured data have been since IQ tests first began being administered.
We observe that white children in the U.S. who have an IQ of 72 are profoundly disabled; even besides their very low IQ, there are usually other things about them which mark them as clearly non-functioning. (Physical deformities, social ineptitude, etc.) Without having any access to IQ test results, it would still be easy for you to identify such a person as a poor candidate for an open job position at your company.
However, the black kids who get assigned to special education classes due to their poor IQ test results tend to be very observably different. They are far more socially competent than their white peers in those classes. They show no physical manifestations of disability, and they’re often indistinguishable from “normal” kids in conversation, except in academic settings or when trying to deal with complex intellectual tasks. If you met one of these people as an adult, it might be very difficult to clock him or her as intellectually deficient; this person could carry on a normal conversation, could be charming, could drive himself or herself to the job interview dressed like a normal person, etc. It’s only by specifically administering a test of cognitive aptitude that you would discover that this person is not going to be able to intellectually comprehend the tasks and concepts which will be required for the job. They “pass” as normal unless you use the test to ferret them out.
So, given this phenomenon, it makes sense that Duke Power opted to use an IQ test when hiring black applicants. With a white applicant, you can usually figure out in the interview whether the individual is too dumb to be able to do the job. With a black applicant, you need some extra information to help you make an informed hiring decision.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
6d ago
I'm not sure I can name a single very articulate East Asian.
Francis Fukuyama and John Yoo come immediately to mind.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
6d ago
Right, I was sticking to standups. If we’re expanding it to women who got famous doing comedic acting, I’m sure there were others before Lucy. I’m not super familiar with the big stars of vaudeville and radio, but I imagine there were women among them. (Gracie Allen comes to mind.)
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
7d ago
Entirely possible this is just culture(no coincidence the first really successful woman comedian was Ellen, not exactly a proper lady).
Carol Burnett and Joan Rivers both have her beat by decades. (Whoopi Goldberg also found massive success several years before Ellen did.)
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
7d ago
I, for one, also knew that @self_made_human is Indian. You can’t replace me just yet, Claude!
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
8d ago
I picked such a perfect time to end my decade-long sojourn in the wilderness of Jags fandom and to come home to the Chargers. Jim Harbaugh has this entire team massively overperforming, to the point where I am currently ruminating over how much I’d be willing to spend for a ticket if they end up hosting a playoff game. The sky is the limit for what this team can achieve once its onerous cap obligations are finally cleared out and Joe Hortiz can truly start crafting the team in his and Harbaugh’s image.
I’m on record stating that the Chargers will never have an organic base of local support in the Los Angeles market, but honestly if they keep things on the current trajectory, perhaps I’ll have to eat my words. Even if they get absolutely BTFO in the playoffs this season, it will still be the best Chargers season I’ve seen in at least a decade, and will have filled me with (probably dangerous) hope.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
8d ago
You and I must be running in very different circles. Of course, I’m a fan of a team in the AFC West, so of course I’m exposed to a constant stream of Chiefs hate. However, even in neutral subs like /r/NFL, I feel like I still see a ton of people complaining about the Chiefs, saying how sick of the Chiefs they are, making constant jokes about the refs colluding with the Chiefs, etc. The Patriots got a ton of shit for Brady being an overexposed pretty boy, and the Chiefs are getting that as well with the Travis Kelce Taylor Swift stuff.
You are correct that the Patriots got additional shit for the cheating allegations (Deflategate, Sypgate, etc.) which the Chiefs have not received, but I still think there’s plenty of fatigue with the Chiefs that will really start to boil over if they win another Super Bowl this year.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11d ago
If you’re going to tag me, do it right!
At no point have I denied that high-skilled minorities are liable to use their political and cultural power to shift the policy and culture toward their own interests and away from the interests of the legacy population. If you recall, that was exactly what I said was the crux of the argument against increasing “high-skilled immigration”. My whole point is simply that this is a distinct and separate issue from the issues caused by underclass immigrants. The model minorities are (at least potentially) bad, but not for the same reason the non-model ones are.
Right, I don’t think anyone is denying that most human beings are always going to want to date within their own race. (Race being broadly construed here.) Most black men are most physically attracted to black women, and they tend to value the physical traits that are most typical of black women. Black men seem to go absolutely wild for Serena Williams, for example, whereas I think most white men find her somewhat mannish.
But if we’re talking about the subset of each racial group who are willing to date outside their own race, the disparities in the patterns we observe are surely instructive. Something like 20% of Asian-American women, as I recall, date outside their own race; of those, the vast majority go with white guys, and almost none with black guys or Latinos. Since white men aren’t that much genetically closer to Asians than black men are, it can’t simply be that dating preferences move along a predictable gradient of genetic similarity. Patterns between whites and Latinos are somewhat closer; while Latina women are more likely to date white men than white women are to date Latino men, the difference is not all that large.
I hesitate to stake out a strong position that some races are “just objectively more attractive than others”. I’m willing to say that if such an objective ranking exists, Australian Aborigines and Melanesians are at the bottom of it, with maybe African Pygmies also in competition, but past that, I agree that things like differential rates of obesity and vast cultural gaps confound the picture too much to draw definitive conclusions. It’s probably true that on a global scale, white men (including Jewish men and other Mediterranean ethnicities) probably beat out other races’ men in terms of the preferences of women willing to date outside their default race; the rankings for women are more complicated, with white (again, including Jewish) and Asian women fairly neck-and-neck, and Latina women who manage to stay thin also making a respectable showing.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11d ago
Obesity explains almost all the racial dating gap between BW - WM and BM - WW
Ehhhh I don’t know about that. It’s obviously a significant factor — many black men certainly seem very interested in overweight white women, whereas nearly no white men are interested in comparably overweight black women — but surely there are a number of other important contributing factors as well. I’m not sure why you would be so dismissive of facial structure as an important consideration; I think it’s fair to say that the modal female Sub-Saharan facial phenotype is “more masculine” (i.e. less gracile, heavier features) than the modal female Eurasian facial phenotype.
And obviously personality and cultural differences are very important here as well. Black women, on average, have more domineering, more brash, and more extroverted personalities than white and Asian women. It’s understandable that many white men would be put off by this, whereas some number of white women would conversely be attracted to the similarly brash and extroverted personalities of black men. Men want someone feminine and demure, while women want someone forceful and confident.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
12d ago
So, let’s take black women — and my sense is that the plight of black women is the primary subtext of your comment.
I have met, interacted with, worked alongside, and befriended numerous black women over the course of my life. I think I have about as much intimate exposure to black women, black culture, etc., as any other white American who has lived in a large diverse city and attended public schools in a non-wealthy area. My perceptions of them are not informed by stereotypes and media portrayals, but by direct and repeated interpersonal contact.
I would never deny that there are attractive, feminine, intelligent, pleasant, and sexually-appealing black women. I’ve met several myself, I’ve flirted with them, I’ve even kissed a few. Like most men of any race, I prefer mixed and/or lighter-skinned black women with gracile features and smooth hair, rather than dark-skinned heavily African-looking women with heavy features and kinky/poofy hair. That’s not to say I’ve never seen or met attractive dark-skinned, non-mixed black women — I think most men would agree that, for example, Simone Biles is a very attractive woman — but they’re fewer and farther between.
That being said, it simply is verifiably true that rates of obesity are significantly higher among black women than they are among white women, and that’s to say nothing of Asian women. Average differences in temperament (whether you want to identify them as culturally-informed, or genetic, or some combination of the two) are well-documented, and so are average differences in physical build, and even more subtle things like smell. Black women smell different from white women. Their skin feels different. It’s understandable that someone whose primary romantic/sexual experience is with white women might find intimate contact with black women to be unfamiliar, slightly disconcerting, and just less familiar.
Furthermore, when it comes to the relatively small segment of black women who are genuinely hot, feminine, intelligent, and able to perform middle-class respectability, they generally seem to find themselves catapulted into high-status roles which give them the pick of the litter of nearly all high-status black men, plus some portion of high-status non-black men. Those women are highly unlikely to come into contact with lower-status white guys like me — both because they are unlikely to share the cultural hobbies which would put them into everyday casual interaction with me, and also because they’re too busy being wined and dined by wealthier men than I.
So, for the average white guy, the odds of regularly encountering the kinds of black women who may interest him are quite low, and the probability of both him and her being xenophilic enough to overcome significant cultural differences and fall for each other is even lower. It’s not primarily because they are stereotyping each other; rather, they are fairly accurately perceiving each other, and deciding that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
17d ago
Not necessarily! One of his messages that I did see said something like, “The only thing the German government respects is violence. I’m going to have to do something violent to get them to respect me.” It’s entirely possible that he was merely indifferent to the suffering of the people he maimed and killed; that the purpose of the attack was not to make them suffer, but rather to have the moment of their suffering become a political flashpoint.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
17d ago
Did he hate Germans? Or did he hate the German government? I haven’t seen any evidence of the former, although I’d be perfectly happy to be confronted with some.
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