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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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If you look at the religious affiliation of any powerful group in the U.S., you're bound to do some noticing.

I think the explanation is pretty simple. If Ashkenazi Jews have an IQ about 1 standard deviation above the normal, that means they are 20 times more likely to produce a person with a +3 standard deviation IQ. So in the +3 group, the percentage of people that are Jewish is going to be very noticeable. Then, combine that with network effects. People who are Jewish are much more likely to be connected or even related to these +3 people. Nothing nefarious needs to happen. Just natural talent and connections, both of which Sam Bankman-Fried had in spades.

Why does it seems to be mostly black people who are doing the noticing lately? There's also a simple explanation for that. Post-2020, there has been a huge societal push to give black people extra privileges. Things that would easily get a white person canceled are fine and even encouraged from the black community. So black people feel they have the ability to freely express themselves in a way that white people do not. They are now learning the limits of that ability.

The only thing that feels weird or objectionable about this whole thing is that it's okay to attack non-Jewish white people, but Jewish people are given special protections despite on average being much wealthier and more powerful.

The only thing that feels weird or objectionable about this whole thing is that it's okay to attack non-Jewish white people, but Jewish people are given special protections despite on average being much wealthier and more powerful.

This is my main gripe about this whole thing. As a white gentile I don't even care so much about jewish people disproportionately in positions of power. Its just the special pleading that prevents gentile whites from their own self advocacy in the age of identity politics. Just let all groups undergo in-group nepotism and advocacy or let no groups do so. I don't care which, just not having rules applied fairly is really aggravating.

just not having rules applied fairly is really aggravating.

The story of the 21st Century, perhaps.

I think the explanation is pretty simple. If Ashkenazi Jews have an IQ about 1 standard deviation above the normal, that means they are 20 times more likely to produce a person with a +3 standard deviation IQ. So in the +3 group, the percentage of people that are Jewish is going to be very noticeable.

These are two arguments that are often repeated but don't stand up to scrutiny. The IQ of Jews in the US is not a standard deviation above American whites of European descent. Lynn calculated the verbal IQ score of American jews to be 107.5. Considering 'verbal' subtests are the ones jews tend to score the highest on, a safer estimate for jewish IQ in the US would be 104-109.

Moreover, you are assuming that the people occupying any alleged positions of overrepresentation are extremely intelligent when there is no reason to assume that they are so. It would be a first for me to learn that the correlation between IQ and status within, for example, media and academia would be 1:1. Not to say that many of these people aren't intelligent, but not to the factor of 3+ standard deviations.

On top of that, as you mention, the context of explanation isn't what would fly in the HBD sphere. The public at large has already been taught that these sorts of explanations don't hold any water and are in fact just manifestations of supremacist tendencies and fragility. If these sorts of explanations weren't valid for white people, why would they be valid for jews?

This reminds me of the argument that what leftists call "privilege" should be called "things that everyone is entitled to". Jews aren't getting special protections here, just protections that not everyone has and maybe should.

The only thing that feels weird or objectionable about this whole thing is that it's okay to attack non-Jewish white people, but Jewish people are given special protections despite on average being much wealthier and more powerful.

Why is that weird? Of course you can't criticize the King, that is the normal order of things.

Kings normally acknowledge their own reign. This is more like some bizarre farcical custom where it's exile-worthy rudeness to openly acknowledge the position of the Grand Vizier.