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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31623 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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I'm not at all convinced that ethnic subgroups can maintain their heterogeneity through brute force IQ gaps.

-there is some evidence for assortative mating based on IQ, but there's also plenty of confounders. (college professors are likely to marry within their profession, but inevitably share much more than above-average cognitive ability)

  • if humans really have a 'your brain must be this big to ride' rule, intellectual accomplishment should be percieved as way sexier than it actually is, being a reliable proxy for IQ.

-in any case, it would be inadequate to maintain small minority groups of high IQ - if your people are only 1% of the population, ten IQ points on average is going to slightly increase the fraction of (your group) in the pool of intellectually attractive potential partners, but you'll still be massively outnumbered & swiftly assimilated into the majority population without other forms of cultural protectionism.

-if we're at the point of invoking cultural awareness of 'comparatively large percentage of losers', there's no need to involve IQ gaps on top. It's not really controversial to note that cultures that last tend to include beliefs & practices that encourage conversion & expansion, and discourage apostasy and assimilation. This sort of cultural perception doesn't even need to be accurate! (It's not like medieval Christians were lining up to marry off their daughters at the local synagogue) It can function just fine as pure unsupported protectionism.

Jewish communities in Europe also historically "pick lemons". Anyone not bookish enough for a bar mitzvah always had the option to convert to Christianity and leave the Jewish community.

We don't have any stats. But there were times when labour demand was high, and I imagine a lot of boys were tempted by the idea of spending their days outdoors taking care of horses.

We don't have any stats.

No, but we have stories, and they show that Jews who converted were always rare, either sincere believers in Christ or totally desperate.

But there were times when labour demand was high, and I imagine a lot of boys were tempted by the idea of spending their days outdoors taking care of horses.

Yes, future of backbreaking labor outdoors for starvation wage, abuse and beatings 24/7 from your fellow Christian for killing Christ (In theory, Jewish convert was to be welcomed as beloved brother. In practice, attitude of Christians on the ground was somewhat different.) and, when the next plague comes, being burned at stake for poisoning the village well.

You might be tempted by this life, but few people would agree with you.

What did happen with Jewish failsons and adventurous young men, then? In Christianity they were mostly absorbed by the church or military, but medieval Jews didn’t have that option.

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