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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32994 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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Same here, only learned about HBD thanks to the long (long) discussions about it back on the old place. Hasn't changed my mind, since I think there's a heck of a lot of bad data floating around there (and Richard Lynn should be put in the pillory for spreading it around), a lot of environmental influences, and a certain degree of racism to be cleared out of the way before we can get onto "do some populations have lower/higher IQs?"

I think it's possible, indeed. Can we increase IQ by interventions? Once we get things like pollution, malnutrition, lack of access to education, etc. out of the way, if there still is a gap, then we need to think about genetics and how alterable (or not) they are. But the big problem remains a moral one - some people will indeed use HBD as an excuse to be persecutors, to keep people down, because "it's inalterable genetics, they're just inferior by nature, they have to be treated like sub-humans, I don't make the rules".

a lot of environmental influences, and a certain degree of racism to be cleared out of the way

How will we know when it's cleared out of the way?

we can get onto "do some populations have lower/higher IQs?

This is something you do actually have to ask yourself though if you want to reason about these things. If you choose to discard you still have made a choice.

How will we know when it's cleared out of the way?

Probably when we've got to the point of worrying about the Oompa-Loompas.

Who is 'we' to because it seems like we got to that point years ago.

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