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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   38427 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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Shh you weren't supposed to notice that, you were supposed to mindlessly parrot the rationalist consensus. ;-)

Eh, what consensus? I don’t even see anything about the unknowable female mindset.

Are you equating "rationalist" with "white supremacist" now?

Not "white supremacist" so much as "bio determinist".

Edit to elaborate/be less inflametory: Let's be blunt the willingness to argue that things like culture, upbringing, economic background, might matter more than one's skin color has already marked guys like facelesscraven and I as outliers here. The rationalist consensus is that "it's all genetics". As much as this particular user may get downvoted, takes like that of @Lepidus' above are the norm here rather than the exception and far more representative of what "rationalism" as a movement stands for than anything I might write.

Funny, I was reaching for that same link to argue that any consensus is pretty weak. Look at all those posters adding caveats. The sort which would argue with Lepidus over his assumptions, not just his wink-wink-nudge-nudge rhetoric.

I know it's not proof. At the very least other people have a similar impression about the existence of a consensus. How much of that is loud, single issue posters? How much is an unusual willingness to grant assumptions or play devil's advocate? I think the baseline for Internet discussion of HBD is "kill it with fire," so entertaining the idea, even if you think it's wrong, marks you as a witch.

I think "bio-determinist" is a particular point along the "HBD" spectrum. I think you're right that most rationalists believe HBD is true to some degree, but I do not think you're correct that "things like culture, upbringing, economic background, might matter more than one's skin color" is a fringe position, even here. (And here is, at most, rationalist-adjacent.)

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