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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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This is borderline consensus building, and well over the line of needing to bring evidence in proportion to the inflammatoriness of your claim. Don't post like this, please.

It wasn't my intent to suggest that everyone already agrees. I wouldn't have thought this claim was particularly inflamitory. What sort of evidence would you like to see that government is only able to perform the possible?

Primaprimaprima response to Ecgtheow that

Black test scores remain low despite decades of effort and millions of dollars thrown at the problem, but the incidence rate of people cutting off their own genitals has skyrocketed...

Is an accurate description of our concensus reality.

Ecgtheow response (a can be true, I'm not sure I'd call it government but I dont think the semantics are important here. For (b the state's influence, not sure I'd call it the state, is substantial but grounded in the possible. Genetics / heritability rule outcomes, while TPTB can influence / move desirability / attempts.

In the same way I'm confident there are interventions that would increase attempts at the SAT, ACT, ASVAB, etc., but those interventions are unlikely to drive attainment for those attempts.

This allows genetics / HBD to be the driving force for attainment / success, while explaining the outcomes we see in other areas (genital chopping).

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. With the right marketing and community (intervention) you can induce people to try. With the application of science and technology and a rubric that helps recontextualize what a 'silk purse' is. Perhaps some nuspeak to paper over the obvious defeciencies. Some under this program would produce an ersatz nuspeak 'silk purse'. Chineese silk producers are unmoved.