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That's a tough one. You do get families where they are criminals for generations. But you also get families where there is one "bad apple" even though the rest of the family are living in the same circumstances, and trying to cope with that 'bad seed'.
The problem with the genetic propensity theory is that in practice it becomes imposed on the poor. Rich family has a fuck-up kid? They can afford high-class lawyers, rely on contacts, and pay off to have the kid put in rehab.
Look at that case of the rich family in South Carolina, where digging into the original murders brought forth all kinds of dirty laundry. The son was one such fuck-up kid who had killed someone in a boating accident and got it all covered up by the parents. I guess you could indeed say this proves the genetic propensity case because dear old dad later went on the family murder spree and apparently had been involved in theft and embezzlement for years preceding, but had it not been for that, the son of the rich family would have gone on with his life and presumably, in time, got the career and money that went with it, while the son of a poor family in similar case would be in jail and marked out for life.
Unless and until we can ensure justice in how the genetic propensity is punished, it's better not to make policies on that theory, because it will only result in "you can get away with literal murder if you have money, and go on to keep committing crimes and getting away with them". If someone is an habitual criminal, we want them put away, not allowed to go on committing crimes.
I think almost entirely genetic is overstated even for something like IQ. And - 'genetic' doesn't just mean 'inherited', it means 'anything from genes', including idiosyncratic non-additive genetic effects, and random effects from crossover during meiosis (random half of your mother and father's dna).
Also think that violent crime is much less genetic than IQ. I'm, like, 99% sure that, if you took existing black children with really bad genes, modified the genes for physical features to make them 'look white', and swapped them with white babies, the resulting children and adults wouldn't commit crime at anywhere the rate blacks do. Sure, lower-iq on average, maybe (but haven't seen any convincing arguments here) have different temperament, but 'black crime' is clearly propagated by cultural practices and institutions.
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That's not a problem for the theory. The theory's truth value is not affected by its consequences.
As long as the fuck-up is kept away from the rest of us, that they're in a place more comfy than a prison seems a minor issue.
If you make policies based on falsehoods and fail to make policies based on accurate theories, your policies are going to fail. It is true that it is definitionally hard to impose consequences on the powerful (under any policy), but that's no reason to reject any particular theory.
If it's only the poor get punished and the rich get away with it, then the whole idea of "punishment for crime, because we want to prevent crime" becomes warped into "punishment for being poor" and then activism gets its rationale for coming into being, and we end up with the whole "don't punish Johnny for his life circumstances" stuff which leads us to where we are today.
If both Johnny and Jonathan get punished, and there is no option for Jonathan to end up in cushy private rehab while Johnny goes to jail - if both go to jail and it doesn't matter a flying damn if Daddy knows the Governor - then we get an equal society and people will back "tough on crime" policies, because they can see it really is tough on crime and not 'tough on not being able to pay off the judge'.
No, it becomes "punishment for being poor and criminal". Which is indeed bad, but solving the problem by letting the poor off for being criminal doesn't help. That just leads to the poor not being punished because they're poor, the sufficiently rich not being punished because they are powerful, and the bulk of the productive people of society being both over-policed and preyed on by criminals.
We're never going to get that. The Hunter Bidens of this world will always be able to get away with things unless their parents happen to be extremely unusually morally upstanding. But that we can't get justice against Hunter doesn't mean we need to allow the Jordan Neelys of this world free reign.
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Pure speculation, but I wonder if the bad seed is the result of paternity fraud. Perhaps there are four kids and three are great and a like and then you have the one “bad boy.” Maybe mom Stepped out with a bad boy one night?
No, those kinds of families are respectable and at their wit's end trying to deal with the kid causing trouble. Where Mommy is likely to be stepping out with bad boys, there is no Daddy and the other three kids all have different bad-boy dads and the environment is different such that it's no surprise at least one kid is known to the law.
Sometimes you roll the genetic dice and the result comes up losing throw.
Do most failsons cause trouble? I'm under the impression that the median failson doesn't really do anything- he mooches, maybe becomes an alcoholic or permastoned or something, and never winds up doing much of anything at all.
Certainly even working class failsons(which I am more familiar with) mostly are not serious criminals, they're charity cases who spend "help" on substances of various kinds while never holding down a job, and may have been in the mental health system at some point but probably aren't anymore because either they don't like it or they're just bad at using the resources available to them to get help. Since crime is pretty correlated with class, I would assume that upper middle class failsons are even more likely to just smoke pot in their parents' basement and fail classes at the local community college.
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Although I’m always open to a “these hoes ain’t loyal” hypothesis, Razib has discussed before how the false paternity rate is likely “only” about 2 to 3%. I say “only” because 2-3% is still horrifying; imagine if hospitals switched babies around 2-3% of the time. Women certainly wouldn’t tolerate it.
I would venture that false paternity rates covary with SES, and that the rate is much lower among families successful enough where the concept of a failson is a thing.
If you have a bunch of trees each with a bunch of apples, chances are an apple will eventually fall and roll far from its tree.
That’s probably right.
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There's lots of obviously-genetically-related (e.g. by appearance) failsons. Even if we assume everything's genetic, nobody's genes are all aces, and sometime some zygote will roll a bad combination.
Agreed not one for one. But I wouldn’t be shocked if paternity fraud plays a role.
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