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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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In my follow-up comments to the comment you linked, I made it abundantly clear that when I said "it's all genetics" I was exaggerating for rhetorical effect, and I do not, in fact, believe that culture plays zero role in educational outcomes. My hyperbolic assertion that "it's all genetics" was intended to contrast with the attitudes of certain education researchers who do, apparently, believe that genetics plays no role in educational outcomes, and that educational outcomes are entirely determined by culture, upbringing and school quality.

I've made my actual position on this matter abundantly clear to you, and I think it's rather tiresome and dishonest of you to quote this off-the-cuff comment out of context. You seem convinced that this off-the-cuff comment I made in passing was some sort of "mask-off" moment for me, and all the follow-up comments I made expressing my actual position in more nuanced detail were simply lies. I don't know how you arrived at this position and I don't appreciate being misrepresented.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would knock it off and stop involving me every time you want to make a point about how evil and wretched HBDers are. And don't tell a story that you're only pinging me because I'm "one of the Motte's most prominent HBD proponents" or whatever: I barely discuss the issue at all, and the comment you linked is from seven months ago. In the interim, out of the dozens if not hundreds of comments I've posted here, I've discussed HBD in any capacity a grand total of three times, in one case because you were pinging me about it, in another case to explicitly refute the claim that HBD is the cause of disproportionate homicide rates between ethnic groups in the US. It's not a topic I know much about, claim any expertise in or discuss with any great frequency.

If you're so convinced that rabid, unqualified endorsement of HBD is the median position on this site, it shouldn't be remotely hard for you to find a better example to illustrate your point than me, a guy who has never claimed any expertise in the topic, doesn't find it particularly interesting and barely talks about it. Given that you know all of the foregoing, it's really obnoxious of you to repeatedly bring me up any time you're trying to score points in a HBD debate, especially now that you've been explicitly requested not to do so in future.

My read of that interaction is that you were trying to use arguments as soldiers and then got pissy when they got slaughtered to a man because you'd marched them into a killbox.

This is far from the first time that you and I have done this particular song and dance. You'll make some blanket claim about X-outcome is entirely explained by genetics and then someone usually myself or @FCfromSSC will point out that all the genetics in the world won't teach kids to read, or turn a flabby sack of dough into NFL athlete if they don't eat well and go to the gym, at which point you accuse your interlocutor of misunderstanding what you plainly said and/or quoting you out context. Rinse, wash, repeat, every 3 - 4 months.

Simply put, if you don't want to be used as an example of HBDer's poor behavior, stop providing such good examples.

Edit: See also my replies to @DaseindustriesLtd, and @hydroacetylene.

  • -12

This is far from the first time that you and I have done this particular song and dance. You'll make some blanket claim about X-outcome is entirely explained by genetics and then someone usually myself or @FCfromSSC will point out that all the genetics in the world won't teach kids to read, or turn a flabby sack of dough into NFL athlete if they don't eat well and go to the gym, at which point you accuse your interlocutor of misunderstanding what you plainly said and/or quoting you out context. Rinse, wash, repeat, every 3 - 4 months.

For what it's worth, pretty much everything in this paragraph is unambiguously false. I recall exactly one instance in which I expressed a HBD opinion, you disagreed with me, and I replied to you attempting to clarify my opinion (the comment to which you linked, above). I cannot find any examples in the intervening seven months in which I expressed a HBD opinion and you or @FCfromSSC replied to contradict me. This is the second instance in the last seven months in which you tagged me in a comment to use me as an example of how monstrous and wretched HBDers are, without me actually saying anything new to prompt you doing so. I went through my comment replies from the last year and found five examples of @FCfromSSC replying to a comment I'd posted, none of which bore even the most tangential relationship to HBD:

I went through my notifications on Reddit as far back as April 2021 and couldn't find a single occasion on which @FCfromSSC replied to a comment of mine in the old subreddit. These are the only times you replied to comments of mine in the old place, and neither of them have anything to do with HBD:

I'm open to correction, you're welcome to link me to a comment of mine in which I expressed a HBD opinion and you or @FCfromSSC replied to contradict me, but after digging through two-and-a-half years of comments on two websites, I can't find anything remotely resembling the sequence of events you've described, which supposedly recurs every 3-4 months. At this point I think it's only reasonable to assume that either you've mistaken me for someone else (easy mistake to make, nobody's perfect), or are simply lying.

Either substantiate your ridiculous assertions or piss off and leave me alone.

Get lost and stop trying to involve me every time you have a debate about HBD. I'm not particularly interested in discussing this topic with anyone, and certainly not with someone as obnoxious and inconsiderate as you.

stop providing such good examples.

The last time I provided you with a good example of the poor behaviour of HBDers was seven months ago. If I had provided a more recent example, you would have used it. I haven't, which is why you have to keep bringing up a comment I posted seven months ago. You have this bizarre fantasy that I'm constantly posting about HBD, but you have to trawl through seven months of comments I've posted to find one that illustrates how awful you think I am. And you know what? I think it's sad, I really do.

How long, exactly, do I have to not post a HBD-related comment before you will stop pinging me every time you have a debate on this topic? A year? Two years? Three? You're demanding that I "stop" providing you with good examples of HBDers being obnoxious, but please tell me: what the fuck does "stop" mean to you if not "hasn't done it for seven months"?

If you want to think I'm a horrible wretched human being, fine, go nuts. Just extend a tiny modicum of common courtesy and stop pinging me every time you have a debate about HBD with someone. It's really not hard and I don't see why you have to be so gratuitously obnoxious just because I don't share your opinion.

will point out that all the genetics in the world won't teach kids to read, or turn a flabby sack of dough into NFL athlete if they don't eat well and go to the gym

So where are the white cornerbacks?

So where are the white cornerbacks?

Hanging out with the middle-class black Manhattanites

I take it this distraction means you don't have a cultural reason why, given that there are still a lot more white people than black people in the US, and white people don't all, by any means, have a culture which abhors gyms and proper eating, there are no white cornerbacks in the NFL.

(There are indeed middle class black Manhattanites)

And there are indeed white Cornerbacks. Granted, not many (much like middle-class Manhattanites) but I was replying to your comment in the spirit it was offered.

There are no white cornerbacks in the NFL.