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Bravo to Trace, I suspect this investigation will gain traction, he should embrace it and maybe we'll see him on the Tucker Carlson podcast soon.
It's been interesting watching this argument continue to unfold between Stancil and Sailer, and it's still going on. A couple weeks ago we had the CW thread about BAP saying that Sailer-style race-realism is a dead end and the right-wing should embrace the myth of colorblindness. This thread shows why that conclusion is wrong. HBD is not a mythological replacement for progressivism (and that is actually what we need), but this thread shows it's needed because it's incredibly disruptive to the liberal mind.
BAP and some others on the DR who are critical of HBD-focus rightfully point out that liberals and the establishment are not driven by the factual belief in racial equality. They are driven by other myths and what is essentially a religious impulse to achieve racial equality as an ideal they are striving for. When confronted with truthful arguments demonstrating HBD they can react in various ways, lashing out in public HBD denial like Stancil is doing here, or privately coming to accept it but publicly avoiding the topic altogether. But ultimately, accepting HBD as true wouldn't necessarily change their minds, this FAA-DEI scandal is an artifact of conflict theory and not mistake theory. They have different ideals, ideals that mean diversifying ATC (however that's accomplished) is a good thing, and their minds are not going to change by being presented with HBD arguments, no matter how respectfully those arguments are presented.
But this also explains why public debate and DR emphasis on HBD is necessary. Although this FAA-DEI scandal was driven by an idealism rather than mistaken belief in non-HBD explanations for racial inequality, recognizing HBD functions as a significant disruption to the underlying ideals that are accepted by almost everyone without question. Trace says that this nasty conversation is just a sad failure of two people to exchange ideas productively, or who are cynically just trying to build their own brands. It's more significant than that, Sailer is slaughtering sacred cows in the public square. That has an important place even though it is not a replacement for the harder task of building a replacement civic religion for this nonsense.
Stancil shows the incredible difficulty liberals have in reconciling HBD with their ideals. Sailer's dogged commitment to that topic is not going to help the other side resolve their factual errors in their worldview (as Trace may hope), it's going to weaken the foundation of what is essentially religious ideology. And yes, ugly spats in the public square are how that happens.
I don't know what Stancil actually thinks, but he is very much not honest and not acting in good faith. He's focusing on attacking the weakest and nastiest replies in an attempt to stigmatize and inoculate people against racial discourse, in an effort to help out the left. He minimizes engagement to what he thinks he can get a dunk with, because his goal is to delegitimize.
Where did Trace say that it was the two of them trying to exchange ideas productively?
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This is also proof that no press is bad press. Did Stancil lose? Yes, if you have to resort to calling your better-prepared opponent a Klansman then I think that is an admission of defeat, but he also got a lot of fans who agree with him. So both sides benefited. I think it shows how weak or ideologically motivated the anti-HBD arguments tend to be. Anyone had the opportunity to shutdown Steve but no one rose to the occasion.
No they didn't - where's the actual counterargument to HBD? If you want to shutdown Steve you either need to beg/force(presumably with legislation) Elon Musk to ban him, or present a factual and robust counterargument to HBD. The problem is that even if this robust counterargument exists, nobody has ever seen it - and I don't think it does exist.
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When we were having the atheist culture wars of the 2000s, the side representing Christianity may have earned more followers after some public spat with an internet atheist, for example. But that wasn't a victory for the Christian side. The victory for the status quo of the religious order is there is no debate, because it's beyond the pale to even consider this a question that warrants argument. So even if a Christian won some debate against the atheist, he still lost by virtue of debating something that only works if it is taken as true on faith.
Stancil is falling into the same trap. Maybe he gains more followers than Sailer. But his followers are being increasingly conscious of and exposed to a debate they were previously not aware of (and a debate they cannot win with the scientific methodology they hold in high regard). That lays the groundwork for real seismic shifts in ideological thinking down the road.
"No press is bad press" for growing a personal brand, maybe, but for maintaining a civic-religious ideology certain things have to be so true they are beyond debate. Then when you start debating them in the public sphere the cracks begin to show in front of an audience that had never even previously considered the debate at hand.
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