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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   29231 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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He was our longest serving SecDef.

The guy who is the boss of the generals.

Don’t evade the point just because @somedude messed up a detail that doesn’t change the substance of the point.

And that point would hat be?

If there is an argument that hes trying to make i dont see it. In the meantime McNamara's legacy as SecDef is one of why no one should ever listen to WEIRD systematizing utilitarian types who think they can fix things with this one weird trick.

Here, I'll just link to the last time someone brought up McNamara in response to your specious opinions on IQ and you shamelessly dodged. I'll walk you through it so there's no confusion.

Aardvark2:

You're a military man. So tell me why McNamara's moron corps were bad at real-life tasks they were assigned, and damaging to other units' morale even though all what they were different is just worse result on paper-and-pencil test?

You:

Do you really think rationalists are any better at "real-life tasks"? Likewise, if you know many military men you know that the name McNamara is a dirty word. There's a reason that his is one of the only red headstones in Arlington.

Generic sneer aimed at rationalists, twee anecdote that doesn't even try to answer the question. Someone notices.

zPvQINBQvfFR:

Wouldn't that suggest that people who think IQ measures something real and useful in real life might have a point? Guy comes up with idea of lowering the threshold on a mental aptitude test to fill a manpower shortage, and now his name is considered cursed for generations. This sure seems consistent with mental aptitude tests mattering in real life."

Boy it sure does, doesn't it? Someone decided that those silly standardized tests don't really reflect actual human ability, and gambled on that notion in a field where results actually matter. The ensuing trainwreck seems like a big challenge for someone who seems to believe essentially the exact same thing, so let's see how you responded.

You:

No. If anything Robert McNamara illustrates my point that it is possible for someone with a high iq to be a complete moron.

Wow, stunning rebuttal. Sure McNamara conducted a nearly perfect experiment on how much standardized intelligence tests matter in real life, sure the results were directly opposite to what your worldview predicts, but on the other hand you said "No."

Like what do you imagine that people think when they see stuff like this? Your little crack about McNamara being a high IQ moron isn't actually a point. The notion that high IQ people can't make terrible mistakes isn't a belief anyone holds that you're refuting. Meanwhile you have literally zero explanation for why this huge body of evidence shouldn't count. Just "No."

You'll do this kind of stuff, and at the same time act like it's really strange and disconcerting that HBD holds so much sway around here. I hate to break it to you, but it's largely because you and so many others of similar persuasion make bad arguments and lose constantly.

That's what it's called when you sit around pretending to not understand the questions, or play off contrary evidence with a joke that doesn't answer anything, or just abandon an exchange when it's pointed out that nothing you're saying is supported by the facts. Losing an argument. You do it constantly, and it makes an absolutely mockery of the superior air you work so hard to give off.

I still don't understand what argument you think you're making either then or now.

The thing that MacNamara is famous for in military circles and the thing you seem to be referencing is his efforts to make the US Military "More Efficient" by emphasizing technology over troops. Why bother with strict recruitment standards or waste money on training, housing, medical care, etc... if all you need is a gaggle of conscripts to draw fire so the airplanes know where to drop their bombs? Or so the thinking went.

What I don't understand, and what neither you nor the OP, @aardvark2, @SwordOfOccam, Et Al have bothered to explain is how MacNamara acting like the uncharitable strawman of a Silicon Valley Utilitarian is supposed to convince anyone that we ought to start treating minorities as second-class citizens, or has anything to do with HBD, Ashkenazi Jews, or Group differences in IQ.

The claim was only about IQ scores vs real-life tasks in military, that IQ scores do have meaning. You demonstrated low decoupling and went to discuss other McNamara actions (which I happen know to nothing about), well maybe because you can't refute central point? Maybe you meant that lowering IQ threshold for military enlistment was actually good but other McNamara actions are guilty for bad performance of "moron corps"?

So you're telling us you don't understand why a historical example of someone lowering requirements on a standardized mental aptitude test, to disastrous results, might be even the least bit relevant to your own position that standardized mental aptitude tests don't mean much? That's really the angle you're actually going with here?

Okay well, good luck with that. This has become farcical enough that I'm content with the L you've been handed here. All that's left to do now is to wait for the next HBD thread in however many weeks, let you start your usual routine, and then show everyone my one weird trick for making you forget how to parse English.

No, what I don't understand is how it's supposed to be an argument in favor of HBD and against individual merit.

ETA: or rebutt my claims regarding [current year] academia for that matter.

The historical event in question was raised, both times, as a counterexample in direct response to your opinion that tested intelligence is unrelated to actual intelligence. You've repeatedly failed to even attempt to defend that opinion or engage with the example in any relevant way. That's called losing an argument.

The squirming just makes you look worse. I mean you understood the question when Aardvark asked it months ago, you just blurted out "no" while neglecting to include any sort of actual reasoning. I don't know what you think you're going to type here that covers for the fact that you still don't have any.

Who here is arguing against individual merit?

Receipts please.

“HBD” has contested definitions. You seem to be defining it here as some kind of normative claim that we should “sort by race” instead of the “sort by individual IQ” people around here would prefer. Race-blind individual meritocracy, if you please.

I think you’re also probably confused about IQ being used as a filter to sort for high potential individuals and somehow end up trying to disbelieve IQ has the predictive power it does.

Or you have some boutique definition of individual merit.

Do you remember taking the ASVAB?

Do you remember how certain jobs had a minimum GT score? Do you recall jokes about people who needed waivers?

The US military did studies in the WWII era that showed dumb people are more likely to fuck things up and be bad at their job. So the US military tries to keep the real dummies out altogether, and requires above average scores for many jobs. Becoming a pilot requires passing an extra test with a general aptitude section. Getting into the Defense Language Institute requires a good score on a language-learning aptitude test, which basically measures verbal IQ.

MacNamara decided to lower the minimum IQ to expand options for recruits/draftees. It did not go well.

So the moral of the story is that IQ is real and it matters.

You believing MacNamara made bad decisions is in line with him making a bad decision about lowering IQ requirements.

You’re smart enough that we should not have to tell you that if you enlist a bunch of low IQ people there’s going to be “disparate impact.”

Obviously there’s an HBD angle.

https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/8syjn9/gwerns_review_of_mcnamaras_folly_the_use_of_lowiq/

McNamara ignored established DoD policy based on intelligence testing and job performance.

It didn’t go well.

It’s a famous case to cite when people want to believe that IQ doesn’t correlate to job performance. People here would assume you know that context.

Note the serous irony of you criticizing WEIRD utilitarian optimizers for trying to fix things where the “one weird trick” was IGNORING THE WELL-ESTABLISHED LINK BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE AND JOB PERFORMANCE.

You understand half of why McNamara and his Whiz Kids made a mistake; just not the half that contradicts your views and explains why the example was cited.

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