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What exactly do you consider an "HBD aware" set of policies? If you are going to attack a strawman, at least say what that strawman is. As a sort of HBDer (I never particularly liked the ring of the term, but please tell me what I am allowed to call the position that a lot of valued traits including in particular intelligence are heritable and different ethnic groups have different averages in them, without being lumped in with people who want to advocate for spoils for or collusion their own ethnic group), I don't recall ever arguing or wishing for anything other than colorblind and meritocratic policies, and the posts you regularly make seemingly just to try and remind people to associate the former with the latter are really rather tiresome. I'm struggling to understand why you are doing this - are you trying to troll us anti-racial-spoils hereditarians into surrender or meltdown because you think we're legitimising actual racists? If so, why even bother with the complete political non-force that are card-carrying racists? Is it because you think that they are unfairly associated with your political beliefs?
Then I ask you the same question that I keep asking and that no one here seems to have an answer for. Assuming for the sake of argument that HBD is true and that group differences are, as a rule, more determinative than individual variance, what of it? What value does "HBD Awareness" add over individual assessments of merit? Why promote "HBD Awareness" if not for the purposes of justifying discrimination based upon it?
Can you point me to a single poster here who affirms HBD and is opposed to colorblind meritocracy?
See my reply to @Amadan
Ah, yes, thank you, for some of the people you listed there, that would be entirely conceivable.
Do you think it might be worth discriminating (sorry, had to make the pun) in your tirades between those who are white identitarians (roughly), who have racial animus, and those where that's not the case?
We definitely have people in each of those camps here, and that seems like that's worth distinguishing between. Your comments that it's essentially a normative claim make a lot more sense now; just don't lump everyone else in with that.
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There are two types of discrimination. Against citizens and against non citizens. I think that HBD discrimination against non citizens is totally ok. So you can tune the migration flows accordingly.
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I think like this question has been answered multiple times, and you never seem to as much as acknowledge the answer: the value that it adds is that it counters the argument that differences in average outcomes between ethnic groups are evidence of discrimination, perpetrated by either members of better-performing groups or anyone who is
casuallycausally involved in the outcome or its measurement.This argument is currently ubiquitous, which is not surprising because if HBD is false, it's compelling. It's also being used to justify a wide range of measures that I believe to be materially disadvantageous for most humans, morally repugnant and often also concretely detrimental to myself (since as a working academic I have encountered the gamut of measures from finding myself on the wrong side of quotas to being hit with pressure from above and busywork due to vocal individual students who underperformed while belonging to a putatively disadvantaged group). Do you disagree with the point that if HBD is false and yet we observe the outcomes that we do, measures such as quotas, embedding of political officers in institutions that produce excessive discrepancies, loyalty/attitude tests for workers in outcome-assessment jobs and mandatory reeducation are at least justifiable?
You offer up "colourblind meritocracy" as an alternative to HBD as if in the world where the consensus belief is not-HBD plus we must have a colourblind meritocracy, people would look at the differences in outcomes and just go like "shucks, guess we must try at the colourblind meritocracy thing harder". This strikes me as very far-fetched. Certainly, if I had an axiomatic belief in non-HBD, I would think the state of reality is horrifying enough to warrant most of what is being done, only more and better.
Does it though?
My impression is essentially that of @Doubletree2 below, with an additional coda from my reply to @Amadan;
"Who benefits from Id Pol, HBD Awareness, and Intersectionality? Who benefits from the dismantlement of Anglo/American norms about equality of opportunity and equality before the law? I can tell you who sure as hell doesn't benefit in anyway. Those who possess genuine individual merit."
See also Clarence Thomas' comments on Affirmative Action and the "soft bigotry" of low expectations.
Edit: Formatting
I could be wrong, but I don't think the poster you're responding to is opposed to "Anglo/American norms about the equality of opportunity and equality before the law," but is in fact arguing that we'd have them better if we accept something like HBD, because thinking HBD is false in a world where HBD is true tends to lead to the breakdown of those norms.
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It doesn't actually do this though, in practical terms, in a conflict/political context. If you respond to the blank-slatist-unequal-outcomes with "actually, black people are genetically less intelligent so there's no problem here", you're not just shooting yourself in the foot, you're shooting yourself in the face.
The person who makes the former argument already believes that society is full of people who believe black people are inherently stupider/more criminal/whatever and make real consequential decisions based on that belief. When you say then, "yes I do believe black people are inherently stupider and intend to make practical, perhaps policy decisions based on that, and here's all the science that shows I'm right", that is not a counter argument. It is exactly the opposite of a counterargument.
I'm confused as to what you are trying to say here, but it seems like you are conflating the signifier and what it signifies. Specifically, you seem to be taking the contents of the putative counterargument to be "someone exists who believes X", as opposed to the contents of X (and, implicitly, the evidence that would result in someone believing that). Of course my goal is not just to stand in the market place and announce to everyone that I believe in heredity-plus-group-average differences. Rather, my goal is for other people, including people like you, but at least people at the levers of power, to be convinced of it, so that they may make better decisions. Imagine, to take an example from your posting history, that you are trying to convince someone that election fraud in the US was not a significant factor, and certainly did not cause Trump's loss; but their reaction starts out with "What of it? Even if there was actually no election fraud, why do you care so much to prove that?" and then, as you try to respond that and/or point them at evidence for your position, they change their response to "I already knew you believed that there was no election fraud, so you are not telling me anything new".
As an aside, I don't think the word "inherent" adds much to the discussion here. What's the difference between someone being merely stupid and being inherently stupid? It seems that the usage here only serves to sound a little like "invariably", which is emphatically not what the hereditarian thesis is about - there exist plenty of intelligent/prosocial and unintelligent/antisocial members of any ethnic group.
Given the analogy youve made with election deniers (totally not the same structure at all), it's probable my point didn't come across.
When you said "hbd counters the [institutional racism] argument", I imagined someone actually making that argument in the context of unequal outcomes. I.e. Saying the real words to a real person, perhaps in a public forum, who has prior beliefs in the opposite stance (differences are due to systemic racism).
But, it sounds like that is not what you had in mind. So who is making the argument, who is the recipient, and what is the forum where the argument is occurring?
Asiding your aside: "inherent" seems to me to be the crux of the whole debate! I did not mean "invariably". If intelligence were easily malleable, making stupid people smarter would just be a matter of better education or nutrition or something. Yet the HBD stance is that your intelligence is capped from the moment you're conceived.
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I think the phrase 'HBD awareness' is being used specifically to side step the practical political realities of how unpopular the concept is. That is, I do not think most people mean a literal awareness campaign where they want to just go around and tell progressives that race realism is correct, or some such, and think that would work. I assume when 'HBD awareness' is being brought up it is normally presupposing a world where people are at least open to being convinced that HBD is correct, or already think that it is correct, and then reasoning about the possible policy realities from that point.
I think that "HBD awareness" serves same purpose on the Alt Right that "Race Consciousness" and "Social Justice" serve on the woke. That is as euphemism for the rejection of individual justice and individual merit that has become fashionable amongst queer theater kids but remains deeply unpopular amongst the general population.
It's arguments as soldiers all the way down.
It's not an euphemism for the rejection of individual justice and individual merit. When people reject individual justice and individual merit, they do so on the basis of it producing unequal outcomes, not because those differences exist.
As opposed to arguments as soldiers, surely if your soldiers as soldiers all belong from similar genetic stock, it would be beneficial to any militaristic society to make sure that your genetic stock of troops would be stronger, faster, smarter, and harder than any other. Similarly, your doctors, scientists, you would want to be significantly more intelligent etc.
HBD awareness is currently deeply unpopular amongst the general population. There was a time when it was not, and it was considered both fashionable and critically important to the future of a nation to guard one's genetic pool against undesirable elements. The unpopularity comes from the sectarian and ethnic demographics of the United States as well as the historical atrocities performed by those who believed themselves stewards of what was considered genetically more desirable. Evolution doesn't care who it kills, it just kills, and those that don't die get to carry on.
The strife comes from the issue that no human being is psychologically or otherwise adapted to being told that they are inferior, and that inferiority comes from something that they cannot change. They act out. They cause damage. And if they don't, they descend into learned helplessness.
Some humans certainly are.
More than half of blank slatists don't see problem telling that Trump supporters or incels are inferior, just using other words, and if these cause damage, they must be punished.
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I was speaking specifically to this comment thread/similar comment threads here on the Motte and am not sure how people more generally use 'HBD awareness' in conversation.
From this thread, you said, paraphrasing, 'Assuming for the sake of the argument that HBD is correct, what does being "HBD aware" add,' and 4bpp, again paraphrasing, explained that HBD is an 'alternative to the normal structural racism argument used to explain disparate outcomes, with HBD we could stop enforcing disparate impact laws, because disparate impact would not longer be considered iron-clad proof of racial discrimination'. Finally Doubletree2 chimed in, yes I am still paraphrasing, saying that 'explaining HBD to the structural racism people would just convince them that structural racism is correct, cause you sound like a racist'. I was responding to what I felt was Doubletree2's confusion as to what was being discussed, and that nobody was using 'HBD awareness' to mean, telling progressives HBD things. In both your prompt and 4bpp's response it is a basic assumption of the thought experiment that HBD is accepted enough to inform policy.
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Anti HBD is used to promote discrimination based on the idea that underperformers are oppressed by evil racist groups. Moreover, to the extend that there is redistribution from one ethnic group in favor of others, then HBD reveals this fact and that rather than contempt for inequality remaining, appreciation for being helped can be the more honest and ethical response.
Anti HBD promotes discrimination, mistreatment of those who don't buy into it and is part of the lysenkoist regime where people whose views don't fit to it are slandered or implied to be nazi or nazi adjesent. This kind of regime leads to a lot of discirmination and worse. It leads to good people censored and losing their career. It has lead to murders too as in the Soviet Union.
It is a bad thing to slander and keep down people who believe something that is true. Truth matters. I would also say that it is a bad thing to promote falsehoods and people who promote them to have high status due to doing so.
However it is also detrimental relating to the problems of suppressing facts. You can't adequately deal with problems if you are living in a fantasy world. For example, if like most American liberals you are polled to have a wrong idea of black criminality and police shooting of blacks, then you are going to reach the wrong recommendations about what ought to be done, and even consider the correct policies to be racist.
Indeed, part of correct response to crime that could be effective could even involve say racial profiling. Knowing the facts leads to a more informed decision which can lead to less crime victims and a better society. Indeed, ironically black Americans would probably benefit more by policies that are realistic and focuses more than a politically correct regime would upon the demographic that a very disproportionate share of the violent crime which is young black men.
You are making a circular argument since by using the term discrimination, you seem to be using it under the connotation of prejudice, and unfairness.
I would also consider HBD and being even more willing to oppose mass migration of foreigners because many would be of lower human capital and net drain financially, to also be a case of non unethical/prejudiced narrative, but in fact the opposite as the idea that a people are not sovereign and don't have self determination to be ruled in favor of their interests and should be pathologically altruist in favor of foreign groups at their expense would be anti native racist. Knowing HBD helps people take a more informed decision on issues like mass migration. Which is one of the reasons is suppressed, so people take a more uninformed pro migration decision.
That being said I do think certain HBD narratives could be used to justify bad things and should be kept down. We have seen them in motte more so in the Israel/Palestinian conflict where certain posters have justified violation of human rights and destruction of Palestinians in part by using the arguement of them being inferior to the superior race of the Jews. I do think this kind of support of destruction of a group is obviously incredibly unethical. But we should be supressing and treating as taboo and being unpleasant and willing to give backlash, and keeping out of influence to the people who have such view, this kind of narrative/viewpoint, not HBD as a whole.
We should be hostile to "We do better and we are superior, give us all your stuff" for the same reason that we should be hostile towards "We do worse, give us all your stuff so we aren't inferior" deserves hostility. So a certain ethical prior is necessary. Or at minimum not accepting the premise that inequalities of such manner justify taking from others what is rightfully theirs.
So yeah, there is an element of unfairness HBD narrative (which is a narrative that uses HBD and not something inherent to it) that I am not against being critical off, but HBD is also related to narratives that are good and useful and even most importantly undermine some very harmful anti-HBD narratives I explained in the beginning, and are in fact dominant and doing a lot of damage right now.
Interestingly, on an individual basis the belief of human differences in intelligence is quite common and that does tend to come along with views more in line to what I promote here. We also see the belief in biological differences in ability to become muscular in discussions related to fitness to lead to something more in line with what I promote. Imagine how stupid discussions about fitness where if people denied biological athletic differences. It is simply efficient and useful knowledge for society.
The arrogance of the people who think suppressing truths is noble and only bad motives could lead to promoting truths is really astounding. It is in fact far more the case that falsehoods and lies are motivated by bad intentions.
Much of that relates to the desire to win politically by buying into the sacredness of one's political faction and evil of opposition, which is a false view. For if your faction was so noble, and your opposition so evil, your political faction wouldn't have to win by suppressing the truth.
The left has been sufficiently successful at constraining the Overton window such that people—including HBD-adjacent crime-thinkers—forget the opposite of affirmative action and reparations is not colorblindness, but rather massive transfers of resources and opportunities from blacks and latinos to whites and Asians.
If a racial spoils system is on the table, and if not for fears of Cancellation, why shouldn’t whites and Asians advocate for themselves instead of bending the knee and washing feet? Colorblindness is already the compromise position.
Asians are. Whites won't, because for elite whites it's unthinkable and whites for whom it is thinkable for are irrelevant "deplorables" who can simply be shut down by any means available.
Sure, Asian Americans sometimes exhibit more asabiyyah than white Americans. However, that’s like being richer than someone with zero or negative net worth, having more backbone than someone with zero or negative self worth. And I had hypothetical offensive rather than defensive self-advocacy in mind, hence the mentioning of a “racial spoils system.”
Asian Americans do sometimes manage to muster up some defensive advocacy, like showing up to vote against affirmative action in UC schools or mildly objecting to their grannies getting bustled in the street. However, they lack the ethno-narcissism, the offensive self-advocacy of blacks (and to a lesser extent, latinos) in demanding to be treated better than other races in law, politics, governance, education, employment, healthcare, entertainment and mainstream media in an absolute sense, not just relative to the current state of affairs.
In such arenas, Asian self-advocacy ends where black and latino feelings begin. For example, in the link you provided, I clicked around a few pages and didn’t see anywhere Noticing as to who is actually committing the acts of AAPI hatred. No “despite”-posting… despite… how relevant it’d be. #StopAsianHate quickly lost momentum as it became undeniable who was actually doing the granny-punching. For decades now it’s pretty typical that the Asian thought-leader responses to black-on-Asian violence are calls for solidarity (presumably, to create a united front against the true bad persons that are whites) and not RETVRN TO ROOFTOP. Any Asian solidarity with blacks is and/or would be unreciprocated—a one-way street—for interracial crime, net-income transfers, and racial preferences flow only unidirectionally.
It’s also funny that the website is #StopAAPIHate, I suppose a movement having evolved from #StopAsianHate, when basically all the external violence inflicted is upon the AA rather than PI part. I guess it was a strategic maneuver to bring a more fashionable minority group (or, at least, a less unfashionable one) under the fold for optics and numbers. A lot more violence against PIs relative to AAs is intra-group violence, a phenomenon young PI men would be happy to tell you, reminisce and/or brag about.
In mainstream spaces, Western-raised Asian women will sometimes bemoan that, historically, Asian women have been depicted as submissive, exotic sex objects, rather than kickass #GirlBosses. Asian men will sometimes bemoan (and the odd Asian woman here or there, even if it just so happens her boyfriend/husband is white, teehee) why there aren’t more masculine Asian men depicted in film, television, music, as opposed to Asian minstrel shows that make them look like small-dicked asexuals, such as Ken Jeong’s Hangover character. A eunuch has more dignity than that. Even in The Departed, where the Asian mob characters don’t look like obvious pushovers, Nicholson’s character basically calls them small-dicked chinks to their faces while the audience laughs. Nicholson's character calling an analogous group of black mobsters a bunch of low-IQ chimps would be far less imaginable.
Yet, the same Asian men and women won’t dare ask why so many doctors and scientists are so blackwashed in TV and film at the expense of Asians, in contrary to the proportions in real life. Just like Asian Americans might sometimes complain about and oppose affirmative action, but only insofar as they are discriminated against relative to whites, and avoiding the elephant in the room that are racial preferences against them and in favor of blacks and latinos.
Yes, in ${CurrentYear} Asian Americans barely exhibit any sort of defensive self-advocacy and no material offensive self-advocacy, and whites exhibit neither defensive or offensive material positive self-advocacy, oftentimes negative self-advocacy. Supposed white supremacists like Steve Sailer or whoever exhibit but a fraction of the in-group preference (if Sailer even does at all) that blacks do in the mainstream. Black in-group preference is tolerated and encouraged, codified in law and practice.
White Americans—and to a lesser extent, Asian Americans—currently don’t (or barely) engage in any self-advocacy, but it’s not some fundamental law of the universe that they can’t or won’t. And perhaps they should.
Cooperating with defect bots is a quokka’s venture. If a colorblind system isn’t in play, where the chips fall where they may, then who gets the racial spoils is up for debate. Yes, madam, we’ve established what sort of system you want. Now we’re just haggling over in which direction the literal and metaphorical checks should be cut, and in what quantities.
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The standard answer around here is that the purpose is to be a response to systemic racism arguments, that assume differences in outcome must come from racism. Not that I don't see how this approach could backfire badly, but I don't think it's fair to act like you never got an answer.
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Why are you failing to understand that the race-blind meritocracy we have tried ends with predictable racial disparities, which leads to DEI to combat “systemic racism”?
Most of the posters I see here support race-blind individualism and recognize that the hereditarian reality will have to be acknowledged such that “systemic racism” won’t move elites and institutions to jettison the meritocracy.
Again, and I cannot emphasize this enough, most of us here want individual assessments of merit, not race-based discrimination.
Because unlike most of the users here, I am not working backwards from a preexisting conclusion.
That's not an answer to the question you were asked.
To reiterate the argument that everyone's saying:
What many proponents of HBD-ish things want is:
I'm sure you've heard this argument at least 30 times at this point. Is there a reason that it's wrong? (It might be tricky to get to work in practice, because people don't like the idea of racial differences of ability. But it's appealing, at least—just explaining why something is the case is always a tempting possibility when people are insinuating that it's the case for other reasons and so endorsing bad policy.)
I don't think most users here are working backwards from a preexisting conclusion; I think you're uncharitably lumping everyone in one bucket.
Edit: And you seem to be the one working backwards from a preexisting conclusion? You've made literally no, as far as I can see, arguments that none of the disparity between groups is genetic, you've just been arguing that those who hold such a position are morally bad.
Missing from this paradigm:
Sure. (though I don't expect gene editing etc. to be unique to the disadvantaged)
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For the sake of truth.
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