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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024

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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 casually involved in the outcome or its measurement.

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.

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.

The strife comes from the issue that no human being is psychologically or otherwise adapted to being told that they are inferior

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.

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.