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This is where already being a depressive is useful: I've become depressed about much less substantial things, so I simply told myself that this was just my latest excuse.
I'm still depressed, but I don't have this totem in my head I can blame. Tomorrow I may not be depressed, regardless of how we do on Raven's Progressive Matrices tests.
If the worst version of HBD is true (I believe some version is but am agnostic about how unfixable some problems are), if the "crazy" Lynn numbers that even some DR folks seem to be squeamish about are accurate...fuck it.
In a sense, nothing "changed". We all knew growing up that Africa had a disproportionate share of failed states, as kids we believed Asians were better at math and like the two Asians we knew were and I honestly think the older, less educated generation believed in HBD and would just nod along here.
If anything, all it means is that I don't have to spend time reading the huge "it's not HBD it's..." corpus or feeling like I have to do something about it (my father is still fighting the good fight and laments that his constant complaints* have made his children cynical about joining him and trying to help the old country). Just move on and live the best life you can. Even if it was malleable, I'd probably have a minimal-at-best role in changing fate anyway. If it isn't...why the consternation?
If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink. Not because it doesn't matter and we can all be individuals. But because there's nothing else.
* One of his confessions was he felt embarrassed because he goes to the Westerners and asks them to take African agency more seriously, meanwhile even basics don't seem to be done and I quote "our economy doesn't amount to a hill of beans".
Are you African?
As far as I know he is.
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