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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2697 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 14, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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According to this Twitter thing, race-IQ is the most taboo topic. It's more taboo than "are pedophiles harmful or not?"

In general, I find the outrage over this topic a lot more interesting than whether or not blacks have lower IQ than whites.

Speaking of which, what are the implications if blacks have lower IQ than whites? That doesn't tell you about the IQ of any individual standing in front of you. For that, you would just test them?

What's important about this finding? What policy would we change? Is this actually a proxy for acknowledging IQ exists and that improving society through education won't work in a meritocracy because some people will never be doctors no matter how hard we try?

Stated another way, I can't think of any policy we would change to address low IQ blacks that wouldn't also apply to low IQ whites. Race is almost irrelevant.

That doesn't tell you about the IQ of any individual standing in front of you. For that, you would just test them?

Sure, if you have the time and individual in the question agrees. But if you are a business owner considering opening a new branch and you need, to know, say if workers or buyers will do something complex or buyers attempt to steal from you, you cannot test all of the neighborhood beforehand.

If you doing hiring interviews and you have 3 applicants, one of them from lower achieving group and you're short on time, it might make sense to reject one from lower achieving group immediately and use gained time to do longer interview with others. Determining race white vs black takes 1 second, IQ test takes 1 hour. By criterion of information gained by time consumed looking at race is very efficient. Unless, of course, you beforehand know that you are dealing with sample where blacks would be matched for IQ.

I can't think of any policy we would change to address low IQ blacks that wouldn't also apply to low IQ whites.

We can stop trying to forcibly desegregate schools. We can stop rallying with "end racial profiling" and just catch criminals.

But if you are a business owner considering opening a new branch and you need, to know, say if workers or buyers will do something complex or buyers attempt to steal from you,

Business owners already suspect this and want to act on this. We call this behavior racist. Why would the general acceptance of race-IQ change this dynamic?

That is, racism doesn't necessarily stop being racism just because some of the stereotypes are true.

The number one de facto policy this would change is that proportionate representation by race in jobs that are heavily IQ dependent wouldn't be the goal which, if our society fails to reach, gets deemed White supremacist. Instead, greater emphasis would be placed on removing any extraneous barriers for all individuals from all races, including unfair discrimination, and may the chips fall where they may in terms of the racial proportions.

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