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1) We live in a Democracy.

2) For any policy to stick the median voters needs to be reasonably onboard. So you can't just keep the truth to some tiny elite.

3) If you don't discuss racial IQ differences, its pretty hard for the median voter to figure out WTF is going on and craft an effective worldview that would be conductive to constructive action.

4) The default in the absence of discussing IQ differences is to assume that all disparate impact must be somebodies fault. That somebody must be punished, somehow. This is a recipe for constant witch hunts and counter productive policies.

Also, people need a worldview, and if you take out this important piece of the puzzle they will inevitably end up with a much less accurate worldview.

5) This doesn't even get into things that can make the problem dramatically worse like immigration.

6) The downside, I will be blunt, is people will have less sympathy for brown people, and brown people might be upset about it. Quite frankly, I just don't care. I don't consider this an important problem for human flourishing. Trying to run a society based on a gigantic lie that touches everything is a real problem for human flourishing.

https://lkyonrace.wordpress.com/

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Do you think that it would be rude, uncouth, even immoral to talk openly about an unattractive woman’s face in a crowd of people in front of her?

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No, not if the very attractive women were accused of some hidden factor to explain their greater success finding wealthy, rich husbands. If they ignore looks and blame witchcraft for her success (for example) then you should not only mention attractiveness but are compelled to do so. Especially if we see the emergence of grifters on the scene to explain Critical Witchcraft Theory to the plebs.

This is the situation we find ourselves in. Every racial disparity that exists is taken as evidence of some hidden system of racism, despite no one ever providing evidence. This trope is now absolutely embedded in Western nations and will only get worse. To avoid discussion because of feelings is absurd. This is what the progressives do.

As for not talking about it in public? Our cultural enemies have no such self-imposed constraints. The colorblind approach has been tried and it has ended in open racism towards successful ethnic groups like whites and East Asians. Silence has been disastrous for everyone.

When people in the US can keep a straight face claiming black kids are facing systemic racism in schools while ignoring that 60 percent don't finish high school then non-discussion of ethnic differences becomes criminal. Indeed, this was Charles Murray's point in the Bell Curve. No one is helping those black kids by pretending we are all the same.

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Well said.

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"sex is not so divisive as race" - professor where have you been?

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The problem with not discussing racial differences is precisely that white people are being blamed for the differences in outcome and this is the only possible way out.

I'm not sure how the article ended but it was a bit frustrating listening to the side who advocated for laying down arms in the middle of a battle. Anti-white rhetoric causes real violence. Blacks are killing more whites than they were a decade ago.

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Tactful silence is not necessarily harmless. Take diabetes as an example. It’s successful management is rather cognitively demanding, yet using the IQ difference described above, ONLY ONE IN SIX BLACKS have an IQ equal to the average white’s. What are the implications of this for successful management of diabetes? Understanding the diagnosis, the importance of monitoring insulin, etc.? A candid acknowledgment of the racial IQ gap might well motivate very different strategies for communicating with patients and overseeing their compliance. Instead, there are now proliferating supposedly scholarly disciplines studying racial inquiries in healthcare, often blaming doctors for their racism.

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*inequities

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An interesting dialogue. One question it triggered for me was this:

If (a la Philo) racial IQ differences were to be talked about openly and de-tabood, where would the outrage fireworks mostly burst forth? 1) from black people themselves or 2) from white liberals or 3) both equally?

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I'm inclined to think white progressive liberals - they need a source of outrage, always into perpetuity. The eternal quest to assign everyone to some arbitrarily determined equality, but usually the lowest common denominator, is what motivates them. Read "Harrison Bergeron" if you want a graphic example of what I mean.

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I concur. It would simultaneously outrage them and remove a main plank of their thesis, the unrelenting evil of white European societies. A double whammy.

If you have read some of the comments from academics in the relevant fields - people who must know the reality given the generally high quality of IQ studies - it provides insights into the mentality. Quite unhinged as it threatens their precious blank slate mentality.

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Yes, in fact it only takes a bit of re-definition of intelligence for Progressive liberals to be judged as one of the lowest forms of it. As in Saul Bellow's "a great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep".

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Many of the liberal stormtroopers seem to be in the midwit category. Roughly the 100-115 IQ range. Above average but not superstars. Enough mental horsepower to be able to process a complex theory like systemic racism and CRT, but not quite enough spare to think it through and challenge the lack of evidence.

All their mental capacity is engaged maintaining their illusion, so there is not enough left to overcome the emotional satisfaction of being on the winning side as they imagine it. And it is the emotional flare that animates them. The intellect is enslaved to this indulgence and brought to bear to justify clearly self-defeating policies like job quotas or mass immigration.

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No one has a problem talking about the size of men’s genitalia between races. They love it. Let’s do the same for their IQ.

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Ha ha, good one.

They are also fast to celebrate sporting prowess. Indeed, millions of white men pay a fortune every week to cheer on non-white athletes and there isn't a whiff of racism. Indeed, they are championed for their obvious abilities.

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Interesting debate. Mark me as a philalethian.

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Well-written dialogue, but though the points made are near the periphery of the Overton window, they are nevertheless inside the boundaries. It's tragic and sad that the liberal stance on race is obligarted to ignore the most dangerous, serious consequence of all, in my opinion: race-mixing. And this brings us OUTSIDE the Overton window. As a Darwinist who thinks in biological terms, the relegation of interracial relations to a non-issue, intensified by mass immigration of non-whites, will inevitably result in a mixed-race population, such as in Brazil. To my mind the treasure of a race is its gene pool, and the gene pool in Western countries is becoming a multiracial swamp. These ideas were quite common and sensible a couple generations ago, but now they are taboo. Young white men, at least those who are straight and are not deficient in testosterone, now have to compete with an expanded group of men for the white females, which in days gone by he would have collectively rebelled against. The attractive woman of Northern European descent is now fair game for the black male, the Arab male, etc., and the white man who protests is denounced as a racist. IQ is of course important, but what about racial beauty? Is it not one of the most pleasurable experiences to walk the streets of a country where the women are beautiful? Does this not count toward the overall cultural experience? Is there anything more important to men than their relations with the opposite sex? And the consequence of an integrated society is that many white men are losing out in finding romantic happiness. When a white woman is taken off the market by a black male, there is a double whammy - one less woman available for a white male, and the reproductive generation of mulattoes who will add to the mixed-race population. I know this sounds very strong to many, because of years of silencing these concerns in the media. I would love to see some of you writers out there address this issue with the courage and integrity that it deserves.

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"...we should not discuss race differences in IQ in the New York Times." But race differences are constantly discussed in the NYT and used to shape a myriad of public policy decisions based on erroneous claims of what has produced the disparities. Not discussing factual differences and understanding their potential implications means ceding all political issues tangential to race to the progs in perpetuity. A longhouse approach to the topic that should be rejected as it only provides cover for the same disastrous approach to race to continue .

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Ibram X Kendi says, “To be antiracist is to say … the racial groups are equal, that there’s no group that is inferior or superior. And so therefore, the cause of a disparity or an inequity must be policies or practices that we see or don’t see. And to be antiracist is to identify those and challenge them and to try to rebuild a nation. …” Bo, here Ibram explains exactly why you should maintain a noble silence and let the Left develop our civilization. Like in South Africa. See?

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Another reason the status quo cannot be tolerated is the pernicious discrimination against whites and asians (and males) in our institutions. These are millions of victims. They deserve relief.

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Bo, first thank you. You've done a great service to the West and suffered more than most for it.

That being said, I can't help but be somewhat horrified by the sentiments expressed in this piece. You state that: "The progressive left, with its insistence that all racial disparities that favor whites are caused by racism, has violated the original compromise that encouraged a seemly restraint about race". If I may, paraphrase Cathy Newman: Are you saying that the original "compromise" was at all existent, or desirable?

We saw an immediate and massive increase in violent crime, including the original summers of Floyd the very moment the civil rights act was enacted, and millions of whites were forced to flee the centers of our civilization, a civilization that was almost entirely built by them and their ancestors.

I wonder where reciprocity falls into your moral framework. The vast majority of whites would treat you as a individual human being deserving of rights. The vast majority of blacks (roughly 80% last time I checked) would happily seize huge chunks of your property as reparations for a a crime possibly committed by your great great grandfather 165 years ago. Does this mean anything at all to you?

Where does reciprocity fit into your moral framework? Would you agree that it is morally wrong to hurt someone that would help you in order help someone that would hurt you even if total utility increased?

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Never surrender Bo! Love your courage and honesty (and smarts).

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Well crafted. Bravo.

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