In the realm of politics, HBD researchers need to understand that they're dealing with an entirely different beast. Ordinary people, including most elites, are not maniacally obsessed with the truth. Politics concerns human emotion and the reigning morality through which interests are arbitrated.
I appreciate the work Aporia and others do in helping people to more accurately understand the world, but ultimately, there is only a small minority of people who are open to, curious, or autistic enough to follow the truth, no matter what taboo/s it violates. Ordinary people, including most elites, do not have the mindset of HBD researchers and merely adhere to ideology, morality, or what power says. The idea that it's simply about the facts and that if we just get the facts out there eventually, it will be accepted is wrong. It's not about facts; it's about morality. Until that morality changes, no amount of GWAS studies is going to change things.
I believe Nick Land described the HBD community best regarding the type of people it attracts:
"Indeed, it is widely accepted within the accursed ‘community’ itself that most of those stubborn and awkward enough to educate themselves on the topic of human biological variation are significantly socially retarded’, with low verbal inhibition, low empathy, and low social integration, resulting in chronic maladaptation to group expectations. The typical EQs of this group can be extracted as the approximate square root of their IQs. Mild autism is typical, sufficient to approach their fellow beings in a spirit of detached, natural-scientific curiosity, but not so advanced as to compel total cosmic disengagement."
Very true all that. As TS Eliot said it all those years ago: "Humankind cannot bear very much reality." Your "maniac obsession with the truth" is a lonely path to tread.
There has always been a conflict between reality and popularity. But without some people pushing reality sometimes, even when unpopular, what is popular tends to move further and further away from reality over time.
Let me give you an example. COVID policy and COVID science differed drastically for a long time. But it certainly did take people talking about the COVID science to slowly change COVID policy. Without that who knows how long the insanity might have lasted or how much more intense it might have been. In countries with very high conformity, such as in East Asia, COVID policy was 100x worse.
So while I share your evaluation of human nature, I'm not sure the alternative. I doubt things would improve without the availability of the truth or if it were less disseminated.
The thing with the lies about race though, is that simply accepting the obvious truth is very much in the interest of wide swathes of people, most of all whites who are still the majority in the English-speaking world. Of course people will shy away from truth when it inconveniences them. But when the truth also lines up with their personal interests, they will be swayed eventually.
This is why norms of racial relations started out with things like segregation, and were only transformed relatively recently into the current ideology of racial equity. I would speculate that this was possible due to state and elite control over mass media technologies such as TV and radio, which blasted out the regime's preferred viewpoint on a scale unprecedented in history, while keeping all alternative viewpoints off the airwaves. Control of the universities played a role as well, with the modern notion that one must attend college or else be consigned to low status forever.
Now that we have the Internet and censorship of information technology is beginning to slip, and the university system is beginning to lose credibility, we are already seeing things tilt back towards the reality that yes, different races actually are different. Ordinary people won't have much trouble accepting this once the worm finally turns and they find themselves able to say it out loud without having to worry about their jobs.
Your comment seems to be answering a question as to whether anyone should be looking into HBD research at all, but the question posed at the top of the article is whether folks should be discussing the output of the HBD community in larger, more public settings.
The reason why political discourse should be incorporating more understanding of race differences is simple: We are currently in the middle of a fundamental remaking of society to account for observed race differences in outcomes precisely because discussions and considerations of race differences in cognitive ability are major taboos.
And yet, the course we have taken is leading to dramatically worse outcomes for all groups. The recent and refreshing backlash against DEI policies at Harvard and elsewhere could be helpfully informed by the findings by the HBD community.
Lee Kwan Yew was certainly helpfully informed by these findings:
We need to take the moral high ground. Show the real harm done by these false beliefs. Talk about intelligence in terms of an unearned privilege. And most importantly, describe how much better the future for everyone will be if we accept these beliefs. Morals and hope are what motivate change.
Culture, including political stability, access to education, energy infrastructure (electricity that allows one to read after hours), family history/traditions, expectations, and some genetics. All contribute to intelligence. I'm fairly certain I don't have the kind of IQ necessary to survive by hunting, but I do have enough of the right kind of IQ to survive in the USA. If genes were the heavyweight, then why do countries that are next to each other and genetically similar have significantly different average IQs? The following figures from worldpopulationreview. Thailand (88), Cambodia (99.75), Laos (80.99). Then there's the grouping of European nations by skin color (white). Break that down by country and a different picture emerges. Hungary (99.24), Romania (86.88). Here's another example from 2 neighboring African nations: Cameroon (67.76), Chad (78.87). There's much more than genetics going on here. A low level of emancipation and schooling of girls likely contributes to skewing country scores, and also likely reduces scores of boys due to the male competitive need to prove themselves vis-a-vis girls. The human brain is very malleable during fetal development and in the earliest years, and more of the population with access to education changes the averages.
"Break that down by country and a different picture emerges. Hungary (99.24), Romania (86.88)"
This is, as usual, strong evidence in favour of hereditarianism. Romanians and Hungarians are discrete ethnicities that have been largely reproductively separate for over a millennium. Hungarians have for centuries been recognised as relatively clever, while Romanians have ... not. In addition, Romania has a large gypsy population and, beyond that, a larger fraction with partial gypsy ancestry. Conversely, Hungary has the 13th highest Jewish population by percentage in the world, but, more importantly, about 25% of the population have partial Jewish descent.
If you understood hereditarianism and IQ research, you would understand that all of your objections have no validity.
Romania has small minority populations of Hungarians (6.5%) and Roma (3.3%), from a 2011 census. Genetic studies have shown much overlap between populations in Central Europe. Two of those studies are posted below. I'm not a geneticist but the discussion shows the genetic lines of demarcation are not as concrete as you claim. I posit that this obsession with proving genetic purity and intelligence is a mostly male issue directly tied to worrying about paternity. https://bmcgenomdata.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12863-017-0487-5https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44272-6
"Culture, including political stability, access to education, energy infrastructure (electricity that allows one to read after hours), family history/traditions, expectations, and some genetics."
You do not understand cause and effect. Those of higher intelligence created all the conditions you cited.
"I'm fairly certain I don't have the kind of IQ necessary to survive by hunting..."
A huge number of sub-Saharan Africans would starve if their survival depended on hunting.
"...but I do have enough of the right kind of IQ to survive in the USA."
Best be careful with that assumption. The current course in the United States may soon become very dire.
"If genes were the heavyweight, then why do countries that are next to each other and genetically similar have significantly different average IQs?"
Again, you are making an assumption. How do you know that the genes responsible for intelligence are similar?
"Hungary (99.24), Romania (86.88). Here's another example from 2 neighboring African nations: Cameroon (67.76), Chad (78.87). There's much more than genetics going on here."
The countries you listed have very similar environments, which mostly negates the environmental argument.
Culture is a funny thing and hard to change, imo, like habits. Intelligence is another funny thing and is led by a few pacesetters under the right conditions, time and place. For instance, we (USA) learned about CTE from an immigrant Nigerian doctor whose intelligence wasn't held back by a football culture. There are Americans who are smart enough to survive by hunting. I'm not one of them. As far as being careful with my assumption, following the genes theory you seemingly support, I have a large variety of intelligences (but not hunting intelligence) that should help me survive. I can gesture wildly with my arms (Sicily), raise and cook lamb (Ireland), dance (Congo), read (Shakespeare's England), sail (Montenegro). I think I have it covered. Your last sentence left out that the countries listed together have very close genetics, like Thailand (88), Cambodia (99.75), Laos (80.99). Check out that 19-point difference between next-door neighbors Laos and Cambodia.
“Of course, if bigotry is a chief cause of social disparities, then politicians and all decent citizens should battle it indefatigably.”
What a bigoted view. Why “disparities” (with its suggestion of being unfair) rather than the neutral “differences”? And does this “bigotry” also include that of the anti-racists and woke fascists? In any case, people have a right to be bigoted with respect to their opinions, persons, and property.
I think it's really not so complicated to conclude that we should talk about race differences. The past ten years are easy proof that it is very possible to move the Overton window on this topic simply by talking about it. Take this very article as an example; can you really imagine people even having this debate ten years ago? "FBI crime stats" and 13/50 were already common online memes before Elon bought Twitter, to say nothing of what has happened since.
Given this, there's no reason to think the trend can't or won't continue until the majority of the population, both elite and otherwise, eventually accepts truthful viewpoints about racial differences and they cease to be controversial in the first place. The bigger question is what the ultimate consequences for social trends and preferences will be.
Conservative denialism about race is part and parcel of Christian monotheism. The attempt to get conservatives to talk about race is doomed from the get-go because the hereditarian HBD thesis is the ultimate taboo. All four canonical dogmas of liberalism, weaponized by wokism, are secular continuations of Christian beliefs, in particular, the belief that all human beings are equal in the sight of God and the theistic faith that history is a moral narrative of redemption.
Well, it's one thing for it to be factual, it's a whole other thing whether normative declarations are fitting. The latter most assuredly can be racist.
I have no idea what “whether normative declarations are fitting” means. It sounds like it is a fancy way of saying that you do not care whether a statement is true or not.
No, that's a perverse understanding of my point. What I'm asserting is that even if some figure, say one that is statistical for example, is true, that doesn't mean the value judgments (hence "normative") have to befit those statistics (how we perhaps ought to treat a particular group). It's more than feasible for someone to base their unjustifiable reasoning off of a true statistic.
Also remember that this type of dishonesty is not about helping other people. It is about making the speaker feel better about themselves.
It is selfishness disguised as being nice. It has a place in very limited circumstances, but when it gets widespread in society, it is very damaging to the very people that we should be trying to help.
For example, biomedical research is essential for curing people and inventing new medicines. If we ignore genetic differences between groups, then we increase the chances that we will do real harm to people, particularly racial minorities.
So it is not “a perverse understanding” of your point.
It is a correct understanding of your point.
It helps no one to lie, when the truth is inconvenient. The reason is that everyone knows the truth, and they know that when a person is lying, so you undermine your own credibility with honest people.
And using big words to obfuscate does not solve the problem.
If we push the race realism narrative, then the emphasis must be put on stopping false accusations of white supremacy because such accusations are increasingly dangerous. So this is the most sympathetic approach for a topic that has very little sympathy among the public. And it will also be critical that White people organize in mutual support and self defense as they lose jobs, contacts and friends and are targeted by Antifa. How to do that?
One of the things Antifa and other terrorists and the Left generally do is target “white supremacists” because they don’t understand that unequal outcomes are mostly a result of human biodiversity, i.e. the race realist truth. White people who propound this truth will be targeted in the ways I described and will therefore need to help each other. Of course, anyone of any race who says this will have the same problem. But it is Whites who are most likely to express the idea because it is in their interests to do so.
Well, Antifa's views on white supremacists have much more to do with just race realism as you stated. Do not get me wrong, there are many who identify with Antifa and believe race is a social construct (and those obviously having issues with those who prop up race realism), but you even see milquetoast liberals who sometimes believe race is actually real. Though, they still, in spite of obviously not being in love with this group, have a much more volatile view of white supremacists. The view that a number of white supremacists hold is that they adhere to forced removal of minorities, restrictions on immigration due to one's racial differences, canards related to whites being an oppressed class, Holocaust denialism, you name it. Throughout my time of talking to people who are supporters of HBD, I've noticed that they have a tendency of putting most stock into the metaphysical conversation of race when discussing why others have issues with them -- when, in reality, a race realist perspective does not necessarily implicate their white supremacist, normative values. Second of all, I think it's wildly inaccurate to act like they're targeting whites. You ought to know there's a difference between targeting people because they're white and targeting people who happen to be white and are using their whiteness to undercut other racial groups.
You wrote: “The view that a number of white supremacists hold is that they adhere to forced removal of minorities, restrictions on immigration due to one's racial differences, canards related to whites being an oppressed class, Holocaust denialism, you name it. Throughout my time of talking to people who are supporters of HBD, I've noticed that they have a tendency of putting most stock into the metaphysical conversation of race when discussing why others have issues with them -- when, in reality, a race realist perspective does not necessarily implicate their white supremacist, normative values.” The evidence for race realism has become so strong in the last five years that some people on the left are beginning to give some ground. But for now, a race realist perspective without any other context is usually still enough to get one categorized as “white supremacist”, (and certainly “racist”, whatever that word may mean.)
You really should know that White bashing is very much a thing and far more common than discrimination against people of color. They are brainwashed by government and media colluding together to target Whites as bad people. Think of Kyle Rittenhouse or the Catholic school boy who was intimidated by the American Indian man at an anti-abortion protest, for example. You can even go back to the Duke lacrosse case, and even further to Tawana Brawley, and even further to Tom Wolfe illustrating the problem in “the bonfire of the vanities“ way back in the mid-1980s.. There have been some large payouts as I recall from some media organizations to those white victims of white-bashing. It’s a very widespread phenomenon, those are some high profile examples.
Whether the evidence is compelling for race realism or not is besides the point, the point that I'm making is that I think you're misrepresenting the left to a considerable degree and I think my point on how they have a radically disparate view on liberals, at least in scale (not in totality), shows that race realism isn't enough to explain why the left is as pissed off as they are, if that's even the case. Much of leftist discourse on race surrounding the views of liberals is that they often do not go far enough to liberate minorities from the (racial and) structural impositions of yesteryear and also even today. On the other hand, alt-right race realists? Oh, they want their head on a pike because they take it much too far. Again, race realism isn't, autotelically, an axiological system. You could be a race realist and still believe in cosmopolitanism, along with the profession of cultural universals that may transcend the subject of race. You could be a race realist in a soft sense or, as I would presume you are, a hard one. I've always found it oddly bizarre how many alt-righters will glorify the expansion of public discourse on race realism, but also have such a reductive understanding of it altogether (which... I guess may be more evidence of their point that we should discuss it?).
As far as discrimination is concerned, what evidence do you have in particular that it is weaponized against whites more? Even if we steel man your points and assume race played as much of a role in those events as you'd like to posit, that doesn't mean that it's at all representative for the nation at large -- more elaboration would be great. The white beauty standard alone shows how dubious that is to begin with (and I would say that is much, much more pervasive than those idiosyncratic examples you cited, but obviously that doesn't account for everything -- not even close -- I'll keep the topical matter open-ended, though). You combine this with the possibility of hiring discrimination, consumer practices (such as the black-handed iPhone trope), how movements like BLM can't get overwhelming support without milquetoast conservatives running straight to the assumption of thuggery and unrest (one propped up by established lines of mass communication), and you can see how that might not be true. Of course, I think, in some respects, whites *might* experience verbal bashings more because it hasn't been chastised as much in society due to historical elements (because society hasn't been accorded much to white racism to begin with -- which is still implicative of their privilege), and that may be a double standard (even with the consideration of power structures), but I think that element describes very, very little with regard to something as vast and labyrinthian as discrimination.
One thing I don't get about BAP's post is what is the political arena he's talking about? He'll write / podcast / tweet about his cultural stuff, HBD people are kind of in their own lane and people will stay interested in pursuing that, actual govt politics is separate from both. I agree race / IQ obsession is not a good look, but people and maybe the public will stay interested in the heredetarian question about populations. I guess I don't see the conflict. I don;t see the highbrow HBD people incurring a cost really.
I have a observation about the cultural explanation; cultural degeneracy, for any of the races, comes from the current elites of the West. The modern left has been in control of our economy and culture for several decades, therefore if the cultural explanation is valid; this is who should be blamed.
Bo, thanks for expanding on your previous articles on this subject.
"In fact, honesty about race, they argue, might repel people who would otherwise be sympathetic to conservative positions, shrinking the coalition of anti-woke voters and enfeebling the effort to defeat progressivism."
Knowledge is the goal. The truth shall set you free.
"Thus conservatives will be confronted with a problem: If races are the same, then why do they have such unequal outcomes? Why do blacks obtain lower grades, score lower on tests, commit more crimes (per capita), commit more homicides (per capita) than whites? Why are blacks much more likely to be poor, divorced, or incarcerated than whites?"
Hint: It is not racism. It is genetics.
"If one defines racism as the belief that races are different from each other, some with higher average scores on a variety socially desirable traits than others, then it will tautologically lead to more racism since, by this definition, accepting reality is racist."
Two things happened between hunter gathering and today: The agricultural revolution and the Industrial revolution. Both of these selected for particular characteristics in the populations subject to them, related to communal living and discipline. SubSahara was not subject to either to nearly the same extent.
Earlier, the harsh, cold environments of those populations which had emerged from Africa had a powerful effect. To survive, populations were selected for characteristics including the forwarded thinking necessary to prepare for winters; the preparation of supplies; the ability to find or build sturdy shelters and to make warm clothing using needle -type tools. Of course subSaharans did not have such experiences..
Another day, another article where Bo merely writes what he's been writing for years. Another day where Bo pretends as if the TAAO doesn't exist and doesn't make successful novel predictions which explains why blacks offend more than whites---which is due to racism and stereotypes. Why is Bo dodging the implications of the TAAO?
Lived experience is is useless because it is dependent on learned attitudes - ie the interpretation of events, not the events themselves. Microaggression fantasising is an excelllent illustration. This anti-CBT belief - let's work to seek out and interpret everything that happens to me as having nothing to do with me but external forces only. Learned external locus of control.
The only question to ask is: "Does theory A make successful novel predictions? Does theory B not? If so, we should accept A and reject B." "A" being the TAAO and "B" being hereditarian explanations.
In the realm of politics, HBD researchers need to understand that they're dealing with an entirely different beast. Ordinary people, including most elites, are not maniacally obsessed with the truth. Politics concerns human emotion and the reigning morality through which interests are arbitrated.
I appreciate the work Aporia and others do in helping people to more accurately understand the world, but ultimately, there is only a small minority of people who are open to, curious, or autistic enough to follow the truth, no matter what taboo/s it violates. Ordinary people, including most elites, do not have the mindset of HBD researchers and merely adhere to ideology, morality, or what power says. The idea that it's simply about the facts and that if we just get the facts out there eventually, it will be accepted is wrong. It's not about facts; it's about morality. Until that morality changes, no amount of GWAS studies is going to change things.
I believe Nick Land described the HBD community best regarding the type of people it attracts:
"Indeed, it is widely accepted within the accursed ‘community’ itself that most of those stubborn and awkward enough to educate themselves on the topic of human biological variation are significantly socially retarded’, with low verbal inhibition, low empathy, and low social integration, resulting in chronic maladaptation to group expectations. The typical EQs of this group can be extracted as the approximate square root of their IQs. Mild autism is typical, sufficient to approach their fellow beings in a spirit of detached, natural-scientific curiosity, but not so advanced as to compel total cosmic disengagement."
Very true all that. As TS Eliot said it all those years ago: "Humankind cannot bear very much reality." Your "maniac obsession with the truth" is a lonely path to tread.
There has always been a conflict between reality and popularity. But without some people pushing reality sometimes, even when unpopular, what is popular tends to move further and further away from reality over time.
Let me give you an example. COVID policy and COVID science differed drastically for a long time. But it certainly did take people talking about the COVID science to slowly change COVID policy. Without that who knows how long the insanity might have lasted or how much more intense it might have been. In countries with very high conformity, such as in East Asia, COVID policy was 100x worse.
So while I share your evaluation of human nature, I'm not sure the alternative. I doubt things would improve without the availability of the truth or if it were less disseminated.
The thing with the lies about race though, is that simply accepting the obvious truth is very much in the interest of wide swathes of people, most of all whites who are still the majority in the English-speaking world. Of course people will shy away from truth when it inconveniences them. But when the truth also lines up with their personal interests, they will be swayed eventually.
This is why norms of racial relations started out with things like segregation, and were only transformed relatively recently into the current ideology of racial equity. I would speculate that this was possible due to state and elite control over mass media technologies such as TV and radio, which blasted out the regime's preferred viewpoint on a scale unprecedented in history, while keeping all alternative viewpoints off the airwaves. Control of the universities played a role as well, with the modern notion that one must attend college or else be consigned to low status forever.
Now that we have the Internet and censorship of information technology is beginning to slip, and the university system is beginning to lose credibility, we are already seeing things tilt back towards the reality that yes, different races actually are different. Ordinary people won't have much trouble accepting this once the worm finally turns and they find themselves able to say it out loud without having to worry about their jobs.
Your comment seems to be answering a question as to whether anyone should be looking into HBD research at all, but the question posed at the top of the article is whether folks should be discussing the output of the HBD community in larger, more public settings.
The reason why political discourse should be incorporating more understanding of race differences is simple: We are currently in the middle of a fundamental remaking of society to account for observed race differences in outcomes precisely because discussions and considerations of race differences in cognitive ability are major taboos.
And yet, the course we have taken is leading to dramatically worse outcomes for all groups. The recent and refreshing backlash against DEI policies at Harvard and elsewhere could be helpfully informed by the findings by the HBD community.
Lee Kwan Yew was certainly helpfully informed by these findings:
https://twitter.com/FrankDeScushin/status/1742344657403601008
We need to take the moral high ground. Show the real harm done by these false beliefs. Talk about intelligence in terms of an unearned privilege. And most importantly, describe how much better the future for everyone will be if we accept these beliefs. Morals and hope are what motivate change.
Culture, including political stability, access to education, energy infrastructure (electricity that allows one to read after hours), family history/traditions, expectations, and some genetics. All contribute to intelligence. I'm fairly certain I don't have the kind of IQ necessary to survive by hunting, but I do have enough of the right kind of IQ to survive in the USA. If genes were the heavyweight, then why do countries that are next to each other and genetically similar have significantly different average IQs? The following figures from worldpopulationreview. Thailand (88), Cambodia (99.75), Laos (80.99). Then there's the grouping of European nations by skin color (white). Break that down by country and a different picture emerges. Hungary (99.24), Romania (86.88). Here's another example from 2 neighboring African nations: Cameroon (67.76), Chad (78.87). There's much more than genetics going on here. A low level of emancipation and schooling of girls likely contributes to skewing country scores, and also likely reduces scores of boys due to the male competitive need to prove themselves vis-a-vis girls. The human brain is very malleable during fetal development and in the earliest years, and more of the population with access to education changes the averages.
"Break that down by country and a different picture emerges. Hungary (99.24), Romania (86.88)"
This is, as usual, strong evidence in favour of hereditarianism. Romanians and Hungarians are discrete ethnicities that have been largely reproductively separate for over a millennium. Hungarians have for centuries been recognised as relatively clever, while Romanians have ... not. In addition, Romania has a large gypsy population and, beyond that, a larger fraction with partial gypsy ancestry. Conversely, Hungary has the 13th highest Jewish population by percentage in the world, but, more importantly, about 25% of the population have partial Jewish descent.
If you understood hereditarianism and IQ research, you would understand that all of your objections have no validity.
Romania has small minority populations of Hungarians (6.5%) and Roma (3.3%), from a 2011 census. Genetic studies have shown much overlap between populations in Central Europe. Two of those studies are posted below. I'm not a geneticist but the discussion shows the genetic lines of demarcation are not as concrete as you claim. I posit that this obsession with proving genetic purity and intelligence is a mostly male issue directly tied to worrying about paternity. https://bmcgenomdata.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12863-017-0487-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44272-6
"Culture, including political stability, access to education, energy infrastructure (electricity that allows one to read after hours), family history/traditions, expectations, and some genetics."
You do not understand cause and effect. Those of higher intelligence created all the conditions you cited.
"I'm fairly certain I don't have the kind of IQ necessary to survive by hunting..."
A huge number of sub-Saharan Africans would starve if their survival depended on hunting.
"...but I do have enough of the right kind of IQ to survive in the USA."
Best be careful with that assumption. The current course in the United States may soon become very dire.
"If genes were the heavyweight, then why do countries that are next to each other and genetically similar have significantly different average IQs?"
Again, you are making an assumption. How do you know that the genes responsible for intelligence are similar?
"Hungary (99.24), Romania (86.88). Here's another example from 2 neighboring African nations: Cameroon (67.76), Chad (78.87). There's much more than genetics going on here."
The countries you listed have very similar environments, which mostly negates the environmental argument.
Culture is a funny thing and hard to change, imo, like habits. Intelligence is another funny thing and is led by a few pacesetters under the right conditions, time and place. For instance, we (USA) learned about CTE from an immigrant Nigerian doctor whose intelligence wasn't held back by a football culture. There are Americans who are smart enough to survive by hunting. I'm not one of them. As far as being careful with my assumption, following the genes theory you seemingly support, I have a large variety of intelligences (but not hunting intelligence) that should help me survive. I can gesture wildly with my arms (Sicily), raise and cook lamb (Ireland), dance (Congo), read (Shakespeare's England), sail (Montenegro). I think I have it covered. Your last sentence left out that the countries listed together have very close genetics, like Thailand (88), Cambodia (99.75), Laos (80.99). Check out that 19-point difference between next-door neighbors Laos and Cambodia.
“Of course, if bigotry is a chief cause of social disparities, then politicians and all decent citizens should battle it indefatigably.”
What a bigoted view. Why “disparities” (with its suggestion of being unfair) rather than the neutral “differences”? And does this “bigotry” also include that of the anti-racists and woke fascists? In any case, people have a right to be bigoted with respect to their opinions, persons, and property.
https://jclester.substack.com/p/bigotry-and-libertarianism
https://jclester.substack.com/p/wokeness-is-inverted-fascism-plus
I think it's really not so complicated to conclude that we should talk about race differences. The past ten years are easy proof that it is very possible to move the Overton window on this topic simply by talking about it. Take this very article as an example; can you really imagine people even having this debate ten years ago? "FBI crime stats" and 13/50 were already common online memes before Elon bought Twitter, to say nothing of what has happened since.
Given this, there's no reason to think the trend can't or won't continue until the majority of the population, both elite and otherwise, eventually accepts truthful viewpoints about racial differences and they cease to be controversial in the first place. The bigger question is what the ultimate consequences for social trends and preferences will be.
Certain small hatted folk sure love bragging about their IQ and call foul when other groups attempt the same.
Conservative denialism about race is part and parcel of Christian monotheism. The attempt to get conservatives to talk about race is doomed from the get-go because the hereditarian HBD thesis is the ultimate taboo. All four canonical dogmas of liberalism, weaponized by wokism, are secular continuations of Christian beliefs, in particular, the belief that all human beings are equal in the sight of God and the theistic faith that history is a moral narrative of redemption.
Interesting. What do you think are the four canonical dogmas of liberalism?
I was a liberal when I came to Africa.
That me died in the dark jungles of the interior.
Your darkest thoughts are true.
I would argue that if a statement is true, then by definition, it is not racist.
Reality cannot be racist, but people who have opinions that do not correspond to material reality can be racist. To notice reality is not racist.
Well, it's one thing for it to be factual, it's a whole other thing whether normative declarations are fitting. The latter most assuredly can be racist.
I have no idea what “whether normative declarations are fitting” means. It sounds like it is a fancy way of saying that you do not care whether a statement is true or not.
Is that what you are saying?
No, that's a perverse understanding of my point. What I'm asserting is that even if some figure, say one that is statistical for example, is true, that doesn't mean the value judgments (hence "normative") have to befit those statistics (how we perhaps ought to treat a particular group). It's more than feasible for someone to base their unjustifiable reasoning off of a true statistic.
You point is still very unclear. I never said anything about value judgments or how we should treat a specific group.
So do you agree or disagree with my original statement?
“ I would argue that if a statement is true, then by definition, it is not racist.”
This is not a trivial point because many people claim that it is inherently racist to make a statement, even if it is true.
I do not agree necessarily, no.
Also remember that this type of dishonesty is not about helping other people. It is about making the speaker feel better about themselves.
It is selfishness disguised as being nice. It has a place in very limited circumstances, but when it gets widespread in society, it is very damaging to the very people that we should be trying to help.
For example, biomedical research is essential for curing people and inventing new medicines. If we ignore genetic differences between groups, then we increase the chances that we will do real harm to people, particularly racial minorities.
So it is not “a perverse understanding” of your point.
It is a correct understanding of your point.
It helps no one to lie, when the truth is inconvenient. The reason is that everyone knows the truth, and they know that when a person is lying, so you undermine your own credibility with honest people.
And using big words to obfuscate does not solve the problem.
“Of course, if bigotry is a chief cause of social disparities, then politicians and all decent citizens should battle it indefatigably.”
Decent citizens respect liberty, which includes freedom of association. Ironically, Bo is still afflicted with PC.
The last book I read on intelligence was The Bell Curve. Is there a recent book you would recommend that summarizes the state of research?
Try this (from my library of online book summaries):
https://techratchet.com/2021/07/23/book-summary-in-the-know-35-myths-about-human-intelligence-by-russell-t-warne/
Thank you Michael! I appreciate your “KEY TAKE-AWAYS” section.
If we push the race realism narrative, then the emphasis must be put on stopping false accusations of white supremacy because such accusations are increasingly dangerous. So this is the most sympathetic approach for a topic that has very little sympathy among the public. And it will also be critical that White people organize in mutual support and self defense as they lose jobs, contacts and friends and are targeted by Antifa. How to do that?
I have a few questions for you if you wouldn't mind:
1.) What do you feel about pushing the race realist narrative means that others cannot or shouldn't be construed as white supremacist?
2.) Why are you fixating on merely or specifically white people organizing with regard to losing their jobs, contracts, and friends?
3.) How is Antifa targeting whites?
One of the things Antifa and other terrorists and the Left generally do is target “white supremacists” because they don’t understand that unequal outcomes are mostly a result of human biodiversity, i.e. the race realist truth. White people who propound this truth will be targeted in the ways I described and will therefore need to help each other. Of course, anyone of any race who says this will have the same problem. But it is Whites who are most likely to express the idea because it is in their interests to do so.
Well, Antifa's views on white supremacists have much more to do with just race realism as you stated. Do not get me wrong, there are many who identify with Antifa and believe race is a social construct (and those obviously having issues with those who prop up race realism), but you even see milquetoast liberals who sometimes believe race is actually real. Though, they still, in spite of obviously not being in love with this group, have a much more volatile view of white supremacists. The view that a number of white supremacists hold is that they adhere to forced removal of minorities, restrictions on immigration due to one's racial differences, canards related to whites being an oppressed class, Holocaust denialism, you name it. Throughout my time of talking to people who are supporters of HBD, I've noticed that they have a tendency of putting most stock into the metaphysical conversation of race when discussing why others have issues with them -- when, in reality, a race realist perspective does not necessarily implicate their white supremacist, normative values. Second of all, I think it's wildly inaccurate to act like they're targeting whites. You ought to know there's a difference between targeting people because they're white and targeting people who happen to be white and are using their whiteness to undercut other racial groups.
You wrote: “The view that a number of white supremacists hold is that they adhere to forced removal of minorities, restrictions on immigration due to one's racial differences, canards related to whites being an oppressed class, Holocaust denialism, you name it. Throughout my time of talking to people who are supporters of HBD, I've noticed that they have a tendency of putting most stock into the metaphysical conversation of race when discussing why others have issues with them -- when, in reality, a race realist perspective does not necessarily implicate their white supremacist, normative values.” The evidence for race realism has become so strong in the last five years that some people on the left are beginning to give some ground. But for now, a race realist perspective without any other context is usually still enough to get one categorized as “white supremacist”, (and certainly “racist”, whatever that word may mean.)
You really should know that White bashing is very much a thing and far more common than discrimination against people of color. They are brainwashed by government and media colluding together to target Whites as bad people. Think of Kyle Rittenhouse or the Catholic school boy who was intimidated by the American Indian man at an anti-abortion protest, for example. You can even go back to the Duke lacrosse case, and even further to Tawana Brawley, and even further to Tom Wolfe illustrating the problem in “the bonfire of the vanities“ way back in the mid-1980s.. There have been some large payouts as I recall from some media organizations to those white victims of white-bashing. It’s a very widespread phenomenon, those are some high profile examples.
Whether the evidence is compelling for race realism or not is besides the point, the point that I'm making is that I think you're misrepresenting the left to a considerable degree and I think my point on how they have a radically disparate view on liberals, at least in scale (not in totality), shows that race realism isn't enough to explain why the left is as pissed off as they are, if that's even the case. Much of leftist discourse on race surrounding the views of liberals is that they often do not go far enough to liberate minorities from the (racial and) structural impositions of yesteryear and also even today. On the other hand, alt-right race realists? Oh, they want their head on a pike because they take it much too far. Again, race realism isn't, autotelically, an axiological system. You could be a race realist and still believe in cosmopolitanism, along with the profession of cultural universals that may transcend the subject of race. You could be a race realist in a soft sense or, as I would presume you are, a hard one. I've always found it oddly bizarre how many alt-righters will glorify the expansion of public discourse on race realism, but also have such a reductive understanding of it altogether (which... I guess may be more evidence of their point that we should discuss it?).
As far as discrimination is concerned, what evidence do you have in particular that it is weaponized against whites more? Even if we steel man your points and assume race played as much of a role in those events as you'd like to posit, that doesn't mean that it's at all representative for the nation at large -- more elaboration would be great. The white beauty standard alone shows how dubious that is to begin with (and I would say that is much, much more pervasive than those idiosyncratic examples you cited, but obviously that doesn't account for everything -- not even close -- I'll keep the topical matter open-ended, though). You combine this with the possibility of hiring discrimination, consumer practices (such as the black-handed iPhone trope), how movements like BLM can't get overwhelming support without milquetoast conservatives running straight to the assumption of thuggery and unrest (one propped up by established lines of mass communication), and you can see how that might not be true. Of course, I think, in some respects, whites *might* experience verbal bashings more because it hasn't been chastised as much in society due to historical elements (because society hasn't been accorded much to white racism to begin with -- which is still implicative of their privilege), and that may be a double standard (even with the consideration of power structures), but I think that element describes very, very little with regard to something as vast and labyrinthian as discrimination.
One thing I don't get about BAP's post is what is the political arena he's talking about? He'll write / podcast / tweet about his cultural stuff, HBD people are kind of in their own lane and people will stay interested in pursuing that, actual govt politics is separate from both. I agree race / IQ obsession is not a good look, but people and maybe the public will stay interested in the heredetarian question about populations. I guess I don't see the conflict. I don;t see the highbrow HBD people incurring a cost really.
I have a observation about the cultural explanation; cultural degeneracy, for any of the races, comes from the current elites of the West. The modern left has been in control of our economy and culture for several decades, therefore if the cultural explanation is valid; this is who should be blamed.
Bo, thanks for expanding on your previous articles on this subject.
"In fact, honesty about race, they argue, might repel people who would otherwise be sympathetic to conservative positions, shrinking the coalition of anti-woke voters and enfeebling the effort to defeat progressivism."
Knowledge is the goal. The truth shall set you free.
"Thus conservatives will be confronted with a problem: If races are the same, then why do they have such unequal outcomes? Why do blacks obtain lower grades, score lower on tests, commit more crimes (per capita), commit more homicides (per capita) than whites? Why are blacks much more likely to be poor, divorced, or incarcerated than whites?"
Hint: It is not racism. It is genetics.
"If one defines racism as the belief that races are different from each other, some with higher average scores on a variety socially desirable traits than others, then it will tautologically lead to more racism since, by this definition, accepting reality is racist."
Excellent point.
Two things happened between hunter gathering and today: The agricultural revolution and the Industrial revolution. Both of these selected for particular characteristics in the populations subject to them, related to communal living and discipline. SubSahara was not subject to either to nearly the same extent.
Earlier, the harsh, cold environments of those populations which had emerged from Africa had a powerful effect. To survive, populations were selected for characteristics including the forwarded thinking necessary to prepare for winters; the preparation of supplies; the ability to find or build sturdy shelters and to make warm clothing using needle -type tools. Of course subSaharans did not have such experiences..
The Society Types that you allude to were much more complicated than you suggest. There are large divergences within the same racial groups:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-our-deep-history-explains-global
Another day, another article where Bo merely writes what he's been writing for years. Another day where Bo pretends as if the TAAO doesn't exist and doesn't make successful novel predictions which explains why blacks offend more than whites---which is due to racism and stereotypes. Why is Bo dodging the implications of the TAAO?
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2023/09/05/the-theory-of-african-american-offending-versus-hereditarian-explanations-of-crime-exploring-the-roots-of-the-black-white-crime-disparity/
Another day of Race Realist reposting the same old trite pseudoscience
Pseudoscientific theories make successful novel predictions?
Lived experience is is useless because it is dependent on learned attitudes - ie the interpretation of events, not the events themselves. Microaggression fantasising is an excelllent illustration. This anti-CBT belief - let's work to seek out and interpret everything that happens to me as having nothing to do with me but external forces only. Learned external locus of control.
The only question to ask is: "Does theory A make successful novel predictions? Does theory B not? If so, we should accept A and reject B." "A" being the TAAO and "B" being hereditarian explanations.