Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#621

Post by q1w2 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #591

narrator wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the leadership of the leftists in America know that there are race IQ differences, but they use this to set up a loop to gain more power. How do you increase your authority if you know that races are not all of equal ability? 1. Lie and publicly express that you think all races are of equal ability at all things. 2. Widely report that some races don't do as well as others on standardized tests, etc. 3. Blam…

I'll lead with this - people should be treated with respect regardless of their race and regardless of their IQ. People should be given equal opportunity to succeed, regardless of any differences. > Widely report that some races don't do as well as others on standardized tests, etc. >Blame racists, or even a whole race that does better as the cause of this. We have widely studied and reported on reasoning for why som…

> People should be given equal opportunity to succeed

That is the old dogma. Today progressives insist on giving certain classes of people more opportunity than others.

That is why "equality" has been replaced by "equity" in progressive propaganda.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#622

Post by TFYS » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

bart_spoon wrote: post #613

cloudfifty wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every instance of attempts at building socialist governments have been tied at the waist to authoritarianism Hence the fierce insistence from large parts of the socialist movement throughout history that it must be radically democratic - otherwise oppression, rather than liberation will be the result.

And yet, no such democratic socialist government ever materializes. Because all nations must allocate capital efficiently to function and resist outside hostile forces. The capitalist option is to allow people to own private property, and trust that the supply and demand of a marketplace and individuals looking out for their personal best interest will align to allocate that capital efficiently. The tradeoff is that…

You assume representative democracy is the only way to make democratic decisions. With our current technology we could make such decisions using direct democracy. Imagine a collectively owned bank with a democratic decision-making process. You'd propose your idea for a Netflix competitor, and after a period of public debate the bank invests in the ideas that people decided are worth investing in.

Combine direct democracy and collective ownership with fully transparent decision processes everywhere (every decision made documented and freely available to view by anyone) and I have a hard time imagining any authoritarian system emerging.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#623

Post by s1artibartfast » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

Veen wrote: post #297

lamontcg wrote: post #115

I don't particularly have a problem accepting that intelligence could be genetic. But then people use that to argue that the people at the top deserve everything they have. The exact same argument was made back when we had slavery. Now its just used to justify wage slavery and gross wealth inequality and policies which punish the poor. (It also is grossly oversimplified and discounts reversion to the mean and that tw…

> But then people use that to argue that the people at the top deserve everything they have. Doesn't genetic endowment imply the exact opposite. If the "people at the top" got there because of a factor over which they had no influence—what was once called a gift—how can they deserve their place? You might argue that they are the people who should be at the top because of their abilities, but that has nothing to do wi…

The problem is tying the idea deserving to be at the top to some imaginary concept of I influence in the first place. All that matters is ability, it doesn't matter how you got it. Personal influence doesn't exist in a scientific world without a soul. People are born with better or worse operating systems and hardware. Their conditions improve or deminnish their OS and function over time.

We can strive for a society where the environment produces the best outcomes, but some will always be better than others at any measurable task.

Saying that someone is better at something because they have better genes, better upbringing, better schooling, doesn't take away the fact that they are better.

The people with the best ability do deserve to be at the top.

The only question is what we can do as a society to enable individuals to develop ability to the greatest extent possible.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#624

Post by rafaelero » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #585

swebs wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>which would easily be resolved by having better/more scientific data There's already quite a lot of data on the subject. Here's a 30 year meta-study from 2005 for example. https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jense... The problem described in the article is that people are preventing/defunding further studies.

You know what both Rushton and Jensen were incredibly controversial figures, right? Perhaps not on the same level as Lynn and Vanhanen, but close.

I mean, when society deems this field as toxic, then every figure that aims at exploring it will be filled with controversy.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#625

Post by rafaelero » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #406

blast wrote: post #293

Chomsky wrote the definitive progressive answer to all this 50 years ago: https://libcom.org/files/chomsky%20-%20iq%20building%20block... Still timely and fresh, especially considering that he was critiquing Herrnstein 20 years before The Bell Curve. Because he's smart and unafraid, either of science or the truth, Chomsky never denies the possibility of a genetic component to IQ, even IQ/race. What he denies are the…

Except that the argument Chomsky makes about the fact that this research would have no purpose in a society that treats people as individuals, ie not a racist society, is certainly valid, but the current progressivism is to do the opposite, ie to define people by their race/sex, and to count the number of people of each race or sex in organisations, and to call racism/sexism if it is not exactly the population distri…

> But the claims of systematic racism or sexism when you don’t have matching representation everywhere can only be opposed if you get into this ugly discussion.

I agree. This is a major counterargument to this notion that this type of knowledge is not useful. Not even mentioning that it is freaking interesting and it will always spark curiosity in a lot of people.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#626

Post by MichaelZuo » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #603

goatlover wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that sounds like a mixed economy is best where capitalism provides the growth and progressive policies counter balance the bad tendencies.

That's certainly a respectable opinion, yes, but some believe that these progressive policies are only possible temporarily or in countries that use various legal and kinetic means to maintain an advantage over other countries, etc..., so it's not a settled question that social democracy is the end of history.

I think the trouble other folks are having with your prior comment was that there has never been an "Unhindered capitalism" anywhere on Earth within the last several hundred years. Religious, societal, political, etc., factors beyond, and in addition to capitalism, have always held significant sway in any society that has been realized so far.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#627

Post by sudosysgen » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

bart_spoon wrote: post #620

sudosysgen wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communal ownership of the means of production is not the definition of socialism. It's merely compatible with the actual definition, which is worker ownership of the means of production. Some socialists, such as Marx, argue that the logical endpoint of socialism is communal ownership of the means of production at some point in the future when the average worker produces more than their need.

Worker-owned enterprises are something perfectly achievable now, in the existing free-market societies we currently have. The reason you don't see many is because they still require capital, and the majority people with capital aren't interested in giving it to companies that then give all ownership to the workers. So the issue becomes that for socialist-structured companies to become effective and commonplace extens…

I fully disagree. If you were to declare by decree that all companies must be worker owned, you would create a vastly different economic and social structure from if it was actually owned communally, for example, you would have serious differences in income and capital ownership due to market competition, as well as incentives against vertical integration.

This is not extensive government intervention, it boils down to a simple change in property ownership laws.

Also, loans are fully compatible with worker-owned companies, so you can still have capital transfer.

So I disagree very strongly that this "boils down to irrelevance".

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#628

Post by bjourne » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 6:21 PM UTC

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #548

bjourne wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a quote from the study: > However, for intelligence, heritability increases linearly, from (approximately) 20% in infancy to 40% in adolescence, and to 60% in adulthood. Some evidence suggests that heritability might increase to as much as 80% in later adulthood but then decline to about 60% after age 80. It does not corroborate the claim "Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited".

That sounds right on the money to me? Variance in all traits is higher in childhood. The idea is that you grow into your mostly pre-determined self.

No, it's not on the money. Do you really not see the numerical discrepancy?

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#629

Post by sudosysgen » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #626

sudosysgen wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's certainly a respectable opinion, yes, but some believe that these progressive policies are only possible temporarily or in countries that use various legal and kinetic means to maintain an advantage over other countries, etc..., so it's not a settled question that social democracy is the end of history.

I think the trouble other folks are having with your prior comment was that there has never been an "Unhindered capitalism" anywhere on Earth within the last several hundred years. Religious, societal, political, etc., factors beyond, and in addition to capitalism, have always held significant sway in any society that has been realized so far.

Capitalism is to be understood as a political economy, not as some abstract economic-only concept that is impossible. A political economy is more capitalist in so far as private ownership of capital faces fewer restrictions and insofar as power is correlated to political ownership. Like all political systems, there are practical limits, but a system in which the power of capital is unrestrained and where very few restrictions to capital ownership exist can be called "unhindered capitalism", and these certainly existed.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#630

Post by inglor_cz » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 6:26 PM UTC

imbnwa wrote: post #527

inglor_cz wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to be honest, claiming that people who say A do in fact mean B, is more of an attempt at mind reading of others than just another conviction. This is frowned upon, because there is no bottom to this race downwards. Anyone can accuse anyone else of being a horrible, rotten human being who just puts up a tolerable facade.

> Anyone can accuse anyone else of being a horrible, rotten human being who just puts up a tolerable facade. You say this as if human beings are entirely unfamiliar with the use of facades in everyday life (need I mention most women's familarity with "the nice guy"), more so in those domains where power and position are at stake.

No, I wanted to say that we should apply some threshold of evidence before making accusations like this, and we shouldn't apply them onto large groups of people.