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

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#671

Post by andrekandre » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:01 PM UTC

andrekandre wrote: post #431

dash2 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky's basic argument is that we can build a society where social success doesn't depend on IQ. Or as he puts it: "If... society can be organized more or less in accordance with the "socialist dictum," then nothing is left of Herrnstein's argument" So, if you think socialism works, then yeah, you'll find this very persuasive. From my POV, though, it's a deluded fantasy which 100 years of disastrous policy catastro…

> So, if you think socialism works, then yeah, you'll find this very persuasive. From my POV, though, it's a deluded fantasy which 100 years of disastrous policy catastrophes have disproved. (not to bring up a no true scotsman-type argument) but maybe chomsky has a different understanding of what "socialist principles" mean compared to most contemporary people (and those who implemented those disastrous policies)?

honest question, can a downvoter try to explain why you are downvoting?

note im not approving or disapproving of his stance, but merely stating a fact

chomsky has many times stated his beliefs and they are quite different what someone like say, stalin or lenin would espouse [1]

i dont really think im making a controversial statement am i?

[1] https://chomsky.info/1986____/

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#672

Post by rejectedandsad » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:50 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #656

rejectedandsad wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure it's easy to discuss the high school transcripts of people with university posts. How did you get in touch with this information? Because 95% of the time high school work doesn't transfer to the college level even if you do semesters at De Anza. You're back to scratch unless you go to flagship in-state, and even then you can only transfer up to a certain amount (at my undergrad it was up to Calc 2 - se…

Every university has a different agreement on how skipping reqs and credits work, but I'm really surprised that you're saying you need to go to a flagship school for Calc 2, because I believe that's normally covered just by the Calc BC AP exam. Even if a college didn't want to transfer the credits for Calc 3, I'm surprised that they wouldn't allow you to skip the course. Also, for your friends, if they took a class a…

> if they took a class at the same institution... doesn't that mean they got a repeat? Strange.

yes

> as they probably had interesting trajectories.

Not every physics professor went to a top school and published groundbreaking research.

I do want to emphasize that taking Calc 3 again is one class out of dozens you need to graduate.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#673

Post by asdff » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:57 PM UTC

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #139

asdff wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think time well spent is a huge factor to anyone success. Most pro athletes, chess champions, musicians, artists, etc, picked up their hobby at a young age in most cases, and just stuck with it until adulthood and enjoyed the compound effects of having a teacher or coach spend time with you multiple times a week for decades. I think you can put anyone in that environment and they would become elite in whatever you…

No, some people are so stupid that they will never be able to do tasks much more complicated than e.g. sweeping the floor. You are trying to conjure a vision of the world that is comfortable to believe, but that vision does not reflect reality.

Assuming you have your mental faculties completely in check, I don't see why anyone couldn't have been the text Tiger woods when born in the correct environment to be honest. Tiger woods isn't the strongest person in the world, he isn't the most flexible person in the world, and he isn't the smartest person in the world, but compared to others he has probably tens of thousands of hours on them practicing the correct things, and that is what makes him elite rather than anything about his physical body or intelligence. He actually has a pretty frail body and over his various controversies has shown remarkably poor judgement at times. You find anyone who has spent this sort of time on any activity and they have serious prowess, whether it be putting a golf ball or playing violin or running down an antelope.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#674

Post by zepto » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 12:17 AM UTC

cloudfifty wrote: post #666

zepto wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Google search will tell you what people would like socialism to be. Empirical examples tell you what it is . You’ve already agreed with this.

Still not true.

You:

“The regimes that are commonly referred to never turned authoritarian, they started authoritarian - much to Chomsky's and other libertarian socialists dismay.”

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#675

Post by MichaelZuo » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 1:22 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #667

MichaelZuo wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So by "unhindered capitalism" you mean “partially-hindered capitalism”?

No, I mean unhindered capitalism, capitalism being a real political economy rather than the impossible to define purely economical conception of capitalism. Capitalism is not just an economic system, it has necessary political implication, such as a strong state, an active police force, a class system, etc...

Why would you assign 100% of the ‘real political economy’ to capitalism, given the very obvious existence of non-capitalist forces that exist in the ‘real political economy’?

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#676

Post by ModernMech » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

visarga wrote: post #655

Kbelicius wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> value creation is rewarded with nothing but "respect" and "intrinsic satisfaction". That is not a stance Chomsky holds nor the vast majority of socialist. How have you become so anti-socialist without even knowing what socialism is?

Socialism is a system where a clique of powerful people jail and abuse anyone who opposes their ways. Ostensibly it's for the good of society, but in reality it's just for the ruling class. Source: lived under socialism for 14 years. Also observe N.K. Come to think of it, it's a woke utopia. Enforced equality, anti-meritocracy and cancellings making everyone live under constant fear.

Sorry about your experience, but here in America it's not much better. We imprison more people than anywhere else in the world, including the USSR at its height, in raw numbers and per capita terms as well. Our system is one built on a concept of punishment and retribution, rather than rehabilitation and forgiveness.

Here's a glimpse at how our ruling class views the role of prison in our society:

  "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." - John Ehrlichman

The other half of that of course is that prison is highly profitable in the United States, making the incentives to imprison people incredibly perverse. Housing people involuntarily is an industry in America, and people are working very diligently on optimizing and perfecting it to be as profitable as possible. This leads to insane situations where prisoners are being used to fight fires with little to no pay, which may sound like slavery to you, but... well. It is. The 13th Amendment which "abolished" slavery even carves out an if someone is convicted of a crime.

I'm sure you witnessed and were subjected to terrible things. I would be careful though of concluding the problem was with "socialism" rather than powerful people abusing their power to maintain and amass more power. That dynamic is pretty universal and happens under any system with psychopaths in charge. Whenever it happens under one "-ism" people from other "-isms" will use that to point out how flawed the opposing ideology is. But really, all the system determines is how hard of a time the psychopath-in-charge has pulling the levers of power. We just put a psychopath in charge of our Democracy here in America 4 years ago, and his term ended with him instigating an insurrection on the country's Capitol in an attempt to maintain power, bringing an end to 240+ years of peaceful power transitions. It can happen anywhere.

TLDR; the American ruling class will pretextually raid your home and throw you in prison if you opposed their agenda of invading foreign countries and segregating the population by race. Not only will they put you to work and not pay you anything, they will actually charge you for the privilege of imprisoning you (again, for pretextual reasons), making a profit off of your misery. I guess we can conclude this is Democracy?

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#677

Post by DangitBobby » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 1:34 AM UTC

nomoreplease wrote: post #533

throwawaylinux wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe this idea because few or nobody sees a moral problem in acknowledging there is a strong genetic component to physical attractiveness, or physical features (like height) that give an advantage in "merit" in some paths of life. Nor do people have a problem acknowledging your parents, the country in which you were born, their wealth and fitness as "good parents" for the early years of your life plays a m…

Then why are the Leftist professors in the article so opposed? Why are they comparing her work to climate change denial and Holocaust denial? Why are they so opposed to the obvious logical conclusion

Because you have to adjust your mental model to explain IQ differences in ethnic groups. That really shouldn't be a problem, but it's my best guess as to why.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#678

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

tnzm wrote: post #376

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I meant to add: > How is this any different from saying "all is one, separateness is an illusion"? > It's not arbitrary. "Other causative factors" is boundless. These are distinctly different lines on inquiry. One is an inquiry to in the illusory nature of separateness, the other is an inquire in to the boundless nature of causative factors.

Wow, thanks! That's a wonderfully succinct way of putting it.

I’m constantly shocked and entertained by the lack of internal-consistency of what people say and write.

When we don’t even understand ourselves what hope is there we will understand other people? It’s definitely an ongoing process anyway.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#679

Post by throwawaylinux » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 1:52 AM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #669

littlestymaar wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The general argument of the Bell Curve, that people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes, is (or ought to be) completely non-controversial, consistent with almost all scientific evidence and obvious. “That people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes” is, as you say, obvious. But just because t…

> “That people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes” is, as you say, obvious. Is this obvious? I can't imagine what kinds of attributes you're talking about. I think if they were significant ones (courageousness, curiosity, etc) they would probably have really profound political effects you don't see in reality.

What profound political effects do you think would probably be caused by these attributes being different?

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#680

Post by dennis_jeeves » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 1:54 AM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #450

baybal2 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> assumptions which he brilliantly lays bare and then demolishes. He also questions the scientific significance of the research, even if it is true - a phrase he uses a lot. Absolutely true. Even if it's true, the society should not give ammunition to closet racists with their attempts to stealthily legitimise racism. Equally so, in the current immigration debacle, we need to call things their own names. What these p…

I wonder how many people who throw accusations of "closet X" and "stealth Y" so easily are, in fact, themselves closet X and stealth Y and generalize about other people based on their own carefully hidden prejudices.

This is true, very true, People often project their own prejudice by labeling/accusing others of the same prejudices. Nothing much can be done about these people other than avoiding dealing with them on a personal front.