Comments on: Quote notes (#80)

By: Roundup of Book Reviews of Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance | Occam's Razor

Wed, 21 May 2014 01:24:18 +0000

[…] (As is often the case at MR, the comments are more interesting than the post. Here’s an interesting comment regarding Cowen’s […]

By: Lightning Round – 2014/05/14 | Free Northerner

Lightning Round – 2014/05/14 | Free Northerner — Wed, 14 May 2014 05:02:18 +0000

[…] A Troublesome Inheritance linkfest. Related: A round-up of reviews. Related: Handle on Wade’s book. […]

By: Handle

Handle — Sun, 11 May 2014 01:06:46 +0000

Not quite. They think that cultures can have evil, oppressive elements that are used by privileged exploiters to hold underprivileged people down and suppress them from reaching their potential and achieving full autonomy and self-realization. It's not like the progressives aren't critical of Boko Haram, or they aren't boycotting the Sultan of Brunei's Hollywood hotel because he instituted anti-homosexual Sharia law in his home country. It's just that they think and hope that these people can somehow become 'moderate' and enlightened and abandon their retrograde opinions, which are somehow separable from the rest of their 'culture'. I'd recommend Stanley Fish's Boutique Multiculturalism for an excellent explanation that is 17 years old, but which, alas, never broke through the mental firewalls.

By: scientism

scientism — Sun, 11 May 2014 00:44:53 +0000

Thinking that differences in performance are due to discrimination is far more insane than simply denying race. Progressives deny the influence of culture too. They think all traditions were created equally. They think that people from different cultures raise children the same way and teach them the same values. Of course, there are exceptions to this: the feminists want girls to be raised as boys. A tiny minority of liberals (mostly in France) want immigrants to assimilate. But generally speaking ‘multiculturalism’ is the denial of culture just as much as it is the denial of race. This shouldn’t be surprising, since modern progressivism is an obvious consequence of the Enlightenment project of (mis)conceiving of society as a group of sovereign individuals who negotiate judicial rights with one another, who give up some freedom for the protection of the state, etc. These are all first-rate absurdities that inevitably lead to where we are today: living in countries that are importing millions of people from other cultures while cheerfully thinking the only difference between them and us is dress, cuisine and the words we use to describe things (including whether we say ‘God’ or ‘Allah’ – this being the only conceivable difference between those religions).

Presumably most cultures have developed a system of statecraft and cultural traditions that are suited to their biological traits and immigration is just as short-sighted for immigrants as it is for the host countries, so perhaps there’s the opportunity here to do better rhetorically instead of always beating the drum of inherited IQ differences.

By: Quote notes (#80) | Reaction Times

Quote notes (#80) | Reaction Times — Sat, 10 May 2014 05:20:49 +0000

[…] By admin […]

By: northanger

northanger — Sat, 10 May 2014 02:43:52 +0000

(T)Race generates multiple genetic trajectories.

By: Handle

Handle — Sat, 10 May 2014 01:51:47 +0000

Later in the thread, there's some discussion of the Flynn effect, which Sailer thinks is due both to nutrition and the increased amount of 'cognitive exercise' that modern life provides. I then propose a Flynn Effect-based, Economic and Progressive case against open-borders. Bottom Line: You can't motivate left-of-the-bell-curve folks to work hard enough to achieve Flynn Effect gains if you keep importing people 0.5SD above their average, lowering wages at that point, and creating high effective marginal rates of taxation on improvements in human capital. Why struggle to get smarter if you can't make any more money once you get there?