easy: we already do this. Definitionally, 2 percent of people are <70 IQ. I don’t think we would commonly identify this as one of the biggest problems with democracy.
But those people are distributed fairly evenly throughout society. Each one is surrounded by lots of people of >100 IQ, and probably knows at least a few of >115 IQ, etc. Whereas if it’s an entire indigenous population, and integration is far from complete, then there are likely whole villages that are almost entirely aboriginal. That’s an important difference.
One consequence: I expect that, in order to do a good job at various important management roles (managing a power plant, a sewer system, etc.), you basically need a high enough IQ. A hard cutoff is an oversimplification, but, to illustrate, Google results suggest that doctors’ average IQ is between 120 and 130, and there might be villages of 1000 people with no one fitting that description. (And even if you think the IQ test results are, say, more reflective of a “Western Quotient”—the ability+willingness to work well with Western ideas and practices—it seems that lots of these jobs require precisely that. Using and maintaining Western machines; negotiating on behalf of the village with mostly-Western cities and higher levels of government; evaluating land development proposals; and so on.)
Then, running with the above scenario, either the village doesn’t have modern infrastructure, or it has modern infrastructure managed badly, or it has modern infrastructure managed by Westerners. The first two are bad, and the third might be a constant source of ethnic grievances if anyone is unhappy with the arrangement. (Exercise: ask an AI for historical examples of each of the above, and see if they’re genuine.) Thus: a problem with democracy. And voting, in particular, might turn the third case into the second case.
I think this demonstrates a failure mode of the ‘is it true?’ heuristic as a comprehensive methodology for evaluating statements.
I didn’t call it comprehensive. It’s a useful tool, and often the first one I reach for. but not always the only tool.
I can string together true premises (and omit others) to support a much broader range of conclusions than are supported by the actual preponderance of the evidence.
Then your opponent can counter-argue that your statements are true but cherry-picked, or that your argument skips logical steps xyz and those steps are in fact incorrect. If your opponent instead chooses to say that for you to make those statements is unacceptable behavior, then it’s unfortunate that your opposition is failing to represent its side well. As an observer, depending on my purposes and what I think I already know, I have many options, ranging from “evaluating the arguments presented” to “researching the issue myself”.
the suggestion that letting members of a certain racial group vote is a threat to democracy completely dissolves with the introduction of one additional observation
OP didn’t use the word “threat”. He said he was “very curious about aboriginals” and asked how do you live with them. You can interpret it as a rhetorical question, meaning he’s saying it’s impossible to live with them, and his “very curious” was disingenuous; or you can interpret it as a genuine question. I think I’ve countered your argument about “completely dissolves”; for illustration, you can even forget IQ and substitute “familiarity with Western technology”, and imagine a village consisting of 10% Westerners and 90% indigenous people who have never owned a car or a computer. Surely that has the potential to cause problems; and it could indeed be interesting to know more specifics about what has gone wrong in practice, how people have addressed it, and how well it’s working.
Then your opponent can counter-argue that your statements are true but cherry-picked, or that your argument skips logical steps xyz and those steps are in fact incorrect. If your opponent instead chooses to say that for you to make those statements is unacceptable behavior, then it’s unfortunate that your opposition is failing to represent its side well. As an observer, depending on my purposes and what I think I already know, I have many options, ranging from “evaluating the arguments presented” to “researching the issue myself”.
My entire point is that logical steps in the argument are being skipped, because they are, and that the facts are cherrypicked, because they are, and my comment says as much, as well as pointing out a single example (which admits to being non-comprehensive) of an inconvenient (and obvious!) fact left out of the discussion altogether, as a proof of concept, precisely to avoid arguing the object level point (which is irrelevant to whether or not Crimieux’s statement has features that might lead one to reasonably dis-prefer being associated with him).
We move into ‘this is unacceptable’ territory when someone shows themselves to have a habit of forcefully representing their side using these techniques in order to motivate their conclusion, which many have testified Cremieux does, and which is evident from his banning in a variety of (not especially leftist, not especially IQ and genetics hostile) spaces. If your rhetorical policies fail to defend against transparently adversarial tactics predictably pedaled in the spirit of denying people their rights, you have a big hole in your map.
OP didn’t use the word “threat”. He said he was “very curious about aboriginals” and asked how do you live with them.
You quoted a section that has nothing to do with any of what I was saying. The exact line I’m referring to is:
How do you have a peaceable democracy (or society in general) with a population composed of around 3% (and growing) mentally-retarded people whose vote matters just as much as yours?
The whole first half of your comment is only referencing the parenthetical ‘society in general’ case, and not the voting case. I assume this is accidental on your part and not a deliberate derailment. To be clear about the stakes:
This is the conclusion of the statement. This is the whole thrust he is working up to. These facts are selected in service of an argument to deny people voting rights on the basis of their race. If the word ‘threat’ was too valenced for you, how about ‘barrier’ or ‘impediment’ to democracy? This is the clear implication of the writing. This is the hypothesis he’s asking us to entertain: Australia would be a better country if Aborigines were banned from voting. Not just because their IQs are low, or because their society is regressive, but because they are retarded.
He’s not expressing curiosity in this post. He’s expressing bald-faced contempt (“Uncouth.. dullards”). I’m not a particularly polite person, and this is language I reserve for my enemies. Hisusername is a transphobic slur. Why are you wasting your charity on this person?
Decoupling isn’t ignoring all relevant context within a statement to read it in the most generous possible light; decoupling is distinguishing the relevant from the irrelevant to better see the truth. Cremieux has displayed a pattern of abhorrent bigotry, and I am personally ashamed that my friends and colleagues would list him as an honored guest at their event.
for posterity, this is a new article on Lasker about a separate reddit account // more narrative details around his various proclaimed positions and identities over time
by default I don’t put a lot of stock in articles of this kind, and I think this one gets into some weird territory (like shaming him for being kind of a know-it-all teen for some reason?). still, seems good to share for added context.
But those people are distributed fairly evenly throughout society. Each one is surrounded by lots of people of >100 IQ, and probably knows at least a few of >115 IQ, etc.
-While this is plausibly true geographically, my understanding is that… most people in the US bubble the people they interact with regularly pretty heavily, such that I’m not sure I would expect this statement to be meaningfully true for a lot of people?
How many people over 3-4 standard deviations of IQ away from you do you feel like you interact with at a level where you feel confident that you could steer them away from an effective propaganda campaign / conspiracy theory rabbithole they’d fallen into? I don’t think that’s a nonzero number for me, and if it is, it’s low-single-digits...
But those people are distributed fairly evenly throughout society. Each one is surrounded by lots of people of >100 IQ, and probably knows at least a few of >115 IQ, etc. Whereas if it’s an entire indigenous population, and integration is far from complete, then there are likely whole villages that are almost entirely aboriginal. That’s an important difference.
One consequence: I expect that, in order to do a good job at various important management roles (managing a power plant, a sewer system, etc.), you basically need a high enough IQ. A hard cutoff is an oversimplification, but, to illustrate, Google results suggest that doctors’ average IQ is between 120 and 130, and there might be villages of 1000 people with no one fitting that description. (And even if you think the IQ test results are, say, more reflective of a “Western Quotient”—the ability+willingness to work well with Western ideas and practices—it seems that lots of these jobs require precisely that. Using and maintaining Western machines; negotiating on behalf of the village with mostly-Western cities and higher levels of government; evaluating land development proposals; and so on.)
Then, running with the above scenario, either the village doesn’t have modern infrastructure, or it has modern infrastructure managed badly, or it has modern infrastructure managed by Westerners. The first two are bad, and the third might be a constant source of ethnic grievances if anyone is unhappy with the arrangement. (Exercise: ask an AI for historical examples of each of the above, and see if they’re genuine.) Thus: a problem with democracy. And voting, in particular, might turn the third case into the second case.
I didn’t call it comprehensive. It’s a useful tool, and often the first one I reach for. but not always the only tool.
Then your opponent can counter-argue that your statements are true but cherry-picked, or that your argument skips logical steps xyz and those steps are in fact incorrect. If your opponent instead chooses to say that for you to make those statements is unacceptable behavior, then it’s unfortunate that your opposition is failing to represent its side well. As an observer, depending on my purposes and what I think I already know, I have many options, ranging from “evaluating the arguments presented” to “researching the issue myself”.
OP didn’t use the word “threat”. He said he was “very curious about aboriginals” and asked how do you live with them. You can interpret it as a rhetorical question, meaning he’s saying it’s impossible to live with them, and his “very curious” was disingenuous; or you can interpret it as a genuine question. I think I’ve countered your argument about “completely dissolves”; for illustration, you can even forget IQ and substitute “familiarity with Western technology”, and imagine a village consisting of 10% Westerners and 90% indigenous people who have never owned a car or a computer. Surely that has the potential to cause problems; and it could indeed be interesting to know more specifics about what has gone wrong in practice, how people have addressed it, and how well it’s working.
My entire point is that logical steps in the argument are being skipped, because they are, and that the facts are cherrypicked, because they are, and my comment says as much, as well as pointing out a single example (which admits to being non-comprehensive) of an inconvenient (and obvious!) fact left out of the discussion altogether, as a proof of concept, precisely to avoid arguing the object level point (which is irrelevant to whether or not Crimieux’s statement has features that might lead one to reasonably dis-prefer being associated with him).
We move into ‘this is unacceptable’ territory when someone shows themselves to have a habit of forcefully representing their side using these techniques in order to motivate their conclusion, which many have testified Cremieux does, and which is evident from his banning in a variety of (not especially leftist, not especially IQ and genetics hostile) spaces. If your rhetorical policies fail to defend against transparently adversarial tactics predictably pedaled in the spirit of denying people their rights, you have a big hole in your map.
You quoted a section that has nothing to do with any of what I was saying. The exact line I’m referring to is:
The whole first half of your comment is only referencing the parenthetical ‘society in general’ case, and not the voting case. I assume this is accidental on your part and not a deliberate derailment. To be clear about the stakes:
This is the conclusion of the statement. This is the whole thrust he is working up to. These facts are selected in service of an argument to deny people voting rights on the basis of their race. If the word ‘threat’ was too valenced for you, how about ‘barrier’ or ‘impediment’ to democracy? This is the clear implication of the writing. This is the hypothesis he’s asking us to entertain: Australia would be a better country if Aborigines were banned from voting. Not just because their IQs are low, or because their society is regressive, but because they are retarded.
He’s not expressing curiosity in this post. He’s expressing bald-faced contempt (“Uncouth.. dullards”). I’m not a particularly polite person, and this is language I reserve for my enemies. His username is a transphobic slur. Why are you wasting your charity on this person?
Decoupling isn’t ignoring all relevant context within a statement to read it in the most generous possible light; decoupling is distinguishing the relevant from the irrelevant to better see the truth. Cremieux has displayed a pattern of abhorrent bigotry, and I am personally ashamed that my friends and colleagues would list him as an honored guest at their event.
for posterity, this is a new article on Lasker about a separate reddit account // more narrative details around his various proclaimed positions and identities over time
by default I don’t put a lot of stock in articles of this kind, and I think this one gets into some weird territory (like shaming him for being kind of a know-it-all teen for some reason?). still, seems good to share for added context.
-While this is plausibly true geographically, my understanding is that… most people in the US bubble the people they interact with regularly pretty heavily, such that I’m not sure I would expect this statement to be meaningfully true for a lot of people?
How many people over 3-4 standard deviations of IQ away from you do you feel like you interact with at a level where you feel confident that you could steer them away from an effective propaganda campaign / conspiracy theory rabbithole they’d fallen into? I don’t think that’s a nonzero number for me, and if it is, it’s low-single-digits...