What you’ve said is reasonable (and I’ve read your link before). I’ve also read that issues such as poor nutrition during pregnancy can have heritable effects lasting for several generations (so by this model, even if all the impoverished people in the world were suddenly given all the best resources, one wouldn’t expect to see significant intelligence/behavior improvements until their great-great-grandchildren or so). The suggestion of environmental influences was more an argument against genetic explanations as a curiosity stopper (as you said, there is no reason that there should be a singular mechanism of effect for the observed disparities).
In the context of this thread, though, I was replying to the question of whether simply pointing out the statistics might be seen as overt racism by outsiders. “Blacks are over all less intelligent and more prone to violent crime as compared to whites and Asians” sounds very much like what the educated nineteenth century racists said, the same way “I like eugenics” sounds like “I like genocide” to someone who could reasonably expect to be victimized by policies based on those ideas.
(Similarly, “Blacks are less likely to be employed compared to whites, all things equal” and “blacks are disproportionately likely to be targeted by police” sound like naive progressivism, but they are also true statements.)
I’ve also read that issues such as poor nutrition during pregnancy can have heritable effects lasting for several generations (so by this model, even if all the impoverished people in the world were suddenly given all the best resources, one wouldn’t expect to see significant intelligence/behavior improvements until their great-great-grandchildren or so).
For a bayesian who thinks about whether to hire a black person or a white one, it’s irrelevant whether intelligence difference are due to parents being poor and haven’t eaten enough food during pregnance or whether they are due to genetic differences.
As far as I understand the social justice movement they would approve of both justifications because both are essentially that the person gets judged by their background and get’s treated as a member of an underclass.
I can’t remember someone on lesswrong making a claim as strong as claiming that black should be stopped from procreating by eugenic measures. You find people who argue that overpopulation and African getting children is the central problem of humanity at the moment but nobody is making the argument directly.
Nutrition is discussed in the link as a possible explanation.
In the context of this thread, though, I was replying to the question of whether simply pointing out the statistics might be seen as overt racism by outsiders. “Blacks are over all less intelligent and more prone to violent crime as compared to whites and Asians” sounds very much like what the educated nineteenth century racists said, the same way “I like eugenics” sounds like “I like genocide” to someone who could reasonably expect to be victimized by policies based on those ideas.
What you’ve said is reasonable (and I’ve read your link before). I’ve also read that issues such as poor nutrition during pregnancy can have heritable effects lasting for several generations (so by this model, even if all the impoverished people in the world were suddenly given all the best resources, one wouldn’t expect to see significant intelligence/behavior improvements until their great-great-grandchildren or so). The suggestion of environmental influences was more an argument against genetic explanations as a curiosity stopper (as you said, there is no reason that there should be a singular mechanism of effect for the observed disparities).
In the context of this thread, though, I was replying to the question of whether simply pointing out the statistics might be seen as overt racism by outsiders. “Blacks are over all less intelligent and more prone to violent crime as compared to whites and Asians” sounds very much like what the educated nineteenth century racists said, the same way “I like eugenics” sounds like “I like genocide” to someone who could reasonably expect to be victimized by policies based on those ideas.
(Similarly, “Blacks are less likely to be employed compared to whites, all things equal” and “blacks are disproportionately likely to be targeted by police” sound like naive progressivism, but they are also true statements.)
For a bayesian who thinks about whether to hire a black person or a white one, it’s irrelevant whether intelligence difference are due to parents being poor and haven’t eaten enough food during pregnance or whether they are due to genetic differences.
As far as I understand the social justice movement they would approve of both justifications because both are essentially that the person gets judged by their background and get’s treated as a member of an underclass.
I can’t remember someone on lesswrong making a claim as strong as claiming that black should be stopped from procreating by eugenic measures. You find people who argue that overpopulation and African getting children is the central problem of humanity at the moment but nobody is making the argument directly.
Nutrition is discussed in the link as a possible explanation.
Fair enough.
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