Hey Anon, leaving scattershot comments across different posts is making this discussion difficult. So I'm making a post all for you and pinning it the right side of the blog. Hopefully this will make the conversation easier to follow. If this doesn't work, we'll go back to scattershot comments.
Others are free to chime in as well.
Hey Rev,
ReplyDeleteI hope you had a good Christmas.
I haven't read "The 10,000 Year Explosion." Is it good and informative? Is it fairly easy to understand? What were the most surprising and interesting things about it? Anything you didn't like about it?
Have you finished watching "Make the World Flat" yet? Thoughts?
Hey Anon! Yup, it was Merry indeed. Happy New Year.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty darn good. It's at that right level of conversational writing that makes things easy to understand while not skimping on the details. I blew through the whole thing on two airplanes.
The most surprising thing was the repetition of things I've heard elsewhere. For example, I keep running into the fact that the Social Sciences say "race is nothing but a construct" while genetic scientists keep saying "well...not really." Also, there's an interesting bit about lactose tolerance as a major genetic advantage.
If there's anything I didn't like about it, it's that it ends a bit abruptly.
I've been slacking off on "Make the World Flat," because it's pretty depressing material for Christmas. He's got a very combative style and keeps going off on stuff I don't really care about (Black Inventor Commercial! NOOOOOOO!).
Hey Rev,
ReplyDeleteI thought him pointing out that the United Negro Collage Fund put out a commercial in which ALL their examples of black inventions turned out to be BS was important in that it showed some of the kinds of propaganda we are being fed. Propaganda that is for the most part unchallenged. What if the there was a 'United Honkey Collage Fund,' and it put out a commercial that clamed that white people invented gunpowder and the compass? You don't think that there would be news stories taking about how the 'UHCF' was stupid or lying and didn't know history. That it was trying to calm Chinese inventions as white inventions? I think it also shows that they couldn't find any really impressive inventions created by black people, and they knew they couldn't lie about really well known inventions like the airplane or the telephone, so they went with inventions that most people don't know the history of. It would be easy for Europeans or Asians to make a commercial listing inventions of their people that had a major impact on the world. Blacks, not so much. A black guy did invent the Super Soaker water-gun, though. So I guess that's something...
You say that the MTWF creator has a combative style. I don't think its all that combative, but I see what you are saying. You have to understand the context in which he made that video. There was a debate going on among a number of people on YouTube about those topics. The other side didn't know what the fuck they were talking about and would make BS arguments based on their own misunderstandings, and sometimes outright lies. One the prominent people on the other side misquoted Dawkins (it was Dawkins quoting someone he himself disagreed with, in order to attack that view, and the guy clamed that Dawkins said it, not the guy Dawkins disagreed with!). Another guy clamed to be a collage student studying genetics or evolution or something like that, but didn't understand simple things. He turned out to be an liar who didn't even understand what "heritability" was. He clamed that such and such researcher agreed with his definition of "heritability." So one of the guys on the HBD side e-mailed the named researcher to ask about this, and the researcher e-mailed back and said that he didn't agree with that definition, and knows of NO ONE in his field who agreed with the definition used by the anti-HBDer. He posted the e-mail exchange in a video. You can see the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf4ieIXQ3js
So the guy who made the MTWF video had been dealing with people who were outright lying to advance their anti-HBD agenda. They would use appeals to authority, and then misrepresent the authority. When those things were pointed out, there would be tons of weaselly damage control tactics on the anti-HBD side. For instance, on the Dawkins quote, the anti-HBD guy tried to claim first that Dawkins had changed his mind, without proof of this, and then tried to say that he had really been 'testing' the HBDers somehow or something. So you can understand why the HBDers may sound a bit combative sometimes since their opponents were always lying.
It is kind of like how Steven Jay Gould and Franz Boas committed scientific fraud to advance egalitarian views. These are people who are still held in high regard by leftists.
DeleteEven if you think the information in "Make the World Flat" is depressing material, do you have any major substantive issues with any of his main points? Sometimes the truth is depressing, but making policy decisions based on lies will be much more depressing in the long run. See: "No Child Left Behind." See: "Head Start." See: "The Community Reinvestment Act" and Bush's "Ownership Society." All of those programs and ideas failed due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the differing natures of different populations of people. But at least they where Politically Correct, so the actual results of those policies be damned! We aren't allowed to learn from those failures, oh no! That wouldn't be PC! It's better to keep failing over and over again, and waste tons and tons of resources in the process then be un-PC.
Political Correctness is the war on noticing.
Thoughts?
I found the video that shows the anti-HBDer misquoting Dawkins:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H2oxTH-hB0&feature=youtu.be
You see the levels of dishonesty anti-HBDers have to sink to in order to try to defend their stupid, stupid ideas.
BTW, these are some of the things I point to to show that atheists can be just as stupid and dogmatic as any religious person. Leftist egalitarian atheists are really no better then young-earth creationists. These are people I have no problem calling 'atheistkult.' Members of atheistkult tend to have the following attributes:
DeleteThey will shit all over Christianity and Creationism,talking about how stupid and evil they are, but yet will make excuses for Islam and Muslims.
They will make fun of Creationists for being anti-evolution/anti-science, but will claim that evolution/natural selection had no impact on the brains of different populations of humans who evolved in different environments around the world. Any disparity between races is due to racism/white supremacist power structure. Even the disparities that favor non-whites.
They are most often pro-feminism, and claim that western women are oppressed. Any disparity between sexes are due to sexism/patriarchy. Even the disparities that favor women.
Basically they are PC drones who just happen to be atheists, but think that the fact that they are atheist makes them smart and 'freethinkers' or 'skeptics' but they don't really ever publicly question views that aren't fashionable in the so called 'social sciences' departments at most universities. They just regurgitate the Cultural Marxist views they were told were the 'correct' views to have. This leads to a crazy, self contradictory belief system.
Anti-Christian, Pro or neutral in regard to Islam.
Pro-Feminism, but Pro or neutral in regard to Islam.
Anti-Creationism, claim to be pro-evolution, but not in regard to humans.
They will misrepresent and lie when called out on their contradictory and stupid ideas. They will engage in appeals to authority and cite studies to back their views during an argument, but later, when you have a chance to check their sources, they are either really bad in methodology, or say to opposite of what the athistkultist said it said.
Anyway, I hope you have a great new year! Also, I hope that you have learned some things from our conversation.
Have you finished the "Make the World Flat" video yet?
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year!
Whether or not the UNCF lied about black inventors is sort of immaterial to me because it's not what I came to the video for. I get that he's trying to establish that the media lies, but really. I still remember my mother teaching us kids to point at the television and chant "you lie!"
ReplyDeleteIf I had to mount a defense for the UNCF (I don't have to, but it might be fun), here's how it would look:
1). They were going for rhetoric over dialect.
2). "Black inventors" sounds more impressive than "blacks who contributed design improvements to existing inventions."
3). ????
4). Profit!
Again, I agree that a commercial about white inventors would get ripped to shreds. But consider the wider context. The point of the commercial was to raise awareness about black contributions to tech/science (to encourage people to give the UNCF money). The claim was rhetorically bumped up from "contributions" to "original inventor," which rendered the claim dialectically untrue.
Stepping back to the (assumed) original intention - is there anything wrong with highlighting black contributions to science/tech? Sure, the UNCF shot themselves in the foot by making false claims. But is there an equal need to raise awareness of white contributions to science?
Anyway, the above is all devil's advocacy (raising awareness of Diabolical-American issues? Infernal Justice Warrior?), so take it or leave it.
He does reference that he's responding to an earlier debate, so I'm willing to show some understanding there. He's responding to attacks, so he attacks back. I realize that I'm letting mah feelz affect me - but then, I don't suppose it's rational to ignore teh feelz that are affecting you.
I swear on my future grave to finish "Make the World Flat" this week.
As for atheists - I'm well past the delusion that the majority of humans join ideological groups for rational reasons. Humans are not rational animals, they are animals occasionally capable of rationality.
ReplyDeleteMost of the atheists and agnostics I know are a mix of "burned by the church" and "fuck society." The rational arguments against the existence of a divinity enter after the fact.
Of course, most of the Christians I know are a mix of "because my parents were" and "have you ever looked at a mountain/sunrise/newborn baby and just KNOWN?"
Hey,
Delete"The point of the commercial was to raise awareness about black contributions to tech/science (to encourage people to give the UNCF money). The claim was rhetorically bumped up from "contributions" to "original inventor," which rendered the claim dialectically untrue.
Stepping back to the (assumed) original intention - is there anything wrong with highlighting black contributions to science/tech?"
I think the point is that they couldn't find any really impressive black inventors or inventions. (Which I think is a kind of real-world demonstration of blacks having lower IQs.) They could have put the Super-Soaker up as a real black invention, but they didn't. The traffic signal that was invented by a black guy was in no way a contribution to the modern traffic signal. They would have been better off just talking about Ben Carson. At least he really did make contributions to medical science.
"As for atheists - I'm well past the delusion that the majority of humans join ideological groups for rational reasons. Humans are not rational animals, they are animals occasionally capable of rationality."
I agree on the humans/rationality thing. The thing about atheism is it should NOT be an ideological group at all. Just like NOT stamp collecting isn't a hobby. But you have leftist atheists who try to turn it into a weird left-wing religion. A couple years back there were left-wing atheists trying to browbeat the atheist 'community' into joining something called "Atheism Plus." They were claiming that atheism is also about feminism and anti-racism of the SJW verity. They were just a bunch of SJWs trying to subvert and take over successful things, just like they have with the university system and they have been recently trying to do with video games.
I was never "burned by the church" and never had a "fuck society" attitude, but you are right, some are like that. I think that most of the leftist atheists just didn't like 'god's' standards of behavior, and the rationalization came later. For me, it was the contradictions and the lack of evidence that caused me to reject Christianity. For a while I was angry at it because I felt I had been lied to, but now I think that I have a better understanding (I hope) of what really causes people to believe in religion and have a greater appreciation for at least some parts of Christianity, even if I think it is, by and large, untrue. In fact, I think that atheism may be a maladaptive trait, in that atheists tend to have less children then most religious people, so they pass on less of the traits that make people atheist into the next generation. This is unfortunate, as atheists tend to have higher IQs then the religious. The Mormons may have wacky beliefs, but you can't deny that by and large, they have happy, prosperous, successful families.
I used to be an egalitarian, and fell much more on the leftist side of the political debate, to the point that 10 years ago I thought that everyone should fuck everyone else until we are all the same color. Of course that was before I ever really looked into the HBD stuff. Looked into what really causes inequity. Seen how 'the establishment' tries to prevent ligament questions from being asked and ligament science from being done or that information released.
DeleteBTW, the is an interesting video that I could find for you if you want, that shows the differences between Japanese and Australian Aboriginal newborns. AA newborns are crawling around, while Japanese newborns can't even lift their own heads. It shows that different groups of people have different biological life histories. AA children grow up faster then Japanese children. We see that AA enter physical maturity faster then blacks, who enter faster then mestizos, who enter faster then whites, who enter faster then NE Asians. We see this same pattern among primates, with chimps maturating faster then humans. Extending childhood gives the brain more time to develop, but means that the children must be taken care of longer.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on "Make the World Flat" after this week.
Take care.
*legitimate, not ligament. Fucking auto spell correct.
Delete"I think the point is that they couldn't find any really impressive black inventors or inventions."
ReplyDeleteThey couldn't find any that were immediately impressive and recognizable. You mentioned Ben Carson - I know he's some sort of important neurosurgeon, but damned if I understand any of his contributions to the field. They went with "recognizability of invention" instead of "actual importance of black contribution."
A 1-second Google search came up with this: http://blackinventor.com/
I haven't vetted the site for factualness yet, but there are black inventors/scientists/innovators other than the ones in that commercial.
"Atheism Plus"
Oh man. "Join our cult because joining cults is for the irrational!"
Maybe I'm blinded by my genes, but religion in general and Christianity in particular have always seemed rational to me. It's neither here nor there, but I have trouble comprehending the argument from irrationality.
"Leftism, Egalitarianism, etc."
I may have already mentioned this, but a big issue for me is that my background is in the humanities/social sciences. That means two things:
1). This information directly contradicts the majority of scholarly discourse on race I have ever read.
2). I don't have the scientific background to address these claims directly, other than to say "But these non-scientists said that's not true!"
I'm going to try to make some time later today to write up further thoughts on MTWF.
"They couldn't find any that were immediately impressive and recognizable. You mentioned Ben Carson - I know he's some sort of important neurosurgeon, but damned if I understand any of his contributions to the field."
DeleteHe was part of a team that first separated twins conjoined at the head.
"A 1-second Google search came up with this: http://blackinventor.com/
I haven't vetted the site for factualness yet, but there are black inventors/scientists/innovators other than the ones in that commercial."
https://whitelocust.wordpress.com/black-invention-myths/
debunks many of those claims. For instance, the top person listed at blackinventor.com is Charles Drew, and it claims that he was the pioneer of the modern blood bank. Well that is wrong.
During World War I, Dr. Oswald H. Robertson of the US army preserved blood in a citrate-glucose solution and stored it in cooled containers for later transfusion. This was the first use of “banked” blood.
"Maybe I'm blinded by my genes, but religion in general and Christianity in particular have always seemed rational to me."
Talking snake.... Need I go on? I hope not because debunking Christianity doesn't really interest me anymore.
"I may have already mentioned this, but a big issue for me is that my background is in the humanities/social sciences."
DeleteSomething worth reading about the corrupt so called ‘social sciences':
“How a rebellious scientist uncovered the surprising truth about stereotypes”
A section:
“His fellow psychologists shifted in their seats. Jussim pointed out that the level of obfuscation the authors went to, in order to disguise their actual data, was intense. Statistical techniques appeared to have been chosen that would hide the study’s true results. And it appeared that no peer reviewers, or journal editors, took the time, or went to the effort of scrutinizing the study in a way that was sufficient to identify the bold misrepresentations.
While the authors’ political motivations for publishing the paper were obvious, it was the lax attitude on behalf of peer reviewers – Jussim suggested – that was at the heart of the problems within social psychology. The field had become a community in which political values and moral aims were shared, leading to an asymmetry in which studies that reinforced left-wing narratives had come to be disproportionately represented in the literature. And this was not, to quote Stephen Colbert, because “reality had a liberal bias”. It was because social psychology had a liberal bias.”
Read the whole thing at:
http://quillette.com/2015/12/04/rebellious-scientist-surprising-truth-about-stereotypes/
"1). This information directly contradicts the majority of scholarly discourse on race I have ever read.
2). I don't have the scientific background to address these claims directly, other than to say "But these non-scientists said that's not true!""
Well, yeah, just like most of the stuff you would have read during Galileo's time would have said that the idea that the Earth moves around the Sun was crazy. Everyone KNOWS that the Sun moves around the Earth! They had complex models and justifications for that view.
"I'm going to try to make some time later today to write up further thoughts on MTWF."
Looking forward to it.
"Black Inventors"
ReplyDeleteUpon further research, Drew was the first to transition from "test tube methods into the first successful technique for mass production."
So again, did he "invent" blood transfusions? No. James Blundell made the first successful blood transfusion, Robertson, made the first blood bank. But Drew did vastly expand and improve the capabilities of blood banks. Calling him "Pioneer of the Modern Blood Bank" is not disingenuous.
"Talking Snakes"
Oh man, I could very easily go on and on about why talking snakes make perfect sense, but I suppose that would belong in a different comment thread.
"Galileo"
Again, Galileo's model was crap, filled with more inconsistencies than the then-current geocentric model. He was ultimately proven correct but, at the time, his math was objectively worse.
I'm not sure why Galileo is so triggering to me, but alas.
Look, there are a ton of black invention myths that I could point out. Do you really want me to go down the list?
DeleteYou are really going to defend talking snakes? Oh, I know, magic!
How did the marsupials get from where the ark landed to Australia? How did fresh water and salt water fish survive the flood?
If god is all knowing and perfect, why is he always changing his mind in the Bible? Why is the Bible full of contradictions?
You know what, never mind. This isn't what I am here for.
The point about Galileo was that he was attacked for heresy, and the establishment did what they could to silence him. That is like what happens to people today who point out evidence that goes against the PC orthodoxy. If the PC orthodoxy is so self-evidently correct, then they wouldn't need to try to silence critics.
Make the World Flat
ReplyDeleteWhat to say, what to say.
I’m going to start by saying what everyone already knows: I am a hostile witness. MTWF argues in favor of things that I very dearly want not to be true, and until recently, had never seriously considered.
I am also not particularly qualified to judge the truth claims of MTWF as I have at best a layman’s understanding of genetics. However, I do recognize the internal consistency and overall logicalness of its line of thinking.
One of the most demolishing truths in MTWF is one that also appears in The 10,000 Year Explosion: while it is true that there is more genetic difference between two members of one race than two members of two different races, the same can be said of breeds of dogs. And no one would deny that part of the behavioral differences between two breeds of dogs are shaped by genetics.
Related to this is the importance of scale. Looking at two individuals of whatever races can yield wildly varying results…but the larger of a scale you pull out to, the more of a consistent pattern emerges.
This is extremely depressing, since that factoid (“more genetic difference…”) was an extremely easy mental escape hatch. And because genetics is not something I particularly care about, an escape hatch was all I (thought I) needed.
A second demolishing truth is that the “extreme egalitarian” view (ie, genetics contributes nothing to intelligence) is at complete odds with the current scientific consensus. I was entirely unaware of this, as I think the majority of people are unaware. Is this behind the current surge in ‘science is racist and oppressive’ meme? One wonders if it is a conscious response or a latent resistance.
Since I’m not qualified to judge the genetic truth claims of MTWF, I’m going to take them with a grain of salt, but it will be interesting to see if I can find effective counter-arguments. One thing that looking at this material (not just MTWF, but most certainly including it) has accomplished is moving me even more solidly into the meritocratic camp.
One final thought – there are marked similarities between the “Whites are Oppressing Blacks” meme and the “Jews are Oppressing Whites” meme. If the genetic claims of MTWF are true, I wonder if there is a tendency for less intelligent groups (Blacks to Whites, Whites to Ashkenazi Jews) to view the more effective social strategies of more intelligent groups as systematized oppression. Just a thought.
I would like to thank Anon for bringing this material to my attention and hounding me to see it through to the end. Now let’s see if I can see the counter-arguments through to the end as well.
"while it is true that there is more genetic difference between two members of one race than two members of two different races, the same can be said of breeds of dogs."
DeleteI think you have a misunderstanding here. There is greater genetic variation within a racial/ethnic population then between the AVERAGES of DIFFERENT racial/ethnic populations. Think about it like this. There is greater variation in hight within the male sex and the female sex then between the AVERAGES of men and women. Just because there are some short men and some tall women, doesn't mean that there isn't a hight difference between males and females, nor does it mean that it isn't biological. When you hear people make the 'more variation within then between' line of argumentation, well that argument applies to the hight of the sexes, too. It is just as silly as that.
A random white person is much more likely to be more genetically like another random white person then they are to be like a random black person.
"And no one would deny that part of the behavioral differences between two breeds of dogs are shaped by genetics."
Intelligence, too.
"A second demolishing truth is that the “extreme egalitarian” view (ie, genetics contributes nothing to intelligence) is at complete odds with the current scientific consensus. I was entirely unaware of this, as I think the majority of people are unaware."
I find it strange that anyone could believe that genetics DIDN'T contribute to intelligence. I don't care how much schooling you try to give a retard, they are still a retard. I don't care how much schooling you try to give a rat, it is still a rat and will never understand Calculus due to its GENETIC limitations (most people will never understand Calculus, either).
"there are marked similarities between the “Whites are Oppressing Blacks” meme and the “Jews are Oppressing Whites” meme."
DeleteYes there is.
"If the genetic claims of MTWF are true, I wonder if there is a tendency for less intelligent groups (Blacks to Whites, Whites to Ashkenazi Jews) to view the more effective social strategies of more intelligent groups as systematized oppression."
Yes there is. You see it everywhere in the world. The Chinese in south east Asia, the Igbo people in Nigeria,....
There are some differences though. For instance In places like Malaysia the Chinese are a successful minority, and are discriminated against by law in favor of the majority Malays. The overseas Chinese in every country tend to be UNDER-represented in politics and the media in relation to their numbers, while Jews tend to be massively OVER-represented in politics and the media in relation to their numbers. Jewish organizations tend to push for mass third world immigration into all western countries EXCEPT Israel, where they build huge walls and deport blacks. Those they can't deport, they try to sterilize. I think that is part of the reason some people have an issue with Jewish influence. Plus the new Star Wars sucked.
I personally think that Jews have been, on balance, a very positive group to have in the west in general and the USA in particular. They have done a lot for science and many other fields of work. I don't think there is some worldwide evil Jewish conspiracy or something like that, but I do understand why some people are critical of SOME Jews. It does seem as though about 95% of the time when there is an anti-white, anti-western organization, conference, or written piece of work, a Jewish person was behind it. Marxism and Cultural Marxism were both created by Jewish people. It is hard not to notice those things if one is paying attention. It does bother me that many Jewish groups have been pushing for Europe to bring in more and more Muslims while at the same time Jews are leaving Europe in record numbers to move to Israel due to all the Muslims coming into Europe.
"I would like to thank Anon for bringing this material to my attention and hounding me to see it through to the end."
You are welcome. I hope you keep learning.
"Now let’s see if I can see the counter-arguments through to the end as well."
What are you going to be looking at?
You do so a fairly clean break between Jews who want to be left alone and do their thing and Jews who want to play at cultural engineers. You see a similar break between Whites who want to do their thing and, say, Angela Merkle.
DeleteI'm not sure where I'm going to look next. I've been probing my liberal friends for biological counterarguments, and they keep coming back with social studies material. It's a little disheartening.
"I find it strange that anyone could believe that genetics DIDN'T contribute to intelligence. I don't care how much schooling you try to give a retard, they are still a retard. I don't care how much schooling you try to give a rat, it is still a rat and will never understand Calculus due to its GENETIC limitations (most people will never understand Calculus, either)."
ReplyDeletePeople understand there is a genetic difference between humans and rats. But how many people think about the genetic differences between European rats and Australian rats, and whether this contributes to difference in intelligence? Probably a handful of rat researchers.
People fear the short distance between "less intelligent subgroup of humans" and "sub-humans."