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I've been making the point that conspiracy hypothesis is the appropriate term, in terms of how 'conspiracy theory' is generally used, for a while - glad to see you say that, too. It isn't just pedantry, but is a useful corrective for two reasons. First, it then implies reality testing - is the specific hypothesis under discussion correct? Second, it re-opens 'conspiracy theory' to appropriate redefinition, that being a general framework within which to understand the function of conspiracy in human society (and which can be drawn upon to examine any given conspiracy hypothesis).

So much for that. The specific subject matter of this essay was very interesting. Your perspective is eminently sensible. Yes, HBD is real, including for cognitive and behavioral traits; no, it is not fully determinative, to the contrary adaptations of custom and social structure can compensate for these differences and ameliorate their worst effects. If our society simply acknowledged these differences as a basic fact of reality, we could proceed from there to a frank discussion about how to correct for them. An obvious implication is that the different groups must be allowed to organize themselves internally to find the practices that work for them in order to succeed within contemporary society. Rather than, as is currently the case, being (dis-)organized by external actors. So for example, blacks should almost certainly adopt customs that strongly incentivize two parent, patriarchal family structures, with robust community enforcement against violent crime, and these norms should be enforced more strictly within their community than they are in groups with e.g. greater executive function. Of course there's an argument that the propensity towards female dominated low-attachment r-selection is also biologically influenced, this being the ancestral form; but if so that simply reinforces the argument that the social correction needs to be that much more strongly incentivized.

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Mar 16, 2023Edited
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If there are biological group differences, which there are, it follows that what works fine for one group won't for another. Attempting to force the same social solutions for all groups is a recipe for disaster.

As to group "essences", well again - if there are biologically grounded behavioral and cognitive tendencies, then yes, there are such group level essences.

There are also individuals of course.

Both of these things are true.

I don't know why this is hard.

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Perhaps you have some concrete examples of social solutions that would work for one group and not the other? I think I have an idea of what you mean, but I can’t put my finger on what sort of differences might come out.

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One obvious example is policing. If Eurasians have greater executive function, they don't need the same degree of policing in their communities, because they're much better at policing themselves internally, as it were. Applying the level of policing optimized for East Asians (which is pretty minimal) would probably lead to European communities being a bit more anarchic than Europeans prefer, and intolerably chaotic and violent for Africans. Conversely, applying the level of policing necessary to maintain a reasonable level of order in African communities to European or Asian communities makes the latter feel like tyrannical police states.

In general though I think it's difficult to be really specific about these kinds of things, since differences tend to be of degree rather than of kind. It's not a matter of 'policy X works for group A but absolutely does not work for group B'; rather it's more a matter of what mix of ingredients is best for one group versus another. This is why local or national autonomy (using nation in the original sense of the word) is so important, as it enables each group to work out for itself the set of arrangements that best suit their collective temperaments.

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I am not sure your policing example quite works. It would seem that the modern problem is a lack of policing in violent/poor urban areas, or at least a lack of removing the tiny violent minority. In places where there are extremely few criminals you can kind of get away with that, but in place inclined towards more you can't. However, increasing policing in a place with extremely few criminals should be almost unnoticeable to the inhabitants; they might see more police around, but they wouldn't interact with them in a criminal justicey kind of way.* I think the policing example is more supportive of Lorenzo's "the government can't be bothered to do their job when it is slightly hard" angle of argument; if your car gets stolen in the suburbs, police will show up, but if it gets stolen in some god forsaken ghetto, you might be out of luck.

To put it another way, I don't think one can argue there is less policing in say Singapore as compared to Compton. You actually get in trouble for vandalism in Singapore, after all.

I do generally agree with more localized autonomy and responsibility for things like law enforcement, social programs and the like. Large groups of humans are just too difficult to rule in a one size fits all manner. I don't know that the question comes down to race so much as culture, however. There is also the problem of how one goes from the current state to the future state. Take New York City: say you wanted to break it down into three or four smaller city units to make things more locally relevant. Do you break it down by geography? If you do that, you are still going to have a lot of racial mixing, so your solution of groups running themselves is still an issue. How do you avoid that?

Or how does one avoid people from a "high policing" area simply going next door to a "low policing" area to commit crimes before going home? There are ways of avoiding that, mostly "you need a pass to come in here" but then that leads to problems of closed borders within a country, and all the other issues of highly limited human movement.

All told, I am fairly well convinced that the racial angle is given more attention than its actual marginal effect deserves. More effective would be to have one set of rules and standards, have them apply to everyone, then enforce them. The main trouble with that seems to be that no governments want to actually do it. I think that is because making good rules is hard, and they try to make way too many of them, and so enforcement seems really horrible when it is actually done, the result being they hardly enforce anything, even the good rules. When half the rules are horrible, they make the other half look bad too.

*That is assuming the legislative law is sane enough such that it matches the social law pretty closely, instead of the "everyone is a criminal, we just don't bother to arrest them all" kind of legislative law that exists in many places.

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"It would seem that the modern problem is a lack of policing in violent/poor urban areas, or at least a lack of removing the tiny violent minority."

We all know what 'violent/poor urban areas' is code for in the US. Not long ago police departments tried using AI tools in order to prioritize coverage towards districts most in need of it, but they were forced to stop using those tools by the usual subjects because racist. It isn't just a matter of the cops not wanting to do their jobs. Political considerations actively interfere with them.

If policies were being set by mature adults who could acknowledge HBD as a factor - note the indefinite article - in human behaviour, rather than by ideologues running screaming in the other direction from the r-word, those differences (marginal or not) could be accounted for in a fashion that left everyone better off. Instead, the civic religion demands that a) we play make-believe that we're all the same from the neck up, and that therefore b) any differences in outcome must be due to systemic racism or some other boogieman, which then c) leads directly to policies such as defunding the police, affirmative action, CRT indoctrination, the normalization of victimhood culture, the welfare state (in turn creating dependency and encouraging unstable single-mother households), etc. ... all of which not only fail to correct the problems, but are massively counterproductive, leaving everyone worse off. Especially those they're supposedly intended to help.

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Mar 16, 2023
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>What you are proposing is ramping up racial strife by uniting even more against whites, who for some racist guilt reason are not allowed to unite back.

I said nothing of the sort.

>To stop race problems, you have to deal with individuals, not groups.

By ignoring group level differences? That's absurd.

>Because from evolutionary perspective, groups exist to fight other groups, not for internal unity for mutual help in absence of external enemy.

That's simply untrue. Intergroup competition is merely one mode in which group cooperation is favored. There are others. Ask the Amish about it.

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There is no conspiracy by WEF, Bilderberg etc. It is all entirely in the open.

What is happening is that the opponents of Internationalism are being attacked everywhere for creating conspiracy theories and hence dismissed as being lunatics. Undoubtedly there are lunatics out there but those opposed to Internationalism are routinely simply dismissed as being lunatics on the fringe and not having valid opinions. The accusation of "conspiracy theorist" is one of the principle weapons used by those who favour globalism. I think you make this point in your article.

The real problem is what we found in the UK during the "Brexit" debate. The Internationalists simply could not imagine how anyone could support leaving the EU. The top presenter in the BBC at the time said: " "Bosses, almost to a man and woman, could simply not grasp how anyone could have put a cross in the Leave box on the referendum ballot paper." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/21/john-humphrys-says-bbc-simply-could-not-grasp-anyone-would-vote/

The belief in Internationalism is so strong that it is like a religious faith.

See "The Globalist Threat" https://therenwhere.substack.com/p/the-globalist-threat

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Living in a rural area, I agree that there may be more intact 2 parent homes. However, in my community, most intact 2 parent homes are white, Asian or hispanic. The vast majority of children of African decent live in a single parent home headed by mom or grandma. At least in my community, I think the difference is connections. Everyone knows everyone and all their business. Most importantly, there are a number of adult male “father figures” who lead young boys through youth sports, church, boys and girls club, dad “watch dog” group in the public schools, coaches in secondary sports, etc. My boys have a 2 parent home but also benefited immensely from the exposure to and guidance from these amazing men. They range in age from 20 something to over 60. They have a variety of life experiences from being a dad/grandfather in the home or not in the home, to being a certified educator to having have served jail time for offenses such as possession of drugs, armed robbery, dui who are now struggling with the consequences of their choices in employment opportunities and they talk frankly with the kids about their mistakes. In my experience, the connection of people who are “somewheres” in a small town is a HuGE plus in raising up young men.

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Great point and Raj Chetty’s team has provided supporting data for that, at least in the sense of importance of present fathers benefiting even kids who do not have fathers at home.

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/38086/why-fathers-matter-to-the-future-of-young-black-men

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I really enjoyed this essay. I was wondering if there was a bait and switch happening at the beginning, but it tied together nicely. I especially appreciated your focus on the urban/rural divide; I have long thought that there was something especially wrong with cities, but this really crystallized the nature of the problem for me. Thank you!

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well, I like that you at least point to some hopeful solutions, but why the emphasis on inherent difference? It seems the sociohistorical and socioeconomic context of large metros gets you to the same place and solution space.

Idk, really enjoyed the "don't go there" piece.

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Here's my solution, simple but elegant:

1. Freedom of association. You can hire, enroll, sell to, have sex with anyone you want but don't expect the rest of to pay for the consequences. Those who live by sword, die by the sword.

2. No sexual or racial quotas.

3. Benign neglect, per Daniel Patrick Moynihan circa 1970.

Good luck fellas, you're going to need it.

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Interesting imsights

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Oh wow, didn't expect to see this, but I like it! We're at the point that no conspiracy is needed, simply a wrongheaded mass belief with no correcting factor. The truth can be papered over with sufficient media indoctrination and government program dollars, and you will like it!

I have my own version of these concepts that may be of interest, though they're basically the same:

my quaspiracy:

https://open.substack.com/pub/argomend/p/i-am-a-proud-quaspiracy-theorist?r=28g8km&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true

my vampires:

https://open.substack.com/pub/argomend/p/vampire-society?r=28g8km&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true

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My God, your ignorance of blacks is appalling wishful thinking reminiscent of the 1960s. Whites have learned nothing in over half a century.

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Mar 16, 2023Edited
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I am afraid I mainly reached my conclusions by reading various scholarly articles rather than books. No particular book comes to mind. Though anything by Thomas Sowell that touches on the subject is worth reading.

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