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Sweetleaf
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06 Jul 2014, 11:20 pm

Raptor wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
Beginning to think its physically impossible for a lot of conservatives to think of anything.

Yeah, but we make up for our stupidity by being extra mean. :twisted:


mmmm hmmm... :|


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The_Walrus
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08 Jul 2014, 8:51 am

NobodyKnows wrote:
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The reason you know "scientific racism" is rubbish? Academic consensus!


Yes, consensus is the reason, but not in a good way. We decided as a society that it's wrong to suggest a racial difference, but only after a lot of uneducated black people got themselves arrested and beaten and it looked really bad. So not only did the academic world not drive this change, but the consensus was reached politically rather than scientifically. We actually don't know that it was rubbish (at least not from the data). On the contrary, we just switched from a racist rationalization to an anti-racist rationalization. For all I know, black people might be smarter than white people.

Well, there is a considerable amount of data on this. Being a somewhat controversial topic, it has naturally attracted a lot of study.

Phrenology is obvious rubbish; the brain is not a muscle, so it does not grow with use and shrink with disuse. Instead, changes happen at a microscopic neurological level.
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Eugenics, of course, is a moral issue rather than a factual one, so the support of "academics" is moot.


The "scientific racism" issue was also settled with moral arguments rather than factual ones.

No, enacting racist policies was settled using moral arguments. You can't use morals to prove that black people are just as smart as while people, you need to use facts.

These studies tend to be very much centred on America, whereas the majority of genetic diversity amongst humans exists in Africa and is hard to fairly sample by studying people of African descent in America. However, it is hard to deny that, when it comes to intelligence tests, Asian-Americans (i.e. those from the Far East) outscore white Americans, who outscore Native Americans, who outscore African Americans. There are several possible explanations, including some evidence that genes might play a role, but the gaps between races are closing quite dramatically, which is reasonable evidence that these are not inherent differences. The Wikipedia article is a really good read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence



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08 Jul 2014, 9:26 am

I don't believe in generalizations. I go by the individual. To say that "black people are stupid/smart" is irrelevant to me when I'm relating to an actual individual black person. He might be stupid, he might be smart--who cares what the studies say--it's irrelevant to my relationship witht that person.



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08 Jul 2014, 9:52 am

Why would you imagine that a slight difference in average starting intelligence between populations makes any difference to anything? Propaganda, poverty, a deliberately sub-standard education for future wage slaves, the mentally stultifying conditions of most jobs, and other factors mean that humans seldom get to fully utilise whatever natural intelligence they happened to be born with anyway.



NobodyKnows
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08 Jul 2014, 11:12 am

Stannis wrote:
Why would you imagine that a slight difference in average starting intelligence between populations makes any difference to anything? Propaganda, poverty, a deliberately sub-standard education for future wage slaves, the mentally stultifying conditions of most jobs, and other factors mean that humans seldom get to fully utilise whatever natural intelligence they happened to be born with anyway.


Why not give yourself the same benefit of doubt? Nearly everyone that I've met with an ASD label grew up in a dysfunctional environment. Why assume that you're genetically crippled?



Stannis
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08 Jul 2014, 12:50 pm

NobodyKnows wrote:
Stannis wrote:
Why would you imagine that a slight difference in average starting intelligence between populations makes any difference to anything? Propaganda, poverty, a deliberately sub-standard education for future wage slaves, the mentally stultifying conditions of most jobs, and other factors mean that humans seldom get to fully utilise whatever natural intelligence they happened to be born with anyway.


Why not give yourself the same benefit of doubt? Nearly everyone that I've met with an ASD label grew up in a dysfunctional environment. Why assume that you're genetically crippled?


I don't assume that all ASDs belong under the same banner, that it's always genetic, that some ASD symptoms couldn't be caused by upbringing, or even that I have an ASD. I just happen to fulfil diagnostic criteria for whatever reason.

I think whether or not high functioning variants are "crippling" depends largely on how willing your community is to accommodate idiosyncratic behaviour.



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08 Jul 2014, 2:31 pm

Stannis wrote:
NobodyKnows wrote:
Stannis wrote:
Why would you imagine that a slight difference in average starting intelligence between populations makes any difference to anything? Propaganda, poverty, a deliberately sub-standard education for future wage slaves, the mentally stultifying conditions of most jobs, and other factors mean that humans seldom get to fully utilise whatever natural intelligence they happened to be born with anyway.


Why not give yourself the same benefit of doubt? Nearly everyone that I've met with an ASD label grew up in a dysfunctional environment. Why assume that you're genetically crippled?


I don't assume that all ASDs belong under the same banner, that it's always genetic, that some ASD symptoms couldn't be caused by upbringing, or even that I have an ASD. I just happen to fulfil diagnostic criteria for whatever reason.

I think whether or not high functioning variants are "crippling" depends largely on how willing your community is to accommodate idiosyncratic behaviour.


Whether we like to always concede the fact to ourselves or not with all our talk about Aspie pride, but the fact remains, Asperger's syndrome is a developmental disorder. Some of us will accomplish great things, like Bill Gates or Albert Einstein. Many others will spend a lifetime in their parent's basement. Some will be somewhere in between, like H.P. Lovecraft, Emily Dickinson, or Robert E. Howard. We just aren't all going to have a Hitlerian/Randian Will-To-Power; and while we shouldn't be expected to, it's great when we can.


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Sigbold
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15 Jul 2014, 11:13 am

BraveMurderDay wrote:
[cut out the op]


I think it safe to presume that with liberal you mean as it means in the present American political context, where it cover all label for generic center left.

RushKing wrote:
When I grew anti-capitalist 3 years ago.


Indeed, being a liberal requires a strong believe in the good of the free-market. If one becomes skeptical of it one can no longer be a liberal. Since a supporter of liberalism would also subscribe to the line of the freer the markets, the freer the people. and ignore the potential harmful effects it might have (outside the sphere of economics).



trollcatman
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15 Jul 2014, 12:01 pm

NobodyKnows wrote:
wittgenstein wrote:
Hmmmmmmmmmmm,
All college professors are liberals and all journalists are liberals. OK , there is a conspiracy going on. Every scientific organization in the world affirms AGW. HMMMMMMM, Damn those Masons and Illuminati!


Academic consensus has an ugly track record. Eugenics was popular in academia in the early 1920s. There's a street in Minneapolis named after the founder of the Minnesota Eugenics Society, Charles Fremont Dight: http://libguides.mnhs.org/eugenics

Continental drift was mocked for a long time. The discoverer of the alternative compliment system (part of the immune system) was treated so badly that he committed suicide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pillemer The European intelligentsia used measurements of Africans' cranial diameters to argue that they were congenitally stupid, even though they had no evidence of causation.

The fact that a group of people make a pretense of being smart doesn't mean that they are. The fact that they have persuasive arguments doesn't make those arguments right.


The things you mention are evidence of a great track record: they got rid of those stupid ideas because they were false. That's how it works, once something gets disproven you get rid of it.
And because of science we no longer practice bloodletting, we can microwave our food and have GPS.



ruveyn
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15 Jul 2014, 4:13 pm

I have been tire of pinko stinko commie loving America hating liberal progressives for 4 decades.

ruveyn



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15 Jul 2014, 4:46 pm

ruveyn wrote:
I have been tire of pinko stinko commie loving America hating liberal progressives for 4 decades.

ruveyn


May they keep up their sterling work for four more!


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15 Jul 2014, 7:16 pm

ruveyn wrote:
I have been tire of pinko stinko commie loving America hating liberal progressives for 4 decades.

ruveyn


What makes progressives America hating? Progressives speaking up against certain foreign or domestic injustices is the exact opposite of hating America, as they only want their country to live up to the rhetoric.


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Shizz
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15 Jul 2014, 8:24 pm

I'm a recovering liberal. Now I'm a complete misanthrope.



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15 Jul 2014, 9:47 pm

/\ Sometimes I feel like I'm entering a transitional zone between being a conservaive and total misanthrop... :?


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15 Jul 2014, 10:00 pm

Raptor wrote:
/\ Sometimes I feel like I'm entering a transitional zone between being a conservaive and total misanthrop... :?


Aren't you already there? :lol:


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Raptor
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15 Jul 2014, 11:07 pm

/\ No, I'll always stay conservative enough to keep you liberals in a state of perpetual anger. :P


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