-OUTLINE of hazardous part—
- * I would prefer to write a science book review for science nerds
- * But we don't have a discipline of Acutal Social Science
- * The _reason_ we don't have a discipline of Actual Social Science is because people are afraid that, e.g., talking about race and IQ will be used to justify oppression: can't oppress people on the basis of race if you mindfuck everyone into believing that race _doesn't exist_; structural oppression and actual differences can both exist at the same time! They're not contradicting each other!
- * Murray tries to spin himself as nonthreating, but it's not convincing
- * People who are mad at Murray about this book aren't really bad about the SNP scatterplots; they're still mad about Ch. 13 and 14 of _The Bell Curve_, and they think Murray is "hiding the ball"
+ * structural oppression and actual differences can both exist at the same time! They're not contradicting each other!
* I don't know how to build a better world, but my first step is to go a little meta and talk about why we can't talk, and take seriously the possible harms from talking, rather than just asserting that free speech and civil discourse is Actually Good the way the likes of Cofnas/Winegard/Murray do (being a nobody blogger probably helps; I have an excuse)
* A few things are actually _worse_ than the ball-hiders make it seem ("treat ppl as individuals" doesn't work; "IQ isn't morally valuable" doesn't work)
* Embryo selection looks _really important_; I don't want to give amunition to racists, but I need to talk about that—and the recent Dawkins brouhaha says we can't even talk about that; and the ways I'm worried about eugenics being misused aren't even on the radar
+* Murray says polygenic scores are like GDP ... I bet Ben and Michael would have something to say about that analogy!
+* "genders have been identified"
-Instead of just getting _the right answer for the right reasons_ (which can conclude _conditional_ answers: if what humans are like depends on _choices_ about what we teach our children, then there will still be a fact of the matter as to what choices lead to what outcomes), everyone and her dog has some fucking _agenda_.
+* need to talk about individual differences being non-threatening
-—and the people who claim not to have an agenda are lying. (The most I can credibly claim for myself is that I try to keep my agenda reasonably _minimalist_—and the reader must judge for herself to what extent I succeed.)
-
-The start of the introductions to the sex and race parts of the book do the obligatory historical context-setting of emphasizing that old-timey patriarchy and chattel slavery were Actually Really Bad.
-
-Needless to say (it _should_ be needless to say), I agree that old-timey patriarchy and chattel slavery were Actually Really Bad. However,
-I feel like Murray's overall positioning strategy is trying to have it both ways: challenging the orthodoxy, while downplaying the possibility of any [unfortunate implications](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnfortunateImplications) of the orthodoxy being false.
+—and the people who claim not to have an agenda are lying. (The most I can credibly claim for myself is that I try to keep my agenda reasonably _minimalist_—and the reader must judge for herself to what extent I succeed.)
I think this is sympathetic but [ultimately ineffective](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2016/08/ineffective-deconversion-pitch/). Clueless [presentist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis)) conservatism of the form, "Old-timey patriarchy and white supremacy were Really Bad, but that's over and everything is Fine Now" is unlikely to satisfy readers who _don't_ think everything is Fine Now, and suspect Murray of standing athwart history yelling "Stop!" rather than aspiring to Actual Social Science.
[parental SES also tracks parental genes]
-Murray says polygenic scores are like GDP ... I bet Ben and Michael would have something to say about that analogy!
+
Cognitive Enhancement and Network Effects: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11406-020-00189-3
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-This was the linkpost description text I initially drafted, before deciding that the "Straussian coyness" I occasionally succumb to is ultimately unbecoming.
+This was the linkpost description text I initially drafted, before deciding that the "Straussian coyness" I [occasionally]() [succumb]() to is ultimately unbecoming.
A Book Review
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff