Why we should Talk about IQ and Race (For Compassion, not Racism)

Posted by CaptainKirk 6 years, 4 months ago to Politics
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Stefan Molyneux made this point in his podcast on what is happening is South Africa.
Where the government is LYING and saying the Whites that own the farms, came here and BRUTALLY KILLED the blacks, and stole their land.

The truth is that they came when the land was basically barren, and could not be farmed. The built irrigation, and made the property productive.
Every farmer feeds about 2,000 people for a year. When they are done killing and chasing these people away, the farms will be taken over. And
they will NOT get the same results... And MILLIONS will starve. It has already started.

So, back to the point. If you can accept that the Black people in South Africa have an AVERAGE IQ around 75... You start to realize the problem.
The US Army will not take you if you are below 83! Because you make more mistakes, and have a tough time following directions, especially making
a judgement call...

This is NOT to insult these people. Nobody should call Japanese people SHORT using Norwegian standards of height.
The challenge we face is that we have to understand what to do here...

We have to find a way to make those people with lower IQs useful in society, and to root out the causes of this (I believe it is probably Environmental,
because if you have to be physically strong/fast to survive, and IQ does not help, but may hurt your chances of surviving... Nature adjusts for that).

But if we CANNOT Talk about it without being called Racist... It's just wrong.

Also, a side note. Whites are now a Minority in South Africa (Mentioned on the podcast), and they are NOT IMPLEMENTING ANY rules to make sure Whites get jobs ahead of the Majority? In fact, the same rules that are the opposite are still in effect. To the detriment of many companies.

I am curious where we stand on a Society and how they handle 10% of the population that cannot effectively work a real job because of IQ Deficiency?
(ie, it is NOT their fault... What do we do?)

Thanks


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  • Posted by Solver 6 years, 4 months ago
    Sounds like there’s some serious racism going on in South Africa. That is unless you’ve been convinced that some colors of people can’t be racist.
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  • Posted by term2 6 years, 3 months ago
    I don’t really know if there are average IQ LEVELS that are different for various races. But I can tell you there are substantial differences in IQ from person to person- from personal experience. Some people just aren’t suited for rocket science jobs. There are so many jobs out there , it’s likely that everyone can find something they can do well.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 3 months ago
      If you watch Jorden Peterson talk about this, his point is that even the military has a lower limit (83 or 85), below which they wont take you.
      BECAUSE You cannot be successfully trained and reliably counted on to perform.

      And his point in his lectures is. In America, this is 10% of the population. So 36 Million people. And what should we do.

      My first thought, of course, was sterilization, because if we give them assistance, then we are going to have them getting married to eachother...
      And we are going to get two 80 IQ people making a 60...

      Also, research is done, tracking IQs across countries. MANY countries, like Somalia have very little diversity, and I believe the last quoted number was 76.

      ==
      One Dilemma on 100 IQ. Which was considered average... Is that populations change. You can have more people with a higher IQ than years ago.

      Finally, ONE reason I believe in IQ, is because it tests pattern recognition. And if you had to describe low to high intelligence, the simplest description is the complexity of its ability to recognize patterns. And to use those patterns to predict. I was literally thinking of doing my masters on this concept in computers.

      Now, IQ has ONLY that meaning. I know LOSERS who have high IQs... I know amazing people who are probably 95 IQ, but have so much grit, and personality that they are outstanding in what they do. Change the game on them, and they take quite a while to re-figure the new game out, but play it too...

      But Jordan Peterson even has a chart showing that the average IQ of people who succeed in complicated Careers, like Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, Computer Programmers... All require IQs above 100 to really be successful. And they can test those and correlate them.
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      • Posted by term2 6 years, 3 months ago
        I think an interviewer makes an unofficial assessment of a candidates suitability for a job. Maybe an IQ test would help that
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        • Posted by 6 years, 3 months ago
          IQ Testing by companies is not allowed in the US by law...
          If it was, the University System would have been drained of the High IQ people it was seeking back then.
          I don't believe it is an accident... Most laws are not...
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          • Posted by term2 6 years, 3 months ago
            If it was allowed, I bet it would be declared racist. There are a lot of other ways to determine how “smart” a person is- at least qualitatively. Upon meeting someone it’s not too hard to see if the elevator goes all the way to the top

            I would not be surprised at all to find differences in average IQ from one race to another. The liberals would have a fit with findings like that for sure
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  • Posted by $ Stormi 6 years, 3 months ago
    We have been tuaght to help Africans since I was in high school. Since I understood reason even then, I id not see how just feeding them, served their progression.I wondered why not teach them to farm and to use birth control, but anthropologist love undeveloped people.Now, they are no better off. In fact, their IQ has nto risen while the US's has fallen. The AVERAGE doctor is about 110, average teachers and media person somewhat below that. That means critical thinking skills, the one thing tie to IQ is lacking. People can function with mediocre IQ, but they can't see the big picture, Obama was average, lower than Bush Jr. IQ does matter, but it is not racist. Sowell is brillian. Shelby Steele can interpret situations. But on whole, our society has bred blacks who have a lower IQ than whites or Hispanics. It is how they are raised befor school, and how much damage gov. schools do to lower it. Kids need to talk with adults, before they start school, learn about conversation, problem solving and encouraged to ask why. It is their only chance, as schools will discourage all but herd mentality.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 6 years, 3 months ago
    While I agree that the problem is real, I'm not so convinced that the problem is low IQ. It doesn't take a country of Einsteins to build roads and dams and farms - only a commitment to doing the best one can and leaving everyone else to do the same. To me, THAT is the problem in South Africa: the blame game. They keep trying to make everything in history about racism instead of moving on. And so the pendulum is swinging back the other way.

    This very same thing played out after the Russian Revolution, BTW. The Ukraine was completely depopulated of its hard-working farmers, who were shipped off to gulags and murdered. The politically-connected were then given the land, but these self-important and politically-connected elites didn't have a clue how to grow crops, so they produced a pittance of what the experienced farmers could. I don't expect South Africa to have any better outcome than Russia did. My bet is that within 20 years we'll see more riots and instability in South Africa - only this time it will be their own faults. It won't stop them from blaming, though.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 3 months ago
      This is where it gets interesting.
      IQ is generally linked to the ability to Delay Gratification.

      If you know that you have 12 jars of food, and 9 months to live off of them until spring... You'd have to have a very low IQ to eat all 9 jars in the first month!
      But NATURE Fixes that Pretty Quick...

      So, yes, you could make a lot of money setting up a Legit company. But you can make better money quicker by being as corrupt as everyone else.
      Now, there are MANY High IQ Corrupt people out there. But among other High IQ people, they get caught a bit faster.

      This lack of Delayed Gratification and this Culture of LOOTING is to blame. But you have to be pretty smart to realize if you stop looting, then EVERYONE will do better. And its a REALLY hard sell to someone who CANNOT hold a job because they are freaking idiots (technical IQ term).

      Oh, and you say you don't need a decent IQ to build a road.. The logistics planning on getting the materials there in time so everyone isn't standing around waiting is a HUGE task in building these roads. Also, 10% of the budget is to make temporary roads, and label all the Alternate routes, etc.

      This level of planning in an 80 IQ person is like PhD work...

      IQ Doesn't determine your value, but it shows strong tendencies towards when you will become a bad fit (we used to call it the Peter Principal, that you get promoted until you fail). But I want to do a future whole piece on IQ and what Randians have said, etc.
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      • Posted by $ blarman 6 years, 3 months ago
        A culture of looting begits problems with delayed gratification, no doubt. My differentiation is that I separate IQ from culture. Culturally, blacks and whites from the same areas have statistically equivalent IQ's, yet because of cultural differences, blacks have much higher rates of teen pregnancy and fatherlessness which leads to higher rates of criminality. If the problem is solely IQ, then rates should be the same for whites. That's why I discount it being prevalently an IQ problem and much more a culture problem.

        You can teach people with low IQ a wide variety of jobs in which they will perform to expectations. Now they might be the ones pouring the concrete instead of designing the dam and they might be the ones running the asphalt machine or steamroller instead of placing a turnpike, but it doesn't mean that just because they are less intelligent that they are automatically going to be looters. Those statements are overly broad generalizations.

        I will agree with you that those with lower IQ's are more likely to be taken advantage of than those with a higher IQ. IQ is largely an abstract measurement of how well people correlate things and put together relationships of many kinds, not just causal relationships. It is not, however, not a causal factor. I would argue that those with a low IQ are more likely to be convinced by cultural norms and emotional considerations rather than intellectual considerations. It is one of the reasons the mob mentality is so dangerous - one reasonably intelligent person can manipulate a mob of people into voting to give up their rights or violating the rights of others. And South Africa isn't the only place where this is a problem.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 6 years, 4 months ago
    I'm a big fan of Molyneux. When he brings this topic up I semi-check out. Yes, I do believe that one can say that the average IQ of a Syrian refuge is pretty low, double-digits. But, I don't give a thought to policy being based on that - even if done with the purest intentions.

    Here in America we are suffering from an IQ problem, honestly. I don't think it can be fixed in our current paradigm of bigger government, government schools and what we are subjecting our kids to. Good luck, everybody...
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    • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 6 years, 3 months ago
      What do you mean you "semi-check out"? Do you mean that you lose focus or that you kind of check out his claims to see if they are factual? Does that mean that you checked out his claim that the "average IQ of a Syrian refugee is pretty low..."? How did you do that? On what basis did he make the claim.

      Generally speaking - and we are speaking of a broad population: it takes all kinds, as they say -- the refugees tended to be the middle class. It cost thousands of US dollars to escape. Many of them had automobiles, some of which were destroyed by the Turkish army at the border. Generally speaking, refugees tend to be those with insight, foresight, and social capital. The huddled starving masses are just part of the mix.

      As for their IQs, again, the entire question of what such tests actually measure is putative. As best they are measures of cultural acuity. Some intelligence tests are (they claim) free of cultural bias but those are administered by trained professionals in individual sessions. I doubt that this was done by Stefan Molyneux.

      As for America here and now, surely, we can amuse ourselves with the fact that half of all Americans are below average intelligence. Chortle as we may, the truth is that the general intelliigence level seems to be rising over time. It is called The Flynn Effect. We can debate that.

      Perhaps you know the Cyril Kornbluth story, "The Marching Morons." Our society does seem to be getting dumber through automation, but that easy claim begs the question: whence automation? The truth is that over half of all Americans are above average intelligence and we have the space age, the atomic age, the information age, and the anti-aging genetics revolution to prove it.

      The Gulch appeals to many glass-half-empty kind of persons -- except for the engineers who will insist that a half-empty glass is just twice as big as it needs to be.
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      • Posted by Lucky 6 years, 3 months ago
        There is no problem with IQ falling or not.
        IQ is a fairly useless concept anyway as MM has said, but there is such a thing as intelligence as well as sense and competence tho' finding good measures of these is tricky.

        The problem is with the new religion of victim worship. To get special preferential treatment requires membership - real or fake - of certain groups called victims. Being white, male and normal disqualifies. Otherwise, being loud and stupid are good starting points. Nominally, it is being disadvantaged that gives membership. ( Well yes I think that being stupid should qualify for some protection - free of voting obligation at least.) This new religion is a product of christianity and marxism taking as its key concept that of altruism.
        Those (loud and stupid) who cannot argue they are victims can divide all the rest as either victims or racists. Then they want to impose what they call restitution by taking from the racists and giving to victims, there are of course big rake-off commissions to the distributors. (Sounds like climate change action?).
        US names for these are liberal and progressive, better names are- the governing class, the chattering classes. Among their policies are open borders for so-called refugees / asylum seekers many of whom are genuine, intelligent, even productive. Most are not. But the elites want to take them all. My view is that I can take a variety of skin and hair colors, religions (Buddhists, Hindus, LDS, even Lutherans), IQ, funny clothes, and even the wearing of shrouds (it is only women I understand). But I do object to those who want to chop-off my head. For this, I am designated as a racist. Some like thinkers note that some of the so-called victims are very good at qualifying for government benefits. Does this qualify them as intelligent?
        I'd prefer to select on attitude and ability.

        The meaning of the gratuitous comment about engineers escapes me.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 4 months ago
      We are... And there are disturbing facts, like parents who go on a Cholesterol Lowering diet (which does not work), and inadvertently put their young children on this, have caused up to a 10 point drop in IQ.

      IQ is really hard to raise, but it is quite easy to drop. Nourishment is one way, this was found out to be another.

      BTW, I just learned that Fasting may significantly reduce the risk of Alzheimer's Disease!
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 6 years, 4 months ago
    Race does not exist. IQ is highly suspect. I believe that CaptainKirk is trolling for comments.

    See Ayn Rand's essay on "Racism."
    See Joan Blumenthal's review of The Tyranny of Testing by Banesh Hoffman (Objectivist Newsletter March 1964.

    Those are not ground-breaking, frontline theoretical propositions. They were established fact 50 years ago. Anyone who claims to admire the work of Ayn Rand and who does not know those works has some reading to do.

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    • Posted by Lucky 6 years, 4 months ago
      MM is correct.
      IQ is a dodgy concept.
      Race as a description is useless for decision making.

      Capt.K is correct in describing what is happening in S.Africa. The old apartheid was real bad, the new regime started out as wish-washy but is getting worse. Now, different skin color but same - same. White farmers are being murdered.
      An odd fact, the first inhabitants of the far south were white - the Boer - narrow minded, independent, hard workers. The blacks arrived later from the center of the continent. They had the Kalahari to cross, extreme heat and dryness, a harsh barrier.

      Capt.K asks good questions- What should we (or they) do?
      If it were me- discrimination for or against, no, but maybe rules for children. Help the poor to get work by having no minimum wage rules, reduce prices by eliminating gov sanctioned restraints on trade.
      to find a way to make those people with lower IQs useful
      Whether or not IQ is valid I reckon a bigger issue is attitude. There is no medication for this but changes in education should help.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 4 months ago
      I wont disagree with needing to do more reading, thank you for the references...
      I will read them.

      But it seems like a conversation we cannot have in the open... And that was the impetus for putting it out there...
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