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His whole deal is genetics, it's the core of his argument. But if you read it carefully you notice all this rhetorical sleight of hand. The guy is one of the

His whole deal is genetics, it's the core of his argument. But if you read it carefully you notice all this rhetorical sleight of hand. The guy is one of the most transparently disingenuous writers I've ever encountered. I feel like the arrogance is just a cover for a weak argument that is just too painfully tedious to deconstruct. https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/why-you-should-come-to-lambdaconf-anyway-35ff8cd4fb9d#.bmwo7ie22 https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/why-you-should-come-to-lam... > Here’s how you are not-racist. You hold two beliefs: one, neurological problem-solving performance (ie, “intelligence”) is homogenously distributed across the genetically inhomogeneous human species. Two, it’s better to be smart than stupid. > Ergo, no race is better than any other race, because all races are equally smart. Is that right? I hope I have it right. > Here’s how I’m not-racist: I share neither belief. But he's a racist because he uses the word race in a genetic context, and so are you if you do the same - which is what he's trying to get you to do. [ Sorry, I realize that this isn't the most coherent post... ]

brighteyes 11y ago
He is saying something dangerously close to racism. I don't think it is racist, for the following reasons. I also think it's wrong, for other reasons, mentioned at the end. He says he doesn't think "intelligence" is uniform across human populations. That sounds racist because e.g. the Nazis said Jews were mentally inferior, and racists in the US said black people were mentally inferior. Racists believe such things, and they believe them about an entire race as a whole. However, the tricky part is that it's hard to avoid the topic without being anti science. For example, black people are far more likely to have sickle cell anemia for genetic reasons. That's a well-known fact, and it isn't racist to mention it. What Yarvin mentions in that post is that he thinks intelligence might work the same as sickle-cell anemia. When put that way, it's not racist. It's not about races as a whole, it's about genes not being uniform across all groups. However, obviously the difference between the racist statement and the non-racist scientific one is worryingly close. For that reason, a lot of people take the easy way and oppose even considering genetic differences in populations. That's not a good solution. The good solution is that Yarvin is wrong for other reasons. Intelligence is NOT like sickle-cell anemia. Intelligence is a very amorphous concept, with changing definitions over time. It's not an objective, scientific quality like "has sickle-cell anemia". And we know that that ill-defined aspect of intelligence has been misused in the past, when "intelligence" tests were used to prove that black people, Jews, and Italians were mentally inferior, for example. Instead, when intelligence is studied carefully, it's actually a mix of a huge array of skills, and many of them depend on culture and training and context. Even if genes affect brains which affect mental abilities, the mediation of culture, training and context are so large that it is meaningless to talk about intelligence differences in race. There is also a huge amount of relevant genes; sickle-cell anemia has one. The bottom line is that we know Yarvin is wrong because this was studied. For example, black children raised in adopted families have noticeably different results on IQ tests than non-adopted children with similar genetics. We know genes matter here, but we know they matter in such a complex way, and other factors matter just as much, that saying "group X is inferior" is wrong. So no, I don't think Yarvin is being racist there - even if he cuts it close - but he is in fact wrong on the facts of the matter. We don't need to call him a racist to show he's wrong, the facts do that.
- ewofwkweoifd 11y ago
  I get the IQ argument and agree. Thanks for the elaboration. The problem I have is that population groups aren't races, even if you're talking about sickle cell anemia. "Black" is not a subspecies of human. And because of the way Yarvin conflates the word race with population group, I consider him a racist. In a matter-of-fact kind of way, simply by virtue of believing in the existence of races. For what it's worth, in my experience most of the people that use the word race are racist, including the so-called anti-racists. It's a pointlessly divisive concept, both scientifically and socially.

brighteyes 11y ago

He is saying something dangerously close to racism. I don't think it is racist, for the following reasons. I also think it's wrong, for other reasons, mentioned at the end. He says he doesn't think "intelligence" is uniform across human populations. That sounds racist because e.g. the Nazis said Jews were mentally inferior, and racists in the US said black people were mentally inferior. Racists believe such things, and they believe them about an entire race as a whole. However, the tricky part is that it's hard to avoid the topic without being anti science. For example, black people are far more likely to have sickle cell anemia for genetic reasons. That's a well-known fact, and it isn't racist to mention it. What Yarvin mentions in that post is that he thinks intelligence might work the same as sickle-cell anemia. When put that way, it's not racist. It's not about races as a whole, it's about genes not being uniform across all groups. However, obviously the difference between the racist statement and the non-racist scientific one is worryingly close. For that reason, a lot of people take the easy way and oppose even considering genetic differences in populations. That's not a good solution. The good solution is that Yarvin is wrong for other reasons. Intelligence is NOT like sickle-cell anemia. Intelligence is a very amorphous concept, with changing definitions over time. It's not an objective, scientific quality like "has sickle-cell anemia". And we know that that ill-defined aspect of intelligence has been misused in the past, when "intelligence" tests were used to prove that black people, Jews, and Italians were mentally inferior, for example. Instead, when intelligence is studied carefully, it's actually a mix of a huge array of skills, and many of them depend on culture and training and context. Even if genes affect brains which affect mental abilities, the mediation of culture, training and context are so large that it is meaningless to talk about intelligence differences in race. There is also a huge amount of relevant genes; sickle-cell anemia has one. The bottom line is that we know Yarvin is wrong because this was studied. For example, black children raised in adopted families have noticeably different results on IQ tests than non-adopted children with similar genetics. We know genes matter here, but we know they matter in such a complex way, and other factors matter just as much, that saying "group X is inferior" is wrong. So no, I don't think Yarvin is being racist there - even if he cuts it close - but he is in fact wrong on the facts of the matter. We don't need to call him a racist to show he's wrong, the facts do that.

ewofwkweoifd 11y ago
I get the IQ argument and agree. Thanks for the elaboration. The problem I have is that population groups aren't races, even if you're talking about sickle cell anemia. "Black" is not a subspecies of human. And because of the way Yarvin conflates the word race with population group, I consider him a racist. In a matter-of-fact kind of way, simply by virtue of believing in the existence of races. For what it's worth, in my experience most of the people that use the word race are racist, including the so-called anti-racists. It's a pointlessly divisive concept, both scientifically and socially.