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Look at the many stories of people leaving cults and echo chambers. Take, for example, the story of Derek Black in Florida – raised by a neo-Nazi father, and gr

Look at the many stories of people leaving cults and echo chambers. Take, for example, the story of Derek Black in Florida – raised by a neo-Nazi father, and groomed from childhood to be a neo-Nazi leader. Black left the movement by, basically, performing a social reboot. He completely abandoned everything he’d believed in, and spent years building a new belief system from scratch. He immersed himself broadly and open-mindedly in everything he’d missed – pop culture, Arabic literature, the mainstream media, rap – all with an overall attitude of generosity and trust. It was the project of years and a major act of self-reconstruction This makes it sound like Black undertook this "reboot" on his own, just by reading and listening. That's not how Black himself tells the story: In 2010, I moved across the state and started college at this little liberal arts college in Florida, which was about three and a half hours from home Okay, this was one step he did take on his own: he changed his environment. But eventually he started talking to his fellow students. And I would say, “This is what I believe about I.Q. differences, I have 12 different studies that have been published over the years, here’s the journal that’s put this stuff together, I believe that this is true, that race predicts I.Q. and that there were I.Q. differences in races.” And they would come back with 150 more recent, more well researched studies and explain to me how statistics works and we would go back and forth until I would come to the end of that argument and I’d say, Yes that makes sense, that does not hold together and I’ll remove that from my ideological toolbox but everything else is still there. And we did that over a year or two on one thing after another until I got to a point where I didn’t believe it anymore. The whole thing (it's a podcast transcript) is worth reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/podcasts/the-daily-transcript-derek-black.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/podcasts/the-daily-transc...

jackfraser 9y ago
> And they would come back with 150 more recent, more well researched studies and explain to me how statistics works Has anyone actually put this data together in a presentable way? I've only seen things that say the opposite and it would be good to actually have a read of something well-formed that sets the modern progressive case for dealing with this research, beyond simply ignoring it altogether.
- 3131s 9y ago
  Tell them that it is completely impossible to set up rigorous controls in a study of ethnicity and intelligence anyway. The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. I typically ask these people if some connection between race and intelligence actually existed, is it your intention to change how society is organized or governed somehow? If it is, then there are historical examples of that going badly, and if not, then why is the answer important?
  - lopmotr 9y ago
    It matters for the pursuit of truth in the same way people like to accept scientific claims over religious ones. Sure, you can believe something and carry on with life but for many, that's not satisfying. Practically, you have people trying to reduce race differences in academic and economic success by reducing racism. If it's not caused by racism, those efforts would be ineffective. Another reason is predicting future economies of countries. Will Nigeria's rapid growth turn it into another South Korea or Japan? Can America really compete with China in high tech markets in the long term?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - ScottBurson 9y ago
    > The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. This is well said. I don't hear any impassioned calls for making everybody's lead exposure test results public so employers can avoid hiring stupid people.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Normal_gaussian 9y ago
    There is often a discussion about ethnicity (and gender) in relation to athletic events; when you have the position put to you, by observation or another, that despite the general adversity faced by certain ethnicities they dominate the medal tables - you are forced to seriously consider the position that not all ethnicities are equal. This will quickly spawn the question of the relationship between ethnicity and intelligence as it is perceived as an orthogonal measure of superiority. Of course, as you say, it is incredibly hard to control ethnicity and intelligence - due to them largely being perceptions as opposed to metrics. However I am saying the discussion of intelligence in relation to ethnicity comes to most through perfectly normal observations of concrete metrics.
Vinnl 9y ago
I think in terms of the context of the article, it is true though: > the member should temporarily suspend all her beliefs – in particular whom and what she trusts – and start over again from scratch That most important one -whom and what to trust- was "rebooted", which allowed Black to be open to those 150 more recent, more well-researched studies, rather than dismissing them as the echo chamber would tell him to do. (I'm mentioning this because I noticed by myself that I almost dismissed the article due to first encountering this comment, and ended up enjoying it - which is an interesting observation in the context of this article by itself.)
throw2016 9y ago
Do we really need 150 pro and opposing studies to understand? For instance if a society import a minority white population, enslave and oppress them for hundreds of years and then conduct IQ tests to declare they are somehow deficient. How would the rest of the world look at that? Would they simply look at the IQ test results, or have deeper questions? First people are enslaved and segregated for hundreds of years and just when the courts start enforcing hard fought equality laws in society, economic discrimination takes over via 'free markets' that as an 'outcome' limits access to housing, education, employment, financial services to people who have not had an opportunity to build wealth over generations like the rest. And then resurrect quasi eugenics and go out of the way to try to prove with IQ tests they are somehow deficient. There is something extremely malicious and insidious about this obsession which fails to recognize others as fully functioning human beings and simply ignores the entirety of history, actions and consequences. And the only reason this can continue uninterrupted for hundreds of years is because in any other context the World would have intervened to stop this kind of sustained assault. We do not understand fully how the brain works or the dimensions of human intelligence yet many are so confident to build truths and definitive conclusions on top of it. Even if we for arguments sake accept IQ as some sort of indicator it is dishonest to diminish the impact of environment in the same indicator. As if a seed will thrive whatever the environment. This seems to be a transparently ideological position. The idea that a rich or middle class upbringing with access to excellent education and resources will somehow produce the same outcomes as a poor family that cannot provide a stable home, proper nutrition, nurturing environment, educational resources and good schools is not logical and cannot be made in good faith. Yet people with seemingly high IQs continuously make this claim. Suggesting perhaps that IQ is not everything. And maybe we should include tests for prejudice and bigotry in IQ tests that seem to reduce intelligence and promote a irrational mindset.
- lopmotr 9y ago
  Slavery causes IQ differences? That's a popular but incredibly unsupported claim. White people really have been enslaved and oppressed and bounced back pretty fast. See Jews for instance, or Irish in America, or Slavs, who gave us the word "slave". In fact, I challenge you to produce any evidence at all for the slavery->IQ hypothesis. It's so ridiculous that young black people have reduced ability to work because their ancestors 5-10 generations ago were forced to work. It's even more ridiculous that the Chinese who were just as oppressed in even more recent past are doing perfectly well now. Maybe oppression only lasts multiple generations when the victims blame another race for it? In that case, we should be working to stop black people from blaming white people. We should be stamping out the idea of "white guilt" because that would be making the problem worse!

jackfraser 9y ago

> And they would come back with 150 more recent, more well researched studies and explain to me how statistics works Has anyone actually put this data together in a presentable way? I've only seen things that say the opposite and it would be good to actually have a read of something well-formed that sets the modern progressive case for dealing with this research, beyond simply ignoring it altogether.

3131s 9y ago
Tell them that it is completely impossible to set up rigorous controls in a study of ethnicity and intelligence anyway. The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. I typically ask these people if some connection between race and intelligence actually existed, is it your intention to change how society is organized or governed somehow? If it is, then there are historical examples of that going badly, and if not, then why is the answer important?
- lopmotr 9y ago
  It matters for the pursuit of truth in the same way people like to accept scientific claims over religious ones. Sure, you can believe something and carry on with life but for many, that's not satisfying. Practically, you have people trying to reduce race differences in academic and economic success by reducing racism. If it's not caused by racism, those efforts would be ineffective. Another reason is predicting future economies of countries. Will Nigeria's rapid growth turn it into another South Korea or Japan? Can America really compete with China in high tech markets in the long term?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- ScottBurson 9y ago
  > The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. This is well said. I don't hear any impassioned calls for making everybody's lead exposure test results public so employers can avoid hiring stupid people.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Normal_gaussian 9y ago
  There is often a discussion about ethnicity (and gender) in relation to athletic events; when you have the position put to you, by observation or another, that despite the general adversity faced by certain ethnicities they dominate the medal tables - you are forced to seriously consider the position that not all ethnicities are equal. This will quickly spawn the question of the relationship between ethnicity and intelligence as it is perceived as an orthogonal measure of superiority. Of course, as you say, it is incredibly hard to control ethnicity and intelligence - due to them largely being perceptions as opposed to metrics. However I am saying the discussion of intelligence in relation to ethnicity comes to most through perfectly normal observations of concrete metrics.

Vinnl 9y ago

I think in terms of the context of the article, it is true though: > the member should temporarily suspend all her beliefs – in particular whom and what she trusts – and start over again from scratch That most important one -whom and what to trust- was "rebooted", which allowed Black to be open to those 150 more recent, more well-researched studies, rather than dismissing them as the echo chamber would tell him to do. (I'm mentioning this because I noticed by myself that I almost dismissed the article due to first encountering this comment, and ended up enjoying it - which is an interesting observation in the context of this article by itself.)

throw2016 9y ago

Do we really need 150 pro and opposing studies to understand? For instance if a society import a minority white population, enslave and oppress them for hundreds of years and then conduct IQ tests to declare they are somehow deficient. How would the rest of the world look at that? Would they simply look at the IQ test results, or have deeper questions? First people are enslaved and segregated for hundreds of years and just when the courts start enforcing hard fought equality laws in society, economic discrimination takes over via 'free markets' that as an 'outcome' limits access to housing, education, employment, financial services to people who have not had an opportunity to build wealth over generations like the rest. And then resurrect quasi eugenics and go out of the way to try to prove with IQ tests they are somehow deficient. There is something extremely malicious and insidious about this obsession which fails to recognize others as fully functioning human beings and simply ignores the entirety of history, actions and consequences. And the only reason this can continue uninterrupted for hundreds of years is because in any other context the World would have intervened to stop this kind of sustained assault. We do not understand fully how the brain works or the dimensions of human intelligence yet many are so confident to build truths and definitive conclusions on top of it. Even if we for arguments sake accept IQ as some sort of indicator it is dishonest to diminish the impact of environment in the same indicator. As if a seed will thrive whatever the environment. This seems to be a transparently ideological position. The idea that a rich or middle class upbringing with access to excellent education and resources will somehow produce the same outcomes as a poor family that cannot provide a stable home, proper nutrition, nurturing environment, educational resources and good schools is not logical and cannot be made in good faith. Yet people with seemingly high IQs continuously make this claim. Suggesting perhaps that IQ is not everything. And maybe we should include tests for prejudice and bigotry in IQ tests that seem to reduce intelligence and promote a irrational mindset.

lopmotr 9y ago
Slavery causes IQ differences? That's a popular but incredibly unsupported claim. White people really have been enslaved and oppressed and bounced back pretty fast. See Jews for instance, or Irish in America, or Slavs, who gave us the word "slave". In fact, I challenge you to produce any evidence at all for the slavery->IQ hypothesis. It's so ridiculous that young black people have reduced ability to work because their ancestors 5-10 generations ago were forced to work. It's even more ridiculous that the Chinese who were just as oppressed in even more recent past are doing perfectly well now. Maybe oppression only lasts multiple generations when the victims blame another race for it? In that case, we should be working to stop black people from blaming white people. We should be stamping out the idea of "white guilt" because that would be making the problem worse!