4 ms·

Why aren't you allowed to discuss it?

darig 2y ago
[dead]
whimsicalism 2y ago
The suggestion that personality or really any sort of brain function is linked to genetics at all seems to fly in the face of mind-body dualism and Hollywood-movie-ethics ("anyone can do anything if they work hard enough") both of which are things most people seem to hold very dearly.
- piloto_ciego 2y ago
  People can do a lot more than we give them credit for. Humans are fucking tough, creative, and persevering if you teach them to be. I worry that the people screaming the loudest about how we have no free will or no ability to even make choices because of physics and neuroscience are handicapping the next generation with a sort of learned helplessness. It is true that there are serious limitations on what I can or cannot do, but taking action and choosing to cast off the traits of parents that you don’t like or think aren’t productive is possible. You can change and go beyond your upbringing. You are a product of it, but you can decide to be different, I’m living proof. It’s just hard.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    I'm hardly screaming. I find the rhetoric when you start touching on things people don't like to be so odd. Suddenly I'm portrayed as having some sort of temper tantrum about heritability or limiting the next generation's capability or whatever. I think the next generation, like this one, will be fine. My whole point is that you can do things other than your upbringing.
    - piloto_ciego 2y ago
      I think this reply is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about.
pavlov 2y ago
It’s become a very tiresome rhetorical technique: “Listen to me yammer on vaguely but at length about a thing that I pretend I’m not allowed to talk about despite literally doing that right now” Whatever aura of mystery and suspense this may have once imbued is long gone by now.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  "It's not taboo because people can discuss it anonymously on an internet forum" is not quite the compelling argument that you seem to think it is.
  - throwaway924385 2y ago
    What do you want to discuss that you can't and where can't you discuss it?
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      > where can't you discuss it? Publicly, in academia, generally anywhere? > What do you want to discuss The topic at hand? The 'cycles of abuse' thing I mentioned earlier? GWAS with behavioral predictions and their usage in increasing the power of non-genetic behavioral studies? All sorts of things about genetic basis for behavior? Even the way I'm getting responded to here indicates that people are searching for a 'gotcha' - it would be much worse in actual academia. I don't really understand the motivation for denying this taboo exists.
      - pavlov 2y ago
        If it’s such a taboo, why not just go to the essential point and state clearly what you’re talking about since this is an Internet forum. The coy “I’m not allowed to talk about this, ooh” act is tiresome.
        whimsicalism 2y ago
        I feel like I have… multiple times now across many different comments. Stuff like hm, maybe the children of child abusers are likely to abuse children not only because they were raised that way but because of genetic behavioral factors. Or maybe the correlation between test scores and affluence doesn’t mean that test scores are bunk or only measure affluence, but are partially due to heritable confounders and the “affluence bias” isn’t as strong as we think. The essential point is that there is strong evidence for genetic heritability of behavior. But regardless, the point of my original comment was to discuss the interesting difference between academic/societal taboos and commonly held intuitions - not to enumerate all the possible taboo things related to this line of research.
Workaccount2 2y ago
[flagged]
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  I don't agree. This is only true if you think that people are deserving of a good life merely because they have a certain brain structure. If you thought that in the first place, you weren't much of a leftist to begin with in my eyes. e: Also - I want to be clear, variance is incredibly high even where there is heritable signal. The notion of X "can never be an astronaut because her genetically defined brain structure" and also her children is just not anywhere near supported by the evidence.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    > This is only true if you think that people are deserving of a good life merely because they have a certain brain structure. What does "deserve" have to do with anything? We're not in kindergarten, this is the real world. If she is capable of being a satisfactory astronaut, then give her the job. And if she is not, then don't give her the job. Whatever benefit it is you think the job bestows, whether that is a high salary or some level of prestige matters not at all. This isn't hypothetical, we're starting to see this as a real problem in professions where the success of our country and government (and for everyone who lives within it) depends on our ability to ignore asinine "deserves" arguments.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    No, it's not currently supported by evidence. It's an extremely specific example. But the needle has been moving more and more in that direction to the point where people should be comfortable with the idea that they have genetics to contend with not only when running and looking good, but also when thinking and behaving. Obviously the groups that will have the hardest time with accepting something like this are the groups that say things like "It's not your fault you didn't go to college, it's [insert social structure] and therefore our entire mission is to change [social structure]."
    - deleted 2y ago

[dead]

The suggestion that personality or really any sort of brain function is linked to genetics at all seems to fly in the face of mind-body dualism and Hollywood-movie-ethics ("anyone can do anything if they work hard enough") both of which are things most people seem to hold very dearly.

piloto_ciego 2y ago
People can do a lot more than we give them credit for. Humans are fucking tough, creative, and persevering if you teach them to be. I worry that the people screaming the loudest about how we have no free will or no ability to even make choices because of physics and neuroscience are handicapping the next generation with a sort of learned helplessness. It is true that there are serious limitations on what I can or cannot do, but taking action and choosing to cast off the traits of parents that you don’t like or think aren’t productive is possible. You can change and go beyond your upbringing. You are a product of it, but you can decide to be different, I’m living proof. It’s just hard.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  I'm hardly screaming. I find the rhetoric when you start touching on things people don't like to be so odd. Suddenly I'm portrayed as having some sort of temper tantrum about heritability or limiting the next generation's capability or whatever. I think the next generation, like this one, will be fine. My whole point is that you can do things other than your upbringing.
  - piloto_ciego 2y ago
    I think this reply is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about.

pavlov 2y ago

It’s become a very tiresome rhetorical technique: “Listen to me yammer on vaguely but at length about a thing that I pretend I’m not allowed to talk about despite literally doing that right now” Whatever aura of mystery and suspense this may have once imbued is long gone by now.

whimsicalism 2y ago
"It's not taboo because people can discuss it anonymously on an internet forum" is not quite the compelling argument that you seem to think it is.
- throwaway924385 2y ago
  What do you want to discuss that you can't and where can't you discuss it?
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    > where can't you discuss it? Publicly, in academia, generally anywhere? > What do you want to discuss The topic at hand? The 'cycles of abuse' thing I mentioned earlier? GWAS with behavioral predictions and their usage in increasing the power of non-genetic behavioral studies? All sorts of things about genetic basis for behavior? Even the way I'm getting responded to here indicates that people are searching for a 'gotcha' - it would be much worse in actual academia. I don't really understand the motivation for denying this taboo exists.
    - pavlov 2y ago
      If it’s such a taboo, why not just go to the essential point and state clearly what you’re talking about since this is an Internet forum. The coy “I’m not allowed to talk about this, ooh” act is tiresome.
      - whimsicalism 2y ago
        I feel like I have… multiple times now across many different comments. Stuff like hm, maybe the children of child abusers are likely to abuse children not only because they were raised that way but because of genetic behavioral factors. Or maybe the correlation between test scores and affluence doesn’t mean that test scores are bunk or only measure affluence, but are partially due to heritable confounders and the “affluence bias” isn’t as strong as we think. The essential point is that there is strong evidence for genetic heritability of behavior. But regardless, the point of my original comment was to discuss the interesting difference between academic/societal taboos and commonly held intuitions - not to enumerate all the possible taboo things related to this line of research.

Workaccount2 2y ago

[flagged]

whimsicalism 2y ago
I don't agree. This is only true if you think that people are deserving of a good life merely because they have a certain brain structure. If you thought that in the first place, you weren't much of a leftist to begin with in my eyes. e: Also - I want to be clear, variance is incredibly high even where there is heritable signal. The notion of X "can never be an astronaut because her genetically defined brain structure" and also her children is just not anywhere near supported by the evidence.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  > This is only true if you think that people are deserving of a good life merely because they have a certain brain structure. What does "deserve" have to do with anything? We're not in kindergarten, this is the real world. If she is capable of being a satisfactory astronaut, then give her the job. And if she is not, then don't give her the job. Whatever benefit it is you think the job bestows, whether that is a high salary or some level of prestige matters not at all. This isn't hypothetical, we're starting to see this as a real problem in professions where the success of our country and government (and for everyone who lives within it) depends on our ability to ignore asinine "deserves" arguments.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  No, it's not currently supported by evidence. It's an extremely specific example. But the needle has been moving more and more in that direction to the point where people should be comfortable with the idea that they have genetics to contend with not only when running and looking good, but also when thinking and behaving. Obviously the groups that will have the hardest time with accepting something like this are the groups that say things like "It's not your fault you didn't go to college, it's [insert social structure] and therefore our entire mission is to change [social structure]."
  - deleted 2y ago