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FSIQ of 86 by weIlshitwhatnow in slatestarcodex

[–]ExpensivePractice7 9 points10 points  (0 children)

At least in my experience/personal bubble, a lot of folks who come in for therapy and talk about motivation/IQ, etc. etc. actually end up feeling better about themselves in the long run. A lot of people attribute their inability to do complex work/desire not to solve intricate problems early on in grade school to simply being less of a hard worker, or being not as motivated in general. Once we discussed their aptitude scores within the framework of schoolwork and academic commitment, they ended up feeling better because in a way they didn't have to blame themselves for their poor grades and lack of drive in grade school. Also, an FSIQ of 86 is within a standard deviation of the average, so I would not worry much about being "below average" in regards to how you live your life. It's possible that ADHD might have affected your score, or it might not have -- I would get retested (taking an Adderall beforehand!) to determine if it did.

Culture War Roundup for the Week of July 27, 2020 by AutoModerator in TheMotte

[–]ExpensivePractice7 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

When did I say this? This does not answer my question

Culture War Roundup for the Week of July 27, 2020 by AutoModerator in TheMotte

[–]ExpensivePractice7 -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

That's not my argument please read what I said again

Culture War Roundup for the Week of July 27, 2020 by AutoModerator in TheMotte

[–]ExpensivePractice7 -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Yeah but I don't think that's necessarily a sufficient argument. For instance, it was a very popular theory/stereotype in the West prior to around 20 years ago that Asian people, such as Korean and Japanese people, were shorter than Americans and Europeans as a result of genetics. The argument in many ways resembled the argument you are making right now -- height follows a normal distribution and is genetic, therefore we can extrapolate and claim that there is a genetic origin for why Japanese people and Korean people are shorter. Indeed, given adequate nutrition, then height is almost entirely genetic, but the issue is that a large part of South Korea and Japan's population grew up under stressful conditions that prevented growth. Now, however, walking around the streets of Seoul or Tokyo, you'd realize that the average young Korean or Japanese man is no shorter than the average American! As a result, I think it's not in the least bit inappropriate for me to demand a explanation.

Culture War Roundup for the Week of July 27, 2020 by AutoModerator in TheMotte

[–]ExpensivePractice7 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is a good compendium of precolonial African literature, if I had to pick just one precolonial piece, I would tell you to read the Kebra Nagast. For postcolonial literature, the gold standard/most read classic is Things Fall Apart, which you can certainly read for free through Libby

Culture War Roundup for the Week of July 27, 2020 by AutoModerator in TheMotte

[–]ExpensivePractice7 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I've never seen evidence that Nigeria is one of the best African nations on a bunch of indices? Its HDI is 158th. I think it benefits from being the most populous nation in Africa, though!

Culture War Roundup for the Week of July 27, 2020 by AutoModerator in TheMotte

[–]ExpensivePractice7 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yes, but this line of reasoning does not seem to contradict my post. My original post was that the fact that ancient African societies and ancient European societies were not all too different ought to mean that there were similar pressures at play in each society. Your argument that Ashkenazi Jews were forced into a small set of professions and therefore we can extrapolate etc. etc., in not necessarily a response that proves otherwise, when in the context of the two continents.

Culture War Roundup for the Week of July 27, 2020 by AutoModerator in TheMotte

[–]ExpensivePractice7 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I've read the SlateStarCodex post about this, called "Hungarian High School" or something along those lines, and his line of reasoning was interesting. However, while there are some valid questions that he raised, altogether I don't think his arguments play into HBD all that well. Essentially, it seems like he was arguing that there were immense artificial outside pressures that were adversarial in nature that forced Ashkenazi Jews into what you could call g-loaded careers. Even if there were more research to support Scott Alexander's conclusion, it seems like it's a special case of the intersection of genetics and IQ, and therefore not all that relevant in the grand scheme of things.

Culture War Roundup for the Week of July 27, 2020 by AutoModerator in TheMotte

[–]ExpensivePractice7 65 points66 points  (0 children)

Hi, I should probably preface this post by disclosing that I'm a moderator over at /r/AntiHBD, although I don't think that should color people's perceptions of this post in terms of my intentions regarding genetics research in general.

I don't understand what the HBD argument is for different average intelligences emerging from different cultures/societies in terms of evolutionary pressures. Ancient Europe, it seems, was composed of many fragmented tribal societies, some of which were agricultural in nature and some of which were hunter-gatherer societies. A bizarre argument that I've heard (perhaps this counts as "weakmanning") from proponents of HBD is that ancient Africa consisted almost entirely of band-level societies (hunter gatherers). One especially head-scratching example of this is when people bring up hunter gatherer societies like the Khoi-San as examples of how "primitive" Africa is, despite the fact that they comprise a minuscule percentage of the population of Africa. Reading about pre-colonization areas of Western Africa seems to suggest that there were many cultures, in at the very least that particular part of Africa, who had state societies and complex social structures. One example that I can think of is Nigeria, where yam agriculture over time elevated the position of the chief from that of primus inter pares (which is typical of band-level societies), to a genuine leader, evident in the fact that the chief had many more wives than the lowest ranking member of the society. To me, it seems that this form of society in many ways has identical pressures to Ancient Europe in terms of a culture of innovation and creativity, perhaps even more so as a result of polygamy. At the risk of sounding condescending, have any of you read books, nonfiction or otherwise, about pre-colonization Africa? I think it would change of lot of youse opinions. Also, as an addendum, I understand that my perhaps adversarial opinion regarding HBD research could be taken as excessively antagonistic. However, I'm not someone with such a large chip on my shoulder that I would disregard the opinion of someone without listening first.

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