• Amoeba_Girl@awful.systemsEnglish
    8·
    3 days ago

    In the followup

    One possible answer is that the causal pathway is high GDP → lots of education → lots of practice with abstract reasoning → high abstract/symbolic IQ. I don’t think this can be the whole story, because some countries that “cheated” to get high GDP (eg oil sheikhdoms) can’t translate it into IQ points at the same rate as everyone else. I’m stuck with the boring basic explanation that maybe you need to do a lot of abstract reasoning tasks to get high GDP.

    You can’t possibly be this dumb. Tfw you’re so blinded by racism you transfer yourself to the platonic realm where numbers are things in themselves.

    • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systemsEnglish
      3·
      11 hours ago

      It’s almost like when despots funnel oil money into maintaining power and self-aggrandizing megaprojects instead of basic public services you don’t see the “lots of education” part kicking in.

      Meanwhile, if there are these outliers where low IQ didn’t prevent people from getting wealthy and there isn’t some kind of political economy reason for it, doesn’t that undermine the value of IQ as a metric? Like, you and I know that IQ is garbage but it’s worth noting how “maybe IQ is just garbage” is always floating at the edge of their reasoning.

    • Amoeba_Girl@awful.systemsEnglish
      6·
      3 days ago

      Also in the comments to the followup you’ve got people debating whether believing that there are genetic differences between races constitutes scientific racism.

      Steve Sailer doesn’t think so. To which Philip replies

      The point isn’t that what you’re saying isn’t true, that point is that for most people who have heard of Steve Sailer, Steve Sailer is the textbook example of a scientific racist. So I think we have a good working definition of scientific racism, which is just, whatever Steve Sailer says. I say this unironically with no disrespect; I also consider myself a scientific racist.

      TGGP asks

      Who doesn’t think there are genetic differences between the races?

      gottem