Solutions, Again
Following up on my three previous posts, I want to talk again about what to do with this HBD knowledge. It is now clear, or at least should be, that demographic issues drive many of our current problems. Indeed, changes in the population drive history, and these changes are the primary reasons that civilizations rise and fall.
Our current problems involve dysgenic breeding within racial groups (that is, lower IQ individuals outbreeding higher IQ ones) and the Hispanicization of the country (with a decent smattering of Asians out west). Left undisturbed, these patterns are likely to continue, reducing America’s economic, technological, and societal standing in the future. Can these be stopped? I believe that they can, if we act now. As I discussed before, here are the fronts on which these issues could be addressed:
Immigration:
Immigration reform is key to addressing the demographic problems we have. Steps we should take include:
- Drastically curtailing the number of allowed legal immigrants, from all parts of the world, including Europe. Quotas should be established for the number of immigrants permitted from each part of the world, varying in this order, from highest to lowest:
- Europe, the other Anglo countries, and Israel
- Japan
- The rest of East and South Asia
- Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa
- The Muslim world
- Family members imported by naturalized citizens should have to go through a similar screening procedure as do first-time immigrants, to ensure quality among these immigrants. People considering coming to America should be made aware of this limitation, so they can factor that into their decision to immigrate.
- Extremely high-IQ immigrants, from all parts of the world, should be allowed to enter.
- Welfare and other benefits to new immigrants should be drastically reduced or eliminated.
- All current legal immigrants should be considered “grandfathered”, and exempt from these changes (except with regard to importing family members).
- We should crack down on illegal immigration. This is easiest to do by going after employers who hire illegal immigrants. Stiff fines could be levied on all such firms and individuals. The DREAM Act and its de facto implementation by Obama are fine. If we got to choose which illegals to keep, it ought be the best and the brightest. The challenge comes in that the other side of it—deporting the rest—needs to be enforced as well; otherwise, it does no good to give the smart, well-behaved subset of illegals amnesty.
Eugenics, negative sense:
Curbing reproduction of the low IQ individuals—of all races—would be the next important measure after immigration reform. Any sort of forced or coercive forms should be completely off the table. However, as mentioned before, an outright eugenics program, even if based on voluntary sterilization with incentives, is highly unlikely to fly. There are some workarounds, however:
- Planned Parenthood (which was founded by a eugenicist): It exists as a type of under-the-radar eugenics program. Planned Parenthood centers could be built and heavily marketed in low-income areas, with heavy availability and marketing of long-term contraceptive measures, such as Norplant. Long-term, fool-proof measures are preferred, because low-IQ women can’t necessarily be depended upon to take birth control pills or use condoms regularly.
- Welfare reform: Welfare should incentivize childlessness, not having more children as it currently does. Generous welfare benefits should be made available to single, childless individuals, with static or decreasing benefits for having children. Coupled with the visibility of Planned Parenthood, a campaign promoting the consequences of having children while broke should provide enough immediate reinforcement to get low-IQ individuals to behave responsibly with respect to reproduction. Work requirements are unnecessary—the goal is to get low-IQ individuals to live contently and not breed, not satisfy some moral desire to see everyone do “their fair share”. As noted in my previous post, most low-IQ individuals cannot pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, and it is silly to expect them to do so.
- Sterilization to escape child support: One instance where incentivized sterilization might fly is cases of fecund deadbeat dads (and moms). Individuals who keep popping out children but keep failing to support them should be offered free sterilization in exchange for release from child support responsibilities.
Eugenics, positive sense:
The flip side of eugenics, encouraging the high-IQ and accomplished to reproduce more, is considerably more difficult. However, I believe it can be done, if properly undertaken. As we saw, the main problem in this area are White, educated, secular liberals. The biggest issue with this group is that women in this category delay marriage and childbirth, often because of the pursuit of lengthy educations. As well, in contrast to the “pro-natalist” attitude of conservative and religious Whites, secular liberals have an “anti-natalist” attitude—that is, they are often reticent to actively disinterested in having children (as the exchange between Chelsea Handler and Bill Maher on this past Friday’s episode of Real Time exemplifies, complete with plenty of cheers from the audience to Handler’s declaration of her decision to remain unmarried and childless):
This will be one tough mountain to climb, but it can be scaled by:
- Reducing the cost of living: The previous measures to address immigration and low-IQ reproduction should cause wages to rise (as per Dennis Mangan’s discovery about wages and immigration) and land values to fall, boosting high-IQ fertility.
- Subsidizing childbirth among the high-IQ: generous cash bonuses to educated and accomplished couples who have children can be made. I would propose a higher subsidy based on higher IQ, as measured by say SAT or GRE scores, with additional preference given to those in good physical health.
- Student loan forgiveness: This can be coupled with student loan reform in general. High-IQ individuals, especially women, who complete their educations and obtain gainful employment or enter into marriage should have their loans partially or completely forgiven upon having their first child (with more forgiveness for each additional child). This will specifically target young couples starting out, as having children earlier will tend the increase the total number of children had.
- Reducing the need for lengthy educations by relying more heavily on cognitive tests: Education’s primary role these days is signalling, and that has a costly impact on female fertility especially. More heavy reliance on IQ (along with lots of repeat testing to decrease the testing error) can reduce employers’ reliance on proxies such as higher degrees. Of course, college degrees signal more than just IQ, but the increased quality of potential candidates from IQ testing alone should more than compensate for the less conscientious and less conformist individuals that slip through. This can shorten the length of time one needs to delay entering the workforce and hence allow smart women and men to start families earlier.
- Special encouragement of exceptionally high-IQ individuals: The true geniuses, especially the most physically healthy and accomplished ones, should be strongly encouraged to reproduce, and reproduce a lot. Encouraging them (paying them money) to donate to sperm and egg banks could be undertaken, as well as even a free “genius dating network” of sorts to encourage them to find mates and marry.
- Workplace reform, both for working and stay-at-home moms: For the high-IQ, we could make being a working mom easier, and we could do this while making being a stay-at-home mom easier as well (I don’t see these as being mutually exclusive). In addition to the above subsidy for high-IQ couples, which will be of greatest help to stay-at-home moms, making quality day care cheaper and more available (as well as providing job security for working moms), as it is in much of Western Europe, will help working moms as well.
One could ask where all the money will come from for all these subsidies and incentives. I say from taxing the uber-rich. Wealthy elites have more than enough money that their fertility will not be impacted by paying increased taxes. And unlike some of the uses of tax revenue today, these measures will go towards improving the population, which would benefit everyone down the line.
Genetic engineering:
Much talk is made about the possibility of parents tailoring their children to suit their own desires, most easily through embryo selection. While in the very long term, this offers promise of improving the quality of people born, let’s be clear, we are a long way from this becoming much of a practical reality. For one, the percentage of couples that use any sort of fertility treatments to have children is still very small, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. The cost is also likely to remain high, limiting who can participate. As well, we are still utterly clueless about function of the bulk of the genome, limiting our ability to select for desired traits. Eventually, this will change. However, this is firmly tomorrow’s problem.
These are valid, concrete solutions to the demographic problems we face. Some are no doubt more feasible and practical than others. Some of these rest on public acceptance of HBD while others do not. However, many of these run contrary to the interests of wealthy elites (particularly the part of about taxation), which is a good reason why they may never happen, unfortunately.
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Reduced cost of living would boost fertility among every segment of the population, including those of low IQ. There will have to be stronger incentives to reduce dysgenic breeding. But for the really future oriented among the high-IQ population, why would they want to produce intelligent children who could still fall into the underclass due to the expanding role of automation technology?
I think many of your proposals are simply not feasible given the cultural and political reality of our actual ‘here and now.’
I would simplify your plan to this: drastically curtail the degree and conditions of social safety nets such as Section 8 and EBT cards (though not eradicating such features completely); encourage higher Western European and other, higher-IQ types to have more children, possibly with the financial incentives you suggest, though I feel that idea, however worthy, would run into one of those ‘here-and-now’ obstacles I noted; and stop, dead in its tracks, all illegal immigration from Mexico, as well as instigate repatriate movements for illegals already here.
Those three things would cure about 90% of the current problem, in my opinion. In fact, in terms of immigration, merely executing existing laws nationally and uniformally, would take care of that fact of my three steps.
And by doing what I suggest, you undertake in a de facto way the high-IQ/S.A.T.-type-vetting you suggest, but without actually being that literal and therefore confrontational and controversial about it.
Most of your proposed solutions will probably fail JayMans. You’re essentially an “exceptions to liberalism” liberal. You see the consequences of liberalism but you don’t want to let go of their beliefs yet. The economic incentives to create more white educated high IQ women to have more babies for example are already being done in Russia and Europe for example and there only the Muslim minority or the devout traditional Christian women are having babies above replacement level. In respected, rational and reputable sperm banks eggs from women anywhere between 30 and 35 years old are typically rejected because these eggs are not viable and are rotten due to the fact that their donors usually don’t experience their first pregnancy before 30 and late motherhood first pregnancies are difficult and considered geriatric. But psychotic feminists are calling this bigotted and want for late eggs to be accepted. Don’t call me when mutations, diseases, complications or a miscarriage happens. They asked for it.
> Most of your proposed solutions will probably fail JayMans. You’re essentially an “exceptions to liberalism” liberal. You see the consequences of liberalism but you don’t want to let go of their beliefs yet.
^This.
These are all good suggestions. The problem is implementation.
A commentator suggests that ‘here-and-now’ is the problem. However, I think here and now isn’t a temporary phenomenon but rather a powerful equilibrium of political economy.
Why would a low IQ person admit they are inferior? It seems there is little advantage of this to them. And why would high IQ people rub in their superiority when manipulating the masses through platitude is such a profitable game. The current liberal/progressive movement is an alliance of the low IQ and high IQ insiders against the middle IQ and unconnected high IQ competition. That high/low power bloc is always going to be a powerful force, even if what we call “liberalism” goes out of vouge. Are your ideas the kind you can sell to that block? I’m not sure they pass muster.
We live in a democracy. And if we didn’t live in a democracy there would still be democratic forces limiting what any ruler could do. Government is mostly competition between elites and the people are pawns. Telling pawns they are “genetic trash and we’d really wish we could kill you, but if you at least don’t have children and live pointless lives out of the way where you don’t bother anyone and the problem of your existance is gone after you die then I guess we can tolerate you.” Yeah, that isn’t going to win a lot of support. Someone is going to come along and try to sell proles status “I’m as good as you.” That someone is going to gain political power. Fin.
Also, while I’m a huge fan of promoting high IQ breeding, I don’t think economic incentives alone work. Countries have tried everything. Tax breaks. Maternity leave. Student loan forgiveness. Our model of good government, Singapore, even as a dictator throwing every incentive possible at his citizens can’t get them to breed.
I’ll posit that there is no material incentive that can make high IQ women breed. Having children is just a bad move from a materialist perspective. Every study shows it. Only spiritual reasons can be offered. Only those that have maintained a spiritual outlook on live are still having kids. Athiesm/materialism is an anti-life philosophy.
We know people spiritually value the next generation. Movies like “Children of Men” show the dystopia of not having another generation. Yet the individual decision to breed is never a smart one if your only goal in life in material happiness. Face it. It’s God or the highway.
> I’ll posit that there is no material incentive that can make high IQ women breed. Having children is just a bad move from a materialist perspective.
This is only true, because we live in an utterly socialist system.
* If the state would NOT finance typical female university studies, like linguistics, gender nonsense and others
* If the state would NOT finance kindergartens
* If the state would NOT pay out pensions
…then the so called high IQ women would very very fast start to breed again, stay home and get 4-5 children.
In a more drastic move the state could even forbid women to study, because women turned out to be near worthless even in STEM fields. Basically female education is a loss-loss situation. Either you spend money to educate women (and then they have less children), or you spend money to educate them (and then they decide to stay at home to have children, hence you wasted money).
It’s not clear that right-wing nonsense is true. Fertility is higher in nations with generous social welfare systems. As well, the Danish may have achieved something close to eugenic fertility.
Look, the jack is out of the box. We aren’t going back to the pre-sexual revolution days. The correct solution is to work with what we’ve got.
> Look, the jack is out of the box.
No, it’s not. It only SEEMS like this because
* it’s being paid for by debts
* feminist laws are still being practiced (e.g. alimony laws)
* media is left-extremist
* demographics are slow
Abolish all paid-by-debt socialisms and you will very fast get back to normal: Women raising kids at home.
The current state is completely artificial.
Even if that were true, which it’s not, what you’re saying is also not going to happen, at least not in the foreseeable future…
Differential death rates are the only thing that has worked through history. Obamacare is thoroughly dysgenic in this sense. Brutal to say it, but there it is.
Actually I like what asdf said much more than what I said. It is not a coincidence that high IQ groups have developed with religion (Jews, Parsees). Atheism is about the most dysgenic thing that there is, because atheism specifically draws in high IQ types and then leads them to have no children.
The religion can’t have been the only factor important in the development of high IQ among the Ashkenazim or the other groups of Jews (Sephardim, Mizrahim) would also demonstrate high average IQ’s.
asdf, you seem to echo my mom, who has worked with public health and demography all her life. She has converged on the idea that the variable to narrow down on is ultimately the choices of high-value females.
They choose to have kids only when “career” and kids can co-exist. If it’s a binary, they go with materialism and career. Smart women are like dudes.
If one takes for granted that giving women the option of having a career is a jack that will not go back in the box, the best way to encourage their fertility may not be monetary incentive, but rather allowing women to have both kids and career. Powerful maternity leave laws are seen by some as one of the major causes of the fertility turnaround in NW Europe of late.
NW Europe is being swamped by immigration. It’s the educated first generation religious minorities who are breeding, not secular white women.
Not everywhere. Google+translate this if you can.
http://www.jv.dk/artikel/786246:Indland–Flere-veluddannede-kvinder-faar-boern
Bottom line: ca. equal numbers of children at the lower and higher tiers of education, recent convergence.
redzengenoist, good find.
Denmark has a non-trivial number of Muslims, however. I wonder how much they factor into this.
I happen to be Danish, and am well acquainted with your concern.
The DST which I linked to (danish statistical ministry) does not register ethnicity in the statistic. But the bottom line is that if I find that high-IQ, highly educated women are breeding, I’m ultimately not terribly concerned about whether they’re ethnically Scandi or Middle Eastern. The smart subset muslims may be slightly rarer, but I’m frankly in favor of having that subset of muslims breed.
However, the muslim contribution to this statistic is probably quite high, and I would (if anything) expect the muslims to be pulling up the fertility of the low end of the IQ spectrum, rather than the high end. Which might mean that ethnically Danish women at the low end of IQ are having even fewer kids.
As it also happens, my mom works public health at the UN, and advises governments on demographics. And the Danish example is often a subject of keen interest, amongst others for fx. the Chinese. What this ultimately means is that perhaps the dysgenic trend of fertility can be reversed, if you set up incentives in a way that makes sense to high IQ women.
1) they don’t want money
2) they want kids, if they can have them without penalty to their career
Whereas for low IQ women,
1) they want money (and will breed if kids = money)
2) their fertility is massively reduced by the availability of family planning
3) their fertility is massively reduced by breakdown of patriarchy via state intervention in crazy muslim stuff
The bottom line of which is that, in Denmark, non-western women have FEWER kids than whites, just 1.6 each, down from 3,4 kids in 1993.
http://www.information.dk/telegram/240027
@redzengenoist:
First of all, thanks. You may have found a real-world example of the policies I’m advocating actually working. That is, I think, a great proof-of-concept for this type of eugenics. Am I correct in assuming that no one there calls it “eugenics”, or whatever the Danish equivalent is?
I will additionally point out that this is socialism of all things achieving this aim.
Now we will have to see if this pattern holds.
What’s great about this is that fertility among American conservatives, our fast-breeders, is already eugenic. It is liberals, the slow-breeders who are by in large similar in behavior to Danes, that need to be addressed. But if the Danish system works on their own people, it would work on secular liberals. The other issue is how well it will work on minorities. Black fertility is already only replacement, showing that Blacks do respond to conditions. For Hispanics—particularly Mexicans—it’s harder to say.
Does there happen to be an English-language version of your sources? I want to put them up in a follow-up blog post.
My pleasure, I thought you’d be interested. You guess correctly though, there’s definitely no use of the E word at any point – Denmark was conquered and occupied by Germany during WWII, keep in mind.
There’s no English language source of this particular article, but a cursory search shows dozens of translations out there on the web:
https://www.google.dk/search?q=denmark+immigrant+women+fewer+children&sugexp=chrome,mod=2&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Since you are going to make a post about this, I checked the numbers a bit more carefully. You will notice that some of the links in the google search I just showed you show different numbers. Some say 1.6 kids, and some say 1.88 kids for immigrants.
Actually, the 1.6 number is not the most honest number one, the more correct number is 1.88, IE the same number as whites. The 1.6 number is due to a deceptive method of counting, for political posturing.
Any knowledge of an English version of this:
http://www.jv.dk/artikel/786246:Indland–Flere-veluddannede-kvinder-faar-boern
Or a source that cites the same data? I’m interesting in the differing fertility of the more educated Danes vs the less educated ones, and so far my searches aren’t turning up much….
Sorry, Google translate will probably be the best one there. The internet apparently has a lot more English-bloggers who generally dislike immigrants, than who more specifically want high-IQ women to breed.
I’m addressing your point:
“Making it easier for a woman to have career and kids all subsidized by the state is a recipe for killing marraige. Beta males offer resources and stability. If the state provides these automatically via taxing beta males why bother marrying one.”
So you see, some places have high rates of cohabitation, easy opportunity for women to have careers without penalizing kids, low marriage rates, and supremely pleasant, productive societies. It’s not the marriage that makes the society nice, it’s the core stuff correlated with the marriage. The core stuff works well with females having a career. My point is not too misunderstandable. ^_^
Precisely.
Getting the high-IQ and productive to breed more would be enormously helpful. It doesn’t matter if they’re married or not. Marriage would be gravy.
Making it easier for a woman to have career and kids all subsidized by the state is a recipe for killing marraige. Beta males offer resources and stability. If the state provides these automatically via taxing beta males why bother marrying one.
Unless being and staying married is a part of any program to help women then its going to have a bad effect on marraige.
Stabilizing marriage and getting high IQ women to breed: not the same thing.
Yes, but we want both.
I haven’t seen any evidence than in the countries that offer generous maternity benefits that single motherhood is more common.
Besides, marriage, in and of itself, is not so important. Getting high-IQ individuals to breed is, as redzengenoist noted.
I agree with JayMan. There are lots of societies that are very beta, yet have very low marriage rates – almost all the Scandinavian societies are like that. Look at Iceland; extremely low marriage for a long time, yet the rates of trust in strangers, violence, cohesion, crime, etc are about as nice as they get.
We do not all want BOTH marriage and high IQ. Marriage happens to often be correlated with high IQ and nice things, but that is a nexus of undetermined causality.
Marriage is very important to the raising of healthy children and societies. Every study shows it. I would think life experience would have taught that to you by now as well.
Scandavian countries have very high rates of cohabiting but unmarried couples who raise children. These are basically defacto marriages even if the couple isn’t married.
If you want we can substitute two parent household for marriage if you want, but its definitely a societal good we should strive for.
That is actually not true. As you can see in blog post #1, parenting, or more generally, the family environment, doesn’t affect how children turn out (beyond a very basic baseline, that is).
The negative aspect of single parenting is a result of the type of people that are likely to become single parents. There’s nothing particularly special about a two-parent household in and of itself.
Harping about marriage and single-motherhood is ultimately a eugenic issue.
I’m addressing your point:
“Making it easier for a woman to have career and kids all subsidized by the state is a recipe for killing marraige. Beta males offer resources and stability. If the state provides these automatically via taxing beta males why bother marrying one.”
So you see, some places have high rates of cohabitation, easy opportunity for women to have careers without penalizing kids, low marriage rates, and supremely pleasant, productive societies. It’s not the marriage that makes the society nice, it’s the core stuff correlated with the marriage. The core stuff works well with females having a career. My point is not too misunderstandable. ^_^
Your dodging the point though. Two cohabiting people living together and raising children together are basically married. They are doing all the things married people do. It is a de facto marraige.
This is very different from single mothers. Policies that promote one child households are bad. The data show single parent households are bad.
asdf – you’ve made a point about how the Scandinavian model, where women can easily career, is a recipe for killing marriage, and *I* am the one saying that it’s as good as marriage, and is a de facto marriage. Please, reread our exchange figure out exactly what your critique is.
The Scandanavian model has resulted in two parent families, which is the goal. Though there is some evidence that these couple are more likely to divorce later in life, so the whole effect won’t be known for decades when these kids grow up.
The welfare state has worked very well in Scandanavia. However, similar programs have worked very poorly elsewhere. The UK is very similar in its welfare scheme and its created Chav culture (ghetto culture for whites). Welfare has had a really bad influence on the formation of two parent households in most countries.
There are a lot of policies that work in certain instances but won’t work in others, even if copied wholesale. For instance I love many aspects of Singapore’s government and Japan’s culture. But I couldn’t copy those things in America. It just wouldn’t work the same. It works in certain places, times, and circumstances but not necessarily mine.
I admire what Scandanavia has done and look to them for guidance, often using them as an example of good socialist governance. However, I need to examine the effects of such policies in my own culture first and foremost, since it is the most relevant. In my own culture welfarism and dependency have resulted in lots of broken families and one parent households.
As Dan so adamantly noted, and as I have pointed out, this is a eugenics problem, not a “values” problem.
That’s fair, we basically agree then.
BTW, just to be clear, I don’t think that welfare for having kids is a good idea, I just like the “make careering for high IQ women easy” part, which doesn’t require any money exchanging hands – it’s legal protection.
IMHO Scandi countries are stupid for also giving child welfare, it’s a bad idea, and would be even worse in fx. the US (where I’m guessing you’re speaking from).
Plenty of welfare for childless unemployed singles would be great. There should be no extra benefits for having children, which would take away the incentive to breed to keep on the dole.
Jayman,
Obviously I can’t offer a rebuttal to a chicken/egg argument. At the same time the reverse is true for you as well. All we know is its a bad correlation, and it seems like causality goes in one direction. The proof seems sufficient to me without needing a QED.
I think most of us have seen divorce and single parents by now and we know the toll it takes. If your position is that it doesn’t matter I’m not sure how I can convince you. I only hope you don’t practice this theory in your personal life.
If single motherhood is a genetic problem rather then a values problem, why is it that single motherhood became more prevalent in the recent past. Certainly genes didn’t change. Culture changed.
There is proof of causation. Read Judith Harris’ The Nurture Assumption and No Two Alike. If the family environment was important to development, we’d see it in twin/adoption studies and in birth order studies, where no such effect is found, and this isn’t without a lot of looking (consider that, for example, the children of widows do not have the ill outcomes those whose dads walked out do). The problems of divorce/single motherhood stem from the type of parents likely to have children who are end up raised by their moms alone.
Most of us have “seen” parents pass on bad eating habits to their children. Yet, this doesn’t change the fact that the connection between parent and child, relative to the culture at large, in terms of weight is 100% genetic in nature.
First of all, let’s be clear that the prevalence of single motherhood is separate issue from the purported outcome of this phenomenon. The prevalence has increased due to changes in environmental factors, such as the availability of birth control, the rise of women in the workplace, and welfare. Have the purported outcomes of this become more common?
“Yet, this doesn’t change the fact that the connection between parent and child, relative to the culture at large, in terms of weight is 100% genetic in nature.”
I’m pretty sure twin studies don’t prove peoples lives are 100% determined by genetics.
“The prevalence has increased due to changes in environmental factors, such as the availability of birth control, the rise of women in the workplace, and welfare.”
Is just another way of saying the culture/values changed. I’m not sure if your trying to prove my point?
I’m also not sure what this whole prevalence/outcomes difference is all about.
That is not what I said.
Behavioral traits can be substantially non-heritable in nature and yet the similarity between parent and child could be entirely due to heredity. It’s just like the sweetness of a fruit; this might be a result of the environment in which the fruit is grown as well as a result of its genetics, but the relationship between its sweetness and that of the fruit that spawned it, relative to environmental factors they both share, is entirely due to the genes they share.
I’m not contention with you on this point.
You have claimed that single-motherhood leads to poor outcomes for children, and in support of that, you’ve offered that the incidence of single-motherhood has increased. Not that these kids have x problem or y problem, only that there is more single-motherhood. That there is more single-motherhood is different from saying children who grow up with single mothers have poor outcomes, unless, the only poor outcome you’re concerned with is single-motherhood itself.
“You have claimed that single-motherhood leads to poor outcomes for children, and in support of that, you’ve offered that the incidence of single-motherhood has increased.”
I don’t really think I’ve done that here. Let me reconstruct the argument as I understand it.
ASDF: Single motherhood results in bad outcomes for children. We have studies to prove this.
Jayman: We only know there is a correlation, not necessarily a causation. It could be that single mothers and their kids simply have bad genes, and they would turn out bad whether they grew up with two parents or not.
ASDF: I can’t prove causation beyond all doubt, but the case for some causation seems obvious enough intuitively. I’m sufficiently confident its worth making a public policy goal.
Jayman: Something about twin studies and genes being 100% influence and environment not mattering.
ASDF: I’m not sure about that 100% statement.
That’s where I’m at here.
Apparently, there is where I lost you:
…because I never made that claim.
Environment can matter, without the family environment mattering much. We indeed have evidence that it doesn’t. Ergo, we have little reason to be horribly concerned about what goes on in the family environment, provided basic needs are being met.
Do twin studies really prove that the family environment doesn’t matter at all? I’m unaware of a twin study that shows that being adopted by couples that divorce vs not divorce has no effect.
Twin/adoption studies generally find that the “shared environment” component of behavioral traits is zero. That is, siblings growing up the same home are not more similar to each other than you would expect from their shared genes, and adoptive siblings aren’t similar at all. If the family environment had any long-term effect, it would show up here (this includes divorce, family conflict/tranquility, intellectuality, etc…), rendering children in the same home (and exposed to the same family circumstances) systematically more similar than those from different homes.
Here’s a bit more on the non-effect of the family environment, from Razib: The heritability of impulse control | Gene Expression | Discover Magazine
Jayman,
Following your link it doesn’t seem that it proves what you are saying about environment not being a factor. Rather is says that environment is a factor but says that prevailing culture/peer groups are a big factor not just parents. Of course this is something of a chicken and egg theory. Part of being a good parent is choosing a good environment for your child.
I was also expecting to see some more on one parent versus two parent households, but didn’t see any.
Moreover I’m not sure the metrics being measured are really what I’m talking about. I don’t expect family environment to affect a persons ‘g’, or even their base level of conscientiousness or anything like that. I also agree those base genetic effects are most important in determining many life outcomes.
However, I do expect it to effect ones quality of life. What they do with what they have. Let us take my most recent girlfriend. She grew up without a father in a fairly dysfunctional house. She had all sorts of psychological problems. It also lead her to marry a man she knew was bad to, “piss of her mom, who she was convinced had kept her Dad away from her.” They she had three kids young, a messy divorce, painful custody battle. In short she’s had a miserable life. I wouldn’t expect this to show up in her ‘g’, her educational attainment, or her income. But it is sure a part of her life. I think most of us have been enough absentee father/daddy issues cases to understand the effect. Also, I don’t think her case is isolated. I met many of her friends who are all part of the same dysfunctional dynamic (they are black). They have similar problems. There are just no families left. I think it affects young black men as well, look at TheRawness’s “Myth of the Ghetto Alpha Male” piece.
This is true. Of course, this is a far more limited impact of parenting than most people believe that they have, and says little to nothing of two-parent vs single-parent homes.
This is where most people get into trouble. The thing to remember is that ALL behavioral traits are heritable. We’re not talking just broad personality dimensions, but highly specific traits. And “life outcomes” does by definition have something to do with what one does with what they have.
That’s not exactly true, those circumstances may indeed have an impact on her achievements. In any case, all those things have been measured as well, and there is little to no shared environment impact.
Or would like to have someone to blame for said things, specifically:
Has it occurred to you that those psychological problems and all the other problems you’ve mentioned stem from shared genes?
My thoughts on everyone’s comments:
Liberalism isn’t the problem, unless you mean it in the sense as anything better as a laissiez-faire system with little to know social safety net, because as Dennis Mangan once pointed out, our modern clean and safe society has caused the average IQ of the population to drop.
We cannot go back to that world, nor should we. That is no way for a civilized society to be.
All people alive today should be entitled to live healthy, content lives, to the extent that that’s reasonably possible. “Obamacare” is a great thing.
It is not atheism or liberalism that’s at fault; it just so happens that people who are slow-breeders happen to be liberal and secular. Or perhaps more accurately, people who are fast-breeders are conservative and religious. Current fertility trends indicate that the latter group will come to dominate American Whites, so some of you may get your wish: liberalism and atheism will decline.
Other countries with low fertility rates have tried paying people to breed, and probably haven’t seen the results that they’d have liked. However, one could argue that in the case of Russia, it has worked, as fertility rates have been increasing (though still sub-replacement). Of course, I would argue that that has another source.
The problem with low fertility is population pressure. Northern Eurasians seem to respond to crowding by cutting back on reproduction. The current population density would have to fall considerably more before people began breeding again in large numbers.
But, I am not concerned with total population, because there are more than enough people in America, but with the quality. The question is how to tilt the scales in favor of the more able members of society reproducing. Even with liberals, who are just slow-breeding by nature, fertility would increase if cost of living was low.
Of course, cost of living is high because of the presence of immigrants and the low-IQ (including low-IQ Whites). Attacking that problem would boost fertility.
Immigration reform of any kind is a tough enterprise politically, though, as neither presidential candidate seems interested in truly addressing it.
Indeed, many of the methods I mentioned are likely impossible to implement in this political climate, as pointed out in the comments. However, many are under-the-radar type and could be implemented without wide acceptance of HBD (just acceptance by a few people with some influence). For example, quietly focusing Planned Parenthood to primarily or exclusively underclass areas could slip through unnoticed by the PC gods. Student loan forgiveness for high IQ graduates could be pushed under the guise of “student loan reform” or “looking out for our future minds” or something PC speak like that. And liberals are always looking for more maternity leave for women, which as redzengenoist points out seems to be effective (something that could be more aggressively but quietly pursued for more higher-level careers and levels of education). Using IQ proxies already available like the SAT or GRE to target these measures might also allow them to get through without opposition. On the same token, conservatives are always harping about welfare reform—a little streamlining could accomplish the right effect. Welfare would either need to be non-existent (infeasible in today’s world) or generous for childless individuals to have the desired eugenic effect.
The percentages of people affected, on either end of the IQ curve, do not need to be overwhelming, just a reasonable share, and this could at least halt the current dysgenic trend, and with hope, slowly reverse it.
Jayman,
AE has produced plenty of graphs showing that high IQ religious women are still having kids. It seems plain to me that IQ isn’t causing declining fertility. Materialism is.
All of these suggestions are good, but they are all at the margin. There is a simple truth to deal with. Having kids isn’t “fun”. From a materialist perspective every single study shows this. Even if you change the incentives a bit this won’t change.
Plenty of these yuppies aren’t going to starve or live in a ghetto if they have kids in their 20s. They might fall behind in the status race though. They might have to give up toys and entertainments. Most importantly they will have to give up time to actually raise the child.
Evolution gave us a desire to be happy. Sex makes us happy. Sex happened to result in babies. It doesn’t anymore. This holds for women as well as men. You can’t ask evolution or any other material force to promote fertility. Only the spiritual can.
I’ve addressed this in the next blog post.
The point about religiosity/conservativism and fertility was already discussed by me as part of my Pioneer Hypothesis.
All the points you raise are technically true, but there is a deeper overall reason. Today’s secular liberals are the descendants of slow-breeders who evolved in a Malthusian world. They evolved to pursue economic security before breeding (on top of de-emphasized reproductive desires overall), and hence, in today’s world, breed less.
In any case, total fertility isn’t so important. Stopping dysgenic fertility is.
Jayman, you say it is not liberalism’s fault but greater minds than yours would emphatically disagree (and you should not be offended if I suggest John Maynard Keynes has a greater mind than yours).
Keynes involved when the UK abruptly went full welfare and he was dismayed that without attendant eugenic policies, it would be steeply dysgenic. And it was.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-does-britain-have-so-many-yobs.html
Of course they were not, and Britain has had, in the last couple of generations one of the steepest civilizational declines in world history. This is not a case of low IQ immigrants changing the average, and it is not an issue of race. This is a case of culture and innate intelligence of native Britons declining markedly from what was a very high level.
Jayman, you advocate sharp decline of both culture and intelligence in America; are you unable to comprehend that? Congratulations on being part of a victorious coalition of decay. When you look back on the decline of America when you are old, please man up and own it.
Jayman, you have recently on this blog noted the steep dysgenics of American blacks. What group is the highest user of welfare in America? Hmm???
“Jayman, you say it is not liberalism’s fault but greater minds than yours would emphatically disagree (and you should not be offended if I suggest John Maynard Keynes has a greater mind than yours).”
John Maynard Keynes was also a liberal. He wanted the welfare state coupled with eugenic policies to prevent the degradation of the gene pool. Which, if I understand correctly, is exactly what Jayman was proposing.
“All people alive today should be entitled to live healthy, content lives, to the extent that that’s reasonably possible. ‘Obamacare’ is a great thing.”
I don’t know. I think its fate was sealed as soon as the public option was dropped. As it is currently set up (basically as you said, a subsidy to health insurance companies), my guess is that healthcare costs will (continue to) spiral out of control. And the fiscal right will point to it to declare that all national health care systems are inevitably terrible, and it could nix a perfectly reasonable system like single-payer.
Welfare rots the character of people that partake of it and impoverishes the nation. The grand socialist experiment of the 20th century showed this and the decline of Europe presently continues to show this. Look at the national decline of every nation that goes leftist. Is there any exception?
Those who understand HBD should be even more in tune with the disaster that is leftism. If leftism can rot the great European nations like England, what does it do to nations like the US that are far more ‘diverse’?
Keynes did not have the benefit of seeing history the way we do. You leftists are genuinely a destructive force in the world for ignoring the lessons of history. The world is worse for your pushing of policies that genuinely cause the decline of civilization.
I am not a fiscal conservative because I want to be. I am because I want the USA to be a solid entity for my children and their children.
Your destructive attitudes are much less forgivable than those of Keynes because he did not have the history that you enjoy.
Seriously can you name one single nation that became stronger with leftism? This should be easy — there are almost two hundred nations to choose from…
The parts of Sweden that aren’t overrun by third-world migrants are quite nice, despite (or because of?) it being the most socialist country in Europe. The Scandinavian nations also have relatively high native birthrates, compared to the rest of Europe. They are also extremely nonreligious compared to, say, Italy, whose natives have the most abysmal fertility in Europe. And I don’t know if low fertility per se is bad. The world probably doesn’t need as many people as it has currently. The problem is that low-fertility populations are getting displaced by high-fertility populations.
In any case, it is practically inevitable that a large part of the population will become dependent on government assistance in the medium term, as automation will continue rapidly, displacing the low IQ workers, while it will probably take several generations for even a strong eugenic policy to have a significant effect on the average intelligence of the population. The only alternative to mass government assistance to low IQ workers displaced by automation would be private charity (not practical in many cases) or mass starvation of this class.
Also, stronger how? My primary concern is with having a society where people can gain the maximum satisfaction from life. And most studies done on the subject tend to rank the Scandinavian countries (with the exception of the preternaturally gloomy Finns) as being the happiest countries.
Having more people for the sake of having more people makes no sense to me. It’s a relic of a time when warfare (and thus whether your tribe/nation survived) depended on having lots of young men to fight in wars. In an age of nuclear weapons and drone strikes, soldiers are becoming increasingly obsolete. I see no reason why we can’t have the population decline gently until living expenses fall to a level that allows replacement-level fertility, and then just stay there (with perhaps an exception if we ever colonize other planets, but that’s a long way off, if it ever happens).
@Curious Observer:
I think that’s the plan. But I don’t think Dan realizes how messy and destructive this process would be.
@Dan:
And if Keynes had had his way and we continued to have forced eugenics, there is a good chance that many of us would not be here.
We can’t rewind the clock and rewrite history, we can only focus on what we can do now.
And indeed, the 40 hour, 5-day work week, clean air, food, and water, and a safe work place are all products of “leftism”. Still think we should rewind the clock?
As Curious Observer noted, all the Western European countries that embrace socialism are just fine, even pretty nice. Socialism isn’t the problem, low-IQ people are.
I work on Obamacare directly. The problem is not public option or not. That was something liberals thought they cared about so they could “get a win”. Obamacare is a 2,000 page abortion that I’m not sure will do any of the things its proponents want. If you want universal HC you go with single payer or with a heavily regulated but simple plan where the government sets the rates like Singapore. Obamacare is a tragedy totally unlike any of those. Anyone supporting it because of its stated objectives needs to become more familiar with its reality. Devil is in the details.
I thought that mandate + underwriting ban would be enough to justify all the other stuff I didn’t like. Having now worked as a regulator on the issue I’ve changed my mind. It is too damn complicated and full of garbage. I’ve switched to thinking it does more harm then good.
I agree. I don’t think we will get a better plan anytime soon, however, unfortunately.
@Curious Observer:
Precisely.
Yes, but it may be the best we can hope to get in this political climate. Single-payer (with private providers) is the way to go, but that may simply never happen in a country with such a large minority population and a White population that is growing more conservative.
Singapore has the best system, and it is largely private (even moreso then America). However, the government sets the prices on all but the more exotic treatments. And it forces people, even most not rich people, to save for medical and other expenses.
The important thing to remember about health care costs is insurance companies really aren’t the enemy. Healthcare providers are. You control costs by controlling them, period.
Singapore, because it has different payers and more or less allows a private market if you’ve got the money, still retains some free market dynamics when it comes to promoting new medical technology and techniques. A lot of that gets lost in universal single payer because the government tends to squash or slow down innovation and there is the shortage problem.
Universal single payer is the next best thing. Given that Singapore is unique (a tiny island dictatorship run by an HBD aware smart guy) universal HC is probably the best we can expect for large democracies.
Obamacare is terrible. It’s actually worse then what we had. And I don’t really blame conservatives. When you’ve got 60 senate votes and the presidency and you can’t get it done your a tool. And at the end of the day Obama is a tool. He never even tried for single payer. He’s as establishment sellout as you get, and not just on this issue. People just ignore it because he’s half black and charismatic.
I think if someone openly declares thathe intends to have no children, it is to same as to openly declare that he cares only about himself and does not want to be part of society (as a contrast to be part of some social circles). That’s fine, but such people should not have access to any public-funded pensions or care for elderly people. Sooner or later someone would implement rights, in which if you have no children, then when you are old, you will be left on your own.
People who have no children still contribute things of value to society (brilliant researcher who discovers a technological innovation but has no children). They should receive all that they have worked for.
How many childless people become brilliant researchers?
Most of the childless people I know fit the selfish stereotype. And most of them just have lame zero sum status race jobs like everyone else.
And what about those who are involuntarily celibate thanks to female hypergamy? Should they be forced to mate with gender feminist orcas?
Excellent post. It’s so refreshing to see this kind of practical approach, laying out what HBD-informed family policy could look like in a modern society.
Curious Observer is right– what is the end goal? Some think ‘stronger society’ means ‘more Christian in morality,’ but for others it’s ‘allows more life satisfaction.’ Socialism seems a bit of a red herring. Human development indices like life expectancy, literacy, public health, low crime, social trust, etc. are nearly always headed by the Scandinavian countries. Socialism becomes a disaster where high-trust and low-trust ethnicities co-exist (as immigrant-loving Scandis & other Europeans are finding out).
And yes, many original supporters of the welfare state were eugenicists, which I fleshed out a bit here. As a non-religious person, I really appreciate your perspective, JayMan, and I hope that as more left-leaning people get HBD-aware, these conversations attract more participants. Your blog is the perfect place for them.
[quote]Socialism becomes a disaster where high-trust and low-trust ethnicities co-exist (as immigrant-loving Scandis & other Europeans are finding out).[/quote]
I agree with this, but I do want to make the point that some interventions are much more susceptible to NAM exploitation than others.
Paying moms a blanket sum for spawning a breathing human being is one kind of socialism. They do that in Italy and Germany, and they have horrific fertility, especially of the high IQ. Contrast this with laws designed to protect moms ability to career despite having kids. These are difficult for the NAM to exploit, yet allow high-IQ, productive moms to have kids.
In America there is sympathy for longer maternity leave, though almost zero effective push for eliminating per child welfare subsidy. You have to understand that politics here is very polarized, partially a result of our two party system and partially a result of the fact that we have a lot of NAMs and very racialized politics.
Many countries have implemented lots of pro breeding and pro high IQ breeding programs and been unsuccessful. The most desperate of these I can think of is Singapore. They pretty much through everything at raising fertility and failed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_control_in_Singapore
If people don’t want to breed, they don’t want to breed. Changing around maternity leave and welfare payments is just going to play at the margins.
Singapore is also a city-state that is packed. It’s not too surprising its fertility is low.
I’m not so sure about that. The Danish system seems to work, and it’s quite possible that a similar system will work here.
Thank you!
I have read your before, and rereading it has reminded me of thought placed into early eugenics. Of course, I’m glad coercive Eugenics went away.
I think the goal—to increase happiness and well-being, with more life satisfaction—is a sufficiently noble one. We do not need a society with more “Christian morals”. That’s nonsense think. Right-leaning HBD’ers, having demonstrated an obvious failing in modern leftist thought in the latter groups denial of human differences, see it fit to tout a more conservative and Christian society as producing better outcomes. Yet, as redzengenoist, note, it is “socialist” policies that are more likely to produce the outcome most HBD’ers want.
You’re correct that Western European-style socialism can be quite problematic when low-trust groups are around that can exploit the system, but measures can be taken to combat that problem.
Indeed, it is likely that a system similar to the Danish one would have far more than a marginal effect (as it seems to have there). We don’t need to transform our society in one generation; slow but steady change would be sufficient. If average IQ only fell by 5 points since 1850 (1/3 of a point per decade), then we could stand to have a similar rate of increase. Maybe by the time we reach the Star Trek era (~ 3 centuries), we might be smart enough to do what humans are able to do in the show. 😉
“I think the goal—to increase happiness and well-being, with more life satisfaction—is a sufficiently noble one”
Why are you using the word “noble” when you have no concept of nobility in your entire philosophical system. Nothing has any value.
“but measures can be taken to combat that problem.”
But why should they be taken? You never answer the why problem (yes, I’ve got to go down to the other reply later this week to rehash on this).
“having demonstrated an obvious failing in modern leftist thought in the latter groups denial of human differences,”
I think your missing the point. The problem with leftist thought isn’t the particular falsehoods being believed at a particular moment (in this case blank slate genetics). Those falsehoods will change every few decades as necessary for those in power. What matters about leftism is that it holds there is no objective value or truth in anything. It is a nihilistic philosophy. It’s only purpose is power.
HBD denialism is no less absurd then denying gravity. And yet nearly all society, and nearly all elites, believe it. How? How can such a thing happen? The answer is the death of objective value and truth. The leftist world is one devoid of all meaning. It’s only purpose is the maximization of “good feelings” in the individual. If believing that which is false promotes “good feelings” (at an individual level, not necessarily societal level) the person will believe that which is false.
If one could summarize leftism, it is the cult of subjectivity. There is no truth. Nor any concept of good or bad We all make up whatever we want. Whether or not that fits in with anyone else. And why do we make it up? To make ourselves feel good. Regardless of how it makes anyone else feel (or, if you like, regardless how it makes everyone outside a tiny immediate group around us feel because of some evolutionary legacy that misfires and people should ignore if they are smart).
In such a society you can’t use the truth to convince anyone of anything. You can’t even use it to convince elites, for elites only care about themselves, not anyone else. And if they don’t, if they don’t make power their first and only objective, then they will inevitably be replaced by those that will. And those people will belief and break whatever truth they wish.
I think you’re confusing political leftism with “secular rationalism”. While the two are often found together, they are two distinct set of philosophies. Objective truth is the basis of rational thought, and all of science.
No, it’s that people aren’t perfectly rational. Most people who believe in HBD also deny global warming, and, as in your case, deny the non-effect of parents and the family environment. And of course, there’s religion, which is a whole other issue itself. HBD-denialists don’t have a monopoly on denying reality by any stretch.
You speak as if life must have some divine purpose or meaning for us as humans, to personally and collectively value things. How silly is this reasoning? Does the fact that life has no prearranged divine purpose stop you from wanting to get out of bed in the morning and enjoy the day? Maybe it does for you, but it doesn’t for me.
“Objective truth is the basis of rational thought, and all of science.”
How so? Science can say X exists. But it doesn’t say whether that is “good” or “bad”. Existance is not a value.
“deny the non-effect of parents and the family environment”
I’ll get around to your links when I can.
“You speak as if life must have some divine purpose or meaning for us as humans, to personally and collectively value things”
Certainly. Especially to “collectively” value anything. Values don’t come from physical laws. Physical laws simply say “X is”. Not “X is good”.
“How silly is this reasoning?”
Explain it to me.
“Does the fact that life has no prearranged divine purpose stop you from wanting to get out of bed in the morning and enjoy the day? Maybe it does for you, but it doesn’t for me.”
In the absence of the divine I can certainly want to get out of bed in the morning and maximize my own personal happiness. But I see no reason why I would value anything other then my own happiness. Certainly not anything “collective”.
asdf, I know you’re not wrapping your brain around this concept (and I didn’t really expect you to), but “values” are not physical entities in and of themselves. They do not have any real existence, except in the human mind.
And therein lies your problem. Other people are not so encumbered.
As with most theistic vs materialism debates, this is going nowhere. My points have been made clear. I will leave you with the last response.
“Other people are not so encumbered.”
You haven’t really explained why.
http://orthosphere.org/2012/08/23/atheism-is-amoralism/
“The problem with the theory that morality is basically noise is that you can’t use it to convince someone whose moral feelings disagree with yours that he is wrong, and ought to behave differently. Nor can he convince you. If you made such an argument to a sociopath who took this position on the sources of morality, but who had a taste for human meat, he could just look at you and say, “I don’t want to play the game you are playing. Your rules are just the outcome of a long process of totally contingent events, each of which was governed by nothing but happenstance. Every one of them might have turned out differently. Well, I’m another contingent happenstance just like all the others that went to make up your rules. And I’m playing by my own rules.” And he would be correct. Because under his theory, the rules of society are not really moral, in the sense that they are not objectively binding on us; they do not oblige us, whether we like it or not.”
M.G.
Allow me to get a little philosophical here. Why should anyone care about “more life satisfaction” in and of itself? What makes life satisfaction “good”? How can there be a concept even be a concept of “good” without the spiritual.
You might argue along the lines of, “why you got to be so high and mighty, it feels good so just do it.” That’s singular though. If it feels good for you then do it. It has nothing to do with other people feeling good. Why should anyone care about anyone else’s life satisfaction? Fear of reprisal maybe. But there are so many instances when reprisal can be brushed aside reasonably. Even if we posit some kind of evolutionary social altruism gene there is no way that works past small and immediate groups (say the mob boss who treats his own family nice but kills for a living). It’s not an explanation for why someone should make a personal sacrifice for “society”. And without individuals making sacrifices for “society” even when they don’t have to the whole idea behind these liberal schemes break down.
If there is no God, no objective good, why do you care if anyone else achieves any life satisfaction? I can see no logical reason. The only possible result of this line of thinking is nihilistic hedonism. At least if we’re going to be honest with each other and not rely on a bunch of cheap God substitutes we don’t want to call God.
I’ve had two main moral crisis in my life. One when I was working on wall street and one now with a corrupt government regulator I’m trying to get fired. In each case its the atheists that have been the most disgusting in deed.
On wall street is was the Ayn Rand quoting nihilist who told me, “I don’t care about fucking accounting irregularities. Fuck the fucking client just tell me what I need to know to move this pig.” He wasn’t alone, it was the entire ethos of the industry. It’s why I left.
When I was gathering people to expose the corrupt head of our department I went to talk to two different people. One was a very religious man with a family and a lot to lose. After explaining the situation to him the first words out of his mouth were, “it’s the right thing to do.” No discussion of the personal potential consequences of failure was entertained. When I went to talk with my atheist party line progressive colleague who souts about social justice all the time, has no family to support, and a large trust fund that paid for his free house the first words out of his mouth were, “what’s in it for me.” At the end of the day, when you’ve really got to boil down a philosophy and take a stand, all that liberal stuff about the good of society goes out the window if you don’t believe there is an objective good out there worth defending. It’s all peacocking. There is no real substance deep down.
I recently finished reading “That Hideous Strength”. The book is about an evil technocratic organization and it was written in the 1940s where the “progressive element” is firmly eugenic. It was an amazingly accurate portrayal of both corrupt bureaucracies and the inevitable reduction of all atheistic thinking to its natural nihilistic end. The main character, Mark, is a firmly atheistic progressive man. As his world collapses around him he comes to a simple epiphany:
“His ‘scientific’ outlook had never been a real philosophy believed with blood and heart. It had lived only in his brain, and was a part of that public self which was now failing him.”
You can’t get a philosophy of blood and heart from materialism. Materialism is never going to logically say to you, “do that which is materially bad for you simply because it is ‘good’.” And yet moral action requires it. Real people need to make real moral decisions that make all these schemes of your work. These technocratic organizations are full of people, they aren’t rupe goldberg devises that your push a button and out comes social justice. The whole idea of materialist based moral outcomes collapses back into itself.
First of all, you need to read this: HBD and Atheism. 🙂
While I don’t expect to convince you about your spiritual beliefs, I will respond this way:
Caring about how others feels, including, much to many’s dismay, those who aren’t even remotely related to you, is one of the hallmarks of secular liberalism. Similar genetic forces operate within most individuals. Morality comes first and foremost from within.
This is exactly untrue. See above, or most any of HBD Chick’s posts on altruism. Very interesting that you choose the mob example.
Were they actually atheists?
I think M.G.’s description perfectly captures an ethical basis one can use to guide one’s behavior: that is, maximizing people’s life satisfaction and minimizing suffering. That is certainly my intention, and I think it is a perfectly reasonably guiding foundation, all without any belief in any creator! 😉
Jayman,
You have not offered a logical framework for moral action. Why act ethical? Why care about maximizing other people’s life satisfaction? A materialist perspective can only end in believing in maximizing your own life satisfaction in an amoral way.
The best you can offer is: “I think some people with some genes may act a certain way on a statistical basis.” That is not morality. If you asking someone to act a certain way because it’s moral that is certainly not an argument that is going to work.
Of course you don’t believe in free will, so why even have a blog about “what we should do.” I’m not sure how the idea of “convincing” people of things fits into a world without free will. There can obviously be no convincing by definition.
I read your HBD and atheism post. It doesn’t answer any questions.
Why? Indeed, because, as you note, free will does not exist. If someone is born with a brain that deems others’ well-being important, they simply cannot help but think that way, because it is the only brain they’ve got. The person will behave in this general manner regardless.
I know that if you’re a believer then you’re not going to agree, but morality is a human invention. It’s a system we humans have cooked up after years of evolution. It doesn’t exist in any “real” sense and never did. Of course, because we’ve got “moral” brains, morality may as well be inscribed in the stars for all we’re concerned.
The non-existence of free will doesn’t mean that behavior cannot be affected. The human brain is a computer that generates outputs based on inputs. By affecting the inputs (say with information describing the situation, or with knowledge of consequences), you can affect the output. That is affect, not control. Like a computer, the human brain is somewhat inflexible (or perhaps more accurately, only finitely flexible) in how it processes information. This is precisely why HBD is so hard to get across to typical SWPL liberals. For many it just does not compute.
This demonstrates the above point well. If the would-be murderer in this situation doesn’t just get, internally, why they shouldn’t murder, you’re not going the convince them otherwise, because morality doesn’t exist in its own objective sense. In that case, you would have just stop them yourself in one form or another if you wanted them not to murder.
Imagine the following conversation:
asdf: I’m going to go murder this person. It will result in a happier life for me.
Jayman: You shouldn’t murder someone.
asdf: Why?
Jayman: i don’t know…
That’s where you end up if you are honest about the implications of your belief.
Jayman,
“The person will behave in this general manner regardless.”
and
“The non-existence of free will doesn’t mean that behavior cannot be affected.”
These statements can’t exist together.
“In that case, you would have just stop them yourself in one form or another if you wanted them not to murder.”
Why would you stop them if you have nothing to gain? Why would you “want” them not to murder?
Yes they can. Behavior can be affected, but there are limits to such, because of the limits on the flexibility of the computations of the human brain. The ability to affect behavior is does not imply an unlimited ability to do so. In the example you gave, if the would-be murderer was not dissuaded by knowledge of the consequences of committing his act, then you’ve run up against those limits. This is a basic corollary of HBD.
An inborn desire to not see people get hurt or die?
“Yes they can. Behavior can be affected, but there are limits to such, because of the limits on the flexibility of the computations of the human brain. The ability to affect behavior is does not imply an unlimited ability to do so. In the example you gave, if the would-be murderer was not dissuaded by knowledge of the consequences of committing his act, then you’ve run up against those limits. This is a basic corollary of HBD.”
This whole paragraph is an assertion that free will exists. Positing that free will is harder or easier for different people or different circumstances is not a refutation of free will. Are you backtracking on your believe in material determinism and introducing free will?
“An inborn desire to not see people get hurt or die?”
Where does the desire come from? And why bother listening to it? I don’t think evolution offers a sufficient answer to this question.
That’s not what I would posit. That some people are able to give the consequences of their action more consideration does not imply that free will exists. Such individuals’ behavior is no more “free” than those who have less ability to consider the consequences.
What is your definition of “free will”?
Why is evolution not a sufficient explanation?
“That’s not what I would posit. That some people are able to give the consequences of their action more consideration does not imply that free will exists. Such individuals’ behavior is no more “free” than those who have less ability to consider the consequences.”
Then we you are refuting your own earlier writing and have no offered a solution.
“What is your definition of “free will”?”
The ability to decide to do something. This decision must come from a non-material source by definition, because the material world is deterministic. I.E. the soul. The soul acts upon the material world and you choose to follow action A instead of action B.
If you do not believe in the supernatural then by definition you do no believe in free will. This is not in dispute. Of course if you don’t believe in free will much of your entire argument here falls apart.
“Why is evolution not a sufficient explanation?”
It might be better for you to lay out your understanding of why you think evolution is sufficient and for me to criticize it. I’ve been down this road before, it will likely save time to do it this way.
You sure about that?
Not true.
That is true, no argument here.
Wrong.
Several have been already, not the least being HBD Chick’s posts on altruism.
You made the claim that evolution is not sufficient. I’m interested in your reasons why.
“You sure about that?”
Obviously yes. You asked me to define something, and I defined it.
“Not true.”
Quantam mechanics is not a refutation that the material world is deterministic. It is not some backdoor to free will.
“Wrong.”
Why? Your only counterargument used free will. If it doesn’t exist you don’t have a point to make here.
“Several have been already, not the least being HBD Chick’s posts on altruism.”
I’m not seeing them here. Why should people have an inborn desire to do “good”. I can see many ways in which it would be evolutionary disadvantageous.
“You made the claim that evolution is not sufficient. I’m interested in your reasons why.”
The burden of proof seems to be on you. You are, after all, proposing that people believe an act in certain ways. That’s the whole point of making a post about “solutions” to “problems”. You have to provide justification for them. Why are they problems? Why should people support your solutions? I see no reason for anyone to support anything you’ve said here unless it was already in their own narrow material interest, in which case the whole exercise was a waste of time.
If asked to provide a reason why people should do what I say I can offer faith. What can you offer?
P.S. I think this webcomic might work a little here:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2223
Your definition of free will was the ability to make decisions. Under this definition, computers have free will, since they can make decisions based on the input data they are given and the programming they are executing. Unless you’re going to agree with that notion, I would assert that your definition is faulty.
I questioned if you were certain in your definition of free will because I pointed out to you that the decision making process is not exactly as clear cut as you might think.
It is certainly not some backdoor to free will, but it does prove that the universe is not deterministic. Identical initial conditions can result in markedly different outcomes. This, by definition, is not deterministic.
I would suggest actually reading HBD Chick’s posts on altruism, starting with this one and working your way through.
What we called “morality” is really “rules and standards for how to treat other human beings”. What is considered “good” is generally that which is in accordance with these standards, and what is “bad” is that which is not. HBD Chick has a lengthy analysis on the emphasis among NW Europeans on “reciprocal altruism”, that is, helping others with the expectation that they may help you, as opposed to the kin-based altruism that prevails elsewhere, but the idea is the same. “Morality” results when individuals individuals repeatedly interact with each other, can remember previous interactions with others, can recognize kin, and can assist others at reasonable cost to oneself. Under such a system, transgressions against other members in the society for one’s own gain can entail steep consequences (because victims or victims’ kin will remember such acts and retaliate)—to the point of being maladaptive, and some degree of biological restraint against such transgressions will evolutionarily prevail—hence, the desire to be “good”. I could go on about pacification by state authorities and the like, but the concept should be clear.
I’m sure the whole HBD community has made it clear why the things I’ve discussed are problematic. If we agree that increasing the well-being of all people—or at least the nation—or at least (to White nationalists) the race is a desirable goal, then that solutions are needed naturally follows.
“Under this definition, computers have free will, since they can make decisions based on the input data they are given and the programming they are executing. Unless you’re going to agree with that notion, I would assert that your definition is faulty.”
Computers don’t make a “decision”. They turn an input into an output based on a predetermined ruleset. For it to be a decision the computer would need to be able to overcome its own code.
My definition of a decision is a human being overcoming their own chemical state via spiritual source (the soul). I think we are working from a fundamentally different understanding of what a decision is here.
“This, by definition, is not deterministic.”
A deterministic probability is still deterministic. It does not pass my threshold for free will to say that outcomes are random but perfectly predictable within a statistical framework. Choice isn’t about randomness, its about choice.
“What we called “morality” is really “rules and standards for how to treat other human beings”. What is considered “good” is generally that which is in accordance with these standards, and what is “bad” is that which is not. HBD Chick has a lengthy analysis on the emphasis among NW Europeans on “reciprocal altruism”, that is, helping others with the expectation that they may help you, as opposed to the kin-based altruism that prevails elsewhere, but the idea is the same. “Morality” results when individuals individuals repeatedly interact with each other, can remember previous interactions with others, can recognize kin, and can assist others at reasonable cost to oneself. Under such a system, transgressions against other members in the society for one’s own gain can entail steep consequences (because victims or victims’ kin will remember such acts and retaliate)—to the point of being maladaptive, and some degree of biological restraint against such transgressions will evolutionarily prevail—hence, the desire to be “good”. I could go on about pacification by state authorities and the like, but the concept should be clear.”
Yes, that’s the standard line. Yet its not enough to explain moral action. People act moral even when the game theory says they shouldn’t. And if your saying that they do this in error then your arguing against the idea of moral action (and also that it will evolve away over time). You’d basically be telling people they would be wrong to listen to you.
“If we agree that increasing the well-being of all people”
Why would we agree on that? How does that help me? That’s going to require all sorts of sacrifices for which I can’t reasonably expect to have my own happiness increase. Ex-God my goal, my only goal, is to increase my own happiness.
All you’ve convinced me off is people have some traits to help some people, usually in much smaller groups and circumstances then today, when they can reasonably believe it will benefit them in the long run more then it costs them today. That surely isn’t enough to spur people to action over any of your proposals, which require genuine individual sacrifice for which one can’t expect to benefit. Heck, even if they were predisposed to these ideas your atheistic arguments would lead them to conclude they are just being fooled by errant genes and they should ignore them.
Good, I’m glad you’ve posted this, because now we’re getting somewhere. Now I see that you mean free will in the classical sense, as the “uncaused cause”. Now that that’s clear, let me tell you that we have plenty of reasons to believe that such a thing does not exist. All of its supposed actions can be explained by physical processes. The act of decision making you describe as being so key can easily be manipulated by external forces, manipulating not only the choice, but one’s certainly in having made the choice of their own accord. About that sense of morality, that too can also be manipulated. As explained in the article by David Eagleman linked in my post on free will, the entire industry of psychological pharmacy shows how deeply rooted decision and emotion is in the brain.
I know that you will claim that none of this rules out the existence of this uncaused cause. Perhaps this brain function is the physical “manifestation” of the soul—how the soul interacts with physical matter—the “soul’s antenna”, if you will. But then such an entity is completely unnecessary, as it adds nothing to the explanation. All the same could be accomplished by physical matter that “turns inputs into outputs based on predetermined rulesets.” By Occam’s Razor, the soul should be eliminated. But, as I said, precisely because of the non-existence of free will, I don’t expect you to accept this logic.
Jared Taylor has a lot to say about this phenomenon (“pathological altruism”). What you’re misunderstanding is that most people don’t coldly calculate the costs and benefits to themselves every time they face with a moral decision. Evolution has selected for individuals who are generally “moral” in their behavior. Statistically, this behavior would have lead to greater fitness, because…
…it would have, more often than not, benefited them to act that way, even if it is not perfectly optimal every instance.
As for convincing people, well, that’s part of a whole other issue, one for which I cannot claim to have solved.
“Evolution has selected for individuals who are generally “moral” in their behavior. Statistically, this behavior would have lead to greater fitness, because……it would have, more often than not, benefited them to act that way, even if it is not perfectly optimal every instance.”
This reeks of “just so”. People are like X so there must be an evolutionary reason for X. It’s circular reasoning.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism/
“The math suggests this is pretty unlikely. In this simulation, for example, the cost to altruists is 3% of fitness, pure altruist groups have a fitness twice as great as pure selfish groups, the subpopulation size is 25, and 20% of all deaths are replaced with messengers from another group: the result is polymorphic for selfishness and altruism. If the subpopulation size is doubled to 50, selfishness is fixed; if the cost to altruists is increased to 6%, selfishness is fixed; if the altruistic benefit is decreased by half, selfishness is fixed or in large majority. Neighborhood-groups must be very small, with only around 5 members, for group selection to operate when the cost of altruism exceeds 10%. This doesn’t seem plausibly true of foxes restraining their breeding.”
P.S. Please do not assume if I haven’t replied to a particular thread or paragraph I’m in agreement. There are logistical limitations of time and/or I believe the logic is unsound or has lapsed into ad hominem.
replies on many outstanding threads when i get some time
There are a lot of replaies I want to make, but it may take a long time (or drop off my plate entirely). I have to go and try and get my boss fired tommorrow, and there is a lot of work I need to do this week.
Jayman seems to be arguing for atheism as not bearing a relationship to morality. Illogical but lets go with that theory for a moment.
What do the data tell us:
(1) Atheistic societies have been frequently, although not always, horrific. I speak of course of Communism’s 100 million murdered by society at a time when prosperity was generally rising and violence was generally declining in the world.
New atheists wish desperately to claim that Communism is unrelated to atheism, but that is total hogwash. Atheistic materialism is the central philosophical underpinning of Communism.
(2) In response to (1) leftists point to nations like Sweden which are only nominally religious. Firstly it should be pointed out that such nations are still officially religious and have an official State church. Secondly it should be noted that such nations are already drifting toward totalitarianism, disallowing free speech, rights to bear arms in self defense, or the right of parents to guide their children’s education. Taxes reach confiscatory levels at greater than 50% of GDP. At this point the average person is working more for the state than for themselves.
(3) Leftists are generally much less giving when charitable contributions are added up and compared.
(4) Atheists have far fewer kids, preferring a life of hedonism. How can this be sustainable? It isn’t sustainable for more than one generation.
(5) Where Jayman claims atheists are more generous, I find this utterly false. You may have a democratic society as our own which is a spoils system of people voting things for themselves from what others have. That seems like the epitome of greed and selfishness, and it is improverishing everywhere it is tried.
I have not made such a claim.
Please spare us this tired line of reasoning. I think we’ve established quite well that ideologies have genetic roots.
You sure about that?
It is not…
What you say about working moms and making things easier on them is exactly backward. It’s policies that have enabled single-parentage and the aggrandizement of female labor force participation that have encouraged high-IQ women to avoid childbirth. You really want to get more babies out of smart chicks? Ban them from the colleges and the offices and boardrooms.
And that is totally never going to happen. Hence, there is little sense in seriously considering it.
Sigh. I forget myself, apologies ladderff. Jayman, please delete my poorly considered comment.
Done. 🙂
“Planned Parenthood (which was founded by a eugenicist): It exists as a type of under-the-radar eugenics program. Planned Parenthood centers could be built and heavily marketed in low-income areas, with heavy availability and marketing of long-term contraceptive measures, such as Norplant. Long-term, fool-proof measures are preferred, because low-IQ women can’t necessarily be depended upon to take birth control pills or use condoms regularly.”
Forget BC pills and condoms. Here’s how ya do it;
Low IQ males should get vasectomies upon reaching 13 years of age.
Upon reaching adulthood, raising their IQ, and becoming gainfully employed and LEGALLY MARRIED, their vasectomies can be reversed.
How do ya like them cookies?
Ain’t never gonna fly. Nor should it.
Why should it not fly? You’re alright with FEMALES being subjected to “Long-term, fool-proof measures…. because low-IQ women can’t necessarily be depended upon to take birth control pills or use condoms regularly.”… but not males???
That’s just downright sexist and illogical.
In such cases it’s still voluntary…
This could be voluntary too. A little social nudging of course (just like women get with bc), but voluntary.
Since the largest contributor to cost of living in liberal-leaning areas is the cost of real estate (housing), repression of real estate values by eliminating all restrictions against residential construction in large cities would probably be effective in raising fertility among liberals.
That’s a good thing. You don’t want things to get too dense. Excessive population density is miserable, and is unsafe in the event of calamities.
“Excessive population density is miserable, and is unsafe in the event of calamities.”
Basically false in every way. Singapore and Seoul are a lot safer and nicer than NYC, San Fran, and Chicago, despite WAY higher density.
Land use policy is a deliberate effort by existing land owners to profit by strangling the growth of the city.
Ultimately you can’t escape the fact that many high IQ people move to the cities where they can get renunerated for their traits. Loan forgiveness is just encouraging more poorly thought out borrowing.
“A dependent exemption is the income you can exclude from taxable income for each of your dependents. In 2018, you can exclude $4,150 for each dependent.”
Raise this. Substantially. More like $10-15k and it ends up helping most those who pay a higher rate.
And paid family leave still remains the key–so there is no negative signaling or negotiation required to take off reasonable time after pregnancy.