That is what makes it a 3rd rail issue. A presumption of truth of that has historically been a bad road.
I frequently include "where does that lead?" to decision making (akin to what could go wrong?). Your stated tendency to walk away from some fights is likely an understanding that the price…
That is what makes it a 3rd rail issue. A presumption of truth of that has historically been a bad road.
I frequently include "where does that lead?" to decision making (akin to what could go wrong?). Your stated tendency to walk away from some fights is likely an understanding that the price of victory could be too high. The punchline from the movie "War Games" comes to mind. "The only way you win is to not play."
Do we really want an answer to that question? Where might that lead if the answer was yes? We look to history for that answer. Given that, what would be useful about such a discovery? I can think of nothing.
Did it matter whether ulcers were mostly caused by stress, or by a bacterial infection?
If knowing the answer can make no difference in how we intervene to improve outcomes, perhaps we don't have any burning need to know the scientific truth.
If knowing the answer might inform better treatment (eg: antibiotics) and produce better real world results, then perhaps finding out would be useful. So we need to decide which situation obtains here.
In terms of evaluating an individual, every serious writer emphasizes that population level statistics are meaningless. Let's clear that one off the table.
In terms of evaluating a policy intended to change statistical outcomes in the real world, often it is helpful to understand the existing dynamics. If a police department is mistreating poor people of all races because their use of force policies are too loose, then requiring officers to take a racial Implicit Association Test is not going to improve outcomes, because you are ignoring the actual dynamics in favor of a narrative detached from reality. On the other hand, if they are discrimination based on race, perhaps that course is dead on. Being effective depends on understanding what dynamics are really going on.
If we were to form policies based on misunderstanding the dynamics of a social phenomenon, and our interventions fail to work, such that 50 years from now we are still barking up the wrong tree, does that matter more or less to one than maintaining a comfortable narrative today?
The sign of a misapprehension of reality based on political filters: generations of policies based on ideology or intuition, which are on the whole not accomplishing what they seek to accomplish. Is that something we see signs of, or not? It's certainly something to watch for in the future. If the existing paradigm is failing to produce the changes desired, perhaps one needs to relax the mental blinders, if one truly cares.
(If one is just seeking to signal virtue, then positively affecting real world outcomes is irrelevant; one can virtue signal for a century quite comfortably absent real progress on the ground. In that case, having an accurate model of the real world is more of a danger to the psychological and social payoffs, rather than being a benefit by helping to refine effectiveness.)
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However, the way I would put the question is:
How would a rational person with strong liberal values best implement those values if there were measurable differences between population groups (any population groups, any kind of ability) with real world implications? And there are two sub-questions: how should a rational liberal respond if the differences were mostly due to potentially changeable environmental factors? Versus how they should respond if the differences were mostly due to unchangeable genetic factors.
One key here is that we are talking about strong liberal values, and rationality - we are not asking about how a neo-nazi should respond, but somebody whose nuanced and humane values we whole heartedly agree with, who seeks to improve the real world as effectively as possible.
I do have tentative answers. For assessing individuals, it doesn't matter. Assess each individual without pre-judgement. That's both moral and scientifically valid.
If differences matter to group level outcomes, and the society is focused on group level outcomes, then seeking effective interventions would make good sense to a liberal who wants to reduce defacto inequality of opportunity. IF unchangeable genetic factors predominate, then the best strategy is to reduce the identification.
Back to cognitive ability. Each nation in Europe has a different average IQ, which you can find if you are interested. White immigrants to the US from different nations have also shown population level differences. However, once they mingle within the US population, we give little to no salience to which nations their ancestors come from. If Franco-Americans score lower than Russo-Americans, that difference gets lost once we de-emphasize origins so there is no widely discerned national origin to hang a stereotype on. Then the cultures and genetic pools also get diluted and intermixed as well, making the differences both less objectively, and harder for humans to add interpretation to.
A highly visible distinction makes this approach more difficult, but moving in that direction (less salience among the population based on the distinguishing characteristic) still seems like the best approach from a traditional liberal viewpoint. Kids raised in a mixed race environment, absent stereotypes, tend to treat differences in "race" as unimportant. Physically visible of course, but not considered to be of high importance. Fostering that race or ethnicity neutral categorization is the best way to avoid stigmatizing individuals.
Between 1619 and the latter part of that century, African (involuntary) immigrants were treated the same as other indentured servants (there was no chattel slavery), working alongside European indentured servants, and being freed after 7 years. A majority of the Europeans who immigrated to the territories which became the US were indentured servants (most but not all "voluntary" by some definitions), and the involuntary African immigrants were just part of that flow. During their servitude they had the same (limited) rights, but after the term were equally free.
It was only a couple of generations later that life-long slavery was introduced, mostly for economic reasons we could go into. And then subsequent to that, the concept of "race" as relevant, and then the concepts of white supremacy among "races", were invented to rationalize the oppression of slavery - in that order.
I would go back to that time, and eliminate race as a relevant category to the psyches of Americans, no more important than hair color. Alas, that direction has been disparaged today.
So we had better hope, as I fervently do, that unchangeable genetic factors have very little influence on cognitive ability at the population group level. Because the neo-progressive toolkit is inadequate to adapt to that reality - within liberal values of equality - if it should come to pass. They prefer to deny reality to adapting to it (in general; not saying what the reality is in our current discussion).
And in the meanwhile, we know that changeable environmental factors play a significant role in cognitive ability, so we should do what we can to take advantage of that, as part of a broadened attempt to produce better equality of opportunity; and we need to emphasize that each individual needs to be treated as such without group-based pre-judgement, period. Drill it in. That's true of every scenario. And of course all of this is within a yet broader effort to address factors other then differences in abilities - like discrimination and stereotypes.
I note that France takes a different approach than the US in regard to "race". They are strongly against the concept of "race", and make it illegal to record the "race" of people - by the government or by private companies. I think that approach has positives (reducing the salience of race) and negatives (making it harder to compare outcomes to detect possible discrimination). I do not know which approach will produced the better outcome in 100 years; I do not take for granted that US approach of elevating racial identity as primary has been proven to work better in the long run, so I think we should have some humility and be open to learning.
"but suppose there are? Can we live with that?"
That is what makes it a 3rd rail issue. A presumption of truth of that has historically been a bad road.
I frequently include "where does that lead?" to decision making (akin to what could go wrong?). Your stated tendency to walk away from some fights is likely an understanding that the price of victory could be too high. The punchline from the movie "War Games" comes to mind. "The only way you win is to not play."
Do we really want an answer to that question? Where might that lead if the answer was yes? We look to history for that answer. Given that, what would be useful about such a discovery? I can think of nothing.
For the record, no, I don't want an answer.
If such a difference exists then it is small and temporary and its revelation will only do harm, and then there is that near-total overlap.
Exactly my thought.
Let's consider an analogy.
Did it matter whether ulcers were mostly caused by stress, or by a bacterial infection?
If knowing the answer can make no difference in how we intervene to improve outcomes, perhaps we don't have any burning need to know the scientific truth.
If knowing the answer might inform better treatment (eg: antibiotics) and produce better real world results, then perhaps finding out would be useful. So we need to decide which situation obtains here.
In terms of evaluating an individual, every serious writer emphasizes that population level statistics are meaningless. Let's clear that one off the table.
In terms of evaluating a policy intended to change statistical outcomes in the real world, often it is helpful to understand the existing dynamics. If a police department is mistreating poor people of all races because their use of force policies are too loose, then requiring officers to take a racial Implicit Association Test is not going to improve outcomes, because you are ignoring the actual dynamics in favor of a narrative detached from reality. On the other hand, if they are discrimination based on race, perhaps that course is dead on. Being effective depends on understanding what dynamics are really going on.
If we were to form policies based on misunderstanding the dynamics of a social phenomenon, and our interventions fail to work, such that 50 years from now we are still barking up the wrong tree, does that matter more or less to one than maintaining a comfortable narrative today?
The sign of a misapprehension of reality based on political filters: generations of policies based on ideology or intuition, which are on the whole not accomplishing what they seek to accomplish. Is that something we see signs of, or not? It's certainly something to watch for in the future. If the existing paradigm is failing to produce the changes desired, perhaps one needs to relax the mental blinders, if one truly cares.
(If one is just seeking to signal virtue, then positively affecting real world outcomes is irrelevant; one can virtue signal for a century quite comfortably absent real progress on the ground. In that case, having an accurate model of the real world is more of a danger to the psychological and social payoffs, rather than being a benefit by helping to refine effectiveness.)
--
However, the way I would put the question is:
How would a rational person with strong liberal values best implement those values if there were measurable differences between population groups (any population groups, any kind of ability) with real world implications? And there are two sub-questions: how should a rational liberal respond if the differences were mostly due to potentially changeable environmental factors? Versus how they should respond if the differences were mostly due to unchangeable genetic factors.
One key here is that we are talking about strong liberal values, and rationality - we are not asking about how a neo-nazi should respond, but somebody whose nuanced and humane values we whole heartedly agree with, who seeks to improve the real world as effectively as possible.
I do have tentative answers. For assessing individuals, it doesn't matter. Assess each individual without pre-judgement. That's both moral and scientifically valid.
If differences matter to group level outcomes, and the society is focused on group level outcomes, then seeking effective interventions would make good sense to a liberal who wants to reduce defacto inequality of opportunity. IF unchangeable genetic factors predominate, then the best strategy is to reduce the identification.
Back to cognitive ability. Each nation in Europe has a different average IQ, which you can find if you are interested. White immigrants to the US from different nations have also shown population level differences. However, once they mingle within the US population, we give little to no salience to which nations their ancestors come from. If Franco-Americans score lower than Russo-Americans, that difference gets lost once we de-emphasize origins so there is no widely discerned national origin to hang a stereotype on. Then the cultures and genetic pools also get diluted and intermixed as well, making the differences both less objectively, and harder for humans to add interpretation to.
A highly visible distinction makes this approach more difficult, but moving in that direction (less salience among the population based on the distinguishing characteristic) still seems like the best approach from a traditional liberal viewpoint. Kids raised in a mixed race environment, absent stereotypes, tend to treat differences in "race" as unimportant. Physically visible of course, but not considered to be of high importance. Fostering that race or ethnicity neutral categorization is the best way to avoid stigmatizing individuals.
Between 1619 and the latter part of that century, African (involuntary) immigrants were treated the same as other indentured servants (there was no chattel slavery), working alongside European indentured servants, and being freed after 7 years. A majority of the Europeans who immigrated to the territories which became the US were indentured servants (most but not all "voluntary" by some definitions), and the involuntary African immigrants were just part of that flow. During their servitude they had the same (limited) rights, but after the term were equally free.
It was only a couple of generations later that life-long slavery was introduced, mostly for economic reasons we could go into. And then subsequent to that, the concept of "race" as relevant, and then the concepts of white supremacy among "races", were invented to rationalize the oppression of slavery - in that order.
I would go back to that time, and eliminate race as a relevant category to the psyches of Americans, no more important than hair color. Alas, that direction has been disparaged today.
So we had better hope, as I fervently do, that unchangeable genetic factors have very little influence on cognitive ability at the population group level. Because the neo-progressive toolkit is inadequate to adapt to that reality - within liberal values of equality - if it should come to pass. They prefer to deny reality to adapting to it (in general; not saying what the reality is in our current discussion).
And in the meanwhile, we know that changeable environmental factors play a significant role in cognitive ability, so we should do what we can to take advantage of that, as part of a broadened attempt to produce better equality of opportunity; and we need to emphasize that each individual needs to be treated as such without group-based pre-judgement, period. Drill it in. That's true of every scenario. And of course all of this is within a yet broader effort to address factors other then differences in abilities - like discrimination and stereotypes.
I note that France takes a different approach than the US in regard to "race". They are strongly against the concept of "race", and make it illegal to record the "race" of people - by the government or by private companies. I think that approach has positives (reducing the salience of race) and negatives (making it harder to compare outcomes to detect possible discrimination). I do not know which approach will produced the better outcome in 100 years; I do not take for granted that US approach of elevating racial identity as primary has been proven to work better in the long run, so I think we should have some humility and be open to learning.