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wallowinmaya comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong Discussion
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Here are some policy recommendations which would not be very PC:
(Disclaimer: I endorse only a few of these views. See this comment )
Some of these examples seem rather mindkilling, but nonetheless interesting :-)
The low average IQ and the net harm done by the current model of international aid are more or less statements of fact. The rest of this line literally carries no message. What would be your preferred state for Africa?* What measures would you endorse to move towards that state?
-* ("I truly don't care much because I don't consider Africans to be deserving of sympathy" is a legitimate answer, just a... boring one, and a one that can, in turn, mark your utility function as worth much less consideration in the eyes of some people here - not necessarily being just me.)
My preferred state for Africa would be that all its inhabitants are happy, rich, etc. and live in utopia, of course. What do you think of me? I don't have a clue how to achieve utopia in Africa or anywhere else and I don't have any strong political opinions in general.
Edit: I just reread your post and it seems that I misunderstood your intentions when I read it the first time. I thought you wanted us to guess which beliefs Vladimir_M or folks with similar views might hold. (I therefore tried to think of views that are disturbing and at least somewhat reasonable) It follows that I don't endorse all of the above mentioned views which I thought I said also in the original comment.
But, I'll be honest: 4 and 7 are probably bad ideas. 1 and 2 could have bad unintended consequences. The first sentence in 3 is true, but I don't think we should stop all international aid despite its low effectiveness. (e.g. the "1 laptop per child"-idea is pretty awesome). 5 is also true, we should encourage more women to become scientists, CEOs, etc. nonetheless. IMHO most women are not aggressive and ambitious enough and these traits are obviously culturally malleable, although with a strong genetical component.
Oh, I just realized that lots of people read my comment and now think that I endorse slavery, sex with children and the extermination of the human race. Hmmm.... kinda sucks.
If the main problem with international aid is low IQ and conscientiousness (NB -- not conceding this), then that is just evidence that foreign aid should focus first on things that affect this. IQ appears to negatively correlate with rates of parasitic infection, and also with exposure to mercury. Lead exposure increases impulsiveness, so I expect it correlates with low conscientiousness. So, wiping out parasitic diseases and metals abatement, among other things, should probably be high-priority forms of aid.
prenatal nutrition is huge too but AFAIK has been actively fought against precisely because it implies that the problem is low-IQ which is a no-no.
I haven't heard that before, any reference?
Unable to find one, it could well be untrue.
Edit: this information was communicated to me by a person working in a prenatal nutrition charity, which caused me to assume it was legit. Their own model of "fought against" might have been biased.
I agree. It would be great if international aid organizations adopted the methods of Givewell or GWWC. (BTW, I think one of the greater problems with international aid is that it distorts incentives and increases corruption.)
Lobbying for thermometer export ban = most efficient charity ever?
Now we should both relax. In retrospect it's painfully obvious that I should've chosen the charitable interpretation* on the basis of your comment's general impersonal nature and your history here. However, I was already polemizing for polemics' sake elsewhere, so the monkey brain decided to shift fire onto a target of oppotunity too.
-* I wholeheartedly agree that this is indeed bullshit rationalists say, yeah.
Of course I agree in practice, but in a completely bullshit binary situation where it's either all the current aid, both laptops and the substandard food etc, vs no aid at all, I'd say that no aid at all probably does less harm.
No problem, I'm the one to blame since I misread your post. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have read the post on melatonin :-)
Agree
Citation that accounts for economic and other environmental factors? (Talking about the IQ and/or conscientiousness thing). Not looking to debate, but unsure how much of this thread is genuine belief and how much is weird contrarian signalling, and wanting to know the gist of whatever actual arguments are being made.
Not touching THAT with a ten foot pole. Nuh-uh. I might be naive as hell, but not insane enough to go anywhere near it with fellow humans. As for the IQ thing, well, I'll dig something up; I just assumed that, at least, it's all over the "HBD-sphere" from what I've seen of their blogs, but I'm not willing to read it again soon, so I'd rather search in more respectable places. Or go ask Wallowinmaya.
Sort of. Children and other dependents give you tax breaks in the US, but no direct financial aid unless you qualify for certain limited welfare programs. That's at the federal level; some states might expand on that, but I can't speak for all of them.
How would a 3-year-old give informed consent to be sold into slavery?
Even assuming the "for all ages" only applies to latter item, what would "informed consent' mean for a 3 year old?
You're right, my formulation was kinda self-contradictory. Let's change it to "at least 14 years" or "IQ above 100" or something like that. (Remember that I'm not necessarily endorsing any of these views )
Or keep it as it is, note that three-year-olds are unable to give informed consent, and leave the definition flexible if that changes in the future.
Not that I can see how it would, but we have enough over-specified laws already.
?
If we had a law that stated that sex is okay if there's informed consent, and we believe that three-year-olds cannot give such consent, then we do not need an additional law stating that three-year-olds are not allowed. It would be entirely superfluous.
Furthermore, the situation might later change in such a way that the "clarifying" law becomes obsolete. Perhaps not in this case, but the general pattern happens quite frequently.
Well, the United States doesn't required informed consent for sex, only consent, which is why statutory rape is defined by age.
As a lawyer, I think your general point about over-specification of law is quite strange. I'd rather have a precise law than a vague one. Interpreting laws creates the same sorts of problems as the hidden complexity of wishes.
Depends on the state. In Massachusetts, it is (on paper) legally problematic to have sex with someone who is drunk, because they cannot consent according to state law. I don't think is enforced, or enforceable, much, though.
Yes, that's how it works in most states. I assure you that this is not the same thing as informed consent, at least as commonly understood by American lawyers.
Informed consent is what your surgeon requires before doing a medical procedure. It's probably better to think of it distinct elements: (1) informed of risks and (2) consent to procedure. That's not the prerequisite for legal sex.
Almost all of these are also topics which have been discussed as ideas on LW before. Some of them do seem to lead to close to flamewars (although the LW notion of a flamewar is more civil than most online discussions) but they pretty clearly don't fall into the claimed category of views that are so unacceptable that they can only be talked about indirectly.
Sorry, I misunderstood the purpose of the OP somewhat, but now I'm really curious. I've read a great deal of LW, but I can't remember discussions regarding 1, 2 and 4. I also can't remember serious discussions of antinatalism, except one post by Xixidu which was downvoted into oblivion.
Not necessarily:
I just read the actual study.
These guys list on page 14 the variance ratios (i.e. male variance divided by female variance) of 31 countries on 5 different tests (1 PISA, 4 TIMSS). 28 test-results are missing so there are in total 127 measurements.
I don't have SPSS but the following should be illuminating enough:
In 7 tests the female variance is higher than the male variance. On 6 tests they are equal. But on 114 tests the male variance is higher than the female one.
In the Netherlands and in Marocco the average variance ratio is around 1. In Indonesia female variance seems to be greater than male variance. But in 28 other countries male variance is on average higher than female variance.
It's true however that the average score of men in some countries is lower than the female one, so maybe the greater male variation is due to the very low scores of some boys. It's important to note however that most participants were younger than 15, and girls tend to score higher on IQ-tests than boys when they are young, whereas this trend reverses as they are getting older. (Oh, and if you look at page 16 you'll see that they only list 16 countries out of 86. Is there some cherry picking going on? )
Maybe I'm missing something huge but these results seem not that promising. Not to mention other studies which showed greater male variance, publication bias and stuff :-)
Downvoted because all of these are frequently thought.