You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

CaveJohnson comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong Discussion

26 Post author: Multiheaded 25 January 2012 05:43PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (857)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: CharlieSheen 28 January 2012 04:56:17PM *  12 points [-]

The same would apply to cuckoldry.

I agree. Why would there be a switch in the brain "in case genetic tests prove/shaman says child isn't yours go into depression!"? Other cues like smell or facial similarity are already factored into the fathers feelings before he consciously knows about the child's genetics.

We know almost nothing about the effects of sex for children and teenagers.

I don't think that's true for teenagers, their sexuality is heavily studied. I don't have very high confidence in academia but they must have produced something useful on the subject. Right? In any case I agree that children's sexuality is a pretty strong mind-killer and that our knowledge about it is woefully inadequate or just plain wrong.

Nationalism is more destructive than religion, and almost as much of a collective hallucination.

Possible. But I don't see why this would be controversial.

Black people are actually genetically superior in important ways-- they've had such bad luck from geography and racism that their advantages don't show up as superior results.

Come now. White people would be all ecstatic that they now have proof they are to blame for all the problems they've been blaming themselves this entire time (and even more since the opportunity cost of squandered superiority is greater than squandered equality). Who dosen't like being proven right? This also fulfils their deeply ingrained pseudo-Christian guilt complex and desire for original sin. White people love feeling guilty and signalling moral superiority to other white people. I think that's partially genetic btw. Most other people on the planet are not such annoying moral poseurs. I don't have any real data to back me on this last claim but anecdotal evidence is pretty consistent on it.

East Asians and Arabs may react unfavourably though. Also the future would be very bright for mankind since Africa is likley to stay in population explosion mode for most of this century, while say Latin America and the Middle East are showing signs of incredibly rapid drops in birthrates (and the developed world is showing no real signs of recuperation).

Also its pretty obvious that black people are superior in certain aspects to most other races. Besides the obvious stuff like say West Africans being good sprinters and East Africans excelling at marathons, greater resistance to tropical diseases, greater diversity helping the evolve more rapidly to deal with new pathogens, lower rates of skin cancer, ect. humans in Sub-Saharan africa share some nearly continent wide adaptations to their environment that are very desirable. I'm pretty sure African males have an edge when it comes to attractiveness and no I'm not talking about the penis myth (which may not be a myth, it is hard to tell since measurements are ambiguous and conflicting). First off there is the purely physical advantage of darker skin since it is associated with masculinity, then there is the well documented "winning personality" when one controls for other factors. That last one is related to the fact that people of African descent generally have far fewer mental health problems (Europeans be they gentiles or Askenazi Jews and East Asians are really the neurotic freaks of the human race), better self-image, greater self-confidence and are much less prone to suicide than most.

Comment author: CaveJohnson 28 January 2012 05:12:06PM *  5 points [-]

White people love feeling guilty and signalling moral superiority to other white people. I think that's partially genetic btw. Most other people on the planet are not such annoying moral poseurs. I don't have any real data to back me on this claim but anecdotal evidence is pretty consistent on this

This almost reads like you are trying to hint at something but for the life of me I can't figure out what. Nope. No idea.

Comment author: J_Taylor 29 January 2012 12:15:46AM 6 points [-]

Could someone make explicit what is being hinted at? I fear that I am missing the signal.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 January 2012 08:27:00PM *  1 point [-]

Didn't catch that implication before.

Edit: Just wanted to make clear that I'm not endorsing it.