Since it's certainly possible that blacks have genetically higher IQs than whites but are environmentally made to underperform, isn't that all the more egregious? Wouldn't that be an important, uplifting thing to know? Why not find out?
When people are anxious about genetic explanations, it's usually because they're afraid of one group underperforming. "Look, we know blacks score lower on IQ tests, but we've got to be careful here—they have bad environments." But actually we have the tools necessary to model outcomes like this. If it's true that blacks are underscoring despite a genetic advantage, eventually this truth will emerge.
So when people are worried a priori that an investigation into genetic explanations will disfavor blacks, either they fundamentally don't believe these things can be rigorously studied, or they're worried that even under fair standards blacks will underperform. The former implies unknowability of truth, the latter genuine racism.
The canonical reply here is that while it's true IQ tests a narrow range of abilities, (a) it's highly predictive of various facets of success in life, and (b) "specialists" are relatively rare, in that intelligence tends to be fairly well correlated across disciplines.
They concede that IQ (a) exists, (b) predicts many life outcomes, (c) differs between groups, and (d) is partly heritable. If an alien at this point were presented with these premises, does anyone suppose its natural conclusion would be, "this must be completely due to environmental factors, and not in the least genetic ones?"
Surely claiming a difference of outcome is entirely due to environmental factors is as extreme as claiming it's entirely due entirely to genetics. Yet imagine the uproar if someone had claimed the latter. Contrast that with the support Vox has gotten for their article.
It is dangerous to require a conclusion to be true rather than being open to whatever is.
You are possibly right to be frustrated about gender problems, but your suggestion — that in the fight for gender equality it's ok to construct a double standard for men and women — is mistaken. If you want to fix gender inequality, fix specific unjust advantages and disadvantages. The idea that because men have blanket "privilege" women should be compensated with additional privileges leads to more inequality, not less.
The strange thing is that the same comment has been used in support of gender equality. In Iceland, where every board must have at least 40% representation for each gender, they interviewed some female CEOs, who said something like, "Men are selfish! That's how we got the financial crises. Women will look out for the good of the group. It's in our DNA."
Really? Are there no circumstances under which this would be appropriate? It seems to me this makes assumptions about the baseline quality of the existing codebase. Surely sometimes buying a new car makes more sense than trying to fix up an old one?
I wish people would drop the theatrics when writing these. Here's the same article rewritten without loss of substance:
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I looked into blockchain technologies carefully and I’ve ended up thinking it’s an overpromoted niche sideshow.
I’ve seen wave after wave of landscape-shifting technology sweep through the IT space: Personal computers, Unix, C, the Internet and Web, Java, REST, mobile, public cloud. And without exception, I observed that they were initially loaded in the back door by geeks, without asking permission, because they got shit done and helped people with their jobs.
That’s not happening with blockchain. Not in the slightest. Which is why I don’t believe in it.
Yeah, on a personal note, I do actually wish I had more time for my own stuff. And I'm not so sure I could get up to 90 again these days :)
But the point is, even if working 90 hour weeks was a stupid thing to do, for better or worse it positioned me to negotiate more pay. Not because the company somehow had a fetish for long-hour workers, but because of what I learned during those hours. Is there a real way to prevent that? If not, is part of the pay gap inevitable?
I can't get into too much detail, but I didn't rewrite it just because I was a stubborn stickler. At one point it became impossible to read our code and explain the logic of our asynchronous workflow, which was spread out over and interwoven through about ten monstrous functions. Speaking with humility, at that particular company, no one else was going to rewrite it, because everyone had the mentality "we may as well keep stacking as much debt as needed, as long as we meet this deadline." Meanwhile every bug fix introduced two more.
I'm relatively inexperienced, so I can't comment on the rest of your comment. There's a good chance you're right.
Beyond my own anecdote, the larger allegory I was trying to get at was: I can't think of any real way to stop someone who really wants to work long hours; and at least some of the time, those extra hours will translate into more pay, resulting in a pay gap.
When people are anxious about genetic explanations, it's usually because they're afraid of one group underperforming. "Look, we know blacks score lower on IQ tests, but we've got to be careful here—they have bad environments." But actually we have the tools necessary to model outcomes like this. If it's true that blacks are underscoring despite a genetic advantage, eventually this truth will emerge.
So when people are worried a priori that an investigation into genetic explanations will disfavor blacks, either they fundamentally don't believe these things can be rigorously studied, or they're worried that even under fair standards blacks will underperform. The former implies unknowability of truth, the latter genuine racism.