Why the Alt Right will take over America (and the Far Right will take over Europe)

[scombrid]

This advance in molecular genetics will fully convince the majority of psychologists (not just intelligence researchers, who are now generally already convinced) of relevant genetic racial psychological differences. The majority of Americans will likewise be convinced, as handheld genetic-testing devices will test for genotypic "smarts," and Americans will easily see the genotypic racial differences for themselves.

What happens when the Trump supporters and the rest of the alt-right test themselves and find themselves to be in possession of the "stupid gene"?

These genetic variants have the greatest role in deciding whether any given person is a winner or a loser in society.

I thought a lot of the "alt right" devotes were people that had been left behind by globalization; they are rust belt whites that are blaming brown people and the government for taking their jobs here and abroad. I guess they should just suck it up and realize that their economic position results from their genetic inferiority.

They will first accept conspiracy theories, cherry-picked studies, fringe authorities, and a thousand fallacies before they even consider accepting the "racist" mainstream science, much like they now behave against the science of genetic engineering of crops.

The Alt-right is very guilty of this type of behavior. You will find anti-GMO, anti-VAX, belief in Chemtrails and other assorted pseudoscientific clap trap is rife in the alt right.

 

[scombrid]

[*]Because belief in genetic psychological racial differences is the core belief and driving political force of the Alt Right, this new broadly-accepted science will give them a powerful political position, as the science supplies the key premise for their central policy of immigration restriction (poor criminal Mexicans drain the economy).

We have practically been overrun with people from south of the border over the last 20 years. However crime rates have fallen and the last financial crisis was cause by white people in shiny big buildings in big cites. Your "key premise" fails before the genetic testing even begins.

 

[zorq]

I believe the OP is misunderstanding the Alt-Right's relationship with science.

The alt-right accept averaged racial IQ differences because they think it legitimizes their hate and xenophobia. But it doesn't. Widespread scientific and public acceptance of these IQ differences will not lead to greater acceptance of alt-right values because those values aren't actually based on science. Their values and the policies they propose are based mostly on irrational fear and hatred.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

This is only intermediately true. The NIH study won't collect data of crime, to my knowledge, but, if the data proves that races vary by genotypic intelligence, then it will make far more PLAUSIBLE that genotypic criminal behavior likewise varies by race, as criminal behavior is likewise highly heritable (about 50%) and races really do drastically vary in average crimes. Fortunately for Latinos, they are not much more statistically criminal than whites, but even the small criminal disadvantage can provide a persuasive argument for such an emotionally powerful political hot potato as crime, even more than the intelligence disadvantage. For blacks, the argument against them would be far stronger, as the racial crime gap is much greater. I expect segregation will return.

No, what I said is entirely true, not intermediately so. You're now making another arugment. The previous claim was as follows: "1. The National Institute of Health is planning the largest-ever genetic study. It will collect the genetic and biographical profiles of over a MILLION Americans, including "educational status." After this collection is completed, analysts will identify most of the alleles that code for educational success, a trait that is already known to be 75% genetically heritable through twin studies, and we already know the alleles that code for 9% of the total variance. The complete set of alleles are expected to be closely associated with IQ, only with even more practical value. These genetic variants have the greatest role in deciding whether any given person is a winner or a loser in society."
That particular claim was not about criminality, but about genotypic intelligence, education, etc., which need not correlate with genotypic propensity for crime.

Moreover, even the new argument wouldn't tell you that Mexicans (or Latinos) are genetically more predisposed towards crime. At most, it would tell you that they are more frequently so than some other groups, but then again, membership to a group would not be a rational way of selecting out the ones more genetically predisposed to crime when actual DNA tests are cheap (free if they're paid for by applicants who want to migrate) and widely available.
In addition to that, a conclusion that Latinos are even slightly more genetically predisposed to crime than non-Latino Whites is not warranted on the basis of the evidence, and cannot justify the conclusion that the alt-right will getbe proven right, if that's what the alt-right is saying. More precisely:

Fortunately for Latinos, they are not much more statistically criminal than whites, but even the small criminal disadvantage can provide a persuasive argument for such an emotionally powerful political hot potato as crime, even more than the intelligence disadvantage.

But there is no good reason to believe that that's a small genetic criminal disadvantage. Just take a look at the history of Europe, or Asia. You will easily find atrocities of all sorts and scales, as well as high crime rates, etc., depending on environmental factors.
Now, there are environmental factors at play here, and it's quite possible that they are playing a role and even making the difference, rather than genetics.
For example, non-Latino/Hispanic Whites are overall richer than Latinos, and as such, they can generally afford better lawyers, reducing the chances of a conviction (Bomb#20 made a point here about lighter punishments, but it seems to me it's also quite possible that better lawyers generally reduce conviction rates).
Additionally, of course that plays a role on the kind of crimes they're on average inclined to commit (e.g., White collar crimes vs. muggings on the streets).

Now, it might be that Latinos are more frequently predisposed to committing crimes than non-Latino Whites, but the evidence at this point does not warrant such a conclusion. At most, and granting your claims about crime rates for now for the sake of the argument, it would warrant a "more probable than not" conclusion, which is not enough for the stronger claim you make about the alt-right...but actually, even if the genes had been found and were more common among Latinos than among other Whites, that would not support the alt-right policy of (as you describe it) banning all Latinos; rather, a policy based on those findings would ban or give negative points to people with the genes in question regardless of ethnicity or race. Plenty of Latinos would predictably pass the test.

For blacks, the argument against them would be far stronger, as the racial crime gap is much greater. I expect segregation will return.

Why would you expect that?
Even if the offending genes are more common among Blacks, segregation is obviously unconstitutional. How would you expect the alt-right to go around that?

I think the Alt Right would have an easy counterpoint to that argument: GDP per capita has risen in almost every nation in the world, so you can't infer from that rise that the greater portions of low-IQ races did not depress the growth. I expect the argument of the Alt Right would rest on both common sense and on Lynn and Vanhanen's 50% correlation between average IQ and GDP per capita among nations, and, if racial IQ differences are proven to be genotypic, then the excuses for that correlation would effectively evaporate among voters. Liberals will not have a strong argument.

That's not a counterpoint to the point I was making, since my point was that you could expect GDP per capita would keep growing, not that it would keep growing at the same pace. That part of my argument was to counter the argument (which plausibly but not surely you were making in the other thread) that Latinos would actually make the GDP per capita go down. But I also addressed the other potential interpretation of your claim, or potential claims.

If the line is, "Yeah, sure, OK, Latino immigrants will SLOW economic growth, but not reverse it, so what's the big deal?", then it is very much a losing political position.

No, that's not the line. The explanation of my position is what I said. Briefly, I'm covering the following potential claims:
1. If the alt-right claims that Latino immigration will cause a reduction in GDP per capita, that's not true (all other things equal, etc., but even granting all of the genetic claism)
2. If the alt-right claims that Latino immigration will stop GDP or even slow down GDP growth (not per capita), that's not true (as usual, all other things equal, and granting the genetic claims). With more people, the GDP (not per capita) will grow faster, even if they have lower genotypic IQ, and other things equal (they might not be, but that would require a different argument).
3. If the alt-right claims that Latino immigration will make the growth of GDP per capita slower, that would at most apply to Latinos with lower genotypic IQ than the average American, so it would not apply to all other Latinos.
4. If the alt-right claims that immigration of people with lower genotypic IQ will make the growth of GDP per capita slower, that's very probably true, but it does not follow that that will make the income of people with higher genotypic IQ grow more slowly as well (I will address this point in greater detail below).

People who are being rational will generally see the errors and the inconsistencies in the alt-right position, either immediately or when thinkers on the traditional right or on the left (or non-ideologues) point them out.
People who aren't being rational might go in any direction, but for that matter, they might as well insist in denying the science that the alt-right likes. That's not overall more irrational than being contradictory, or than affirming the claims about science that the alt-right makes but are not warranted.

Maybe I am not understanding your argument. You say, "...does not follow..." but it most certainly seems to follow.

It does not follow.
Let me explain with an example.
Let's say that if N people with genes X,Y, and Z migrate to the US, predictably future GDP per capita will grow at a rate T for (say) two decades, but if they don't, it will grow at a rate T+e for two decades (oversimplifying, but perhaps this will make my point more clear).
That does not entail that the income of the people who do not have genes X, Y, and Z will grow more slowly than before (besides, GDP per capita might not be a good measurement, but pick your choice of measure of wealth, and the conclusion still wouldn't follow).

There would probably be a lower GDP per capita (or real disposable per capita income, or whatever) than there would be without the immigration in question, but there will also be a greater percentage of people with X, Y, Z genes who will predictably have an income below average.
It doesn't entail that the income of those without such genes will grow more slowly. It does not even entail that the income of people with X, Y, Z genes but who are the descendants of Americans who were already citizens before the immigration we're considering takes place, will on average grow more slowly. Furthermore, this is even compatible with faster income growth among those who aren't the descendants of those immigrants.

Granted, you might have another argument to the conclusion that the income of others will also grow more slowly, but it would be a different argument. What you've said so far does not entail it, or even that it's probable.

All that said, let's say for the sake of the argument - since there may be other reasons for that - that immigration of people with genes X, Y, and Z will likely result in slower income growth for the rest and/or for the descendants of people already living legally in America, etc. That would at most support a ban (or a restriction, by giving negative points, etc., so that other factors that are specific to each would be immigrant can be considered) on immigrants with those genes, not on all Latinos or Blacks or whatever regardless of genes. Such a policy would be obviously unconstitutional given the easy availability of DNA tests, even granting that the gene-base restrictions were justified and constitutional. While leftists usually would not agree with either policy, plenty of smart leftists (and many non-alt-rightists too) would be keen to point out the inconsistencies in the alt-right position bent on banning all Latinos (or Mexicans, or Africans, or Black Africans, or Negroids, or "darker-skinned races", or whatever they pick other than the actual genes).

That is all I will respond to for now. Thank you for your contributions.

No problem. By the way, something is wrong with the thread. Nice Squirrel's post has some kind of formatting problem.

 

[Canard DuJour]

No, you presented an out-of-context snippet which might or might not invoke Lewontin's fallacy. What I said screamin' obviously meant with respect to IQ and had bugger all to do with Lewontin's fallacy.

Very well. Do you mean that the average IQ difference between Latinos and whites (10) is less than the standard deviation of each distribution (15)?

No, we don't even need to know that. So long as there's substantial overlap, immigration policy based on genetic IQ would have nearly the opposite results of your prediction. And the biggest losers would be low SES whites - the alt-right demographic itself.

 

[untermensche]

What happens when the Trump supporters and the rest of the alt-right test themselves and find themselves to be in possession of the "stupid gene"?

These genetic variants have the greatest role in deciding whether any given person is a winner or a loser in society.

I thought a lot of the "alt right" devotes were people that had been left behind by globalization; they are rust belt whites that are blaming brown people and the government for taking their jobs here and abroad. I guess they should just suck it up and realize that their economic position results from their genetic inferiority.

They will first accept conspiracy theories, cherry-picked studies, fringe authorities, and a thousand fallacies before they even consider accepting the "racist" mainstream science, much like they now behave against the science of genetic engineering of crops.

The Alt-right is very guilty of this type of behavior. You will find anti-GMO, anti-VAX, belief in Chemtrails and other assorted pseudoscientific clap trap is rife in the alt right.

You don't understand the religion.

The religion of white supremacy states that no matter what white people do it is a sign of superior intelligence.

So what they have supported politicians who have worked against their interests for decades.

That is still a sign of high intelligence in white people.

Look at how smartly all those whites have been suckered by politicians.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

/mod

 

[lpetrich]

Just as well. The OP's conclusions depend on a big pile of suppositions, often very dubious ones.

Here is a problem with such theories.

I'll imagine a gentleman whom I'll call Publius. He lived in the Roman Empire around 100 CE, about halfway between Augustus Caesar's reign and the Year of the Five Emperors. The latter event was a foreshadowing of the Crisis of the Third Century, an era of civil wars and breakaway factions. He lived in an advanced society, both technically and socially. The printing press is centuries in the future, but there was a sizable industry of copying books by hand, and literacy was common among the better-off people. However, a sizable fraction of people were slaves.

When Publius lived, the Empire was in a time of peace and quiet and political stability, and it ruled the entire coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and also lots of land farther away. Six centuries before, Rome had been a minor city-state in west-central Italy, but over the next five centuries, Rome had conquered more and more land until it reached the extent of Publius's day.

Outside the Empire is an assortment of tribes and nations.

In western and central Europe were the remaining Celtic tribes, though Germanic ones were spreading out of the Germanic homeland in Denmark and northern Germany. The Germanic ones distinguished themselves militarily by delivering a crushing defeat to the Roman Army in Teutoberg Forest nearly a century before.

In eastern Europe, the Slavs were still in their homeland in western Ukraine or thereabouts, and east of them were Scythian and Sarmatian nomads. In the Middle East, the Roman Empire fought the Parthian Empire of Iran, without much success in conquering it. India and China were further eastward. To the south was the Sahara Desert, and beyond that, various African tribes. The Bantu people were pushing eastward and southward from West Africa, and they had already reached central Africa.

So Publius concludes that Mediterranean people have some genetic advantage over all the other people in the world, and that northern Europeans are behind because they have bad genes.

-

But over the last few centuries, Publius's counterparts have believed that it is northern Europeans and their descendants who have the superior genes, with exceptions like the Irish.

So who's right?

 

[ApostateAbe]

If?

[*]The National Institute of Health is planning the largest-ever genetic study. It will collect the genetic and biographical profiles of over a MILLION Americans, including "educational status." After this collection is completed, analysts will identify most of the alleles that code for educational success, a trait that is already known to be 75% genetically heritable through twin studies, and we already know the alleles that code for 9% of the total variance. The complete set of alleles are expected to be closely associated with IQ, only with even more practical value. These genetic variants have the greatest role in deciding whether any given person is a winner or a loser in society.

No they won't. Social caste is the greatest indication of "success" and "failure" in society.

[*]Analysts will also discover that these alleles vary in frequency among races, predicting the existing racial hierarchy of educational success and IQ (as the aforementioned alleles coding for 9% already have so been shown). The taboo surrounding this prediction does not decrease its probability. Even without the molecular genetics, there are many good reasons in favor of it and few good reasons against it, and I won't debate those reasons in this thread, but, if you have an objection then I will direct you to an appropriate thread. Or else browse my threads in the Pseudoscience forum to learn more.

No dear god, I will not go read that drivel.

[*]This advance in molecular genetics will fully convince the majority of psychologists (not just intelligence researchers, who are now generally already convinced) of relevant genetic racial psychological differences. The majority of Americans will likewise be convinced, as handheld genetic-testing devices will test for genotypic "smarts," and Americans will easily see the genotypic racial differences for themselves.

And then should we just kill people with genes that indicate a predisposition to schizophrenia!

[*]Because belief in genetic psychological racial differences is the core belief and driving political force of the Alt Right, this new broadly-accepted science will give them a powerful political position, as the science supplies the key premise for their central policy of immigration restriction (poor criminal Mexicans drain the economy).

We'll have to let the companies that exploit the poor criminal Mexicans that they are draining the economy.

[*]Very many liberals, however, will not accept the science accepted by everyone else.

[*]This will mean that middle Americans will tend to see such liberals as generally crazy, they will favor the Alt Right, and the liberals will remain trapped in the loony bins until they die of old age. Until then the Alt Right will have sole control of the steering wheel, and in the back seat will be their preferences for fascism, for anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, and for scorn against the concerns of darker-skinned races. In Europe, the likewise-rising Far Right will likewise take sole control.

I think George Orwell had a better understanding of politics. Sarah Palin too.

I think you just found a VBForum bug with the list tags.

"No they won't. Social caste is the greatest indication of 'success' and 'failure' in society."

Such a claim is often repeated as though it is fact, always lacking evidence as though evidence is not needed, but the evidence stands against it. The correlation between caste and life success seems to be mostly a function of the common correlation with IQ, which is mostly genetically heritable. Not only are variations in IQ highly heritable within a race (Devlin et al, 1997, "The Heritability of IQ"), but so are variations in socioeconomic status itself (Trzaskowski et al, 2014, "Genetic influence on family socioeconomic status and children's intelligence").

The following image comes from Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve. The book was criticized for many reasons, but there was no counter to this particular point. The slope of the line shows you which variable is more important for your odds of living in poverty as an adult.

 

[lpetrich]

Very idealized curves. I call bullshit on that. Furthermore, those curves may refer to same-race populations.

Whining about "Lewontin's fallacy" is not much of an argument. Pointing to Holocene human evolution isn't much either. Known cases of Holocene human evolution are mostly cases of evolution of single-gene traits, often with single mutations. Those might be the easiest to discover, however. They include:

• Lactose tolerance
• Malaria resistance -- sickle-cell anemia, thalassemia
• Tuberculosis resistance -- Tay-Sachs disease

However, some traits are controlled by large numbers of genes, like height.
GIANT study reveals giant number of genes linked to height | Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard noting Defining the role of common variation in the genomic and biological architecture of adult human height : Nature Genetics : Nature Research
Its abstract:

Using genome-wide data from 253,288 individuals, we identified 697 variants at genome-wide significance that together explained one-fifth of the heritability for adult height. By testing different numbers of variants in independent studies, we show that the most strongly associated ~2,000, ~3,700 and ~9,500 SNPs explained ~21%, ~24% and ~29% of phenotypic variance. Furthermore, all common variants together captured 60% of heritability. The 697 variants clustered in 423 loci were enriched for genes, pathways and tissue types known to be involved in growth and together implicated genes and pathways not highlighted in earlier efforts, such as signaling by fibroblast growth factors, WNT/β-catenin and chondroitin sulfate–related genes. We identified several genes and pathways not previously connected with human skeletal growth, including mTOR, osteoglycin and binding of hyaluronic acid. Our results indicate a genetic architecture for human height that is characterized by a very large but finite number (thousands) of causal variants.

But even a trait with a heavy genetic component like height can be affected by environment, like malnutrition.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Plains Indians used to be the tallest people in the world according to documented evidence.

 

[scombrid]

And the alt-right folks are going to get that genetic test and find genetic markers placing their likely IQ position on the left side of this graph.

Then what will their movement do?

 

[lpetrich]

In Knock Plastic!, published in the late 1960's, Isaac Asimov was once asked to write an article on this sort of subject by a certain newspaper's editors. He stated to them that he would give his views in advance, so he does not have to waste time writing an article that they may not want to print.

I said that, in the first place, it was very likely that those who were most enthusiastic for such an investigation were quite confident that they had set up measurement-standards by which the slum-dwellers would indeed prove to be "inferior." This would then relieve the superior non-slum-dwellers of responsibility toward the slum-dwellers and of any guilt feelings they might possess.

If I were wrong, I went on to say, then I felt the investigators should be as eager to find a superior minority as an inferior one. For instance, I strongly suspected that by the prevailing measurement standards it would turn out that Unitarians and Episcopalians would have a higher average IQ and a higher performance record than other religious groups.

If this proved to be so, I suggested, Unitarians and Episcopalians ought to wear some distinctive badge, be ushered to the front of the bus, be given the best seats at the theaters, be allowed to use the cleaner rest-rooms and so on.

So the newspaper said, "Forget it!" and it's just as well. No one wants to search out superiors to one's self - only inferiors.