looks like in general it's impossible to have a fair discussion about why a group of people has worse outcomes than other groups of people, if an argument wants to include actual responsibility (even partial) of the members of the group for the worse outcome.

I mean can I take a country which is very low ranked internationally on some objective measurement we all agree is a positive quality (say corruption index, or child mortality) and then claim that means the residents of that country are objectively worse human beings than the residents of a country much higher in that ranking?

I don't think that would be allowed in this forum, I understood it's basically a bannable offense to rank human groups (however defined) qualitatively claiming some to be better than others, with the specific exception of right-wing political group members which forum rules (or enforcement?) allow to consider inferior human beings.

you might ask what the need would be to rank human groups to begin with.

well the need would be that IF ranking is allowed AND if it makes sense, then it can be used to decide who to ally with internationally for example, who to help, where to spend resources and so on. it is something that can inform morals in general when facing tradeoffs

Well that would be pretty stupid.

Also it would mean one of the top ranking countries being one of your most-feared "MARXIST" countries.

And by "actual responsibility" you mean genetic inferiority, racial inferiority, brain size and/or greater propensity for criminal behavior, right?

you might consider child mortality in a country externally determined, other people can disagree, not sure how usual it is to call stupid people who disagree but you do you.

anyway you asked, that's the kind of speech that is stifled on this forum

can mean anything endogenous including assumptions about what you mention and everything else linked to local culture and whatnot.

talking about the idea that groups have worse outcomes because of their characteristics is frowned upon/banned with very few exceptions for groups that are disliked by the left.

for example it would be acceptable I think on this forum to talk badly about incels , to claim their lack of sex isn't predicated necessarily on external, systemic oppression rather on their inherent lack of qualities useful to have sex right? whatever those qualities might be, genetically determined or not.

but if you start claiming this about a poor country income (or other desirable, measurable outcome of a country) then you are a supremacist, or at the very least "stupid" (according to jalfresi), as if child mortality in a country didn't inherently depend on the quality of the human beings living in that country. as if it was NECESSARILY ENTIRELY caused by factors external to the qualities of human beings living in that country.

Not just this forum. It is just a line of thought that liberals refuse to entertain, as it is outside the bounds of their moral framework. Right or wrong, it just is what it is. You might as well be trying to convince a devout Muslim or Jew to give Polytheism a chance.

Richard Hannania is a "right wing" internet pundit who has spent a lot of time discussing why it is completely counterproductive and futile to even examine reasons for differences in group outcomes.

Instead the focus should be on pushing policies that favor free markets and equality of opportunity over socialistic equity focused policies; and let the markets do what they can to lift all boats and improve the human condition for everyone.

if group a and group b, both foreigners, fight each other (can be both within the same country, or countries fighting each other), I disagree with the notion that it is futile to examine their differences and to rank them objectively under the assumption that groups with better objective outcomes are made up of better human beings.

Hanania might have been referring to domestic group difference I guess.

but if group a and group b are in a prolonged decades long fight, and one group systematically has better outcomes under what we objectively consider morally preferable (say democracy vs no democracy, freedom of speech, women rights and so on), then being able to claim it is a moral imperative to side with group a over group b, to be able to make moral relative claims about the superiority of group a over group b, is fundamental in order to make the right decision about which group to side with financially, politically and so on.

unless the idea is complete non -interventionism outside your own borders, which is an idea that comes with another set of problems

Just as the hardcore "woke" brigade want to deny that the differences you are talking about exist at all, you guys seem to whitewash over the fact that the same reasoning was used to justify many abhorrent acts throughout most of human history.

Nobody is saying that right wingers or incels are innately worse than anyone else, that path is a choice, even despite the "in" prefix. In this forum you are certainly allowed to criticise people for the choices they make.

So yes, you can make negative remarks about some groups but not others. Specifically those groups where membership is a choice:

"Black people are dumb" - not ok
"Hollywood celebrities into scientology are dumb" - ok
"Liberals are dumb" - also ok!

You missed the point. It is futile because liberal elites refuse to do it in a rationale manner. They will just call you a racist and refuse to listen to anything you say or read anything you write. It is completely outside their moral framework to even entertain that dysfunctional behavior of "oppressed and marginalized groups" could be the cause of group differences.

You cant make anything better if you are just discounted as a racist and ignored, no matter how "correct" you might be. Wheras if you actually promote good policies that oppose socialism and equity, you can actually make things better.

That is the argument he is making, that I think is correct.

You think they don't know that?

and? trains were used by Nazis to move Jews to concentration camps, so? that doesn't make trains, or people who want to use trains to move people, evil.

aside from the fact that it is basically uncontroversial in literature that political leaning has a strong genetical basic, and that incels are so because they can't find sex (in- is from "involuntary" afaik) , if I were to say that Ghana has worse outcomes than south Korea because Ghana residents made and make far worse choices every day of their lives (for whatever, unknown reasons) and that means Ghana residents are worse human beings that south Korea residents, I don't think this would be allowed on this forum, and would be called supremacism or other words used to define political ideas as inherently evil and worthy of censorship.

so no I don't think I am allowed to criticize GROUPS for their collective choices, not most groups.

do you think I am wrong? can the Ghana vs Korea comparison be used as an argument on this forum as to why to, say, refuse to donate to Ghana, or refuse to take in Ghana immigrants or any other corollary of the argument?

I am not even sure considering a group of human beings as objectively superior, better, preferable to another is allowed (again, with few exceptions, I don't think it would be a bannable offense to claim criminals are worse than other groups in society).

maybe I am just reading previous mod comments wrong, maybe the kind of stuff I am listing as examples (please, for mods, all of the above is just to give examples not actual arguments) is perfectly acceptable here.

what do you think?

try residents in a country with every measurable outcome worse than another country, can I call residents in the country with worse outcomes, worse human beings than those residing in the country with far better outcomes?

I think it depends on the group and how close it comes to the line of white or other ethnic supremacy or inferiority, yes. Right wingers, criminals, religious zealots, left wingers, centrists, incels etc. are all fair game. Your Ghana example is not. The line is somewhere in the middle, and might require you to learn the concept of nuance.

Man, you are just full of ****.

How many of your arguments rest on the difference being lack of sex or poverty? None. Absolutely none.

so if the Ghana example is not allowed, does that mean that forum rules basically force you upon a very specific view of geopolitics and economic and cultural advancement, a very minoritarian one, in which basically the ENTIRETY of the outcomes of a country have never anything to do with what the people in that country are and do?

because if even a portion of outcomes depend on the people in a country, then you can already rank those groups of human beings morally, if the outcome is rankable morally.

do you think that what the laws are in Japan, what the outcomes are in Japan, had nothing to do with what japanese people are, and were, and do, and did, in their history? really? nothing that happens in Japan, nothing that Japan is, has anything to do with the characteristics of people in Japan?

uh? poverty is a main driver of worse outcomes, my claim is that poverty could be at least partially endogenous, ie a country might be poorer than another at least in part because of what people who lived and live in that country did and do.

and the topic would be, I am allowed to discuss that possibility, and all the corollaries of it?

The problem is you have no concept of nuance and see the world in absolute terms, and insist on these rankings with no shade of nuance or no regard for factors other than those you deem pertinent (i.e. genetics). This is a borderline Nazi philosophy and yes, it's not allowed here.

I'll admit I used to think a lot like you when I was younger, but I grew out of it.

I am never said nor implied genetics explain everything, because it would be extremely stupid to do so.

I said genetics explain at least a little of everything, or every human behavior and characteristic, or almost every one, is at least 1% inheritable.

you guys reason, talk and censor as if it was borderline Nazism to suggest ANY genetic explanation however partial of ANY group difference lol.

you now went allin claiming I ONLY use genetic explanations while I never did in the slightest.

regarding nuance, why should someone be nuanced when discussing infibulation for example.

wouldn't it be normal, proper, reasonable to claim that a group of human beings for which infibulation is proper and good is horrendously worse, inherently, morally , qualitatively, than groups of human beings which abhor infibulation? which nuance would you need there to rank groups objectively?

now do the hanging of homosexuals

Actually I would say it is borderline autism, where he (and myself to a lesser extent obviously) just refuses to pretend the emperor is wearing clothes.

Naziism wasn't really interested in any reality that didn't support their beliefs any more than today's progressives are.

@Luciom - You're a smart boy, you can figure out how to make your case and colour within the lines. That is if your case doesn't rest on the genetic superiority of one or another ethnic group, as you claim.

The suggestion presumably being that today's conservatives are interested in a reality that doesn't support their beliefs. Just to clear up any possible confusion: the people who voted for Trump are our guardians of objective fact, correct? I, for one, will sleep so much better knowing that "reality" is in such safe paws.

I have no reason to believe propensity to infibulate specifically to be genetically determined in any significant extent.

but for historical/geographical/cultural reasons that propensity is , as you know, fully concentrated among very specific ethnic groups original of a very specific region of the world.

so claims about cultural superiority/inferiority of groups are allowed on this forum, predicated on things like "this group accepts and encourages practices that I find morally horrific, therefore I consider that group made up of objectively worse human beings than the group I am part of, and others"?

even if the cultural difference also maps upon very clear ethnic lines, as it happens in some cases?

Of course not. But I have never seen Lucium argue that American right wing MAGA populism is a fact based movement. And I am not going to attribute straw man positions to him that I have never seen him espouse. If he does start making pro MAGA populist arguments, I will upgrade my software accordingly.

Believe it or note, there is A LOT of room to be critical of socialism and progressive social policies without being a MAGA populist.

See, again, you are missing the point. You can say certain practices are barbaric and the people who perpetuate them are morally reprehensible human beings without attacking everyone from a specific ethnic group or country etc. In other words, don't colour with such a fat brush.

most smart people both on the left and the right simply are on the left or the right because of what their perception of reality is, and what set of ideas according to them represents reality more.

and it's usually not about being interested in reality" (most smart people are regardless of where they end up politically), rather about moral preferences, which can differ a lot among individuals and are orthogonal to intelligence.

vast majority of the population isn't smart though so the vast majority of people voting for either party in America (and everywhere else) would pick their political choice for other reasons.