With these hard topics, I’m always less weary of what someone like Haier actually says, and more weary about what they’re not saying. You can lie without lying.<br><br>As mentioned by another commenter, there’s a great video called “The Bell Curve” by Shaun that goes into a lot more depth on why that book was controversial. Spoiler alert: it’s not as trivial as Haier makes it seem.<br><br>For anyone feeling like this conversation wasn’t taken to fruition, follow that feeling. Challenge your perspective. These ideas, whether valid or not, are weaving their way into your ego, into your worldview. That isn’t something to be taken lightly. You must consider these ideas, but you must also make them fight for their ground. Seek counter-ideas for them to fight against. As I said, there’s a good reason The Bell Curve was controversial - it wasn’t just some wokesters refusing to confront facts (though that’s sometimes in the mix).<br><br>Be better. Challenge yourself.<br><br>I love lex but I really wish he would have pushed harder here. If he’s going to tackle this topic, might as well go full force.,(reply>), @aexesia Yes he is, but that’s not the problem. Seems to me that the evidence that there is a genetic component to IQ is strong. The problematic part is how you apply that fact to explain IQ disparities between “races” or people. Lex didn’t seem to comment on that part, though he didn’t push harder when Haier started to suggest it towards the end. So I don’t think it’s problematic to suggest that there is a genetic component to IQ. But that does not mean that different “races” of people (which is a concept used really fallaciously in this area since, for example, two black people can actually have a larger “genetic difference” than a white person and black person, which is to say that our concept of race doesn’t necessarily reflect “genetic closeness” to the extent we think it does) will inherently have higher or lower IQ, all else being equal (I.e. environment). Lex did not comment on that to my memory.<br><br>The thing is, Haier didn’t either for a long time, and kind of pulled lex in with his apparent ambivalence. However, towards the end he showed his true colors, coming out and saying that Charles Murray is actually a reasonable guy (I don’t want to paint him as a monster since I don’t know enough about him, but one should be weary of him), that he thinks there is a relationship between how conscious a person is and their g-factor (sounds like a slippery slope to me), and that if he were to guess he’d say IQ differences are “almost all” genetic contributions. But by the time he admitted all that, Lex was already convinced Haier was a reasonable guy. It took me a bit after the podcast was over to really process the implications of what Haier said towards the end, so again, I can’t necessarily blame Lex for not seeing it right away (during the course of the interview). But I hope he sees it in hindsight.,(reply>), @Casey Shiring Wow, I tried commenting this a couple of times, but it got deleted right away. So this time I will be more cautious how I say this. If you ask me, the race and IQ debate is a trick by the elite in order to divide the working class. Luring the white majority in to digging their own graves by making them identify with the super rich,  arguing that the rich are actually rich because of their superior genes. And the workers and the poor are rightfully slaves and need “to be fixed” by the eugenicist elite. And they already have a great gene editing mechanism in place for the masses, if you know what I mean.,(reply>)," @Casey Shiring Lex is actually a stronger advocate of the caused by genetics hypothesis than Haier. While Haier clearly states that it is his interpretation of the data which is still up to debate and that he is no geneticist. Lex repeatedly talks about truth and facts. Here are some timestamps. <a href=""https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hppbxV9C63g&amp;t=11m02s"">11:02</a> Lex: “You can run", but you can't hide from the thing that god gave you," the genetics...” <a href=""https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hppbxV9C63g&amp;t=13m25s"">13:25</a> Lex: “it's fascinating that there is something stable in the human mind"," especially if it's grounded in genetics.” <a href=""https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hppbxV9C63g&amp;t=13m45s"">13:45</a> Lex: “it makes me uncomfortable"," but truth can be uncomfortable.” <a href=""https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hppbxV9C63g&amp;t=49m07s"">49:07</a> Lex: “The fact that some people are more intelligent than others in a way that cannot be compensated through education"," through anything you do in life.”  <a href=""https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hppbxV9C63g&amp;t=1h29m42s"">1:29:42</a> Lex: “That seems to me to be at the core here"," facing some kind of truth that is not able to be changed.” <a href=""https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hppbxV9C63g&amp;t=1h16m00s"">1:16:00</a> Lex on Janson quote by Haier: “I thought about that (the question if he is a racist) a lot. And I have concluded it does not matter.“ <br>Lex", smiling into the camera excited: “The guts to say that! WOW!” talking about true colors ... looks like a duck, quacks like a duck ...,(reply>), The Bell Curve is but one of many studies of race and intelligence along with countless studies and papers by a litany of educational scholars over the last several hundred years. Virtually all of it paints the same picture.<br><br>Most people have been so brainwashed by the lying western education system that they are emotionally unable to handle critical thought and concepts despite the reality smacking them in the face on a daily basis.,(reply>), @aexesia I’m not sure what lex thought about the genetics thing exactly. If I’m recalling correctly, the thing he was calling a “fact” was the existence of the g factor. (I’m also disappointed they didn’t go further into what that actually means and if it’s actually a circular concept - implying intelligence by the tests you design to require intelligence is defining intelligence by those tests.) But again, Haier seemed to really show his cards at the end of the podcast when he started to go into how much he believes genetics is a factor, and his apparent nonchalance around the ideas in the Bell Curve. Seems like if he were to answer honestly, he’d say close to 100% genetics. Lex did ask him twice to steelman the other side but he never really did. He also talked about how it’s scientists’ responsibility to communicate very clearly about what data does and doesn’t mean. So idk if I’d go so far as to say Lex is a racist - I think he understands the dangers to a good extent. But he let those ideas get a little too deep with not quite enough challenge. A little too much acceptance for my taste.<br><br>This is a super hard convo to have and I applaud lex for trying. I can’t expect him to figure out how to think about these things in the course of the podcast. It took me the podcast plus a full day of thinking about it and researching counterpoints (and looking more into this Charles Murray character, who is also very hard to pin down but certainly has some racist tendencies) to start to navigate these waters and the potential for both truth and bigotry therein. So I really hope he gets someone on the podcast to present the counterpoints.