racial studies

Race and IQ. I recently got dinner at a hole-in-the-wall asian spot with a geneticist named Razib Khan. Over noodles, and with a concerned glance over his shoulder, he admitted that the science is clear: race is absolutely tied to IQ. Jews are the smartest. Pretty much everyone on the continent of Africa is at the bottom.

This fact alone is controversial, but we have to be able to talk about it, and here’s why:

I nodded, and asked: How many generations does this take to change?

Razib: As little as three generations. For example, the Egyptians used to be the smartest, but a century of inbreeding knocked them to the bottom. Incest drops IQ by 10 points in the first generation. After that the effect weakens.

This is huge. At first glance, the controversial statement seems like a slamdunk for racists the world over. But dig into the details, and you find out 3 generations is enough to change things—this means that race and IQ are not inherently linked as far as we know, they’re just linked in today’s world, because of today’s policies and systems.

Knowing this could actually help us target where we need to focus our interventions for the next three decades. Let’s get us all up!

Economic Class is the biggest discrimination factor today? Back in my 20s, I used to read Paul Graham and bought into the whole entrepreneur is a magical wizard that takes disproportionate risks and deserves all the wealth and equity they receive.  But, that assumed a good social safety net and level playing field. That's obviously not what's happening today, and trending more in the negative direction.

Been listening to Scott Galloway in the past year and appreciate he's mainstreaming some ideas that aren't very popular. He had a viral video on how we're robbing the young (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEJ4hkpQW8E)

Two of his main ideas:
1) Older generations are stealing the wealth of younger generations
2) Young men are struggling heavily 

But, his proposed solution is uplifting all young people economically and socially. 

Tax income lower than capital gains. Sweat work ought to be incentivized over wealth generating more wealth. Make education affordable/free. Establish mandatory service projects for young people similar to Israel.

We fought a cold war between capitalism and communism for decades and we entered a blind faith that all things capitalist are morally good. And we create in-fighting by focusing on identity politics or waging foreign wars or scapegoating immigrants. But, the real problem is economic.

There's more racial diversity on campus but the disparity in economic class is even higher.

We just added more categories of people who are allowed to join the wealthy without actually fixing the system.

I should note that Scott himself is a huge capitalist. He just wants a more level playing field so that everyone has the chance to become wealthy as he did. He enjoyed highly subsidized public education. He is not a communist by any means.