Posts
Comments
The reason I did not even give my opinion on the race-IQ issue is that IMHO the expected damage to the quality of the conversation here exceeds the expected benefit.
It is possible for a writer to share the evidence that brought them to their current position on the issue without stating their position, but I do not want to do that because it is a lot of work and because there are probably already perfectly satisfactory books on the subject.
By the way, the kind of person who will discriminate against me because of my opinion on this issue will almost certainly correctly infer which side I am on from my first comment without really having to think about it.
Participant here from the beginning and from OB before that, posting under a throwaway account. And this will probably be my only comment on the race-IQ issue here.
I don't think the view that there are genetic racial differences in IQ is popular here, if that's what you're referring to. It's come up a few times and the consensus seems to be that the evidence points to cultural and environmental explanations for the racial IQ gap [emphasis mine].
The vast majority of writers here have not given their opinion on the topic. Many people here write under their real name or under a name that can be matched to their real name by spending a half hour with Google. In the U.S. (the only society I really know) this is not the kind of opinion you can put under your real name without significant risk of losing one's job or losing out to the competition in a job application, dating situation or such.
Second, one of the main reasons Less Wrong was set up is as a recruiting tool for SIAI. (The other is to increase the rationality of the general population.) Most of the people here with a good reputation are either affiliated with SIAI or would like to keep open the option of starting an affiliation some day. (I certainly do.) Since SIAI's selection process includes looking at the applicant's posting history here, even writers whose user names cannot be correlated with the name they would put on a job application will tend to avoid taking the unpopular-with-SIAI side in the race-IQ debate.
So, want to start a debate that will leave your side with complete control of the battlefield? Post about the race-IQ issue on Less Wrong rather than one of the web sites set up to discuss the topic!