Divide and poke in the eye

Most of the discussions in the reactosphere are very abstract. Knowledge of HBD and a certain command of history does that to you. What is human nature? How does it translate to politics? If there are many human natures, how do they translate into politics? While the mainstream goes on 2300 years after Aristotle, still discussing particular constitutions, laws or policies, we go beyond all that and see what is moving the general patterns that create the constitutions, laws and policies.

This gives us greater understanding of the big picture, but little influence in the actual political process. After all, all politics are local, and all change is incremental. We might be right that democracy per se is a dysfunctional system, but you can't just go around saying that we must scrap democracy, as it doesn't work because of the inbreeding or the Dunbar number.

Hereditarianism does explain a lot, and is the single most predictive theory on human (or simply biological) matters, but the fact remains that it doesn't explain everything. The upper bound of IQ heritability is 0.8, people of the same genetic stock do behave quite differently depending on the culture they were raised on. Macro speaking, Taiwan and China, North and South Korea. Micro, you have siblings who develop quite different personalities. Today we are starting to understand that whatever is left after accounting for heredity, is less a function of parenting or schooling than peer pressure and milieu conditioning (the Dunbar group they happen to belong with). All in all, people are not as malleable as blank slatists in the Cathedral would like them to be, but there is still some large margin for them to argue that their intervention can raise outcomes.

As long as there is any window for Cathedral busybodies to ascertain the need for their intervention, hereditarianism isn't going to change much. So what is IQ inheritability is 0.8. We still have 0.2 left to justify huge government programs! We can still close the Gap.

Many dissenters, famously the late Lawrence Auster, argued that opposition to Progressivist must be total, absolute and unforgiving. No concessions must be made to the enemy's ideology. Progressivism is false because its premises are false, and the consequences of its theology are twisted and evil. I admit that as a man I liked very much his approach. Massive frontal assault, take no prisoners, fight to the end. All very appealing to my teenage boy heart. But it's hard to fight against a coherent, steady block of zealots if your faith isn't at list as strong. And ours isn't, as I said before we still lack data to be able to prove all our points. Everything we have is much more truthful and consistent than what the Cathedral has, and even half truths are better than the obvious lies that the Cathedral holds as their dear faith. But you can't raise an army with nuance and common sense.

A common conclusion to this realization has been to stop giving a shit. Moldbug famously said that activism is inherently progressive, so reactionaries must be passive in politics. A might example of making virtue out of necessity. He might be fooling himself but he isn't fooling most of us. He did more for anti-leftist activism than anybody else in decades. But of course he couldn't go further because he doesn't know what else to do. We can talk and read and argue but we know we can't fight Progressivism in the real world. We don't even agree with each other on what we want to do.

So given that we can't go all in into the political process, yet we do have things to contribute, what happened to incrementalism? Of all the points of the reactosphere, not all of them are radioactive, illegal hate facts. Anything that smells of HBD of course will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and will get you into trouble. But some ideas are eminently reasonable, and normal people who don't directly work for the Cathedral will find it hard to disagree with them. I have been trying some of these in my real life interaction and the results are encouraging.

A comment in my last post was a good example of non-aggressive incremental policy proposal:

William WilberfangJuly 19, 2013 at 20:40(Edit)Someone should push a pro-family/fertilty tax cut: a 5-10% cut for each child that one has. This way the non-taxpayers don’t get a subsidy and those with higher incomes get a greater discount in absolute terms. Of course it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the real purpose of such a policy, but at least it seems more palatable. It doesn’t discriminate by race per se and it’s doesn’t mention the heritability of intelligence. Maybe something like that could slip by the PC-radar, probably not though. It’s soft eugenics.

Anybody who pays taxes and cares about natality will agree with this. Given that cash payments per baby are on force on most of the developing world and the results are quite meager, this sort of proposal could get some attention.

Another idea I have been pushing around is disenfranchising public sector workers. This is a much more radical policy, the backslash from the bureaucracy of course would be massive; but most people today have a good understanding of what interest groups are, and the idea that public sector workers have different incentives from the rest of the voters is easy to explain. When you think about it, the most important idea on the reactosphere is that democracy has to go. Restricting the franchise on racial or gender grounds is of course supreme sacrilege. But a more moderate libertarian-ish argument is more palatable for most people.

I'd rather not scare away my real world acquaintances with maximalist HBD arguments, but I find it increasingly harder to shut up when people parrots Cathedral nonsense. Small, incremental, self-evident arguments are a good way of standing your ground without having to face the Inquisition and potential ostracism. Any other good ideas? The same way that PUAs have a list of pick up lines and share the results their get, perhaps we could have a list of tiny, smart ideas to poke in the Cathedral's eye and open small fractures in their coalition. As the Japanese, say, when dust piles up it becomes mountains.

A few off the top of my head: Adopting a "Nafta" approach to immigration: adopt the laws Mexico uses on illegal immigrants, and adopt Canada's laws on legal immigration (they favor a skills based approach). Congressmen forfeit their pension benefits if they step foot within a 50 mile radius of DC after they leave office. Section 8 reform, where not more than person on section 8 can live on a given suburban block. Instead of restricting the franchise, water it down a bit. Everyone gets one vote, but the more diligent and prudent get extra votes (Own a business with employees, no felony convictions, homeowner, etc.)

Immigration is sacred. See Caplan defending Indians enslaved in Dubai. Hard to enforce a ban on entering DC. Diversity is sacred. You can't argue against section 8 if you don't explain HBD. And that's suicide. 1 person 1 vote is sacred. Rewarding diligence and prudence is racist. I don't think you get good reactions with that. We gotta aim a bit lower than this.

A similar proposal is by Ramesh Ponnuru which is raising the per-child tax credit to $5k, making it non-refundable, but letting it apply to payroll taxes. A lot of incremental reaction looks pretty much the same as the reform conservatism espoused by people like Ponnuru, Douthat, and Yuval Levin.

The smallest possible increment for the assault on Democracy (I'm sorta in favor of small-d democracy) would be to make acquiring citizenship harder with harder tests, maybe a cash payment, etc. That would be pretty popular and it shifts the argument in the direction that citizenship is something valuable that shouldn't just be handed out willy-nilly. Another incremental step that may even attract some leftist support would be a proposal to restore voting rights for felons and to grant them to those under 18 if they passed a difficult test, did X volunteer hours, etc.

I think the raw facts of HBD need to be presented baldly, cries of racism be damned. Elites need to understand that we are on a trajectory to lose civilization itself, in America itself, that we are losing civilization right now in many places, and that civilization has already been lost in many places. Progressives need to be made to understand that they face total loss of every front that they have ever made 'progress' on because HBD and current trends mean the edifice faces collapse with 100% certainty. When your arguments are backed by the blackest possible reality (and they are, for the loss of civilization is THE END for all but the hardiest religionists), you need no consensus because you are speaking the truth. Help smart elites everywhere look into the blackest abyss and never have a proper night's sleep again as long as they live. That is how it is with HBD knowledge and so one should dish out the bitter truth abundantly.

I used to agree with that, until I found the most common reaction was "Civilization deserves to die", "humanity must perish we are just too evil", etc. And I've heard that over trivial stuff, like feminism or foreign aid.

I don't think elites or billionaires or people with kids are like that. That is the reaction of the hippy kid, who is already disenfranchised, but the oligarchs of our world certainly care. They had to bust their hump to get where they are and continue to bust their hump every day. They have a huge amount of their own sweat and toil invested in this thing. Look at the extraordinary steps they took in 2008 as they saw to it that there would be no abrupt discontinuity in the economy. People in power do care; I contend that most are still way too sunny. Consider that from the view of someone born in 1940 or 1950 things look pretty smooth. Technology advances, the cold war was won, starvation is way down. Most are not seeing the Tsunami that is the intersection of demographic trends and HBD, but soon enough they will and they will be huge allies.

That was the reaction of a 50 year old shopkeeper, among others. Unfortunately I have little access to oligarchs.

The thing is, the people in power are very good at portraying *anything* that might reduce their power as racist, or inequitable in some way. As long as we have an equalitarian mentality among the population, this will be the case.

There just isn't anything that we can do via argument and logic that is going to make a significant difference. This is an emotional thing. Progressives believe what they believe because they believe it is morally right and it makes them feel good to believe in something that is morally right. No argument can make headway against that. Look at the white liberals in South Africa. If any white liberal on the face of the earth should have been disabused of their progressivism by blunt reality, it is white South African progressives and liberals. But from my recent readings around the internet, it doesn't appear that they have significantly changed their opinions in a reactionary direction, if at all. In the face of all that black dysfunction, they are stubbornly clinging to a belief that things will get better and that those who don't like the situation are racists who ought to leave the country. I think they best thing we can do is get rich individually, hopefully while finding ways to avoid paying any more taxes to the Cathedral than necessary. Make a lot of money and then pull strings behind the scenes. We're the new Jews, don't you know - scapegoated for all the problems. We might as well copy the Jews and get rich and manipulate things behind the scenes.

In fact I would go further and hypothesize that we will NEVER convince a significant fraction of today's white liberals and progressives. I imagine that the morality of progressivism is too deeply entrenched in their personalities for them to be affected by logical arguments. Perhaps the next generation, or the next after that, who will have suffered mightily because of progressivism, may reject their parents' progressivism and be open to arguments for the morality of the reactionary worldview. It has to play itself out. It has to demonstrate itself irrefutably as a society- and individual-destroying ideology.

Gently chiding HBD-deniers about the illogic of buying a pure bred dog?

Yes, a part of my soul died when Charlize Theron adopted that black baby. Given that we're close to entering a new Gilded Age, having sympathetic oligarchs is probably our best bet.

I would recommend for the "dream" Republican party to mirror the left in select areas which will make them competitive with Democrats for mass appeal. Obviously this would be exclude policies that shift demographics in favor of the left (immigration, single motherhood). Consider that a ton of liberal politics is identity politics but whenever their popularity is flagging, they switch back to beating the class war drum as if it were 1930. The former is their actual platform while the latter is empty posturing. Consider that when backed into a corner a liberal will change the subject to how "billionaires are looting our society" or something to that effect. For a good portion of liberals, the old classical economic progressivism is their emotional backstop that lets them know that they are ultimately the good guys even if their side is wrong in specific instances ([SJW](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=social justice warrior) is displacing this gradually, but still). So the GOP should go after the "1%" and big banks, raise capital gains taxes, have aggressive regulation of the financial sector, protect the environment, stop foreign wars. The differences between the two parties would narrow to the actual identity politics or each parties base of support. (This would contrast to the idealized and forbidden white identity politics of the alt-right which doesn't reflect where white people are at right now, not even for the Republican party base.) But as I'm writing this I realize this is just as much wishful thinking as wanting HBD or even immigration reduction to fall within the overton window. It isn't necessary to look beyond the bounds of political correctness to find evidence of the worthlessness of the GOP. It is unfortunate Perot didn't win, as it was right at the time both parties were adopting globalism and there was sufficient anger for real economic populism.

People here should read this Charles Murray paper which is basically on HBD, how the debate will be resolve scientifically, and how the results of the scientific debate should be handled politically. http://www.scribd.com/doc/154952653/The-Rediscovery-of-Human-Nature-and-Human-Diversity Now he's a libertarian, so have some quibbles with the end part.... but reactionaries can make common ground with some libertarians on attacking the Equality Premise. But we need to also get real about HBD... even if we win this debate, progressives are likely to still win politically because they'll have the votes... they supported eugenics in the early 20th century and they really will have no choice but to do so again.

"Another idea I have been pushing around is disenfranchising public sector workers." If incrementalism is the strategy, you should start by de-unionizing public sector workers. That's a far more plausible step politically, and it would already do a lot. (So much, in fact, that it would mark a near-apocalyptic transition, but leaving corrosive skepticism aside for the moment ...)

This was how the left did it. Private space was used for thrashing out idealogy e.g. destroy the family, destroy the nation. Public space was then used to introduce ideas based on that idealogy e.g. sex education, but initially couched in safe, neutral terms. Then over the years the extent and content of sex education changes to meet the aims of the original idealogy. The example you gave of child support provided in the form of a tax rebate is a very good one. The example i am most interested in is criminal justice policy as eugenics. If you accept certain HBD principles then it should be pretty clear how the use of prison can do this over time and how it can be optimized however the idealogical HBD aspects: hereditary, the testosterone peak etc don't need to be included in the final pitch. The three strikes and you're out policy is an example of a straightforward right-wing Conservative policy. An HBD version could simply be two strikes and you're out till 26 and three strikes and you're out for good. Another example might be to not speak about differences in average IQ between races but simply differences *within* races and then suggest that importing immigrants from the bottom half of the deck will automatically reduce the average IQ of the receiving population. So you make it initially about restricting unskilled and low-skilled immigration. Once people have accepted the basic principle then it can be extended.

The problem is, how are you going to get any of these things accepted by the wider population? It's easy to say "let's change the tax code". Given that we live in a liberal society where even the so-called conservatives are actually just somewhat more fiscally sensible liberals, how would it be possible to pass laws that in any way undercut liberalism? Or when you suggest that certain arguments are to be made to be people about IQ...if someone's fundamental moral belief is that equality is the highest value, they are simply not going to accept arguments about IQ. I don't want to believe that the efforts that individuals or groups make to change society don't make a difference, but as time passes it seems more and more that societies evolve in accordance with vast meta-beliefs rather than as a result of what some particular individuals do or don't do. If your beliefs aren't congruent with those meta-beliefs then no significant number of people are going to listen to you. In which case you would do best to look out for number one and avoid being eliminated as an enemy of the state. The one thing that I don't understand is why concealed carry laws have spread around the country. That seems illiberal and I wouldn't have expected them to spread. But gun control is definitely a losing battle for liberals. Why? Why is this one un-liberal cause succeeding where no others are?

"Unfortunately I have little access to oligarchs." Who knows, you might. Or others on the Reacto-Webz might. I presume these folks browse the Internet in anonymity just the same as the rest of us, and what's more, they surely read a lot more than average.

I ran into a random white South African family on vacation in the DC metro system (I struck up a conversation because I like to do that with obvious tourists) and after I asked how they stay safe, they figured I KNEW. Then the husband poured upon me a river of unfiltered reaction (plenty of HBD, generous use of the words cancer and plague and all F'ed up, stuff about the gun he carries everywhere there and his shoot first attitude about it, his dark expectations for a Zimbabwe future, his musings about a way to come here) all within easy earshot of other passengers. It was easily the most reactionary conversation I was ever part of and I hardly opened my mouth at all. His wife looked at me nodding intensely the whole time. He was an employee of the S.A. airline, not some farmer from the country.