I have a question, then, for people who downvoted this post: what specifically did you dislike about it? This is a data-gathering exercise that will hopefully allow me to identify flaws in my writing and/or thinking and then correct them. Was the argument being made just obviously wrong? Was it insufficiently justified? Did my examples suck? Were there rhetorical tactics that you particularly disliked? Was it structured badly? Are you incredibly annoyed by the formatting errors I can’t figure out how to fix?
I upvoted your post, because I think that you raise a possibility that we should consider. It should not be dismissed out of hand.
However, your examples do kind of suck :). As Sarah pointed out, none of us is likely to become a dictator, and dictators are probably not typical people. So the history of dictators is not great information about how we ought to tend to our epistemological garden. Your claims about how data on group differences in intelligence affect people would be strong evidence if it were backed up by more than anecdote and speculation. As it is, though, it is at least as likely that you are suffering from confirmation bias.
I upvoted your post, because I think that you raise a possibility that we should consider. It should not be dismissed out of hand.
However, your examples do kind of suck :). As Sarah pointed out, none of us is likely to become a dictator, and dictators are probably not typical people. So the history of dictators is not great information about how we ought to tend to our epistemological garden. Your claims about how data on group differences in intelligence affect people would be strong evidence if it were backed up by more than anecdote and speculation. As it is, though, it is at least as likely that you are suffering from confirmation bias.
Thank you. I should have held off on making the post for a few days and worked out better examples at the very least. I will do better.