Profiles of HBDers

“So, why did you ignore the advice of experts and decide to do the deep dive into why there are genetic race differences in intelligence?”

Many times, when asked this question, people will give some generic radicalization story or say they read x or y book. Really, the process is driven by something deeper than that: most people are not obsessed or confident enough to dive into the rabbit hole of race science. In my online travels, I have come across what I believe to be 8 archetypes of HBD endorsers:

1. The winner.

“So, why did you ignore the advice of experts and decide to do the deep dive into why there are genetic race differences in intelligence?”

“I am more qualified than the experts”

He is very unlikely to say this outright, but it’s what he thinks in the depths of his heart, no matter how conscious or honest he is about it. And to some extent, he is right. These people were usually socially and academically successful in high school, and then went on to win in their personal life too.

In my experience, these people usually didn’t research race science that deeply, and was able to infer the approximate truth from a few studies or social cues. They typically come from a non-academic field like business. Tech if they are on the spergier side.

2. The narcissist.

The narcissist also thinks that he is more qualified than the so called experts. The difference is that his is not. They did come to the right conclusion, to be fair, but their belief is not reflective of an anti-authoritarian disposition or a truthseeking nature.

If they are a public figure, they tend to have grandiose ideas about the extent to which they can influence public discourse on race science. They are wrong, of course, because the people who have the social and intellectual skill to do this also know that this is not something that can be achieved through conventional means. Instead, it will happen through the collective effort of hundreds of researchers and finally the courage of an extremely high status actor.

Commorbid with the Nazi type. May think they are the winner upon reading the description, but they can’t figure out they are the narcissist due to their bad genes. Rather ironic.

3. The nazi.

Why did I ignore the experts? Because I had a lot of bad experiences with minorities, and now I want to kill them — is what the Nazi replies. Usually the experience is some kind of mugging, bullying, or beating that occurs, usually due to being in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

I will not deny that hereditarianism has political implications, but what distinguishes a politically astute race scientist from the Nazi is that the politically astute one changes their political views upon encountering race science, while the latter does not. Most people who have negative experiences with minorities do not, in fact, become HBDers: most of them will feel some resentment and then ignore it for some time.

He doesn’t necessarily love Hitler and National Socialism, but is still defined by the fact that they came to their political beliefs through bad experiences and hatred. Often not academically or even socially successful. Comorbid with the narcissist type.

4. The minority

Within Whites, ethnonarcissist hereditarianism expresses itself in the form of National Socialism. Other races can be national socialists, but it’s not motivated by the same psychological tendencies. Instead, ethnonarcissistic hereditarianism manifests itself as a result of each race’s profile of traits. In Asians, it manifests as a cult of IQ and test-based gatekeeping mechanisms. If they are Jewish or Indian, it comes in the cult of money and achievement.

People of other racial groups can’t believe in hereditarianism and be ethnonarcissistic at the same time; instead ethnonarcissism manifests itself as some revenge based philosophy that blames environmental factors for differences. If they are smart, you can see the same cult of IQ you see in Asians, but it’s not that common. It’s actually more common for intelligent low status minorities to try to downplay IQ — see Taleb and Gladwell. Sowell did agree with most of what was written in the Bell Curve, but he never really was big on IQ either.

Beyond this, HBD types are not represented at the same rates between races — Indians are more likely to be the narcissist type, Blacks to be the schizo, and Whites to be the iconoclast.

5. The IQ cultist.

So obsessed with IQ that they inevitably research the race and IQ question as well, and probably come out of the rabbit hole with the usual conclusion. These people are intelligent and self-aware enough to know they are highly intelligent, but not enough to understand that their psychological complex is what is driving their view of human nature.

Covaries heavily with the narcissist and Asian-minority subtypes. To a lesser extent with the intelligence researcher subtype, though most actual academics like Jensen and Murray always said that intelligence was never the be-all and end-all of human value.

6. The intelligence researcher

“What expert? I AM the expert”.

This man is somebody who got into the field for a reason that was not race: maybe they wanted to study cognitive decline in the elderly, or knew somebody who was extremely intellectually gifted. Or, it was just a random process.

It’s impossible, really, to work in this field and not know about the race and IQ controversy. And, because most intelligence research experts think the differences are genetic, they will likely be exposed to that perspective at least once in their life. Even if they are not anti-authoritarian, hateful, autistic, narcissistic, or personally successful, there is a high chance that they will end up agreeing with the rest of the people in the field. As a result, this ends up being the most “isolated” archetype and clusters the least with the other types.

7. The iconoclast

“The experts? Who cares about experts!”

The rejection of the experts is not motivated by an excess of self-confidence, but a natural anti-authoritarian disposition. Ignoring expert opinion is a valid epistemic strategy, but suffers from the fact that opinions from one individual are more unstable than those that flow from a group. Because of that, the iconoclast will have cranky beliefs like the narcissist and schizo, but distinguishes himself by the fact that these are genuine mistakes and not expressions of aggrandizement or insanity.

These types often start their political journey as progressives, but convert to some esoteric right wing political philosophy after discovering hereditarianism. Usually autism/ADHD adjacent in terms of cognitive profile.

8. The schizo

“The experts? Who cares about experts!”

The same response, but given for a different reason. The schizo isn’t really anti-authoritarian, he’s just crazy. By being a broken clock that shows the right hour, he can get people to listen to him. But they will not after he doubles down on some superschizo stuff like flat earth or space denialism. The schizo is an iconoclast, but the iconoclast is not necessarily a schizo, meaning the schizo is a subtype of the iconoclast.

Ranked in order of how common they are:

1. The iconoclast

2. The IQ cultist

3. The narcissist

4. The nazi

5. The winner

6. The minority

7. The schizo

8. The intelligence researcher

Common profile overlaps:

1. Iconoclast and narcissist

2. Iconoclast and winner

3. The minority and the narcissist

4. The narcissist and the IQ cultist

5. IQ cultist and nazi

6. The nazi and the schizo

7. The nazi and the narcissist

8. IQ cultist and intelligence researcher

Edit: autist removed because too much overlap with iconoclast