Full Twitter thread unrolled -> https://en.rattibha.com/thread/1792267464258048408
This person basically uses a bunch of graphs to argue that status of elite groups persist under even the most extreme cases. For example, the elites targeted in the PRC and the Soviet Union bounced back in elite status after a generation or two, how many elite southern planter families regained their status after the Civil War, how formally interned Japanese Americans reached the same homeownership rate as the non-interned Japanese Americans after a decade, etc.
But then they suggest that
So status persists throughout history even in the most extreme scenarios. What explains this? Genes play a major role. Consider how status persists when the status is accurized purely through chance.
Is this really a reasonable conclusion to draw? I saw one tweet criticizing this, saying
this information is very interesting, but it’s nonsense to think this implies genetics/talent/effort causes success. i see this as evidence that social/human capital is persistent and important for economic development, so inequality on this dimension breeds economic inequality https://x.com/leonveliezer/status/1792413175301935124
Which seems like a good objection to me.
What do you all think?
This is complete nonsense. To prove even one of the points they’re making, they’d need at least as much evidence and analysis as the entire thread. They’re just cherry-picking random pieces of data and jumping from one case to the next, acting as if they’ve sufficiently proven each one in turn. It’s just a gish gallop.
Probably the most absurd piece of “evidence” they present is the picture of the night sky of the USSR, which is correlated with the number of prisoners from various areas. Because both of those are correlated with total population, obviously. This is literally their sole piece of evidence regarding the question of whether “elites bounced back” in the USSR, before moving on to the next point!
The next point is about the landed gentry in the South after the abolition of slavery. Everything they say about this is irrelvant because there was never any attempt to eliminate these people as a class. There was no land reform or anything like that, and because of it, freed slaves sometimes found themselves in a position where they had little choice but to keep working for their former slavers, for a wage. Of course the rich “bounced back” from that.
This is how conspiracy theories work. You find one extremely tenuous piece of evidence that shows how a major event validates what you want to believe, then, without any consideration of other explanations for the evidence, or other evidence that might invalidate your conclusion, you immediately move on to the next thing.
don’t you know, prisoners in the USSR were supposed to just bang rocks together their entire sentence and they instead built great cities, completely against the wishes of the government. this proves the white aristocracy had strong sperm