* NSA is spying on Congressmen. My guess is, this explains the extremely deferential and minimal oversight Congress gives them–everyone knows that they’ve got the dirt on everyone, and so nobody wants to ask too many hard questions that might lead to some reporter mysteriously getting a copy of the credit card receipts from that little getaway with that 19 year old campaign worker.
The biggest story of Obama’s first term (which was reported day-to-day, but not with much depth) was the massive way he caved in on everything he said he was going to do to rein in the intelligence agencies and pentagon. I’ve always assumed this was mainly because he never meant any of that stuff anyway, since politicians lie whenever their mouths are moving. But it’s also possible he simply realized that the intelligence agencies were just too powerful to take on.
* Clever spin on the news.
Main issue should be ‘US politicians acting as whores to Israel that spies on an ally’.
But instead, we get ‘US violates trust and spies on ally Israel’.
Stepped-up NSA eavesdropping revealed to the White House how Mr. Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the U.S.-Iran negotiations—learned through Israeli spying operations—to undermine the talks; coordinated talking points with Jewish-American groups against the deal; and asked undecided lawmakers what it would take to win their votes, according to current and former officials familiar with the intercepts…
Michael Hayden, who led the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency during the George W. Bush administration, described the intelligence relationship between the U.S. and Israel as “the most combustible mixture of intimacy and caution that we have.”
The NSA helped Israel expand its electronic spy apparatus—known as signals intelligence—in the late 1970s. The arrangement gave Israel access to the communications of its regional enemies, information shared with the U.S. Israel’s spy chiefs later suspected the NSA was tapping into their systems.
When Mr. Obama took office, the NSA and its Israeli counterpart, Unit 8200, worked together against shared threats, including a campaign to sabotage centrifuges for Iran’s nuclear program. At the same time, the U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies targeted one another, stoking tensions.
Posted inAmerica, Israel|Comments Off on American Spying On Israel
A report issued Sunday by the Zionist group Im Tirtzu highlights the activity of what it calls perceived “leftist” or “human rights” groups that are “extensively funded by foreign governments and operating from within against Israeli society, against IDF soldiers, and against Israel’s ability to defend itself in the war on terror.”
The report is titled “Shtulim 2015,” a reference to the foreign bodies “planting” representatives in Israeli organizations. Among the organizations labeled as “plants” by Im Tirtzu are Breaking the Silence, which publicizes former IDF soldiers’ criticisms of the Israeli military; B’Tselem, a human rights organization that focuses on the rights of Palestinians; Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel; and Yesh Din, a volunteer organization working to defend the human rights of the Palestinian civilian population.
According to Im Tirtzu, the common denominator between all these groups, aside from being funded by foreign bodies, is the “public relations and financial support they receive from the American organization New Israel Fund.”
Of the 20 Israeli organizations named in the report, 15 are directly supported by New Israel Fund. Four of the organizations have legally defended terrorists or families of terrorists, and some of them even terrorists who participated in the ongoing surge of Palestinian violence. Four of the organizations employ 15 national service volunteers under the auspices of the Israeli government.
Im Tirtzu says that this year Breaking the Silence publicized 57 negative testimonies against IDF soldiers and held at least nine events around the world in which it charged Israeli soldiers with committing war crimes.
According to the report, the Palestinian fund Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat, based in Ramallah, admitted in 2015 to having paid Breaking the Silence to provide negative testimonies about the IDF. But Breaking the Silence’s official donor list, signed by an accountant and the New Israel Fund, makes no mention of the secretariat.
Im Tirtzu further claims the secretariat reported funding a lobbyist working for B’Tselem in the Knesset. According to the report, the secretariat is expected to provide 10 million shekels in funding to Israeli organizations in 2016.
It asserts further that Adalah, together with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), provided a legal defense for two terrorists who stabbed Israelis in Jerusalem. According to the report, ACRI has been operating for years to reinstate academic programs for terrorists jailed in Israel.
Dr. Ronen Shoval, chairman of the Academic Council for National Policy and co-founder of Im Tirtzu, has called on the prime minister to outlaw Breaking the Silence the same way the government recently outlawed the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel for incitement to violence.
“The organization Breaking the Silence has been operating in the public sphere in Israel and abroad for years, disgracing IDF soldiers and delegitimizing Israel in various international arenas,” Shoval wrote.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon wrote on his Facebook page Sunday that he has banned members of Breaking the Silence from participating in any IDF-related activity.
“If Breaking the Silence was really concerned about our morality, the way we work hard and make sure our moral values are upheld, they would approach the IDF directly instead of shaming our soldiers abroad. In the past, there were efforts to investigate events and incidents alleged by Breaking the Silence people but nothing was ever found,” wrote Ya’alon.
A number of left-wing organizations, including Breaking the Silence, rejected the Im Tirtzu report and questioned the group’s legitimacy in criticizing funding sources.
B’Tselem issued a statement saying, “We are proud of the funding we receive, and we will continue documenting and exposing the misdeeds of the occupation, no matter how much Im Tirtzu objects. Im Tirtzu itself conceals the identity of some of its donors, and it is the last institution that can preach to us about transparency. Im Tirtzu recycles its own lies.”
Posted inIsrael|Comments Off on Report: 20 Groups Sabotaging Israel ‘From Within’
Trump is playing a different game. He is not addressing your sense of reason. He is talking to your energy, your emotions, and even your biases. By that filter (the Master Persuader filter), Iowa might be important as an energy booster for the campaign.
Trump likes energy. And as he has said, winning Iowa might set him up to run the table. So he probably wants to win Iowa, just to keep dominating headlines. Plus, it could be an early kill shot for the primary season if it causes Republican voters to capitulate – assuming many don’t know Iowa is electorally unimportant – and accept Trump as the eventual nominee.
My prediction under the Master Persuader filter is that Trump will try to win Iowa with a linguistic kill shot that is being engineered as I write this. But I won’t go so far as to predict he wins Iowa. I’d give that a 50% chance.
But I do predict Trump will A-B test a new line of attack on Clinton. If it works, he wins Iowa. If not, all he loses is Iowa. So this situation is when a person with a business background would test a new approach.
You’ll recognize Trump’s test balloon against Clinton when you see it. It will be the one that speaks to Iowa’s socially conservative base.
Bonus Thought 1: One of the skills a hypnotist has to master is reading people’s inner thoughts based on their body language. That’s a common skill for people in the business world too, but hypnotists go deeper than looking at crossed arms and furrowed brows. We learn to look for subtle changes in breathing patterns, tiny changes in muscle tone, variations in skin color (blushing or not), word choice, pupil dilation, and more. I assume law enforcement people look for similar tells when doing interrogations.
As regular readers know, I’m a trained hypnotist. And to me, Hillary Clinton looks as if she is hiding a major health issue. If you read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, you know that so-called “experts” can sometimes instantly make decisions before they know why. In my case, I am going to make an “expert” hypnotist prediction about Hillary Clinton without knowing exactly which clues I am picking up, or whether I am hallucinating them.
Prediction: I’ll put the odds at 75% that we learn of an important Clinton health issue before the general election. That estimate is based on my own track record of guessing things about people without the benefit of knowing why. I think Trump is picking up the same vibe. He has already questioned Clinton’s “stamina.”
Posted inDonald Trump|Comments Off on Hillary seems to be hiding a major health issue
Berlin — GERMANY is not lacking in right-wing sentiment these days, but most people are careful about how they deploy their anti-immigrant rhetoric. And then there’s Björn Höcke.
Last month Mr. Höcke, a leading figure of the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland, gave an openly racist speech on the “differing reproductive strategies” of Africans and Europeans. It was not the first time he had drawn on National Socialist themes, but this time he caused uproar, even in his own party, which has asked him to resign his membership.
His comments seem like commonsense to me. Nowhere does the writer debunk them or even detail them. The New York Times does not allow comments on the article.
But graphs are hateful and are only looked at by the hate-filled…
You know, if you want to have a good debate on a crucial policy that will determine the future of Germany, it’s probably a wise idea to have both sides be represented by respectable people offering informed views.
But if you don’t want to have a real debate and just want to impose your policy autocratically, then it’s ideal to restrict the side you want to lose to being represented by soccer hooligans.
Of course, that raises the worry that if all the respectable people aren’t allowed to discuss in public the fate of the nation, then the only ones who can participate in this crucial policy debate, the hooligans, might just win the debate and come to power.
Is that worth risking over migration policy? Apparently, a lot of respectable people in Germany think so.
Comments to Steve Sailer:
* Proposition nations fail. Everything else is details.
Until you can say simply, “That person doesn’t belong here because they are not a part of our tribe,” you are done for.
Definitions can be manipulated. Blood cannot.
The United States and Western Europe are done for. How long and in what way are unknown, but the final destination is not.
* So Whites living in public housing makes them a part of the fringes of society. Does that also apply to Muslims in Germany who live in public housing? Can they also be considered fringe and not part of mainstream German society?
* It’s like migration is the German establishment’s first priority.
But you know, if that was really the first priority, then maybe there would be just a little more ideological diversity on the stage of those Republican debates and just a few more mainstream GOP politicians willing to espouse a view which is closer to their voting constituency than to the Democratic party platform.
That probably would have stopped Trump, if indeed stopping Trump was the first priority. But it seems something else has an even higher priority.
That reminds me of Ace’s GOP priority list. Number 27 on the list is, “The base, aka ‘The Garbage People Who Embarrass Us So’.”
* That Sauerbrey woman is so bloody annoying, typical “good German”.
Höcke is a bit of an idiot, has a tendency for theatralic and somewhat ridiculous behaviour that may be counter-productive. But at least he’s trying to do something and he’s right about the core issues.
The situation in Germany is really bad though, the last few months have really shocked me. This country may be messed up beyond saving by its insane self-conception and total naivite about the world. It’s insane also how religious and moralistic public discourse has become. Much Islamophilia on display, especially by stupid Christians. Just yesterday I read an interview with a professor for medieval history who advocated making Eid a public holiday in Germany. Had the displeasure of hearing that guy a few years ago at a conference…back then he had invited a speaker from Cameroon who basically lambasted the audience (who all politely clapped which I refused to do) for “racism” and went on and on how horrible “fortress Europe” is.
* Maybe the new Alternative Right should do Mr. Trump a favor and start a genuine self-described Fascist Party (the logo could be the reverse of the beautiful old silver Mercury Dime). Go for it: black armbands with fasces embroidered thereon, torchlight parades, even the occasional “n” word for shock value. Just stay 10 cm on the right side of the laws.
Trump will then be magically transformed into a responsible, well-dressed man of the Moderate Right, who goes out of his way to reject “hate” in all its ugly forms.
(Needless to say, there will still be no pleasing the New York Times.)
* Did he say anything actually controversial? Not that I saw quoted in the NYT column. The “differing reproductive strategies” between the contemporary populations of Europe and sub-Saharan Africa is a reasonably well established fact, widely reported throughout the media, including the NYT itself. If anyone has contradicted it, I haven’t noticed.
* Part of me says that HBD will become a lot more obvious when every country in Europe has a black underclass. On the other hand, it’s pretty obvious now, and it doesn’t seem to matter.
* This is basically District 9 played out in real life. It’s also what happens when political elites no longer feel their country’s culture and institutions are worth defending. We are so hosed.
* To my mind, this is a perfect description of how Trump has risen to prominence. Does he say some nasty stuff? Yep. Does he say some factually all-wrong stuff? Yep.
So, how has he gotten this far? Because there are real issues that:
a. Nobody close to the mainstream is addressing
b. Neither wing of the ruling class has any credibility in addressing.
c. Many voters care about.
The requirements of keeping on the good side of the media and the donor class have effectively prevented these issues from being addressed. And along comes Trump, who by virtue of being both rich and mediagenic doesn’t have to care about those constraints. And he’s frankly pretty lousy as a representative–he routinely says whatever pops into his mind, he often doesn’t seem to know basic stuff about whatever topic he’s discussing, and many of his policy proposals are really awful ideas. His history gives no reason to think he means what he’s saying right now, or that he won’t change his mind again tomorrow, or that he has anything more than his own wealth and power and fame in mind.
But at least he’s talking about some of these issues, and offending and upsetting a lot of the elites who have been running the country into a ditch for the last several decades, so he gets some pretty enthusiastic supporters. He’s conning them of course–politicians are basically con men by trade, and Trump is the slick con man from the big city up against a bunch of local used car salesmen like ¡Jeb! and Marco Rubio.
* When someone responds to an argument or discussion by shouting about how offensive or problematic it is, that’s usually a red flag that they don’t have much of an argument to offer. “How dare you raise the issue” is a good way of avoiding talking about the issue.
* The German people do think like Native Americans. The difference is that the German people have a powerful ruling class intimidating them into pretending to think something different. Intimidation is a powerful tool.
* Mr. [John F.] Kennedy was going to rein in the CIA and the military and I hear things didn’t work out so well for him or his brother.
* In the 90′s, the neocons made a sustained and fairly successful effort to get conservative journalists who worried about immigration fired from their jobs. Letter writing campaigns, imputations of anti-Semitism (because restrictionism in the 20′s impacted Jews), the whole works. That campaign was less successful in than it might have been in stifling the issue because of the emergence of the internet, but it did waste twenty years during which the Republican mainstream might have forged a better immigration policy.
* Although European blacks end up poor like American blacks, there is one huge difference in behavior. Blacks in Europe marry/cohabitate with whites while only a small percentage of blacks outmarry in the US. This makes HBD less visible and maybe after several generations barely visible.
In ecology, r/K selection theory relates to the selection of combinations of traits in an organism that trade off between quantity and quality of offspring. The focus upon either increased quantity of offspring at the expense of individual parental investment, r-strategists, or reduced quantity of offspring with a corresponding increased parental investment, K-strategists, varies widely, seemingly to promote success in particular environments.
The terminology of r/K-selection was coined by the ecologists Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson[1] based on their work on island biogeography,[2] although the concept of the evolution of life history strategies has a longer history.
Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective is a controversial book (first unabridged edition 1995, third unabridged edition 2000) written by J. Philippe Rushton. He served as a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario and, until his death from cancer on October 2, 2012, the head of the Pioneer Fund.
Rushton argues that race is a valid biological concept and that racial differences frequently arrange in a continuum across 60 different behavioral and anatomical variables, with “Mongoloids” (East Asians) at one end of the continuum, “Negroids” (Sub-Saharan Africans) at the opposite extreme, and “Caucasoids” (Europeans, Middle Easterners and North Africans) in the middle.[1]
…The book grew out of Rushton’s 1989 paper, “Evolutionary Biology and Heritable Traits (With Reference to Oriental-White-Black Difference)”.[5] The 1st unabridged edition was published in 1995, the 2nd unabridged edition in 1997, and the 3rd unabridged edition in 2000.
Rushton argues that Mongoloids, Caucasoids, and Negroids fall consistently into the same one-two-three pattern when compared on a list of 60 different behavioral and anatomical variables, ranging from IQ and brain size, to temperament, speed of maturation, criminality (see also race and crime), social organization, reproductive effort, and various anthropometric variables. (Rushton’s 2000 book, like other population history works, e.g. Cavalli-Sforza 1994, uses the terms Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and Negroid to describe these groups broadly conceived, but these terms have since been replaced in the scientific literature—the MeSH terminology as of 2004 is Asian Continental Ancestry Group, African Continental Ancestry Group and European Continental Ancestry Group.)[6]
Rushton uses averages of hundreds of studies, modern and historical, to assert the existence of this pattern. Rushton’s book is focused on what he considers the three broadest racial groups, and does not address other populations such as South East Asians and Australian aboriginals. The book argues that Mongoloids, on average, are at one end of a continuum, that Negroids, on average, are at the opposite end of that continuum, and that Caucasoids rank in between Mongoloids and Negroids, but closer to Mongoloids. His continuum includes both external physical characteristics and personality traits.
Citing genetic research by Cavalli-Sforza, the African Eve hypothesis, and the out of Africa theory, Rushton writes that Negroids branched off first (200,000 years ago), Caucasoids second (110,000 years ago), and Mongoloids last (41,000 years ago), arguing that throughout all of evolution, more ancient forms of life (i.e. plants, bacteria, reptiles) are less evolved than more recent forms of life (i.e. mammals, primates, humans) and that the much smaller variation in the races is consistent with this trend. “One theoretical possibility,” said Rushton “is that evolution is progressive and that some populations are more advanced than others”. Rushton argues that this evolutionary history correlates with, and is responsible for, a consistent global racial pattern which explains many variables such as worldwide crime statistics or the global distribution of AIDS.
ABSTRACT: I review Rushton’s research on the evolutionary divergence of the three major human lineages. His life history theory predicts, and his multiple analyses document, a consistent three-way patterning of mean differences among blacks, whites, and East Asians on coevolved sets of morphological, physiological, developmental, psychological, and behavioral traits. I then analyze a typical example of how critics evaluate his work, including the rate at which they cast his scientific hypotheses, methods and conclusions in politically charged language. The set of articles in question, although authored by well-known academics and appearing in a major, peer-reviewed journal, illustrate how mob science works to ‘‘discredit’’ valid research and enforce collective ignorance about entire bodies of evidence. Rushton is a scholar and gentleman but it appears that his critics often act like neither.
1. Introduction
Philippe (Phil) Rushton has contributed important works to
evolutionary psychology, intelligence, and personality psychology.
I focus here on his work receiving the most attention. That is his
life history theory of how the major races, or geographic lineages,
evolved in somewhat different directions as humans spread out of
Africa about 50–100 kya (Rushton, 1995). He has documented a
large suite of morphological, physiological, developmental, psychological, and behavioral differences among these groups, whose
most recent common ancestors are from Africa, Europe and East
Asia. These various traits cohere evolutionarily and are consistent
with his life history explanation of the wide array of mean group
differences that persist over generations.
I first assess Rushton’s research contributions. Then I analyze a
typical example of the scornful commentary on the man and his
work—a target article and eight comments published together in
a major, peer-reviewed journal. I look especially at the nature of
evidence and argument used by Rushton and the authors asked
to evaluate his work.
2. Rushton’s approach to human biodiversity
Rushton is proudly of the London School of thought in psychology.
It rejects the separation of mind from body and of culture from
its genetic substrate, preferring instead to probe their connections.
It was an outpost of biological realism during the long reign of
behaviorism, whose founder James B. Watson famously assured
us we could form children into anything we wished, not unlike
the Soviets’ New Man.
Phil Rushton began his career by addressing one of evolutionary
psychology’s biggest challenges at the time. Altruism seems to require reproductive self-sacrifice, so how could it possibly have
evolved? This work garnered him praise and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Humans are not promiscuous altruists, of course, but favor
persons genetically similar to themselves. This led him to
ponder the dissimilarities that have intrigued writers and travelers
throughout human history: Why do the different tribes of man
look and live so differently?
During the 1980s Rushton began systematically testing a
theory-based life-history explanation. As I describe later, the life history perspective allowed him to predict a particular pattern of
evolved differences among genetic lineages. These predictions are
not obvious because they link seemingly unconnected attributes
across different realms of human existence, from sexual behavior
to social organization. The great sweep yet high specificity of his
theory with regard to racial differences would seem to make it easy
to disprove if false. To test it, Rushton collected a broad spectrum
of primary and secondary data, comprising three categories.
2.1. Evolutionary life history
Life history is a population-level concept. It refers to the coordinated suite of traits and behaviors that characterizes a particular species or subspecies (its shared ‘‘life’’), which evolved in response to the recurring adaptive challenges its members faced (its evolutionary ‘‘history’’). The life-history concept highlights an important empirical phenomenon. A species’ distinctive traits—such as humans’ large brain, slow maturation, and pair bonding—do not evolve independently, one by one, but as a constellation of co-evolving traits. In fact, the nexus of traits typifying a species had to have evolved in a coordinated manner in order for the organism to maintain or enhance its evolutionary fitness. For instance, a bigger brain relative to body size consumes more of an organism’s fixed energy budget, so humans (those who survived) evolved a smaller gut to afford their metabolically expensive brains, which in turn required a less toxic and more easily digested diet, which the innovation of cooking provides. The physical and logistic constraints of bearing and nurturing big-brained babies likewise generated correlated selection pressures on social behaviors, including male and female mating strategies, pair bonding, parenting, and provisioning.
Rushton relies on the r–K version of life history theory that evolutionary biologists have used to distinguish species throughout
the animal kingdom. The r–K version arrays organisms along a continuum of reproductive strategies, from highly r-selected species
(many offspring, little parenting) to highly K-selected species
(few offspring, much parenting). The assumption is that, given its
evolutionary importance, reproductive strategy is likely the axis
around which other species-typical traits become organized. The
two strategies, r and K, are alternative means to the same end:
reproductive fitness, which is to produce more genetic descendants
than the Joneses.
Biologists have used r–K theory to compare members of the
same species, but Rushton was the first to apply it so systematically to humans. His aim has been to determine whether, and
how well, it can explain the many systematic differences observed
today among major branches of the human family. He focuses on
three. While their labels have changed over time, their origins have
not: lineages tracing their ancestry to sub-Saharan Africa (Negroids
or blacks), East Asia (Orientals or East Asians), and the lands in between (Caucasians or whites).
Rushton gathered already-published population data on several
dozen traits from institutional sources such as the US military (e.g., head size) and Interpol (international crime rates). His most recent update (Rushton & Jensen, 2005, Table 3; reproduced in Nyborg, this issue) compares the three geographic lineages on 26 measures:
intelligence (3 indicators), brain size (2), maturation rate
(7), personality (5), reproduction (6), and social organization (3).
The set forms a consistent pattern illustrating key insights from life history theory, in turn supporting his application of it to humans.
First, mean population differences are numerous, consistent,
and generalized across the body and behavior. Whites are intermediate to blacks and East Asians on virtually all (24) of the 26 measures, whether they be physical or behavioral, speed or size. For instance, physical maturation (skeletal, motor, dental, lifespan) and sexual maturation (age of first intercourse, first pregnancy) are accelerated in blacks relative to whites, and in whites relative to East Asians. Compared with whites, American blacks have larger bodies (reported elsewhere), larger secondary sex characteristics, higher hormone levels, and higher rates of sexual intercourse and two-egg DZ twinning (not MZ twinning)—with the reverse being true for reproductive behavior in East Asians compared with whites. A three-way pattern of mean differences is also seen in personality, with blacks being the most (and East Asians the least)
aggressive, impulsive, dominant and sociable, whereas East Asians
are the most cautious (and blacks the least) on average. It is also
seen in social organization, with East Asians having higher rates
of marital stability, law abidingness, and mental health than
whites, and whites having higher rates than blacks.
The apparent evolutionary divergence between the three lineages
is not just from ‘‘the neck down.’’ East Asians have the largest
skulls, largest brains, and most cortical neurons, whereas blacks
have the smallest skulls and brains and the fewest cortical neurons,
on average. These differences in the physical brain are mirrored by
comparable mean group differences in the speed and quality of the
brain’s information processing. East Asians have the fastest decision reaction times (measured in milliseconds) on elementary cognitive tasks, which are so simple that virtually everyone can
perform them correctly, and they also have the highest average
levels of general intelligence (g) on validated, unbiased tests of
intelligence.
The pattern of cranial vs. sub-cranial group differences illustrates
a second insight from life-history theory: evolution imposes
tradeoffs. For example, the populations with larger brains have
(had to evolve) smaller bodies; and those with slower maturing
offspring have (had to evolve) more socially and sexually constrained adults.
Note that none of the aforementioned biological traits is a social
marker of race, either singly or collectively, as would be skin color and hair type. Moreover, as Rushton and others have shown, within-race variation in all these characteristics is moderately to highly heritable, so we cannot dismiss the possibility that mean group differences in body and behavior are also somewhat genetically
rooted. In fact, these mean differences in ‘‘non-racial’’ traits appear to shift in tandem, as a coordinated set, from one human lineage to another. This implicates a consistent deep influence linked more tightly to distant genetic heritage than to current circumstance.
The great variation within racial groups is entirely consistent with
genetic divergence, because within-population variation is the
grist for evolution. Also consistent is the systematic overlap among
groups, because mean differences in genotype will emerge from
the same ancestral genotype, slowly but surely, when the groups’
adaptive demands diverge and consistently pull selection in somewhat
different directions.
Rushton’s results reflect a third insight of life history theory:
individuals do not evolve, populations do. A population’s social
organization—its culture—necessarily co-evolves with the distribution of its members’ attributes. Humans, for example, are not just an exceptionally brainy primate, but also an especially social one.
We have a special penchant for pair bonding (even if serial), living
and working in groups, forming networks and coalitions, trading,
teaching, gossiping, reading others’ minds, and befriending nonkin.
Our big-brained, slow-maturing, vulnerable and care-intensive
children would not survive without such enduring social networks
and bonds of long-term reciprocity.
Rushton’s version of life-history theory proposes that reproductive
strategies drive (cause) differences in social organization.
Although all humans are K-oriented (relatively few offspring with
much parenting), his r–K theory posits that the somewhat less Koriented human populations will tend more strongly toward social
relations guided by self-interest, relative physical strength, and a
tolerance for interpersonal conflict, with the result that, from a K
perspective, they produce cultures with less stable families, less organized institutions, more transgressions of person and property,
and therefore higher rates of mental and physical illness. In contrast, more K-oriented lineages produce societies whose members
tend to exercise more self-control, social control, and mutual coordination in the pursuit of longer-term shared goals, with the result that such groups will create somewhat better organized, more productive, personally secure and—from an r perspective—more rigid
societies that tightly constrain what their members may do.
Nonevolutionary explanations have been offered for these differences
in social organization but none, to my knowledge, can account
for—let alone has predicted—the nexus of physical, mental, and
behavioral mean differences that Rushton found—and had
predicted.
2.2. Forensic anthropology
Rushton has also tested his life-history theory by following
hominoids back down their evolutionary tree. Rushton and Rushton (2004) examined progressive changes in 76 musculo-skeletal
traits across seven hominoid populations, listed here by evolutionary age: Pan troglodytes (chimpanzee), Australopithecines, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Africans, Europeans, and East Asians (for humans: Rosenberg et al., 2005). The aim was to test the hypothesis that a cascade of skeletal changes accompanied the evolution of brain size in hominoids, ranging from humans’ most distant relative (the chimpanzee, 5 mya) to the youngest human lineage (East Asians). Standard texts on evolutionary anatomy provided data on 76 skeletal traits for the one ape and the three fossil species, and standard forensic anthropology textbooks provided data on 42 traits for the three human populations.
The skeletal data for the seven hominoid groups did, in fact, differentiate them in the same order as did their evolutionary distance from the youngest human lineage (East Asians). Of the 42
traits available for the three racial groups, 38 were measured in
absolute terms—14 cranial traits (including cranial capacity), 8
teeth and mandibular traits, 3 neck, 3 pelvic, and 12 upper and
lower limb traits. All but one (nasal bone prominence) fit the predicted pattern.
The 6 other traits, measured as body proportions, uniformly did
not (e.g., leg length as a % of height, weight of upper limbs as % of body weight). Ratios and percentages of a trait are hard to interpret because they have different measurement properties than do absolute measures of a trait, such as length, area, volume and weight.
Nor is it clear that r–K theory makes any predictions for body proportions. If we set the body proportions data aside for now, it appears that the increase in cranial capacity from 380 to 1364 cm3
across the 7 hominoid groups was accompanied by systematic and pervasive changes across the musculo-skeletal system, including
cranial traits (e.g., size and shape of the skull, jaw, teeth, eye
sockets, brows, muscle attachments) as well as post-cranial traits
(e.g., dimensions, shape and orientation of particular bones, joints, and pelvis). The most general change is that the musculo-skeletal system became less robust as brain size increased. Perhaps there is a non-evolutionary explanation for the progressive and pervasive skeletal differences among blacks, whites, and East Asians that are so well known to forensic investigators, but I am not aware of any plausible ones having been offered.
2.3. Patterns of phenotypic and genetic variation in intelligence
If the major human races diverged physically and behaviorally
during evolution, their living descendants should differ genetically, on average. Self-identified races are different branches of the human family, as confirmed in the last decade by studies of the Y chromosome, mitochondrial DNA, neutral markers on the 22 pairs of autosomal chromosomes, number of short tandem repeats on various ones, and more. But that is not the issue here. It is whether a highly particular, much documented, mean phenotypic difference among the major human races has a genetic component.
Of all human traits, variation in general intelligence (g) is the
functionally most important in modern life. The first question that
behavior genetics tackled was ‘‘how heritable are within-group differences in intelligence?’’—the answer: ‘‘very.’’ The next obvious question is ‘‘how heritable are the between-group differences in phenotypic intelligence?’’ It could easily be answered using today’s analytical methods, but no scientific discipline will touch it. Most would have to be shut down completely, however, to avoid generating relevant evidence. Traits that are so useful in daily life and so heritable across generations are going to manifest themselves in many predictable ways. Rushton has marshaled relevant such evidence on intelligence to test competing hypotheses about the longstanding mean IQ difference between American blacks and whites: 0% genetic vs. 50–80% genetic.
The latter range of percentages is Jensen’s (1998) ‘‘default
hypothesis,’’ which is that within-race variation and between-race
variation arise from the same sources, whether genetic or environmental.
Accordingly, there is no Factor X operating on all members
of one race but on no member of another. (Anything that affects
some but not all members of a group would show up as a within-group
influence.) If within-race IQ variation is 50–80% heritable,
as it is in the West, the default hypothesis predicts that between group differences will be too. This is a readily testable hypothesis, but virtually no one with the necessary data has been willing to test it or lend the data to others who are.
Rushton and Jensen (2005) tackled the question by having their
‘‘hereditarian’’ hypothesis (50–80% genetic) compete head-to-head
with the ‘‘culture-only’’ hypothesis (0% genetic) in 10 categories of evidence: the worldwide distribution of test scores, the g factor of mental ability, heritability, brain size and its relation to mental ability, transracial adoption, racial admixture, regression to the mean effects, related life-history traits, human origins research, and hypothesized environmental influences on intelligence. This set captures much of the dense nomological network of empirical
evidence on psychometric g, including its genetic structure, biological and social correlates, behavioral manifestations, joint heritability with brain structure, function, and life outcomes,
developmental course, and manipulability by various experimental
means, including adoption.
The evidence in at least 7 of the 10 categories is much replicated,
often over time, age, sex, race, class, and geography, and
therefore provides a firm basis for comparison. The 50–80% genetic
hypothesis fits this array of evidence far better than does the culture-only hypothesis (Gottfredson, 2005). Where the two make
opposite predictions, the hereditarian predictions are confirmed
and the culture-only predictions are contradicted. For instance,
achievement differences expand just when the culture-only explanation says they will contract—when resources and opportunity
are equalized (Ceci & Papierno, 2005). And, as noted earlier, group
differences follow geographic ancestry far more closely than the
groups’ current location or circumstances. They behave just like
evolved, genetically-influenced traits are expected to behave—with
great consistency regardless of species-typical variations in nongenetic milieu. The greater explanatory success of the 50–80% genetic hypothesis does not prove it true, but that is better approximates the truth than does its never-plausible 0%-genetic
competitor.
3. The critics’ approach to Rushton and race
In 1989 Rushton summarized his evidence for a black-white East
Asian gradient in life-history traits at the AAAS meeting in
San Francisco. There followed a convulsion of excoriation by the
scientific establishment, his home institution (University of Western Ontario), and the Canadian government (Rushton, 1998). All
launched investigations into his work. He was shunned and isolated
by fellow academics, as if having a professionally deadly contagious
disease. When he presented his corpus of published evidence in book form—Race Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (1995)—it was greeted as ‘‘inflammatory,’’ ‘‘indecent,’’ ‘‘pseudoscientific,’’ ‘‘racist trash,’’ and in scatological terms too (Gottfredson, 1996).
3.1. High talk and low blows
In a collective exercise in confirmation bias, Rushton’s critics
spied damning evidence of scientific and moral perfidy wherever
they looked. They saw nothing exculpatory, or even ordinary, in
his conduct. So, where evolutionary psychology had always
concentrated on sexual selection and therefore on mating strategies, sexual behavior, and physical attractiveness to the opposite
sex, critics insinuated that Rushton’s interest was prurient.
Although behavioral geneticists were busy estimating the heritability of intelligence differences within races, Rushton’s interest in possible between-race genetic differences betrayed, to them, an archaic racial elitism. And while none denied that the human species’ remarkably large brain is largely responsible for its
remarkably high intelligence, they said Rushton was resurrecting
long-discredited 19th century thinking when he asserted (correctly)
that brain size and intelligence are correlated in modern
humans.
Rushton answered all published critiques while carefully adhering
to the scientific coda his critics often flagrantly violated—logic,
weight of evidence, and no aspersions on character. Rushton’s dispassionate scientific manner on socially sensitive questions only
confirmed for them that he was a heartless ideologue misusing science for pernicious ends. I illustrate this phenomenon of high talk and low blows, as sociologist Robert A. Gordon calls it, with a concrete example. It is a target article (Lieberman, 2001) and associated comments published in Current Anthropology. The
Anthropological Review’s 2007 obituary for Lieberman lauded him
for having ‘‘often challenged racists and racialist views.’’ It pointed specifically to his 2001 article because it ‘‘dissected and ridiculed [Rushton’s] views of supposed racial differences in intelligence.’’
3.2. Argument from authority, political opinion, and impossible
standard of proof
Lieberman opens with a question that itself damns Rushton. A
century of anthropological work has invalidated Rushton’s claims,
so how can he claim to find in it a ‘‘racial hierarchy’’ for intelligence and brain size? The question is thus not whether Rushton is wrong, but why and how he persists in being so wrong. The article’s first section (‘‘Changing Hierarchical Worldviews’’) justifies the premise, and the second (‘‘Abusing Anthropological Research’’) explains the ‘‘paradox’’ of how Rushton and other ‘‘scientific racists’’ could claim to be doing science when they draw evidence from the very fields that disavow racism and the concept of race (p. 74).
To justify his premise, Lieberman describes 19th century research
on cranial size and its social context which, he says, was
the need by Caucasians to justify their domination and exploitation
of other races. He discredits that research and Rushton’s own primarily by appealing to authority in 20th century anthropology:
Franz Boas’s theorizing (no link between culture and genes), offi-
cial statements on race from the UN and the American Anthropological
Association (no biological races, no meaningful innate
racial differences), Gould’s critiques of research on intelligence,
brain size, and heritability (none is valid), and anthropology’s ‘‘disavowal’’ of ‘‘hierarchical’’ and ‘‘racist’’ thinking. Lieberman also draws from stock concerns, long-since resolved, about possible
methodological flaws in twin research, brain research, behavior
genetics, and mental testing. He says nothing about the explosion
of research in the 1990s using the Y chromosome and mtDNA to
trace the evolution of human lineages as they migrated across
the globe. He says nothing about Rushton’s many other 3-way results
on ‘‘reproductive behavior, sex hormones, twinning rate,
speed of physical maturation, personality, family stability, lawabidingness, and social organization’’ (p. 74), except to summarily dismiss them as a faulty ‘‘blizzard of data’’ (p. 78).
Zeroing in on Rushton’s IQ, race, and brain size analyses,
Lieberman details his own list of 6 major ‘‘errors.’’ Briefly, Rushton ‘‘uses ‘race’ despite decades of findings that invalidate it,’’ his conclusions about racial differences in cranial capacity are ‘‘contradicted by evolutionary anthropology,’’ he did not account for environmental factors that surely influence cranial capacity and intelligence, his measurements tell us nothing because they are confounded or the differences they reveal are trivial in size, he cannot claim to ‘‘explain’’ a vast array of human behaviors because some of his measures and concepts may be faulty, and his ‘‘principle of aggregation’’ (e.g., grouping diverse populations into ‘‘races,’’ averaging results from different studies) is invalid. ‘‘Aggregation’’ is Lieberman’s single most frequent complaint of the 6 (38 times in 14 pages), even though it is a well-known principle that averaging non-comparable samples would work against Rushton’s finding consistent patterns.
The first two ‘‘errors’’ are, again, appeals to authority. The next
two disallow drawing conclusions until an infinite regress of alternatives has been considered, and the last two demand uniformly perfect data and measurement before concluding anything from a
body of evidence. All insulate his factual premise (no evolved differences) from disconfirmation by creating five thou-shall-nots
that selectively handicap researchers who might disagree. Scientists
shall not refer to race except as a social construct; not group
people or results by race unless to illustrate environmental effects; not hypothesize evolutionary differences that contradict reigning ‘‘antiracist’’ opinion in anthropology; not infer any genetic differences before ruling out all non-genetic influences; and not draw non-reigning conclusions about patterns of racial differences in a large body of data if any particular datum might be faulty.
Lieberman moves Rushton’s work into the political realm by always
labeling his hypotheses and results with political terms. It is
‘‘hierarchical’’ (because it measures ordinal differences on a trait), ‘‘racist’’ (it finds mean racial differences in traits), and a ‘‘justification’’ for ‘‘inequities’’ (it predicts social inequality when those traits matter). Table 1 illustrates this practice by categorizing his terms of derogation. (Data for detailed categories are available from the author.) He uses an average of 21 derogations per page, split evenly between connoting extreme right-wing politics and unacceptable science. Forty percent (8.4 per page) allege error in politically neutral terms (‘‘lacks evidence’’), but almost as many render his hypotheses and results politically noxious by relabeling them hierarchical and racist (4.9 and 2.8 times per page).
The lone dissenting commentary, by Henry Harpending, objects
to Lieberman repeatedly attributing notions of ‘‘inferiority’’ and
‘‘superiority’’ to Rushton (56 times, not shown), but Lieberman insists that Rushton’s work implies them. He further connotes immoral politics by describing Rushton’s research as ‘‘notorious,’’
‘‘destructive,’’ and ‘‘socially harmful’’ and situating it within a history of political evils (slavery, genocide, torture, exploitation) and social harm (misery, poverty, inequality).
3.3. Mob science
Rushton was invited to submit a comment, as was one anthropologist
‘‘well-known [for his] support of racial differences’’ (p. 90).
The other 6 individuals were already on record as hostile to such
ideas. They are less restrained than Lieberman, their negative
descriptors being more numerous (29 vs. 21 per page) and more
extreme (‘‘odious,’’ ‘‘quackery,’’ ‘‘same old lies’’). They less often use politically neutral terms to allege scientific incompetence, but are over twice as likely as Lieberman (per page) to associate Rushton with racist thinking, evil politics, pseudoscience, social harm, and imminent danger. Their commentaries vary in emphasis and personal abuse, as such commentaries usually do: Loring Brace (‘‘inexcusable anthropology’’), Fatimah Jackson (‘‘diseased,’’ ‘‘twisted,’’ ‘‘same old misrepresentations’’), Jonathan Marks (‘‘modern creationism,’’ ‘‘quackery’’), John Relethford (‘‘resurgence of racial classification’’), Audrey Smedley (‘‘so-called science’’), Verena Stolke (‘‘continuity of racist thought,’’ ‘‘persisting exclusions’’), and Fredric Weizmann (‘‘strong claims,’’ ‘‘relationships of minimal importance’’).
Taken as a whole, the symposium illustrates what happens when high talk and low blows is practiced collectively: unrestrained mob action to destroy a purportedly vile member of the group, invite a single defender to speak from the sidelines, and allow the target to say a few words which the crowd will ignore or ridicule.
3.4. Resolute ignorance
The first rule in science is to consider the totality of evidence;
the second is to make alternative hypotheses compete in explaining
it. Rushton has done both, but Lieberman and commentators do
neither. Table 2 helps illustrate how a hostile crowd can circumvent
these rules yet still appear scientific in order to maintain ‘‘resolute ignorance’’ about some stubborn, unwelcome fact, as the late sociologist William Beer dubbed it—in this case mean racial differences in general intelligence.
The table lists the seven common rebuttals, ranging from ‘‘intelligence doesn’t exist’’ to ‘‘racial differences are unthinkable.’’ Most critics accept some of the foundational findings (second column) but seldom the same ones, meaning their ‘‘yes-buts’’ often clash. One may ‘‘discredit’’ the notion of racial gaps in intelligence by first accepting some of the evidence (‘‘Yes, intelligence exists’’) but then rejecting the next link in the chain of evidence (‘‘but it can’t be measured fairly’’). Another may concede that ‘‘Yes, it can be measured,’’ but reject a different link in the evidentiary chain (‘‘but it isn’t important in real life’’), yet both stand arm-in-arm to denounce the evidence. All that matters in mob science is that critics howl together at the target.
Lieberman and fellow critics likewise jab haphazardly at different
nodes in Rushton’s network of evidence. All dismiss his
hypothesis of evolved racial differences in intelligence on the
grounds that races don’t exist. But the evidence does not melt away
for being relabeled, ignored, or characterized in nasty terms. Therefore, in ‘‘yes-but’’ fashion, some of the 7 add that intelligence doesn’t exist either; others that it exists but isn’t important, or isn’t as heritable as it seems; yet others contend that the race-IQ gap is trivial, or will be washed away by the Flynn Effect, or that Gould discredited the whole business of measuring intelligence and brain size. They reunite again in suggesting that no credible scientist could possibly agree with Rushton. Yet it is Gould’s work on cranial capacity, not Rushton’s, that we now learn was fudged and falsified (Lewis et al., 2011)—just as Rushton said it was.
I think it’s a pretty weird slip of the tongue. Who would say “my Muslim faith” by accident? I couldn’t imagine accidentally saying that. Even though I am sure Obama is an atheist, I think that maybe he considers himself a cultural Muslim. Remember that he grew up as a little kid in Muslim Indonesia with a Muslim stepfather. He didn’t leave Indonesia until he was nearly 10 years old, which is old enough for him to feel some sort of fond attachment to Islam.
I’ve never previously touched on an important aspect of Obama’s likely atheism. Living in a place where everyone believes in Islam, and then being moved to a place where everyone believes in something extremely different, this makes a smart person realize the arbitrariness of religious belief. It’s also the reason why so few Jews take Judaism seriously, it’s the juxtaposition of being taught one thing in Hebrew school but then being immersed in the Christian world of the United States where no one believes in anything they taught you in Hebrew school. The Hasidic elders understand this very well, which is why they wall the community off from the secular and Christian worlds to ensure their children are not influenced by anything except for Jewish brainwashing.
Obama, of course, realized that if he wanted a career in politics, being an atheist or a Muslim wouldn’t cut it, so he had to demonstrate that he had “Christian faith” (by attending Reverend Wright’s church) and then he no doubt discovered the usefulness of using Christian language to support his left-wing agenda.
COMMENTS:
* Although Black atheists are extremely rare, Obama probably is one himself. His attachment to Islam is based on the view that it is anti-colonial and linked to third-world liberation. Similarly he would regard Christianity solely in terms of liberation theology and social justice. By the way, this ideology is no different than the one espoused by the mainline Protestant churches like the Episcopal, Presbyterian, ELCA, etc.
* I always get a kick out of this one, especially how Snuffulupagus jumps in instantly to save the flub. I’m looking forward to about ten years from now when we finally start to learn something about this empty vessel President of ours.
* Not only was Obama smart enough to become a nominal “christian” for the benefit of his political career, he was also smart enough to know that he’d have to marry a black woman to be electable in those Southside Chicago districts where he got his start. (See the decline of Harold Ford, Jr’s political career to see what happens to a black politician who marries white) Let’s not forget him getting trounced badly in his 2000 Illinois congressional bid by Bobby Rush – a real, authentic mandingo with a more resounding “African big man” sort of countenance and demeanor.
I see ZERO evidence that Obama was ever the least bit involved (or attracted) to black women before Michelle. And there’s ZERO former black ex-girlfriends that have ever come forward.
It had to really pain Obama to give up white women and get with that wooookie. I guess that’s the definition of sacrifice.
* “Muslim faith” wasn’t a slip of the tongue as you can see when he corrects his media assistant for correcting him. The slip, if any, was to say “my Muslim faith” instead of “my alleged Muslim faith.” I still agree that it’s a strange slip. Can you imagine him saying “at least McCain hasn’t talked about my incompetence and failed policies”.
Even more damning is the famous NYT interview where he gives the dog whistle message to Muslims that he is one of them by reciting the Shahada in a “first-rate accent” and saying that the call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”
Also, his father was a Muslim which makes him Muslim according to Islamic law and indeed his religion in grade school was listed as Islam.
Finally, polls show that people in Muslim majority countries consider him a Muslim.
I’d describe him as a secular Muslim or a cultural Muslim atheist.
* I did Peace Corps in Azerbaijan, and almost everyone there thought that Obama was a Muslim. (Azerbaijan is majority Shi’ite Muslim but they’re not especially fanatical given their history under the Soviet Union.)
Their reasoning was that his father was a Muslim, which means that he himself would be Muslim, and Barack and Hussein are Muslim names. I said that Obama had a Muslim father, but he converted to Christianity and is likely an atheist. I don’t know how many people there understood how that worked.
1. In a high school in Greenville, South Carolina, the percent of students graduating from high school is rising. But it turns out, their performance on standardized tests is simultaneously falling. “Only one in 10 Berea students were ready for college-level work in reading, and about one in 14 were ready for entry-level college math.” The value of a high school diploma as a mechanism for certifying that the holder has some minimum level of ability becomes worthless if everyone is given a high school diploma.
The high school in the article is 38% white, 30% black and 28% Hispanic. The white students probably have parents who are too poor or too unconcerned about their children’s wellbeing to move to a better school district.
A white parent told the NY Times, “My son was in fourth grade and told me, ‘I’m not going to amount to anything because I have nothing to put on my résumé.’” The district is trying to make the schools less stressful, and the Asian parents are complaining about that, saying that the whites are trying to “hold their children back.”
Asian parents just don’t understand the benefits of self-actualization.
COMMENTS:
* These people are miserable grinds. They are mostly memorizing things, and cheating a great deal. America was a pretty nice place without Asians, why is having them an improvement?
* I’m old and remember The West before 3rd world immigration began. It was a nice place. If Asians are so smart then why don’t they stay in Asia and make it a nice place? Why do they move to white countries?
* Because Jews have a higher verbal ability and appear to be more extroverted, they have dominated in fields such as Law, Academia and show business (which includes politics), not afforded to East Asians, and it appears this will remain in effect for a long time.
* Several advantages of north east asians come to mind:
a) low birth rate, unlike blacks or especially muslims (the latter breed like rabbits here in Germany)
b) lower aggressiveness than blacks and especially muslims (the MAOA-2R [“warrior gene”] allele has an occurrence of about 15% in the arab population, whereas it only occurs to about .1 to .5% in Europeans).
c) usually smart. They have a higher mean IQ than blacks or muslims, both being pretty dumb. Technical ability of muslims is quite low, unlike that of the average german, for example; north east asians have demonstrated that they, too, are able to invent stuff. I’ve got some Samsung screens and a phone, switches and routers from TP-Link (the latter running OpenWrt), so it’s OK. Muslim engineers or scientists in Germany are very rare (if at all), they won’t make it.
However, at the same time I want to retain my own cultural and genetic heritage. Germany has a very high culture, with great art, philosophy, literature and science having been produced over the last few hundred years. We shouldn’t throw that away because of lesser folks overrunning us (like the muslims in Germany). The Japanese even had readable authors like Akutagawa, Osamu Dazai or Natsume Soseki, and they have Schopenhauer and Heidegger societies. The complete opposite of muslims, who despise books and learning and greatness in general.
All in all it can be said that blacks and muslims are the worst immigrants a first world nation can have.
* Japan has a population of about 120 million out of well over a billion people in Asia. (A huge amount depends on how you define “Asia”, but the point stands.) For the most part, it’s best to take the attitude that when you get, say, a billion Chinese, you get China and not even the Chinese want to live there.
* Asians don’t understand parenting has no impact on life outcomes.
* No impact on adult IQ. I’m sure it impacts other outcomes, such as what college you can get into and how hard you will work to get through it.
* People of all races cheat in academics. But I am talking about tendencies and proportionality. Asians cheat much more on exams than whites, blacks, or latinos, disproportionately more. Google “Asian cheater stereotype” for more information. This is not to say Asians score better only due to cheating. They tend to be smarter, study harder, and cheat harder.
I grew up in NYC surrounded by all sorts of people and Asian abuse of welfare is well known. Asians are known to run cash businesses and don’t show income. They then use low income to qualify for low-income housing, food stamps, EITC, etc. Grandparents who have never given a dime to the US govt are brought over from China and instantly qualify for food stamps, medicare, and social security. Anchor babies are babies born in the US for the sole benefit of collecting citizen benefits w/o having to bear citizen duties.
I don’t think Asians are the worst people ever. They make better immigrants than most. But there is a myth of Asians being model minorities that don’t burden the US . This is not true.
* People of all races cheat in academics. But I am talking about tendencies and proportionality. Asians cheat much more on exams than whites, blacks, or latinos, disproportionately more. Google “Asian cheater stereotype” for more information. This is not to say Asians score better only due to cheating. They tend to be smarter, study harder, and cheat harder.
I grew up in NYC surrounded by all sorts of people and Asian abuse of welfare is well known. Asians are known to run cash businesses and don’t show income. They then use low income to qualify for low-income housing, food stamps, EITC, etc. Grandparents who have never given a dime to the US govt are brought over from China and instantly qualify for food stamps, medicare, and social security. Anchor babies are babies born in the US for the sole benefit of collecting citizen benefits w/o having to bear citizen duties.
I don’t think Asians are the worst people ever. They make better immigrants than most. But there is a myth of Asians being model minorities that don’t burden the US . This is not true.
* Will Whites or Asians win the battle of the ice people?
* The Jews will win. Asians will grind their way to doing fine. The whites may self destroy, otherwise they should do better then Asians. The Jews will do the best in this mess. However, if Trump wins and does his thing for 8 years it’s gonna be Jews, whites and Asians. Trump is gonna breath new life into white America, or at least this is what I think and this is why I vote for him.
* I’m not so optimistic that the Jews will win. A Trump victory could be a prelude to a further shift (after him) towards far-right nationalism that is hostile to Jews. Alternatively, a Hilary victory would speed up the third worldization of the United States. A U.S. filled with third worlders, many of them Muslims, could be very hostile to Jews. Of these two scenarios, I prefer the first in that at least some aspects of traditional American life would be preserved, just not for us. Seems like a good idea to keep the passport up to date and a packed bag ready in the closet.
* Jews are happy to know that their tribe dominate NYC and LA, two very important titan cities of specific industries of status: Wall St and Hollywood. No one cares about the south and flyover prole country in the grander scheme of things, where gentile proles call home.
East Asians have no place of their own, not even the Bay of Pigs in Silicon Valley, where Whites dominate the tech industry. Asians generally do not boss Whites in their cubicles.
* American nationalism is not hostile to Jews and never has been. Open borders will not only bring in more people hostile to Jews, but will also dilute Jewish political influence. If you vote on the basis of what’s good for the Jews, better vote Trump.
As T said, most Americans regard Jews as regular white folks, and can’t even tell they’re Jewish unless the Jews in question are of the whiny strident NY / NJ kind.
* I grew up in flyover country, and my family and the few other Jewish families who lived near us weren’t invisible. The “town gentry” were mostly very nice to us, but it was hit or miss among other strata of the population, Just about everyone in town went to church on Sundays (and Wednesdays), and everyone noticed that we didn’t This situation pertained in pre-Hitler Germany and Austria also. There were prominent politically liberal Jews in the large cities who aroused the ire of the rightwing nationalists, but there were also a lot of ordinary Jews living in small towns in places like Bavaria and Hesse. Most were outwardly assimilated and were patriotic, even nationalist. But of course we know that their neighbors turned on them in the end.
Posted inAsians, Diversity|Comments Off on Education and HBD in the NY Times
* One good thing about the new Star Wars is the diversity. Most of the heroes are non-white while all of the villains are are white, thus reflecting the reality of the world.
* Heredity gives you a quick way to take a low-level character and make him or her suddenly very powerful or important. She’s born with enormous force sensitivity, or he’s the heir to the throne, or she’s the one who’s been prophesied for centuries, or whatever. Otherwise, your low-level nobody character would need to spend a decade or two getting the skills necessary to play a major role in world events.
To use an example for the original movie, I’m pretty sure that no matter how good you were at handling farm equipment, you’re not a good candidate for being given a top of the line military plane and sent on a critical mission a week after you leave the farm and join the rebelion. Unless the Force is really strong with you….
* Heredity has always been a part of myth-making/fairy tales/sword-and-sandal fantasy tales: how many old fairy tales are built on the idea of a poor neglected child really being the heir to a throne? The Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Anderson and the Arabian Nights books are filled with the “lost prince” tales. And we are no less immune to the idea these days.
For example, in the 20th Century alone, Tolkien’s LOTR series features not one, but two “blood heirs to the throne” motifs: (1) Aragorn/Strider, the heir to the kingdom; and (2) Frodo, blood heir to Bilbo, who must shoulder his family burden and destroy the ring his relative brought in.
Superman’s mythos is also part of this: I’m not really a dumb farmboy, I’m a super powered alien, the last of my race, only pretending to be a dumb hick!
Cinderella and Snow White are also along this track, except the greatness/inheritance of the girls is no secret: some evil stepmother has just seduced the wealthy and powerful father, and then persecuted and driven the princess away; she only need be restored to the throne everyone knows she has.
It’s also a common childhood fantasy to wonder if your parents aren’t your parents, but that you’re secretly a princess or prince or some other heir to greatness. So the idea appeals to that part of our childish psyche.
And we’ve done it clearly in politics. The Kennedy’s have been perennial political front runners despite the only major accomplishments of the family were getting elected in 1960, looking good on camera, and unfortunately having two very public assassinations.
People like the idea of all-powerful but benevolent families because mass democracy is rather unnatural; most people like kings and emperors and just trusting one group to run things and not make us decide about anything. This is noted in the Bible, where the early Israelites are having a lot of success with adhoc democratically-elected Judges running things, but just hate it, and beg God for a king. That gives them Saul and a whole lot of trouble.
It’s a lot messier in real history than the mythos, however, since good rulers don’t always beget good rulers. Marcus Aurelius begat Commodus, after all. This is what Plato noticed a long time ago, which is why in the Republic he goes into such detail about how to choose and train rulers from childhood and cull the bad ones.
* We’ve lived in an ostensibly enlightened, egalitarian and democratic age for two centuries now. But look at how stories set in traditional societies based on hierarchy dominate many people’s fantasy lives in the 21st Century – Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Outlander, Frozen, Star Wars, and many of the vampire tales. We find something emotionally unsatisfying about the world of levelled, fungible humanity created by the Enlightenment, and we recognize on some level that human nature finds it true fulfillment in the preceding order that the philosophers and revolutionaries in the Enlightenment discredited, destroyed and replaced with their rationalist utopian schemes.
The feeling that we live diminished lives because of the Enlightenment exists now mainly as a splinter in our minds. But thinkers in the emerging Dark Enlightenment have started to figure this out and made it explicit, most notably Steve.
* It’s called escapism. People also like to watch horror movies and The Wire. That doesn’t mean people want to be hacked to death by psychopaths or live in Baltimore. Most people who aren’t prepubescent girls or gay men don’t want to live in some fairytale medieval style kingdom.
* Why not make a pro empire movie? Or a movie where the empire is led by someone who is more of a complex character like Augustus or Trajan. I wonder why nobody bothers to point out that the most likely result of the fall of President Snow in the Hunger Games is civil war and something like crisis of the 3rd century, instead of the sort of idyllic democracy that you see in the movie and books.
* Being good looking, charming/entertaining, and popular are the three most import qualities in modern human society. That’s why the Kennedys are such a glamorous family.
JFK Jr. was outrageously handsome. If he were alive, I guarantee he would’ve been a major contender for the Democratic nomination. On looks alone.
Nixon, despite being a powerful politician, was never glamorized. Why? Because he was ugly, awkward (“you won’t have Richard Nixon to kick around any more”), and nobody liked him.
* Nixon actually was a pretty handsome guy, though later caricatures exaggerated his hunching nature, his sharp nose, and his receding hairline. This was pointed out, in all places, in Mad Men, when the ad agency is talking about running his campaign, and make the point : “He’s young, handsome, a Navy hero. Honestly, it shouldn’t be too difficult to convince America that Dick Nixon is a winner.”
Also, most history books and media types exceedingly exaggerate the Nixon/Kennedy TV debates, claiming that Kennedy’s TV appearance was just so much better than Nixon’s ugliness that that won the presidency for him. In reality, if you watch the debate, both men do fine, and Nixon looks pretty dignified, and it barely moved the public needle. What really won for Kennedy was every catholic (especially Irish Catholic) pulling the lever for him and the crooked Chicago pols and Giancana delivering Illinois for Kennedy —which Nixon could have challenged legitimately, but chose not to.
Later media types vilified Nixon because he ran and later won without their approval. Bush, Romney, McCain, etc. all ran with at least some media types approving them, and the others at least grudgingly oking them if they did beat the favorite. The press was outraged when Nixon won in ’68 after he was supposed to be dead and never let up on him after that; when they declared someone dead, he stayed dead, darn it.
* Help me out here but the impression I’m getting is that young boys are no longer a market worth catering to.
Star Wars – girl hero.
Hunger Games – girl hero.
Tomorrowland – girl hero
Twilight – girl hero.
Harry Potter – boy hero.
Are young boys going to be buying Star Wars girl (Rey) action figures and imaging themselves to be her (despite the best efforts of leftists and gender fluidists).
What films am I missing where the protagonist is a young/teenage boy who is on an adventure and triumphs?
Is Disney counting on young girls being as deep into Star Wars fandom as young boys? The majority of women that I dated had never even seen any Stars Wars movies and of the ones who had, all were of the opinion that it wasn’t all that and many watched simply to either become culturally literate or their previous boyfriends made them watch the films.
Who is a young boy supposed to identify with in this film?
I do note though that the Disney marketing department has struck a deal with Cover Girl cosmetics for a Star Wars line of cosmetics. Too bad you can’t short individual deals like this because I suspect that there aren’t many broads out there who will make a beeline to the cosmetics counter in order to buy some Star Wars mascara.
* I don’t think the Titanic gambit works here. Young girls become repeat viewers of Titanic because they want to see dreamy Leonardo and fantasize about him being their boyfriend doesn’t quite map onto young boys going to see Star Wars because the fantasize about Rey protecting them from Kylo.
* 1977 Star Wars was based on Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Everything since The Matrix has been based on comic books.
Audiences for the former thought in literary hypertext out of a common fund of myth, epic, and story cycle.
Audiences for the latter need narrative to, like mommy, hover and explain everything, less discomfort ensue from the intolerable condition of not understanding everything at first glance.
I really don’t see, however, that 1977 Star Wars was “creating a new universe.” The space opera Western was at least 40 years old by that time.
* Not to mention that Hamill is a horrible actor and was terribly miscast in the original films. He never came across as heroic, charismatic or even virile. And he sounded like a dweeb. That’s why Han Solo stole the show from him as well as the girl. Lucas rewrote the script so Harrison Ford could become Luke’s brother in law.
Carrie Fisher was also a terrible casting decision. Poor acting skills, no screen presence and frankly not that good-looking. I remember even as a 9 year old I was disappointed by her bikini body, whereas in the movie posters she was supposed to be stunning.
* I thought it was striking how well the movie embodied a few ISteve themes:
a) The KKKrazy clue that keeps the Coalition of the Diverse together is the presence of literal Nazis right around the corner.
b) The Evil WMs are oddly both infinitely powerful in their ability to cause harm and incredibly weak when confronted.
c) The individual journey of a hero who is a member of a disadvantaged group is not, as in Joseph Campbell and the original movies, to conquer their internal or moral weakness, but merely to get together with the inclusively diverse Right and the Good people. You don’t become a hero by growing or improving or questioning yourself (ala Luke with Yoda and Obiwan), but by embracing your identity and joining with those are like you or who, most of all, Finally Understand You.
* Look, it’s only been 150 years since someone assembled the first understanding of the biology of heredity at the population level, without even knowing what its mechanisms were.
It’s only been 50 since those mechanisms started to become clear.
It’s only been 5 that iSteve readers haven’t had to feel like we need to hide in the closet every day (though I still advise it for white men with jobs in civil service…).
A lot of the “hierarchical traditional” storylines/narratives arose from a sense that something was happening at the level of hereditarianism…but just what, nobody could say. The emotional resonance with that is complex and has never been teased out from an HBD perspective. That’s unlikely to happen at the scholarly level so long as America’s universities continue to operate in the fantasy realms of Diversitopia.
But it’s pretty clear that a lot of the “traditional” myths had HBD roots. Humans struggling to understand why they are who they are, and what that portends for their lives–the fates to which their genomes condemn or exalt them.
This is why the Stoic and Buddhist philosophers’ stone of “know thyself” seems so wise and cuts so deeply. That’s sheer, raw HBD right there.
It isn’t nostalgia we’re craving, and there’s nothing wrong emotionally with The Enlightenment per se. It’s that a lot of human endeavor has been expressed in mythic and narrative language precisely because we haven’t been able to understand it simply and materially as biochemistry.
Will understanding all that make for a better life for any, many, most, or all? I can’t say. Then again, I’m content to move through my day trying to be worthy of the sacrifice of Prometheus and taking the occasional burned fingers as the price tag.
* That’s the weird thing about the media’s obsessively anti-white casting, some boys will internalize the imposed negative self image but the rest will shift to identifying with the media’s chief villains: Nazis, Crusaders, Confederate soldiers etc.
* I understand, you girls got a good-looking though inadequate male lead in Mark Hamill. We boys got the plain-looking, boring and vulgar Carrie Fisher, already a coke head at age 19. A casting couch decision, it is rumoured.
Sorry, but those two actors ruined the original Star Wars, almost as badly as the two Annakins and Jar Jar Binks in the prequels. Nathalie Portman was alright but she lacks style. Unbelievable as a princess.
* 1) 3.8 stars (out of 5). Good movie overall. Retains the “look” of the original Star Wars much better than the prequels. Ridley is awesome. However…
2) Too many recycled plot points. Does there have to be a Death Star in every damn Star Wars movie? Lucas got bashed for re-using the Death Star in ROTJ, but somehow it’s ok if Abrams does it.
3) Had no idea what their plan was vis-a-vis destroying the Death Star. Like Abrams’s first Star Trek movie, the plan to destroy it seemed off the cuff rather than well thought out.
4) The villains don’t live up to Star Wars standards. Kylo Ren looks like a poor man’s Darth Vader. The ginger who plays General Hux can’t hold a candle to Peter Cushing (aka Grand Moff Tarkin). Snoke, or Snook, or whatever his name was, looked more like Gollum or something. He’s absurd.
5) Too much Nazi allegory. Enough with that, for pete’s sake! Again, just like in Abrams’s first Star Trek movie, where they destroy Vulcan.
6) Zero explanation of what’s happened since ROTJ. Why is there a “Resistance,” and why is Princess Leia leading it?
Still it was ok. It’s Star Wars, and I needed a fix, and this movie sufficed. They could still do a lot better. Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy had a perfectly awesome villain. Pity they didn’t use him.
On page XIII, he writes: “If people lived by these Commandments, little else would be needed to make a world in which armies spent their time playing football; police would rarely be needed; the doors to our homes could be left unlocked; and women would walk anywhere at any time of day or night without fear of being sexually assaulted.”
I can foresee no time when a country won’t need an army, but all the rest of the characteristics of this utopia have been normal in homogeneous white and asian communities. In Tannum Sands, Australia, where I lived for a couple of years, people routinely left their homes unlocked when they went away on vacation.
On the other hand, I can’t think of any society that observed the Ten Commandments coming close to the achievements of Japan in creating safe society and yet few Japanese pay any attention to the Ten Commandments nor do they believe in monotheism.
Prager writes: “We live in a world filled with evil and moral confusion. There is only one way out: affirmation of a God Whose primary demand of us is that we treat our fellow human beings decently. Faith in any god who makes any other primary demand will ultimately fail to solve the problem of evil.”
I’m eager to find that Jewish or Christian country that comes close to Japan’s record of civility and law-abidingness.
How do the Japanese do it without monotheism, Bible, and Jews? If the Japanese excel all monotheist societies in goodness, then what does that say about the moral necessity of monotheism?
On page XVIII, Prager writes:
Imagine for a moment a world in which there was no murder or theft. In such a world, there would be no need for armies, or police, or weapons. Men and women and children could walk anywhere, at any time or day or night, without any fear of being killed or robbed. Imagine further a world in which no one coveted what belonged to their neighbor; a world in which children honored their mother and father and the family unit thrived; a world in which people obeyed the injunction not to lie.
If you ask people to give an example of a “hate group,” the first thing that will pop into many of their minds is “The KKK.” Even white nationalists sometimes like to pick on the KKK. Writing about a recent incident involving some Citadel students who wore costumes reminiscent of KKK outfits, a recent AFT article reports:
Washington (AFP) – A prestigious military college in the United States suspended eight students and launched an investigation after photos emerged of cadets posing in all-white outfits reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, an official said.
Hillary Clinton also weighed in on The Citadel college, where the Confederate battle flag flies, tweeting: “Symbols of hate create more hate. It’s time for the Confederate flag to come down at The Citadel.”
The flag was the focus of renewed impassioned debate in June after a suspected white supremacist shot dead nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina — the same city where The Citadel is based.
The cadets were pictured dressed in white and with white pillow cases over their heads with two holes for the eyes, in haunting similarities to the infamous Ku Klux Klan, a white hate group.
Is the KKK a “hate group?”
The answer is clearly “No.” Firstly, the KKK is not even a group, let alone a “hate group.” According to kkk.bz:
The name Ku Klux Klan is in the public domain. This means anyone can use the name Ku Klux Klan. They can use it for good reasons or they can use it for bad reasons. There are around 200 different Klan groups in the nation. They are all locally based or at the most regionally based. Most of these groups remain local because they want to do things their own way. They all use the terminology and ceremony of the twenties and are fraternity styled. They are not politically focused and resemble a club. The average size of the Klan clubs are 6-15. There are a couple of regional Klan groups with an average membership of 50-75. Usually they are led by sincerely motivated individuals, however because they have no national affiliation, their growth, activities, and goals are limited.
Of those 200 KKK groups, there can be little doubt that many have hateful members. This is to be expected. Since the very term “KKK” is now synonymous with “Hate,” many angry and hateful people will naturally be drawn to such groups. They’ll say to themselves, “I was mugged by niggers. I was cheated by kikes. Those Mexicans stole my lawnmower again! I’m sick and tired of this; I’m gonna join THE KLAN!”
When you demonize a name, groups that call themselves by that name will attract a lot of demons. Charitable people are not encouraged to “join the KKK and make a difference.” For this reason alone, it’s prudent to be wary of people who affiliate themselves with the KKK.
What about the crimes of the past, such as the lynchings, committed by the KKK?
If we’re going to blame today’s KKK groups for crimes of the past, then we might as well blame today’s USA for its past crimes. While we’re at it, let’s hold the Democrat Party responsible for slavery and the Catholic Church culpable for the Inquisition.
The vast majority of crimes attributed to KKK organizations date from decades ago, typically from the turbulent “civil rights era.” It seems to me that more recent incidents are “second-generation” phenomena. In other words, the Left establishment has so built up the name “KKK” that crazy and violent individuals are attracted to it. This artificial bogeyman has taken on a life of its own. At the same time, Establishment pro-crime policies (such as subsidizing fatherless households, feeding black anger and entitlement, forced integration and the emasculation of whites) have enraged enough people that some of them seek out groups they consider to be the most extreme: The KKK and neo-Nazi groups.
Looking over kkk.bz, I didn’t find anything hateful. So it would appear that the official positions of that particular KKK group are not hateful.
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December 17, 2015 ought henceforth to be a date which will live in infamy, as that was the day that some of the leading Democrats in the House of Representatives came out in favor of the destruction of the First Amendment. Sponsored by among others, Muslim Congressmen Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, as well as Eleanor Holmes Norton, Loretta Sanchez, Charles Rangel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Kennedy, Al Green, Judy Chu, Debbie Dingell, Niki Tsongas, John Conyers, José Serrano, Hank Johnson, and many others, House Resolution 569 condemns “violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States.” The Resolution has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
That’s right: “violence, bigotry and hateful rhetoric.” The implications of those five words will fly by most people who read them, and the mainstream media, of course, will do nothing to elucidate them. But what H. Res. 569 does is conflate violence — attacks on innocent civilians, which have no justification under any circumstances – with “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric,” which are identified on the basis of subjective judgments. The inclusion of condemnations of “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric” in this Resolution, while appearing to be high-minded, take on an ominous character when one recalls the fact that for years, Ellison, Carson, and his allies (including groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR) have been smearing any and all honest examination of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to incite hatred and violence as “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric.” This Resolution is using the specter of violence against Muslims to try to quash legitimate research into the motives and goals of those who have vowed to destroy us, which will have the effect of allowing the jihad to advance unimpeded and unopposed.
That’s not what this H. Res. 569 would do, you say? It’s just about condemning “hate speech,” not free speech? That kind of sloppy reasoning may pass for thought on most campuses today, but there is really no excuse for it. Take, for example, the wife of Paris jihad murderer Samy Amimour – please. It was recently revealed that she happily boasted about his role in the murder of 130 Paris infidels: “I encouraged my husband to leave in order to terrorize the people of France who have so much blood on their hands […] I’m so proud of my husband and to boast about his virtue, ah la la, I am so happy.” Proud wifey added: “As long as you continue to offend Islam and Muslims, you will be potential targets, and not just cops and Jews but everyone.”
Now Samy Amimour’s wife sounds as if she would be very happy with H. Res. 569, and its sponsors would no doubt gladly avow that we should stop offending Islam and Muslims – that is, cut out the “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric.” If we are going to be “potential targets” even if we’re not “cops” or “Jews,” as long as we “continue to offend Islam and Muslims,” then the obvious solution, according to the Western intelligentsia, is to stop doing anything that might offend Islam and Muslims – oh, and stop being cops and Jews. Barack “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” says it. Hillary “We’re going to have that filmmaker arrested” Clinton says it. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, certain that anyone who speaks honestly about Islam and jihad is a continuing danger to the Church, says it.
Posted inCensorship, Islam|Comments Off on HOUSE DEMOCRATS MOVE TO CRIMINALIZE CRITICISM OF ISLAM
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