{"id":78680,"date":"2015-11-05T10:42:28","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T18:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=78680"},"modified":"2015-11-05T10:47:48","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T18:47:48","slug":"the-ethnic-theory-of-plane-crashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=78680","title":{"rendered":"The Ethnic Theory Of Plane Crashes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/malcolm-in-a-muddle-or-how-gladwell-gladhands-the-cultural-establishment\">Steve Sailer writes for VDARE in 2008<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>I spent a few hours poking around on the  \t\t\t\t\tInternet and found \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.airsafe.com\/events\/last_15.htm\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.airsafe.com\/events\/last_15.htm', ' AirSafe.com']);\" > AirSafe.com<\/a>, which lists every \t\t\t\t\t&#8220;fatal event&#8221; involving a scheduled airliner. According to the rigorous  \t\t\t\t\t definition they employ, there were 45 fatal airline events  \t\t\t\t\ton  Earth between the beginning of 2004 and October 2008. I  \t\t\t\t\tentered  all 45 into an Excel spreadsheet and looked at the  \t\t\t\t\tresults.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> First, not one of the 45 crashes involved a Japanese  \t\t\t\t\t\tairline. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"style4\">This is \t\t\t\t\t<em>not<\/em> to say that  \t\t\t\t\texcessive deference to captains might not be a  problem.  \t\t\t\t\tAfter all, American airlines have been fighting it for  \t \t\t\t\talmost 30 years. But apparently it`s the kind of problem  \t\t\t\t\tthat a  highly competent country like Japan can train its  \t\t\t\t\taircrews to  avoid.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"style4\"> Second, my spreadsheet quickly suggested a far more  \t\t\t\t\t\tgeneral &#8220;ethnic theory of plane crashes&#8221;\u2014one that Malcolm Gladwell  \t\t\t\t\t\twould never, ever mention.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"style4\">The <em> <a href=\"http:\/\/icao.int\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/icao.int\/', 'International Civil Aviation  \t\t\t\t\tOrganization']);\" >International Civil Aviation  \t\t\t\t\tOrganization<\/a> <\/em>summarizes the number of departures by  \t\t\t\t\tregion, allowing us roughly to estimate rates of crashing  \t\t\t\t\tper flight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">North America (the U.S. and Canada)  \t\t\t\t\taccounts for \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.icao.int\/icaonet\/dcs\/9898\/9898_en.pdf\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','download','http:\/\/www.icao.int\/icaonet\/dcs\/9898\/9898_en.pdf']);\" > 42 percent<\/a> of the world`s airline departures, but only  \t\t\t\t\tseven percent of the fatal events on AirSafe`s list of  \t\t\t\t\t2004-2008.<\/p>\n<p>But   \t\t\t\t\tLatin America has only seven percent of the departures, but  \t\t\t\t \t18 percent of the fatal crashes, since 2004. Thus, airlines  \t\t\t\t\t headquartered in Latin America have been 16 times as  \t\t\t\t\tdangerous as  airlines based in North America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">Africa and the Middle East, lumped  \t\t\t\t\ttogether, are <em>42 times<\/em> as dangerous as North America\u2014with five percent of all  \t\t\t\t\tdepartures and 33 percent of all crashes.<\/p>\n<p>In  \t\t\t\t\tsummary, First World airlines are fairly safe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">In contrast, the old Second World (the \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/a-conversation-with-a-russian-immigrant\"> ex-Soviet Union<\/a>) looks quite dangerous, with nine  \t\t\t\t\tcrashes among its airlines.<\/p>\n<p>And  the  \t\t\t\t\tThird World (Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, South  \t \t\t\t\tAsia, and Southeast Asia) is, unsurprisingly to VDARE.COM  \t\t\t\t\t readers, highly dangerous relative to its small number of  \t\t\t\t\t departures. Third World airlines accounted for 29 of the  \t\t\t\t\tlast 45  fatal events.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">None of this is astonishing. Third World  \t\t\t\t\tand  ex-Soviet countries are much more dangerous in general  \t\t\t\t\t(here`s a  website that tracks \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/users.lmi.net\/tcs55\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/users.lmi.net\/tcs55\/', 'Third World bus  \t\t\t\t\tplunges']);\" >Third World bus  \t\t\t\t\tplunges<\/a>), most likely due to \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/posts\/a-bus-ride-to-enlightenment\/\"> lower levels of general competence.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Still,  \t\t\t\t\tthat`s a rather important thing to know. Wouldn`t you say?  \t\t\t\t\tUseful when booking your next overseas trip?<\/p>\n<p>Malcolm   \t\t\t\t\tGladwell`s books are sold in vast quantities in airport  \t\t\t\t\t bookstores to frequent fliers. So you might imagine he`d  \t\t\t\t\twant to  clue his loyal readers in on how to minimize the  \t\t\t\t\tdanger of dying  in a crash. But that would involve violating  \t\t\t\t\tthe taboos against  political incorrectness\u2014which could make  \t\t\t\t\thim as popular on the  corporate speaking circuit as Charles  \t\t\t\t\tMurray.<\/p>\n<p>Forget  \t\t\t\t\tit!<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">And  &#8220;The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes&#8221; is perhaps the \t\t\t\t\t<em>best<\/em> chapter in Gladwell`s new opus.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Rice  \t\t\t\t\tPaddies and Math Tests&#8221; isn`t the worst chapter, either, but it`s still lame.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">Gladwell argues that the reason \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com\/women_and_minorities_in_science.htm\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com\/women_and_minorities_in_science.htm', ' Chinese kids are good at math ']);\" > Chinese kids are good at math <\/a>is because they work hard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">Math requires \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/the-zorro-of-statisticians\">hard work,<\/a> no doubt. But discounting aptitude this completely is  \t\t\t\t\tsomething  that only somebody as bad with numbers as Gladwell  \t\t\t\t\twould do.  Anybody with any skill at math knows that, no  \t\t\t\t\tmatter how hard you  try, you`ll always run into somebody who  \t\t\t\t\tis better at it than you  are.<\/p>\n<p>Why  do  \t\t\t\t\tthe Chinese work hard? Because, according to Gladwell, their   \t\t\t\t\tancestors worked in rice paddies, which demand much more  \t\t\t\t\t effort than the wheat fields harvested by lazy Europeans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">To explain why whites are so lazy,  \t\t\t\t\tGladwell contrasts the \t\t\t\t\t&#8220;autonomous&#8221; work  \t\t\t\t\tof Chinese rice growers to the closely managed work of  \t\t\t\t\tEuropean farmers:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;The \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/a-farewell-to-alms-part-ii-why-have-some-countries-profited-from-the-industrial-revolution\"> peasants of Europe<\/a> worked essentially as low-paid slaves  \t\t\t\t\tof an aristocratic  landlord, with little control over their  \t\t\t\t\town destinies. Growing  rice is too complicated and intricate  \t\t\t\t\tfor a system that requires  farmers to be coerced and bullied  \t\t\t\t\tinto going out into the fields  each morning. By the  \t\t\t\t\tfourteenth and fifteenth centuries, landlords  in central and  \t\t\t\t\tSouthern China had an almost completely hands-off   \t\t\t\t\trelationships with their tenants: they would collect a fixed  \t\t\t\t \trent and let farmers go about their business.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"style4\">Malcolm apparently believes that European  \t\t\t\t\taristocrats would, in the manner of \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.squidoo.com\/oohrah\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.squidoo.com\/oohrah', 'Parris Island drill  \t\t\t\t\tsergeants,']);\" >Parris Island drill  \t\t\t\t\tsergeants,<\/a> wake up their tenants each morning and force  \t\t\t\t\tthem out of their beds!<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">These \t\t\t\t\t<em>Da Vinci Code<\/em>-quality  \t\t\t\t\thowlers pop up repeatedly in \t\t\t\t\t<em>Outliers<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">Nonetheless, Gladwell is certainly right  \t\t\t\t\tthat  rice farmers work hard. Not surprisingly, though, he  \t\t\t\t\tfails to  mention the even more relevant contrast to rice  \t\t\t\t\tfarming: the \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/tom-sowells-black-redneck-theory-ingenious-but-insufficient\"> &#8220;female farming&#8221; cultures<\/a> of tropical Africa, which demand  \t\t\t\t\tmostly just hoeing by women,  with very little labor from  \t\t\t\t\tmen. By Gladwell`s logic, that \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/out-of-africa\"> might explain a lot about African-American culture<\/a>, but  \t\t\t\t\the wouldn`t go there even if he ever thought of it.<\/p>\n<p>Rice  \t\t\t\t\tgrowing makes the Chinese hard working, which, in Gladwell`s  \t\t\t\t\ttheory, makes them good at math.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">(Of course, vast numbers of Chinese live  \t\t\t\t\tin the <em>wheat<\/em> belt,  \t\t\t\t\taround the Yellow River. Indeed, that`s where Chinese  \t\t\t\t\tculture <em>originated<\/em>.  \t\t\t\t\tBut never mind that\u2026)<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">Is Gladwell arguing, as geneticist Henry  \t\t\t\t\t Harpending and evolutionary theorist Gregory Cochran  \t\t\t\t\tdocument in  their upcoming book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2F000-Year-Explosion-Civilization-Accelerated%2Fdp%2F0465002218%2F&amp;tag=vdare&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2F000-Year-Explosion-Civilization-Accelerated%2Fdp%2F0465002218%2F&amp;tag=vdare&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325', 'The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution,']);\" >The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution,<\/a><\/em> that the  \t\t\t\t\tlife or death Malthusian struggle to grow enough food to   \t\t\t\t\tsurvive caused humans to evolve rapidly in recent millennia?<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">Is Gladwell theorizing that rice growing  \t\t\t\t\tselected Chinese genes for \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/historymatters.gmu.edu\/d\/5046\/%7C\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/historymatters.gmu.edu\/d\/5046\/%7C', 'hard work']);\" >hard work<\/a> and\/or math?<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">Of course not! It`s all a \t\t\t\t\t<em>cultural<\/em> legacy from working in the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/the-fulford-file-by-james-fulford-13\"> rice paddies,<\/a> he says.<\/p>\n<p>No  \t\t\t\t\tnature, just nurture. Nobody here but us chickens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">Let`s try a reality check. Why don`t the  \t\t\t\t\trice paddy cultures of Southeast Asia, such as \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/a-bright-shining-lie-john-paul-vann-and-america-in-vietnam\"> Cambodia <\/a>and \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/nice-guys-get-illegal-immigrants\"> Indonesia<\/a>, produce math wizards? There has been a  \t\t\t\t\tsizable \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bahalanamartialarts.com\/modules.php?name=News&amp;file=print&amp;sid=3\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.bahalanamartialarts.com\/modules.php?name=News&amp;file=print&amp;sid=3', ' Filipino population ']);\" > Filipino population <\/a>in California for several  \t\t\t\t\tgenerations, but very few make it to Cal Tech.<\/p>\n<p>It`s a  \t\t\t\t\tpuzzlement. At least to Gladwell.<\/p>\n<p>We   \t\t\t\t\tjournalists don`t have to be smart. But we do have to be  \t\t\t\t\t clever in understanding what makes us money in modern  \t\t\t\t\tAmerica.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">For example, there`s a huge market for  \t\t\t\t\tbooks  offering non-genetic explanations for the lower  \t\t\t\t\tintellectual  performance of blacks\u2014look at how over 1.5  \t\t\t\t\tmillion copies have  been sold of \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/jared-diamond-the-new-king-of-all-media\"> Jared Diamond<\/a>`s rather boring <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FGuns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies%2Fdp%2F0393061310%2F&amp;tag=vdare&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FGuns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies%2Fdp%2F0393061310%2F&amp;tag=vdare&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325', 'Guns, Germs, and Steel.']);\" >Guns, Germs, and Steel.<\/a><\/em> Stephen  \t\t\t\t\tJay Gould`s \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/the-mismeasures-of-gould\"> anti-IQ <\/a>book <em>The  \t\t\t\t\tMismeasure of Man<\/em> has been similarly successful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">Gladwell`s insight, however, is that the  \t\t\t\t\tmarket for these books is largely driven \t\t\t\t\t<em>not<\/em> by blacks  \t\t\t\t\tsearching for arguments for why they aren`t really less   \t\t\t\t\tintelligent on average. After all, blacks aren`t prominent  \t\t\t\t\t in the publishing and book promotion businesses. Instead,  \t\t\t\t\tmost of  the excitement about these books is generated by  \t\t\t\t\tJewish media  figures looking for arguments about why Jews  \t\t\t\t\tcan`t possibly be \t\t\t \t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/iq-and-disease-the-curious-case-of-the-ashkenazi-jews\">smarter<\/a> on average than gentiles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\">Thus, Gladwell includes a chapter focusing  \t\t\t\t\ton a \t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.skadden.com\/index.cfm?contentID=45&amp;bioID=29\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.skadden.com\/index.cfm?contentID=45&amp;bioID=29', ' famous Jewish lawyer,']);\" > famous Jewish lawyer,<\/a> &#8220;The Three Lessons of  \t\t\t\t\tJoe Flom&#8221;,  that makes the curious (but no doubt popular)  \t\t\t\t\tclaim that Jews  became so successful in the professions by  \t\t\t\t\tthe middle of the 20th  Century because they were lucky to  \t\t\t\t\thave parents who were garment  workers in the sweatshops of  \t\t\t\t\tNew York. Therefore, any group could  be as successful as  \t\t\t\t\tJews if they just had the same opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>He  \t\t\t\t\targues:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Or  consider the  \t\t\t\t\tfate of the Mexicans who immigrated to California  between  \t\t\t\t\t1900 and the end of the 1920s to work in the fields of the   \t\t\t\t\tbig fruit and vegetable growers. \u2026  [Historian Daniel Soyer writes] `If you are working in a field in California, you have no  \t\t\t\t\tclue  what`s happening to produce when it gets on the truck.  \t\t\t\t\tIf you are  working in a small garment shop \u2026 you can see  \t\t\t\t\texactly what the  successful people are doing \u2026` &#8220;[pp.  \t\t\t\t\t148-149]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Sailer writes for VDARE in 2008: I spent a few hours poking around on the Internet and found AirSafe.com, which lists every &#8220;fatal event&#8221; involving a scheduled airliner. According to the rigorous definition they employ, there were 45 fatal &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=78680\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78680"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78683,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78680\/revisions\/78683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}