I’m curious to hear what my readers think of the various concepts and theories that frequently come up on this blog, and of the key assumptions underlying the Karlinist Weltanschauung.

Very quick n dirty summaries of terms and their discontents:

Peak oil: Oil is limited in quantity, and at some point its production will inevitably decline – with severe repercussions for the economy; but can also be shorthand for more general problems of declining EROEI and resource depletion. Mainstream conservatives, polluters, big business hate it; Serious People usually dismiss it.

AGW: The world is warming, and human activities are largely responsible for it. Mainstream conservatives, polluters, big business hate it.

Limits to growth: Unsustainable trends in resource consumption and pollution set the world up for a severe socio-economic collapse in the 21st century. Serious People usually dismiss it; mainstream conservatives hate it.

Intelligence theory: Individual life outcomes are significantly dependent on IQ (i.e. wealth, risk of criminality, etc), while the rate of development significantly depends on the national level of human capital. Universal taboo.

HBD: A significant proportion of the differences between human groups (or races) can be attributed to differences in genotypes, which express themselves in areas such as IQ, physical abilities, character, etc. Universal super-taboo.

Game: Chicks respect alphas and despise betas; nice guys don’t get laid. At the macro level, the combination of female hypergamy and sexual revolution has led to a kind of “soft polygamy” in the US. Great for alphas, but life for sexless betas is ever more hellish. Universal taboo.

Low-carb diet: The typical US high carb diet has greatly contributed to huge obesity rates; paleo, Atkins, 4HB-type diets are the way to go. Lazy fat people who want to rationalize and excuse their own obesity tend to hate it, as do many vegetarians with their misplaced empathy.

80/20 principle/Parkinson’s Law: You accomplish 80% of things in 20% of the time, but unfortunately work expands to fill up all the time available for it – but it is possible to find one’s way out of limbo (e.g. muses/location-independent revenue streams; aggressive outsourcing; mini-retirements). Lazy people / office plankton who worship their jobs and don’t want to take a risk make fun of and dismiss this.

Transhumanism: Human enhancements, e.g. cognitive (ranging from nootropics to chip implants if the technology appears for it) and especially longevity (e.g. SENS). Technophobes are against this, i.e. most people.

Technological singularity: This quote by John Good encapsulated it: “The first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.” Technophobes are against this, i.e. most people.

Racist Tube rant woman Jacqueline Woodhouse jailed: A London Underground passenger has been jailed for 21 weeks after she admitted hurling racist abuse at fellow passengers. – BBC

Girl gang who kicked woman in the head while yelling ‘kill the white slag’ freed after judge hears ‘they weren’t used to drinking because they’re Muslims’. – Daily Mail

Police misused powers during royal wedding, protesters claim. (AK: on preemptive arrests of republicans) - The Independent

The hijab has liberated me from society’s expectations of women: Wearing the hijab doesn’t have to be about religious dedication. For me, it is political, feminist and empowering. (AK: What’s worse than a feminist, and a radical Islamist? A feminist Islamist) – The Guardian

No 10 guide to changing nappies and baby talk: New parents will be given government advice on changing nappies, breastfeeding and “baby talk” under a multi-million pound initiative to support family life. – The Telegraph

UK economy’s fall into recession deeper than expected: Contraction of 0.3%, coupled with more bad news from the eurozone, increases pressure on government to intervene to boost economic growth. – The Guardian

Is there any reason, any reason whatsoever, for other countries to listen to Britain on absolutely anything? Flee it as quickly as you can possibly can.

Indeed, at first glance, it is difficult to find sympathy for her. Our heroine, Natalie Cole, is a high school dropout who’d popped out two kids by the age of 17 (!). She then popped out another two with her Latino boyfriend. She was asked to write a resume for her job application but never did so. She does not take her medications or turn up for appointed check-ups despite already by the age of 27 being ”heavyset” (read: Obese) and suffering from a variety of health ailments. She shoplifts. According to the author, “She wants to provide a better life for her children but seems not to know how.”

On the other hand however we have to bear in mind that LAT readers are fairly intelligent, whereas there is cause to doubt Ms. Cole is even functionally literate. She has most of the correlates of a dull person: Single motherhood; inability to follow simple instructions; obesity; etc. Despite wanting to, she seems unable to get a GED certificate. From the portrait given by the LAT it is hard to imagine her having an IQ of more than 75. No amount of further education or counseling can bestow her with the tools to escape idiot’s limbo. As such, it is obviously unfair to judge Ms. Cole so harshly for her welfare dependency.

Nonetheless, it is also easy to understand the frustration of LAT commentators, many of whom as taxpayers indirectly fund Ms. Cole and her fecund lifestyle. A lifestyle which social services bizarrely, inexplicably encourage. When Ms. Cole thought she had become pregnant with a fifth child (!), she seemed completely nonchalant about it even though she clearly cannot support her present four in decent conditions even after welfare payouts. In China she’d have long since been sterilized. In the US, her counselor told her, ”Children are a blessing. You are just gonna have to be stable.” Idiocracy here were come.

Yet as I stressed above, angrily condemning Ms. Cole and others like her is both pointless and arguably even unethical. Why should she be subjected to such spleen just for doing so badly in life’s genetic lottery (born 1 S.D. below the Black IQ average)? From the LAT article, while she may be dull, she does not seem to be a bad person or an uncaring mother. On the other hand, it’s also unfair to ask of productive members of society to subsidize her reproductive successes.

What’s more not only is it unfair but it is also socially ruinous due to its pro-dysgenics nature, given that IQ is about 75% heritable. In this respect her children are the rule, not the exception: “But Peter, sullen and quiet, has already been kicked out of several schools for fighting and was arrested for shooting a BB gun at passing cars. And Destiny, outgoing and affectionate, has trouble keeping up with her classmates.”

(Dysgenics isn’t just an American problem but a problem of the Black community in particular. Most research on the matter seems to indicate that dysgenic trends are stronger among Blacks than Whites, first because low-IQ blacks tend to have more children relative to high-IQ blacks than low-IQ whites to high-IQ whites, second, because the average age of childbirth is lower among blacks so generational change accrues more quickly.)

That said, this isn’t of course a call to cut off all welfare and throw Ms. Cole and Co. onto the streets, as many Republicans would like to do. Nor is it necessary to adopt Chinese policies of coercive sterilization. Equitable solutions follow naturally from a honest appraisal of reality. Namely, Ms. Cole can be granted very generous welfare, for as long as she wishes – on condition that she get sterilized. Everyone should be eligible for this offer but of course it will almost invariably be the right people, like Ms. Cole, who will be taking advantage of it. Essentially, they can be bribed out of the gene pool. Otherwise, idiot’s limbo – or whatever euphemism it will go under – will encompass an ever greater share of the population until we arrive at idiocracy.

Is it fair that obesity lowers a young woman’s social status far, far more than a man’s? Of course not. Proof:

A few further observations that can be made on this topic:

* Is it an accident that the two major countries – the US and Russia – with the highest divorce rates are where chicks are substantially fatter than dudes? It is after all hard to keep the attraction simmering through more and more layers of blubber. A typical scenario appears to be: (1) Chick gets fat; (2) Dude loses sexual interest; (3) Chick initiates divorce (and payoff!); (4) Becomes a columnist at Jezebel railing against the patriarchy.

* In fairness to Russian chicks, they at least wait until their 30′s to “bloom” into their full womanhood, while in Anglo world its pretty much constant inflation from birth.

* There are probably many other social issues that can at least partially be explained by this. Say, Black crime rates (which remain about twice higher than those of whites even after being adjusted for IQ). Surely part of this has something to do with quite understandable frustration stemming from 40% of all Black chicks being obese, i.e. twice the rate of whites. Meanwhile, surely the high rate of White-Asian intermarriage, and pop terms like “yellow fever“, has something to do with with US Asian chicks being the only part of American womanhood who can be relied upon to look after their bodies.

* There is a bizarre obsession with anorexia at the same time as the obesity crisis spirals out of control. Regardless of the fact that “anorexics” are infinitely more attractive than fatsos and have only become a rarity fairly recently in historical terms. However, since it actually takes discipline to maintain your body in that attractive form, the lazy fatsos who want a free lunch, who want to have their cake and eat it too (both literally and metaphorically), issue hysterical screeds against anorexia as part of their campaign against red-blooded men.

Sorry Katya but you are fat, and your “PLUS Size Plus” magazine is disgusting propaganda.

Note in particular the statistical skulduggery in the odious propaganda poster above. The argument that models now weigh 23% less than the average woman as opposed to 8% less in 1990, which is supposed to imply widespread anorexia in the fashion industry, assumes that said average woman has remained static in the intervening two decades. That is not of course the case. In 1990, there wasn’t a single US state with an obesity rate of greater than 15%; today, there is not a single one with an obesity rate of LESS than 20%. As such, it’s entirely possible that the average model today is actually heavier than she was 20 years ago as the average woman has developed a much larger “frame”. The problem is with the latter, not the former.

In conclusion, as I’ve rigorously demonstrated above, fat women are loathsome to look at (compare the two pictures) and cause many social problems. And contrary to the feminists, betaboys and sundry enablers who bastardize the English language to appease the Land Whale Lobby (“voluptuous”, “curvy”, “big boned”, “big framed”) and claim that “personality is what really matters”, normal dudes DO NOT prefer sass over fatass.

When fat women are forced to confront this fact they tend to retreat into some bizarre combination of denial, blame games, and self-aggrandizement via feminism and fat acceptance liberation movement. And they have a host of paid-up enablers rationalizing their delusions. What they really need is a good swat on the ass.

One man was shot to death by Miami police, and another man is fighting for his life after he was attacked, and his face allegedly half eaten, by a naked man on the MacArthur Causeway off ramp Saturday, police said. …

The officer, who has not been identified, approached and, seeing what was happening, also ordered the naked man to back away. When he continued the assault, the officer shot him, police sources said. The attacker failed to stop after being shot, forcing the officer to continue firing. Witnesses said they heard at least a half dozen shots.

This is how it ALWAYS happens in the movies. I’d keep a close eye on the victim (aka Patient Zero) and close down all air traffic from the American continent as a precautionary measure.

The incident, which came as crowds descended upon South Beach for the annual Urban Beach Week hip-hop festival, snarled traffic on the causeway for several hours.

The alternate, “edgy” interpretation is that said victim might have been okay if he’d followed John Derbyshire’s Rule 10d.

Nah. Zombies are far likelier.

I have decided to change tack. From now on, many if not all of my posts both on here and at Da Russophile will be shorter in length, and will have greater relevance to everyday life and current affairs. An additional bonus is greater readership. After all, many of the great pundits I follow such as The Oil Drum, Joe Romm, Steve Sailer, Robert Lindsay, GNXP, Nikolay Starikov, Kononenko, etc. churn something out every day.

Much as I like them, I’m forced to admit that Facebook and Twitter have had a harmful influence on my blogging productivity. After all its much easier to surf the interwebs, find a good link, and write a 140 character commentary on it as opposed to crafting a proper blog entry on the subject. They are excellent publicity and connectivity vehicles but they also encourage and incentivize laziness. So expect to see less of me there and more of me here from now on.

In my wanderings through the interwebs, I found that the NCES has an excellent “International Data Explorer” with all kinds of socio-economic data on the tested students of each country that participated in the PISA standardized tests (which correlate closely with IQ). Of particular interest was data on scores broken down by immigration status (native, 1st generation, 2nd generation), which was frankly stunning in the degree to which it confirms various stereotypes and explains why migrants succeed in some countries and live in lawless ghettos in others. See the graph below (click to enlarge).

One thing that immediately leaps out from above is that just as US scores leap upwards (from 496 to about 525, in line with Australia and Canada) once only whites are considered, so do scores in many European states when only natives are considered (e.g. Germany from 510 to 533; Switzerland from 517 to 542; the Netherlands from 519 to 533). In fact, the countries mentioned above and a few others equalize with Japan’s 529, Taiwan’s 534, and South Korea’s 541 (the natives of these developed East Asian societies also score a lot higher than their immigrants, but the overall effect on the national average is modest because migrant children are such a small percentage of their school-age populations). In other words, in the worst affected European countries, immigrants are lowering the mean national IQ (converted from PISA scores) by as much as 3 points.

This might not seem like much, but it is highly significant when bearing in mind the extremely close correlation between national IQ and prosperity. Furthermore, since immigrant populations tend to be highly variant – for instance, Britain has a lot of Poles, who are essentially equal to the natives in cognitive capacity (maybe even superior, once you adjust for the fact that it is better-educated Poles who tend to emigrate), and a lot of Pakistanis, who are far below them. This is a good explanation for the general sense of dereliction one sees (and the crime one is likely to experience) when entering Pakistani ghettos in the UK.

Also note from the graph that there is typically a very high degree of overlap between 1st and 2nd generation immigrant children. The 2nd generation children DO typically perform better, presumably because 1st generation immigrants may frequently have language difficulties and problems with adjusting to a new culture. But the degree of convergence of 2nd generation children to the native mean is modest, despite their transferal to typically far more advanced educational environments. Convergence is almost inconsequential in most European countries like Germany, France, Benelux, Norway, and actually negative in the US (i.e. American 2nd generation immigrant children do worse than the 1st generation).

This second chart shows the IQ gap – derived from the differences in PISA scores – between native children, and children who are 2nd generation immigrants (i.e., born within the country in question). I think that it is more useful to compare the 2nd generation with natives than the 1st generation because their educational environments will have been similar; the language issue will have vastly declined in importance; immigrant population will have taken their first step in “reversion to the mean” in terms of their ethnic group IQ; 2nd generation progeny are far less likely to emigrate back to their countries of origin; etc. So what do we see here?

(1) Australia (2nd generation migrants have +2 IQ points relative to natives) and Singapore (+1), two countries with immigration policies that are cognitively elitist in practice, enjoy immigrants that are superior to the native population and will clearly benefit them a lot.

(2) Canada’s (-2) system is mixed, with many immigrants of both high and low quality. The commentator celtthedog has an explanation that sounds plausible: “… Americans who cite Canada’s allegedly magnificent immigration system that only accepts highly skilled immigrants, need to acknowledge that accompanying this is a refugee programm, which lets in scores of pretty much worthless migrants. Do you really think the hoards of Jamaicans, Somalis, Sikhs and Moslems actually benefit Canada in any meaningful way or were brought in on the basis of skills native-born Canadians don’t have? Canada’s system is 50% good, 50% atrocious.”

(3) I’d have expected the UK’s (-2) immigrants to perform about as badly as in the rest of Europe, but on inspection, it’s in the same boat as Canada. Yes, there are many Pakistani and Black immigrants, but Britain also attracts many well-qualified East-Central Europeans and Asians.

(4) The US (-4) has an idiotic immigration system that penalizes highly-qualified workers while being relatively lax at controlling (inevitably unqualified, lower-IQ) illegals from Central America. But nonetheless, it’s an economic and technological dynamo, and despite policy failures there are still plenty of high-IQ immigrants.

(5) Spain (-5), Italy (-6), Norway (-7), Sweden (-9), the Netherlands (-9), France (-9), Germany (-10) and Belgium (-11) have progressively worse quality immigrants relative to the natives in their countries. (The reason for why the Med countries do “better” than the Teutonic ones isn’t because they have better immigrants, but because their native IQ’s are lower). Unlike the US, they tend to have few highly-qualified immigrants, as English speaking (and typically lower tax) nations like Australia, the US, etc. are more attractive to high-IQ cosmopolitans. What’s more, a big proportion of the immigrants to Europe are Muslims, whose faith and habits conflict with local mores to a far greater extent than Catholic Hispanics clash with the indigenous American culture.

(6) In countries like Dubai, Qatar, Kazakhstan, and Israel, the higher quality of immigrants is presumably due to the fairly low human capital of the host nations themselves.

(7) It is interesting to know that the country with the biggest gap between natives and 2nd generation immigrants for which statistics exist is Mexico (-12), which is known for contributing many low-quality immigrants itself. So the immigrants who come to Mexico are truly bottom of the barrel types, which presumably explains why Mexican border defenses to the south are militarized to an extent that would drive liberals apoplectic if implemented in the US. This, and the lure of El Dorado to the north, probably explains why Mexico itself doesn’t have an immigration problem: Although it might have the worst immigrants relative to its indigenous population, Mexico’s native (421) and national (420) average PISA scores are virtually identical, implying that its immigrants are numerically insignificant.

Immigrants are a matter of both quantity and quality. If immigrants are overwhelmingly low-IQ relative to the host population, but very low in numbers, as in Japan or Mexico, then this isn’t a major concern. If they are are high in numbers, but comparable to the host population, as in Australia, then this isn’t a huge concern either. If they are high-IQ relative to the natives, then it’s typically a boon for the host nation, as with Israel (presumably thanks to Ashkenazi Jews from the former USSR), or the Arab oil states; though a longer-term concern might be the emergence of “market dominant minorities”, such as the Jews in old Europe, or the Chinese diaspora in South East Asia.

However, clearly the worst scenario is when immigrants are both many and far inferior in IQ to the aborigine population, to the extent that the mean national IQ appreciably plummets due to their influence. The final graph is perhaps the most important. It shows the difference between national average IQ’s, and average IQ’s for natives, as derived from the PISA scores. Countries experiencing a net fall in the average IQ relative to the native IQ of more than 2 points include Benelux and the Germanic lands. More modest falls in average IQ are experienced in France, the UK, Russia, and Canada. The gap in the US is only 0.9 – presumably, because unskilled Hispanic immigrants aren’t the worst types can get, and are further counterbalanced by many skilled, high-IQ immigrants from Asia; and also because the native US population already includes Blacks, whereas European countries don’t tend to have sizable low-IQ indigenous minorities. In Norway, where Breivik comes from, the effect is only 0.5 points, and in Greece, where the Golden Dawn party recently put up a good showing, it’s a truly insignificant 0.1 points. I wonder why the strongest anti-immigrant reactions are in countries where the issue isn’t all that significant?

It is not controversial to argue that immigration policies should ideally benefit the host country. Liberal economists in particular argue that for loose immigration policies, especially in the case of countries with rapidly aging populations, so as to arrest the decline of the workforce and pressures on pensions. They tend to view the incomers as a source of labor, rarely accounting for its quality in any detail, let alone considering the long-term social and economic consequences of the mass influx of lower mean IQ populations.

In reality, IQ is closely correlated with any number of highly important things like productivity, criminality, civic-mindedness, welfare dependency, etc. and research is converging on the view that IQ is highly heritable and that different ethnic groups have different genetic IQ ceilings. This is all reflected in the far lower average cognitive capacities of the immigrant populations of Europe, and to a lesser extent, the US and Canada, relative to that of natives. For a long time this view necessarily had to be based on stereotypes, anecdotes, or at best limited regional studies, with the consequence that someone raising these issues ran the risk of being called insensitive to “institutional racism” and various other, largely irrelevant liberal/PC hogwash. The detailed PISA results demonstrate that schoolchild immigrant IQ’s may rise somewhat when they are born in developed nations – the average for all countries on which data is available is a rise of 1.6 IQ points from the 1st to 2nd generation – as they get access to better nutrition and education (i.e. experiencing an accelerated Flynn Effect), and resolve any lingering language issues; but for all that, they remain far closer to the stock from which they came, while convergence to native IQ levels typically remains modest or non-existent.

Just giving it more time, Newspeak, and diversity officers won’t resolve these issues. As it stands, to varying extents, the developed world has decided to just that – stick its head in the sand and pour calumnies on dissenters such as Thilo Sarrazin (with the occasional prosecution for “hate speech”).

The PISA 2009 data in full.

Many thanks to Robert Stark, and the Voice of Reason Broadcast Network which does sterling work in publicizing alternate viewpoints.

Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of the trilogy, is a teenage girl living in District 12, one of the poorest and most underprivileged. They specialize in mining coal, which is burnt in another district to produce power for the Capitol. While some reviewers see the books as a critique of capitalist exploitation, it is pretty clear that the dominant economic system is command economy geared to the goals of extracting superprofits from the peripheries and funneling them towards the citizens of the Capitol to buy their quiescence. (As Eric Kain points out, “Arbitrarily picking Districts to supply only one type of good to the Capitol means that human capital is badly mismanaged… a flourishing market economy likely would have meant a far more wealthy populace in the Capitol as well.”)

WARNING: The rest of this review will contain major spoilers.

Collins, Suzanne – The Hunger Games (2008).
Category: dystopia; Rating: 5/5

Collins, Suzanne – Catching Fire (2009).
Category: dystopia; Rating: 5/5

Collins, Suzanne – Mockingjay (2010).
Category: dystopia; war; Rating: 3/5

The Movie – The Hunger Games (2012).
Category: dystopia; Rating: 3/5

Evidently, President Snow and his cronies appreciate that their system is non-productive and fragile, and relies on pervasive propaganda and coercion for its sustenance. The propaganda element revolves around the Hunger Games: “Hope, it is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous,” Snow declares. Brett Keller has a good economics explanation of how this works: “… The odds that any given child will be selected are relatively low – and even lower in districts with large populations – but it is the fear that really controls the population… The Capitol regime also knows that once children are selected from each district, Prospect Theory predicts that citizens will have a new “reference point” (they assume their tributes will be killed) and thus see victory in the Games as a gain to be celebrated, rather than merely the maintenance of the status quo (the tribute being alive) that existed before the annual lottery.”

The other crutch of the regime is outright coercion. In the Districts, it is direct and brutal, consisting of “Peacekeepers” who keep the citizenry in line and put down any revolts. They are drawn from the Capitol itself and two of the more privileged districts. Citizens of the Capitol seem to have more freedom but this is illusory; there is a secret police apparatus to deal with true dissent. The only difference is that their cage is golden, not iron. The closest real world equivalent to Panem is probably North Korea: Residents of Pyongyang (the Capitol) and the military (Districts 1 and 2) are privileged but oppressed nonetheless; other Districts and social groups suffer from varying degrees of dearth. Nonetheless, because of the system’s inefficiency there exist black markets for food, shoes, etc. much as is the case in Panem. Katniss and Gale are hunters, which is forbidden, but they get around the restrictions by bribing off the Peacekeepers, who also want their meat.

Could a state like Panem ever emerge in real life? North Korea realizes some of its dystopian visions, but nowhere near to the same extent; obviously, it doesn’t have blood games. They seem to have gone out of fashion by the late Roman period and never resurfaced. That said, there is plenty of other science fiction positing a return of public Deadly Games in technologically advanced but socially and politically wrecked societies: Most famously in Battle Royale and The Running Man (various books and movie adaptations), Lukyanenko’s Knights of the Forty Islands, etc. Typically, they are social commentaries on particular trends, real or perceived, in society – social breakdown, growing authoritarianism (as a response to the former), the numbing and dumbing down effects of TV infotainment and “reality shows”, growing poverty as the middle class slips into penury, etc.

Two main criticisms of the film is that (1) it lacks social commentary and (2) it is politicized anti-capitalism. Obviously, the two cannot exist. Anyone who has actually read it will know that the anti-capitalism element is only a mere interpretation, with Katniss as narrator describing the world as-is throughout; and if anything, as I argue above, the more proper analogy is to a command economy ruled by a narrow elite. But this is only a mere interpretation on my part. To the extent that it exists, any social commentary by Collins is very much implied rather than existent. And I think that that is a GOOD THING, because movies that go overboard on superimposing social critiques on the narrative tend to be rather bad because they become artificial. Case exhibits: Battle Royale 2, Land of the Dead, 28 Months Later, etc.

I feel that the third book slipped into this trope: What Collins intended to be an exploration of the ills of war flopped because it was a theme that (1) had no obvious connection with the Deadly Game element of the first two books, i.e. the very element that attracted readers in the first place; and (2) gave off a rather banal impression because this particular trope is a major leitmotif of literature and has already been done far, far better than Collins could ever hope to do by countless novelists and poets down the centuries. That is why I gave it a 3, while the first two books got 5.

Some particularly stupid people criticized it for making Rue a black character, or claiming Katniss’ “victory” is unrealistic because she is a girl. Erm, Rue is described as being black in the books. And clearly, a skilled archer has far better chances than any amount of brawn if said brawn only has access to a melee weapon.

Another commonly aired criticism is that it is a mere rip-off of Battle Royale, or Running Man, or whatever. Get real. There are now precisely zero original ideas in fiction. Let’s cite Cracked on this, that indispensable scholarly resource: “Originality is actually pretty overrated when it comes to movies, at least when it comes to basic story lines. There’s really only so many basic stories that can exist…. The basic plot is like a mannequin. You’re pretty limited in the number of shapes you can come up with – curvy or straight, thin or fat. The rest of the movie – the subplots, the personalities, the atmosphere, the pace, the number of explosions you add – that’s like the costume you put on the mannequin. Someone pointing out that a plot is “basically the same” is pointing out that two designers are using the same fat mannequin. One could be wearing a bloodied Viking costume and one could be wearing a flowery muumuu, but they’re both size 40, so they’re “basically the same.”"

I like to imagine Panem as it is, how it evolved to be that way, what I would do if I was chosen as a tribute from my district… Far more fun than making smart-ass comments about how stupid or unoriginal the idea is. That’s what trolls do. I for one think originality is overrated (see above), nor do I think it stupid, to the contrary it is very fun – well, that’s probably not the appropriate word – to imagine what one would do if selected as tribute for one’s District.

So what would I do if the day after tomorrow, the Feds rename Washington DC into Panem and demand annual tributes from the states to participate in blood games for the amusement of the bankster elites? I’m stronger than average, but have next to no outdoor smarts; regrettably, I’ve never been out hiking or camping more than one day at a time. I don’t have the first clue about how to build a fire or recognize plants. Nor do I have experience in fencing or archery. So to stand a chance, I would really hope there are guns, as opposed to medieval weapons; and that the Career Pack would accept me as one of their own (so that I stand a chance of surviving the initial bloodbath around the Cornucopia; as I can’t live off the land, I will have to participate in it to get my supplies). The location would hopefully be an urban area or a ski resort. Realistically speaking I would not except to survive. One out of 24 are steep odds, no matter how good you are, and its likely there would be good woodsmen and marksmen among the other tributes. I think Peeta captured my own attitude best: “Only keep wishing I could show the Capitol that they don’t own me. That I am more than just a piece in there game. If I am going to die I still want to be me… No, when the time comes, I’m sure I’ll kill just like everybody else. I can’t go down without a fight.”

The concept itself is not as implausible as one may imagine. Panem clearly arose in the aftermath of a global warming cataclysm, probably also involving lots of biowars, etc for the population to be so much reduced (Panem has less than  a million people). Why are the normal laws of economic rationality inverted? Because, presumably, the Panem elites realized that economic or population growth per se was not desirable – that was, after all, what led to the Great Cataclysm (AGW-induced collapse) in the first place. However, the Capitol elites not only want to maintain the strict political control necessary to prevent sustained growth in the outlying Districts, but want to live a life of indolent luxury themselves. Panem’s technological level, with its hovercraft, crazy bio-engineering, virtual reality environments, etc, is clearly far higher than today’s, but the very low population (not to mention political environment) is not conductive to further technological growth. So it appears that they continue harnessing legacy technologies from the late (pre-apocalypse) industrial age but directed towards strictly controlled not to mention deeply perverse ends. This is an Equilibrium society: Hi-tech but static, frozen politically and temporally.

The rise of populism: Fortuyn favours the brave

On the 20^th of August 2001, Pim Fortuyn, a professor of Social Sciences, announced that he would enter the Dutch political arena. Many people at that time did not take him seriously but within a few years he would become a phenomenon who would tremble the foundations of the Dutch political system. He espoused that the Islam was a “backward culture” and that the Dutch government had too big of a role in education and healthcare. He was also in favour of heavier punishments for criminals. But what really made him popular were his opinions about the Dutch multicultural society, in The Netherlands, he said, multiculturalism has failed and also emphasized the danger of the Islam to Dutch society. He thought that Muslims in The Netherlands were not integrated very well or not at all sometimes and accused the government coalition (consisting of the social-democrats and liberals) of having neglected these issues for years. Many Dutch people agreed with him.

As a result of the elections held in May 2002, his party, the Party of Pim Fortuyn, managed to from 0 seats to 26 seats, a huge victory. Pim Fortuyn never lived to see that result: he was shot by a left extremist nine days before the elections. Without the leadership of Fortuyn, the party (LPF) succumbed to internal struggles and splits (and caused the first government with Christen Democrats to collapse). In the years after this, the party eventually disappeared from the Dutch political arena. Still, Fortuynism is credited with opening up Dutch politics and making certain issues (which could not be discussed because of political correctness) discussable once more. Also, his legacy lead to the establishment of a party that took over many of Fortuyn’s points and would once again storm the Dutch political arena: the party of freedom.

The blond and bold leader

In 2004, Geert Wilders was kicked out of the Conservative party because of the fact he refused to vote “yes” on the issue of Turkish membership of the EU. He also published an article which was an attempt to make the Conservatives move even more to the right. After he got thrown out, Wilders eventually created his own party: the party of Freedom. His party proved to be quite popular, espousing the superiority of the Christian-Jewish culture and anti-Islam remarks. His popularity grew even more when a prominent Dutch opinion maker (Theo van Gogh) was murdered by a radical Muslim with Wilders himself being threatened as well. In the period 2004-2010, Wilder created his own party and continued to feature prominently in the Dutch news (for example, he produced a movie called Fitna about the Islam, he was put on trial for his remarks on Muslims and he was refused entry into the UK in 2009). Especially his trial let to an increase of his popularity as it provided Wilders with some free PR. Wilders claimed that it was a show trial against him and frequently pointed to the leftist elite (leftist church) who had conspired against him.

Eventually, after the 2010 elections, Wilders could no longer be ignored and talks started about a coalition government. With the political landscape in The Netherlands very dispersed, forming a coalition would be extremely hard (with 9 parties competing over 150 seats). If one looks at the number of parties competing for the left-wing electorate there are: Social Democrats (Labor), the Greens, the Socialists (former Maoists) and D66 (Social Liberals).The right side of our political spectrum suffers from the same problems. It soon became clear that Wilders was not willing to take part in the government. After all, that had transformed him and his party into a standard political party in The Netherlands and that meant part of the system Wilders was agitating against. In addition, the Christen Democrats and Conservatives who formed the government that Wilders would not spoil the Dutch image abroad (the government could safely say that Wilders was not in the government, so the ideas/statements of Wilders were not the opinion of the Dutch government). The three parties agreed to sign an agreement of what policy they would conduct the next four years. For everything else, the Dutch government would have to “shop” at the opposition. From the beginning, the coalition faced many problems. The party of Wilders, culturally right but social-economically speaking extremely left-wing conservative, was against any reforms (like increasing the pension age and put an end to the tax rebates on mortgage interests). Moreover, Wilders, not having responsibility, permitted himself to continue his anti-Islam claims which often damaged the image of The Netherlands both in and outsideEurope. Wilders now also increasingly voiced anti-Europe statements with accusingBrusselsof being a gravy train.

When the financial crisis morphed into a debt crisis, the Euro zone quickly became engulfed in crisis. The coalition found it hard to get enough support in the Dutch House of Representatives with a Party of Freedom, consisting of European Union haters and allergic to any reform (or hints of more Supranationality in Europe). Now, when countries of the European Union agreed to start using the Euro, they also signed the stability pact. This pact means that to preserve the stability of the Euro, not one country could have a budget deficit of more than 3%. During the Greek debt crisis it was The Netherlands which put this demand back on the table again: Greece(and other countries) should try their utmost best to bring the budget deficit back to 3%. If the Greek people need to suffer for this, so be it. For The Netherlands, this was a very important thing: and it loudly trumpeted this opinion in Europe. So, when a Dutch Governmental Institution published its predictions, stating that the budget deficit in The Netherlands would be more than 3% (4.7%), the coalition+Wilders had to get together to discuss budget cuts (as Wilders had committed himself to discussing cuts if the need would arise to do so). However, after seven weeks of discussing, Wilders walked out on Friday the 21^st of April because he “could not tolerate the elderly to bear the dictate ofBrussels”. It turned out that the purchasing power of pensioners would decrease by 2% and Wilders stated that his electorate could not live with this. Wilder cleverly blamedEurope for the need of budget cuts “it isEurope that wants to take money from our pensioners” he said. But it was The Netherlands itself that declared the 3% to be holy and not Brussels (Also, Germany and France had much larger budget deficits in some years before the financial crisis).

The Dutch government talked big in Europe about Greece, Spain, Italyand Portugal. This should come as no surprise: Dutch people are renowned in Europefor their bluntness and their big talk. The irony is that now that The Netherlands cannot manage to bring down its deficit, chances are indeed very slim that the European Union will show any leniency towards the Dutch budget problems. After all, it was Holland[2] that demanded stricter budget control by Brussels (and give the European Commission more power to do so). Fines for not having a proper budget policy were also increased. In theory, we could end up getting a fine of one billion now. There is only one way to get around this: work together with the same Greek, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese governments so reviled by us. What an irony that is: a long overdue lesson in humility for the country of big talk.

The future: the Reds are at the walls

So, now that there is no viable coalition anymore, what will happen? First of all, everybody seems to agree that elections will take place in either September or October. However, before that time, there are two problems to solve. The first one is that Brussels would like to receive our plans to bring back our deficit to 3% in two weeks; my country will never be able to do that. Also, on the third Tuesday of September the Dutch government must present its plans for the coming year (this is not tradition, it is written in the constitution). So it looks like that the Conservatives and Social Democrats have to come up with some kind of agreement with the opposition before this. But it will not be easy to negotiate with the leftist opposition and thus, there is a large political crisis in The Netherlands which will probably cause the recovery of the economy to slow (uncertainty about future policies). It could also well mean that my country is going to lose its so-called Triple A status, which means that the Dutch government will have to pay more interest which in turn might even more budget cuts necessary. Financial stability and prudence is critical to economic growth: Every additional percentage of interest will cost our government an additional 4 billion Euros per year, whilst the costs for companies to borrow will increase by 7 to 14 billion Euros a year.

Populists always win in these times. Politicians who promise their electorate stability and even an improvement of their life are always popular during crises. It now seems that some of the electorate is considering voting for the Socialists (former Maoists) instead of for the Party of Freedom. This might seem strange but on social-economic policy, the Socialists and the Party of Freedom are not so different: no changes. The SP promises stability in a time of great problems but what they actually do is going after people who are successful in life. Before I mention some points they make, let me say that in my country more than 50% of our income is redistributed (money from the richer part to the poor part) so we are NOT like America, which is a good thing, also, the richest 10% pays for 90% of all the taxes. First of all the Socialist Party wants to increase the (highest) tax tariff in The Netherlands from 52% to 55% which means that everybody who earns more than 56.000 euro per year pays 55 eurocents of every euro he or she earns to the government. Also, the Socialist Party wants a new tax reform which means a new tariff of 65% for everybody who earns more than 165.000 euro per year. This means that my country will become the country with the highest tax tariff in the world. There is more. Entrepreneurs whose profit is more than 200.000 will have to pay 30% tax over this (an increase of 5%). All of this will help the “poor and the helpless” who almost have to pay nothing (they also get a higher minimum wage and an extra tax discount). This all seems nice but in the end it means that working hard simply does not pay off. Why would you work hard and earn (a lot) of money? The government will come and take almost all of it away anyways. In addition, labour will become much more expensive and an independent agency recently calculated that if these plans will be carried out, employment will actually DECREASE instead of increase (this only happens with the plans of the Social Party, the plans of all other Dutch political parties will actually lead to an increase in employment). Couple this with their fear of Europe and everything foreign (although they are certainly not as anti-Islam and Wilders) and I am certainly afraid of what could happen.

So the kind of parties like the Socialist Party (SP) and Party of Freedom will definitely win from the crisis. The question is of course whether the other parties would like to form a coalition with them. The most probable answer is “no”, the SP is far too left and nobody will take the risk of forming a coalition with Wilders anymore. So we will probably see a coalition of the Labour Party, the Conservatives and D66. At the same time, we will see far more political instability in The Netherlands than we used to see in the 20^th century. After all, with the secularisation and such political parties will not longer enjoy a stabile electorate and political parties will pay closer attention to what the electorate thinks (the polls). It is already visible in the House of Representatives: The traditional “middle” parties are on the decline – the CDA, the union of Catholics and Protestants now (virtually) has 11 seats in the House of Representatives. In comparison, that party used to have around 50 seats. I would also like to point to the history of Dutch governments since the short period of Fortuynism: Since 2000 we have had six governments in total (each of which had a mandate of four years) but since Fortuyn not one government has managed to complete this mandate. As a result, for a grand total of 2 years, The Netherlands has not been governed at all, as we had a demissionary government[3]. Little Italy anybody??

It is too soon to say what will happen in my country. But as the Russians put it: мы будем харкать кровью – we will give up blood for years to come. As for me, well I will probably seek asylum in Russia somewhere.

1. IQ tests are a valid, culturally fair measure of cognitive ability.
2. It is hereditary.
3. Race is real.
4. There are racial/ethnic differences in average IQ that cannot be explained merely by reference to socio-economic or cultural factors.
5. The US is an excellent “laboratory” to ascertain the average genetic IQ ceiling of different races and ethnicities.
6. Average IQ influences prosperity, and general living standards.
7. Consequently, knowing the racial constraints on average IQ’s – i.e., the IQ ceilings – we can estimate the relative development potential of different countries and regions.

All of them have have acquired a great deal of supporting evidence, even though they – or in particular, their linkage – remains taboo for the media and wider public discussion. By the numbers:

1. There is typically a large degree of correlation between various IQ tests, and academic achievement scores (1, 2). Nobody has yet discovered a test which has a negative correlation with a battery of other tests. This implies that there is a common “g factor” behind all types of cognitive ability.

Obviously this allows for very big variations within a single person. But within a group, someone who does well in one test will most likely also do well in another.

The argument that IQ tests are culturally biased is frequently made on the basis that they show differences in performance between racial/ethnic groups. This is a fallacy. In any case, there are IQ tests designed to be culturally fair insofar as they eschew words and test pattern recognition, such as Cattell Culture Fair III and Raven’s Progressive Matrices. These tests have a high correlation with the battery of other tests, i.e. they are valid reflections of g.

2. The scientific literature converges on a range from 40%-80% for IQ heritability. (1, 2) The correlation in scores between twins reared apart is around 75%-80%.

3. Is race a social construct? The commonsense answer is no. Consider that beyond the “my lying eyes” stuff (e.g. skin color/melanin content; epicanthic folds, etc.), there is also evidence of genetic differences in: Physical abilities (west African sprinters; Kenyan marathoners); conformity (Asians); lactose tolerance (whites); alcohol intolerance (Asians); even average penis size (large – Africa; Latin America; small – East Asia). The latter example isn’t nearly as… flippant as it seems, since testosterone levels have a large effect on behavior. There are multiple genetic disorders that only affect certain races or ethnicities, and race specific drugs are now coming online.

But ultimately, this is one of those cases where a picture is worth a thousand words.

This is a genetic map of Europe, superimposed on a geographic map (remarkable how it works out almost perfectly). Note that although there is some degree of overlap between European ethnicities, there are still clear clusters and centers of gravity corresponding to particular nationalities.

Now look at this genetic map (click to enlarge). See that dark blue oval to the center-left? That is Europe. Recall that even within that tiny space there are distinct clusters, with virtually zero overlap between, say, Greeks and Germans. Now note the vast distance that separates Europe from East Asia (center-right), and the three African clusters (bottom).

So it’s really just a minor matter of semantics. Some people shy away from using the word “race”, instead speaking of “genetic clusters”, “population groups”, “groups of common geographic ancestry”, etc. “Race” is short and convenient.

4. There is a vast body of global IQ scores (e.g. Lynn). They follow a consistent pattern: East Asian countries tend to score 105, European and Euro-settler countries 100, and sub-Saharan African countries 65-80.

The internationalized standardized PISA tests display the same pattern (as expected, since they load on the same g).

(Internationally, I think the culture argument makes some interesting points. E.g., the Protestant work ethic – reflected even now in the fact that the world’s richest and highest-IQ white countries tend to be Protestant. But there are two problems. First, possible narrative fallacy, e.g. Confucianism, with its connotations of traditionalism and conservatism, was once used to explain why Asian countries lagged behind Europe; but with their success in the past generation, the respect for learning, rule of law, etc. that it supposedly instilled is now sometimes used to explain their success! Can’t have it both ways. Second, what applies in one period can wane in another. Yes, Protestantism fostered human capital development by emphasizing independent Bible reading (i.e. more literacy!), which in turn helped early industrial growth. But today this effect seems to have receded into the past – see the success of south Germany, north Italy, France, Ireland.)

5. The US is an excellent “laboratory” to estimate the average genetic IQ ceiling of different races and ethnicities.by virtue of its diversity; standardized education system that produces results that, when broken down by race, are superior to almost every other country in the world; decent equality of educational opportunity; no nutritional deficit among any population group; and post-Flynn effect status.

Within the US, all tests of cognitive ability – IQ, PISA (1, 2), SAT – replicate the global pattern. Though there is variance from test to test, but as a rule, the intelligence hierarchy is as follows: Asian-Americans; whites; Hispanics; blacks. The gaps between Asian-Americans and whites are narrowed than internationally (because Asian-Americans also include medium-IQ peoples like Filipinos and Vietnamese); and the gaps between whites and blacks are narrowed (because, unlike African or Haitian blacks, African-Americans enjoy better nutrition and education.

It must also be noted that whereas most of these tests indicate that Asians closed gaps (in reading, writing) and overtook whites (in math) over the years, there has been no sign of any significant convergence for blacks.

Is it because schools in poorer areas (inner city, where NAM’s cluster) are badly funded? No, per student funding tends to be broadly similar for both inner city and suburban schools. Besides, education funding doesn’t play a major role in results. In Italy, there is no correlation between school funding and performance by province. China gets PISA and IQ results higher than America’s despite spending a tiny fraction of the resources that the US lavishes on each of its pupils. Indeed, it probably doesn’t matter much, as IQ tends to be fixed by the age of the 5.

Is it because blacks come from poorer families on average? IQ is a far more persuasive explanation for why people are poor in the first place. Refer to The Bell Curve (Murray & Herrnstein).

US blacks (85-90) get far better IQ scores than Africans (65-80). These two facts are highly important because in Africa, the IQ’s of many populations are currently constrained by poor nutrition and (in some cases) the different psychologies of pre-industrial and illiterate peoples. In practice, and discounting variation (Africa is the world’s most genetically diverse continent, so it is not impossible that there will be some relatively high-IQ subgroups among them), it seems likely that the average IQ ceiling for African blacks is similar to the actual IQ’s of US blacks. I.e., maybe 85 (lower than 85-90, because US blacks have 20% admixture with whites).

US Hispanics score better than Mexicans or Central Americans, displaying IQ’s (or IQ equivalents) in the low 90′s (Mexico: 88-90; Panama: 84-80). Whites are at around 100. Asian-Americans tend to be in the low to mid 100′s, but there is huge variance (East Asians – higher; South-East Asians – lower).

7. Refer to Education as the Elixir of Growth III. There is a 0.43 correlation between the GDP (PPP) per capita of a country with its PISA/TIMMS scores, which rises to a stunning 0.84 once countries with a post-Communist legacy (low outliers), resource windfalls (high outliers), or offshore financial industries that constitute the bulk of their GDP (high outliers) are removed from the same. (Any correlation of >0.5 is an excellent one in social science). This implies a fairly rigid glass ceiling on GDP per capita for any one country in relation to its IQ. It’s largely invisible, as few people appreciate the importance of human capital to growth, but it’s most certainly there.

At the micro level, the g factor tends to be by far the best indicator of job performance (above grades, interviews, references, etc) – not only in “cognitive elite” jobs such as lawyers or physicians, but also to a significant extent even among menial workers. There is a correlation of 0.9-0.95 between employees in a certain profession and prestige ratings of those professions by the general public. The correlation between IQ and income is around 0.4-0.5.

The importance of average genetic IQ ceilings

We have a fairly strong and convincing (to me anyway) theory that average IQ ceilings depends on race, and that IQ (g, PISA scores, etc) are remarkable closely correlated with economic prosperity. Furthermore, it is almost certain that the causation is largely one way, at least once basic nutritional and literacy problems are solved; otherwise, the Chinese and Koreans would not be outperforming US Hispanics or African-Americans.

Following from the graph of Human Capital Index and income above, there seems to be a point past 450 – about 92.5, in IQ terms – at which (market-based) economies transition from middle-income status, to high-income. If Mexico could raise its human capital to about the levels of their compatriots in the US, this would (going by correlations) enable a massive expansion in its productivity.

Unfortunately, the average genetic IQ ceiling for African blacks is 85, maybe 90 at most. Nonetheless, if Africa could consistently raise it to even the former figure, it would then have a degree of human capital equivalent to today’s Brazil. Though true convergence with developed countries is precluded, reaching Brazil’s levels would be a gargantuan improvement for the living standards of the average African.

In general, it should be possible to construct a “potential IQ” (and corresponding potential GDP per capita level) for each country. They would look something like this (PISA/IQ format):

• US (500/100) – All racial groups are already performing very close to their genetic potential (Asian-Americans (NOT East Asians) – low 100′s, whites – 100, Hispanics – low 90′s, blacks – high 80′s). The challenge will be in maintaining it (due to Hispanic immigration).
• China (550/108) – It currently has 103(PISA converted into IQ)-105(IQ), but may still eke out a few more points by totally eliminating malnutrition. Should have no problem in becoming as rich as Korea or Japan with one more generation.
• India (450/92.5) – Very low (and puzzling) 75(PISA)-82. But also malnutrition is still extremely high, as are endemic diseases; the vegetarianism of a significant portion of the population may also have a negative effect (protein aids brain development). My estimate is that average Indian genetic IQ ceiling is similar to Hispanics, but with huge variance due to caste/ethnic diversity.
• Russia (500/100) – Moderate score at 95(PISA)-97(IQ). Smaller than ethnically similar Poland (99/100), due to 2 possible factors: (1) Academic focus to exclusion of more general g (Russia does much better on TIMMS, PIRLS); (2) Possible effects of highly prevalent alcoholism on the current cohort being tested. Poland’s score may represent a more accurate “Slavic ceiling.” Natural GDP per capita level would seem to be in between the Germanic countries and the Med, but resource windfall would nudge it closer to the former.
• Brazil (460/94) – Today at 87(PISA)-85(IQ). Capping off the BRIC’s, the potential is derived by taking the estimated genetic ceilings of US blacks (with adjustment for Brazilian blacks having more admixture) with Med Europe ceiling, and weighing by population ratios.
• Germanic Europe (520/103) – based on current scores, but will face challenge in maintaining it (due to immigration policies).
• Med Europe (490/99) – based on Spain, Portugal, Italy results. In a way, one can see the Euro crisis – which is mostly affecting the PIGS – as the invisible hand’s way of bumping down the Med countries to a level more in line with their lower human capital (relative to the Germanic countries).
• Turkey (470/96) – now at 91(PISA)/93(IQ), but potential based on Greece’s current scores; Turks and Greeks genetically similar.
• Japan (530/105) – as now, no significant change as immigration is low. But economic difficulties due to debt, negative population growth, ballooning elderly dependency ratios.
• Israel (?) – is globally irrelevant but a really fascinating case study, complicated by the discrepancy between Ashkenazi Euro-Jewish IQ scores (c.115) and Israel’s mediocre performance of 95(IQ)/94(PISA) which is hard to explain as Ashkenazi Jews still make up more than half of Israel’s population. Also lots of demography has to be taken into account. Deserves a separate post.
• Australia, Canada (520/103) – as now, but will NOT face difficulties maintaining them because of their Cognitive Elitist immigration policies; as they also enjoy resource windfalls, they will probably do economically better than the rest of the developed world.

Based on the figures above, we can expect that the BRIC’s nations should in principle be able to converge to developed country levels. However, there are two major groups within the BRIC’s. China and Russia are already at a human capital level that enables convergence (China’s is significantly higher, but Russia is already richer, and also has the added bonus of a resource windfall). In contrast, Brazil and India are not currently at human capital levels that enable convergence; however, they do both have the potential to raise them to just the levels needed to break out of the “middle-income” trap and converge. But for that they have to develop their human capital to its full genetic potential. The quantity of the needed change is very significant and, even under rosy assumptions (e.g. +3 IQ points a decade until equalization with genetic potential), the process will take decades. Until they at least the low 90′s, they will remain stuck – especially Brazil, because it is already very rich for its human capital level – with fairly low long-term growth rates.

Whatever their average genetic IQ ceilings, it is highly advisable for all the poorer and low-IQ nations to: (1) improve childhood nutrition (e.g. free vitamin pills at schools seems especially low-cost/high-impact); (2) anti-vegetarian propaganda, where such applies; (3) study the experience of foreign countries, esp. the US which has had a lot of success with maximizing NAM scores, and Finland which (at least on PISA) manages to maximize white scores; (4) explore pharmaceutical and technological means of bridging their IQ gaps with the developed world (e.g. nootropics).

This got me thinking on another tangent, however. Why would a straight person be homophobic anyway?

From the POV of straight dudes, more gays means less competition for chicks.  (Lesbians are mostly bisexual so it doesn’t apply in reverse, and besides, homophobia tends to focus on gays anyway). That is one reason why I don’t mind gays apart from my general live-let live attitudes. The incentives for chicks aren’t as clear-cut as for dudes, as they’d have to try harder to find permanent partners, but upside is they are much less likely to wind up with a closet homosexual.

There are two possible evolutionary causes for homophobia that I see. First, the idea that one’s children will be propagandized into adopting the lifestyle. This may cut off the parents’ genetic tree. This would seem unlikely since most research indicates sexual preferences are set in childhood but the subconscious fear of some parents that this may not be the case is understandable.

Second, it is presumably in the interests of the group to have more males competing for females. The selection process for mating would then be harsher so the average quality of sexually successful dudes is higher. Particularly relevant because gays seem to be more educated and richer than average, and certainly more metrosexual, all of which attracts women. So even though the gays’ absence from the hetero-market would be a boon for all straight dudes, especially the lower-quality ones who are likelier to be displaced by them, the latter nonetheless tends to hate on gays, because at the subconscious level they know that less sexual competition is bad for the group.

Why now? First, it’s a propitious moment to raise the issue, what with the recent publicity surrounding the Trayvon Martin case (yes, I think Zimmerman is likely guilty) and the firing of John Derbyshire from The National Review (for writing an article in another magazine whose recommendations most liberals follow in private even as they denounce it as incorrigibly racist in public). But my purpose isn’t to get attention as such. On these matters, it tends to come from unwelcome quarters, either from the PC police (who regard any discussion of race other than to deny it as crimethink), or from the reactionary White nationalist crowd, who think they’ve stumbled on ideological soul-brethren (thanks but no thanks, or to quote Robert Lindsay, “We’re never getting a boarding pass. Never!”). I suspect being a liberal race realist is somewhat akin to being a Jew before anti-Semitism went out of fashion. You get fired on from all sides. Not fun.

The second, more substantive reason, is that the issue matters. If it was an irrelevance, I obviously wouldn’t bother (though tellingly, most people have no problem discussing genetic causes for relatively unimportant things, such as the preponderance of Kenyan marathoners, or East Asians’ lack of alcohol tolerance). But there is a mountain of evidence indicating that IQ levels have a very real and direct influence on the world, from the life earnings potential of individuals to the wealth and poverty of nations.

This is a futurist blog, and it has never shied away from inconvenient but pertinent observations that go against Establishment orthodoxy, e.g. that the world is finite, and industrial growth in its current form is unsustainable. As regards its distribution, my views on the sources of prosperity would discomfit both left and right; contrary to theorists from both camps, it is mainly determined by levels of human capital, both within nations and internationally (the two major outlier groups, countries with resource windfalls or central-planning legacies, are exceptions that prove the rule). A corollary is that if there are genetically rooted differences in IQ between races that go beyond the power of racism or exploitation to explain, then there would be variegated ceilings on the extent to which human capital can be developed in different nations and different societies. It would also mean that major inequalities in global development are here to stay.

But first, a much-needed definition of terms to clarify why Race Realism (or “Human Biodiversity”) is not coterminous with Racism.

Defining Racism, Race Denial, and Race Realism

In the US, liberals flat-out deny racial differences in IQ (“Race is a social construct,” “IQ tests were invented by racists and don’t measure anything”), and indulge in all sorts of mental acrobatics to explain away why a generation of affirmative action has utterly failed to narrow the academic performance or socio-economic chasm between Whites and NAM’s (Non-Asian Minorities). Conservatives just blame it all on Blacks’ supposed moral defects and the “entitlement culture” that supposedly dominates there, i.e. the precise opposite argument to liberals who decry the plight of Blacks who have to contend with the “privileged” position of the white man (the question of why the Man isn’t keeping Asians down is typically skirted over).

However, mainstream pundits from both camps are united on one thing: Innate racial differences do not, cannot have anything to do with it. Anyone who so much as implies otherwise is a Racist Bigot.

To be honest, there is undeniably a great deal of overlap between Racists and Race Realists. I think there are two reasons for that. First, Race Realism is not a socially respectable position to hold (unlike in pre-1970′s America, or for that matter, practically all of East Asia today). Many Americans who adopt it explicitly – as opposed to confessing to it while drunk, which happens quite frequently - tend to be marginalized whites who aren’t interested in truth and only need some sort of explanation for their low status (e.g. blaming the ZOG, “skraelings”, etc). Second, the uniform hostility that any declared Race Realist runs into – e.g., John Derbyshire, who got castigated by the left and cast aside by his former comrades on the right – no doubt has a polarizing effect. As I mentioned above, being fired on from all sides isn’t fun. Or as Lindsay points out, “only in the arena of reactionary thought are views about race realism allowed to flourish.”

But are Race Realists the same thing as Racists? I do not think so. First, because the association smacks of Lysenkoism (the US justifies its high inequalities by the American dream that anyone can, though self-improvement and hard work, earn enough to enjoy la dolce vita; but if, God forbid, it’s true that racial differences make the goal practically unattainable for large swathes of the population, that kind of throws a spanner in the works. Wrecker! Saboteur! Off to the Gulag Guantanamo with him!). Second, and most importantly, Race Realism does not by and in of itself justify overt discrimination, or Racism; tarring both with the same brush is an association fallacy.

Though Race Realism may induce skepticism as regards the efficacy or fairness of certain leveling policies, e.g. affirmative action, that is a very far cry from calling for a return to segregation, or race war, or whatever. I would even argue that Race Realism is far less paternalistic, insulting and harmful to NAM’s in general and Blacks in particular than the typical attitudes of colorblind conservatives, who attack certain negative perceived features of Black culture (e.g. “entitlements culture”, “anti-intellectualism”, “family breakdown”, “gangsta rap”, etc). In doing so they argue that Blacks as a group fail to achieve what Whites or Asians do in terms of salaries, employment, crime etc. due to their own moral defects, as opposed to it being the result of factors they truly have no control over, and as such need a good dose of discipline, “moral direction” and tough love to find their way (i.e. no affirmative action whatsoever, no social welfare, even more insanely hardline drugs policies, etc).

The liberal Race Realist to the contrary acknowledges these divergent outcomes as a regrettable but inevitable consequence of innate group differences (especially in IQ, which largely determines educational attainment and life prospects), but on the other hand appreciates that it’s wrong and illogical to blame a people for their bad luck in life’s genetic lottery, and is willing to meet them halfway in trying to ameliorate their plight by supporting subsidized housing, education, income redistribution, etc. This is in stark contrast to the conservative reactionary, who would throw NAM’s to the dogs of unfettered capitalism, but for some reason it is still the liberal Race Realist who is the racist.

(There are, of course, also many Conservative / Libertarian Race Realists. Functionally, if not on their theoretical foundations, their stances are similar to those of their Race Denier ideological counterparts. More on classifications later.)

Still not convinced? Here are three Q&A’s that I hope will further reveal the Race Denier / Racist binary for the false dichotomy it really is.

Q1) One national leader is a progressive sociologist for his time and denies there are innate differences in cognitive ability between blacks and whites. Another is so progressive that he even bans IQ tests because they show some races getting lower scores than others. The third national leader believes in a hierarchy of races, with his own at the top, and rules his country with a firm fist. Which of these is the racist?

A) The first leader was Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of South African apartheid. The second leader was Hitler (he banned IQ tests because Germans got lower scores than Jews). The third leader was Lee Kuan Yew, who repressed Chinese nationalism despite his belief in Chinese intellectual and cultural superiority, and transformed Singapore from a Third World slum into a gleaming technopolis.

Q2) One man is a “post-racial” President, while another man is a Presidential candidate who – if recently dredged up kompromat is true – may have associated with racists in the 1970′s. Who is the racist scumbag?

A) Obama also supports the war on drugs that is the single biggest reason why every tenth young Black man is in jail, and launched a war against Libya that ended up with the ethnic cleansing of Blacks from that country and the destabilization of a neighboring Black country. Ron Paul promises an end to the war on drugs and foreign military adventures.

Q3) A racist American schoolboy, reeking of White Privilege, arrogantly claims a prize that should have rightly gone to a black. What a racist, right?!

A) The schoolboy in question was an immigrant from South Africa who applied for a “African-American Student of the Year” at his Nebraska school. Despite being white, he was objectively far more African (by virtue of having lived there) than any of the students there, black or where, who had only lived in the US. The school was not amused and suspended him, proving that when prodded, the Race Deniers – no matter be they liberal or conservative – are in fact very far from colorblind as they claim to be. Who’d've thunk?

Towards a new classification

Thus far, I hope I have at least made a halfway persuasive argument that Race Realism and Racism are not coterminous. (The detailed evidence for Human Biodiversity, especially as regards IQ, and its implications for US and global development, will have to await a second post).

In its stead, I suggest another classification, one that takes into account the true range of thought around this subject.

By the numbers:

Race Deniers (PC; diversity police; colorblind; “multiculti” (in racist lingo)): This is the official ideology of the Western Establishment and “respectable” white people take care to at least pay homage to it even if they don’t really believe it (at least when sober). The mainstream punditry, be they liberal or conservative, all aggressively hold to this position – arguably, more so in the US, than in Europe, despite the latter being commonly regarded as more liberal/left-wing. Their slogan is “differences are only skin-deep.”

The failure of NAM’s (Non-Asian Minorities) to integrate and converge to average levels is explained differently on both left (oppression, racism, legacy of colonialism, etc) and right (laziness, shiftlessness, lack of appreciation for capitalism, etc) but ascribing it to genetic or racial factors is a universal taboo. Verboten! You’re safe from prosecution if you do it in a measured way, even in PC Europe, but you certainly run the risk of a good media pillorying and getting fired from your job.

While you may think Race Denial precludes Racism, I do not think that’s the case. Take the case of the South African schoolboy above. Or, arguably – and of infinitely greater import – take Hendrik Verwoerd, who at least in his early sociologist days seems to have denied an innate different in cognitive ability between blacks and whites. That didn’t stop him from setting up a cruel and patently unjust ethnocracy in South Africa.

Race Realism (cognitive elitism, racial particularism, Human Biodiversity, “racists” (to Race Deniers)): The belief that there are innate differences in races on socially meaningful parameters, such as cognitive ability, and based on assessment of the scientific and empirical evidence. Racism does not naturally follow, as that involves calling for overt discrimination based on the aforementioned beliefs (see below).

There are several prominent Race Realist pundits. Robert Lindsay is the foremost Liberal Race Realist (and quite a bit more: He has quite the idiosyncratic portfolio, also including stuff on linguists and pro-Stalinism; make of that what you will). I can’t recommend his fundamental post on the matter, Liberal Race Realism: Clearing Up a Few Things, highly enough, as it jives almost perfectly with my own views.

Here is the conundrum for Left-liberalism:

Just supposing that there are differences between the races that are not caused by oppression, racism, etc. This is painfully obvious to anyone who will look. The Left refuses to look, because the reality of the whole mess is bad for the Left. So we say it doesn’t exist, unscientifically. We wish the reality away. …

Suppose Blacks had the same abilities as Whites, genetically.

All of the problems, including low IQ, were simply due the fact that they are fucking up, often on purpose. If this were true, and strangely enough, this sort of follows from liberal beliefs about genes and environment, I would argue for a harsh response to Blacks. Not necessarily cutting them off altogether, but I would certainly be a bit less likely to help them.

But there’s no evidence that that is true.

If Blacks do have low IQ due to things they cannot control, then, as a socialist, I would argue that there is no reason that the higher IQ group ought to obtain dramatically higher income, wealth, housing, living spaces and health than the lower one.

As much as possible, socialists should try to attempt to more equalize incomes, housing, living spaces and health care access for both groups, the higher IQ and the lower. …

Why should Whites be allowed to become dramatically richer, healthier, better housed, and live in better places than Blacks, simply because of how the genetic dice got rolled?

Answer: They have no such right. If both groups were equal, and Whites got that way by simply trying harder, then we could make the argument that the White position is just.

Why should Blacks be forced to become dramatically poorer, less healthy, worse housed, and live in worse places than Whites, simply because of how they were born, a variable that they had no control over whatsoever?

Answer: This is not right. It is not just. They should not be forced into these outcomes, and that they are is an outrageous injustice.

Steve Sailer is a Race Realist from the conservative side of the spectrum. Half Sigma, from the libertarian. The most significant academic bloggers at the GNXP network.  I guess you could classify this blog, AKarlin as a Liberal Race Realist blog from now on. Why should I continue paying lip service to an ideology that I find to be incredible in the literal meaning of the word? It’s simply dishonest.

Satoshi Kanazawa, Richard Lynn, Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, Arthur Jensen, Steven Pinker, James Watson are prominent researchers/academics who identify as Race Realists / HBDers. For that matter, most of the people doing research on population groups, genetic clusters, etc would fit the label.

Closely related (though not coterminous) with Race Realists are “Cognitive Elitists”. These folks believe in the value of a high-IQ society, in that it will have more culture, less crime, more interesting conversations, etc. They are typically high IQ themselves and associate with the “cognitive elite”, i.e. the high-IQ stratum of the population that typically clusters in certain geographical areas (e.g. Shanghai and Beijing in China; Moscow in Russia; Washington, Connecticut/Massachusetts/NY, and the Bay Area in the US). As such, they are strong supporters of comprehensive, well-funded education systems and immigration systems that give priority to skilled workers. Australia and Canada are two good examples of countries that are run by cognitive elitists, even if they don’t identify themselves as such and formally deny IQ and its heritability. Immigration policies give priority to skilled workers, and their public university systems are top notch. I guess one could even call their immigration policies “Deniably Race Realist” because in today’s world, qualified worker typically means East Asian or White anyway.

I would argue the ANC leadership of South Africa has been consistently Race Realist, bizarre as it may sound at first. The blacks had been repressed there by whites for generations (really repressed, not its non-existent form in post-1960′s US). It would have been understandable had they gone down the Robert Mugabe route of confiscations and expulsions. They didn’t. The “price” is that South Africa is now one of the most stratified societies in the world, where the Gini income inequality index is at 70 (higher than under apartheid) and whites and blacks live in separate worlds. The alternative – i.e., Zimbabwe, and its retreat from relative prosperity to complete destitution - would have been much worse for South African blacks themselves.

Lee Kuan Yew was and remains a Race Realist, but gets no flak for it because he isn’t White. I do not think he is a Chinese chauvinist because he cited objective data and scholarly works in support of his views (e.g. IQ scores by race, and Arnold Toynbee’s civilizational history, that argued “hard societies” developed in harsh northern climes where you needed brains to survive), and didn’t refrain from also arguing that Jewish Americans were intellectually superior to the Chinese (citing their disproportionate share of Nobel Prizes). Though immigration policy favored Chinese, on account of their lower birth rates, he also vigorously repressed expressions of Chinese nationalism in Singapore to maintain social unity. Quite clearly he was a Race Realist and Cognitive Elitist, but not a Racist. I can’t say I’m a huge admirer of the Singaporean social model – I’m of the opinion drugs should be legal, not banned under penalty of death (!) – but there is no denying he did a great job for Singapore.

Racism: This starts when one demands overt discrimination based on race. For instance, while Race Realism isn’t Racism per se, it can – admittedly – easily tip over into ”Scientific Racism.” Unlike platonic Race Realists, the Scientific Racists are primarily driven by antipathy; indeed, they may have started out as simple Racists, and specifically sought out the science component to serve as an intellectual veneer for their beliefs. As such, they are prone to confirmation bias, and risk degenerating into “Pseudo-Scientific Racism.” Nazi phrenologists and race theorists are classic examples of Pseudo-Scientific Racists. There there are, of course, the simple Racists, who are usually just low-IQ and tend to be unhappy with life. Half-Sigma pegs them perfectly:

“What’s the difference between a race realist and a racist? The race realist understands The g Factor, The Bell Curve, and other works of scientific research. The racist apparently thinks that because Barack Obama is half black, it’s impossible for him to have a significantly higher g than John McCain.”

Most of the people at Stormfront are simple racists. There is a lot of pseudo-science and wild conspiracy theorizing there.

Concluding remarks

It would be nice to believe that if only we could raise more aid to the poorest nations, global inequalities could be erased away; and that at the US level, more social welfare and affirmative action for NAM’s (Non-Asian Minorities) could bridge its deep racial chasms in achievement, which have hitherto been stubbornly unyielding. However, the evidence thus far suggests that many of these chasms are substantially rooted in genetics, and as such would be impossible to close under a capitalist system, or indeed, any economic system that offers increasing returns on better human capital (Maoism is the closest one that comes qualifying to that standard, but is probably not the way to go as most would agree). I’d love to be proven wrong but I’m pretty certain it would have to wait for the age of mass genetic engineering or brain-computer interfaces.

As I hope I made clear, none of this means that overt discrimination is justified, or social spending on NAM’s – especially on education – should be reduced (like Race Denying conservative reactionaries would want to). There is ample evidence to support the view that practically everyone benefits from more education, and it’s better than more foreign wars regardless. (Contrary to stereotypes, the US education system actually isn’t doing too bad of a job; though it gets mediocre scores on international student assessments, when broken down by race, its typically near the very forefront). Just don’t expect miracles from social engineering when biology stands in the way.

The next post will take a far more detailed look at the intersections between race, IQ (or g), the effects of environment/culture (which are real but typically overstated), and implications for development.

* Well, ignored by the blog; discussed at length by Lazy Glossophiliac in the comments section.

As you’re all aware, on April 1st 2012, more than 3 years of blogging at http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/ (S/O) came to an end. For the majority of that period – to be precise from May 13th, 2009, to March 31st, 2013 - I had an account with Google Analytics that provided me with very detailed states about the blog: Where visitors came from, how long they stayed for, what they shared on Facebook, etc.

On some occasions, the stats are exactly what one would expect. Other times, they are unexpected and fascinating. For instance, more people from India visited the blog than from Russia, one of its main subject matters. The Kremlin Stooge was my third biggest referral source of all time, even though he only came on the scene in July 2010 (thanks Mark!). Almost ONE THIRD of all-time visitors landed on a single post!

As I’m going to lose this data as soon as I find a new use for the old domain, I decided to save it all and lay out the interesting bits in this post. I hope I’m not the only one who will find this ”meta-blogging” interesting.

Visitors, Visits, Views

From May 13th, 2009, to March 31st, 2013, there were a total of 760,581 visits to my blog. (As I recount in the Blog History, the all-time figure would be about 35,200 higher, as before that date I blogged at http://darussophile.blogspot.com/ from January 2008. The total number of visits to all my blogs before the April 1st transition to WordPress.com is therefore about 800,000). The graph below shows the dynamics. You can click on it to get a higher resolution, as with most of the graphs here.

As you can see, most of the period was one of slow growth, until it began to rapidly take off from about mid-2011. It reached a plateau of more than 2,000 daily visits by the end of the year. Then, in early March, this figure plummeted by two third. This was the result of a pharma hack that replaced links to my blog on search engines like Google with links to online shops selling viagra and the like.

This made perfect sense, as by that time, the vast bulk of my readers were coming from search engine results.

This is a graph of monthly visits. It is much easier to see the general trends, as day by day fluctuations are smoothed out. Overall, during this period, I had an average of 713 visits per day, and a maximum of 2,837 visits on November 8th, 2011. That date coincided with a translation of my post BRIC’s of Stability by Inosmi. In fact, as we’ll see later, most of those spikes in daily visits were linked to translations by Inosmi.

The above data shows the numbers of unique visitors, superimposed on visits (each visitor is at least one visit) and pageviews (each visit is at least one pageview). As the blog’s popularity expanded, the pageview per visit, and the visits per unique visitor, decreased, as a greater bulk of my traffic shifted from regular readers to people who came in via search engine.

Which continents did Sublime Oblivion readers come from?

Nothing surprising here.

Which countries did Sublime Oblivion readers come from?

Here is a world map.

Here is a list of all the countries that graced S/O with more than 1,000 visits.

Below is a graph of visit dynamics from the top 5 countries by total visits.

The US, UK, and Canada all have broadly similar dynamics, as would be expected of Anglophone nations with their respective populations. The other two are better explained with another graph.

Taking out the US, we can identify more details from the other countries. In the beginning, the UK clearly has a consistent lead; however, visits from India begin to multiply from around May 2011. Though I’m tempted to ascribe this with the blog publishing post with titles such as The Century without an Indian Summer or Why China Is Far Superior To India, which are basically red banners to Hindutva nationalists, the one came too early and the other too late to explain the leap.

I’m just going to assume that it’s due to the conjuncture of (1) the vastly increased secular popularity of my blog, which increased about five-fold in 2011, and (2) growing Internet penetration in India, with gross number of users surpassing Britain’s, and hence logically, them drawing even with the UK on numbers of visitors to my blog.

Russia follows a totally different dynamic. It is not an Anglophone nation, and foreign language skills are poorly developed. For obvious reasons, Russians are exceedingly unlikely to find my site through Google.ru or Yandex. As such, its “constant audience” at S/O is a lot smaller than for the US, UK, India, Canada, and even Australia. A big chunk of Russians stumble onto the site whenever Inosmi, a very popular Russian website that translates articles from the Western media, translates one of my posts. In the immediate aftermath, there is a sudden flood of Russians from Inosmi to my site, creating the spikes you see in the graphs above. Occasionally, one or two high profile Russian bloggers would then repost one of my translations from Inosmi, resulting in secondary spikes.

Which cities did Sublime Oblivion readers come from?

Here is a world map.

The Big Three are Moscow, London, and New York. Quite appropriate, really, considering these are the capitals of the three countries I’ve lived in.

Maybe I should go live in New Delhi or Sydney next. I’m also pleasantly surprised to see Berkeley, a very small city of about 100,000 people, making the Top 40.

The US, UK, Indian, and Russian Audiences

64% of Russian visits, or 19,805 of them, came from Moscow, a reflection of the country’s super-high degree of centralization in the capital: English-language speakers; Western expats; high rates of Internet penetration (in 2010, 73% in Moscow vs. 38% in the country as a whole); etc. Another 3,067, or 10%, come from St.-Petersburg.

The top 10 Russian cities.

If Kyiv were in Russia, it would be third (about 1,000 visits), and Minsk would be seventh (about 300 visits). Unsurprisingly, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan follow the same patterns of visiting as does Russia; this is not surprising, as there are plenty of Russian speakers there who read Inosmi.

With the exceptions of the capital Kyiv, and West Ukraine’s cultural capital Lviv, you can almost demarcate the borders between “Blue Ukraine” and “Orange Ukraine” just from a map of who visited S/O.

Ultimately, the site’s low level of visibility on Runet is not a concern. If it was, I’d be blogging in Russian.

As expected, there is a close correlation between the population of a US state, and the number of visits I get from them.

People from more educated, richer, and connected states taking a greater interest in S/O. In total visits per 100,000 people, the District of Columbia has a clear lead (818), which I excluded from the graph above. It is followed by Washington (202), Connecticut (151), Vermont (145), New York (142), Virginia (127), Massachusetts (119), and California (111). States where people cared least about S/O included South Dakota (39), Louisiana (36), Arkansas (34), West Virginia (34), and Mississippi (28). It is worth noting that Washington and Virginia in particular have high concentrations of political/security and foreign analysts, precisely the types that are most likely to stumble across a site like S/O. All in all, none of this is in the least surprising.

The top 20 US cities.

Visits from the national components of the UK were perfectly in line with their populations: England – 88%, Scotland – 9%, Wales – 2%, Northern Ireland – 1%.

From a cities perspective, 25% of UK visits to S/O originated from London. But many other cities got a share of the action. It was interesting to see Preston with 2%, the rather unremarkable town of 100,000 where I lived in the UK.

The most S/O-friendly Indian states were Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Above is a map by cities.

What characterizes the general S/O audience?

This is a graph of the language settings visitors had on their browser per visit. That Russian (23,851) is lower here than the number of visits from Russia (30,781) implies that perhaps 25% of the visits from Russia were made by Moscow-based expats. Which seems reasonable.

Man, who still uses Explorer these days?

The average duration of engagement was 2:11, but as shown above, the distribution is highly uneven. On most sites, including mine, most people leave very quickly.

Who were S/O’s best referrers?

Everybody who gave me more than 250 visits is in.

Special thanks to Mark, Inosmi, Andy, the guys at The Oil Drum, Craig (regretfully), Sean, and Ran Prieur.

What were S/O’s most popular landing pages?

Every landing page that got more than 1,000 visits. (Needless to say, all of those links are broken, given the site change).

I find it astounding that, counting only proper posts, more than a third of all visits to my blog have been to Top 10 Most Powerful Countries In 2011. Pareto is spinning in hiss grave. The second most popular post, with a mere 3% or so of 750,000 odd visits, is Top 10 Most Useful Languages. I think I’m beginning to see a pattern here, but I can’t quite grasp it… Oh wait, I get it! People like to read opinionated lists!! Who could have imagined? Okay, I’ll make more of them!

In what will probably surprise no-one who follows my interests, my first map illustrates average PISA scores for Math, Reading, and Science for the 65 regions in the original 2009 study, 10 additional regions in a 2010 follow-up study, and the results from 12 of China’s provinces. The correlation between this map, a map of global IQ’s, and a map of GDP per capita - covered in detail on this blog – is startling to say the least.

(Click to enlarge). A table of PISA results, both average and by each of the three components, follows below the break.

Countries of particular interest or significance are bolded.