This may be the article I’ve hesitated longest over publishing. Its subject matter has always hovered as a specter over my writings on the close relation between human capital and economic growth; an obvious but studiously ignored presence*. I am talking, of course, about race and IQ. Of racial differences in IQ, to be precise.
Why now? First, it’s a propitious moment to raise the issue, what with the recent publicity surrounding the Trayvon Martin case 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(ied) 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.
Thank you AK.
I agree that not all racism is race realism, however race realism is inherently racist in practice, at least until the day when we can change the genes of any living human at will in a safe and reliable way. This is because any policy, no matter its objective, that takes into account racial differences is inherently racist. There can only be a lack of racism when there are no relevant innate and unchangable differences between races.
Hopefully gene therapy becomes a reality within the next 30 years. Otherwise we will see a return of apartheid and genocide of entire races in order to achieve social “progress”, as Darwinists predicted over a century ago.
I’m very surprised that you omitted any reference to the fabulous group blog Gene Expression which trailblazed, alongside Sailer, much of this field, and were blogfathers to many blogs. It’s too bad that they retired from blogging, except for Razib, who’s doing a remarkable job in his new niche.
To your point about liberal race realism, there are two policy environments which confront a liberal – the internal population policies and the external population policies. It’s probably quite plausible to reconcile liberal race realism with socialist policies – people shouldn’t be punished for being born as they are and people shouldn’t benefit from the same, so a just system would seek to equalize the disparity. Sure, there will be debate on the margins, but the foundations of the positons are pretty sound. The problem for liberals is what to do with immigration and multiculturalism. It’s hard to justify an immigration policy which isn’t purposely cognitive elitist for to do otherwise is to create conditions where the socety is purposely importing a class of people who will require subsidization as will many of their descendents. Increasing the denominator while keeping the numerator constant, in terms of funders/recipients is a recipe for disaster. What falls out from this is either a broad race-based immigration policy or a “test the individual” policy, with the latter having to contend with regression to the mean dynamics. Further fall-out from the cognitive elitist policy sets up, like in Australia, a situation where the newer class, mostly Asians, start surpassing the founding class in terms of performance and influence. The new class in this simplified model is comprised completely of immigrants who’ve been selected on the cognitive elitist criteria while the founding class is comprised of everyone who was in Australia prior to the commmencement of cognitive immigration. In a generation or two, assuming a perfect meritocratic system and absent corruption and nepotism, the new class, rises and the founding class is surpassed.
We see this displacement process at work at present in many situations with illegal immigrants displacing poor whites in construction, as hotel maids, and so on, but no one higher up the socio-economic ladder much cares. There is though a lot of hostiliity towards this process down at the level of those being displaced. If the hostility is rational then it’s quite likely to manifest at higher levels of SES when the same process plays out. The higher IQ types might well be able to rationalize their own displacement from power by noting that the descendants of high IQ immigrants won their jobs fair and square and one should get used to one’s new station in life, but there is still a real loss that people feel, especially in a country that they inherited from their ancestors, who built the damn place, that is, it feels like a birthright is being stolen from them and this feeling of injustice is difficult, I believe, to reconcile with the rational explanation laid out above.
So now what for liberals? Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Strive for multicultualism (w cog. elit immigration policy) and feed the fire of resentment in the future or reject cog. el. and destablize the funder/recipient ratio. The way to thread the needle is to set out to develop a cognitive elitist policy which rejects multiculturalism. You boost the funders and seek to constrain the growth of recipients, you seek to minimize the importation of a new elite, but this begs the question – where are the new funders going to come from? If you can’t import more high iq whites, then what? Grow your own. Now you have to have policies which are a combination of cognitive elitist and nativist and racialist.
The problem, at its core, is that liberalism is really a big glob of positions which are internally inconsistent with each other. Socialism, multiculturalism and blank slatism. If socialism, that is high sharing and high wealth transfer to address baked in the cake inequality, is the most important plank, then other features of present-day multiculturalism have got to go or be heavily modified.
Thanks for the cogent comment.
I added GNXP. I’ve seen some of their articles before, but I was not aware of their influence. I was (and am) still unsure over the differences between the original, and the one at Discover magazine.
Agreed that the immigration system is a challenge. On the one hand, I appreciate the difficulties with properly integrating peoples from very different cultures and probably lower-IQ stock, and that it leads to resentment on the part of the poorer members of the indigenous population. On the other hand, I don’t personally mind melting pots; homogenous cultural landscapes look bleak and uninteresting to me. Though that’s probably because I’m what Stalin would have rightly called a “rootless cosmopolitan” (psychologically if not ethnically).
A possible Social-Liberal Left Race Realist response to this issue is a relatively open immigration system but one that imposes firm boundaries on most immigrants’ rights and entitlements. Entrance requirements to be low but require a sizable initial deposit. Once inside the country, that person can seek work, education, etc., but all social services have to be paid for, either individually (out of pocket or out of the initial deposit) or as part of a parallel social fund financed entirely by non-citizen residents. These residents can leave and re-enter freely. Deportation only if resident is involved in a serious crime, in which case prison (paid to the extent possible out of the initial deposit) followed by expulsion. But no automatic citizenship for anchor babies. Acquiring citizenship to be a challenging undertaking that (in practice) only truly committed higher-IQ’s should be able to accomplish. So regression to the mean will not really be a major issue since – if the race difference theory of IQ is correct as we both assume – the numbers of NAM’s who will be capable of acquiring citizenship will be very low relative to whites and Asians.
I do not think there is a real risk of Asians displacing the indigenous white population in Australia as a dominant class. They are higher IQ on average, but not by much, and also have low testosterone levels / more conformity (i.e. less constructive aggressiveness) which constrains their ability to compete with whites in politics or big business. Inter-marriage rates between Asians and whites in the US (and I assume Australia) are also high so that’s additional reason why a stratification is unlikely.
On the other hand, I don’t personally mind melting pots; homogenous cultural landscapes look bleak and uninteresting to me.
If one is batting around policy issues, the last thing any of us should be doing is validity testing the propositions we issue against our own personal tastes. I can pretty much guarantee you that most of us are going to be far outside the typical on most of our preferences. So, it shouldn’t matter what you or I believe or prefer, what should matter is what is most effective for the most people, or if the policy is particularly niche oriented, how the policy will effect the people in the niche or the people on the margin.
While you don’t find homogeneous cultures to be interesting, take a look at Putnam’s work on social capital formation. Homogeneity, for those who like high social sharing societies (read socialists and liberals) is probably the key ingredient required. Who wants to share the fruits of their hard labor with people that they detest and have nothing in common with other than they both share the nominal identity of “countryman.”
Once inside the country, that person can seek work, education, etc., but all social services have to be paid for, either individually (out of pocket or out of the initial deposit) or as part of a parallel social fund financed entirely by non-citizen
residents
This sounds very libertarian to me. Conservatives would want a more “blood and soil” appraoch while liberals would likely be attracted to a more “send us your downtrodden and we’ll care for them” approach. Libertarians would, I think, find the “screw borders, screw culture, but make them pay for themselves” approach more to their liking. I would think that liberals would absolutely hate 2nd class “citizenship” (look at how they look at the issue at present.)
It looks to me like you’re creating the conditions of a parallel population to share the same land as that of citizens and that looks like trouble, from a pragmatic point of view, and I can’t see liberals actually proposing this.
Anatoly,
You are right, intermarriage between Asians and whites in Australia is high. As you can guess, intermarriage between Asian women and white men is the most common mixed-race pairing. Anecdotally, on my mother’s side, I have six female cousins and three are married to men from Belgium, Italy and Argentina. On my dad’s side, I just give up counting because so many of his relatives have married Anglo-Australians.
One big problem with migrants in Australia is that the Arabic-speaking population in major cities like Sydney and Melbourne is becoming an underclass. Many Arabic speakers living in Australia originally came as refugees from wars in Lebanon and Iraq. Their children are often the first generation in their families to go to high school and literacy is not valued much in their family networks.
Australia has never had a proper population policy. Both sides of politics shy away from discussing population and planning for migration because the issue is seen to be too controversial: politicians don’t want to be seen as racist. A population policy could clear up a lot of the confusion and haphazard migration policies we currently have. As to what it would involve, I assume it would include audits of where the country is now with regard to demographic trends, economic trends, infrastructure and social welfare needs, and the environment’s carrying capacity, it would make assumptions for the next 20 – 30 years based on those audits, and then make recommendations as to how many migrants a year and in what work or ethnic categories should be accepted with some provision for refugees from countres at war.
Racism in the sense that liberals mean hardly exists anymore in America. It’s a lot like water pollution. When I was in college we were all amused by Tom Lehrer’s song “Pollution”. He was decrying the impurity of the public water supplies. That of course is no longer a problem. Here in the Bay Area we have essentially perfect water from our taps. Yet every few months I get an earnest teenager at my front door who has dedicated himself to “saving the planet”. He wants me to sign something to clean up the air and water.
So it is with racism. When I transferred from Catholic military high school to public school, I was viewed. I had to appear before a panel who would determine where I would go to school. Being white enough for them, they let me go to the nearby all white high school. I later had a friend whose father owned a business in which they put a pin hole in the job applications from black people. They had no black employees. Surprised? I never had a black kid in my class in elementary, high school or college. As it happened most of my friends at that time were black but that was my doing. The society in general kept the blacks away from me in school.
All of those practices are obsolete. No one does them anymore. By the standards that I grew up with there simply isn’t any racism anymore.
America changed and another of those changes was scientific. We got Arthur Jensen, William Shockley, Richard Lynn and Philippe Rushton. All of these men are obsessed with race but none of them argued on the basis of the kind of arguments advanced in the fifties.
Your Venn Diagram like model leaves out the dimension of time. Race Denialism and simple Racism are the older forms. The Denialists think race isn’t real but racism is. Whereas simple racists think race is real and bad. Both of theses political positions are archaic.
Darwin thought that the advanced races would prevail and the less advanced races would disappear. That’s probably true. The number of human species has slimmed down to just one. The number of races or sub-species is also falling. No more Tasmanians.
I expect African blacks will go away. They are not desirable citizens. They cause a significant risk to other blacks. When Darwin lived or even Hitler such an elimination of a race would only be possible with some sort of eugenics or genocide. But we now understand that people are digital in that they are coded in their DNA. Races have patterns of attributes which we will soon be able to modify. East Asian will soon be able to drink. White basketball players will soon be able to jump. And African blacks will have bigger, better brains.
When people who descended from blacks have high IQs are they still blacks? When they aren’t any better at running or basketball than anyone else, are they still blacks? People want to be tall, muscular, thin, have a full head of hair, no acne, and good teeth. Most people want to have a light tan skin color – not too dark, not too light. Blues eyes and blond hair are also popular with many. So when this person descended from East African black slaves is a smart, blue eyed blond person who could pass for Swedish, do blacks still exist?
By the end of this century most of the defining characteristics of race will be under our personal control. The problem with your analysis is that it assumes that current races are permanent.
Hello Pat,
You’ve hit on the problem of how we define who is “black” and who is “white”. Most cultures use physical appearance to define white / non-white and some (but not all) also use ancestry in peculiar ways to define race.
In most Anglosphere countries influenced by American values and pop culture (like my country, Australia), the criterion used to distinguish between blacks and whites is the “one drop” rule. I believe this originated during the 18th century when Britain and its colonies in North America were importing slaves from west Africa. It was common then for wealthy slave owners to use female slaves as concubines and mistresses (the famous Thomas Jefferson had a slave mistress Sally Hemmings who was the much younger half-sister of his wife) and to prevent their slave mistresses’ offspring from claiming any of their fathers’ inheritance, the slave owners and society generally agreed that anyone who had a “black” (ie slave) ancestor was automatically “black” and therefore wasn’t entitled to the same rights of property and other wealth inheritance, and the other political rights that were usually tied to property rights. In those days, you could only vote if you owned property (and lots of it).
This led to a bizarre situation about 30 years ago in Louisiana when a woman discovered she had a distant great-great-great-grandparent who had been a slave (so she was 1/32 black if you like) while doing family history research. Everyone else on her family tree was white. She ended up having to sue the State of Louisiana to be declared “white” when people started avoiding her once her slave ancestor was known.
I have seen some information in print and online that black Americans (excepting perhaps recent migrants from the West Indies and Africa) are genetically 30% European or white and 70% African.
On the other hand, Brazil uses a different set of criteria to determine “blackness” and “whiteness” which are based on appearance and these are called “tipos” (types). The system is very elaborate and one family can have several different types among its members. It follows then that someone like Mariah Carey who has “white” features but dark skin and hair can be accepted as white in Brazil but is black in English-speaking countries and all it takes for her to change race is a five-hour plane trip down south. If you have “African” features but pale skin and hair, you’re “black” in Brazil. So albino Nigerians in the Western Hemisphere can’t change their race no matter how many frequent flyer points they collect.
I don’t know how other Latin American countries define who is white and who is black although I think once upon a time the Spanish government used to discriminate between whites born in Spain and whites born in the Spanish colonies in the Americas.
So yes it’s true, races as defined in terms of whites / non-whites are not permanent and that’s partly because concepts of race are based more on social beliefs and prejudices, not biological facts.
Jennifer: “I don’t know how other Latin American countries define who is white and who is black”
The Spanish developed a complicated caste system for their own colonies, as described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta
Generally speaking, there were more gradations among races in the Spanish colonies, similar to the situation in Brazil. There was never a one-drop rule, and the Spanish concept of slavery was not as harsh as the one in the US South. It was a lot easier for slaves to buy their freedom under Spanish rule. When the US acquired New Orleans from France (but previously ruled by Spain), 45% of the city’s black population was free (the so-called “gens de couleur libre”).
Scowspi,
Thanks for that information, that’s very much appreciated. I was going to ask a guy at work about how the Spanish historically approached the race question as he’s from Mexico but you solved that for me.
(1) I’m afraid I don’t understand your argument that Race Denial and simple Racism are obsolete. Race Denial is exactly what it says, and to them a “racist” tends to be anyone who is not an RD like themselves; obv., they run into a lot of logical problems of the my-lying-eyes type. Simple racism is just racial antipathy, which can optionally have a scientific or pseudo-scientific veneer to it. Don’t see how it’s archaic, still exists aplenty today. E.g. American Nazi Party, Stormfront, KKK, etc.
(2) “The problem with your analysis is that it assumes that current races are permanent.” –> I wrote: “… it would have to wait for the age of mass genetic engineering or brain-computer interfaces.” I agree of course. Obviously there are any number of technological developments that can potentially make races moot.
I said Race Denial like Simple Racism itself are old fashion. Both I believe are formulations from an earlier time. People who hold these views are simply people who haven’t kept up.
Race Denial is a kind of literary viewpoint. People with no appreciation for biology or genetics just play word games. In the last few years there has been a tremendous consolidation of informed opinion on racial matters. There is – dare I say it – scientific consensus. When I was in school it was unclear just where man had evolved and when. Nowadays everyone more or less believes Cavalli-Sforza’s account – out of Africa around 100,000 years ago. There are some new finds and some new DNA evidence but the main outlines of human evolution are pretty clear. And of course race is a part of that picture.
I was trying to point toward a vision of race that is beyond current race realism. Most race realists like Sailer or Rushton are stuck in an endless debate with people who refuse to believe the obvious. Black peole have lower IQs than white people – and that’s important. That is the single most solid fact ever adduced by modern social sciences. There have been hundreds of studies and thousands of subjects. There simply is no basis for debate. The controversies that remain are minor matters like those of Lynn’s methods for choosing studies. Lynn reports that blacks in Africa have IQs of around 70. Critics kvetch about his methodology and announce that he was biased. A better estimate of the average figure they say for Africans would be an IQ of about 80.
No matter whether Africans have an IQ of 70 or of 80, the point is that Africans have a much lower capacity for civilization. That’s all settled. We should be talking about the implications of these facts not arguing endlessly about details.
Even race Realists are wary of drawing the obvious conclusions about race. For example, there is Detroit. This is a doomed city. It is now almost all black and much of it is unemployed. Unemployment has to get worse. All government job programs rely on re-training or re-education. But half of the blacks in Detroit are illiterate. In effect our blacks with their 85 IQs are trying to compete with Japanese and Koreans who have IQs of 104. Robots have taken all the most repetitive jobs already. The jobs for the lowest skilled workers have been the easiest to automate. This hasn’t been good for black workers.
George Zimmerman is a guy who operates behind a fence that was erected to keep blacks out (to put it crudely). It’s not hard to see that at some point we will need to erect fences to keep blacks in. In the long run race won’t be a problem but in the medium run it may get messy. We should start talking about these issues now. How do we stay a free society when we have to limit the freedoms of population segments that cannot contribute?
In the Age of Discovery the Americas were opened up for Europeans by disease. Smallpox and measels had decimated the old world for millenia and the populations had acquired some immunity. The New World however was immunicologically naive and the natives died like flies. In Africa disease held back the explorers protecting the natives from the kind of population replacement that had occured in the Western Hemisphere.
But Whites and Asians have made great strides in disease control, which leaves Africa unprotected. There may very well be a new wave of colonization in Africa from the Chinese or Indians. If the Chinese really wanted to expand into black Africa, who would stop them? This is of course speculative but it is the kind of issue that we should be considering.
Pat,
The one thing that would stop Chinese settlement in sub-Saharan Africa is malaria. Black Africans have genetic defences against malaria and East Asians don’t.
In addition sub-Saharan Africans are prone to other chronic diseases caused by various parasites and conditions like hookworm. If they get these problems during childhood, these have the effect of sapping the body’s immune system and diverting energy away from brain development. Children who suffer from malaria may get brain damage. This might be one explanation for persistent low IQ levels in black Africans.
Also I remember reading something about a study done on Dutch people who had suffered from famine and malnutrition during the Second World War. The study found that pregnant women who’d been through that ordeal had children and even grandchildren whose birthweights were lower than they would have been if the grandmothers hadn’t starved while pregnant. In addition the children and grandchildren were shorter than average for their ethnic type when fully grown. So it’s possible that the effects of persistent malnutrition, especially in pregnant women who are subjected to all kinds of food taboos in traditional societies, together with chronic health conditions can affect the genetic potential (including intelligence) of people one and two generations removed from their ancestors.
Malaria is only one of many African diseases that have kept the more advanced races from taking over Africa the way Europeans took over the Americas. My observation was that these diseases are being cured. What happens when these diseases no longer are a barrier?
The Han – a northern Chinese group – expanded south during the reign of Wang Mang. They expanded into Tibet just recently. In the fifteenth century Zheng He got to East Africa before the Portugese. They are an expanionist people.
Indians used to be an important modernizing element in Africa. All the shop keepers were at one time Indians. They were driven out by the new black African regimes under leaders like Idi Amin. Maybe they will go back. Left to their own devices no black state in Africa could resist a determined India.
Diseases like malaria, dengue and river blindness are still major problems in sub-Saharan Africa even though we know how to treat them and how to prevent them. The issue is whether pharmaceutical companies that have hold the patents on treatments and cures are willing to go into partnerships with African governments or local drug companies in these countries to supply the drugs at reduced prices or in cheaper forms. At present these companies are not willing to sell their drugs in Africa because few people can afford to buy them so there’s no money to be made.
If treating and curing people of malaria isn’t an option, prevention by getting rid of mosquitoes or breaking the link between the mosquito and the Plasmodium parasite might be an option. Getting rid of mosquitoes would mean draining wetlands, swamps or marshes where they breed – but these places are also necessary for other animals and plants to exist and they actually help in flood mitigation. In some areas where floodplains have been built over and levees built along rivers, floods have become higher, faster and more destructive when they overflow levees; places where mangrove swamps have been removed suffer from more coastline erosion. Also some wetlands regions have potential to be tourist drawcards because of the wildlife they attract. So eradicating mosquitoes is more complicated than it first appears.
At present China is interested in Africa more for its minerals and other natural resources (like rhino horns!) and for leasing land to grow food. Chinese workers will be sent there to relieve unemployment in China and to enable the government to head off the unrest anticipated as a result of the uneven sex ratios that exist in China due to the one-child policy (and the abortion of female fetuses) and that in itself would be the main form of Chinese expansion. I think it’s more likely that permanent Chinese settlement in sub-Saharan Africa, if it does occur, will be in the form of men going there to find wives and staying. That won’t go down well with African men, regardless of what the women think!
As for Indians, they don’t appear to be flocking to Africa in droves. Most Indians in Africa live in South Africa and have been there since the 19th century. The memory of being kicked out by Idi Amin might still be fresh among the Indian middle class. I don’t know how attached most Indians are to Hinduism that they would prefer to stay in India to be close to pilgrimage sites than to migrate even when migration is their better bet; most Indians are still extremely poor (about 70 or 80% are still poor) and have yet to share in their country’s wealth. Rates of childhood malnutrition are apparently worse in India than they are in sub-Saharan Africa.
I think it’s more likely that permanent Chinese settlement in sub-Saharan Africa, if it does occur, will be in the form of men going there to find wives and staying. That won’t go down well with African men, regardless of what the women think!
I don’t understand the basis for you writing this. If you look at human mating ecosystems where there is full racial representation, the pairing that we find the least frequently is black woman and Asian men. They certainly COULD hook up with each other because tehre are always black women and Asian men who are unattached but they don’t seem to take advanatge of their single opportunity and form partnerships. If they’re not forming this pairing in situations where they have easy access to each other, then I’m not really seeing how Chinese men are going to travel to Africa in order to find wives.
Your displacement theory is actually being implemented though, but not as you’re describing it, for we see “relatively” wealthier Chinese single men finding Cambodian and Vietnamese wives and bringing them to China, thus displacing poor Cambodian and Vietnamese men from the marriage market.
I’ve heard there are small Chinese communities in eastern Africa (Kenya, Tanzania) and parts of western and central Africa. The major form of employment in some of these countries is small trading in imported goods. There’s often a lot of local resentment against Chinese for undercutting local shopkeepers and stealing jobs. In some African countries, Chinese labour is imported by Chinese and local firms and that practice leads to tension between Chinese and local people. Most of these communities are very recent so I have no idea if the migrants intend to be permanent settlers or plan to return to China. That’s why the statement I made that you highlighted was a hypothetical one.
I agree that male Asian / female black pairings aren’t common now but in Australia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, marriages between Asians and Aboriginal people were common enough that in Queensland state in the 1890s, the government there banned intermarriage between Aboriginal women and Asian men. During the 1940s-50s, Japanese pearl divers had children with local women in the city of Broome in northern Australia; some of these women were Aborigines so the children were sometimes referred to as Japarigines.
Sir Julius Chan who served as Prime Minister in Papua New Guinea for two short terms in the early 1980s and mid-1990s is half-Chinese / half-Melanesian. His father was a trader from Guangdong. The British model Naomi Campbell has a Chinese great-grandfather. BTW the musician Jimmy Page doesn’t have any Chinese ancestry although there are web pages devoted to twinning him with the Japanese-American physicist Michio Kaku.
Asian males and Black women couplings are not common in the US because both expect to be the boss (and there is also a lot of racism between those two groups)
Red Chinese men are much more accustomed with sharing leadership with their their wives and African women are less bossy (especially if their East African and the husband is much richer) So i don’t see a problem for the marriage trade
“The one thing that would stop Chinese settlement in sub-Saharan Africa is malaria. Black Africans have genetic defences against malaria and East Asians don’t.”
This is not true. Southern East Asians also have a level of resistance to Malaria in the form of red-blood cell deformations known as Anemia.
I take the existence of various white supremicists groups as evidence that supports my viewpoint. These groups are tiny and are scattered. At one time the KKK was a powerful political force but today they are only a remnant of their former power. They are a residual movement. People caught up in an obsolete idea. Formal organized anti-black racism died in America in the twenties.
Racism was once a recognized political movement like being a Libertarian or a vegan. There is no more racism today by that standard. It was a movement of an earlier age.
Similarly those people who now claim that there is no such thing as race are people who are stuck in the past. This movement was briefly influential in the eighties. It had been a response to the emerging statistics on black crime and black educational performance. For a while there some claimed that there could be no such thing as black crime because there was no such thing as being black. This idea never gained much traction with the general public. It was too wacky. The white public continued to be terrified of walking through a black neighborhood at night. They did not gain much comfort from the notion that race wasn’t real – that it was all in their heads. Only a few benighted academics were susceptible to this sophistry.
I think it’s important to recognize the time axis. Race realism has been around now for a couple decades. It is still current in that it still engenders meaningful debate. Classical KKK type racism is long gone. When it existed there was a lot of mysticism and religioscity surrounding it. Similarly Race Denialism was a historical movement only important among Marxist professors who believed in obscurantist ideas and practices like deconstructionism.
It is still current in that it still engenders meaningful debate. Classical KKK type racism is long gone. When it existed there was a lot of mysticism and religioscity surrounding it.
You’ve probably heard the saying :”You can never go back again” well, I believe, that it applies here. The KKK style of racism is dead and buried. What persists though is either a learned or innate preference for living with the familiar. This is why there exists white flight, why 95% of blacks vote for Democrats, why neighborhoods form around socioeconomic class and so on.
There is an important long range demographic process playing out – the percentage of whites in the population is decreasing. This process creates ripple effects. One of the most significant is the attraction that minorities have for the Democratic Party and one of the principle attractions is the consistent call that Democrats make for more redistribution.
When whites comprised 85% of the population and minorities comprised the other 15%, the burden on whites of supporting the 15%, speaking in broad terms, was too great – a 5.66:1 ratio. Today at 65%-35% the ratio is 1.85:1 and in the future when the ratio is 50% – 50% the ratio comes down to 1:1 That’s obviously more of a problem than exists today. So, as we’re already seeing, the Republican Party is growing its share of the white vote and this is likely to continue to increase with time as more whites come to the realization that income and wealth are being extracted from them, thus making them poorer, so that it can be redistributed to blacks and Hispanics.
Mixing race and politics and wealth redistribution is an explosive mix. We don’t need a resurgance of old style KKK issues as a bogeyman, we’re growing our own and they’re based on self-interest and common culture – people feel more comfortable in sacrificing for the familiar (there but for the grace of god go I) than they do for funding the lifestyles of those who they don’t know, don’t approve of, and would never choose for themselves – think of asking a pro-choice campaigner to hand over 40% of her income so that pro-life people can be subsidized to prosletyze their message more often and more effectively to a wider audience – the pro-choice woman is going to rebel, going to protest and work her best to stop the redistribution.
Long, long before we get to your “engineer race out of existence” solution, we’re going to be confronting all sorts of problems with race that we’re going to have to address. Race problems in the past, when the ratio was 5.66:1 were less meaningful in the majorities life than they will be when the ratio is 1:1.
To expand on my thoughts in my earlier comment.
If liberal race realism comes to be acknowledged, how then do liberals contend with the philosophical dilemma presented by the case for eugenics? Note that the case for eugenics is different from how eugenics was implemented. The case for eugenics was made by arguing about improving the breeding stock. The way eugenics was implemented was to forcibly sterilize people or kill them. Two separate issues.
Is there a liberal case against “improving the breeding stock?” If there is then that case better be sharpened up and ready for delivery.
There are three courses of action if liberal race realism becomes acknowledged. Do something eugenic-oriented with public policy. Do nothing. Do something dysgenic-oriented with pubilc policy. Options 2 and 3 are basically the same if existing policies are actually dsygenic in nature except for the fact that option 3 forthrightly declares an intent to follow dsygenic policies.
The existing nature of society puts a very high opportunity cost regarding having children onto the very people who have the resources to provide cultural enrichment to their children and to provide a good inheritance of traits which lead to higher levels of success in society. For poor people the opportunity costs associated with having more children are lower and there are actual programs to offset the costs incurred.
Ideally we would want to see a situation where the scarce resources of the poor are concentrated onto fewer children in a family, thereby increasing the human capital level that resources can buy and we should want to see an increased birthrate amongst society’s most capable and most able to afford spending resources on environmental resources which raise human capital levels.
How to achieve the above? Singapore tried with a baby bonus and that experiment didn’t really work out too well. Why didn’t it work? Simply because a baby bonus of, say $5,000, uniformly applied to all families is going to have a different incentive effect for a poor woman than for a rich woman. Now what? The obvious solution is to tailor baby bonuses to wealth and income levels in order to shape reproductive strategies. Oh holy hell, now what have we unleashed? There goes the classism which is at the heart of a socialist world view – paying rich people more in terms of tax incentives or baby bonuses in order to have kids while simulataneously paying or taxing poorer people at a lesser rate.
Another variant on this problem is that children born into society don’t really benefit the parents so much, at least economically, as they do society. So when parents have children they tend to organize their family planning in terms of lifestyle choices, for instance, they want one boy and one girl, and then that’s good enough. Society benefits to a greater degree economically by having citizens with high human capital. Once that genetic component is acknowledged, then it becomes difficult to sit on one’s legislative hands and do nothing to maximize that situation. This problem becomes a variant of the classic principal-agent problem. How does society get parents to think in terms of economic maximization regarding family planning when it is society which reaps the most economic benefits from children while sticking parents with most of the costs associated with raising and educating the children? The solution that should jump to the minds of most liberals is to decrease the costs to the parents of bringing up children, the “It takes a village” solution, Deeper analysis though reveals that this solution will increase the dysgenic effects of population planning in that more poor people would reap benefits than induce them to have more children than rich people. The solution is anti-intuitive to a socialist mindset – let the parents keep more of their wealth and income as a “reward” for having more children. We always have to be cognizant of the opportunity cost hurdle and how the bar gets set ever higher the higher we go up the income ladder.
So how does one put sugar on the bitter pill on anti-socialist policies needed to make a better socialist society? How about this – the greater the ratio of funders to recipients, the more generous the benefits can be to the recipients. The lower the birth rate of the poor and/or less intelligent, the more resources the family and the state can invest in the children in order to boost them higher on the ladder, thereby reducing inequality.
The fundamental problem of moving forward with a liberal race realism viewpoint is that so many tenets of a liberal world view are built on the bedrock of genetics not mattering at all. Once genetics matters, the foundation of the liberal world view starts to crumble and ideological patches have to be welding onto the foundation.
I’m all for eugenics as long as it is non-coercive.
The baby bonuses can stay. After all, it population stability (and elderly-worker dependency ratios!) to be maintained, which is the better of these two choices?:
(1) Make up the difference with a flood of ethnically distinct migrants with an average IQ of say 10 lower than the natives, a demographic shift that may become permanent; (2) Pursue pro-natal policies that do shift the relative fertility distribution towards the poor (lesser IQ) but whose total net impact will only be 1-2 points for the next generation, and likely NOT permanent because group IQ tends to return to the mean anyway?
Singaporian baby bonus did not fail because Chines did not get children but because no group got children*
But the reason why Chinese do not bread is cultural. Not only do they have a preference for the weaker sex but they also make woman’s life difficult by using the male line family as core extended family instead of the female line.
*anywhere near rate of replacement
I believe that racism still does exist in the US as I’ve been a victim of overt racism in the past (I am Chinese). Is it coincidence that the workforce of many high tech companies in the US is primarily Indian and East Asian, but management is pure white? There are almost no companies in the US not founded by a Chinese that have a Chinese CEO. I think that’s the more serious racism that needs to be taken care of: the repression of one group of people in the workplace not for their ability but literally due to their race.
Also, the argument that racism, war, oppression, political instability and colonial legacies are responsible for poverty is true! To deny it is to deny reality. The question is, are these the SOLE problems? Perhaps not.
FWIT, I agree that East Asians are more discriminated against than Blacks in the US. E.g., the test scores they need to get into public unis. I don’t necessarily buy the argument that their under-representation among CEO’s is the result of racism. Asian-Americans are high IQ and very well qualified, but problem is that these aren’t the only qualities you need to rise in hierarchies (e.g. social proficiency, humor, leadership qualities). These qualities are relatively lacking in Asian-Americans. Many Asian-Americans are recent immigrants or children of immigrants, and do not have the same intuitive understanding of American culture as do indigenous whites. Their home culture doesn’t help. Many Asian parents are very fascist about forcing their children to study and forbid them from going to parties, drinking alcohol, even having girlfriends (I’m not making this up, these are well-known stereotypes that are fairly accurate). These activities don’t show up on tests but they do develop social IQ, connections, etc. The results are super high test scores, high IQ scores and cultural levels, but low levels of assertiveness and social proficiency. Hence, a disproportionate number of Asians go into the intellectual proletariat (i.e. mid-level programmers, engineers, etc). I suspect it is a temporary phenomenon, though. Asian-Americans are the best integrated ethnic group, and within one or two more generations, their social values will probably converge to typical American ones.
That’s Asian-Americans. The culture of Asian-Americans is very different the culture of native Asians born and raised in Asian countries. In China, university students are known more for skipping classes to go binge drinking, partying, dating, playing computer games for 24 hours straight and singing karaoke than for studying. The best time of my life was 3rd year of college when I bet to drink 500 ml of vodka the night before every exam and still pass all my classes (I won). Heavy drinking is as much a part of Chinese culture as it is part of Russia’s, that’s why there’s billion dollar companies like Moutai and Wuliangye selling 60% alcohol. That’s why some of the biggest beer companies, like Asahi and Tsingtao, are Asian. Not drinking, not partying and not having girlfriends doesn’t explain why many Asians face a glass ceiling at all!
It is a complete lie and indeed, racist, to say that Asians lack social proficiency and leadership abilities. In fact, it is the opposite. My white classmates would ask unrelated and useless questions in class. I know they are useless because someone asked about relativistic corrections in a course on nonrelativistic quantum theory. The professor answered their question by saying ”there’s no relativity in this class”, but they didn’t understand and asked again! The professor was visibly annoyed and repeated “don’t worry about this, there is no relativity in this class”, but they asked again!!! They lack the ability to read emotions on people’s faces! This is lack of social proficiency and communication skills. In case you think this is an isolated phenomena, it is not; it happened in every single chemistry and physics class I took. The white T.A.s in my department are the strictest on rules and the stingiest in giving partial credit. Asian T.A.s are much more generous about the rules and partial credit. Chinese do not lack social skill at all because Chinese society revolves around relationships, connections, and skill in speechcraft.
Let me offer my thoughts: Only 1/7 of Chinese-Americans are born in China. That fact contradicts your claims that “assimilation” and “integration” will even it out. It doesn’t. Did it do so in the past? No. Almost all Chinese-Americans weren’t Chinese who became Americans out of their free will. They were born American. Did that fact break the glass ceiling at corporations? No.
Yeah, and I have been the victim of overt sexism in the past. (I am male.)
你真是个很笨的人。
是吗？请告诉我们更多。
PS. below_freezing不笨，他是工程师。
I believe that racism still does exist in the US as I’ve been a victim of overt racism in the past
I hope you’ll understand that self-reported conclusions of racism should not be taken as proof that racism occurred. These types of charges occur quite frequently and they invariably tend to focus on the external shortcomings of others when the most parsimonious explanation is that there is an internal shortcoming in the accuser which explains what is perceived to be a racist incident. You don’t provide any details, so I’m going to stick with your charge as being baseless for the moment.
There are almost no companies in the US not founded by a Chinese that have a Chinese CEO.
So what? This sounds a lot like the bogus Wal-Mart statistical discrimination lawsuit. No instances of discrimination are noted in that lawsuit, just a statistical outcome which shows that women fall disproportionately short in their representation at the management level. Meanwhile there were numerous studies showing that most of the women working for Wal-Mart were doing so for part-time income, they wanted flexibility in when they worked, etc and that there were far more men who were willing to overturn their lives in order to conform to the requirments associated with moving into management. The result of this was that more men met the promotion criteria than women. There was no active discrimination against women, and women who did meet the advancement criteria were promoted to management, just not at a rate proportional to their presence at lower levels on the employment ladder.
The skill sets to advance in management and to advance in a technological career are not identical, nor are the personality features which are used on the job, therefore it’s entirely plausible that what you’re witnessing is not active discrimination, nor even covert discrimination, just a mismatch of skills. Secondly, to the degree that there exist race-based differences in personality, whether due to genetic or cultural factors, the disparity you witness could be a natural development. How many Chinese baseball players are there? It takes lots of practice in youth, in addition to having the right combination of physical traits, to excel at baseball. If Chinese parents are not putting their kids into little league, then the ripple effects will flow downstream for a number of years and you’ll see disparity.
To your case, look at the different educational journeys that are typical for Chinese and White high school students. Speaking in generalities, Chinese students have to deal with greater parental pressure to perform well academically than white students. This creates a disparity between the two groups. The simple model here is that Chinese students get a benefit (better grades, better mastery of subject matter, better work habits) that result from their behavior during adolescence and that White students get nothing from their looser academic performance and greater participation rate in clubs, in sports, in playtime. The more sophisticated analysis would presume that the white students do in fact develop skills from their non-academic activities.
The million dollar questions are a.) whether these white students can find a use for their skills in the workforce, and b.) whether those skills are valued in “people professions” and less in “technical professions.” A second question is whether people skills take as much effort to develop as technical skills or does everyone have them at their disposal and can everyone use them to the same proficiency. Does everyone have buried engineering skills that they can intuitively bring to fruitition when they are placed in a technical position? If not, then could it also be possible that not every technical person has the team-leading or the persuasion skills or the decision making skills needed to advance in a management environment and that those who do have such skills may have developed those skills in non-academic realms that Chinese youths didn’t participate in as heavily as white youths?
The above is a falsification test for you. What I see you doing is just looking at disparity and then concluding that this is the result of discrimination. That rubs me the wrong way. You could be right, but you could also be wrong. If you’re wrong, then what you’re doing is actually accusing innocent people of being bad people. That kind of behavior tends to piss off good people.
“Asians lacking leadership skills and are socially inept” doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. They may be silent because the price of speaking out against the establishment are too high. What you’re saying is, for blacks in 1860, that they deserve to be on the farm because they’re disorganized and need whites with “managerial skills” to manage them for productive purposes. The evidence is that there are no black slave managers, proving that blacks do not have the ability to organize others and lack “managerial skills”.
Sadly it does stand up to scrutiny. Leadership is developed during partying. You will fail to learn leadership if you study instead of party
“Asians lack leadership skills and are socially inept” never made sense to me, because Asia is full of successful, indeed world-beating companies that were founded, staffed, and managed by Asians. They didn’t have to import charismatic foreigners to make things work.
And Charly, Asians do party (certainly in Asia they do – maybe less so in America?). Partying and studying are not mutually exclusive.
If you study hard, like what Asian Americans are known to do, then you simply have less time to party. But you’re right that i didn’t make myself clear enough that i was ony talking about American and not Asian Asians.
No problem.
I’ll have more posts on the intersections between HBD, human capital, and prosperity in the next few weeks.
“Asians lacking leadership skills and are socially inept” doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. They may be silent because the price of speaking out against the establishment are too high.
It most assuredly does. Leadership and respect are not something that someone gives you, they are earned or taken. It’s almost like what we see with women and the salary gap for newly hired employees. It was found that women, on average, earned about $4,000 less than men of the same qualification. Sure looked like discrimination to all the usual suspects. Then a business school professor who specialized in negotiation did a study and wouldn’t you know, women are more inclined to take the salary offered to them and men tend to use that IDENTICAL salary offer as a starting point for negotiation and they negotiated, on average, now wait for it, $4,000 boost to their starting salary.
Leadership isn’t something that you write a test for, it’s not something that is awarded to you via a human resource department internal assessment, it’s something that you demonstrate, it’s something that becomes visible to your superiors.
Now on a personal note, I’ve had it up to here with the Discrimination belly-aching. The whole anti-discrimination business is a complete raping of freedom of association. Forcing an employer to hire someone who he doesn’t want to hire, for whatever reason, including racism, or just because they don’t like your shoes, is a stripping away of a voluntary assocation – the employer has to hire someone he doesn’t want to work with and then has to deal with the person every day when he would rather not. Do you understand how offensive it is to have your right to freely spend your money, as an employer, taken away from you, to have to buy the employment services of someone you don’t want to hire? Then having to listen to victim mentality like you’re spouting and having to be ever sensitive about the feelings of people like you, people who can’t earn the respect and demonstrate the leadership required for promotion, and then have to engage in preventative promotion and hiring in order to shut up professional grievance mongers. End of personal note.
Anatoly,
Here’s another person backing up your and Lindsay’s position:
http://www.inmalafide.com/blog/2011/08/17/why-human-biodiversityhereditarianism-and-free-market-capitalism-are-incompatible/
This site, In Mala Fide, bills itself as “alt-right,” but the argument made is fundamentally socialist or at least “welfarist.” Sign of an ideological shift in the works?
If you read that site long enough you will realize that FB is not kidding about the mission statement, and at some point, no matter what “sphere” you adhere to, you will be offended:
http://www.inmalafide.com/about/
“In Mala Fide is an online magazine dedicated to publishing heretical and unpopular ideas. Ideas that polite society considers “racist,” “misogynistic,” “homophobic,” “bigoted” or other slurs used to shut down critical thinking and maintain the web of delusions that keep our world broken and dying. We’re here to put their myths to rest by educating and entertaining you with such crimethink nuggets “
Reading around that site makes me think they take the eXile as a model (i.e. a high value placed on being shocking and offensive). The fact that they link to eXile writers like Taibbi and Dolan strengthens that impression.
The problem with this is that conservatism of the Reaganite variety and human biodiversity are almost completely incompatible… Let me explain. American conservatism is built on the myth of the American Dream – the belief that anyone can become financially successful so long as they work hard. This is the basis for conservatives’ masochistic worship of capitalism and small government – take away the American Dream, and the entire thing collapses.
Wow. Interesting to know others are already making the same argument as I did here, down to the mirage-like nature of the American Dream for vast swathes of the population by statistical necessity. Thanks for the link Scowspi.
Well, not bad. You’ve found a new market that couldn’t be denied anymore, HBD. And so you’ve tried to force it into your current ideas.
I’ve never heard of you before. We are in different spheres. I do know that if you take HBD as far as it can go, you will arrive at WN, sooner or later.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard of the idea that HBD is a “gateway” to WN, but as with drugs, I don’t see how it follows.
Arthur Jensen, Lynn, Murray and Herrnstein, etc., aren’t WN’s. If anything, appreciation of HBD and the validity of g would lead one to become Sino-supremacist sooner than a WN.
Dear Anatoly,
Very interesting post!
However, just some thoughts:-
1.)I realized that I am a ‘race realist’ but certainly NOT a ‘liberal race realist’ and unlike you I do have problems with a ‘melting pot society’ inasmuch as one that strives to be even multicultural.
For a society to be a ‘melting pot’ society, it would be one that receive any migrant of any racial background – and usually in large numbers. Such a society would also be ‘multicultural’ and increasingly so – at least in ‘transition’ for the society to be a ‘smorsgabord of genetic mixing up’ in a ‘melting pot society’.
a.) The assumption is that ALL races are keen or fine or find it ‘desirable’ in ‘interracial mixing up'(such as yourself, for example) but I am an example who disagrees with this(and I doubt I am alone or even a minority in this view) because I am quite aware of my ‘racial identity’ and am keen to keep it. Hence, it is NOT immoral or wrong if a society wants to be a ‘melting pot’ and yet it’s not wrong for a society to want to keep its racial identity intact(such as Japan or Korea perhaps?). For ‘complete'(eg all Chinese decided to ‘mix’ with English people, for example) interracial mixing means forging of a new ‘race’ and the extinction of previous racial groups involved in that mixing. Neither Chinese nor English but Chinglish? Also, far from becoming LESS homogeneous, society becomes more homogeneous – once it was homogeneous Chinese now it’s homogeneous ‘Chinglish’. It’s multiculturalism that’s heterogeneous but not a heavily ‘racially mixed’ society- that’s homogeneous.
b.) Multiculturalism and having a policy that increases this(in an already multicultural society) or creates one(in a formerly ‘racially homogeneous’ society) create unnecessary stress on that society because there will ALWAYS be a portion of that society that resents the alien cultures and races and likewise there will always be migrants who refuse integration and insist on retaining their disparate and sometimes antagonistic cultures/values. It tends to induce a centrifugal force on society.
c.)One assumes that there is ‘equality’ in ‘genetic traits’ if one agrees with ‘interracial mixing’ but as you yourself has correctly put, in reality there are genetic differences, and yes, maybe even ‘inequality’ in the different alleles found in disparate racial groups. Some genes observe Mendelian genetics of dominant and recessive whereas other traits are polygenic whereas some genes have ‘antithetical genes’ etc. Equality – biological equality- is a myth. Our differences are not only skin colour, not only facial features, but even deeper – influencing not only MEDIAN heights, median weights, IQs etc. but our innermost psyche as well. The problem is that in interracial mixing , one phenotype(the ‘expression’ of the ‘genotype’) may dominate another. For example, the African phenotype – at least in physical appearance and skin colour GENERALLY is dominant to East Asians or whites. Hence, if Chinese mix with Africans, the offspring TEND to have ‘African’ looks and thus are ‘better accepted’ into African society than Chinese ones – and it’s like some form of assimilation into African society and should all Chinese mix with Africans, then we all look like Africans on the most part. That’s tantamount(and the “East Asian” looks is INTRINSIC to Chinese identity)to losing Chinese identity. Human beings had, have and will always consider physical appearance as important regardless what romance books or ‘chicken soup for the soul’ authors want to talk about ‘inner beauty’! Or else prostitutes and the porn industry would have long gone bust!
d.) Which brings me to this point by Jennifer Hor:
” I think it’s more likely that permanent Chinese settlement in sub-Saharan Africa, if it does occur, will be in the form of men going there to find wives and staying. That won’t go down well with African men, regardless of what the women think!”
Something Anatoly did not mention is there is dichotomy / biases in race mixing and sexuality. It’s intriguing that all of Tiger Wood’s girlfriends are blonde bombshells and I’ve read somewhere that many black men find white girls(blondes especially) sexually appealing and the tendency in interracial mixing of white and black is that of a white girl and a black guy – something that infuriates the white racists(‘the black dudes are stealing our women and corrupting them!’ argument). Similarly in white and east asian mix , the tendency of white guys and east asian girls. I believe, just as blondes are sexual fetishes of some(many?) black guys , east asian girls are sexual fetishes of some white guys. On the other hand, black ladies are generally speaking not sexually appealing to east asian guys. So, as someone commented, it’s less likely for east asian guys to want to date African girls but in my country there are many African guys who try to date Chinese or Malay girls(to the anger of many local Malaysian guys). Part of it is what we think is ‘beautiful’ and perhaps that’s how ‘races’ came into being in the first place – a ‘selection of mates’ based on certain perceptions of ‘beauty’, ‘belonging’ and certain psychological traits as well. Our present world of massive transmigration of peoples break national and racial barriers and out of this is derived the angst of race deniers and racists and the many ethnic wars of the past, present and soon to come.
My two cents.
sinotibetan
Are there many African girls in Malaysia?
Many. But hardly any Malaysian guys want to date them whereas many African guys wanna date (or rather, bed) fair-skinned Chinese girls…..fair skin is their sexual fetish too, perhaps? Whereas Chinese guys like fair-skinned ladies – generally speaking.
sinotibetan
Are African girls bigger than Malaysian guys?
Most are. I think it’s not the ‘size’ ….. their looks and skin colour are generally not the preference of Malaysian guys. The success of ‘whitening cream’ cosmetics in Malaysia is testament to the type of girls Malaysian men prefer.
sinotibetan
Sure, it is not the size. Men really love it when their girlfriends are longer than them (don’t ask my ex, she will lie)
The success of ‘whitening cream’ cosmetics in Malaysia is testament to the type of girls Malaysian girls like to be. Malaysian men are only interested in ‘breast growth formula’ cosmetics but African girls are even flatter than Malaysian girls so why date them?
ps. I doubt that the flatness statement is true
Err…Charly…are you Malaysian?
Perhaps you were trying to be sarcastic, but this:
” Malaysian men are only interested in ‘breast growth formula’ cosmetics but African girls are even flatter than Malaysian girls so why date them?”
huh??
“The success of ‘whitening cream’ cosmetics in Malaysia is testament to the type of girls Malaysian girls like to be.”
Because these girls know those are the type of girls Malaysian men prefer.
“Sure, it is not the size. Men really love it when their girlfriends are longer than them (don’t ask my ex, she will lie)”
Of course a tall Chinese girl might be more attractive than a shorter one but tall African girls have other aspects that don’t attract Malaysian guys(generally speaking , of course) – the size ain’t enough /the only consideration.
sinotibetan
Guys are not only in attractiveness but also in status. See for example the “attractiveness” of super models.
ps. I wasn’t trying, even an American should have gotten it
Hi Sinotibetan
You have a point there about male preference for fair skin in women. Across all human populations, women and children have fairer skin than men to allow more sunlight in to synthesise Vitamin D. This is crucial for proper bone growth and development, especially in girls. Girls who have Vitamin D deficiencies in childhood not only grow up shorter than their genetical potential allows for but their bodies, especially the pelvis, may not be fully developed properly and as adults they will have difficulties giving birth and are more likely to die during childbirth. It follows then that most men subconsiously prefer fair-skinned women regardless of their cultural background because it’s one indicator of good health.
Your mention that many racial characteristics might be the result of sexual selection rather than adaptation to different environments is valid: there’s a theory that blond hair and blue eyes evolved in humans living in northern Europe and subsisting by hunting about 9,000 -11,000 years ago as a result of intense competition among women for scarce male mates (because most men died from hunting large animals like mammoths and giant deer). At the same time, those men had their pick of women due to the sexual imbalance so they selected for fair-skinned women as described in the paragraph above, using fair hair and blue eyes as additional cues for good health.
Another theory is that it is a result of inbreeding. It wouldn’t be my pick as men have a real natural afferision with respect to sleeping with more than one women. If i would have lived 10.000 years ago i would have only slept with the blond and not the other 10 women of the tribe.
ps. Weren’t mammoths extincted by that time.
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for the comment.
I think BOTH nature and nurture are involved in the genesis of races but the interplay is probably complex and not so simplistic.
The following is my hypothesis:-
1.) Mutations in genes lead to alternative forms of genes(alleles)[there are other mechanisms as well but I shall not discuss them here]. This is an innate chemical tendency of DNA and the replicative process that cannot be limited by the proof-reading of DNA polymerase – even without the presence of ‘external mutagens’.
2.)Some of these mutations are ‘neutral’, most are deleterious, very few are advantageous. Some form of ‘natural selection’ occur which need not mean the survival of less defective alleles. For example, beta thalassaemia and sickle cell predominate in West Central Africa due to the endemicity of malaria in those areas. Thalassaemia and sickle cell heterozygous individuals have survival advantage compared to people with normal haemoglobin molecules because erythrocytes in such individuals are more resistant to parasitism by Plasmodium. So, some form of ‘natural selection’ lead to a certain preponderance of a combination of alleles in a certain population. Interface of genome and the ‘natural/geographical’ local environment.
3.)At the same time, ‘unnatural selection’ occur because of ‘cultural bias’. That ‘culture’ probably has some innate genetic component might be true but I don’t think that human decision-making are COMPLETELY dependent on genetic make-up though the genetic influence is there – how strong the ‘genetic tone’ may be is a matter of speculation, in my opinion.Thus, perhaps blondism arose in Europeans because of ‘cultural selection’/’unnatural selection’. Cultural elites in early proto-Europeans might have thought that blondism is aesthetically / sexually more appealing- it might have nothing to do with perception of ‘healthiness’ of fair-skinned/blonde individuals(the sparsity of blondism among Northeast Asians negate the ‘selective bias’ for blondism due to perception of ‘good health’). And thus ‘blonde individuals’ were selected as mates, increasing the frequency of alleles associated with blondism. As for blue eyes – I’ve read somewhere long time ago that Irish people have more percentage of blue eyes but less percentage of blondism compared to Northern Slavs who have more brown/grey eyes and higher percentage of ‘ash-blondism’. So probably there is dichotomy between eye colour and hair colour. Nevertheless, the alleles associated with blondism exist in varying proportions in the so-called ‘Caucasoid’ peoples. Example, even among Afghanis, there are some individuals – though in rarer numbers – who have blond hair. It’s not implausible to perceive a certain group with preference for blond individuals appear and only ‘select’ mates of such attribute and ‘separate’ from the general more heterogeneous population. Could that have happened in the distant past?
allele-genesis + ‘natural selection'(genome + ‘natural’ environment interface) + ‘unnatural selection'(‘cultural/aesthetics’) = formation of races?
sinotibetan
A correction:-
This is an innate chemical tendency of DNA and the replicative process that cannot be eliminated by the proof-reading of DNA polymerase – even without the presence of ‘external mutagens’.
sinotibetan
Also another thought:-
Americans are a ‘new race evolving’ and whether such a new ‘race’ called ‘American’ happen depend on the ‘elites'(political + intellectual). IF, the politics of ‘melting-potism’ in which all Americans regardless of ethnicity are encouraged to mix and forego their respective identities(eg. ‘white-American’, ‘black-American’, ‘Hispanic-American’ , ‘Asian-American’ etc.), PREVAILS – then a ‘new race’ called ‘American’ is borned. I believe the presence of racial-deniers, racial-realists and racists in America(just as an example) are transitional elements in the ‘ethnogenesis of an American people’! Some sort like the admixture of Indo-Aryans and Dravidians in the ethnogenesis of the various tribes in India in the distant past. Thus policies by governments can be part of the ‘unnatural selection’ that lead to ethnogenesis.
sinotibetan
Europe is more a melting pot than the US. I doubt you will find pure black Britains in 50 years time. African Americans on the other hand will still be a definable group
Charly…
Wow, really?
Partly because UK blacks are only a fraction of British population….i.e. easier ‘assimilated’. However, I’d always thought that South Asian migrants in UK are less likely to assimilate and what we have is multicultural Britain which can be rather ‘centrifugal’.
sinotibetan
Has nothing to do with being a smaller percentage of the population of the UK because African Americans form lower percentage in some part of the US then in the UK and there they don’t assimilate either. It has more to do with “status”. In the US Blacks have the lowest status while in the UK it is Pakis.
You are right that Indians are less assimilated but if you only consider UK Indians that marry British nationals than their marriage rates to whites isn’t that different with African Americans with whites.
You fucked up by using medium height or do you want to claim that big difference between North and South Korean height is due to genetics?
The difference between median height is outside some small African group completely due to enviromental factors. It explains for example the difference between North and South Korea or why Americans were bigger than Europeans and now they are smaller. If you compare the median height of people now and those of 100 years ago than you will find that almost every group in the world has shot up. But you also find that groups emmigrated didn’t follow their native countries growth performance but changed to their new adopted country normality.
A racist won’t hire blacks to work in his business.
A race realist beieves that if no blacks have ever been his best candidates, he doesn’t need to acquire some for the sake of having them there (diversity).
A race denialist can’t tell the realist from the racist.
well put!
Agreed. Very good definition.
Many people hate the way that Sarah Palin speaks. They hate her accent. The thought of having to be around someone who speaks in that whiny, shrieky voice all day long would mean that their life would become one of torment.
Now what about someone who feels the same way but about the black accent. Are they a racist for not wanting to subject themselves to dealing with a black accent? If they’re a racist, then what are the people who feel the same way about Palin?
How about a person who doesn’t want to hire Muslims because he doesn’t want to have to accommodate them by providing a prayer room, bending his work place schemdute to proivde them with time off for religious holidays, finds their beliefs offensive. If he makes a distinction between “You do your thing and I don’t want to have anything you do intersect with my life” and “I object to your beliefs even when they don’t have any effect on me and I’m going to work to oppose you where ever and whenever I can” is there a difference in play?
I’m not convinced that someone who won’t hire blacks to work in his business (Abercrombie and Fitch selling clothes geared to a white preppy audience) is necessarily a racist. I frequent Chinese restuarants quite often and I can’t recall if I’ve ever been to one where all the waitresses were redheads and all of the
cooks were Mandinka warriors. Are Chinese restaurateurs racists for hiring Asian people to work in their restaurants.
If someone qualifies as racist for not wanting to work with someone or not have people of a certain race play any part in their life then how do you categorize people who are violent towards people based on race, seek to create a 2nd class of citizenship for people of other races, seek to wipe out people of other races? Racism in the modern vernacular implies a great evil. Exercising freedom of association doesn’t strike me as meeting the qualifciation test for an action or inaction to be considered a great evil. Violence, denial of human rights, and genocide though do meet what I think are qualifications for being acts of evil.
I think a distinction should be made between the Race Realists who think racial characteristics are carved in stone, and those who realise that such qualities change over time.
Nowadays Germans would have higher IQs than Greeks, though I doubt that that would be true 2000 years ago. Likewise, Britons were emotional and wild, while Romans were stoical. Today, the opposite is more true. A thousand years ago, the Scandinavians were a fierce people, now they are giving out peace prizes.
Given these facts, it’s clear the current policies would have an effect on the future character of races. So in this sense, I disagree with carved-in-stone Race Realists. Yes, let’s agree that there are race differences, but let’s not be so stupid as to believe that these differences are eternal.
How racially (i.e. hereditarily) different are these nationalities?
Of course culture can change over years, the issue here is hereditary difference.
If an ethnic Briton raised as Roman from brith would act just like a native, then there isn’t a hereditary disction.
No, there are differences which make themselves felt. Even Italian-Americans have a different culture to Anglo-Ameircans, even after a couple of generations. There are real differences, but over time the characteristics of those differences will eventually change. Cultural patterns, if embedded enough, will cause hereditary differences.
Obviously.
But it would seem that any deep changes of this magnitude take at least centuries, and more often millennia, to filter through.
Certainly not within the timeframes (max: 50 years) that public policy or futurism can reasonably concern itself with.
A century is only 3 generations. A millenium only 30. For this kind of not big fitness issues to filter through you simply need much more time. It is also why intelligence difference between races don’t make that much sense. Until very recently we just lived a life that was everywere somewhat the same (hunter/gatherer)
Except that places where cognitive excellence developed were different: they were generally much colder, harsher climes. If you did not have your act together, you did not survive the winter. Long foresight and planning was needed to survive the winter in Scandinavia or Scotland or Germany or Japan or Korea. At least in terms of plant matter, there was no food available for six months or so out of every year.
So Eskimo’s would be the smartest (but they aren’t)
Nile delta has the same problem just as most monsoon areas. The Northern winter is more an excuse reason than something that is measurable different.
Interesting post, strikes a good balance.
I think I used to write with the same tone…
It seems to me that the scientifically-minded race realist disqualifies his own emotional responses to a fault. In the interest of “objectivity.”
Half-Sigma’s low-IQ’d racist has no qualms about labels and stereotypes and inflammatory rhetoric. Given human nature, which camp do you think captures more underlings?
When I read a high-IQ’d STEM social drop-out’s rationalizing his own virginity, the struggle to empathize breaks my spirit. However, a racists dirge fills me with a robust, evangelical spirit. And I’m a NAM! Ha!
A very nice article, though there are some things I disagree with. You’ve also got a few typos in there.
Thank you for the well-reasoned and thoughtful defense of race realism. As someone who blogs about HBD and policy (but only in a very broad sense), it’s nice to hear others attack head-on what is sure to be a conundrum for the U.S. should the ‘denialism dam’ ever break: What’s the humane, sensible response to having a huge genetically-disadvantaged underclass among us? As you point out, both the Right (‘It’s their own fault!’) and the Left (‘It’s white people’s fault!’) are missing the boat. It’s Mother Nature’s fault–but that doesn’t let us off the hook for a sensible policy response.
I’m also fascinated by the places where HBD and international economic policy meet, so I’ll be catching up on some of your archives. (Just got linked to your blog today.) Cheers.
Charly(and Jennifer),
“Guys are not only in attractiveness but also in status. See for example the “attractiveness” of super models.”
1.) I think girls tend to be more into ‘status'(of their male partner(s)) and also $$$$ – at least the less ‘naive’ ones. Personally, many so-called ‘supermodels’ are not attractive in my estimation. For guys, it is their own status that’s important than their wife’s /girlfriend’s ‘status’. This one is also for Jennifer Hor and ANECDOTAL but I think it’s quite close to the truth: I think the ‘tendency’ for white-asian relationships to be lopsided towards white male and asian female is also due to the female attraction to the ‘status’ of the male partner. I think currently, in the eyes of many Asian women, ‘white guys’ certainly have higher ‘status’/’value’ compared to Asian guys. Race and status thingy. Plus, many Asian ladies think(and I think to a certain extend they may be right) – white guys have ‘better physical features’ and are supposedly ‘more romantic/amorous’ than Asian men(who are perceived as ‘cold’ and ‘unromantic’). Hence, this gender bias in white-asian interracial mixing. I have some friends(asian ladies) who ONLY want to marry/date white guys – Asian men are definitely excluded as ‘date material’. Some form of racial-self-hatred, I think. That’s why many white guys love to come to Asia. They are treated almost like gods here! However, perhaps in SUPPORT of Charly’s statement that guys are also attracted to ‘status’ – the preoccupation of many black guys with blonde girls could be a feeling that when they bed one, they’ve been ‘accepted’ by the perceived ‘higher status’ white female? What do you guys think about these?
2.)” I wasn’t trying, even an American should have gotten it”
Hahaha…good one!
sinotibetan
Sinotibetan,
Caucasian guys have more variety in their physical features and seem more open and expressive than Asian guys. That’s what I’ve observed. I’ve heard also that Japanese girls consider Korean guys more masculine (because in South Korea, military service is compulsory) than Japanese guys so there is perhaps a subconscious preference among some Asian women (me included, I’m afraid) for features considered “male” and that preference could have been conditioned by exposure to Western media and standards about what the masculine ideal is.
Steve Sailer has explained that on the African -> Caucasian -> East Asian spectrum, as you move along the natural percentage of body fat goes up. Since women have more body fat than men, East Asians are the most feminine-looking race and Africans the most masculine-looking. By extension, Africans are the race in which the men are generally considered more attractive than the women, and the reverse for East Asians. And why it’s the direction in which most interracial pairing goes.
I heard it was because Korean man are more emotional. And you can add the gigantic Korean entertainment industry. If you have just seen a romantic kdrama you may find people who look like the male lead more attractive.
I’m not saying that women are more into status, just that it is important for men.
Maybe it is not self hatred but experience.
“Maybe it is not self hatred but experience.”
Maybe for some but not for those who do not consider Asian men an option at ANY time.
sinotibetan
I would claim that to if i was an Asian male
@sinotibetan
Indeed, status is important for both Asian male and female. Check this data at link
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/02/16/the-rise-of-intermarriage/8/
White males with Asian wife have the highest median income than any other combination.
White females with Asian husbands also have the highest median income than any other white female marriage.
High status white people might also more like be interested in Asian than low status whites. Poor white guys really do not have much of chance with Asian women actually.
Most likely answer for the high income white people married to Asian is assortative mating based on IQ if income is correlated with intelligence.
there is greater assortative mating for g than for any other behavioral trait; that is, spouse correlations are only ~.1 for personality and only ~.2 for height or weight, but the correlation for assortative mating for g is ~.4
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1288305/
Movie stars assortative mating.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/01/heres-economics-paper-by-gustaf-bruze.html
Asians live in high average income areas so it isn’t surprising that they have a high median income when they are assimilated. Does not necessary mean that that is the reason why white-asian marriages have high median income.
Your point is possilble. But assortative mating can not be ruled out either because of your idea.. They are all in differential. You certainly bet on your point without data. Without data, you are only a person with opinion.
A simple way to sort this out is to look at other pairs in the data table regarding black, hispanic ect. The real answer is to launch research to collect data.
My bet is on IQ.
One additional data point against your idea of high average income areas is Asian women income at the data table. They are the second lowest to hispanic women. But they nailed the highest income white and asian males.
White males Asian females are concentrated on the coast, especially the West Coast. That alone will have a big positive effect on income
Again, no data from you.
Just look at the data provided
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/02/16/the-rise-of-intermarriage/8/
Some thing should strike you for obvious answer. That is all I can do for you.
The obvious answer is that White Husband Asian Wife live out west (42.8%) and the husband is old (39.5 years). That is i think the obvious explanation of the high median income.
I agree with a lot of what you said there. The following is heavy on disagreements simply because they’re more interesting to talk about.
“…and as such need a good dose of discipline, “moral direction” and tough love to find their way…”
I’m sure that life outcomes are affected by both hereditary and cultural factors. I imagine success in life being a bit like success in sports – talent without training would get the same mediocre results as training without talent. Only those who have both ever become champs. I think that all people of all races can benefit from some discipline and moral direction, though I agree with you that those things will never produce equality on their own. I can’t think of any non-sci-fi solutions that could produce equality.
I have pretty positive memories of Soviet-style moral direction. The Communist ideology was wrong about many things, but Soviet people of my generation had a wonderfully innocent childhood. I wish more people in the world could have that. Religion is a bunch of fairy tales, but some of the nicest people I’ve met in America were very religious.
“…it’s wrong and illogical to blame a people for their bad luck in life’s genetic lottery…”
I think incentives are important. I think that people of all backgrounds behave better than they would have otherwise (not necessarily better than people of other backgrounds though – those are two different things) if they know that the consequences of selfishness, idleness and short-sightedness are dire. The welfare state takes away some of the incentives to behave prudently. Swedes definitely behave better under socialism than the people who live on public assistance in the US. But would they have behaved even better without socialism and with a Singaporean-style moral regime? I would think yes.
I’m not a libertarian. I don’t think anybody, even the extremely lazy, should be starving in the modern world. But the incentives could be improved.
Also, should individuals of any race who can’t or don’t want to pull their own weight in society, who depend on the state for their own sustenance have the opportunity to have large families that are paid for by the state? I say no. I think that the people who answer yes to that question cannot possibly wish humanity well. A lifetime-of-welfare-in-exchange-for-vasectomies policy sounds entirely moral to me – no individual suffers, and yet humanity as a whole wins. Life rarely presents us with such unambiguously good choices – this must be the reason why lefties hate that particular idea so much.
“Obama also supports the war on drugs that is the single biggest reason why every tenth young Black man is in jail…”
If drug enforcement was less active, drugs would be cheaper and safer-to-acquire, which would make them more widely-used, which would put more people in hospitals and cemeteries.
“Racism does not naturally follow, as that involves calling for overt discrimination based on the aforementioned beliefs…”
I’m all for freedom of association. I think individuals should be able to hire anyone they want, without having to explain their choices to anybody. I think that businesses should be able to refuse any customers they want to refuse, based on any principle that comes to mind to them. If the refused want to create their own businesses that would refuse those who refused them – great. Reciprocity feels fair to me.
Mr. Lindsay’s quote: “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. …”
Such a policy is harder to sell in a country like the US than in a country like Japan or pre-immigration UK. If the racial profile of the payers is substantially different from the racial profile of the payees, there’s bound to be more resistance to redistribution. People instinctively sympathize with their own. It’s exactly like caring about your own kids and parents more than about other people’s kids and parents, exactly like having warmer feelings for cats and dogs than for lobsters and spiders, except on a different stretch of the relatedness continuum. It’s natural to feel closer to those who actually are closer to you. I don’t see any non-sci-fi ways to change that either.
“Why should Whites be allowed to become dramatically richer, healthier, better housed…”
The bigger the redistributionist apparatus, the worse the incentives for everyone, the more opportunities for corruption. I don’t think that redistribution necessarily decreases the amount of ethnic resentment. What does decrease it? Separation. Under redistribution the payers resent paying, but the payees’ feelings of inadequacy remain.
People talk about IQ differences a lot because they’re important AND because IQ is easy to measure. Folk wisdom tells us that populations differ on many qualities besides smarts: honesty, capacity for hard work, extroversion/introversion, sang-froid vs. hotheadedness, courage, energy level, altruism, sense of humor, sensuality, fussiness, and on and on. “The capacity for hard work is a talent in itself” – I think I’ve seen that quote attributed to Kasparov. I wish I had that talent. Anyway, all of these very important qualities are harder to measure than IQ. Questionnaires don’t work because people lie a lot, including to themselves. Ethnic stereotypes no doubt contain some useful info, but it’s difficult to test individuals. Only the ones closest to them have a chance to know, and people lie a lot about their loved/hated ones, including to themselves.
To sum it up
1) on theory, low IQ racists are right.
2) on how to govern society, low IQ racists are right.
3) on how to survive on the subway/bus, low IQ racists are right.
4) defending yourself in your home, low IQ racists are right.
5) schools, low IQ racists are right.
6) police matters, low IQ racists are right.
…
yes, low iq is a bliss. Jus kill any one you do not like.
yeah, they have the wrong ideas, so they must be dumb and racist
unfortunately, “racist” is a word with no meaning, and as for “low IQ”… dunno ’bout that. compared to the average Black American? dubious
“Hitler (he banned IQ tests because Germans got lower scores than Jews)”
This seems rather unlikely on its face. “Banned” in what sense? Is it supposed to have been illegal to possess materials for performing an IQ test? That would be a real ban, and it sounds like bullsh-t to me.
There was a thread on The Phora in 2005-2006 asking the basis of this canard and no answer ever came. http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=13019
Where do you get this?
Surely you must know where you got that “factoid.”
I guess I never will get an answer to my question about where Karlin got that crazy story about Hilter banning IQ tests. You can just make up any crap about Hitler and usually get away with it, but it’s not exactly responsible or helpful for credibility to say such things.
See ^ The structure & measurement of intelligence, Hans Jürgen Eysenck and David W. Fulker, Transaction Publishers, 1979, page 16.
Since Eysenck is obviously not the primary source for that claim, and since you obviously have the book at hand, why don’t you give a quote and also tell us Eysenck’s source?
This is an important and valid discussion, and I have always thought people should approach issues of race in a completely scientific way. However, I do think there is too much emphasis on IQ. There are other measures of human excellence, with which Africans could prove to the world their innate worth. (In case they had to prove it.)
Let’s concede, for the sake of argument, that Africans (as a group, obviously, not necessarily each individual) have a low IQ and so will not produce a lot of great mathematicians and so on. But what about their contribution to culture in general? In America, for starters, Africans have been the most important and vital force in music, dance, and other entertainment. Don’t they get some points for that? Also, I could not disagree more with that fellow above who is irritated by the “Negro” dialect. I am a trained linguist, so I DO get an opinion on this. The “Negro” dialect is a completely valid linguistic entity and, just like any Creole or sub-language, has helped to develop modern English (especially the American dialect) into a flexible and expressive tool of thought. If you think they just go around saying “fa-shizzle” and so on, then you are missing the larger point of linguistic diversity. Just trying to be fair, because I don’t like people putting other people down. In the words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?” Apparently not…
Dear yalensis,
Interesting comments. I am saying this without proof, of course, but I do think that as a group, Africans(and those of African descent) have not ‘succeeded’ in areas generally considered ‘intellectual’ such as mathematics and science – at least relative to the Asiatic and Caucasian people-groups. I do believe that part of the ‘lack of success’ may be ‘cultural’ or due to lack of social development(and good education) in Africa(in general) but I also think that there might be a genetic basis for this as well.
However, I do believe that Africans(I say this term as a generic one to cover their descendants in areas out of Africa as well) may be better than other races in certain areas – eg. ‘rhythm'(which I think we Asians/Mongolic peoples are very weak and stiff), physical prowess(I don’t think any Asian and maybe a only a handful of whites can ‘compete’ with blacks in athletics) and singing(some whites can be at par or better but Asian singers generally lack power when they sing) among others. Hence we see the ‘success’ of Africans/blacks generally in certain sports and the entertainment industry.
Nevertheless, these ‘successes’ or ‘contributions’ seem less ‘refined’ and ‘sophisticated’ than for example the theory of relativity. The measurement of ‘success’ in the ‘great civilizations’ of old in which ours is but a continuation albeit more ‘technological’ than the past – is intellectual prowess – and that’s why , Africans , if they are viewed true this ‘lens’ would seem disadvantaged indeed. It is something left unspoken in our politically-correct world but ‘spoken’ whenever a white father burns in fury when his daughter dates a black guy or whenever a black activist rails for ‘black pride'(which I perceive as a certain love-hate blacks have towards their own racial identity – some sort of a mixed superiority-inferiority complex in which Tiger Woods’ preference for blondes ONLY may be but a ‘symptom’). I see Africa south of Egypt as being totally devoid of indigenous civilization that can ‘rival’ that of ancient Egypt, Babylon or the Mohenjedaro-Harappa. For thousands of years at that. In terms of ‘civilization’ , then truly blacks are living in the ‘dark’ continent because at least in my assessment their cultures were inferior to those ancient civilizations and till today they have but incompletely ‘imported’ the civilizations of others but often using modern technologies to wage tribalist warfare.
“But what about their contribution to culture in general? ”
The problem, yalensis, is that ‘cultural contribution’ and what is construed as ‘high culture’ varies from society to society what more individual to individual. The natural flair of Africans in rhythm led to the ‘creation’ of rap for example(and this rap craze has caught on among whites and in Asia as well) but then again, in spite of the acknowledged ‘rhythmic complexity’ and difficulty of ‘rapping’, for me such ‘music’ is NOT ‘music’ but a ‘cacophony of complex rhythmic noise’. I might be able to tolerate one ‘rap’ song but I cannot imagine myself sitting through a whole 20 + ‘rap songs’ in a single CD sitting…..it’ll drive me mad! And the word is ‘tolerate’ because quite frankly, I think the whole ‘rap’ thing is musically distasteful. It’s of course, my own perception – so in this point alone, the ‘contribution’ of Africans has been nullified – at least in my own personal tastes/discretion. The other cultural contribution by Africans/blacks that I do consider ‘positive’ would be jazz. I think jazz is a far better example as a positive contribution by Africans than rap. It’s more sophisticated: its sophisticated mix of ‘new harmonies’ and rhythmic syncopation is more a work of art than rap. I would say that American black culture of today ‘deteriorated’ from the sophistication of jazz to the current pugnacious and brazen rap. And I believe the ‘descent’ to rap is actually a ‘return’ of American blacks to their African roots – and therein lies that ‘brazenness’ , that ‘lack of refinement’/’primitivity’. Jazz and rap are both ‘synthesis’ of inherently European(perhaps Germanic) music and African music but whilst the former blends them both with perhaps a more ‘European-ness’, the latter blends towards more ‘African-ness’. That the greater preference of rap in current American black culture mirrors their attitude/view in life is anyone’s guess.
I think there are indeed differences – and important ones – among blacks, whites and asiatics – and they are deep-seated, innate, some genetically-determined, some genetically-influenced. That’s why I never believe that multiculturalism will ever work. We indeed are quite different. And many of us, even though we may not confess it, know that we are different- we of different ethnic groups. We are similar enough to intermarry and different enough to cause social tension when such occur.
sinotibetan
I don’t know if Anatoly’s blog will accept links, but I will try. Here is a link showing some top African-American scientists. There is one in particular guy I am thinking of, but I cannot remember his name. He is a prominent string theorist, and he is African-American. Scientists like him work with extremely high-level mathematics, way above the comprehension of most people. I guess his parents forgot to tell him that his DNA was inferior, so don’t bother taking that math class.
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/physics/physics-peeps.html
Neil deGrasse Tyson comes to mind. Regardless, yalensis, I know that you’re an intelligent and open-minded person. But you are setting up a strawman here. There do of course exist individuals in the US black community, many of them in fact, with the high IQ’s needed for competency with high-level math. Only stupid racists would argue otherwise. However, what decades of psychometric research shows is consistent and very significant differences (one standard deviation) between white and black mean IQ’s, and it is NOT racist to highlight this, as it is of direct and even crucial relevance to social policy, such as the efficacy and fairness of affirmative action in education and employment.
What psychometric research also shows is that IQ group measurements can also increase greatly with social development. So much so that the most likely explanation why they score lower is class.
Sure, if you want to be parsimonious by pointing out the simplest and most obvious explanation.
I know, Anatoly. I get the difference between mean IQ and individual IQ and I do support scientific research, let the chips fall where they may. I am not criticizing your research or what you are trying to do. But I do get defensive (on behalf of Africans, of whom I am not) when immediately somebody publishes this type of piece, I see people piling on them criticizing their culture, language, history, etc. Somebody has to speak up for them, if nobody else will, then let it be me.
And just one other point, in any diverse society I do believe some form of affirmative action is necessary, sometimes even a quota system is in order. I am not talking about hiring UNQUALIFIED people, that is always wrong. You’d be surprised, though, there are qualified members of minorities and out-groups for just about every position, if only you widen your search. Plus, as a sociologist you are bound to be aware that studies show culturally diverse workplaces tend to be more creative and productive places to work. If everybody goes around saying, “Oh, black people are stupid,” then Africans will find themselves shut out of jobs more and more and be reduced to only menial positions, even those individuals who are very smart and could do a lot more.
Dear yalensis,
I don’t know why you are offended by my ‘piece’. If you can offend my beliefs(i.e. Christianity) , I have the freedom to say what I HONESTLY think…I am sorry it ‘offended’ you.
1.)”I see people piling on them criticizing their culture, language, history, etc. ”
And why not? I even criticize my own culture, history , language etc. You yourself criticize your own culture of Russia becoming ‘more homophobic’. Why this double standards then? Are the cultures of Africans(or in fact ANY race) BEYOND criticism and reproach? There was a time when the cultures of the Nagas in Nagaland include ritualistic cannibalism. Can I(or anyone else) not objectively(or subjectively) analyse these(and analysis means some form of criticism will be involved). I think you are being TOO HARD on me and unfairly harsh.
2.)”And just one other point, in any diverse society I do believe some form of affirmative action is necessary, sometimes even a quota system is in order.”
Perhaps. But in my country, I was a victim of ‘affirmative action’ and I disagree with you.
3.)”If everybody goes around saying, “Oh, black people are stupid,” then Africans will find themselves shut out of jobs more and more and be reduced to only menial positions, even those individuals who are very smart and could do a lot more.”
As I have asserted , I do not mean to say that ‘black people are stupid’. And as you correctly said, the hired person SHOULD be qualified and ‘judged’ individually REGARDLESS of ethnicity. I am surprised you then say affirmative action is necessary because affirmative action contradicts your very assertion of meritocracy! For affirmative action leads to ABUSE that some people are hired based on RACE rather than abilities.
sinotibetan
Dear Sino-T: I am not offended by anything you said. We disagree on many things, yet can still remain “friends”, in a way – (virtual friends – ha ha!)
In opening this discussion about “race” Anatoly has opened a can of worms. Since he lives and operates within American political scene, Anatoly will understand that “race” is the “third rail” of American politics. From the very first day the colonists arrived, the status of Africans in America has defined American politics. There were centuries of slavery, legal segregation, then many decades of struggle for equality, civil rights, etc. Blacks busting their humps doing all the menial work. Black males stigmatized as criminals and locked up in American jails (mostly for non-violent crimes). It is big issue in America. Full out race war has always been a realistic threat.
I don’t criticize what Anatoly is doing. I am a believer in science: Crunch the numbers impartially, and let the chips fall where they may, regardless of political correctness. So far so good.
On the other hand, I predict, and I think Anatoly will find, that many racists will crawl out of from under their rocks and attempt to use his research for their own dastardly ends. He will be forced to explain himself with many caveats.
Meanwhile, I will continue to argue for tolerance, and to stand up for Africans (unless and until some of them come onto this forum to argue on their own behalf).
Dear yalensis,
I am happy that you are not offended by my comments. I never mean to offend anyone in any comments that I make. And yes, I am glad we remain ‘virtual friends’ in spite of several things we disagree upon.
1.)”In opening this discussion about “race” Anatoly has opened a can of worms.”
That is true and Anatoly knows it. However, I support him in being very earnest and his high quality research in backing up any ideas he proposes and in that he is being very responsible. I believe that he doesn’t want discussions about race, even in America, to be a ‘taboo’ subject. Once a subject becomes ‘taboo’ – it’s up to manipulation by politicians. I understand what you mean about the issue of race in the US because Malaysia is very much like the US…..we are ‘racially charged’ in Malaysia as well. However, unless and until we can talk about these issues openly and without getting too emotional, these two countries will never be able to break away from racial politics. “Race denialism” and ‘politically correctness’ only serves to worsen the situation and become fodder for white supremacist and the ‘persistent affirmative action’ abused by black racists.
2.)”On the other hand, I predict, and I think Anatoly will find, that many racists will crawl out of from under their rocks and attempt to use his research for their own dastardly ends. ”
Racists will always come up with something to ‘support’ their racism. Sometimes speaking the truth(as Anatoly is attempting) is difficult but I salute him for his bravery in doing so. He is not to be responsible for the reprehensible acts of racists because these racists willfully commit wrongdoings in contradistinction to the position of affirming the truth and yet remaining humane and emphatic which Anatoly holds. The fault of their crimes will rest solely on those racists themselves.
3.) I completely agree with you that tolerance is the way to go….especially in multiethnic nations like the USA and mine.
sinotibetan
Dear yalensis,
I think Anatoly has replied eloquently to your comment but I think I want to somewhat ‘echo’ what he has said.
1.) First of all, I do not deny that there are African individuals who are super-brilliant. As I’ve commented ….”..but I do think that as a group, Africans(and those of African descent) have not ‘succeeded’ in areas generally considered ‘intellectual’ such as mathematics and science…”
a.) I said….as a GROUP , not SELECTED individuals.
b.) I said ….generally, not SELECTED.
2.) I am talking then about ‘mean aptitude in mathematics’ and ‘mean aptitude in science’ of GROUPS(eg. ‘Africans’ , ‘East Asians’ etc.) and comparing them. No doubt there are brilliant Africans but these do not belong to the ‘African population mean’ but probably the top 5%. To have an unbiased comparison, we have to compare the IQs of the top 5% of Africans vs East Asians vs Caucasians rather. Comparing those top 5% African-American scientists with average Joes like me and most of humanity is like comparing apple to oranges.
3.)” I guess his parents forgot to tell him that his DNA was inferior, so don’t bother taking that math class.”
I NEVER alluded to the fact that African DNA is ‘inferior’. In certain aspects, Africans as a group are better than others, and in some other aspects less so – as a GROUP. We cannot generalize this to an individual level.
sinotibetan
Excellent article, but I do have two points. First off, irrespective of what Lee Kwan Yew (a.k.a. Harry Lee, when I knew him) or his shills may claim, he and his People’s Action Party did not inherit a third world slum when Singapore became independent, any more than China inherited a third world slum when it obtained Hong Kong. Singapore was a major British port and, as such, had a first-class infrastructure. I’m not denying that old Harry and company didn’t achieve wonders, but like Bill Gates and his million-dollar trust fund (back when a million really was a lot of money), Harry and Co. started off on a high.
Second, Americans who cite Canada’s allegedly maginificant immigration system that only accepts highly skilled immigrants, need to acknowledge that accompanying this is a refugee programme, 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.
Excellent article though…
Populations north of Sub-Saharan Africa have at least one other genetic contribution, however small it is (and lacking mDNA) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5612/1525.short the Neanderthals.
If you look human populations, they do selective breeding of certain traits that do appear due to mutations with traits that improve reproductive success spreading like wildfire (blond hair, intelligence related mutations). The more people were living in an environment that triggered mutations without destroying fertility, the higher are the chances that something will happen and the more people there are, the more test samples and one of them will catch something sometime. Now comes the question whether his type of mutation gives him/her any chances of more reproductive success and how much of it? This very likely depends on the downside of the mutation because there seems also to be a connection between high intelligence and mental illnesses. So the longterm environment can enable people to develop into different shapes, colors and abilities, including mental abilities and similar metal abilities or colours can be due to wiedely differing reasons (like blond hair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blond#Evolution_of_blond_hair). The African Americans are in my opinion very much interbred with the Europeans, but on the other hand were subject to very selective conditions for certain traits during their perilous history. The Chinese on the other hand had a long and strong history of outstanding positions for scholars and not warriors like Europe, so to a certain degree there might have been long-term differing emphasis on attributes for successful reproduction.
A major factor in genetics that is not yet fully understood is methylation of DNA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_methylation) that dictates the frequency of transcription and thus the degree of influence of a gene. This methylation can be influenced by environmental conditions and is inheritable as well as it can change due to various circumstances. While I support the idea that humans are diverse, extending to their brains, and that we do have differing groups, the subject might be much more complicated than predicting the phenotype performance due to any genotype. Lamarckism is somehow right that there are capabilities to shape the future expression of genes, although the method it works is yet poorly understood. Your outlook is too much influenced by the deterministic views resulting from the interpretations of Darwin that do not reflect a true model of genetic heritage and expression mechanisms.
http://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/46453/Psychische_Erkrankungen_bei_Studierenden_stark_angestiegen.htm
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/08/13/more-mental-illness-among-college-students/16765.html
These are articles by two medical associations association, the first is in German. University students, who are selected for the best performing brains, have a higher rate of mental illnesses than their peers who are not so high educational achievers. Because mutations typically tend to have their downsides and psychological illnesses are far from eradicated it’s very likely that all the shining brilliance in IQ scores does have a counterbalance (known from animal breeding) of higher susceptibility to various problems (there are very intelligent dogs like the ancient Irish Wolfhound with a very high cancer rate). If one human population takes a different emphasis than another and sees the health costs of that brilliance and thus reduces the reproductive chances of people connected to that gene pool, they won’t have all intelligence connected genes spread like wildfire. For this reason I suggest to also take a look on the mental health problems of intelligence.
In The Bell Curve, social competence starts to decline in the highest IQ groups, after rising until 125 or so. This of course makes sense from stereotypes (nerds). I also remember reading Ashkenazi Jews have a high rate of ethnicity-specific genetic disorders.
So long story short, we have to take into account that a human bred for maximum IQ incurs a lot of negative side effects. Looking at things from this perspective, it does make sense to have a society that includes less intelligent people because they provide a social and genetic counterbalance (animal breeding is a kind of much more unbalanced reproduction in comparison to normal reproduction). A good example of strange genetic side effects of selection for social behaviour towards humans is the famous Soviet/Russian farm fox experiment. http://www.hum.utah.edu/~bbenham/2510%20Spring%2009/Behavior%20Genetics/Farm-Fox%20Experiment.pdf
For whatever reason the social behaviour selection does affect certain other traits among all domesticated mammals that don’t seem to have any casual connection.
Ashkenazi Jews are in my opinion a special case because many of them are in my opinion descendants of ancient converts to Judaism(and have no mitochondrial DNA from ancient Israel, thus not strictly qualifying as ethnic Jews according to the Thora). The conversion to Judaism was a successful business niche for interactions between hostile groups, a kind of third way (like the Khazar Empire or for the Sephardim http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Arabian_Peninsula#History_of_the_Jews_in_Yemen). This decision did give benefits and very demanding problems, thus putting the Jews in Europe in a special environment that selected them according to different rules from their neighbours among a very small and highly mobile group limited to many intellectually demanding tasks.
How much is that decline in social competence due to less training because high IQ individuals have less to socialize with
For a brief period there was a blogger with Phd in philosophy from an Ivy league college.
He has been inactive for a couple of years though.
http://liberalbiorealism.wordpress.com/
I guess another form of race realism relates to the research of Robert Putman showing diversity reduces social cohesiveness (I think Tatu Vanhanen has also looked at this in terms of conflict in different countries). Jason Richwine wrote an article “Smart Solution to the Diversity Dilemma” about this.
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/august/dealing-with-diversity-the-smart-way
Also, there is Frank Salter’s genetic interests work.
wow….. I will never understand the length at which whites would go to malign blac
Income redistribution is antithetical to liberalism.
Making dogmatic declarations about liberalism is antithetical to a liberal mindset. Such narrow claims are also historically inaccurate. There isn’t now and never has been a single true liberalism.
Trying to make a purity test for liberalism isn’t something liberals tend to do. That is more of a conservative type of activity. Liberalism is defined by an openness of mind and generosity of spirit, not ideologically closing of the ranks. This defining feature is found in the earliest definitions of the word, even before it became a political label.
If you want to know an early version of liberal income redistribution, I’d suggest reading “Agrarian Justice” by Thomas Paine. I’d also point out that Adam Smith and Henry David Thoreau warned against growing economic inequality, seeing it as one of the greatest dangers to a free society. Later in the 19th century, there were also liberals like Henry George.