The Rawness

“My suspicion is this: to a certain degree, it strokes white people?s egos to believe that they are magically and inherently smarter than many other races.”

Oh yes, certainly; people are only human, and egotists abound in every ideological group.

But while what you say is true – shitty policy produces shitty results, and we don’t need to use race to figure that out – there *are* policy questions that arise specifically because of race. Those are the ones Basilransom was talking about – racial quotas, and blaming racism for every discrepancy. And here, acknowledging mean IQ differences is very relevant indeed.

…And, as I commented in your previous post, for this it doesn’t matter how IQ differences came into being – even the strongest selection can only produce results over several centuries. So while it may be scientifically and philosophically interesting to ponder how we got here, it’s pretty irrelevant for policy purposes.

Acknowledging mean IQ differences still is unnecessary, to me. Why? Because as pointed out in my 3 examples above, these discrepancies happen when you implement policies based on radical egalitarianism even in a SINGLE RACE WITH THE SAME AVERAGE IQ. Radical egalitarianism and welfare states produce these shitty results regardless of the race and average IQ involved. Did the people on the East half of Germany have lower average IQs than the people on the Western half? Were they a different race? And if we can show that these results trascend IQ differentials, then why is IQ necessary to the discussion? We can just frame it as the universal failure of radical egalitarianism.

The beauty of this approach is that it satisfies the politically correct by taking racial IQ out of the equation, but it also satisfies conservatives by taking race out of the equation, since race differences weren’t a major factor in my 3 examples either.

So average IQs are relevant for policy reasons, but pointing out how they came to be is not relevant for policy reasons? How do you figure?

Because what are you going to do or not do when dealing with that kind of timescale? It’s like how humans came to be is a cool question, but not terribly relevant to policy decisions – we’re here, whether evolved or created, and that ain’t gonna change anytime soon.

AC, I’m not following you. I still don’t see why race and IQ differences are important to point out, but pointing out the reasons for these differences is unimportant. To me if one discussion is on the table, so is the other.

For example if whites and Asians have a higher IQ because of a history of higher competitive environments, then the solution for blacks is a higher competitive environment also. If whites have a higher IQ simply because caucasians naturally have higher IQs regardless of what their traditional environments, cultures, and histories are, then giving blacks a more competitive environment will do nothing for them, and therefore a different social policy is needed for them.

Now if you agree that what blacks need is increased competition and no more affirmative action, no more welfare and no more of other radical egalitarian policies, then you can set forth that policy by simply pointing out how such radical egalitarian policies have undermined self-sufficiency and drive in many past cultures, regardless of the race and IQ factors in play, as shown in my three examples. This will raise a lot less knee-jerk opposition than going at it by a race and average IQ angle.

Many of the ?race and IQ? crowd have a knee-jerk resistance to these ideas of how the higher white average IQ came to be, and it makes me realize that even though I?m acknowledging they have a higher average IQ, it?s not enough for them. They don?t just want to be ackowledged as having higher IQs, they also want to believe that this higher IQ is magically innate and a fundamental, immutable characteristic of their race.

t, i respect your point of view, but seriously, how many race realists actually espouse this idea that iq is immutable . i’m not saying there aren’t some bona fide racist crackpots out there, but most of the race realists i see on half sigma or gnxp (or even on roissy) would have no problem acknowledging this idea that historical environment greatly influences racial iq’s.

another thing, i agree that there needs to be more race blind methods of promoting constructive social policies. as jason malloy on gnxp recently stated, the non- asian minorities (as a group) will never willingly acknowledge there are differing limits on iq potentials. in a democratic country where 1 out of 3 people are not white, this is significant. also, as vim recently suggested on half sigma, there can be a lot of analysis of intra-racial iq differences that will likely be more elucidating than even inter- racial iq differences (from a biochemistry standpoint). but keep in mind, two of the three examples you cite deal with countries with largely homogenous populations. in india’s case, there is a lot of genetic heterogeneity, and the different groups still see themselves as thoroughly indian. i would argue that the level of racial identity distinctness is arguably more manifest in this country than all three of the examples you cite. this might be significant and worth contrasting with the above cases. another outstanding post on a difficult topic.

For example if whites and Asians have a higher IQ because of a history of higher competitive environments, then the solution for blacks is a higher competitive environment also.

great comment. race realism might be of interest to american whites because it can provide a better reason than scapegoating of whites to show why certain groups haven’t advanced as far as the market dominant white majority in america. that said, i think non- asian minorities will never allow such a real debate on race so what i just wrote is largely a moot point.

also, i’m not convinced that the environmental interventions you are alluding to will be able to modulate racial iq as quickly as needed, even if there existed a political climate that would allow one to implement these policies on a widespread basis. i suspect that in a declining america of changing demographics and of smaller possibilities, there is bound to be a race war for resources; the only thing at this point that prevent this eventuality is voluntary eugenics.

Plains apes like to care about the ‘who’s your daddy’ stuff, but The Bell Curve is about smart versus dumb for all races. Dumb white kids don’t learn to read because they don’t get the drill and kill they need. Dumb yellow, red, black, brown- they get taught like average kids, so more fail than they would if they got drilled like they need.
When I was a kid my dad told me the inspiring story of the ‘Dumb Ox’, as they called Thomas Aquinas in school. It helped. And I was a gifted child, what they called in the 50s a ‘B student’.

Meanwhile smart kids don’t get taught the hard stuff they could handle. So we get fewer top scientists than we need to run a 21st century economy.
Everyone gets screwed except the middle of the curve.

two of the three examples you cite deal with countries with largely homogenous populations. in india?s case, there is a lot of genetic heterogeneity, and the different groups still see themselves as thoroughly indian. i would argue that the level of racial identity distinctness is arguably more manifest in this country than all three of the examples you cite. this might be significant and worth contrasting with the above cases.

Yes, I deliberately chose examples with more genetic homogeneity than America in response to people who claim that lower IQ is why blacks didn’t benefit from the social policies directed at them. Those examples were meant to show that even in a single race, which takes out a lot of the discrimination factor and eliminates the factor of racial IQ differences totally, the free-market policies and increased competition lead to good results and policies based on radical egalitarianism lead to inferior results. The Chinese people that floundered under communal farmings are the same Chinese people that thrived under an increase in free market policies. The same Indians that floundered under socialist policies are the same ones that thrived under free market policies.

great comment. race realism might be of interest to american whites because it can provide a better reason than scapegoating of whites to show why certain groups haven?t advanced as far as the market dominant white majority in america. that said, i think non- asian minorities will never allow such a real debate on race so what i just wrote is largely a moot point.

The problem is not just that non-asian minoirites will never allow such a real debate on race, but most white progressive liberals will not either. The ones with the real, hardcore white guilt can be even more resistant to such ideas than non-asian minorities.

also, i?m not convinced that the environmental interventions you are alluding to will be able to modulate racial iq as quickly as needed, even if there existed a political climate that would allow one to implement these policies on a widespread basis. i suspect that in a declining america of changing demographics and of smaller possibilities, there is bound to be a race war for resources; the only thing at this point that prevent this eventuality is voluntary eugenics.

I agree that average racial IQ won’t become equalized overnight, but I don’t think that’s necessary. First off, because I think IQ is overrated. There are plenty of underachieving high IQ people out there. It’s not irrelevant, in fact it’s very relevant to success, but it’s not necessarily the be-all, end-all that the IQ-worshippers make it out to be. An outrageous work ethic, street smarts, people skills, incredible self-discipline, all these can compensate to a degree.

By creating increased competition for accomplishments, non-asian minorities will realize from very young that the only way they can get into the best colleges and get the best jobs is to get the same grades and accomplishments. If they don’t have the natural IQ aptitude, their only option is to put in twice the amount of work. The blacks with the high IQs will make it and the blacks with the average to lower IQs that can compensate enough through a hard work ethic and self-discipline will make it. And for the remaining blacks who still can’t make it even with trying twice as hard, they will have to adjust their goals accordingly. We have to be willing to admit that 4 year colleges and Ivy League schools aren’t for everyone and that there’s no shame in that. They can do community college, and if they succeed there and get the hang of it, they can end up making it into four-year university, except now they’re better prepared academically and more mature than if they got in right after high school through affirmative action and found themselves in over their heads. If even Community College isn’t for them, they can do vocational school and get solid skills and a real trade, which will do them more good than underperforming at a 4-year school they were’t qualified for and accumulating massive student loan debt only to get a degree in a subject that will get them a low paying job, or worse only to fail out before even getting a degree at all.

For these reasons I don’t think there will be a race war for resources if we adopt race neutral policies. There will be less people all reaching for the same brass rings (namely, top universities, grad schools and corporate jobs.

The goal is not to equalize IQ overnight but get people to demand more of themselves in order to compete, and put their energy into endeavors they can excel at even if they’re less prestigious rather than putting their energy into more prestigious endeavors they will underperform in.

I’d like to provide some baseline info on what the IQ of various groups around the world actually is. These are actual average test results, with efforts made to make them culture /language neutral. These do not speak to what part of it might be genetic versus cultural versus some other sort of environmental causation like e.g. disease load and bad nutrition in e.g. s.s.Africa. I’m going to simplify, but that will still give us vastly finer detail than what many seem to be carrying around in their heads.

In particular this addresses the notion that Asians = smart. No, no, no. (NE Asian = smart).

World wide median ~ 90

Europeans (and US whites) = 100 (on both verbal and visiospatial)

Jews (Ashkenazi=European >US Jews) = 110 (as high as 115 verbal, white av. or below on visio spatial side of IQ)

Jews-Asian (Muslim societies in middle ages) = 95 (The Euro vs. Asian Jew split is a BIG deal in Israel, lots of resentment)

Northeast Asians (Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia) = 105 (equal to whites in verbal, better in visio-spatial/math)

SE and most other Asians =~ 90

Indians in India, all castes = 83 (we only let doctors, software engineers and dentists into the US now, but wait)

AmerIndians (most US hispanics are here or a bit higher)= 90

Black Americans (20-25% white; white govt & mass culture) = 85

subSaharan Africans = 70

Australian Aboriginines, some African pigmy groups = 60-65
(pigmy groups may not be reliable results though)

Harpendig and Cochran have a genetic theory for how/why Jewish IQ rose so high within Christian Europe in the middle ages, but not elsewhere. It’s most definitely plausible, with suggestive evidence, but not air tight proven. btw the whole received wisdom we were all taught in middle and high school that it takes tens of thousands of years, at least, for any significant genetic variation to develop between groups or improve for mankind (or parts of it) has been shown to be utterly, totally and completely WRONG in the last few decades. Did I mention it’s been disproven?

Ok, just thought I through those data out there around here.

What in particular one hears around here and in the US generally that is just wrong is the notion that “Asians are smart.” No. Most Asians are dumb, if Euros are used as the benchmark. It’s NE Asians ONLY that are smart. Vietnamese maybe too, or intermediate (a lot of the US ones are partly Chinese, or all Chinese).

They also have real low testosterone levels. Well, maybe not the Mongols or Koreans so much. Chinese do. That might not help in the creativity sweepstakes. Something’s holding that back.

Blacks have real high testosterone (and testosterone receptors = effective T) levels. Blacks and whites cluster way above E Asians on this, but blacks are at the top.

T — R.Raw

The problem is not just that non-asian minoirites will never allow such a real debate on race, but most white progressive liberals will not either. The ones with the real, hardcore white guilt can be even more resistant to such ideas than non-asian minorities.

It’s not really guilt. Progressive whites do not themselves usually feel all kids of guilt, though they may pretend to. Instead they accuse OTHER whites (the less progressive ones or those waivering in their true leftist beliefs) of showing insufficient guilt. This guilt mongering is a widespread tool of the left. It was often or usually started by leftist Jews esp. after the Holocaust energized so many to go after all kinds of supremacism within white society, but it was always shared by others and soon joined by many.

Sailer calls this guilt mongering “competitive altruism”. It’s clearly a status display.

It has it’s uses in early days when there’s great injustice. But it also has it’s own momentum. Barak as a messiah that the left leaning media feels essentially no compunction in tilting heavily and obviously towards against tradition which normally in the past has required greater subtlety in Presidential races, is one result.

T – Ricky Raw said –

Now if you agree that what blacks need is increased competition and no more affirmative action, no more welfare and no more of other radical egalitarian policies, then you can set forth that policy by simply pointing out how such radical egalitarian policies have undermined self-sufficiency and drive in many past cultures, regardless of the race and IQ factors in play, as shown in my three examples. This will raise a lot less knee-jerk opposition than going at it by a race and average IQ angle.

I like this approach a lot.

I haven’t read through all the comments but your statement that, “My suspicion is this: to a certain degree, it strokes white people?s egos to believe that they are magically and inherently smarter than many other races.” simply does not ring true for this White Man.

Most White People that I have met have absolutely no problem admitting that Asians (at least those Asians in America) are, in general, very smart. That is, they probably have a higher IQ than Whites.

However, those same White people are also likely to notice that many, many people want to move to “White” places whereas Whites, for the most part, do not want to move to, say, Asian or Black places.

Sure, they will hang out in Brooklyn during their 20′s, but, once those kids are born, off to the “ggod” schools they go.

As Steve Sailer has noticed, many Liberals (Whites, Blacks, Latinos, etc) will move to Republican places (i.e. Mountains of Idaho for skiiing, ranches in Montana, Austin, leafy suburbs of NYC and DC, etc) and the Conservative White people keep moving further and further out.

Good points T — let me see if I understand your points. Your argument is that socialistic government planning and nanny states don’t work, and this is true however you change the variable of race. So you’re basically addressing the question, “What works?”

I think that the relevant questions for liberals, at least with regard to affirmative action, is “What’s ultimately good?”

Let’s assume arguendo that there is 100% certainty that affirmative action doesn’t work and it is prohibited in school admissions (like certain states do right now). Then you have situations like the UC schools where black enrollment has plummeted significantly. Given that the cachet of UC schools or other private schools often make or break whether your resume gets looked at in the first place, if blacks aren’t in top schools, then there’s a lower chance they got the top jobs and other opportunities for advancement. This, in turn, leads to a distinct social stratification in all areas of U.S. society, much worse than it already is.

Another assumption: Let’s say that there is a proposed social policy where most blacks have to go to state schools but the likely outcome over 30 years is higher post-graduation success, earning power, and career advancement. But also likely is that there will be less blacks in the highest levels of power (i.e., gov’t, media, private sector) to the point that it’s only whites making decisions affecting this country (excluding Congress where people are popularly elected regardless of educational credentials). What then?

“My suspicion is this: to a certain degree, it strokes white people?s egos to believe that they are magically and inherently smarter than many other races. ”

Maybe I’m reading the wrong people here, but don’t most of the Whites who care about this sort of thing also acknowledge, pretty freely, that Asians and Jews have higher average IQ than Whites too? And they’re always going on about evolutionary explanations too. (Well, Steve Sailer is)

Other than that, though, I think you’re spot on. Another good example is the two Koreas — doesn’t matter how smart you could be under a sane government; if you’re stuck in a demented socialist command economy, like North Korea, you’re not going to achieve much. That’s not (in my opinion) to say that IQ doesn’t matter — I think it does matter for individual outcomes, and aggregate outcomes are made up of individual outcomes. But it’s probably not the biggest problem facing us at the moment. It applies mostly at the margin, among people who are already positioned more or less equally.

First off, because I think IQ is overrated. There are plenty of underachieving high IQ people out there.

Reminds me of the book “Rich Kid Smart Kid” by Robert Kiyosaki. In it he mentions Kathy Kolbe, who came up with 12 kinds of genius. IQ is only one of them and often is not the most important for success. I tried to find a quote identifying each one, it’s been a few years since I’d read the book. I was unsuccessful but did find this:
http://blpsilva.wordpress.com/.....elligence/

Good stuff.

Taeyoung, Korea is a great example, can’t believe I missed that.

Asian Man, great questions, but I haven’t answered your comment yet because I think the next (and final) part of the series will address those very issues.

It sounds like you haven’t come across La Griffe du Lion. If you had read him, or anyway if you had read his correction of the basic thesis in Lynn and Vanhanen’s “IQ and the Wealth of Nations”, you’d be familiar with the idea that the main factor preventing some nation’s GDP from lining up neatly on a regression line with the avg. IQ of their citizens is if they are in fact socialist command economies as opposed to predominately market/capitalist ones.

La Griffe further refines the analysis with his trademark impeccable high order statistical analysis, by looking at the “smart fraction” in countries.

Your examples (India, China, Germany) can be taken to show that you can depress the ability to function of people who can function at a high level with a screwy political system. They don’t necessarily show that a non-screwy system will elevate folks who can’t function at a high level, they really give you no evidence either way.

Your assumption that Germany is homogeneous – maybe it’s true, maybe not. Germany was united under the Kaiser only in the nineteenth century, before that it was the Princely States for hundreds of years, with lots of serfs stuck on the estates they were born to. So I don’t know about homogeneity – probably, but not sure.

Your examples (India, China, Germany) can be taken to show that you can depress the ability to function of people who can function at a high level with a screwy political system. They don?t necessarily show that a non-screwy system will elevate folks who can?t function at a high level, they really give you no evidence either way.

Sure, there is plenty of evidence. In Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks, White Liberals, he shows that in the period post-Slavery, pre-Welfare State, blacks were making huge gains and catching up, and black illegitimacy rates were actually on par with those of whites. What’s the alternative, how much worse can it get for blacks? It’s at least worth a shot.

It’s clear that your knowledge of politics and economics is lacking, and you have a crude, 2-dimensional view of the world. East Germany and China were not “nanny-states”, they were totalitarian dictatorships. India was another country whose leaders had authoritarian tendencies (see: Indira Gandhi). How the hell do you explain the wealth of the Scandinavian welfare states, who still have pretty high productivity? You seem utterly unable to distinguish between welfare capitalism, which is roughly the economic ideology of Western Europe (capitalism w/ social safety net), and communism (State runs EVERYTHING, and minimal trade w/ non-communist countries.

First off, semantics aside Coco, who cares? The point is, they’re all places where wealth is redistributed and there is high government involvement. To differing degrees, yes, but you get the point.

How the hell do you explain the wealth of the Scandinavian welfare states, who still have pretty high productivity?

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/510

For starters. Also, Scandinavia works because they have SMALL countries, were mostly RACIALLY HOMOGENOUS and with UNIVERSALLY HIGH LEVELS OF EDUCATION.

We have to watch the Scandinavian model over the next 10, 20, 30 years and see if they can maintain the high tax, high employment situation they have there now that there is the current influx of immigration and lack of assimilation by said immigrants. The Scandinavian countries traditionally had a very small, highly educated homogeneous population that allowed it to get away with a lot of things economically that most other countries couldn’t. All these factors working in their favor are currently changing.

In such a climate people may be willing to pay higher taxes in order to achieve commonly held goals. But ?common goals? are much harder to come by in larger, more heterogeneous populations with lots of unskilled and poorly educated people to take care of.

[...] Blacks and IQ, Part 2.5 [...]

[...] Blacks and IQ, Part 2.5 [...]

I love the East v. West Germany arguments. I mean, it’s a perfect “experiment” of identical people. Reminds me of a Hayek quote: “East and West Germany almost provide a controlled scientific experiment. Here are people of the same blood, the same civilization, the same level of technical skill and knowledge, torn asunder by the accidents of warfare, yet adopting radically different methods of social organization – central direction and the market. The results are crystal clear. East Germany, not West Germany, had to build a wall to keep its citizens from leaving.” – Hayek, The Road to Serfdom.

PrivatePiggs last blog post..Interesting Reading?

Scandinavia works because they have SMALL countries, were mostly RACIALLY HOMOGENOUS and with UNIVERSALLY HIGH LEVELS OF EDUCATION.

Beautiful. My wife is Swedish and I have lived in several different European countries. People always asked me why the US did not go with a “Scandinavian-style” free-everything welfare state. I used to say the same thing: Sweden is physically the size of California, population-wise is the size of New York City, and everybody looks/thinks/acts/smells/believes roughly the same thing. I mean, Communism has proven to be a failed policy, but I could make it work in my home, could I not? I could control every aspect of nearly every portion of my entire family’s life, and while it might be unpleasant, it would be feasible. Now take it to the National level and people starve to death.

The smaller and the more homogeneous the population, the much easier it is to make a “system” work – at least for a time.

PrivatePiggs last blog post..Interesting Reading?

Man is a creature of circumstance. Period. If you go back suffciently in history and transplant all the people from Europe to Africa and vice versa the world would still be approximately where it is today (of course with minor adjustments in case more countries adopted free market policies). Point being that even in Africa a free society with market oriented policies will do better than a totalitarian/communist society, meaning that the IQ of people in these African countries will probably be higher than those in other African countries. Just see how Mugabe is screwing up Zimbabwe. His actions will haunt even black Zimbabweans for decades to come.

“”India went through a socialist period where everything was centrally planned and free market principles were abandoned and wealth redistributed and property rihts compromised. The country went into the shitter. People became lazier, no accountability was set, the economy and productivity went down, work ethic went down the tubes. Free-market capitalism was introduced and the country thrived and is now a powerhouse. Same race in both scenarios, same relative IQs. “”…………………

…………………….

One of India’s most (if not THE most) literate, functional and wealthy states is run by communists – Kerala.

Likewise, one of India’s most illiterate states is also run by communists – West Bengal.

India’s communist party is HUGE and active, even today.

And to be fair, the same “class” of people who were getting educated and moving ahead during the hey day of India’s socialism, are the same class that are doing so today under a liberalized economy and free market.

India’s post-British Raj era socialism actually helped the country for some time. I would’nt use India as an example for anything unless you’ve been there and done extensive research on the country. The country is truly a dance of opposites. We have hundreds of languages and cultures all within the space of half of the USA (i think).

Victory to Mother India!

(but down with Indian guys)