MSM Editorials of Ricci

On Monday, the Ricci v. DeStefano was ruled in favor of the firefighters by a 5-4 decision. This represents the first high-profile affirmative action/race-based hiring case since the 2003 University of Michigan Law school ruling. The Ricci case pertains to the race/intelligence debate as HBD underpins the disparate racial testing scores. Unsurprisingly, this consistent facet of standardized testing has been altogether absent from public discourse concerning Ricci. Ironically, the unthinkable fact of racial intelligence differences could easily place these test results, and the subsequent controversy, into the proper context. Namely, these scores are nothing new.

Assuming not one MSM source would mention HBD, I decided to investigate what the MSM thought of the decision. First, I'll provide the appropriate explanation of the case, from Sailer:

However, it never seems to occur to Bazelon to look at the countless similar situations in which whites, on average, both out-test and out-perform blacks and Hispanics. For example, New Haven’s own Yale Law School makes intensive use of the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). It has a black-white gap comparable to the New Haven firefighter’s tests: the median black law school hopeful would score at only the 12th percentile among whites.

Now let's look at the other side. From the USA Today opinion section, which covers views from their editorial board and columnists:

The other message from the decision is that rigid tests are a lousy way to fill leadership positions in public safety departments. New Haven could also drop its test in favor of "assessment centers" to measure officer candidates. Rather than just test scores, this method relies on role playing, emergency scenarios, group discussions, written exercises and interviews to assess potential officers.

The war against objectivity soldiers on. From The Washington Post editorial:

a city board ultimately declined to certify the test, in part because of questions about whether it was irrevocably and discriminatorily flawed.

Fails to mention that a testing consultant deemed the test was fair and then offered another independent study of it that the city refused. Racial egalitarian assumption underlies this statement.

We had urged the justices to send the case back to the trial court to determine, once and for all, whether New Haven was right in concluding the test was discriminatory and unusable...But the justices acted too soon and assumed too much, and in the process unjustifiably chipped away at a law meant to protect against unfairness.

Clearly, these columnists think "unfairness" applies to the actual test. From The Boston Globe editorial:

And they are sure to fuel opposition to affirmative action, which is still sorely needed in a diverse society.

Well I think we know where this is headed.

the four dissenting justices have the better case. No one has a right to a promotion.

Of course not. But does passing an oral exam/interview and a test with relevance to on-job skills make a good case for promotion?

Minority applicants have trouble moving up in the department, when social networks and even the union representing firefighters seem stacked toward white applicants

But just blame it on whitey. OK I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here. Yet, the OBJECTIVE test was implemented to mitigate unfair department politics.

The city went so far as to pay $100,000 to a testing consultant to develop an exam free of racial bias. What’s strange is that the city failed to take simpler steps that might have yielded more minority officers. New Haven gives preference in hiring to city residents, most of whom are black or Hispanic, but not in promotion decisions.

Another expensive test yielding the same old results!? And of course they don't give preference to city residents. Being a captain and planning a urgent rescue is a little more important and takes a little more ability than sitting behind a desk filling out forms or taking phone calls. They use affirmative action for hiring and not promotion in order to put some of the NAMs in menial positions. Thereby, they avoid discrimination lawsuits, but do not diminish department effectiveness.

Finally, from the San Francisco Chronicle editorial:

The U.S. Supreme Court undermined a key part of federal civil-rights employment law on affirmative action Monday with its ruling in favor of white firefighters in Connecticut who claimed they were unfairly denied promotions because of their race.

Remember civil-rights only apply to NAMs, not WCMs.

In vigorous dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said there was "substantial evidence of multiple flaws in the tests" and the ruling would make it harder to challenge hidden biases in workplaces. Barriers to opportunity in this society, though sometimes subtle or unintentional, still exist.

"Multiple flaws" means white people score better than NAMs. That must mean every test is "flawed". "Barriers to opportunity" (always the kind you never notice): please see this.

Let me make clear that the black firefighters who did not achieve promotion are still to be commended for their bravery and public service. Criticism should be directed solely at the cowardly New Haven city administration and not the individuals their decision was intended to defend.

An Outsider's Perspective

I'm always curious how an outsider (especially a liberal "anti-racist") views the HBD-osphere. A blogger named Will Shetterly came across VDare and was shocked, just shocked, that it wasn't entirely populated by white Christian males (WCM).

I went to their Wikipedia page and saw they run columnists "from various ethnic backgrounds, including Filipina-American (Malkin), Cuban (George Borjas), one Native American (David A. Yeagley), Jewish/Asian-American (Marcus Epstein), and Japanese-American (Lance T. Izumi).

But he gets it anyway:

That suggested they're conservative, but not racist.

So having non-WCM amongst the membership means the given group is not racist. Well, I guess it worked for Reverend Wright.

The great part is when he makes his way to HalfSigma:

It was immediately clear that Half Sigma is as racist as they come. For example, he says:

School teachers are the only people who are able to first-hand experience the inability of the average black child to learn what the average white child is able to learn.

He quotes HS again. I imagine after reading this, only Tim Wise could calm him down:

NAM is an acronym for "non-Asian minority," and it's a significant distinction from just "minority" because Asians (including Indians) don't cause any social problems

Bringing back Eugenics...

In this post and the resulting comment thread, the implementation of eugenics, mainly by sterilization, was discussed. Eugenics was originally conceived by Sir Francis Galton, Darwin's brilliant polymath cousin. From his intense interest and research in heredity (even proposing trans-racial adoption studies), Galton could be considered the first intellectual HBDer. Through the early part of the 20th century, eugenics was regarded favorably amongst the elite, including luminaries such as Winston Churchill, Alexander Graham Bell, and Ronald Fisher,. Social engineering hit a "rough patch" in the middle of the century, but recent genetics and neuroscience research has reinvigorated the subject.

As most of the comments mention, the initial attempts at avoiding dsygenic fertility must be politically and socially palatable. It's imperative that early programs target generally agreed upon parties and do so through voluntary participation. We can't immediately designate very low IQ individuals because of the incendiary conflict over objective intelligence and how it predicts behavior.

Audacious Epigone linked to this charity: Project Prevention. According to their website:

Project Prevention offers cash incentives to women that are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol to use long-term or permanent birth control. Our mission is to reduce the number of substance exposed births to zero. Because every baby deserves a sober start!

Notice the language used in this goals statement. It doesn't pontificate about the doom of civilization or mention NAM drug abuse statistics. It focuses primarily on the unfortunate children and alleviating costs for the parents. They continue:

In doing so, Project Prevention seeks to reduce the burden of this social problem on taxpayers, trim down social worker caseloads, and alleviate from our clients the burden of having children that will potentially be taken away. Unlike incarceration, Project Prevention extremely cost effective and does not punish the participants.

See, they're helping the drug abusers! Not punishing them!

Maybe I'm being cynical here and they're actually being transparent about their goals. However, I surmise many behind this project share our views: that low IQ feritility (found disproportionately higher amongst drug abusers) will unequivocally cause downward trends in economy and culture. I think this represents a good (and possible) start.

r/K Selection Theory and Asian Breakdancers

According to J. Phillipe Rushton, as described in Race, Evolution, and Behavior, r/K selection theory can be applied in creating a racial hierarchy for almost any human trait or behavior. r/K selection theory supposes that evolution is driven by environment in either the r- or K- direction (this is connected to how races evolved apart on different continents). Rushton applied this theory to races and the observed average differences between them. In his application, K- is represented by Asians, blacks represent the other end of the spectrum at r-, and whites are in the middle. Sailer has dubbed this "Rushton's Rule of Three". See chart here for a summary of the results.

So what the hell does this have to do with Asians breakdancing? Asian breakdancing events are common in heavily Asian areas (elite colleges, urban areas in California). In 2007, America's Best Dance Crew, MTV's hip-hop dance show, featured the country's best dance "crews" competing for a cash prize. Being a race realist, I undoubtedly recognized the extreme overrepresentation of Asians amongst the competitors. Above are the winners of Season Three. Notice anything?

According to Google, Asian Breakdancing and the related "yigger" (yellow ni**er) are legitimate phenomenon. I was first introduced to Asian "thugs" after an acquaintance attended the Center for Talented Youth math camp and told me all the Asians wore FUBU (ironically, founded by Jews) and Timberland boots. My parents didn't want to spend money on me doing math over the summer. They had cheaper ways of getting rid of me. But I digress, back to Asians.

High achieving minority groups like Asians, East Indians, and Jews often suffer from racial rebellion. The movie "Harold and Kumar" follows a brilliant East Indian medical student who smokes pot just to avoid becoming a stereotypical Indian doctor. The Asians that partake in these identifiably black activities are engaging in nonconformity against their culture. By breakdancing, using ghetto slang, adopting black fashion trends, and wearing ostentatious hairstyles, the yigger advertises his dissent against society's assumed view of Asian males. The choice of black culture and not white culture is a conscious one. The Asian breakdancer chooses black culture to most effectively rebuke the image of a self-conscious nerd.

According to r/K theory, for almost every human trait, blacks and Asians are at opposite ends of the spectrum. For Rushton's personality characteristics (aggressiveness, cautiousness, impulsivity, self-concept, and sociability), the two racial groups hold the extreme positions. While black culture glorifies bravado, machismo, and physicality, Asian culture teaches self-control, reticence, and academic success. By engaging in black cultural norms, Asian men can associate themselves with these socially dominant traits.

This is especially true in breakdancing, where outrageous flair, battling, and overt showmanship are encouraged. These Asians attempt to switch the r/K scale, distancing themselves from the Mr. Miyagi archetype towards the physically agile, alpha black male. He doesn't choose white culture as his substitute because it's harbors many of the same values that Asian culture does, especially in the context of middle-class suburbia. Much like a Disney Star performing a racy nude scene, black norms allow yiggers to publicly showoff their against type behavior.

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HBD, Social Engineering, and Does this Contradict Individualism?

Update: Some of the comments have suggested implementing voluntary or incentive-laden programs to dissuade people from having children. For some reason, people still find this inhuman. Apparently, allowing one to have control over his own body is inhuman!

The HBD discussion eventually veers into implications for public policy. The obvious, and most commonly mentioned, topics include the futility of diversity programs and lifting the ban on taboo avenues of research. While these positions are sometimes voiced in mainstream discourse, other more extreme policies exist almost entirely amongst the HBD-osphere. These policies vary from benign measures such as fixed academic tracking to more intrusive endeavors like forced sterilization. These potential initiatives, evoking images of totalitarian and fascist government regimes have been relegated to science fiction and fantasy movies. The typifying example is Gattaca, a 1990's movie tacitly supporting The Blank Slate in a society where jobs are predetermined by genetically engineered traits.

Because acceptance of HBD represents a social sin of the highest order, almost all adherents are unafraid to offer opinions free of patronization or euphemisms. As a result, HBDers regard empathy as generally subordinate to efficiency and fairness in judging potential political innovations. People are considered inherently valuable, but in the context of a program, they're considered capital or economic quantities rather than unique personalities.

So what are these programs? I'm mainly thinking of sterilization (distinguishing between forced and voluntary), widespread IQ testing, adopting Chinese style academic tracking and testing, , very limited immigration, and placing people into value groups based on economic worth (doctor worth more than janitor). That's a sparse list. Please add more in the comments.

I'll focus on sterilization because it's the most polemical, and probably most effective, suggestion. Most people consider sterilization to be cruel and inhuman. Of course, I disagree. Provided that genetics, especially as the relevant population increases, predicts future behavior, it's justifiable that certain individuals will undoubtedly have children who do nothing to support society. In fact, many of these individuals will be a destructive and parasitic force. Sterilization programs would identify incubators of potential anti-social persons and stop the problem before it begins. Ostensibly, individuals with low-IQ and violent criminals would be the prime targets.

But with all these programs, isn't the government becoming an intervening force bordering on an authoritarian system? Don't we want to limit the reach of government? Yes, but sometimes it's necessary that government protect its productive constituency, such as with police officers and the military. It's also necessary that government spends its scarce resources efficiently. Thus, it must classify and sort people according to their ability and their potential, including that of their future children. In doing so, the government commits a sin against individualism: grouping individuals into faceless collectives.

This seems to contradict a widely held premise within the HBD community: an individual, through his innate ability AND work ethic, should have the freedom to pursue success and accomplish it based solely on his own merit. Yet, by not allowing Laquisha and Jerome to have children, aren't we unfairly assuming their children will be of similar IQ and act like those within that IQ range? OK, yes we are and this does contradict treating everyone as an individual.

But government deals with societies and concessions to that society must be made. Individuals vary and in the process of dispassionately grouping individuals, we do a disservice to a scant few. However, with such large sample sizes, variation will be nonexistent and our society will undoubtedly prosper from these initiatives. Thus, the objective of government is successful: assuring progress and stability of society. I'll appeal to utilitarianism. I've heard others in the HBD-osphere agree that utilitarianism should guide most political decisions as maximizing utility is the best approach for large scale societies. Occasionally, we'll miss out on undiscovered genius, but society's well-being must be the preeminent factor in political decision making.

So, while these programs do mirror other social engineering ventures, they're justified by countless studies linking objective test scores and real-world achievement. The HBDer can simultaneously support the ideals of freedom and individualism, while also noting the existence of group characteristics and subsequently applying previous experimental conclusions in avoiding a dsygenic society.

Tell me if you've heard this joke before...

A researcher at Charles Drew University (?) has come to a shockingly innovative conclusion regarding disparities in health and disease frequency. Wait for it, wait for it.

According to Ms. Harawa, health differences can only be understood in the context of "how today's racial categories evolved from the negative assumptions made hundreds of years ago to justify slavery." She also states (you won't believe this either!) that these differences "are linked to many factors, including economics, access to health care and the impact of living in a race conscious society."

Here's the article: Race Origins and Health Disparities

Apparently, in her exhaustive study of the field, she must have missed this kind of important breakthrough in medicine and race.

The world's first race specific medicine was put on the market a few years ago.

BiDil, a drug combination for treating heart failure, has proved three times more effective in black patients than it has for their white counterparts, its manufacturer claims. In trials, it improved survival rates among black people who had suffered heart failure by 47 per cent. In white patients, the figure was only 15 per cent.

But I'm sure this has nothing to do with race being biological. I mean, it only works on poor blacks, right?

Mark Sanford, Hypocrisy, and Subjective Morality

Mark Sanford has been flogged this week for having an extramarital affair. You see, Sanford is a Republican who preaches "family values". As a result, the liberals are going crazy again! They can't get enough of conservative scandal. I had imagined these liberals, the ones actively fighting for gay marriage, would be angry over someone breaking his sacred bond. But, I am mistaken. Rather, liberals are just pissed that a man of "family values" would engage in such hypocritical behavior. To hell with that whole marriage thing (well unless it involves gays).

Here's a Google Search of "Mark Sanford Hypocrite". Just peruse the first page, you'll get the point.

From the Daily Kos' article, "Mark Sanford, another upstanding republican...hypocrite". Notice how the author doesn't even admonish the infidelity:

Now, I'm not going to sit here and judge this man's affair. Life is complicated. Relationships are complicated. He must have reached some crossroad. That's not what is at issue here. It is the way he did it.

Yeah, well, the republicans have destroyed our economy, destroyed their moral authority... And now they have two of their own - two people who flew under the "I'm a moral Christian and you're not because you're a democrat" flag - within the last month that showed themselves for the hypocrites they really were.

I posted this comment on HalfSigma, summing up my position on this "sanctimonious" politician:

Why is hypocrisy such a big issue? An action's morality is dependent solely on the basis of the act, not the previously voiced ideals of the actor. Who cares if someone is a hypocrite? It doesn't change the nature of what he did, neither making it better nor worse. It's just a shallow ad hominem tactic used by shallow minded individuals. If someone cheats on their wife, condemning it shouldn't be dependent on whether they have preached family values or not. Condemning it should be based on whether or not cheating on one's wife constitutes a morally deficient act.

Commenter 'Lugo' responded with this perspicacious analysis:

Exactly right, OneSTDV. If one must be perfect to advocate the good, then nobody can ever advocate the good, which is absurd. Liberalism, of course, must hold "hypocrisy" to be the highest or indeed the only sin, because liberalism does not believe in any absolute morality. If there is no absolute morality, and everyone determines for himself what is "good", then the only way to be "bad" is to violate what you yourself have decided is "good".

This got me thinking about a larger issue, one central to the conservative/liberal schism. Lugo, and I agree, believes liberalism is based on the notion of relativism or equivalently, the absence of objectivity. This manifests in liberal support for the despondent Arab and NAM cultures, using empathy as a means of law, and using personality and extracurriculars for college admissions. While conservatives deny their avoidance of value judgments, on what secular basis can I make these assertions? On what secular basis can I advocate that America has a better culture than Iraq or that Megan Fox is more attractive than Amy Winehouse?

The conundrum arises when one seeks to formulate and ultimately find a foundation for a morality system. Eventually, one must concede the basic tenants of any morality system as axiomatic and simply can not be justified through some other principle. So, the conservative can attempt to establish what he considers the most logical edicts and build his morality (or attractiveness or intelligence) system from that. But this still doesn't escape the lull of subjectivity. The liberal can invoke some other set of principles and his morality system is on equal grounds as the conservative's. Going back to the example, I can say America is better based on principle A, while a liberal can argue Iraq is better due to principle B. If neither of us can appeal to an external metric, our systems are fundamentally equal.

Here is where the notion of objectivity arises. Basically, I'm going to end up with an moral system based on assumptions (the hallmark of subjectivity), yet still have my system be supported by objective measures. I'll discuss morality, but this argument can be applied almost universally. This "axioms to real world observation" process has proven successful in mathematics and science. Euclid's Geometry was verified by real world observations, as was Newton's Three Laws of Motion and Schrodinger's governing equation of Quantum Mechanics.

A moral system is a set of laws intended to guide behavior and conduct. It defines matters of right and wrong. But these dictates aren't merely nebolous concepts; rather they are applied to whole societies. Thus, we can conclude the main objective of a moral system is to guide the actions of individuals in order to produce stable communities and societies. So to measure the viability of any moral system, we simply appeal to standards of society stability (controlling for demographics), like crime rate, discrmination rates, economics, and other quantities.

As an example, in the issue of culture, I define "good" aspects to include equality of gender, equality of oppurtunity, free pursuit of capital and "bad" aspects to include subjugation of groups, overt religious intervention, and totalitarian governments. Countries that practice the "good" aspects more than the "bad" aspects, like America, seem to prosper at much higher rate than countries that pracitce the "bad" more than the "good", like Iraq or Communist Russia. Thus, the cultural relativism of the liberals is deemed absurd.

Are HBDers too Hard on NAMs?

As I mentioned here, myself and other HBD bloggers have been called out by 'Obsidian' at Roissy.

Obsidian said:

Think about that for a moment. Ed McMahon. Subprime loans. On its face, the two don’t even belong in the same sentence.

Yet, there it was, for all the world to see-and it serves, I think, as a stinging and stark rebuke, to the oft-repeated notion, led by among others, Steve Sailer and other voices in the “HBDosphere” that it is NAMs, socalled, who are to blame for the sadsack state of our economy, via these “toxic assets”.

Again: Ed McMahon. Subprime loans. Let that sink in for a moment.

As I stated here, anti-HBDers often blatantly overlook maxims of rudimentary statistics. This is one data point. Huge amounts of data are not contradicted by an anomalous data point. This amounts to trivial anecdotal evidence.

Obsidian said:

of course, anything and everything bad that happens in our country, must have the involvement of “NAMs” at its core.

I believe this is his main point: HBDers are too quick to jump on NAM failure, while ignoring white failure and similarly destructive behavior. Here, Obsidian commits another common mistake when arguing against HBD. He doesn't fully grasp the concept of rates and how it applies to groups of differing populations. I'll provide an example to illustrate. Asians have a very low rate of violent behavior. Yet in Asian countries, almost every single violent criminal is of Asian ancestry.

Yes, whites commit crimes and they get AIDS, but these social problems are dominated by black actors. Blacks comprise only 12% of the population, but their relative proportion for violent crime, mortgage defaulting, incarceration, drug abuse, and teen pregnancy are all multiple times higher than that of whites and Asians. HBDers focus on NAMs because their communities are enveloped by socially destructive behaviors. This has ramifications for the entire country, especially in the context of "diversity" programs and social unrest. Immigration, mostly Hispanic, is also relevant to the HBD discussion.

Further, as I stated in the previous post, affirmative action and other diversity programs are not placing unqualified whites in higher positions than their ability warrants. The government didn't encourage banks to loan money to unstable whites. NAM underperformance provides clear evidence that these programs are futile in advancing black status. Additionally, NAM failure substantiates the claims of racial average intelligence and behavioral differences. It constitutes a verifiable response to the anti-white rhetoric blaming white racism for black's problems. Basically, it's not us, it's you. GuyWhite posted this in his comment section:

Blacks get affirmative action, minority set asides, Black History Month, uplift programs, etc. But you destroy everything. Long term, a neighborhood is better off getting nuked than getting blacks. Look at Nagasaki and Herosima. A few years after being nuked, they were rebuilt and became nice, productive, pleasant cities. Why? Because Japs live there and they are smart, productive people. Now look at Detroit. As soon as blacks moved in, the city got destroyed. There isn’t a single exception to this.

NAMs seem to be merely capable of producing destitute communities.

Pro-White?

There's been discussion recently amongst HBD blogs about ethnocentrism. Discussion has broached pro-white advocacy and the notion of white collectivism as a potent political force. Inductivist recently concluded that all nationalism, including that of whites, is inherently counterproductive. Sailer's "citizenism" seems to support the idea of individual merit and responsibility, while stressing the government's duty to help its current constituency. He seems to arrive at the same conclusion as Inductivist. Audacious Epigone recently posted about the relatively high rates of minority racialism, noting the conspicuous lack of racialism amongst whites. He concludes that the liberal narrative stressing the prevalence of a white oppressive class is assuredly fallacious.

I tend to agree with these bloggers. I do not consider myself explicitly pro-white. Instead of pushing forward a campaign for collective white ascendancy, I am interested in first, protecting the freedom of whites, and second, reclaiming and revising the racial dialogue in America.

The first objective requires the abolishment of affirmative action, minority set-asides, diversity organizations, and other similar programs. These programs, while not doing so explicitly, undermine a white person's ability to appropriate merit-based achievement. The propagation of the "white privilege" farce is obscuring the real problem of subjugating qualified whites to "diversity" initiatives. The goal of HBDers should not be whites achieving a higher average status, but rather protecting individual whites against racialist programs. I don't care about disparate rates of accomplishment or if whites dominate a certain field. I'm only interested in whites not being automatically relegated to a bottom tier position based on supposed white nepotism or inheritance.

I'm also concerned with the growing amount of racialism exhibited by minority groups and how this may affect the ire directed at whites. As minority groups grow in size, their commensurate power grows as politicians seek to gain their favor. The "Great Society" legislation of the 60's and the amnesty movement for illegals are harbingers of a future where whites face active discrimination and a diminished voice due to the efforts of "anti-racists" like Tim Wise. HBDers, by stressing racial genetics and innate individual ability, champion the best argument for supporting the individual and not allowing regressive evolution into a collectivist society of identity driven demographics.

Second, I see the HBD community (and similarly un-PC groups like freerepublic.com and pundits like Malkin, Coulter, Beck, and Savage) as a means to reclaim the racial paradigm that is slowly drifting towards religious zeal amongst the left. The contemporary American discussion of race is centered on grievance, guilt, and apology, all emanating from whites. The narrative, largely conceived by leftists and their elite universities, depicts America as inherently evil, racist, and stagnant in racial affairs since the Civil War. They grouse about institutional bias, "blink" racism, and other social pathologies that are simply an excuse for black underperformance (a situation easily explained by HBD). Hell, we just apologized for slavery!

This revisionist history, replete with stories of oppressors (whites) vs. victims (blacks), does a disservice to this country and unfairly stigmatizes whites. Educational systems preach the doctrine of Diversity and Equality, while implying these requisite facets of society depend on the inclusion of NAMs, especially blacks. The mainstream media and polite conversation have adopted a stance of compliance to NAM complaints. Views such as racial intelligence differences, free market individualism, the higher NAM crime rate and other anti-social behavior are all considered completely taboo for civil discussion. Despite the merits of our arguments, the perspective offered here and on other similar sites has been relegated to the fringe. Blacks and their white liberal enablers currently hold a monopoly on all racial discussion. Their grasp persists through intimidation and occasionally overt ostracism of the offending party. Their censure of America being dominated by exclusive hatemongers unfairly neglects the fundamental, and honorable, principles of justice and freedom that our society practices better than any other one in the world.

America can hold onto its status as a world power if these problems are addressed. HBD must become scientifically and socially mainstream as it will significantly weaken the discrimination model offered by liberals. Whites should not mobilize as a monolith, but rather aggressively challenge specious claims of widespread white oppression. Finally, the racial discussion must swing from the skewed version we currently experience. Opposition to racialist programs and race racketeers like Michelle Obama and Judge Sotomayor must be voiced. Honest truths about ability, crime, and culture must be advertised without apprehension.

I've Been Called Out

At Roissy, Obsidian has penned a thoughtful comment regarding the DC Metro Crash and the supposed response of the HBD-osphere. (I skim through Roissy occasionally, though I'm an ardent believer in Game as a result of watching Vh1's "The Pick-up Artist" especially the second season.) Given Obsidian's use of the term "Holla Back", I imagine this is 'Salaam something Mu yada' who used to regularly comment on iSteve. He contends that HBDers focus too heavily, and too eagerly, on black/brown failure while ignoring the preponderance of white failure.

First off, thanks for including me with the more established names of the HBD-sphere. Second, I actually don't fully disagree. I've actually referenced this opinion several times on this blog. Third, the argument uses a common fallacy that I'll note later in a more detailed response. Fourth, the entirety of the HBD worldview is not confined to genetics and biological predilections. Rather, it's also a response to social currents largely contained in the topic of race and its impact on political discourse.

I'm gonna get so wasted man! Woooo!!

More evidence that college is no longer a way to obtain job training or a process of intellectual growth. Rather, it's a necessary token of social capital [edited] amongst middle and upper class white suburbanites.

College Drinking On the Rise:

At the same time, the proportion of students who reported recent heavy episodic drinking (sometimes called "binge drinking") rose from roughly 42 percent to 45 percent, and the proportion who admitted to drinking and driving in the past year increased from 26.5 percent to 29 percent.

Barack's Brilliance and Dreams From My Father

Over at a comment thread on HalfSigma, a commenter linked me to this article concerning the authorship of Obama's memoir, Dreams From my Father. I have yet to read his "famous" book, but I have skimmed through lengthy portions of it from Steve Sailer's astute analysis. In my opinion, it represents an absolutely brilliant writer, one who possesses a singular ability to craft prose. Dreams also presents a complex man capable of understanding intricate social and political situations and their relation to his individual struggle. He muses about esoteric topics concurrent with the common frailties of youth and young adulthood. All the while, the author presents these ruminations on race, class, and family (is it any surprise Barack would be obsessed with such topics?) contained in sentences reminiscent of Proust.

I admired the writing of Dreams, surely not due to its content, but rather the author's willingness to analyze common issues with an academic and cerebral bent. As a result, I conceded Barack's intelligence must reflect this impressive work and his achievements, such as Harvard Law Review President, were fairly obtained. Unforuntely, Cashill's article casts doubt that Obama was the sole contributor to the work. While this contentious claim may be somewhat sensational, it's somewhat consistent with the less than stellar work we know was produced by Obama himself (such as his defense of affirmative action where he uses obvious fallacies to underpin his points and fails to properly conjugate a verb at the bottom). This mediocrity (well, relative to his position) is especially apparent when Obama is forced to make extemporaneous statements, as his speech abounds with stammering and awkward pauses. I'll refrain from quoting Cashill's article because it presents the argument so well.

I contend Obama wrote a decent first draft that was subequently revised extensively by Ayers. This conclusion surely diminishes my estimate of Obama's impressive intellect. I would hope that the MSM would investigate these claims, but I doubt that will happen.

Teaching to the Test

Since the advent of No Child Left Behind and other accountability measures, a vocal number of educators have criticized "teaching to the test." They generally define this as incorporating a curriculum designed not for the overall benefit of the students but to explicitly create test score gains. It's odd that these critics consider the two options mutually exclusive, while I view them as concurrent objectives. Further, I propose both options should be necessary in any school system; thereby allowing accurate assessments of progress and providing a standard foundation classroom instruction.

Teaching to the test gets a bad rap because teachers don't like it. With the minimal experience I have in academic instruction, I actually sympathize with them, especially the inspired teachers genuinely invested in novel approaches to learning. But teacher opposition shouldn't be the impenetrable force it seems to be. Testing is necessary because it provides administration, states, and national institutions to track all those interesting statistics that never seem to change much anyway. Additionally, teaching to the test ensures teachers must follow a set system. Assuming the test covers the proper material (e.g. understanding trig relations by 9th grade), this requirement should simply reflect schools having good course material.

That's easy enough. But why exactly does everyone oppose teaching to the test? First, modern society has been fighting a war against objectivity. With objective metrics of achievement, the success of any person, student, teacher, or principal, can be accurately and fairly measured. The glib teacher's pet, the curmudgeon old English teacher, and the authoritarian principal are judged according to an objective standard. When one's value is dependent on actual accomplishment and not politics, people become wary they won't measure up.

Second, the educational romantics don't understand that teaching to the test is generally the best means to reach the lower half of the Bell Curve. They think this takes time away from more difficult, g-loaded study that would push students to their high potential. Yet, they're naive in the presumption that all children can handle highly g-loaded learning. Most children simply are unable to grasp the intellectual depth of a high level concept and then apply it in a novel situation. (See Real Education for a discussion of this.) This explains the disparity in scores between their own New York City exams and the Iowa Basic Skills Test for the Harlem Miracle students. For these children, we should revisit the days of rote memorization and basic rudimentary skills. This represents the peak of their potential and surely provides them with skills ordinarily applied in real-world settings.

"We are the World, We are the Children..."

I've written a number of posts discussing the fundamental strategies and underlying themes of liberalism and how these edicts are opposed by conservative thought. I've previously mentioned the importance of the self and his inherent value as being central to conservatism. What liberals do is break down the concept of self, attribute all valuable traits to society or inheritance (non-biological), then establish an infrastructure to replace one's personal characteristics with the "appropriate" ones.

First, liberals resolve to expurgate the concept of self. This process begins in early childhood, epitomized by the universal kindergarten phrase, "If you can't share with everyone, don't bring it." They might as well post, "...to each his own need" all around the room. Further, through the abolishing of tracked courses and merely participation grades in gym, just to name two, liberals seek to dismiss the notion of inherent ability. This is important because it teaches children (and adults) that "human equality is a contingent fact of history". Thus, gifted kids doubt the superiority of their intellect, attributing their success to luck, training, or culture. Besides grades, almost all positive reinforcement is provided on the basis of effort or participation and not actual accomplishment. Group learning and projects further obscures the individual's ability.

Second, after successfully flattening the ability distribution, liberals blame society for all uneven outcomes. This is well-known to anyone familiar with the HBD debate so I'll be terse here. Feminists pontificate about Western standards of beauty, attempting to define beauty "as solely in the eye of the beholder". Educational romantics teach children if "they believe, they will achieve", altogether ignoring the omnipresent Bell Curve. Racialists and similar groups criticize society for institutional bias and attribute all success to "privilege", inheritance, or nepotism. They contend society has it all wrong and everything one has is due to that unjust society. Feeling regretful about "cheating" in order to garner success, many are eager to let the liberals tell them what's right.

Third, liberals have built a powerful infrastructure to shift the cultural zeitgeist. After having the concept of self completely dissolved and being convinced that society is built on inherent evils, many are open to an "enlightened" concept of culture. The liberals have created a rather duplicitous situation here, condemning society for silently imbuing us with all these horrible beliefs, yet engaging in the same sort of demagoguery to enact their preferred system. For those without a sense of self, they are willing to extricate society's evils and replace them with "better" ones. They feel guilty about achievement because it wasn't them, it was society unfairly choosing them. Advocating for equity, like distribution of wealth and NAM educational programs, is a way to mend our broken society. "War is Peace" and "Diversity is Strength" become their creed.

As described in Bernard Goldberg's Bias, the media is strongly left leaning. This causes a significant skewing of hot button issues, especially those concerning the topic of this blog: race and intelligence. Further, the elite university system has adopted the Cult of Equality as its default religion. Indoctrinate U provides an in-depth view of the educational prejudice. Finally, polite society has adopted these norms. Now, dinner party guests, water cooler gossips, and movies are deathly afraid of crossing the PC line. The individual is taught to be unnecessarily modest despite his considerable gifts, taught to treat everyone as equally valuable (including criminals, animals, and even fat girls), taught to tolerate any seemingly unjust foreign cultural norm. The individual is taught to conform, often fearful of the consequences of dissent.

[OK, this is a little sensationalistic, but don't tell me it's that far from reality.]

Suggestions?

I have a bunch of potential topics to cover, but I'm curious if anyone would like me to write a blog post on a specific subject. It should be connected to race and/or intelligence, though don't be afraid of suggesting something only tenuously associated with these categories.

I'll pick as many as I like and write a post on each. So what should I write about?

"Wise Latina Woman" has Nothing on These

While browsing the Internet, I randomly came across the following quotes in a book entitled: Fifty Black Women Who Changed America.

From Johnnetta Cole, prominent 20th century educator:

It is black women who are able to see out of their blackness, out of their womanness, often out of their poverty, and sometimes out of their privilege. So I believe it is going to be black women who will find the answers to many of the problems we face today. [Preceding sentence clearly implies "we" refers to entire United State.]

From Alice Walker, a late 20th century writer:

For where my duty as a black poet, writer, and teacher would take me, people would have little need for Keats, Byron or even Robert Frost, but much need of Gwendolyn Brooks and Margaret Walker.

Emotional Basis of "Acting White"

Speaking with proper grammar, achieving high grades, and listening to authority figures are all behaviors associated with an "Oreos" or black kids who "act white". "Acting white" represents the supposedly anti-intellectual aspects of black culture. In the HBD debate, researchers often appeal to this depressive social impulse in explaining the achievement gap. In my opinion, politically correct sociologists, eager to patronize their favorite minority, renamed an already frequent structure amongst the white student population.

Clearly these researchers have never heard high achieving, complicit white students referred to as nerds, geeks, dorks, losers, goodie-goodies, etc. In any racial group, there is peer pressure against high academic achievement, yet many offer this as an excuse solely for black underperformance. While this symmetry makes sense to HBDers, it largely fails with other groups. In this post, I'll counter the basic arguments relevant to "acting white".

Basically, I think the condemnation of "acting white" is a defense mechanism, an emotional response to perceived inferiority and failure. Blacks, especially in mixed schools (where the "white" pejorative is most common), are usually aware of the gap, especially if they notice racial distributions in the various academic tracks. As a result of genetic predisposition, most blacks do not have the natural mental acuity to succeed academically, especially in a school with a large Asian and white population. To placate their fragile ego (I actually blame society a little here because blue-collar work is denigrated), they repudiate the entire academic process as "white".

An analogous situation occurs with fat girls, the kind that allude sardonically their heft yet also dismiss slenderness as anorexic or nasty. All fat girls desire to have a slim, sleek body like those of Maxim models, but they're acutely aware this physique is unattainable given their genetics. Most blacks (the ones with low IQ) and fat girls understand the value of academia and physique, respectively, yet because both are afraid of failure, they reject the offending institution wholesale.

Additionally, the individual propagating this argument will define mainstream, intellectually based success as "white" and then excuse the average black person for feeling conflicted by engaging in said activities. He will argue that blacks feel conflicted by attempting to succeed within the white power structure, thereby somewhat disowning their cultural background. Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis is all about this topic. She dishearteningly notes how successful blacks integrate:

I hoped that these findings would help me conclude that despite the high degree of identification with whites as a result of the educational and occupational path that black Princeton alumni follow, the alumni would still maintain a certain level of identification with the black community. However, these findings do not support this possibility.

She also outright states that a white power structure actually exists:

Obama writes that the path she chose by attending Princeton would likely lead to her "further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant."

Yet, one wonders if blacks are really as conflicted as they represent themselves to be. Is success within an exclusively white domain always condemned by blacks as race-treason? Of course not. In intellectual affairs, blacks often use this excuse to hide the reality of HBD, but occasionally, "sticking it to the Man" is a far more important stimulus. We note several seminal instances celebrated by blacks almost entirely due to success in a white domain. These events are celebrated primarily because that success was justified by white metrics.

Some examples include Jackie Robinson breaking into the all-white Major League Baseball, Satchel Paige's Negro League play being ignored in favor of his MLB success, Jesse Owens winning four gold medals at the Olympics, blacks starting to dominate the poor, urban Jewish sport of basketball, and Joe Louis beating Max Schmeling. These athletic achievements illustrate that blacks consider dominance of whites to be the highest standard of success.

Yet, this isn't exclusive to sports. Individuals like Oprah who was the first black talk show host, Halle Berry, Dorothy Dandridge, and Denzel Washington who won the first Oscars, Michelle Obama being a deified public figure to black children, Maya Aneglou and Toni Morrison writing poetry (admittedly Afrocentric) represent the same ideal. The ultimate success of a black person in an exclusively white domain is Barack Obama. Despite his Ivy League degree, articulate speaking patterns, and lack of street cred, blacks wholeheartedly embraced him simply because he was overtaking whites in the whitest of institutions, the Presidency.

Clearly, blacks are very willing to advertise the "white" accomplishments of other blacks. I surmise this offsets the supposed ubiquity of the "acting white" cultural hindrance.

Gambling Study

As I noted here, long term gambling for profit is an irrational activity. A new study has looked into the neurological basis of gambling. Their findings illustrate how gambling is largely an emotionally, and not rationally, based process.

The study found that rodents treated with drugs that reduced their levels of serotonin levels – associated with impulse control in humans –dramatically reduced their ability to play the odds. A drug that reduced dopamine levels – associated with pleasure in humans – improved their ability to optimize profits.

How Liberals View Minority Conservatives

In recent days, both HalfSigma and Audacious Epigone have posted about voting rates for minority groups. HS focused on the liberal bent of American Jews and AE categorized blacks as the most loyally Democratic voting block.

Unsurprisingly, different ethnic and racial groups tend to vote as a monolith for certain parties. The standard voting patterns of groups are well-known and an important parameter in establishing a successful political strategy. Yet, occasionally, anomalous outliers transcend their collectives, prioritizing objective values over group benefits. For this post, I'll focus on member of minority groups who promote conservative ideas.

To illustrate the point, I'll provide two examples that typify the situation. Mainly, I'm concerned with how liberals view this uncommon behavior and how their denouncement of it illuminates their basic motives in political processes.

Michael Savage was born Michael Wiener, to a Russian Jewish immigrant in New York City. He lived a nomadic existence (as a beatnik liberal with Allen Ginsburg and an herbal medicine specialist) until the early 1990's when he began an intensely iconoclastic talk radio program based in San Francisco (ironic, right?). I could list hundreds of quotes, but I'll just provide a few.

About Muslims: They say, 'Oh, there's a billion of them.' " Savage continued: "I said, 'So, kill 100 million of them, then there'd be 900 million of them.' I mean ... would you rather us die than them?"

More on Muslims: "an outright ban on Muslim immigration" and making "the construction of mosques illegal in America, and the speaking of English only in the streets of the United States the law."

About Duke "rape" victim: "drunken slut stripping whore."

On Obama: ""He's an Afro-Leninist, and I know he's dangerous."

More on Obama: pray[s] to God that the Obamas don't take down the pictures of Lincoln and such and replace them with, you know, Malcolm X

He wrote this book: Death of the White Male: Case Against Affirmative Action

Here's some more if you want to look over it: Media Matters on Savage

These attitudes aren't too foreign to the HBD readership, but you can imagine how the general public reacts to this sort of rhetoric. Savage is not religious, though he considers himself Jewish. Yet, the liberals just can't seem to understand someone embracing these ideas, like Death of the White Male, if that person happens to be Jewish.

In this article, the author seems rather confused.

Savage's ambivalence toward Jews is a misguided attempt to pander to conservative Christians. "He's Jewish, but he always acts like he's Christian," he says. In his book "The Savage Nation," for example, he complains of an anti-Christian bias in America.

From this blog, a commenter seems confused as well:

or all his religion and race-bating, for example, he’s still cultural Jewish, and his constant rants about the sanctity and importance of the (Christian) Bible conflict with the fact that he is not himself Christian.

Another commenter makes mention of Savage's Jewishness, clearly flabbergasted that a Jewish person could become a conservative:

Hey. Guys.. remember we are talking about a Jewish guy...

The other prominent minority conservative I'll mention is Michelle Malkin. Here's a sampling of how liberals view her conservative perspective:

Even her political allies see her as nothing more than a trained monkey coached into saying a few simple racial truths that would be politically damaging if put into the mouths of a white man?

Her hatred for her fellow wogs comes from an inability to accept that God did not make her a European and that God chose to make her a woman.

I can guarantee that she’d be just another fucking jap as far as the vast majority of the population was concerned.

Look at how even aggressive educated wogs like this Michelle Malkin serve their white masters at little or no prodding simply because they desire to be white and not what they were born. She’d serve any Dark Lord as long as they paid her.

Why exactly does this large toothed educated female wog believe that she will be treated as white when God chose to make her yellow?

Clearly, most liberals see conservatism as the exclusive domain of white Christian males. Any person not represented by that description is a race-traitor, a dishonest self-hater, and a sycophant to their white overseers. The vitriol spewed at individuals like Savage and Malkin indicates a central tenant of modern liberal thought.

As I've stated before, modern liberalism has become dominated by identity politics and group association. For liberals, law is not a manifestation of societal morality or a means by which to promote equality and justice. Rather, the political process is merely a means to procure favors upon one's collective. Liberals seek grievances and retribution for their constructed collectives, generally based on ethnic or racial categories. As I noted for the tracking post below, collective success is far more imperative than any other metric of progress.

This basic premise underlies almost all liberal opinions. As a result, they simply can not compherend a person championing values that do not directly serve group interests. These anamolous conservatives place freedom and social justice above shallow collectivist ideas like racial egalitarianism. The liberal idealogy is predicated primarily on emotional appeals while these conservatives (though this doesn't imply I agree with them about everything) engage in mostly rational surveys of the arguments. For example, while affirmative action would help Thomas Sowell, he vehemently opposes it on the basis of fairness.

This disinterested outlook on politics is so foreign to many liberals that their only response is spewing hatred. They offer absurd ad hominem attacks concerning the minority conservative's supposed motives. They belittle their position by fabricating theories of self-hatred and loathing. The angry commenters above can not accept rational decision makers, the kinds of conservatives who put larger freedom afforded to all citizens above the benedictions aimed at their specific group.

Complancency of American Liberals

Per Halfsigma and Sailer, the New York Times has published yet another article espousing the edicts of 'educational romanticism". In this article, they slyly celebrate the demise of tracking, one of the only proven ideas implemented in education.

HS and Sailer have both discussed some clear implications of this decision and the Times' subsequent news coverage. This includes implications of HBD denialism, priorities of mainstream liberals, and the media's implicit denouncing of cognitive tracking. I'm going to briefly comment on an underlying principle encouraging admonishment of tracking.

First, let me clearly illustrate their primary motivations in redressing "unfair" academic practices. The interminable NAM-white/Asian gap offers a strong counter to the liberal gospel of racial egalitarianism. As Sailer noted, the education liberals consider racial achievement equality to be the primary objective of academics. Social engineering, as in mixed-classrooms, becomes their calling. Here's a few examples how these people think:

But this longstanding system for tracking children by academic ability for more effective teaching evolved into an uncomfortable caste system in which students were largely segregated by race and socioeconomic background, both inside and outside classrooms.

There are certainly people who want to maintain the status quo because some people [OneSTDV: Those racist whites/Asians who keep succeeding!] have benefited from the status quo,” he said. “I know that we cannot afford that anymore. It’s not fair to too many kids [OneSTDV: NAMs]."

Daria Hall said that tracking has worsened the situation by funneling poor and minority students [OneSTDV: Funneling? They score worse because of HBD.] into “low-level and watered-down courses.” “If all we [OneSTDV: we = racist whites] expect of students is for them to watch movies and fill out worksheets, then that’s what they will give us,” she said.

Ms. Nichols said that the less-motivated students had still learned from their classmates’ example [ OneSTDV: NAMs learned from whites/Asians. Who cares though about the white/Asian kids though]. “That in itself is valuable,” she said. “For children [OneSTDV: children = NAMs] to see what is possible.”

OK so what's my point? They clearly see racial achievement equality as more important than the success of those kids with the most potential (dominated by white/Asians). A bright kid laments the change:

My grades are going up, and that’s not really surprising because the standards have been lowered

And this hasn't gone unnoticed:

These mixed-ability classes … have also drawn complaints of boredom from some high-performing students who say they are not learning as much.

Daria Hall and Joshua Starr don't really care about this bright student being forgotten. This reflects another facet of modern liberalism: the notion of complacency. Liberals always denigrate conservatives by asserting they're overly satisfied with American hegemony. The argument proceeds by contending conservatives too often brag of American preeminence instead of focusing on burgeoning threats to our power. Yet, it's clear, given their perverted scale of priorities, that liberals are the ones in the dark.

Instead of spending money on gifted children, the children who will undoubtedly provide the basis for our continuing progress, liberals instead enact collectivist social engineering programs. They would rather spend scarce resources on those unlikely to rise above common literacy than on high achievers. Liberals engage in profligate spending for special education, second language classes, and separate schools for the least valuable commodities. (Yes it's dehumanizing to categorize individuals as commodities, but one must be cruel and calculating in economics.)

In doing so, liberals clearly don't fear America's waning status as the world's most powerful country. Technological and social progress depend on unique luminaries who almost invariably show early promise. Liberals ignore these bright children and instead place diversity and racial Marxism at the top of the goal list (see No Child Left Behind). By neglecting the intellectual growth of these kids, liberals are risking the future of this country and naively allowing other more methodical societies to surpass us. It's obvious these persons exhibit a smug attitude concerning our status, funneling away money from defense, medical research, engineering research, and gifted programs in an attempt to confine everyone to the middle. The global hierarchy is a fluid scale, vulnerable to changing demographics, social zeitgeists, and innovative creations. By continually stressing the need for reform only in a racial context, liberals clearly do not understand these facts.

Further, the notion of HBD-denialism manifests in liberals belittling the growth of Asian countries that not only practice the appropriate form of education but also possess innumerable amounts of human capitol. Anti-HBDers don't consider Asia a threat because they disregard the concept of racial differences.

Environmental Hypothesis and Hatred of the West

For this post, I don't feel like typing anti-HBDers repeatedly, so for the sake of simplicity, I'll refer to them as liberals. Liberals have many motivations for their reluctance in accepting even a piddling role for genetic in human outcomes. I'll discuss one of these reasons below by providing a nexus to the general liberal paradigm.

From Gould to Nisbett, liberals have tried tirelessly to counter the genetic basis of intelligence and, more generally, achievement. In doing so, they contend environment plays a much more crucial role in the development of mental abilities than one's innate predispositions. Being an HBD blog, I think my stance on their arguments is clear. Yet, why exactly do they try so hard to negate the importance of genes? Why do these "scholars" implicate our environment or our society as cause for depressing achievement?

I'm sure we can come up with multiple explanations for this phenomenon, but I'll focus on one specifically. Liberals castigate "environment" as a subtle means of expressing their disdain for Western civilization. In the liberal narrative, objective value is a mirage, an idea promulgated by insular individuals from a forgotten time. No institution has a fundamentally higher value than another because the metrics of that value do not exist.

By formulating an exclusively subjective outlook on human affairs, liberals can attempt to undermine the greater achievements of the West. For liberals, despite our obvious progress in medicine, education, and freedom, the West has existed almost entirely as a destroyer. Their ideology characterizes the West as greedy, materialistic capitalists perverting the quaint and peaceful society of NAM socialists. Anti-HBDers can not accept that races have innate intellectual differences because it would preclude their favored explanation: the subjugation of the glorified NAM.

It's not the innate deficiencies of NAMs, but rather society's poisoning of these individuals that causes disparities. In framing the argument in this fashion, the liberals craft their own Heart of Darkness tale, replacing the imperialism of the British with the supposed discrimination from the white power structure. Consistent with their idea of cultural relativism, liberals blame white Americans for displacing an indigenous people with a rich culture, a people that would be prospering if not for these interlopers. Further, they view blacks' American experience as entirely based in oppression. The environment often cited by liberals isn't the despondent, debased culture of the inner city. Rather, it's the supposed white power structure imposing racist ideals on an oppressed people.

In blaming society while advocating racial egalitarianism, they denigrate the West and tacitly state blacks would achieve similarly if left in their "wonderful" homeland. Thus, the environmental hypothesis serves two important goals of the modern liberal: place NAM society even with the West and subsequently denounce our society as inimical to NAM progress.

Commenter 'Steve' posted a comment with references to Howard Zinn's Marxist history text and Tim Wise's "white privilege" argument, both of which reflect the discussion above.

Darius Rucker: Country Music Star

This is Darius Rucker. You probably recognize him as "Hootie" from the 1990's band Hootie and the Blowfish.



He is currently a bona fide Country Music star. His most recent solo album "Learn to Live" made it to number ONE on the Country Music charts. It also spawned a number ONE single on the Country Music singles charts, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It".

Within Group Variation vs Between Group Variation

A common anti-HBD argument will include the following phrase:

"Racial differences are inconsequential because there is more variation within a given racial group than between any two racial groups."

The dolt smugly offering this counterargument fails to realize this statistical fact does not negate different racial distributions. Statements of this variety are generally referred to as "Lewontin's fallacy" after the Harvard professor Richard Lewontin. His original contention referred to the general concept of biological race, but his idea is applied to any racial distribution differences. Adequately dismissing this tired argument is rather simple.

Basically, Lewontin's ignores the fact that large variations in groups can exist in conjunction with average differences. An indisputable example illustrates the fallacy of this argument.

The only separate distributions liberal creationists accept is the respective height distributions of men and women. I imagine they accept it because they have no other choice; it's just too obvious. Additionally, it allows feminists to grouse about stuff like airplanes having implicit design features for the male physique and other supposed "phallic" things. But I digress.

So no one can deny the male height distribution has a significantly different average than the female distribution. Because of this, we note the extreme preponderance of men above 6 feet and women below 5 feet. This is undeniable and it mirrors racial achievement outcomes due to differences in average IQ scores. Yet, for the male height distribution, the variation is much larger than the average differential. Males range from Verne Troyer (Mini-Me) to Yao Ming. Therefore, it's proven that large variation within a group still allows for an identifiable group distribution to exist.

In this case, one notes an undeniable counterexample undermines his claim, rendering it useless in opposing the notion of different racial intelligence distributions.

Long-Term Gambling is Irrational

Note: The conclusion of this argument doesn't necessarily apply to short-term gambling. While short term gambling is also irrational, one can justify it granted one's perspective is appropriate. To do so, the gambler must understand the following statistical facts. He must not consider gambling as a means to accumulate capital. And finally, he should regard his lost bets not as losses in a competitive game, but rather as part of an exchange in which the House provides an enjoyable and stimulating experience.

These arguments also do not apply to sports betting or poker. Given the appropriate skill, a favorable advantage for the player can exist.

I have never understood people who gamble over an extended period of time with significant amounts of money. Given the easily extracted statistical facts of casino games, it's unbelievable that so many willingly engage in this activity. High rollers arrive with loads of capital and confidently presume they'll come out in the positive. Gamblers make regular excursions to Atlantic City or Vegas expecting to double this week's paycheck.

As the number of bets increase, there becomes an increasingly small chance that a gambler will come out on top. This is ostensibly how casinos turn a profit. In the very long run (around 2,000 bets depending on what game), there's an infinitesimally small chance that one succeeds. So why do people get suckered into gambling? How do so many become addicted to gambling, sitting at the roulette wheel with a dying hope his luck will turn?

I imagine the average gambler has no idea about fundamental probability and statistics. Generally, one can appraise the rationality of a decision by calculating the long term outcomes. In gambling, any one bet has a chance of being successful. But long term results should motivate the gambler, especially the individual wishing to profit from his gambling.

An expected value is the outcome as the sample size grows to infinity. So the expected value of a coin flip bet is zero because, in the long run, there will be an equal number of heads and tails. For blackjack, the average blackjack player will play with a house advantage of 2% or 49:51 odds. To make this exceedingly simple, I'm ignoring blackjacks, pushes, and assuming a payout equal to the bet for every single hand. So the expected value is (with x as the amount bet per hand):

EV = -0.02(x)

That means the more you bet, the more you'll end up losing. But to the average player, the odds look very close. Let's look at a large number of hands.

I calculated the probability of blackjack games using a simple binomial model, assuming payout and betting amounts are equal for all hands . I estimate the odds of a player winning are 49:51.

Here are the approximate probabilities a player's money amount is positive after n number of games (used linear regression for 2,000 and up because Excel can't handle those large numbers). Here's the general equation, where i is the number of wins and n is number of games. I don't have any equation software available right now, so this will have to do.

sum( i = (floor(n/2) + 1) to n) [(n!/i!(n-i)!)*(0.49^i)*(0.51^(n-i))]

250 games: 35%
500 games: 31%
1,000 games: 25%
2,000 games: 12%
3,000 games: ~ 0%

The odds are increasingly in favor of the casino as you play more hands. A problem gambler will probably play around 3,000 hands in a year (yes, I did pull that number out of my ass). In that year, there's basically no chance he'll win any money. But even for 250 games, engaging in a relatively random activity with only a 35% chance of winning is irrational. Of course, you won't lose a lot unless you bet a lot, but if your objective is to make money, gambling is a very bad strategy.

The above examples illustrate the irrationality of gambling. Rationality, in general, is largely dependent on cost-benefit analysis. One can also view it as the decision strategy that optimizes one's objectives. The rational decision maker chooses actions for which the benefit will likely exceed the cost or actions that optimize success. Yes this is very general, but it's suitable in this context. For the 250 hand gambler, he is engaging in an act where the cost (money lost) will VERY LIKELY exceed benefit (money won). One could argue he is taking a reasonable risk. Yet, despite the non-trivial probability he wins, it's still irrational because the most likely outcomes are negative. (This argument assumes his objective is to make money.)

I imagine the pull of blackjack and other casino games is the deceptive ease of winning. Problem gamblers also have other irrational beliefs usually in the realm of superstition or false belief in dependence of an outcome on previous outcomes. Further, one gets drawn into the lights and opulence of casino decor. It's also interesting to note how often people ignore the irrationality of just one casino bet. If the expected value of a given action is less than zero, it's always irrational to engage in that action. As one increases the number of games, the marginal utility of enjoyment ineluctably decreases and justification on an emotional level becomes null.

So this is yet another case how the average person is bamboozled due his lack of mathematical knowledge.

I made some shortcuts in my calculations, but the numbers are rather accurate approximations. They should provide a pretty clear view of the situation.

The "Cultural Bias" of Standardized Tests

A video from the early 90's shows Judge Sotomayor speaking candidly about her benefiting from affirmative action. The article includes:

If we had gone through the traditional numbers route of those institutions, it would have been highly questionable if I would have been accepted.

The clips include lengthy remarks about her experiences as an “affirmative action baby” whose lower test scores were overlooked by admissions committees at Princeton University and Yale Law School

The highlight:

And that’s been shown by statistics, there are reasons for that. There are cultural biases built into testing.

I've officially taken a large number of the major standardized exams. As a result of my interest in intelligence testing, I researched and extensively practiced two other standardized examinations. From this, I've concluded that standardized testing largely devoid of bias. I am especially certain because the testing organizations are intensely cautious about including any obvious source of bias (or equivalently, anything that says something positive about Western Civilization).

I'll review the sections contained in most tests. First, there is a math section, excluding the LSAT. The math is relatively low level, around 9th or 10th grade, but the questions can become difficult. However, reading graphs, solving algebraic equations, and noting arithmetic patterns are universal concepts. And remind me, when did triangles and rectangles become racist? One could argue that word problems modeled on real-world applications contain cultural conventions not known to all test takers. But the particular references are almost always inconsequential to the solution. For example, I encountered a question involving paintings where one of the categories was Frescas. I have no idea what a Fresca is, but I still answered correctly.

Here's a sample word problem from an SAT site:

For her Halloween party, Janice went to a local candy store and bought X dozen candy bars at a price of Y per bar. When she left the store, Janice had Z cents left over. Assuming that she made no other purchases, how much money (in cents) did Janice have when she entered the candy store?

I'm not sure, but do black kids not buy candy or use change?

Second, there's generally a verbally based section with reading comprehension and sometimes vocabulary based questions. As I stated on the iSteve, the reading sections are actually biased TOWARDS NAMs. Almost every reading section includes a flattering passage concerning black history or Native Americans. Here's a quick Google search of "Africans reading comprehension LSAT". Browse through the results and see how frequent sample questions relate to black history. Here's a quick Google search of "European history reading comprehension LSAT". I think I found one sample question mentioning this subject and it actually blamed Europeans for political unrest in Central America: "Events in Eastern Europe can affect the political mood in Central America."

Third, there's generally an arguments or a logic (logic games on LSAT) section. I'm still not seeing any cultural bias. Maybe some of the argument or games topics are more well known to whites (e.g. environmentalism), but here's a tip for taking the LSAT: "Stimulus topic is irrelevant. The key to understanding the question is to avoid thinking about the topic. Think about the relationship between evidence and conclusion and whether or not they match up."

Fourth, some examinations depend on prior knowledge, like the MCAT. No cultural bias here. Everyone has to study and blacks are generally getting a better education than a white person with the same intelligence due to affirmative action.

Finally, we note almost all the tests have the same scoring gaps. One can conclude these gaps reflect the similar g-loading of the exams. It's somewhat far-fetched to assert that these exams, with different question types, all have equivalent "cultural bias".

So Sotomayor thinks NAMs perform worse due to "cultural bias". The butterknife appears once again.

The Rock Bottom of Identity Politics

Well I think I've found the rock bottom of identity politics. Now fat people want their voice heard! They want "fat" rights for all overweight and obese people. It's time we as a society started embracing "size acceptance".

Here's some pertinent links (these are all real sites and organizations):

Fat Rights Coalition
National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance
Shapely Prose
Big Fat Blog
More2Hug

They can try to gain self-confidence all they want, but you can't force people to find you attractive. Further, it's not unreasonable to associate fatness with laziness, slothfulness, lack of willpower, and a slovenly appearance. For many fat people, this is true.

But the fact that groups like this exist is indicative of a problem. Now, anyone and everyone can claim discrimination and feel entitled to retribution.

Multiculturalism vs American Traditionalism

Many conservatives see multiculturalism as another liberal institution that will ultimately undermine America. They contend the glorification of foreign cultures and the imposition of these cultures onto the American cultural landscape are eroding our traditions. Some portend a future with no coherent national consciousness; rather, we'll constitute a jumbled mess of distinct foreign customs. But what's odd about these arguments is underlying assumption they require. For multiculturalism to undercut mainstream American culture, mainstream culture must actually exist. So the difficult question, especially considering the seemingly fluid nature of our society, do we even have a mainstream culture?

I'm not sure. To define it, we could look at each aspect of culture and offer a representative example. For example, our national sport is American football, our favorite food is pizza and hamburgers, and our language is modern English. As far as moral standards, our mainstream religion is Christianity and our society is largely defined by equality and freedom of opportunity. So while SWPL's eat hummus in a sweaty Arab place blasting cacophonous music and Mexican immigrants force Spanish onto entire regions, one can see the subtle erosion of our cultural standards. Immigration and their respective cultures will slowly replace the rather shallow aspects of culture, like food and dress. But commensurate with these changes will eventually be moral and social mores including less emphasis on education, less discouragement of unwed pregnanices, less policing of drug use, and others. We'll become a nation without a mainstream, a codified set of customs and traditions that define America.

While I find much of this reasonable, one must reflect on this argument through the lens of history. What we now consider mainstream was, at one time, the domain of fringe immigration groups. Pizza was exclusively eaten by Italians, baseball heavily overshadowed the American version of rugby, and our language used to include a smattering of various foreign words and dialects. "American" conventions are undoubtedly malleable and often adopt foreign customs. In regards to political and social rights, equality and pursuit of success was not a right granted to all parties. Currently, our free system represents the strongest facets of our culture, but until 1920, women couldn't even vote. Prior to that, blacks were in bondage. While grousing about past discrimination grows tiresome (very very tiresome), it's not always without merit. How can we consider freedom traditional when it wasn't alaways a universal property of all citizens?

So what's the conclusion about mainstream American culture? Does it exist and is it based on a proud tradition? I do know I'm still opposed to most multiculturalism despite these reservations. And when articulating an argument against multiculturalism, I generally appeal to the famous 1964 indecency trial: I may not be able to define mainstream culture, but I know it when I see it.

Scholarships for Low Income Students

Here's a recent article from the New York Times concerning Gates' new scholarship program:

Gates' Grants for Low Income College Students

I used to be opposed to these scholarships and private school vouchers as well. I argued that why should these families get a bunch of money they didn't earn.

But I've softened on that position recently. While I still think it's unfair to explicitly award scholarships on the basis of need, I'm willing to allow it. Though, the scholarship must be awarded to qualified students, regardless of race.

I changed my stance because I'm willing to concede this unfair program in order to preserve an integral right of the American meritocracy. In my opinion, it's a necessary component of American society that qualified individuals have the opportunity to ascend class and income level. This social mobility should be based almost entirely on merit. This is a fundamental promise of our country and a right that encourages hard work and innovation. Essentially, I'll acquiesce and give money to a poor kid if it helps maintain the flexibility of social class.

Ayn Rand's Implausible Utopia

Last year, I read Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness. Rand gets a lot of flak, but I found her writings incredibly perceptive and intellectually nuanced. This post will focus on the central themes of her argument: individualism and egoism. This won't be a complete, by any means, exegesis of her arguments, just a very bare bones application of what she says.

First, her general premise is that the only true value is held within the individual. In her mind, the collective is a false construct commonly fabricated to subjugate the individual. As with any moral system, Rand is inexorably forced to concede a number of fundamental axioms. But, if it's good enough for Euclid, it's alright with me.

Second, Rand argues that the primary goal of the individual is fulfillment of his own happiness. Here, Rand makes a politically incorrect, but assuredly powerful, statement that the individual should not be considered merely a means to the ends of others. Rather, he should seek his own productive achievement and, even more striking; she asserts this represents his moral duty.

While I admire Rand's unflinching idealism, her society overflowing with overmen, would fail just as readily as the societal structures she so abhorred. Society requires the unselfish acts of some individuals to proceed. The productive citizens, while harboring more utility, rely on their subordinates for menial tasks and their forgoing of their own libertine happiness. It's naive to think a bunch of individuals can prosper without linkages between them, those individuals who exist entirely as a means to the end of the others. A productive society demands that some individuals exist as means and not ends, such as secretaries, janitors, and elementary school teachers. Rand's Atlas Shrugged utopia would fail from it's individuals' own ambition.

But how the hell does this relate to human bio-diversity and racial intelligence differences? Rand was so opposed to collectives that she idealized our entire society as comprised of individuals. In a moral context, I generally agree. But in a pragmatic, political context, her ideas will never be successful. As discussed in this Audacious Epigone's comment thread, the most efficient principles for public policy are contained in the ethics of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism requires the categorization of groups because gross utility applies to the maximum amount of people. If we followed Rand's guide, we would just as readily give a million dollars of education funding to a school full of blacks as we would to a school full of Jews. Public policy should require we provide our scarce resources to those with the most potential. While Rand contends all group characteristics are inconsequential because all groups ultimately reduce to individuals, the HBDer acknowledges group differences. He effectively uses these group differences to best allocate resources.

One could rather effectively support all sorts of liberal social programs from Rand's ideas. Ignoring the concept of group averages and average rates of success, liberal social programs generally become tenable. But with the knowledge of HBD, hereditarians note that these programs are almost guaranteed failure across a large scale of people. Thus, we can't parse out individuals when discussing large programs. Utilitarianism doesn't deal with individuals, it deals with the progress of nations and the building of civilizations. Thus one must account for group categories when disseminating capital in education (e.g. all those charter schools won't work), athletics, business, college admissions, manual jobs (e.g. large amounts of women won't be qualified).

Also, enough with the ad hominems directed towards Rand and her followers. I don't care if they were a cult, that doesn't diminish her ideas. It's similar to the criticisms of Gottfredson and Lynn who take money from the Pioneer Fund.