Mexican Fertility Drops Leads to Less Immigration? - Part 1

Depending on one's political tilt, immigration from South America represents a boon to diversity or a depressive element affecting American stability. However, a GW economics prof writing for the American Enterprise Institute, the supposedly conservative thinktank employing Charles Murray, dismisses the issue as a phenomenon likely to fade into irrelevance.

Illegal immigration from Mexico rages in Washington and across the country, and as the administration’s reform bill hangs by a thread, few Americans are aware that this problem is on track to decline, and will eventually become a vague memory.

There has been a stunning decline in the fertility rate in Mexico, which means that, in a few years, there will not be nearly as many teenagers in Mexico looking for work in the United States or anywhere else. If this trend in the fertility rate continues, Mexico will resemble Japan and Italy—rapidly aging populations with too few young workers to support the economy. In 1990 Mexico had a total lifetime fertility rate of 3.3 children per female, but by 2005, that number had fallen by 36 percent to 2.1

He posits this increasingly older workforce will engender higher wages there and thus discourage Mexican nationalists from coming here, presumably for our purported higher wages. The basics of the arguments seem reasonable at first. A smaller pool of young people will likely lead to a decreased amount of legal and illegal immigrants. This bodes well for avoiding a future NAM-ification of America.

But it's possible the problem is already here. As I found last summer when obtaining an America 2050 IQ estimate, the Hispanic fertility rate is around 2.3. (TUJ claims this value is decreasing in some areas though). Even with this relatively low fertility (in 1990, Mexico had rate of 3.3), Hispanics will almost double their population share by 2050.

So the problem isn't necessarily an influx of Latin nationals, it's the ones already here. Note that many of them are illegal and their removal wouldn't cross any reasonable boundaries. The article continues, subtly including pro-immigration statements implying a disregard for HBD:

A powerful demographic transition is well underway, and soon many of these countries may be worried about there being too few babies rather than too many. We may miss this labor, and wonder how we will replace it.

In fact the opposite may be underway. NAFTA, our mass media, the more widespread use of English, and the large number of people going back and forth (legally or otherwise) mean that Mexicans are increasingly influenced by our culture.

Heather Mac Donald has comprehensively covered the dysfunction amongst Hispanic immigrants and their offspring. One also notes the disparity between Mexican rates and Hispanic immigrants. Why do Hispanic immigrants actually have more children when they cross the border? Perhaps, this is due to the anchor baby phenomenon and the expectation of a better life to be bestowed upon even more offspring. Additionally, our government, providing free healthcare, shelter, and only a nominally restricted immigration policy, tacitly encourages births (and more immigration) with little pragmatic repercussions.

But back to the article. His entire argument rests of the premise that young Mexicans will forgo immigration because they will be rewarded financially.

But will Mexico, ostensibly full of Mexicans, ever offer an entire experience, in the arena of economics, medicine, quality of life, crime, as worthwhile as we can? Will the minimal increase in wages temper the aspirations of young men willing to risk their lives for an American existence? In my opinion, his argument represents a wildly speculative perspective on the matter. Given their immense desire to come here now, only a huge rise in wages and economic opportunity would depress the percentage of Latinos who wish to come here.

Finally, Dr. Dunn either outright misses or chooses to ignore a rather important mathematical nugget contained in the data. It basically disproves his entire argument.

I'll leave that for a second post later this week.

Sunday Links: Celebs, V's, and Invictus

The Gaurdian speaks on a subject I've covered recently: the culture of celebrity scandal. They take an opposing view, suggesting that the public has grown weary of such misbehavior.

Celebrity interviewer Gayl Murphy also believes that ordinary Americans no longer derive Schadenfreude from the antics of stars owing to the very real problems in their own lives. "People used to like seeing celebrities melt down because it made them feel that their own more stable – but ordinary – lives were better. But now people are losing their homes and their jobs. They have their own meltdowns to deal with," Murphy said.

While they make a cogent argument, they provide little support beyond anecdotal evidence. In the midst of the economic downturn, the public may be more averse to spending money on frivolous tabloid magazines, but the culture of scandal is still vigorous. Jon and Kate are not traditional celebrities, but incessant coverage of their torrid affair coincides with the vacuous material once the domain of Britney and Paris.

A new TV series entitled 'V' is about the arrival of a duplicitous class of aliens. As with most science fiction, the series involves a rather attractive subtext.

Welcome to ABC's "V," the most fascinating and bound to be the most controversial new show of the fall television season. Nominally a rousing sci-fi space opera about alien invaders bent on the conquest (and digestion) of all humanity, it's also a barbed commentary on Obamamania that will infuriate the president's supporters and delight his detractors.

Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.

The news media swoons in admiration -- one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: "Why don't you show some respect?!" The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: "Embracing change is never easy."

One can generally assign any allusion or interpretation to a piece of art and claim it represents some deep intended meaning. With that in mind, I won't hastily accept the above premise, though if it does reflect the writers' intentions, that is quite exciting. I've watched the first two episodes and the show has matched my expectations thus far. Though generally, while sating my pop culture appetite, I try to avoid the subtle messages unless the author's agenda is too transparent to warrant my ignorance.

Speaking of, Invictus, starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman, opens next month. The picture tells the true story of Nelson Mandela and the 1995 World Rugby championships. Here's the trailer. The movie lionizes Mandela as a broker who led his nation out of moral destitution. It coalesces his story with a traditional sports narrative, showing Matt Damon leading the now united South African team to victory. While one could dismiss such a juxtaposition as a reflection of true events, the movie creator's consciously chose to tell this story. Thus, we note the idealism of a sports triumph as an allegory for the triumph of a nation disavowing its debased past.

I can not recall any movie that engages in such despicable sophistry. Following the abolition of apartheid, South Africa has devolved into perhaps the most crime ridden country in the world. Whites now live in secluded gated communities, taking immense precautions to avoid the country's almost unbelievable chaos. Of course, to liberals, no injustice supersedes those against racial egalitarianism and even "liberated" South Africa's pervasive savagery can't temper their championing of this ruined nation.

How SWPL Are You?

Saturday Audience Participation Post

The term SWPL is used in the Steveosphere quite often. While it has become an entrenched acronym within the HBD community, it represents a certain type of individual well known amongst the larger social culture. For example, during my freshmen year of college, my friend expressed his affinity for coffee, to which I replied, "What are you: an art history major?" Similarly, when that same friend purchased a pea coat and wore a shirt emblazoned with an ironic joke, I immediately recognized such cultural choices.

While I couldn't articulate a precise definition of what we would later refer to as a SWPL, I could readily describe that class of individual by a number of normative behaviors. The SWPL site hilariously codifies this somewhat nebulous concept of what HalfSigma has deemed "educated liberal bohemians." As a result, the full list of SWPL behaviors can provide an estimate of one's SWPL-quotient.

My friend, now living in Berkeley, probably represents the epitome of SWPLism, yet he only matched 67 out of 129. I matched 10, though I doubt my "knowing what's best for poor people" coincides with the majority of SWPL's; this also applies to why I like America (not because Obama won) and why I enjoy architecture (marveling at great feats of engineering).

How many do you match?

Arguments for Animal Cruelty

Last night at Thanksgiving dinner, my cousin's husband refused to eat the turkey. He did so partly on moral grounds, citing the inhumane raising and slaughtering of turkeys. He claimed turkeys are mass produced in biological "factories", endure horrible living spaces, and suffer tremendously upon death. As a result, he felt an ethical obligation to avoid personally furthering this morally reprehensible industry.

I rarely outright reject any argument that has been thoughtfully considered, unless this includes tarot cards and a magic eight ball. From my admittedly brief ruminations on the subject, I concluded his argument rests on the premise that non-human animals have some inherent moral value and that they endure pain in a semi-conscious manner. The first statement leads to a sequence of moral suppositions and the importance or triviality of cultural moral norms. For example, if one doesn't consider a turkey a moral creature, then on what basis does one imbue a dog with moral value? Cruelty involving dogs engenders a visceral response amongst almost all Americans, but is this reaction due to an objective delineation between dogs and turkeys, or merely a result of our cultural affection for that particular creature? Where is a line drawn with regards to animals or is natural law a viable metric for our treatment of less evolved creatures? Perhaps, there is a valid line, so does that mean a turkey has absolutely no value whatsoever? If so, then it's rather odd a good number of us would react negatively to the gruesome inner workings of a slaughterhouse. C.S. Lewis often pointed to universal human experience as evidence of an innate moral compass and while I disagree with his ultimate conclusion, the common experience of actually viewing animal death in front of our faces mustn't be dismissed too quickly.

The second problem is the nature of pain and if non-conscious animals experience pain in the same manner we do. PETA nutcases, schooled in the doctrine of moral relativism, can't distinguish between just about anything, culture, morality, and possibly not even humanity. (Ironic that they all believe in moral relativism and subjective morality, but it's an undeniable evil to hurt animals.) In the human experience, it's well documented and often an aspect of one's personal history, that pain only manifests if the victim is acutely aware of its existence. Take the desperate mother pulling open a car window to save her trapped child. Such a feat would normally cause great physical anguish, but her detached focus doesn't permit her to experience any pain. Likewise for animals, who lack any consciousness, it's possible they don't know they're in pain in the same manner we do. Their reaction stems from an evolutionary adapted urge to escape pain which is connected to situations endangering an animal's life. When they cry, do they actually feel the pain? Do they know they're enduring such insufferable conditions?

This is a tough one actually, even as a twice-daily meat-eater. Maybe the cruelty arguments have validity, but doesn't the utility of meat as human sustenance far outweigh the pain inflicted upon these animals? Isn't the economic efficiency of cheap meat a valid "excuse" for doing this? And isn't the law of the wild in which we still reside, where a pack of cheetahs rips apart their live prey, enough justification for acting in this manner? It doesn't matter though. I'm not giving up my lean grilled chicken and weekly bacon cheeseburger.

(A famous athlete who found the PETA arguments valid is Prince Fielder. Of course, after adopting a vegetarian diet, he promptly lost a ton of weight and strength.)

Thanksgiving: A Conservative and Liberal Holiday

I hesitated before penning a Thanksgiving themed post, but I figured, why not?

Admittedly, I don't know much about Thanksgiving beyond the anecdotes presented in grade school. The narrative follows a persecuted religious minority finding a haven of religious freedom in America, encountering resistance in their new home, and finally, coming to an understanding over a big meal. Pocahontas further cemented my vision of Thanksgiving and painted the Native Americans as a worthy equal to their Western peers. In this post I'm not concerned if such a tacitly multicultural perspective represents the actual truth. Rather, one simply notes that Thanksgiving has come to, in part, epitomize the melting pot meme of recent American culture.

Considering this, it's somewhat paradoxical that Thanksgiving is probably one of the most conservative celebrations left. It's conservative because it glorifies the concept of rugged individualism, the notion that hard work and desire can allow anyone to forge a successful existence. The Pilgrims came here with little, yet survived while lacking a previously erected support system. It's also conservative because it's a tradition that spans at least a century. Most liberals readily dismiss any concept or event that harbors any sentiment of tradition. But with Thanksgiving, while there's the occasional grousing about the "real story" or, in more recent years, about animal cruelty or ecological impact, most liberals welcome the chance to partake. (Note: I'm not a traditionalist in the sense that I imbue any traditional concept with value.)

So while the story is taught as a lesson in multiculturalism and diversity, it also champions the people of the West and the country they erected from nothing. Now go and listen to your hippie, liberal second cousin complain about Western imperialism and the fact that you're not serving Tofurky.

Adam Lambert and Celebrity Scandal

Last week, I posted about the death of America's sweetheart. While I blamed the rise of readily available entertainment news, primarily via the Internet, as the main culprit for undermining this phenomenon, a more entrenched aspect of popular culture also helps provide an explanation. Scandal and scurrilous activity have always piqued the imagination of the public, aiding in the iconic status of luminaries like Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. What the Internet has done is widened the breadth of that coverage to include adolescent starlets and made the procuring of scandalous material, such Miley's pole dance or Britney's meltdown, into a viral phenomenon. But again, the public has always been quite receptive to controversy and Adam Lambert's American Music Awards performance this past Sunday stays true to a standard ascent to stardom.

Lambert, an openly gay performer, led a male backup dancer clad in bondage gear around by a leash, kissed a male keyboard player on the mouth and even had a dancer stick their face in his crotch.

Instead of cultivating a fan base rooted in his American Idol audience, Lambert seems intent on following another gay icon, Lady Gaga, in pursuing stardom. His outlandish displays on stage have created the best kind of publicity: the kind that people can't stop talking about. As a result of his performance, ABC canceled a scheduled appearance on their flagship morning show, GMA.

Meanwhile, ABC said that they received more than 1,500 complaints about the performance, in addition to a lot of supportive comments for the singer.

An ABC spokesperson told The New York Times that “Given his controversial American Music Awards performance, we were concerned about airing a similar concert so early in the morning.”

Should we lament a culture where such behavior is rewarded? Or we should laud individuals willing to manipulate public sentiment in their favor, a kind of free market ideal? The central point of such a debate should focus on the larger societal implications and whether such displays motivate change in the cultural zeitgeist. Did the overt sexuality of Madonna's early 1980's stardom cause a more libertine sexual market, the ultimate result being out of wedlock children? I doubt one could pin any widespread social ails on a pop star, but nonetheless, embedded norms must have their genesis in some smaller fad.

The tradition Lambert will likely enter is one of shock value, a product peddled by Howard Stern and even political pundits like Coulter and Limbaugh. The public will almost always crave the abnormal, the outliers, the ones willing to act in a manner discordant with polite society. Maybe it depresses our cultural vigor, but there will always be aspiring celebrities willing to exploit such an urge. And of course, I'm guilty of imbibing in such a discourse myself, as evidenced by this very blog post. Oh well.

Anniversay of On the Origin of Species

Today is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's seminal work, On the Origin of Species. Still all these years after Darwin, the prevalence of creationism has actually increased, now encompassing the entire social and political spectrum. It's ironic that those lionizing the man and his discoveries accept only a socially palatable version of his findings and would consider his personal views rather appalling. (Too bad William Shockley, only the inventor of the transistor, isn't afforded the same immunity from criticism as Margaret Sanger and Darwin.) Of course, Darwin and his cousin Francis Galton were ardent HBDers:

The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatization and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties.

Another New Math and Science Program

Here we go again. The White House has initiated yet another plan in their never-ending quest to transform America into Lake Wobegon.

President Obama will announce a campaign Monday to enlist companies and nonprofit groups to spend money, time and volunteer effort to encourage students, especially in middle and high school, to pursue science, technology, engineering and math, officials say.

The campaign, called Educate to Innovate, will focus mainly on activities outside the classroom. For example, Discovery Communications has promised to use two hours of the afternoon schedule on its Science Channel cable network for commercial-free programming geared toward middle school students.

OK, even the most cynical amongst us can't find fault with the general objective: encouraging young people that careers and interest in math and science can be worthwhile pursuits. The Obama administration has actually been quite impressive in motivating a focus on science and math. The knowledge gained in these areas push forth societal advancement most profoundly (e.g. the accuracy of GPS depends, in part, on Einstein's theory of relativity).

But the proposed implementations irk me for two reasons. First, educational romanticism and its familiar insistence on a widespread equity of intellectual potential underpins the program.

Administration officials say that the breadth of participation in Educate to Innovate is wider than in previous efforts, which have failed to produce a perceptible rise in test scores [Shocking.] or in most students’ perceptions of math and science. In international comparison exams, American students have long lagged behind those in much of Asia and Europe [Hmm wonder why?].

In April, Mr. Obama, speaking at the National Academy of Sciences, promised a “renewed commitment” that would move the United States “from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math over the next decade.”

Of course, HBD precludes our ascension to the top of the heap, so an endless stream of new programs will prove a futile endeavor. I won't belabor the issue here. We got to the Moon with those stodgy textbooks presumably culpable for static test scores. A progression into newer academic teaching methods should be considered, but the ultimate goal here, an idealistic notion of an intellectually flat distribution, is unattainable. The article continues, citing the means by which to galvanize youth.

David M. Zaslav, the president and chief executive of Discovery, said Mr. Obama’s words about science education inspired Discovery to come up with the idea of two hours of programming, a mix of old and new content, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays on the Science Channel. The idea is that students coming home from school will have a ready means to learn more science.

Sony is expected to donate 1,000 PlayStation 3 game consoles and copies of the game LittleBigPlanet to libraries and community organizations in low-income areas. Part of the competition will consist of children creating new levels in LittleBigPlanet that incorporate science and math.

For school sponsored projects, I'm wary if such a blending of academics and leisure activities won't undermine actual learning. Kids tend to lose sight of the underlying message which adults think is blatantly transparent. But what irks me about such a proposal is the notion that free time can be appropriated for learning. What happened to having a childhood?

Intellectual growth is an important facet of overall maturation, but it should not come at the expense of emotional, social, physical, and personal development. Children don't need more time engaged in academic topics; rather, a child's brain requires time away from scholarly pursuits to recharge and grow in other areas.

And of course, they just couldn't help themselves:

Sony is expected to donate 1,000 PlayStation 3 game consoles and copies of the game LittleBigPlanet to libraries and community organizations in low-income areas.

Smart Fraction Fertility - Part 1: An Introduction

Guest Post by TUJ

Awhile back, well known HBDer commenter 'The Undiscovered Jew' asked to supply a guest post. The series will come in a number of parts, all thoroughly researched by TUJ. Maybe it's just me, but it seems TUJ has a rather similar written voice as I do. Anyway, here's part 1:

One is hard pressed to think of any other issue which draws more intense interest and worry across the entire prism of American conservatism – both mainstream and non-mainstream – than that of the white American birth rate.

It is equally hard to think of another topic of debate among American conservatives that generates as much fact free assertions and bloviating than white fertility (naturally, the mainstream right rarely mentions the word “white” when bemoaning low Western fertility). But it is glaringly obvious when, for example, mainstream conservatives such as Laura Ingraham blame abortion for low birthrates in Europe, or National Review runs an article promoting an increase the child tax credit to $5,000 to help “middle class families” that their true objective is to raise the number of births among whites as opposed to increasing fecundity within American inner cities or French Muslims.

Rather than actually analyzing the matter, most conservatives have, in general, used the decline in American fertility as an iron bludgeon to strike out against the evils of liberalism in general, and feminism and modern hedonism in particular. The primary charge conservatives have levied against the left has been the allegation that abortion, sexual decadence, feminism, and the other usual suspects are the prime culprits behind low Western fertility. Whether the commenter making such an accusation is an outcast such as Lawrence Auster, or a mainstream authority such as Cal Thomas or Peggy Noonan, the charge is usually the same: Modern decadence and a turn away from historic cultural values are the antagonists of the play.

However, while the left is certainly guilty of many things, the evidence leftism caused the fall in Western fertility is disproven by analyzing fertility trends both historically and recently.

Firstly, if leftism and feminism are the primary factor involved in declining birthrates, why is it that, compared to Europe and America, fertility rates are even lower in socially conservative and patriarchal East Asia? And why do even more socially conservative Muslim states such as Iran, Tunisia, and Algeria have TFRs below the 2.1 level needed for replacement? Surely, if feminism were the major factor, then all these nations would maintain high birthrates rather than equaling and even falling behind European and American TFRs.

Secondly, if feminism and leftism caused the decline, why then did birthrates begin to rapidly descend in the mid-19^th century across much of the advanced sections of the Western world and long before the birth of modern feminism?

Clearly, social liberalism - while of course not totally irrelevant to fertility as American Mormons show – provides a rather unsatisfying explanation for the decrease. As will be verified in this series of blog posts, the origin of low birthrates lies not in social liberalism, but in macro-economic trends which forced women to delay having children.

TUJ will continue outlining the causes and potential remedies for increasing white/high-IQ birth rates. Stay tuned. It gets very very good!

Intersection of Diversity Racket and Atheism

And you guys wonder why HBD didn't go over well at the Richard Dawkins' forum. Here's a link from the most popular atheist blog written by PZ Myers or 'PC Meyer' (hat tip: Geoffrey Falk):

The problem isn't dismissal. It's casual disregard. It's being just enough pro-feminist that we lose sight of the real problems that women and people of color face.

One thing that would really help, I think, is if the grassroots spoke out a little bit more to remind us. Tell us who you want to hear who isn't pale-skinned and full of testosterone [It's not like white males have had anything important to say over the years.]

who are the deserving voices of the godless community who should be heard as much as the heterogametic ones who get all the press? [Translation: What token minority or woman, bonus for both, can we elevate to an undeserved status?]

The comments are full of liberal supplicators falling over themselves thinking of atheist women.

Sunday Links: UCs, Fatties, Gays, and Savants

Another Ferdinand type post today.

In Arkansas of all places, a ten year-old refuses to recite pledge as a protest in favor of gay marriage. I feel sorry for this clearly exceptional kid. Ten year olds should have absolutely no political opinions. At ten years old, my interests included watching Power Rangers to see the Pink Ranger, playing sports, beating Sonic, and building forts out of sofa cushions.

Berkeley students are protesting. Yes, what a shock. They're grousing over a large tuition hike.

University of California Berkeley students protesting a 32 percent increase in student fees barricaded themselves Friday inside part of a campus building.

The occupiers were demanding the university rehire laid-off custodial workers and give amnesty to anyone arrested in the protest. About 30 to 50 protesters staged a takeover of Campbell Hall at UCLA on Thursday, as regents met across campus to approve the fee hike. More than 50 students were arrested during protests at UC Davis.

Do I sympathize with their position? Of course. I believe college has transformed from an elite institution intended to nurture tomorrow's leaders into a largely meaningless and overly expensive credential factory. Though, I'm not sure what the opposition is besides having to pay more. Most UC kids, especially those at the top two campuses: UCLA and Berkeley, can likely afford the costs if given appropriate financial aid. Those colleges still represent a bargain over the almost 50,000 dollar price tag of an Ivy. But sorry, if you can't pay it, then you don't go there. Not everyone is lucky enough to obtain an elite education. Once again, one easily notes the modern liberal insistence for "equality of outcome", instead of equality of opportunity.

What angers me though is the bolded statement above: demanding amnesty for protesters. College administrators, the foremost purveyors of relativism and liberalism, actually often acquiesce to such demands. These protesters believe they can act in any manner, disrupt an entire campus, and escape with impunity. It reflects the absence of individual responsibility in our society and, more specifically, the helicopter-mom dominated suburbs.

Kate Moss has miffed the fatties.

When asked in an interview if she had any mottos, she replied: “There are loads of mottos. There’s ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’. That’s one of them.”

Never mind that no heterosexual male actually considers the fashion aesthetic attractive. But the main point is correct: There exists an ideal female form of which thinness is an important attribute. The "women" over at Feministing respond:

so I guess starving does feel good for her, since she is paid to do it. Seriously, sad! Food is good and we need it to survive.

These types of comments do have implications for young women since we are already inundated with the self hating culture of starvation to attain absurd levels of thinness instead of being taught to love ourselves.

First, she attacks a convenient strawman. Then she proceeds to dismiss physicality as a means of self-worth. Of course, "spiritual", emotional, and cognitive attributes contribute significantly to an individual's self-worth, but that doesn't negate the physical. They can "love [themselves]", but that doesn't mean anyone else has such an obligation.

Finally, here's an interesting article concerning synaesthesia. People with this cognitive abnormality have an overlapping of the senses, such as "tasting" words. A rather uncommon combination of perceptions is the time-space synaesthesia:

Two new studies now provide some insight into time-space synaesthesia, the least researched of all the forms of this fascinating condition. One is a case study of an individual whose time-space synaesthesia has an apparently unique characteristic. The second demonstrates that time-space synaesthetes are superior to non-synaesthetes in some cognitive abilities, and suggests that time-space synaesthesia may underly the savant-like abilities of people with hyperthymestic (or "super-memory") syndrome.

Charles Murray on Glenn Beck

Charles Murray recently had this to say about Glenn Beck:

Beck is spectacularly right (translation: I agree with him) on about 95 percent of the substantive issues he talks about. He is a full-throated libertarian in a world of wishy-washy Republicans. The man is a gifted communicator. His style doesn’t happen to be one I like, but many times I’ve sat there on my sofa wishing I could make the same point as effectively.

Though his qualifies his admiration:

But Beck uses tactics that include tiny snippets of film as proof of a person’s worldview, guilt by association, insinuation, and occasionally outright goofs like the fake quote. To put it another way, I as a viewer have no way to judge whether Beck is right.

I say it’s spinach and I say the hell with it. What Beck does is propaganda. Maybe propaganda has its place, but let’s not kid ourselves. Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are brothers.

I guess Palin is better:

What do you think of Sarah Palin? I’m in love. Truly and deeply in love.

A populist movement would be far better served with Beck as a leader as opposed to Palin.

The World in 2050

Saturday Audience Participation Post

HBDers and their non-mainstream conservative counterparts regularly muse on the doom and gloom scenarios of the West and its decay due to modern liberalism. We harp on the pernicious effects of NAM immigration, the misandry of modern law, the degradation of all traditionally stabilizing structure like the family, and the PC establishment for willfully denying the most obvious of truths. Some of my fellow bloggers have an overtly pessimistic outlook regarding the end game scenario of these maladaptive behavioral norms. Basically, as a conservative friend said after noting an example of liberal cognitive dissonance, "OneSTDV, it's pretty simple: we're fucked."

But are we? Is the end game a complete annihilation of our current society? What is a REALISTIC vision of the West's future? Will the forces of elite liberalism continue to override increasing populist dismay, ostracizing honest voices like Geert Wilders and Michel Savage? Or will the transparent radicalism of an Obama presidency foment an unstoppable retreat back to conservative/classical liberal values? In 2050, with Europe overrun by fecund Muslims and America dealing with a 50% NAM population, can the West survive? Will the 21st century truly become the Asian century as the West fends off the suicidal tendencies of its leaders? Or will not much change at all and these apocalyptic scenarios will prove wildly exaggerated?

What does the West and the world in general look like in 2050?

Internet has Killed America's Sweetheart

Twilight: New Moon, the movie franchise du jour, opens today in theaters. Much of the pre-film buzz hasn't focused on the movie's plot, but rather the presumed romantic relationship between the two leading stars, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. They have been stubbornly silent on the matter, though a quick perusal of the gossip magazines tells another story. The gossip mags reflect an entire pop culture structure that feeds us an exorbitant amount of information concerning the trivial activities of celebrities. This incessant coverage pervades every facet of media, most notably Internet sites like Perez Hilton and television networks like E! and shows such as Access Hollywood. Minor occurrences involving pseudo-stars with no discernible talent (Paris Hilton) become fodder for this relentless media vomit.

With the public so eager for this meaningless information, an entire market has developed with the sole purpose of uncovering the indiscreet. No star can evade such persistent attacks from paparazzi and their mainstream enablers. Unfortunately, 24-hour coverage and the transparency of modern celebrity has potentially undermined a traditional aspect of our culture: America's sweetheart.

The most recent and well-known incarnation of this phenomenon was early Britney Spears, from her debut in 1998 at age 17 to around 2001. Britney, or more appropriately her handlers, aptly straddled the line between overt sexuality and demure teasing. The former endeared her to young girls yearning for a grown up sensibility and adolescent boys yearning for her. The latter entrenched her in the larger cultural scene, a product sold on sexuality, but packaged in a sweet, not-quite girl next door image. She played the coy, naive Southern virgin in interviews, a far cry from the girl we later came to know. But Britney managed to subdue her more libertine personality for many years, fooling America into loving her.

Perhaps, Britney's career progression is a testament to the death of America's sweetheart, a celebrity undone by constant media attention, unable to hide her more lascivious and debased urges. Yet, one wonders if in another age, one without instant access to information provided by the Internet and cable news, Britney could have escaped such scrutiny if she so tried.

The existence of an American sweetheart relies on public ignorance. It's highly likely that these egotistical, narcissistic individuals harbor many traits that would preclude them from widespread appeal. In the Internet age, fleeting comments persist in Youtube infamy and private photos become the stuff of public consumption. The sweetheart needs to exist as a blank slate, an inoffensive (and always attractive) representation of nothing much. She smiles and waves and puts out a catchy song and people just love her. She's just so darn nice, isn't she? But such a visage is undermined by private moments turned public. A Rock Hudson or Mr. Brady would likely be exposed by the vultures of pop culture media.

What the public craves is the stuff of scandal, malice, and drama. So the potential starlets who have that in abundance (Lindsay Lohan) stick around and those that lack it (Hilary Duff) wither away into oblivion. As a result, the starlets most in the public eye are inevitably those that have the least chance of creating a manufactured image concurrent with being America's sweetheart. For example, Disney tried selling Miley Cyrus as a country twinged proto-Britney, but her sexually provocative self portraits, catfights with fellow Disney stars, and generally churlish behavior has made that goal unattainable.

I admit I somewhat regret such a situation. The public needs innocence and scores of these adolescent figures have provided it for many years. I doubt we'll see many figures like Britney, Debbie Gibson, or Annette Funicello. Though, out of the current crop, Taylor Swift has a shot. She's gorgeous, young-ish, blond, and has a string of hit songs. Though, she's only borderline mainstream, so I don't know if her more limited appeal would register her as a bona fide American sweetheart.

What the "Exciting Blog News" Was

So here's the (overhyped) exciting blog news:

An in-depth interview with Steve Sailer

He originally agreed to it, saying "yes, sounds great." But he didn't respond to any of my followup e-mails. Oh well, it was worth a shot. He's quite busy so I understand him not responding. The questions were in regards to the stuff you would expect and IMO, quite thought provoking. Maybe he'll read this and remember.

Update (11/19/09 7:20 PM): For anyone interested, the interview questions included after the jump.


1) Almost the entirety of the Steveosphere became convinced of HBD due to your writings. What motivated you to research HBD and how did you become convinced?

2) HBD seems to attract young, secular, right-leaning individuals. However, some have argued that HBD will be appropriated by a Darwinian left advocating socialist policies. If HBD becomes a mainstream political argument, which side will support it and how will the other side respond?

3) In five to ten years, it's likely we'll have a clear picture of the genetic basis for intelligence. In the face of such daunting evidence, how will the racial egalitarians react? Similar to their religious creationist counterparts?

4) Why does IQ work so well in relation to real life success? And why does it seem to correspond to not only intellectually based activities, but also moral and social ones? Also, if we were to choose a large enough sample to offset individual variation and anomalies, would solely IQ selection be sufficient in creating a stable society?

5) In your opinion, what is the SINGLE most convincing piece of evidence for cognitive racial differences?

6) You have a very comfortable niche online, but little mainstream presence besides the occasional Saletan or Cowen denigrating you. Given your perspicacity and unique quantitative journalistic viewpoint, it's likely that you could have enjoyed a "Gladwellian" existence at some major media source. If you could choose again, which would you choose: telling the truth and being banished by the mainstream or regurgitating the PC rhetoric at Time or Newsweek?

7) Who are your favorite authors and political pundits?

8) Given the growing NAM population and that in 2050, whites will be a minority, are we doomed? Even if the "Sailer strategy" works (which is a long shot), is such a "diverse" populace comprised of 50% NAMs a viable situation?

9) Are your friends and acquaintances aware of what you write about? What do they think and how do they treat you as a result?

10) We live in a PC dominated culture where even saying blacks run faster is considered taboo. In your opinion, from where did such a culture grow? What started the cultural movement where diversity, "teachable moments", and the Obama-messiah rule?

11) Is there a better way to separate groups other than race? Perhaps we can define a "Saletan-ian" manner of separating groups that provides better explanatory power and predictive value than race does. Thoughts?

12) On this website, commenters have argued for whites-only, high-IQ immigration, citing social assimilation and lack of racialism as support. Further, it's been argued that high-IQ NAM immigration fails due to regression to the mean of subsequent generations, as well as dysfunctional social pressures for second-generation NAM Americans. What are your thoughts on these points and immigration reform in general?

13) Final question. One word answer. Pessimistic, Optimistic, or other (specify)?

Culture Conservation vs. HBD as a Means of Preservation

Larry Auster and his fellow traditional conservatives have expressed their disdain for the supposed reductionism of the human biodiversity viewpoint. The VFR vs. HBD/Gameosphere back and forth needn't be persisted any longer, but I want to focus on one particular issue that is relevant to the general problem of NAM immigration. Auster has often defended his limited immigration stance on the grounds of cultural value, the notion that a country's people have an inherent right to defend or preserve the culture they have built. This argument also arises somewhat frequently in the the more mainstream quarters of conservative thought. I'd deem it something like the "argument from cultural conservation".

While a racial connection is implicit in the argument, an overt appeal to race is largely absent from the rhetoric. But does such an argument succeed and does it have more potential than HBD in motivating policy? In regards to the former: No. It fails because it imbues culture with an inherent value that perhaps it doesn't deserve. While the social and cultural constructs of the West and East Asia undergird stable societies, those of the Middle East and Africa, where superstition and violence reign, produce debased societies. So an argument from cultural conservation fails because it defends such immoral practices simply due to the existence of tradition.

The obdurate traditionalists that espouse such arguments, and I don't necessarily consider Auster among them, adhere to tradition just because, without a reference for what actually constitutes morally acceptable and practically efficacious norms. A "just because" way of dictating behavior fails because many societies are traditionally bad and only progress away from these noxious behavioral mores can save them.

What HBD does is remove the discussion from the sphere of human made edifces and into the sphere of scientific truth and objective outcome. We needn't appeal to the realm of culture, a construct easily manipulated through the machinations of liberal relativism. We needn't delve into the religious domain, the most contentious arena of all, to buttress what delineates "good" from "bad" culture. Rather, HBDers appeal to the notion that the people define the culture, the stability, and the ability of a nation. HBD speaks of people as the prime, but not sole, metric of societal success and thus the fluid aspects of culture and the amorphous idea of perserving something that changes whimisically is avoided.

HBD succeeds where culture conservation fails because the underpinnings differ. HBD is a function of biology and the law of large numbers, while cultural conservation is the stuff of ideology, politics, and theology. The latter can be argued, while the former must be accepted.

Forthcoming Announcement on Exciting Blog News

Last month, I informed readers that I had some exciting blog news. Well it hasn't come through as of yet and I'm starting to seriously doubt whether it will actually happen.

As a result, tomorrow, I'll divulge what the "exciting news" was as a last ditch effort to motivate it happening. Stay tuned.

Obama's Bowing and Liberal Guilt

I'm sure everyone has seen the Obama bow this week. It followed his similarly infamous bow to the Saudi king last spring. As Auster notes, the bow reflects the guilt Obama has for America's hegemonic status. These bows symbolize apologies to the non-Western world for not simply our purported imperialism, but also our mere success as a civilization. HalfSigma said the following yesterday:

our leadership[needs to] stop feeling guilty about America being rich and powerful.

But if our relative success is earned through the prescient forethought of our Founding Fathers and the subsequent drive of our nation's citizens, then why harbor guilt? The answer is twofold. First, Obama sees the success of America, a predominantly white country, as a perversion of the natural order, with that natural racial hierarchy being entirely flat. To Obama, any deviation from a completely egalitarian social structure represents a gross moral wrong. Thus, as the leader of what he perceives to be a perverted republic, Obama sees himself, in part, as a reflection of this immorality. He then sees it necessary to grovel at the feet of foreign leaders, hoping that they will forgive him for perpetuating this wrong.

Second, the modern liberal mindset couches everything in the language of classism, racism, and sexism. Thus, any success, whether collective racial achievement rates or that of an individual, results entirely from these privileges. Awhile back when I posted a few comments on 'stuffwhitepeopledo', someone demanded that I "check my privilege", implying that my perspective and entire social standing was based on a nepotistic birthright and not my own persistence. As someone who views society in this manner, Obama believes that the success of America is based on the commensurate global phenomenon of classism, racism, and sexism. He feels guilty because he believes America was given its power, inherited through a global system designed to appropriate wealth and status for the sole possession of whites. (Funny how Asians get so much of it as well.)

Abortion: Life Begins at Conception

For some reason, I haven't written even one post on the abortion issue. In my opinion, abortion is a necessary evil. It's necessary because without it, birth cohorts would suffer from even greater dysgenic fecundity. It's evil because I believe life begins at conception. Though this life, due to its constant dependency, doesn't have the same value as that of society at large and the individuals that comprise it. The demarcation of life's beginning is probably the most contentious issue so let me expound on the matter. Instead of espousing a reason based argument, I'll appeal to almost universal experience. It'll be brief, but hopefully more discussion will occur in the comments.

According to pro-abortion advocates, life only begins around the second trimester. This is due to a number of factors, which mostly involves certain developmental milestones the fetus reaches. OK, so a woman, let's say a liberal pro-choice woman, believes she is pregnant and takes a pregnancy test to confirm this. It comes out positive so she ventures to her doctor to corroborate these results. It's maybe two weeks since she conceived so it's well within the first trimester. The doctor excitedly congratulates her on being pregnant. What's her reaction? According to the pro-abortion argument, she sits there showing little emotion. This apathy persists for about two and a half months until finally, the life has begun!

Of course such a reaction is absurd. She will immediately start celebrating being pregnant because no one actually considers life to start so late in the pregnancy. Thus, the argument against abortion using the fact that life begins at conception is supported.

I imagine my readers will gladly see the flaws in this argument. Please dissect as much as you like!

Professor Jonathan Marks Responds

I contacted Professor Marks asking him to rebut my criticism of his article. He has graciously (well not really) accepted my offer and done so in the comment thread.

His response follows below. As expected, he commences with the "you're a racist" gambit to ensure a civil discourse proceeds. Dr. Marks lives in an intellectual vacuum where his incorrect suppositions concerning race are rarely challenged. It's sad that he is unwilling to defend his analysis, especially since this constitutes a major theme of his research. And of course, if believing in racial intelligence differences makes me a racist, then Darwin (who dismissed HBD as trivially obvious), Francis Galton, William Shockley, James Watson, Francis Crick, Alexander Graham Bell, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln, Ghandi, and a host of others are also in that category. I'll gladly join that group!

I'll give you a short answer. To me, arguing with racists is very much like arguing with creationists, in that they both believe that mainstream scientists are somehow either themselves misled, or are lying to you, about the nature of the things that they are experts in.

You do not understand the Rosenberg paper. The best reference for you to learn about it is Bolnick's paper in Race in the Age of Genomics, ed. by Koenig et al. (Rutgers University Press). The senior author of the Rosenberg paper (Feldman) also has a paper in that volume and I think you will see that your understanding of the result is at odds with his. In brief, the program called Structure compares DNA data of different people by their similarity. Then you ask it If there were k (a number) kinds of people, what would they be? Let's say k is two. The computer tells you that they would be EurAfricans and Asio-Ocieano-Newworldians. Then you say, if there were 3 kinds of people, what would they be? And the computer says, they would be Europeans, Africans, and Asio-Oceanio-Newworldians. If you as it for five kinds of people, it gives you pretty much the continents; if you ask it for six, it gives you the continents and the Kalash people of Pakistan. In fact they did this for up to k=20 (but only published up to k=6), and did a statistical test to see which of the results gave the best fit; they found them all to be quite close, with a slight bias toward k=14, I believe. That is why they vigorously denied that their results proved the existence of commonsensical races, in spite of what the headline said in the New York Times, and its widespread misrepresentation by racists.

You should have a look at the statement on race by the American Association of Physical Anthropologists:http://www.physanth.org/association/position-statements/biological-aspects-of-raceand the American Anthropological Association:
http://www.aaanet.org/issues/policy-advocacy/AAA-Statement-on-Race.cfm
(I'm sure the Royal Anthropological Institute probably must have something similar if you look hard for it.) The American Anthropological Association also has a good educational tool for learning about race, here: http://www.aaanet.org/resources/A-Public-Education-Program.cfm.

Dr. Marks conveniently ignores the entirety of my post and concentrates on the purported mischaracterization of Rosenberg's paper. I imagine such a terse response whereby he ignores the immensity of evidence I provide is justified because I'm a racist? OK. But despite my presumed racism, aren't my points still worthy of consideration? Especially my last one concerning the static racial IQ gap despite significant gains in black social standing. After all, has the math community dismissed the Unabomber's work just because he's a psycho? Heck, in our current political climate, murderous dictators are appropriate models for motivating "success" against immense odds.

At first glance, his explanation of the paper is rather odd considering the introduction makes explicit mention that the researchers parsed individuals into SIX groups coinciding with the continents. If the K=14 results were the most accurate, as Dr. Marks contends, why didn't the introduction state they found FOURTEEN distinct groups? Second, his interpretation of the paper doesn't seem to fit with the provided summary:

They then show that allele frequency differences generally increase gradually with geographic distance. However, small discontinuities occur as geographic barriers are crossed, allowing clusters to be produced. These results provide a greater understanding of the factors that generate the clusters, verifying that they arise from genuine features of the underlying pattern of human genetic variation.

So discontinuous clusters (a direct refutation of a point Dr. Marks made in his article) are produced by the existence of "geographic barriers"? Isn't it plausible that these geographic barriers correspond to continental separation. Thus, these clusters would correspond to continental genetic groups or races. Perhaps Dr. Marks is privy to information that the authors didn't include in either the paper cited or their earlier 2002 paper with similar results. Why do they keep talking about geographic barriers, geographic distance, and six main genetic clusters if there are actually 14 groups that presumably don't correspond with these easily defined geographic regions? Why aren't they publishing these results if they provide more robust predictive value?

And then there's other studies that support my interpretation, such as this one by Dr. Hua Tang entitled: Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies. This one is kind of hard to misconstrue:

Numerous recent studies using a variety of genetic markers have shown that, for example, individuals sampled worldwide fall into clusters that roughly correspond to continental lines, as well as to the commonly used self-identifying racial groups: Africans, European/West Asians, East Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans (Bowcock et al. ¹⁹⁹⁴; Calafell et al. ¹⁹⁹⁸; Rosenberg et al. ²⁰⁰²).

A familiar name comes up here! The results from the study:

Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories.

Once again, if there are actually 14 genetic clusters of humans (curious to hear what they are), then why do all these studies keep finding about five clusters that correspond to the continents? Dr. Marks isn't entirely incorrect in asserting there are numerous "racial" groups. As Sailer defines it, race is merely an extended family, so the delineations are somewhat arbitrary. We could define "race" as what is commonly referred to as ethnicity. Thereby, the British are a race, the Hmong are a race, and the Bolivians are a race. But such a construction obscures the fact that continental ethnicities are "closer" together genetically than ethnic groups not sharing the same continent. For example, the British and Italian populations are somewhat distinct, but the distance between them is more than an order of magnitude smaller than the distance between the Italians and the Chinese or Italians and Zimbabweans. Sailer provides data from Stanford geneticist Cavalli-Sforza supporting this argument.

[Update 11/13/09 11:13 AM: Commenter 'rob' says: "There could be fourteen clusters, but if nine or ten of them were very small (eg. Papuan highlanders, bushmen, Kalash) or we don't have much data on them, it would be reasonable to focus on the 4 (or 5) large clusters." In fact, even in the K=6 case, the Kalash were consider a genetic cluster. Even if very small, relatively isolated groups show up in the analysis, the four or five main clusters would still encompass just about the entire human population.]

OK I think I got my point across. I wonder if Dr. Marks will respond.

Uplifting Human Interest Story

I often venture to the New York Times opinion page to see what liberal fantasy I can excoriate next. Today though, I found an absolutely amazing story that gave me chills despite my pro-West, pragmatic, pessimistic, and skeptical viewpoint. And even better, Nicholas Kristof's saccharine, mawkish prose couldn't dampen how incredible it is.

Of all the people earning university degrees this year, perhaps the most remarkable story belongs to Tererai...

Tererai was born in a village in rural Zimbabwe, probably sometime in 1965, and attended elementary school for less than one year. Her father married her off when she was about 11 to a man who beat her regularly.

Tererai scribbled down four absurd goals based on accomplishments she had vaguely heard of among famous Africans. She wrote that she wanted to study abroad, and to earn a B.A., a master’s and a doctorate.

I won't ruin the rest of the story so you can go read it yourself. Of course, Mr. Kristof doesn't see the triumph of an indefatigable and astoundingly brave spirit.

She is celebrating a personal triumph, but she’s also a monument to the aid organizations and individuals who helped her. When you hear that foreign-aid groups just squander money or build dependency, remember that by all odds Tererai should be an illiterate, battered cattle-herd in Zimbabwe...

It's disheartening Mr. Kristof had to interject his personal politics into this story of individual pugnacity. If only we were all so brave and determined as Tererai.

Inconsistency of Liberal Creationists

Liberal creationists are a dishonest group. Well, in reality, their entire paradigm is based on an aversion to the truth and thus dishonesty represents the only consistent approach. Anti-HBDers regularly attempt to undermine the cold hard facts of nature, such as racial intelligence differences, mental ability distributions, and gender specific behavioral norms. To do so, they must continually deny the most obvious of anecdotal and statistical evidence. Yet occasionally, these same metrics that almost always support the edicts of evolutionary psychology actually can be construed in a manner that supports their pet theories. When this occurs, these liberal creationists accept the same things they readily dismissed as the constructions of biased actors.

Recently, a study blamed low test scores on increased lead exposure.

Given the higher average lead exposure experienced by African-American children in the United States, our results show that lead does in fact explain part of the observed achievement gap that blacks, children of low socioeconomic status and other disadvantaged groups continue to exhibit in school performance in the U.S. education system, compared to middle- and upper-class whites.

I think she left out a group there. But I digress. So their argument reduces to: Increased lead exposure is a significant cause of the achievement gap. (Let's ignore the fact that the gap exists at all socioeconomic levels and residential cohorts.) Ostensibly, to support their case, they used STANDARDIZED TESTING scores as evidence of school performance, and one would assume adult outcomes. In other contexts, test scores are said to have little relevance or importance. Yet when it buttresses their appeal to the existence of institutional racism, these researchers use testing scores as a reasonable standard.

Another favorite, more recent, target of leftists has been the existence of gender norms. They argue that gender norms are the result of a biased cultural zeitgeist that implicitly depresses female achievement. The rigid gender norms promulgated by our cultural edifices, such as proper dress or children's toys, do not reflect any underlying biological imperatives. This obfuscation arises in multiple contexts. These individuals see gay parents as providing an environment equal to a heterosexual couple, view a female breadwinner as no challenge to a male's social authority, and see gender mores as stifling and wrong.

Of course, such ardent pontification disappears quite often. One of the most harmful: Fathers should be stay at home dads because they provide the same care as any mother is capable of, until there's a custody battle. And here's one from the New York Times profile of a man now living as a transsexual woman. I generally refrain from personal attacks, so I'll avoid bashing this person. (Plus, this person seems to be quite a fantastic musician). Though in the light of yesterday's pro-transhumanism comments, I can't imagine many readers opposing transsexualism.

IN September 1998, David Buechner, then 39, a prominent classical pianist, came out as a transgender woman, explaining that from then on, she would live and perform as Sara Davis Buechner.

In the next years, Ms. Buechner largely disappeared from public view, though not by choice. David had done 50 concerts a year — performing with philharmonic orchestras in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland and San Francisco — but as Sara, she couldn’t get bookings....but as Sara, seeking a full-time professorship, “I applied 35 places and wouldn’t even get a response. Behind my back, I’d hear, ‘Is it safe to leave him in a room with undergrads?’ ”

The Times laments the music community's discomfort with a transperson and how they could steadfastly conform to gender norms. I mean, obviously, gender doesn't have one specific meaning, it's a mutable, fluid construct that defies a concrete definition. Well that is until we hear of Ms. Buechner's triumph revival as a WOMAN!

The reviews don’t mention “David Buechner” and it’s hard to tell how much people know or care any more. A 2007 rave in The Buffalo News began: “You can never tell by looking at a soloist what kind of performance you are in for. With her skirt and pumps, Buechner looked conservative. But her playing was anything but. She played with fire and sparkle.”

She's a woman now, in a skirt! Down with pantsuits! (I'm aware that the above passage is a quote, but the Times still used it.)

Transhumanism: Just Plain Wierd

Saturday Audience Participation Post

Last week, FeministX posted about cryonics, a subject I have been interested in for some time. For those unfamiliar with this field, cryonics refers to freezing one's body and brain until technology arises to "reanimate" humans. In essence, a willing individual can achieve an indefinite lifespan and see what becomes of our species and planet. While admittedly a somewhat odd desire (what experiences constitute reanimation?!), the motivations are rather clear. The mystifying future holds all this wonderful intrigue. Many are curious not only to find out what happens, but also to escape the despair of a finite lifespan.

Cryonics is part of a larger field called transhumanism, which refers to processes intended to improve human physicality and mental acuity. In addition to bioengineering, transhumanists see humans eventually bonding with machines. Some ultimate conceptions of humanity put forth by transhumanists have little resemblance to what we are today. While the objectives of this niche subgroup (one step up on the nerd scale from Trekkie) are noble, the whole enterprise strikes me as creepy. Here's a picture of what some transhumanists envision for our future:

But if quality of life is so greatly improved, then what reasonable, secular based objections can one raise against it? To do so, it seems we must imbue nature with a basic level of value and authority. But if we do that, then aren't we beholden to the "might makes right" and "survival of the fittest" edicts all too often used to justify destructive and inhuman practices? I just have a basic visceral reaction to transhumanism that I'm not sure I can fully support on ethical grounds. Is "it's just damn weird" enough of a reason to oppose something?

What are your thoughts on transhumanism? Is it "ethical" to subvert our naturally evolved structure so much? Are you creeped out by this or do you anticipate the dawn of a new and improved human species?

New Zealand Politician: "Appalling Underlcass Shouldn't Breed'

'Dalrock' sent me this story last week. At least someone in the West is unabashedly outspoken regarding voluntary eugenics initiatives.

That there is a group within our society who give their children no hope nor opportunity from the moment that they are born. That these ‘parents’ are known to authorities ... and yet the authorities can only intervene after children have been harmed. It would be far better for this appalling underclass to be offered financial inducements not to have children, given the toxic environment that they would provide for any child in their care."

Unfortunately, he seems to suggest that everyone possesses equal potential if given the right childhood environment. Given his nurture based objections to these individuals breeding, a more socially palatable scheme consistent with his viewpoint would be forced adoptions. Voluntary eugenics is only justifiable if the children themselves will inexorably undermine societal stability. The outcry has not been muted:

But his "solution'' has been branded "draconian'' and "totalitarian'' by the country's child health advocates who are calling for him to stand down as a city mayor. "I just find it such a disgraceful attitude,'' Child Poverty Action Group director Janfrie Wakim said. "It's hard to comprehend that an intelligent man who's leading a city is making such reprehensible suggestions.''

Since when is VOLUNTARY participation tantamount to 'totalitarian'? I think the main objection liberals have against these voluntary programs is that people have the ultimate freedom of choice. Why they care? I'm not sure. It seems almost identical to the birth control pill debate. And, do these liberal creationists actually believe the offspring of drug addicts and gang members won't inherit at least some of these deleterious behavioral norms? How can they be so naive?

Intelligence Testing and Real World Behavior

Last week, HalfSigma posted about an study relating IQ to stock market participation. HS covers the basics so I needn't repeat the points he makes. Instead, I'll comment that this is yet another connection between IQ and real world performance.

One major criticism of intelligence examinations is the notion that "intelligence" is entirely too vague. The researchers and academics who deny the existence of innate mental ability argue that all these intricate processes occurring in our brains can not possibly be reduced to one single, linear scale. They note the incomplete knowledge of how brain works and use this incompleteness as evidence that IQ can't possibly encompass all these wonderful details.

And perhaps they're right. Perhaps, we lack a full understanding of the nature of the intelligence, how it relates to the structures of the brain, and how it can vary throughout a lifetime. Though, their "optimism" must be tempered as new studies decrease the gaps into which liberal creationists can insert their fix of the moment. Here's one relating IQ and the size of white matter.

But what's important is not that we know exactly what IQ measures, rather it's only important that IQ tests just work. Think of an any person using a television remote control. To almost the entire population, that device functions like a black box. We don't know how it works, but we know how to use it and we know how to use to our advantage. Same with IQ tests. While we can't formulate a closed solution to IQ, it simply doesn't matter. IQ has such a strong correlation to multiple facets of real life, including teen pregnancy rate, income, discretion, crime rate, GDP, educational attainment, default rate on loans, and many more. Liberal creationists attack the ambiguity of intelligence test, while ignoring its extremely strong real world predictive value.

Tips for Working Out in a Gym

Sometimes I like to cover topics unrelated to race, culture, intelligence, and politics. Today, I will dispense important advice.

After a few years lifting with my dad's equipment, I started working out at an actual gym. Though I had gained a considerable amount of strength, I was quite nervous when I signed up and began going there regularly. The following is a list of pointers I've learned regarding proper behavior and etiquette if one intends to lift amongst dedicated individuals. It's not a primer on specific exercises, but rather how one should conduct himself in a serious lifting environment. Further, many of the tips involve social relations with fellow gym members. Its an important aspect of lifting that you garner respect from fellow lifters. So in no particular order:

-Don't mock the fatties: They're trying and you should respect them for trying to improve themselves.
-Don't flex in the mirror (if someone is watching): Everyone loves the pump after a set of curls, but you will be mocked for checking yourself out.
-If you're benching, ask for a spot: Only once, I declined a spot and got stuck on my last rep. Don't be the guy yelling out for someone because you were too prideful to ask for help. And usually, the pretty girls behind the counter are willing to spot you.
-Do as much weight as you can, but not too much: Proper form is the most important aspect of good lifting. Don't be the guy who bounces the bar off his chest during benching or yanks down the bar on pull downs. You won't get a good workout and no one will take you seriously.
-Consistently show up: Serious lifters look down on weekend warriors. No matter how big you are, be dedicated and do your workout in the proper manner and you will be regarded well.
-Don't spend too much time in the cardio room: Just don't.
-They're not laughing at you: Neophyte lifters often think the big guys are always mocking them. They're not, so stop being paranoid.
-Wear appropriate gym attire: Don't wear jeans and when you're just starting, don't wear a beater.
-Don't spit in the water fountain: People will get angry and you'll look like an asshole. Be respectful of your fellow lifters. This applies to other hygiene issues.
-Don't change in the locker room: unless you're OK with seeing naked old men because it will happen if you go in there.
-The gym is for lifting, not socializing: Too many people use the gym as a social space, instead of as a workout environment. It's acceptable to lift with a partner, but don't let socializing override the point of being there. And be cautious when approaching strangers. They might not be overly gregarious while working out.
-Lift with free weights: Machines are for supersets, not the main exercises. You'll notice less serious lifters use the machines.
-Have a plan: Don't meander around the gym wondering what you'll do next. Have a plan before you arrive and stick to it. Don't allow your natural laziness to take over.

And finally,

-Try: Lifting is hard. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. You have to push through sticking points, plateaus, and those last reps where muscles actually grow. Afterward, you'll feel accomplished and satisfied. Relish this feeling and understand that progress only comes with struggle.

New Crime Show: White Collar

A couple weeks ago, The USA Network premiered a new series entitled White Collar. Here's the official description:

White Collar is about the unlikely partnership of a con artist and an FBI agent who have been playing cat and mouse for years. Neal Caffrey, a charming criminal mastermind, is finally caught by his nemesis, FBI Agent Peter Burke.

When Neal escapes from a maximum-security prison to find his long-lost love, Peter nabs him once again. Rather than returning to jail, Neal suggests an alternate plan: He'll provide his criminal expertise to assist the Feds in catching other elusive criminals in exchange for his eventual freedom. Initially wary, Peter quickly finds that Neal provides insight and intuition that can't be found on the right side of the law.

So here's the bad news: Yet another crime show will depict every criminal as a successful member of a high-IQ field. Also, I imagine almost every perpetrator will be white. Do I blame the writers for ignoring common petty crime disproportionately committed by NAMs? Not really. Crime dramas engage the audiance because the crimes are often intricate, interesting, and highly involved. Thus, it's likely the creators of such schemes would possess high intelligence. This past summer, I watched a few Law and Order reruns per week. I recall the following occupations for the eventual guilty parties: upper class housewife, doctor, lawyer, computer programmer, world renowned physicist, world renowned biologist, child prodigy, and a Senator's son.

But what's disheartening is that many consider it an accurate portrayal of real life. Parapundit provided this link recently:

We found that people who watch these shows regularly are more likely to overestimate the frequency of serious crimes, misperceive important facts about crime and misjudge the number of workers in the judicial system.

OK, but here's the good news. Kelly Kapowski is on the show.

Update [11/11/09 12:14 AM]: Just noticed this interesting tidbit about one of the characters: an attractive Latina with a doctorate from Cambridge. More realism, right?

Channel 4 on Race and Intelligence

In late October, UK's Channel 4 produced a series entitled Race and Intelligence: Science's Last Taboo. Why is it "science's last taboo"? Perhaps because a multitude of evidence supports the viewpoint opposed by Ivory Tower elites. Unfortunately, I'm unable to view the series in America. Instead, I'll respond to the familiar arguments put forth by Jonathan Marks, a professor at UNC-Charlotte.

Anthropologists have long since abandoned discussions of innate racial aptitudes as quaintly antiquated mindsets...there is no valid scientific reason to think that human groups differ at all significantly in their intrinsic abilities.

See it's true because he said so. Can anyone think of a "valid reason human groups differ significantly in their intrinsic abilities"? Same reason why blacks have dark skin. They're from Africa where it's sunny. Why are East Africans great distance runners with significantly enlarged lung capacity? It derives from their environment. This is the most basic concept of evolutionary biology. Why doesn't it apply to humans?

Human biological variation is continuous, not discrete.

I could say the same for climate zones. But are you going to wear shorts in central Pennsylvania during January just because it's not discretely disconnected from Florida?

Clustering populations is arbitrary.

Not really. Noah Rosenberg parsed individuals into five global groups that correspond with the traditional races. In his algorithm, separating individuals into five groups (as opposed to one, two, or three) provided the most accurate and robust solution. In a comment thread, Dr. Marks claimed Rosenberg's results were orthogonal to race. I doubt that considering this quote from the introduction:

In one of the most extensive of these studies to date, considering 1,056 individuals from 52 human populations, with each individual genotyped for 377 autosomal microsatellite markers, we found that individuals could be partitioned into six main genetic clusters, five of which corresponded to Africa, Europe and the part of Asia south and west of the Himalayas, East Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.

Here's another article, from 'Galtonian', showing selection pressure in human "populations" or in un-PC speak, races. And one more. If the populations were truly arbitrary, then they would cluster people from Sweden with people from the Congo. That doesn't happen. And one more, from Rosenberg again. He looked at 4199 alleles and found that almost half of them were present in all five regions stated above. While this shows the interconnectedness of humanity, it also implies that many genes, such as those known to influence intelligence, are only present in, say Asian and European populations.

While modern genetic tests aggregate clients according to their mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome, the test is often less revealing than simply looking in the mirror.

Yes and this results from selection pressure based on environment. Fittingly, physical appearance coincides very well with continent of origin. This is a result of divergent evolution on continental scales.

Populations are biologically real, not races.

Races, populations, extended families? Does it matter what we call it? People can be classified, through just DNA analysis, into groups that coincide with continents. Again, see Rosenberg study and NYT article above where scholars support the traditional concept of race.

There is much more variation within groups (polymorphism) than between groups (polytypy).

Lewontin's fallacy repeated. As I posted last summer, why don't these Boasians make the same argument concerning the male and female height distributions? Or black and white income distributions?

Racial classification is historical and political, and does not reflect natural biological patterns.

Continuously repeating a falsehood does not make it true.

Humans have little genetic variation.

Humans are also 98% identical to chimps. Should we began treating them as our equals?

Racial issues are social-political-economic, not biological.

So why don't we ponder these socio-economic issues. Blacks have seen marked improvement in every possible aspect of quality of life since the end of slavery. They've been granted voting rights, equal pay, an end to discrimination, then a complete reversal of the zeitgeist, with laws designed explicitly to motivate their collective gain. They dominate popular culture, benefit from reverse discrimination laws, and are completely immune from criticism.

Yet, the post-1960's black-white IQ gap, along with NAEP scores, has been essentially constant at one standard deviation. Almost every single intelligence examination, including MCAT, LSAT, Bar Exam, ACT, military intelligence exams, and NYC SHSAT exam, show the constant one standard deviation gap. If racial disparities derive from social and political phenomena, then shouldn't desegregated schools and access to more academic and occupational opportunities have spurred a significant and stable narrowing of the achievement gap?

Demise of the West: Can It be Stopped?

On Friday, I discussed the growing pessimism amongst conservative bloggers. [OT: Mozilla's spellcheck is horribly antiquated. It doesn't contain "blogger" nor "Obama", amongst many words.] After noting that individual preferences don't necessarily have to parallel political goals, I asked if the West's demise is an inevitable consequences of the past 50 years of liberalism.

Are they? Are we already doomed to wallow in a PC hellhole where the mainstream and the honest un-PC facts of nature reside on the fringe? Have the forces of PC crept too far into the moral fabric of the West that we're at the point of return? Is an Enlightenment, spurred by cutting edge science and a commensurate social backlash against the harmful objectives of liberalism, coming?

If one takes a narrow view that science leads to public acceptance of truth, then the goals of HBD may appear more realizable. Yet, the obdurate and persistent existence of religious creationists shows that large percentages of the population won't relinquish their cherished personal beliefs even in the light of scientific truth. So while the biological existence of race and disparate evolution becomes an undeniable fact, the elites will continue to dissimulate on the issue, such as referring to distinguishable groups as "populations" instead of the politically charged "races". The masses can't accept the lessons of science because they lack the intellectual capability and the elites refuse to accept truths that contradict their noble lies. It's hard to see a dismantling of the PC doctrine through empirical means.

Instead, the most prudent means might be through the moral and practical edifices of society. I'll briefly consider each. Since the 1960's, racial honesty and even benign discussion have become completely taboo subjects amongst whites. The thoughtpolice not only command the entirety of public discourse, but they have seeped into the private domain disallowing even conversation amongst close relatives. In a moral framework, this is akin to the religious concept of sin. Guilt and fear disallow racial honesty.

From an exclusively moral perspective, it's difficult to see such a situation being reversed. Even the main arbiter of morality, the church, regurgitates racial egalitarianism. In my opinion, you won't get anywhere from a moral perspective and I'm not sure how I would even approach it. What needs to occur is a practical awakening, where people simply can't see past the obvious truths of HBD. The masses need to be jolted from their complacency.

During the election, Larry Auster was somewhat optimistic that an Obama win would revitalize conservatism as it would give conservatives a leftist radical to rally against. From moderate conservatives to the far right, an Obama victory and his band of radicals would scare any pro-West person from their political slumber. The demise of the West needed a face and Obama's gang could provide one.

So maybe only a bleak and close encounter with racial truths can save the West. Maybe we need Congress enforcing desegregation, Henry Gates publicly pontificating about white racism, illegal Hispanics marching for amnesty in broad daylight without fear of arrest, and a black President instituting obvious redistribution schemes. The pro-West contingent, almost entirely comprised of whites and some Asians, needs to have these socialist, anti-West policies affecting their bank account, their children's schools, and their neighborhoods. Only then will they demand a return to pro-Western values and policies.

Are You a Skeptic?

Saturday Audience Participation Post

I intended to continue the discussion of yesterday's post, but then I remembered it's reader participation day. As I've mentioned before, my initiation into Internet debate came through secularism and skepticism. I still consider myself a strong secularist, though in practical terms, I'm doubting that the notion of "religion as the root of all evil" is a tenable one. In regards to the practical consequences of belief in the paranormal (or 'woo'), I probably take a similar stance. If someone believes a 300 pound diamond resides in their backyard and keeps that belief to the confines of his home and family, then how does it affect me? Unfortunately, these beliefs often transcend the private sphere and seep into the public domain.

So while I can dismiss 'woo' as a harmless diversion for otherwise rationally functioning individuals, I still can't escape the sheer stupidity of the whole enterprise. First let me clarify what constitutes 'woo', though I'm sure it's probably clear anyway. It encompasses astrology, ghosts, spirits, aliens and UFO's, psychics, near death experiences, demonic possessions, telekinesis, remote viewing, etc. Believers in these phenomena span the entirety of the Bell Curve, from braindead acolytes of Sylvia Browne to a Dean Emeritus from Princeton.

I won't use this a forum to dispel these ridiculous beliefs (e.g. how can a ghost, supposedly an incorporeal entity, reflect photons or near death experiences are delusions of a dying brain with culturally entrenched notions of the afterlife). However, if you'd like to do so in the comments, I surely welcome it.

The HBD community considers themselves the ultimate skeptics, willing to discard the noble lies of race and gender. But, while I knew a heavy proportion subscribed to atheistic or at least deistic beliefs, I've been surprised that a few commenters have expressed pro-woo sentiments.

Are you a skeptic? Do you believe in ghosts, UFO's, astrology, and the afterlife? If so, what evidence do you have, why do you dismiss rational explanation for these phenomena, and how do you resolve this with your scientific reasoning in the context of biology? If not, how do you feel about 'woo' belief and, if you're willing, please provide an argument against woo.

Defeatist Attitude amongst Conservative Blogosphere

Is HBD suffering from a nihilistic crisis? It seems that way. Mangan writes:

[I]t no longer feels like my country. As Ferdinand says, our country seems intent on screwing us over, at least those of us who are white, male, and native-born. What is one to do? While I haven't quite yet given up on the struggle to change the nation into something better, something a lot closer to what it used to be, it begins to appear a lost cause. Is rebellion the only option? Another option is indifference and looking out for oneself, which, for now, seems to me the best option.

Prime echoes these thoughts, seeing SWPLism as the best option for his progeny and maybe himself:

Maybe I should just marry an East Asian so I can be that much more diverse. I probably should also raise my kids as tolerant, SWPLs too. It's the best adaptive measure I could take. A lot of other smart, educated guys are doing it. Is this such a bad idea? Are there any good arguments against joining the present zeitgeist?

Ferdinand took the red pill and he's not going back:

Once you’ve learned that following the rules is a sure way to get screwed over, you can’t go back to being Boobus Americanus. Western civilization, in its politically correct, feminized state, demands that you bend over and grab your ankles in order to be a good citizen, and breaking the rules will earn you the contempt of society at large – and yet, breaking the rules is the only way to survive.

Such a pessimistic, defeatist view ostensibly undermines the larger goals of conservatism and the specific goals of the Steveosphere. How can a group of iconoclasts succeed if they've accepted defeat prematurely? How can we save the West, or at least motivate a marked improvement, if the leaders of this "rebellion" view acquiescence as the only viable solution?

It's not secret that the maladaptive forces of feminism, multiculturalism, racialism, third world immigration, and the PC thoughtpolice constitute an entrenched and recalcitrant opponent. Yet, nihilism, at least in a global or collective sense, can not be the answer. One must first distinguish between individual versus collective or utilitarian loyalties. The choices relevant to one's own life needn't parallel those of one's political bent. For example, note my favorite book list includes Rand's insightful philosophical work, The Virtue of Selfishness. In it, she espouses rational egoism, the notion that self-interest should be of paramount value in one's life. Despite this insistence on personal gratification, such a view doesn't preclude larger collective loyalties. Thus, it's consistent to champion ideals opposed to indifferent egoism in the political domain, where value is pertinent only to large groups.

What's the relevance? Perhaps, such a defeatist view for the individual doesn't contradict an HBD rebellion in the political arena. The choices of one's own life, whether one yields to the coming SWPL zeitgeist in order to procure social favor or stands in obstinate opposition against these pernicious social currents, don't necessarily affect one's political objectives, such as skewering naive SWPLism in the wider cultural forum. But if such a stance is to work, the goals of the HBD movement and the wider pre-1960's conservatism mustn't be dismissed as futile.

Are they? Are we already doomed to wallow in a PC hellhole where the mainstream and the honest un-PC facts of nature reside on the fringe? Have the forces of PC, the forces that expelled Watson from the institution he created, crept too far into the moral fabric of the West that we're at the point of return?

The "your eyes are always lying" meme, whether it be with regards to Muslim immigration, racial intelligence, or anti-male culture, works because we've truly become a "nation of cowards" unwilling to break social taboos even within our minds and surely in polite company. Is an Enlightenment, spurred by cutting edge science and a commensurate social backlash against the harmful objectives of liberalism, coming?

Tomorrow - More on these last points: Has the war already been lost?