If we control for academic qualification, there is zero or negative return on IQ within a country. That is to say, of two people of different IQ but same country and the same academic qualification, the smarter one will have similar or lower socioeconomic success. If we do not control for academic qualification, IQ still does not make a very large difference. Of two people of very different IQ, but the same country, and academic qualifications typical for their IQ, …
Category: culture
Leftist fratricide
The unity of the left in part derives from room at the top, that the ruling elite promised endless expansion – government jobs, and quasi governmental jobs like “diversity trainingâ€, “human resourcesâ€, and “sensitivity trainingâ€, jobs for which one must demonstrate adequate leftism as a entry requirement. As the west moves into financial crisis, there is a marked shortage of additional room at the top. In Britain, the expansion of the state has halted, or considerably slowed, a change misleadingly …
Julian Assange’s “rapeâ€
Roissy has the details: The Assange “Rapeâ€: A Case Of Spurned Groupies: These girls, excited by his internet fame, pursued him, stalked him, and jumped his bones.
Julian Assange is a hero
Yes, he is a leftist, but he is an enemy of the regnant left, an enemy of the state, an enemy of my enemy. Why are all these rightists complaining when Assange makes Obama look like a dangerous lunatic and the state department look like deluded religious fanatics? Are these rightists loyal to a government that is at every level composed of men who hate them and regard them as enemies? Apparently so. What took down the Roman Catholic theocracy …
This wikileak good for the US
Pajamasmedia argues the leak is bad for the US The fact is, the WikiLeaks drop gravely hurts the U.S., not so much in what’s in the documents but in the disclosure itself. Imagine the U.S., China, Iran, Russia, North Korea etc etc all around a high-stakes poker table. WikiLeaks just took America’s cards out of her hands and plopped one of them on the table, while keeping the rest of them for its own use.  WikiLeaks has not done the …
Decline of the west
The last man on the moon left in 1972 The tallest building in the united states was finished in 1974. Cars are becoming humbler. US electricity production was growing exponentially until 1972. After 1972 it grew more slowly. Per capita electricity consumption seems likely to have peaked around 2007 or so. Supposedly GDP is still growing rapidly, just as supposedly inflation is zero, but it seems improbable that GDP is growing when per capita electricity consumption is not. One could …
Hyperinflation coming, but not soon
There is a lot of ruin in a nation. Glen Bleck predicts catastrophic instant inflation completely collapsing the currency and government in a single two week crisis. That is not the way hyperinflation happens. Hyperinflation consists of a series of hyperinflationary crises. In a hyperinflationary crisis, the value of money falls abruptly, typically to two thirds, half or a third of its previous value. The collapse occurs so suddenly that by the time most people realize that the hyperinflationary crisis …
Astroturf
Casting Call: It’s a Bit Part Playing a Concerned Ordinary Citizen Shannon Love found an interesting job listing at website advertising acting jobs: Casting Notice Search Results New Casting Notice Search 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next 158 Casting Notices found | Posted Date Casting Notice Summary 10/7/2010 PRESIDENT OBAMA TOWN HALL, DC PRESIDENT OBAMA TOWN HALL, DC MTV, BET, and CMT (prods.) are casting the audience for a town hall meeting with President Obama. Shooting Oct. …
The cause of the crisis
Roissy wonders why the elites are so stuck on the obviously false idea of literal equality. Understood as a species of Christian belief, it makes sense, because the Christians believe that the most important part of the self is immaterial. If it’s immaterial, then material differences have nothing to do with it. So Christians are free to believe pretty much anything they want about this most important part of the self, unconstrained by material evidence of any sort.
After mass democracy
A couple of hundred years ago, the conventional wisdom was that democracy with broad voter participation was unstable, violent, ruinous, and short lived. A hundred years or so ago the world moved to mass democracy, universal franchise. Many people predicted that this would result in the masses trying to vote themselves rich, resulting in social and economic collapse Well guess what. The masses have been trying to vote themselves rich, social collapse is under way, and economic collapse looms. The …