chickens … home … roost

today on both sides of the atlantic we’ve had a couple of positively shining examples of why it’s NOT a good idea to have all this mass immigration** to the west — especially from particularly violent places (see: chechnya, africa) — and doubly especially from particularly violent places where large parts of the population view us as the enemy, an assessment which frankly isn’t entirely wrong.

first, we’ve got a beheading and disemboweling of a soldier in london by a couple of black muslims — at least one of whom has a local london accent, btw:

“Terror at Woolwich barracks: Attacker tried to behead and disembowel British soldier”

“Terrorism returned to the streets of Britain today as a soldier was murdered by two suspected Islamists who attempted to behead and disembowel him as he left his barracks, in the first deadly attack since the 2005 London bombings.

“One of the suspected killers, who addressed an onlooker with a camera, said the pair had carried out the attack ‘because David Cameron, (the) British government sent troops in Arabic country’.

“As pedestrians stood close by the armed men, he went on: ‘We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,’ according to footage obtained by ITV News.

“The soldier was ambushed by the two men as he left the base in Woolwich, south-east London, who attacked him and then dragged his body into the middle of the road to pose for photographs while standing over him waving a machete and a gun, according to witnesses….”

you don’t get much more barbaric than hacking someone to death with a machete. and these guys were armed with handguns, so they specifically CHOSE to kill this unarmed soldier in the way that they did. to make a statement, presumably, but this is also often how they deal with their enemies “back in the old country” (or sweden).

no doubt they viewed a soldier as a legitimate target — a soldier who had actually served in iraq and afghanistan, btw — and it is a slightly less crazy choice than a random civilian — but NOT an unarmed soldier who is just walking down the street. that is just cowardly. and, again, the way they killed him was barbaric — and they had a cleaner option (i.e. they had guns). they preferred barbarism.

in the u.s., the plot thickens (as if it wasn’t already thick enough!) in the boston marathon bombings case:

Friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev shot dead by FBI after ‘pulling a knife as he prepared to sign a confession to 2011 triple homicide’

- Ibragim Todashev, 27, reportedly turned violent during an interview with an FBI agent
- He was being interviewed over his ties to Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev
- Todashev, from Chechnya, was shot dead by the agent just after midnight Wednesday
- He had reportedly confessed to the FBI that he played a role in a brutal triple slaying in the Boston area in 2011
- Todashev had met Tsarnaev while he was living in Boston and last spoke him about a week before the bombing
- He was arrested on May 4 in an unrelated incident after he knocked a man unconscious in a fight over a parking space

involvement in a triple homicide AND you beat a guy senseless in a fight over a parking space?! AND you pull a knife on some fbi agents?? wtf is wrong with you?

i’ll tell you what’s wrong with these people: human biodiversity. they all come from populations which are, on average, more violent than western populations. some of these people probably like the violence — they relish it. note that the elder tsarnaev brother as well as this ibragim todashev were both boxers. these people are quick to anger — and quick to act violently when they are angry.

we know that europeans have, for whatever reasons, become less violent on average since the medieval period. why that is remains open for debate, but it is a fact that cannot be denied. this pacification seems to have happened in other populations as well — japan, china, india. but, comparatively speaking, it has NOT really happened in places like sub-saharan africa, the arab world/middle east/north africa/pakistan/afghanistan, amongst certain tribal peoples of south america, etc.

westerners better wake the f*ck up soon to hbd and that different peoples are different and quit importing people from violent societies, otherwise these events are going to become much more common right here on our doorsteps.

this is not to say that some of these peoples don’t have legitimate grievances with us. sam francis was right about Why They Attack Us many years ago (he was right about a lot of things):

“[T]he blunt truth is that the United States has been at war for years — at least a decade, since we launched a war against Iraq in 1991, even though Iraq had done absolutely nothing to harm the United States or any American. Our bombing attacks on Iraq certainly caused civilian casualties, and if they were not deliberate, nobody beating the war drums at the time felt much regret for them. For ten years, we have maintained economic sanctions on Iraq that have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and we have repeatedly bombed it whenever it failed to abide by standards we imposed on it.

“Under Bill Clinton, we again launched bombing raids against civilians — once against so-called ‘terrorist training camps’ supposedly under bin Laden’s control in Afghanistan and at the same time against a purported ‘chemical weapons factory’ in Sudan that almost certainly was no such thing….

“In all the buckets of media gabble about the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, not once have I heard any journalist ask any expert the simple question, ‘Why did the terrorists attack us?’

“There is, of course, an implicit answer to the unasked question: It’s because the terrorists are ‘evil’; they ‘hate democracy’; they are ‘fanatics,’ ‘barbarians’ and ‘cowards.’ Those, of course, are answers that can satisfy only children. Some day it might actually dawn on someone in this country that the grown-up but unwelcome answer is that the terrorists attacked us because they were paying us back for what we started.

“Let us hear no more about how the ‘terrorists’ have ‘declared war on America….’

“The blunt and quite ugly truth is that the United States has been at war for years — that it started the war in the name of ‘spreading democracy,’ ‘building nations,’ ‘waging peace,’ ‘stopping aggression,’ ‘enforcing human rights,’ and all the other pious lies that warmongers always invoke to mask the truth, and that it continued the war simply to save a crook from political ruin. What is new is merely that this week, for the first time, the war we started came home — and all of a sudden, Americans don’t seem to care for it so much.”
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**although as steve sailer keeps pointing out, there are only one or two hundred chechens totally in the u.s., so apparently ANY amount of immigration from chechnya is a bad idea.

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we’re dumber than the victorians

or so woodley, te nijenhuisc, and murphy have concluded:

Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time

- Simple reaction time has slowed since 1889.
- Simple reaction time genetically correlates with g.
- Psychometric meta-analysis reveals a decline in g of − 1.23 points per decade.
- The decline between 1889 and 2004 is − 14.1 points.
- This is the first direct measurement of a probable dysgenic trend in IQ.

The Victorian era was marked by an explosion of innovation and genius, per capita rates of which appear to have declined subsequently. The presence of dysgenic fertility for IQ amongst Western nations, starting in the 19th century, suggests that these trends might be related to declining IQ. This is because high-IQ people are more productive and more creative. We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations, using high-quality instruments, namely measures of simple visual reaction time in a meta-analytic study. Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence (g) and are considered elementary measures of cognition. In this study we used the data on the secular slowing of simple reaction time described in a meta-analysis of 14 age-matched studies from Western countries conducted between 1884 and 2004 to estimate the decline in g that may have resulted from the presence of dysgenic fertility. Using psychometric meta-analysis we computed the true correlation between simple reaction time and g, yielding a decline of − 1.23 IQ points per decade or fourteen IQ points since Victorian times. These findings strongly indicate that with respect to g the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations.

interesting!

my first question, of course, would be: are they comparing like with like? the authors write:

“We take our general inclusion rules from the meta-analysis by Silverman (2010)…. Third, given that Galton’s sample was British the studies had to have been conducted in a Western country.”

ehhhh. but the demographics of western nations — especially the u.s. and the u.k. — have changed a lot from victorian days!

i especially started asking myself if they’ve compared like with like when i noticed in their table that the iqs of the finnish in the 1980s-90s — demographically still very much a white northern european in those decades — were pretty much the same as the victorians’ scores:

the two reaction time studies on the victorians were done by galton in the u.k. in 1884-1893 and someone named h.b. thompson in the u.s. in 1898-1900. galton’s study presumably included mostly white britons and perhaps some amount of ashkenazi jews. thompson’s study, which was conducted on university of chicago students, was almost certainly comprised of mostly white americans.

what about all the later studies? well, i don’t have access to most of them, but here’s what i found out about a couple of them (again see the table above):

- the 2002 study from the u.k. (rt=324): Effects of caffeine on mood and performance: a study of realistic consumption [pdf] – the subjects were 24 university of bristol students. now, in 2002 at least 10.5% of the university of bristol student population were non-whites, possibly more since the ethnicities of 17.8% of the student population were unknown. this is not really comparing like with like when at least 1 in 10 of the subjects was not white, unlike in galton’s or thompson’s studies. and, do we even know what the ethnic/racial backgrounds of the subjects in this study were? nope.

- the 1984–85 from the u.k. (rt=300): Age and Sex Differences in Reaction Time in Adulthood: Results From the United Kingdom Health and Lifestyle Survey [pdf] – the subjects in this study were drawn from the 1984-85 health and lifestyles survey. i don’t know for sure, but presumably this was meant to be a representative survey — representative of the population of the u.k. in the early 1980s, minorities were 4.2% of the u.k. population [pdf], so 4 out of every 100. and what about the presence of, say, southern europeans in the u.k. at the time? i have no idea, but clearly these things should be taken into account.

i dunno. this is a really neat study, and maybe woodley, et al., are on to something, but i’d like some reassurance that they’re looking at the same sorts of populations.
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see also:

- Simple reaction time: it is not what it used to be.

- Objective and direct evidence of ‘dysgenic’ decline in genetic ‘g’ (IQ) and Taking on-board that the Victorians were more intelligent than us and Intelligence declined one SD since Victorian times – why NOT? from bruce charlton!

- The Victorians were cleverer than us! and ORIGINAL PAPER: “A response to Prof Rabbitt – The Victorians were still cleverer than us” by Woodley, te Nijenhuis and Murphy and Can I have a reaction? @dr. james thompson’s blog!

- The Victorians were smarter than us, study suggests
- Were the Victorians cleverer than us?
- Victorian Era Brits Were Smarter Than Us

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practice makes you…

…better (except if you’re practicing all wrong!), not perfect — unless you’ve got talent:

Deliberate practice: Is that all it takes to become an expert?

Twenty years ago, Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer (1993) proposed that expert performance reflects a long period of deliberate practice rather than innate ability, or “talent”. Ericsson et al. found that elite musicians had accumulated thousands of hours more deliberate practice than less accomplished musicians, and concluded that their theoretical framework could provide “a sufficient account of the major facts about the nature and scarcity of exceptional performance” (p. 392). The deliberate practice view has since gained popularity as a theoretical account of expert performance, but here we show that deliberate practice is not sufficient to explain individual differences in performance in the two most widely studied domains in expertise research—chess and music. For researchers interested in advancing the science of expert performance, the task now is to develop and rigorously test theories that take into account as many potentially relevant explanatory constructs as possible.

don’t have access, but here are a couple of charts from the supplemental data:

Fig. 1. Average percentage of variance in chess performance explained by deliberate practice, correcting for measurement error variance. The light gray region represents reliable variance explained by deliberate practice; the dark gray region represents reliable variance not explained by deliberate practice.

Fig. 3. Average percentage of variance in music performance accounted for by deliberate practice, correcting for measurement error variance. The light gray region represents reliable variance explained by deliberate practice; the dark gray region represents reliable variance not explained by deliberate practice.

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tornado

jesus christ, that was one HUGE frickin’ tornado! =/

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a loaded question

when i gave a shot at analyzing the witch-hunt against jason richwine, i said that nearly all of the elements of a classic witch-hunt were present afaict, but i didn’t have an example of “use of the loaded question technique.”

now i’ve got one, provided by jason himself in his excellent article in (above all places!) the national review – “About That Dissertation”:

“I don’t apologize for any of my writing, but I deeply regret that it was used to hurt my friends and colleagues at Heritage. Seeing them struggle on account of me was the most painful aspect of the whole ordeal. I remember a particularly difficult moment when a Heritage spokesman went on Univision to defend the Heritage report. He explained, accurately, that I was just the number cruncher for the study. Here’s the question he was given by the host:

“‘So you’re telling me that you used the numbers from a man who has written that Hispanics have a low IQ and will have a low IQ for generations. So what makes you think, unless you agree with that premise, what makes you think that his numbers are sufficiently good in order for, for them to be included in your study?’

“How can anyone respond to a question as absurd as that one?”

exactly. and, of course, no one is meant to respond to such an absurd question. that’s the whole point.

anybody who puts a question like that to someone is doing so for the exact same reason that other witch-hunters pose loaded questions, for example these papua new guinean witch-hunters:

“Janet, you drank the blood from your husband, when are you going to give it back, so that our uncle can have his life again?”

the aim is simply to illustrate the “guilt” of the witch or crimethinker involved and to shut down rational discussion entirely (if rational discussion was ever an option in the first place).

witch-hunts — whether looking for “actual” witches or religious heretics or even political witch-hunts (and, yes, that includes the mccarthy hearings, too) — while they may vary in the particulars, are all fundamentally the same thing: a method of delineating the boundaries between the in-group and the out-group — between what is acceptable behavior and what is not. they are freakish events, and terrorizing, because they generally occur at moments of crises, so you never know when they’re going to rain down on your head (that’s what the historians/anthropologists have concluded anyway – see previous post and/or Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis, pgs. 114-121).

witch-hunts serve the same function as other normative rituals like weddings and funerals, superbowls and fraternity hazings: to demonstrate for everyone who’s IN and who’s OUT — and what you need to do to be IN. jason describes this perfectly in his article:

“The furor will soon pass. Mercifully, the media are starting to forget about me. But a certain amount of long-term damage to political discourse has been done. Every researcher who writes on public policy over the next few years will have a fresh and vivid memory of how easy it is to get in trouble with the media’s thought police, and how easy it is to become an instant pariah. Researchers will feel even more compelled to suppress unpopular evidence and arguments that should be part of an open discussion.“

yup.

the witch-hunt is just an emergency version of society’s bonding rituals. (note that they can obviously also be used and manipulated for political ends.) my question still is: what is this emergency that the politically correct crowd is feeling these days?

read jason’s entire piece here: “About That Dissertation.”

previously: “to disbelieve in witchcraft is the greatest of heresies”

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linkfest – 05/19/13

J.P. Rushton’s theory of ethnic nepotism [pdf] – “Ethnic nepotism due to similarity is a weak social force compared to social identity. However its pervasiveness makes it a potential driver of evolutionary and social change, a potential borne out by sociological studies of the impact of ethnic diversity on social cohesion and public altruism. Genomics confirms the theory for interactions within populations with sufficient genetic diversity, such as ethnically mixed societies. GST [genetic similarity theory] applied to ethnicity is promising for further research in evolutionary social science because it unifies evolutionary and behavioral mechanisms in a single theory.” – from salter and harpending. h/t hbd bibliography!

Tibet – looks like selection for adaptations to high-altitude living in tibetans started waaaay back. – from greg cochran. see also: The genome sequence of Tibetan antelope sheds new light on high-altitude adaptation.

The Connection Between Tipping and Corruption (and Tribalism) – “[C]ountries in which tipping is common are more corrupt than others, according to the Corruptions Perceptions Index (CPI).” – from staffan – h/t jayman!

Corruption influences migration of skilled workers – “Countries that have higher levels of corruption struggle to attract and retain skilled workers….”

A fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries – “Anglo and Latin countries most tolerant…. India, Jordan and Hong Kong by far the least tolerant…. The Middle East not so tolerant…. Racial tolerance low in diverse Asian countries…. Pakistan, remarkably tolerant, also an outlier.” – h/t nelson!

The Call of the Clan – “Why ancient kinship and tribal affiliation still matter in a world of global geopolitics.” – mark weiner in foreign policy.

The Ancestral Logic of Politics: Upper-Body Strength Regulates Men’s Assertion of Self-Interest Over Economic Redistribution – “In studies conducted in Argentina, Denmark, and the United States, men with greater upper-body strength more strongly endorsed the self-beneficial position: Among men of lower socioeconomic status (SES), strength predicted increased support for redistribution; among men of higher SES, strength predicted increased opposition to redistribution.”

High-Testosterone Competitors More Likely to Choose Red – “[M]ales who chose red as their color in a competitive task had higher testosterone levels than other males who chose blue.”

Complex Societies before Agriculture: Göbekli Tepe – from peter turchin.

Why Humans Took Up Farming: They Like To Own Stuff – hmmmm.

New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged – “[P]eople living in Xincun [southern subtropical china] 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture –before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region.”

“More Genomes From Denisova Cave Show Mixing of Early Human Groups” – @race/history/evolution notes.

Geoffrey Miller: ‘Why the seduction crowd picked up on my work’ – ’cause it works? (~_^)

The evolution of lying.

‘Overspending Has Become a Modern Form of Mating Deception’ – “Living beyond one’s means can make dating easier, but it leads to problems as a relationship gets more serious.” – h/t geoffrey miller.

“Nice guys finish last.” Really? What does the research say? – from barking up the wrong tree.

Company creates DNA test that reveals whether you carry the redhead gene – (^_^)

bonus: In Defense of Jason Richwine – “His resignation is emblematic of a corruption that has spread throughout American intellectual discourse.” – charles murray is sick of it. me, too!

bonus bonus: Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor – more miiiind control!

bonus bonus bonus: Water bubbling deep in Canadian mine may be oldest on Earth – “A reservoir deep underground in Canada holds water that may be 1 billion years old, possibly the oldest water on Earth, researchers say.”

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Unusual Offshore Octopods: The See-Through “Glass” Octopus [Video]

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where are my DRAGONS?!

awesome!:

i really want some dragons. (^_^)

game of thrones personality quiz.

rhex

woof!

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previously: asimo