Conservatism/Libertarianism: What’s in It for Blacks?

Tulio writes:

White conservatives would use the same argument that he is. So what’s remarkable about this?

I guess it shows you how utterly fucktarded conservatives really are. They actually believe this swill: Liberalism causes crime! The more liberals, the more crime!

Are you kidding me? There are actually human beings that are so stupid as to believe this?

Tulio writes:

And there’s nothing wrong with being black and a conservative or libertarian. People don’t have to vote with their skin color, you know.

What would conservatism or Libertarianism ever do for Black people? Every Black country that ever tried radical capitalism and minimal government with no social programs ended up with something that looked like Haiti. Black people are basically socialists for a reason. Pull the state out of a Black nation and it reverts to the jungle in no time.

Furthermore, the modern conservative/Libertarian movement if chock full of hardcore racists and is extremely anti-Black. If anything, the Libertarians are even more anti-Black than conservatives because Libertarians want to dismantle all civil rights laws. Every time a Republican comes into office, the first thing they do is try to defund and defang the Civil Rights Division of the US Justice Department. This horror started under Reagan, who nearly wiped out the department altogether. Reagan kicked off his campaign in 1980 by going to the Mississippi town where the three civil rights workers were murdered back in the 1960′s. Before a cheering crowd of White crackers, he gave a profoundly strange and racist speech. This was nearly a racist call to arms against Black people. Reagan is the God of all US conservatives. The entire movement is based on that one man: he is their hero.

Under George Bush, there were almost no prosecutions by the Civil Rights division, especially under the Housing Rights Act.

Republicans have been trying to keep as many Black people from voting as possible for many, many years now.

The truth is that the modern US conservative movement is a vicious, ferociously anti-Black racist movement and has been since that racist dog took office in 1980.

Is India’s Caste System Comparable to Other Discriminatory Systems around the World?

Aakash writes:

Robert

What do you think about the whites in America then? Segregation (the American version of the caste system) was equally rampant and if you ever visit any southern city (say Atlanta). you’ll see that the whites pretty much live in the ‘burbs and the blacks in town. The county where I live (Dekalb) is pretty much black and the northern suburbs pretty much white. White flight is the new version of the caste system. Blacks cleaning toilets in downtown offices and whites enjoying their MacMansions in the ‘burbs. So far, I’ve never seen a white janitor around here. All imported Mexicans or blacks.

At the risk of getting banned, I have to say that you are turning into a (anti) Hindutva yourself. If Gandhi (for all his deficiencies) was a monster, the whites in America are straight outta hell. Jimmy Carter is one of the very few great souls of this country and nobody hates him more than Whites.

Aakash, supporters of the caste system always say that there is caste all over the world, that is, there are class and racial systems of discrimination.

Surely, formal discrimination was horrible, but that is over and done now. Racial discrimination is illegal in the US. The government doesn’t discriminate and there are many civil cases against businesses every year for various types of discrimination. Quite a few of the plaintiffs win these cases, and they have become so costly for businesses that many businesses, especially large ones, now have policies set in place that are strongly anti-discriminatory so as not to get sued. There is still a lot of housing discrimination in the US, but it is no longer legal. Surely housing discrimination has lessened since 1970. The government doesn’t have the money to go after housing discrimination because Republicans have defunded that enforcement arm.

White people engage in White Flight because they don’t want to live around large groups of Black people. This is because when you get large numbers of Blacks in an area, they typically make a Hell of it in short order. So the desire to flee is actually quite rational.

Janitors area all Hispanics now because that is the way employers want it. I lived in an all White town for 20 years, and all the janitors were White people. It’s just that employers would rather hire Hispanics than Whites to do that job because they can exploit them better. Also after a while, the janitorial force becomes all Hispanic, and then the Hispanics discriminate against Whites and others. So the reason for the all Hispanic workforce is anti-White and pro-Hispanic discrimination and not the other way around.

The argument “there is caste everywhere on Earth” is always used by Hindus, typically upper castes Hindus. Almost everyone making that argument is a supporter of casteism. It’s a way of saying that there is nothing wrong with casteism.

Personally I think that there is no way that casteism can be compared with racism or classism in the US; there is simply no comparison. However, it is a good question, and I think we should put it to the readers.

James Flynn on 2007 Blacks vs 1957 Whites

Repost from the old site.

Note: this post is both lengthy (64 pages) and highly complex. I have tried to make it as understandable as possible, as this blog is geared towards the general reader, but some stuff is just inherently complex. If you think you can’t handle it, you might just want to bail out now; life is difficult enough as it is without me donating a frustrating reading and thinking experience to you.

If you want to sally forth, anyway, go ahead. Meantime, here is a good introduction by James Flynn that is fairly brief and easy reading. In particular, he deals with Jason Malloy’s notion that the Flynn Effect is worthless and not a rise in intelligence since it lacks a g-factor load. If you enjoy that, come back here and spear some of the red meat:

In recent days a particularly forceful assault has been leveled against my post, The Skyrocketing Black IQ, by Jason Malloy on the Gene Expression (GNXP) blog. Please see both of the linked articles above to get a background on the highly complex issues involved in this debate.

I first saw Malloy in the comments on the Dienekes blog.

Malloy hides his de facto racist message with various pretensions and obfuscations, perhaps unconsciously.

An artist from Madison, Wisconsin, he fashions himself an autodidact scientist and mathematician, and in my opinion, he and his ilk are among the most dangerous de facto racists on the Internet, mostly because they seem so reasonable and non-racist about their message. We need to take on him and his ilk with everything we’ve got.

The Malloy line is that environment does absolutely nothing and genes are everything. His political views? He says he is a liberal Democrat. I don’t understand this at all, but I’ve seen stranger things. To me, the politics he says he has and the politics he promotes in his writings are contradictory, but whatever.

He is neither a scientist nor a mathematician, has no degrees in either field, and has no peer-reviewed publications, yet used to go around to science blogs lecturing actual scientists on how to do science.

Real researchers have a skeptical attitude. Molloy does not.

After making comments on my post on Dienekes’ superb blog, Malloy then reiterated his rejoinders in a new post on the ultra-racist, super-arrogant, disturbing, childish and downright embarrassing GNXP blog.

Malloy insists he is not a racist; he is just dispassionate scientist without a science degree who is looking for the cold, hard truth. After some emails with him, I do not think he is consciously racist, but he is pushing a de facto racist message whether he intends or not.

A lot of these guys fashion themselves as “scientific martyrs” – a modern day Galileo. If only people would realize the unpleasant truth: Blacks are stupid, permanently so, and apparently nothing short of gene therapy will change this sorry state. I’m sure just about every Black person around is dying to believe such wonderful things about themselves.

There is no scientific consensus for such a painful conclusion, so there is no reason for any non-racist or Black-friendly person to take that line. The words of Malloy and the many like him amount to psychological warfare against Blacks. At the end of the day, it is more than that: it is a declaration of de facto racial warfare on every Black person on Earth hiding behind the lab coat of science.

Malloy has some charming things to say about US Blacks in that widely-linked piece. He ridicules their mental skills by calling them “story-telling ability IQ”. Their ancestors in Africa have a high “mosquito-dodging IQ“.

He disagrees with my suggestion that the Whites of the Greatest Generation have lower IQ scores than Blacks, remarking that 1945 Whites could not possibly be “even less intelligent” than our considerably dense Black citizens.

Malloy also claims that modern science proves Blacks are much more inferior as workers than Whites, that this is a serious drag on any employer of Blacks, and that the reason for this is their incurable genetic stupidity. The implication is that Blacks simply should not be employed in any sane workplace.

A White friend of Blacks can make sometimes-painful impressionistic observations about Black culture, without being nasty and racist-sounding about it. See here for an example. Malloy and those like him forgo that route and just slam away at Blacks, then are stunned when people note the racism, intended or not, that shines through loud and clear.

GNXP is a Social Darwinist blog where conceited, know-it-all, rude, immature young upper class “intellectual elitist” manchildren make asses out of themselves, and in so doing, idiotically try to poison their future careers. The racism and general elitism, especially the leaderships of South Indian high caste elitists Newamul Khan (Razib) and Paul Wickre (Godless) of GNXP has been cataloged on the Net in many places.

What’s ticklish is that if US Blacks are idiots, what does that make Razib’s Desis, who are apparently even dumber than the Blacks he scorns? Don’t ask. Like so many insecure narcissists, Razib attacks those above him (in this case Blacks and Hispanics) while projecting his inferiority complex on them. It’s Psychology 101, and it would be funny if it was not so pathetic.

GNXP is a hangout where petulant, conceited, condescending, basically immature cranks can pitch their atavistic and nihilistic misanthropy couched as “science” while they cheer themselves on.

Malloy’s debating and authorial style is sledgehammer-like. I have yet to see him concede a point, and he typically refers to opponents as ignorant. Not a good way to win friends and influence people, and it won’t fly in any peer-reviewed journal.

Malloy’s counterattack has been widely linked around the blogosphere, usually in a laudatory way, and was even discussed in a widely-read NY Times article. Unfortunately, instead of being the tour de force it appears to be, this carefully-penned attack is a de facto racist screed.

The author takes as face value that US Whites have higher IQ’s than US Blacks, that this difference is largely genetic and therefore unalterable by any environmental means (except presumably gene therapy) for at least the next century, and that the Flynn Effect (see below) is not an intelligence gain at all and has no bearing on the Black-White (B-W) IQ gap.

Furthermore and most importantly, Malloy seems to take utter delight in all of the above positions.

Except for the italicized first one, none of these positions are supported by scientific consensus, to put it mildly. Even the first position is widely disputed, at least in the popular press most folks read. Even the US Federation of American Scientists disagrees, though I think they are wrong on that. Bottom line: this debate is very much an unsettled issue, for better or worse.

Anyone who has gleefully taken such an extreme position and argues forcefully against all contrary evidence should have their motives questioned. The truth is that anyone staking out such an intellectual space is arguing from a de facto racist point of view, and unfortunately, Malloy’s widely hailed post is a tour de force of de facto scientific racism.

The real danger in this stuff (there are many more like Malloy out there) is the fact that it is very well researched and written and sounds quite convincing and reasonable. A maniac in a sheet or giving a Seig Heil can be scornfully dismissed. The de facto racism of a mild-mannered, reasonable-sounding liberal is much more frightening in its allure and potential to intoxicate.

The reason this is a racist position is that there is as yet no scientific consensus whatsoever about the B-W IQ gap. All we know is that it exists. All else is pretty much up for grabs right now (for exhaustive overviews of the state of the enormously complex debate, see here and here).

Many libertarians and extreme rightwingers are now taking a hardline, “Blacks are stupid” line on the B-W gap. That few Western Blacks or Mulattos, Hispanics, Amerindians, Polynesians, Black Africans, Southeast Asians or Arabs, not to mention Leftists, Liberals, Centrists or even mainstream conservatives take this position is telling.

This hard line is both unwarranted and unproductive.

On the other hand, it is important to not go to the other extreme. Pointing out the verifiable fact that IQ scores are low in Africa or there is a Black-White gap in the US is not racism at all, yet Western society seems to treat it as if it is. The treatment of James Watson’s basically reasonable remarks (other than the remarks about Black employees) is a sad testament.

And those of us opposing scientific racism need to come up with better arguments than, “No such thing as race,” “No such thing as intelligence”, “No such thing as IQ”, “IQ does not measure intelligence”, and on and on.

For instance, IQ is positively correlated with glucose metabolism, frontal grey matter and cerebral blood flow in the brain. A brain that works more, faster or better is likely to use more glucose and blood and to have more tissue than one that does not. This would hardly be the case if IQ had nothing to do with intelligence.

My post cited a phenomenon of rising IQ’s in the West for 80 years called the Flynn Effect (FE – named after James Flynn, the man who discovered it)¹ and claimed that Blacks today have the same IQ score as Whites in 1957. 2007 Blacks also have IQ scores four points higher than Whites in 1945. If 1957 Whites were not stupid and did not have low IQ’s, neither are Blacks today stupid, nor do they have low IQ’s.

Here are Malloy’s complex charges:

He first asserts that there is something called g, or general intelligence factor (conceived by Charles Spearman)², and that this is pure, or real, intelligence. Everything not g is not real intelligence. Instead, it’s just garbage, test-taking practice, “bias”, cultural bias, statistical noise, nothing at all, this or that, or whatever.

Then he asserts that FE rises are not on g, twisting and misrepresenting (Apparently deliberately!) several statements by Flynn. Malloy says they are not on g because the rises are not something called factor-invariant. On the other hand, Malloy notes the fact that the B-W gap is factor invariant.

In fact, Malloy is conflating two different ways of measuring g-factor here, one elaborated by Arthur Jensen, and another way of measuring g, called factor invariance, used by a team out of the Netherlands in 2004 (N2004)³.

The Spearman-Jensen g -factor (SJGF) does indeed correlate with the FE as shown by Flynn in a counterargument to Jensen who said his g-factor did not correlate with FE (the highest FE rises have been on the most SJGF-loaded tests of them all – see Raven’s Progressive Matrices⁴).

However, there is no correlation between the FE and the N2004 factor-invariance method of measuring the g-factor (but see here ³ for quotes from the study that imply that the authors felt there was some correlation).

Also, note that the same authors issued a paper three years prior in which they called into question Jensen’s prize argument, that the B-W gap was due to g and that it was genetic and irremediable – i.e., Blacks are doomed to be stupid forever.⁵

It’s confusing, and overviews of several studies indicate that whether or not the FE is correlated with g is still very much up in the air, in part due to varying ways in measuring g. A cautious conclusion is that the FE shows a fluid-g gain but not a crystallized g gain.

Fluid intelligence is a rough measure of how fast and efficiently one’s brain works, and tends to decrease with age. Crystallized intelligence is more what you know, rather than how fast or well your brain works. It is also the sum total of life experience that we call “wisdom”. As one might expect, crystallized intelligence tends to increase with age, and even aged people can score very high.

The FE is not about knowing more stuff (young people today often seem strikingly ignorant to me, at the same time that I am shocked by how well their brains seem to work), nor is it about wisdom (see my post here that shows that Black pathology in the US increased wildly in the past 50 years while Black IQ’s went through the roof due to the FE⁶).

Malloy concludes that FE gains are not real intelligence gains since they are not g gains (but see above), and hence are worthless. He also states that 2007 Blacks do not have the same IQ scores as 1957 Whites, nor do their scores surpass 1945 Whites. Flynn disagrees.

There is indeed a paradox between the FE and the B-W gap. The B-W gap shows the stereotypical g-factor pattern – that is, the g-factor will measure the degree to which superior test-takers will tend to have a score lifted across all subtests, or across the board.

We could say that they seem smarter in an “across the board” way. It is true that the Blacks of today are not smarter “across the board” than the Whites of 50 years ago, but neither is the converse true, as Malloy implies.

Flynn and others offer some intriguing theories on the differences between g and the FE, and Flynn suggests that the g construct is not terribly important. Flynn suggests that the FE shows gains in intelligence within groups over time, like a movie. If you stop the movie at any time and take a snapshot, you see g. Start the movie again, and you see the FE.

Therefore, it seems wrong for Malloy to bash the FE on the basis that it is not on g, since the FE and g seem to be two entirely different things.

Put another way, we are comparing apples and oranges. It is true that apples do not correlate well with some hypothesized “orange factor”, but they need not and should not, and anyway, the fact that they do not does not imply that an apple is not fruit. It’s just that there is no reason to be comparing them.⁷.

Furthermore, Malloy and Jensen have problems when trying to say that the more a test taps g, the more genetic it is. B-W differences are highest on the subtests that are greatest in g, and the more a test taps g, the more genetic it is. How then to explain the massive FE, which is mostly on the most heavily g-loaded tests of all?

Malloy is also incorrect to imply that non-g FE gains are “hollow”, worthless, or not “real intelligence”. For instance, Malloy repeatedly states that IQ differences between ethnic groups (he often compares Blacks and Whites) are g-based, hence real, genetic and irremediable.

However, comparisons of Whites with some 3rd World groups show that the difference is on non-g. Hence, it follows that these 3rd World groups have the same intelligence as Whites.⁸.

A hallmark of the B-W gap genetic theorists rests on the scores of US Blacks, who strangely score 85, while African and Caribbean Blacks score 67 and 71 respectively. The hereditarian notion is that White admixture is what raises the US Black score, since African Blacks are pure Black and Caribbean Blacks are mostly Black. There are serious problems with this approach.⁹

Malloy is fond of several other claims.

Foremost, they believe that the B-W gap is wholly genetic, and hence cannot be remedied by any environmental factors or interventions. Blacks are hopelessly stupid forever, and the implication is that all money spent trying to give them a brain is down the drain.

They are doomed to wail, “If I Only Had a Brain“, in the wilderness forever, like the Strawman in the Wizard of Oz. The implication is that, as a hopeless race, Blacks must be cast off onto the proverbial ice floe as in the Eskimo custom, set free to fail and die as evolution deems fit.

In particular, Malloy attacks adoption studies, saying that adopting Blacks into White homes failed to raise their IQ’s. However, the evidence from adoption studies is far more complex than that, and many have shown gains for Blacks in these situations.¹⁰

Furthermore, even the model that holds that IQ scores within families are heavily genetic and owe almost nothing to shared home environment has been challenged, with radically different loadings for poor and high-income households on these factors.¹¹

An anomalous study in Germany (Eyferth 1961) based on the children of Black and White soldiers and White German women found no differences at all in IQ among the White and Mulatto children.

Note that many pushing a hardline “Blacks are forever stupid” line today are extreme rightwingers or libertarians. They are almost all Whites, and, in particular and creepily, Northern European Whites. There are a few high-caste South Indians and a Chinese here and there.

Jensen’s first article in 1969 stated that Blacks were dumb, that it was genetic and permanent and that Head Start should therefore be abandoned.

There is a reason for this political stance and there is a reason that almost everyone saying this far to the Right politically. There is an agenda being pushed here. If we can prove scientifically that Blacks are a hopelessly moronic race, and that their stupidity is embedded in their genome with no way of fixing the matter, we can cut off Blacks of any and all social programs designed to help them, educate them or make them smarter.

More savagely, the implication is that they are a useless evolutionary dead end that needs to be “phased out” in the frightening words of Richard Lynn. All money spent to help this dead-end hopeless race of idiots, either in the US or in Africa, is down the rathole. We should not give them medical care, income, rent, welfare, food stamps, disability, WIC or any other assistance or help in any way.

Africa, a continent reeling in disease and poverty, needs to be thrown out of the nest like a baby bird and told it is on their own, cutting off all food, medical and developmental aid. The result will be massive death and suffering in Africa. In the US, similar policies will be less severe but still frightening and tragic.

It is important to see the cruel and deadly racist motives behind scientific racism, even when promoted by consciously non-racist people. Even if their arguments are correct, the prescriptions most of them are pushing, if adopted, will mean chaos and widespread death and suffering for countless Blacks. It amounts to a declaration of war on Black people everywhere.

Scientific racism also claims that evidence shows that educating Blacks is useless, and most are ineducable. Many point to an set in stone “achievement gap” to show that Blacks are permanent dolts and need to be cut off. However, there is impressive evidence that the achievement gap is closing and that spending money on Black education does improve Black scores,

From Malloy’s piece:

An additional popular argument is that the Flynn Effect, the observed rise in IQ scores over time, is evidence that African-Americans or African countries will eventually reach parity with white norms. This typically includes the premise that white intelligence in the recent past was even lower than modern black intelligence. A typical example:

US Blacks, with an average IQ today of 85, have the same IQ as US Whites with an IQ of 100 in 1957. If 1957 US Whites were not stupid, then neither are US Blacks today. It’s time to shut up about the “low Black IQ”, since by any reasonable standard, it is not really low at all.

These arguments are wrong for the simple fact that the Flynn Effect is not a gain in real g factor intelligence, while the differences between nations and ethnic groups are differences in g factor intelligence. These findings led a 2004 team to state:

It appears therefore that the nature of the Flynn effect is qualitatively different from the nature of B-W [Black-White] differences in the United States… [so] implications of the Flynn effect for B-W differences appear small…

James Flynn, namesake of the secular increase, reiterates (DOC) these points:

Factor analysis is a way of measuring this tendency of some people to do better or worse than average across the board; and it yields something called g (a sort of super-correlation coefficient), which psychologists call the general intelligence factor…When you analyze IQ gains over time, you often find that they do not constitute enhancement of these latent traits — they do not seem to be general intelligence gains, or quantitative factor gains, or verbal factor gains (Wicherts et al, in press).

In the language of factor analysis, this means that IQ gains over time tend to display ‘measurement artifacts or cultural bias’. For a second time, we are driven to the conclusion that massive IQ gains are not intelligence gains or, indeed, any kind of significant cognitive gains (pp 27-28).

Flynn believes the secular increase represents important changes in specific narrow aspects of developed cognitive style, but not a rise in g intelligence. It is therefore incorrect that 1945 US whites were less intelligent than 2007 US blacks. The Flynn Effect has little apparent bearing on racial intelligence gaps.

A brief perusal of the Flynn links that Malloy provided above showed clearly that Malloy grotesquely took Flynn’s words out of context, possibly deliberately.

For one, Malloy implies that Flynn concedes that FE gains are not gains in any kind of real intelligence. For years Flynn did think that the gains were a practice effect or test artifact, but in recent years, he has changed his tune, and now really does believe that we are smarter in some ways. Even racist blogger Steve Sailer agrees.

Further, even scientific racists Steve Sailer, Richard Lynn and his co-author Tartu Vanhanen believe strongly in the FE, Lynn so much so that Sailer calls it the Lynn-Flynn Effect.

Malloy has been staking out this extreme scientific racist stance for years now – see here from 2003. Ole Eichhorn, a colleague of his at GNXP, does not share his views and believes strongly in the FE. Malloy at times parrots scientific racist hardliners Jensen and Charles Murray. Murray is a libertarian and Jensen is apparently an extreme rightwinger.

In a recent paper with fellow scientific racist Rushton, Jensen laid out his position: that an acceptance that Blacks are genetically less intelligent than Whites should logically lead to an end to anti-discrimination lawsuits. The burden of proof in such cases would fall on the plaintiff in proving that the employer was motivated by bias and not by Blacks’ scientifically proven genetic intelligence deficits.

This is the brave new world that the scientific racists have in store for us: where Blacks are forever resigned to much lower socioeconomic, health and educational status, with no way for them to equalize things even a bit. It’s this, and not “search for truth”, “science” or Galileo-martyr complexes, that motivates scientific racism, and it is for this reason that we must fight it with all we have.

I sent Flynn an email linking both my post and Malloy’s counterattack. He emailed me back¹³. Flynn made three rather confusing points, quoting from a book of his now on sale at Amazon:

• The FE gains are on g but at the same time they are not on g.
• The FE gains are real intelligence gains in spite of the fact that they are not factor-invariant.
• Flynn agreed with me that Blacks today have the same IQ’s of Whites of 1957, but he made a confusing statement that seemed to imply that Blacks may continue to gain on Whites, and possibly even move to close the gap.

Here is the statement for you to play around with: Blacks do match the whites of 50 years ago but that does not settle the debate. It can be argued that they are the beneficiaries of the effects of modernity over that time and this could be either more or less than the environmental disadvantage they suffer at any given time.

According to this mail, Flynn disagrees with Malloy’s assertions above and also disagrees with all views that Malloy has attributed to Flynn above. However, in a recent email, Malloy agreed that he and Flynn disagree about the meaning of the FE.

There are a lot of confusing terms in here – g factor, factor invariance, etc. See the footnotes and click some of the links to try to understand it better, but this is stuff is not easy going.

Notes

1. The FE in the US shows a 18 point gain over the 70 years from 1947-2002. In my opinion, Blacks have scored higher, reaching 23.5 points.

There are many possible causes of the FE in modern life. According to Flynn in his new book, they may be: Increased demands from more professional, technical, and managerial jobs; increased leisure time; changing cognitive demands of personal interactions; or changing attitudes toward intellectual activity. Nutrition, better schooling, video games, television, computers, cell phones and the increased complexity of modern life are all thought to play a role.

2. The g-factor is best thought of as a correlation coefficient that shows the extent to which superior test takers, if they score better on one test, tend to score better on other tests across the board. It indicates a brain that works “better all across the board” than others with lower g.

A group higher in g than another group will tend to score better than the lower group in an across the board kind of way. Like IQ, g also correlates with quite a few correlates of intelligence such as increased grey matter in the brain.

Jensen’s original extension of Spearman’s g involved the concept that that g-factor is what he called “Level 2 conceptual learning” – the ability to solve problems = conceptual learning = synthesizing ability. Non-g factor was conceived by Jensen as a “Level 1″ type of learning, and is roughly the retention of input and rote memorization of simple facts and skills = associative learning = memorizing ability.

Most IQ subtests would appear to measure Level 2 conceptual learning quite well. Actually, by Jensen’s own reasoning, he felt that the B-W gap was only 60% in g.

3. Raven’s, the most g-loaded test ever made, shows the largest FE of any test. The test was in fact specifically designed to measure g-factor intelligence only. The test has more predictive validity than any other test used in occupational groups and especially predicts mobility in jobs. It measures ability to “make sense out of the buzzing confusion of life”.

Scientific racist Philippe Rushton shows that Raven’s has no cultural bias whatsoever.

4. This extremely complex paper notes: gains cannot be explained solely by increases at the level of the latent variables (common factors), which IQ tests purport to measure.

In other words, according to this study, some of the:

…inter-generational difference in IQ is attributable to bias or other artifacts, and not real gains in general intelligence or higher-order ability factors…A cautionary conclusion would be that part of the gains (excluding the sub-tests Similarities and Comprehension) could be explained by genuine increases in intelligence.

Whereas implications of the FE for B–W differences appear small, the implications for intelligence testing, in general, are large.

As we can see, even Malloy, Jensen and Rushton’s favorite study indicates that part of FE gains could be on their version of g.

5. Dolan and Hamaker 2001 reanalyzed the data from several earlier studies and concluded that Spearman’s hypothesis is not an “empirically established fact” (i.e., that Black-White IQ differences may be due to differences in common factors other than g) due to insufficient power in the data to choose between alternative models.

The paper said:

This leaves the validity of Spearman’s hypothesis, considered a central justification for the genetic explanation, an unresolved question…

However, they did confirm that the Black-White IQ gap is not due to measurement artifacts, and is instead due to some measured factor that varies both within and between groups. These same people stated that the g factor did not explain the B-W gap as it was not explanatorily accurate.

The paper reanalyzed the data from several previous studies (Jensen and Reynolds 1982; Naglieri and Jensen 1987) that used the statistical method invented by Jensen (the method of correlated vectors – g factor) with a more recent and improved method (multigroup confirmatory factor analysis).

Quote:

On the basis of the present, as well as other results (Dolan 2000), we are convinced that the Spearman correlation cannot be used to demonstrate the importance of g in b-w differences with any confidence…

It is possible that the analysis of all available data sets (perhaps using an appropriate meta-analytic procedure) will demonstrate that a model incorporating the weak version of Spearman’s hypothesis provides the best description of the data. However, until this work is undertaken, we cannot accept Spearman’s hypothesis as an “empirically established fact [139]

6. There is quite a bit of existing evidence suggests that FE gains across subtests may indeed be positively correlated with g loading. See Colom 2001 for good correlations between FE and g, and Juan-Espinosa 2000 for much stronger correlations between g loadings and FE gains.

Jensen’s The g Factor, pp. 320–21, reviews a number of studies of the relation between FE subtest gains and g loadings, all of which show weak positive correlations. However, Rushton 1999 finds that a measure of g developed on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) has loadings that are negatively correlated with FE subtest gains in several countries.

Yet this was challenged in Flynn’s new book, Extending Intelligence: Enhancement and New Constructs, where he makes the argument that FE gains are greatest on tests of fluid g rather than crystallized g. Flynn finds a positive (though statistically insignificant) correlation between a measure of fluid g he develops and FE gains in the data used by Rushton.

Two tests in Estonia did not find a correlation between g loadings and FE gains on those tests, but these are achievement tests with a strong crystallized bias. See Must 2001 and Must 2003.

7. For an introduction to Flynn’s new book in which he explores the various paradoxes of the FE, see Amazon’s page on the book. For a much more complex take on how FE gains can be on g but not on g, see this paper.

From the paper:

Numerous studies indicate that measures of intelligence reliably produce a latent general factor, referred to as g, which is associated with real world competence and is highly heritable (see Jensen 1998).

However, analysis of measurement invariance between normative cohorts in gains on five standardized measures of intelligence indicated that IQ gains cannot be attributed to change in a general latent factor but primarily reflect systematic variation in specific aspects of cognition leading to bias between cohorts on a number of subtests of intelligence measures (Wicherts et al., in press).

Something in the experience of successive generations is bringing about changes in aspects of cognitive functioning that are associated with g within but not between cohorts.

See also Flynn’s superb but hard to follow lecture (based on his new book) at the Psychometrics Centre in Britain where he made fascinating points and intriguing allegories while offering fascinating examples. From the lecture:

(1) The factor analysis paradox: Factor analysis shows a first principal component called g or general intelligence that seems to bind performance on the various WISC subtests together. However, IQ gains over time show score gains on the WISC subtests occurring independently of one another.

How can intelligence be both one and many?…

(1) The WISC subtests measure a variety of cognitive skills that are functionally independent and responsive to changes in social priorities over time. The inter-correlations that engender g are binding only when comparing individuals within a static social context…someone who tended to be superior on any one would tend to be above average on all.

Let us assume that the 100 meters, the hurdles, and the high jump all had large and similar g loadings as they almost certainly would. A sprinter needs upper body strength as well as speed, a hurdler needs speed and spring, a high jumper needs spring and timing.

I have no doubt that a good athlete would best the average athlete handily on all three at a given place and time. However, over time, social priorities change. People become obsessed with the 100 meters as the most spectacular spectator event (the world’s fastest human). Young people find success in this event a secondary sex characteristic of great allure.

Over 30 years, performance escalates by a full SD in the 100 meters, by half an SD in the hurdles, and not at all in the high jump. Although average performance has risen “eccentrically” on various events, the following is still true: superior performers still do better than average on all 10 events and are about the same degree above average on various events as they were 30 years before.

Arithmetic, Information, Vocabulary, and Similarities all load heavily on g(IQ) and on a shared verbal factor. Despite this, Americans gained 24 points on Similarities between 1947 and 2002 (1.6 SD’s), 4 points on Vocabulary, and only 2 points on Arithmetic and Information…

To sum up. Factor analysis and g(IQ) describes a static situation where individual differences are compared and social change is frozen. The degree to which superior people are above average on the various subtests sets their respective g loadings.

IQ gains over time describe a dynamic situation in which social priorities shift in a multitude of ways. No better math teaching, more leisure but with the extra leisure devoted to visual rather then verbal pursuits, the spread of the scientific ethos, and a host of other things all occurring together.

The average on Similarities rises but the average on Arithmetic and Vocabulary does not. How odd it would be if social trends mimicked factor loadings in determining what real world cognitive skills progress and which mark time! If they did so, IQ gains would appear factor invariant, but that would be purely accidental (Wicherts et al 2004).

Although radically different trends alter average performances on various WISC subtests between Time 1 and Time 2, note that this leaves a certain stability untouched. Superior performers are much the same degree above average on each and every subtest at both Time 2 and Time 1. Therefore, much the same g will emerge.

Our first paradox is resolved. At any particular time, factor analysis will extract g(IQ) — and intelligence appears unitary. Over time, real-world cognitive skills assert their functional autonomy and swim freely of g — and intelligence appears multiple. If you want to see g, stop the film and extract a snap shot; you will not see it while the film is running. Society does not do factor analysis.

It is a juggernaut that flattens factor loadings and imposes its own priorities. Similarities requires you to solve problems on the spot without a previously learned method. The Performance subtests… require … arranging pictures to tell a story.

General information, math and vocabulary show only small gains on most tests, though the Dutch scored high gains. There have also been IQ identical rises in NAEP tests. Children are learning to read at an earlier age, but they are no better at reading adult literature than before. Basic math skills have shown impressive gains, but mathematical reasoning has been flat.

That means people are no better at geometry and algebra than they were in the past. Ability to solve problems without a previously learned method will be good for managerial, professional, and technical jobs to fill — jobs that often require decisions without the guidance of set rules. We are better at solving novel problems verbally, visually and abstractly.

Previous generations were more rule-governed and less likely to “think outside the box”. Previously, people engaged in pre-scientific, more concrete operational thinking. Now, they are post-scientific and more abstract.

What do dogs and rabbits have in common? They are not retarded, they use syllogistic logic, but they will appear retarded on Similarities. There is more lateral thinking now, and the human mind has been liberated – the liberation of reason from the concrete. There has been the spread of the language and categories of science and on the spot problem solving has been enhanced.

So, Flynn shows that IQ gains are real and that they are the result of environmental progress. The artifact, test taking or bias options cannot be supported by evidence. Test sophistication shows a particular pattern that is not present in the Flynn Effect. Flynn also resolutely shoots down cultural bias.

A series of studies were undertaken by a Russian researcher in first decade of the 20th Century amongst Siberian peasants. He was studying their cognitive styles. Looking at their test answers today, we can see how they were not retarded at all, but would have scored retarded on some of our modern IQ tests.

From the lecture:

Q: All bears are white where there is always snow; in Novaya Zemlya there is always snow; what color are the bears there?

A: I have seen only black bears and I do not talk of what I have not seen.

Q: But what do my words imply?

A: If a person has not been there he can not say anything on the basis of words. If a man was 60 or 80 and had seen a white bear there and told me about it, he could be believed.

This indicates that the Siberian peasant uses syllogistic or concrete logic that was useful for him at the time. As you can see, the questioner tries to get the peasant to think scientifically, but the man stubbornly refuses to, possibly because he is not able to. Not because he is stupid, but because he has never learned how to think this way.

If you tried to explain to the peasant the more abstract and rational way of looking at the problem, he might have argued with you, but more likely he would give you a look that says, “Why do you think that is important?” There was little use in his world for abstract thinking.

Again, in the lecture, Flynn shows that if you asked a boy in 1920 what dogs and rabbits have in common, he would probably have given you an “odd” answer like, “You use a dog to hunt a rabbit.” Nowadays, if someone gave an answer like that, people would crinkle their eyes, look puzzled and say that that answer was “Idiotic!”.

This means it shows contempt for scientific norms, not that it is incorrect – one may indeed use a dog to hunt a rabbit – but modern science does not deem that relationship the most important one between the two animals.

Even a youngster in the ghetto with poor grades nowadays may be able to give the answer we deem “correct”: “Both dogs and rabbits are mammals”. The boy in 1920 is not slow or retarded, he is just using concrete and pre-scientific thinking. The boy in the ghetto, despite his gangsta language and clothing, may at least be able to think like a scientist.

Flynn also shows how Rosenau and Fagan (1997) compare the 1918 debate on women’s suffrage with recent debates on women’s rights and make an excellent case that the latter shows less contempt for logic and relevance. This shows that we are becoming less illogical and irrelevant in our thinking over time.

That our ancestors were illogical or irrelevant in some aspects of their thinking does not mean they were retarded or slow. Illogicality and irrelevance were useful to them in some ways as argumentation styles and in making sense of the world in pleasing and comforting ways; they were culturally sanctioned and incurred little to no penalties.

The Darrow Trial in the 1920′s is another example. They were not retarded or stupid, just unscientific.

8. For instance, B-W IQ differences in South Africa are not factor invariant, so according to Malloy, these differences are not real at all. Malloy’s position would have to be that there are no differences between White and Black IQ’s in South Africa, despite a White score of 100 and a Black score of 67. Is this a position that he is willing to take?

Furthermore, in his book, The g Factor , Jensen himself says that White – South Indian IQ differences are not based on g. Therefore, according to both Jensen and Malloy, Whites and South Asians score the same on IQ tests, despite a White score of 100 and a South Indian score of 81. Is Malloy willing to concede this?

9. Clearly, US B-W differences compared to US White – African differences cannot be explained by the European admixture in the blood of US Blacks. US Blacks are 17.5% White on average. Adding 17.5% White (IQ 100) to the African IQ of 67 gives us 67 + 6 = 73. Instead of the expected 73, we get 85. Clearly, something other than genes is raising US Black IQ.

In addition, numerous studies have been done to try to determine whether or not White admixture in Blacks is correlated with IQ. These studies have found nothing – there is little or no correlation between the degree of White blood in a Black and their IQ score.

Since the US B-W gap is said to be based on g and purely biological, yet there is no difference in Black IQ based on White ancestry level, this takes apart Jensen’s notion that both the B-W difference and g are biological.

10. For instance, Tizard 1974 showed that the Black orphans raised in an orphanage were smarter than the White orphans. Moore 1974 and Willerman 1986 found that Blacks adoptees raised by White mothers had higher IQ’s than adoptees raised by Black mothers.

Scarr and Weinberg (1976, 1983) in a study of Blacks adopted into upper-income White homes in Minnesota, showed that Black children benefited by adoption into high-income white families. Black children had IQ’s of 94 (5 pt gain) and mixed-race (mulatto) adoptees had IQ’s of 99.

The effect wore off by late adolescence and adulthood, but this just shows that home environment only benefits Black children, and the effect wears off by late adolescence to adulthood. But late adolescent to adult Blacks may need a new sort of stimulating environment to maintain their gains from childhood.

Most adoption studies, as noted by the Minnesota trans-racial study above, show gains only in childhood, with gains wearing off by adulthood. However, one study did find lasting gains into adulthood. This effect lasted into adulthood.

11. For instance, from Turkheimer 2003: The models suggest that in impoverished families, 60% of the variance in IQ is accounted for by the shared environment, and the contribution of genes is close to zero; in affluent families, the result is almost exactly the reverse.

12. Huang and Hauser 2000 show that, controlling for social background, Blacks made significant gains in closing the Black-White achievement gap from 1974-1998. Since then, they have begun to lose ground as rightwing policies to cut back on education funds for Blacks have taken hold, harming Blacks. Boozer and Cacciola 2001 show that reducing class size caused an impressive increase in achievement test gains.

13. It is normally a violation of netiquette to print private emails without someone’s permission, but the folks at GNXP demanded that I post Flynn’s letter in its entirely. I do not reprint the whole letter, but I do reprint the parts that are important.

I bold the parts of his letter that are at least a bit confusing to me. A characteristic of the narcissistic young men on GNXP is that they never admit that there is anything they don’t understand, and they never concede a point. Being a grownup and all, I do both.

You raise three questions and my current book (What is intelligence?) illuminates all three. You can get it from amazon.com for $14.96 or probably from a Border’s bookstore:

(1) IQ gains are significant despite not being factor invariant – see chapter 2;

(2) Black gains on white are gains in g even though they are not g gains – sounds odd but true – see pp 60-63;

(3) Blacks do match the whites of 50 years ago but that does not settle the debate. It can be argued that they are the beneficiaries of the effects of modernity over that time and this could be either more or less than the environmental disadvantage they suffer at any given time.

References

Blair, C., Gamson, D. Thorne, S., Baker, D. “Rising mean IQ: Cognitive demand of mathematics education for young children, population exposure to formal schooling, and the neurobiology of the prefrontal cortex”, Intelligence 33 (2005) 93–106.

Boozer, Michael A. and Cacciola, Stephen E. “Inside the ‘Black Box’ of Project STAR: Estimation of Peer Effects Using Experimental Data,” Discussion Paper 832 (Economic Growth Center, Yale University, 2001).

Colom, R., Juan-Espinosa, M., and García, L.F. “The Secular Increase in Test Scores Is a ‘Jensen effect,’” Personality and Individual Differences 30 (2001): 553–58.

Klaus Eyferth “Leistungen verschiedener Gruppen von Besatzungskindern in Hamburg-Wechsler Intelligenztest fur Kinder (HAWIK),” Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie 113 (1961): 222–41.

Flynn, James R. “The History of the American Mind in the 20th Century: A Scenario to Explain IQ Gains over Time and a Case for the Irrelevance of g,” in Extending Intelligence: Enhancement and New Constructs, edited by P. C. Kyllonon, R. D. Roberts, and L. Stankov (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, forthcoming).

Huang, Min-Hsiung and Hauser, Robert M. (2000) Convergent Trends in Black-White Test-Score Differentials in the U.S.: A Correction of Richard Lynn

Jensen, Arthur The g Factor: The Science of Mental Abilities, pp. 320–21. (Westport, CN: Praeger, 1998)

Juan-Espinosa, Manuel and others “Individual Differences in Large-Spaces Orientation: g and Beyond?” Personality and Individual Differences 29 (2000): 85–98.

Moore, Elsie G. J. “Family Socialization and the IQ Test Performance of Traditionally and Transracially Adopted Black Children,” Developmental Psychology 22 (1986): 317–26.

Must, O., Must, A.. and Raudik, V. “The Flynn Effect for Gains in Literacy Found in Estonia Is Not a Jensen Effect,” Personality and Individual Differences 33 (2001).

Must, Must, and Raudik, V. “The Secular Rise in IQs: In Estonia the Flynn Effect Is Not a Jensen Effect,” Intelligence 31 (2003): 461–71.

“Myth: Social intervention cannot raise IQ;”, in “Intelligence Quotient”, chapter in The Encyclopedia of Adoption.

Rushton, J. Philippe “Secular Gains in IQ Not Related to the g Factor and Inbreeding Depression—unlike Black-White Differences: A Reply to Flynn,” Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999): 381–89.

Scarr, S. and Weinberg, R. A. “IQ Test Performance of Black Children Adopted by White Families,” American Psychologist 31 (1976): 726–39.

Scarr, S. and Weinberg, R. A. “The Minnesota Adoption Studies: Genetic Differences and Malleability,” Child Development 54 (1983): 260–67 .

Tizard, Barbara “IQ and Race,” Nature 247, no. 5439 (February 1, 1974).

Turkheimer, E., Haley, A., Waldron, M., D’Onofrio, B. and Gottesman, I. I. “Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of IQ in young children”, Psychological Science 14 (6) (2003), 623–628.

Wicherts, J. M., Dolan, C. V., Hessen, D. J., Oosterveld, P., Baal, G. C. M., van Boomsma, D. I., & Span, M. M. “Are intelligence tests measurement invariant over time? Investigating the nature of the Flynn effect.” Intelligence 32 (2004), 509–537 .

Willerman, Lee and others, “Intellectual Development of Children from Interracial Matings: Performance in Infancy and at 4 Years,” Behavioral Genetics 4 (1974): 84–88.

Abuse of a Muslim Man by a Hindu Mob

This very disturbing video shows a mob of Hindu dogs attacking the human Muslim driver of a lorry. He was on his way to deliver beef cuts to a store for sale. Since idiot Hindus don’t believe in eating beef or meat in general due to their insipid religion, they stopped the poor guy’s vehicle, tried to force him to set it on fire, and then proceeded to take the beef cuts and thrown them in the filthy canal a few feet away. Then they made the Muslim man get in the canal and say repeated prayers to Hindu Gods while dunking his head in the water.

These scrawny Hindu idiots look like they are not getting enough to eat. Maybe they should have cooked some of those beef cuts and eaten them instead! Come to think of it, the Muslim driver didn’t look like he was getting enough to eat either. Maybe he should have cooked up some of those cuts himself. Why is it just about everyone you see in India looks like they are not getting enough food to eat. Nothing wrong with being thin, but these folks look unnaturally thin.

There is rampant and widespread discrimination against Muslims all through Hindu India. For all the Hindu dogs’ wailing about the evils of Islam, it is they who are abusing the Muslims and not the other way around. Sort of like crackers in the Jim Crow South railing about the evils of the niggers and how the niggers are about ready to take over and enslave or kill them all. Projection!

A famous Muslim actress was not able to rent an apartment even in a high rent area of Mumbia. She went on TV and complained about it, but the Hindutvadi dogs just ranted and made excuses for the discrimination. They didn’t even try to deny it! Their response was just, “What about 450,000 Kashmiri Pandits thrown out of Kashmir!” As if two wrongs make a right!

This just goes to show you how Hindus treat humans in Hindu India.

When White Nationalists Complain About Jews

Repost from the old site.

Problem is, there is almost no way to do this without sounding like this guy.

German nationalism probably only dates to the 1880′s, and Italian, Russian and Pan-Slavic nationalism barely to the turn of the century.

Otherwise, nationalism in the modern sense really only arose in Europe with the French Revolution (though it was present first in England in the 1600′s with the defeat of the Spanish Armada), but it took the other nations mostly until the end of the century to adopt nationalism. Modern European nationalism is a relatively new phenomenon.

These modern nationalists pretty quickly took an interest in race, along with the usual volkisch blood and soil bullshit. And most European nationalists agreed on one thing: the Jew was no good.

More recently, in the very early 20th Century, Nordicism began to evolve in Germany and in the US and the UK. I once had a copy of a proto-Nazi book by a German race scientist delineating all of the races in Europe and the surrounding area detailed down to the last detail. It was published in 1918.

This newer nationalism transcended the older nationalism of the one nation in an attempt to unite all Northwestern Europeans under some sort of a superior Nordic or White Race. At the same time, pan-Slavism and even Islamism developed (Yes, modern Islamism only dates to around 1900 or so).

Southern Europeans were quickly defined out of the equation by Nordicists, especially in the US where they were widely despised, but Hitler actually put Meds second only to Nordics. He hated Slavs, but this was mostly because he said they were a “slave race”.

They were a slave race apparently because they had allowed themselves to be enslaved by Jews in the form of Jewish Bolshevism or Communism. The fascists’ main beef with Communists was that the Communists tended to be anti-nationalist.

And it’s simple to see why Jews have been in the forefront of seeing that White ethnic consciousness or nationalism is dead and buried forever.

This is why the anti-racists (who, granted, do bash away at Whites) are so often Jewish. This is why Noel Ignatiev has founded an organization to make Whites go away forever. This is why Tim Wise exists. This is why Jews so often decline to identify as White. This is why there are so many Jews on the board of the NAACP. This is why Jews pushed the 1965 Immigration Act and could well be why they pushed civil rights so hard.

Let’s face it: it’s hard to believe that US Jews really care about civil rights while they supported their KKK-Jewish brethren in Israel. Forget it. There must be another motive.

All of this Jewish behavior made the White Pride crowd dislike Jews more and more with every punch in the ring.

Anti-Semitism is not monolithic; some of it is pretty harmless stuff. But when you start talking about your blond hair and blue eyes and your White race and White blood and then start slamming away at Jews, people, especially Jewish people, do tend to see historical parallels that are not necessarily present in other anti-Semitic brands.

And who could blame them?

Some False Charges Against This Site

From a post on Bigfoot Forums:

RL seems to play both sides, for instance he wants the Ketchum paper to come out yet does all he can to ridicule her.

He says he is not racist, yet writes obsessively about race in a very divisive, provocative way. He also can be counted on to have several creepy posts about woman and about pedophilia.

I would like to clear up some misconceptions about me and my site. First of all, there is no creepy pedophile material on my site. I am interested in the subject, but I am as much a pedophile as most of you are (I assume 0%). I am just interested in all sorts of perverse and weird things. I write about all sorts of weird stuff on my site, serial killers, mental illnesses, paraphilias, sexual perversions and all manner of strange things. I work as a therapist, and I deal with people who are not pedophiles but worry they are. So I had to research the subject.

My position is quite clear that I am against all adult child sex with kids 12-under. With teenagers, it’s a bit different, but here in the US, it is mostly illegal (for sure illegal for adults and teens), and I just urge people to obey the law. True, I had a lot of sex with teenage girls back when I was 16-21, and I write about that on my site. I also write about my sex life, other men’s and women’s sex lives and all aspects of that. The site is sexually explicit. I haven’t had sex with a teenage girl since age 21 because I am afraid of going to jail, and at my age, they are not so attractive anymore anyway!

Anyway, I support males who have a true pedophilic orientation as I know that they can’t help it. But I don’t think they should have sex with kids for a variety of reasons. I don’t know what to do with them. Maybe put them on an island where everyone is over 18 as punishment!

There are no creepy posts about women on my site, but I talk about sex and my sex life a lot, and the site is basically X-rated.  I also talk about how to get women, Game theory, PUA theory and all of that. It is sort of a self help site for single men.

I am very sympathetic to females, in fact, I prefer to associate with women, and I spend most of my time around them as I much prefer them to males.

Bottom line is I reject charges of creepiness about women and especially about pedophilia on my site since I oppose sex between adults and 12-under kids for sure! And even adult-teen sex I urge men to not to do it because the laws here are so insane. Why go to prison?

These charges against my site are just wrong.

Also I reject the charge that my site is racist. I am just not PC! My co blogger is a ferociously antiracist Black woman, and she definitely keeps me on my toes. I write everything with her in mind, and I really try hard not to be racially offensive, but I do tackle a lot of racially un-PC stuff. There are folks of all races in the comments threads, and they go at it all the time.

Lastly, I am a Leftist, so I am not supposed to be racist or misogynist if you know what I mean! We are not supposed to be that way.

Debtors Prisons Rising in America

Here.

I swear to God, with each passing day, this country turns more and more into a sick, filthy, scummy reactionary Hellhole of a toilet.

Are both political parties in on this? Of course this is all being led by the Republican dogs, but where are the Democrats? Are they behind this madness, or are the out to lunch as usual?

No one should go to jail for a traffic ticket. That’s just not right. And it’s insane to charge people room and board for each day you spend in jail. One of my friends here in the complex did some jail time and he said that they charged him $30/day for every day in jail. 30 days means you owe $900. And if you can’t pay that, more jail time. This is just madness. No one wonder people are snapping and shooting up the malls. Not that that’s ok, but I see why they are driven like this.

And it’s not right to go to jail for a private debt to debt collector. That’s not right. Debt collectors are deliberately serving people court dates with the wrong court dates or at the wrong addresses and then when you don’t show up in court, they send their “private cops” out to arrest you. Private police forces and private armies that arrest people are characteristics of sick 3rd World scumholes. They are generally not known in civilized countries full of real human beings. This just shows the 3rd Worldization of this country. It’s sick.

For Starters, Let’s Have a ‘Reality Show’ That’s Really About Reality

Repost from the old site. This is basically a guest post by a young female college student in the US. It takes on Jews in a pretty serious say, so prepare yourself. My comments in bold brackets.

I Don’t Hate the Jews, I Hate Everyone, published in February on this site, was one of the most widely read and linked articles to have appeared on this blog so far. It’s been read over 2000 times so far.

Although it was published seven months ago, I continue to get hits for it to this day, and it is still being linked. Hotly controversial, the piece was vilified by many as anti-Semitic, while others praised it as anti-racist.

This dual view of the piece was exemplified by a spate of recent Indymedia posts of the article. Some of the commenters praised it as an anti-racist piece, and it was filed under “Anti-Racism” at one Indymedia site. Of course, that is how the piece was intended.

On another Indymedia site, it was attacked as “racist garbage” (probably by a Jewish commenter) and it was placed in the Hidden category as a violation of the terms of the site.

The fact that a single article can be portrayed as either anti-racist or racist, depending on one’s POV, illuminates how hard it is to for humans to objectively define anything, which is exactly what semiotics, poststructuralism, Derrida and the rest were getting at.

The article focused on a group of British former liberals and Leftists who have formed a movement that I called the “Pro-War Left”. Basically, the PWL is a British corollary to the US neoconservatives, albeit with some differences in etiology, political orientation (more leftwing), trajectory and history.

To this day, interestingly, there has not been one other article anywhere in the worldwide media that has explored the “British Pro-War Left” as a corollary grouping to the neocons.

I continue to receive mail about this piece. I don’t usually publish mail, but a recent mail I received about the piece had so many nice points that I have decided to publish it, albeit with my own comments interspersed. I will call the author “Anonymous”, since I don’t know if she wants her name published. The author is a young female US college student.

Here goes:

In regards to race, I personally don’t believe in the concept. There is no defined line along the spectrum of people to warrant such a dangerous theory, really. We could even go so far as to say each one of us is our own race making the whole point moot, and it is.

[RL: I don't agree. Clearly, one can make a case for 12 different races: Asian, East Indian, Caucasian, American Indian, Black, Pygmy, Hottentot, Negrito, Polynesian, Micronesian, Melanesian and Aborigine. Really, we could probably make even more if we want to start splitting.]

The concept seems to have been invented by some Europeans to make it easier to gain support in order to colonize, subjugate and enslave people.

[RL: Whether or not the modern concept of race was invented by Europeans in the 19th Century or not is not all that relevant, as humans seem to have been making distinctions like this for thousands of years.]

However, whether it’s a fact or not, we must acknowledge it because it’s with us, and I refuse to play the game that we should remove say, Affirmative Action, in an effort to erase the concept of race. That’s ridiculous. White men have had Affirmative Action since day one in this country by default, so it’s only fair that people of color and women have that protection as well.

[RL: This blog takes a nuanced stance on Affirmative Action. While I think it is necessary, it is not acceptable for less qualified members of certain races to be promoted over more qualified members of other races. And yes, this has been done a lot by the AA system.]

But back when race was being defined, with it came racism.

[RL: I will disagree and say that humans have always been racists; in fact, that the natural, normal state of man is a racist state.]

As race is a concept invented by “whites”, naturally the victims have always been people of color.

[RL: The victims of human racism have always been simply the "Other", which often was something as simple as the "tribe over that hill over there".]

The people of color also happened to live in lands the “white” people found attractive, and the darker folks seemed easier to enslave or conquer because of their lack of guns, germs and steel (yes, Jared Diamond).

And that byproduct called racism created movements like White Supremacy, Zionism, etc. All of these theories appeared noble and even Biblical, and all were based on the belief that the favored people were supreme in some way. The supremacism was portrayed in various ways, biologically, or even as victims (the “worst victims in history” theory used by the Jews, even though Zionism began long before WWII).

Americans, Israelis, Australians, white Africans, etc., are all just upholding the ideals of what is actually ongoing colonization. I do believe people are basically good, and the imperialists know this, so they must invent something that good people would support.

If you can tell a compelling enough story, and you know the components that are needed to make the story work, people will believe it. Religions are a testament to that.

Most people can’t or won’t believe their leaders are so capable of evildoing that they’d actually lie and kill for imperial reasons rather than “innocent” self defense. I mean, who wants to wake up one day to discover mommy and daddy are criminals?

I personally hated the day I woke up and realized that my leaders were doing this, although it didn’t actually happen in one day, but the realization built up to the point where there was one day when it all hit me. It dragged on for days, and now years – this realization that our government is an evil empire has made life very difficult for me to live here.

A pure capitalist society – a byproduct of ongoing imperialism and colonization – is absolute Hell. I feel that pain everyday, and most Americans feel it too yet they don’t realize that pure capitalism is the culprit. They think it’s just life. Capitalism is sold to us as one of the freedoms of democracy!

Funny thing is, you cannot have individual freedoms and democracy at the same time. If the majority doesn’t like your idea of freedom, you can’t have it! But any extreme system like pure capitalism is bound to be problematic.

People complain about dealing with bad customer service, or lack of choice of cable telephone services, or DSL/Cable connection, or bad customer service from conglomerates, or the loss of funding for social programs, the arts, education, or not having health care if they’re not employed by a corporation, or the ridiculous cost of college.

All of this is a product of pure capitalism, where maximizing profits goes above all else, even if it means people have to live in poverty or die. Oh well. They are just casualties of life, I guess, but as long as the corporation is making a profit, it’s all worth it, right? It gives people jobs, right? Except how do these corporations explain themselves when suddenly they send most jobs overseas?

Bizarrely, people still support that in some way or another, defending the company’s right to maximize its profits because, that is the American “dream” right? If only people would just stop and listen to themselves. They’ve been convinced that they don’t even deserve to be employed because it might get in the way of a company’s bottom line! That’s one amazing campaign!

I do want to preface the rest of this by saying that I don’t believe Jews would be naturally imperialistic or controlling if it weren’t for Israel.

[RL: Unfortunately, I am not so sure about that!]

The diamond industry is another story.

But support for Israel is one of those “things” that push most Jews to believe they are superior in some way, or at least more deserving. The campaign to support Israel is very well-done and extremely powerful.

In my efforts to learn more and more about Palestine/Israel, I discovered the fundamentals of colonization. They’re always the same, for the most part, so much so that it makes you wonder if there isn’t a book out there called Colonization Cookbook, Land Grab in Ten Easy Steps, and they’ve all used it.

They all do and say the same things – the European Christians said there were no people here in the Americas because they didn’t consider the natives human, the European Christians said what became Australia was terra nullius for the same reason, and the European Jews said that Palestine was a land without people for a people without a land, and on and on.

The colonists raised themselves to a higher status as a “race” and went from there. Agreements/treaties with the native people were continuously promised, then made, and finally broken.

The natives were eventually corralled into camps, reservations, Bantustans or ghettos, and the colonial violence against the natives continued until protests or a native insurgency eventually put a stop to it. But even after the colonization was halted, there was a tendency to start it back up again somewhere else, especially if our military-industrial complex is having a bad year or two.

Then the colonists either discover a new enemy or invent one. I do not believe Arabs/Muslims are behind the majority of our present day “terrorism.”

[RL: I respectfully disagree, but it depends on how you define terrorism.]

Regarding South Africa (SA), I have definitely studied that case. I was fortunate enough to meet a South African man who fought in the struggle and he told me lots of interesting stories. I also believe that the system of Apartheid and the State of Israel’s founding, both in 1948, is only slightly coincidental.

Cecil Rhodes and Herzl communicated and swapped colonization tips. And the largest stockholder of Rhodes’’ company, the DeBeers precious metals company, was Sir Ernest Oppenheimer. DeBeers is still owned by the Oppenheimers.

South Africa’s main industry at its founding was diamonds, and the diamond industry is now controlled almost entirely by Jews in diamond districts in New York, Amsterdam, Israel (20%), and other parts of the world. So the similarities between Israel and SA are no coincidence, it just remained hidden. Sadha, my South African friend, told me that it was the Zionist Jews who made dismantling Apartheid the most difficult.

I mean, why else did the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith work with and help the SA Apartheid government by spying and sabotaging anti-Apartheid movements in the US for many years? How did that help Jews fight “anti-Semitism”?

Of course, Israel and SA were partners for many years – note the arms deals, nuclear weapons, diamonds, etc. My theory is that Zionists finally agreed to let Apartheid fall because they needed the bodies to populate Israel, in order to fill the place because of the impending “demographics” issue.

[RL: Dubious. I realize that Jews have a lot of power in this world, but I don't think they have THAT much power, thank God, and it is not helpful to ascribe more power to the Jews than they already have. Anyway, I am not aware that a huge number of South African Jews headed off to Israel after the fall of Apartheid.]

A special city project was developed in Israel for the SA Jews, and many moved there. The SA Jews acted like desperate white folks, left to live amongst the now-freed savages.

[RL: It's a fact that many SA Jews, despite the fact that factions in their community played a significant role in dismantling apartheid, headed right out of SA as soon as Black rule took over.]

And despite the fall of Apartheid, the diamond industry is still exploiting Africans all over Africa.

Another issue is that Jews still control many industries that have immense power in this country and elsewhere.

For instance, they control the Entertainment Industry, the Mass Media, the Marketing of the Holocaust Industry, and US Middle East foreign policy (though not an industry per se). Such control is mostly to keep people’’s attention away from Israel until Israel carries out its goal of ethnically cleansing all non-Jews from Palestine, to make way for greater Israel.

[RL: I doubt it. The takeover of US mass media and entertainment by the Jewish elite (mostly accomplished from 1900-1930) was done for other reasons, not to keep people's minds off of Israel. In fact, at the time of the takeover, there was no Israel!

As far as why the Jewish elite decided to take over these industries and engaged in actual conspiracies to do just that in the US, that is a complex issue that is the subject of an entire post itself.

Jews took over the Holocaust Industry for a variety of reasons. Number one, clearly this is an issue of prime concern to almost all Jews. Another reason is more cynical - to facilitate Gentile support of Jewish causes and to perpetuate the notion of Jewish victimhood. Control over US Middle East foreign policy is simply being done out of sheer Jewish self-interest.

That's because Israel, the Jewish state, is central to US ME foreign policy. And let's not forget that the simple goal of making money for the Tribe runs like a river through each of these projects.]

Of all these industries, the Entertainment Industry shapes American opinion above and beyond any other. Just look at the way Arabs are portrayed in American films, or read the book Reel Bad Arabs by Jack Shaheen to see it spelled out for yourself.

Arabs are almost never portrayed in a positive light; the Arab is always a dirty, thieving, polygamist subhuman. Nowadays, he often plays the role of token terrorist. I am now taking a class called History of Film. In the reading for the class I came across this text:

Interestingly, the men who founded these companies (which are obviously still the major powerhouses in Hollywood) had a lot in common. They were all originally independent producers and distributors who climbed the ladder from nickelodeon operator and eventually outlasted the powerful MPPC.

Interestingly, they were all first generation Jewish immigrants with little education, yet in charge of the most significant form of mass entertainment in history enjoyed by a vastly Christian population.

Hollywood is still controlled primarily by Jews who are almost all Zionists, both liberal and right wing.

[RL: Actually, the Hollywood Jews are overwhelmingly male, secular, hedonistic, irreverent, and liberal to Leftist. Rightwing Jews are almost nonexistent in Hollywood.]

Take a look what happened to Vanessa Redgrave because of her part in the 1977 film, The Palestinians.

[RL: She was effectively blacklisted in Jewish-controlled Hollywood].

Due to Jewish control over Hollywood, that film was never shown here. Just try to get a Palestinian art exhibit or film shown in a major US city and see how far you get.

Paul Findley’s book They Dare to Speak Out deals with the Jewish Hollywood angle and many taboo topics along similar lines. The Jewish – Israeli Lobby is extremely powerful in the US. Recently, AIPAC has targeted college campuses. They are working closely with Hillel, the US Jewish college student organization. Both groups are promising to really ramp up the pro-Israel position on campuses this fall.

No group is perfect, and any group can be supremacist because we are all human; and I know that Palestinians are no angels, and neither are Muslims.

As an atheist, I could go on and on about the problems of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But let’s take a look at another imbalance: note that people have no problem discussing Christian and Islamic Fundamentalism, but why the taboo about Jewish Fundamentalism?

Jewish fundamentalism – that’s exactly what Zionism is!

[RL: I don't really agree. There are many types of Zionism - secular Zionism, religious Zionism, ultra-Orthodox Zionism. It doesn't make sense to wrap the entire Zionist enterprise in the Jewish religion.]

You can’t even mention the phrase “Jewish fundamentalism” without getting horrific looks; nevertheless, Jewish fundamentalism surely exists. The dirty looks are testament to the power of the Holocaust Industry. This Jewish special privilege is allowing Zionists to get away with murder.

Right now, the Palestinians are absolutely the victims of Judaism as an imperialist, supremacist movement AKA Zionism, just as the native peoples of the Americas, Australia, Africa and parts of Asia were victims of European Christianity as an imperialist, supremacist movement.

The native peoples of those lands did not leave their lands to colonize, subjugate and ethnically cleanse people on another land.

They didn’t steal others’ land and then deny it, claiming the land was vacant or, if caught in that lie, try to justify it by calling it bringing democracy to the natives or civilizing the savages, or, best of all, claim that God had given them the land, as both the European Jews and European Christians claimed!

[RL: I have to disagree here. The notion that only European Christians and Jews have been colonizing other people is an especially pernicious myth that is drastically in need of busting.

Fact is, colonization has been going on all over the globe for, as best we can tell, 1000's of years. The examples of non-Judeo-Christian colonization and ethnic cleansing are voluminous and cannot be summarized in this comment bracket. Perhaps a subject for another post?]

So at least since history has been documented, the Europeans have had the upper hand in conquest and destruction, whereas others were simply either fighting back or left in the wake and rubble of former colonization efforts. Examples of this can be seen in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, parts of Asia, various oceanic islands, and of course the US.

[[RL: Well, I would agree that Europeans have been doing some of the more prominent colonizing in the past 500 years, but the rest of the planet has been colonizing away on their own during this same period; it's just that their efforts were usually on a smaller scale.]

The American people have an obligation to focus on Israel right now, to bring it to the top of the list as the worst atrocity being committed on this planet side by side with the war on Iraq and Afghanistan, even above Darfur.

[RL: I am going to strongly disagree. If the Israelis had treated the Palestinians in the past two years as the Arabs are treating the Africans in Darfur, the following a catastrophe would have occurred.

A catastrophe that looked like this: 1.3 million out of the 3.9 million Palestinians in the Territories would have been ethnically cleansed to Egypt or Jordan or wherever. The Israelis would have killed 120,000 Palestinians, often with extreme cruelty.

The Palestinians would have been herded into horrible refugee camps, where scores would have died every day of hunger and disease while the world dithered and Israel deliberately obstructed relief supplies.

Israeli soldiers and armed civilians would have gone a mass raping spree. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Palestinian women would have been raped in this mass Rape-a-Thon. Many Palestinian women would have been murdered by the Jews after being raped.]

Zionists love to put the spotlight on Darfur because it helps their cause by pointing out that Muslims are always the bad guys, as though Christians and Jews have never done anything bad in the name of their religion.

The Israeli-Palestinian issue is of prime importance to Americans – the Iraq war is Israel’s war, and we’re fighting it for them and with them.

[RL: True in part, see my comments here on whether the Iraq War is "all about Israel" or not.]

US support is the only thing that keeps Israel afloat. By natural selection, Israel would have been gone by now if it weren’t for the extremely expensive American life support system and the very powerful Jewish Lobby.

So, although I hear people say Jews do not control the world, they do control as much of the world as they want.

[RL:I don't agree with that. My God, if the Jews were that powerful, God help us all!]

They don’t want the whole world, they just want Israel and they will work through the power of the US to hold back the world whenever it gets in the way. But what they do control is all it takes to control the world – America, America’s opinion, and America’’s veto.

As columnist Tony Judt wrote recently in the New York Times Review of Books, Israel is an anachronism, since colonization itself is archaic, yet there the Israelis are, milking an archaic system that should have been defunct by now.

And Americans are falling for it, because most have no idea what’s really going on over there. Why? Because of Zionist control of Americans’ opinions on Israel and the Holocaust by way of the Entertainment Industry, the media, and our Middle East foreign policy.

Because the Israel’s colonial system is an anachronism, we are starting to see some desperate measures by the Israelis. Like a passengers on a sinking ship, Israelis won’t give up the Israel ship until there is nothing left to hold on to, and they’’ll lie, kick, scream, and kill as it goes down, taking a lot of innocent people down with them.

And this scenario I cannot accept. Just as I would not have stayed silent during the Holocaust, or during the French colonization of Algeria, or during the US slavery or Jim Crow eras, or during Apartheid, neither will stay silent now in the face of Zionism, nor will I accept that Zionism is simply an aspect of human nature.

At some point, we humans to learn from past mistakes and rise above such greed and hate and become a better species, shouldn’t we? We have the capacity to do so; we just all need to take an active interest.

It’s unfortunate that politics has been lumped in with religion as a subject not fit for polite discussion. This is nuts. One of them, politics, represents direct reality.

[RL: Well, potentially, anyway. The Bush Administration has shown us that the marriage of surrealism and politics is feasible.]

The other, religion, actually represents mythology, not direct reality. But politics’ place as a taboo subject is certainly by design, and undoing that edifice may be the hardest task of all.

To start, I suppose we could have a reality TV show that is actually about reality.

India’s Silent War Against the Naxalites

Shocking video on India’s war against Maoist rebels. The war pits the Indian state against adivasis, the original, Australoid people of India. The adivasis live in the forests of India’s east.

A telling scene near the beginning of the video shows a refugee camp for adivasis who had been moved out of the jungle to make way for mining. They have been in the camp for many years, possibly decades. Generations have grown up there. Although the government promised them all jobs after moving them to the camp, after decades, they do not yet have one job. They have nothing.

Furthermore, there is extreme discrimination against adivasis in their new home. They say that when they go to school, the other students treat them like crap because they are adivasis. When they go to government offices, they are made to wait in line forever and never served because they are adivasis. This systematic racism and discrimination has been going on for as long as there has been an Indian state, since 1947. And it was going on forever before that. There really doesn’t seem to be any hope for India. If India can’t even begin to deal with its racism problem in 65 years, what hope is there that they will ever deal with it?

The Indian government is trying to force the adivasis to move out of the jungle again to make way for more mines. If they don’t leave, the government comes in and destroys their villages and then moves them to refugee camps that are guarded by the security forces. Once again, the government has promised to give the relocated adivasis jobs. They won’t get one job. The promises are obviously as empty as they were in previous decades. The Indian state is obviously unable to serve its own people.

Almost all of the money from the mining will go to a few huge companies like the Tata Group. It will be used to enrich the growing class of millionaires and billionaires in New Delhi and other huge cities.While half of India starves, a new class of super rich live kings in India’s biggest cities.

Since independence, India has refused to help the adivasi people. It refuses to provide them with health services, schools, roads or other forms of development. It’s systematic neglect, and it’s deliberate.

Recently, some schools were built, but as is the case in much of rural India, the vast majority of the time, the teachers never even showed up. The teachers would not show up a single day out of the year; instead, they would stay home and collect their salaries. Since the schools were never used anyway, the security forces began storing weapons there. Then the Maoists began blowing up the schools as they were used as bases for the security forces. The government then began a propaganda campaign saying that the “Maoists are blowing up schools.”

If a village is suspected of supporting Maoists, the security forces come in, steal food and animals, beat and kill people, rape women, destroy crops and homes, etc. Maoists are typically not even arrested. They are murdered in “encounter killings.” The Maoists are surrounded or stopped as they are going about their business. Trapped, the Maoists surrender. Then the state takes them out into the forest and executes them, afterwards putting a gun in their hand. Most Maoists are killed in this way, especially top leaders.

The Maoists themselves have been heavy handed, attacking villages and villagers who do not support them, accusing them of supporting the government. They have also instituted local justice systems which are heavy handed as can be seen in the video where men are beaten merely for having consumed alcohol.

The adivasis were very interesting looking people. A lot of people think they are ugly, but I tried to adjust my mind to their appearance, and after a while, I began to see many of the men as handsome and many of the women as pretty. Seeing beauty in a race is often a matter of adjusting your mind to their specific looks. There is probably quite a bit of beauty in most if not all human races. Human races have been selecting sexually for beauty, especially in females, for quite some time now. The human race is generally an attractive species, and most human races do their part to help make us a nice looking species of Homo.

This war looks like it is going to go on for a long time. The Maoists need to move beyond the adivasis and start recruiting among the Dalits and other low caste Hindus. They have not yet had good luck at this. In addition, they need to move beyond the jungles and into towns and cities to wage urban warfare. They need to recruit in urban slums and among university students and workers. Things have not gone too well in these respects. Further, they are getting hit hard by spies and government surveillance of rebel cellphones.

India is so hopeless and ruined that I think these Maoists may be the only hope for the development of the country. Perhaps they can wage a  Cultural Revolution and help to rid the country of its various social poisons.

The Problem with HBD

Most folks who are against HBD theory are opposed to it on theoretical grounds. That is, they agree that while there are obvious differences between the races, they disagree that there are differences in complex traits like intelligence and aggression.

I actually think that races do differ on complex traits like aggression and intelligence on average. But I don’t like to talk about it too much. Why? Because it’s gross and disturbing, and there’s not much to be done about it anyway assuming it’s true, which I think it is.

What is to be gained by discussing such things even if they are true. If these differences are genetic, then there is probably not much to be done about them, right? Ok, so what to do? Exterminate the inferior races?

Furthermore, almost all HBD’ers are far rightwing White people, Republicans to Libertarians, who love the rich and hate the poor. Think about it. How many folks espousing HBD are liberal or even leftwing people? How many are even moderates. Most of them are the most ferocious sorts of reactionaries. Screw that. There is just nothing here for a leftwing person.

This all backs up into standard conservative to reactionary thinking. If Blacks are naturally inferior, then it’s a waste of money to spend any money on them, especially on education. Intellectually inferior Blacks obviously benefit little if at all from education due to genetic inferiority.

It gets worse than that, and almost all HBD’ers argue that not one single dime should be spent on the inferior races for any reason whatsoever. What this means is why should the superior race, Whites, spend one nickel on the inferior race, Blacks? And it gets even worse than that. Many to most HBD’ers also want to get rid of integration altogether, wipe out the civil rights and housing rights laws, etc. Why should superior Whites be forces to hire inferior Blacks? Why should superior Whites be forced to live with inferior Blacks?

Also, all such HBD discussions degenerate into talk to superior races and inferior races. While appears to be true that some races are more or less intelligent (therefore superior or inferior on that one trait) or more or less aggressive (superior or inferior depending on how one values aggression) it’s simply gross and disturbing to talk about whole races as being superior races or inferior races. You start talking like that, and most folks either tell you to shut up or leave the room. There’s no reason to use terms like that when talking about whole races of people. It’s rude.

Look at the ferocious reaction to my meager attempts to delve into HBD with the Blacks-testosterone theory. That piece was written as sensitively as possible, but almost every Black who has come here and commented on it has been so angry and mean that they had to be banned instantly. The same is true for most White liberals who commented on the piece. As it stands, the piece has generated very little to no serious discussion and it’s simply been relegated to flame-bait. I almost wonder what the point of even writing it was. Any further articles I write along HBD lines will simply promote more armies of angry Blacks and White liberals who need to get banned. Why bother?

As an obvious corollary, most HBD’ers are the most vicious of racists against Blacks and the other “inferior” races (nastily referred to as NAM’s). For those of us who object to racist thinking, what’s in this for us? Truth is that HBD is just another way to beat up on Black people. People have been beating up Blacks forever. Why join in on the pummeling? My bullying phase ended in high school. It’s also a very lame way for most young White STEM types, probably failing in almost every other aspect of life, to feel better about themselves as members of a superior race who are better than the lowly inferior NAM’s.

Bottom line is it doesn’t even matter if this stuff is true or not. If it’s true, there’s nothing to be done about it anyway, so there’s no point talking about. The size, shape and smell of the shit I took this morning is a fact too, should I discuss it with everyone I meet? Why talk about it? Why talk about HBD? Problems are only worth discussing if you can do something about ameliorating them.

If it isn’t true, which seems unlikely, you simply end up in a debate that goes on forever with no end in sight.