Tyler Cowen points out that in the Nation of the Future:
"Most Brazilians do not read. I don't mean they can't read, I mean they don't read for leisure so much. I was stuck at the Sao Paulo airport for seven hours and did not see a single person reading a book, not once."
Various commenters chime in with similar stories.
Let's do a test to see if I have more Brazilian or Finnish regular readers. There are 192 million people in Brazil and 5 million in Finland. If you were born in Finland, post a comment with the word "Finn." If you were born in Brazil, post a comment with the word "Brazilian." But if you were brought to this particular item by a link and don't routinely visit this site, please don't participate.
Here are some amazing statistics from the big PISA international achievement test of 15 year olds in 2000 (Figure 2.3):
In Brazil, only 4% of the youths read at one of the two highest levels on a six point scale, versus 33% in the USA and 50% in top-rated Finland. Brazil is even worse than Mexico, where 7% can read at a strong level.
I suspect the future will look more and more like a combination of Brazil and the old Ottoman Empire.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
78 comments:
The U.S. itself has a strong anti-intellectual bent, but I suspect places like Brazil are 10 times worse.
Maybe if soccer was more fun to read about.
I started out leisure reading in my life, so help me Gawd, about my favorite football team in the sports page. The cultural references the pretentious columnists would sometimes "name drop", got me to look a few things up in Encyclopedia's (because I hated one of our snide sportswriters who was biased against my beloved Crimson Tide). My parents started getting me Sports Illustrated when I was 11, and Ive been reading ever since. Ive managed to read many of the "classic" novels and a good many history books, but it all started with wanting to be "in the know" about college football games and to be able to discuss them with the older men at the barber shop.
Soccer would have never instilled this in me. Now that we have the web, where the touch of fingers can let you learn in depth about any subject you'd like, there is no excuse not to be reading unless you are as intellectually incurious as a bullfrog.
Manda Bala is an excellent recent documentary about the divide between European and non-whites in Sao Paolo. The kidnapping and ear-clipping problem has gotten so bad that the rich have resorted to helicopter taxis so that they never have to set foot on ground.
The sun shines all the time. Why go inside to read?
Finn
"I suspect the future will look more and more like a combination of Brazil and the old Ottoman Empire."
Steve, are you talking about the global future or the future of the U.S.A.?
Whichever it is, people who talk about the U.S.A. becoming another Brazil (increasingly common) don't understand the ramifications of what they're saying. The ramifications for the world would be huge.
Brazilianization of the U.S.A. means two Brazils in this hemisphere, which will mean zero stability and therefore, likely, repeated invasions of the entire hemisphere. The Western Hemisphere will never be stable without a powerful first world society somewhere in the region to anchor it. Imagine a period of relentless war between North and South America with a third or fourth party exploiting the situation. We are all so spoiled in the Western Hemisphere. So spoiled that we don't even acknowledge the stability. Think about the entire region as conquered territory.
And today’s Brazil, contrary to what travel agents will tell you, is not such a wonderful place. It should be extremely alarming to all Americans to consider a transition down to the level of Brazil. Latinization of any kind should frighten all clear thinking citizens.
Brazil is absolutely primitive and unstable compared to the U.S.A. I am talking about the legal system, the political system, the demographics (Brazil itself is getting darker), the infrastructure.
People do not understand the global ramifications that will be triggered when the Lamp of Liberty goes out in the United States of America. They severely underestimate the political effect that the United States Constitution has on societies around the world.
Not to mention the U.S. military's stabilizing role which would be utterly impossible in the New Brazilianized America.
There is a well known investing guru who left the states and moved to Argentina because of the upcoming economic chaos he says will ruin the U.S.A. He wrote some articles last year encouraging others to follow. He expounded on how attractive Argentina was as a place to live.
Well, Argentina has since slipped back into an extremely unstable state politically and economically.
The point is that Latin American societies are nothing at all like the United States, on the surface and especially beneath the surface. The U.S.A. has an amazing set of very old civic and political institutions and an unmatched political continuity. Losing the United States to a "Brazilian" de-evolution that results in a giant second Brazil will trigger, in a major way, loss of peace and modernity in the world.
Wake up, people.
This one is partially cultural. Middle easterners are probably not much different from Brazilians in terms of IQ, but they read quite a lot, and not only religious texts.
(Most Iranians can't read the quran anyway, it's in Arabic)
By the way it’s not impossible to compare who reads how much, most countries have time use surveys, that are reasonably reliable. Within nation comparisons at least are accurate.
Americans above 20 report about 2.8 hours reading per week, Swedes 3.9 hours.
There is an interesting episode in one of Feynman's memoirs in which he describes a year teaching physics in a Brazilian University. Everyone was very nice, but for some weird reason he could not fathom it seemed that NONE of the students in his classes could follow what he was trying to teach.
BTW, I myself read nary a book in high school unless you count Lassie Come Home. I was a wild child. But in college I discovered Literature and haven't stopped reading since.
"Brazil is absolutely primitive and unstable compared to the U.S.A. I am talking about the legal system, the political system, the demographics (Brazil itself is getting darker), the infrastructure."
Its legal system is more Byzantine than ours, but Brazil's federal government has proven itself pretty stable over the last 20 years (since the return to democracy and the adoption of the constitution). Its Congress is a little more corrupt than ours, but the corruption has been prosecuted by the courts. The biggest chaos in Brazil is really at the local level in cities like Rio and Sao Paulo with the crime situation.
As far as demographics and infrastructure, Brazil is nowhere near as homogeneous as this country is. Everyone knows about the shantytown favelas in Rio and Sao Paulo, but there are smaller cities in southern Brazil (e.g., Joinville, Blumenau) that look like they were transplanted from Germany -- because, for all intents and purposes, they were. In general, the southernmost three states in Brazil are mostly white demographically and quite orderly.
There is one area where Brazil makes us look primitive: energy policy. After the oil shocks of the 1970s, Brazil achieved energy independence. Brazilian engineers figured out how to make regular cars flex fuel cars, and Brazilian scientists figured out how to turn sugar cane into ethanol at a price competitive with gas. Today, while 85% of our outer continental shelf is still off-limits to exploration, because of idiots in our Congress, Brazil is actively drilling off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, where it recently found two huge oil discoveries. Since Brazil doesn't really need the oil for domestic consumption, it will be free to sell almost all of it for export.
Oh, a couple of other areas where Brazil is besting us right now: It has primary budget surpluses, as opposed to our deficits, and it's currency has more than doubled against ours in the last several years. If the Brazilian real reaches parity with the dollar, maybe that will be a wake-up call for us.
- Fred
Finn
Finn.
We're everywhere. We're the Jews of the Internet.
Finn
Finn
Finn.
Another Finn here. I've been reading your stuff for several years now.
Finn. A regular reader of iSteve.
I read somewhere that more books are translated into Spanish in a single year than were translated into Arabic during the past 1000 years.
The Guardian wrote that the crown prince of Abu Dhabi has initiated a project to help rectify this. They are planning to translate 100 contemporary works into Arabic per year.
The white Brazilians are dumb (intellectually uncurious) as doorknobs. Think surfer dude. They have no excuse for this.
Demographic change is not so random as you think. The US will not be a Brazil. Dixie already is a Brazil: White upper/middle classes and a black underclass.
Meanwhile, the Northeast and Midwest are white as can be. The Southwest is Latin/Indian dominated. The Northwest is white dominated but with a significant Asian presence. Even the partitioning of this into "colors" is pretty interesting.
For those who have eyes, there is something to see here.
Half-Brazilian (my mother is Brazilian, but I was born in the United States).
So what do Brazillians do to pass the time?
"I read somewhere that more books are translated into Spanish in a single year than were translated into Arabic during the past 1000 years."
Yeah, that bit of braggadocio went all over the net, harped over by certain gated community types who fail to find a direct correlation between the ever-reading Spanish and the hordes of tough, illiterate Arabs replacing them.
It's like the guys at AmRen - boast incessantly about your higher IQ while your culture's systematically denigrated and destroyed and your daughters miscegenate you to extinction.
Does 1/8th Finn count?
Finn
Yo, I'm Finn too!
Culturally Brazil is an amazing underachiever, punching well below its weight even compared to other Latin countries like Mexico or Argentina. Mexico has produced world renowned novelists, poets, film-makers, visual artists and at the plebeian level soap operas that are popular even in Eastern Europe. Brazil has produced some great musicians and some soccer stars, a few interesting movies, a poet or two and a few OK novelists. And though Brazil fares badly compared to Mexico, compared to Iran, Russia or Japan (3 sort of similar countries by population) Brazil doesn't seem to rank at all.
The figure I came across was that more books were translated into Greek (10 million speakers) a year than into Arabic (over 150 million speakers).
And Spanish speakers are not exactly known for being avid readers either. There's a lot of lip service paid to the virtues of reading but when push comes to shove they don't read much.
IIRC in the book Iberia, the author is talking to a publisher in Barcelona who claimed that if he published a Spanish and Catalan version of the same book at the same time, the Catalan version sold just as many (or more) copies as the Spanish version. Catalan is spoken by about 6 million in NE Spain (total population about 35 million).
The problem with literacy in Arabic is that almost everything written is in fusha (classical Arabic) which no one speaks naturally and which only a small percentage of the population is really comfortable using.
That's partly an issue in Brasil too but Spanish speakers don't have any excuses.
Finn. Regular reader. You have quite a lot Finnish readers - several hundreds, I think.
"Born Again Democrat said...
There is an interesting episode in one of Feynman's memoirs in which he describes a year teaching physics in a Brazilian University. Everyone was very nice, but for some weird reason he could not fathom it seemed that NONE of the students in his classes could follow what he was trying to teach."
I remember that anecdote. Feynman came to realize that his Brazilian students - and these were upper-division and graduate students - had learned most all of their physics by rote. They hadn't solved problems, and they had no idea how to solve a problem.
"Fred said....
......and Brazilian scientists figured out how to turn sugar cane into ethanol at a price competitive with gas."
An impressive feat certainly, at least in the short term. But I wonder how long it can last. The price is competitive with gas probably only because the sugar cane is harvested by poorly paid peasants swinging machetes. And what happens when the soil becomes exhausted from relentless, intensive sugar-cane growing?
I appreciated your insights on Brazil. Thanks.
Brazilian. That makes one of us so far. Coincidentally, my soon to be husband is from Finland. They really are everywhere.
not a finn but i dated one once who read a lot. and i approve of finn girls being everywhere.
One Finnish grandfather. One Ashkenazi Jewish grandfather. I'm like the Jewish Jew of the Internet.
I approve of Brazilian women being everywhere.
Jonathan wrote: "And though Brazil fares badly compared to Mexico, compared to Iran, Russia or Japan (3 sort of similar countries by population) Brazil doesn't seem to rank at all."
Jonathan should check his economic facts, after the 2007 CIA world fact book numbers are translated from PPP GDP/capita to real GDP/capita, Brazil beats Iran $6700 to $4000. If petroleum were subtracted from these figures, I suspect Brazil would have twice the real GDP per capita of Iran. While the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) numbers are somewhat informative, and probably useful for comparing individuals without savings (the Joe sixpacks of the world), the real GDP is a better number.
Note that Iran, with its wealth of petroleum, is a net importer of gasoline, and 1-2 years ago was trying to secure foreign financing and construction of a refinery.
The only reason people think Iran is significant, is the American hysteria about Iran.
No it won't Steve. Brazil is blessed with natural resources, but when the oil runs out they'll have just agricultural commodities which is not the way to riches.
The proven way to be wealthy and powerful is building large trust networks with goodly amounts of social peace, a strong enough military to deter attacks, and a constant willingness to change old orders by disruptive and innovative technologies.
The future is going to look more like Japan, South Korea, China, Finland, and yes the US. Increasingly complex and powerful technology compensating for manpower losses.
The US has an anti-elitist bent skt. Not an anti-intellectual bent. Think Wright Bros. vs. the head of the Smithsonian trying to create the first airplane. The Wrights used direct experimentation vs. the Smithsonian guy's theoretical writings.
The Ottoman Empire was a decrepit bunch of nationalities held together by bailing wire and ripe for the taking by stronger, unified powers (French, British, Russian etc.)
Brazilian.
A few clarifying comments on other people's comments - note that I do not dispute the finding itself, I'm only too aware of it...:
To BORN-AGAIN DEMOCRAT about Feynman's experience. I do not know when Feynman taught in Brazil, but I suspect the 1950s or sometime around there, for in this period Brazil "imported" many foreign scientists to teach . . . because Brazil was just creating its first universities. The first Brazilian university was founded in the early 1930s - before that, all you could study in Brazil was Law and Medicine, for the rest you had to go abroad. You can imagine the "background" Feynman's students likely had irrespective of their intelligence or work ethic - not that I'm defending his students in particular, as I don't know details of the story.
To JONATHAN on Brazil's lack of achievement relative to other countries in terms of worldwide recognition. Russia needs no explanation: it is a world power next to Europe, not a young country in a remote backwater of the world. Japan is in the same situation: it is an old civilization and had the "benefit" - for this purpose - of exoticism and then of American occupation. As regards other Latin Americans (Mexicans, Argentines, etc.), they speak Spanish, we speak Portuguese - a language with much, much less international appeal and recognition. Any work published in Spanish with more than minimal importance or skill (in the case of literature) will not have much difficulty in obtaining an English translation. Not so for Portuguese-language works; the rest of the world is just discovering late 19th-century Brazilian writer Machado de Assis (Google him). Note that, again, I'm not saying we have tremendous hidden achievements; just that those we do have are far more unknown outside Brazil than is the case for other countries.
To MARTIN: you comment about "peasants with machettes" is stupid and uninformed. Brazil does not have the world's most efficient agriculture with "peasants with machettes". Study something before giving an opinion.
Please pardon my English.
Fred, that was another nice puff piece. But you need to consider where and what Brazil would be today without the United States, the source of stability and innovation and dynamism in this hemisphere and around much of the world.
Brazil and all the other nations of Latin America have been living as United States protectorates for more than a century. They do not have any real military expenses. They import their math and science related technologies with rare exception. They are along for the ride.
Geopolitically, they do not need to, and are not expected to behave as adults. They are sitting at the kids' table.
Re Latin economies: They don't have real military budgets or large welfare safety nets and still they can barely hold things together. Anyone who thinks Brazil won't default again doesn't understand Brazil.
Argentina also is regularly touted as finally emerging from Second World status, but it never seems to happen.
The 'Latin America Is Our Bright Future' propaganda will never end.
"Culturally Brazil is an amazing underachiever, punching well below its weight even compared to other Latin countries like Mexico or Argentina. Mexico has produced world renowned novelists, poets, film-makers, visual artists..."
You might be overstating the case here a little, no? Brazil may be weak on novelists, but it produced one of the world's most influential architects, Oscar Niemeyer. Its local musical genres (e.g., Samba, Bossa Nova) have been highly influential. And one of the fastest-growing sports in America, mixed martial arts, has been heavily influenced by Brazilian Jujitsu. Brazil may still lag Mexico in film, but it's catching up: Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles and actress Alice Braga have recently made the move to American-produced films. And if fashion models count as part of culture, Brazil's certainly punching above its weight in that category. Brazil is also well-represented in some international sports such as soccer, surfing, and Formula 1 racing.
"An impressive feat certainly, at least in the short term. But I wonder how long it can last."
It's lasted for 30 years so far.
"The price is competitive with gas probably only because the sugar cane is harvested by poorly paid peasants swinging machetes."
I'm sure cheap labor and lots of land have helped, but so has technological innovation. From a WSJ article from a couple of years ago, (reprinted here):
While other countries were busy mapping the human genome, Brazilian scientists at the Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira, a research lab funded by sugar growers, were decoding the DNA of sugar cane. That helped them select varieties that were more resistant to drought and pests and yielded more sugar content.
The center is located in the heart of Brazil's sugar country, about two hours drive from São Paulo. Giant satellite images of sugar fields help researchers identify which variety will grow best in which part of the country, where to locate new fields and the best time to harvest. Over the past 20 years, the center has developed some 140 varieties of sugar, which has helped lower growing costs by more than 1% a year, according to Jaime Finguerut, the center's director of ethanol research.
Other improvements include using remains of processed cane to power sugar and ethanol plants, and using industrial waste from ethanol production to fertilize sugar fields. As a result, the productivity of Brazil's ethanol producers has steadily increased. In 1975, Brazil squeezed 2,000 liters, or about 520 gallons, of ethanol from a hectare, or nearly 2.5 acres, of sugar cane. Today, it's nearly 6,000 liters.
And
One last step remained. Some consumers were leery of buying ethanol cars because they weren't convinced the fuel would remain cheaper than gasoline.
Fernando Damasceno, chief engineer at the Brazilian unit of Italian car parts company Magneti Marelli, thought the solution was to create cars that ran on either fuel equally well. Ford Motor Co. had offered flex-fuel cars in the U.S. since 1991 but the Brazilians thought its flex-fuel device expensive and cumbersome.
Mr. Damasceno created a cheaper device by programming a standard car computer to constantly calculate the mixture of ethanol versus gasoline in the tank and adjust the engine accordingly. In 2002, the team sold the device to Volkswagen, which introduced its flex-fuel Gol the next year. Mr. Damasceno's black box is now sold by five major car makers in Brazil. Even Ford's Brazil unit uses the Damasceno device.
- Fred
Also, Brazil is a world leader in making buses more efficient for mass transit. In the U.S., buses are very unglamorous so the Stuff White People Like crowd is always demanding trolleys. But light rail only looks cute -- it's no more efficient than buses and much more rigid. And the Brazilians have done a lot of work to optimize buses, such as by making loading and unloading them more efficient.
Fred,
How environmentally sustainable is Brazil's current agricultural boom? It sounds like they're doing lots of smart things down there, and I hope they've finally turned the corner (and the whole world could benefit from Brazil's food), but is the soil rich enough to keep it up indefinitely?
Steve,
I'm not an agricultural expert, but from what I've read, Brazil's sugarcane production is quite environmentally sustainable, but its cattle production is less so and more problematic.
This presentation from a Brazilian plant geneticist from 2003 gives a brief overview of some of the sustainable practices used in Brazil's sugarcane production. Excerpt:
...waste that used to pollute streams is now recycled as fertiliser, and soils are enriched through the practice of interspersing rows of sugarcane with rows of nitrogen-fixing soy. The work of trained scientists and engineers has led to the production of crops such as soy and maize (Brazil is now the second producer worldwide of both of these crops).
Sugarcane processing yields bagasse, which serves as an energy source for the mills, waste that is spread over the fields as fertiliser, and sugar, half of which is converted to ethanol.
"How environmentally sustainable is Brazil's current agricultural boom?"
Very much, Steve.
(1) Brazil has very advanced, home-grown, biotechnology for tropical agriculture (Google "Embrapa"). Indeed, the current boom, which began in the 1970s, was jumpstarted by techniques of "soil correction" which transformed the previously nearly useless central savannahs into fertile land.
(2) Brazil has lots, lots of vacant or nearly-vacant land. Cattle-raising has relatively low productivity in most of the country, but as productivity increases, vast areas are being freed up for more intensive development of agriculture.
(3) Brazil has lots of that increasingly scarce resource, water. I don't have the numbers at hand, but it is something in the order of 20% of the world's freshwater. Cheap water and abundant land in a world in which both are increasingly scarce, the result is evident.
(4) All this is not counting the Amazon rainforest, most of which (around 85%) is still extant. One hopes many biotechnological advances will arise from the study of this region, and this may created new sources for wealth for Brazil. For now this is just a potentiality, but I, for one, would rather be surprised if nothing came of it than the contrary.
The Brazilian economy did very well for most the the 20th century. In Angus Maddison's calculations, Brazil has had the highest annual average growth rate of the world from the late nineteenth century to 1980, and the second highest rate of per capita income growth (we lost to Japan).
(Needless to say, we also started from a low baseline, but this is not an unremarkable achievement even if we factor this in).
Brazil stagnated in the late 1970s and began recovering only since 2000. God knows if this time growth will be sustainable as it was in the past, but there is no ***visible*** reason for it not to be. Politics in Brazil is always messy, as you can imagine considering we are a country larger than the contiguous US, with almost 200 million people, with a diverse population in ethnic and geographical terms, and, especially, with social problems which would frighten even the greatest of statesmen. Even then, democracy is now over 20 years old, institutions are working (even if inefficiently) and the Left, including former Marxist guerrillas, was voted into power, took over peacefully and did nothing crazy. With this, there is in Brazilian society a general consensus about which policies should be pursued, with mainstream political discussion centering mainly on marginal adjustments. (E.g., no one discusses that orthodox economic policy is desirable, only if the interest rate should be half a percentage point lower or higher).
I consider myself a cautious optimist about Brazil's future.
"But you need to consider where and what Brazil would be today without the United States, the source of stability and innovation and dynamism in this hemisphere and around much of the world".
Anon, if you keep this up my lungs will explode from laughter. And be aware, in case you aren't already, that to me, and I would think most Latin Americans, mentions of "American dynamism" are read as "manifest destiny and the big stick with us on the receiving end". We are so ungrateful...
As regards Brazil, the only time the U.S. did something out of the ordinary for Brazil was during WWII, and then - of course - you were motivated only by fear of us joining the Axis and need for our bases to supply the northern African invasion than anything else. (This is not a criticism). And the legacy of this period, for us, is a feeling we were double-crossed. We were promised, inter alia, a permanent seat at the U.N. (blocked by Stalin) and development aid (which never came, though the U.S. kept our hopes high by sending "economic missions" throughout the 1950s).
This one is partially cultural. Middle easterners are probably not much different from Brazilians in terms of IQ, but they read quite a lot, and not only religious texts."
Apparently you have not been here long.
There is no such thing as "culture" only race because race dictates cultural choices.
A Celt, a German, a Slav and a Frenchman all have the same lifestyle choices because they are all white.
Please, stop being liberal and learn to walk in (lock)step with the rest of us.
How environmentally sustainable is Brazil's current agricultural boom? It sounds like they're doing lots of smart things down there, and I hope they've finally turned the corner (and the whole world could benefit from Brazil's food), but is the soil rich enough to keep it up indefinitely?
Brazil is doing very well these days.
Check out the Brazil ETF which is EWZ and you will see steady grwoth
http://finance.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:EWZ
Their oil industry has just made some great deep water finds
Their soybean farmers are shipping massive amounts to China
Aircraft industry is a world leader
As far as growing sugar cane and running cars on it's ethanol:
This is unsustainable long term. They will (chemically) burn up cropland growing sugar cane so intensively. Brazil can do this for a long time due to lots of virgin land to exploit in the Amazon
finn
finn
Finn
I'm Brazilian and I won't try to argue over the claim that most people here hate reading because it's true, not only for our huge underclass (who can't read that well anyway) but also for those from the middle and higher classes.
However, I'd place most of the blame for the dumbing down of the latter groups on our mainstream media and the federal government which have been engaged for decades now in a relentless effort to glamorize the culture of our underclass, a culture put beyond criticism despite its destructiveness to our society.
We are now on the way to forming an even bigger underclass.
Exactly what we needed...
Finn
I think speaking/writing Portugese seriously hampers the world recognition of Brazilian literature.
Anon's condescending comments about South America tell you exactly why the U.S. is going to run into trouble (is already running into trouble) this century. We're incredibly parochial and patronizing, fixated on the notion that we're the world's one great country, we believe other countries should be grateful to us for constantly fucking with them (the stuff about the U.S. "protecting" South America was mindboggling), and are pretty ignorant of the actual realities of other places.
Fortunately, U.S. immigration policy ensures a steady flow of people from other countries who actually do understand the rest of the world.
Now, about Finns being the Jews of the internet...
My parents run a traditionalist Catholic website. You don't expect there to be many traditionalist Catholics in Scandinavia. However, in ONE page they mention Uppsala, Sweden (the bishop of Uppsala told Pius XII that the future Paul VI was a Communist spy, and he got fired).
Number of pages viewed in 2007 (excluding robots):
Brazil: 313 (2006: 66)
Sweden: 204 (2006: 22)
Finland: 26 (2006: 55, mainly due to one guy in Helsinki)
Now, remember, this is a traditionalist Catholic site. (Heh... by that token, most of the Brazilian readers are probably German...)
The odd thing about the hostility/condescension toward Brazil often displayed here is that the U.S. and Brazil have more in common than most Americans acknowledge -- culturally and historically. Both countries had a westward expansion that largely wiped out their indigenous inhabitants; both countries imported large numbers of African slaves to work in agriculture; both countries have affirmative action programs to attempt to ameliorate historic discrimination against the descendants of these slaves; both countries had a wave of European immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; both countries had hippies in the 1960s; and today bull riding, country music, and surfing are popular in both countries. Brazil is in some ways the Bizarro-World U.S.
The big advantage that the U.S. has had over Brazil is our Puritan heritage. The Puritans were a better quality of settler than the Portuguese. The Puritans came to build and create; the Portuguese mainly came to take Brazil's natural resources. Also, at the time of Brazil's discovery, Portugal didn't have the resources to invest much in Brazil if it had wanted to.
This century though Brazil has been eating our lunch economically. It has a trade surplus, while we have a trade deficit; it's currency is appreciating, while ours is falling; it has primary budget surpluses while we have deficits; it has achieved energy independence, while we refuse to drill in Alaska and our president begs the Saudis to increase oil production; Brazil's sovereign debt was just upgraded to investment grade by S&P, while S&P has warned that our currency's AAA-rating may have to be revisited in ten years if we don't get a handle on our entitlements spending.
- Fred
finn
"The big advantage that the U.S. has had over Brazil is our Puritan heritage. The Puritans were a better quality of settler than the Portuguese. The Puritans came to build and create; the Portuguese mainly came to take Brazil's natural resources."
In other words the "Puritans" (read whiter northern Europeans) were just smarter than the Portugese?
Please, stop being liberal and learn to walk in (lock)step with the rest of us.
Should read "...learn to walk in (goose) step with the rest of us".
Sorry, couldn't resist. :)
Truth,
"In other words the "Puritans" (read whiter northern Europeans) were just smarter than the Portugese"
If I had meant that, I would have written that. I don't know how the Puritans' intelligence compared to that of the Portuguese, and it's not relevant to the point I made that there were serious differences between what they did in the New World. The Puritans came to build, and the Portuguese, for the most part, came to take. This isn't a controversial point, really -- A Brazilian himself (who happened to be of Scottish ancestry) made it to me. I had mentioned to him that I had just been to the colonial port town of Paraty, and he mentioned off hand that this town had been built solely for the purpose of carting the minerals mined from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais ("General Mining") back to Europe.
- Fred
Truth,
You can build your own straw men and play with them if you like. I've never said that intelligence was the only determining factor in national wealth. Of course culture plays a role as well. The Calvinism of America's early settlers was a huge advantage in our national development over the hierarchical Catholicism of the Portuguese.
As for Portugal's relative lack of wealth (compared to the rest of Western Europe -- it's still a rich country compared to most of the rest of the world), do a little reading on Portuguese history. The last 250 years or so haven't been too good for them.
I'd also note that the idea of kicking out all the Jews 500 years ago probably didn't help Portugal or Spain much either.
- Fred
Why not put a sitemeter? The one at gnxp is interesting.
The white, rich Brazilians are a lot like California surfer dudes. The alpha and omega of life is the beach, buff bodies, and ostentatious wealth. This is not the problem of an underclass, it is the fault of a particularly insipid and hedonistic upper class. Maybe that's the cost of living somewhere nice, who knows.
And don't overestimate the integration of Brazil. To Paulistas and Cariocas, the Amazon might as well be the moon. It is inaccessible and unknown to them. Also a testament to Brazilian non-ingenuity up to now. But that might change.
Demographically, Brazil looks a lot like Dixie. Brazil is by and large a bi-racial black/white society, despite PC porn fantasies to the contrary.
Brazilians have lots of seething hostility for Americans. Especially upper class Brazilians. They take every chance they get to tax, prosecute, fine, inconvenience, and otherwise harass Americans just for being American. Rich whites Brazilians living in gated luxury apartments love to get all hot and bothered by how Americans exploit their country, as if they are not part of the same game.
Also check out how many of the charitable organizations in the favelas are run by Germans-Brazilians. The Portuguese upper class prefers to ignore the shantytowns where their servant class lives.
Possibly this unspoken seige mentality in the white upper class, afraid of the blacks, has a something do with Brazil's underdevelopment.
"Of course culture plays a role as well."
I thought IQ determined culture.
I.e. 'blacks invented gansta rap because their lack of IQ leads to a culture that is violent. The invention of gansta rap did not exacerbate violence.' Is there an error in logic here? Or do the racialist rules apply only to blacks (and maybe Mestizos on a good day)
"As for Portugal's relative lack of wealth (compared to the rest of Western Europe -- it's still a rich country compared to most of the rest of the world)"
Yes, and if you surrounded Ghana on three sides by Spain and placed it on a major Atlantic trade route, it too would be a rich country compared to the rest of the world.
"The last 250 years or so haven't been too good for them."
Since when do external factors determine a nation's success? The Germans have lost how many people due to wars this century? They're still much more successful than the Portuguese. And kicking the Jews out hasn't seemed to hurt the much.
As a Finn living in Thailand, I'm constantly amazed by the fact that Thais generally do not read anything. Maybe they are not alone in this respect, for perhaps it's the Whitey who is the odd one, with all his books.
Sixteenth century Portugal was not poor - but it was very small. When Brazil was discovered Portugal itself had less than a million people. See how that compares with England, and even Spain. Portugal could not possibly have colonized Brazil with families that "came to stay" (like the Puritans) even if it had wanted to.
Personally, I have no trouble believing the Puritan settlers of New England were on average more intelligent that the Portuguese (or most other European nationalities).
"The white, rich Brazilians are a lot like California surfer dudes. The alpha and omega of life is the beach, buff bodies, and ostentatious wealth".
Brazil is a country larger than the contiguous United States, a very large part of which is far from "the beach".
"It is the fault of a particularly insipid and hedonistic upper class".
Totally unlike the generous, high-minded and public-spirited upper classes of other countries, isn't it?
"Also a testament to Brazilian non-ingenuity up to now".
Why? It is far away from the population centres, the land is very, very poor, and Brazil has had many more pressing concerns in the past. What Canada did with the northern territories and Russia with Siberia does not seem so much better than what Brazil did with the Amazon to me. But perhaps I did not understand your meaning.
"Brazil is by and large a bi-racial black/white society".
In fact, it is precisely the contrary of that: a country where black and white are mixed in all gradations, and with a large Asian colony (Japanese-Brazilians are the largest Japanese immigrant colony in the world, far more numerous than Japanese-Americans). It is becoming a "biracial" society because of politics: we're importing your models of race-based policies and the one drop rule. Seeing how well it has worked out for you, I must conclude we Brazilians are really stupid, but this is another issue.
"Brazilians have lots of seething hostility for Americans".
Almost all Latin Americans have, and, aside from history, a large part of the reason is the tone of comments like yours.
"Rich whites Brazilians living in gated luxury apartments love to get all hot and bothered by how Americans exploit their country, as if they are not part of the same game"
It's a bit more complicated, you know. Brazil is a country with 190 million people and has a large middle class, have you heard? It's a bit more than shantytowns and gated communities with American-hating lily-white filthy-rich playboys.
"Also check out how many of the charitable organizations in the favelas are run by Germans-Brazilians".
That might be because German-Brazilians are concentrated in areas that have little to no shantytowns (see a correlation here?). BTW, "charitable organizations in the favelas" are with few exceptions money-laundering fronts for drug dealers.
"The Portuguese upper class prefers to ignore the shantytowns where their servant class lives".
How are American inner cities doing? Oh, I forget, you don't need their inhabitants even as servants.
More seriously, the Brazilian upper class has despaired of restoring order in the shantytowns because that would require measures their loving leftist consciences cannot accept. They look the other way, but not because they are uncaring - it is because they "care" like liberals do, so that their peace of mind and opinion of themselves is foremost even if the poor die by the thousands in gang turf wars.
"Possibly this unspoken seige mentality in the white upper class, afraid of the blacks, has a something do with Brazil's underdevelopment".
Brazil's upper class is not "white" in the sense the American upper class is, neither biologically (obvious point) NOR SOCIOLOGICALLY. Except for a few intellectuals at the turn of the nineteenth century, it has never conceptualized itself as whites besieged by blacks, and even these intellectuals concluded that the end result would be the "whitening" and not the "blackening" of Brazil. (Historically, miscegenation whitens in Brazil - it is the contrary of the American default position). As an example, when Brazil had a formal nobility during the monarchy (1822-1889), several prominent noblemen were first-generation mulattoes, including the last diehard defender of slavery, Baron Cotegipe, son of a freedwoman.
This is not to deny that the historically minuscule size of the upper and middle classes has had a powerful influence on the historical evolution of the country. I grant that, formulated in this way, this helps explain Brazil's underdevelopment. ("Duh", I know).
Truth,
"Yes, and if you surrounded Ghana on three sides by Spain and placed it on a major Atlantic trade route, it too would be a rich country compared to the rest of the world."
It was on a major Atlantic trade route (thanks mainly to the Portuguese). Unlike the Portuguese, the Sub-Saharan Africans hadn't mastered the (then) modern technology of ocean-going sailing vessels and navigation, so despite their favorable location (and ample natural resources) the residents of what is now called Ghana weren't able to become a trading power like the Portuguese.
Why do you think being surrounded by other African countries on three sides, instead of Spain, was a liability for Ghana?
"The Germans have lost how many people due to wars this century? They're still much more successful than the Portuguese."
That's true. The average per-capita GDP of Germany is about $39,000, and the average per-capita GDP of Portugal is about $23,000. The average per-capital GDP of Ghana is only $3100. There of course significant cultural differences between all three countries, but average IQ probably plays a role here too. The average IQ of Germany is 102. The average IQ of Portugal is 95. And the average IQ of Ghana is only 71.
"And kicking the Jews out hasn't seemed to hurt the much."
It probably didn't help, considering the success so many German-Jewish refugees achieved in other countries. Just one example was Hans Stern, who emigrated to Brazil and founded the multinational jewelry empire H. Stern, which now does business in Portugal and Germany, as well as in the U.S. and in 23 other countries. Unlike the Portuguese or the Spanish, where the ban on Jews lasted for hundreds of years, the ban on Jews in Germany lasted only as long as the 3rd Reich -- 12 years.
- Fred
"It was on a major Atlantic trade route..."
Yes, but the trade was the residents of the country. Not a very good product for building a strong economy.
"so despite their favorable location (and ample natural resources)..."
And because (in part) of mosquitoes carring airborne diseases that robbed millions of children of life at a young age. It would have been difficult to invent a Malaria vaccine as you were dying of malaria
"Why do you think being surrounded by other African countries on three sides, instead of Spain, was a liability for Ghana?"
If you are stupider than your neighbors, than being surrounded by anyone unlike you is an advantage.
"That's true. The average per-capita GDP of Germany is about $39,000, and the average per-capita GDP of Portugal is about $23,000. The average per-capital GDP of Ghana is only $3100."
Comparing the GDP of Ghana to Portugal is somewhat silly as Ghana has been an independent nation (officially, not in reality, in reality every African nation including the Arab ones with the exception of South Africa is still a colony) for 51 years, what was the GDP of Great Brittan 51 years after the Magna Carta?
Again, $39,000 is significantly more than $23,000 isn't it? According to IQ is destiny wonks, the Germans are either 70% smarter than the Portuguese or nurture (read: choice of religion) plays a VERY important part in the modern day development of societies. BTW according to your stats, the (highly EU subsidised) GDP of Portugal is almost as far from that of Germany as Portugal's is from that of Ghana.
" Unlike the Portuguese or the Spanish, where the ban on Jews lasted for hundreds of years, the ban on Jews in Germany lasted only as long as the 3rd Reich -- 12 years."
So let me get this straight once again Jewish intelligence > Protestant intelligence > Catholic Intelligence, but race does not play any role in Jews being smarter than Germanics who are in turn, smarter than Iberians?
I am not picking on you my friend you seem to be a relatively smart guy, but I think the IQ is destiny article will pick up speed much faster with everyone the day the Slavs, Iberians, Hellenics, etc. admit that they are simply the dumb cousins of the 'master race.' Anything else is scientifically unacceptable.
"Yes, but the trade was the residents of the country. Not a very good product for building a strong economy."
Admit it: when you first wrote the comment about how Ghana lacked Portugal's geographical advantage of being on a major Atlantic trade route you were talking out of your hat. I gave you the benefit of the doubt at first, but judging from the sloppiness of your last post, I see I was being too generous. You probably didn't even know that Portugal traded with Ghana (which would mean that Ghana was obviously on the same trade route); you probably didn't know that the African Gold Coast in general was one end of a major Atlantic trade route; and you didn't realize that the fact that Portugal created this trade route (because it, unlike Ghana, had the technological ability to do so) undermines your attempt to pin Ghana's relative backwardness on its geography.
The African chiefs who initiated the slave trade with the Portuguese apparently weren't thinking of Ghana's future economic development. The Portuguese initially came for gold, spices and ivory.
"And because (in part) of mosquitoes carring airborne diseases that robbed millions of children of life at a young age. It would have been difficult to invent a Malaria vaccine as you were dying of malaria"
You're blaming Ghana's backwardness on mosquitoes? Do you realize that today well-meaning whites donate tons of mosquito nets to Africans in Ghana and other countries and most of these nets go un-used? It seems more likely that their backwardness keeps Ghanians vulnerable to mosquito-born illnesses than that the mosquitoes are the cause of their backwardness.
"If you are stupider than your neighbors, than being surrounded by anyone unlike you is an advantage."
How would that be an advantage? Wouldn't you be liable to get conquered or exploited by your smarter neighbors?
"what was the GDP of Great Brittan 51 years after the Magna Carta?"
Truth, you have a small talent for sophistry, but when you write stuff like this, you give up the game. Aside from misspelling "Britain" (nice touch) you've failed to construct a coherent analogy. At the time of the adoption of the Magna Carta "Britain" wasn't one nation, and the Magna Carta wasn't a declaration of independence.
Since you feel that a recent history of colonialism explains Ghana's low per-capital GDP, a relevant analogy would be to compare Ghana to another country that achieved independence from colonialism around the same time. Let's even spot Ghana six years and compare it to a former colony that's only been independent for 45 years, Singapore. Singapore, which has virtually no natural resources, has a per-capita GDP of about $49,000 -- 16x higher than that of Ghana.
"BTW according to your stats, the (highly EU subsidised) GDP of Portugal is almost as far from that of Germany as Portugal's is from that of Ghana."
That's an innumerate statement. Germany's per-capita GDP is indeed significantly higher than Portugal's -- by about 69% -- but Portugal's per-capita GDP is about 654% higher than Ghana's. Is 69% "almost" as large as 654%?
"So let me get this straight once again Jewish intelligence > Protestant intelligence > Catholic Intelligence, but race does not play any role in Jews being smarter than Germanics who are in turn, smarter than Iberians?"
Since intelligence is at least partly hereditary, according to most experts, I wouldn't say that "race does not play any role" in the different average IQ scores of Ashkenazi Jews, Germans, Iberians, or Ghanians, for that matter.
- Fred
Just came here to say that I lived in Brazil for a year with middle class Brazilians and went to high school with their kids as an exchange student. I returned later for a summer internship. I found the other kids to be intelligent, studious and intellectually curious. They may not read novels, but certainly nowadays they have a competent scientific and engineering professional population.
Sailer refers to their use of buses. They definitely had some innovations 20 years ago or so in Curitiba. I still think most would prefer to drive if they could. Even crammed six at once into an Uno Mille!
It is a racially integrated society divided by class. As here, there were those in the upper who cared about the lower and many who did not. All classes were casually racist towards those of African decent.
Regular reader. Brazilian. Read a lot.
So what do Brazillians do to pass the time?
5/23/2008
We do not pass the time. Time passed us long ago. We expect to join it sometime in the future. That's why we call ourselves the country of the future.
A little example: when I graduated (1990) and was in search of a job I had a hard time with the human resources crowd. When I told them the languages I spoke there was always an smile and a funny comment like "oh some people really know how to waste time," or "what do you expect to gain studying languages of poor countries far away" and when I politely explained why I chose to study chinese I was pretty much treated like an arrogant elitist worm.
But I think brazilians have discovered China at last, some twenty years late. Oh the future! Pity I lived in the past.
Truth,
Let's retrace our steps here so we can see what your issue is. Our conversation started with you trying to goad me into making an invidious distinction between the intelligence of America's Puritan settlers and Brazil's original Portuguese settlers. There are two reasons why I didn't do so: First, I didn't have any data to make such a comparison; and second, it wasn't relevant to my point: that the Puritan settlers came to build, and the Portuguese settlers came to take.
Next, you wanted me to make an invidious distinction between the intelligence of Southern Europeans and Northern Europeans, specifically, the Germans versus the Portuguese. I responded with the average IQ scores for both countries, which indicate that Germans are more intelligent than Portuguese on average.
Finally, we seem to have gotten to the heart of it with this question of yours: "Are Southern European whites genetically dumber than Northern European whites."
"Genetically dumber" wouldn't be my choice of words, but I'll use that phrase to make you happy. Here are the facts. In terms of average intelligence (as measured by IQ), Northern Europeans tend to be more intelligent than Southern Europeans. Since you and I (and most experts) agree that intelligence is at least partly hereditary, using your crude terminology you could say that Ghanaians (thanks for that spelling correction) are, on average, (and by a wide margin) "genetically dumber" than Portuguese who are, on average, "genetically dumber" than Germans, who are, on average, "genetically dumber" than Northeast Asians (e.g., the ethnic Chinese founders of Singapore).
You seem to have thought I wouldn't compare the average intelligence of northern Europeans invidiously to that of ethnic Chinese. Why wouldn't I? The facts are the facts. Now that we've got that laid out, what's your issue?
- Fred
My issue is the increasing "were all together except the negroes" fallacy that seems to grip so much of the nature/nurture IQ crowd. When the Irishman can admit that he is dumber than the German, when the Greek can admit that he is dumber than the Swede, the African will move accordingly. You know Greeks, Portuguese, and Irishmen what do you think the odds are?
I don't know, will dumb whites and smart whites continue to be considered part of the same 'race'? In light of the truth
Finn
Finn
Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi
"Brasil"
Hello, I am Brazilian, looks is not why I do not like to read !! ¬¬ ''
Look Disculpe me if Brazil was not enough for you , I 'm Brazilian , so why São Paulo is bad, the other cities are also very critical of you Americans ! we Brazilians , you see so our downside? Heck liked ! What antisocial country if nobody practices leitura.O problem is not yours to be speaking ill of others , this is more a prejudice why it is so easy to see bad things in the other , and it's so hard look in the mirror and say I was wrong , I 'm wrong perdoe.Se I can speak more look at something in a museum and find ugly is no reason to think that the rest is ruim.Obrigado expect I understand , I'm A BRAZILIAN AND mE THAT YOU PRIDE JA OTHER COUNTRIES NOT KNOW WE DO NOT SPEAK NOTHING! THANK YOU
I read more than any other people from any other country! And I can tell thereare people that also reads a lot, ( lot of bullshit) lol and still ignorant. It's not about how much you read, it is what you read, and how we manage it in our lives. I have already red so many bloody books, i expect i could have never read them. whaever I know a lot of brazilians that doesn't read much but are not so easy manipulated as Iluminaty wish so
Annectodal.I have stayed in many an airbnb with many brazilians. They are nice people but not very bright.
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