When I was a kid in the San Fernando Valley, the huge suburb northwest of Los Angeles, Asian-Americans were widely distributed all over Southern California. Over time, though, they came to congregate in the huge San Gabriel Valley, a suburb northeast of Los Angeles. Thus, Asians seem no more common in the San Fernando Valley today than 30 years ago.
I've been wondering why Asians picked the San Gabriel Valley rather than the San Fernando Valley. If you live in one of them, it's easy to come up with a long list of rather trivial differences between them. But to the man from Mars (or even from Minneapolis), they would seem close to identical -- except for all the Asians now in the SGV.
The first evidence of an Asian predilection for the San Gabriel Valley was the formation of a New Chinatown in Monterey Park, in the southeastern San Gabriel Valley in the early 1970s. So, perhaps the die was cast then and everything else just followed from path dependency.
Or maybe it had something to do with smog. The SFV had bad smog in the 1970s but the more inland SGV had terrible smog. Perhaps the Asians didn't care as much about smog, or perhaps they had it all figured out that the new emissions controls would largely fix the smog problem, driving up home values in the SGV relatively more than in naturally less smoggy areas.
But, I think I've got a better idea. From an Asian family's perspective, the main difference between the San Fernando Valley and the San Gabriel Valley was that the former is almost all part of Los Angeles and the latter is made up of numerous independent municipalities. Even more to the point, most of the San Ferndando Valley schools are run by the giant LAUSD. In contrast, the San Gabriel Valley is made up of small independent school districts. So, Asians can concentrate enough numbers in an obscure SGV suburb like Arcadia to dominate school policy. More homework! More AP classes! More gifted classes! School orchestra!
This year's senior class at Arcadia H.S., a public school that's about 70% Asian and 20% white, has 35 National Merit Semifinalists.
In contrast, Asians have no hope of getting enough numbers in LA to motivate the LAUSD into doing much of anything for them.
(Here's a detailed map of Los Angeles County with LA City in white.)
I've been wondering why Asians picked the San Gabriel Valley rather than the San Fernando Valley. If you live in one of them, it's easy to come up with a long list of rather trivial differences between them. But to the man from Mars (or even from Minneapolis), they would seem close to identical -- except for all the Asians now in the SGV.
The first evidence of an Asian predilection for the San Gabriel Valley was the formation of a New Chinatown in Monterey Park, in the southeastern San Gabriel Valley in the early 1970s. So, perhaps the die was cast then and everything else just followed from path dependency.
Or maybe it had something to do with smog. The SFV had bad smog in the 1970s but the more inland SGV had terrible smog. Perhaps the Asians didn't care as much about smog, or perhaps they had it all figured out that the new emissions controls would largely fix the smog problem, driving up home values in the SGV relatively more than in naturally less smoggy areas.
But, I think I've got a better idea. From an Asian family's perspective, the main difference between the San Fernando Valley and the San Gabriel Valley was that the former is almost all part of Los Angeles and the latter is made up of numerous independent municipalities. Even more to the point, most of the San Ferndando Valley schools are run by the giant LAUSD. In contrast, the San Gabriel Valley is made up of small independent school districts. So, Asians can concentrate enough numbers in an obscure SGV suburb like Arcadia to dominate school policy. More homework! More AP classes! More gifted classes! School orchestra!
This year's senior class at Arcadia H.S., a public school that's about 70% Asian and 20% white, has 35 National Merit Semifinalists.
In contrast, Asians have no hope of getting enough numbers in LA to motivate the LAUSD into doing much of anything for them.
(Here's a detailed map of Los Angeles County with LA City in white.)
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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53 comments:
Interesting post. But are the schools in SGV that much better than SFV?
My brother just sold his house in Arcadia to an Asian couple for a small profit. He and his wife were the last white family on the block...
Makes perfect sense, even without some sort of collective decision. Asians prize school quality very highly indeed; my high school, in central New Jersey, was ranked on the top ten public high schools in the state, and was about 30% Asian, while the rest of the region had the more typical 5-10%. A great number of those Asian parents, including my own, had moved there on the reputation of the school district.
Similarly, once the SGV had a slight edge on academics (made possible by the relatively small districts), the rest of the Asians would tend to follow.
97% of students go onto college of some sort. 20 AP classes. 3,700 students. Impressive. But note that with all those AP classes, including Chinese and Japanese, they don't bother to teach AP German.
I grew up in Arcadia. I had not considered until now the huge difference it would make to go to an Arcadia Unified School District school (Holly Ave Elementary, then Dana Jr. High) as opposed to an LAUSD school.
My dad taught and then principaled at Simon Rodia H.S., the small, continuing-education H.S. attached to the perennially awful Jefferson H.S. in south central LA. Back in the 80s and early 90s, whenever Time or Newsweek would do one of those "Worst Schools in the Nation" type-stories, Jefferson would figure prominently.
Arcadia.
Man, that brings back memories.
There's a gorgeous race track there, called Santa Anita. [Huh - while googling I found pictures of some asian girl marrying a white dude at the track. Also, it looks like Seabiscuit raced there at least three times - 1937, 1938, and 1940.]
And possibly America's cutest little Motel 6 is just down the street.
But since these folks can't [yet] afford to live in Pasadena [much less San Marino], I guess that Arcadia is about as close to CalTech as they can afford to stay.
For now, at least.
As part of the LA unified school district, isn't the san fernando valley more likely to be subject to schemes that mix up poor underclass kids with high IQ kids?
correct me if i am wrong, but my understanding is that ventura boulevard is something of a dividing line in the west san fernando valley, with almost all the poor underclass kids NORTH of ventura boulevard.
So wouldn't the asians have a legitimate fear that the LAUSD would try to mix up the folks from North of ventura with the folks from south of ventura?
Note that this is what they did in Pacific Palisades - Pacific Palisades has plenty of multi million dollar houses, and a population with a very high average IQ, but the LAUSD made a decision to integrate the high school in th palisades, with kids bussed in from South Central
So asians probably figured that they were safer in the SGV
This is nothing specific to Asians. Having an Asian concentration is a consequence of a universal process of aggregation and sub-stratification that happens all over the US. The extreme concentration of particular visible groups is the late stage end result.
Near any metropolis there will be a particular suburb, or several such, with good schools and a populace willing to pay the property taxes to support them. This starts to attract the usual suspects: scientists and engineers, Jews, Asians, elite university graduates with non-astronomical incomes. In time clusters of nearby towns with this profile form, as some who can't afford Education Town A spill over to still moderately priced Neighboring Town B. Further in time, these towns noticeably differentiate slightly according to secondary factors such as ethnicity, house price, job profile of the home purchasers, etc; but a drive to pay for high quality educational environment for the children remains the overall unifying theme.
In CA, Steve may be noticing the Asian pattern more because of the numerical prevalence of Asians among educationally inclined immigrants of the past 2-3 decades. But if you look further you will fund concentrations of other groups such as Russian scientists/engineers and their children (mostly Jews who immigrated in the late seventies to early nineties), or white supereducated "immigrants" from within the United States who moved to Silicon Valley or other high-IQ occupations. Sometimes these groups are in the same towns as the Asians, sometimes not, but almost always nearby.
I followed the link the what the students of the class of 2008 did upon graduation and found 0% military service. How depressing for America. It is not good for a country to have military service, and that it is voluntary makes only a tiny difference, so concentrated amongst just a few segments of the population. And when you add that not even political elites serve, a situation is created where the people sacrificing their lives for their fellow countrymen are simultaneously labeled as low class and despised by those same people.
Sorry to get off track, but 0%?!
Hey, Steve Sailer. In No Excuses, Thernstroms reported that Asians study more per night than any other ethnicities. Blacks, whites, Lations study about the same per night. Any theories as to why this is? Nature? Nurture? Maybe having to learn the extremely complex Chinese/Japanese/Korean ideogram-based alphabets evolved a strong talent for concentration.
In Asia (Japan, SK, Taiwan, HK), children study some insane hours per night in cram schools to make it into competitive universities. Yet both Japan and Korea have graduation rates of 93%, putting them near the top of the OECD nations.
In Toronto, a survey found that most parents are happy with the current homework load their children receive. However, about 40% of Asian parents want more homework (compared to 10-15% for other ethnicities).
"So, Asians can concentrate enough numbers in an obscure SGV suburb like Arcadia to dominate school policy. More homework! More AP classes! More gifted classes! School orchestra!"
You know what, these sound like people we could use in my school district. Why do we never see Steve arguing for more Chinese immigration? Would VDare and the AmCon fire him if he stated the obvious, namely that America would be better off with an extra 10 million IQ 130+ Chinese and Indian college graduates?
I followed the link the what the students of the class of 2008 did upon graduation and found 0% military service. How depressing for America.
Ha, Ha! Given the seemingly endless Crazy Iraq War, and the eager desire of the neocons during 2008 to start additional crazy wars against Iran, Russia, China, New Zealand, Antarctica..., you seem to have totally confirmed the intelligence of those students and their families.
Frankly, during 2008 the only Americans volunteering for military service would have to have been either ignorant retards, the totally desperate poor, or unemployable criminals.
You know what, these sound like people we could use in my school district. Why do we never see Steve arguing for more Chinese immigration? Would VDare and the AmCon fire him if he stated the obvious, namely that America would be better off with an extra 10 million IQ 130+ Chinese and Indian college graduates?
I remember when silly Carter started harassing Old Deng about Human Rights and "freedom of emigration" during their Beijing meeting.
Crafty Deng supposedly said that Carter's request was perfectly fine with him---he had plenty of Chinese to spare---and would be glad to have Carter take back home as many Chinese as he wanted, but in nice round units of 10 million each...
a_c: What school in central New Jersey? Montgomery? West Windsor-Plainsoboro? I know of a couple of schools like that in Northern New Jersey as well. I am only 25 years old but I remember when I was in elementary school, Tenafly, NJ was almost uniformly white. Now, the high school is 33% asian (primarily Korean). And surprise, surprise, it is a very highly ranked school. It's just crazy how fast things change nowadays. And I'm only 25!
Typical Liberal SWPL RKU --
Most non-coms have a college degree, ALL officers have them and most officers have graduate degrees. Petraeus has in fact Phd in International Relations from Princeton. Most career military are in fact REQUIRED to advance their educations. In order to stay in the military.
The people volunteering for service, are those seeking to be professional warriors. Flying hundred million dollar airplanes, steering billion dollar carriers or nuclear submarines, driving hundred million dollar tanks, or being the elite special forces, with washout-rates of about 75%, are accomplishments and goals that probably don't appeal to you or SWPL but certainly DO to a certain set of people.
The military is overwhelmingly White (especially in combat and Special Forces units), with higher IQ and educational achievement than the US population as a whole. The volunteers are mostly middle class and lower middle class guys, often good but not great High School athletes looking for a career that is not a boring cubicle-led life, with strong camaraderie in the face of shared danger, and the ability to break things and people at times.
Disdain for the military is a sign of a weak mind. There's always dangerous people who need dealing with, and technology has only made things worse.
Asians of course are hardly evident in the military, but that's no surprise. The military takes mostly White lower middle class to middle class guys. Few very poor, and almost no rich. Hispanics will also volunteer for the military, with the same goals. They also tend to be lower-middle to middle class.
If you are poor, you lack both the IQ and the social capital, ability to get along with other guys and teamwork values, to get in and get washed out quickly. Besides, the military is all about team-work and is not very appealing to very poor people. For rich people, the risk is intolerable, far better to take up white-water kayaking or Extreme base jumping to prove your testosterone to women and other guys. MOST middle class guys will give the military a pass.
But for some the war is precisely the point. The Marines, the most combat heavy of the branches, has had the least trouble recruiting, and the Air Force (almost no casualties) the most.
"ey, anon could be on to something there. Lets discourage low IQ white folks from having children and then have them adopt Chinese babies. Lets start with your family anon."
Nah, the point is to skim the cream from the massive Chinese adult population. An average adopted Chinese baby would only have a small advantage relative to a typical white kid, and a substantial disadvantage relative to the kids of more genetically advantaged families. Better to use top-notch donor sperm and ova. I wouldn't mind using Chinese gametes if the best available donors were Chinese, myself, but there are plenty of great specimens in every racial group.
I followed the link the what the students of the class of 2008 did upon graduation and found 0% military service. How depressing for America.
Middle-class & upper-middle-class kids have NEVER gone into the military, even during peacetime. (The exception would be the offspring of a long line of military officers.) The military is for born losers and gung-ho adrenaline junkies like me. Lots of white & black working class (a preponderance of Southerners), latinos, and filipinos. Hardly ever saw East Asians or Jews or Middle Easterners. Never once saw an Indian or Pakistani.
Lets import only Chinese women and Indian men--thereby forcing assimilation through intermarriage.
Actually, I suspect that Indian men will never intermarry as long as the mail order bride system is working. An Indian with a green card and a good job is probably able to command a fortune from the dowry system.
Asians study more per night than any other ethnicities. Blacks, whites, Lations study about the same per night. Any theories as to why this is?
In Chinese society for thousands of years, the civil service was open to ANY male from ANY class. If you were male and could pass the rigorous written tests (on Confucian texts), you could escape your humble background and become an administrator. (These administrators subsisted on extortionate bribes and "fees" exacted from merchants and traders, which may be one reason why China had trouble catching up to the West after the Renaissance: all their talent was channelled into a parasitic administrative class whose job was to soak the few productive entrepreneurial types they had left.)
As a result, education was respected by even the humblest farming families. If you could get one of your sons to pass the exams, you were set.
Maybe having to learn the extremely complex Chinese/Japanese/Korean ideogram-based alphabets evolved a strong talent for concentration.
You know a moron is speaking when they mix Korean in with Chinese and Japanese.
"Asians of course are hardly evident in the military, but that's no surprise."
I see a decent number of Asians in the ROTC program. They are overrepresented at West Point at 7%. http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=united+states+military+academy&s=all&id=197036
SteveS says:
So, Asians can concentrate enough numbers in an obscure SGV suburb like Arcadia to dominate school policy. More homework! More AP classes! More gifted classes! School orchestra!
I used to wonder why contemporary Asians and even Caucasians were so keen on kids doing classical music. Its not as if there are many jobs for musicians, still less classical ones.
And most people arent really all that keen on listening to classical music, going by the poor music ratings and subsidised orchestras.
But appreciation of classical music is very much SWPL thing. A key status marker that shows the appreciator is likely to be a good mate ie sufficient excess brains and bucks to attain some knowledge of a very complex and sophisticated art.
The kind of person who can play a classical instrument is also the kind of person who would be a reasonable domestic partner, unlikely to get drunk or throw things about. THats good breeding material.
So naturally Asians will like Classical Music even more, being even more highly attuned to key status differentials than white people.
(These administrators subsisted on extortionate bribes and "fees" exacted from merchants and traders, which may be one reason why China had trouble catching up to the West after the Renaissance: all their talent was channelled into a parasitic administrative class whose job was to soak the few productive entrepreneurial types they had left.)
Wow, sounds like America is taking after them.
You know a moron is speaking when they mix Korean in with Chinese and Japanese.
Yes, from what I've heard, Hangul is actually an incredibly well designed and efficient language, that combines the best aspects of Western alphabet and Eastern "say a lot with a few letters".
A friend of mine had an interesting plan for the Hong Kong Chinese before Hong Kong was handed to China. He said that every HK citizen who wanted to should be allowed to emigrate to Britain, with one proviso - he had to hand over enough of an entry fee to pay for 2 less-welcome immigrants to be shipped out of Britain: no coercion, mind, just a payment-to-go. A missed opportunity, I've always thought.
"You know a moron is speaking when they mix Korean in with Chinese and Japanese."
The comment was actually well-justified. Even after the introduction of Hangul, Chinese characters continued to be employed by the Koreans. Similar to Japanese, the use of a Chinese term or character in Korean was a form of register distinction, in the same way that Latinate vocabulary is employed in English.
Up until the modern era Chinese characters would have been a mandatory part of the education for any member of the Korean upper-class - their imposition of classical Confucial learning was perhaps even more rigorous than that of the dynastic Chinese.
"You know a moron is speaking when they mix Korean in with Chinese and Japanese."
Traditionally, Korean was a mixed script like Japanese: imported Chinese ideograms + homegrown Korean phonetics. Chinese characters are still used in some texts, and students still learn them.
Watch those accusations of ignorance; they'll come back and bite you.
Each styles of behavior, which are often delineated by ethnic boundaries, knows how to recognize each other, and usually prefer to congregate together.
Of course, there are the exploiters, who know how to exploit other people, although typically, they have been selected to exploit members of the population they have co-evolved with for so long.
What you then see is a natural outcome of the interaction of the contingencies of history with the genetic potential of the group. Gould, even though he was so wrong, would be proud of me, I think.
So the Chinese are brilliant - then why is the idea never to emulate what they do?
I mean, let's think about this for half a sec. Do they (brilliant, now, keep that foremost in mind) import "cognitive elites" from around the world? Nope.
If we were to import Chinese "cognitive elites," do you think their behavior (or more precisely, their goals) would be differ substantially from that of Chinese in China?
E.g., wouldn't they work to make America into China II, using American stupidity to lever their way into a position where they have a nice new chunk of real estate where they, too, can refrain from importing the world's "cognitive elite"?
The "cognitive elite" is a statistical abstraction, folks. It's a slice of a frickin' BELL CURVE. Get it? It is not an identity, except to you. Actually, it isn't even that. It's an identity only to swipples (suicidal white tribalism).
What's the word for the reverse of speciation? I'm drawing a blank here? Oh yeah..extinction. That's the word I was looking for!
I visited San Gabriel Valley several years ago with some Chinese friends of mine. We were in SoCal to attend the Photonics West trade show and one of my friends (who is from Taiwan) has a home in San Marino.
Yes, I can tell you the area is almost exclusively Asian. If I had relocated their, my wife (who is Japanese) and I would quite likely have moved to the San Gabriel Valley. Having a Japanese wife and having lived as an expat in Asia (Japan, Taiwan, etc.) for 10 years, I am quite comfortable living among Asian people. I speak Japanese and will learn Mandarin at some point. I actually feel more comfortable around North East Asians than I do most white people (many of whom I consider to be f**k-ups). and would feel quite comfortable living in the San Gabriel Valley. Half the people in my industry (semicon, photonics, thin-films) are Asian as well.
Another good point is that automobiles have become far less polluting in the past 25 years and the San Gabriel Valley (which I considered unlivable due to pollution in the 80's) is now quite livable.
Why do we never see Steve arguing for more Chinese immigration? Would VDare and the AmCon fire him if he stated the obvious, namely that America would be better off with an extra 10 million IQ 130+ Chinese and Indian college graduates?
Indeed, because it's so rare for anyone to argue for more immigration. If only we could persuade the MSM to talk up the benefits of immigration! As it is we have stand by and watch the restrictionists and nativists lock down debate on the internet and MSM.
Its interesting that Asians are so interested in European music, even more so than in Asian music. They don't seem to care at all for jazz. And they don't seem interested at all in composition either.
I'd say jazz (and 'world' music) is as much a SWPL as is classical.
Studying classical music intensively makes you smarter -- it greatly improves concentration and mental "stack space." I have found this to be true personally, but see also the following scholarly study:
Schellenberg, E.G. (2006). Long-Term Positive Associations Between Music Lessons and IQ. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 457-468.
Just some anecdotal data here, but my IQ and my husband's, as tested by the military, are 139 and 125, respectively. We enlisted after 9//11 and the Iraq War, knowing full well the risks. I have met many fellow enlisted servicemembers with similar or higher IQs. Unfortunately the officers are usually dumber :D .
The long hours of practice necessary for classical music prevents young people from developing the social skills necessary to have any fun. Fun is the enemy. Fun is low class. And this is why massive Asian immigration to California is so depressing.
In Chinese society for thousands of years, the civil service was open to ANY male from ANY class. If you were male and could pass the rigorous written tests (on Confucian texts), you could escape your humble background and become an administrator. (These administrators subsisted on extortionate bribes and "fees" exacted from merchants and traders, which may be one reason why China had trouble catching up to the West after the Renaissance: all their talent was channelled into a parasitic administrative class whose job was to soak the few productive entrepreneurial types they had left.)
This is very obviously our future.
>> Maybe having to learn the extremely complex
>> Chinese/Japanese/Korean ideogram-based alphabets
>> evolved a strong talent for concentration.
> You know a moron is speaking when they mix Korean
> in with Chinese and Japanese.
Please be nice and don't use the word "moron".
South Korea still teaches 1800 hanja [Chinese] characters in its schools
Hangul is the native script of Korea, created in the mid fifteenth century by King Sejong and his ministers, as both complement and alternative to the logographic Sino-Korean hanja that had been the exclusive script for Korean up to that time. It was not officially adopted until after independence in the mid twentieth century.
So, until recently, Koreans had to learn to read using roughly the same ideogram-based writing system (not an alphabet) as the Chinese and the Japanese, with thousands of characters. In the last 500 years, they could also make use of their own phonetic writing system, but Chinese characters remained necessary until very recently.
I've often wondered whether the difficulty of learning Chinese characters works as a way to select smarter people. It's certainly a good way to exclude people who come from other groups.
So, once again, Steve, Chinese characters come to the rescue! Stop using the Latin alphabet to write English, instead require using Chinese characters everywhere, and watch immigration stop dead in its tracks.
Its interesting that Asians are so interested in European music, even more so than in Asian music. They don't seem to care at all for jazz. And they don't seem interested at all in composition either.
You obviously don't play video games (well, I know that mostly older people hang out on this blog anyway), but the guys like Nobuo Uematsu who make music for Japanese video games are worshiped by people. You'd be amazed at how good the music is in these things.
So, once again, Steve, Chinese characters come to the rescue! Stop using the Latin alphabet to write English, instead require using Chinese characters everywhere
And start speaking a tonal language like one of the various Chinese dialects, so that more Americans can develop perfect pitch.
A study of music-school students revealed that those who grew up speaking a tonal language (i.e., Chinese) were nearly three times as likely to have perfect pitch as those (including American-born Chinese) who didn't grow up speaking a tonal language.
35 national merit semi-finalists out in a school of 3700 is not that impressive. My high school had about 12 out of 700. 3700 is a huge school in most parts of the country. Maybe in southern CA that's average.
---a_c: What school in central New Jersey? Montgomery? West Windsor-Plainsoboro?---
I was thinking the same thing! Maybe Princeton High? I might have even gone to HS with a_c...
"35 national merit semi-finalists out in a school of 3700 is not that impressive. My high school had about 12 out of 700. 3700 is a huge school in most parts of the country. Maybe in southern CA that's average."
A National Merit Semi-Finalists is the top 0.5%. So, out of a senior class of, say, 800 (out of an enrollment of 3700 across four years), you'd expect four. So, Arcadia does about 8 or 9 times better than the national average, and much better than even that if you look just at the average for normal public high schools, leaving out private high schools and elite public schools high schools like Stuyvesant and Thomas Jefferson than require entrance exams.
"So the Chinese are brilliant - then why is the idea never to emulate what they do?"
Because they've sucked for quite a while. Doesn't necessarily mean they aren't brilliant. When they get their sh*t together once again, what do you supposed will happen?
I will guess emulation. Little known fact. The the British Civil Service created in the 19th century was based on emulation of the Imperial Exam system. Add to that all the tea and crafts the British were hauling back from China at that time and you get a picture of Chinese cultural influence in the world.
I have a feeling though because the English language is here to stay, this world will forever be most influenced by American/British culture.
"I mean, let's think about this for half a sec. Do they (brilliant, now, keep that foremost in mind)"
Don't be silly, the mean IQ difference is some 5 points.
"at most import "cognitive elites" from around the world? Nope."
That's exactly what they do in Singapore, which is actually run by its cognitive elite.
"Indeed, because it's so rare for anyone to argue for more immigration. If only we could persuade the MSM to talk up the benefits of immigration!"
Steve can talk about the benefits of selective Asian immigration from a HBD perspective, which the MSM does not.
Its interesting that Asians are so interested in European music, even more so than in Asian music. They don't seem to care at all for jazz. And they don't seem interested at all in composition either. I'd say jazz (and 'world' music) is as much a SWPL as is classical.
Actually, the Japanese are very into Jazz. Japan is a big tour stop for many Jazz musicians (every Japanese town has at least one Jazz bar) and has produced some pretty decent home-grown Jazz artists in the last three decades.
But "World Music" is definitely Swipple stuff. You don't really see many Asians or blacks or Latinos at a Dead Can Dance concert.
35 national merit semi-finalists out in a school of 3700 is not that impressive. My high school had about 12 out of 700. 3700 is a huge school in most parts of the country. Maybe in southern CA that's average.
12 in a high school of 700, with a graduating class of (generously) 175 would be better than 1 out of 15 seniors. Public or private, that's an elitist school. I went to an upper middle class, mostly white public school about 2/3rds the size of Arcadia but we never had anything like 24 merit scholars in a single year. A third to half of that, at best.
Steve,
that National Merit calculation is wrong philosophically as well as statistically.
Performances of students at the same school are highly correlated, and for reasons that tend to suppress rather than reveal any IQ effects. The better the school and the more educationally obsessed the community, the *less* IQ differences will matter in determining the number National Merit scores.
Obviously there is a small slice of elite high schools that compete in the production of National Merit designees, with most other high schools graduating such students more or less at random without even noticing.
Because, Lord knows, there's nothing fun about using your own painstakingly honed skills to recreate some of mankind's highest artistic achievements and helping to keep one of the glories of Western civilization alive. But I'm sure that getting high and playing Grand Theft Auto with a bunch of jerk-off high-school buddies really develops those social skills.
Besides, only evil fascists listen to that stuffy long-haired crap anyway. You can't dance to it, so fuck it.
Someone's still bitter about high school.
You know what, these sound like people we could use in my school district.
They won't stay in your school district though.
Why do we never see Steve arguing for more Chinese immigration? Would VDare and the AmCon fire him if he stated the obvious, namely that America would be better off with an extra 10 million IQ 130+ Chinese and Indian college graduates?
Maybe because he doesn't want any more immigrants?
Far better than importing more people, how about expelling the 30 million illegals (and their children)?
Steve can talk about the benefits of selective Asian immigration from a HBD perspective, which the MSM does not.
"Cognitive Elitism" is not "a HBD perspective."
The (brilliant) Chinese position is an HBD perspective.
And isn't Singapore the state whose former head announced it to be an authoritarian multicultural "affirmative action" regime? That's the recommendation for "cognitive elitism," a country that proves my point?
Good thing for us, though, we got the Indians' minds right on "cognitive elitism."
Now they have gambling monopolies so everything worked out for them.
I'd also like to recommend Kurt9's arguments against "cognitive elitism."
Someone's still bitter about high school.
No, high school wasn't traumatic. It was merely boring and a huge waste of my time--unlike the time I spent studying music.
"The long hours of practice necessary for classical music prevents young people from developing the social skills necessary to have any fun. Fun is the enemy. Fun is low class."
I wonder why it is that classical music, of all the arts, comes in for such sneering, vitriolic hostility. It's regularly shat on from both the left and the right: Newt Gingrich attacking NPR opera broadcasts as the supreme example of Big Government decadence; Bill Maher and Peter Singer berating people who donate to symphony orchestras instead of bankrupting themselves curing all the ills of the third world; love of classical music as cliched movie shorthand indicating pompous scumbag or effete villain; etc., etc., etc.
Steve should write a piece about this some day. (Isn't his father-in-law a retired classical musician? It would be interesting to hear his views, too.)
This is how China will take over the United States (and other countries) without firing a single shot.
I'm a white male, 47, grew up in the San Gabriel Valley (in Hacienda Heights) in the 1970s and early 1980s before leaving to go to college. I returned for a visit in 2010 and was literally shocked at what I saw. The place is a completely different environment. It is mostly all Chinese-owned businesses now, many of them catering only to Chinese people. There's an attitude problem there now with these Chinese nationals, something that didn't exist before when it was majority white and Mexican-American in the 70s and 80s. There were Koreans there too in the 70s and 80s, and I never had a problem with them. I've been told that the construction of the large Buddhist temple was the main reason for the Chinese influx. That temple was in the planning stages when I left Hacienda Heights to go to college back East. Such a shame.
Rowland Heights....OMFG.....do you need a passport to go there now?
Amazing how things change if you drive over the hill on Colima Road from Hacienda Heights into Whittier. It's like going back in time to the way Hacienda Heights used to be. I understand that the Whittier City Council, well aware of what happened in the San Gabriel Valley, has a very strict policy in what businesses are allowed to open in its city. You aren't going to see the garish and obnoxious Chinese strip malls anytime soon in the city of Whittier. It will not be tolerated there, thank God.
God Bless Whittier.
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