Jim Manzi, the marketing researcher turned social commentator (not the Jim Manzi who headed Lotus Development Corporation), has a book coming out. Here's a chapter summarized in his City Journal article:
What Social Science Does—and Doesn’t—Know
Our scientific ignorance of the human condition remains profound.
Just like me, Jim is a marketing researcher turned pundit, so our thinking runs along the similar lines. As a test marketer, he wants to promote more rigorous experimentation in the social sciences, which is fine.
However, being older, lazier, and stupider than Manzi, I've perhaps gotten a little farther toward grasping some simple underlying principles, since I'm not smart enough to get by without figuring them out. He writes:
Unlike physics or biology, the social sciences have not demonstrated the capacity to produce a substantial body of useful, nonobvious, and reliable predictive rules about what they study—that is, human social behavior, including the impact of proposed government programs ...Another way of putting the problem is that we have no reliable way to measure counterfactuals—that is, to know what would have happened had we not executed some policy—because so many other factors influence the outcome. This seemingly narrow problem is central to our continuing inability to transform social sciences into actual sciences. Unlike physics or biology, the social sciences have not demonstrated the capacity to produce a substantial body of useful, nonobvious, and reliable predictive rules about what they study—that is, human social behavior, including the impact of proposed government programs.
The missing ingredient is controlled experimentation, which is what allows science positively to settle certain kinds of debates. How do we know that our physical theories concerning the wing are true? In the end, not because of equations on blackboards or compelling speeches by famous physicists but because airplanes stay up. Social scientists may make claims as fascinating and counterintuitive as the proposition that a heavy piece of machinery can fly, but these claims are frequently untested by experiment ...
That all sounds plausible, but I've been a social science stats geek since 1972, when the high school debate topic that year was education, so I'm aware that Manzi's implications are misleading.
First, while experiments are great, correlation studies of naturally occurring data can be extremely useful. Second, a huge number of experiments have been done in the social sciences.
Third, the social sciences have come up with a vast amount of knowledge that is useful, reliable, and nonobvious, at least to our elites.
For example, a few years, Mayor Bloomberg and NYC schools supremo Joel Klein decided to fix the ramshackle admissions process to the gifted schools by imposing a standardized test on all applicants. Blogger Half Sigma immediately predicted that the percentage of Asians and whites admitted would rise at the expense of blacks and Hispanics, which would cause a sizable unexpected political problem for Bloomberg and Klein. All that has come to pass.
This inevitable outcome should have been obvious to Bloomberg and Klein from a century of social science data accumulation, but it clearly was not obvious to them.
No, the biggest problem with social science research is not methodological; it’s that we just don’t like the findings. The elites of America don’t like what the social sciences have uncovered about, say, crime, education, discrimination, immigration, and so forth.
What we’ve learned are things like:
- IQ matters
- Race matters
– Sex matters
– Class matters
– Heredity matters
– Character matters
– Discipline matters
What we’ve learned are things like:
- IQ matters
- Race matters
– Sex matters
– Class matters
– Heredity matters
– Character matters
– Discipline matters
And, judging by what I read every day, the attitude of the dominant people in America toward this knowledge is mostly fear and loathing. Those who explain how to use the knowledge uncovered by the social sciences are routinely vilified. Men of outstanding character, heroes of the human sciences such as Charles Murray and Arthur Jensen are subjected to massive campaigns of demonization.
In reality, after a century of experimentation and analysis, we know an awful lot about several major human conditions, such as IQ. What we don’t know about IQ is how to intervene to reliably narrow racial gaps in average educational achievement (other than hitting Asian and white kids on the head with a ballpeen hammer).
Much the same is true regarding many other topics. Manzi's article gets better as he gets toward his conclusion:
In reality, after a century of experimentation and analysis, we know an awful lot about several major human conditions, such as IQ. What we don’t know about IQ is how to intervene to reliably narrow racial gaps in average educational achievement (other than hitting Asian and white kids on the head with a ballpeen hammer).
Much the same is true regarding many other topics. Manzi's article gets better as he gets toward his conclusion:
First, few programs can be shown to work in properly randomized and replicated trials. …
Second, within this universe of programs that are far more likely to fail than succeed, programs that try to change people are even more likely to fail than those that try to change incentives.
And third, there is no magic. Those rare programs that do work usually lead to improvements that are quite modest, compared with the size of the problems they are meant to address or the dreams of advocates.
Given all that, you can readily arrive at my oft-repeated point of view, which is that the one potential government policy that is likely to have reliable major long term effects on social problems, for good or for bad, is immigration. Since government policies can seldom change people, government policy should select immigrants who will likely benefit the current citizens of the nation and keep out those who likely won’t. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.
This has been the philosophy of Canada’s immigration system for decades, and it has worked fairly well for them. Yet, advocates of a Canadian-style immigration policy philosophy for America are routinely subjected to Two-Minutes Hates in this country. Thus, social policy discourse in the U.S. makes much less progress than social science research.
I spend a week in Toronto every summer and I think you have an overly optimistic view of Canadian immigration. Put bluntly, there are a hell of a lot more burkhas and veils than you'll see in an American city. We may be importing a new and probably permanent underclass, but Canada is going to be facing an entirely different problem.
ReplyDeleteKM
Being fairly new to HBD thinking, I Googled "Whitest School in America" to see where there is the highest levels of self-imposed segregation.
ReplyDeletePerhaps not surprisingly, I came across an article in the Oregonian bemoaning the fact that Portland is too white. Steve writes of the fear and loathing of what so many know to be true -- here, lack of diversity makes Portland a great place to live. Of course, the half dozens friends I have who live there are ultra-liberal and politically correct diversity fanatics -- and all of them moved there for the quality of life. Funny, that.
What's more interesting is the comments to the article. Most Oregonians, writing anonymously, relentlessly critiqued the article as the worse piece of journalism they had ever seen. One pointed out that no one is criticizing LA for not having enough whites.
http://tiny.cc/t62u7
Someone should tell Manzi about futarchy.
ReplyDeleteActually, Jim is more correct. The examples given kind of shows that the social sciences are the problem here.
ReplyDeleteFor example, a few years, Mayor Bloomberg and NYC schools supremo Joel Klein decided to fix the ramshackle admissions process to the gifted schools by imposing a standardized test on all applicants. Blogger Half Sigma immediately predicted that the percentage of Asians and whites admitted would rise at the expense of blacks and Hispanics, which would cause a sizable unexpected political problem for Bloomberg and Klein. All that has come to pass.
This would be common knowledge to everybody in the past who ever had contact with the other races. It is the social scientists who produce studies that try to "prove" that our eyes are lying to us and everybody is equal except for racism or some other thought crime.
Anything that comes out of social science that we can sgree on is trivial or obvious on its face to anybody with half a brain. Thus, the big problem is making public policy with ideas from fields that are utterly worthless. Above the trivial level, they have nothing of value to say.
A perfect example of this is one poster indicating the differing "schools" of economic theory. Imagine how useful physics would be if we had an MIT and a Cal-Tech school of physics.
The crowd on the right howls with laughter at the stupid pronouncements of the sociologist without realizing both he and the economist use the same techniques. The only difference is the starting ideology of the "researcher".
Economics has NEVER shown itself to be valuable when it is needed most, such as a time of crisis or while the great imbalances leading to the crisis are forming. In fact, economists come out of the woodwork to declare this time a "new paradigm" that should not be messed with (probably because who they are shilling for has paid for their research). Yet, the man on the street sees the imbalances.
Economics has replaced the Church as the ministry of propaganda used to keep the masses from rioting against a system stacked against them. Instead of getting their rewards in Heaven, the masses are taught that they can either attain the wealth they seek if only they stay in line or are threatened that they will be worse off if the rich guy has to kick in a little more.
Actually, Jim is more correct. The examples given kind of shows that the social sciences are the problem here.
ReplyDeleteFor example, a few years, Mayor Bloomberg and NYC schools supremo Joel Klein decided to fix the ramshackle admissions process to the gifted schools by imposing a standardized test on all applicants. Blogger Half Sigma immediately predicted that the percentage of Asians and whites admitted would rise at the expense of blacks and Hispanics, which would cause a sizable unexpected political problem for Bloomberg and Klein. All that has come to pass.
This would be common knowledge to everybody in the past who ever had contact with the other races. It is the social scientists who produce studies that try to "prove" that our eyes are lying to us and everybody is equal except for racism or some other thought crime.
Anything that comes out of social science that we can sgree on is trivial or obvious on its face to anybody with half a brain. Thus, the big problem is making public policy with ideas from fields that are utterly worthless. Above the trivial level, they have nothing of value to say.
A perfect example of this is one poster indicating the differing "schools" of economic theory. Imagine how useful physics would be if we had an MIT and a Cal-Tech school of physics.
The crowd on the right howls with laughter at the stupid pronouncements of the sociologist without realizing both he and the economist use the same techniques. The only difference is the starting ideology of the "researcher".
Economics has NEVER shown itself to be valuable when it is needed most, such as a time of crisis or while the great imbalances leading to the crisis are forming. In fact, economists come out of the woodwork to declare this time a "new paradigm" that should not be messed with (probably because who they are shilling for has paid for their research). Yet, the man on the street sees the imbalances.
Economics has replaced the Church as the ministry of propaganda used to keep the masses from rioting against a system stacked against them. Instead of getting their rewards in Heaven, the masses are taught that they can either attain the wealth they seek if only they stay in line or are threatened that they will be worse off if the rich guy has to kick in a little more.
"This inevitable outcome should have been obvious to Bloomberg and Klein from a century of social science data accumulation..."
ReplyDeleteNo, not from that. From folk wisdom, otherwise known as public stereotypes. I'm sure that that outcome would have been obvious to those guys' grandmothers, especially if like my grandmother, they were not aware of the existence of social sciences.
The social sciences, even the non-PC kind, still have nothing that could honestly supersede folk wisdom.
You give this guy way too much credit. He shows his ignorance by stating that we don't know much in the social sciences. That is the new PC line. This shifted once the results didn't confirm the correct beliefs.
ReplyDeleteIronically the more we know the more you will hear how much we don't know.
I hear it all the time and my retort is the same as yours, people just don't want to believe what the research shows
hitting Asian and white kids on the head with a ballpeen hammer
ReplyDeleteHi!
This whole thing about Canada only importing high IQ, productive immigrants is a blatant lie started by the Canadian govt/immigration industry to get anti-immigrants off their backs.
ReplyDeleteOnce the first, admittedly high IQ, productive immigrant gets in the door, he can invite his whole immediate family. It is a huge chain. Aside from criminal or deadbeat relatives coming in, you get all sorts of other problems, such as elderly parents using up our socialised medical resources, children not fitting in, or immigrants running cash only businesses. In Western Canada, it is the Chinese and East Indian (Sikh) communities who are notorious for this.
We also have really loose refugee laws, so once one of them gets in, that whole family reunion chain gets going again. But that is more likely to be found in Eastern Canada (Toronto/Montreal), and is principally blacks and arabs.
The first anonymous commenter is right. We are in as bad or worse of a situation as the US, only a generation (or maybe half) behind.
"Second, a huge number of experiments have been done in the social sciences."
ReplyDeleteWhen I studied Social Sciences in the Eighties, the better students were quickly steered away from actual research; which was termed 'functionalist', 'behaviourist', 'determinist', 'Anglo-American', 'Logical Positivist' or otherwise sinister and uncool. So we played at synthesizing Hegel with Schlegel and Freud with some Frankfurt Marxoid. (And came out unemployable if it hadn't been for the computer programming boom.)
It was as if all the real research, much of it from the 19th century, never existed.
Third, the social sciences have come up with a vast amount of knowledge that is useful, reliable, and nonobvious, at least to our elites.
ReplyDeleteRight. The system isn't broken - in fact, it's harder to imagine a system that works more beautifully than the one we've got. You've just got to have a realistic picture in mind of exactly whom it is intended to benefit.
I see our social science as enormously beneficial to the elite of our society - the people George Carlin aptly termed "the owners of this country". Without our incredibly sophisticated social science, there is no way that our owners would be able to exert the level of control that they do over the population. So where is the problem?
What if the elites feel that importing low human capital immigrants that end up having high birth rates and voting for Democrats will eventually usher in a golden era of socialism that will benefit all Americans?
ReplyDeleteActually, there ARE different schools of physics, at least on the frontiers of research. And there have been opposing interpretations of quantum mechanics from the beginning, with implications for how one approaches the field today.
ReplyDeleteBut economics (and I think other social sciences) does not have the predicitive capabilities of the hard sciences. In economics, there are few "laws" that are universally agreed upon and even for those few the predictive capability is modest: the price of x should go down by roughly $A while the price of Y will go up by roughly $B. Not nearly as impressive as the precision in physics. When I was studying in college over 20 years ago the exponent in the inverse square law of gravity had been verified to some ridiculous number of significant digits - there's nothing like that in the social sciences.
Part of this is because it's impossible to replicate experiments exactly because economic systems are complex and not reprodicible or reducible to simpler models like many physical systems are. And largely because human beings are not billiard balls on a table. At least I choose to believe we're not though maybe there's a determinist on this thread who can set me straight.
But Steve has pointed out several areas where the social sciences have produced reasonably strong results with some real predictive power. And I would add that there have been some times when economics has proved useful in preventing or solving a crisis. Contrary to popular belief there were several prominent economists who noticed a housing bubble and predicted it would end in tears. The trouble is, they can't predict the precise timing of crisis and so influence can be lost by being too early. Also, like the other social sciences, economics is practiced in the world of public policy and hence political debate which tends to corrupt the conversation.
"and it has worked fairly well for them"
ReplyDeleteNo, it hasn't.
Of course, the half dozens friends I have who live there are ultra-liberal and politically correct diversity fanatics -- and all of them moved there for the quality of life. Funny, that.
ReplyDeleteYou can only think like that if you separate yourself from the consequences of "diversity".
Having lived in both Canada and the US, I'd say that the Canadian system has it's problems too. But immigrants do bring more to the table. Sure, it's hard to get used to the Sikh and Asian communities, but I don't see Canadian immigrants requiring social welfare to the same degree that illegal Latino immigrants to California require.
ReplyDeleteI've heard from some of my Ottawa friends that there is increased crime due to Somali immigrants (mostly refugees), but it still pales by comparison to the kind of problems seen in California.
I went for vacation last year on Vancouver Island. It was very, very white. Kind of like how Vancouver and California must have been in the seventies.
The system is not perfect. However, Canada at least knows, more or less, who is in the country.
I find it ironic that we are fighting several wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, at huge expense, yet have people, including potential terrorists, entering illegally. We have no idea and no means to keep control of who is in the country. We are not even allowed to ask people for ID. Wow!
pd in sf
Steve's comments are, as always, interesting and useful, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteThe article doesn't address immigration at all, though I have laid out a position on this here: http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/keeping-americas-edge
"We should reconceptualize immigration as recruiting. Assimilating immigrants is a demonstrated core capability of America's political economy — and it is one we should take advantage of. A robust-yet-reasonable amount of immigration is healthy for America. It is a continuing source of vitality — and, in combination with birth rates around the replacement level, creates a sustainable rate of overall population growth and age-demographic balance. But unfortunately, the manner in which we have actually handled immigration since the 1970s has yielded large-scale legal and illegal immigration of a low-skilled population from Latin America. It is hard to imagine a more damaging way to expose the fault lines of America's political economy: We have chosen a strategy that provides low-wage gardeners and nannies for the elite, low-cost home improvement and fresh produce for the middle class, and fierce wage competition for the working class.
Instead, we should think of immigration as an opportunity to improve our stock of human capital. Once we have re-established control of our southern border, and as we preserve our commitment to political asylum, we should also set up recruiting offices looking for the best possible talent everywhere: from Mexico City to Beijing to Helsinki to Calcutta. Australia and Canada have demonstrated the practicality of skills-based immigration policies for many years. We should improve upon their example by using testing and other methods to apply a basic tenet of all human capital-intensive organizations managing for the long term: Always pick talent over skill. It would be great for America as a whole to have, say, 500,000 smart, motivated people move here each year with the intention of becoming citizens."
WRT the questions about methodology, etc., I suggest that you read the whole article, as many of these issues are addressed there. In shortest form, I try to disinguish between description and prediction; between useful and academic prediction (in effect, useful predictions boil down to definitions of interventions that can create material benefits for humans); and also between "obvious" and "non-obvious" prediction. My point about social sciences in this regard is specific, but I think important: that they have not created a material body of useful, reliable and non-obvious predictive rules.
Best,
Jim Manzi
That's all very well, Steve, but it must help that the Canadians are a finer, nobler people.
ReplyDeleteTGGP, it's not like you can't email him yourself.
ReplyDeleteHow do we know that our physical theories concerning the wing are true?
ReplyDeleteFunny he'd pick that example because "the theory" here is in doubt - but the wing works regardless of the theory.
google [wing lift debunked] to get more info; 1st hit:
http://amasci.com/wing/airfoil.html
I've always doubted the "airfoil shape/low pressure on top" theory of lift (masters in physics), so I was pleased to hear a physicist on NPR claim a few years ago that it's not correct - but that you have to pretend that it's correct to get a pilot's license.
"in combination with birth rates around the replacement level, [immigration] creates a sustainable rate of overall population growth and age-demographic balance."
ReplyDeleteJim,
I don't follow your reasoning. If birth rates are around the replacement level, the rate of population growth is already sustainable. Or are you just using the word 'sustainable' to spice up your argument?
And how does immigration rejuvenate the age structure? Since immigrants, however young they may be, can sponsor their elderly relatives, the overall mean age is little different from that of the host population.
I am in Victoria, B.C. as write this. I was surprised by the number of Muslims, particularly women with hair coverings that I saw walking around town (and even in the local supermarkets). I guess this is not limited to Eastern Canada.
ReplyDeleteWe discussed the Oregonian article here when it was first published. The article bemoans the lack of cultural opportunities for "people of colour" and states that Portland will become less competitive in the future because of this.
ReplyDeleteWhat a laugh!
What is not being told in the article is that many Asians live in the Portland area and like it. There are far more Asians who get higher education than Hispanics and Blacks. So, how exactly is the Portland area supposed to become less competitive in the future? I think it will become more competitive.
The article points out that Portland is number 5 in the least amount of racial diversity. What the article does not mention is that metro areas #1-4 actually have heavy concentrations of NAMs in their urban cores. Only Portland is "white" in the urban core and, hence, provides the "European-like" atmosphere that makes it so popular among SWPL's.
The secret about the Pacific Northwest is that Asians and whites get along well. The styles of Asian and white people seem to fit well. cannot compete with whites.
An Asian/white hybrid society can be a quite economically dynamic society and get along well with the rest of the world.
I definitely agree with the other poster here that Portland is full of latte-sipping SWPL's who worship diversity.
My point about social sciences in this regard is specific, but I think important: that they have not created a material body of useful, reliable and non-obvious predictive rules.
ReplyDeleteSo your complaint is that you've been trying for years but your egg whisk just won't cut your front lawn, which is all a mess.
Ever consider that perhaps just perhaps your egg whisk is not designed to do cut grass?
That lawn can still be mowed neat, you just need to buy this thing called a lawn mower to do it.
"Economics has replaced the Church as the ministry of propaganda used to keep the masses from rioting against a system stacked against them. Instead of getting their rewards in Heaven, the masses are taught that they can either attain the wealth they seek if only they stay in line or are threatened that they will be worse off if the rich guy has to kick in a little more."
ReplyDeleteInteresting analysis there. I am probably one of the people who benefits somewhat from this kind of arrangement though.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteIt would be great for America as a whole to have, say, 500,000 smart, motivated people move here each year with the intention of becoming citizens.
Why, precisely?
Why do we need to naturalize 500K new citizens each year? That's a lot of people who may not mesh in a cultural milieu that's actually pretty different from most of the world.
Why can't they stay and enrich their own countries and then US business can utilize air travel and the internet and bid for their work product like everybody else?
I've never understood this seeming fixation that members of the educated class have with increasing population density.
I do not consent to being subjected to the presence of immigrants at all -- not even, and perhaps especially not, high IQ immigrants who are not only likely to, but obviously have, been detrimental to my well-being.
ReplyDeleteI am even willing to, at my expense, relocate to another county if not another State in order to accommodate guys like you, Steve.
Why do you think it is ethical to subject me to your experimental treatment without my consent?
Jim Manzi: "My point about social sciences in this regard is specific, but I think important: that they have not created a material body of useful, reliable and non-obvious predictive rules."
ReplyDeleteQuite right, to a degree. But why? A natural scientist who predicts an eclipse can be sure that the moon will not hear of the prediction and alter its behavior in response. A social scientist cannot (unless the prediction is secret). Social science predictions can themselves sometimes alter the things they are ostensibly predicting. If economists predict a recovery, people's confidence may rise and a recovery may thereby happen.
But social science predictions cannot alter genes -- which is why HBD is far more predictive than economics.
BTW, prediction isn't the only thing we should want from theories. Sometimes we just want to know why the French Revolution happened, not whether another Iranian Revolution will happen soon.
The anti-good-samaritan effect of most elite policies - Most of diversity/affirmative action is camouflaged elite (white) attacks on lower class whites - the elites claim that they want to help their black and brown brothers and sisters out of the ditch when what they really want to do is kick their striving white brothers and sisters into the ditch. The elites steal opportunities from lower class white males and distribute them to less-qualified white women and black and brown males who have been polluted with false consciousness about their true abilities. Even though they have the goodies the elite can't erase from the the women and black and brown males the fact that they are undeserving of the benefit they've been given, resulting in resentment. Is it really better to be a lawyer who can't pass a bar exam or practice with a reasonable level of competence than a more competent member of a lesser profession? With white women its even worse - they are separated from their families, introduced to higher status males and their expectations about who they reasonably can marry are unduly inflated. They end up mistresses and play things for elite males. Something I learned earlier in life - success is never as sweet if it is shared with those of like ability - it is always more sweet if it is rare and can be lorded over those who had similar ability but through various accidents of fate or faults (sometimes even strength) of character just couldn't grasp that brass ring. Portland Oregon is apparently where the SWPLs decamp to so they don't have to experience the effects of their self-congratulatory false morality.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, stop immediately the false humility. I know about the effort needed to keep a Web site viable and growing. You obviously work very hard. And you and I and everyone else knows that you are smart. Post your test scores. I would be very surprised if you weren't somewhere north of three sigmas above the mean. Age does indeed slow you down but you simply aren't old. Until about sixty five most people can do their jobs just about as well as they ever could. And for high IQ people the ability drop comes later. You know all this. So stop with this show of modesty. It makes you seem as silly as Bill O'Reilly.
ReplyDeleteManzi is way off. There have been major efforts to apply scientific method to public policy. I know, I was part of them. They failed but not for the reasons he cites.
In the fifties government reformers or political theorists came up with the notion of improving the application of public policy by using people well trained in accounting. The was the "Program Accounting" revolution. It didn't work and was succeeded by the "Program Evaluation" revolution in academic public administration. This time around the idea was to to cast public programs as formal hypotheses and apply well known statistical and research design methods to determine if the programs did what they intended.
I signed on for this revolution. I took a lot of statistics, quantitative methods and research design in graduate school and after graduation got work as an evaluator. At the crest of this wave, everyone was hiring.
Cutting to the finish, let me just say that this wave of reform also failed but not because of any methodological weakness. I personally wrote about a dozen evaluation reports that ended a half dozen programs. It's not really hard at all. You just read the legislation and formulate a numeric criteria as a kind of hypothesis and then go in the field and take some measurements. For example, jobs programs are supposed to create jobs, housing programs are supposed to provide housing. It isn't subtle. It isn't tricky. You just count them up.
In some cases there were some methodological issues. For example, a cross sectional study of CETA (an early job program) showed only benefits to white males, but a later longitudinal study showed only benefits to black females and negative results for white males. But in general none of that ever mattered.
I should have seen it coming. While in graduate school we studied the Westinghouse evaluation of the Head Start program. There never was a more clear case. This program was aimed at bringing black kid's school performance up to that of whites. It didn't. This was the biggest study of its kind ever undertaken and the results were very clear.
Yet of course, Head Start wasn't defunded as I expected. The program continues to this day. Indeed it has become an example of a "good" program in spite of the fact that is has always been a documented failure.
Every one I knew who had been an evaluator subsequently moved on into something else - typically computers.
Manzi is totally wrong. The social sciences do not suffer from lack of sophisticated techniques but from a simple refusal of the public to accept results they don't care for.
Galileo saw craters on the moon and thus came in conflict with the Church. The Church fathers didn't argue that his optics were faulty. They simply refused to look into the telescope.
The public is willful. They resist social science. There is nothing in any of the social sciences that has been as well studied and and thoroughly reviewed as IQ tests. Virtually every psychologist knows this but the media simply pretends that it isn't so. They bizarrely spread the notion that science has found all the races to be equally endowed. I don't blame a cabal of media conspirators. The public wants to believe in equality and resists evidence that endangers those beliefs.
Albertosaurus
I don't blame a cabal of media conspirators. The public wants to believe in equality and resists evidence that endangers those beliefs.
ReplyDeleteThe "public" doesn't sustain the inquisition, a "cabal of media conspirators" does. So they, at least, disagree with you. Why police the self-policing?
The public does want immigration cut off. But the "conspirators" don't.
In both cases, the elite gets their way.
Look at segregation. Pretty comfortable with inequality, that. The public was fine with it, in fact they demanded it. The inquisition against it was an elite phenomenon, not a public one.
Groundswell movements don't need ad campaigns, but "equality" has a massive, ongoing ad campaign.
The public isn't against hard social data, they're kept in the dark about it. People usually need external pressure to go against their interests, and "equality" sure as hell goes against a lot of Americans' interests.
Why compare various immigration systems? It's picking the best of a bad situation.
ReplyDeleteJapan and Finland don't take immigrants at all and both are nice places to live - low crime and no ghettos.
"he elites steal opportunities from lower class white males and distribute them to less-qualified white women and black and brown males who have been polluted with false consciousness about their true abilities."
ReplyDeleteWrong, according to HBD, they are lower class because they have lower-class ability. IQ is destiny, not nurture, right?
@Truth: Concern troll your side has jumped the shark tank you just don't realize it yet - You confused lower class with less intelligent. Intelligent white males from the lower class are the least likely to get assistance from ivy league schools, or aren't you keeping up with the current studies regarding admissions practices at the elite schools?
ReplyDelete@Truth: You are confusing lower class with less intelligent. What is the history of affirmative action but rewriting/attacking job tests/admission standards so that white males do not outperform minorities/women? The whole concept of "disparate impact" is a charade to hide hbd realities. You should also familiarize yourself with recent studies of admission policies at the elite schools showing the elite schools effectively discriminate against lower class white males.
ReplyDelete"Diversity" is just a code word for conferring unearned benefits/opportunities on certain favored groups - it helps that it effectively hinders the efforts of lower class white males to better themselves. The elite preserve their hegemony in two ways - giving opportunities to those who will present no real threat in the future and hindering the efforts of those young men who would present a threat.
Sam:
ReplyDeleteI was in Helsinki this spring and saw an awful lot of Somalians.
You're wrong about Canada, we don't have a smart immigration policy we have a multicultural bring-your-whole-family system that's perfectly in line with the country's official multicultural doctrine which was put in place by Trudeau.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vdare.com/misc/060122_monastyrskyj.htm
And simply from an economic standpoint immigration is bad for Canada:
http://www.pr-inside.com/the-fraser-institute-mass-immigration-affecting-r1504684.htm
quote:
In a chapter about recent immigration and Canadian living standards, Grubel stresses that official statistics show that recent immigrants on average earn substantially lower incomes than native-born Canadians, so that the system provides them with subsidies through taxes paid by high-income earners. Grubel estimates that immigrants who arrived in the 12 years before 2002 imposed a fiscal burden of $18.5 billion on all Canadians in the year 2002 alone.
"Economics has NEVER shown itself to be valuable when it is needed most, such as a time of crisis or while the great imbalances leading to the crisis are forming. In fact, economists come out of the woodwork to declare this time a "new paradigm" that should not be messed with (probably because who they are shilling for has paid for their research). Yet, the man on the street sees the imbalances."
ReplyDeleteEverybody talks about free markets,but didn't the US have massive regulation,high taxes and massive gov't subsidy to the tech industry after WW2 which gave us our modern society. That wasn't free market Capitalism. Did Japan have free markets. Free markets are for the poor countries.
"Why compare various immigration systems? It's picking the best of a bad situation.
ReplyDeleteJapan and Finland don't take immigrants at all and both are nice places to live - low crime and no ghettos'
Sam:
I was in Helsinki this spring and saw an awful lot of Somalians.
Even Finland is getting stupid.
My suburb of Chicago now makes me feel like I am in foreign country.
I was driving though town and saw almost now white people. Indians,Mexicans, blacks from the inner city who are moving to the suburbs. The suburbs aren't white now. My local bank has almost all foreigners working in it.
"Look at segregation. Pretty comfortable with inequality, that. The public was fine with it, in fact they demanded it. The inquisition against it was an elite phenomenon, not a public one."
ReplyDeleteIt was largely the northern republicans that voted for it I think. They didn't have to live with the change. They just forced other people to do it, just like the elites live in their rich neighborhoods and suburbs now.
"The public is willful. They resist social science. There is nothing in any of the social sciences that has been as well studied and and thoroughly reviewed as IQ tests. Virtually every psychologist knows this but the media simply pretends that it isn't so. They bizarrely spread the notion that science has found all the races to be equally endowed. I don't blame a cabal of media conspirators. The public wants to believe in equality and resists evidence that endangers those beliefs."
ReplyDeleteI used to think all races were "equal" in terms of achievement prospects in school also,until I started to read sites like this. Everybody is taught by the schools,churches and media that this is the case.People don't want to be 'racist" because they were told by authorities not to be. Any white nationalist will be pounded by the media as retrograde.Everything in the culture points people toward diversity and equality and it is hard to go against the grain in public.
Peter Frost,
ReplyDeleteI don't follow your reasoning. If birth rates are around the replacement level, the rate of population growth is already sustainable. Or are you just using the word 'sustainable' to spice up your argument?
I don't mind presuming to speak for Manzi (since he and his pals never much mind presumptuously speaking for opposing views): of course he's just adding spice. It's all they have. I've noticed this trend of injecting "sustainable" into every of immigration debate (such as they are) during this election cycle in Australia, too. Of course, the simple reality is immigration is inherently inimical to sustainability or stability. We may not be able to reach the creeps in government, but we can certainly reach Jim Manzi and his gang of pretentious creeps over at "National Affairs" and "New Atlantis." I'm all for honing tactics, and it's with that in mind that I suggest there's nothing to gain from buckling at the knees now and playing nice with these folks now that apparently they can no longer maintain the prentese that there "is no debate" about human biological reality.