Bryan Caplan, author of Selfish Reasons to Have More Children, responds to the joke in my review about how I hope that people who like his book have more children and people who prefer watching the Kardashians on reality TV have fewer by asking: "What did stupid people ever do to you?"
Professor Caplan's previous book was entitled The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, so I think he may have already answered his own question.
Meanwhile celebrity news website What Would Tyler Durden Do was so impressed by Dr. Caplan's presentation of twin and adoption evidence on the crucial question of nature versus nurture, that Brendon applies those genetic insights to what we can learn from Lindsay Lohan's life. (Scroll down to final paragraph.)
It’s kind of sad. Maybe [Lindsay Lohan] could have been more than she is, but she was born to two white trash retards and this is what you get. This is why we need to take away kids' bike helmets and hand them lit fireworks taped to a dodge ball. That stuff used to kill or at least maim all the clumsy, slow witted dumb asses. The rope swing was their natural predator. Now they grow up and have 8 f'n kids all exactly like Lindsay.
In another post on WWTDD, Brendon points out:
Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn Rimes got married Friday night, and while they’re no doubt out somewhere celebrating that fact today, Cibrians ex wife Brandi Glanville unpacked at her new (smaller) house ...
Nonetheless, she’s still the winner in all this because she’s way way hotter than Rimes. Cibrian is an idiot. It’s like he just traded in a 2011 Maybach for the passenger seat from a 98 Accord, and the seat smells like urine and periodically fires a spring into the back of your balls.
I'm sorry, Brendon, that your test ride didn't turn out wholly satisfactory, but I specified in my Craigslist ad, and I quote: "98 Accord, may have certain aesthetic and mechanical issues." So, don't say I didn't warn you. Look, do you want the Accord or not? I'll knock $250 off the asking price, but that's it. Your whining about it on WWTDD won't make me go any lower.
Isn't your quarrel with democracy, then? Or with the universe of legal voters? Caplan's comparative advantage argument--that in a society of Einsteins, you'll have Einsteins scrubbing the floor, etc.--is legitimate, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteAnd, as he implies elsewhere in the post you link, where do you draw the line? I hope I get to be one of the smart ones, and that you do too...
As Winthorp puts it in Trading Places: "And he was wearing my Harvard tie! Like, 'Oh, sure! *He* went to *Harvard.*'"
LMFAO! Good cross-threading/cross wbsite synergy.
ReplyDeleteEvery once in a while WWTDD makes me snort coffee thrugh my nose, and the Lohan thing was one example.
The guy commenting on Lindsay Lohan is just a retard himself. The only ones who care about a walking bad example like her are people pathetic enough to need someone they can feel superior to. Attacking her parents like that is tacky. I'll bet the commentator would never have the guts to attack any underclass non-white person by saying they shouldn't have children by implying they have something genetically wrong with them.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I know all about these celebrities I'd rather not know about? It must be through osmosis, the media putting all this before our faces twenty-four hours a day.
How long until commenters on here start talking about the jews?
ReplyDelete"What did stupid people ever do to you?"
ReplyDelete'Stupid' is the word for someone who has never seriously posed himself this very question. I know I'm not the only one who saved Kylie's incisive comment a few threads down, but does this ever bear repeating:
'The notion that their hardworking neighbors are paying the taxes that provide the government services to which they think they are entitled is literally one they can't comprehend. The government has the money, the government should provide.'
That, Mr. Caplan, is what stupid people are doing to you.
Is he unfamiliar with the smashing success of Britain's Dysgenic Welfare Breeding Program, put in place in the 1960s (on indigenous English) and whose jaw-dropping effects have been well-chronicled by Charles Murray?
Any population will have an intelligence bell-curve. Claiming that the relative numbers of people on each side of it doesn't matter to society is pure folly.
I may come to ISteve for the IQ and race postings, but I stay for the 1.) commentariat 2.) sports talk and 3.) WWTDD references.
ReplyDeleteWell done Steve - not just on this post, but on the last three months (+). The content has been superb.
Here is Obama Sr's immigration file...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/54015762/Barack-Hussein-Obama-Sr-Immigration-File
the birth certificate list his mum has (Stanley) Ann Dunham Obama> does that mean you were right, Steve? Bigamy?
ReplyDelete"Professor Caplan's previous book was entitled The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, so I think he may have already answered his own question."
ReplyDeleteBut smart high-IQ people voted for Obama in huge numbers.
"It’s kind of sad. Maybe [Lindsay Lohan] could have been more than she is, but she was born to two white trash retards and this is what you get."
ReplyDeleteBut then... look at Paris Hilton and the young George W. Bush.
Hey, It looks like Barry grabbed a few of you nerds by the colar, shoved your faces into the dirt and made you eat a good mouthful of it!
ReplyDeleteYou put me in the disconcerting position of being glad that readers--or at least one reader--of the celeb trash site, WWTDD, chose to have kids.
ReplyDeleteWell I don't know if they are the usual commenters over there, or just an invasion of Sailerites, but the comments to that Caplan's PC-make-you-stupid post are very comforting.
ReplyDeleteKeep it going! Truth will prevail.
the guy who writes WWTDD is obsessed with lindsay lohan. not sure if you were aware, but you should take note. he does at least correctly point out that she enjoys preposterously lenient law enforcement due to her fame, as any normal person would have spent several years in prison by now.
ReplyDeleteby the way, from the "Where does all this stuff come from? It doesn't just fall out of the sky" files.
http://www.greenwichtime.com/local/article/Hubert-Schlafly-Teleprompter-inventor-and-1348940.php
developed the teleprompter (perhaps obama should eulogize him?), pioneered satellite television, was an all around inventor and problem solver in the industry and is responsible for lots of stuff that just didn't exist before he created it.
Steve I sometimes think that you are America's last conservative and although I cannot bring myself to being a conservative it often seems that conservatives are always right.
ReplyDeleteIs this guy insane? Rimes is way hotter. Glanville looks like beta facelift.
ReplyDeleteYou read celeb gossip blogs?
ReplyDelete"Hey, It looks like Barry grabbed a few of you nerds by the colar, shoved your faces into the dirt and made you eat a good mouthful of it!"
ReplyDeletewhoa. HOLY SHIT. barack obama, finally, after 3 years, released a document that is required of absolutely every other candidate way up front in the nomination process.
note how low the the standards are for this obama guy because he is half african. he gets huge credit and props from his fans for doing something that is positively standard and trivial.
next up, kemba walker wows people with his admission that he has actually read one, single book, after 12 years of public school and 3 years of "college". damn, that guy sure is an all-arounder, what an accomplished young man. lol. should have been forced to play in the NBDL like half of these NCAA players.
How long until commenters on here start talking about the jews?
ReplyDeleteHow long did it take you to find this post?
Projection strikes again.
It would be funny if after making such a big deal out of unveiling the birth certificate it did in fact say he was born in Kenya.
ReplyDeleteDan in DC
Hey, It looks like Barry grabbed a few of you nerds by the colar, shoved your faces into the dirt and made you eat a good mouthful of it!
ReplyDeleteNo, Truth, that's just your imaginary friends that you're always putting down.
Brendan's comments on Glanville bring to mind a warning I once heard: No matter how good looking she is, someone somewhere is sick of her sh!t. If that woman has to move by her self, she must have really burned a whole lot of bridges.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that makes English movies and television so fine is that English show folk, although even more lefty than ours, are smart enough to rapidly and skillfully adapt so many pieces of basically conservative literature that have important ideas, interesting stories or other story-telling values.
ReplyDeleteThe great example of this is the works of Evelyn Waugh. His religion and politics repelled the English artistic community. But English film-makers could not keep their hands away his novels, turning almost all of them into very good productions, in many cases several times.
Of course, this might also be explained on the theory that, whatever their philosophical differences, British show folk are, like Waugh was, snobs about esthetics.
Sorry, that last comment was meant to go with the "Atlas Shrugged" review.
ReplyDelete"whoa. HOLY SHIT. barack obama, finally, after 3 years, released a document that is required of absolutely every other candidate way up front in the nomination process..."
ReplyDeleteI'm almost afraid to ask, Jody, but how do you know what is required of 'absolutely every other candidte way in front of the nomination process.'?
I can't every remember any other presidential candidate releasing his birth certificate. Do you have some polaroids somewhere of Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman showing theirs to a judge?
""whoa. HOLY SHIT. barack obama, finally, after 3 years, released a document that is required of absolutely every other candidate way up front in the nomination process..."
ReplyDeleteI'm almost afraid to ask, Jody, but how do you know what is required of 'absolutely every other candidte way in front of the nomination process.'?
I can't every remember any other presidential candidate releasing his birth certificate. Do you have some polaroids somewhere of Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman showing theirs to a judge?"
Yeah, except that John McCain fella who had to show his birth certificate to the Senate in order for them to adopt a nonbinding resolution declaring him a citizen.
oops!
"damn, that guy sure is an all-arounder, what an accomplished young man."
ReplyDeleteHe's not going to make millions of dollars next year being 'an all-arounder' and an 'accomplished young man.' He's going to get paid to do one thing very well. Play basketball. He managed to graduate in a very insignificant supplementary sidelight to his career, in three years. Can you say that?
Oh, McCain did? Great, he was never president.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember Clinton or Bush doing it, and I don't know that Obama didn't.
Bruce Jenner looks like a lesbian. It's sad really, compared to his younger days.
ReplyDelete@Joe: "How long until commenters on here start talking about the jews?"
ReplyDeleteFour posts.
"but she was born to two white trash retards"
ReplyDeleteIs this true? Dina and Michael don't strike me as blue bloods but I'm not sure there is anything to indicate that they are white trash. After all, how many people who face insider trading charges are white trash?
Speaking of bashing Jews, did anyone see the overbearing Steve Roberts (with his admittedly charming wife Cokie) brow-beating a group of religious leaders last Sunday on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour? The topic was civility in discourse and apparently Steve felt empowered to insult and lecture everone that wasn't for burdening future generations with debt or allowing illegal aliens to become full citizens at their personal discretion.
ReplyDeleteThe E! Channel should be renamed "The Miscegnation Channel", no?
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing these are their reality shows: 1. Coco/Ice-T 2. Kendra W. 3. Khloe Kardashian 4. Kim Kardashian. it
s no coincidence.