July 20, 2011

The Harry Potter Effect?

I went to the Henley Regatta, England's crew racing championship, in late June 1987. It was great -- rich young women wearing hats four feet in diameter. It was like the Ascot Enclosure scene in My Fair Lady come to life, a living cartoon of English toffs at their toffiest. You don't travel to have your stereotypes undermined, you travel to have your stereotypes triumphantly vindicated, and Henley it terrific at that. Also, every so often, some guys row by, in case you are in to that sort of thing.

England has a whole bunch of these kind of Bertie Woosterish sporting / social events in the summer. Lately, they've gotten extremely expensive. Here's a recent article by Harry Mount in The Telegraph:
The Global Elite Has Stolen the English Summer 
... the English summer and social calendar has, in recent years, been quietly – but decisively – globalised and commercialised. The rackety, amateurish, faded charms of high English summer have been replaced by a professionalised, slick operation, supercharged by oceans of international cash. London is the new Rome of the globalised empire, and the English summer has fallen meekly into the imperial line. ... 
For the super-rich, the world isn’t divided into countries any more; just rich and poor parts. And, like swallows, their favoured rich parts in summer are now their English boltholes in the north. England should be proud to welcome them, proud that they have chosen us over Monaco or Biarritz. And even more proud that, rather than live in a globalised bubble, they are fascinated — fixated even — with the echt English events of the summer season. 
... Walk around the City — or Mayfair, natural habitat of the hedge fund — and you enter a new gilded Babel, where international bankers scoop up their billions in English, the international language. Britain now has a Wimbledon economy: we provide the charming venue, and foreigners come over to enjoy themselves on Centre Court. 
... Staggering new fortunes — far greater than those built by medieval English aristocrats, or Victorian English tycoons — have been accumulated across the world in recent decades. The collapse of the Soviet Union produced commodities and utilities empires in the 1990s. In India and China, the booming new market economies have spawned a fresh generation of billionaires. 
But these countries don’t have the right infrastructure for the super-rich: the racecourses, football pitches and tennis courts that host the most famous sporting events in the world, the Palladian country houses, the garden operas, the ancient private schools. England has all these things. And it also has the sort of secure political and economic structure that means the billionaires of Egypt and the troubled Middle East are pouring their billions into Britain. Sixty per cent of homes in London worth over £2.5 million are now owned by foreigners. 
So England has become globalised — but the old-fashioned clichés of typical Englishness have never been so popular. Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United have all been snapped up by Russians and Americans with money to burn. Harrods has gone to Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund; the Savoy to the Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. And here’s another paradox. This tide of foreign money into England, and the English summer season, has revived the ancient institutions and nostalgic rites that many English natives had long ago rejected as over-formal, affected and ever so slightly embarrassing. ... 
But it’s only the juiciest English cherries that the new billionaires pick. The Oval and Lord’s are packed, while county cricket goes to the wall. West End theatre and the opera at Covent Garden thrive, while regional theatres dim their lights for good. As provincial racecourses face bankruptcy, high-end racing has dodged the recession. At last week’s Derby, attendance was up by more than 6,000; hospitality sales soared by 25 per cent, as punters drank 14,000 bottles of champagne, 65,000 pints of lager and 35,000 glasses of Pimm’s. The English summer is no longer ‘sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea’ — as John Betjeman described it. It’s caviar on the smoked salmon, bees in the Bollinger. 
The international celebration of Englishness reaches new heights on sports day at the best English private schools. At Eton, the fourth of June now plays host to a United Nations of the richest parents in the world. Gone are the days when prep schools were the last word in austerity chic, when Molesworth warmed his frozen fingers on the only radiator at St Custard’s. Now Russian oligarchs fly in to sports days at Oxfordshire prep schools, landing their choppers on the rugby pitch. Again, though, it’s only the most expensive, ancient and famous English schools that get the moneybags treatment. Many of England’s lesser private schools — those dependent on recession-struck English parents — are closing down or making last-ditch appeals for their survival. Meanwhile the elite schools have never been so flush. In its annual appeal last year, Westminster School sought donations from old boys — including Nick Clegg and, incidentally, myself — for a £12,200 ‘planetarium projector’, a £5,000 ‘ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer’ and a £25,000 set of theatre lights. 
An educational arms race has escalated among the global elite, who want their children at English schools and American universities. As our state schools plunge down the international league tables, the best English private schools cruise heavenwards into an altogether headier stratosphere. They have morphed into hi-tech luxury hotels, purpose-built to satisfy the new breed of international client. And, while the hedge-funder elite drive up school fees, house prices and the cost of a Wimbledon ticket, the Merchant Ivory vision of an English Arcadia is rigorously maintained: whether it’s strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, the top hat and tails dress code at the Derby, or the shorts, cap and blazer of the prep school uniform, frozen in the 1950s. 
Most of the English, though, have long since fled this gilt-edged wonderland for cheaper climes, like Tenerife and Florida. The English summer has never been so English. It’s just a shame that the English can’t afford it any more.

Was the Harry Potter phenomenon of the last dozen years, with its unapologetic Britophilia, more effect or cause of this trend? If you are some Russian oligarch or Connecticut hedge fund master of the universe, the one person you really fear is your 13-year-old daughter and her ability to ruin your family vacation by pouting and rolling her eyes. So, you tell her you're going to visit the home country of Harry Potter.

114 comments:

  1. Royal Ascot is now a parade of low class chavs:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004421/Royal-Ascot-2011-Brawl-breaks-Ladies-Day-chair-legs-flying.html

    Just look at the proles in those pictures.

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  2. Ah yes, England and Europe in the Summer. Royal Ascot -- which does indeed have its chav component, and you can see the 'superrich' in their mourning coats and silly hats riding out to SW19 on the tube (its the Green line, can never remember its name).

    Then its Wimbledon fortnight -- you'll likely get some rain, but then you'll also get sun, all in the space of two hours. If you can't afford centre court there is always Hennman's hill, grass and a giant flatscreen.

    Meanwhile cricket is in swing, a great sport to have on in the background whilst doing other things -- cleaning the flat. Think of how really good baseball hitters will foul off pitch after pitch until they get something to hit. Well, multiply that by ten and you have cricket.

    The British open will take place sometime during this all too.

    And then all eyes turn to the continent, for the denouement of the Tour.

    All this under pleasant mild skies with 16 hours of daylight.

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  3. Steve, you are correct.

    The same phenomenon is present here in the USA. Those people who spent their childhood in places line Palo Alto or Darien or River Oaks feel entitled to live there as adults.

    Frequently by the time they grow up and go house shopping they realize that they have failed to earn the money needed to enjoy the lifestyle that their parents enjoyed.

    The old WASP elite is rapidly being eclipsed by those groups born with a higher IQ and greater levels of motivation and drive.

    The old WASP elite thought that they could stay elite in to the future, but upward mobility for the new high IQ types means downward mobility for the people that grew up in the WASP elite.

    What matters today is raw IQ and drive and motivation, not whether ancestors came over on the mayflower

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  4. "Sixty per cent of homes in London worth over £2.5 million are now owned by foreigners."

    The list of European cities that are more beautiful than London is long: Paris, Vienna, Venice, Florence, Rome, Prague, St. Petersburg, etc. But English isn't spoken in those by the natives. Global elites understand English, the global language, so England is the part of the Old World where they feel most comfortable, even though it's not actually the Old Worldiest, visually-grandest part.

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  5. So non-Europeans have the same attitude towards elite European culture as Europeans used to have towards ancient Greece and Rome. Thank God! I thought European high culture, the greatest the world has ever known, was in real danger of fading away as Europe itself declines. Its heartening that it is appreciated at least by non-Europeans - if we are lucky, it might play the same fertilizing role in other parts of the world as ancient Greece played in northern Europe. Maybe in future centuries a place like China will develop a high culture, after having been fertilized by Europe. Who knows.

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  6. The idea of *ugly London* is a complete myth, one I bought into for the longest time, and ironically one spread by the English themselves. The reality is that London is one of the loveliest, charming, and quaintest of European Old World cities, much more full of character than Paris with its broad boulevards reminiscent of American avenues. Florence is utterly full. Vienna cannot compete. Prague and Venice are marginally more beautiful, but small and provincial.

    For a beautiful European capital city with all the entertainment and complexity you could desire, London simply has no peer in Europe, and Im so glad this is finally being recognized.

    Before I travelled to Europe I bought into the myth too - but it is a myth.

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  7. What matters today is raw IQ and drive and motivation, not whether ancestors came over on the mayflower
    no what matters if your ancestors came from the shetl

    Are you implying WASps didn'tdon't have high iqs/ because they built a pretty damn fine country without minorities who have histories of looting and exploiting the poor and being booted out one country after the next.

    Once again, another poster with the meritocracy myth- the only people naive enough to have volunatarily shared power are the wasps, the jews and other mercantile castes aren't going to play so fair.

    Would you rather have a country ran by them, or by us?

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  8. Harry Potter had no effect, I think, since it was relentlessly middle class in origin and pitch. The rich people were all regarded as bad guys, and came to a bad end. Middle classness, was viewed as intrinsic to goodness. Many of the Summer scenes focused on mud/crowds ala Glastonbury, or working/lower middle class misery.

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  9. The touristy parts of London are great (if you don't mind masses and masses of people), but if you spend much time east of Tower Bridge you find yourself in a world of barred-windows.

    When I lived there in the mid-1990s (in the expensive West End near Kensington Palace--where Princess Diana lived at the time) I felt like I was in a sea of Arabic, though certainly not among the global elite.

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  10. I love a good Molesworth reference. He deserves to be at least as well known as Harry Potter.

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  11. I suspect this has more to do with the stability and safety of England more than anything else. And it's relative proximity to the growing wealthy compared to the US.

    And yes, I am sure that most of the wealthy actually do respect the high culture of England.

    Someone commented that the WASPs will be eclipsed by others, and this may be true, but I suspect that newcomers will be unable to maintain the culture - and thus safety and stability - of the WASPs.

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  12. OT

    http://tinyurl.com/3jmb9ts

    CHICAGO —As Chicago prepares to pay $30 million to African-American men who were denied firefighting jobs because of a discriminatory entrance exam, the city was hit Tuesday with another lawsuit, this one on behalf of women who were disqualified because they failed the physical abilities test.

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  13. "What matters today is raw IQ and drive and motivation, not whether ancestors came over on the mayflower"

    Strange, most of the people I worked with in investment banking where the children of elites, and they weren't necessarily the most intelligent or driven people I ever met.

    One shouldn't confuse a widening of skin color with a widening of opportunity. You can have a multicultural elite caste that is insular.

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  14. "What matters today is raw IQ and drive and motivation, not whether ancestors came over on the mayflower"
    Ah, that's why norman podoretz is editor of commentary and Eleanor kagon is on the supreme court. Got it.

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  15. what does harry potter have to do with the internationalization of england? i'm not sure the title of this article matches up with the rest of it. if the connection of ideas here is obvious, i missed it.

    maybe if you wanted to point out that the wealthy international patrons in england could never in a thousand years create something like harry potter, and that the charm and personality of england is slowly being choked by downward pressure from rich russians and indians and upward pressure from poor pakistanis and africans, then you might have a point.

    a dozen immigrant groups want to "participate" in this thing called england, all of them contributing either nothing but money, or nothing but their sweaty bodies.

    funny you should mention wimbledon. the english developed most of the sports these international patrons play. so between their schools and their sports and their music and their literature, the english are about 1 million times more accomplished than the combined totals of the new arrivals.

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  16. The old WASP elite is rapidly being eclipsed by those groups born with a higher IQ and greater levels of motivation and drive.

    They were eclipsed decades ago. It's ridiculous to speak of the WASP elite as if it still exists.

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  17. So non-Europeans have the same attitude towards elite European culture as Europeans used to have towards ancient Greece and Rome.

    Most of these people mentioned in the article are Russian oligarchs, American hedge fund managers, etc. Not non-Europeans.

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  18. Anon said:

    One shouldn't confuse a widening of skin color with a widening of opportunity.


    My response -
    of course - opportunity may not be greater right now than it was 30 years ago for some people. But for others opportunity is much greater.

    Let's look at low IQ white males born in West Virginia. Do they have more opportunity today than they did 30 years ago? Nope. Probably they will get jobs today that pay less than the jobs they got 30 years ago. No growth in opportunity for those low IQ white males.

    Now look at super high IQ males born in India or in South Korea. Plenty more opportunity available to them. They can move to America and get rich. Just for example, look at Zappos, a company started by an asian immigrant. This Asian immigrant made himself hundreds of millions in a very short time.

    The point is, the modern world offers massively growing opportunities for super high IQ people and shrinking opportunities for low IQ white males

    Same thing in London. Status in London used to be based on things that your great grandparents did. IQ did not matter so much. Today no one cares about your great grandparents, it is all about you.

    The world has changed, you are judged much more based on who you are, what you have accomplished, not judged so much on ancestry.

    Obviously this factor breeds resentment

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  19. 'Let's look at low IQ white males born in West Virginia. Do they have more opportunity today than they did 30 years ago? Nope.'

    That's a bit hasty of a judgement don't you think? I'm sure the improved technology trickled down to them somewhat.. Or it will eventually if it already hasn't..?

    They can definitely post their grief on the internet, that's for certain!

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  20. getting back to that post i made last month about "Why do corporations continue to get more profitable over time?", this most recent harry potter movie made 590 million dollars in 1 week. it will probably earn 1 billion dollars in total.

    it was impossible to make this much money from a movie only 30 years ago, because in 1981 there just wasn't the infrastructure to distribute a movie at this scale, a global scale. but penetrating most other cultures of the world and capturing their attention is nothing new for the english.

    they had done this for decades in popular music, where they easily, EASILY became the most successful ethnic group of all time. not only in terms of per person music output, but probably in straight up absolute terms. no other ethnic group even has a single act as big as the beatles, led zeppelin, pink floyd, elton john, or the rolling stones - the english have FIVE of them. decades after their peak, the amount of money these groups continue to make touring the world is nuts. the enduring fandom they have engendered will never be matched. and after these five, there are another five english acts who have all sold more records than any rapper ever.

    today the musical output of the english is more modest. although with their "idol" program, they utterly dominate musical television around the world in a way that no other group ever has. the american version of their show, "american idol", has been the most watched television show in the US for about 5 years now.

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  21. i mean, that's understandable, their decline. there's only one place to go after stuff like the beatles and led zeppelin, who had sales numbers so insane that the day michael jackson died, he had only sold about half as many records in the US as led zeppelin, and about one third as many as the beatles, as per RIAA sales figures.

    selling an obscene amount of media to all the various peoples around the world is something they have done for a long time. all you have to do is witness a "minor" english band like iron maiden and the ludicrous ticket sales they put up 20 years after their peak, in places like india and brazil and mexico. iron maiden, not even a huge band relatively speaking, is selling 30000 tickets a show in third world nations decades after 80s metal passed.

    it's definitely an england->world phenomenon, not a world->england phenomenon. perhaps this is what steve meant in his original question. do people all around the world like harry potter, because people from all around the world have invaded england and are hysterical for anything english? i say, nay. there's something special about the english.

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  22. "Ah, that's why norman podoretz is editor of commentary and Eleanor kagon is on the supreme court. Got it."

    Eleanor Kagon? Well, no Supreme Court appointment for YOU, Einstein.

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  23. Chief Seattle7/20/11, 6:31 PM

    act British, think Yiddish

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  24. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/nyregion/bronx-charter-school-disciplined-over-admissions.html?hpw

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  25. Crawfurdmuir7/20/11, 6:44 PM

    Anglophilia amongst the rich long antedates this report. The American WASP plutocracy of the 1890s aped the British aristocracy with their stately homes, liveried servants, and debutante balls. The British "public" schools were imitated on this side of the Atlantic - with somewhat less flogging and fagging - by college-prep schools like Andover, Groton, or Choate. London clubs like White's or Boodle's had their equivalents in the Union Club in New York or St. Botolph's in Boston, and the Social Register answered roughly the same purpose here as Debrett or Burke's did over there. Numbers of American heiresses, indeed, married into British aristocratic families, the best known such match being between Consuelo Vanderbilt and the duke of Marlborough.

    Of course, in those days most of the American upper class were WASPs, and had a greater sense of ethnic identity with the British than is the case today. Even so,
    Anglophilia has been a continuing note amongst the upper crust, varying only in its intensity. The reason is simply that for centuries, no one has known better how to live both well and stylishly than the British upper class. Ralph Lauren has made a fortune because of this perception, and his success has been a far greater indicator of its strength than any book, movie, or Masterpiece Theatre series.

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  26. What matters today is raw IQ and drive and motivation, not whether ancestors came over on the mayflower.

    You think so?

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  27. Let's look at low IQ white males born in West Virginia. Do they have more opportunity today than they did 30 years ago? Nope...

    Now look at super high IQ males born in India or in South Korea. Plenty more opportunity available to them. They can move to America and get rich.


    Orly? Seriously though, why compare apples to oranges? Instead you should compare supah high IQ white males in W Virgina with supah high IQ males in Korea and India. I'd say they (the white males) have way more opportunites, because they need not move to another country, since their own country does not sucketh. And the reason their country does not sucketh, is that it is not filled to the brim with Indians and Koreans, but with white people. I hope this clears it up for you. No need to thank me!

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  28. "What matters today is raw IQ and drive and motivation, not whether ancestors came over on the mayflower"

    Let's raise a toast to the Kardashian sisters.

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  29. @anon 3:38, from the article And a 24-year-old man was also arrested
    As in the US, ambiguous descriptions usually mean, non-anglo-saxon like our or too familiar "youths"

    not saying he was NAM, just not Ango_saxon

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  30. Chief Seattle said...
    act British, think Yiddish

    Seattle sweetheart its "dress british, think yiddish" but they can't even do that anymore.

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  31. had their equivalents in the Union Club in New York or St. Botolph's in Boston, and the Social Register answered roughly the same
    my father was blue book, my parents engagement was at the top of social column in the NYT (in those days the NYT could not social engineer, because if it did not appear the tribune, everyone knew it was BS)
    my mother's family had no money but a good name.
    If i were to marry today, it would not be in the NYT, not that i would want to be in it next to gay 'marriages' etc... but further that whole world is gone WASP ethnicity and families do not communicate like they used to.

    "They" won, and in my opinion 'they' make pretty rotten custodians, don't expect the same sense of stewardship that brought the Children's aid society,Central park, the Met Museum, etc.

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  32. It is a little more complicated than that.

    In all ethnic groups a certain % of males are born with a need to identify an out group and fight them.

    It really matters not who the out group is, the drive is the same.

    even if to an outside observer the in group and out group seem the same, people with this need will find a reason to attack.

    Good example, the Catholics and Protestants in Belfast are genetically almost identical. None the less, the people born with this ingroup outgroup orientation in both the protestant and in the catholic camps felt the need to attack members of the other group.

    So it is not surprising that there are angry feelings among certain English towards the wealthy "invaders" from other countries

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  33. Good example, the Catholics and Protestants in Belfast are genetically almost identical.
    umm no mister iq sweetheart...

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  34. Steve, one of your posters said:

    "my father was blue book, my parents engagement was at the top of social column in the NYT
    If i were to marry today, it would not be in the NYT"

    Steve, I think that this is a very important post. Clearly if you read the "race realist" web sites like Mangans you see anger and resentment over the fact that super high IQ immigrants from Asia seem to make lots more money than people whose ancestors came on the mayflower.

    Some see this resentment coming from the low class poorly educated white trash class.

    But actually, what you see on the blogs is more often than not coming from people like the person who posted here, someone who grew up thinking himself a member of the elite, thinking that he would get treated as a member of the elite, who is angry that his group is eclipsed by others

    the point is, someone that was never elite is unlikely to get as angry about today's state of affairs as someone whose parents were elite who has been cast out of the elite class.

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  35. Hey Komment Kontral, heavy hand tonight...

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  36. you see anger and resentment over the fact that super high IQ immigrants from Asia seem to make lots more money than people whose ancestors came on the mayflower.
    a. what makes you think I, or my father or my mother don't have high IQs?
    b. The mayflower were puritans, my family were English Royalists and Scots-Irish. Got anymore nonsense?

    I can bet, 10-1 you are part of a mercantile caste minority that has an in-group/outgroup strategy- beat WASPs over the head for being 'ethnocentric' and harping on the Mayflower while calling Uncle Irv/Salman/WenHo/whatever, about the next 'deal'

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  37. Some see this resentment coming from the low class poorly educated white trash class.
    oh yes, we as a nation need more people like you here...

    Wow, they resent having their wages underminded and having their patriotism abused to fight your buddies wars?

    Shocking. Keep in mind that low class white trash, along with some upper class wasps, are far better hunters, marksmen and soldiers than you or your kind will ever be.

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  38. "The old WASP elite thought that they could stay elite in to the future, but upward mobility for the new high IQ types means downward mobility for the people that grew up in the WASP elite."

    It's obvious by your impoverished language that you aren't part of any intellectual elite. Why do you claim to speak for them while repeating tired, empty phrases that might frighten off the benighted while alerting those with even moderate linguistic ability to your pretense and ambition to fraudulently wrest away that which you cannot earn by merit?

    Get a thesaurus, loser.

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  39. The world has changed, you are judged much more based on who you are, what you have accomplished, not judged so much on ancestry."

    Right, that's why it's so important for the nouveau elite to get their kids into Eaton.

    New & improved aristocrats: all the vices, none of the virtues.

    The point is, the modern world offers massively growing opportunities for super high IQ people and shrinking opportunities for low IQ white males

    Nice, low IQ white males instead of low IQ everybody. Like clockwork, Yan Shen, you out yourself every time. Talk about resentment.

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  40. Komment Krontol, is it absolutely forbidden to point out the martial prowess of the Scots-irish?

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  41. Crawfurdmuir7/20/11, 8:38 PM

    Anon. of 7:49PM: you are right to this extent - the old WASP upper crust used to embody at least some of the substance as well as the style of an aristocracy. The same is not so of today's nouveau riche, and the world is the worse for it.

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  42. In the paleo sphere you frequently hear from people whose families have lived in the United States for more than 200 years expressing irritation at the upward mobility of groups that have arrived more recently.

    There are still today plenty of social clubs and summer vacation destinations that only allow established, 200 year old families to participate.

    Spend some time in Charleston. There is a whole infrastructure of society balls and events that exclude anyone whose family wasn't already living in Charleston in 1800. If you arrived after 1800 you are "new" and not allowed. No matter what.

    Go to ten k wizard or edgar online and see who it is that is leading the new economy. Read about the people that founded google and the rest of the new economy companies. These are people that believe in hiring the absolute highest IQ

    There is a fair competition going on, some companies will look at the entire population of the USA in search of the highest IQ. Other companies hire based on old school social ties, what grandpa and great grandpa did in the past.

    Seems that the companies that hire based on IQ are winning and the companies that hire social register types are falling by the wayside.

    Lots of anger and resentment from social register types that find themselves no longer at the top of the food chain

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  43. But actually, what you see on the blogs is more often than not coming from people like the person who posted here, someone who grew up thinking himself a member of the elite, thinking that he would get treated as a member of the elite, who is angry that his group is eclipsed by others
    you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, because it is completely out of your mindset, as evidenced by your harping 'mayflower' why skipping "central park' your 'global elite' are incapable of custodianship.

    You just stroll around new york and think that 'anyone' would have have founded children's aid, or the American Museum of natural history (just look what YOUR team has done with it... ahem franz boaz) or free market and open borders would have created central park.

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  44. "Clearly if you read the "race realist" web sites like Mangans you see anger and resentment over the fact that super high IQ immigrants from Asia seem to make lots more money than people whose ancestors came on the mayflower."

    The ability to create wealth is even less an approximation for intelligence than an IQ test. Many gifted individuals find research more rewarding than presenting the world with a pragmatic version of their findings that will reap many financial rewards. Even if they had that money, they wouldn't know how to spend it.

    I wish Steve weren't so negative about Howard Gardner's concept of multiple intelligences. There are plenty of profit minded people who will maximize their returns by habit. Such folk may also have their curiosity limited to practical endeavors that will earn them large profits. Yet they may also stifle new, cost effective technologies that would improve quality of life for the masses because it would bankrupt them.

    Such people may well be more manipulative, shrewd and self-serving than average but not necessarily brighter. Maybe it's a stereotype but I can't help believing that the most intelligent humans are those who are most prone to sharing their knowledge for the benefit of others rather than for huge profit margins.

    Also, there's only so smart you can be. You didn't suddenly come upon a crop of 160+ IQ alien-human hybrids who all share the inexplicable desire to be English gentlemen. Snap out of it.

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  45. I am not sure who keeps talking about Komment Kontrol,

    but it is not clear to me that the Scotts Irish people living in Northern Ireland like to complain a lot about how much they hate Catholic people, but as soon as they move from Northern Ireland to the USA they forget about hating Catholic people and instead decide that they hate some other group. Scotts Irish are not hard wired to hate catholics they are just hard wired to hate someone. They forget their hate for catholics when they move away from Northern Ireland.

    The genetic factor in the Scotts Irish genome is a need to hate, not a need to hate Catholics

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  46. people whose ancestors came on the mayflower
    do you notice how cultural marxists, even when hiding behind their 'free market' ideology, always try to turn this into a negative?

    Had an ancestor on the mayflower? how dare you feel proud.

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  47. @Anonymous [the Asian-supremacist one]

    Why can't these superhigh IQ types work their wonders in their own countries, instead of driving up real estate prices in others' countries?

    Further, most of the so-called 'resentment' is not driven by the relatively few 'High IQ' immigrants, but by the vast majority of immigrants with bog-standard or less IQs. And that very much includes the average Chinese immigrant. I mean 'Zappos' -- come on, yet another way to buy crap over the internet?

    Strange that no one ever mentions real elite immgrants like Tim Berners-Lee or Linus Torvals -- both reasonable approximations of WASPs, or at least WAS(post-P)s

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  48. It sounds like Tony Blair's dream has come true. Britain has finally been reduced to nothing but a brand. A luxury brand perhaps, but a brand none the less.

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  49. It seems to me that England does have a large edge over the rest of Europe, in that they speak English, the international language, in England, for attracting an international clientele. But it would seem that they aren't really different from the rest of Europe in that, at least as far as the nicer parts.

    Europe on the whole, is a has been place, it's past is much more glorious than it's present. What Europe seems to be turning into is a great big version of Venice. Once upon a time, Venice was a bustling city filled with daring, enterprising, indomitable tough guys. It's last hurrah was probably the part it played at Lepanto in 1571, and it was definitely 'over' by 1700, after which it became a playground for guys like Casanova. With the rest of Italy, it was the first part of Europe to become a has been place with a glorious past and not much of a future, except as a sort of Magic Kingdom for rich grown ups.

    That's what seems to be in store for Europe as a whole.

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  50. "Britain now has a Wimbledon economy: we provide the charming venue, and foreigners come over to enjoy themselves on Centre Court."

    God help the city (and its country) that becomes the Global Capitol of Capital. One has to wonder, how has being the playground of the rich benefitted the natives? Is English culture today more enlightening, or more crass? Are families more likely to stick together? Is the UK's budget balanced?

    Being the playground of Lakshmi Mittal and a bunch of Russian thieves hasn't done jack squat for the good of Londoners, ENgland, or Great Britain.

    And if anyone does anymore bashing of Mayflower descendants, damnit, I will take a brick to their head. I'm not descended from "a" Mayflower passenger - I'm descended from at least nine of them; 9 settlers who got off their ship and landed in a mudhole, and had to build up everything around them from scratch. Four of them didn't make it through the first winter.

    But do I think that fact makes me a better person? Nope. I just think it's cool that I can trace my lineage to a major event in American history. But when in the hell was the last time anyone thought being a descendant of Plymouth Colony's founders made them a better person - 1950? 1890?

    No, today the people who think they are better are the ones whose ancestors took a steamship across the Atlantic and landed on the Ellis Island, and then in a bustling, pre-built metropolis called New York. Perhaps it's time we started bashing on the people who think they're special because their ancestors landed there. Because those people are much bigger assholes than the grandmother-cum-genealogist whose thrilled to discover, after working her 87-year-old ass off, that her great-grandfather Cornelius was the 4th great-grandson of William Bradford or whoever.

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  51. Lots of anger and resentment from social register types that find themselves no longer at the top of the food chain
    notice how this clown keeps going on and on, refusing to acknowledge counter arguments... oh wait, he did, after my commenting that I was not mayflower, he switched to social clubs in charleston.

    I am not sure who keeps talking about Komment Kontrol,

    but it is not clear to me that the Scotts Irish people living in Northern Ireland like to complain a lot about how much they hate Catholic people, but as soon as they move from Northern Ireland to the USA they forget about hating Catholic people and instead decide that they hate some other group. Scotts Irish are not hard wired to hate catholics they are just hard wired to hate someone

    that would be me, we don't need to 'hate' but culturally, or genetically or whatever we have always been good as border peoples - but... I am from a line of NYC scot irish (there were plenty of us as any tour around Woodlawn or Green-wood will demonstrate) (side note, disgusted to find out Jay Gould the robber baron was Scottish, not Jewish. WE don't play like that, we play rough but not like THAT.

    anyway, in NYC we (my grandfather and great grandfather's generation were urban entrepreneurial, when we had some sense of ethnic solidarity we beat the pants off the jews.

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  52. Globalists,
    you're all for the free market, how about we legalize dueling, after all, it's between two consenting parties.

    I think, my dumb, ignorant, scots irish blood would like that alot... especially pistols at twenty paces..

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  53. so why isn't tel aviv benifiting from this open borders thing, shouldn't we doing all we can to help our ally and enrich them with high IQ diversity from Turkey, etc??

    ReplyDelete
  54. Yan Shen, you out yourself every time. Talk about resentment.
    what do you want to bet that he is trying to get his not so high iq relatives in the US? not to mention taking advantage of every social program we have...

    ReplyDelete
  55. so why isn't tel aviv benifiting from this open borders thing, shouldn't we doing all we can to help our ally and enrich them with high IQ diversity from Turkey, etc??
    how about a diversity flotilla to Israel? all High IQ individuals from 'diverse nations..... surely the ADL would approve>

    ReplyDelete
  56. I'm under the impression that recent Korean immigrants are not the brightest. Certainly not compared to the ones who have come before them. The income data for Koreans in the US seems to confirm this.

    Other Asian groups might follow suit.

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  57. If you're in the UK and want to visit Hogwarts, try the King's School, Gloucester - a lovely old place right next to the Cathedral.

    I wouldn't say Gloucester represents a time capsule of Old England though. As Dalrymple put it :

    "Gloucester is a small cathedral city of about 100,000, where the city council has conclusively demonstrated that with the right combination of 1960s urban planning and an undiscriminating welfare policy, the degraded inner city conditions of much larger conurbations may be successfully reproduced in small country towns."

    If you want to see a perfect facsimile of one Old England, preserved by money, start in Cirencester, Gloucestershire and take the A433 through Tetbury (Prince Charles lives nearby) to Westonbirt and Badminton. Lovely Cotswold stone houses, woods, farms (with Polish farm staff) beautiful wayside pubs (Polish waitresses bringing your expensive meal) with car parks full of expensive cars.

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  58. "Strange that no one ever mentions real elite immgrants like Tim Berners-Lee or Linus Torvals -- both reasonable approximations of WASPs, or at least WAS(post-P)s "

    Strange that nobody mentions even more elite immigrants like Terrence Tao, Andy Yao, Kannan Soundararajan, or Subhash Khot.

    P.S. There are some super-elite Russian Mathematicians who teach in the US. I wonder why WN-types don't mention them instead of mentioning Linus Torvalds, who really is a mediocre version of Dick Stallman.

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  59. What matters today is raw IQ and drive and motivation, not whether ancestors came over on the mayflower

    Yet these hard chargers are mysteriously unable to drive that success at home and must live surrounded by those mediocre white folks.

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  60. Read about the people that founded google

    People somewhat different from the people who actually invented search engines.

    It must be true then, inventing the internet, web and attendant search engines is grunt work for those dim whites. Arriving later and capitlizing on that, thats the really clever thing!

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  61. Most of these people mentioned in the article are Russian oligarchs, American hedge fund managers, etc. Not non-Europeans.

    You know, I've got a funny feeling that where one to delve a little deeper, a lot of those oligarchs and hedge fund managers would turn out to be a little less European that you think.

    In fact said oligarchs & hedge fund managers might turn out to have a bit more in common with each other than with other Russians and Americans.

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  62. "much more full of character than Paris with its broad boulevards reminiscent of American avenues."

    This comment reveals ignorance and prejudice on a level so titanic that it defies possibilities.

    I don't know if you are aware of this, but Paris is older than the U.S.A. Much older. The ancient Romans called it Lutetia. Most Parisian boulevards are older than the U.S.A as well. By the way, the word boulevard is French. So is the word avenue. So think...use that pea you have between your ears. Since Paris came before the U.S.A, who copied whom? Typical redneck who knows nothing but the American midwest and thinks that everything original in the World was created by the U.S.S and that, if there is something similar somewhere else, they copied from the mighty U.S.A.

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  63. "their mourning coats": morning coats, dear boy.

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  64. Mark made an excellent point about Mayflower settlers cf Ellis Island immigrants, which raises a question about Steve's basic theories that I'd like him to address. SFAIK Steve has never discussed this:
    As I understand it, Steve holds that:
    A. IQ mainly determines success at most things;
    B. IQ is mainly hereditary.
    Mark points out that the 17th century English settlers in America had to have what it takes, which according to A includes high IQ. the process of settlement in the New World selected for above-average IQ.
    By contrast, the European immigrants who flooded in a century ago to make a living wasge as unskilled labourers had mostly either failed in their own countries or came from countries so backward there was no way to succeed. By A, they had below-average IQ. The process of immigration selected for below average IQ.
    So, according to B, the American descendents of English settlers should have higher IQ, and so according to A be more successful at whatever they do, than Americans of continental European descent. Personally I don't know of the slightest evidence for this, but Steve's the expert here. Is it so, Steve? and if not, why not?

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  65. MiserableOldBrit7/21/11, 6:55 AM

    I say, Jody, old thing, It's jolly nice of you to say all that good stuff about English music, but you do know that the Rolling Stones were doing their very best to sound like black American bluesmen? The main spring of western popular music is still black American music, and that's why the degeneration from blues to rap harms everyone.

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  66. Steve, I think that this is a very important post. Clearly if you read the "race realist" web sites like Mangans you see anger and resentment over the fact that super high IQ immigrants from Asia seem to make lots more money than people whose ancestors came on the mayflower.

    Some see this resentment coming from the low class poorly educated white trash class.


    Realistically, the resentment's all yours, and it stems from the realization that no matter how wonderful you think you are most people who are not asians or inidans are never going to look up to you or have any sort of genuine respect or admiration for you (unless from afar, but living around you will soon dispel that).

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  67. I'm neither Mayflower nor Ellis Island -- all my ancestors came over in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
    My ancestors understood, and passed down that understanding far enough to reach ME, that we the progeny of immigrants OWE the progeny of the Mayflower our undying loyalty, in return for their ancestors having let ours in.
    My ancestors taught their children, we are AMERICANS. We stand with our fellow Americans against all enemies, foreign and domestic, including -- especially -- those enemies who are of our own ethny.

    It is conduct unbecoming of that portion of the population with more recent immigrant ancestors to display, as many are currently, a decided failure to maintain that loyalty.


    To those of you who fit in the above description I say:

    It is a default on the social contract that the Mayflower descendants made with your great-grampa, and it is, frankly, not just ugly and unsavory, but traitorous. In a sensible world you would be tarred and feathered and dumped in the ocean for your utter lack of decency.

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  68. It may surprise you, but New York City wasn't founded by Mayflower descendants. Nor did they play much of a role in raising it to the metropolitan status.

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  69. "My ancestors understood, and passed down that understanding far enough to reach ME, that we the progeny of immigrants OWE the progeny of the Mayflower our undying loyalty"

    Actually if you listen to the Ellis Island open borders goons talk, the fact that OUR ancestors let THEIR ancestors in obligates THEM to let EVERYONE else in. When letting THEIR ancestors in, OUR ancestors apparently didn't realize they were tearing the door off the hinges.

    I got just such line of reasoning from my Republican state senator who, after running a campaign proclaiming his opposition to illegal immigration, voted for a "guestworker" bill (granting amnesty to illegals, no less) at a time of 10% unemployment.

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  70. "It must be true then, inventing the internet, web and attendant search engines is grunt work for those dim whites. Arriving later and capitlizing on that, thats the really clever thing!"

    please learn from white high v high m types to write something sensible. oops! i keep forgetting that iq is immutable, at least for commenters on this blog ;)

    different search engines use different algorithms for ranking results, and that's where the power of a search engine lies. there's no "capitalizing on that" here. also, the original google search algorithm was written by brin - who is white (jewish, though). google's search team is now headed by a former H1-B indian (amit singhal), microsoft's by another former H1-B indian (satya nadella), and yahoo's by another former H1-B indian (prabhakar raghavan). now let's repeat after norman matloff (a jew married to a chinese): all h1-bs are stooooopid.

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  71. "It may surprise you, but New York City wasn't founded by Mayflower descendants. Nor did they play much of a role in raising it to the metropolitan status."

    Well gee, I've always loved your work, Anonymous, but my point was that when immigrants got off the boats at Ellis Island they were entering a city which had long been built, and had all the amenities most of them expected from the Old World. The Jamestown/Mayflower/Massachusetts Bay settlers had no such luxury. Neither did the Dutch who settled New Amsterdam.

    But my REAL point is that Ellis Island descendants have supplanted Plymouth Rock descendants in thinking they're something special for having ancestors who landed there. I've spoken to and read from a few people with ancestors on the Mayflower. None of them seemed to think they were badass for having those ancestors. The real assholes - and I've read or spoken to hundreds of such - are those proud Ellis Islanders.

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  72. super high IQ immigrants from Asia seem to make lots more money than people whose ancestors came on the mayflower

    Super high IQ people from anywhere tend to make lots more money than average people anywhere.

    Actually that's not quite true for everywhere. Super high IQ immigrants to Asia would have difficulty making a lot more money than the average Asian - because in Asian countries wealth is a function of your connections and not your intelligence.

    As Asians come to America, they bring their nepotism and cronyism with them. Yan Shen's "Up with Asians, down with Whites!" attitude is just a manifestation of this attitude. Does anybody doubt that if Yanny was in a positon to hire people, being Asian (or Jewish) would be far more important than mere intelligence?

    In any case I strongly suspect that Yan Shen is a Chinese/White Jewish mix. His hostility towards non-Jewish whites comes from both sides of the family. Jews are even more fixated on loyalty to their extended family than are Asians.

    When Yan Shen fantasizes about a future where the world is run by hybrid Jewish/Chinese people, he's thinking about himself.

    The fact that he himself actually has a rather mediocre IQ (probably in the 110 range based on his commenting) just adds to the absurdity of the situation.

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  73. This comment reveals ignorance and prejudice on a level so titanic that it defies possibilities.

    I don't know if you are aware of this, but Paris is older than the U.S.A. Much older. The ancient Romans called it Lutetia. Most Parisian boulevards are older than the U.S.A as well.

    Danger! Danger! Irony Overload Imminent!

    Paris is indeed a city older than the United States. Its streets used to be those normal of a city which grew up in medieval times - narrow winding streets which went in no particular direct.

    Between 1853 and 1870 Paris was modernized under the direction of Georges-Eugène Haussmann. It was in this period that the center of Paris took on the form we see today, with long, straight, wide boulevards.

    As you may have noticed, this period was after America was established, and after American cities had established the form copied by Haussmann.

    If you're going to sneer at other people for their ignorance, it's best to not a fool yourself.

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  74. "The Jamestown/Mayflower/Massachusetts Bay settlers had no such luxury. Neither did the Dutch who settled New Amsterdam."

    May we also include the Huguenots and settlers to the backcountry? Large groups often overlooked in the founding of this country, in particular the southern half.

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  75. The father's of internet search were Monier (French) and Burrows (American) -- they wrote altavista. Others have colonized after their groundbreaking work. It seems that some ethnic networking is going on, for example at Google Amit Singhal admits

    In 2000, my friend Krishna Bharat persuaded me to join Google.

    At any rate, all of this stuff was being done, probably at a faster rate of technical advance, before the H1-B/Indian flood.

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  76. To lighten things up, here's a clip of another great English sport.

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  77. As you may have noticed, this period was after America was established, and after American cities had established the form copied by Haussmann.
    angel cake, it was frenchman who designed DC, based on european cities modified on barque ideals

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  78. the European immigrants who flooded in a century ago to make a living wasge as unskilled labourers had mostly either failed in their own countries or came from countries so backward there was no way to succeed. By A, they had below-average IQ. The process of immigration selected for below average IQ.


    No.

    All the European countries have similar IQ's, in the 95-100 range. There's zero evidence to suggest that the individuals who came to America were below that range. Even if they were, their children would not be. You don't understand the topic you are trying to discuss.

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  79. to the sweeetheart who thinks DC is and boulevards are American:
    in keeping with Thomas Jefferson's wishes to make Washington an "American Paris" with "low and convenient" buildings on "light and airy" streets.[60] A

    Darlings, i actually dislike the enlightment 'rationally' designed cities and prefer Pugin's ideas which actually made much more organic common sense.

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  80. Now look at super high IQ males born in India or in South Korea. Plenty more opportunity available to them. They can move to America and get rich. Just for example, look at Zappos, a company started by an asian immigrant. This Asian immigrant made himself hundreds of millions in a very short time.

    The point is, the modern world offers massively growing opportunities for super high IQ people and shrinking opportunities for low IQ white males



    Well, no. America, aka "the modern world", offers these wonderful opportunities to people of other countries at the expense of its own people.

    Once these supposed "super high IQ people" from abroad turn America into the same basketcase as their home countries, this flow will cease.

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  81. "Danger! Danger! Irony Overload Imminent!

    Paris is indeed a city older than the United States. Its streets used to be those normal of a city which grew up in medieval times - narrow winding streets which went in no particular direct.

    Between 1853 and 1870 Paris was modernized under the direction of Georges-Eugène Haussmann. It was in this period that the center of Paris took on the form we see today, with long, straight, wide boulevards.

    As you may have noticed, this period was after America was established, and after American cities had established the form copied by Haussmann.

    If you're going to sneer at other people for their ignorance, it's best to not a fool yourself."

    Excuse me, but I am assuming that you are joking. Otherwise, I can present you with plenty of counter-evidence.

    First, only small(though very important) parts of Paris were modernized and THIS MODERNIZATION WAS NOT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM INSPIRED ON AMERICAN CITIES. Napoleon III was not particularly smitten by Americans or American urban planning. Also, you got it all wrong. It were American architects and urban engineers, like Daniel Burnhman, who were inspired by Haussman and not the other way around. You truly are an ignoramus.

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  82. "We stand with our fellow Americans against all enemies, foreign and domestic, including -- especially -- those enemies who are of our own ethny[sic]."

    Presumably you mean fellow American citizens, not fellow American residents.

    I don't mean to nitpick. I think it's a point that needs to be emphasized. The left has taken to conflating citizenship with residency--a traitorous action if ever there was one. There's a crucial difference between the two that we need to point out at every opportunity.

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  83. "The father's of internet search were Monier (French) and Burrows (American) -- they wrote altavista. Others have colonized after their groundbreaking work. ...

    At any rate, all of this stuff was being done, probably at a faster rate of technical advance, before the H1-B/Indian flood."

    Provides immediate upper bound on this commenter's IQ and understanding of computer science.

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  84. Strange that nobody mentions even more elite immigrants like Terrence Tao, Andy Yao, Kannan Soundararajan, or Subhash Khot.

    Yes, it is strange indeed that we should think the inventors of the World Wide Web more noteworthy than (high-IQ!) university professors. Must be prejudice.

    Let me do penance by honoring some professors: Isaac Newton, Leonhard Euler, Carl Friedrich Gauss...

    (Euler did immigrate to Russia, which makes him that much better as a person.)

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  85. "Provides immediate upper bound on this commenter's IQ and understanding of computer science."

    Using math/statistics jargon -- even when you use it correctly, which is not the case here -- doesn't make your comment any less ad hominem.

    I think in 'Anonymous' we have found an Asian version of Tim Wise -- as least as far as the rhetorical technique goes.

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  86. "Provides immediate upper bound on this commenter's IQ and understanding of computer science."

    Did you expect any better? It's isteve. The only place where Terry Tao's achievements pale in comparison to Tim Berners-Lee's, and path-breaking papers on the P versus NP question (reformulated as the unique games conjecture) matter less than writing a web crawler.

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  87. "P versus NP question"

    I should have said hardness of approximation, but who cares. This is isteve.

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  88. "Using math/statistics jargon"

    Hahahaha. "Upper bound" is jargon in someone's world? I think I'm much more insulated from the proles than I realized.

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  89. only small(though very important) parts of Paris were modernized

    When where they modernized? If your answer is "the mid 19th cenury", as it has to be, then what price your strange claims about Paris being infinitly older than the US?

    It was founded long before the US, but it's current layout came after the US.


    It were American architects and urban engineers..

    It were, were it?

    It was Washington DC which set the standard for cites after it. If you feel the need to be a Francophile, the city layout was planned by the French born Pierre Charles L'Enfant. The broad straight streets connecting public squares and prominent buildings were in turn modeled on Roman designs.

    You know jack about urban planning.

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  90. "Provides immediate upper bound on this commenter's IQ and understanding of computer science."


    Provides immediate upper bound on this commenter's IQ and understanding of computer science.

    Rather poor in both cases.

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  91. Elected president of the Republic of France in 1848, Napoléon III became emperor on 2 December 1852. Under his new rank, Napoléon III decided to modernize Paris after seeing London, a city transformed by the Industrial Revolution, which offered large public parks and a complete sewer system. Inspired by Rambuteau's ideas, and aware of social issues, he wished to improve the housing conditions of the lower class; in some neighbourhoods, the population density reached numbers of 100,000 people/km2 (250,000 people/sq. mile) in conditions of very poor sanitation. The goal was also for public authority to better control a capital where several regimes had been overthrown since 1789. Some real-estate owners demanded large, straight avenues to help troops manoeuvre.


    Paris in 1848 was not "light and airy". They took their design inspiration from London.

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  92. As I understand it, Steve holds that:
    A. IQ mainly determines success at most things;
    B. IQ is mainly hereditary.


    I think Steve holds that:

    A. IQ correlates with success in many things.

    B. IQ is partly hereditary, proportion unknown or variable.

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  93. "Did you expect any better? It's isteve. The only place where Terry Tao's achievements pale in comparison to Tim Berners-Lee's, and path-breaking papers on the P versus NP question (reformulated as the unique games conjecture) matter less than writing a web crawler."

    You (Anonymous AS) bring up the Zappo's founder, I point out that the medium that makes his very derivative (if lucrative) accomplishment was developed by an Anglo-Saxon. So you switch fields, bringing some pure math guy into the 'argument'. I'd say that its a rhetorical technique, but I suspect the shift is just plain lack of intelligence. It matches your lack of knowledge; Berners-Lee wrote and implemented the first Hypertext Transmission Control Protocol, not a web-crawler.

    All this is beside the point, at least my point. I am sure there are millions of talented individuals in India and China -- but we were doing fine without them in the West. Further, India and China, despite the hype, are still very poor countries on average. Maybe instead of exporting electrical engineers and CS whizzes to make marginal improvements in search technologies, they should be worrying about training and retaining sanitation engineers for one thing.

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  94. Steve, I think that this is a very important post. Clearly if you read the "race realist" web sites like Mangans you see anger and resentment over the fact that super high IQ immigrants from Asia seem to make lots more money than people whose ancestors came on the mayflower.

    I'm not sure there are any "super high IQ" immigrants from Asia. Can you prove your assertion?

    When I was at Brown, I encountered an Asian girl who seemed to be 150+, but "super high IQ" is 160 or 170 or higher.

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  95. Go to ten k wizard or edgar online and see who it is that is leading the new economy. Read about the people that founded google and the rest of the new economy companies. These are people that believe in hiring the absolute highest IQ

    Bullshit. I am 45 years old and have never seen any evidence of a company that seeks to hire the highest-IQ people it can find.

    They don't exist.

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  96. There is a fair competition going on, some companies will look at the entire population of the USA in search of the highest IQ.

    No, there are no such companies. You are lying.

    As for the "fair competition", it's as fair as a competition to see who gets to sleep with YOUR wife.

    This is our country, and it's not fair for us to have to compete with others for the resources that belong to us.

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  97. Yes super high IQ is 160-170. You're talking Michael Savage level of intelligence. Just ask him.

    Those 170 people usually end up writing nutrition and Wellness guides that quickly go out of print, and then move on to hosting wackstick radio programs. Isaac Newton was an exception to this trend.

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  98. @Anon wrote - Strange that nobody mentions even more elite immigrants like Terrence Tao, Andy Yao, Kannan Soundararajan, or Subhash Khot.

    --

    Kannan Soundararajan is a Tamil Brahmin.

    Subash Khot is a Maharashtrian Brahmin

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  99. "Those 170 people usually end up writing nutrition and Wellness guides that quickly go out of print, and then move on to hosting wackstick radio programs."

    You seem to be making an accusation. I don't know why.

    First, you should probably develop strategies for recognizing exceptional abilities if this is important to you. A person who does one thing you can't do probably isn't a genius. A person who does many things most of us can't do probably is. Savage has multiple degrees and speaks more than one language. His wide range of interests doesn't disqualify or confirm him as a genius. The rest of his history seems to prove he's very smart indeed.

    Second, you should recognize that even high IQ humans have a variety of emotional and spiritual needs just like the rest of us and they will also be able to choose political parties, philosophies and religions just like the rest of us. There isn't going to be that one right political platform or choice of atheism vs agnosticism or religious faith.

    Third, likely being closer to a normal IQ than Savage, you should been content in the knowledge that being wise and careful in your decision making, you'll do as well if not better in life than someone with an IQ of 160+. No need to go around like a zombie thinking your mind is worthless and you should just defer to Savage's always better ideas and choices. It doesn't work that way.

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  100. "Those 170 people usually end up writing nutrition and Wellness guides that quickly go out of print, and then move on to hosting wackstick radio programs."

    I resent your negative attitude towards using nutrition to improve your health. While I haven't used Savage's advice, I have used other's recommendations about dietary choices that keep me from having to use pharmaceuticals to maintain good health. I'm infinitely fascinated about such research and will probably buy one of Savage's books when and if he's studied a topic useful for me or a family member.

    Do you really think he's a scam artist or are you ignorantly trying to deny his education and ability level because you don't like some of his political beliefs?

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  101. "English (private) schools and American Universities" (2 of the world's educational systems more independent of government control.

    Most of the fashionably popular entretainments are in or close to London which suggests these people may be cosmoPOLITAN but not interestedin anywhere outside the city.

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  102. "You (Anonymous AS) bring up the Zappo's founder"

    Different anon.


    "I'm not sure there are any "super high IQ" immigrants from Asia. Can you prove your assertion?"

    What IQ do you think tenured faculty at top-5 institutes in Theoretical Physics, Pure Math, and
    Theoretical Computer Science have?

    See this, on Terry Tao:

    http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10116.aspx

    "Terry's IQ has been assessed as between 220 and 230, and he has no areas of academic weakness. Even in English and social studies, which he considers his weaker subjects, he is working at a level 4 years above his chronological age. "

    What about, say Ravi Vakil (From Wiki: "He has participated with the Canadian team in three IMO's winning two gold and one silver medals and was the fourth person to be a four-time Putnam Fellow in the history of the contest.") or Akshay Venkatesh (From Wiki: "He is the only Australian to have won medals at both the International Physics Olympiad and International Mathematics Olympiad, at the age of 12")? Both are again Professors of Math at Stanford.

    "they should be worrying about training and retaining sanitation engineers for one thing."

    People interested in Theoretical Physics, Pure Math, EE, and
    Theoretical Computer Science don't like to become sanitation engineers.

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  103. "Kannan Soundararajan is a Tamil Brahmin.

    Subash Khot is a Maharashtrian Brahmin"

    There are lots of non-Brahmin Indians in elite Theoretical Computer Science and Pure Math.

    In TCS, of the top of my head: Sanjeev Arora, Manindra Agrawal, Moses Charikar,the Vazirani brothers, Ketan Mulmuley ....

    In Pure Math: Abhinav Kumar, Ravi Vakil, Chandrashekhar Khare ...

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  104. What IQ do you think tenured faculty at top-5 institutes in Theoretical Physics, Pure Math, and Theoretical Computer Science have?

    So, if I'm counting correctly, you were able to name a grand total of ONE super-high-IQ immigrant to the US.

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  105. "People interested in Theoretical Physics, Pure Math, EE, and
    Theoretical Computer Science don't like to become sanitation engineers."

    Bill Gates IS looking for someone to engineer a superior toilet. Perhaps the design of the appliance itself might interest the super brains.

    What if we didn't have the money for the relatively impractical research done with colliders, etc? Would these guys be too distracted dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to design an efficient aqueduct for an overpopulated city?

    I wouldn't mind people like you if you didn't expect the US to subsidize the third world as if we'd somehow taken money and resources from them and owed it back. Yet, when it comes to the rights of "special" immigrants to walk away from their communities to pursue esoteric careers that may or may not improve life for the masses, you don't blink an eye.

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  106. Reread the Great Gatsby again if you are naive to think that the WASPs are done and IQ trumps everything.

    The Established Families always seem to win in the long run. Similar things happened when Napoleon was hot.

    The various lords and ladies are not there by fluke. They were groomed to rule and step over anyone which stand before them for generations.

    If everything else fails, they will give their son or daughter (preferably sterile) to the new 'powers' to marry, and protect their privileged situation.

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  107. Is it amusing to me that these people are effectively celebrating England becoming the de facto metropol of a colonial mercantile empire simply because the people who are making it so are not British?

    "We must at present do our best to form a class of persons Indian in blood and colour but English in tastes, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect". Or perhaps that should be, rather than "but English in tastes, morals, intellect", "but who appropriate the English culture as gaudy kitsch".

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  108. "People interested in Theoretical Physics, Pure Math, EE, and Theoretical Computer Science don't like to become sanitation engineers."

    You see, the Indian population has too high an IQ to produce any number of sanitation engineers... ;)

    (They probably will solve this problem, the above simply seems like a distinctly lame comeback...)

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  109. So, according to B, the American descendents of English settlers should have higher IQ, and so according to A be more successful at whatever they do, than Americans of continental European descent. Personally I don't know of the slightest evidence for this, but Steve's the expert here. Is it so, Steve? and if not, why not?

    As an Englishman, I did note with a smile, English Americans are close to the top of the league table in Wordsum on the American GSS - http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2010/06/low-southern-italian-iq.html. They're not Jews, but it's not a bad position.

    To the extent there are Whites (period) in the recent IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad) list, they seem to have WASP names, rather than other White ethnic or Jewish names. http://official.imo2011.nl/country_individual_r.aspx?code=USA. But frankly I wouldn't read much into the IMO - it's fairly obvious it's not very representative of population cognitive differences (e.g. Korean-American or Indian-American rep is nothing like Chinese-American rep, in contrast to IQ).

    I don't seriously think there is any Founding Stock advantage though.

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  110. Stari_Momak:

    I mean 'Zappos' -- come on, yet another way to buy crap over the internet?

    Although we might note it plays out the dynamic in miniature:

    founding, concept and basic entreprenuership by a guy with an obscure Anglo Saxon origin name (Swinmurn), built up into an enormously successful company with Asian origin venture capitalists who'd built their cash through an entreprenuerial but fairly grindy not-exactly-every-young-WASP's-dream business (a web advertising firm conveniently enough founded by a Chinese, an Indian and with an Iranian junior partner, although only the Chinese is relevant to the Zappos).

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  111. "I'm not sure there are any "super high IQ" immigrants from Asia. Can you prove your assertion?

    When I was at Brown, I encountered an Asian girl who seemed to be 150+, but "super high IQ" is 160 or 170 or higher."

    Everything I've read about IQ and the Bell Curve, as they relate to major racial groups, is that while the "Asian" category (usually meaning Korean, Japanese and Chinese) does average a very few point higher, they do cluster more around that average, so that a smaller percentage (compared with European descended persons) are at the right and left extremes of the curve. People overestimate the prevalance of high IQ--"super IQ", as manifested by most persons recognized as "geniuses", is in upper one half of one percent, and that would be over 140, not 170 (extraordinarily rare.) While there are certainly very smart Asian Americans, some of whom I know personally, they have hardly taken over the position of inventors of the modern world. I was surprised to learn that all of the computer languages were written by white guys--admittedly, I don't know their ethnicities-- except for Ruby, which was written by a Japanese. I had thought that surely Indians had written some. But no. Not yet anyway. And I've learned on this blog that code written by Indian programmers is not highly regarded. I've been pretty impressed with some of their business skills though, and the companies they've started. One I know of was excellent to work for--he did his best to get the best benefits for his mostly American employees.
    However, so far, the Chinese have had to beg, borrow and/or steal most of the their technological advancements, with the aiding and abetting of various former American presidents, who had reasons of their own. The ease with which Chinese from China--persons who made no pretense whatsover of their intentions to return to China--had access to all kinds of tech "secrets", would make us all do a double take concerning the game-plan of our governing bodies. Don't think for a minute that any "government" is on the side of their citizens. They work only for themselves, among themselves, and are quite ecumenical that way.

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  112. Standard deviations vary but there isn't much reason to assume lower standard deviation in most samples (or higher) - there are some data which show Asian groups as having higher standard deviations, some which show even all the Asian subgroups in America having an identical standard deviation to Whites, Blacks and Hispanics, even when aggregated (e.g. the TIMSS data).

    Generally, I think the following profiles and models are sufficient for Asians:

    - North East Asians: 3-5 points higher in full scale IQ than Whites, disproportinately concentrated in visuo-spatial IQ (makes good engineers and helps with some aspects of maths), much less confrontational personality.

    - South Asians: Somewhat lower IQ than Whites, but not so low as it would seem once nutrition and disease are factored in. Apparently lowest White-South Asian IQ differences in South India. Higher heritability than Whites through arranged marriages and possibly long term genetic substructure, so kids don't show much regression and Brahmin kids tend to stay smart. Similar standard deviation considered as a whole population. And there's really not much difference between this and a complicated model where people try to work out different subpopulations with different IQ scores.

    - South East Asians: Like North East Asians in pattern of strengths and temperament but somewhat lower full scale IQ than Whites.

    - West Asians: Like Whites but somewhat lower IQ. Possibly somewhat more confrontational and status oriented.

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  113. An Anonymous said:

    Did you expect any better? It's isteve. The only place where Terry Tao's achievements pale in comparison to Tim Berners-Lee's, and path-breaking papers on the P versus NP question (reformulated as the unique games conjecture) matter less than writing a web crawler.


    Not having a high IQ, my understanding of P versus NP will be non-existent; however, without Sir Tim's invention I guess you would have some difficulty in communicating your wisdom on blog comments.

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  114. The international celebration of Englishness reaches new heights on sports day at the best English private schools.

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