(2) Moscow pupils performed very well [546], at the level of the highest scoring OECD countries like Finland, Taiwan, and Korea. This is especially impressive considering the significant numbers of immigrants in that city from the North Caucasus and Central Asia, who come from poorly-scoring countries and rarely have good Russian.
(3) St.-Petersburg and Tyumen oblast [western Siberia] performed above the OECD average, while a few other regions performed at or only slightly below the OECD average.
(4) Among ethnic Russian republics, Siberian regions performed well, while the Urals and southern regions performed badly.
(5) Performance in ethnic minority republics differs dramatically. Many of the Turkic and Finno-Ugric regions, such as Tatarstan, Komi, Chuvashia, and Karelia did well; however, Mari El is a big exception. The Buddhist peoples of Asia, such as Chita oblast (now merged into Zabaykalsky Krai) and the Sakha Republic, performed relatively poorly, as did the Muslim North Caucasus region of Dagestan. Extrapolating from Dagestan, Chechnya would probably score around 400, i.e. like Brazil.
Bear these figures in mind when considering long-term investments into Russia alongside with their business climate, corruption levels, etc.
Western Russia doesn't do that well, and neither do the ex-Soviet Republics to the west of contemporary Russia. I wonder what the dysgenic effects of Leninism, Stalinism and Hitlerism were, especially on Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and western Russia? Many of the wealthy and middle class fled the Bolsheviks, then Stalin starved the kulaks, then murdered or imprisoned many people of above average talents, then the SS came through and shot the local leaders loyal to Stalin.
Also, here is a graph of Italian provinces with PISA scores on the horizontal axis and per capita GDP on the vertical axis.
The positive outlier above the line is Rome, the capital. The other positive outlier at the top of the chart is South Tyrol, which is a heavily German speaking area that Italy got carved out of Austria at the end of the Great War. The negative outlier is Apulia, in the southeastern heel of Italy, home to Brindisi and Lecce. I spent a day in those beat-up looking towns in 1980 and I recall a vague impression of the locals as seeming clever but anti-social, as cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face types.
Brindisi is home to many, many Greeks who fled Greece (due to lack of jobs, or political repression during the Colonels' regime, or because they were supporters of the Colonels when they fell, etc.) taking the cheapest, easiest way out of the country, and never got any further.
ReplyDeleteIt's similar to why San Bernardino is a shithole - it's the first welfare office in California on the route in that doesn't require tire chains in winter.
Steve, how do you get 4 out of 50 on a multiple choice test?
ReplyDeletehttp://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/04/03/claiborne-gives-birth-to-a-four-on-the-wonderlic/
@4:28
ReplyDeleteClaiborne probably isn't very bright, but he probably isn't that dumb either. More likely, a young, academically unserious man who is about to make millions of dollars playing football was given an aptitude test and (surprise!) didn't spend too much time worrying about choosing the correct answers. And yes, if he was picking answers randomly you would expect to see a higher score, but still...
It looks to me like Apulia is a positive outlier - high scores with low income, while Tyrol does relatively poorly based on it's income. Am I reading the graph wrong or misunderstanding 'positive' in this context?
ReplyDelete"I wonder what the dysgenic effects of Leninism, Stalinism and Hitlerism were?"
ReplyDeleteYikes! What a tragedy and waste of human potential.
I've wondered for a while what the opportunity costs are to white Americans (previously known as "Americans") of mass 3rd world immigration, disparate impact laws and widespread fetishistic worship of "people of color." Now I gotta start thinking about the dysgenic effects of the current regime as well. Sigh... I need a drink.
"It looks to me like Apulia is a positive outlier - high scores with low income"
ReplyDeleteYeah, but if you Brindisians are so smart, how come you aren't rich?
Germans are leading minorities in both the Tyumen and Novosibirsk Oblasts (due to Stalinist resettlement/deportation schemes).
ReplyDeleteOkay, yes I was misinterpreting 'positive' - it means does better than the test scores would predict. Graphs is hard.
ReplyDeleteMoscow, like a magnet (or a spider) attracts cognitive elite. Brain drain from "regions" into capital was very strong during Soviet times, and it only intensified since. Next to Moscow is Russia's other capital, St.Petersburg. Not surprisingly, it's second best in PISA scores.
ReplyDeleteSamara region performs well = Volga Germans, probably (although Saratov is expected to do well, too). Novosibirsk = third in importance academic center, full of bright people. Tyumen = center of Russian oil industry. Chelyabinsk/Ekaterinburg area = Ural heavy industrial region, #4 intellectual center after Moscow, St.Pete and Novosibirsk. All in all, no surprises.
Yeah, but if you Brindisians are so smart, how come you aren't rich?
ReplyDeleteIt could be black market wealth or income. Off the books.
The SS murdered more than just the local Stalinist leaders in Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, etc., as I assume Mr. Sailer has heard. Perhaps the loss of those other people murdered by the SS had some sort of effect on average intelligence. But I suppose Steve isn't interested in mentioning that.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but if you [Brindisians] are so smart, how come you aren't rich?
ReplyDeleteSteve, that same line served as the opening for an article called "Clients Against Lawyers" by David Bazelon in Harper's Magazine, September, 1967. Did you happen to read that?
4:28,
ReplyDeleteThe test is the Wonderlic. It's like a 10 minute test if memory serves. If you waste a bunch of time on a few questions you can score really badly on it. Being totally naive to that type of test can seriously depress your score.
Apulia low GDP: maybe due to presence of Sacra Corona, large black market economy, much income doesn't show up on official statistics, so Apulians not as poor as official stats indicate. I know that this same factor could apply to Calabria, Naples and Sicily, but just guessing.
ReplyDeleteMany of the wealthy and middle class fled the Bolsheviks, then Stalin starved the kulaks, then murdered or imprisoned many people of above average talents.
ReplyDeleteI thought the Bolsheviks were who started with the murdering and imprisonment of people with above average talents. Wasn't the primary motivation behind Bolshevism in Russia and in Poland to wipe out the cream of the ethnic Russians and Poles and replace them with interlopers?
@Steve Sailer
ReplyDelete"Yeah, but if you Brindisians are so smart, how come you aren't rich?"
Quote from Chris Langan(IQ 180+)
"Having a lot of nice stuff is not something that anyone has any business associating with genius. In fact, hedonism and a life dedicated to the pursuit of affluence can be seen as the hallmark of a mediocre mind."
It is very typical of Americans, with their pragatism and egotistical mindset, to believe that everything somehow has to serve a purpose, and that this purpose must somehow enhance your social status in some way. This is reflected in the famous quote from your president, Calvin Coolidge:
"The business of the country is business."
Everything in the U.S is about money-making and profiteering. Education is a business. Medicine is a business. Hell, even killing people is a business("Blackwater", anyone)?
I find these debates between American on Republicans and Democrats hilarious, because they are all the same to me. They all support the capitalist mode of production, non-interference of government on people's life, and other bourgeoise values. There has never been any truly radical party in the U.S because such part would never win anything as Americans are bourgeoise to the core. In fact, the U.S can be seen as the epitome of post-feudal European merchant class values. But I digress...
The fact that Americans are so pragmatic and concerned with material self-aggradizement is reflected on the fact that America's greatest genius, Thomas Edison, was a practical inventor concerned with getting rich and not a theoretician.
Europeans with their abstract mind and desire to transcend the human condition have given the World enormous amounts of concepts, brilliant insights into the human condition, great mathematical insights and beautiful works of art, but they cannot match America in economic dynamism and the ability to turn ideas into action. This is the supreme American talent, at which no other people on Earth compares. For instance, the automobile was invented by a German, Daimler Benz, but it would be an American who would figure out a way to mass produce it to make money from it.
America is not a "high" culture and never will be, unlike, say, the ancient Hellenes or the modern Germans. The U.S has not produced a single truly great writer or novelist, a single great artist, or even a single great theoretician in physics or mathematics, for the simple reason that there is no money to be made in these areas. The artist, the scientist, the philosopher and the mathematician are not moved by profiteering mindset. Americans have not achieved in these areas because they are too pragmatic and concerned with material self-aggradizement to abstract and to try to transcend their material existence.
This concern with material self-aggrandizement is also reflected in the culture at large. The heroes of American popular culture are men such as Jesse James, Al Capone and Charles Manson: men who are extremely materialistic and callous. American admire cowboys, bank robbers, thieving industrialists("robber barons") and other "hard" men as their icons of popular culture. There is an obvious streak of villainess and debauchery that has always permeated American Society from the beggining. The religious piety and moral prudishness of traditional American Society was "compensated" by an extremely predatorial amoral behavior in the economic sphere as well as an intellectual and moral poverty of ideals in the culture at large.
In conclusion, it is typically American to demand that any talent must serve some kind of INDIVIDUAL self-aggradizement, and that the degree of self-aggradizement is "evidence" of the talents. If you are rich is because you are smart, and if you are not rich, then you are not smart. If you are capable of great intellectual feats but are not rich, then you are an "idiot savant" or a "geek". Typically American...
I've wondered for a while what the opportunity costs are to white Americans (previously known as "Americans") of mass 3rd world immigration, disparate impact laws and widespread fetishistic worship of "people of color."
ReplyDeleteWhat are the opportunity costs of those things?
@Steve,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting about this.
Western Russia doesn't do that well, and neither do the ex-Soviet Republics to the west of contemporary Russia. I wonder what the dysgenic effects of Leninism, Stalinism and Hitlerism were, especially on Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and western Russia?
I'd be cautious about ascribing much if anything to that.
Poland did well relative to Russia (502), but it was far more affected by "Hitlerism" (i.e., the destruction of much of its "creative classes") than, say, Zabaykalsky krai in Siberia (deep red), or Perm / Sverlovsk obasts in the Urals were affected by "Stalinism."
Another reason I'd be cautious about making very bold generalizations from the data set is that it doesn't correlate all that well with results from the Unified State Exam. There, the Central, North-West, and Volga regions (which did average in PISA) do best; the Urals and do medium (as in PISA); Siberia does badly (whereas in PISA it did well); and the South does badly (as in PISA).
Granted, the USE is structured in a more academic way (like the TIMMS international test, or other national exams like Gaokao) whereas PISA is closer in style to an IQ test.
@Bill,
Germans are leading minorities in both the Tyumen and Novosibirsk Oblasts (due to Stalinist resettlement/deportation schemes).
I can't see how it could have a significant effect today when there are 400,000 Germans in the whole of Russia. In both of the above regions they constitute less than 1% of the population. That's after a lot of emigration, granted, with their share being 3-4% during the 50's-80's, but that's not exactly enough time to make much of a dent on the local gene pool.
@Anonymous,
Chelyabinsk/Ekaterinburg area = Ural heavy industrial region...
But Sverdlovsk oblast (Ekaterinburg) performed very poorly (446).
That said, it definitely makes sense that Moscow, and to a lesser extent St.-Petersburg, would draw the nation's cognitive elite.
to anon who wrote, "Europeans with their abstract mind and desire to transcend the human condition have given the World enormous amounts of concepts, brilliant insights into the human condition, great mathematical insights and beautiful works of art, but they cannot match America in economic dynamism and the ability to turn ideas into action."
ReplyDeleteFirst, I never liked this type of reasoning since America, Canada, Australia, etc. were and are essentially European lands. Being in the New World they just had a fresh start and allowed the creative genius of those Europeans to be unleashed.
Second, it's not like the Old World Europeans never thought about making money. After all, they colonized nearly the entire world in their pursuit of wealth.
"I wonder what the dysgenic effects of Leninism, Stalinism and Hitlerism were, especially on Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and western Russia?"
ReplyDeleteI doubt Moldova's scores have anything to do with 20th century dysgenic effects. In was only occupied by the Soviets in 1940–1941, and again in 1944. Same periods as the Baltic countries, which all rank much higher. It ranks below Romania, but the gap between Moldova and Romania is smaller than the gap between Serbia and Montenegro.
Russian and Ukraine do better than Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Montenegro. So again, probably nothing to do with Leninism, Stalinism and Hitlerism.
There is an interesting patern in Eastern Europe that noone has mentioned. Catholic countries all outrank the Orthodox countries. See below for Pisa Math & Science score rank with traditional dominant religion.
Russia does better than all other traditionally Orthodox countries. Ukraine ranks 3rd out of 8.
520 Estonia - Protestantish
507 Slovenia - Catholic
502 Poland - Catholic
497 Hungary - Catholic
497 Czech Rep. - Catholic
494 Slovak Rep. - Catholic
488 Latvia -Lutheran (large minorities)
484 Lithuania - Catholic
473 Croatia - Catholic
473 Russia - Orthodox
468 Greece - Orthodox
454 Ukraine - Orthodox
443 Serbia - Orthodox
434 Bulgaria - Orthodox
423 Romania - Orthodox
405 Moldova - Orthodox
402 Montenegro - Orthodox
384 Albania -Muslim
Sources: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf
and Russophile's map
To add a few things to the post above.
ReplyDelete(1) Ukraine = 454 was derived by adjusting its TIMMS down by 4.4%, as it does not participate in PISA. That figure is the global difference between PISA and TIMMS M&S scores.
Ukraine's TIMMS M&S score was = 474 (Russia = 521; US = 514). So, a significant difference. I'm not sure of the reasons why as Ukrainians and Russians are very culturally/genetically similar. Russia is economically better off but surely not to the extent of explaining such a difference.
As regards Moldova (=405), and Georgia (=376) for that matter, I suspect a great part of the reason why has to do with massive emigration rates of skilled, higher-IQ people. Something like a fifth of their respective populations work abroad and send remittances home. Some have left with their families, while a great many children may not have one or even both parents at home, instead living with their grandparents or alone which makes for a substandard home environment. This is the reason I think why a country like Moldova, which is basically 80% Romanian / 20% Ukrainian-Russian, scores lower than both Romania (=428) and Ukraine/Russia (≈454/475).
(3) That's a remarkably consistent pattern you found there on religion and PISA scores. Another data point is Orthodox Armenia, which got 494 on the TIMMS test; adjusting down to standardize with PISA brings it to about 470. Orthodox Georgia got 376 in PISA, which is lower than Albania. Muslim Azerbaijan got 402, though there was some cheating reported; perhaps an adjustment down to 380 is warranted. Muslim Kyrgyzstan got 331. Mostly Muslim Kazakhstan with a c.25% Russian minority got 402.
I spent a day in those beat-up looking towns in 1980 and I recall a vague impression of the locals as seeming clever but anti-social, as cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face types.
ReplyDeleteIf we're just talking subjective impressions here, let me offer mine: you were just seeing what you wanted to see (what you expected, what you were prepared to see).
I'm no different. You probably think of Germans as wonderful, warm, friendly, neighborly people, right? Well, I spent the great part of my young like haunted by their very existence. There was an old German gentleman who lived around the corner from me, and one bitterly cold day we were both standing at the same set of traffic lights. I was wearing shorts. "You are not kalt?" he asked me in his magnificently German accent. Man, did that ever freak me out! I was convinced he was an escaped SS/nazi or something. That was desperately unfair of me (both because "naz"="bad person" and because the nazis weren't as horrible as we've been led to believe) but that's the power of perceptual filters.
Regarding this graph now, there's a danger in reaching sweeping conclusions on the basis of snapshot views.
Although Italy seems to be something of a poster child for internal economic regional disparity, such disparities, though not often as extreme, are common to all developed countries.
Anatoly describes southern Italy's economic performance as being like Poland, but this is misleading. Poland's economy is dominated by the Warsaw region, and the disparity between the poorer regions of Poland and Warsaw is even greater than that between southern Italy and the north.
European economic regions ("NUTS-2" regions) that probably score markedly higher than southern Italy on PISA yet perform only marginally economically better include: most of Wallonia (Belgium) except the Brabant province (and the major factor there is probably its proximity to Brussels); Luneberg district (West Germany); Picardie, Lorraine, Limousin, Languedoc-Roussillon (France); Burgenland (Austria); Eastern Finland province (Finland); Durham county, Lancashire, Merseyside, Lincolnshire, Shropshire, Cornwall, West Wales (England and Wales); all of N. Ireland; Highland (Scotland). Link to data
According to Italian economists Vittoria Daniele and Paolo Malanima, northern and southern Italy were at essentially economic parity in the late 19th century (that is, after industrialization in Italy had been underway for a some half a century). Divergence occurred only slowly at first, and the leading southern regions, Campania, Sicily and Sardinia, produced at about 80% of the Italian average until the 1920s and 30s. Divergence increased dramatically thereafter and by the early 50s Sicily, for example, produced at a rate only 55% of the Italian average. The regions began to converge again at this point, and Sicily, to stick with our example, reached some 75% of average Italian production. In the 70s north and south again began to diverge, though not as drastically, and Sicily's production fell to 65% of the Italian average. In the last decade, the south has again been catching up. (Source "Il prodotto delle regione e il divario Nord-Sud in Italia, 1861-2004")
In sum, while there is a clear correlation between PISA, IQ and GDP, and an all but certain hereditarian causative link, we should be careful about claiming to understand too specifically what it implies.
Interestingly, Albania is significantly wealthier than Armenia, Georgia and Moldova (the last is a true basket case, though I'm sure the conflict there has more than a little do with it). In fact, since Albania was largely unscathed by the financial crisis (it had its own back in 1997) and the Ukraine devastated by it (or by something the last few years), Albania and Ukraine are pretty much at parity.
ReplyDelete520 Estonia - Protestantish...
ReplyDelete(3) That's a remarkably consistent pattern you found there on religion and PISA scores...
In their famous "debate" [really more of a televised conversation], Taleb pointed out to Murray the remarkable achievements of the Huguenots in France.
Anonymous said:
ReplyDelete"Europeans with their abstract mind and desire to transcend the human condition have given the World enormous amounts of concepts..."
That's true.
I spent a week last year in Apulia, and I think Lecce has probably cleaned up quite a bit since you last visited. It still had some rough patches, but nothing compared to Genoa, for instance. In fact most of the cities and towns I visited were quite delightful, although we avoided the big port cities like Brindisi. I think in general the people were as friendly, or perhaps more friendly, than those I've encountered in other parts of the country.
ReplyDeleteI have two theories to explain the divergence between income and test scores - both theories are just speculation. The first is that Apulia is a major arrival area for immigrants. They may somehow get counted in economic statistics but keep their kids out of the schools, or they may be arriving without their children and bringing them only when established in another area of the country.
The second theory is based on the fact that Apulia is a major destination for domestic tourism (not so much for foreigners). A significant chunk of the tourism industry in Italy operates off the books. Hotel owners, restaurants, etc, highly encourage their clientele to pay in cash. This might depress the official average income below its real level.
Another fact that may be relevant, although I am not sure how, is that Apulia is home to a large amount of second homes.
Anyways, like I said, it's all just speculation on my part. I would love to hear a more educated opinion, as I really enjoyed my time there and find the region quite interesting.
Mussolini took the german speaking proletariat in south tyrol and send it over the brenner. Only those who owned real estate remained in Italy, as it tooks more time to liquidate real estate. This made german speaking south tyroleans a people of middle class property owners, which may explain, why their economic and educational attainment (on average) is so high.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Tyrol_Option_Agreement
Yeah, but if you Brindisians are so smart, how come you aren't rich?
ReplyDeleteHaha. I assumed Stevie was having a larf - as we say in these parts.
However, over at Mangan's blog, Dennis has a post up referencing a new book called The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One by some Jap geezer called Satoshi Kanazawa
Which, according to Amazon: explains why, despite their huge brains, the most intelligent people are often less successful than their less intelligent relatives at solving life's most important problems.
That'll do for my excuse for the day.
4/4/12 8:19 PM
ReplyDeleteAnd we eat immigrants. Please make sure you include that, when you repeat that rant to every person you meet in your motherland.
Poland did well relative to Russia (502), but it was far more affected by "Hitlerism" (i.e., the destruction of much of its "creative classes") than, say, Zabaykalsky krai in Siberia (deep red), or Perm / Sverlovsk obasts in the Urals were affected by "Stalinism."
ReplyDeleteANTI-SEMITE!!!
443 Serbia - Orthodox
ReplyDeleteDoes this score include Kosovo?
402 Montenegro - Orthodox
Also 20% Islamic.
"Many of the wealthy and middle class fled the Bolsheviks, then Stalin starved the kulaks, then murdered or imprisoned many people of above average talents, then the SS came through and shot the local leaders loyal to Stalin."
ReplyDeleteThis is true but communist mass education did give opportunities to masses of peasants and workers who never had much of a chance, and smart ones among them did rise very high. And of course, Jews rose very high in the new system.
ANTI-SEMITE!!!
ReplyDeleteLOL. But to clarify, "creative classes" wasn't referring to Jews.
When comparing Poland's and Russia's human capital today, they have no place because they are nowadays insignificant population-wise (due to Hitler in Poland, emigration in Russia).
However, besides their extermination of 90% of Polish Jews, they also killed about 2-3 ethnic Poles. A large percentage of these belonged to elite professions and creative classes (e.g. clergy, lawyers, doctors, writers, etc). In relative population terms, this was a far bigger hit on Poland's population than excess deaths from dekulakization or purges were on Russia's.
And yet, Poland today has somewhat better PISA scores. Why?
* Very unlikely due to the "dysgenic effects of Leninism, Stalinism and Hitlerism" postulated by Sailer in the OP.
I would venture a likelier and more mundane explanation:
* In the past decade, Polish education may have made a transition from Soviet-style teaching (very rigorous, but not flexible - good for TIMMS and standard exams, but bad for PISA and IQ tests) to Western-style teaching (far less rigorous, but better suited for coping with unusual problems - good for PISA). Note that Poland raised its PISA scores by about 20 points from 2000 to 20009. I would postulate that in most Russian provinces, barring the most progressive ones - i.e., Moscow, Tyumen, St.-Petersburg - this transition is only in its infancy stages.
This is about your dysgenic effects of "Hitlerism".
ReplyDeleteIn the pre-war western USSR (and Moldova) Jews were half the urban population. The cousins of those people account for 25% of the USA's Nobel Prizes.
I'm surprised you didn't mention that yourself, Steve. My sense is that when it comes to Jews you're neutral--neither philo- nor anti- --and with some keen understanding. (Your readers not so much.)
To the anonymous on Typical Americans,
ReplyDeleteI'll agree to your points in general concerning differences between European and American culture. That said, with the rise of marxist dogma Europe has also become materialistic and lost its spiritual strength. Think of Russian writers and artists before and after communism. In general, art and intellectual life in Europe for the past century has declined as the culture moved towards nihilism. Curiously, Lenin hung out at a cafe in Zurich next door to the Dadaists at Cabaret Voltaire. He didn't much care for them and never gave modernists like Naum Gabo commissions. Nowadays, Dada is the supreme weapon of choice by European and American intellectuals at war with their own traditions.
State-funded institutions are going to suffer as the money runs out. It will be interesting to see if European artists and writers can regain connection with their spiritual past.
"The negative outlier is Apulia, in the southeastern heel of Italy, home to Brindisi and Lecce. I spent a day in those beat-up looking towns in 1980 and I recall a vague impression of the locals as seeming clever but anti-social, as cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face types."
ReplyDeleteSounds like Melrose Park, IL, and surrounding areas, which got most of their population a centry ago from this region and Sicily.
"Yeah, but if you Brindisians are so smart, how come you aren't rich?"
ReplyDeleteA nod to the Billy Goat Tavern?
A significant part of the economy in southern Italy is black market economy. I heard estimates that it is about a third of the total economy.
ReplyDeleteThe cousins of those people account for 25% of the USA's Nobel Prizes.
ReplyDeleteThey account for a lot of other things in the USA too!
"seeming clever but anti-social, as cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face types."
ReplyDelete- sounds like the late journalist Luigi Barzini's description of Sicilians.
I don't generally comment around here because of my English, but I live near Brindisi so I can add my experiences.
ReplyDelete1) The black economy is significant, but so it is in other parts of the South.
2)Despite official figures, young unemployment is extremely high. There are people emigrating in Spain. Enough said.
3)High IQ doesn't help landing (inexistent) jobs.
4)Creating new jobs or new companies it's basically impossible thanks to bureaucracy, corrupt politicians, corrupt public sector, and the lack of rule of law.
On a related note dysgenic breeding is in full swing. All the smart people are either emigrating or thinking of doing so. The only people having babies are the ones too stupid to not know how to use birth control.
"Europeans with their abstract mind and desire to transcend the human condition have given the World enormous amounts of concepts, brilliant insights into the human condition, great mathematical insights and beautiful works of art"
ReplyDeleteEuropeans also subjugated the rest of the world, destroyed an entire race (The Redman), and destroyed the entire culture that came from them.
On a related note dysgenic breeding is in full swing. All the smart people are either emigrating or thinking of doing so. The only people having babies are the ones too stupid to not know how to use birth control.
ReplyDeleteA recent study of Percentage of Childless Women in Their Late 40s says that 25% of Italian women in their late 40s are childless:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/childless-choice
"The cousins of those people account for 25% of the USA's Nobel Prizes.
ReplyDeleteThey account for a lot of other things in the USA too!"
This is probably a core difference between the West and the Rest (including "those people"). I think the West would be just about where it is if there had never been a Nobel Prize. I'll go further, I think the West, and Western science, would be just about where it is if everyone who ever won the Nobel prize had died at birth.
Western success, and western scientific and technical success, does not rely on the ideas of a few hundred heroic outliers, but on the intelligent activities of the individuals that make up the entire civilization. Unlike those who made ideas god, such as the Ancient Greeks, in the Western world technology led science. Experiment and implementation came first, and succeeded due to the scale resulting from large sections of society working on the problems. Explanations and scientific analysis followed. The telescope broke everything when it saw phases of Venus and moons of Jupiter, etc.. Who got the prize for the telescope? Who got a prize for "inventing" the Victoria, first ship to circumnavigate the globe? These were the works of an entire civilization over hundreds of years. Technology still leads, now it's just space telescopes and probes.
The author of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle" maintenance used the analogy of Western science being like a bulldozer. It takes a long time to start up, it's not just one person flitting rapidly along a path... but when it gets moving nothing can compete.
I think this sort of intellectual "leading by doing" scares some people. People who can do this can't easily be led by the nose, be easily led by bad ideas, they will want proof.
It's also something that could be lost, as it's not at all clear that everyone in the world has the interest or aptitude to be a member of such a civilization. Is there real proof that folks from low-trust societies can make this approach work? Or are we all to be buried in a blizzard of words and adulation?
Ukraine was devastated much earlier than during communist (7 mln dead in Holodomor) or nazis times. This territory was a giant trap for people wanting to create a civilization. Having excellent soil, large rivers, reasonable climate and access to the sea it seemed like a great place to settle... until invaders arrived. As the best road between Europe and Asia it has been invaded constantly and unexpectedly by horse-riders. There were even invasions by the Vikings along those rivers.
ReplyDeleteThe main devastation came with Mongol invasion. Literary devastation as they practiced killing off people - including most of the population of the capital and other large cities that didn't surrender. Since time the east Ukrainian territories east of became "Wild Steppes", a place of constant fight: between local military leaders, between countries (Poland, Russia, Turkey), and between bandit groups. Not a good place to develop civilizaton.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporizhia_%28region%29
What's more the intrusions by horse rides hadn't stopped. There was still Tatar (Mongolian) khanate in Crimea practicing them. The territory only stabilized after Russia won wars with everyone else.
Poland enjoyed much better fate thanks to decisively winning the third war with Mongols
(it were Hungarias who actually won), after suffering 2 lost wars (including destruction of major cities).
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pl&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=pl&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpl.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FIII_najazd_mongolski_na_Polsk%25C4%2599
.