July 10, 2013

Sailer: "Pyramid Schemes"

Jeb and George Bush: Need "more fertile" immigrants to rebuild "demographic pyramid"
From my new column in Taki's Magazine:
After Richard Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972, New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael lectured: 
I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them. 
Kael’s Conundrum has muddled much of the Western coverage of the current turmoil in Egypt and Turkey, where urban protestors are denouncing democratically elected Islamists. Few of the educated urbanites in Cairo and Istanbul who Tweet in English for the edification of Western journalists voted for Islamist election-winners such as Egypt’s recently deposed Mohamed Morsi or Turkey’s still reigning Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 
One reason that democracy in Egypt and Turkey led to the election of Islamists is because pious Muslims in the sticks and the slums have long had higher average birthrates than secular sophisticates in the metropolises.

Read the whole thing there.

40 comments:

eah said...

A comment I left on Mangan's blog is perhaps relevant here.

FredR said...

I always thought Kael's infamous joke was actually pretty funny.

Anonymous said...

Nobody discourages out of wedlock births? President Obama has encouraged marriage in multiple speeches.

Your favorite person (mayor Bloomberg) has probably has also ordered the health department to discourage out of wedlock births. These sort of ads are all over the NYC buses and subways.
http://www.joy105.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ads2.png


Predictably this has resulted in criticism from the usual suspects (planned parenthood)

eah said...

'US Birthrate hits an all-time low'

Anonymous said...

There certainly is a lot of ruin in a nation. However, I sadly do believe our rulers are up to the challenge.

Anonymous said...

I'll bet Bill and Hillary's one black grandkid will go through his life without ever speaking to one of Mitt and Ann Romney's twenty grandchildren, either.

He'll scratch his burry head, wondering who's still voting for dumb, crazy white people.

JerseyGuy said...

Steve,
Interesting and relevant article from Michael Lind regarding economics:

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/08/how_%E2%80%9Cecon_101%E2%80%9D_is_killing_america/singleton/

Anonymous said...

God, I wish the Clintons and the Bushes and the Obamas would just disappear. Wait, I want Hilary's head on a platter for her lies about Benghazi so I don't want her to disappear until that dish can be served. The rest--get outta my sight.

Harry Baldwin said...

That photo of Jeb and George Bush really inspires confidence in our ruling class, doesn't it? Throw in Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen and we've got the cast of another goofball buddy picture.

Roger said...

Republican 2016 contender Jeb Bush announced last month that we should back the Schumer-Rubio bill because “Immigrants are more fertile,” which will help rebuild the “demographic pyramid.”

You seem to be misquoting Bush. I cannot find where he said anything about a “demographic pyramid.”

Anonymous said...

One fact that continues to puzzle me is that only a few Egyptians have emigrated to the UK.
The pressure for an Egyptian to emigrate to a western nation must be absolutely enormous. The UK is well known for its extrmely lax immigration controls (which were abolished altogether by the disaterous Labour administration of 1997-2010).
But, so far, very few Egyptians.
I mean something must be holding them back - and it can't be the British government.
A real mystery of the unexplained. Perhaps someone here can enlighten me?

Steve Sailer said...

"You seem to be misquoting Bush. I cannot find where he said anything about a “demographic pyramid.”"

Try Googling:

"demographic pyramid" "jeb bush"

and you'll find numerous news articles about his June immigration speech that include that phrase.

jody said...

GW deliberately leaves politics after his second term and keeps silent, quiet, and out of the spotlight for 5 full years...

until this week, when he pops his head up to...heartily endorse the mexican invasion.

bottom 5 president of all-time? his credentials stack up every year. invader of iraq, the biggest military blunder in US history. appointer of john roberts, renderer of BY FAR the single worst supreme court decision of all time. tireless promoter of demographic replacement of americans, dooming his own political party, as well as the future of his country.

is there anything GW can't do? well, he can't be obama, who is, incredibly, a second bottom 5 president of all-time right after another one, and even worse than G-dub. obama carries on all of G-dubs worst policies, even expanding some of them, while at the same time, bringing cultural marxism into the full mainstream and establishing it as the dominant, reigning political orthodoxy of the united states. it's a catastrophe.

should we go for 3 in a row? it looks likely, as the 2016 hillary clinton versus jeb bush race shapes up.

Steve Sailer said...

When it comes to mass emigrating, at present Egyptians seem to be homeboys, like Indonesians.

Roger said...

Okay, you're right. Bush said, “The one way we can rebuild the demographic pyramid is to fix a broken immigration system to allow for people to come, to learning English, to play by our rules, to embrace our values and to pursue their dreams in our country with a vengeance to create more opportunities for all of us.”

Anonymous said...

http://nswk.ly/12msjuT

Hahaha.

After the media's been screaming youth, youth, youth, now this question posed by them.

Yeah, I'm sure Zimmerman would have been suspicious of all youths, even Scandinavian-American ones.

These are questions raised not to answer anything but divert us from the obvious truth.

Jefferson said...

Jeb Bush will NEVER become president like his brother and father were.

Even most right wingers do not want to see another Bush in the White House again, let alone most moderates.

The only people who want to see Jeb Bush in the White House are big business crony capitalist special interest groups who make millions and billions of dollars off of employing Illegal Immigrants over Americans.

Jeb Bush is the RINO establishment. Right wingers want new blood who hold true conservative principles.

Anonymous said...

That environmentalists abandoned overpopulation as cause celebre has to be among the most astounding consequences of PCism. Some incorruptible fringe environmentalists still carry the overpopulation torch: Captain Paul Watson argues that there is no such thing as a universal human right to reproduce, and that reproduction should be limited to those who can show that they can feed and educate their offspring.

And that conservationism hasn't took among paleo/tea party groups is unfortunate, because current population size and reproductive habits most obviously separates the USA today, pop. 310 million, from the USA in 1776, pop. 2.5 million, and, of course, from the paleolithic era, pop. 0. There's a rich literature on the downward mobility and natural population control that characterized both traditional societies (see Jared Diamond) and early modern England (see Gregory Clark). Immigration has historically been a way of thwarting Malthusian traps, of migrating to lands that can "carry more capacity." Now we have population transfers from resource-poor nations to (nonrenewable)resource-rich nations, and it's anyone guess what resource--oil, water, land--will finally silence those boasting that technology will save us.

Anonymous said...

"When it comes to mass emigrating, at present Egyptians seem to be homeboys, like Indonesians."

Egypt is one of the only countries in Africa that has a very strong national identity and history. Egyptians actually love their country and want to try and make is better, rather than just pack up and leave.

jody said...

"I'll bet Bill and Hillary's one black grandkid will go through his life without ever speaking to one of Mitt and Ann Romney's twenty grandchildren, either."

i recently checked the population growth of all 50 states between 2000 and 2012.

utah was the second fastest growing state. it grew 28% between 2000 and 2012. it was second only to nevada, at 38%, and all of nevada's growth was comprised of northerners moving to the sun belt, people leaving california, and the ongoing illegal alien invasion.

so utah had, by a huge margin, the largest natural growth rate in america over the last 12 years.

florida will pass new york as the third largest state this year, and won't look back. florida is exploding, with a population growth of 20% over the 12 year period, while new york is stagnant, growing only 1% over the last 12 years, one of the lowest growth rates in the nation.

pennsylvania is on pace to pass illinois as the fifth largest state within the next 5 years. the amish are not having a big effect on that, although, they are having an effect, since the population difference between the 2 states is only 100,000 people now. pennsylvania is the only state in the north that bars homosexuals from marrying, and has for years. it's not a new law.

michigan is the only state that shrank since 2000. north carolina is exploding, with 21% population growth, and will pass michigan this year.

louisiana has recovered, barely, from katrina and the population is growing again, although it only grew 1%, as the state shrank after the hurricane and only just started growing again within the last 3 years.

rhode island has 0% population growth, it might be next to shrink.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for that information, jody.

I feel bad about Michigan, since it's a great place excluding Detroit. Rhode Island however is a festering shithole, and I only wish we could combine it with Connecticut and eliminate it's two Senate seats.

Hepp said...

Jesus Christ, can anybody that's been to Cairo confirm those noise levels?

Hepp said...

"That environmentalists abandoned overpopulation as cause celebre has to be among the most astounding consequences of PCism. "

"Population control" without a concern for quality is worse than doing nothing if it ends up that only the smart stop having children.

Power Child said...

In other words, Idiocracy East.

Anonymous said...

"When it comes to mass emigrating, at present Egyptians seem to be homeboys, like Indonesians."

Egyptians have had a civilized culture for the past 5000 years haven't seemed to have had much desire to leave the Nile at all. Kind of interesting.

malthusa said...

<<"Population control" without a concern for quality is worse than doing nothing if it ends up that only the smart stop having children.>>

The worse-case scenario of Idiocracy is not a good reason to abandon the notion of population control, which traditionally has always had some quality concern built into it. Plus, resource constraints are ultimately going to be a reality for future people no matter what their average IQ.

Overpopulation should be a magnificent bridge connecting NumbersUSA and the Sierra Club, tea partiers and occupywallstreeters, Wendell Berry and Al Gore. Instead, the innumerate media ignores it, so no one talks about it.

Anonymous said...

If the likes of Bush and other pushover conservatives acted like this and, at the very least, won over the Hispanic and Jewish vote, it would be one thing.

We can say, "it's not good for the nation, but it's at least good for the GOP" as Jewish money and brown votes will pour into the GOP side.

What's truly frustrating is it's both bad for the nation AND bad for the GOP. Nation gets brownier, and all them brownies vote even more Democratic. And Jews seem to love it, or at least the elite Jews who really matter.

Anonymous said...

Dub and dubber.

George Prescott Washington said...

A picture is worth a thousand words. Beavis and Butthead look authoritative and statesmanlike in comparison.

Hepp said...

"The worse-case scenario of Idiocracy is not a good reason to abandon the notion of population control, which traditionally has always had some quality concern built into it. Plus, resource constraints are ultimately going to be a reality for future people no matter what their average IQ. "

Nonsense, if the world's IQ was as high as Japan's there would be no need to worry about resource constraints. It's technology that determines what a "resource" is, how renewable resources are, and how people deal with coordination problems.

"Overpopulation should be a magnificent bridge connecting NumbersUSA and the Sierra Club, tea partiers and occupywallstreeters, Wendell Berry and Al Gore. Instead, the innumerate media ignores it, so no one talks about it. "

Worrying about "overpopulation" is anti-human evil. It's been discredited by the fact that the population has grown way beyond what the environmentalists in the 60s and 70s thought possible, and yet living standards have improved pretty much everywhere. They thought we were running out of trees, but not paper comes from tree farms. They worried about food supply, but farming technology improved and markets opened up, making the world more numerous and fatter than ever.

Eventually, the population will get so dumb that this can't be maintained. But it's a matter of IQ, not numbers. All else being equal, we should want more people to experience the joys of life.

Anonymous said...

I always thought Bush's the french have no word to entreprenuer was pretty funny. Oh you say it wasn't a joke yea neither was Kael's.

I also like how what was Pauline Kael mused to a friend has been transfigured into lectured. Give it ten years and it will be as Kael famously wrote in I Lost It at the Movies.

Anonymous said...

I look at that picture of the Bush brothers and just can't get over how struck i am by the perception of sheer idiocy they seem to convey. Dumb and Dumber meets Beavis and Butthead.

Anonymous said...

"A comment I left on Mangan's blog is perhaps relevant here." - even worse then that, the social networks of the young people that are here have been thoroughly trashed, so they aren't going to be able to hit the ground running for the jobs that are here.

Anonymous said...



Hepp:"Nonsense, if the world's IQ was as high as Japan's there would be no need to worry about resource constraints. It's technology that determines what a "resource" is, how renewable resources are, and how people deal with coordination problems.



Worrying about "overpopulation" is anti-human evil. It's been discredited by the fact that the population has grown way beyond what the environmentalists in the 60s and 70s thought possible, and yet living standards have improved pretty much everywhere. They thought we were running out of trees, but not paper comes from tree farms. They worried about food supply, but farming technology improved and markets opened up, making the world more numerous and fatter than ever.

Eventually, the population will get so dumb that this can't be maintained. But it's a matter of IQ, not numbers. All else being equal, we should want more people to experience the joys of life."

Sir, I salute you as a satirist of Swiftian calibre. Of course, if you are serious, that can only mean that the Idiocracy has arrived a bit earlier than expected.

malthusa said...

<>

It has to be satire. The so-called Green Revolution allowed us to disarm the Malthusian trap--temporarily--but the price has been our health, quality of life, the wilderness, the evil of abusing the hundreds of billions of sentient animals who are converted yearly into human flesh and fat. We live in a dystopia and don't even know it because our culture has a human fetish. It's so nasty.





Steve Sailer said...

The Kael quote is from a 12/28/72 NYT article reporting on a lecture given by Kael at a film forum, so the verb "lectured" is appropriate.

Hepp said...

"The so-called Green Revolution allowed us to disarm the Malthusian trap--temporarily--but the price has been our health, quality of life, the wilderness, the evil of abusing the hundreds of billions of sentient animals who are converted yearly into human flesh and fat. We live in a dystopia and don't even know it because our culture has a human fetish. It's so nasty."

I agree with you on animals and something should be done about this. But humans are not less healthy than they once were, whether you want to look at life expectancy or quality of life. People always screaming about how the modern era is the worst thing that ever happened usually don't provide much data.

Even the new diseases related to obesity are the result of too much food, which contradicts Malthus. Nothing against Malthus though, as he was writing just at the start of the Industrial Revolution and couldn't have known what would happen.

multhusa said...

Hepp,

We have better medicine and sanitation, so people live longer, although in the last year there have been reports that, due to rising obesity, the life expectancy of children born today is going to be less than that of their parents.

I think I could provide an abundance of evidence documenting declines in quality of life, especially for people living in cities. Thanks to feminism (and I'm speaking as a female millennial professional), domestic life has becomes dirty, ugly and unhealthy. It turns out that having a woman at home preparing meals from whole foods and creating a clean, aesthetic environment is crucial for health and (in my opinion) quality-of-life. I have seen this in my lifetime, contrasting my parents' generation's homes and habits with my debt-strapped, don't-know-how-to-cook-or-clean millennial friends' homes and habits.

If you live in a city, you enjoy pollution, noise, overcrowding, horrific traffic, NAM misbehavior, terrible zoning decisions. Arts and literature have been in the toilet since the 70s. Median wages have been stagnant for decades, the population has to be medicated (see Weissberg's recent essay in Taki) and entertained with garbage screen culture.

I've read the Panglossian arguments for why human progress is still alive. eg, Pinker's latest book documents how violence is in a downward spiral--IF you control for population growth, and if you ignore what we're doing to other species and to the environment. In absolute numbers, more people die violent deaths now than ever before. In absolute numbers and including nonhumans, the planet has never been so violent, abusive, cruel. Go watch videos on the Humane Society's website and tell me that modernity is beautiful.

Malthus didn't foresee how we would use nonrenewable energy and industrial techniques to (temporarily) expand the earth's carrying capacity. Only Europeans have proved him wrong in voluntarily stabilizing their fertility rate -- that is the unsung triumph of the late twentieth century. Of course, all the gains that would attend a stable population are lost because we continue to grow our population by welcoming the hyperfertile Other, and because we are not using our technology to figure out how to live sustainably.

Sage Like Wisdom said...

Looks like these two have been following Tinky Winky's Pyramid Scheme

blogger said...

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2004/08/31/image639887x.jpg

More to come. Brother and brother to sister and sister.

It seems liberal elites are more into eugenic matches than conservative elites. Since most high IQ folks are liberal, it seems high IQ libs marry lots of high IQ libs, but conservative elites oftentimes end up marrying middle-IQ conservatives.
Bush's daughters don't seem too bright.
And if Dan Quayle has kids, I don't see them going anywhere. And Palin's kids? Forget about it.
McCain's kids? Didn't one marry a Negress?
And George Pee Wee Bush, the 'brown one', doesn't seem to be the brightest bulb in town.