"He who sows melons begets melons, He who sows beans begets beans"
--Chinese proverb
When we see a family that is poor, we all want to help them rise above their poverty, more so if there are kids involved. This is one of the things that the West does much better than the Chinese. Helping people in need, even if they are not related to you in anyway. The trouble is, early success of lifting the poor by their bootstrap has been replaced with inter-generational welfare dependence. Upward social mobility seems to be decreasing with time. This decrease in upward mobility is coinciding with a huge increase in meritocracy in America. In the fifties, Black people must use separate bathrooms as whites. Needless to say, they are limited to only work certain positions. Today, a Black person became president of the United States. All sorts of positions in corporations, military and government, even in leadership positions, are filled with women and non-whites, something which would be unimaginable back in the fifties. At the same time, college has never been more ubiquitous. In 1950, just 4.7 % of women and 7.3% of men in the U.S. completed a four year degree or more. In 2015, the numbers are 32.3% and 32.7%. The number of people with some college ballooned to 65%. With some community colleges charging nominal fees and now there are talks of making them free, college, the instrument which are used by the poor to pull themselves up by the bootstrap, has never been more accessible by the poor. How does one reconcile these seemingly diametrically opposed trends?
Charles Murray's book Coming Apart documented a number of trends. One of them was the fact that colleges, being available to ever bigger segment of the population, acted as a great sorting machine which separate out people based on how much talent they have. Further, the effect of this sorting was that people of similar talents tend to find each other in college, they worked in similar jobs and married each other, something which did not happened pervasively in the fifties. The great sorting machine has now produced a stratified society based on talent, to the point where together, the gifted ones have managed to pass their abilities to the next generation at ever greater frequencies. This is called assortative mating. It is the only explanation that can explain the increase meritocracy at hiring, increase access to colleges by the poor and a decreasing social mobility at the same time. The poor are not moving up the economic ladder because our meritocracy have already lifted the gifted poor out of poverty, where they married other talented people and produce the next generation that increasingly inherit their abilities. The remaining pool of poor people also increasingly marry other poor and are producing talented next generation at an ever decreasing frequency due to this assortative mating.
How exactly does this "passing down" work? Broadly speaking, there are three things that we pass to our kids. For some with money, we spend it on their early development. We pass down our culture. Finally we pass down our genes. Liberals like to complain that the poor do not have access to an enriched environment that the rich lavish on their kids. The trouble is, since the sixties, there are all sorts of programs aimed to change the environment for the poor. Without exception, there was nothing to show for the billions that was spent. The Milwaukee Project spent $14 million dollars(a lot of money in the sixties) on just 40 kids. At the end, the kids performed no better academically than the control group that had an average IQ of 80.
The inter-generational transfer of culture was also looked at in detail. At the end, studies like the Minnesota Twin Adoption Study have found that the shared environment, which is how the culture gets passed down to the next generation, has almost no effect on the academic achievements of the next generation. Most of the impact on academic performance come from genetics (from studying how identical twins adopted at birth correlate with each other in scholastic aptitude).
This goes counter to our intuitions. We would like to think that all our hard work raising the next generation counts for something. In a way it does, but we have provided an environment that is well beyond the minimum threshold and it is yielding decreasing returns. Think of it this way, if you grow wheat in the mountains of the Himalayas using primitive farming techniques, the wheat does not get enough of everything it needs to grow to its potential. In this case, improving the environment (more water and fertilizer, stronger sun shine) will likely increase crop yield. However, if you are growing wheat in modern day Kansas, where everything is close to being ideal, the crop gets everything it needs. Adding more fertilizer or water does nothing to improve yield. In this environment, the variations in genetics stand out as the only thing that produces differentiated outcomes. Wheat is not that picky, all it needs is some minimum threshold of sunshine, water and fertilizer. Adding more of each ingredient after the threshold does very little to enhance the yield. In a way, people are like that too. As long as the kids are fed and clothed, not under undue stress and have access to learning material, they will do about as good as they are ever going to do. Anything beyond that yields ever decreasing return.
In the meritocracy like the United States, where college is available to anyone willing to go, genetics have become the new dividing line in society. In this society, assortative mating have created a permanent upper and under class based on ability, ability that is increasingly pass down to the next generation by the genes we pass to them. In the environment of plenty that we are in today, genetics is the single biggest factor in determining if someone will remain permanently poor.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Patterns
"With all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one."
--William of Ockham
Back in the 1800's, Charles Darwin created his seminal work, The Origin of Species, because he noticed patterns. For example, the different species of finches in the Galapagos Islands, suggesting a common ancestor. In fact, most discoveries will likely first appear as patterns to some keen observer who first notice them. After someone noticed a pattern, then people tried to come up with explanations for the pattern. Usually, the most sensible and straight forward explanation is the right one. This is known as occam's_razor.
Nowadays, people still notice patterns, however, if the pattern goes against one of the social narratives, we are suppose to not only ignore the pattern, but to go all out of our way to cleanse our minds of the dangerous conclusion that occam's razor would suggest for the pattern. Lest we fall afoul of becoming a social heretic. If we cannot remove the pattern from our discourse, instead of using occam's razor, we are suppose to come up with explanations that fit best with the dominant social narrative, however far fetch the explanations are.
We can notice that different breeds of dogs have different athletic abilities. After all, no one would race his basset hound against a grey hound. Athletic abilities in people are useful and valued by our society. In our world of equality, all attributes that are valued by the society should be equally distributed among the different races (races are not dissimilar to the different breed of dogs, by the way). We are not suppose to notice that people whose ancestors were West Africans do well in sprinting, and Kenyans do well in marathons. We are suppose to cleanse our mind of the idea that genetics plays an outsize role in how we do in athletic ability.
We are allowed to notice that some people are fatter than others. In this society, the poor are the oppressed. No matter how badly their lives turned out, they are never at fault for their conditions. We are not suppose to notice that in the United States, poor people, on average, tend to be significantly fatter than the rich. If you ever notice this pattern, you are suppose to cleanse your mind of the conclusion that maybe the poor are fatter because they lack will power and discipline, something Occam might suggest. The only acceptable explanation is that society did not do enough to help them. This leads to absurdities like banning certain size soft drinks. For the other fat people higher up in the social economic ladder, the most socially acceptable explanation for their condition is that this is a genetic condition for which they have no control over whatsoever (be sure to remember that the genetic explanation should not apply to the poor, lest they be stigmatized. Stigmatizing the poor would get you ostracized by polite company), or that they have a medical condition. Compulsive Eating Disorder, Obsessive Rotund Syndrome, or some such. Never mind that just a hundred years ago, very few people (people who passed their genes to us)were fat. or that other countries did not suffer any of the "metal illnesses" that cause so many of their people to be fat.
We see that some neighborhoods have very high crime rates. Blacks in this country have been historically oppressed, started with slavery. The narrative is that to this very day, they continue to be kept down by racism and poverty, end of story. They are not responsible in any way for the pickle that many of them found themselves in. We are not suppose to notice that high crime rates are associated with high percentage of Black population in the neighborhood. In fact, if you look at the top ten cities in the U.S. with the highest crime rates, without exception, they all have higher percentage of Black people then the average population of 12%. In most cases, they are significantly higher. In many of these highest crime neighborhoods, Blacks constitute the majority. In our world of democracy, this means that they control all the levers of power to run their cities. They elect the mayors. They decide who run the police departments. Instead of helping the police, who is having a hard enough time enforcing the law, the socially acceptable narrative is that the police is the problem. When Michael Brown was killed, instead of using his race to fundamentally change the dialog about crimes in Black neighborhoods, president Obama sent his top cop Eric Holder to investigate the police in Ferguson, even after the police had been cleared of wrong doings by a grand jury. To correct the injustice perpetrated by the police, Blacks are allowed to loot and burn down businesses while they demonstrate. Of course, the demonstrators are not responsible for any of these. They are all peaceful, except for the ones that aren't. They never steal, except for the ones that do.
If you ever attended colleges in the United States, you will notice the relative absence of Black and Latinos in our universities. In fact, the more selective the universities, the fewer they are. In the same university, the more intellectual horse power a given field requires, such as physics, engineering, the less likely you will find Black and Latino students. Unlike the other patterns which are not socially acceptable, this pattern is noticed by the politically correct and discussed frequently. The reason, of course, is Affirmative Actions, a sort of spoil system that allocate quotas to each race. Having noticed the pattern, we are nevertheless obliged to come up with an explanation that fits with the socially accepted norms. The conservatives blame the lack of academic achievement of Blacks and Latinos on their culture. There might be something to that argument, except that if you look at Black babies that were adopted at birth by White parents, a sort of cultural transplant, the pattern of academic underachievement still holds. Liberals blame racism and poverty. Perhaps in the fifties, racism was an insurmountable obstacle to some. I knew some Chinese people from that era. One of them, who obtained a chemical engineering degree, was told point blank that he would never work as a chemical engineer because he is Chinese. He ended up running a Chinese restaurant. Today, having been on the other end where I interviewed many people for the companies I work for, I can tell you that as long as you are good, you will be hired somewhere. Does racism still exist? of course they do, but today it should not stop anyone from getting ahead any more than being fat or being a little off socially. In the Silicon Valley, we have many different races working well together. In certain fields, it is even noted for the relative absence of Whites. Poverty today is not the same as poverty in 1929. Back then, if you are poor, it means you don't eat and starve to death, many did. Today, if you are poor, ninety nine percent of the time, you have a roof over your head, more food then the minimum required calories and nutrition. most of the poor have cell phone and cars, something that the middle class did not have just a few short decades ago. There was a time in America when the campaign promise was a chicken in every pot. One final thing that blows big holes in explanations provided by both the left and the right, the offspring of Black upper class( who presumably have acquired the right culture that got them ahead) did worse in SAT score then the offspring of White lower class, who presumably did not inherit good culture from their poor parents. Nor did the sons and daughters of Black upper class gain an upper hand due to their relative affluence over the sons and daughters of the poor White parents.
For those of you who understand HBD (Human Bio Diversity), I am preaching to the choir. You have heard this from many sources. If this disturbs you but you want to explore these topics more, I will be writing about each of these in more depth in my next few posts.
--William of Ockham
Back in the 1800's, Charles Darwin created his seminal work, The Origin of Species, because he noticed patterns. For example, the different species of finches in the Galapagos Islands, suggesting a common ancestor. In fact, most discoveries will likely first appear as patterns to some keen observer who first notice them. After someone noticed a pattern, then people tried to come up with explanations for the pattern. Usually, the most sensible and straight forward explanation is the right one. This is known as occam's_razor.
Nowadays, people still notice patterns, however, if the pattern goes against one of the social narratives, we are suppose to not only ignore the pattern, but to go all out of our way to cleanse our minds of the dangerous conclusion that occam's razor would suggest for the pattern. Lest we fall afoul of becoming a social heretic. If we cannot remove the pattern from our discourse, instead of using occam's razor, we are suppose to come up with explanations that fit best with the dominant social narrative, however far fetch the explanations are.
We can notice that different breeds of dogs have different athletic abilities. After all, no one would race his basset hound against a grey hound. Athletic abilities in people are useful and valued by our society. In our world of equality, all attributes that are valued by the society should be equally distributed among the different races (races are not dissimilar to the different breed of dogs, by the way). We are not suppose to notice that people whose ancestors were West Africans do well in sprinting, and Kenyans do well in marathons. We are suppose to cleanse our mind of the idea that genetics plays an outsize role in how we do in athletic ability.
We are allowed to notice that some people are fatter than others. In this society, the poor are the oppressed. No matter how badly their lives turned out, they are never at fault for their conditions. We are not suppose to notice that in the United States, poor people, on average, tend to be significantly fatter than the rich. If you ever notice this pattern, you are suppose to cleanse your mind of the conclusion that maybe the poor are fatter because they lack will power and discipline, something Occam might suggest. The only acceptable explanation is that society did not do enough to help them. This leads to absurdities like banning certain size soft drinks. For the other fat people higher up in the social economic ladder, the most socially acceptable explanation for their condition is that this is a genetic condition for which they have no control over whatsoever (be sure to remember that the genetic explanation should not apply to the poor, lest they be stigmatized. Stigmatizing the poor would get you ostracized by polite company), or that they have a medical condition. Compulsive Eating Disorder, Obsessive Rotund Syndrome, or some such. Never mind that just a hundred years ago, very few people (people who passed their genes to us)were fat. or that other countries did not suffer any of the "metal illnesses" that cause so many of their people to be fat.
We see that some neighborhoods have very high crime rates. Blacks in this country have been historically oppressed, started with slavery. The narrative is that to this very day, they continue to be kept down by racism and poverty, end of story. They are not responsible in any way for the pickle that many of them found themselves in. We are not suppose to notice that high crime rates are associated with high percentage of Black population in the neighborhood. In fact, if you look at the top ten cities in the U.S. with the highest crime rates, without exception, they all have higher percentage of Black people then the average population of 12%. In most cases, they are significantly higher. In many of these highest crime neighborhoods, Blacks constitute the majority. In our world of democracy, this means that they control all the levers of power to run their cities. They elect the mayors. They decide who run the police departments. Instead of helping the police, who is having a hard enough time enforcing the law, the socially acceptable narrative is that the police is the problem. When Michael Brown was killed, instead of using his race to fundamentally change the dialog about crimes in Black neighborhoods, president Obama sent his top cop Eric Holder to investigate the police in Ferguson, even after the police had been cleared of wrong doings by a grand jury. To correct the injustice perpetrated by the police, Blacks are allowed to loot and burn down businesses while they demonstrate. Of course, the demonstrators are not responsible for any of these. They are all peaceful, except for the ones that aren't. They never steal, except for the ones that do.
If you ever attended colleges in the United States, you will notice the relative absence of Black and Latinos in our universities. In fact, the more selective the universities, the fewer they are. In the same university, the more intellectual horse power a given field requires, such as physics, engineering, the less likely you will find Black and Latino students. Unlike the other patterns which are not socially acceptable, this pattern is noticed by the politically correct and discussed frequently. The reason, of course, is Affirmative Actions, a sort of spoil system that allocate quotas to each race. Having noticed the pattern, we are nevertheless obliged to come up with an explanation that fits with the socially accepted norms. The conservatives blame the lack of academic achievement of Blacks and Latinos on their culture. There might be something to that argument, except that if you look at Black babies that were adopted at birth by White parents, a sort of cultural transplant, the pattern of academic underachievement still holds. Liberals blame racism and poverty. Perhaps in the fifties, racism was an insurmountable obstacle to some. I knew some Chinese people from that era. One of them, who obtained a chemical engineering degree, was told point blank that he would never work as a chemical engineer because he is Chinese. He ended up running a Chinese restaurant. Today, having been on the other end where I interviewed many people for the companies I work for, I can tell you that as long as you are good, you will be hired somewhere. Does racism still exist? of course they do, but today it should not stop anyone from getting ahead any more than being fat or being a little off socially. In the Silicon Valley, we have many different races working well together. In certain fields, it is even noted for the relative absence of Whites. Poverty today is not the same as poverty in 1929. Back then, if you are poor, it means you don't eat and starve to death, many did. Today, if you are poor, ninety nine percent of the time, you have a roof over your head, more food then the minimum required calories and nutrition. most of the poor have cell phone and cars, something that the middle class did not have just a few short decades ago. There was a time in America when the campaign promise was a chicken in every pot. One final thing that blows big holes in explanations provided by both the left and the right, the offspring of Black upper class( who presumably have acquired the right culture that got them ahead) did worse in SAT score then the offspring of White lower class, who presumably did not inherit good culture from their poor parents. Nor did the sons and daughters of Black upper class gain an upper hand due to their relative affluence over the sons and daughters of the poor White parents.
For those of you who understand HBD (Human Bio Diversity), I am preaching to the choir. You have heard this from many sources. If this disturbs you but you want to explore these topics more, I will be writing about each of these in more depth in my next few posts.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Liberals, Conservatives and Evolution
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
--Charles Darwin
Liberals like to make fun of conservatives for not believing in evolution. I guess we all have our blinders. Actually, Western liberals, with their judeo-christian values (even though many proclaim to be atheists), also have their own blinders that are not dissimilar to the conservatives.
Liberals believe in evolution, until the spotlight of evolution is focused on Homo sapiens itself. Sure, liberals have no trouble believing that we came from a long line of mammals for which Lucy was a member, but did we continue to evolve a hundred thousand years ago? forty thousand years ago? How about five thousand years ago. Are we still evolving today?
We certainly have no trouble believing that other animals could still evolve today. With great fanfare, it was reported that a moth in England changed color in the blink of an eye due to pollution from the Industrial Revolution. It stands to reason that Homo sapiens likely continue to evolve to this very day. Since we as a specie have populated almost the entire globe, it stands to reason that different groups in different environments would be subjected to different evolutionary pressures and ended up with different adaptations to their respective environments. For a complex society such the United States, it also stand to reason that some sub-groups could go extinct while another can take over. All that it needs is that different sub-groups largely breed within the sub-group and have differential rates of surviving off-springs.
Some argue that since we have now gained control of our environment, we are no longer evolving, but that is faulty argument. Evolution does not care how the environment is created. As long as there is evolutionary pressure to change the make up of the underlying population, a man made environment has as much power to push the population in one direction or another.
That our ancestors evolved with different adaptation is plain for everyone to see. Blacks have darker skin and different facial features than Whites, who in turn are different from Asians. The shapes of our bodies are also different. Up to this point, liberals have no trouble with this premise, but they will tell you that the differences are only skin deep and underneath it all, we are all the same.
What about our abilities? If you bring a guy from the 19th century to the United States, he will have no trouble seeing that people of West African descent dominated the hundred meter dash, or East Africans dominate the marathon races. Ah, but the modern Western liberals have a different narrative. Under our society, everyone is equal and everyone starts with a blank slate. If you put your mind (and body) to it, everyone can do anything. If you did not succeed, it is because you did not work hard enough, or lack drive. The premise that different people could be born with different abilities goes against this narrative. The idea that members of different races have, on average, significantly differing abilities to do the hundred meter dash or marathon is down right dangerous. As a result, under the liberal dominated media, we are not suppose to notice these patterns. Basically, any attribute that has some value in society is supposed to be distributed equally, especially among the different races.
Evolution, of course, couldn't care less about our nice social narratives. Anyone who pays attention to the hundred meter dash will see that not only have people of West African descent dominated the races, they have been doing so for decades now. Further, this is corroborated by their huge over representation in other sports that require speed, basketball, football being the obvious examples.
Of course, if you were raised malnourished, you would not reach your genetic potential, but it does not take much to get pass that point. Our bodies, evolved in the Savanna where starvation was the norm, are not that particular. Jamaica, with GDP per capita of around $5000, hardly a world of plenty by our standards, have produced a prodigious number of sprinters of Olympic calibre. All that is required is a large population that descents from West Africa and enough food such that people are not starving. Kenya, with a GDP per capita of a few hundred dollars as late as the nineties, is even poorer by far, yet this does not prevent them from dominating the marathons. No need to have a Wholefoods or someone with a PhD in nutrition nearby. All the population, money, nutrition and training of the West could not match a smallish population handicapped with third world impoverishment, if that population has the genetic advantage on its side.
With modest environmental endowment, nature takes over. We like to brag about how we succeed by hard work and determination, In fact, genetics plays an oversize role in how we turn out. Genetics is destiny.
--Charles Darwin
Liberals like to make fun of conservatives for not believing in evolution. I guess we all have our blinders. Actually, Western liberals, with their judeo-christian values (even though many proclaim to be atheists), also have their own blinders that are not dissimilar to the conservatives.
Liberals believe in evolution, until the spotlight of evolution is focused on Homo sapiens itself. Sure, liberals have no trouble believing that we came from a long line of mammals for which Lucy was a member, but did we continue to evolve a hundred thousand years ago? forty thousand years ago? How about five thousand years ago. Are we still evolving today?
We certainly have no trouble believing that other animals could still evolve today. With great fanfare, it was reported that a moth in England changed color in the blink of an eye due to pollution from the Industrial Revolution. It stands to reason that Homo sapiens likely continue to evolve to this very day. Since we as a specie have populated almost the entire globe, it stands to reason that different groups in different environments would be subjected to different evolutionary pressures and ended up with different adaptations to their respective environments. For a complex society such the United States, it also stand to reason that some sub-groups could go extinct while another can take over. All that it needs is that different sub-groups largely breed within the sub-group and have differential rates of surviving off-springs.
Some argue that since we have now gained control of our environment, we are no longer evolving, but that is faulty argument. Evolution does not care how the environment is created. As long as there is evolutionary pressure to change the make up of the underlying population, a man made environment has as much power to push the population in one direction or another.
That our ancestors evolved with different adaptation is plain for everyone to see. Blacks have darker skin and different facial features than Whites, who in turn are different from Asians. The shapes of our bodies are also different. Up to this point, liberals have no trouble with this premise, but they will tell you that the differences are only skin deep and underneath it all, we are all the same.
What about our abilities? If you bring a guy from the 19th century to the United States, he will have no trouble seeing that people of West African descent dominated the hundred meter dash, or East Africans dominate the marathon races. Ah, but the modern Western liberals have a different narrative. Under our society, everyone is equal and everyone starts with a blank slate. If you put your mind (and body) to it, everyone can do anything. If you did not succeed, it is because you did not work hard enough, or lack drive. The premise that different people could be born with different abilities goes against this narrative. The idea that members of different races have, on average, significantly differing abilities to do the hundred meter dash or marathon is down right dangerous. As a result, under the liberal dominated media, we are not suppose to notice these patterns. Basically, any attribute that has some value in society is supposed to be distributed equally, especially among the different races.
Evolution, of course, couldn't care less about our nice social narratives. Anyone who pays attention to the hundred meter dash will see that not only have people of West African descent dominated the races, they have been doing so for decades now. Further, this is corroborated by their huge over representation in other sports that require speed, basketball, football being the obvious examples.
Of course, if you were raised malnourished, you would not reach your genetic potential, but it does not take much to get pass that point. Our bodies, evolved in the Savanna where starvation was the norm, are not that particular. Jamaica, with GDP per capita of around $5000, hardly a world of plenty by our standards, have produced a prodigious number of sprinters of Olympic calibre. All that is required is a large population that descents from West Africa and enough food such that people are not starving. Kenya, with a GDP per capita of a few hundred dollars as late as the nineties, is even poorer by far, yet this does not prevent them from dominating the marathons. No need to have a Wholefoods or someone with a PhD in nutrition nearby. All the population, money, nutrition and training of the West could not match a smallish population handicapped with third world impoverishment, if that population has the genetic advantage on its side.
With modest environmental endowment, nature takes over. We like to brag about how we succeed by hard work and determination, In fact, genetics plays an oversize role in how we turn out. Genetics is destiny.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Hello
Hello folks,
Welcome to Imbecile Detective. I want to use this forum to express some of my ideas. Actually, most of these are not my own ideas so much as my understanding of how the world works. I have created this site in 2011, but never got off my good intentions to post any material. Recently, someone close to me is dying from his ailment and made a decision to stop all treatments and go home to die. He has only days to live now. This has prompted me to get off my behind and started putting my thoughts on this blog, if not for anyone else, only for my self. After all, who knows how long we all have.
My interests include the following, in no particular order,
1. Genetics.
2. Education and raising kids.
3. The decay of the West
4. The Rise of China
5. Immigration
6. Innovation
7. Singularity
Welcome to Imbecile Detective. I want to use this forum to express some of my ideas. Actually, most of these are not my own ideas so much as my understanding of how the world works. I have created this site in 2011, but never got off my good intentions to post any material. Recently, someone close to me is dying from his ailment and made a decision to stop all treatments and go home to die. He has only days to live now. This has prompted me to get off my behind and started putting my thoughts on this blog, if not for anyone else, only for my self. After all, who knows how long we all have.
My interests include the following, in no particular order,
1. Genetics.
2. Education and raising kids.
3. The decay of the West
4. The Rise of China
5. Immigration
6. Innovation
7. Singularity
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