--> flyoverlandia

I'm still getting a fair number of hits on these blogs, but still no comments or conversations. Therefore, I'm going to stop posting here and henceforth will only be posting on my 'flyoverlandia' blog, 

here.

Thanks.

war

 There's a war going on between low-intelligence people and high-intelligence people, and the low-intelligence people are winning. This needs to stop, and be reversed.

scientists and engineers

 America should become a nation of scientists and engineers.

singapore, again

 Still getting all these hits from Singapore, but no comments. All right then, let me ask you this: Should the US bring back corporal punishment? Click on the post, and a comment box will come up. 

comments?

 I've been getting a lot of hits on these blogs lately, from all over the world, but no responses or followers. Any comments? I'd like to get a conversation started.

'best earth'

  ' . . . The one thing to keep in mind, through it all.'

This modest (but hopefully inspiring) little tract is available on Amazon as both ebook & paperback. Contains breathtaking nighttime NASA images of whole regions of the planet.

'Step back and look down.'

https://www.amazon.com/best-earth-planetarian-Jonathan-Greenblume-ebook/dp/B08PZHRZ8N/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=%22best+earth%22&qid=1614097422&s=digital-text&sr=1-3

a thought experiment

 So let’s run a little thought experiment using our fabulous ‘laboratory of the states.’ Let’s pick a couple small states—say New Hampshire and Vermont, cute little side-by-side New England states. Let’s say New Hampshire decided to try to become a high-IQ state. First off, they’d give everybody IQ tests. Then they would encourage (i.e., financially incentivize) high-IQ people to reproduce and discourage (financially disincentivize) low-IQ people from reproducing—not providing further welfare benefits for out-of-wedlock children, providing free hysterectomies, abortions, vasectomies, etc. Similarly, they would encourage high-IQ in-migration and low-IQ out-migration.

 

Then, just for the sake of argument, let’s say that left-wing, Vermont went in the opposite direction. They would also give everybody IQ tests but would use them to encourage low-IQ reproduction and discourage high-IQ reproduction. Similarly, they would encourage low-IQ in-migration and high-IQ out-migration. (No rational government would ever do this, of course, for obvious reasons.)

 

What would these two states look like after a couple generations? New Hampshire would be a civilized, prosperous first-world state, well-versed in the science and technology of the modern world, with great public schools and a low-to-nonexistent crime rate. Vermont, meantime,  would have become an impoverished, corrupt, crime-ridden third-world hellhole.

 

Do you doubt it?

affirmative action

 Affirmative action is a zero-sum game that selects less qualified people over more qualified people on the basis of irrelevant characteristics. It's counterproductive and immoral and should be abolished.

The Main Difference between 1st-World Countries and 3rd-World Countries

 What we call the Modern World is a society heavily based in science and technology. The main difference between 1st-world countries and 3rd-world countries is that the former have a lot of people with a broad and deep understanding of these things whereas the latter have very few such people. Unless 3rd-world countries can educate-- or import-- a significant number of people in science and technology, they will never be part of the Modern World. Q.E.D.

the iq gap

 Can we talk about . . . IQ? All other things being equal (which of course they aren't), it's better to have a high IQ than a low IQ. In particular, IQ is evidently the best predictor of academic success. There are other factors, however, that determine whether one is a 'success' in life.

Where it matters, though, is at the level of societies. According to this website, the average IQ in the US is 98, whereas in Japan and China, it's 105:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country

Why does it matter? Because the future belongs to those countries that can understand and create science and technology, what we call The Modern World. Low-IQ societies will never understand these things. The higher the average IQ in a country, the more it will be in that top tier of countries that are creating the human future.

We need more and better scientists and engineers. Our immigration policy should favor these people, and in general we need to appreciate the importance of highly intelligent people-- particularly those with a high level of mathematical/logical ability-- as opposed, for example, to meaningless Hollywood celebrities.

scientists and engineers

 We need more and better scientists and engineers.

high standards and low standards

In the most general sense, the difference between first-world countries and third-world countries is that first-world countries are high-standards countries while third-world countries are low-standards countries. This is particularly true when it comes to intellectual standards, which are the most important standards of all.

anti-antiracism

This antiracism seminar in Seattle is absolutely crazy.

 https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-interrupting-whiteness-training?fbclid=IwAR3Yp6SEluQeHZeItk6Ne9JOM7TP4JLwf1hnVdbVAZVdcDEMFLIkjcIjo68

 This is a good argument for doing away with these racial and ethnic categories altogether. They seem increasingly anachronistic and artificial anyway. The significant differences between people, really, are not racial or ethnic, but socioeconomic and cognitive. If one is thinking about poor black people, the operative word is poor, not black. Nobody cares about middle-class black people; they’re doing just fine. On the other hand, if you care about poor black people, you also care about poor white, yellow, and brown people.

here's the problem

I have seen this exchange categorized as The Single Dumbest Thing Ever to Appear on the Internet. It's between known idiot and MSNBC anchor Brian Williams and Mara Gay, who's on the New York Times editorial board. (Can you say, 'Affirmative Action Hire,' class?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ordODDzVso8&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1JFUstKQy8RKhcknxelnIdgN7LZsZocGkG3JpkG1iUAV4m-bPNtswOVb8

This is the problem. There are too many low-intelligence people in this country, and too many of them are in positions of power or influence. We need fewer low-intelligence people and more high-intelligence people, particularly people with a high level of mathematical-logical ability.

the divine spark

Only human beings, it seems to me, have mathematical-logical ability to any significant degree. Only human beings, for example, can hold perfect geometric forms in their minds' eye. Does any other species have this ability? Why do we?

I call this the divine spark. It is this ability that is the basis of science and technology and our beginning exploration of the cosmos. It is this ability that has created our fabulous standard of living. It's not that we walk upright and have jointed thumbs that makes us so different and special; it's this mysterious ability to understand and manipulate physical reality. Why do we alone have this? What is our responsibility in using it?

baltimore

The problem of Baltimore is not a problem of leadership. The situation in West Baltimore is not the failure of Elijah Cummings, nor even of the mayor and city council. As John Boehner once said, you're not a leader if you have no followers; you're just somebody out for a walk.

No, the problem is the lack of followers. In particular, the problem of Baltimore is the problem of the black male subculture of the ghetto. It is a subculture of supreme indifference. These guys simply can't be bothered. They can't be bothered to educate themselves; they can't be bothered to hold down jobs; they can't be bothered to act as fathers to their own children, for God's sake-- how weird is that?; and they cannot be bothered to obey the law. It is a self-destructive worldview that cannot but lead to failure. And so it has.

One can argue about the causes of this worldview. Is it directly the result of poverty, racism, etc., as those on the left assert? Or is it the same attitude one finds in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, in short wherever black men congregate in any numbers? One thing is certain, though: Conditions in Baltimore will never change until this attitude changes. And I don't see that happening.

basic logic

One is struck by the fact that so many youngsters these days come out of our public school system after 10 or 12 years-- at considerable expense to the taxpayer-- with no knowledge and no skills. How does this happen? What are these kids doing, just sitting around talking about their goddam feelings all the livelong day? It would seem so.

One possible way to offset this would be to require high school students to take a course in basic logic, so that before they graduate they'll have some idea of the difference between a sylllogism and a tautology. I know, maybe this won't work. Maybe some students-- maybe a lot of them-- are simply immune to logic. But then at least when they indulge in over-emotional paroxysms, the illogic of their position can be pointed out to them. 'Don't you remember, we covered oxymorons in school.'

get back to the notion of social SCIENCE

For some time now, I've adopted the convention of putting the word science in quotation marks when it's preceded by the word social: social 'science.' That's because whatever else may be coming out of social 'science' departments these days, it sure as hell ain't science. It's political activism, pure and simple.

This is more than a mere question of truth in labeling. Particularly in taxpayer-supported institutions, citizens have a right to expect that what goes on in these departments is a disinterested pursuit of the truth, wherever that may lead. Instead we have these phalanxes of agitators who have holed up in university departments when no one was looking, from which they speak and publish to push their personal agendas.

Students and  taxpayers have a right to expect that lecturers will make impartial presentations of differing views on particular topics. This does not happen in departments in which opposing views cannot be presented, in which the lifetime meal ticket known as tenure is used to prevent differing voices from being heard. Legislators ought to look into these situations and require that social 'science' departments get back to the dispassionate pursuit of the truth. In other words, get back to science.

tracking

It's occurred to me that when you play sports, you like to play with people who are more or less at the same skill level as you are. If you're playing with people who are better than you, they'll resent the mediocrity of your play, the errors you make, and that you might even lose a game for them. (For an individual sport like tennis, it gets boring being easily defeated time after time.) If you're playing with people who aren't as good as you, the opposite is true, and you're going to resent their incompetence. If you're playing with people at about the same skill level, it's more fun, and the outcome will always be in doubt.

If that's true for physical endeavors, it's also true for intellectual endeavors. Students should be in classes with people of about the same ability level in the different subjects. Otherwise, they'll resent having to waste time trying to get the 'slow' students to 'get it.' On the other hand, if you're in a class with people who are better than you, you'll feel swamped and inferior. This is no good for anybody. If you're in classes with people at about your ability level, students will feel comfortable, and the learning will proceed apace.

it's not their fault

If we had our druthers, of course, we'd all choose to be brilliant and beautiful. But we're not. Some of us are in fact very far indeed from being either brilliant or beautiful. There are two things to keep in mind about this:

1. It's not their fault.

2. Nonetheless, we should try to discourage people from reproducing if they really can't figure out how to put one foot in front of the other in a society like this. At the very least, people shouldn't have children they can't support.