Now, while the media focuses on Chinese manufacturing drones and Indian IIT graduates outcompeting midwest labor unions and medium quality amercan engineering graduates, no one talks about how screwed the rest of the third world is in the new flat reality. A recent nytimes article highlights how far we have to go in alieviating global poverty:
I live in a third world country and my job entails screening people for an application process that is primarily computer based. In this country, most people are so computer illiterate that they can't even go on to my company's web site and fill out an application. They frequently go to public notaries, and still make basic mistakes with spelling and biographical questions. The big question I always think is: where is Thomas Friedman now? My friends keep saying: don't worry, they'll catch up eventually. I think: they can't even use a computer and are brain dead when I talk to them, how can they compete with an IIT graduate who designs machines to automate them?
Well, here is your answer on what happens to those left behind in the new economy:
The number of hungry people in the world rose to 1.02 billion this year, or nearly one in seven people, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, despite a 12-year concentrated effort to cut the number.
The global financial recession added at least 100 million people by depriving them of the means to buy enough food, but the numbers were inching up even before the crisis, the United Nations noted in a report last week.
You go hungry. You starve.
Now, I'm not another wide eyed liberal in the likes of Nick Kristof or Jeffrey Sachs who pushes campaigns to eliminate poverty as the duty of the west or "something we can achieve in our generation."
I'm just a person who genuinly cares about innocent children starving to death (about 25,000) per day from preventable causes. This is a moral tragedy on an unimaginable scale, but what really infuriates me more are the grandstanding liberals who don't give HBD a chance to UNDERSTAND the root causes of poverty and put into place measures to alleviate this.
Not to mention the meat eaters who misalocate resources into meat production that could easily go towards alleviating third world hunger.
Nytimes continues:
The so-called green revolution of the 1960s and ’70s ended the specter of mass famines then, but the environmental cost of chemical fertilizers and heavy irrigation has spurred a bitter divide over the right ingredients for a second one.
The green revolution just merely delayed a bare minimum economic reality: In a capitalist system, you get what you produce. And in a system in which an unemployed laborer has no land of his own, there is poverty.
I vast swaths of the third world, there are simply masses of people who produce less economic value than what they need to sustain themselves, and they grow hungry. Why do they produce less? HBD.
And it's just going to get worse. While machines become more intelligent, they will make redundant vast swaths of the labor market. The third world and low intelligence races will suffer the most, because they won't even have a shot at developing IT intense industries. They will be simply bypassed.
So if you're stuck in Latin America, Africa, or South Asia, and are an unskilled laborer with nothing to offer, good luck. Thomas Friedman doesn't even have enough time to write about you, because in the new economy you're already screwed.
Change we can believe in.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The Flat world clashes with HBD Part One
So I've been saying for awhile now that we are living in a "flat" world in which distances and national boundaries aren't as important or constricting as they were before. This reality is easily demonstrated in the world economy through the devastation of American manufacturing and the outsourcing of tons of low end white collar jobs.
But no one talks about the real scary culprit of the decline in manufacturing: increasing automation and inability of american workers to keep up.
Considering that 85% of Americans have cellphones and while lagging behind some others, we are still one of the most connected countries in the world. Yet, Thomas Friedman has words of warning that are quite prescient:
“Our education failure is the largest contributing factor to the decline of the American worker’s global competitiveness, particularly at the middle and bottom ranges,” argued Martin, a former global executive with PepsiCo and Kraft Europe and now an international investor. “This loss of competitiveness has weakened the American worker’s production of wealth, precisely when technology brought global competition much closer to home. So over a decade, American workers have maintained their standard of living by borrowing and overconsuming vis-à-vis their real income. When the Great Recession wiped out all the credit and asset bubbles that made that overconsumption possible, it left too many American workers not only deeper in debt than ever, but out of a job and lacking the skills to compete globally.”
Basically, this is the challenge we face right now in maintaining the US as the top dog economically.
But this is where it hits us on a personal level:
“If you think about the labor market today, the top half of the college market, those with the high-end analytical and problem-solving skills who can compete on the world market or game the financial system or deal with new government regulations, have done great. But the bottom half of the top, those engineers and programmers working on more routine tasks and not actively engaged in developing new ideas or recombining existing technologies or thinking about what new customers want, have done poorly. They’ve been much more exposed to global competitors that make them easily substitutable.”
Those at the high end of the bottom half — high school grads in construction or manufacturing — have been clobbered by global competition and immigration, added Katz. “But those who have some interpersonal skills — the salesperson who can deal with customers face to face or the home contractor who can help you redesign your kitchen without going to an architect — have done well.”
Just being an average accountant, lawyer, contractor or assembly-line worker is not the ticket it used to be.
I think that's scary. Steve Sailer agrees too, but points out some basic problems in Friedman's analysis.
I kind of have the impression that quite a few Americans, like, maybe, two or three hundred million of them, don't possess either the IQs or the personalities to be rainmakers. Are they permanently obsolete in the world that Friedman has been such an energetic cheerleader for?
And there you have it folks. While Friedman is fundamentally correct in his assertions about what hurts us, he's blind as to why it will be nearly impossible to overcome. Because everything can be low skilled can be done cheaply in the third world or automated. White collar work that involves thinking can be done over the internet. No one is untouchable from the need to compete with the world.
But what, ultimately, is the quality that determines who wins and who looses their job in the global economy?
Intelligence and IQ.
Flat world folks, meet HUMAN BIODIVERSITY and the fucked up reality:
THE BASIC SKILLS THAT ARE NECESSARY TO SUCEED IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY ARE GENETIC.
Demography is destiny
Oh shit.
But no one talks about the real scary culprit of the decline in manufacturing: increasing automation and inability of american workers to keep up.
Considering that 85% of Americans have cellphones and while lagging behind some others, we are still one of the most connected countries in the world. Yet, Thomas Friedman has words of warning that are quite prescient:
“Our education failure is the largest contributing factor to the decline of the American worker’s global competitiveness, particularly at the middle and bottom ranges,” argued Martin, a former global executive with PepsiCo and Kraft Europe and now an international investor. “This loss of competitiveness has weakened the American worker’s production of wealth, precisely when technology brought global competition much closer to home. So over a decade, American workers have maintained their standard of living by borrowing and overconsuming vis-à-vis their real income. When the Great Recession wiped out all the credit and asset bubbles that made that overconsumption possible, it left too many American workers not only deeper in debt than ever, but out of a job and lacking the skills to compete globally.”
Basically, this is the challenge we face right now in maintaining the US as the top dog economically.
But this is where it hits us on a personal level:
“If you think about the labor market today, the top half of the college market, those with the high-end analytical and problem-solving skills who can compete on the world market or game the financial system or deal with new government regulations, have done great. But the bottom half of the top, those engineers and programmers working on more routine tasks and not actively engaged in developing new ideas or recombining existing technologies or thinking about what new customers want, have done poorly. They’ve been much more exposed to global competitors that make them easily substitutable.”
Those at the high end of the bottom half — high school grads in construction or manufacturing — have been clobbered by global competition and immigration, added Katz. “But those who have some interpersonal skills — the salesperson who can deal with customers face to face or the home contractor who can help you redesign your kitchen without going to an architect — have done well.”
Just being an average accountant, lawyer, contractor or assembly-line worker is not the ticket it used to be.
I think that's scary. Steve Sailer agrees too, but points out some basic problems in Friedman's analysis.
I kind of have the impression that quite a few Americans, like, maybe, two or three hundred million of them, don't possess either the IQs or the personalities to be rainmakers. Are they permanently obsolete in the world that Friedman has been such an energetic cheerleader for?
And there you have it folks. While Friedman is fundamentally correct in his assertions about what hurts us, he's blind as to why it will be nearly impossible to overcome. Because everything can be low skilled can be done cheaply in the third world or automated. White collar work that involves thinking can be done over the internet. No one is untouchable from the need to compete with the world.
But what, ultimately, is the quality that determines who wins and who looses their job in the global economy?
Intelligence and IQ.
Flat world folks, meet HUMAN BIODIVERSITY and the fucked up reality:
THE BASIC SKILLS THAT ARE NECESSARY TO SUCEED IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY ARE GENETIC.
Demography is destiny
Oh shit.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
I am a SWPL
Because I don't like eating feces:
records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.
Using a combination of sources — a practice followed by most large producers of fresh and packaged hamburger — allowed Cargill to spend about 25 percent less than it would have for cuts of whole meat.
Those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli, industry research shows.
Philophically, the HBD and Steveosphere has to come to a basic realization about the implications of HBD for our modern notion of what constitutes individual rights.
So here are three statements. Pick 2. You CANNOT believe in all three and have a logically coherent belief system:
1) Condemn Vegetarianism
2) Acknowledge that due to HBD, all humans are not equal
3) Condemn slavery
Now, we can get all fuzzy, Watson, and Saletan and say that intelligence is not a sign of inherent worth. But face it. In an information economy there are only so many athletes and entertainers. By far, intelligent people have more to offer than dumb people. They create civilization and technology and elevate us above animals.
If intelligence is genetic, then we are not equal. Deal with it. This post is for atheists and agnostics (aka thinking people) who think for themselves rather than look to a book to worry about the scheme of humans in the universe.
So back to my original point. I suscribe to statements 2 and 3.
Most people in the Steveosphere have been vocal about believing in 1 and 2 but have been moot about number 3.
Most hippies suscribe only to statement 3. The mainstream media and republicans suscribe to 1, with half and half for 2 and 3 depending on if you lean KKK or lean center.
But you can't go all out on all three. You can't say:
Even though all humans are not equal, I still think it's wrong for us to enslave one another and still perfectly fine to brutally slaughter innocent animals.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.
Using a combination of sources — a practice followed by most large producers of fresh and packaged hamburger — allowed Cargill to spend about 25 percent less than it would have for cuts of whole meat.
Those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli, industry research shows.
Philophically, the HBD and Steveosphere has to come to a basic realization about the implications of HBD for our modern notion of what constitutes individual rights.
So here are three statements. Pick 2. You CANNOT believe in all three and have a logically coherent belief system:
1) Condemn Vegetarianism
2) Acknowledge that due to HBD, all humans are not equal
3) Condemn slavery
Now, we can get all fuzzy, Watson, and Saletan and say that intelligence is not a sign of inherent worth. But face it. In an information economy there are only so many athletes and entertainers. By far, intelligent people have more to offer than dumb people. They create civilization and technology and elevate us above animals.
If intelligence is genetic, then we are not equal. Deal with it. This post is for atheists and agnostics (aka thinking people) who think for themselves rather than look to a book to worry about the scheme of humans in the universe.
So back to my original point. I suscribe to statements 2 and 3.
Most people in the Steveosphere have been vocal about believing in 1 and 2 but have been moot about number 3.
Most hippies suscribe only to statement 3. The mainstream media and republicans suscribe to 1, with half and half for 2 and 3 depending on if you lean KKK or lean center.
But you can't go all out on all three. You can't say:
Even though all humans are not equal, I still think it's wrong for us to enslave one another and still perfectly fine to brutally slaughter innocent animals.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Conservatives on Derrion Smith
I don't have to re hash what happened.
But it is starting to wear away, this idealism that I had after the election. Here is the key phrase from a anti Obama blog I look at:
It is high time for black activists and so-called leaders to put to rest the idea that this is all due to racism. Racism on the part of whites is the very least of the problems facing black America today. There is nothing white America can do other than treat each human being fairly. When you watch the video of the beating death of Derrion Albert, you see no whites involved. This young boy was not the victim of racism.
No racism here.
Notwithstanding the title of this essay, I don't know the solution to this intractable problem. I reject the notion, however, that the government has the solution, that money or programs is the solution or that this is another moment for white America to look itself in the mirror. We have done that. We have recognized our past history and, except for fringe elements, rejected the idea that we are "superior". We do believe in fair play for all. One thing I learned from working in inner cities as a DEA agent is that those areas have lots of good people trying to survive, live in security and keep their kids out of trouble. Unfortunately, there is the criminal element that preys first and foremost on the people in their own community. They are enabled by the radicals and hate-mongers who tell them they are victims of a racist society. They are enabled by liberal judges, academics, journalists and politicians who echo that sentiment. It does no one any good.
The fact is that nobody in Washington has the answer. Nobody in Chicago's city hall has the answer. The answer, whatever it is, is to be found in the south side of Chicago.
And here is the problem. Conservatives shake their heads and blame dysfunctional black culture and black apologists for the problems of black society.
But they are fundamentally wrong. The problem is biology, the fact that 100,000 thousand years ago some enterprising homo sapiens decided to head north and cross into Asia while many more stayed behind. Those that left were quickly culled by the more brutal climate that they had to face and only the intelligent and cooperative survived.
For those that remained, mother nature wasn't a problem. Rather, it was their fellow man. Dominating other men became the means to survive.
And so fundamentally different survival strategies led to fundamentally different beings that emerged.
And now, we are forced to deal with it as a society. How long will the charade of white racism persist? I don't know, but when it crashes, it will crash hard.
So the singularitarians have to be ready to put forth an alternative philosophy, one that involves conquering nature and changing our genetics to erase all these inequalities. We will technologically merge with each other to create a giant living universe where the ego is irrelevant and the concept of equality is incomprehensible.
We are one. Om.
But it is starting to wear away, this idealism that I had after the election. Here is the key phrase from a anti Obama blog I look at:
It is high time for black activists and so-called leaders to put to rest the idea that this is all due to racism. Racism on the part of whites is the very least of the problems facing black America today. There is nothing white America can do other than treat each human being fairly. When you watch the video of the beating death of Derrion Albert, you see no whites involved. This young boy was not the victim of racism.
No racism here.
Notwithstanding the title of this essay, I don't know the solution to this intractable problem. I reject the notion, however, that the government has the solution, that money or programs is the solution or that this is another moment for white America to look itself in the mirror. We have done that. We have recognized our past history and, except for fringe elements, rejected the idea that we are "superior". We do believe in fair play for all. One thing I learned from working in inner cities as a DEA agent is that those areas have lots of good people trying to survive, live in security and keep their kids out of trouble. Unfortunately, there is the criminal element that preys first and foremost on the people in their own community. They are enabled by the radicals and hate-mongers who tell them they are victims of a racist society. They are enabled by liberal judges, academics, journalists and politicians who echo that sentiment. It does no one any good.
The fact is that nobody in Washington has the answer. Nobody in Chicago's city hall has the answer. The answer, whatever it is, is to be found in the south side of Chicago.
And here is the problem. Conservatives shake their heads and blame dysfunctional black culture and black apologists for the problems of black society.
But they are fundamentally wrong. The problem is biology, the fact that 100,000 thousand years ago some enterprising homo sapiens decided to head north and cross into Asia while many more stayed behind. Those that left were quickly culled by the more brutal climate that they had to face and only the intelligent and cooperative survived.
For those that remained, mother nature wasn't a problem. Rather, it was their fellow man. Dominating other men became the means to survive.
And so fundamentally different survival strategies led to fundamentally different beings that emerged.
And now, we are forced to deal with it as a society. How long will the charade of white racism persist? I don't know, but when it crashes, it will crash hard.
So the singularitarians have to be ready to put forth an alternative philosophy, one that involves conquering nature and changing our genetics to erase all these inequalities. We will technologically merge with each other to create a giant living universe where the ego is irrelevant and the concept of equality is incomprehensible.
We are one. Om.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
HBD by any other name
So...back from a long break, just thought I'd share this tidbit on our strange national immigration policy:
This recent article in slate talks about our immigration problems. Here is the key phrase:
About one-quarter of American tech companies are founded in part or entirely by foreigners. The proportion in Silicon Valley is even higher—a recent survey (PDF) by Vivek Wadhwa, an engineering professor at Duke University, showed that more than 52 percent of Valley startups were founded or co-founded by people born outside of the United States. According to Wadhwa's research, immigrant-founded firms produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005.
That's pretty significant if you ask me.
And this should just make you cry:
about 60 percent of doctorate degrees in engineering at American universities are awarded to foreign students who are in the country on temporary visas (PDF). And foreign workers are responsible for some of the tech world's signature innovations. In April, the Times profiled Sanjay Mavinkurve, one of Google's most respected engineers, who, among other things, came up with a brilliant way of reducing the time that Google Maps takes to load on mobile phones. But Mavinkurve—who was born in India, educated at Harvard, and would love to live in America—is stuck working in Google's Toronto office, because the United States won't let him bring his family into the country.
How the hell are we going to maintain our high tech competitiveness if we allow the Vdare anti foreigner crowd to run our immigration policy?
Now, read this phrase by Intel's chairman:
'I'm going to make it such that those smart kids—and as many of them as want to—can stay in the United States.' They're here today, they're graduating today—and they're going home today."
Is this not HBD immigration policy?
Returning to the jist of the article, one thing should jump out. Farhad Manjoo not ONCE mentions Mexicans. Not once does he mention legalization. Not once does he mention Spanish as a second language or borders. Why? Because he cares about the country more than ideology.
See the writing on the wall. The world is becoming more automated. Low skilled jobs that pay a living market wage are becoming rarer and rarer, while our low IQ population is balooning. China and India and Russia are rising to compete with us, and we have to fight back. How do we do that? Raise our national IQ.
That won't work. It's not palatable.
Alternatives? Create a new visa class:
He wants the government to create a new immigration class for founders of new firms. Every year, Graham's "Founder Visa" program would let in 10,000 immigrants who've shown a plan for starting a new company. These people would be barred from working at existing companies—in other words, they wouldn't be "taking American jobs." Instead, Graham argues, they'd be creating jobs: "If we assume four people per startup, which is probably an overestimate, that's 2,500 new companies. Each year," Graham writes. "They wouldn't all grow as big as Google, but out of 2,500 some would come close."
How do you implement HBD oriented policies without using HBD reasoning to sell it to the masses?
Marketing.
This recent article in slate talks about our immigration problems. Here is the key phrase:
About one-quarter of American tech companies are founded in part or entirely by foreigners. The proportion in Silicon Valley is even higher—a recent survey (PDF) by Vivek Wadhwa, an engineering professor at Duke University, showed that more than 52 percent of Valley startups were founded or co-founded by people born outside of the United States. According to Wadhwa's research, immigrant-founded firms produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005.
That's pretty significant if you ask me.
And this should just make you cry:
about 60 percent of doctorate degrees in engineering at American universities are awarded to foreign students who are in the country on temporary visas (PDF). And foreign workers are responsible for some of the tech world's signature innovations. In April, the Times profiled Sanjay Mavinkurve, one of Google's most respected engineers, who, among other things, came up with a brilliant way of reducing the time that Google Maps takes to load on mobile phones. But Mavinkurve—who was born in India, educated at Harvard, and would love to live in America—is stuck working in Google's Toronto office, because the United States won't let him bring his family into the country.
How the hell are we going to maintain our high tech competitiveness if we allow the Vdare anti foreigner crowd to run our immigration policy?
Now, read this phrase by Intel's chairman:
'I'm going to make it such that those smart kids—and as many of them as want to—can stay in the United States.' They're here today, they're graduating today—and they're going home today."
Is this not HBD immigration policy?
Returning to the jist of the article, one thing should jump out. Farhad Manjoo not ONCE mentions Mexicans. Not once does he mention legalization. Not once does he mention Spanish as a second language or borders. Why? Because he cares about the country more than ideology.
See the writing on the wall. The world is becoming more automated. Low skilled jobs that pay a living market wage are becoming rarer and rarer, while our low IQ population is balooning. China and India and Russia are rising to compete with us, and we have to fight back. How do we do that? Raise our national IQ.
That won't work. It's not palatable.
Alternatives? Create a new visa class:
He wants the government to create a new immigration class for founders of new firms. Every year, Graham's "Founder Visa" program would let in 10,000 immigrants who've shown a plan for starting a new company. These people would be barred from working at existing companies—in other words, they wouldn't be "taking American jobs." Instead, Graham argues, they'd be creating jobs: "If we assume four people per startup, which is probably an overestimate, that's 2,500 new companies. Each year," Graham writes. "They wouldn't all grow as big as Google, but out of 2,500 some would come close."
How do you implement HBD oriented policies without using HBD reasoning to sell it to the masses?
Marketing.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Desperation
It's closing in on Kristof, and he's panicking. His latest column, #1 on nytimes.com, is total drivel and bs.
A common thread among these three groups may be an emphasis on diligence or education, perhaps linked in part to an immigrant drive. Jews and Chinese have a particularly strong tradition of respect for scholarship, with Jews said to have achieved complete adult male literacy — the better to read the Talmud — some 1,700 years before any other group.
The parallel force in China was Confucianism and its reverence for education. You can still sometimes see in rural China the remains of a monument to a villager who triumphed in the imperial exams. In contrast, if an American town has someone who earns a Ph.D., the impulse is not to build a monument but to pass a hat.
But what happens when a culture values intelligence? The intelligent procreate more.
Perhaps the larger lesson is a very empowering one: success depends less on intellectual endowment than on perseverance and drive. As Professor Nisbett puts it, “Intelligence and academic achievement are very much under people’s control.”
Damaging to public policy. Another generation of college dropouts that would have made decent mechanics, police officers, or army platoon leaders.
A common thread among these three groups may be an emphasis on diligence or education, perhaps linked in part to an immigrant drive. Jews and Chinese have a particularly strong tradition of respect for scholarship, with Jews said to have achieved complete adult male literacy — the better to read the Talmud — some 1,700 years before any other group.
The parallel force in China was Confucianism and its reverence for education. You can still sometimes see in rural China the remains of a monument to a villager who triumphed in the imperial exams. In contrast, if an American town has someone who earns a Ph.D., the impulse is not to build a monument but to pass a hat.
But what happens when a culture values intelligence? The intelligent procreate more.
Perhaps the larger lesson is a very empowering one: success depends less on intellectual endowment than on perseverance and drive. As Professor Nisbett puts it, “Intelligence and academic achievement are very much under people’s control.”
Damaging to public policy. Another generation of college dropouts that would have made decent mechanics, police officers, or army platoon leaders.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Race...IQ...Yawn
I don't know, maybe Brooks was reading Saletan and was starting to get scared. After all, there aren't really too many non partisan columnists who try to challenge mainstream wisdom and avoid being pigeonholed. Brooks is one of them. So he saw a challenge when he read those Saletan columns.
So, in response to Saletan's agonizing over racial gaps, Brooks pens the The Harlem miracle essay.
Here's his point:
They found that the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced “enormous” gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile.
Great!
Oh, wait, there's a problems. Though refuted by Half Sigma and Steve Sailer I wanted to add some of my own points:
In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students.
Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap.
Did you see how sly that is? Basically, he claims that when black students in a highly rigorous, self selective, intensively studied program equal the average white students in an average academic program, that's eliminating the achievement gap.
What? Brooks himself even details what the black students have to go through:
Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.
Assessments are rigorous. Standardized tests are woven into the fabric of school life.
Increase by 50-100% time spent in class, and teach to the test, and you call it a miracle when these students equal non-advantaged white students? This is absurd. Like HS and Sailer said, there was no control group. The gap between black and white exists because given the same resources and opportunities white students will perform better than black students due to innate differences in intelligence.
That's it.
The desperation of Brook's columns and his previous ones such as:
The waning of IQ which is filled with rubbish
and
Genius: The Modern View which is well written but ignores the genetic basis of personality and the ability of people to have easy success with certain fields while others toil.
These columns are in response to his astute observations in The Cognitive Age where he writes:
The chief force reshaping manufacturing is technological change (hastened by competition with other companies in Canada, Germany or down the street). Thanks to innovation, manufacturing productivity has doubled over two decades. Employers now require fewer but more highly skilled workers.
The central process driving this is not globalization. It’s the skills revolution. We’re moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combining information. This is happening in localized and globalized sectors, and it would be happening even if you tore up every free trade deal ever inked.
The globalization paradigm emphasizes the fact that information can now travel 15,000 miles in an instant. But the most important part of information’s journey is the last few inches — the space between a person’s eyes or ears and the various regions of the brain. Does the individual have the capacity to understand the information? Does he or she have the training to exploit it? Are there cultural assumptions that distort the way it is perceived?
How can he write this and also claim IQ is losing its relevance? There is some serious intellectual dishonesty going on with Brooks. On the one hand, he espouses relative conservative views and astute observations about human nature and the economy.
But challenge the notion that all humans are exactly the same, and he shrivels.
He isn't alone.
So, in response to Saletan's agonizing over racial gaps, Brooks pens the The Harlem miracle essay.
Here's his point:
They found that the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced “enormous” gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile.
Great!
Oh, wait, there's a problems. Though refuted by Half Sigma and Steve Sailer I wanted to add some of my own points:
In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students.
Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap.
Did you see how sly that is? Basically, he claims that when black students in a highly rigorous, self selective, intensively studied program equal the average white students in an average academic program, that's eliminating the achievement gap.
What? Brooks himself even details what the black students have to go through:
Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.
Assessments are rigorous. Standardized tests are woven into the fabric of school life.
Increase by 50-100% time spent in class, and teach to the test, and you call it a miracle when these students equal non-advantaged white students? This is absurd. Like HS and Sailer said, there was no control group. The gap between black and white exists because given the same resources and opportunities white students will perform better than black students due to innate differences in intelligence.
That's it.
The desperation of Brook's columns and his previous ones such as:
The waning of IQ which is filled with rubbish
and
Genius: The Modern View which is well written but ignores the genetic basis of personality and the ability of people to have easy success with certain fields while others toil.
These columns are in response to his astute observations in The Cognitive Age where he writes:
The chief force reshaping manufacturing is technological change (hastened by competition with other companies in Canada, Germany or down the street). Thanks to innovation, manufacturing productivity has doubled over two decades. Employers now require fewer but more highly skilled workers.
The central process driving this is not globalization. It’s the skills revolution. We’re moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combining information. This is happening in localized and globalized sectors, and it would be happening even if you tore up every free trade deal ever inked.
The globalization paradigm emphasizes the fact that information can now travel 15,000 miles in an instant. But the most important part of information’s journey is the last few inches — the space between a person’s eyes or ears and the various regions of the brain. Does the individual have the capacity to understand the information? Does he or she have the training to exploit it? Are there cultural assumptions that distort the way it is perceived?
How can he write this and also claim IQ is losing its relevance? There is some serious intellectual dishonesty going on with Brooks. On the one hand, he espouses relative conservative views and astute observations about human nature and the economy.
But challenge the notion that all humans are exactly the same, and he shrivels.
He isn't alone.
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