The only explanation I've seen is "well, retarded people do poorly for reasons other than IQ" which is also a violation of common sense.
Here is a blog post by Kirgegaard arguing this:
https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2022/10/african-iqs-and-mental-retardation/
When people think of retarded people, they mostly have in mind someone who has Down syndrome, or a similar severe genetic disorder. … They usually suffer from some kind of syndrome, which is why it’s usually called syndromic retardation. But the more important point is that Down syndrome does not just make your intelligence very low, it also causes other behavioral defects. As such, people with Down syndrome are not representative of people with <70 IQ.
It was noted by Jensen:
Many of the latter [minority lower-class children], despite IQs below 75 and markedly poor scholastic performance, did not seem nearly as retarded as the white middle-class children with comparable IQs and scholastic records. […] EMR [educationally mentally retarded] children who were called ‘culturally disadvantaged’, as contrasted with middle-class EMR children, appeared much brighter socially and on the playground, often being quite indistinguishable in every way from children of normal IQ except in their scholastic performance and in their scores on a variety of standard IQ tests. Middle-class white children diagnosed as EMR, on the other hand, though they constituted a much smaller percentage of the EMR classes, usually appeared to be more mentally retarded all round and not just in their performance in scholastic subjects and IQ tests. I asked myself, how could one devise a testing procedure that would reveal this distinction so that it could be brought under closer study and not depend upon casual observations and impressions.
So in a sense HBD is exaggerated, because we have a (mis)conception of what a person 25 IQ points below the norm is like, which is skewed by those with quite heavy mental problems. Thought experiment: Imagine you are the person 2 standard deviations below the norm, simply because you are a 100 IQ person who stumbled into a neighborhood full of extremely bright Caltech/MIT students. There are things in which you notice a difference, like everyone seems to do math in their head quicker than you can tap on your phone to open the calculator app. Maybe you browse funny Instagram stories, instead of wasting your free time in obscure internet boards where users post walls of text about arcane topics. But in most ways you wouldn't seem "retarded" to the genius egg-heads, but them and you would socially interact quite normal.
Blueberry
14d ago
India is really interesting. I just looked up a map of rich/poor Indian states, but for example Tamil Nadu, which is shown as quite wealthy, has relatively low Brahmin but high Dalit demographics. I would have expected the reverse.
Blueberry
15d ago
Yes, because their (now grown up) kids defend Allen & Soon Yi:
Whatever one can sneer at the marriage, it held better than many others. They will stay together until Woody dies.
Even with regard to Ronan Farrow
I bet good money that Allen doesn’t have any biological children. I subscribe to the Frank Sinatra’s theory.
That's a messed-up family dynamic.
True.
Blueberry
19d ago
Italy’s birth rate is decreasing further to 1,2:
Financial Times: Italy’s births drop to historic low
Just 379,000 babies were born in 2023, despite PM Giorgia Meloni’s efforts to reverse demographic decline
Meloni has continued a child allowance scheme introduced by the previous government in 2021 and slightly increased the monthly sums families receive for small children, but her rightwing government has also experimented with other incentives.
After coming to power in late 2022, the coalition government halved VAT on infant products such as baby formula and nappies, but it has since scrapped those tax cuts. This year, Italy has allocated €1bn in other measures aimed at supporting mothers, including temporarily making pension contributions on behalf of working women who have at least two young children.
But Maria Rita Testa, a demographer at Rome’s Luiss university, said policymakers needed to address other factors, including parents’ economic stability and access to affordable childcare, now in acutely short supply. “They should try to tackle the problem of reconciliation of family and work tasks,” Testa said.
Italy had planned to use some of the €200bn in EU recovery funds it receives to build new childcare facilities for 260,000 infants and pre-school aged children, but Rome has now cut that target to 160,000.
The article notes that Meloni is herself a single child, but fails to mention that she also only has a single daughter. Still the low birth rate is a core issue for her and her right-wing coalition, but as in leftwing governments elsewhere they can’t find policies to reverse course.
Blueberry
24d ago
Eventually, my boyfriend and I decided we couldn’t carry on like this.
This was the most surprising thing in the text. If she lived there alone, ok, it is like boiling the frog and people can get accustomed to everything. But there has to be some social control going on, so this wasn't only her fault but that of her bf too.
Blueberry
1mo ago
"Moby Dick" is a novel by Herman Melville originally published in 1851 and its full text is protected by copyright law in most jurisdictions
So close by the AI, that it is strange that it misses. Explicitly reminding that this was 170 years ago persuades it to answer correctly.
Blueberry
2mo ago
I even think "cultured meat" will be a dead end and plant based substitution products will win:
https://www-merkur-de.translate.goog/verbraucher/als-vegan-variante-unternehmen-sieht-langfristige-entwicklung-ernaehrung-wurst-klassiker-jetzt-nur-noch-92781805.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
[German] Sausage manufacturer completely eliminates “classics” – and only produces vegan versions
“This shift in the range is not an effect that we are only seeing now in the current Veganuary, but rather a long-term development,” explains CEO Michael Hähnel of the decision. The proportion of the range has been shifting towards plant-based products for years.
Blueberry
3mo ago
sounds more like Wini, Widi, Wicky
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet …
Vici is related to victory. And the hard c=k is manly.
Blueberry
3mo ago
The dysgenics is trivial to solve with embryo selection
The obesity pandemic is also trivial to solve with people eating less. Mass migration would be easily solved if a wall would be build at the Mexican border.
Even if an easy solution is known, even if the solution is proven to work, it can be very very hard, often impossible, to implement it.
Blueberry
3mo ago
I was once in a monogamous relationship where my partner then expressed a strong desire to date other people.
Did you keep in touch and know how that turned out? Did she date multiple others (genuine slut interest) or gravitate to a an upgraded ymeskhout replacement (opening the relationship was an excuse to shop for something better)?
Blueberry
3mo ago
Websites such as Pornhub, which is less targeted to specific sexual attitudes and is more a repository for a wide array of content, are designed to "push the envelope" with straight users by suggesting gay and transgender videos to them, Rice explained.
I noticed that. Pornhub is showing more gay/trans/kink into the little thumbnails. I dismissed that as changing mores, a neutral algorithm just showing what is popular. But now I wonder how much ideology is behind that? If one registers a PH account (shock!) instead of incognito browsing, is there a way to set preferences and filter effectively?
Blueberry
4mo ago
Noticed this too and confuses me. Even if they normally would react to sexual aggressive/leering men with "thats creepy". Maybe they feel like a tourist viewing a pack of lions on a safe Safari?
To simplify it: A Napoleon movie which isn't done by the French for a French audience is cultural appropriation.
Also Napoleon was 29 in Egypt campaign and 35 when he crowned himself Emperor. A younger sexier actor should play him.
Blueberry
4mo ago
But the world did that with Atoms for Peace:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atoms_for_Peace
See also the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Countries like Japan have highly developed nuclear industry, but they don’t have nuclear weapons.
Blueberry
5mo ago
80% of the members of the cult were women
Why this skewed representation? Thinking about it: Most cult leaders I can think of are male, are conversely most followers women? Why is that? But how skews that the leader structure? I looked up Jonestown and two third who drank the cool-aid were female. Leader Jim Jones was of course male, but there is a documentary about his helping „all-female inner circle“.
Downvoted Reddit comment about the twin flames documentary:
I hate to be mean but a lot (but not all) of the followers are conventionally unattractive women. They probably had a lot of trouble dating, not many relationships and are desperate for love. They are willing to do or say anything to someone who can promise them this love they are looking for. So, Ofcourse they don’t question it when they see “twin flames couple coaches” thinking it worked! So they double down.
I still dig his art style, but he jumped a tiny little bit to far into the deep end. Anti-Vaxx-Conspiracies, Pedo-Biden ordering pizzas, trans-activists conspiring to destroy everything decent in the world. It is quite something:
Blueberry
5mo ago
I can't link every comic in the last two month, but this point is hammered obsessively. While there is a deafening silence about the attack from 7th October, it is comically (ha!) one sided.
Maybe you know (from back when the web was still young) the comic Sinfest by Japanese-American artist Tatsuya Ishida. His turn from fun webcomic to ultra-anti-woke/anti-porn/pro-maga wingnut is maybe the most surprising heel turn in history.
What confuses me though is his unashamed hamas-freedom fighter sentiment and Jews-are-the-villains narrative:
https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2023-11-13
https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2023-11-11
https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2023-11-01
Similar to Stonetoss anti-Jew/Israel comics:
https://stonetoss.com/comic/the-great-pumpkin/
I find it surprising because they align their politics suddenly with the woke blue-haired decolonization genderfluid hipsters they are normally opposed to. Instead my guess would have been, now that israelic comedians make fun of such US-student (https://youtube.com/watch?v=rbfccVBo9tE), that right wingist would latch onto that and try to flip Jews to their side. Is it just being contrarian and being opposed to whatever the mainstream media is for? Do they secretly have a hard on for homophobic/antifeminist Islam? Or maybe, as a non-American, I simply underestimated the strong JewishWorldConspiracy-Nazism-undercurrent in some right wing circles?
Blueberry
5mo ago
Regarding "Those who Walk Away from Omelas": The older I get the more I suspect the people who walk away are in the wrong.
For example the map in this old article which became a meme:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html
Great-Grandfather: Allowed at age 8 to walk six miles to go fishing.
Grandfather: Allowed to roam in the woods.
Mother: Allowed to walk by herself to the swimming bath.
Zoomer Kid: Only allowed to walk to the family house street.
In a sense past generations larger freedom was bought by Omelas-sacrificing of children lives.
Blueberry
5mo ago
Looking at successful religions, dietary restrictions and the conspicuous observance of them seems ritualistically important in binding people together
I think this is also part of it. There is the "Veganuary" in January which is even tried by flexitarians/carnivores and sort of like Ramadan or catholic lent. And the dietary restrictions by the more fanatic minority have outsized influence on the more tolerant/flexible majority, which pushes culture in one direction.
It is a bit of virtue signaling (the vegan has bragging rights over the vegetarian), a bit atonment for our sins (at least eating vegan Pizza with fake cheese feels that way), good old market capitalism (aside from fake cheese many products got crazy goods. I don't care if I eat real chicken nuggets or plant based nuggets), but it is also development of a shared culture and being part of something bigger (which is universally regarded as good or at least not bad, which is nice). Also the small talk aspect, one can share recipes and cooking tricks.
At least in Europe (or maybe just Germany) there is increasing demand for vegan food and the main advertized advantage is that it is more eco friendly. Animal welfare is a bonus, but is more used as an argument by organic farmers pushing their animal products, eg one should drink bio milk and bio cheese from happy cows from the idyllic small family farm in your region, instead of buying from the gruesome big business factory farm industry.
German food culture is changing. The number of vegans is growing, and more than half of the population wants to reduce meat consumption, considering themselves flexitarian. This makes Germany one of the most important markets for plant-based food
A common explanation for the rise of flexitarians in Germany is that young people are driving the change and taking their parents with them. Germans are generally very eco-conscious and young people are very much aware of the environmental effects of meat consumption. For example, Germany’s Fridays for Future Movement demands halving meat consumption by 2035. By comparison, the Fridays for Future Movement website in the United States does not say anything about meat.
Of course it sorts itself into a little bit of culture war issue here, as vegan products are more coded left/young/urban/educated/female and eating meat is more rightwing/boomer/rural/workingclass/male, and politicians pander to certain voter segments with the food they post at instagram …
https://www-derwesten-de.translate.goog/panorama/promi-tv/markus-lanz-markus-soeder-zdf-mediathek-gaeste-id300507832.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
… but I see at family gatherings the resigned acceptance that a vegan alternative has to be served.
Zoophilia and meat eating are made comparable by Singer because he frames it as such. He illustrates that himself as "Imagine that you are an animal etc". But if one rejects this framework, if I imagine myself as a human, than it is effective to cut short engagement by having a simplified emotional response, eg by being shocked or mocking the idea. Taboos (an old fashioned word, you can also describe this category as "infohazard" or maladaptive training data which derails your brain software) are best preserved not by studying them in ever increasing detail, but by making them unthinkable.
For example a different framework could be: "Moral is that which makes my village survive the winter and makes my tribe/family/progenity thrive". A diverse diet does that. Romantic/Erotic attachment to animals does not and triggers disgust (maybe even genetically encoded?). It is noteworthy that the recent rise in veganism was not caused by the old arguments against animal harm like "imagine being an animal", but by new egoistic pro-human arguments like "veganism is more healthy" or "red meat causes more colon cancer" or "vegan calories can feed the world cheaper" or "western diet produces too much CO2, destroys the rainforest for cattles and we should switch to something more sustainable".
The deniers are just coping or contrarians.
It is very easy:
A) CO2 absorbs infrared radiation.
B) Industrialization increased its percentage in the atmosphere.
Preindustrial CO2 rate was under 300 parts per million.
2000 it was 370 ppm
2024 it reached 420 ppm
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-region
It is skewing to the last decades: half of the emmissions from 1750 to now were emitted in the last 30 years.
The amount of coal and oil we burned and will burn is stunningly large. A hundred times more every year than all vulcanism. HOW could that NOT have an effect?
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