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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9224 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 2026

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I think at this point S Italy has been brain drained too much to recover like W Virginia and it’s primarily not a HBD situation for why it didn’t develop. Colonialism probably stunted the region until it was W Virginia’d.

Most Americans are Southern or Central and did highly assimilate. There is some residual higher criminality. And the Mafia was not a low IQ business. Bigger than US Steel had a great degree of complexity. It was basically an international trading firm in illegal goods, gambling (requires math), and extortion (this kind of low IQ). Mafia did require a great deal of complexity.

My gut says the explanation for why S. Italy failed is primarily colonialism while at the same time Italians were allowed to mass migrate.

W Virginia scores poorly on demographically adjusted school performance. My gut says this does not mean West Virginia has bad public schools. I would probably prefer to send my children to a WV public school than a Chicago public school. But like 90% of the top 50% of WV population has emigrated elsewhere. This is think is also true comparing Florida Hispanic performance to California Hispanic performance. Florida is filled with upper class white people who came legally. Cali is filled with Aztec Hispanics who came illegally.

Aren't Italian Americans generally quite successful outside of organized crime?

Also quite successful inside of organized crime.

And the Mafia was not a low IQ business.

Eh, the Mafia is like Wal-Mart. A few pretty bright guys on top, a whole bunch of morons doing most of the work.

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