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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   26963 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024

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So the Ashkenazi genetic intelligence hypothesis is probably undecideable in our society.

Wait, I thought it was pretty well confirmed but not widely publicized that average group intelligences were

  1. Ashkenazi

  2. East Asian

  3. Northern European

  4. Southern European

And then others at much lower average IQ’s(yes, obviously with smaller groups like Tamil Brahmins and Maronites in there). I’ll buy that the magnitudes of the gaps aren’t fully solved but the Ashkenazi IQ advantage being controversial scientifically rather than just not spoken about in polite company is need to me.

If that's the case, why is Israel's GDP per capita way lower than USA's?

Why ask it that way?

Most people in Israel are from Eastern Europe/Russia/The Middle East. How does Israel's GDP per capita compare with those areas? Answer: It's massively higher.

How does the GDP per capita of American Jews compare with non-Jewish Americans? Answer: It's massively higher.

Is there a Jewish Ashkenazi group anywhere in the world that doesn't massively outperform their countrymen economically? No, there isn't.

Here's another way to look at it. Put 10 million random Americans into a tiny strip of arid land with no resources and check how they are doing in 70 years. The results wouldn't be pretty. Israel has outperformed to an almost unbelievable degree.

Is there a Jewish group anywhere in the world that doesn't massively outperform their countrymen economically? No, there isn't.

Yes, absolutely. Sephardic and Mizrahi jews don't noticeably outperform their countrymen, and they especially don't do it in Israel. IIRC (but I may be wrong, so don't trust this without verification) it was actually the Christians in the middle-east who outperformed economically and on IQ tests.

Here's another way to look at it. Put 10 million random Americans into a tiny strip of arid land with no resources and check how they are doing in 70 years.

This is a silly hypothetical because you have selection effects for Israel which aren't actually completely random. Exactly who counts as American is different as well - are you drawing this 10 million-strong cohort from the America of today or America as it was when Israel was founded? But even if you correct for that, throw in all the resources that Israel receives from America and the jewish Diaspora and the random Americans would most likely be doing better, if only because they don't have to support a population of non-working, non-military serving orthodox.

selection effects for Israel

Many Jews remained in the US and Europe, but hundreds of thousands were forced out of Arab countries and now there are practically no Jews in Arab countries. The selection effects were importing a lot of mizrahis which you consider unremarkable.

The selection effects were importing a lot of mizrahis which you consider unremarkable.

And from a HBD perspective, they largely are unremarkable compared to others. But the point remains that the forces bringing them and the Ashkenazim to Israel were not random at all, which is one of the reasons why it would be silly to compare them to a random selection of Americans.

I don't see how you can argue for selection effects for mizrahim when they were entirely expelled from the Arab world which was their home and are now almost all in Israel. Such a uniform phenomenon is like the opposite of a selection effect, unless you are thinking they were selected for being Jews.

Because they weren't entirely expelled - there remain populations of mizrahim in various countries, and according to wikipedia at least several of them end up moving to the USA instead. I do agree that they were under less severe pressures than the ashkenazim, but that doesn't mean there wasn't any such pressure at all.

There are approximately zero mizrahim left in the middle east outside Israel. The only country with an appreciable population is iran. The population of mizrahim in israel is something like 5x greater than the rest of the world combined. Again, maybe you can say that picking 5/6ths of a population is a selection effect, but that seems like a weak claim.

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