Answer to the BrainTeaser (and a cool thought experiment).

Well,
A week has passed. I guess its time to post the answer.

Dissidentman got it right.

The Answer is: The heavier the object, the faster the fall

Question of course is why?

When I was younger in physics class, I, and all other pupils besides, found it extremely puzzling why two objects would fall at the same rate once air resistance was discounted. The classic experiment being sucking the air out of two identical jars, and dropping a metal ball and a feather in them and observing the same speed and acceleration.

But heavier things are harder to lift. It just seemed so counterintuitive. School being school, we never got a good answer as to why.

Lets use Reductio Ad Absurdum to answer the puzzle. And to why the standard answer is wrong.
Acceleration due to gravity of earth is taken as 9.8 meters per second. Lets approximate this to 10. So a rock of mass/weight 1kg accelerates towards the earth at 10 meters per second. Following textbook logic - a rock of weight 5kg also accelerates at 10 meters per second.

How about a rock of a million kilograms? Still 10 meters per second?
10 million kilograms?
50 million?

Still the same?

Okay. How about a rock the same mass/weight/size/shape etc etc of the Earth itself? Here we arrive at the reductio that helps us solve the puzzle.

Obviously Earth attracts things towards itself at an acceleration of 10 meters per second. But the "Clone Earth" falling towards Earth will also attract the Earth towards itself at an acceleration of 10 meters per second. So the total acceleration will be 20 meters per second.

But this blasts out of the water the theory that all objects drop towards the earth at the same rate!

If my reading of history is correct Johannes Kepler was the first person to define gravity as the mutual attraction of two objects towards each other.

So how does that apply to the 10 pound and 20 pound objects? Simple.

We need to take into account the weight of the earth as well as the weight of the object. Say for illustration the earth weighed 10 thousand pounds.

The first object weighing 10 pounds falls as a function of the weight of itself and the earth, aka 10,010 (ten thousand and ten) pounds. While the second object falls as a function of a weight of 10,020 (ten thousand and twenty) pounds or about 0.1% faster.

In reality though the earth doesnt weigh 10,000 pounds - but trillions of pounds. So the slightly faster fractional speed that the heavier object falls at is so small as to be unmeasurable.

Still. Its a pretty cool thought experiment.

Weekend Brain Teaser.

Two objects are falling to Earth.

One weighs 10 pounds, the other 20.

Which one falls faster? (disregard air resistance)

Ill post the answer after a while, if anyone tries of course.

GENES FOR ECONOMICS

GENES FOR ECONOMICS

Science Daily (1 x) - An international team of researchers including an MIT graduate student demonstrated for the first time that genes exert influence on people's behavior in a common experimental economic game. Traditionally, social scientists had been quite hesitant to acknowledge a role for genes in explaining economic behavior. But a study by David Cesarini, a Ph.D. student in MIT's Department of Economics, and by colleagues in Sweden indicated that there was a genetic component to people's perception of what is fair and what is unfair.

The study looked at the ultimatum game, in which a proposer makes an offer to a responder on how to divide a sum of money. This offer is an ultimatum; if the responder rejects it, both parties receive nothing. Because rejections in the game entail a zero payoff for both parties, theories of narrow self-interest predict that any positive amount will be accepted by a responder. The intriguing finding in the laboratory is that responders routinely reject free money, presumably in order to punish proposers for offers perceived as unfair.

To study genetic influence in the game, Cesarini and colleagues took the unusual step of recruiting twins from the Swedish Twin Registry, and had them play the game under controlled circumstances. Because identical twins share the same genes but fraternal twins do not, the researchers were able to detect genetic influences by comparing the similarity with which identical and fraternal twins played the game.

The researchers' findings suggested that genetic influences account for as much as 40 percent of the variation in how people respond to unfair offers. In other words, identical twins were more likely to play with the same strategy than fraternal twins.

"Compared to common environmental influences such as upbringing, genetic influences appear to be a much more important source of variation in how people play the game," Cesarini said. "This raises the intriguing possibility that many of our preferences and personal economic choices are subject to substantial genetic influence," said lead author Bjorn Wallace of the Stockholm School of Economics, who conceived the study.

Hattip: Chris Brand's Blog

Nice lil 'Magic-Eye"

Does she move Clockwise or Anti-Clockwise for you? Clockwise for me.



Supposedly, if its clockwise, you are more right brained, and anti-clockwise, left brained. Click the link for a short list of what is associated with each.

Nice little brain tweaker from The Herald Sun

Golden Oldie.

Here's an old video I came across from when "The Bell Curve" first came out.



Kudos to Murray to being brave enough to talk about such a taboo subject, but at the same time, sadly, I feel he was not completely candid. Race or no race.

Next-Gen FPS / RTS

An Idea popped into my head after reading Charles Murray's latest piece, Randall Parker's comments on it and watching a run of the mill Sci-Fi Movie on TV (Red Planet).

So much talk about overhauling the education system - yet so little actually happening. Ive semi-come to a conclusion that when a system as broken as the education system is entrenched, there is a period of massive waste of resources before any change is affected. AKA the old system keeps creaking on, while a smaller one pops up and offers a better real deal but one that is not recognized as such so is a realpolitik bad deal. In other words, getting the skills is worthless unless it is under the old bad system - but pioneers get the skills the new way and pay a price.


So on to the idea:-

Why not incorporate basic physics, engineering and math skills into an FPS/RTS game?

I have a friend who was in active duty in WWII (hes old now), and he stated that he learned more in 6 months in military technical training than he did in years of school. They would put the recruits in a room with fiendishly disabled radio equipment for example - that looked in perfect working order but had a transistor overloaded here or a fuse gone there and let them figure out how to get it working.

Games have all sorts of situations that require knowledge and mental skills like above. For example having to get a defensive perimeter set up, or get the lights back on within a time constraint.

If getting the lights back on, why not really have the player get the lights back on instead of him just going somewhere and pressing a button?

Say everytime the enemy disabled a tank, random computer generated problems arose - and an engineer-player had to figure out whats wrong and fix it.

Stroyent.
In the fictional Quake Universe, the alien Strogg invaders have a nutrient solution called Stroyent that doubles as ammunition or Health.

It is a fungible resource and implies a trade-off. Why not apply this in games more fundamentally? Say a Vehicle was disabled - you can either repair it, or waste a fungible resource to have it Insta-repaired. If you repair it yourself you can use the saved resource to upgrade weapons or get a faster engine, or better communications etc.


Basic Calculus.
Setting up supply lines requires basic calculus. Why not use it? The amount of resource or time it takes to get to its destination can vary depending on the route set up. Going through a mountain would be safer from enemy attack, but slower and more expensive resource consumption.

The game would have a smaller market because one would really need to learn some skills to play it. But it would be a niche market. Furthermore, all engineering needed skills could be switched off (and for multiplayer) server-side if wanted. Furthermore - because it is a niche market, its graphics do not have to be top notch for it to get a following - no need for millions and millions of dollars - just tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

After making a Single Player Version, can you imagine how multi-player would take off? Especially a Mod Community?

Ron Paul

Goddamn, this guy is good.

I really wonder how the Internet and real connectivity will affect politics. People are still dumb and easily misled, but that hasnt changed. Its the substantial minority that was voiceless and fragmented before that now feels it has a fighting chance.

Mebbe I can even dream of the repeal of the idiotic One Man- One Vote (and wonder what will replace it)...

Compassionate Bias

Charles Murray has a new article up.

Essentially he argues for the elimination of the SAT because the same information can be extracted from other sources.

He gives plenty of positive reasons - the death of the coaching industry for one.

But more importantly one should concentrate on the *REAL* reason he wants it gone. The ranking of people, even within the cognitive elite.

Removing this should have quite a few social effects. Compassionate social effects. Simply put, someone who isnt high up on the cognitive scale will not have to consider himself dumber than someone who is. The boundaries, even among the smart, get fuzzy.

Ive vacillated on the issue on Steve's Website. There really is no way to answer the question.

Presupposed is this is a good thing. But really, is it?

Lets take a look at it from the new more compassionate viewpoint. Who is the new underdog? People still judge other people - by attractiveness, wealth, age etc.
So take a poor guy who is really smart. Now hes considered, as just poor. Is that better? At least before he could say "you may be richer, but Im smarter" at least to himself. Just because psychic comfort isnt measured - doesnt mean it isnt there.

Freedom equals Freedom, NOT Freedom + Compassion.

So how judge the death of a SAT as a good thing? Compassionate Bias, thats how. Its an instinct.

Though simply because it is an instinct, it does not mean we have an alternative to it. But it does mean we are limited in a very very basic way.

~Sigh~

Crash Course in Monetary Economics

I posted this a few weeks ago in response to a question of how inflation works in Zimbabwe. Its generally accurate of how inflation works in general.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1)Money is not a resource. It is simply a form of communication that allows resources to be exchanged. Ergo, the value of money depends on the underlying resources.

2)Government, by and large, does not create resources.

3)But government can ‘steal’ resources from the private sector/ individual citizens because the government and private sector use the same money/currency.

Simply put - if the entire economy just created a resource of “One kilogram of Oranges”. Then, no matter how much currency there was, it would buy only 1kg of oranges. If all the currency there was was $100, then $100 would buy 1 kg of oranges. If all the currency was $1,000, then $1,000 would buy 1 kg of Oranges.

Ergo if the government prints more money, it doesnt increase the resources but only causes inflation ($100 turns into $1,000).

The benefit to the government is it steals a claim to resources from its citizens - before citizens owned (say) $80, and the government owned $20 (when there was $100 in circulation). So it was split 80/20. Now (after inflation) citizens STILL own $80, but the government owns $920 - so NOW the split is 8/92. The government now has claim to over 4 times as much of the resource.
(End of earlier Post)
-----------------------------------------------------------

Additional Points.
From above, it is obvious that changes in the value of money arise from a shift in the resource to currency ratio in an economy.

This of course works both ways. If the money supply does not increase, but the resources go down - more money will be in a bidding war for fewer goods- inflation again. Thinking of the economy as a Big Bloated E-bay wouldnt be far off. Both trends are currently taking place in Zimbabwe right now for a current example.

More in an upcoming post.

Times are changing.

This voter routing of the Senate kinda reminds me of a dog that rediscovers a taste for raw meat. The voters have been powerless for so long, between an unresponsive government, an extremely biased media and last but not least a dickhead majority in the Supreme Court.


Now, having tasted blood - maybe we will begin to see all sorts of things... a repeal of Griggs Vs. Duke Power et al even?

S1639 Dead in Senate.

Open Borders crowd loses again!

The winds of change are blowing in American Politics.

My own view on this is no one should have to subsidize someone else. Frankly, if Mexicans come to work illegally - they pay no taxes, and get free education and free medicine. Plus Crime factored in - makes for net 'leecher' status. (Yes, Im against the current redistributionist politics within natives as well).

I suppose I lean towards GNXP's "Cognitive Elitism"(one discussion of which here), though if we were talking in terms of a continuum rather than a dichotomy, Im closer to a "Cognitive Averagist".

Probably will expand in a future post.

S1639 Amnesty won the first Cloture Vote.

Inspection Time, IQ and Flynn

Inspection Time (IT) is when the testee is asked to do a very simple task. Usually they keep their finger on a button, surrounded by other buttons with lights above them. One of the lights lights up, and their job is to press the button under the light to deactivate it.

The Flynn effect is the rise in IQ scores over the last few decades within age groups (cross-sectional, not longitudinal). Im no expert on the Flynn effect, and the experts are of course divided - how much of this is genuine disagreement and how much is the usual liberal fudging and setting of impossible standards for non-environmental viewpoints, I dont know.

Recently it was reported that the Flynn effect seems to have reached its zenith in modern Industrialized countries. But IT scores are pretty stable

The thing is IQ and Inspection Time are inversely correlated. The faster you press that lil button, the higher your IQ tends to be. The correlation is about -.40

So, we could reasonably assume that IT tests are measuring biologically (in part at least) what IQ tests measure academically and less directly.

This makes me wonder about many of the recent IQ tests being administered, particularly on backward groups. See here for tests done on the Roma Gypsies.

Why arent they taking an IT test at the same time?
Granted, IT is supposed to be static therefore such readings can be taken later, but a little more data to buttress conclusions never hurt.

And why arent we comparing IT from groups which presumably have had the Flynn effect work on them - say Lower class American Blacks, and comparing these results to other groups where the flynn effect has not ended, indeed in some cases where it plausibly hasnt even started?

Modern Day Irritants.

Hispanics.

Normally I have not had much contact with them, so could not comment, save to point to some third party information regarding crime and such.

But the thing is, I enjoy playing FPS games online. They provide for nearly free, what just a decade ago would have been entertainment that people would shell out generously for. My favourite is Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. A free game, that you can get with a mere google search.

The oddest thing is when I play on servers that are mostly Spanish. I have to be very very careful not to speak a word of english. The moment I do, invariably, some low iq dickhead calls a kickvote on me and spams the server with the one word phrase "Gringo". Just as invariably, I get kicked within 20 seconds. Never mind that Im non-white, nevermind that it simply doesnt matter what is the color of your skin or what language you speak when you are playing an online game where you will never see your teammates for real.

Being a 'gringo' is enough for them to feel I shouldnt be there. No logic, no rationality, worse, no conception that it certainly wasnt any hispanics that created the game, or that all the canned TeamCommands are *in english*

Why the hate? Why the ethnocentrism? And why, oh why, are these intolerant losers flooding into the West?



P.S Aside from the rant, the game is probably the most strategic FPS on the market today, despite some dated graphics.

Tetris

Cuteeeeeeeeee!!!

Watermelons, anyone?

Its hot these days. Care for some cool juicy SQUARE watermelons?

More Fred.

I do believe Fred Reeds' latest column is his angriest one yet.

Usually he alternates between what he really thinks, and obfuscation when it comes to 'things we all know to be true but dont state out loud'. And then rounds it off with a balanced summary. 'Balanced' being, once again, at least a hat-tip to what has become so pervasive - the air that we breathe so to speak - liberalism.

Of course the 'things we all know to be true but dont state out loud' refers to Feminism and Race, or more specifically Blacks and their genetic inferiority. Yes folks - GENETIC. Not poor deprivation, not racism, not even Sowell's 'culture'.

I actually do know some blacks (including a few friends), and no they arent smart. Not to mention always living for the moment with a voracious sexual appetite - which they get to exercise courtesy of the Welfare State - after all, without a sucker to pay for their rent and food - they might have to (horrors!) get a minimum wage job or starve. Not very sexy.

Well, back to Fred - this time around, he only did his trademark obfuscation at the end of his article, very little in the beginning or middle. Well worth a read.

Hmmm... maybe I should consider becoming an expat like Fred. I REALLY REALLY dislike the idea of the welfare state. Then again, learning a new language is a tough barrier
to cross.

Addendum

As an addendum to the "Sexual Utopia in Power" post is this amazingly perceptive Fred Reed Article. (You havent read the Sexual Utopia one yet? Why ever not?)

Click here for Fred.

Quotable Quotes

Democracy is Two Wolves and a Lamb Voting on What to have for Lunch. Liberty is a Well-Armed Lamb Contesting the Vote
Ben Franklin

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
Milton Friedman

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Remember that a Government Big Enough to Give You Everything You Want is Also Big Enough to Take Away Everything You have
Davy Crockett

The limits of tyrants are proscribed by the endurance of those they oppress.
Fredrick Douglass

Emergencies have Always been the Pretext on which the Safeguards of Individual Liberty have been Eroded
Friedrich Hayek

Treason doth never prosper; what’s the reason?
For if it prospers, not dare call it treason.
John Harington

(Equality) "is related to the direct interests of individuals who are bent on escaping certain inequalities not in their favor, and setting up new inequalities that will be in their favor…”
Vilfredo Pareto

Feminism: The Death of Society.

Theres an essay on the Internet that I recently became aware of. It's on the topic of Male-Female relationships, and female bitchery. "Sexual Utopia in Power"by F Roger Devlin.

In particular, on sexual utopia - and how male and females have different versions of it. Moreover, according to its thesis, female utopia has won out over the last 40-50 years - at least partially because of the male instinct to protect females.

I cannot say I agree with everything it says, but I definitely agree with 80-90%.

Warning: Its fairly long - about 35 pages, but WELL worth the read. You'll be hooked by page 5 at the latest.

Click here to read "Sexual Utopia in Power"

The Ant and the Grasshopper.

Funny :)

"IQ will put you in your place" Comment

The above is the title of a paper by Charles Murray, which purported to show that IQ matters when it comes to income independent of upbringing and environmental factors.

The famed recent Zagorsky study didnt deny this, so this has nothing to do with that (apart from being a different more superior form of controlling for environmental factors). But nonetheless if youre interested in the zagorsky study click here (and read the comments for a link too)

In Murray's study, he, rather ingeniously, controlled for environmental effects by looking only at people within the same family. You can google it for the text or just click here for it. (Do read it or you wont understand what Im saying).

What I would like to point out here is this study underestimates the differentials (not earthshattering but what the heck).

The reason is, if One of the siblings had an IQ in the normal range, the sibling outside the normal range would tend to be close to the higher or lower 'normal range' cutoff . This is simply because there is less variation in a family in Iq terms than at the population at large. (I believe Daniel Seligman put the family S.D at 12, while a random choosing of two individuals in the population at large would show an S.D of 17 points).

Now the Earnings figure for the normal range would tend to be accurate, as it is presumably the average of siblings with an IQ closer to 110 and of siblings close to 90 (the two cutoffs for the normal range). But the earnings for the LOWER and HIGHER IQ comparision group will be overstated and understated respectively because the sample individuals used will tend to be closer to the 90 and 110 cutoff because we are dealing with families, not random people.

Just a quibble, but one Ive wanted to scratch for a long time.

Dvorak.

Ive always wondered about our current keyboard layout.

For those not in the know, it goes like this.

How the characters on a keyboard are arranged is deliberately set out to cause typists to slow down (and probably as a minor sideeffect, more hand strain). Why was this done?

Simple. In the early days of the twentieth century, we didnt have electronic word processing. Ergo we made do with manual typewriters. Ask your folks about them if youve never seen one, or search google. Anyway as these machines were mechanical, the keys tended to stick to each other if the typist went too fast.

And so, they came up with the QWERTY keyboard (named after the first 6 letters on the keyboard). By deliberately making it harder to use the most often used keys, typists were forced to slow down. (Ever wonder why you have to lift your finger to press 'E' when it is the most used letter in the english language?)

This is all as it should be. A technical problem without a solution was solved. Problem is, when we left the days of manual typewriters behind us, we didnt automatically leave behind QWERTY keyboards. Inertia kept it as the standard. Books were in QWERTY, typists were trained in QWERTY etc etc.

Over and above this, I believe, the structure of the American economy has a lot to do with it. Unions and careers tend to be horizontally stratifed. By this, I mean secretaries are not loyal to one company and can job skip to another company like anyone else (unlike the Japanese system which was vertically stratified, the secretary would be beholden to a company union, not a secretary union for example).

No one company has any incentive to implement, pay for training, or train secretaries themselves as whatever training they give them may just end up benefitting someone else when the secretary leaves. But the fact remains that Dvorak layouts are faster.

Now, it IS possible to switch to DVORAK, even in Windows XP.. but it doesnt show up on the keyboard... so thats rather counter-intuitive.



A change is around the corner in this small area of life though. OLED Keyboards are here!. These dont have the characters imprinted on the buttons of the keyboard, but rather each button has a tiny display - so the visual keyboard layout can be switched in an instant (accomodating both QWERTY and DVORAK aficianados).

Think about what this means. Id say in a corporate office, at least 1 in every 4 people is a secretary. And these workers spend a third to half their time typing. Switching them to Dvorak would save the company a lot of money in labour costs over time. It has become a little more feasible for companies to invest in training their secretaries, or giving them a small bonus if they switch to DVORAK, so to speak.

Remember, for anyone NOT familiar with Dvorak, with OLED keyboards, the layout can be switched back to QWERTY with the press of a button - Bingo! Lowered transition costs!

Of course OLED keyboards are new-ish. They cost $1,500 a pop. But Id bet in 5 years or less, that price will drop to $150-200 and in 10 years.. probably $25-$75.

As for me? Im still aiming to become the fastest Two-finger typist in the world!

Death of the Waitress?

The new Microsoft Surface "table" is quite innovative, at least in presentation. Ive seen things like this before, but Surface seems to be taking it out of the conception stage to the implementation stage.

Surface basically is a touch responsive computer screen on a tabletop. Click here to read about it.

The most prominent thing that comes to mind is the death of the waitress. I figure at least half of all waitressing jobs will disappear within a few years from today. And no more lines at fast food joints. Given that minimum wage (using the Canadian version)
comes to Cdn$1300+ per worker per month... getting a few computer touch screens will be a bargain for the proprietor - even if they were a $2000 a pop (currently projected to sell for $5000-10,000 each, but Im sure the price will drop in a few years).

You order from your table. And get a beep or something when its ready. And finally pay direct from your table via credit/debit card or special refillable "McCards".

Random Blogger Observation

Having read my fair share of blogs, Ive noticed that bloggers fall into 3 distinct patterns when it comes to interacting with their readers.

Without further ado. They are:

1) The Professor
This type of blogger interacts with his reader by giving reasons, judgements, and links. All bloggers do this to some extent, but it is peculiarly salient with the Professors. A good example would be Randall Parker at Parapundit.com. A vague fuzzy subset of this type would be the blogger who doesnt interact with the reader much at all, preferring, for various reasons, to mostly stick to writing main posts. Good examples I guess could be Fred Reed and Steve Sailer.

2) The Diplomat
This type of blogger replies to most comments, and at least once to each commenter. Agree with the commentator or not, the blogger is respectful and acknowledging of what the commentator is saying. In a word, Nice. An example would be The Audacious Epigone.




3) The Warrior
This type of blogger tries to get into a spirited argument with commentators. Usually disagrees, and invites disagreement. This is not to say they are dismissive of commentators, but there is little pussyfooting around, and they tend to shunt the comments section towards their notions, via flat out statements, rather than have a dispassionate organic growth thereof. An example would be Luboš Motl.

I think I fall in the Warrior Section. How about you? :)

Cereal Killers

A recently evolved group of Isolationist Nerve cells in the Wernicke's Area are under fire from the general population of the Broca region, not to mention the topic of derisive but covert conversation among the generalized neuron population of the Frontal Cortex.

The crux of the matter centers around the supposed inactivity and parasitism of the Isolationist Wernicke's neurons. They counter this generalized hostility by claiming they are merely "doing the mental processing that other neurons wont do".

Right-Wing Extremists among the general population call this "nothing short of propaganda" and retaliate against the Isolationist neurons calling them "nothing more than a waste of scarce glutamine and glucose".

The Debate continues...

On this subject, it is clear that emotion circuitry has routed higher brain functions, by default in the Isolationists, and due to unverified causes among the population at large. All I can say on this topic is this.

Please note that this article bears no ill will to any neurons anywhere. We are all nucleui within our cell wall, trying to survive best we can. One organism under God!

This is just scary...

Maths enthusiasts are being challenged to answer a sample question from Chinese university entrance tests.

The tests are set for prospective science undergraduates.

Try it out. You'll come away unnerved...

The poisoning of Race Relations in the West

I just saw an episode of the GameShow Deal Or No Deal. They had as the contestant Wesley Autrey Sr.

Wesley is famous because, a while back, an epileptic man fell on the subway tracks in New York. Without hesitation Wesley jumped on the man and held him down (the man was having a fit) while the train went over them. Heroic? Yes.

Wesley is Black by the way.

Thing is, I cannot help but wonder whether the fuss being made about this man would be as great if he happened to be White or Asian. I suspect not. America has a thirst for Black Heroes which doesnt just stop with presidential candidates. This is a slap in the face for every White and/or Asian. They are lesser people in the eyes of the very society they created and maintain.

What this does to blacks also is legitimate heroes like Wesley will be degraded - like my lukewarm response to his fame. I dont think I am psychologically abnormal in this way. More knowledgable? yes. Abnormal? no.

A group of people in a "free" country get all the breaks - if they cannot qualify for jobs - we throw out the people who can qualify, not giving a wan-etioted damn about their lives. But lay out the red carpet when it comes to our special group.

Ditto Education.

And to make things worse, our special group commits sky high crime against the rest of us. And they get defended and pampered in spite of it. Crime is not just a simple word - as many benignly benighted suburban Oprah-watching housewives might think. Assault can change a young man or womans sense of safety for life. Rape, even worse. We walk the streets disempowered with our heads down when crime - especially crime from a privileged class - is lauded and accepted.

Now, to repeatedly emphasize - Wesley did a great thing. I dont know for sure if I would have the same response or not if he was of another race. Maybe Im just cynical about heroes. But I suspect I would be more enthusiastic, or at least less antagonistic, otherwise.

Its a defense mechanism. When you understand economics and politics and such esoterica, at least for a libertarian like me - problems in the West come down to underperforming minorities, liberals and feminists. As these folk stymie me at every turn via perversions of law and society - in defense I must, at least in my mind, stymie them. In things that have entertainment value (our love of heroism is at least part entertainment), I will mentally prohibit myself from enjoying it freely. Its a kind of mind-suicide if I do not.

Things arent always fresh to someone who thinks about it. The reason I have to try extra hard to get a good job, is in large part because I am prevented from freely conveying to an employer my innate job skills via Cognitive Tests. A large chunk, over and beyond this, is how I would have to waste 4 years of my life in college because employers are paralyzed at the idea of giving a job to someone without formal qualifications - because they may be open to lawsuits by minorities. Its a truism that Microsoft is not able to hire a college drop-out like Bill Gates today.

Many readers will say I am making too much of it. I dont ask that you share my sentiments - I have my own personal weighing of factors that will differ from others. I only ask that you acknowledge that it is a legitimate point of view.

Military and IQ Redux.

If youve ever read Daniel Seligman's "A Question of Intelligence" Im sure the most fascinating info was when he quoted the relation between the AFQT and tank gunnery skills, or between AFQT and Patriot Missile hits.

The AFQT, for those not familiar with it, is a cognitive ability test given to all military inductees. It correlates well with conventional IQ tests, with its sole weakness being that it has a low ceiling (1 in a 1000 get a perfect score).

The AFQT breaks the freshmen into 6 broad categories.
AFQT Level I,II,IIIA,IIIB,IV and V

Lvl V rank in the 0-9 percentile, Lvl IV 10-30 percentile, Lvl IIIB 31-49 percentile, Lvl IIIA 50-64 percentile, Lvl II 65-92 percentile and Lvl I 93-99 percentile.

Converted to an IQ metric this is (on a 15 point Standard Deviation scale)
Lvl 1 = ~IQ123 and above
Lvl 2 = ~IQ106 to IQ122
Lvl 3A= ~IQ100 to IQ105
Lvl 3B= ~IQ94 to IQ99
Lvl 4= ~IQ81 to IQ93
Lvl 5 = ~IQ80 and below

Lvl V is, by law, not allowed to join the army. They tried once during Vietnam in something called Project 100,000. The results were disasterous.

Now lets compare the efficiency of AFQT scores with measures of Job Proficiency.
(Note AIT (advanced individual training) graduates score lower in every measure due to less experience vis-a-vis Unit members)
(Note 2: Original RAND article here. )
[Note 3: Yes, yes, I KNOW something is wrong with the spacing. If anyone knows what causes it, post a comment :) ]


1)When asked to make a communications system operational...
Table 1
Successful System Operation and AFQT
(predicted probability)

Sample Members	CAT I	CAT II	CAT IIIA	CAT IIIB	CAT IV
Unit Members	.89	.80	.63	.47	.29
AIT Graduates	.76	.60	.40	.25	.13

SOURCE: Winkler, Fernandez, and Polich (1992).
NOTE: The midpoint in each AFQT category is used in predicting the
probability of successful operation.


2)Number of faults detected in the Communications system...

Table 2

AFQT Level	1 or More	2 or More	3 or More	4 or More
CAT I	.97	.97	.66	.29
CAT II	.94	.78	.49	.17
CAT IIIA	.87	.60	.29	.08
CAT IIIB	.78	.43	.17	.04
CAT IV	.61	.25	.09	.02

SOURCE: Winkler, Fernandez, and Polich (1992).
NOTE: The midpoint in each AFQT category is used in predicting the
probability of successful fault detection. Cell entries are the
predicted probability that the group will successfully identify the
given number of faults.

3)The famous Patriot Defense System statistics!

Table 3
AFQT and Patriot Air Defense System Operator Performance, Specific
Measures

Measure	I	II	IIIA	IIIB	IV
Asset Hits (maximum 28)	10	11	12	13	14
Hostile Kills (maximum 78)	53	51	48	45	42
Number of Missiles used for 10 tactically correct kills	20	21	22	23	24

SOURCE: Orvis, Childress, and Polich (1992).

This slate article mentioned that Lvl IV graduates chewed up more expensive ($8 mil patriot missiles) hardware per successful shot. But its even worse than that! If asset hits means friendly fire of sorts - they were 40% more likely to blow up someone/something on their own side!

Of course the liberals will say if CAT IVs can get 4 or more faults detected (example from Table 2) 2% of the time. If we would stop being racist and prejudiced and train them harder - soon they will be outdoing the CAT Is' 29%...

And again...

Apologies. But I have another China Article

How Rising Wages Are Changing The Game In China

For years, Yongjin Group has earned a decent profit selling lamps and furniture to the likes of Wal-Mart (WMT ), Home Depot (HD ), Target (TGT ), and Pottery Barn. But lately the company has seen its margins shrink to 5% -- half what Yongjin made when it opened its factory in the steamy southern Chinese city of Dongguan 14 years ago. Why? Labor shortages are forcing the company to boost wages. Last year salaries surged 40%, to an average of $160 a month, and Yongjin still can't find enough workers.

Soon China will move into higher level value added goods. The bastion of the West and Japan.

China again...

I was watching T.V the other day, the weather channel.
And they have a running ticker-tape of sorts that gives the latest news.

Guess what?

Thats right. China again.

It has now overtaken the U.S as the world's second biggest exporter - with exports growing an amazing 27% in just one year!

Click here to read it.


Frankly, I like the idea of an economically multipolar world (though not of a militarily multipolar world). More competition means less special interest groups. And in many important ways the success of the U.S.A has been because it had little competition and was thus open to being a HUGE special interest groups bonanza. For e.g, I read that 50-65% of graduate students in hard science fields in US colleges are foreigners.

Why is this a good thing? Am I anti-U.S.A?

Not particularly, but I dont like restrictions on my life options and opportunities. When you think about it, there are massive restrictions in the USA. Its only 'selling point' was that other places had worse restrictions giving the USA a comparative advantage - for people of talent themselves and also as a place to park their money.

The US has affirmative action which effectively makes 20% of coveted University seats off-limits to people who deserve them. Ditto the job market. And my personal favourite - the wise Supreme Court Griggs Vs. Duke Power Co. and its aftermath.
As foreign countries rise in eminence, pressure will build to dismantle a lot of this bunk - and paradoxiacally, return the US back to what its founding fathers by and large wanted it to be - a (classical) liberal country.

Duke lacrosse commentary

There is so much commentary on the Duke Rape case recently.
Conservatives are severely critical of Michael Nifong, the D.A

Thats true and laudable as far as that goes. But what about the bitch who screamed rape and furthermore has a history of doing similar things?

Why isnt she talked about? Why isnt her picture and name splashed over the media because its clear that she lied about the whole thing? She accused 20 people at first then watered it down to 3. That alone should have made the police disbelieve her story.

Rape is a horrible thing. But falsely accusing someone of rape is almost as bad in itself. The accused stand to lose their dignity and social respect, indeed their career and perhaps even their very lives in jail. What kind of a legal system doesnt clamp down on such an obvious imbalance of power?

Could it be because shes a Woman? Or because shes Black? Or both?

Are Asians uncreative?

In comments to a recent post, TabooTruth mentioned in passing that E.Asians are uncreative. Seemed like a good topic for a new post.

Briefly put, Im agnostic about the whole E.Asians are not creative jazz. It might be true, then again it might not.

Seeing how I'm not a scientist, I wont attempt to worry about things like Nobel Prizes as proof. Also, Ill give the case only for why they ARE creative. The case against is well known.

Sufficed to say, E.Asians were technologically ahead till about 1700. They had rockets, the printing press and superior engineering well before Europe. Meets my definition of "creative"

Also another point, while they never formalized their knowledge, it was all there. For eg. the principles of economics were all there before Adam Smith, but he is given credit (justly so), because he formalized it into a science. This, seem to me to be a paradox of whites being considered more creative for being more plodding and going in for inelegant structuring and drudgework.

Finally, look at the game world - Street Fighter 2, Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, virtually every RPG - all from Japan or Korea. These revolutionalized gaming and were very creative for their time.

Lets be clear: Im not saying whites are slouches either, to counter the last example - whites created all the FPS (First-Person Shooter) games - amazing stuff indeed, as any fan of John Carmack and idSoftware will readily attest.

The jury is still out as far as Im concerned.


Addendum

Geoffrey Miller (author of "The Mating Mind") has a slightly technical paper on why he thinks E.Asians are creative here.

China will be making Commercial Airliners soon..

China is thinking about making Aeroplanes!


Hmm...
When the Asians started making cars - we know what happened to the American Car industry. Not a week goes by without a News Story of poor oppressed overpaid Union Ford or GM workers being laid off.
When they started making Electronics - they took over the market and left the westerners making nothing. Now Westerners feed off the fat of the land and bray about human rights...

Now the Asians are making planes too...

The future is grim for the west unless it shapes up. Which means a lot of non-P.C things, like libertarianism.
* Which will leave Blacks without their happy monthly, courtesy of the government, welfare check..
* Which will mean an overhaul of the 'educational' system, which forces High IQ smart people to waste years (maybe a decade) of their time instead of zooming ahead at their own pace. And puts average IQ people on the educational Dole, and forces lower-IQ people to try and master knowledge that is clearly beyond their comprehension.
* Which will mean a lowering of feministic and liberal (okay okay, parasitic) values of "To each according to his needs"
* Which will mean a repeal of Griggs Vs Duke Power 1971

As the Chinese say, may we live in interesting times.

Hush-hush as usual.

Over at Ilana Mercer's Blog the brave author has a post about the stellar levels of crime in the New South Africa.

I posted a comment there that went something along the lines of
"African Blacks = IQ 70, the great unmentionable even by mercer standards.
(Not that I blame her, its a sure short-cut to obscurity)."

This eminently sensible, backed by reams of scientific evidence, bottom line, no-nonsense comment was swiftly deleted.

To quote one of Ilana's Quotables "In a truly free society, the kind we once enjoyed, one honors the right of the individual to associate and disassociate, invest and disinvest, speak and misspeak at will."—ILANA

Guess she doesnt believe in her own words.

The economics of blogging

Lets have a look see at why people run blogs.

Primarily, if logic is any consideration, its so other people will read them - with all the happy psychological social status things that go with that.

Otherwise, it just dont make any sense.

But, unless we arent just talking about forcing your mother and defenseless grandpa to read it - who and how many people who read it becomes important. Theres a limited number of people who read blogs - just like any other good. The scarcity here is non-infinite time of the readers. (Of course it gets more complex, any particular blog appeals to a sub-set of readers only and since blogs have a negligible profit motive, the blogger will write more about topics that interest himself rather than pandering to the readers interest)[1]

For whatever topic you are interested in, there are other bloggers out there writing in a similar vein. So the glorious battle for readership begins. And then, as is the tendency, the bloggers who cannot sustain a readers attention, whether through bad writing styles or unattractive topics vis-a-vis his competition will receive less reinforcement - aka fewer readers, less reason to have a blog.

Speaking for myself, even getting two comments on my blog was a happy moment. The idea of someone Ive never met, will never know and who will never know me, being intrigued by my writings is a real ego booster.

To draw a parallel with economics, blogging is not a zero-sum game. The amount of social prestige (or whatever term you prefer) isnt just shifted away from other sources. There is a greater level of it overall (though there are still losers and winners relatively). I'll explain -

Before we had mostly one-to-one communication - Telephones are a good example. Then technology gave us One to many communications - The Mass-Media. Now even more advanced technology has given us many-to-many communications - You read my blog, I can read yours too.[2]

Under the One-to-many system, the prestige was one way. The pundit on TV was the pundit on TV. Period.

Under the Many-to-Many system, the pundit is the blogger but the commentator can expound the bloggers points, add to them, and perhaps convince other commentators or readers to check out his views on other topics - in essence become a pundit himself (even in the eyes of the original pundit).

Just goes to show that Economics, as Thomas Sowell says, is a way of thinking rather than a body of knowledge.


Notes:
[1] There will of course be some pandering, but in the Mainstream Media the currency gain from pandering is not that limited - more money is always better. But in blogging the gain is measured psychologically - and people (bloggers) can get their psychological kicks elsewhere.

[2] John Walker of fourmilab.ch has a long article on this somewhere on his site.

Dogs, chickens and breeding

Was just reading over at Steve Sailer's blog about inbreeding of dogs in Japan to make them cuter (which is rather a national obsession there).

Click here to read it.

Pretty gruesome. Which reminds me of a book I read recently by Temple Grandin, probably America's most famous Autistic. Shes designed about half of all the cattle handling facilities in the US and Canada.

Anyway the book was called "Animals in Translation" and it had some gruesome tales of itself. Like the case of the Rooster Rapists. Roosters and hens were bred to be bigger and more meaty, but this had a strange side-effect on their brains. Generally when a rooster mates it first performs a dance to let the hen know what its going to do. The hen responds by "getting into position" for the deed.

But it so happens that the newly bred roosters brains were somehow changed so that the dance routine was deleted. Ergo the roosters didnt perform the dance, and when they tried to mate with the hen, the hen tried to get away, and the rooster used its claws to literally shred the hen to death. In some cases over 50% of a flock could be lost this way.

You wouldnt think breeding a animal for stronger hearts or meat would do that, but it does. Strange world.

That book is an interesting read.