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The implicit comment is that the article's substance is of no conceivable relevance, because it fails to mention the most obvious possible cause - human genetic diversity - for the pattern it purports to analyze. It's one thing to refute or qualify the null hypothesis. It's another to ignore it.

Why shouldn't it be the null hypothesis that genetic diversity is the cause of global inequality? Human beings have been thinking about this subject for a lot more than the last 50 years, you know. All I think is what more or less everyone used to think - since when Jesus was a little boy. If that's not a null hypothesis, what is?

So, from my perspective, the OP is like a long, vague explanation of how stress causes ulcers or marsh miasmas cause malaria. It's impossible for any such analysis to be any more cogent than any other - all are equally wrong.

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The situation is bad enough that I'm a little sensitive to agreeing with what you've said here. According to a few posts up, that makes me a racist, I guess.

The problem is, I never really understood why it's a stretch to believe that in all of the messy soup of chromosomes and culture (variables of a magnitude beyond what we could ever possibly research) that there are tangible differences between human beings. And once you start acknowledging differences, you have to acknowledge that those differences are going to give rise to advantages and disadvantages to things so random that they might not ever matter. But sometimes they do.

Are these differences, this genetic diversity, the root cause of global inequality? Based on my understanding of economics, I don't believe so. But that doesn't mean the conversation should be off the table.

The 20th-century scientist probably most influential in bringing about this change of perspective: Franz Boas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Boas

You can evaluate Boas' logic yourself, by reading his The Mind of Primitive Man (1911) - free online:

http://archive.org/stream/mindofprimitivem031738mbp#page/n10...

Fascinatingly, in the introduction to the 1938 edition (copyright police missed this one), Boas writes:

"Still worse is the subjection of science to ignorant prejudices in countries controlled by dictators. Such control has extended particularly to books dealing with the subject matter of race and culture. Since nothing is permitted to be printed that runs counter to the ignorant whims and prejudices of the governing clique, there can be no trustworthy science. When a publisher whose pride used to be the number and value of his scientific books announces in his calendar a book trying to show that race mixture is not harmful, withdraws the same book after a dictator comes into power, when great encyclopedias are rewritten according to prescribed tenets, when scientists either do not dare or are not allowed to publish results contradicting the prescribed doctrines, when others, in order to advance their own material interests, or blinded by uncontrolled emotion, follow blindly the prescribed road, no confidence can be placed in their statements. The suppression of intellectual freedom rings the death knell of science."

Indeed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Watson

Keeping the conversation off the table removes oxygen in which racists with less noble goals thrive. Human nature being what it is, they make judgements based on first appearances. When people are highly invested in having opinions on people based on things that come from first appearances, they are very likely to mistreat people on an individual basis - i.e. prejudge them, literally, and unfairly, because individual variance is far greater than group variance.

So in the overall scale of things, I think it's better not to have those discussions. The costs are too high, and frankly, history has shown that the public can't be trusted with authoritative opinions that can give cover to heinous acts. The conversation should be off the table.

>The conversation should be off the table.

Your reasoning is sound and supported by a cursory look at human history. That said, I just can't buy into that conclusion. It can't be either/or.

Thanks for your explanation. I disagree with your conclusion, but now better understand your reasoning. I'm more of the theory that rather than avoiding this conversation, we should confront it head-on: so long as it's accurate, prejudice can be beneficial, but should never trump individual reality. Instead of arguing against all bias because bias is bad, we should argue against false bias because it's false and misleading.

If you're in the mood for an excellent book on these topics, with what I think is good representation of both arguments, you should check out http://www.amazon.com/Defenders-Truth-The-Sociobiology-Debat.... It's one of the best books I've ever read.

I don't think he's saying all bias is bad. But bias finds support too easily, even when it's not accurate (prejudice, nationalism, etc). And that reasoning is easily repeated by uninformed people which just adds more noise to an already complex discussion.

When you're trying to have a rational discussion about which factors contribute to certain effects, it's better to exhaust all possible theories before attempting to prove that "some people are just better than others."

I guess I'm more in favor of putting all the theories on the table rather than deciding in advance which ones are permissible to hold. Let the false ones fall out because they are false, not because they cannot be discussed. What I deny is that there are true ideas so unpalatable that they must be taboo. I think this is what Barrkel is suggesting is necessary in the case of race.

Wow - I've literally never heard anyone be this frank before. I disagree with the position but I upvote the candor.

I wonder, though, how you feel about all the violence we've seen committed in the name of egalitarianism, in the lives of those now living? For instance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Blokhin

Blokhin initially decided on an ambitious quota of 300 executions per night, and engineered an efficient system in which the prisoners were individually led to a small antechamber—which had been painted red and was known as the "Leninist room"—for a brief and cursory positive identification, before being handcuffed and led into the execution room next door. The room was specially designed with padded walls for soundproofing, a sloping concrete floor with a drain and hose, and a log wall for the prisoners to stand against. Blokhin—outfitted in a leather butcher's apron, cap, and shoulder-length gloves to protect his uniform—then, with no procurator present and no reading of the sentence or any other formalities, pushed the prisoner against the log wall and shot him once in the base of the skull with a German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistol. He had brought a briefcase full of his own Walther pistols, since he did not trust the reliability of the standard-issue Soviet TT-30 for the frequent, heavy use he intended.

If we're going to excommunicate 20th-century philosophies on the grounds of their association with this sort of thing, we find quite quickly that we have to excommunicate everyone - right and left, fascist and communist, nationalist and universalist, racist and egalitarian. And then what's left?

I think my position is obvious, and naturally believe that the majority of right-thinking people have come to the same conclusion.

But the rest of your comment makes very little sense to me. Blokhin seems to have been an instrument of state power. I don't see any relationship, necessary, causal, or otherwise, between an executioner and a pragmatic principle of equality.

I also haven't "excommunicated" philosophies on the grounds of association. Rather, I have explained a rationale for a taboo around discussion of certain topics. If "association" with the reprehensible is sufficient grounds for "excommunication", a random walk through Wikipedia should be sufficient to convince oneself that one can trivially "excomunnicate" everything; reductio ad absurdum, hence mere association is not enough.

We're having a productive, sincere conversation here!

I don't see any relationship, necessary, causal, or otherwise, between an executioner and a pragmatic principle of equality.

But you do see a relationship between racist/nationalist/fascist ideology and racist/nationalist/fascist executioners, right?

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/battal...

I certainly can't interpret your post in any other way. (Although I can't interpret "pragmatic principle" in any way at all - it makes me think of jumbo shrimp.)

So essentially, you see a necessary and causal relationship between fascist ideology and fascist terror, but you don't see a necessary and causal relationship between communist ideology and communist terror. Or to use the Russian color codes, you see a relationship between White Terror and White ideology, but not between Red Terror and Red ideology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror

Perhaps you won't take my word for it, but you don't need to - the truth isn't hard to find. I can guarantee you 100% that almost everyone involved with both these systems of terror was completely drenched in, convinced by, and in thrall to the ideologies they served.

General Blokhin, for example, single-handedly murdered a substantial percentage of the Polish aristocracy. As he is doing so, is his mind a blank? Or does he conceive himself as freeing the Polish workers and peasants from the grip of the alien, rapacious hereditary nobles? What do you think? With every bullet in the back of some stuck-up count's neck, he's bringing Poland closer to equality.

You'll no doubt agree on the ideological nature of Nazi crimes. The "ordinary men" of Reserve Police Battalion 101 are in exactly the same boat - in their minds, as they slaughter the Jews of Poland, they think: the Jews caused this war, we are freeing Germany from Jewish oppression.

Likewise, as American airmen incinerate hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese civilians, they are thinking: the Huns and the Japs caused this war, now they're paying the price.

We cannot know the mind of any of these individuals. However, the collective propaganda mind of World War II is very easy to recall - all we have to do is read the texts. There is no shortage of American and Soviet propaganda that, read in context, is just as horrifying as anything Goebbels produced. Do you want to hear FDR sneering, raving, and lying like something out of Hitler's Greatest Hits?

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/411027awp.html

So should we excommunicate it all? Or do you not like that word? Too Catholic, perhaps?

> But you do see a relationship between racist/nationalist/fascist ideology and racist/nationalist/fascist executioners, right?

No. I see systems of power-hungry humans manipulating other humans by whatever means they can to achieve their ends. Propaganda and ideologies are usually just vectors - potent vectors - for the transmission of instrumental power. Humans, in the large, are like packs of rabid dogs; it takes very careful social and institutional design to balance force against force and prevent single individuals gaining too much power. I believe the emergence of a dictator, along with the mass murder of opponents, as a natural outcome for a large population starting out otherwise unorganized.

Words like communist, fascist, capitalist, are useful shorthands for communication, but they are labels, and as labels they risk short-circuiting thought. Some thing A is labeled as X, some thing B is labeled as X, and you naturally start to think that A and B have some connection.

When I said "pragmatic principle", I'm joining together two concepts; the pragmatic, by which I mean ends rather than means; and principle, by which I mean a rule governing personal behaviour. But I am not an absolute consequentialist; rather, I hold that the systemic consequences of deontological positions should be considered. One should usually be deontological on an individual basis, but adopt certain things as principles - i.e. not necessarily justified under deontology - on a consequentialist basis.

I think you see a parallel between discussion of ideologies associated with 20th century atrocities, and discussion of race as some kind of determinant. And if I deny the latter, that I must deny the former; and since denying the former seems absurd, my position, by analogy, is absurd.

But I don't think that's the right parallel to draw. The parallel of discussion of 20th century atrocities is discussion of racism, not race as a determinant. The parallel of race as a determinant might be an enthusiastic discussion of how Jews run media, banking, etc. - a discussion which is similarly abhorrent and taboo.

What you haven't established clearly for me is an objective criterion for what makes a discussion "abhorrent and taboo."

Why does this matter? Well, we know what makes a discussion "abhorrent and taboo" in the People's Republic of China. It simply boils down to anti-government speech. My suspicion is that when you examine your own epistemology closely enough, you'll find you're applying exactly the same test. It is certainly an objective test!

The "discussion of how Jews run media, banking, etc." is a poor example, I feel, because it's a very easy discussion to have - especially in the light of Cochran & Harpending 2005.

There are two statements here, a factual one which is true and an implicit one which is false. The true statement is that these industries are full of Jews; the false one, that they act collectively as Jews (eg, under the direction of the "Elders of Zion"). We know the false statement to be false because we know that your media or banking Jew is almost always an assimilated, nontribal, anti-nationalist, and in other words communist Jew - utterly indistinguishable from his WASP communist friends. So there's no social network for exclusively Jewish collective action.

What was abhorrent and taboo about that? Except possibly the communist part. Somehow in a world that contains living equivalents of General Blokhin, it's socially taboo to speak ill of communism. Don't you find that a little peculiar?

I'd also warn you against the word "determinant." There are a large number of differences, many surely relevant, between Japan and Haiti. Japan is a much larger island and has a much larger population - not to mention colder weather. We cannot say that genetic diversity is the only reason that international development assistance seems unable to develop Haiti into a new Caribbean Japan - or at least a Singapore. Hence declensions of determine are inappropriate, I feel.

What's good, though, is that we agree there's an elephant in the room. All we disagree on is who's allowed to notice it. What a strange world we live in!

The best answer to this question I have ever found is in the book Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

It takes a look at the question of why one group of people ended up with the tech first and largely comes to the conclusion that it is part of a complex interaction involving the environmental availability of species and geography neccessary for the development of sedentry existence and then also a maximally heterogeneous cultural development.

[edit] the explantation I just gave is a massive oversimplification of his argument, but it would be very hard to fit his book into a post.

Complexity is one invariant in Occam's butterknife. From the butterknife's point of view, the razor is always too simple to be true...

Well done. Now here's a biscuit.

And do please stop waving around the razor and the butterknife, you'll only do yourself another mischief.

An even better answer specific to the "Why Nations Fail" question is in Jared Diamond's Collapse. Which specifically explores the manifold reasons nations and cultures fail.

Highly recommended.

Will look into it.

There is also the elephant in the room with this subject, which is when you look which cultures might be at risk from collapse in the future. Or perhaps I have just read Snowcrash too many times.

That's specifically the question Diamond is looking for an answer to.

We're staring down several of his modes of failure.

I wonder how his analysis stacks up next to Dymitri Orlov's 'Reinventing Collapse' - http://cluborlov.blogspot.co.uk

Diamond's five factors that contribute to collapse: climate change, hostile neighbors, collapse of essential trading partners, environmental problems, and failure to adapt to environmental issues.

I'd throw resource depletion into the "environmental problems/issues" bucket (interesting that he distinguishes this from "climate change" now that I look at it again).

A few other views on "problems facing the world" based on exhaustive research (viz: a quick Web search): http://aspdeveloper.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/10-problems-or-... http://www.globalissues.org/ http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/wbp

My own off-the-top-of-my-head list: Overpopulation, resource depletion, environmental contamination, anthropogenic climate change, societal inequities, WMD proliferation (particularly to non-state actors and rogue states), general systemic fragility/complexity, social intransigence in the face of many such issues (e.g.: US counterfactual denial political movements, rightist movements in various EU states, militant Islamist movements, etc.), government / corporate / social corruption, breakdown of social institutions, failures in universal education (primary, secondary, and higher). In no particular order.

If you care to comment, what other books on the subject have you read and what about them made you think Diamond's book is better? (Because this could be interpreted as a flame-baiting statement in a volatile thread, I'm asking from the perspective that book recommendations should follow the requirements outlined here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subj... )

This is the most obvious cause only if you are a racist. Genetic differences between races are very minor as compared to the genetic differences between individuals within a race. Furthermore, it is very doubtful that you can find any statistically significant genetic differences between some of the countries mentioned in the article (e.g., England and Spain).

Genetic differences between races are very minor as compared to the genetic differences between individuals within a race.

In case you're posting from a different dimension, these "minor" differences can change the color of our skin, the shape of our bones, and even (gasp) the size of our brains. If these are minor organs, what are major ones?

In case you're posting from the same dimension, your fallacy has a name:

https://www.google.com/?q=Lewontins%20fallacy

Furthermore, it is very doubtful that you can find any statistically significant genetic differences between some of the countries mentioned in the article (e.g., England and Spain).

You've been keeping up with the latest genomic research, I see! Ha. I jest, of course.

Again, your own eyes are a great start - they really never lie. Have you been to England? Spain? Would you be confident in saying: "Englishmen look just like Spaniards?" Or if there's a difference... what's the cause? The weather, perhaps?

Personally - call me crazy, I know - I feel I can tell an Englishman from a German with much better than random accuracy. If I note that English weather is pretty similar to German weather, does that make me... oh, noes... a racist?

Thank you for the Google link. There I learned that Lewontin's fallacy is a fallacy because "Richard Lewontin is a Marxist Jew who has dedicated his career to attacking genetics as an explanation for human variation." That explains so much.

It is really cute how you think you can tell an Englishman from a German. Do you know, by the way, the genetic make up of the Englishman? Do you know where the word "England" came from? Here is a clue -- it came from the Anglo-Saxons a group of GERMAN tribes that conquered England after the Romans left and later became the people you now call English. So your ability to tell apart the English and Germans based on their look is most likely a figment of your imagination.

Anyways lets not get carried away and stick to the topic at hand. Here is another example from the article -- the economic difference between the southern US and the rest of the US. Could you explain that one. Please tell me how the southerners developed a statistically different genetic make up than northerners in the 400 year period since colonization. I would love to hear about the split between the grits and pizza genes.

You're really good with teh googles! I guess you read the A.W.F. Edwards paper too:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.10315/abstra...

You also seem interested in European population substructure:

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal...

What's your problem? Apparently from all your submissions and comments you are really fascinated by IQ and Race stuff, besides politics, and you just bring the topic each time you can.

You always create flamewars with people that disagrees with you, this is not Digg if you're old enough to know what this mean.

I also have my motives to believe that you're not a psychometrist, population geneticist or whatever could and that you're probably someone sitting your ass in class each day at Uni.

I am jewish and it always sad to see people acting this way, like you, saying they are jewish.

You probably never read the Shas, as the majority of American jews are not brought up in a religious environment, but Rabbi Shimom ben Gamaliel used to say that the best thing for a man is silence. You can learn a couple of things with the Bavli, what about giving it a try?

You seem interested in reading my comments. You'll read quite a few before you see me flame someone who hasn't already flamed me - usually twice.

It's everyone else who's obsessed with "IQ and Race stuff." They're just obsessed in the other direction. Worse still, they don't know it - because everyone they know has the same obsession. Fear is a kind of obsession, too. Don't we think of the Victorians as obsessed with sex?

And I'm not Jewish, just partly of Jewish descent. I know what "mitzvah" means, however. I'm willing to be downvoted a little because I hate to see smart, thoughtful people stumbling around in the darkness, when they could just turn on the light. At least, from my perspective. I know I spent quite some time stumbling in the darkness - don't you think I used to believe what everyone here believes?

I am not a psychometrist or a population geneticist, but I know some. Also, while not Israeli or even (properly) Jewish, I'm a big fan of Moshe Feiglin:

http://jewishisrael.org/

Perhaps you'll change your mind and I'll change my religion, and we'll see each other at a Korban Pesach on the Temple Mount. Shalom!

Not stepping into this argument here...but frankly, the bulk of the English gene pool is not Anglo-Saxon: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2006/10/mythsofbritishance...

>Genetic differences between races are very minor as compared to the genetic differences between individuals within a race.

So do you agree or disagree with people being "born-that-way", for lack of a better term? That's what's being argued here (at least by me). Not whether "all whites are born that way" or "all blacks are born that way", which is where you seem to be trying to steer it.

Can we not talk about genetic diversity without associating it with race?

However, genetic differences between certain groups of people can be quite significant. Sometimes, they are clustered geographically, like immunity against malaria. Other times, they are clustered based on a shared history and selection pressure, like the Jews. Or math professors.

Afterall, humans came from the same small genetic stock, and races generally reflect adaptation/mutation to particular geographies - not to the very recent economic developments.

Not to mention that diversity and specialization is generally good for trade.

If one were finalizing ones political views in the 1980's and settling to write ones book, one would be doing so against a background in which the Chinese, the planet's cleverest race, had suffered a truly wretched century, bringing them to misery and ruin. Do brains make a nation rich? No, brains are what makes a nation take a Great Leap Forward.

The plausibility of a link between prosperity and IQ is also going to depend on one's basic assumptions about how nations work. Suppose that national prosperity is basically a battle between the good guys building and the bad guys looting. What happens when both the good guys and the bad guys are smarter? Smarter bad guys makes things worse and the bad guys generally out number the good guys, so it is no surprise that the planet's smartest race lose 30million members to a man made famine.

There are rival basic assumptions, around which one could build ones political theorizing. I like "Man versus Nature". So I'm temperamentally inclined to smarter is better. But I can see how some-one who sees the world as "Man versus Man" would dismiss "IQ leads to prosperity" as not worth considering, because there is no underlying mechanism to make it work.

We've taken kids from the "poor" gene pools to London and they do fine. It's anecdotal but it fairly well quashes the race argument which holds that this should be impossible, and it suggests we look at society and upbringing instead.

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