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Comment by _h4xr | Hacker News Reader

Would you argue, then, that instead of sending food and medical aid to poor countries, we should send teachers?

Teachers do not raise IQ. Proper nutrition does.

And accusing someone of holding racist and vile views is sarcasm - the lowest form of wit?

Okay, read through the comment I made. I am sorry this is unclear, but I am being very sarcastic. I know you are saying that it is Western to want to raise IQ rather than reduce pain; I am saying that this is, in fact the right thing to do and thus that you are using "Western" to mean "logical and sensible" -- and then I say what I'm guessing you would say to someone who said "His views are very Western -- that is, logical, and sensible, and not driven by emotion or ignorance." That is the joke: that you accidentally said something nice about Western culture, and that had someone else said that to you and meant it, you would likely have been annoyed.

I am sorry about that. Frog dissection, etc.

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and thus that you are using "Western" to mean "logical and sensible"

No, no, no... I'm not saying that! :) That's how you're interpreting it. You are putting words into my mouth which is why the sarcasm made no sense. I do not agree that raising IQ rather than reducing pain is "logical and sensible" at all - and just because you think it is does not make it universally so.

Taking someone else's words and then telling them what they really meant can never be a valid form of discourse. Indeed, that very behavior is "Western" in style because you are assuming that what you think is good is good for everyone else too.

No, no, no... I'm not saying that! :) That's how you're interpreting it.

You're almost there. I understand that you, yourself, do not think that raising IQ is rational and sensible -- that if we just give Nigeria a few billion dollars more in aid, it's going to look like Westport, Connecticut. The joke is that when you condemned something as Western, the thing you condemned was actually a pretty good idea, so calling it Western really sounded like Western was a nice thing. Maybe a different example will make it clear. If two American political partisans are arguing, and you hear:

"Raising taxes on the rich is so typical of liberals,"

and then "But when Clinton did it, our economy performed incredibly well. So you must mean that liberals are typically pretty damn awesome!"

You can follow the joke, right? That is the joke I'm making.

Indeed, that very behavior is "Western" in style because you are assuming that what you think is good is good for everyone else too.

I notice it's been pretty good for the rest of the world, actually. Lots of countries have adopted market systems and the rule of law to some extent, and they've really benefitted from it (not to mention Western technological advances -- the West, of course, has done plenty of the same in the other direction). And when we adopt communitarian values, or try to support collectivist compromise over individualism, it tends to lead to stagnation at best and disaster on average.

yeah, tax levels are the only thing affecting the economy. wacky interest rates that were eventually disastrous didn't have ANYTHING to do with the first tech bubble, right?

Most of the wacky interest rate stuff happened after the tech bubble. It took ~8 years to fail after the bubble.

PS: I know you want to forget about the last 9 years as much as I do but they happened. ;-)

the inflation tom foolery I'm referring to is in regard to greenspan in 1994. a policy change at the tie led to a pretty rapid change in the markets.

I'm searching for the paper on it but I can't find it. anyone know of a pdf search of some sort?

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