Mail 264 June 30 - July 6, 2003 (original) (raw)
Wednesday, July 2, 2003
Subject: Glimmerings of a clue.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/01/1056825375795.html
------- Roland Dobbins
Subject: Which is the tail, and which the dog?
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030701/latu062a_1.html
------- Roland Dobbins
I suppose I should cheer about the next one, but I have some mixed emotions.
Subject: You're covered!
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59424,00.html
----- Roland Dobbins
I will get into the whys of my misgivings another time.
Subject: Martin rees and Man In Space
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/story.php?storyID=13790
Is it too wild to want to get into Space?
Mark Huth mhuth at coldswim.com
Indeed.
Subject: California borders and potential terrorists
Apparently, in addition to bringing in undocumented laborers, criminal gangs in California have smuggled in dozens of Middle Easterners in the past several years.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ terencejeffrey/tj20030702.shtml
"Rather than stop illegal border crossings generally, the government is trying to pick out the potential Middle Eastern terrorists sneaking in among the Latin American jobseekers."
I feel so much safer already.
Steve Setzer
Don't we all?
And a new essay by Greg Cochran:
How the Ashkenazi Got Their Smarts
Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average IQ of any ethnic group. They score 0.75 to 1.0 standard deviations above the general European average, which corresponds to an IQ score around 112-115. . This fact has social significance, because IQ (as measured by IQ tests) is a good predictor of success in academic subjects and many jobs. Jews are just as successful in such jobs as their tested IQ would predict, and are hugely overrepresented in those jobs and accomplishments with the highest cognitive demands. During the 20th century, they made up about 3% of the US population, but won 27% of the US Nobel science prizes and 25% of the ACM Turing awards. They account for more than half of world chess champions.
This is not exactly news. I'm telling you something your grandmother knew. Popular opinion has held that Jews are smart for a long time - although, interestingly, not in Classical times - and such stereotypes are usually decent approximations of the truth.
Ashkenazi Jews have an unusual cognitive ability profile, as well as higher-than-average IQ. They have high verbal and mathematical scores, while their visuospatial abilities are typically somewhat worse (by about half a standard deviation) than the European average. Han Eysenck noted that "The correlation between verbal and performance tests is about 0.77 in the general population, hut only 0.31 among Jewish children. Differences of 10-20 points have been found in samples of Jewish children; there is no other group that shows anything like this size difference. " Their pattern of success is what you might expect from this ability distribution - great success in mathematics and literature, more typical results in painting, sculpture, and architecture.
Just as important, Sephardic and Oriental Jews do _not_ have higher-than-average IQs, nor are they tremendously overrepresented in cognitively demanding fields.
Any attempt at a causal explanation of Ashkenazi cognitive abilities must explain high Ashkenazi IQ, the unusual structure of their cognitive abilities, and the nonexistence of these traits among Sephardic/Oriental Jews and among Jews as a whole in Classical times. It must also be consistent with the neodarwinian synthesis, the historical record, and genetic data.
The natural approach is to look for a historical situation in which natural selection strongly favored this trait constellation. Immediately, we see that conditions among Jews were especially suitable for rapid evolutionary change. They lived in an unusual ecological situation, and they were reproductively isolated.
Reproductive isolation means that there was very little gene flow between the Jews and neighboring non-Jewish populations, very little intermarriage. This is course what the historical record indicates, but the genetic evidence is even stronger. We see that the majority of Y-chromosomes among the Ashkenazi are associated with Mideastern clades; this is enough to show that per-generation gene flow from surrounding Europeans (from males, anyhow) averaged less than 0.5% over many generations. Such reproduction isolation is almost a prerequisite for strong natural selection: if a population undergoing unusual selective pressures mixes heavily with a much larger population experiencing typical selective pressures, nothing happens.
The other important point is that Jews lived unusual lives, compared with most other population. By about 800 AD, almost all of them lived in cities. The great majority of almost every other ethnic group were farmers - they _had_ to be, since in premodern times farmers did not produce much above their own requirements, and it took several farmers to support one city-dweller. To the extent that the demands and rewards of urban life differed from those of farmers, the selective pressures experienced by Jews were unusual.
In earlier times, the great majority of Jews were themselves farmers. This means that in Classical times, they had not yet experienced unusual selective pressures, and in those days nobody thought that they were especially smart. The process that eventually resulted in high Ashkenazi IQ had not yet occurred.
For there to be strong selection for IQ, individuals with high IQs must have had more surviving children than average. Today, of course, that does not happen, but there is reason to think that it was sometimes the case in premodern Europe. In those days, wealthy people had quite a few more surviving children than average, so if high IQ increased income, there could have been selection for IQ in some situations.
The strength of this trend depended very much on the way an individual made a living. A dirt farmer with strong mathematical and verbal talents probably didn't do much better than average, but a merchant with such talents was likely to become wealthy and could raise a large family. In other words, the fitness/IQ derivative (which we will call the IQ elasticity) was not the same for all occupations.
This means that the occupational mix experienced by a population group was very important in determining the selective forces experienced by that population.
The Ashkenazi, in their beginnings in Western Europe, were mostly moneylenders. After they migrated to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, for a long time most were moneylenders, tax farmers, toll-farmers, and estate managers. They had to manage complex financial transactions, and those who did well made more money and had more children. Prosperous Jews may have averaged twice as many surviving children than poor Jews, and they made their money with their wits, rather than by inheritance or fighting skills, as in most other European elites.
For hundreds of years, _most_ of the Ashkenazi had jobs with high IQ elasticity, while at the same time experiencing very low gene flow with neighboring populations. This situation was unique. There were certainly non-Jewish groups in Europe that had occupations with high IQ elasticity - merchants in Bristol or Rotterdam for example - but they were not reproductively isolated. They kept marrying non-merchants. The Jews of Islam, although reproductively isolated, seem not have had the necessary concentration of occupations with high IQ elasticity. Some had such jobs in some of the Arab world, in some periods, but it seems it was never the case that _most_ did. In part this was because other minority groups competed successfully for these jobs - Greek Christians, Armenians, etc., in part because Moslems, at least some of the time, took many of those jobs themselves, valuing non-warrior occupations more highly than medieval Christians. In fact, to a large extent, and especially during the last six or seven hundred years of relative Moslem decline, the Jews of Islam tended to have 'dirty' jobs. These included such tasks as cleaning cesspools and drying the contents for use as fuel - a common Jewish occupation in Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia. Jews were also found as tanners, butchers, hangmen, and other disagreeable or despised occupations. I think that such jobs had low IQ elasticity - probably brilliant tanners did not get rich.
Only the Ashkenazi had low gene flow and a preponderance of occupations with high IQ elasticity for hundreds of years. That is enough to have caused the IQ increase that we observe. The narrow-sense heritability of IQ is at least 0.3 - that means if the parents of the next generation average 1 point above the current population average, the next generation (with equal environments) will average 0.3 point higher. Continue this process for 40 generations and you get an increase of 12 points, just about what we see today.
It also explains the pattern of mental abilities we see in Ashkenazi Jews. Verbal and mathematical talent helped medieval businessmen succeed, while spatiovisual abilities were irrelevant.
There have been other causes suggested. One, 'winnowing through persecution", suggests that only the smartest Jews survived persecution. Why this should be so is not clear, particularly there was no similar outcome in other groups such as Gypsies that faced frequent persecution. Another theory suggests that there was selective breeding for Talmudic scholarship. The are two fatal problems with this hypothesis: first, it was wealth that caused increased fertility, not scholarship. Second, there weren't very many rabbis, certainly less than one percent of the population.. A selective force that only affects a fraction of a percent of the population can never be strong, can never cause significant change in tens of generations. One that that affects the top 10 or 20% of the population can.
Albert Einstein said "Things should be described as simply as possible, but no simpler." The same principle must invoked in explaining Einstein himself.
Gregory Cochran
A good bit to think about here, and we'll get back to it. Comments below.
And it's about time, but I have no confidence:
Douglas M. Colbary
I & C
The Electric Plant
City of Painesville
440.392.5944
440.392.5938 FAX
dcr001@earthlink.net
"You Can't See Where you stand,
From Where You Sit"
unknown
=======================
To balance that possible good news:
Subject: ''The government doesn't want people to take matters into their own hands . . . "
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/183/metro/ Jail_time_possible_for_killing_protected_hawk-.shtml
--- Roland Dobbins
But we were born free. The government only wants to help, you understand. Compassion.
Clearly cooperation with the regime is dangerous; one needs to assert freedoms in secret. If that isn't the lesson they think they are teaching, is it not the one to learn? I only ask.
And here is a man with a view:
The proper way to occupy Iraq?
It certainly isn't the way you suggest! i.e."The proper way to occupy Iraq is to build a comfortable enclave with good defences and secure perimeter, garrison that, then bring in a client army to do the actual occupation."
Quite frankly, if that's the way most of you Yanks think then no wonder you're in such trouble - I've never read such nonsense in my life. You do what you suggest and you'll end up having two enemies to deal with, and frankly you'll deserve it as a reward for your stupidity. Haven't you learned the lessons of Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia etc etc yet? Obviously not.
You want to do it properly? You want to do it as it should be done, rather than as your hugely bloated military-industrial complex seems to compel you to do? Then do it as the Australian Army does. Like we did in Cambodia. What we did in Laos. How we handled East Timor. We've just successfully finished five years of peace making in Bougainville - that's right, bloody, savage, armed to the teeth, thoroughly screwed up Bougainville - the Hell of the South Pacific. And how did our lads do it? Well, totally unarmed for one thing - not a weapon in sight, or out of sight for that matter. Yep, that's right, no guns at all. Total Australian casualties? None. Total Bougainvillian casualties? None. Prior to our arrival over 50 people per week were being killed in that nasty little civil war. By late 1998 we had a truce in place and in 2001 we helped negotiate a comprehensive peace agreement.
As our Defence Minister Robert Hill said the other day "The fact that it was an unarmed group - perhaps the first ever peacekeeping group to serve without access to weapons - is sometimes overlooked. But the absence of arms was fundamental to winning the trust of the local population.".
So how is it done? Very simple. When Australian troops arrive in a foreign land the first thing they do is establish fresh clean water supplies - for the locals. Then we build hospitals, provide medical supplies and services and start training the locals. Then we build schools for the local children, supply them and again start training the locals. Then we get in our agriculture experts to see what we can do to stabilise and enhance local food production. We get to know the inhabitants - show them we're friendly, find out what their concerns are and how we can help. That generally takes up most of the first month. Getting the picture? We win because we win their hearts and minds. We make ourselves useful rather than try to repress the locals - a loser strategy if ever there was one. We make ourselves indispensable. We provide clean water, healthcare, education, sanitation, agricultural services and security - no wonder they love us. Countries are actually better off for being occupied by Australia. We also use technology that is appropriate for the local circumstances - there's no point in using technology that can't be sustained by the locals. That would just be a waste.
Total bill to Oz so far? Oh, about the price of a couple of cruise missiles. Sure, in Bougainville we used 3,500 troops and 300 civilians but hell, we pay them anyway... Oh, and the locals handed in over 90% of the known weapons in Bougainville. That's right - they handed them in. No stupid, dangerous, provocative house to house searches thanks very much. Funny what happens when you ask people politely and point out how it is in their best interests. No threats, just gentle, persistent persuasion.
You Americans should try it some time. Our Defence Force Chief is General Peter Cosgrove. He's a friendly bloke. Ask him. He'll tell you how it's done. What you're doing now is just murder, plain and simple. Unfortunately your strategy is also murdering at least one young American every day. Not smart. Not smart at all. American arrogance may yet be the death of us all.
All the best! Dave Barry
P.S. You think it's hot in Iraq? Try Australia some time! Bloody fantastic - I love the heat! At least that's what I say every Winter...
I am tempted to leave this unanswered, but I suppose I should say a few words.
Of course what I was saying and have said all along is that the proper way to occupy Iraq is not to be there at all; but I suspect I was a bit too subtle for this reader. But I mean every word about the logic of empire: an empire must look to the health and safety and morale of its soldiers, first and foremost; then to its citizens; and then to its clients. Of course I put my statement in as brutal a fashion as I could; in the real world the language of diplomacy is employed, and clients are given titles and privileges (or at least their rulers are). As an essayist I can afford to be honest; were I really in charge of the world I'd have to be a lot more careful about what I say.
And of course most people don't think as I do, or I wouldn't have to write about it.
But the world is as it is, and soldiers are as they are; and things have not changed since that Centurion wrote in the 3rd Century "If we find you have left our bones to bleach in this desert for nothing, beware the fury of the Legions." Empires have to worry about such things. Republics don't, but republics don't do a lot of occupation of foreign lands, or nation building.
Finally, Mr. Barry, I am not in charge although you seem to think we are. But I am certain the Australians are far better people than we Yanks, and know far better how to run someone else's country, and your friendly blokes will be glad to instruct us. And I invite you to send your unarmed forces to Iraq. Better you than us.
You can then politely ask the Palestinians to disarm, and Hezbollah and Hamas, and gollies, soon you will have the Middle East a nice place with everyone being orderly and polite. Why didn't we think of that?
I would, however, appreciate your views on the lessons we should have learned but did not learn from Korea? Please tell me what the Australians would have done, and done better that we did there? As for me, I thought we ought to have come home when the Cold War ended, and stop being involved in the territorial disputes of Asia as well as Europe; I never thought that we had much reason for large standing armies and a big missile establishment once there were not 26,000 warheads aimed at us, and large armies poised to be on the Rhine in hours.
It's true that standing down from Korea would have taken a few years, first to convince the South Koreans that we were serious, then to give them time to look to their own defenses (and allow the Japanese to consider their options as well); but had we begun in 1992 we would have all the troops home now.
The lesson of Viet Nam is simpler: don't entirely abandon your allies. In 1972 the North Vietnamese sent 150,000 troops south. Almost none returned alive. The US lost about 600 men in the entire year. ARVN with US materiel support and US air support devastated an army that came south with more armor than the Wehrmacht ever had during WW II. I would say that lesson was that the US with allies can defeat damn near anything. True, in 1975 the Democrats in Congress voted to abandon South Viet Nam and send ARVN 20 cartridges and 2 hand grenades per man, and no air support; once again an army with as much armor as the Wehrmacht ever had and as many trucks as Patton ever had swept south. This time ARVN was defeated, and Saigon became Ho Chi Minh city, and the Boat People began their exodus to many places -- did any get to Australia? But the lesson was that US clients without US support can't defeat Russian clients with Russian support: a lesson that one might have thought we would understood without running the experiment.
In any event I am sure you will enlighten me as to the lessons we should have learned; those were the ones I thought we had learned.
And then we have
Subject: This is Outrageous
Dr. Pournelle: I came across this where a man was sentenced to life in prison for spitting on a police officer.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/934094.asp?0dm=C229N
I feel that judges that impose these absurd sentences need to be removed from the bench and have their law licenses revoked. There is very little excuse for this type of sentence. If the man had shot the police officer and wounded the officer he would have only gotten 20 years. But spitting seems to be more of a deadly weapon.
And don't let the airline security people get a hold on this information. They would probably find a way to search for spitters in the security gates.
Interesting times indeed and I feel so much safer.
Ray Thompson
Systems Administrator
When you "leave it to the professionals" for your health and safety, and substitute "expert" government for self government, you must expect your new experts to protect themselves with utmost severity. Why are you surprised?
But in fact this seems a simple application of Three Strikes. Siwash laws used to be pretty common in the US. Three time losers and all that... See below.