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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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 Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 8:00 am Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
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| The first part, I was referring to the effects of race on IQ, which is at best, at least as far as I am aware, an open question in genetics. |
IF a trait is heritable then it follows that the ancestral mating pool will be similarly endowed (very likely). In other words, a race is an extended family. I don't like the term race.
Here's a great collection of reviews of Wade's book. It covers the scope of the debate well.
http://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/linkfest-a-troublesome-inheritance/ |
Interesting, I almost agree with Steve Sailer.
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| Not surprisingly, each continent’s culture seems to have bred people befitting its environment |
Except I would invert culture and environment, with the idea that culture is shaped by environment, and as the environment changes so will the culture. That's my theory anyways. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 12:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Except I would invert culture and environment, with the idea that culture is shaped by environment, and as the environment changes so will the culture. That's my theory anyways. |
Ok. Let us establish a foundational point of agreement:
There is variation among siblings, but less variation among siblings than there is among first cousins. There is variation among first cousins, but less variation than among second cousins. Extrapolate out. At some point, you draw a line around a group and say RACE. It is messy and not exact.
Agree?
As our understanding of genes advances the need to draw a line and declare a race will diminish. When we reach the ability to affordably analyze the genetic goop of an individual then the need for the concept of race will diminish. We'll have the ability to be extremely precise in our analysis. ie: subject carries the CREB gene which predisposes him to alcoholism. Whereas now, we sloppily say "group xyz tends towards greater alcohol consumption". |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 1:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
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| Except I would invert culture and environment, with the idea that culture is shaped by environment, and as the environment changes so will the culture. That's my theory anyways. |
Ok. Let us establish a foundational point of agreement:
There is variation among siblings, but less variation among siblings than there is among first cousins. There is variation among first cousins, but less variation than among second cousins. Extrapolate out. At some point, you draw a line around a group and say RACE. It is messy and not exact.
Agree? |
More or less, but I'm not sure how predictive that even is. Even among families there are wide variations, i.e. smart people with stupid siblings. Generally though this is true as far as I know.
| Titus wrote: |
| As our understanding of genes advances the need to draw a line and declare a race will diminish. When we reach the ability to affordably analyze the genetic goop of an individual then the need for the concept of race will diminish. We'll have the ability to be extremely precise in our analysis. ie: subject carries the CREB gene which predisposes him to alcoholism. Whereas now, we sloppily say "group xyz tends towards greater alcohol consumption". |
Genetic determinism? Have you been watching Gattaca? Even what you describe would be imprecise because certain environments lead to certain outcomes, so unless you found a way in the future to take account of both of the factors it will still be guess work, educated guess work, but unless you are talking about specific things like heritable diseases I'm not sure what the actual utility would be. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 1:26 pm Post subject: |
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| More or less, but I'm not sure how predictive that even is. Even among families there are wide variations, i.e. smart people with stupid siblings. Generally though this is true as far as I know. |
Yes, which is why I wrote the paragraph below the above. Our use of race is necessary given the limitations of contemporary genetic analysis. That said, the concept of race, though sloppy, is extremely useful. Modern statistical analysis can smooth outliers and describe averages in excellent detail.
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| Genetic determinism? Have you been watching Gattaca? |
Never heard of Gattaca. The limitations would be much less than you anticipate. Basically yes. Genetic determinism. We're not in charge of ourselves. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
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| Genetic determinism? Have you been watching Gattaca? |
Never heard of Gattaca. The limitations would be much less than you anticipate. Basically yes. Genetic determinism. We're not in charge of ourselves. |
Really, that is surprising. It's a movie about a society completely based on genetic determinism down to even looking at genes that cause alcoholism and intelligence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca
I understand what your saying and disagree. I think what you are saying is possible to a certain extent, but we don't know what that is yet. But then again I believe, somewhat loosely, in things like geographic determinism so its not like I'm completely against these lines of thinking. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 4:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
No, I'm not suggesting that all it would take is money being thrown at Africa to bring it to South Korean level success. You stated that Africa also received aid money, but the differences in amount, and type, are important. |
Well, I'm certainly inclined to agree that the type of assistance received is of primary importance. But there's a flip side to that: the kind of aid you can meaningfully offer depends on the populace in question. In the long term, helping a country build up into an exporting power house by buying their manufactured goods can have real benefits, but that's predicated upon the country actually making things worth buying. By contrast, things like food aid can actually to some extent be corrosive in the long term, so I'm not deaf to this. Lending programs can also be toxic, especially when administers with absurd strings. Malawi is a good example of how meddling from "good faith" western agencies can obstruct African attempts to take the wise course.
| Leon wrote: |
As to the actual amounts,
"From 1953 to 1974, when grant assistance dwindled to a negligible amount, the nation received some US$4 billion of grant aid. About US$3 billion was received before 1968, forming an average of 60 percent of all investment in South Korea. after 1963 South Korea received foreign capital mainly in the form of loans at concessionary rates of interest. According to government sources, between 1964 and 1974 such loans averaged about 6.5 percent of all foreign borrowing. Other data suggested a much higher figure; it seemed that most loans to the government were concessional, at least through the early 1970s."
According to the inflation calculator I used online that is more than $35 billion in today's dollars. http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-12334.html
Also, in 1965 Japan gave South Korea almost $4 billion for reparations and started trading heavily with Korea. http://www.jiyuushikan.org/e/reparations.html |
Well, let's compare to Ethiopia. Ethiopia receives foreign aid more or less every single year, and not in small quantities. $600 million between 1950 and 1970 comes out, according to an inflation calculator, comes out to about 4.7 billion dollars (I averaged the inflation, it's not exact). Unlike South Korea, though, it didn't stop there; even today Ethiopia continues to receive aid in immense quantities, both in direct cash transfers and in debt cancellation, and these figures are still measured in the billions. I don't know between South Korea and Ethiopia which has received more money, but there probably won't be a huge difference, so I think we can dispense with the idea that it's the quantity of aid that's the problem. And although I concede that the quality of aid is a factor, money is ultimately fungible; aid to Ethiopia helping with infrastructure, for example, can easily free up money to help build up a manufacturing sector. I think you're too easily dismissing the East Asian counter examples here, especially Korea. I don't think they just bootstrapped themselves up -- they were recepients of western cooperation, technology, knowledge, and even money -- but I don't think we should minimize the locals and their behavior as factors.
| Leon wrote: |
| A lot of things that seem obvious are wrong. Not always of course. Most geneticists disagree with Titus' proposition. |
OF course most geneticists agree with Titus' proposition when articulated clearly and frankly given agreeing with it would turn them into academic heretics. Most geneticists think that intelligence is heritable. Estimates in the academic research of the heritability of IQ have varied from below 0.5[2] to a high of 0.8 (where 1.0 indicates that monozygotic twins have no variance in IQ and 0 indicates that their IQs are completely uncorrelated).[4]. With a little thought, we can see how this fairly non-controversial notion entails a lot of the less popular ideas Titus promotes. They just can't be entirely frank about it for fear of having their careers destroyed by accusations of "scientific racism."
That said, I agree with you and the research that environmental factors have an impact. Nutrition has a clear effect, and poverty seems to have an effect on many populations (though not necessarily equally, I seem to remember some research some time back that suggested East Asians were actually resistant to the effect, while, for example, the Irish were not). But let's not hide behind, "Oh, we're not geneticists, so we can't talk about it." We're not nutritionists, but we're both fine admitting nutrition has an impact. We aren't doctors, but we can consider whether disease has an impact. We don't need to be geneticists to notice genetic correlations either, especially when geneticists themselves seem to believe there's at least a reasonable degree of heritability in IQ. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
No, I'm not suggesting that all it would take is money being thrown at Africa to bring it to South Korean level success. You stated that Africa also received aid money, but the differences in amount, and type, are important. |
Well, I'm certainly inclined to agree that the type of assistance received is of primary importance. But there's a flip side to that: the kind of aid you can meaningfully offer depends on the populace in question. In the long term, helping a country build up into an exporting power house by buying their manufactured goods can have real benefits, but that's predicated upon the country actually making things worth buying. By contrast, things like food aid can actually to some extent be corrosive in the long term, so I'm not deaf to this. Lending programs can also be toxic, especially when administers with absurd strings. Malawi is a good example of how meddling from "good faith" western agencies can obstruct African attempts to take the wise course. |
Yes I agree with that. The reason that Korea and Japan made things worth buying was probably about half on the leaders and businessmen of those countries, and about half on the massive demand from the U.S. for those items during the Korean and Vietnam war.
| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
As to the actual amounts,
"From 1953 to 1974, when grant assistance dwindled to a negligible amount, the nation received some US$4 billion of grant aid. About US$3 billion was received before 1968, forming an average of 60 percent of all investment in South Korea. after 1963 South Korea received foreign capital mainly in the form of loans at concessionary rates of interest. According to government sources, between 1964 and 1974 such loans averaged about 6.5 percent of all foreign borrowing. Other data suggested a much higher figure; it seemed that most loans to the government were concessional, at least through the early 1970s."
According to the inflation calculator I used online that is more than $35 billion in today's dollars. http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-12334.html
Also, in 1965 Japan gave South Korea almost $4 billion for reparations and started trading heavily with Korea. http://www.jiyuushikan.org/e/reparations.html |
Well, let's compare to Ethiopia. Ethiopia receives foreign aid more or less every single year, and not in small quantities. $600 million between 1950 and 1970 comes out, according to an inflation calculator, comes out to about 4.7 billion dollars (I averaged the inflation, it's not exact). Unlike South Korea, though, it didn't stop there; even today Ethiopia continues to receive aid in immense quantities, both in direct cash transfers and in debt cancellation, and these figures are still measured in the billions. I don't know between South Korea and Ethiopia which has received more money, but there probably won't be a huge difference, so I think we can dispense with the idea that it's the quantity of aid that's the problem. And although I concede that the quality of aid is a factor, money is ultimately fungible; aid to Ethiopia helping with infrastructure, for example, can easily free up money to help build up a manufacturing sector. I think you're too easily dismissing the East Asian counter examples here, especially Korea. I don't think they just bootstrapped themselves up -- they were recepients of western cooperation, technology, knowledge, and even money -- but I don't think we should minimize the locals and their behavior as factors. |
South Korea got about $40 billion over about 20 years and Ethiopia got about $4 billion. The $40 billion doesn't count direct government contracts given to South Korean companies at a time when Korea's entire economy was based around the U.S. Korea and Japan could not be what they are today without American help, they also could not be where they are today without their leaders and a long national history.
| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| A lot of things that seem obvious are wrong. Not always of course. Most geneticists disagree with Titus' proposition. |
OF course most geneticists agree with Titus' proposition when articulated clearly and frankly given agreeing with it would turn them into academic heretics. Most geneticists think that intelligence is heritable. Estimates in the academic research of the heritability of IQ have varied from below 0.5[2] to a high of 0.8 (where 1.0 indicates that monozygotic twins have no variance in IQ and 0 indicates that their IQs are completely uncorrelated).[4]. With a little thought, we can see how this fairly non-controversial notion entails a lot of the less popular ideas Titus promotes. They just can't be entirely frank about it for fear of having their careers destroyed by accusations of "scientific racism."
That said, I agree with you and the research that environmental factors have an impact. Nutrition has a clear effect, and poverty seems to have an effect on many populations (though not necessarily equally, I seem to remember some research some time back that suggested East Asians were actually resistant to the effect, while, for example, the Irish were not). But let's not hide behind, "Oh, we're not geneticists, so we can't talk about it." We're not nutritionists, but we're both fine admitting nutrition has an impact. We aren't doctors, but we can consider whether disease has an impact. We don't need to be geneticists to notice genetic correlations either, especially when geneticists themselves seem to believe there's at least a reasonable degree of heritability in IQ. |
My position is that for large groups of people, as opposed to individuals, environment and geography matter more than culture (which I think is almost entirely a reflection of environment anyways) and what type of people live there. I don't think that you can go from looking at individual heritability of IQ and extrapolate it to civilization groups.
There isn't that much to say about it that hasn't been said on this and other threads, I know your position and Titus' position and you know mine. Saying that I'm not a geneticist was a bit of a cop out, because I don't find that discussion as interesting as the other things I brought up. Not really fair I guess, to not discuss it in good faith. I don't find the discussion offensive, and I don't think you're a racist or hateful, but I know that I don't know enough about how the human mind works to come to a conclusion on this with any degree of certainty. I don't reject your position completely, I think it probably does account for some things, but I think it accounts for less than you and I think that it is more likely to change than you and Titus do as well. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
South Korea got about $40 billion over about 20 years and Ethiopia got about $4 billion. |
Over that specific time frame that's correct, but Ethiopia continued receiving (and continues to receive) substantial aid, so when extrapolated out to the present, the figures converge. I don't know the exact dollar figure for Ethiopia, but it's way above 4 billion. This suggests over 500 million dollars in 2013 alone[/url], and I don't think it's comprehensive. Let's not underestimate how much cash has been dumped on Africa. We can say it's been administered ineffectively, or we can say other methods of assistance would have been better, but we can't pretend that a huge amount of money hasn't been poured on the continent.
| Leon wrote: |
| The $40 billion doesn't count direct government contracts given to South Korean companies at a time when Korea's entire economy was based around the U.S. |
I think it's worth distinguishing between aid and revenue from exports. You can dump aid on anyone, you cannot simply give anyone a manufacturing contract and expect results.
| Leon wrote: |
| Korea and Japan could not be what they are today without American help, they also could not be where they are today without their leaders and a long national history. |
Sure, but we can take it further and say the entire non-European world wouldn't be what it is today without European help, both direct and indirect. I think it's more fair to say that access to American manufacturing contracts helped Japan and Korea grow faster than they otherwise would have. I also think the influence of American culture is responsible for some of South Korea's success. But that's not the same as saying Korea - American Contracts = African Results, not even close. A long cultural history helps; I happily acknowledge the impact of culture on results.
| Leon wrote: |
| My position is that for large groups of people, as opposed to individuals, environment and geography matter more than culture (which I think is almost entirely a reflection of environment anyways) and what type of people live there. |
I agree that environment generally has an impact on culture over long stretches of time, but to say culture is "almost entirely a reflection of environment" seems to clash with real world examples. If environment mattered more than culture, than White South Africans would not have prospered; they would have collapsed down into African levels of poverty and stayed there, just like the locals, because they were in the same environment. But we know they prospered; we know they took European culture, brought it with them into a foreign environment, and maintained it.
| Leon wrote: |
| I don't think that you can go from looking at individual heritability of IQ and extrapolate it to civilization groups. |
If IQ is heritable at an individual level, and societies are made up of individuals, then I don't see how you can reach this conclusion. It's almost like rhetorical slight of hand in four steps. "IQ is individually heritable." --> "Groups are made up of individuals." --> (magician snapping his fingers while he does something you don't see) --> "IQ is not heritable at a group level." |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
South Korea got about $40 billion over about 20 years and Ethiopia got about $4 billion. |
Over that specific time frame that's correct, but Ethiopia continued receiving (and continues to receive) substantial aid, so when extrapolated out to the present, the figures converge. I don't know the exact dollar figure for Ethiopia, but it's way above 4 billion. This suggests over 500 million dollars in 2013 alone[/url], and I don't think it's comprehensive. Let's not underestimate how much cash has been dumped on Africa. We can say it's been administered ineffectively, or we can say other methods of assistance would have been better, but we can't pretend that a huge amount of money hasn't been poured on the continent. |
The time frame matters a lot. You can simply do more with massive influx of money than with a slow steady amount. A lot of money has gone into Africa, it pales in comparison to what Korea and Japan received because those were considered strategically important and Africa isn't.
| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| The $40 billion doesn't count direct government contracts given to South Korean companies at a time when Korea's entire economy was based around the U.S. |
I think it's worth distinguishing between aid and revenue from exports. You can dump aid on anyone, you cannot simply give anyone a manufacturing contract and expect results. |
That's true, but it was truly more a matter of location and massive immediate demand than already existing capability for either country. At this point in history I would agree, but pre/post Korean war era East Asia I'm not sure. Although, the ingenuinity of people like Chung Ju-yung (founder of Hyundai) and who ever the Japanese counterpoint is shouldn't be downplayed.
This next ideas is going out on a limb a bit because I'm not entirely sure how true it is, but both Korea and Japan benefitted because a lot of their capitalism was state controlled, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of the money Africa gets is from the IMF and World Bank, and I think that they put a lot of policy conditions to the money that prevent governments from doing that sort of planning.
| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| Korea and Japan could not be what they are today without American help, they also could not be where they are today without their leaders and a long national history. |
Sure, but we can take it further and say the entire non-European world wouldn't be what it is today without European help, both direct and indirect. I think it's more fair to say that access to American manufacturing contracts helped Japan and Korea grow faster than they otherwise would have. I also think the influence of American culture is responsible for some of South Korea's success. But that's not the same as saying Korea - American Contracts = African Results, not even close. A long cultural history helps; I happily acknowledge the impact of culture on results. |
Korea for a long time was worse than most of Africa. I'm comfortable saying that Korea-American investment = Vietnam or Thailand level of development and Korea-American/Japanese Aid and investment= probably North Korea taking over the whole peninsula because it was actually better off until the 1980s There is also the weird China thing, where they couldn't trade with China for a long time, but now they can, so absent American investment they would have eventually gotten Chinese investment. This is a counterfactual, so it is all guess work, but after talking to older Koreans about this time period I still have a hard time reconciling my images of modern Korea with what they tell me.
| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| My position is that for large groups of people, as opposed to individuals, environment and geography matter more than culture (which I think is almost entirely a reflection of environment anyways) and what type of people live there. |
I agree that environment generally has an impact on culture over long stretches of time, but to say culture is "almost entirely a reflection of environment" seems to clash with real world examples. If environment mattered more than culture, than White South Africans would not have prospered; they would have collapsed down into African levels of poverty and stayed there, just like the locals, because they were in the same environment. But we know they prospered; we know they took European culture, brought it with them into a foreign environment, and maintained it. |
Yes, the over time is important. It is also important that there is a sense of connection to a homeland, and by maintaining that connection can maintain that culture. It also matters that White South Africans were in charge of the state so they could remake it in their image, as opposed to migrating as a minority group. However, it might have been more African than you realize, they based society off of tribes, they depended on strongman rule, natural resources, corruption, and criminal activity to have a prosperous state. Their culture, based on White South Africans I know, is certainly European, but it is also distinct from European culture in ways that I would guess was shaped by the environment.
| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| I don't think that you can go from looking at individual heritability of IQ and extrapolate it to civilization groups. |
If IQ is heritable at an individual level, and societies are made up of individuals, then I don't see how you can reach this conclusion. It's almost like rhetorical slight of hand in four steps. "IQ is individually heritable." --> "Groups are made up of individuals." --> (magician snapping his fingers while he does something you don't see) --> "IQ is not heritable at a group level." |
I don't think it is that helpful to generalize tens and hundreds of million people. There isn't some hive mind IQ, so there is no group IQ to be inherited. Individual make up disparate groups, and you can probably find trends within different groups, but then you run into correlation vs. causation, and have to come up with causal explanations. No magic here. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 6:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| The time frame matters a lot. You can simply do more with massive influx of money than with a slow steady amount. A lot of money has gone into Africa, it pales in comparison to what Korea and Japan received because those were considered strategically important and Africa isn't. |
See, that's objectionable language. The money received by one particular African country pales in comparison to the money received by one particular Asian country in a very specific time frame. Over a broader time frame, that's not true. And again, money is fungible; even if there are requirements on how it's used, with even the slightest wisdom it should allow savings in other areas, which in turn could be leveraged into something greater. Yes, it's better to get X amount of money all at once rather than over a span of time, but you still get X, and if you had the slightest sense, you could still leverage X into something worth having. And it's not like there wasn't corruption and error in South Korea; there still is for that matter. Somehow they still manage to make it all work.
| Leon wrote: |
| That's true, but it was truly more a matter of location and massive immediate demand than already existing capability for either country. At this point in history I would agree, but pre/post Korean war era East Asia I'm not sure. Although, the ingenuinity of people like Chung Ju-yung (founder of Hyundai) and who ever the Japanese counterpoint is shouldn't be downplayed. |
I don't think we can reduce to individual personalities. Individuals are not irrelevant, but what they have to work with also matters, and that includes human resources. This plays into the issue of IQ spread over populations as well. A gap of just a few IQ points, when extrapolated over a population of tens of millions, is a non-trivial factor. They'll take more easily to education, they'll behave in a more orderly fashion, they'll be more focused on future results, and they'll be able to more easily handle complex work. On an individual scale the difference will be reasonably small, but it really adds up over an entire populace, and in a competitive environment, even a small difference can create a vastly disparate result. And the East Asian / African IQ divide is far more than a few points; we're talking about the largest IQ divide in the entire world here. And like I mentioned, there's at least some reason to believe that East Asians are atypically resistant to the negative impacts of poverty on IQ, which only exacerbates the divide. It's not some "hive mind IQ" I'm referencing here, it's individual effects adding up to a cumulative effect.
In short, if your population has a higher average IQ, and all the positive behavioral and competency patterns which correlate with a higher IQ hold true (and they seem to), you're going to have a better behaved and more competent society. The reverse is also true: if a lower IQ correlates with greater deviancy, shorter-term thinking, and so forth, that lower IQ extrapolated over an entire populace could be expected to result in more violence and less wealth building. It seems to me that these correlations match very closely with what we see in East Asia and Africa respectively.
| Leon wrote: |
| This next ideas is going out on a limb a bit because I'm not entirely sure how true it is, but both Korea and Japan benefitted because a lot of their capitalism was state controlled, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of the money Africa gets is from the IMF and World Bank, and I think that they put a lot of policy conditions to the money that prevent governments from doing that sort of planning. |
I've acknowledged there are valid issues in this regard. It bears mentioning though that Korea has been on the receiving end of IMF loans tied to mandatory austerity measures as well, demands so severe that even the IMF acknowledges the error.
| Leon wrote: |
| Korea for a long time was worse than most of Africa. |
Well, what do you mean by "worse" here exactly? Let's not be vague. You can stick with my Ethiopia / Korea comparison if you like or you can try to draw a contrast against the entire continent in some average sense (though that will probably be harder).
| Leon wrote: |
| However, it might have been more African than you realize, they based society off of tribes, they depended on strongman rule, natural resources, corruption, and criminal activity to have a prosperous state. Their culture, based on White South Africans I know, is certainly European, but it is also distinct from European culture in ways that I would guess was shaped by the environment. |
I've met quite a few South Africans here in Korea, and they seem largely culturally indistinguishable from Europeans. I'm sure deep down there are some differences after so long, but overall I don't think I could call them "culturally African." Maybe if you provided some firm examples. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't think it is that helpful to generalize tens and hundreds of million people. There isn't some hive mind IQ, so there is no group IQ to be inherited. Individual make up disparate groups, and you can probably find trends within different groups, but then you run into correlation vs. causation, and have to come up with causal explanations. No magic here. |
You need to read Wade's book. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
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| I don't think it is that helpful to generalize tens and hundreds of million people. There isn't some hive mind IQ, so there is no group IQ to be inherited. Individual make up disparate groups, and you can probably find trends within different groups, but then you run into correlation vs. causation, and have to come up with causal explanations. No magic here. |
You need to read Wade's book. |
It does seem interesting based on the links I saw that you posted. I'm not opposed to reading it, but I'm in the middle of about 5 books at the moment. I will give it serious consideration later this summer. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 7:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| That's true, but it was truly more a matter of location and massive immediate demand than already existing capability for either country. At this point in history I would agree, but pre/post Korean war era East Asia I'm not sure. Although, the ingenuinity of people like Chung Ju-yung (founder of Hyundai) and who ever the Japanese counterpoint is shouldn't be downplayed. |
I don't think we can reduce to individual personalities. Individuals are not irrelevant, but what they have to work with also matters, and that includes human resources. This plays into the issue of IQ spread over populations as well. A gap of just a few IQ points, when extrapolated over a population of tens of millions, is a non-trivial factor. They'll take more easily to education, they'll behave in a more orderly fashion, they'll be more focused on future results, and they'll be able to more easily handle complex work. On an individual scale the difference will be reasonably small, but it really adds up over an entire populace, and in a competitive environment, even a small difference can create a vastly disparate result. And the East Asian / African IQ divide is far more than a few points; we're talking about the largest IQ divide in the entire world here. And like I mentioned, there's at least some reason to believe that East Asians are atypically resistant to the negative impacts of poverty on IQ, which only exacerbates the divide. It's not some "hive mind IQ" I'm referencing here, it's individual effects adding up to a cumulative effect.
In short, if your population has a higher average IQ, and all the positive behavioral and competency patterns which correlate with a higher IQ hold true (and they seem to), you're going to have a better behaved and more competent society. The reverse is also true: if a lower IQ correlates with greater deviancy, shorter-term thinking, and so forth, that lower IQ extrapolated over an entire populace could be expected to result in more violence and less wealth building. It seems to me that these correlations match very closely with what we see in East Asia and Africa respectively. |
In some cases individuals matter greatly. Lee Kuan Yew, Mao, and Chiang Kai Shek all had ethnic Chinese to work with and their outcomes varied wildly. Taiwan and Singapore have grown remarkably, and so has China, but there are strikingly large portions of China with Africa level poverty, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are clustered around the same gdp per capita as Nigeria. Also, at the moment, if you look at growth, Africa is growing remarkably at the moment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate
| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| This next ideas is going out on a limb a bit because I'm not entirely sure how true it is, but both Korea and Japan benefitted because a lot of their capitalism was state controlled, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of the money Africa gets is from the IMF and World Bank, and I think that they put a lot of policy conditions to the money that prevent governments from doing that sort of planning. |
I've acknowledged there are valid issues in this regard. It bears mentioning though that Korea has been on the receiving end of IMF loans tied to mandatory austerity measures as well, demands so severe that even the IMF acknowledges the error.
| Leon wrote: |
| Korea for a long time was worse than most of Africa. |
Well, what do you mean by "worse" here exactly? Let's not be vague. You can stick with my Ethiopia / Korea comparison if you like or you can try to draw a contrast against the entire continent in some average sense (though that will probably be harder). |
"I remember what it was like growing up in Korea in the 1950s and 1960s. Per capita income was less than $100 - about what it is today in the poorest south Asian and African countries. "
http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2010/06/14-korea-philanthropy-oh
"They note that while in mid-1950s over half of the Korean population was affected by absolute poverty, by the mid-1990s, absolute poverty had declined to only about 3.4 percent of the population"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_South_Korea
South Korea was desperately poor before and after the Korean War, and only started to really grow in 1965, which was when they got their reparations from Japan
http://knoema.com/mpeqfkc/gdp-levels-and-per-capita-gdp-for-china-japan-and-south-korea
| Fox wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| However, it might have been more African than you realize, they based society off of tribes, they depended on strongman rule, natural resources, corruption, and criminal activity to have a prosperous state. Their culture, based on White South Africans I know, is certainly European, but it is also distinct from European culture in ways that I would guess was shaped by the environment. |
I've met quite a few South Africans here in Korea, and they seem largely culturally indistinguishable from Europeans. I'm sure deep down there are some differences after so long, but overall I don't think I could call them "culturally African." Maybe if you provided some firm examples. |
They are clearly more culturally European than African, but in terms of how society was run it was run in a way that was more similar to African rulers, as mentioned before. I find South Africans more culturally similar to Australians than Europeans, and I think their situation is fairly similar. This is based on seeing differences while I lived in Australia- which has a lot of South Africans living there as well- and noticing how the South Africans adapted to Australia much easier than most of the Europeans, aside from some of the Brits. That's not much to go on, but that is the feeling I got. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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Fast growth is easy when it's all low hanging fruit adopted from overseas, it doesn't mean much. If they could keep that up for an indefinite period of time, it might be more impressive, but we both know they can't and won't. Moreover, if they could, it would destroy the narrative you yourself are pushing. You just got done telling me about how Africa can't be prosperous like South Korea because of their environment, history, and the US not handing them contracts, and now you're going to turn around and try to hype their growth? Surely what matters is a sustainable level of absolute productivity and a reasonable standard of living, not relative growth.
First of all, a per capita income of $100 in 1950 would be $983.70 today according to an inflation calculator. Ethiopia's per capita income today is $410 (less than half), and many African countries are lower, so the quote is just flat out wrong for any meaningful definition of the word "comparable," even if we're comparing the Korea of the past to Africa today. But perhaps more importantly, I highlighted a key word in your quote; how can you try to prove that Korea in the past was worse off than Africa in the past by comparing the Korea of the past to the Africa of today? You said for a long time South Korea was worse than most of Africa, but according to your quote 1950s South Korea evidently wasn't even worse than Africa now (much less Africa of the 1950s).
| Leon wrote: |
"They note that while in mid-1950s over half of the Korean population was affected by absolute poverty, by the mid-1990s, absolute poverty had declined to only about 3.4 percent of the population"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_South_Korea |
Again, fine support for the notion that Korea was poor in the past (something I don't think I've ever contested; I explicitly acknowledged interaction with the west was a key element of Korea's modern success), but useless for demonstrating, "Korea for a long time was worse than most of Africa," which is the contention I asked you to support. Do you perhaps have something more concrete in that regard? Because as it stands, it seems to me the opposite of your proposition is true: even poverty-stricken, disease-ridden historic Korea was better off than Africa, at least in economic terms. To be maximally fair to your position I think there's more to life than economics, and I would be willing to consider the hypothetical possibility that other elements of life might play a role here, but those are hard to compare mathematically and will probably lend themselves to subjectivity. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2014 4:48 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
Fast growth is easy when it's all low hanging fruit adopted from overseas, it doesn't mean much. If they could keep that up for an indefinite period of time, it might be more impressive, but we both know they can't and won't. Moreover, if they could, it would destroy the narrative you yourself are pushing. You just got done telling me about how Africa can't be prosperous like South Korea because of their environment, history, and the US not handing them contracts, and now you're going to turn around and try to hype their growth? Surely what matters is a sustainable level of absolute productivity and a reasonable standard of living, not relative growth. |
Actually for a general trend, it seems that the growth has been going on for at least a decade in most countries. http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/statistics/table-2-real-gdp-growth-rates-2003-2013/
I think sustaining this rate of growth is possible up to a point, and the encouraging thing is how much of it is driven by its people, rather than aid. http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21572773-pride-africas-achievements-should-be-coupled-determination-make-even-faster
My contention is that the circumstances in Africa explain why it has not yet experienced Korea level growth, and I'm not sure that it will reach that level in the foreseeable future. My position isn't that Africa's condition will doom it to poverty and conflict forever and ever, or that the African people are not able to advance and grow and make a much better future based on their genetics.
| Fox wrote: |
First of all, a per capita income of $100 in 1950 would be $983.70 today according to an inflation calculator. Ethiopia's per capita income today is $410 (less than half), and many African countries are lower, so the quote is just flat out wrong for any meaningful definition of the word "comparable," even if we're comparing the Korea of the past to Africa today. But perhaps more importantly, I highlighted a key word in your quote; how can you try to prove that Korea in the past was worse off than Africa in the past by comparing the Korea of the past to the Africa of today? You said for a long time South Korea was worse than most of Africa, but according to your quote 1950s South Korea evidently wasn't even worse than Africa now (much less Africa of the 1950s).
| Leon wrote: |
"They note that while in mid-1950s over half of the Korean population was affected by absolute poverty, by the mid-1990s, absolute poverty had declined to only about 3.4 percent of the population"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_South_Korea |
Again, fine support for the notion that Korea was poor in the past (something I don't think I've ever contested; I explicitly acknowledged interaction with the west was a key element of Korea's modern success), but useless for demonstrating, "Korea for a long time was worse than most of Africa," which is the contention I asked you to support. Do you perhaps have something more concrete in that regard? Because as it stands, it seems to me the opposite of your proposition is true: even poverty-stricken, disease-ridden historic Korea was better off than Africa, at least in economic terms. To be maximally fair to your position I think there's more to life than economics, and I would be willing to consider the hypothetical possibility that other elements of life might play a role here, but those are hard to compare mathematically and will probably lend themselves to subjectivity. |
The quote said less than $100, not $100, which is my fault for not finding a better source. It is hard to find actual numbers for that time in the past, I found two sources for that time period, one says around $50 and the other says $67. http://transform-world.net/newsletters/2008/08/Poor2Blessed.pdf
http://www.globalsherpa.org/korea-south-north
I'm not comparing Korea of the past to Africa today, that was just the language used by that one source. There was a source that I had that went into detail about it that I read for class, but I don't have my syllabus anymore and I can't remember the name, sorry. Since it is difficult to find good information about GDP per Capita for Africa in the 1950s, and only so much time I can spend on google, I am fine with just asserting that time Korea was comparable with Africa, definitely poorer than some of the countries, richer than some others. Ethiopia, it appears, seems to be consistently poor, but based on this chart I found, Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana were richer. Most of the countries in Africa apparently don't have easily findable data for 1950's. http://www.csls.ca/reports/10-03-05_poverty_penn.pdf
Anyways, lets leave this here, I feel like we are getting into minutiae. Perhaps if I read that book Titus kept on mentioning I will have more to say on the topic, but I've made my case as fully as I'm prepared to at the moment. |
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