The Open Thread is a place for open discussion among my readers. Post anything you feel like sharing! From now on, the Open Thread will no longer be monthly. Instead, there will be a new Open Thread whenever it is adequate. The stage is yours. Go ahead!
The latest Open Thread is made ‘sticky’ to improve access.
Please consider throwing a few coins into the tip jar, and buy my books! They are great. Your support is greatly appreciated.
Hello everyone…I had a new question for everyone to answer.
How come a small group of elite men,in terms of LMS(either in one department or all the three), have had a lot of access to a lot of women since the times of hunter gatherers?How true is this?
Can anyone suggest content to read?
Since when was this applicable to the modern humans?There is some research which says that our hunter gatheres were egalitarians by DailyMail I guess but we all know what a big shit show the DailyMail is.
.
I mean how true all of this is?
For example in the times of empires and kingdoms,the elite men in terms of LMS(either in one department or all the three) were able to attract and keep all the high quality women!
Or say,during the Agricultural times when the man who had the most cows,his son was able to enjoy different women in his years before marriage and then got to marry a virgin bride while the women who’s virginity he takes away,have to suffer because other non-elite men wanted virgin brides too!
Can anyone explain carefully?
Thank you for your time.
The answer is depend on societies. Western Europe, along the adoption of Christianity, and Eastern Europe, along with the conversion to Orthodox, enforce monogamy on almost all segments of society. Eastern states such as Islamic states or China allowed polygamy.
I view most who talk about evolutionary psychology are armchair general who possess little knowledge of history.
@Cuong Quoc Vu
No I get…but I am talking in terms of premarital sex and not marriage.Even though monogamy was enforced,casual sex and premarital sex has existed in the civilization however small it was or uncommon it was.
Like say Casanova.
He deflowered a 17 year old girl named Angelica just a few weeks before her marriage in 17th Century.
How about this?
It is still a conspiracy theory that the vaxx is more dangerous than the fake virus: https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/canada-confirms-first-case-deadly-blood-clots-tied-astrazeneca-jab
I’m of course abhorred that yet another gun-toting black man is dead because we really don’t have many of those around and every single one of them will sorely be missed (in GTA!). Yet, I couldn’t help but laugh when I witnessed the behavior of the fat, white female cop — you see her fat hands in the bodycam video so you can conclude that she’s fat herself — who got into the way of her male colleagues and started shooting the guy, believing she was tasering him. She shouts, “taser, taser, taser!” as she pumps him full of bullets. I’m still laughing as I’m typing this. As bad as living in clown world may be, there is a lot of humor in it.
https://dailystormer.su/minnesota-cops-shoot-good-boy-for-no-reason-as-chauvin-verdict-looms/
I also find it very amusing that the mainstream reports this as a case of a “police officer” or even a “white police officer” accidentally shooting a black guy. Biological differences could of course have had nothing to do with how that woman acted. It’s probably an “sexist canard” that women are less stress-resilient and therefore loose their cool a lot faster.
Believe it or not, she was training the other officer.
Really? I now had to laugh even more. Clown World just keeps on giving.
LOL @ women in the police
LOL @ fat cops
LOL @ this video
LOL @ the USA
it is really clown world galore
Asians have a higher IQ than Whites, but Whites are more innovative. So Whites are overrepresented in mathematic innovations. Most white people I know are dumb as fuck. Stoners and drunks. It’s a running joke in the USA that we copy off the Asian guys math tests.
Whoops, I meant to post that in the discussion below started by Dues.
Not sure if this was posted here before. I really enjoyed this video because this woman had a dose of reality hit her in the face. At the end it looked like she wanted to cry because she couldn’t face the facts.
https://youtu.be/VI6XWGKvUrE
Thanks for posting this! I have come across snippets of this guy’s videos before but didn’t bother enough to look him up. I’ll happily watch the entire 20-minute segment. This guy is an interesting character. If he was white, he would have been banned from YouTube by now. I like how the left is being confronted with contradictions in their system, forcing them to update their “oppression stack”. Now we know that a black man can dress down a (black) woman. I find this quite interesting because otherwise the hierarchy is woman > man. Their system is getting more difficult to maintain, at the very least. On the other hand, the left never cared about contradictions, so this only ridicules them even more.
@Aaron: In a coherent system, you would have rules like this (don’t remember what this law is called in math, I think “associative law?”
if
A > B
and
B > C
then it follows:
A > C
but in the leftist world model, it can be
A > B
B > C
C > A
and the relations can also change and fluctuate depending on the current political event.
you need to study more post colonial theory to understand this, it is really a very advanced system!
The correct terms is “transitive relation”. It is fundamental in mathematics, but, as we know, mathematics are oppressive because it exposes that not everybody is equal. Mathematics is also really racist and white supremacist because blacks have problems with it, and the fact that Asians do better than whites somehow still corroborates that mathematics are a tool of white supremacy.
Also, the left an argue A > B and B > A, and if you point out that this doesn’t make any sense, you’re a racist.
The contradictions of the left reared their heads during the OJ Simson trial. It was interesting to see feminists and black rights advocates Duke it out. The media didn’t really know what to do.
To the point about Asians being better at math… I always found it interesting that this “white supremacists culture” allows Asians to excel beyond Whites. Do whites just like Asians better than backs and browns…… Or something?
“and the fact that Asians do better than whites somehow still corroborates that mathematics are a tool of white supremacy.”
Whites are better than Asians in terms of Math.
In the latest IMO [1], the Chinese won the top three spots whereas the Americans did not nearly do as well. I could not help but notice the names of the American team, which were Luke Robitaille, Quanlin Chen, William Wang, Tianze Jiang, Gopal Goel, and Jeffrey Kwan. As you can undoubtedly tell from these names, those young men (and women?) can trace their lineage straight back to the passengers of the Mayflower. It just does not get more American than that.
[1] https://www.imo-official.org/year_individual_r.aspx?year=2020&column=total&order=desc&gender=hide&nameform=western
“In the latest IMO [1], the Chinese won the top three spots whereas the Americans did not nearly do as well. ”
Sorry to be frank here, but comparing the mathematical ability of a student with the IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad) is ridiculous. Right now, on this Vietnamese forum, young math graduates band together to purge the effects of Olympiad from young students during their high school years.
https://diendantoanhoc.net/topic/188844-h%E1%BB%8Dc-g%C3%AC-%E1%BB%9F-to%C3%A1n-ph%E1%BB%95-th%C3%B4ng/
The title of this page is “What math to study in high school”
A consensus among these graduates is that Olympiad math is unproductive and doesn’t represent the right direction if you wish to pursue higher Math.
Vietnam stands very well among international communities in terms of gold medals. Yet our country only has 1 mathematician who won the Field Medal, Ngo Bao Chau. Compare this to Russia (and former Soviet Union), France and USA, we are nothing, no matter how many more models we win.
France and Germany has never done great in the Olympiad scene, but their educations are top-notched.
Even counting Field medals doesn’t represent the prowess in math of a country either. Germany has not won many Field medals, but she is the powerhouse of many great mathematical discovery. Heck, she gives birth to Gauss, Bernhard Riemann, Dirichlet, etc. That should proves how powerful Germany is (or used to be).
Think of great geniuses who have made great breakthrough in Math: Alexander Grothendieck, Andre Weil, Sir Atiyah, Serre, Israel Gelfand, Kolmogorov, etc. Big names are all white.
We should look at top mathematicians, not Olympiad, if we want to measure the success of a country in this fundamental field.
Education in Germany has gone downhill fast in the last few decades. For instance, Goettingen used to be the premier university in mathematics in the world about 100 years ago. Today, it’s somewhere in the bottom of the top 200 worldwide. One hundred years from now, ze Germans will probably still talk about all the great minds they used to have and refer to Beethoven (in particular this dude, considering that he’s actually black!), Goethe, or Gauss. It’s the intellectual version of fantasy football.
And speaking of education of Math in China, it is purely rote memorization. I am not clear if this has changed during the years after I left China. But my impression is the entire high education of China is inferior to the US, and to some extends, to France.
If you ever have a chance to study Physics and Mathin ENS (Ecole Normale Superieur), or Ivy League universities, your math knowledge will be top-notched. You will be working with greatest minds on this earth. That’s the reason why exceptionally gifted students in my country seek to win scholarship in these countries, not China.
I wonder why there is an anti-Asian bias (and a pro-Jewish bias) in admissions to the top Ivy League universities. It’s probably nothing. In all honesty, if you believe that places like HYP select based on academic merit, you need to do a bit more reading. Ron Unz’ The Myth of American Meritocracy is a good start. The entire book is (legally) available for free:
https://www.unz.com/runz/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/
“I wonder why there i=s an anti-Asian bias (and a pro-Jewish bias) in admissions to the top Ivy League universities.”
I am not such an excellent and smart student to get admitted to those universities so I don’t know. But I agree with you that the education of the US shows true signs of decay. That being said, top universities will probably maintain their ranking for quite some time in the future.
Since you have not lived long enough in China and Vietnam, you don’t know how much failure it is for most students to pass the test.
A dude who pass the entrance exam to a university after finishing my high school could get wonderful score, yet he don’t know how to find the vertex of a simple parabola. It is just -b/2a for the general parabola ax^2+bx+c.
Most students couldn’t graph a simple piecewise defined functions and have to resort to graphing calculators. Sure, you may not be able to graph a complex rational functions, but simple functions such as quadratic, cubic and quartic should be within your domain of knowledge.
In short, the average Asian students would not do any better than an average European or American students.
If you think carefully about that. Math should be the most demanding fields out of all academic fields in the entire academia. Due to its characteristics, Math advances much deeper into abstraction than any field. Yet its power is omnipresent in almost all fields, even seemingly unrelated one like archaeology (you need to understand statistics to analyze data).
Very few students would succeed in this field and become a forefront mathematician, whether they are Asians or whites.
Solid summary about the vaxx and why you might want to reconsider getting it.
https://www.deconstructingconventional.com/post/18-reason-i-won-t-be-getting-a-covid-vaccine
A great contrarian article written in a non-alarmist way. It should be more palatable for pro-vaxxers or those on the fence to read, thanks for sharing!
Lisbon past away:
https://youtu.be/pfCnesmBq7s
https://youtu.be/1RJw4H8KS7M
This is sad news, if true. Are you a real-life friend of him? (Rest in peace, Lisbon!)
No. I found this video on youtube.
Sad if true. Another life lost to gynocentrism.
With the right mindset he could have just continued to fuck hookers and be content.
when you commit suicide but keeping answer in the comments section of your channel…
@Baldie: which is Lisbon’s channel?
RIP Lisbon
I cant say I am surprised, the guy did have serious issues
The natural struggle for existence, which only allows the strongest and healthiest to survive, will be replaced by the obvious desire to save at any cost even the weakest and sickest; thereby a progeny is produced, which must become ever more miserable, the longer this mocking of nature and its will persists. . . . A stronger race will supplant the weaker, since the drive for life in its final form will decimate every ridiculous fetter of the so-called humaneness of individuals, in order to make place for the humaneness of nature, which destroys the weak to make place for the strong.”
We live in the best society ever. Getting 10 years jail time for violating Covid quarantine rules is absolutely justified. I’m sure it was mentioned in the Magna Carta already:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-cops-break-down-door-arrest-man-violating-covid-quarantine-rules
That’s how you establish tyranny. Insane. The normies will still believe this is all justified “for the greater good”
According to rumors, Microsoft wants to buy the Metal Gear Solid franchise:
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/microsoft-wants-to-buy-metal-gear-license-from-konami.1600598/
I would love for this to happen as I really enjoy watching MS fuck up one franchise after another. They have wrecked Gears of War and Halo. Their next big release is Perfect Dark, which had a cringe-worthy release trailer that focused on how revolutionary that game was on the N64 because you could play a strong female character, ignoring that Tomb Raider was huge in the late 1990s. Go, Microsoft! It’s the company that gets basically nothing right. However, remember that you can trust Bill Gates! You need to take the vaxx because the guy who foisted some of the crappiest software imaginable on the planet as well as some of the most horrible products like the Zune surely has gotten it right this time.
Microsoft should bring back conckers bad fur day
This is another great example. They bought Rare and got essentially nothing for it. They were one of the top developers during the SNES and N64 years.
Following up on my comment from the last open thread…
@CQV: you seem to be getting your panties in a bunch, now you’ll give plenty of excuse to Sleazy to ban you again for throwing out insults.
I and Ubermensch apparently struck a nerve on your liberal worldview, but I’ll let him defend himself. Addressing your reply to me though:
When did I praise polygamy? Or slavery? You can perfectly have patriarchal societies without both. I specifically started my point about androcentric societies by mentioning Christian enforced monogamy, and plenty of free women sought work as whores throughout history, if it wasn’t obvious from how many modern women make a living that way, legally or illegally.
Oh, and to rile you up a little more, dog-eaters from your region of the world are savage scum. 🙂
And yeah, I would give more rights to animals and fewer to women. 😁
And no, I’m no vegan. I had steak yesterday and I’ll have delicious shredded beef today.
“Oh, and to rile you up a little more, dog-eaters from your region of the world are savage scum.”
Just try, I feel so sleepy.
“you seem to be getting your panties in a bunch, now you’ll give plenty of excuse to Sleazy to ban you again for throwing out insults.”
Where did I personally insult you or him?
Cuong complains about females having too much power, at the same time he wants liberalism and maximum freedom for everyone, but this leads exactly to females having too much power.
He is also an advocate of the welfare state, which is the major contribution to making most men useless to women. (only men are net tax payers as a group, so welfare state is just a very big wealth transfer from men to women)
You cannot have it all. He is the type of idealist who will defend his ideology even when it doesn’t produce the desired results in the real world. (like most leftists)
“Cuong complains about females having too much power, at the same time he wants liberalism and maximum freedom for everyone, but this leads exactly to females having too much power.”
That is a false dichotomy. You would be suprised when I said that the ideal type of society for men and women in the 21th century is that of China or Vietnam? Why did I say that? Because women are free to explore careers that they want, but they can also opt to stay home if they find it necessary.
There are plenty of freedom for women in China. They can work, they can stay home, they can marry, they can be single.
What I want is CHOICES for women.
“He is also an advocate of the welfare state, which is the major contribution to making most men useless to women. (only men are net tax payers as a group, so welfare state is just a very big wealth transfer from men to women)”
You are apparently putting words into my mouth. I didn’t support lavish welfare state. I want to a welfare state that is quite like in the US, and I dislike minimum welfare state like in China. I don’t want to give too much to the unproductives, but I want them to receive enough to keep them alive.
“You cannot have it all. He is the type of idealist who will defend his ideology even when it doesn’t produce the desired results in the real world. (like most leftists)”
I don’t give a shit about leftist or rightist. I only see features that I like, and I wish them to be implemented in my country, that’s all!
If women can work, a lot of them will decide not to have babies or only one, which you see right now happening in the West. The result is declining birth rates, which will lead to huge problems in 20-30 years when pension systems collapse.
Right now they try to make up for it by importing low IQ immigrants from Africa, which makes the problem even worse.
Also many women delay pregnancy now into their 30s, which is also very bad.
Again. You cannot have it all.
You seem to have the opinion that giving people choice is always good.
Will you still defend your opinion when society collapses as a result?
“If women can work, a lot of them will decide not to have babies or only one, which you see right now happening in the West. The result is declining birth rates, which will lead to huge problems in 20-30 years when pension systems collapse.”
Women in China can work, yet they still dedicate their lives to families. I don’t believe that if women can work, they will want to abandon families. Even in the US, East Asian families are still preserved because women take care of their children and work.
Your assertion needs further investigations. That doesn’t sound right to me.
The reason why women choose to abandon having a child is because feminists try to push the career path to women. They are sold a lie. In China or Vietnam, women are presented with choices, so they can make them on their own. There are no propaganda that brainwash them to choose a career and abandon their children.
“Also many women delay pregnancy now into their 30s, which is also very bad.”
What is the problem with giving birth to children in their early 30? My mom gave birth to me when she was 32.
“You seem to have the opinion that giving people choice is always good.
Will you still defend your opinion when society collapses as a result?”
What societies collapse? Europe?
I think people should be given choices. Everyone should have a freedom decide for themselves. Who are you to think that you can choose and force others to do what you think are good for them. That’s the seed of abusing power.
Only children should be told what to do. Adults should be free to choose what they want.
“Right now they try to make up for it by importing low IQ immigrants from Africa, which makes the problem even worse.”
There are TONS of factors that go into the low birth rate of Europe. You are pretending that women are the only problems. Sure, feminism must have something to do with it, but the ultimate cause is that people simply refuse to work menial labour. That’s the reason why European countries invite unskilled labours to their states, while expel highly educated international students from their countries. They don’t need doctors or lawyers, they need labours for undesired jobs. Who can take it? New immigrants from the undeveloped world.
If you think that those millions of immigrants from MENA countries do menial labor, you need a reality check. By and large, they live off the largesse of the taxpayer. Also, plenty of manual labor has gotten automated. Interestingly, lefties still think there is this enormous number of simple jobs available. I recall Swedish politicians talk about how wonderful it is that there are now so many more laborers available in the country, clearly oblivious to the fact that Sweden has, believe it or not, one of the most advanced economies in the world, which entails that low-skill jobs are not available in abundance. The Swedes solved their problem directly and indirectly via the welfare state. Those immigrants who commonly are illiterate in their mother tongue either get free money or they get have to do some utterly bizarre make-work jobs such as handing out printed queue numbers, which could as well be done via an electronic display.
By the way, you should not discount the advantages of limited choice. I don’t think society would run any worse or that people would be less happy, if they were only given limited choice. Today, we allow millions of dull teenagers to enroll in some bullshit subject at university. But what if your choices were determined by a psychometric test? If you are smart, you can study Physics, Mathematics, or Computer Science, for instance, but if you are dull, you cannot just sign up for Education. We are also talking about societal resources, so why do you think individual should have the right to squander the wealth of a nation? This is a rather serious issue, if you tally up how many billions education costs, with often rather doubtful outcomes.
I don’t understand why you’re so focused on this issue? Women never “really” demanded to have more choices. Feminism is a multi-trillion dollar project implemented from the top, it wasn’t organic at all. Sure, women were always dissatisfied and wanted more, but so were men, it’s part of the human make-up, but this would have never caused any societal disruption of any kind. Especially if the elites wouldn’t artificially decrease wealth per capita and distort culture all the time.
Let’s be real, the majority of produced goods and services shouldn’t even exist in a sane world. So what jobs would be left for women to do? Not many, really, and mostly part-time. And they would have their hands full anyways, they would raise children, regularly organize family and neighborhood gathering, follow their hobbies and generally try to make things nicer around us. And they would be happy doing this. If you showed them our world of today, they would look at it in disgust. That’s my take on this, anyways.
Entire industries would not exist if we hadn’t pushed women into the workforce. I also love that the typical normie woman, i.e the typical woman, fully embraces environmentalism, yet covers her face in toxic sludge all day long and blows a good part of her money on fashion. Beauty and fashion are arguably the two industries that are most harmful to the environment. We are wrecking our planet just so that Stacy and Cindy can buy “fast fashion” which they wear once before throwing it out.
Choice is exactly what women had in the post war era. They chose to stay home. Even liberal film maker Michael Moore agreed to this in Capitalism, a Love Story. I agree with Through the Looking Glass, women entering the workforce was a top/down decision. Like everything in the US, it was corporate America getting their way.
I’ve posted evidence of this before. Women want to stay home with their children and I’ve even posted evidence of CIA involvement in the feminist movement.
“If you think that those millions of immigrants from MENA countries do menial labor, you need a reality check.”
I don’t need any reality check. Here in the US, construction jobs are taken by Hispanics. They deserve full recognition because they have chosen a field that nobody who are native to the US ever want to do. They get big paychecks as well. Many later leave these jobs for more cushy positions in other fields like truck drivers for FEDEX.
“By the way, you should not discount the advantages of limited choice. I don’t think society would run any worse or that people would be less happy, if they were only given limited choice. Today, we allow millions of dull teenagers to enroll in some bullshit subject at university. But what if your choices were determined by a psychometric test? If you are smart, you can study Physics, Mathematics, or Computer Science, for instance, but if you are dull, you cannot just sign up for Education. We are also talking about societal resources, so why do you think individual should have the right to squander the wealth of a nation? This is a rather serious issue, if you tally up how many billions education costs, with often rather doubtful outcomes.”
Your points may be applied to Europe, but not the US. We have skyrocketing high education system. So naturally, students are not free to choose to do whatever they want, or to say more precisely, they can choose whatever they want but they will pay the price for their choice. Students who come from affluent background or who have strong aptitudes for academic subject will have a great future choosing in-demand fields. Those who are less fortunate will opt out to work in supermarkets, hoping one day they will get to the manager position. Or, they can work for USPS and receive great retire benefits.
There are so much options for a citizen of the US that I don’t know why a large selection of choices are not preferred.
Personally, I prefer to have many options rather than stuffs shoving down on my throat by some guys who think that will be better for me.
For an anecdotal evidence (I don’t like anecdotes but just read it as an entertainment outlet), my neighbor is a Hispanic. He decides to choose computer science as his major, he also serves part-time position in the army and get free tuition for 4 years college. When he tells me about his score in Algebra 2 and Statistics, he only get a C and an F. My natural reaction is that this guy won’t make it. But he could still have some other great careers if he sticks to the army. Who knows.
“. But what if your choices were determined by a psychometric test?
Those are bollocks anyway. If you think you are highly inclined to Math and natural sciences, pick a specialized test and we will send you to a special school. If you have natural talents for languages, take a specialized test and we will get you through the door. I don’t give a rat ass about IQ tests, they are pure bullshit. What I want is a good specialized test that gauge your natural inclination.
It helps to sort out those who can do well in which fields.
Why is it that an IQ test is a complete no-go for you, despite their proven usefulness, yet a more specialized test that likewise arguably highly correlates with IQ is OK?
@Cuong:
“Your assertion needs further investigations. That doesn’t sound right to me.”
Almost all Western countries have below replacement rate reproduction rates.
In more European countries pensions systems are based on a pay-as-you-go system, the young paying via taxes for the retired.
It only takes very simple mathematics to extrapolate this trend into the future and see that the system will either collapse, or place an extremely high tax burden onto the younger generation, which could potentially lead to civil unrest.
And bringing in lot of immigrants to make up for the problem would only work if the immigrants are net-tax contributors. Which they are not. In Germany the huge influx of immigrants since 2015 overall cost the country a lot of money.
And the impact on crime and culture also cannot be neglected.
@Cuong:
Honestly I think you are also quite naive and trusting a lot in academia, your denial of IQ tells me exactly that.
The reason IQ is not talked about in academia is because it does not fit very well into the current ideology of equality which has the cultural hegemony in the West.
If IQ matters, and it is mostly genetic, then everyone is not equal, which is the deathblow to the ideology of equality.
A scientist who would even dare to mention this topic would almost certainly lose his reputation and his job.
If you think IQ doesn’t matter, answer me one question:
Could you teach a chimp how to program a computer?
If not, why not? What is the reason the chimp cannot learn programming, but a human can?
You are clearly biased because of your ideology.
“I don’t give a shit about leftist or rightist. I only see features that I like, and I wish them to be implemented in my country, that’s all!”
But the features that you want are based on ideology, not on outcomes in the real world.
Show me evidence that maximizing choice for women has good effects on society.
You clearly want it because of the liberal ideals you have, not because it leads to real world benefits.
“But the features that you want are based on ideology, not on outcomes in the real world.
Show me evidence that maximizing choice for women has good effects on society.
You clearly want it because of the liberal ideals you have, not because it leads to real world benefits.”
I have given you real world results. It lies in China. I find that system far more comfortable for women. I have their rights protected, yet they do not need to be “independent, strong, empowered women”.
They have CHOICES. They can go to work, they can stay home, nobody forces them to do anything. That accommodates for all kinds of women.
As I said, I don’t see men having any right to impose their wills on women’s choices. Women are not a homogenous group, and they should be allowed to pursue their interests as much as they can.
“You are clearly biased because of your ideology.”
As if you are not, you, just like many posters here, are rightist.
I am free to move between ideologies. I don’t give a shit about ideology. What works will earn my interest, what doesn’t will get my criticism.
“If you think IQ doesn’t matter, answer me one question:
Could you teach a chimp how to program a computer?
If not, why not? What is the reason the chimp cannot learn programming, but a human can?”
I have never denied the importance of intelligence. In fact, I have said over and over again that if you want to show your talents, you should take a specialized test to see if you have strong APTITUDES for a specific subject. Sometimes, you don’t need to even take these tests, your thesis might be the answer. Grothendieck wrote his thesis when he was very young about functional analysis and Lebesgue integration. This shows a remarkable ability to deal with highly abstract concepts in modern Math.
What I don’t trust is IQ test. They cannot measure your special mental powers. Grothendieck didn’t need to take any IQ test, but his ingenious attempt at reformulating Algebraic Geometry is beyond doubt.
I refuse to trust those who wear their IQ as a honor badge. It’s full of shit. If you have some special ability, you should have demonstrated and got your talents accepted by a community of specialists, just like my friend who got scholarship in 9th grade because he could come up with a creative proof of the Abel-Ruffini theorem. (I told this a while ago to Sleazy)
The Russian system of training Math and Physics students still leaves its legacy in the modern world. None of those students get an IQ test, yet we saw a long generations of excellent mathematicians and physicists being trained from that system.
IQ is total bullshit, specialized tests are what help you to spot talents.
I’m quite certain that those Russian mathematicians and physicians would score very highly on IQ tests.
“I’m quite certain that those Russian mathematicians and physicians would score very highly on IQ tests.”
Does your IQ test tells us your natural talents for literature? for music? for languages? Boris Pasternak or Dostoevsky didn’t take IQ tests either, yet a simple Russian teacher can tell you how incredible the style of Dostoevsky is.
You are not addressing the question. Instead, you are moving the goalpost. Had modern IQ tests been available in Dostoevsky’s time, and had he taken one, he surely would have scored very well.
My goalpost stays where it is. You have no proofs but conjectures on the possible IQ points of those men. The fact that they haven’t taken any IQ test yet succeeded due to a specialized tests or system of tests prove my point. You don’t need IQ test, you need specialized tests conducted by specialists of the concerned field.
IQ test couldn’t measure your talent in music either. Micheal Jackson didn’t take the test, but his singing ability and his dancing style is nonetheless unique.
IQ test couldn’t measure your talent in sports either. Ronaldo Cristiano, Zinedine Zidan, Micheal Jordan didn’t take that test.
IQ test couldn’t measure your talent for languages either. Chen Yinke was a very prominent historian of China in the 20th century. He had mastered over 14 languages, including dead ones and became an expert in multiple fields, a very rare phenomenon in China.
IQ test couldn’t measure your cooking talent. Gordon Ramsey didn’t need your IQ test either.
Even for nail polishing, IQ test couldn’t measure your skills in polishing nails and apply nail techniques. Many workers in the nail spa earns up to 10,000 USD a month do not take IQ test.
Your IQ test is piece of crap that proves nothing to nobody, and is clearly inferior to a specialized test (including singing rehearsals, or observation of a seasoned nail technicians).
If you want to prove your worth, prove it to the specialists, and forget about IQ tests.
Are you by any chance butt-hurt because you took an IQ test and the number wasn’t quite as high as you had imagined it to be? You can pick any discipline, and you’ll find that success correlates with IQ, regardless of whether those people have taken such a test or not before. Just because someone didn’t take an IQ test does not mean that they have a low IQ or that such tests are useless.
He probably believes in the just world fallacy like most of the people who use this line of argumentation.
“if you are bad at math you must be a language talent!”
When in reality IQ (or G to be more specific) is highly correlated with any other metric of cognitive function, because in the end it measures how good your brain works.
But he will keep dodging the question
“Why is it that an IQ test is a complete no-go for you, despite their proven usefulness, yet a more specialized test that likewise arguably highly correlates with IQ is OK?”
Because with the meaning of a “specialized test” can be extended to include a sufficient numbers of tests carried out by specialists in many fields.
If you think you are good at cooking, do a test with Ramsey Gordon and impress him
If you think you’re good at math or physics, do a test with specialists and impress them
If you are good at music, like singing or composing, give it a shot with specialists at a studio (although whether you can be successful purely based on your voice is debatable, because the music industry is not what it used to be)
If you are good at making people laugh, impress Craig Ferguson and make up a show.
If you are good at languages, take a specialized test to impress language specialists, including professional translators and interpreters.
If you are good at nail polishing and other related skills, apply to a good nail spa and start impressing your owners, you will earn big bucks with your talents.
If you are good at sport, try to impress sport coaches and start building a great career (all kinds of sports, from basketball to MMA)
IQ test is restricted and cannot measure your special abilities in may fields, while a specialized test in the form of traditional sit-in tests or examinations by specialists are much more meaningful.
With specialist tests, it is possible to even slot students into various subfields of sciences or humanities. Some will do great in combinatorics, others will perform well in abstract fields like Algebraic Geometry. The same is true for physics. A well crafted specialized test tell you much more than a simple piece of crap like IQ.
Similarly, I have taken a specialist tests in language acquisition, and this proves that I can move up very fast in learning languages (I know this is overshadowed by my grammatical mistakes when posting here, but that is because I don’t have time to re-edit the posts. Whenever I go back and read my own posts, I can easily spot these mistakes and correct them). In China, I moved from a beginner class in 1.1 up to 2.1 (intermediate-advanced class) in just 6 months. The best Vietnamese guy who could do so move from 1.1 to 3.1. So I am not that terrible, I guess (although it must be admitted that Vietnamese and Chinese are close to each other in many respects, and such a jump when learning Russian, for example, will not be phenomenally repeated).
“He probably believes in the just world fallacy like most of the people who use this line of argumentation.
“if you are bad at math you must be a language talent!”
When in reality IQ (or G to be more specific) is highly correlated with any other metric of cognitive function, because in the end it measures how good your brain works.
But he will keep dodging the question”
Don’t put words in my mouth. You are doing all kinds of sophist attempts at discrediting me. Just because you are not good in Math doesn’t mean you are good in language acquisitioning. Some people are very good at one field but not at another. Yet some “monsters” will be very good at both.
Think of Kolmogorov, his French is phenomenal. Yet we also have Vladimir Arnold who spoke very bad French, even though he had been in France for more than a decade.
“Are you by any chance butt-hurt because you took an IQ test and the number wasn’t quite as high as you had imagined it to be? You can pick any discipline, and you’ll find that success correlates with IQ, regardless of whether those people have taken such a test or not before. Just because someone didn’t take an IQ test does not mean that they have a low IQ or that such tests are useless.”
I have never taken any IQ test, not even those flowing freely on the internet, and I will not take them because they are useless anyway.
You are just trying save the correlation between successes of those scientists and IQ tests. They are your own effort to vindicate the tests. The fact that those people do incredibly well WITHOUT any IQ test is the proof that they don’t need it. All they need is a good and transparent system which helps to spot them and constantly improve them.
Why would I need an IQ test when a specialized test is presented, which is much more powerful in their capacity to predict your ability?
And to claim that a nail technician could score high on IQ while their motor skills are top-notched is ridiculous. The reason why they go to work in the nail spas is because they want to have nothing to do with academic subjects. Just try to teach them algebra and see how much they can fathom Math. It is the same trying to teach Vladimir Arnold to polish nails and apply various nail techniques.
IQ tests are pure bullshits. Once again, specialist tests are the way to go.
You should read what you write after you have calmed down. IQ is a proven predictor of success in life. Of course there are exceptions, like camwhores making seven figures a year on OnlyFans. Yet, you’ll probably find that the smarter ones make more money. I think Ubermensch mentioned once that there is no perfect correlation between the looks of a whore and the price she is asking, and that some are much more successful in terms of money than their looks might imply.
I would argue that the higher your fine motor skills, the higher your IQ. That’s the beauty of “G”. It is “general intelligence”. Smarter people are, by and large, better than dull people at everything.
Lastly, given the predictive power of IQ tests, you do not need specialized tests. You only need to develop and validate one single test. Why bother with specialized tests? I recall reading that reaction times correlate highly with IQ as well, so this would be an even simpler test. It’s plausible why this would be the case as reaction time depends on information processing speed in your brain.
Hhmmm…. I’ve never taken the test, but I know there is a high correlation between IQ and economic success. There are at least some people with very high IQs who fail economically due to life circumstances. I think these people would be more psychologically damaged than a dumb person in the same position. I know these are outliers but it really sucks for those people.
If you think IQ tests are superior and can predict talents, so be it. For me, I don’t give a crap about them. They are nothing but a waste of time.
Your skills will be tested by specialized tests. IQ testes couldn’t get you through the door of ENS, while a specialist test posed by that school’s committee is much more powerful and reliable. For years, ENS didn’t have to even resort to your IQ tests. That’s a proof to show how reliable your IQ is.
“I would argue that the higher your fine motor skills, the higher your IQ. That’s the beauty of “G”. It is “general intelligence”. Smarter people are, by and large, better than dull people at everything.”
Your fine motor skills will be tested by specialists, including those who have more working experience than you. That will be taken care of without any IQ test.
The idea that you can be a great mathematician, yet can be a great cook like Gorden Ramsey at the same time is ridiculous. It is known very well that there is only limit to one’s ability, especially humans.
And you have failed to answer me directly. If IQ tests are vaid, why those superstars in music don’t need them to move forward? Think of Micheal Jackson, Freddie Mercurie. They don’t need any IQ test.
“Yet, you’ll probably find that the smarter ones make more money.”
That’s not that simple. Those who have sharp financial skills will generally make more money. And business acumen is not included even in the IQ test either.
There are tons of mathematicians who are good at what they do, but will never make enough money compared to a nail technician.
“Lastly, given the predictive power of IQ tests, you do not need specialized tests. You only need to develop and validate one single test. Why bother with specialized tests? I recall reading that reaction times correlate highly with IQ as well, so this would be an even simpler test. It’s plausible why this would be the case as reaction time depends on information processing speed in your brain.”
And the truth is great universities don’t ask your IQ tests. Good schools like ENS ask you to pass their entrance exams. Different schools in the US will ask you to pass SAT or ACT. They don’t need your bullshit IQ.
It’s the same with the traditional East Asian imperial examination system. Generations of great poets and essayists were spotted by that specialized test.
Your IQ couldn’t predict the hidden ability of poets either.
I clearly see IQ test inferior to specialized test.
SAT and ACT do correlate with IQ, or a least used to.
Here are some proofs of the validity of the bullshit called IQ:
Have a look at the comment section of Terence Tao’s post:
“pierre, I’m not going to name any names, but I know more than a few mathematicians whose IQ (whatever that horrible linear scale actually means) is far below 130. I’ve met some who are downright morons. But they do good math despite that fact, and doing good math is all that matters.”
by John Armstrong
“It is strange that IQ has such a hold over the popular imagination, because as far as I can tell it plays no role in academia whatsoever. In professional mathematics, at least, we don’t brag about our IQs, put them in our cv’s, or try to find out other mathematician’s IQ when trying to evaluate them; it has about as much relevance in our profession as the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator.”
by Terence Tao
This is just lefty virtue signaling. I once came across a rather well-spoken lefty who claimed his IQ was 80, in an attempt to derail a discussion on that topic. Had his IQ really been only 80, he would not have made it to where he was in life.
“This is just lefty virtue signaling. I once came across a rather well-spoken lefty who claimed his IQ was 80, in an attempt to derail a discussion on that topic. Had his IQ really been only 80, he would not have made it to where he was in life.”
Yeah man, it’s all lefty if it doesn’t confirm your personal belief.
You don’t even know these men and what is their accomplishment, yet you brand them a label that you find fitting.
Your IQ test couldn’t tell apart which guy should go to statistics, and which guy should go for Algebraic Geometry.
That’s how “powerful” the test is! A useless piece of shit that use to uplift your self-image.
“SAT and ACT do correlate with IQ, or a least used to.”
Which can be both bypassed by attending a community college. Likewise, if you have enough dough to roll, enroll your children to a test center and they will do well after being trained rigorously.
You are again moving the goalpost. Also, despite all their efforts, nobody has figured out how to make dumb people smarter. Because this didn’t work, we now do the opposite, i.e. make smart people dumber by polluting their minds with garbage.
“You are again moving the goalpost. Also, despite all their efforts, nobody has figured out how to make dumb people smarter. Because this didn’t work, we now do the opposite, i.e. make smart people dumber by polluting their minds with garbage.”
Alright, then they are related, but they are discarded.
https://blog.prepscholar.com/university-of-california-schools-no-sat-act-score-requirement#:~:text=Yep%2C%20you%20read%20that%20correctly,your%20ACT%20or%20SAT%20scores.
The Commiefornia school dropped SAT/ACT scores because applicants who were neither white nor Asian tended to not do so well. Are you really this dense? Those schools drop those tests because they are indicative of future performance, not the opposite. A meritocratic system does not make it possible for the people in charge to usher in their brown and black utopia, so the tests have to go. I’m happy they are doing it, all in the spirit of accelerationism.
Yeah man, my IQ has incredibly increased man. When I was 16, I couldn’t do most of the intermediate questions. Yet now when I was about 30, I could breeze through most standard questions plus some difficult ones. Sure, my IQ has increased.
It’s just bullshits! A specialized test that poses question related to functions that can be integrated in Lebesgue sense but not in Riemann sense will always stumps me, and that will take me another 30 years to figure out without help from a good teacher.
To death with your IQ
Obviously, your mathematical knowledge has increased. Also, you probably weren’t at your intellectual peak at 16 yet.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/17/7-ivy-league-schools-will-not-require-sats-or-acts-next-year.html#:~:text=Harvard%2C%20Yale%20and%205%20other,ACTs%20for%20admissions%20next%20year&text=The%20coronavirus%20pandemic%20has%20forced,cancel%20and%20postpone%20testing%20dates.
If Cali doesn’t make you happy, maybe Ivy Leagues will.
Are you claiming that there are some conspiracies surrounding the dropping of SAT and ACT?
The Ivies are run by the same liberal clique. You do know that HYP conspired to keep top Asian students out, right?
“Obviously, your mathematical knowledge has increased. Also, you probably weren’t at your intellectual peak at 16 yet.”
I thought IQ is fixed and cannot be changed according to your age? Maybe I am wrong?
Are you now trying to be deliberately obtuse? A smart boy at the age of 16 can be expected to also be a smart young man at the age of 21. IQ tests are normed by age. Your results are compared against people of the same age or (narrow) age range. It is not an absolute score.
I would say that athletes, so guys with good motor skills are rather exceptions. Most of them are rather not very intelligent. Just see, 80% go bankrupt after 2 years after finishing their careers.
https://www.nfldraftdiamonds.com/2014/06/almost-80-of-nfl-players-are-bankrupt-after-two-years/
Also a lot of mathematicians and computer scientists I’ve met were a bit clumsy.
But it’s rather obvious that a guy that is good at math if they would put an effort will be good at engineering and medicine. Just look at all those polymaths that accomplished many things in different fields.
Although there are some events in our life, usually when we are young that make us interested in certain things. For example I have good knowledge about workouts and nutrition and always read this stuff with pleasure.
“You do know that HYP conspired to keep top Asian students out, right?”
No, I don’t know. There are a large number of students from Vietnam National University Ha Noi Branch who study there. I am not aware of any kind of biases against them. My contacts would complain if that is the case.
But there could be discrimination, I don’t know for sure.
I already pointed you towards Ron Unz’s book “The Myth of American Meritocracy”. Your argument is fault, by the way. If a top university claims to be meritocratic, then the objectively best students should get admitted, and for this you use standardized tests like SAT or ACT. I don’t know how good those Vietnamese students are and how many there are at the Ivy League, so their presence alone does not prove or corroborate anything.
“Are you now trying to be deliberately obtuse? A smart boy at the age of 16 can be expected to also be a smart young man at the age of 21. IQ tests are normed by age. Your results are compared against people of the same age or (narrow) age range. It is not an absolute score.”
So what does IQ typically measure? Mathematical knowledge or some illusive “raw intellectual quality”. I am confused.
It is clear that I could not do well on some of my SAT questions, yet more than 10 years later, I could breeze through them. What has changed here? My math knowledge or my intelligence?
I think it is the former.
And if IQ measures your Math knowledge, then there are better tests for that.
” I don’t know how good those Vietnamese students are and how many there are at the Ivy League, so their presence alone does not prove or corroborate anything.”
I have contacted one of my friend and he said that the number of Vietnamese students in Harvard or Cornell are rather limited. So it seems to me that you are right onto something.
Nevertheless, even if you take out all those Ivy Leagues, you could still find a wonderful school that suits your expertise.
For example, University of Michigan is very well known for its statistics program
Berkeley is highly populated with Asians, and its Math program is well known as well.
Irvine is also densely populated with Asians.
Universities in Texas should see the number of Asians rise as well, since the Asian population is rather high there. My cousin went to Rice.
If you are a Vietnamese student who graduated as an undergraduate in National University of Vietnam, Ha Noi branch, you would like to apply for your master anyway. In this case, your IELTS and GRE score must be high. But since you are doing a Math program, the math section of GRE should be a piece of cake to you. Your only obstacle is the verbal side.
As for me, with SAT, I have never had a very big issue with the verbal side. It is rather an irony because most international Asian students have problems with verbal, and limited problem with Math. Come to think about it, I came to the US as an international student with no background even in trigonometry, so no wonder why I couldn’t do well on that test.
“Obviously, your mathematical knowledge has increased. Also, you probably weren’t at your intellectual peak at 16 yet.”
If you throw that “question related to functions that can be integrated in Lebesgue sense but not in Riemann sense” to a 22-25 years old Math students in my country, they will give you some examples including a crisp explanation.
Clearly, their IQ must be higher than me.
But wait, I have taught them for sometimes English yet they couldn’t fix their pronunciation for god sake.
I thought if you score high in IQ, you would be in God mode. Nothing stops you!
@Cuong
How did you find China in your time there? Were you there for long?
6 years man!