by Ben Atlas on 03.30.2012.7:35am · 1 comment
Dr. Cochran posts this info-graphic and explains: “In the map, countries are resized according to the number of scientific papers they produce. Population size plays a role, but average productivity matters more. Note that Singapore, with a population of 5 million, looks bigger than Indonesia, with 240 million people.”
Sort of interesting, provided there is the realization that the scientific papers are a dubious proxy for the actual science. For example in America the papers are the inflated industry of verbal and mental waste to sustain an academic career. But taking the pic at its face value, there is this curios conclusion by Dr. Cochran: “if we look at the demographics, it seems that every population that produces serious scientific players has sub-replacement fertility”.
In fact in every post industrial tribe and country, the population growth is inverse to education and intelligence. We are in an uncharted evolutionary territory that no one could foresee and prepare for. Historically intelligence was beneficial to the development of the humans and the survival of their offspring. Not anymore. In every modern demographic, the less educated and the less advanced are breeding and surviving at an accelerated rate. The future (and the present) truly belongs to the idiots.
Something like this happened before. Suppose one is to assume, based on the size of the brain and tools, that the neanderthals were smarter than the humans. Yet the humans had better “social skills” and therefore were more effective in ganging up against the neanderthals. Indeed there is the precedent for the triumph of the idiots – it’s the entire human race.
P.S. The shrunken continents are obvious. Surprisingly slim sliver in place of Canada. The USA looks proportionate, i.e. not much larger than the continent we see on the maps or even compared to the oversized, scientifically dense Europe.
I want to expand, or contract actually, on something I wrote about – The General Theory of Conductivity – The Exchange as the Universal Idea of Adam Smith.
All human and non human interactions are measured by the exchange value. You could transact goods, emotions, ideas, bodily fluids, even money. But the key is that there is always a bidirectional flow. You can exchange with a person or a group, a “community”, even a country.
Conversely all human problems are just the symptoms of to the blockage of the exchange. The blockage could be deliberate or unintentional. For example when people have trouble in a relationship they say it’s a “communication problem”. This is incorrect. You can deliberately shut down the exchange flow or more often you can just “jam” it. You can use speech to obfuscate any exchange of ideas and emotions. In fact this is how 99% of that faculty is used. So you can “communicate” all day long but consciously of unconsciously use the speech to conceal or block the flow of the exchange.
All friendships, business transactions, art, food, etc., are measured by this exchange value.
Take a look around you, the room is full of zombies who talk in order to hide the meaning of the words and move in order to run away. They plot parasitically to sell you worthless items where the flow of the exchange is one directional.
America is the only country in the world where the adults nurture a life-long attachment to the “enriched with vitamin E and aloe vera” baby wipes. It is often the only enduring, life-long attachment.
People (cultures) tend to confuse “learning” with “reading”. You learn from life and other people, sometimes you read to reflect on the experience or you read to unlearn. When they invented print, people who valued learning felt disappointed. This downfall always happens when they switch media. For example people today confuse browsing the internet with reading, just like people used to confuse reading with learning. They still do.
There are only two kinds of people, the more you know them – the more you like them and the more you know them – the less you like them.
Years of observing the traditional Jews lead me to conclusion that a person developed in the culture can’t sustain a conversation longer than two minutes without (only if you count a two minute pause as a “conversation”) falling back on a quote or a reference. When the Rashi clichés run out, he or she falls onto film, newspapers, etc., whatever predigested thinking is palatable at the moment. This applies to everyone reared in the culture. Even people who are no longer observant. I have never met anyone who is an exception to this rule. The “condition” is aggravated by the fact that this way of speaking and thinking also happens to be the norm in the post-modern american academia. So is might even appear “normal”.
I find this frustrating, irritating and bizarre. Mass psychosis on a grand scale.
P.S. Naturally no one noticed the most remarkable aspect of Chaim Grade’s speech. Not a single quote, just his own thoughts about people, their art and the acts of history.
There is only one single measurement that applies to everything – the ability to walk away. So if someone asks you if your job is any good, if your relationship is good, if your village is good, etc. When you are free to walk away from each, and still for some reason your choice is to stay, then it is indeed very good. All explanations and justifications to the contrary are just trying to twist the crooked reasoning, not to feel particularly bad.
There are some interesting results of this formula. A visibly successful or powerful person might be hopelessly sinking in a swamp, no longer free to walk away, not even around the block. There are “good” jobs that are a life-long traps, never mind the relationships. In each and every case if you can’t walk away, it’s not that good.
This got me thinking. There is all this chatter about how bad or how good was the agricultural revolution for the human race. But fundamentally a human being found himself bound and tied to a spot on earth for his “livelihood”, you walk away, you starve. This is how it all started.
A friend of the suspect in the Toulouse murder:
“He is someone who is very discreet. He is not someone who would brag and go around and say ‘Oh look at my new girlfriend, look how great I am.’ He is very polite and always well-behaved. “He never spoke about Islam but he did pray. But we all pray five times a day. There’s nothing strange about that.”
Today I unsubscribed from Paul Graham feed, before I did, out of curiosity I checked his Google Reader RSS subscriptions and holly cow, over 30K subscribers! I mean the man is after all a thoughtful nerd with a limited sense of history and the context of ideas. Yet the staggering popularity. And then I was reminded about the post I read this moring from Gregory Cochran:
“By definition, most people are not in the top 1% of intellect, so books [blogs] aimed primarily at that top 1% are never going to be best sellers. The question arises, what is the most effective strategy for developing a best seller? Thinking of Dan Brown and Malcolm Gladwell, it looks as if simply being a person of modest intellect may be an effective strategy for writers. I’m not saying that it is the only possible strategy, but it may be easier if one never thinks of anything too complicated in the first place, rather than having to weigh the level of difficulty of every sentence and concept. Probably one would have to be a lot smarter than average to effortlessly simulate normality, particularly in real time. It is said that John von Neumann could do this. In much the same way, emulating an obsolete computer is fairly easy – for machines that are a decade more advanced. This suggests that it is more important to be average than to appear average: when Gladwell talks about ‘igon values’, he’s being sincere. He may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you: he really is an idiot.”
What’s the story with the 1-99% divisions? 2%, 3% is not that smart anymore? Anyway, this pretty much sums up the cruse of popularity.
On the subject of the hideous flag burning dance (YouTube). Geroge Orwell in the Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One, Chapter One:
“The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.”
There is not much to add. All religions, including communism and nazism, are the branches of the same tree. Except that people have the tendency to say that this an extreme, “ultra” aberration. No, baloney, this is the very expression of the entire creed. They see themselves as the most authentic and people treat them as the most authentic and this is how it always been from the very time a man invented the convenience of manipulating and controlling the subjects through a hyper ideology. If you think a “modern orthodoxy” is any better, might as well join in the burning.
“How bitterly we resent the successful liar for showing us the tawdry tales in which we are eager to believe” – Aaron Haspel
In January I posted an NPR act about Apple by Mike Daisey (I now deleted the post). His most dramatic passages were artistic flourish instead of reporting. The reporters take themselves too seriously though and all gadgets are still produced by the slaves. Fact check this! Felix does the rounds on the story.
Can a Jew Survive Out of Context?
by Ben Atlas on 03.25.2012.10:06am · 7 comments
Years of observing the traditional Jews lead me to conclusion that a person developed in the culture can’t sustain a conversation longer than two minutes without (only if you count a two minute pause as a “conversation”) falling back on a quote or a reference. When the Rashi clichés run out, he or she falls onto film, newspapers, etc., whatever predigested thinking is palatable at the moment. This applies to everyone reared in the culture. Even people who are no longer observant. I have never met anyone who is an exception to this rule. The “condition” is aggravated by the fact that this way of speaking and thinking also happens to be the norm in the post-modern american academia. So is might even appear “normal”.
I find this frustrating, irritating and bizarre. Mass psychosis on a grand scale.
P.S. Naturally no one noticed the most remarkable aspect of Chaim Grade’s speech. Not a single quote, just his own thoughts about people, their art and the acts of history.