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A United Front for a Sane Foreign Policy? Can Left and Right co operate?

Carl Steele said:
Do you think IQ is an accurate and reliable measure of intelligence?
Click to expand...
Pretty much, yes. We could have an interesting discussion on this, because it's something I'm interested in, and know a bit about. I think that within a culture, it generally is.
But I also believe there are pieces of the puzzle that we are missing. When I was in military prison, there were a number of Black soldiers in as well -- they had passed the Army's
equivlaent of the IQ test (which had, I think, recently been lowered, in order to drag in more cannon fodder). Now ... I doubt that they would have done very well on a standard IQ
test, or on any academic test. But ... they were definitely not stupid. They were, by and large, unpleasant people -- several were Chicago gang-bangers. But they were very verbally
sharp. Had a Martian dropped in to observe all of us, it was the Southern white farm boys that he would have put at the bottom of the intelligence pile.

And ... if you go to Guatemala today, and travel in the countryside among the Indian population ... you are not going to be impressed with their apparent intelligence. But these people
are the descendants of the Maya -- who had an exponential-positional numbering system, a complex calendar, monumental public buildings ... all the basics of civilization on the rise.

Koreans are pretty smart people ... in Korea, and the US. In Japan, they're looked upon as rather stupid.

Irish mean IQ has climbed close to ten points over the last few years ... independently of the so-called "Flynn Effect". Why? Does it have anything to do with the loosening of the dead
hand of the Catholic Church from that country?

So I think there are aspects of IQ that we don't understand yet .. 'social' aspects. But in general, yes, you and I and all the Politically-Correct parrots reading this, if we needed a lawyer badly,
and we had a choice between one whose IQ score was 95 -- assuming such a person could even become a lawyer -- and one whose IQ score was 135, would choose the latter, all else being equal.

Of course, the real question -- the radioactive one -- is, (1) is IQ substantially affected by one's genetic heritage, and (2) are these genes -- or their alleles responsible for high IQ -- equally distributed
across the whole human family? I wouldn't disagree with the fellow who said " ... in mental ability [members of Group A] are probably genetically superior to [ members of Group B ]" .. it may
very well be true.

I won't go into this question further, but will just say: it's irrelevant. Because within a few decades, if we do not smash up civilization by a big war, we will know just what genes influence IQ -- probably hundreds, interacting weakly -- and what variants of them give people high IQs, and ... we'll be incorporating them into our desendants, maybe with improvements.

Just so long as there is not a big war. Which is why we must seize the day if there is a chance to do something to prevent it.
 
VirulentNeoCon said:
Pretty much, yes. We could have an interesting discussion on this, because it's something I'm interested in, and know a bit about. I think that within a culture, it generally is.
But I also believe there are pieces of the puzzle that we are missing. When I was in military prison, there were a number of Black soldiers in as well -- they had passed the Army's
equivlaent of the IQ test (which had, I think, recently been lowered, in order to drag in more cannon fodder). Now ... I doubt that they would have done very well on a standard IQ
test, or on any academic test. But ... they were definitely not stupid. They were, by and large, unpleasant people -- several were Chicago gang-bangers. But they were very verbally
sharp. Had a Martian dropped in to observe all of us, it was the Southern white farm boys that he would have put at the bottom of the intelligence pile.

And ... if you go to Guatemala today, and travel in the countryside among the Indian population ... you are not going to be impressed with their apparent intelligence. But these people
are the descendants of the Maya -- who had an exponential-positional numbering system, a complex calendar, monumental public buildings ... all the basics of civilization on the rise.

Koreans are pretty smart people ... in Korea, and the US. In Japan, they're looked upon as rather stupid.

Irish mean IQ has climbed close to ten points over the last few years ... independently of the so-called "Flynn Effect". Why? Does it have anything to do with the loosening of the dead
hand of the Catholic Church from that country?

So I think there are aspects of IQ that we don't understand yet .. 'social' aspects. But in general, yes, you and I and all the Politically-Correct parrots reading this, if we needed a lawyer badly,
and we had a choice between one whose IQ score was 95 -- assuming such a person could even become a lawyer -- and one whose IQ score was 135, would choose the latter, all else being equal.

Of course, the real question -- the radioactive one -- is, (1) is IQ substantially affected by one's genetic heritage, and (2) are these genes -- or their alleles responsible for high IQ -- equally distributed
across the whole human family? I wouldn't disagree with the fellow who said " ... in mental ability [members of Group A] are probably genetically superior to [ members of Group B ]" .. it may
very well be true.

I won't go into this question further, but will just say: it's irrelevant. Because within a few decades, if we do not smash up civilization by a big war, we will know just what genes influence IQ -- probably hundreds, interacting weakly -- and what variants of them give people high IQs, and ... we'll be incorporating them into our desendants, maybe with improvements.

Just so long as there is not a big war. Which is why we must seize the day if there is a chance to do something to prevent it.
Click to expand...

Just... so much in one post...
 
VirulentNeoCon said:
Of course, the real question -- the radioactive one -- is, (1) is IQ substantially affected by one's genetic heritage, and (2) are these genes -- or their alleles responsible for high IQ -- equally distributed
across the whole human family?
Click to expand...
1) Well, obviously. You're not going to get a great score if you're a dog.
2) Are we talking about your family specifically?
 
VirulentNeoCon said:
Of course, the real question -- the radioactive one -- is, (1) is IQ substantially affected by one's genetic heritage, and (2) are these genes -- or their alleles responsible for high IQ -- equally distributed
across the whole human family? I wouldn't disagree with the fellow who said " ... in mental ability [members of Group A] are probably genetically superior to [ members of Group B ]" .. it may
very well be true.
Click to expand...

I think you taught Maths for years. And I suppose you've done some tutoring. So would you agree that tutoring, preparation, and practise can considerably improve the result someone might achieve on a maths test, as opposed to the same person doing the test with no preparation whatsoever?

Could we not say the same thing about the IQ test? If so, what is the IQ test actually measuring?
 
NoXion said:
If you were responding to a specific post/poster then you might have had a point, but by making yours so generic it looks like you're basically slagging off all of us. Well done, are you trying to alienate everyone here? Because that kind of hostile vagueposting is exactly the way to do that.
Click to expand...
If that's the way it's taken, then I'm making a mistake, and I apologize. I have deep respect for serious people on the Left, who are grappling with real problems, and are not always wrong..
I think you'll see that my resp;onse to snotty comments is directred towards the commenter only. If it's not, or seems not to be, that is not my intention.
 
8ball said:
Just... so much in one post...
Click to expand...
Yes, and not on the topic of the thread either. But he asked, so I answered. It's really a topic for people who know a lot more about it than I do, including recent research findings ... otherwise, we just rehearse all the old arguments.
 
Carl Steele said:
I think you taught Maths for years. And I suppose you've done some tutoring. So would you agree that tutoring, preparation, and practise can considerably improve the result someone might achieve on a maths test, as opposed to the same person doing the test with no preparation whatsoever?

Could we not say the same thing about the IQ test? If so, what is the IQ test actually measuring?
Click to expand...
Yes, you'd think so. And I certainly would like to believe that. But apparently the actual results of trying to raise IQ have shown that you can get, via intensive tutoring, about a five-point increase on the test scores. At least that was the case when I last did some serious reading about it, and I haven't heard anything to counter that recently. But then, there is the "Flynn Effect, " if you know about that. (Although apparently it's no longer working ... whatever that means.)

The thing about maths and science, is that you have a pretty good idea of what is coming up on the exams: it's in the syllabus, and examples are on the past exams. So you can prepare them for
each kind of question. (I have a set of little doggeral verses for various situations ... how to recognize when a quadratic is a perfect square, how to know the principal angle trig functions, etc. Anyone
can learn them. And this explains the remarkable success of Michaela Free School in Brent ... something which everyone should know about.)

But .. as I noted .. we have seen other examples that seem to show that IQ is not fixed ... the Flynn Effect, for one. So ... who knows?
 
VirulentNeoCon said:
The thing about maths and science, is that you have a pretty good idea of what is coming up on the exams: it's in the syllabus, and examples are on the past exams. So you can prepare them for
each kind of question. (I have a set of little doggeral verses for various situations ... how to recognize when a quadratic is a perfect square, how to know the principal angle trig functions, etc. Anyone
can learn them. And this explains the remarkable success of Michaela Free School in Brent ... something which everyone should know about.)
Click to expand...

And you don't know what's coming up in an IQ test?

Is there any way to test someone's intrinsic ability to do maths? So you can say this person is 100, this person is 120 and so on?

VirulentNeoCon said:
But in general, yes, you and I and all the Politically-Correct parrots reading this, if we needed a lawyer badly,
and we had a choice between one whose IQ score was 95 -- assuming such a person could even become a lawyer -- and one whose IQ score was 135, would choose the latter, all else being equal.
Click to expand...

If I needed a lawyer I wouldn't be interested in the slightest in his or her IQ scores.

I am just curious about how comfortable you are equating the result of the IQ test and intelligence, when it's blindingly obvious that the IQ test is just a standardised test like any other.
 
Carl Steele said:
And you don't know what's coming up in an IQ test?

Is there any way to test someone's intrinsic ability to do maths? So you can say this person is 100, this person is 120 and so on?



If I needed a lawyer I wouldn't be interested in the slightest in his or her IQ scores.

I am just curious about how comfortable you are equating the result of the IQ test and intelligence, when it's blindingly obvious that the IQ test is just a standardised test like any other.
Click to expand...
Hmmm.. you haven't read much about IQ tests, I think. Not a criticism, just an observation. The IQ test is a very reliable predictor of your performance on many other things that require
intelligence.

As for maths ability ... I don't know a lot about academic studies of it. In my experience, there are people who have a genuine gift for it -- not me -- and in at least some cases -- or one case I
experienced ... it seems to be independent of other forms of intelligence. I'm thinking of one kid I tutored who seemed quite ordinary in all other respects regarding intelligence, but who could
easily follow my most difficult explanations, and even get ahead of me ... for example, in showing how to derive the general expression for the quadratic equation, which has some moderately
challenging algebra (for a GCSE student). He went on to do a Maths degree at Essex.

There are some general things you can teach for solving hard maths problems -- the kind that come up in the UKMT's Maths Challenge, for which I used to do volunteer teaching in some local state
schools. There is nice little classic called How to Solve It which has some of these heuristics: draw a picture, simplify the problem and solve the simpler form, work baclkwards, etc.

But in two or three generations, the whole human race will have IQ's near 200, through genetic engineering, so all we have to do is wait. If we don't have a big war.
 
Carl Steele said:
If I needed a lawyer I wouldn't be interested in the slightest in his or her IQ scores.
Click to expand...
I think the intention was that these scores were all you had to go on.
Though I wouldn't be keen on any legal system that adopted this principle.
 
VirulentNeoCon said:
But in two or three generations, the whole human race will have IQ's near 200, through genetic engineering, so all we have to do is wait. If we don't have a big war.
Click to expand...

I think there is a pretty central element to what IQ is that has somehow passed you by in your extensive reading. :D
 
VirulentNeoCon said:
But in two or three generations, the whole human race will have IQ's near 200, through genetic engineering, so all we have to do is wait. If we don't have a big war.
Click to expand...

...There is research about which indicates that with rising CO2 levels, this boost in cognition will be nullified (and likely reversed) by increasing concentrations of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide...
 
Nylock said:
...There is research about which indicates that with rising CO2 levels, this boost in cognition will be nullified (and likely reversed) by increasing concentrations of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide...
Click to expand...

This is one of those funny cases where people on the alleged Left start taking IQ data seriously, or pretending to.
 
8ball said:
This is one of those funny cases where people on the alleged Left start taking IQ data seriously, or pretending to.
Click to expand...
It's more to illustrate that preventing a potential war should be but one of many itmes on the left/right lash-up to-do list....
 
Nylock said:
It's more to illustrate that preventing a potential war should be but one of many itmes on the left/right lash-up to-do list....
Click to expand...

I do find it interesting how people end up on one side or the other, how much is temperament vs. accident etc.
It's one of those things that you can very occasionally discuss in real life, but doesn't translate to the internet very well.
 
VirulentNeoCon said:
Pretty much, yes. We could have an interesting discussion on this, because it's something I'm interested in, and know a bit about. I think that within a culture, it generally is.
But I also believe there are pieces of the puzzle that we are missing. When I was in military prison, there were a number of Black soldiers in as well -- they had passed the Army's
equivlaent of the IQ test (which had, I think, recently been lowered, in order to drag in more cannon fodder). Now ... I doubt that they would have done very well on a standard IQ
test, or on any academic test. But ... they were definitely not stupid. They were, by and large, unpleasant people -- several were Chicago gang-bangers. But they were very verbally
sharp. Had a Martian dropped in to observe all of us, it was the Southern white farm boys that he would have put at the bottom of the intelligence pile.

And ... if you go to Guatemala today, and travel in the countryside among the Indian population ... you are not going to be impressed with their apparent intelligence. But these people
are the descendants of the Maya -- who had an exponential-positional numbering system, a complex calendar, monumental public buildings ... all the basics of civilization on the rise.

Koreans are pretty smart people ... in Korea, and the US. In Japan, they're looked upon as rather stupid.

Irish mean IQ has climbed close to ten points over the last few years ... independently of the so-called "Flynn Effect". Why? Does it have anything to do with the loosening of the dead
hand of the Catholic Church from that country?

So I think there are aspects of IQ that we don't understand yet .. 'social' aspects. But in general, yes, you and I and all the Politically-Correct parrots reading this, if we needed a lawyer badly,
and we had a choice between one whose IQ score was 95 -- assuming such a person could even become a lawyer -- and one whose IQ score was 135, would choose the latter, all else being equal.

Of course, the real question -- the radioactive one -- is, (1) is IQ substantially affected by one's genetic heritage, and (2) are these genes -- or their alleles responsible for high IQ -- equally distributed
across the whole human family? I wouldn't disagree with the fellow who said " ... in mental ability [members of Group A] are probably genetically superior to [ members of Group B ]" .. it may
very well be true.

I won't go into this question further, but will just say: it's irrelevant. Because within a few decades, if we do not smash up civilization by a big war, we will know just what genes influence IQ -- probably hundreds, interacting weakly -- and what variants of them give people high IQs, and ... we'll be incorporating them into our desendants, maybe with improvements.

Just so long as there is not a big war. Which is why we must seize the day if there is a chance to do something to prevent it.
Click to expand...

Wow.

If this is where the "big boys" are at, would rather take a hard pass.

Frightening stuff.
 
VirulentNeoCon said:
Pretty much, yes. We could have an interesting discussion on this, because it's something I'm interested in, and know a bit about. I think that within a culture, it generally is.
But I also believe there are pieces of the puzzle that we are missing. When I was in military prison, there were a number of Black soldiers in as well -- they had passed the Army's
equivlaent of the IQ test (which had, I think, recently been lowered, in order to drag in more cannon fodder). Now ... I doubt that they would have done very well on a standard IQ
test, or on any academic test. But ... they were definitely not stupid. They were, by and large, unpleasant people -- several were Chicago gang-bangers. But they were very verbally
sharp. Had a Martian dropped in to observe all of us, it was the Southern white farm boys that he would have put at the bottom of the intelligence pile.

And ... if you go to Guatemala today, and travel in the countryside among the Indian population ... you are not going to be impressed with their apparent intelligence. But these people
are the descendants of the Maya -- who had an exponential-positional numbering system, a complex calendar, monumental public buildings ... all the basics of civilization on the rise.

Koreans are pretty smart people ... in Korea, and the US. In Japan, they're looked upon as rather stupid.

Irish mean IQ has climbed close to ten points over the last few years ... independently of the so-called "Flynn Effect". Why? Does it have anything to do with the loosening of the dead
hand of the Catholic Church from that country?

So I think there are aspects of IQ that we don't understand yet .. 'social' aspects. But in general, yes, you and I and all the Politically-Correct parrots reading this, if we needed a lawyer badly,
and we had a choice between one whose IQ score was 95 -- assuming such a person could even become a lawyer -- and one whose IQ score was 135, would choose the latter, all else being equal.

Of course, the real question -- the radioactive one -- is, (1) is IQ substantially affected by one's genetic heritage, and (2) are these genes -- or their alleles responsible for high IQ -- equally distributed
across the whole human family? I wouldn't disagree with the fellow who said " ... in mental ability [members of Group A] are probably genetically superior to [ members of Group B ]" .. it may
very well be true.

I won't go into this question further, but will just say: it's irrelevant. Because within a few decades, if we do not smash up civilization by a big war, we will know just what genes influence IQ -- probably hundreds, interacting weakly -- and what variants of them give people high IQs, and ... we'll be incorporating them into our desendants, maybe with improvements.

Just so long as there is not a big war. Which is why we must seize the day if there is a chance to do something to prevent it.
Click to expand...
Let me guess, just by chance you will have all the genes for the highest IQ and it will be your sacred duty to breed with as many fertile females as possible. For the good of humanity obvs.
 
VirulentNeoCon said:
Hmmm.. you haven't read much about IQ tests, I think. Not a criticism, just an observation. The IQ test is a very reliable predictor of your performance on many other things that require
intelligence.
Click to expand...

The most reliable indicator in the USA of how well you will do financially and in a career is the post code of the place of your birth.

I wonder what you consider required reading on IQ. "The Bell Curve" perhaps.

And while we are on the subject of intelligence perhaps, as you are so well read, you could tell me what intelligence is.
 
VirulentNeoCon said:
Pretty much, yes. We could have an interesting discussion on this, because it's something I'm interested in, and know a bit about. I think that within a culture, it generally is.
But I also believe there are pieces of the puzzle that we are missing. When I was in military prison, there were a number of Black soldiers in as well -- they had passed the Army's
equivlaent of the IQ test (which had, I think, recently been lowered, in order to drag in more cannon fodder). Now ... I doubt that they would have done very well on a standard IQ
test, or on any academic test. But ... they were definitely not stupid. They were, by and large, unpleasant people -- several were Chicago gang-bangers. But they were very verbally
sharp. Had a Martian dropped in to observe all of us, it was the Southern white farm boys that he would have put at the bottom of the intelligence pile.

And ... if you go to Guatemala today, and travel in the countryside among the Indian population ... you are not going to be impressed with their apparent intelligence. But these people
are the descendants of the Maya -- who had an exponential-positional numbering system, a complex calendar, monumental public buildings ... all the basics of civilization on the rise.

Koreans are pretty smart people ... in Korea, and the US. In Japan, they're looked upon as rather stupid.

Irish mean IQ has climbed close to ten points over the last few years ... independently of the so-called "Flynn Effect". Why? Does it have anything to do with the loosening of the dead
hand of the Catholic Church from that country?

So I think there are aspects of IQ that we don't understand yet .. 'social' aspects. But in general, yes, you and I and all the Politically-Correct parrots reading this, if we needed a lawyer badly,
and we had a choice between one whose IQ score was 95 -- assuming such a person could even become a lawyer -- and one whose IQ score was 135, would choose the latter, all else being equal.

Of course, the real question -- the radioactive one -- is, (1) is IQ substantially affected by one's genetic heritage, and (2) are these genes -- or their alleles responsible for high IQ -- equally distributed
across the whole human family? I wouldn't disagree with the fellow who said " ... in mental ability [members of Group A] are probably genetically superior to [ members of Group B ]" .. it may
very well be true.

I won't go into this question further, but will just say: it's irrelevant. Because within a few decades, if we do not smash up civilization by a big war, we will know just what genes influence IQ -- probably hundreds, interacting weakly -- and what variants of them give people high IQs, and ... we'll be incorporating them into our desendants, maybe with improvements.

Just so long as there is not a big war. Which is why we must seize the day if there is a chance to do something to prevent it.
Click to expand...
Jesus fucking Christ. You’re full of shit.
 
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