From: nobody@huge.cajones.com (Huge Cajones Remailer)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 22:43:20 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Race and IQ
Message-ID: <199612140643.WAA32553@mailmasher.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 8:30 PM 12/13/1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
>(For the curious, I am persuaded that there are minimal differences
>in "intelligence" between the several or many races, but that
>cultural and sociological factors strongly affect upbringing,
>learning, interest in doing well in school, ability on standardized
>tests, success in business matters, and so on.)

The question is certainly interesting scientifically.  Some Africans
exhibit skills which are not found elsewhere.  For example, in some
African societies, I am told, there are people who can do things like
play a drum with the left hand to 13 beats a measure and do something
like 17 beats a measure with the right hand.  Those who aren't amazed
by this should try doing three beats on the left hand with two on the
right.  Call me when you master it.  ;-)

If you lived in a society where this skill was considered an important
component of social success, most of us would appear to be retarded.
(Consider, for example, the ancient Chinese civilization.  Appointment
into the imperial bureaucracy occured only after the applicants passed
elaborate tests regarding their knowledge and interpretation of
poetry.  That was the entire qualification.)

It has been claimed that African societies have never been "civilized"
in the sense of developing large bureaucracies and cities.  When many
people make this claim there is an implication that the more with it
peoples did this.  But is that so reasonable?  Read reports of life in
European cities in the 18th century, before running water and before
sewage systems.  Give me the country any day!

Many of the readers of this list are anarchistically inclined.  When
we hear that African societies have tended to be anarchistic, we
should applaud their wisdom and insight.  Perhaps these people could
teach the rest of us a few things.  (And maybe teach Hilary Clinton a
few things.  Is there a history of welfare states in Africa, or did
they practice voluntary anarchistic communal charity on the level of
villages?)

It is not out of the question that once the human genome is decoded
and its relationship with human intelligence understood that we will
find that Africans beat out everyone else.

(Incidentally, I question the claim that African societies never
developed cities and bureacracies.  The Egyptians are the most
prominent example.  Mathematically adept and literate they prospered
for a couple thousand years.  A better run than the Romans managed!
We tend to think of Egyptians as being sort of like Europeans.  I
believe this is because Europeans invented Egyptology.  Excuse me for
pointing out the obvious, but Egypt is in Africa.  What is more, if
you study Egyptian statuary, you will find many examples of distinctly
African looking royalty.  Also, I know that cities like Timbuktoo were
centers of Muslim learning and were large enough to have streets and
houses.  We may know little about them because Europeans were not
allowed to visit, and also for racist reasons.)

Scientific questions aside, it isn't clear why the racial link to
intelligence matters.  What are we going to do differently if it turns
out that, on average, for genetic reasons, Albanians are less quick on
the uptake than other people?

The link between intelligence and success is not at all clear.  We
generally consider mathematicians and computer programmers to be
smart, but in terms of total life competence, large numbers of these
people live less than ideally.

There are many instances in which I prefer to hire somebody who is
less intelligent, but better equipped to play on the team, better
organized, or just less of a primadonna.

The eugenicists propose murder.  This doesn't make any sense at all.
We all have friends who are both smarter and dumber than ourselves,
yet we don't plot their murder.  Intelligence is just an excuse for
what these people really want to do.  If God came down and told us
that there was no genetic basis for intelligence, next week there
would be some other reason for the same policy.

On the flip side are those who want to help the unfortunate with the
time and labor of others.  A racial link to intelligence will not
increase my sympathy for such schemes.

The upshot is: If you respect the rights of others, it doesn't matter.

Now for some entertainment.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, when he was a judge in Virginia, ordered the
forcible sterilization of several young women.  The state would wait
until they became ill and then when they were admitted to a hospital,
they were sterilized under the guise of giving them some other
operation.

Holmes claimed that the grandmothers of the women were imbeciles,
their mothers were imbeciles, and that they were imbeciles.  His great
line was "Three generations of imbeciles are enough!"

Curiously, it turns out that the word "imbecile" was a euphemism for
"illegitimate".

Know your doctor!

Red Rackham