Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Perceptions of intelligence by political orientation

The perceptions of intelligence among members of different racial groups was the focus of a recent post. I subsequently wondered how political orientation affected these judgments. The following table converts to IQ scores the responses given to questions on the intelligence of members of various groups under the assumptions that the mean intelligence value for whites represents the equivalent of an IQ of 100, with a standard deviation is 15 points:

93.8 101.3

The differences by political outlook are pretty marginal. Relative to conservatives, liberals perceive NAMs to be slightly more intelligent and whites, Jews, and Asians to be slightly less so. Moderates are actually the most vile, having depressed perceptions of non-whites across the board without a corresponding depression in their view of whites!

That there is minimal variation across the political spectrum is one point of interest. Perhaps more noteworthy, though, is the fact that self-described liberals tend to be consciously aware of group differences in intelligence (and probably other attributes like athleticism and personality as well). The chasm between what is permittable to say in a private, one-on-one interview and what may be said in the larger social sphere exists irrespective of politics.

Similarly, all racial groups are aware of this diversity. Blacks tend to think whites are more intelligent than blacks are. Hispanics think whites are more intelligent than Hispanics are. All groups perceive Asians to be at least as intelligent as whites are.

This is encouraging. As the knowledge of human genetics continues to accumulate, the blank slate will become increasingly vulnerable. The ignorant attacks on James Watson illustrate how threatened blank slatists already feel. The moment uttering hatefacts no longer carries with it the risk of personal destruction, the dam will have burst and realistic thinking will be able to replace disingenuous political correctness on a grand scale. In another sense, though, it is disheartening to consider that what most people know to be true is publicly held to be false by a substantial majority of the populous. Political correctness really is the great mental disease of our time.

Parenthetically, gender doesn't have influence. The largest group variance between men and women amounts to 1.1 IQ points. We appear to be from the same planet on this one.

GSS variables used: INTLWHTS, INTLBLKS, INTLHSPS, INTLASNS, INTLJEWS, SEX(1)(2), POLVIEWS(1-3)(4)(5-7), YEAR(2000-2008)

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Perceptions of average intelligence by race



++Addition++FeministX comments:




Public perception of...MeanIQ



White perception of...MeanIQ

Black perception of...MeanIQ

Hispanic perception of...MeanIQ

Asian perception of...MeanIQ

Jewish perception of...MeanIQ







Young, dumb, and proud


He also notices an interesting interplay:




Friday, April 24, 2009

Percentages of countries' native populations residing in US

++Addition++John Derbyshire, who like Razib Khan epitomizes everything our approach to immigration should aim for, takes note at The Corner. I should point out, as Alex brings up in the comments, that the percentages are not of a country's total worldwide population that lives in the US--I do not have sufficient data for that. Instead, the table shows the population living in the US as a percentage of the total population currently living in the home country.


The following table shows the the number of each country's native populace--by place of birth, not simply by descent--that is currently residing in the US as a percentage of that country's own resident population. Data are available here. All figures are from 2007:

CountryUS population% in US


Trinidad & Tobago225,23921.32
El Salvador1,108,28915.95
Dominican Republic747,8857.99
Hong Kong200,7342.88
Bosnia & Herzegovina119,7682.63
South Korea1,050,7302.14
Costa Rica87,2202.11
Great Britain662,5301.09
The Netherlands92,5730.56
South Africa78,9790.18

Relative to size on the international stage, Western hemisphere countries to our south are not surprisingly represented most heavily. Ireland has a considerably larger portion of its native population living in the US than anywhere else in Europe, something people in New England are most aware of.

The acerbic criticism that whiterpeople newspapers like the LAT are slitting their own throats in their support of open borders should be expanded to include their foreign focus. Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, and North Korea are frequently in the news even though few people living here actually call any of those places home. To the extent that Hispanic immigrants with eighth grade educations find interest in American newspapers, it's not because of their coverage of the Middle East "Peace Process". Meanwhile, Mexico, which should interest everybody in the US, is short-shafted.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Chris Simcox to run against McCain in Arizona Senate primary

Minuteman Project co-founder Chris Simcox has officially announced that he is seeking to bump John McCain as the GOP's nominee for Arizona Senate in 2010. His campaign and donation pages are both now operational.

Needless to say, this is an enormous opportunity for restrictionists to essentially end the political career of the Republican party's national champion for open borders. If you need reminding, as Presidential nominee, McCain refused to allow anyone at last year's Republican National Convention to speak critically of US immigration policy and enforcement, receives a lifetime grade of 'D' by Americans for Better Immigration (7th worst of the 201 current Republican Congressmembers who have been assessed), and with Ted Kennedy co-sponsored the amnesty bill of 2007 that despite almost uniform support among The Establishment (Big Business, Big Labor, Big Religion, Big Education, Big Government, and Big Media), was overwhelmingly rejected by the American citizenry.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

In Slovenia, what do you tell a woman with two black eyes?

Ladies, if a guy tells you he wants to marry you and move to Slovenia because it's scenic, low-cost living in Europe, be suspicious.

The World Values Survey (WVS) asked participants in 49 countries about the justifiability of a man beating his wife. In Slovenia, 82.4% responded that it is "always justifiable"--far and away the nation most favorably inclined toward corporal punishment for a problematic termagent (the next closest country is Serbia, with 26.1% asserting that wife-beating is always justifiable).

1,003 Slovenians responded, so small sample size is not an issue (although a representative sample may be). More than half were female--this ethos cuts across gender lines. The survey was conducted between 2005 and 2008, so it's not a relic of the past, either.

Is this an accurate reflection of the culture in a country bordering Italy and Austria, or is there something else going on here?

Monday, April 20, 2009

Immigration associated with low unemployment? Not when recession hits

++Addition++In the comments, Agnostic gives a brief but informative overview of unemployment in the US and its association with immigration from the 1920s to the current decade.


On today's WSJ op/ed page, Jason Riley, author of Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders, comments in passing:
Historically, higher levels of immigration to the US are associated with lower levels of unemployment. Immigrants are catalysts for economic growth, not job-stealers.
Using the phrase "associated with" is a way to circumvent the question of causation. Potential immigrants head to places undergoing rapid economic expansion, not depressed areas without a market for excess menial labor.

This is akin to the strategy Richard Nadler used in his attempt to sell the political right on open borders in his paper entitled Immigration and the Wealth of States--the states immigrants are heading to are the states where economic growth is occurring, so just guarantee a steady stream of eighth grade graduates from Latin America and watch as the good times roll. After these immigrants stopped buying the houses they were paying for by building houses for other immigrants, and the sand states (also top destinations for illegal immigrants) led the rest of the country in mortgage defaults, Nadler stopped (at least temporarily) pushing this argument.

Granting that economic prosperity tends to attract relatively improsperous immigrants, what happens when that economic prosperity dissipates? Are large numbers of unskilled and uneducated immigrant laborers "associated with" higher or lower levels of unemployment? A snapshot of our current situation suggests that what Riley and Nadler insinuate in observing their associations is incorrect. In a recently released report, the Pew Hispanic Center provides estimates (p40) for the percentage of each state's workforce that is comprised of illegal immigrants. This correlates with the state unemployment rates at .29 (p=.04). The relationship is modest but statistically significant--and it runs in the opposite direction of what Riley and Nadler would hope for. To the extent that the two are related, the more illegal immigrants there are working in a state, the more natives there are out of work.

Nothing to contemplate here, though. It's best to have an excessive labor supply so that those who work for peanuts will have little choice but to be thankful that they work at all. Lower labor costs mean higher business profits right now. Government subsidy is there to cover the net liability that each member of this expanding underclass represents. Well, who creates the wealth in this country, after all? Not government! Better, then, for it, rather than industry, to pay. Let restrictionist nations like Japan go the mechanizing route--America's competitive advantage has always been in providing ever-cheaper labor. Low-wage countries are the ones with the highest standards of living, after all, aren't they?

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Gender and magic in rpgs







Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Among white, black, and Hispanic men, more children means fewer partners

Turning again to the relationship between the number of female partners a man has and his total fertility, following are how things shake out by race. Ranges are shown for non-whites due to small sample sizes. Full data are available here.





For whites, blacks, and Hispanics, the trend holds. Men who have only been with one woman are more likely to have more children with her than men who've been with multiple women are to have with all of those women combined. Asians cannot be said determinatively follow suit. The sample size is too small to put much stake in, although it trends the same way up to five partners, the only portion of the range approaching a useably-sized sample.

The fecundity of black men who've only had one partner stands out as being particularly high relative to the percentage of non-black men who've only had one. Considering the percentage^^ of men from each racial group who've only had a single partner helps clear up why that is the case. Black men are less likely than non-black men to have only had one female partner. The percentage of men in each racial group who've only had one partner:

Whites -- 20.4%
Blacks -- 8.9%
Hispanics -- 18.0%
Asians -- 38.7%

Left-handed black men and Republican black men are both more common than are black men who've stayed true to a single woman! Further, black men are more likely to have had 16 or more partners than they are to have only had one. This is not the case for whites, Hispanics, or Asians.

The rare black man who has only had one partner tends to hold more fundamentalist religious views than do black men who've had multiple partners. Among black men who've been true to a single woman, 79% describe the Bible as the "Word of God". Among all black respondents, only 52% of black men describe the Bible in this way.

Relatedly, for white, Hispanic, and Asian men, the mode (most frequently occuring) for total number of female partners is one. For black men, however, it is five.

I don't imagine any of these statistical descriptions unique to black men come as a surprise to most readers.

* Includes some percentage of Hispanics. I estimate that about 6% of those represented here are Hispanic based on the fact that just fewer than half of Hispanics in the US identify themselves as white when an "Other race" alternative is available, and that the time period included spans from 1972 to 2006, meaning Hispanics represent a smaller percentage of the GSS population than they represent in the US today.

** This classification is not based on racial-self identification. It is in response to the survey question "Are you Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino?"

^ Includes those who identified as their first race one of the following: Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Other Asian, or Native Hawaiian.

^^ Excluding those who are celibate or homosexual.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

God and evolution; friends or foes?






OriginsN = 1440
God created man42.5%
Man evolved, God guided41.6%
Man has evolved12.2%


God created man41.4%56.0%34.1%21.6%
Man evolved, God guided41.7%34.4%56.1%56.9%
Man has evolved13.2%6.0%7.3%19.6%


God created man33.3%47.7%41.2%48.8%
Man evolved, God guided51.0%39.8%39.6%36.9%
Man has evolved12.5%9.1%14.3%12.5%



Monday, April 13, 2009

Thinking about The War on Christmas in April







Friday, April 10, 2009

Constructing a smarty party platform

I am working on constructing a "Smarty party" political platform based on data from the GSS. So far, I've dug up responses on what follows below. These are merely shorthand for the questions as they are posed, not the answers high IQ respondents necessarily give.

- Abortion for any reason?

- Prayer in public schools?

- Taxation: Too high on poor, too high on middle class, too high on rich, progressive tax structure?

- Gov't spending: More or less on education, environmental protection, stem cell research, law enforcement, culture and the arts, housing for poor families with children, childcare for working parents, disabled children, prenatal care, military/national defense, health care, in general more emphasis on reducing taxes or increasing spending, government should insure jobs and stable prices?

- Welfare: Reduce benefits so working becomes more attractive, working or trying to find work to receive welfare, in general spend more on welfare?

- Legality of distributing pornography?

- Gun rights: Police permit to carry, background check required prior to sale?

- Immigration: Illegal immigrants keep people in my family from getting desired jobs, legal immigrants eligible to receive welfare benefits, immigration levels to the US are too high, birthright citizenship, illegal immigrants to be given work permits, immigrants pushing for too many rights in the US, English to be the official language of the US, bilingual education to be supported?

- Support free trade?

- Multiculturalism: Ethnic organizations promote separationism, speech deemed harmful to specific ethnic groups banned, government involved in keeping different cultures distinct?

- Affirmative action favored?

- Divorce to be made easier?

- Birth control information made easier to obtain?

- Corporal punishment for children?

- Same sex marriage allowed?

- Military: Confidence in, if a draft arises out of necessity in the future should conscientious objectors be exempt?

- Freedom: Gov't classifies too many documents as secret, importance for freedom of limiting government involvement in lives of citizens?

- Capital punishment for murder?

- End of life: People with terminal diseases allowed to die, person "tired of living" be allowed to die?

- Humans evolved or created by God?

- Automobiles required by government to increase gas mileage efficiency?

We're working within the limits of the GSS, especially as it relates to foreign policy, for which there is very little to go on. Also, there does not appear to be anything on positions toward drug use or the war on drugs in the database. That said, I'm sure I've overlooked at least a few other important political issues up to this point, so please point out those potential oversights on my part.

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Per capita remittances to Latin America, by country

Remittances to Latin America are likely to drop in 2009 from the year before. The following table shows the per capita dollars sent home by emigrants working in foreign countries in 2008, and also per capita remittance dollars received as a percentage of purchasing power parity for each receiving country:

CountryRemits per capitaRemits as PPP
El Salvador$527.198.50%


Dominican Republic$322.383.98%
Costa Rica$146.691.26%
Trinidad & Tobago$105.700.57%

In 2008, total remittances grew marginally from 2007, so this probably represents the maximum amount of money that will annually be received over the next couple of years.

Notice how although the issue of immigration primarily focuses attention on foreign Hispanics in the US, it is the African-descended nations like Haita, Jamaica, and Guyana (which is about one-third black) that economically depend the most on remittances. Generally, the smaller the contribution remittances make to a country's total GDP, the more desirable that place is. If I had to live in Latin America, I'd want to be somewhere in Chile. Failing that, either Argentina or Uruguay.

This raises the question of why the putatively most industrious migrants from the poorest countries should be allowed into the US in large numbers. We should take primarily from Western Europe and East Asia--those nations can spare these human resources!

The differences in the economic consequences of remittances are only in degree, however. All of these places share a support for open immigration to the US and Europe. Send out the restless types who might otherwise cause trouble at home and allow them to be taken care of at the receiving country's expense. In return, receive billions of dollars sent home to be circulated in local economies in addition to both greater cultural and greater political influence in the receiving country. What a deal!

Data are here.

Monday, April 06, 2009





Homosexuals should marryXmarital sex always wrong
Strongly agree70.7%
Strongly disagree91.1%




Friday, April 03, 2009

Extramarital sex increasingly seen as wrong

++Addition++Jason Malloy shows that the improvement is one more of words than of actions:
When matched for age, those who became adults before or surrounding WWII cheated little (pre sexual revolution, b. 1900-1939). Those who became adults during the 60s and 70s cheated the most (sexual revolution, b. 1940-1959). Those who became adults in the 80s, 90s, 00s began cheating less (post sexual revolution, b. 1960-1990).

Have cheated on spouse:
Age 18-29
b. 1976-1990 - 12.5%
b. 1960-1975 - 12.4%

Age 30-40
b. 1960-1979 - 13.8%
b. 1950-1959 - 17.1%

Age 45-50
b. 1960-1969 - 16.3%
b. 1950-1959 - 21.6%
b. 1940-1949 - 21.4%

Age 60+
b. 1940-1949 - 22.6%
b. 1920-1939 - 14.5%
b. 1900-1919 - 7.3%

Cheating doubled for men between the 1900 and 1940 cohort, but quadrupled for women. They apparently had to move faster to catch up.

All those corny 50s kids on Leave it to Beaver grew up to be the most debauched generation.

The answers on XMARSEX also reflect this generational difference, with the SexRev cohort saying it is the least wrong. The post SexRev-ers are bigger hypocrites though. Their moral answers are almost identical to the 1900-1919 cohort, even though they cheat a whole lot more. The numbers above don't indicate the youngest generation are getting better behavior-wise, even if they are high in moral lip service.

Cheating always wrong
b. 1910-1919 - 84.5%
b. 1920-1939 - 79.2%
b. 1940-1949 - 71.9%
b. 1950-1959 - 70.8%
b. 1960-1979 - 79.0%
b. 1980-1990 - 83.4%
Hypocritically censuring a pathological behavior that is engaged in is still an improvement over embracing that pathology.


A month ago, Inductivist revealed a "moral recession" among young Americans by pointing to the increased acceptance of homosexual relations, a drop in church attendance, and a growing acceptance of abortion for any reason (it's difficult to detect this last one in the data he presents, however) over time. From a socially conservative point of view, these trends are surely disheartening.

But there is a bright spot regarding an issue that is less poralizing--the declining moral acceptance of extramarital sex. The following graph includes the same age range of 18-29 examined by Inductivist. The first year presented is 1973, with responses for every year or two after that, ending with 2008. The average annual sample size is 348.

Agnostic has repeatedly argued that sexual promiscuity (or as he terms it, "slutiness") among the young has been trending downward for years. It looks like that holds not just in terms of actual behavior, but also in professed beliefs of what constitutes acceptable sexual behavior in the first place.

GSS variables used: XMARSEX, YEAR, AGE(18-29)

Thursday, April 02, 2009

How to scale the social crags of an age gap?

I'm soliciting thoughts and advice. I realize this post is far from the content most readers come here for, but it'd be imprudent of me to leave such a thoughtful 'community' untapped.

I've been friends with a girl eight years my junior for awhile. She's had a sustained crush on me for over a year. I've been playfully flirtative from the beginning, but always conscious of the need not to come off at all as being overly assertive. I've entertained, added to, and kept alive our inside 'jokes', but have always let her create them in the first place (I'm talking about things like getting married, how often we will travel, what the content of our vacations will be, etc). While I never gave any confirmation to the mutual part of our social circles that I was going to act on her interest in me, for most of the time we've been friends, I've wanted to marry this girl. So I've cultivated the relationship pretty actively, showing up unexpectedly when she was volunteering somewhere (intentionally pleading unconvincing plausible deniability as to why I was there) or calling her ahead of big events like taking the ACT to playfully demand she do well.

In other words, I'm emotionally invested in her. I obviously can't show any pictures, but I've found the vulgar consensus to probably be an eight. She's very pretty. Although there are a few girls my lust inclines me more strongly toward, even as we are just dating, she has me so captivated that checking and owning it is a non-issue. Not just checking the action, but smothering the desire itself. I read that as an indication that I truly want this one to be The One.

As to the problem, I'd intended on waiting a few months for her eighteenth birthday before making my move, but circumstances beyond my control forced me to act sooner. After settling down from the initial emotional high, she's become worried about the age gap. At first, the concern was entirely over how I probably had a problem with it that I was suppressing for now, but soon would not be able to. Heh, she's nuts for thinking that, but it's expected. Insecurity is common for teenage girls, even the hot ones who are socially adept.

Then it moved to what my family would think. They'll love you (never mind that I moved out years ago). Next issue.

What will her parents think? What about her friends (most of whom I don't know)? Uh oh. These are doubts I can't afford to let foster. It's almost over, but she's still in high school, and the seismic social shifting that occurs transitioning from it to life afterwards (in this case, college) is at best only vaguely sensed before that threshold is actually crossed. She's still in the high school world, which means her social circle of friends and family are her entire universe. Their collective influence is a tide I can't swim against alone.

So first, I have to give her closure on the age gap. Men in the US are on average a couple years older than their women are. So we're a few couples beyond that couple. Big deal. It's not like I'm old enough to be your father or anything.

Age ain't nothing but a number! Don't look at me like that, I know I heard you mutter it once. You didn't think I heard, but I did.

Abraham was a full decade older than Sarah, and look how well they did together! Unfortunately, I'm not following my own advice about finding a girl who loves Jesus, so that just gets a giggly eyeroll and a "you're such a nerd". I'll take that consolation prize. I won't let her know it, but I live for those moments.

We're not letting an age difference that'll progressively matter even less down the road destroy this special bond you've pointed out we have more times than I can count. Think of it as adding a Romeo and Juliet element to the whole thing! Oops, not wise. That makes it sound serious. I need it to feel trivial. Man, what a tough spot.

My plan is to be introduced to the parents shortly after her birthday. I'll take her dad out for a bite to eat, put all the probity, charm, and genuine long-term interest in his daughter I can muster on display to try and win his approval. I'm tight with her best friend, and her best friend is close to her mother, so I'll approach mom more indirectly. So long as she's not overcome by doubt before moving on to college (and she's made a sports team, so she'll be pulled out of the high school universe as soon as graduation hits and practice immediately begins), the seemingly all-important high school cliques will disappear.

Relatedly, Agnostic, who makes an avocation out of this stuff, struck home hard recently:

I slept terribly last night.


Per capita federal welfare expenditures by state


StatePer capita $
1. District of Columbia291.55

2. New York

3. California173.46
4. New Mexico168.13
5. Alaska165.27
6. Vermont146.16
7. Louisiana139.98
8. Michigan135.89
9. Oklahoma133.89
10. Rhode Island132.39
11. Pennsylvania127.59
12. Mississippi127.57
13. Georgia121.78
14. West Virginia119.89
15. Kentucky119.51
16. Oregon119.30
17. Hawaii118.86
18. Connecticut117.29
19. New Jersey117.04
20. Washington115.73
21. Maine113.70
22. Arizona113.44
23. North Dakota111.08
24. Massachusetts108.79
25. Wisconsin108.05
26. Wyoming107.58
27. South Dakota106.80
28. North Carolina106.61
29. Texas105.87
30. Kansas104.59
31. Illinois102.06
32. Iowa101.68
33. Delaware100.67
34. Minnesota100.61
35. Arkansas97.95
36. Montana97.89
37. Missouri95.81
38. Nebraska95.42
39. Alabama95.08
40. Utah93.25
41. Tennessee92.96
42. Ohio91.13
43. South Carolina89.69
44. Idaho84.76
45. Maryland77.92
46. Indiana77.85
47. Colorado68.06
48. Nevada65.23
49. Virginia59.61
50. Florida59.19
51. New Hampshire53.42




* All correlations exclude the District of Columbia.