If they are, they are being incredibly simplistic. There really are companies that are too big to fail at once. And when we allowed one to fail (Lehman Brothers), the chaos was so severe that we had to spend hundreds of billions of dollars(And counting) to clean up the mess.
This episode has illustrated that our financial system is too delicate, with too many large firms that can take down the entire global economy if they fail.
The important thing to note, is that this systemic risk will not be minimized by the actions of the actions of self-interested agents, because they do not care about the welfare of other banks, only their own(And there is nothing wrong with that). So a perfectly free market will fail.
So the question is, what do we do about it? Do we place stricter leverage limits so that these firms are not allowed to take on "excessive" risk(and if so, how do we define excessive)? Do we forcibly break up the companies to create more redundancy?
These are hard questions, and I don't expect anyone to have answers to all of them. But my issue with the free-marketers, is that they blindly pretend that these problems and trade-offs don't exist.
"But most politicians don't want to do that; things like wars or other massive deficit generating activities would be much harder to fund if you had to actually tax citizens as opposed to tax them through inflation. The power of the state to control the value of money is simply too tempting for them to let go of it."
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we finance our deficits through printing money. The US government has not done that since the Civil War. We actually pay for our deficits by issuing bonds and paying them back slowly over time.
"Why should banks be allowed to risk depositors money at all? If depositors want return on their money, they are free to lend the money out by investing in bonds themselves."
I'm sure that at some point, one enterprising depositor will decide to work full time on scouting for good bond opportunities. At that point, other people might decide to give their money to him to invest for them, perhaps in exchange for a percentage of profits. Then, he might even buy a nice building in the center of town to centralize dealing with his clients. He might even call it a bank...
"As long as the whole foundation of the economy, the currency, is inherently unsound and leveraged,"
I had thought that the foundation of our economy was our workers, schools, offices... But no, apparently a large pile of green paper forms the foundation of our economy
" any regulation of the system above that is meaningless."
Sure. If you don't include the massive draconian restrictions on risk-taking as "regulation", then indeed, no regulation would be necessary.
"Because what needs to be done is quite easy; move to 100% reserve requirements and market based interest rates."
I can guarantee that such a move would cause unbelievably catastrophic decreases in living standards, to the point were neither of us would have the ability to argue on Slashdot.
And while you can sit and advocate a Neo-Hooverite prescription of pain , I want to remind you of something: People die because of economic downturns. The resulting economic downturn would kill millions of people in developing countries from starvation, to say nothing of the wars born from the resulting political instability. If you are willing sacrifice them in the name of ideological consistency, be my guest.
But that's the moral site of things. See here [theatlantic.com] for a better economic rebuttal than I could write.
If it weren't for the repeal of Glass-Steagal, how would Bank of America have bought up Merrill Lynch? (Such a thing would have been illegal under the act)
One of the saving graces so far has been the presence of large banks that have been able to buy up failed investment firms. Without that, we would have been in much worse shape then now.
But in terms of causing the crisis in the first place, Glass-Steagal was simply irrelevant. It was the investment banks, not the conventional ones, that did most of the wacky CDO trades that have caused so much trouble(This isn't the case in Europe, but that's irrelevant to the discussion of a US law).
Right. It seems that there are positive externalities associated with risk taking(if you go bust from taking too much risk, everyone who deals with you gets screwed too, but that's there problem...).
But well... how do you fix that? Screaming "regulation" isn't really helpful. *What* exact regulations do you want to implement, so that we can lower systemic risk in our economy while maintaining economic growth.
Have you given any thought to this? You'll find it's a much more difficult question than it looks.
"Ironically, it was the repeal of the section of the Glass-Steagall Act (passed in response to the depression) which strictly separated banks from securities firms (to help assure the stability of banks) which exacerbated this mess and resulted in such massive failures."
Really? How? What did the Glass-Steagall act have to do with the failures of Investment Banks? I think if anything, the act helped, since it allowed the banks to buy up the shoddy investment banks when shit hit the fan.
Like the republican grandparent, don't be so simplistic or partisan. The only regulations that would have helped with this crisis, were not being advocated by *anyone* 5 years ago.
While that claim was pushed a lot initially after the crisis, most Economists now believe that the Glass-Steagall act was if anything, a good thing.
But the argument is a bit irrelevant. Conventional banks were not anywhere close to the problem here in the US(other countries had bigger problems with this). It was our investment banks(Goldman Sachs, Bear Sterns, etc) that made most of the stupid investments.
Can you present me some actual examples of regulations that were repealed in the last 20 years, that then went ahead and contributed to this crisis?
In retrospect, there are regulations I would have wanted to implement. Namely, stricter leverage requirements, removing the OTC derivative exemption from bankruptcy law, and maybe something with Mark-to-Mark accounting. And maybe a repeal of the Mortgage tax credit. Perhaps, a government mandated symposium on fat-tailed distributions and their consequences in modeling.
But let's be fair. It's easy to say this in retrospect. I am a Democrat, I am enthusiastically supporting Barrack Obama. But were any democrats advocating any of those measures 5 years ago? Was *anyone*?
No. Both parties pushed ahead with stupid policies that caused this crisis.
Find me a single economist who believes Freddie and Fannie was the problem with the crisis. A single one.
Frankly, at the heart of this problem, the markets massively over-priced these mortgages, and insurance companies under-priced default insurance. Under a free-market framework... this shouldn't have happened.
Did the government "force" AIG to underprice the risk of default on these risky loans? Did they "force" investment banks to make multi-trillion dollar CDS and CDO's that brought down the global financial system?
This issue has highlighted that systemic risk in our markets is pervasive, and that there seem to be externalizations associated with risk taking. And blindly shouting "Capitalism!1!" isn't very useful for solving it.
Right, because liberals just like regulations for shits and giggles.
What really pisses me off about this issue, is that there has been no substantive debate about what actually needs to be done to change financial regulations.
This episode has illustrated that our financial system is too delicate, with too many large firms that can take down the entire global economy if they fail.
The important thing to note, is that this systemic risk will not be minimized by the actions of the actions of self-interested agents, because they do not care about the welfare of other banks, only their own(And there is nothing wrong with that). So a perfectly free market will fail.
So the question is, what do we do about it? Do we place stricter leverage limits so that these firms are not allowed to take on risk? Do we forcibly break up the companies to create more redundancy?
Until your party drops it's tiresome and simplistic ideology( "Capital gains taxes! That will magically eliminate systemic risk!" ) in favor of realistic and sober policy proposals, it will continue to be relegated to the political wilderness.
Ok, fine. But there is a reason we left the previous free market system: It was even more volatile.
Without institutions like the federal reserve, bank failures become *exceptionally* common. And due to issues like contagion, this brings down the entire economy.
In a perfect market framework, contagion does not exist. But in reality, it does. And that is why we have been using a "socialist" banking system.
Frankly, I don't see how that is intellectually consistent.
If you believe abortion is murder, then abortion is murder. No matter what the case with rape or incest. It should never be allowed, except possibly in cases where the mom is killed.
If you don't believe abortion is murder, than what exactly is wrong with abortion on demand? To me, since I don't believe that embryos are sentient beings with rights, abortion is on roughly the same moral level as breast implants or skin grafts.
"Well I can tell you for a fact, from experience, that South Africa has been going downhill since the end of white-rule. This will become even more pronounced when only a small percentage of white people is left in the country, then they will have no one left to blame for their poverty and problems."
Give me a statistic(That includes the entire population, white and black), that is lower now then it was 20 years ago.
"Agriculture in Europe, actually, has a history of being tough and difficult until the end of the most recent ice age."
Agriculture and human civilization barely existed before the first ice age, so I don't see your point.
During the time of European dominance, Europe was indeed productive.
"intelligence as being a useful trait in such a harsh environment, as compared to the lush and resource-rich Africa"
If I had to pick, I'd say Africa is far more hostile to human existence then Europe.
Fast reaction times, spatial reasoning, and long and short term memory(Necessary to distinguish which of the 9 identical looking poisonous snakes is edible) are skills that are far more necessary in Africa then Europe.
These skills are heavily weighted in IQ tests, and if selection pressures had any significant effect on IQ, I'd expect that black people would have higher IQ's then whites.
" Certain African nations, under white rule, were known as "breadbasket" nations for the climate and technical ability (i.e. intelligence) of the people enabled them to be incredibly productive."
It was not so much the intelligence of the white people, so much as the lack of crops to grow. There were no domesticatable crops in southern Africa before whites came. So unless the local natives were smart enough to invent gene therapy, they were out of luck.
"Africa does not enjoy similar success under current (non-white) regimes. So I would reject you claim that Africa is hostile to civilization or agriculture."
The "breadbaskets" were Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, and South Africa. The rest of Africa wasn't particularly amiable to food production.
The white settlers who tried, had their cattle killed by tsetse flies, and their crops fail.
These countries, now under black rule, are actually doing very well(Other than Zimbabwe). In fact, their GDP per capita, health standards, GDP growth, and food production are all higher than they were under white rule(Other than Zimbabwe). They are doing much better than the rest of Africa.
Africa has a rich civilizational history. Just because your favorite group, sub-saharan blacks, do not share in culture bearership, does not mean Africa as a whole lacked civilization. Egyptians and the various North African tribes have a very rich cultural history. Perhaps you should open a history book?
As a Berber, I'm well aware. That has more to do with the presence of crops from the fertile crescent, as well as very fertile fields near our river delta areas.
"check out which racial groups are totally smashing the competition in running in the olympics"
Watching from yesterday, it seems that Ukraine and China seem to be doing pretty well.
"And what about the middle east? Your argument absolutely and utterly falls through in that regard. The middle east, if I'm not mistaken, is nothing but desert. And yet, as you said, Arabs dominated the sciences during the middle ages."
The Middle East was not always a desert. There was a time when "fertile crescent" didn't seem like a cruel joke. The decline of the middle east actually coincides fairly closely with the decline of their environment.
"I wasn't saying I disregard their answer because I believe it wrong. I disagree with their answer because I believe they have ulterior reasons for not believing in the theory I propose is true."
That is a fair point, since I tend to believe the same of people who talk about your point of view.
"I for one do think that there are IQ differences between races, but very minor differences. However, I think the main cause of IQ differences between races is simply due to different cultures."
If you define culture to include things like dietary habits and preferred alphabet, then I actually agree with you there.
"I meant different in a non trivial way. Like IQ differences or higher genetic predisposition to violence. Differences that society today has problem dealing with. Even an example of height differences is significant. I can't remember the exact statistic, but people taller than 6ft get paid something like 10% more on average than those below 6t."
That is also a fair point. Society does certainly need to rethink how it thinks of genetic inequality.
But once again, I'm not sure why people focus on inter-group differences vs intra-group differences.
For example, based on family history, my neighbor his heavily predisposed to alcoholism. This might have something to do with his Russian heritage, but frankly, I don't see why that is particularly useful, in the presence of knowledge of his family history.
Like you say, these genetic predispositions are serious and determine a huge part of our life. My argument is mainly that our understanding of this would be furthered if we stepped away from traditional racial groupings.
"If we all originated from africa, then why oh why did Europeans come back to africa many years later with significantly more advanced technology and knowledge than the local populace?"
The physical environment of most of Africa is incredibly hostile to civilization. As evidence, most of the Europeans who tried to settle there during the colonial period failed catastrophically. Crop yields simply are much lower in African soils then European ones.
The exception to this is Southern Africa. But in southern Africa, there simply were no easily domesticated plants to grow. Now that the crops have been introduced, countries in the region like Botswana and Mozambique are growing quickly and doing well.
"I've asked this a million times, and not one person has had the balls to answer it truthfully."
Well, if you already axiomatically decide to disregard all answers except what you already believe...
"But we all know it's because slightly higher intelligence was an adaptation that suited a different climate/region/situation."
Which is why the west managed to do the same with India and China, nations with apparently higher average IQ's? Or why most scientists of the Renaissance were of genetically inferior "Mediterranean" stock? How about the Arab dominance of the sciences during the middle ages?
Frankly, the model you propose doesn't have much explanatory power for world history, and has little purpose other than to further the naive preconceptions of racists.
"I don't understand why people so vehemently oppose the fact that certain people evolved higher intelligence? It really is no different from skin colour."
Unlike skin color, IQ has an enormous and little understood environmental component. While it's possible that there are racial components to IQ, we understand far too little about the genetic and environmental determinants of IQ to draw any conclusions with a reasonable amount of accuracy.
"And IQ differences between regions/races is just an inevitable part of evolution."
I might accept evolutionary explanations for Australian Aborigines or Andaman islanders.
But for everyone else, there has been far too much large scale migration and interbreeding over the last four thousand years for me to support that line of thinking.
"No, I know why people deny it so much. Because, how do we justify equal rights if not everyone is equal? "
Well, people are obviously not equal. I obviously have different genetic potential to swim than Micheal Phelps. Obviously, this doesn't effect my worth as a human being.
The question that puzzles me, is why so many people focus on differences between racial groups as opposed to differences among populations as a whole.
To a large extent, this kind of thinking exists mainly as an attempt to provide legitimacy to racists, who want to reduce diverse racial groups to their imagined statistical median.
You do not seem like a racist. But your sheer enthusiasm and faith in ideas that imply racial supremacy, despite large amounts of scientific uncertainty, sends troubling signals
I personally doubt that racial differences are very significant for the traits that racists like to talk about. And I would prefer if we spent our grant money on more things .
But, I never heard of that stuff about Gandhi. Thank you for posting it, it was very interesting.
Seems like more of a coincidence. And considering that they only tested "native" populations, when a huge percentage of the "moneyed" class are immigrants, accentuates this.
15 years ago, Italy had a higher gdp/capita then the UK, which would have thrown the pattern off.
Globally, countries like Singapore, Botswana, and Chile would throw the pattern off.
Skin color is obvious enough. The problem is that people try to extend this to intelligence, and use a remarkably dishonest and simplistic biology to reinforce their preconceived notions about race.
The truth is, human beings are remarkably interbred(As long as you are not from the Andaman islands, you likely have a much much closer common ancestor with a Chinese person than you think), and even without that, we branched off into respective continents very recently.
At the same time, intra-race variations usualy are a lot more signifigant then inter-race ones. I recall a study showing that the Scott's and Irish on average, show much lower IQ scores then the English. Yet racists tend to ignore that.
Outside of traits like Lactose intolerance, I don't think genetic variation between races is particularly relevant. And if someone wants to "bravely" point out the results of flawed studies, they are being dicks.
There are finite systems that are impossible to model accurately, but that is because of extreme sensitivity to initial conditions(Logistic map), or because of a lack of quickly converging analytic closed form(n-body problem).
I can't think of a single dynamic system unsolvable in the Godel sense of the world.
I make the empirical claim that if we reduce copyright periods drastically(Current papers estimate 14 years), content producers will produce more content then they would if we keep the copyright status quo.
If you wish to dispute this point, say so, and I will gladly provide you with the relevant research.
I'm not sure what that has to do with Class-Conflict.
Slashdot Mirror
Remind me to never hire you as an exterminator....
"so this is like asking if a quantum computer can prove Fermat's Last Theorem. "
Any hopes for a speed-up on Automated-Theorem-Proving?
This episode has illustrated that our financial system is too delicate, with too many large firms that can take down the entire global economy if they fail.
The important thing to note, is that this systemic risk will not be minimized by the actions of the actions of self-interested agents, because they do not care about the welfare of other banks, only their own(And there is nothing wrong with that). So a perfectly free market will fail.
So the question is, what do we do about it? Do we place stricter leverage limits so that these firms are not allowed to take on "excessive" risk(and if so, how do we define excessive)? Do we forcibly break up the companies to create more redundancy?
These are hard questions, and I don't expect anyone to have answers to all of them. But my issue with the free-marketers, is that they blindly pretend that these problems and trade-offs don't exist.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we finance our deficits through printing money. The US government has not done that since the Civil War. We actually pay for our deficits by issuing bonds and paying them back slowly over time.
I'm sure that at some point, one enterprising depositor will decide to work full time on scouting for good bond opportunities. At that point, other people might decide to give their money to him to invest for them, perhaps in exchange for a percentage of profits. Then, he might even buy a nice building in the center of town to centralize dealing with his clients. He might even call it a bank...
I had thought that the foundation of our economy was our workers, schools, offices... But no, apparently a large pile of green paper forms the foundation of our economy
Sure. If you don't include the massive draconian restrictions on risk-taking as "regulation", then indeed, no regulation would be necessary.
I can guarantee that such a move would cause unbelievably catastrophic decreases in living standards, to the point were neither of us would have the ability to argue on Slashdot.
And while you can sit and advocate a Neo-Hooverite prescription of pain , I want to remind you of something: People die because of economic downturns. The resulting economic downturn would kill millions of people in developing countries from starvation, to say nothing of the wars born from the resulting political instability. If you are willing sacrifice them in the name of ideological consistency, be my guest.
But that's the moral site of things. See here [theatlantic.com] for a better economic rebuttal than I could write.
One of the saving graces so far has been the presence of large banks that have been able to buy up failed investment firms. Without that, we would have been in much worse shape then now.
But in terms of causing the crisis in the first place, Glass-Steagal was simply irrelevant. It was the investment banks, not the conventional ones, that did most of the wacky CDO trades that have caused so much trouble(This isn't the case in Europe, but that's irrelevant to the discussion of a US law).
Can you tell me them?
The theory shows that markets are not anywhere near as perfect as you want to believe.
But well... how do you fix that? Screaming "regulation" isn't really helpful. *What* exact regulations do you want to implement, so that we can lower systemic risk in our economy while maintaining economic growth.
Have you given any thought to this? You'll find it's a much more difficult question than it looks.
Really? How? What did the Glass-Steagall act have to do with the failures of Investment Banks? I think if anything, the act helped, since it allowed the banks to buy up the shoddy investment banks when shit hit the fan.
Like the republican grandparent, don't be so simplistic or partisan. The only regulations that would have helped with this crisis, were not being advocated by *anyone* 5 years ago.
While that claim was pushed a lot initially after the crisis, most Economists now believe that the Glass-Steagall act was if anything, a good thing.
But the argument is a bit irrelevant. Conventional banks were not anywhere close to the problem here in the US(other countries had bigger problems with this). It was our investment banks(Goldman Sachs, Bear Sterns, etc) that made most of the stupid investments.
In retrospect, there are regulations I would have wanted to implement. Namely, stricter leverage requirements, removing the OTC derivative exemption from bankruptcy law, and maybe something with Mark-to-Mark accounting. And maybe a repeal of the Mortgage tax credit. Perhaps, a government mandated symposium on fat-tailed distributions and their consequences in modeling.
But let's be fair. It's easy to say this in retrospect. I am a Democrat, I am enthusiastically supporting Barrack Obama. But were any democrats advocating any of those measures 5 years ago? Was *anyone*?
No. Both parties pushed ahead with stupid policies that caused this crisis.
Frankly, at the heart of this problem, the markets massively over-priced these mortgages, and insurance companies under-priced default insurance. Under a free-market framework... this shouldn't have happened.
Did the government "force" AIG to underprice the risk of default on these risky loans? Did they "force" investment banks to make multi-trillion dollar CDS and CDO's that brought down the global financial system?
This issue has highlighted that systemic risk in our markets is pervasive, and that there seem to be externalizations associated with risk taking. And blindly shouting "Capitalism!1!" isn't very useful for solving it.
What really pisses me off about this issue, is that there has been no substantive debate about what actually needs to be done to change financial regulations.
This episode has illustrated that our financial system is too delicate, with too many large firms that can take down the entire global economy if they fail.
The important thing to note, is that this systemic risk will not be minimized by the actions of the actions of self-interested agents, because they do not care about the welfare of other banks, only their own(And there is nothing wrong with that). So a perfectly free market will fail.
So the question is, what do we do about it? Do we place stricter leverage limits so that these firms are not allowed to take on risk? Do we forcibly break up the companies to create more redundancy?
Until your party drops it's tiresome and simplistic ideology( "Capital gains taxes! That will magically eliminate systemic risk!" ) in favor of realistic and sober policy proposals, it will continue to be relegated to the political wilderness.
Without institutions like the federal reserve, bank failures become *exceptionally* common. And due to issues like contagion, this brings down the entire economy.
In a perfect market framework, contagion does not exist. But in reality, it does. And that is why we have been using a "socialist" banking system.
If you believe abortion is murder, then abortion is murder. No matter what the case with rape or incest. It should never be allowed, except possibly in cases where the mom is killed.
If you don't believe abortion is murder, than what exactly is wrong with abortion on demand? To me, since I don't believe that embryos are sentient beings with rights, abortion is on roughly the same moral level as breast implants or skin grafts.
Give me a statistic(That includes the entire population, white and black), that is lower now then it was 20 years ago.
Agriculture and human civilization barely existed before the first ice age, so I don't see your point.
During the time of European dominance, Europe was indeed productive.
"intelligence as being a useful trait in such a harsh environment, as compared to the lush and resource-rich Africa"
If I had to pick, I'd say Africa is far more hostile to human existence then Europe.
Fast reaction times, spatial reasoning, and long and short term memory(Necessary to distinguish which of the 9 identical looking poisonous snakes is edible) are skills that are far more necessary in Africa then Europe.
These skills are heavily weighted in IQ tests, and if selection pressures had any significant effect on IQ, I'd expect that black people would have higher IQ's then whites.
" Certain African nations, under white rule, were known as "breadbasket" nations for the climate and technical ability (i.e. intelligence) of the people enabled them to be incredibly productive."
It was not so much the intelligence of the white people, so much as the lack of crops to grow. There were no domesticatable crops in southern Africa before whites came. So unless the local natives were smart enough to invent gene therapy, they were out of luck.
"Africa does not enjoy similar success under current (non-white) regimes. So I would reject you claim that Africa is hostile to civilization or agriculture."
The "breadbaskets" were Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, and South Africa. The rest of Africa wasn't particularly amiable to food production.
The white settlers who tried, had their cattle killed by tsetse flies, and their crops fail.
These countries, now under black rule, are actually doing very well(Other than Zimbabwe). In fact, their GDP per capita, health standards, GDP growth, and food production are all higher than they were under white rule(Other than Zimbabwe). They are doing much better than the rest of Africa.
Africa has a rich civilizational history. Just because your favorite group, sub-saharan blacks, do not share in culture bearership, does not mean Africa as a whole lacked civilization. Egyptians and the various North African tribes have a very rich cultural history. Perhaps you should open a history book?
As a Berber, I'm well aware. That has more to do with the presence of crops from the fertile crescent, as well as very fertile fields near our river delta areas.
"check out which racial groups are totally smashing the competition in running in the olympics"
Watching from yesterday, it seems that Ukraine and China seem to be doing pretty well.
The Middle East was not always a desert. There was a time when "fertile crescent" didn't seem like a cruel joke. The decline of the middle east actually coincides fairly closely with the decline of their environment.
"I wasn't saying I disregard their answer because I believe it wrong. I disagree with their answer because I believe they have ulterior reasons for not believing in the theory I propose is true."
That is a fair point, since I tend to believe the same of people who talk about your point of view.
"I for one do think that there are IQ differences between races, but very minor differences. However, I think the main cause of IQ differences between races is simply due to different cultures."
If you define culture to include things like dietary habits and preferred alphabet, then I actually agree with you there.
"I meant different in a non trivial way. Like IQ differences or higher genetic predisposition to violence. Differences that society today has problem dealing with. Even an example of height differences is significant. I can't remember the exact statistic, but people taller than 6ft get paid something like 10% more on average than those below 6t."
That is also a fair point. Society does certainly need to rethink how it thinks of genetic inequality.
But once again, I'm not sure why people focus on inter-group differences vs intra-group differences.
For example, based on family history, my neighbor his heavily predisposed to alcoholism. This might have something to do with his Russian heritage, but frankly, I don't see why that is particularly useful, in the presence of knowledge of his family history.
Like you say, these genetic predispositions are serious and determine a huge part of our life. My argument is mainly that our understanding of this would be furthered if we stepped away from traditional racial groupings.
The physical environment of most of Africa is incredibly hostile to civilization. As evidence, most of the Europeans who tried to settle there during the colonial period failed catastrophically. Crop yields simply are much lower in African soils then European ones.
The exception to this is Southern Africa. But in southern Africa, there simply were no easily domesticated plants to grow. Now that the crops have been introduced, countries in the region like Botswana and Mozambique are growing quickly and doing well.
"I've asked this a million times, and not one person has had the balls to answer it truthfully."
Well, if you already axiomatically decide to disregard all answers except what you already believe...
"But we all know it's because slightly higher intelligence was an adaptation that suited a different climate/region/situation."
Which is why the west managed to do the same with India and China, nations with apparently higher average IQ's? Or why most scientists of the Renaissance were of genetically inferior "Mediterranean" stock? How about the Arab dominance of the sciences during the middle ages?
Frankly, the model you propose doesn't have much explanatory power for world history, and has little purpose other than to further the naive preconceptions of racists.
"I don't understand why people so vehemently oppose the fact that certain people evolved higher intelligence? It really is no different from skin colour."
Unlike skin color, IQ has an enormous and little understood environmental component. While it's possible that there are racial components to IQ, we understand far too little about the genetic and environmental determinants of IQ to draw any conclusions with a reasonable amount of accuracy.
"And IQ differences between regions/races is just an inevitable part of evolution."
I might accept evolutionary explanations for Australian Aborigines or Andaman islanders.
But for everyone else, there has been far too much large scale migration and interbreeding over the last four thousand years for me to support that line of thinking.
"No, I know why people deny it so much. Because, how do we justify equal rights if not everyone is equal? "
Well, people are obviously not equal. I obviously have different genetic potential to swim than Micheal Phelps. Obviously, this doesn't effect my worth as a human being.
The question that puzzles me, is why so many people focus on differences between racial groups as opposed to differences among populations as a whole.
To a large extent, this kind of thinking exists mainly as an attempt to provide legitimacy to racists, who want to reduce diverse racial groups to their imagined statistical median.
You do not seem like a racist. But your sheer enthusiasm and faith in ideas that imply racial supremacy, despite large amounts of scientific uncertainty, sends troubling signals
But, I never heard of that stuff about Gandhi. Thank you for posting it, it was very interesting.
15 years ago, Italy had a higher gdp/capita then the UK, which would have thrown the pattern off.
Globally, countries like Singapore, Botswana, and Chile would throw the pattern off.
The truth is, human beings are remarkably interbred(As long as you are not from the Andaman islands, you likely have a much much closer common ancestor with a Chinese person than you think), and even without that, we branched off into respective continents very recently.
At the same time, intra-race variations usualy are a lot more signifigant then inter-race ones. I recall a study showing that the Scott's and Irish on average, show much lower IQ scores then the English. Yet racists tend to ignore that.
Outside of traits like Lactose intolerance, I don't think genetic variation between races is particularly relevant. And if someone wants to "bravely" point out the results of flawed studies, they are being dicks.
*Disclaimer: Speaking as Moroccan*
Brains are *not* doing anything uncomputable, in the sense of something like the halting problem.
I can't think of a single dynamic system unsolvable in the Godel sense of the world.
If you wish to dispute this point, say so, and I will gladly provide you with the relevant research.
I'm not sure what that has to do with Class-Conflict.