Emerging Idiocracy on Planet Earth: Engage Anti-Zombie Precautions

Decades of genetics research have shown...that people are born with different hereditary potentials for intelligence and that these genetic endowments are responsible for much of the variation in mental ability among individuals. Last spring an international team of scientists headed by Robert Plomin of the Institute of Psychiatry in London announced the discovery of the first gene linked to intelligence. Of course, genes have their effects only in interaction with environments, partly by enhancing an individual's exposure or sensitivity to formative experiences. Differences in general intelligence, whether measured as IQ or, more accurately, as g are both genetic and environmental in origin--just as are all other psychological traits and attitudes studied so far, including personality, vocational interests and societal attitudes. This is old news among the experts. The experts have, however, been startled by more recent discoveries.

One is that the heritability of IQ rises with age--that is to say, the extent to which genetics accounts for differences in IQ among individuals increases as people get older. Studies comparing identical and fraternal twins, published in the past decade by a group led by Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., of the University of Minnesota and other scholars, show that about 40 percent of IQ differences among preschoolers stems from genetic differences but that heritability rises to 60 percent by adolescence and to 80 percent by late adulthood. With age, differences among individuals in their developed intelligence come to mirror more closely their genetic differences. It appears that the effects of environment on intelligence fade rather than grow with time. In hindsight, perhaps this should have come as no surprise. Young children have the circumstances of their lives imposed on them by parents, schools and other agents of society, but as people get older they become more independent and tend to seek out the life niches that are most congenial to their genetic proclivities.

A second big surprise for intelligence experts was the discovery that environments shared by siblings have little to do with IQ. Many people still mistakenly believe that social, psychological and economic differences among families create lasting and marked differences in IQ. Behavioral geneticists refer to such environmental effects as "shared" because they are common to siblings who grow up together. Research has shown that although shared environments do have a modest influence on IQ in childhood, their effects dissipate by adolescence. The IQs of adopted children, for example, lose all resemblance to those of their adoptive family members and become more like the IQs of the biological parents they have never known. Such findings suggest that siblings either do not share influential aspects of the rearing environment or do not experience them in the same way. Much behavioral genetics research currently focuses on the still mysterious processes by which environments make members of a household less alike. _Linda Gottfredson

The general finding after over 100 years of studying intelligence and genetics, is that IQ is heritable over the lifetime to between 50% and 80%. Heritability of IQ tends to be lower in low socioeconomic groups and in very young children. As a person ages, the genes tend to influence intelligence more.

The table below is a guessing game, where you are to fill in the "country" which matches the continent and the IQ score. The table of national IQs below, should assist you in this task. Notice that African nations are not included in the game, since the national IQ scores in the game do not go below 92.

Continent/Region Country Average IQ Asia 108 Asia 106 Asia 105 Europe 102 Europe 101 Asia 101 Europe 101 Europe 100 Asia 100 Europe 100 Europe 100 Europe 100 Europe 100 Europe 99 North America 99 Europe 99 Europe 99 Europe 99 Oceania 99 Europe 99 Europe 99 Europe 98 Oceania 98 Europe 98 Europe 98

Continent/Region Country Average IQ Europe 98 Europe 98 Europe 98 Europe 98 North America 98 Europe 97 Europe 97 Europe 97 Europe 97 Europe 96 Europe 96 Europe 96 South America 96 Middle East 95 Europe 95 Middle East 94 Middle East 94 Asia 94 Europe 94 Asia 94 South America 93 Europe 93 Europe 92 Europe 92 Asia 92

Name the Country

A more complete table of national IQ scores from Lynn and Vanhanen summarized by Steve Sailer

This graphic displays a simplified bell curve distribution overlap for 4 generalised human population groupings.

This graphic provides a general idea as to realistic occupational expectations for individuals whose valid IQ scores fall within a particular range of values.

FourmilabThis simplified time projection from the Fourmilab website: Global IQ 1950-2050, looks at the change in average "global IQ" over time, due to differential birthrates among distinct breeding groups, possessing different IQ.

Total fertility rates by country (via the EvoandProud anthropology site). By comparing the TFRs and national IQs, one can estimate the general trend for global IQ, as a falsifiable hypothesis.

What about the "Flynn Effect?" Unfortunately, the multiple and poorly defined underlying mechanisms behind the "Flynn Effect" are not strong enough to overcome the compounding magic of differential birthrates combined with heritability of IQ.

This graphic allows you to visually compare homicide rates with both total fertility rates and national IQ. Keeping in mind the heritability of IQ, this triple juxtaposition allows for some simple falsifiable predictions as to the future of both particular nations, and of the nations which are emigration targets for the excess from low IQ, high crime, high fertility populations.

Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.

More: Here is an extremely optimistic look at the future of commodities, energy resources, and food. The human ingenuity of "the smart fraction" has been pushing back against the forces of depletion -- just as Julian Simon said they would do.

It is crucial to look at as many sides to the story as one can. Nothing in real life is as simple as it seems.

Previously published on Al Fin blog

Persons of low IQ have a tendency to commit crimes of both violent and non-violent nature, and to become dependent upon the public purse. As the numbers of low IQ persons grow, the quality of elected officials will tend to decline sharply (the Idiocracy). As more and more cities of the first world come to resemble Detroit, Port-au-Prince, and Ciudad Juarez, the violence and poverty will drive more intelligent persons into gated enclaves and other more protected areas.

Eventually, shadow governments will emerge, with alternative law enforcement and defense forces, and alternative economies. Civil wars are inevitable, if only as a means of last resort self-preservation.

Choose your location and your neighbors wisely, and always have an escape plan prepared. Escaping a zombie horde is similar in many ways to escaping an Idiocracy. Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

Korea to Adopt Robotic Prison Guards

In a break from tradition, the Korean Ministry of Justice intends to replace some of its human prison guards with robot guardians. The robots are designed to patrol up and down prison corridors, to monitor conditions and alert authorities of any violent activity among inmates.

The robots are designed to patrol the corridors of corrective institutions, monitoring conditions inside the cells. If they detect sudden or unusual activity such as violent behavior they alert human guards.

“Unlike CCTV that just monitors cells through screens, the robots are programmed to analyze various activities of those in prison and identify abnormal behavior,” Prof. Lee Baik-chul of Kyonggi University...

...According to Mr. Lee, prison officers have welcomed the idea because the robots can potentially reduce their workload, particularly at night.

And how about the reaction of inmates?

“That’s a concern. _WSJ

Professor Lee denies that the robots are to be seen "terminators," and insists that his team plans to give the robots a humane appearance so as to increase trust on the part of inmates.

It is at least hoped that the terminator robotic guards will be less prone to being corrupted by bribes and payoffs from prisoners, which is a real problem in some locales -- particularly in women's prisons, where sex is often offered for special favours and for the passage of certain contraband items and messages in and out of the prison.

Everybody Talks about Low IQ in Africans, But Nobody Does Anything About It

IQ of Nations (Wikipedia)
By almost any measure imaginable, Subsaharan Africa is the most backward collection of nations on Earth. When taking measures of literacy, productivity, education, rule of law, corruption, crime, poverty, innovation in terms of patents, Nobel Prizes or Fields Medals, health care, quality of life, etc., SS Africa falls at or near the bottom.

IQ testing has consistently placed average population IQs of most Subsaharan African nations well below 80, with only the Australian aboriginal population (and closely related populations) scoring consistently lower. In other words, the actual performance of the SS African nations by almost any measure is perfectly consistent with the average population IQs which are generally obtained via testing.

If SS Africans consistently outperformed their putative population IQ scores, there would be excellent reason to doubt the validity of those scores. In that case, there would be ample justification to perform much more rigorous IQ testing across the nations of SS Africa. But even with the general agreement between national and regional performance and tested IQ scores, any honest scientist would insist that a program of careful and thorough cognitive testing be carried out in the region.

The reason for this is that there are many possible reasons for the low IQ scores in the region, some of which may well be amenable to intervention -- either now or in the foreseeable future. Valid baseline testing is crucial before any broad scale intervention, in order to assess its effectiveness.

Examples of interventions which might conceivably result in increased IQ scores across parts of SS Africa include eradicating or reducing many of the parasitic and infectious diseases in the region, improving general levels of maternal and childhood nutrition, improving early childhood intellectual stimuli and education, providing greater access to books and the internet, reducing local levels of violence and warfare, and so on . . .

Other viable interventions should suggest themselves as we learn more about the nature of intelligence. Two intriguing candidates for improving IQ which are available now include neurofeedback and working memory training.

Why is IQ important?

The results from a series of follow-up studies indicate that the IQ score at age 13 could be viewed as a relatively good indicator for future life outcomes, defined in terms of attained education, occupational status, and material well being. Dramatic differences in this attainment between the groups of respondents with high and low IQ scores attest to this conclusion. Smaller, yet still significant, differences between talented teenagers and their counterparts from the two control groups who apparently did not have the high IQ advantage also support the thesis that IQ matters much for life success. _Source

Intelligence is a life-long trait that exerts powerful influences on educational success, occupational status, use of health services, life style and recreational choices. _ScienceDirect

Specifically, adults with higher intelligence show attenuated cortical thinning and more pronounced cortical thickening over time than do subjects with average or below average IQ. Genes influencing variability in both intelligence and brain plasticity partly drive these associations. Thus, not only does the brain continue to change well into adulthood, these changes are functionally relevant because they are related to intelligence. _J.Neurosci

Relationships between brain volumes and IQ is being solidly established using MRI and DTI studies, and the relationship between cognitive aptitude - brain volume - and genetic complement is likewise being clearly elaborated bit by bit.

A lot of research will be needed to tease apart the portion of cognitive aptitude attributable to particular constellations of genes, from what is due to various factors in the environment. Throughout this very important process, valid and thorough cognitive testing across SS Africa -- and any other regions where interventions are contemplated -- is absolutely necessary.

Morbidity, mortality, life accomplishment and quality of life are all at stake. Leftist academics, politicians, and pundits attempt to cover up the problem, which only creates greater hardship and misery in the future. Much better to clearly define the problem, then discover what can be done about it -- and political correctness be damned.

More: Interesting website with an interesting assortment of articles on IQ

Finally, look over the charts below and consider what kind of society you could put together with a population whose mean IQ is 70, with a standard deviation of 15.

Taken from an earlier posting at Al Fin

US Cities De-Populating

WSJ_via_NewsAlert
First, US cities saw "white flight" -- where white Americans fled cities in the face of dropping property values and rising crime rates and tax rates. Now we are seeing "black flight" from US cities for some of the same reasons. Detroit is the worst example of this de-population phenomenon, but not the only one, according to the 2010 US census.

In all, the city [Detroit] lost more than 237,000 residents, including 185,000 blacks and about 41,000 whites. The Hispanic population ticked up by 1,500. Meanwhile, the black population in neighboring Macomb County more than tripled to 72,723, constituting 8.6% of the county's population in 2010, compared with 2.7% a decade earlier. Oakland County's African-American population rose 36% to 164,078.

...In 1950, Detroit was the fifth-largest city in America, behind New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, and it was in the top 10 as recently as the 1990 Census. Now, Detroit is likely to fall to 19th, behind Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio.

...Some pockets of Detroit are seeing growth, led by immigrants, young professionals and artisans, which Mayor Bing sees as an important trend. "We are getting a lot of that 21-to-30 population moving back to the city," he said. "I think that bodes very well for us."

...Detroit's largely Hispanic southwest neighborhood remains stable, helped by new immigration, cheap housing and low barriers of entry, said Angela Reyes, executive director of the Detroit Hispanic Development Corp., a community organization. _WSJ

WSJThe movement of populations out of crumbling, crime-ridden cities to safer and better-maintained outlying areas is just a foretaste of a larger and wider migration. Americans are in fact moving out of states that are dominated by machine politics, government unions, and high-crime cities. They are moving to states with lower taxes, more business-friendly policies, fewer compulsory unionisation policies, and generally less crime.

Relative newcomer governors of New Jersey, Wisconsin, Ohio, and other states are fighting to save their states from the fate of Detroit, Michigan, Illinois, and California -- states that had been particularly burdened by debt caused by government unions and machine politics. But success is not guaranteed.

In order for western nations such as the US, Canada, the UK, and several European nations to survive, they will need to adopt an entirely new psychology of resourcefulness, toughness, and responsibility. The current paths of hyper-indebtedness, high taxes, over-sized governments and government unions etc. cannot be sustained.

Crime and Diversity--Joined at the Hip?

________ Lifetime Likelihood of Incarceration by Race and Gender, US, in 2001.

Crime rates vary from one country to another, even from one region within a country to another. There are many reasons for why crime rates might be higher in one area. One variable shown by research to correlate with high crime is high diversity. In Europe, rates of crime and imprisonment for muslim immigrants from third world countries are high, and increasing rapidly.

There is an observed correlation between race and crime in several countries. Steve Sailer relates a fascinating anecdote of an encounter with a Russian emigrant:

A Russian immigrant called me up once to ask why almost no other American journalist ever mentioned the racial patterns he had seen with his own eyes everyday since he'd come to America. When I explained that the average writer was just lying, he replied:

Vladimir (audibly relieved): "You mean, he's hypocrite?"

Me: "Yeah, exactly. It would hurt his career to write for the public what he thinks in his private life."

Vladimir: "Thank God!"

Me: "Huh?"

Vladimir: "Hypocrite I understand. I grow up in Soviet Union. Lying to save your job, that's life. No, I was very worried smart people in America weren't hypocrites. You know, this country is supposed to be land of free, home of brave. I was scared that smart Americans weren't hypocrites, but instead were hallucinating. I am very happy to hear they're just hypocrites. Hypocrisy much less scary than mass hallucination."

Indeed.

....In crime statistics, Hispanics are often lumped in with non-Hispanic whites. This has the effect of narrowing the gap between the black and white crime rates by inflating the white rate. It also obscures the relatively high rate of Hispanic crime.

Bureaucrats are normally very scrupulous about breaking out data by Hispanic ethnicity. It’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that this is done to make diversity in general, and current immigration in particular, look better.

Fortunately, a liberal activist group called the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives crunched state-level data for a 2001 report that managed to break out the number of Hispanic prisoners in most states. The data is from 1997, but it appears to be the best we have. Source.

There is much more at the source above, including valuable links to statistics sources, and good statistical maps for visual learning.La Griffe Du Lion has an interesting post on aggressiveness and race. It also contains interesting graphs along with informative links.

This US Department of Justice site provides graphs of crime by race, for both victims and offenders. Unfortunately, as Steve Sailer remarked above, the "white" and "hispanic" statistics are conflated, making a valid stratification by ethnicity virtually impossible.

Why does increasing diversity bring increased crime rates? Such increased crime rates do not seem to happen when the newcomers are east asian. It is conceivable that IQ is at least part of the answer. Cultural factors can also clearly play a part. In the case of muslim immigrants, the religious factor is often prominent in increased crime by muslims in Europe.

This is a phenomenon that demands to be studied and understood. What are the chances that governments of North America and Europe will devote resources to seriously studying the association of diversity with increased crime? Virtually zero. Why? It has a lot to do with the cults of political correctness and multiculturalism that have taken over universities, the mass media, and many of the governments of the western world.