Monthly Archives: September 2013

What is the IQ Breaking Point?

Posted on 30 September, 2013 by alfin2101

How Low Can Average IQ Go Before Countries Fail? Blogger Staffan looks at this issue from the standpoint of the correlations of IQ with multiple societal variables — (via HBDChick) — , including education, number of scientists and engineers, per … Continue reading →

Posted in Demographics, IQ, Wealth of Nations | Tagged , | 5 Comments

When Is an Empire Not an Empire?

Posted on 29 September, 2013 by alfin2101

The US is largely an ethnic melting pot of immigrants. The country acquired imperial holdings from Imperial Britain, Imperial Spain, Imperial France, Imperial Russia, and arguably Imperial Mexico (!). These acquisitions were by way of both purchase, conquest, and purchase … Continue reading →

Posted in Demographics, Empire | Comments Off on When Is an Empire Not an Empire?

Are Blacks a Criminal Race?

Posted on 28 September, 2013 by alfin2101

No. Blacks are not a criminal race. Criminality is differently distributed across different populations, just as household income and IQ are differently distributed across different populations. Black people simply exhibit higher rates of criminality — statistically — than other population … Continue reading →

Posted in Blacks and crime, Racial Myths | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Merkel Dodged a Bullet; Poisoned Arrows on the Way

Posted on 25 September, 2013 by alfin2101

Germany’s Chancellor Merkel dodged a big bullet in the recent German elections. But her fight to survive the ill-conceived energy policy called Energiewende has just begun. The Energiewende has already led to chaos, with surges of subsidized wind and solar … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe | 1 Comment

Is Reality Revoked?

Posted on 24 September, 2013 by alfin2101

A Society that Can’t Handle the Truth We know that the world we see in movies and on television shows is make believe. It is more difficult for many people to believe that what they see on news shows and … Continue reading →

Posted in Blacks and crime, Racial Myths | Tagged | 3 Comments

Feynman Lectures on Physics Now Free Online

Posted on 23 September, 2013 by alfin2101

The excellent introductory lectures (vol I) on physics from Nobel prizewinner Richard Feynman are now available free online in HTML format at Feynmanlectures.info. (via Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor) The lectures are available from two different servers: The Caltech server (faster), … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Comments Off on Feynman Lectures on Physics Now Free Online

Imagine a World Without Science, Technology, Music, or Art

Posted on 22 September, 2013 by alfin2101

By 2050, many African states will likely more than double in population. Kenya will rise from 44 million to 97 million people, and Nigeria from 174 million to 440 million. Some nations will nearly triple their growth, the reports finds. … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Demographics | 5 Comments

Excitable Primates, Monkeys, and Muslims

Posted on 20 September, 2013 by alfin2101

Re-published from an earlier article appearing on Al Fin Potpourri, abu al-fin, and Al Fin Central. The differences between the minds of monkeys and the minds of men are differences of a graded evolutionary nature. Natural selection follows a forked … Continue reading →

Posted in Genetics and Gene Expression, Psychopaths | 3 Comments

Bad Government Policies Portend Dystopian Future

Posted on 19 September, 2013 by alfin2101

As the world moves more deeply into a narrowing set of futures, a few things become more clear. None of the utopian futures which have been predicted by pundits, bureaucrats, visionaries, and speculative writers, are likely to come about. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Demographics, Government | 3 Comments

Mothers: Make Sure Your Daughters Understand the Risks

Posted on 18 September, 2013 by alfin2101

The following article is adapted from an earlier posting on Al Fin, You Sexy Thing! Talking to Your Daughters About Trading Sex for Tuition Let’s face it: Paying for college these days is not easy. Tuition rates have skyrocketed much … Continue reading →

Posted in Prostitution, satire, Sex | Tagged | 2 Comments

She Was Just Nineteen, Young and Brave

Posted on 17 September, 2013 by alfin2101

Update August 2016: Despite being railroaded by the US government, Holmes is still working hard to develop the original promise of Theranos. A fair reading of the only publically available peer-reviewed evaluation of early-stage Theranos lab results suggests that the … Continue reading →

Posted in Competence, Dangerous Child, Economics | Comments Off on She Was Just Nineteen, Young and Brave

A Societal Fixation on Zombies and Assassins

Posted on 16 September, 2013 by alfin2101

What does it say about a society when two of its favorite themes of entertainment are books and movies about hitmen and zombies? The zombie craze speaks for itself in terms of book sales, box office and movie rental fees, … Continue reading →

Posted in Dangerous Child, Martial Arts and Fight Training, Military, Zombies | Tagged | Comments Off on A Societal Fixation on Zombies and Assassins

Why Nassim Taleb’s “Antifragile” May Seem So Familiar

Posted on 14 September, 2013 by alfin2101

Nassim Taleb’s most recently published book “Antifragile” seems both new and familiar at the same time. On the one hand, he expands on his earlier works, including The Black Swan, and Fooled by Randomness. On the other hand, Taleb coins … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Knowledge | 5 Comments

Words are Slippery and Thought is Viscous

Posted on 13 September, 2013 by alfin2101

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. Henry Brooks Adams Found in Quotes About Words You may think that the slipperiness of words would be … Continue reading →

Posted in Cognition, Metaphor, Philosophy | Comments Off on Words are Slippery and Thought is Viscous

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

Posted on 12 September, 2013 by alfin2101

The title of this article (first published in the original Al Fin blog) was originally meant as a humorous paraphrase of Mark Twain’s famous quote about the weather. Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. __ … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Demographics, IQ | 22 Comments

Germans Pay High Price for Green Delusion: Much Higher Prices to Come

Posted on 10 September, 2013 by alfin2101

Modern societies depend upon high quality, reliable, affordable electrical power. Dependable electricity should not be treated as a toy or a game to be played with by politicians such as one finds in the US and the EU. The German … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Europe, Green Quagmire | Tagged | 2 Comments

Don’t Raise Your Children to be Wage Slaves

Posted on 10 September, 2013 by alfin2101

There are a number of disadvantages to working at a job, that is, working for a company or for someone else. Job security is never perfect, and in the days of Obama, uncertainty is an unwelcome guest in a growing … Continue reading →

Posted in careers, Dangerous Child, Survival Prepping | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Approximating an Online Medical Education for Dangerous Children

Posted on 9 September, 2013 by alfin2101

Sooner or later, someone is going to create an online medical school for training medical doctors. Such programs would likely be open to all age groups, providing Dangerous Children with an “advanced placement” training in the secrets of human medicine. … Continue reading →

Posted in Dangerous Child, Medicine, Online Education | 2 Comments

John David Garcia’s Contribution to Advanced Early Childhood Curricula

Posted on 9 September, 2013 by alfin2101

John David Garcia (died 2001) was an independent thinker, inventor, author, and philosopher who wrote, taught, and worked from his home in Oregon. Of all of his books, Creative Transformation has had the deepest impact on most readers. Some of … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning Theory | 2 Comments

Teach Them to Teach Themselves

Posted on 7 September, 2013 by alfin2101

The key to a better future is new generations of dangerous children who have learned to teach themselves. We expect adults, graduate students, and more mature university students and adolescents to be able to teach themselves. But we do not … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning Theory | Comments Off on Teach Them to Teach Themselves

Overlearning: Physical Skills vs. Facts

Posted on 6 September, 2013 by alfin2101

Dangerous child training is first about competence. Some children — having achieved competence in one field — will want to achieve competence in other fields. Other children will want to go further beyond competence, toward mastery in a single field. … Continue reading →

Posted in Dangerous Child, Learning Theory | Comments Off on Overlearning: Physical Skills vs. Facts

Enlightenment Hits Dead End; More See Dark Enlightenment as Alternative

Posted on 5 September, 2013 by alfin2101

When the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries hit the scene, it captured the imaginations of forward thinkers in the arts, science, philosophy, and even religion. But that Enlightenment began to twist and turn back on itself with the … Continue reading →

Posted in Dark Enlightenment | 1 Comment

Early Childhood Music Training

Posted on 4 September, 2013 by alfin2101

Early childhood training in music has been associated with increased IQ scores, mostly on the verbal scales, but some studies also find improvements in spatial reasoning. Early music training was also associated with improved reading skills and phonological development. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Dangerous Child, Learning Theory | 1 Comment

A Few Words on Mental Calibration

Posted on 3 September, 2013 by alfin2101

In the beginning we learn simply from experience, using basic instincts and forming non-verbal associations. This early learning becomes an automatic and unconscious basis for further learning and a growing consciousness, which allows us to consciously learn skills that are … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Brain, Learning Theory | Comments Off on A Few Words on Mental Calibration

Exploring the Deep Frontiers of the Human Mind

Posted on 2 September, 2013 by alfin2101

The human mind is one of the “last frontiers” yet to be explored. Modern psychiatry and psychology spawn a number of tired jokes among the modern breed of biologically and genetically informed cognitive scientists, for good reason. Virtually everything about … Continue reading →

Posted in Genetics and Gene Expression, Human Brain, Psychopaths | Comments Off on Exploring the Deep Frontiers of the Human Mind