In my June seventeenth Radio Derb I indulged in one among my periodic gushes about Uruguay.
Just a few days earlier than that I had heard from a buddy in England who was himself gushing, however a few totally different nation. He and his girlfriend had taken a trip in Portugal and had been now critically considering of shifting there completely, away from the expense, crowding, class and ethnic rancor of the U.Ok.
(Considerably later in June I noticed a gushy tweet about Lisbon from a tweeter unknown to me: “such a beautiful metropolis!” I used to be in Lisbon myself very briefly in 2007—stopover on a cruise—and sure, for no matter such a brief acquaintance is value, it appeared like a really civilized and hospitable place with many elegant previous buildings and cheerful, well-mannered inhabitants.)
Catching up later within the month I learn Ed West’s high quality piece on Denmark. Discuss gushing! Ed makes you wish to run out and purchase airplane tickets for great, great Copenhagen. He notes, nonetheless, that:
There’s a sting within the tail for the nation’s many English-speaking admirers. Denmark’s happiness, relative equality and sense of cohesion won’t ever be imitated by Britain, not to mention america. Denmark is like it’s as a result of it’s stuffed with Danes—they usually’re fairly eager on preserving it that method.The trade-off between variety and solidarity is a long-established discovering of social science, a reality of human behaviour seen in nearly any setting. But it’s a dilemma that politicians and social commentators throughout the western world hope could be overcome by way of good will and schooling, regardless of all proof on the contrary. [On Danish Exceptionalism by Ed West; Substack, June 8, 2022.]
I closed out June studying Rod Dreher’s American Conservative June twenty seventh and twenty ninth double-header about Hungary; extra exactly about Andrew Marantz’s ignorant and dishonest New Yorker story about that nation.
I snuck into CPAC Hungary and all I bought was this awful article (and a heightened sense of foreboding concerning the destiny of the American republic)https://t.co/hoovBMMqoq
— Andrew Marantz (@andrewmarantz) June 27, 2022
Hmmm … Uruguay, Portugal, Denmark, Hungary. What have they got in frequent? Effectively, they’re all small with out being pointlessly small like Tonga or Brunei: in 1000’s of sq. miles 68, 37, 17, 36. (West Virginia to Florida, very roughly.) They’re modestly well-populated: in tens of millions 3.4, 10.2, 5.9, 9.7. Inhabitants density is middling: in individuals per sq. mile 51, 298, 346, 270. (Colorado to Florida.) Prosperity is likewise middling: per capita GDP in 1000’s of {dollars} 22, 32, 56, 31 (U.Ok. 42).
And they’re all inconsequential, infrequently within the information. These are nations blessed with unimportance, with insignificance.
Most to the purpose, as Ed West famous in respect of Denmark, they’re all ethnically homogenous.
There are after all downsides to a nation being small and unimportant. Large aggressive neighbors may give them lots of hassle; within the excessive, they will threaten their independence, though infrequently their long-term nationwide survival. Denmark was below German occupation 1940-1945; Hungary endured Russian domination 1945-89 (and Austrian earlier, and Turkish but earlier … a Hungarian will inform you all about it). If some Brazilian despot decides he’d prefer to have Uruguay as a part of his realm, there’s nothing the Uruguayans may do to cease him.
Such are the fortunes of historical past. All in all, although, there’s a lot to envy about life in small nations of middling prosperity the place nothing a lot ever occurs.
Right here’s a small nation: the Dominican Republic, inhabitants roughly the identical as Portugal’s.
Some pals had been visiting the Dominican Republic this month. Driving by the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo, the capital metropolis, they had been shocked to see a twenty-foot rainbow banner on one of many street-facing partitions of the large, sprawling, trendy embassy compound. They took an image for me with the remark: “Previous Glory can barely be seen, however this large rainbow banner is not possible to overlook.”
They additional commented:
The Chinese language are in every single place right here, with a number of shops, Chinese language-made heavy gear and autos, funding. Critical business funding and no dopey, decadent banners or pronouncements.What a silly nation we’ve turn into.
We’ve certainly.
Francis Galton (not but Sir Francis) bought the nature-versus-nurture argument getting into earnest within the 1870s, however folks had been pondering the difficulty for ever. Shakespeare took a passing swing at it in The Tempest (traces 1927-8 right here).
In my 2009 spacetime-sundering best-seller We Are Doomed I quoted William Hazlitt, writing half a century earlier than Galton. Hazlitt was a naturist (though not, as far as I do know, in the frequent British sense of the phrase):
Nobody ever modifications his character from the time he’s two years previous; nay, I’d say, from the time he’s two hours previous … the character, the inner, unique bias, stays at all times the identical, true to itself to the final …[On Personal Charactor, March, 1821]
These days nature-nurture has been swallowed up within the bigger, extra correctly scientific area known as Behavioral Genetics; however Behavioral Genetics is in hassle.
So, at any fee, says sociologist Noah Carl, who was fired from a prestigious tutorial place at Cambridge College three years in the past for fallacious considering.
At his account on Substack June twenty second Carl argued that for the previous twenty-something years the human sciences have been in an Interglacial interval: the educational ambiance heat sufficient that researchers may do helpful and fascinating work, as long as they steered away from politically taboo subjects. The publication of Steven Pinker’s e-book The Clean Slate in 2002 could be taken as an early milestone. Now that Interglacial is drawing to a detailed.
What has introduced the ice sheets grinding and crunching their method again, says Noah Carl, has been worry of punishment for contradicting the State Ideology of the Western world; particularly the cherished axiom that there are not any innate, intractable variations between the human races in habits, intelligence, and persona—that, in actual fact, there is no such thing as a such factor as race in any respect.
All through this Interglacial interval human-sciences researchers have assumed that as long as they clearly and sternly deny any perception in—certainly, any curiosity in—group variations, they’d be left alone to pursue analysis into particular person variations.
That, says Noah Carl, is more and more not the case.
Drawing a distinction between “good” analysis on particular person variations and “unhealthy” analysis [on] race variations hasn’t labored. It’s time to desert the concept that scientific claims could be “racist,” or that they’re actually claims about “inferiority,” and simply take a look at the info dispassionately. [They’re coming for Behaviour Genetics by Noah Carl; Substack, June 22, 2022]
A number of luck with that, Sir. When state-backed ideology meets dispassionate scientific inquiry, ideology wins each time. It at all times has.
This month I lastly bought round to studying neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell’s 2018 e-book Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are.
It’s not unhealthy, however very dense and considerably repetitive. You want some acquaintance with the underlying science to get a lot out of it. The writer plods a bit; though when he breaks into full stride he could be fairly memorable:
From that perspective we are able to say that the genetic structure of intelligence is probably going dominated by “minus” variants. These are usually not genes “for intelligence”—fairly the other, in actual fact. Maybe what we’re actually speaking about is the genetics of stupidity. [Page 170.]
I like that. Intelligence researchers spend an excessive amount of time on the right-hand facet of the bell curve, the place they and their colleagues all really feel at dwelling. We’d like some deeper research of stupidity—maybe a proper SQ take a look at?
And confirming Noah Carl’s description of researchers’ habits through the Interglacial, Mitchell spends 5 and a half pages on the finish of the e-book affirming his ideological orthodoxy, concluding with:
For all these causes, not one of the proof for genetic results on psychological traits offered on this e-book ought to be taken as supporting the case for a genetic contribution to variations in such traits between populations. [Page 264.]
OK, Prof. When the lists of highest rating people on the Putnam Mathematical Competitors look a lot totally different to this, or a full-blood Australian Aborigine is awarded a Fields Medal, give me a name.
I ought to actually be extra cautious what I say concerning the Fields Medal. You by no means know who’s listening.
Epistemologist William Briggs, writer of the current e-book All the things You Imagine Is Incorrect, famous in a June seventh Substack submit that Nature, a really prestigious journal of the rigorous sciences, ran an article grumbling concerning the lack of fairness in math awards.
(In case you don’t know, “fairness” implies that all Designated Sufferer Teams—ladies, homosexuals, blacks, and so on., everybody apart from white male normals—must be represented in each prestigious social class in exact proportion to their numbers within the common inhabitants. If 13 p.c of the inhabitants identifies as black, then 13 p.c of live performance violinists must be black; if fifty p.c of the inhabitants are ladies, then fifty p.c of jail inmates ought to be ladies … No, wait a minute … Um … There are problems right here I’ve no area to enter. Sorry!)
Effectively, Nature, this super-duper prestigious science journal, ran an article titled Arithmetic prizes have a gender downside—can or not it’s fastened? Subtitle: “Feminine illustration amongst mathematicians is bettering. However the area’s most prestigious awards are nonetheless going nearly solely to males.”
William Briggs observes, quoting Nature, that:
The Fields medal is “awarded each 4 years, has honoured just one girl [and no blacks at all—JD] because it was inaugurated in 1936.” The medal is conferred by the Worldwide Mathematical Union which, says Nature, “is pushing for higher illustration of ladies.” They’re additionally taking “under consideration numerous geographic and gender-balance points.”I consider this yr one other Fields is because of be awarded. The chances of it being a lady have simply gone up significantly. I don’t know if there’s a betting market on winners, but when you’ll find one, contemplate as we speak’s article a scorching tip.
If developments proceed, it gained’t be too a few years earlier than awards in science are like these within the arts and structure; that’s, glorious indicators of lack of high quality.
Sure: “excellence,” even in disciplines as arcane as larger arithmetic, is only one extra rationalization for white male privilege. Fairness! Social justice! Mediocrity! … No, wait, sorry, that simply slipped in there …
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Discussing Kevin Mitchell’s e-book with a buddy who’s an precise working genomicist and exceptionally well-informed within the human sciences at giant, he handed the next remark: “Twenty, twenty-five years from now, when AI (that’s, Synthetic Intelligence) engages with genomics in a severe method, the world will finish.”
Me, considering of my youngsters and my little grandson: “What, you imply everybody will die?”
He: “No, no. However the world we all know, that we’ve recognized all these centuries—all these millennia, actually— all the pieces acquainted shall be gone for ever, swept away. One thing radically new will substitute it, one thing you or I can’t think about. Possibly higher, possibly worse, no one is aware of.”
I’ve been considering of little Michael ever since. He’ll be a younger grownup when that occurs, supposing my buddy is true. What’s going to occur to him? How can we put together him for it—for the unguessable? In fact I do not know.
“Possibly higher, possibly worse.” Please, God, let or not it’s higher.
A factor that can be predicted with truthful certainty concerning the subsequent quarter-century is that it’s going to see huge migrations—or tried migrations—from sub-Saharan Africa into Europe.
I famous in my June twenty fourth podcast the truth that greater than half of younger Africans have expressed their intention to to migrate within the coming years. Whilst I used to be talking these phrases a mob of 1000’s of black Africans had been storming the Spanish enclave of Melilla in Morocco. Melilla and one different related enclave have Europe’s solely land borders with Africa.
This was an actual assault, though unarmed. Twenty-three of the Africans had been killed by being trampled to loss of life within the mob or falling from the excessive border fence. No less than 100 made it into Melilla and have been “processed,” which most likely means they’re now European residents.
The Euros are beginning, slowly and reluctantly, to get up to the approaching tsunami. In current weeks, studying related information tales, I’ve a number of instances observed references to one thing known as MED5. That is a bunch of 5 South European nations most straight within the line of invasion: Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Malta.
I’d prefer to inform you that the MED5 nations are engaged on plans to repel the invaders. As greatest I can choose from the communiqués, nonetheless, what they’re primarily all in favour of is making it simpler, by negotiations with different European nations, to shunt the invaders rapidly by way of to the richer, stupider nations additional north with their extravagant welfare techniques: Germany, Britain, Sweden, Eire. That is additionally, after all, what the invaders need. “Malta, feugh! Get me to Manchester!”
The opposite Euros are responding positively, with wordy proclamations affirming their “solidarity” with the MED5, along with blather about “the evolution of main flows” and “goal variety of relocations.”
If the nightmare of widespread African famine comes true and people “main flows” evolve into tens, fairly probably a whole bunch of tens of millions of determined souls, all this bureaucratic babble will collapse in a cloud of mud, like Tutankhamen’s shroud. However you learn The Camp of the Saints, proper? Proper.
The opposite night time I watched some TV. One of many business breaks featured a white actor—a white male actor! On my oath I’ve not made this up.
The good upheaval on the Derbs’ this month was the arrival of Mimi, a cat.
Mrs Derb has a nephew in China who owns each a cat and a canine. He’s been sending her winsome photos on their social media of canine and cat taking part in collectively. Thus impressed, my girl has been prowling native pet shops. Mimi duly appeared.
She’s a really fairly cat and appears to love us properly sufficient, making due allowance for feline hauteur. Relations with Basil, the Hound of the Derbyshires, had been considerably fraught at first however have since settled into cautious mutual acceptance, though thus far Mimi has not deigned to play with Basil.
There was some debate about naming her. I first proposed the minimalist route as impressed on my technology by Holly Golightly’s cat within the 1961 Audrey Hepburn film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, who was named Cat. Mrs D, nonetheless, has no truck with minimalism. She needed a actual title.
I instructed that since we’re an Anglo-Chinese language family, and our canine already has a really English title, we’d go for one thing Chinese language. Mrs D noticed that when attempting to get a cat’s consideration Chinese language folks squeak: “Mi-mi-mi-mi …”
I counter-observed that Mimi is a superbly acceptable given title within the West. “There’s, for instance, …” However having stated these phrases I found that I don’t know of any well-known particular person named Mimi. (The web lists 25, however I by no means heard of any of them. So how did I do know it’s a reputation folks have? I assume I should have encountered a Mimi in some unspecified time in the future in my peregrinations. Hello there, Mimi!)
The Chinese language phrase for “cat,” by the way in which, is 猫, pronounced māo. Is that an onomatopoeia, like Cantonese ngáap for “duck”? I don’t know, however the Thai phrase for “cat” absolutely is: แมว, pronounced mee-oo. Google Translate offers a really good rendering.
Apologies to anybody who’s been relying on my RSS feed. It stopped working for some cause. After I tried to entry it I bought a large number of XML code with the message: “This XML file doesn’t seem to have any type data related to it.”
Maybe I’ll discover out what meaning and repair the issue; or maybe not. For one factor, everybody tells me that RSS is dying on the vine and can quickly be extinct. True, they’ve been telling me that for a number of years, however I’m now extra receptive to it than previously.
That’s as a result of I’ve succumbed to the calm acceptance of oblivion that comes with growing age. What’s going to survive of us once we’re gone? For the nice majority—amongst whom I depend myself—not a lot, and it’s an empty vainness to assume in any other case.
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I’ve two wholesome, succesful grownup kids and an attractive grandchild; I’ll accept these as my bequests to the human race. My web scratchings fulfill the impulses of an opinionated bookworm and assist help my increasing (see above) family, however I’ve no illusions about their permanence, with or with out the assistance of RSS.
Studying the Z-man’s weblog the opposite day, I smiled at this:
Nancy Pelosi has been in Washington for eighty years and there’s no single bodily factor she will be able to level to, apart from her ten-thousand-dollar freezer, as a product of her political profession. When she is lifeless, the following wave will wash away her footprints within the sand and she or he shall be forgotten.
That metaphor of waves washing away markings left within the seashore sand should be centuries previous. For positive it’s a long time previous: the lyrics of Pat Boone’s 1957 hit “Love Letters within the Sand” return to 1931, in keeping with Wikipedia.
The canonical expression of that metaphor in excessive artwork is A.E. Housman’s poem of unknown date, “Clean between sea and land.” WARNING: Don’t learn this poem when half-drunk and alone at night time, or after finishing some grand challenge you’ve been absorbed with for months and are mightily pleased with.
Clean between sea and land
Is laid the yellow sand,
And right here by way of summer season days
The seed of Adam performs.Right here the kid involves discovered
His unremaining mound,
And the grown lad to attain
Two names upon the shore.Right here, on the extent sand,
Between the ocean and land,
What shall I construct or write
Towards the autumn of night time?Inform me of runes to grave
That maintain the bursting wave,
Or bastions to design
For longer date than mine.Shall or not it’s Troy or Rome
I fence towards the froth,
Or my very own title, to remain
After I depart for aye?Nothing: too close to at hand,
Planing the figured sand,
Effacing clear and quick
Cities not constructed to final
And charms devised in useless,
Pours the confounding important.
Final month’s brainteaser was kinda robust, I’ll enable. (Labored resolution right here.) To compensate, right here’s a bit mild wordplay.
Under are twenty pairs of syllables, every pair separated by an area. Your mission, do you have to resolve to just accept it, is to insert into every area a brand new syllable that makes a phrase out of the syllable to its left, and one other phrase out of the syllable to its proper.
So for the primary pair, discover a syllable xxx (not essentially three letters) in order that “Backxxx” is a phrase and “Xxxrobe” can also be a phrase. It’s tougher than you’d assume … however nowhere close to as arduous as final month’s cake-cutting train.
1. Again Gown
2. Bar Der
3. Bor Ive
4. Com Ey
5. Cur Ted
6. Door Stone
7. Ex Tive
8. Hearth Methods
9. Foot Son
10. Fret Mill
11. Ham Tuce
12. Hand Physique
13. Home Man
14. Mis Tain
15. Pre Ence
16. Prow Ence
17. Pur In a position
18. Solar Tee
19. Tas Rant
20. Battle Effectively
