People Are The Same The World Over

Apparently, those who told you to f*** o** do not believe there is only one race, the human race.

Progressives say: Poverty breeds vice.

Reality says: Vice breeds poverty.

I had the joy of serving for a year with the Multinational Force and Observers on the Egyptian/Israeli border and travelled a lot in Israel. Oh yes. I also noticed the same difference in farms and crops. It was explained many ways when I was there - The Arabs had no access to bank loans, lacked experience in agriculture, were oppressed, all the good land was taken by the Israelis, treated as second class citizens and so on ad infinitum. I came to the conclusion that all of that was window dressing - the vast majority simply did not want to grow or produce more than what would be sufficient for their own family and did not want to do anything that was not traditional - their culture lays a great dead hand on innovation.

I've seen the same on every reserve I've been to in MB & Sask.

The truth is that they've been offered the irrigation technology and refused it.

A bit off-topic I'm afraid, but, hey, people are the same the world over. Here, the British blog "Burning Our Money" zooms in on a naked lie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRlrfOCt8To&feature=player_embedded

He you cant expect palestinians to do anything more than subsistance farming...It cuts into crucial west bashing, devil worship and bomb makeing time.

HEY!!!! You cant expect palestinians to do anything more than subsistance farming...It cuts into crucial west bashing, devil worship and bomb makeing time.

They get $1200 a week and free houses from »white-man» and they hate him and accuse him of racism???

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!

And talk about destroying the left's argument about poverty...

That is over $$$ 62,000 dollars a year!!! very far and above the poverty level.

»White man» is clearly the victim here in many ways;

He is being robbed of his hard earned money to »help» drunk/drug-addict/violent/dysfunctional natives.

He is a victim of hatred and racism.

But in this day and age I guess my mentioning these undeniable facts makes me an extremist or a white supremacist or something like that.

Depressing what Western civilization has become and where it is going ...
depressing and costly ( $ 1200 a week/ $62,000 a year!!!)

Friend of USA...Thanx for reminding me of where my tax dollars go...Now I need a drink

Kraut---

Yaa........precisely mine own sentiment.

In the 1990s I saw numerous houses, similar to those pictured, (often with posted signs declaring them 'uninhabitable'), in Duncan B.C.; however there was, at that time, no, (outward), display of animosity towards non-natives.

Chretien did have one good idea in his long time in politics when, in 1969 as Minister of Indian affairs, he issued the Statement of the Government on Indian Policy, which called for the termination of special rights and status of Aboriginal peoples, and eliminating the legal distinction between Indians and Canadians. Amongst other things, this white paper would have rejected the notion of land claims, and abolished the Indian Act.

Sadly, this policy was revoked. One can only wonder what the current state of affairs would be if this policy had been robustly enacted.

What we need to do is set up a commission to study this. Then hire advisors. Then rebuild the town for them. Start sending them bigger cheques and the problem will solve itself. They will become productive citizens who will go out into the world and do great things and make us proud.

It works in Africa doesn't it?

The ultimate cultural experiments happened in Germany and Korea where a wall was literally put between people of common ancestry, families split apart. In only a few generations the results were/are startling.

Yup. Par for the course.

My buds from Lab have told me similar stories. A nurse friend of mine who lived and worked in native communities in Lab for two years experienced and related the same, only worse, as he had to go out at night to deal with the injuries and deaths resulting from substance abuse. Folks who have done mission work in Lab come back with their preconceived notions about the "root causes" of native issues in tatters.

Similarly, people thought relocating David Inlet is/was the solution? Keep dreaming.

So does IQ.

The problem is not alcohol, drugs, gas sniffing. Those are by products of the real issue. That being zero personal responsibility and accountability.

Indians get money, housing, free education and token jobs if they choose.

In our guilt to appease the "First Nations" because we "stole" their land, we gave them everything and in turn destroyed everything. They are a people that can not be rehabilitated, save the few individuals that decide to take advantage of the perks and make something of themselves.

The liberal strategy is racist at its core and destroys peoples lives. Problem is, "conservative" governments just follow the "progressive" way. There really is no solution to this problem. It is generational, cultural, and can not be fixed.

Oh and don't forget, that's $62k per year tax free. I believe they're even exempt from sales tax. I have friends who live among them and I see photos on Facebook of people from these communities -- the kids hang out in filthy shacks but carry all the latest digital SLR cameras, cell phones, ipods, you name it they have it.

"the only thing standing between the lush crops of the Kibbutzim and the spotty vegetation and goat sheds of the Arab Palestinians was a highway."

A highway . . . . and a state of mind and some religious beliefs from the 12th century.

kathy shaidle - please, drop the unscientific, unsubstantiated view of 'group IQs'. There's no such thing; it's scientifically invalid.

With regard to the natives, a key problem in my view is the existence of the Reserve - which locks people into a dysfunctional economic system. Before 'the white man', these people had a subsistence hunting and gathering economy based on - obviously, hunting and gathering - and communal sharing. This requires a large land base. Putting this type of economy on a closed land base, a reserve, ends it.

AND then, insisting that they cannot transform themselves into capitalism, i.e., having private property and private businesses on the reserve, is insane. Since their old H&G economy is dead, and they can't get individual bank loans, can't have privately owned houses or businesses on the reserves - they end up on welfare. Monies coming from the govt are greedily sucked up by the Band Councils which readily become corrupt little empires.

The reserve system MUST end ..along with that monolithic monstrosity of the Dept of Indian Affairs. Natives must move into the capitalist economy and be ..like everyone else.

When you think about it - the insanity of insisting that some people in the country live outside of the main economic mode in the country, and live in a 17th c economic mode...incredible.

As for Palestine - the irrigation technology may have been offered but without full and equal access to the water, so what? And, you then need open roads and borders to move your produce. They don't have that.

The Palestinian economy before Israel was, as I've said before, a dry sustenance horticulture, suited to the mediterranean climate and soil, which meant a local small scale style without a surplus, based around small farms, small animals and for the local village only.

The Israelis came from Western Europe which has a different soil, water and climate, and brought an industrial technology with them suited to that different climate - and in this area, it requires massive irrigation. They also brought an economy based around the market - something developed in Europe since the 14th c; around individual entrepreneurship rather than a family economy; an economy based around wealth and surplus capitalism....a very different perspective. It took the West 400 years to develop this perspective. It takes time...and that infrastructure of water and roads.

What you are seeing is two very different economic modes, each having their origin in different ecological areas (western Europe and mediterranean near desert). To move the latter into the former requires a change in infrastructure; i.e., a large amount of water availability as well as technology, roads, a market economy....AND a change in economic culture where the economy moves out of the family and into private capitalist entrepreneurship.

Both the natives and the Palestinians have to move out of the tribal economic mode and into a capitalist one. In Canada, the left, with its romantic notion of 'the purity of the old ways' and we 'must retain their old ways' is preventing the govt from ending the reserve system. In Israel, the Palestinian govt and tribal culture and the Israeli infrastructure of lack of roads and water, is doing the same.

Hmmm, let's see here...intensive agriculture in a place that has huge water shortage issues now and bigger ones looming, or subsistence farming that takes from the land that which it will naturally produce. But it's the Palestinians that are crazy in this regard?

Wide eyed and bushy tailed meets the real world. Love it.

This is an interesting concept.

Narva (in Estonia) and Ivangorod (in Russia) offer another comparison:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article4776534.ece

ET

the technology to make the desert bloom was developed by an engineer in So Cal. It's available to the pals, and for the price terorrist supplies thet could farm their land on LESS water than they use now, so why don't they????

This technology as been around since the early 80T's, I know cuz I worked on the equipment use to make it. So if those who help the pals would invest in this type of systems, instead of cheap rockets, we would see some progress, but we don't, because of a cultural mind set

now as to a group IQ, yes it does exist, and you should be able to figure that one out, decause it is a statistical fact. And this applies to countries as well. The same statistical mechanism dictates that beurocrats, management of large corporations, those running financial institutes, and educators will over time decome enclaves of left leaning types

This is going back to 1974, but a very similar story in the NWT. I had the opportunity to canoe the South Nahanni River which is all wilderness, and protected in a national park which had just been opened up that summer (meaning the park facilities had just been opened up). The trip takes about 3 to 6 weeks depending on how much you want to explore various regions along the way.

Anyway, the park h.q. was then (and probably still is) located at the confluence of the South Nahanni and the Liard River across from a small native village called Nahanni Butte. At that point in time, Nahanni Butte had a population of 66 people. We were told at the ranger station not to go over there, that it was too dangerous.

We also learned that once a month, the natives would charter a jet boat, the local means of fast transportation, for the 150-mile trip down the Liard to Fort Simpson where they could get provisions. Apparently liquor was the main item on that agenda, and the week after this monthly trip was especially noisy and raucous around the village.

I've often wondered if the park and other economic development in that region had any impact on life in Nahanni Butte, but in 1974 it was apparently about the same as what this Labrador story tells us. The other interesting component of the story was that we discovered that Fort Simpson, a rather small town, had what might be called a red light district, which was stocked by the female population from the village. It is of course in considerable degree from situations like these that Vancouver and other western cities get their street populations and the soaring health and police costs that come along with these problems. In some ways, it might be cheaper to build luxury hotels in these isolated reserves and just pretend the natives were on holiday in Mexico. I bet it would cost the taxpayer less in total than the solution now being applied.

I don't see any easy solutions, because these more isolated native villages are subject to considerable inbreeding and unlike larger reserves that might be working out solutions, have very little by way of community leadership or even vigorous leadership of any kind. There is a tendency to defeatism and a sort of despair that comes to people with no options. I mean, what options do you think they have? The inbreeding probably limits the academic potential. There's no work. The weather is crap most of the time. Every adult in the community is either drunk or high on drugs. And then people today wonder why we had residential schools. It makes you wonder how far "diversity" will go before people will see that it just locks people into supposedly "free" communities that are nothing but jails for their young people.

Not sure what your definition of "science" is. Admittedly, Kate knows more about genetics than I do, but last I checked, it counted as science...

These results are remarkably consistent over time, place, and situation, irrespective of the original status of the people, or the language, history, and political organization of the country concerned.

"Of course, if average IQ differences are the crucial determinant of racial socio-economic hierarchies, this raises the question of what causes them.

"In principle, they could be wholly environmentally determined. However, Lynn argues that their consistency across time and circumstance points to genetic factors."

http://www.vdare.com/rushton/080616_lynn.htm

gym - no, 'natural' group IQ does NOT exist. To say that a group of financial executives, as a collective, has a high IQ is correct, but this is not a hereditary group but one that has formed, by virtue of their ability in, eg, finance, as a group.

Nor can you statistically state that large enclaves become sites of 'leftists'.

Again, the Palestinians require water for irrigation; it isn't simply the technology. Then, they require roads and access to them and to markets..all of this is denied. And, you are correct, they must move out of the traditional economic mode of the region - that dry horticulture which produces no large market surplus (it can't) and sustains a local village economy only. AND, they must move out of a tribal societal and political mode and into a civic mode.

Israelis, who for the most part came from Europe, were already intellectually in a civic mode. Tribalism ended in Europe in the 14th-16th c, and they were in a market economy (see Braudel's history of the market economy in Europe)..and were using technologies devt in Europe for surplus food production.

What Kathy and others (Richard Lynn, Philippe Rushton) are referring to is 'hereditary group IQ', where, for example, the Kalahari San (a specific tribe) have an IQ of 54. Of course, this is absolute nonsense. Individuals with such an IQ would be unable to have a developed language, an economy (the San are expert hunters and gatherers), look after themselves medically, etc, etc.

Oh and ET:

the first thing the Palestinians did when they took over their latest Jewish "settlement" was destroy the greenhouse.

Please explain. "They are petulant, backward, primitive people" works for me.

ET;

If you were to ask dog breeders whether there is a difference between the level of intelligence of different breeds, they would virtually unanimously answer yes. Ditto for people who work with or breed horses, birds, etc etc. And not just with respect to intelligence, but also for other traits like aggressiveness, passivity etc.

How would you explain that humans are about the only creature on this earth for whom this isn't true?

kathy- of course genetics is a science. But you can do bad science and good science.

Lynn and Rushton are, in my view, doing bad science. By 'bad' I mean scientifically unsound and totally unsubstantiated.

Again, just think about it. IQ is an individual score not a group score. To say that a group of people have a collective IQ average and that this is hereditary, as Lynn does, of 54 means that no individual in that group could be self-sufficient.

But then, how did the San develop their extensive knowledge base? How can they provide food for each other? How can they look after themselves? I suggest you read about the San before you accept Lynn's opinion. The San, are what Lynn refers to as 'Bushmen and Pygmies'. You can read a first hand account of them in books by Richard Lee, who lived and studied them for years. As a scientist.

Of course Lynn didn't live there, has never worked with them, learned their language, or given them an IQ test. He just 'knows it'. Very scientific.

Lynn's view that the lack of technological devt in various parts of the world is directly related to this assumed IQ is complete ignorance. He is totally unaware of the vital importance of biomes, of ecological reality.

That is, IF you live in the arctic, THEN, you are not going to develop the technology to deep plough the (frozen) soil and grow plants with the sun missing for months at a time.

If you live in a rainforest, then, you are not going to be able to have grassland animals (cows, horses)..their hooves would rot, there's no grass..

If you live in a climate that has seasonal rains and long droughts, then, you don't develop the deep plough, three season agriculture found in Europe.

And so on. Did you know that Europe has the richest biome on this planet? Deep rich soil, regular mild rainfall, and climate - which enabled domesticated animals (no domestic animals in most of Africa)..and multiple crops and surplus.

Did you know that literacy is not needed unless you have populations in the hundred thousands and you don't get that size unless your ecological reality can support that many people.

Lynn and Rushton are both totally ignorant of the real ecological and economic infrastructures of societies. I suggest a good course or books on ecology. Try the ecosystem ecology books by Odum - Howard and Eugene.

Posted by: Kathy Shaidle

// the first thing the Palestinians did when they took over their latest Jewish "settlement" was destroy the greenhouse. //

So this is what you learned in Israel.
I guess being there is everything.

In my younger days I spent a bit of time at "the goose" and thought it would be possible to come up with a few unique gifts for family left behind "outside".

I asked about getting locally made parkas or something and a real old timer filled me in: He said way back in the 1950s when there were still plenty of Americans around somebody (missionary was the implication but left unsaid) had got a handicraft group going and a grand opening was held and everyone was urged to be supportive. So the service people parked and walked over (only a footbridge there then?) and bought some things. There was one slight snag. When they walked back across the bridge they found that all their cars had been vandalized. Guess the place is still a "work in progress".

kath - SOME but not ALL Palestinians looted and destroyed the greenhouses. SOME but not ALL Jewish settlers raid and burn down Palestinian olive groves and barns in the West Bank. Neither are genetically deficient, backward or deficient people. Both are ideologically impassioned.

Bob c - the animal species is very different from the human species. Our species, homo sapiens, is the only one whose knowledge base is not genetic but is learned. So comparing animals to humans with respect to 'intelligence' or behaviour is invalid.

This fact means that all humans must develop a symbolic means of developing and storing and communicating this knowledge. This is language. No animal develops symbolic language, though they all, ALL, communicate.

A species whose knowledge base is learned must acquire and develop a vast knowledge base over centuries. All groups have done this, from the San, whom Lynn sets up as having an IQ of 54, yet who have a complex language and an indepth knowledge of their envt's plants and animals, a complex symbolic ideology etc. And other groups, equally defined as 'mentally retarded' by Lynn, who also have complex economies, societal organization etc. You might want to read about the Kwegu and Mursi who have an interesting collaborative economy.

The different family structures and social rules among these people whom Lynn defines as mentally deficient are also interesting - for when you study them, you find that they make tremendous logical sense - including, among pastoral nomadics, defining young men as warriors and kicking them out of the village for a decade.

Then, along with this knowledge base, you have to explore why they developed this particular knowledge base. Why, for example, have a matrilineal rather than patrilineal society? Why have heredity rules that privilege one elder son against all the sons? Why have no heredity rules - and some groups don't have them. When you explore this, and explore the adaptations these peoples have had to make to their ecology, it all makes sense.

Excellent postings, ET. Very informative. Thank you.

There are two important flaws in ET's claims. First the majority of Israelis did not come from Europe. Second, and the most important, is that the PLO or "Palestinians" continue to receive more world finance than Israel or in fact any other designated group. That they prefer to spend or waste this on arms, terrorism and lining the pockets of their leaders instead of improving their lives says everything. It is not a lack of money that can explain their situation. In comparison with the surrounding Arab countries, they are pretty representative of the general populations.

A friend of mine spent several years in the Peace Corps, working in a village in Cameroon. She tried to show the villagers simple techniques to improve their lot, but had very little success. For instance, she started a demonstration plot to show how composting could significantly increase crop yields. The villagers admitted that it would work, but frankly admitted that they would rather sit around drinking tea.

"The first thing the Palestinians did when they took over their latest Jewish "settlement" was destroy the greenhouse."

Absolutely true. The destruction of greenhouses in Gaza was widely covered on even Canadian tv at the time.

"When you explore this, and explore the adaptations these peoples have had to make to their ecology, it all makes sense."

ET appears to be making a false assumption that Arab culture is just as functional as Jewish culture. This was a very widespread and fashionable assumption in certain circles (anthropologists, liberals, etc) for a long time but it was always an assumption and not a demonstrable conclusion. If Palestinians keep throwing away their opportunities to improve their lot then they have only themselves to blame.

As a matter of fact, this pattern goes all the way back to the time of the jihad conquests of the Middle East and North Africa: The Arab conquerers were not interested in farming and production of goods, but rather in collecting rents and taxes and from their new subjugated peoples. Under Arab rule amount and quality of farm land declined. The twentieth century Jewish effort to re-green the land of Israel is only returning the land to its condition before the Arab conquest.

Growing up in a non-native area, I accepted the idea that native problems could be fixed with social programs and education. Living in an area with a relatively large native population is an eye opener. I doubt that there will be a program or intervention capable of making a dent in this dysfunctional culture. Even training and jobs are ineffective. There is a northern sask. town that partners with a crown corp. The company only hires local natives for the plant. The employees are shortlisted by the native council and then the company chooses one of the approved choices. You'd think that $30-$40 per hour jobs would lead to improved conditions in the town. But no - the suicide rate, abuse, crime and school absenteeism remains high. When I visited the area I asked about the school system and was told that the annual turnover rate for teachers was 80%, very few could handle the stress and threats.

As a general rule, once your community starts discussions about building an aboriginal outreach center - it's time to move.

"natural group IQ" / "hereditary group IQ":

It is true that intelligence resides in individuals, not in a group.

However, would be absurd to say that one cannot meaningfully speak of the average intelligence of a group. Otherwise it would also be impossible to speak of, say, patterns of inter-group difference in blood chemistry and genetic disease (sickle-cell, hypertension, Tay-Sachs, etc). Likewise in tissues such as the percentage of fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers. And so on.

ARE there differences in average IQ between various racial or ethnic populations? I don't know. I suspect that if they exist they are small, but such differences are not in principle impossible.

Forgot to add: One of the reasons I suspect that racial differences in IQ are very small: Chinese and Japanese school kids, among others, have a reputation for higher-than-average IQ. But after Chinese kids have been living in America for enough years their IQ's and achievement seem to drift toward the societal average, suggesting that the primary driving factor is a Chinese culture which values education more than current popular American culture.

The difference between natives and most others is very similar to the diference between a rental property on your street and an owner-occupied property. Pride and spirit are intangibles that have withered away from non-use in too many natives and their communities. It will only get worse as more and more children on reserves are giving birth to what is now considered to most as a commodity,and is treated as such by the young parent and the relatives who are eager to latch on to the increased handout.

pst - no, I'm not talking about 'arab culture' or Jewish culture', for in my view, there is no such thing in an absolute sense.

Ashkenazic is different from, let's say, Sephardic.

I approach societies from an ecological perspective. So, if the people are 'arabs' and are living in a dry mediterranean ecology, and if they are 'jews' and are in the same envt (this is Pre-Industrial)..then, they'll have the same type of societal system. You can actually see this in the halakhah and hadith rules of both peoples.

And such adaptations to the ecological realities MUST be functional or the population will be unable to survive.

With regard to your Cameroon example, unless the group is economically operating in a surplus economic mode, i.e., an economy that requires the production of surplus and that has an infrastructure that will market this surplus and USE this surplus (ie to support non farming members of society), then there is NO reason for moving into a surplus economy.

You are operating from the false assumption that a surplus producing economy is 'natural' and universal. It isn't. It's one type of economy and found when the population gets large enough and moves into specialization of tasks where a large proportion are removed from food production.

You can't help those who don't want your help and you can't help the self destructive until they gain the self worth to change.

So sad.

pst314

If you read The Bell Curve, you'll see that there is an IQ difference between groups and it isn't as small as you might think. There is also a difference between males and females, both in terms of average score and distribution from high to low scores. In essence, you'll find more low IQ morons amongst men, but also more at the high end of the scale.

Didn't happen to notice who does the actual work on most Kibbutzim?

And that bleak landscape across from the lush greenery of Israel is exactly what Obama has planned for the United States. And then the world.Bleakness and hopelessness where all will turn to Sharia Law for religion, food and the stability of muslim rule.

ET, setting aside everything else you wrote (it's time to log off and go to bed), I'd like to note one thing:

Surpluses are not useful only to societies that can produce cash crops to be sold to non-farmers: Increased crop yields can also benefit subsistence farmers by protecting them from bad harvests caused by drought, pests, etc. (And note that fertilizers not only increase the gross yields, they also produce healthier plants better able to resist stresses than plants raised in nutrient-poor soil and with marginal irrigation.)

Those people in Cameroon were subsistence farmers living so close to the edge that they were in constant risk of famine if the harvest was bad. Higher productivity would have helped protect them from these risks.

My friend demonstrated to them that various methods would produce better crop yields, and the villagers agreed that the benefits were real, but preferred not to work a bit more to achieve those benefits.

She also mentioned a pervasive attitude of "oh that's something Europeans can do but we're not smart enough." Very sad.

Don't forget that tons of money is thrown at protecting and preserving these cultures. That money could be much better spent changing/modernizing those cultures as that creates an opportunity for change.

And ET - just the opposite - there is a lot of research that shows that IQ's do vary from group to group. I recommend The Bell Curve to you. If reading is not your forte, I recommend a visit to any country identified as IQ deficient in IQ and the Wealth of Nations to you, one where you actually interact with the educated people in that culture.

When the culture changes, the environment changes; and when the environment changes, the IQ changes. Read also how much natural selection has affected man in the last 10,000 years.