Category: Uncategorized

College Grads Are Not Smarter

In which the popular notion that college graduates are smarter than non-college graduates is conclusively proven to be outdated by Canadian researchers:

According to a widespread belief, the average IQ of university students is 115 to 130 IQ points, that is, substantially higher than the average IQ of the general population (M = 100, SD =15).

We traced the origin of this belief to obsolete intelligence data collected in 1940s and 1950s when university education was the privilege of a few. Examination of more recent IQ data indicate that IQ of university students and university graduates dropped to the average of the general population. The decline is a necessary consequence of increasing educational attainment.

Universities and professors need to realize that students are no longer extraordinary but merely average. Employers can no longer rely on applicants with university degrees to be more capable or smarter than those without degrees. Students need to realize that acceptance into university is no longer an invitation to join an elite group.

The myth of brilliant undergraduate students in scientific and popular literature needs to be dispelled. Estimating premorbid IQ based on educational attainment is vastly inaccurate, obsolete, not evidence based, and mere speculations.

This isn’t the only outdated intelligence claim. In fact, pretty much every claim of a group that is supposed to have unusually high intelligence is not only suspect, but outright and obvious nonsense based on small, unrepresentational, and cherry-picked sample sets.

It’s not surprising that corporations are beginning to eliminate college degrees as job requirements. Diversity and inclusion, combined with equality and expansion, have destroyed the value of a college degree.

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The 5 Best Free Comics

Fandom Pulse provides the list:

Arktoons is a digital platform by Arkhaven Comics offering free webcomics with diverse genres, with one single agenda: ENTERTAIN! Featuring a range of series, Arktoons provides engaging and entertaining content, including fantasy, science fiction, and slice-of-life, appealing to a broad audience. It provides a springboard for up-and-coming independent creators as well as for allowing for legends of the comics industry to showcase their comics, all the while providing entertainment for you the reader. Here are the 5 best independent comics you can read for free right now.

  1. Chuck Dixon’s Avalon
  2. Alt★Hero
  3. Shotgun Samurai
  4. Flying Sparks
  5. The Hammer of Freedom

Interesting choices. What’s your top five?

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Studies in the Napoleonic Wars

Book 4 in the Castalia History series, the subscription book for January-February-March, is Studies in the Napoleonic Wars by Sir Charles Oman. This is an excellent book that will be enjoyed by those who are familiar with Napoleonics as well as by those who are not. It’s esoteric enough to appeal to the subject matter expert while also being sufficiently accessible and interesting to those who know nothing about military history.

To subscribe to Castalia History, click here. Please note that Books 2 and 3 are already sold out. We are therefore increasing the print run for Book 4 from 550 to 650 books.

Also, the January newsletter has been sent out to all of the Library, Libraria, and History subscribers on the mailing list. If you are a subscriber who did not receive the email, email me and request being added to the mailing list. Of possible interest is the discount code for a complimentary copy of A SEA OF SKULLS, the complete edition, as previously promised. A complimentary copy of THE ALTAR OF HATE is also included.

Another good way to stay up to date is to join the Castalia Library Collectors group on LibraryThing. It also serves as a useful reference for the historical subscriptions.

We have not yet announced the January-February book for the Library/Libraria subscription as we are waiting to see if we can announce a new acquisition in time for this yet or not. We anticipate making that announcement sometime in the next two weeks.

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Post-Boomer Post-Feminism

Divorce rates have been in decline since 1986 and have returned to pre-feminism levels:

Divorce rates have plummeted to their lowest level in more than five decades – thanks to men being more ‘committed’ to their marriages, a study claims. The chance of a marriage breaking down is now 35 per cent, down from a high of 44 per cent in 1986, and a rate not seen since 1970.

Researchers found the decline is almost entirely down to a fall in the number of wives filing for separation. They argue that this is because men’s increased commitment means women are far happier in their marriages. By contrast, the number of divorces initiated by husbands has barely changed in decades.

Granted, the researchers are being ridiculous in their customary attempt to avoid all female responsibility and culpability. It’s literally not the male behavior that has changed, nor has the female behavior changed due to any changes in male behavior. This increase in marital success is due to a) Boomers aging out and b) younger women having seen the results of feminism.

It’s true that the reduced level of marriage probably plays a role here, as some of those who would never stay married aren’t getting married in the first place. But it’s good news that a higher percentage of married couples are staying together now, and these statistics should be kept in mind whenever some bitter MGTOW starts spouting off about how marital failure is inevitable when it’s actually only one chance in three.

UPDATE: A MGTOW responds:

In your newest post, you said that, with the divorce rate having decreased to one in three, that should shut up MGTOWs. I’ll simply ask you one question: would YOU jump out of an airplane if your parachute had a one in three chance of failure? NO! Because divorce wrecks mens’ lives, marriage is still too risky for men.

To which I responded in the kind and sensitive manner for which I am well-known:

You’re literally retarded. And a genetic dead-end. If you weren’t retarded, you’d realize that your analogy is both stupid and irrelevant. Don’t be such a coward. It’s no way to live.

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Tragedy and Farce

It is said that history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. Although, in some cases, it’s just the same old thing over and over again. So once the British Armed Forces complete their stunning and brave conquest of Russia, they can head south to refight the war in the Falkland Islands. Or, as I suppose we had better get used to calling them again, the Malvinas.

The row over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands has erupted again after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina issued a statement asking Britain to start negotiations over it again. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the South American country said it intended to restore sovereignty over the islands and intended this to be done through diplomatic means.

This is what the country believes is the “only possible way to restore the exercise of its rights”.

It’s a bit amusing to think of Britain threatening to use what little military force it has to defend British sovereignty off the coast of Argentina when it didn’t use it to resist an ongoing and active invasion of its own island by millions of invaders. Ironically, if Milei hadn’t been foolish enough to spurn Argentina’s BRICS invitation, the Argentines probably could have peacefully taken control of the islands with full support from Russia and China before the end of 2024.

The whole globalization interlude is looking less and less like the end of history and more and more like a truly retarded period of human history that caused far more problems than it could possibly have ever solved.

Here’s a truly contrarian prediction. Whereas the current mainstream perspective is that Anders Breivik was a monster and Norman Borlaug was a scientific saint, before the end of the 21st century, Breivik will be seen as a William Tell-style national hero and Norman Borlaug will be considered a worse historical enemy of Mankind than Hitler and Mao combined.

I could be wrong, of course. It’s entirely possible that no one will remember Breivik because Norwegians and Swedes are as extinct as the Agawam or the Wicocomico, and that Borlaug and his Green Revolution mean nothing to the mixed-race hunter-gathers roaming across the ruins of Europe and America.

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Cancelling the Cancel Pigs

According to recent a recent report on Fandom Pulse, things are not going well for the SJWs in the comics industry. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for them to bite the hands that feed them, so they proceeded to attack the very stores that sold their products:

Now it looks like the chickens have come home to roost. First, there was the news that cancel pig Mags Visaggio was begging for money online on X: “We could use some help till our next paycheck (invoiced Dec 7) following a pretty catastrophic month.”

Now, a new bombshell dropped when award-winning writer of science fiction, steampunk, and comics Jon Del Arroz tweeted on New Year’s Day: “I’ve heard from a retailer insider that several shops are refusing to order books by the “cancel pigs” who insulted shop owners. Not a good start to 2024 for the mainstream comic industry!”

Why Marvel and DC writers ever thought it a good idea to attack the retailers that are selling your comics will be a mystery for the ages. Now it looks like the cancelled pigs are the ones who are going to be cancelled.

Cancel Pigs Are Getting Cancelled, FANDOM PULSE, 2 January 2024

If you don’t listen to your audience, and if you not only refuse to take their concerns into account, but actually attack them for the mere fact of possessing those concerns, you should not be surprised to eventually discover that you do not have an audience.

In respect of this principle, and after dozens of discussions with various parties, the Castalia team has decided that we are not going to attempt to save the independent publishing industry from itself in 2024. Why should we be more concerned about its fate than those who actually depend upon it are? As one member of our team sagely observed: “It’s too soon. They’re worried, but they aren’t panicked yet. They still have faith in the status quo.”

So, what we’re going to concentrate on this year is improving our processes, reducing our production times, and elevating each element of the operation to the highest possible level of quality and service. We improved in 2023, but we still have a long way to go. Once our own House is entirely efficient and in order, perhaps we can spare a few thoughts for those whose livelihoods and businesses are being systematically destroyed by a certain corpocratic behemoth.

And on a not-unrelated note, the Library email will go out tonight.

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The Shadow War Continues

Unlike the American people, the Chinese are very well aware of the way in which the CIA is attempting to spy upon them:

The WSJ has exposed quite a bit this time. Firstly, it revealed the public proclamation by the CIA of engaging in espionage activities against China, possibly in an attempt to exaggerate its own value and seek increased budgetary support from Congress. However, this also amounts to self-incrimination. When the US hypes and targets alleged “Chinese spies,” it consistently fails to provide concrete evidence. Instead, it initiates a smear campaign against China and subsequently demands China to prove its innocence. This pattern reveals that the US is fully aware of the lack of legitimacy in these “spy” allegations, yet shamelessly continues to clamor as if “no one can do anything about it.” The US is always very self-confident for being “right,” but its notion of “righteousness” differs fundamentally from the universally accepted definition.

Secondly, it proves that China’s counter-espionage work is highly effective. It has dismantled the US spy network in China and prevented it from rebuilding for 10 years. This is a major achievement in counter-espionage, causing the US to stumble in the face of China’s robust anti-espionage defense. When China revised its Counter-Espionage Law, it faced criticism from Western public opinion. Now it appears that the intention behind this criticism was to pressure China into removing its defenses and allowing their spies to operate freely within China’s borders. Fortunately, China has not fallen into this trap. China has been able to defend against espionage in the past, and will also have the ability to render CIA infiltration useless in the future.

Thirdly, it reminds us that the string of counter-espionage must be tightened. The CIA has indicated that rebuilding its spy network in China is currently their main focus and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. In 2021, there were reports that the CIA established a mission center for China, the only single-country mission center at the agency. All of this may make the situation of China’s counter-espionage more complex and severe.

I very much doubt it is a coincidence that a) Xi unexpectedly took power, b) the CPC terminated its partnership with US Jewry, and c) the US spy network in China was dismantled at approximately the same time. Nor is it a coincidence that the BRICS framework was ready to present to the nonaligned nations within months of the US sanctions regime being imposed upon Russia in response to the Special Military Operation in Ukraine.

So, it’s interesting that China is now willing to openly discuss, in its English state media, what has been happening for the last ten years. I don’t know why this topic is being presented for discussion, but I suspect it is significant in some way.

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