Statistical illiterates

In fairness, the estimates would probably be right on if one only counts celebrities and fictional television characters:

U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25% of Americans are gay or lesbian. More specifically, over half of Americans (52%) estimate that at least one in five Americans are gay or lesbian, including 35% who estimate that more than one in four are. Thirty percent put the figure at less than 15%.

Only four percent got the answer right, “Less than 5%”. The actual number is less than half of that, around two percent, not that you’d know it from the way that Hollywood now portrays America as being half Jewish, half Gay, and one quarter Clean, Articulate Black. I expect that Gallup would get similarly overestimated results if it polled Americans on the percentage of Jews in the population too.

I don’t know about you, but I look forward to the touching final episode of Glee, when the very last student at [whatever] high school a) learns that her great-grandmother died in the Holocaust and b) is deconverted from her insidious heterosexuality by Sue Sylvester.

And yet some wonder why I don’t bother to conceal my complete contempt for mainstream opinion. Given its wildly delusional foundations, I would be gravely insulted to learn that my thoughts were considered to be even remotely related to the mainstream.

HT Steve Sailer

Definitions

“All that Lenin learned about business from the tales of his comrades who occasionally sat in business offices was that it required a lot of scribbling, recording, and ciphering. Thus, he declares that accounting and control are the chief things necessary for the organizing and correct functioning of society. . . . Here we have the philosophy of the filing clerk in its full glory.” – Ludwig von Mises

Communism is what happens when atheism meets bureaucracy.

Questions for a candidate

I am one of the many bloggers asked by the campaign staff for former NevadaNew Mexico governor Gary Johnson, one of the Republican dark horses, to take part in a conference call later this week. Does anyone have any questions that they would particularly like me to ask? I have two or three related to the economy, but I thought I’d throw this out there to see what else might be of current interest to the Ilk.

WND column

Marital Roulette

There has been an amount of discussion of a marriage strike in recent years as various male and female commentators alike attempt to explain the continuing decline in marriage rates throughout the advanced nations of the West. As more and more men have become aware that women file for most divorces and that family courts are now little more than thieves’ dens designed to funnel financial resources from men to women by any means or legal-sounding excuse necessary, they have understandably become considerably more marriage-averse.

Layers within layers

I was reading Umberto Eco’s book On Literature the other day and his essay entitled “Intertextual Irony and Levels of Reading” caught my attention, particularly in light of Matthew David Surridge’s intriguing series of essays on Tolkien. (I haven’t commented upon them yet because they are sufficiently deep to require a second reading before opining, Matt, so my apologies for the tardiness.) Because the flip side of readers, presumably non-Ideal, who read things into the text that are not there are readers, definitely non-Ideal, who fail to recognize the deeper layers of the text that are, in fact, there.

Read more, including a minor revelation about one of my past novels, at the Black Gate.

Mailvox: aspies and social autism

In which Van Rooinek objects to making a conceptual link between Asperger’s and atheism:

It’s utterly unfair to link “aspie” with “atheist”. An innate defect in social-situational awareness is no way synonymous with either atheism or an inability to grasp the Christian moral duty of charity. Aspie Christians have a tough enough time with fellow Christians assuming that our inevitable social faux pas are intentional sins rather than perceptual accidents; the equation of “aspie” with “atheist” is even more galling.

While I have no doubt that some will manage it, I find it hard to believe that anyone could miss the humor intrinsic in atheists being offended at being labeled socially autistic while aspies take offense at being tarred by association with atheism. Good times. But, since both groups observably have a somewhat difficult time in understanding various aspects of communication and social interaction, I will explain everything in a logical manner that even the most socially challenged individual should be able to follow.

First, let me address a common misunderstanding. The term “socially autistic” is not, as some have imagined, redundant even though autistic people are known to frequently have social difficulties. The reason is that in the English language, the adjective modifies the noun. As von Hayek elucidated in The Fatal Conceit, “social justice” is intrinsically different than “justice”, so “social autism” is therefore different than “autism”.

The observable difference between the behavior of militant atheists and autistic or aspie individuals is that whereas the latter behave in a neuro-atypical manner regardless of whether they are in a social situation or not, the atheist’s neuro-atypical behavior tends to be limited to the social spheres. This tends to indicate that the behavior is, at least some extent, a conscious choice on the atheist’s part, which only underlines the obnoxious nature of the behavior.

And that, obviously, is the crucial difference. The aspie cannot help his behavior; while the atheist may not be able to help his lack of belief, (which, as I have suggested, may stem from a related neurological disorder), he has no similar excuse for the reprehensible behavior that so often accompanies it.

What Van Rooinek would do well to understand and accept is that when non-aspies behave in a certain manner – the excessive literalism with which some students of Game receive the advice of the Game theoreticians to which he referred being but one example – it is perfectly reasonable to describe such behavior as aspie-like, or “aspie” for short. But there is no more condemnation to be inferred in such a description than there is in referring to a sighted person who simply cannot understand something being explained to him as “blind”.

Moreover, given the way in which aspies are predisposed, by virtue of their neurological handicap, to unintentionally offend others, they would be well-advised to be deliberately slow in taking offense, especially when it is unnecessary. Indeed, instead of being offended, they should be pleased by the sufficient awareness of their condition, and therefore recognition of their lack of culpability for any inadvertently maladroit behavior, that casual use of such an appellation indicates.

Champions League Final

I’m not a big Barcelona fan, but I loathe Manchester United. United started out fierce, but once the Barca defense withstood their early pressure, it was clear that the Spaniards were the better, more talented team. United keeps trying to send the ball long to Chicharito on the left side, while Barcelona is controlling the ball and patiently working it up the field with a short, ping-pong passing game. Messi is clearly looking for opportunities to make through passes that the strikers can run onto for one-touch shots.

Update: it’s now 3-1 Barca. The United midfield simply can’t stay with the Barcelona mids, who are creating one dangerous opportunity after another.

Mailvox: why yes, the racists are preferable

Unsurprisingly, Dodo fails to reach the correct conclusion concerning why so many people of different political, religious, and ideological stripes keep telling him to shut up:

I love it how I can come on this site and express some of the tamest liberal philosophy and get attacked from all sides, but this guy gets NO RESPONSE AT ALL. But you’re not racists, no.

I find it tremendously amusing that Dodo is whining about the way people react to him while simultaneously calling all of the thousands of daily readers here, including the black ones, racists. He is clearly incapable of realizing that it is his personality defects, and not his political views, that account for the hostile responses he provokes on a daily basis. Of course, it is not only that he is an annoying asshole, as he also makes a regular habit of producing asinine and uninformed comments that have no object except to be disagreeable. Even other atheists have complained about his repetitive idiocy.

The fact is that most people will quite understandably prefer the company of an open racist who keeps his opinion on racial matters to himself except when it is topical to that of an ignorant and unintelligent asshole who insists on constantly forcing his opinion on others no matter the subject. The fact that people tolerate a wide range of diverse opinions, some well outside the zone of the politically correct, while reacting harshly to Dodo’s expressed views does not mean that everyone agrees with any of those opinions or are racists, it merely proves what an exceptional and unmitigated asshole Dodo has shown himself to be.

Moreover, Dodo’s remark underlines his social autism. If he had any social skills at all, he would realize that silence very seldom denotes approval. I also find it interesting that some have inaccurately claimed that this blog is an echo chamber while others have seen fit to criticize the way in which I permit others to freely express their opinions, even on the most sensitive subjects. But if one simply looks at the rules of the blog, one will see that there is no rule which bars any political, ideological, or religious opinion of any kind.

Mailvox: atheist assistance

According to TN, it would appear to be not so much lacking as nonexistent:

My son-in-law and I went to Joplin, MO (about an hour from where I live) and spent a long day in the heart of the disaster area helping several people dig out and sort through what was left of their homes. There was not much to save. The pictures posted on several news sites can’t begin to tell the story.

While driving through the wreckage, we spotted Salvation Army, Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran and Mennonite volunteer work teams. Free child care services are being provided by a host of local churches. Local gyms and warehouse facilities are loaded with donated items from regional churches. Of course, local businesses and individuals shared as well.

Not once did I see one atheist-sponsored group or work team. Not one. They were busy that day snarking on the internet. Just pull up any Joplin or Oklahoma tornado story or YouTube video that has a comments section and you will find hundreds of examples of aspie athiests taking pot shots at any reference to prayer, Divine Intervention or miracle that was witnessed.

As one survivor told me, “129 of us died, but thousands more would have if God hadn’t been with us.” I understood what he meant, but sadly, non-believers would only laugh.

I’m going back in a few days. There’s much more to be done.

I’m told that PZ Myers would very much have liked to help the unfortunate people of Joplin, but he was too busy desecrating Cheez-Its and posting snarky comments about Ken Ham’s Creation Museum. To be fair, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science did put out an appeal for money, which was sent to the American Red Cross.

In any event, I congratulate TN, his son-in-law, and those who are dedicating their time and effort to help those who are in need. It should never be forgotten that that is one of the core commandments of Jesus Christ.

Mailvox: why do white women choose black men?

The Spartan inquires:

Why is it that in my town, there is a lot of White Women hanging around Blacks. It seems that every Black man in this town has a white wife, white mistress, white girlfriend. Walk into the Salvation Army soup kitchen and every poor white trash woman (or her grandmother) is lugging around some mulatto child.

How does Game answer this? Should not every Beta White male go around in blackface and talk jive? If reproduction is about genes, and moving up the ladder, why are white women flocking to black men, especially on college campuses?

One can never be certain when attempting to ascertain the motivations behind the actions of others. Never forget some of the most important words of Ludwig von Mises from Human Action: “No dialectical artifice can spirit away the fact that man is driven by the aim to achieve certain ends…. We cannot approach our subject if we disregard the meaning which acting man attaches to the situation, i.e. the given state of affairs and to his own behavior with regard to this situation.”

The problem, of course, is that Man in general and women in particular are very seldom able to explain the actual reasons for their actions, they are much better at providing ex post facto rationalizations of them. But, I have made the following observations over time.

1. The media has been pushing multi-racial romance very, very hard for the last 12-15 years, specifically the white female-black male combination. (I would bet that there are at least 10x more WF-BM couples portrayed than BF-WM couples.) There is nary a commercial on television that does not include a token black man with a funky pseudo-afro at the party or a drama that does not feature a romance between a Handsome Black Man and an Open-Minded White Woman. This tends to have an effect on the class most susceptible to mass marketing, the 18-24 crowd, which also the only group without sufficient life experience to understand that the “racist” stereotypes they so enjoy opposing are based on statistical fact.

2. Black men tend to be more aggressive and forward than white men, on the average. They not only take a shotgun approach, but don’t tend to agonize much over being shot down. Possessing -1SD average IQs, they are less likely to be crippled by introspection and second-guessing than white and Asian men. Recall that Roissy has asserted that high intelligence is actually a handicap with regards to sexual status. Also, the observable black male disinclination for monogamous relationships dictates that a higher percentage of them will remain on the market regardless of their current relationship status.

3. Low rank white women tend to be overvalued by black men. The woman who can attract only white 3s is often able to attract black 7s. I know several black male-white female couples where the black man is significantly more attractive than the white woman. This phenomenon is also often seen in white male-Asian female couples. When a woman has the option to increase her sex rank simply by expanding the pool of acceptable men, it should come as no surprise that many elect to do so.

However, it is interesting to note that despite the race-mixing at the prole level, very little of it takes place among the marrying classes. Virtually no white women actually marry black men; even Asian marriages to white men are on the order of 2 percent of all Asian female marriages. As with most cultural degradations such as crime and illegitimacy, multi-racial non-marital relationships are for the lower classes while the shrinking middle and upper classes of all races remain homogenous.

So, on the basis of his email, I can conclude the Spartan’s town is an economically depressed one that is largely comprised of lower class whites with a large minority population. As far as the question about Game goes, the rule is to mimic whatever behavior is proven to be successful. If the Spartan is interested in overweight, peroxide-blonde 3s, he would probably be wise to imitate the behavior of those gentlemen who are presently attracting them.