Tag: history

He who must not be named

Commentary is terrified by the online brigades of the Alt Right:

The unapologetically racist element of neo-reactionary thinking connects intellectuals like Yarvin and Land with the masses they otherwise disdain, evincing the rumblings of a nascent neo-reactionary political coalition. But what really ties together all these seemingly disparate strands—the neo-reactionary intellectuals, the crude Twitter trolls, the highfalutin white supremacists, and the billionaire presidential candidate—is misanthropy. Pollsters may need to develop a new category in the wake of the Trump phenomenon: “resentment voters.” Within the demographic of lower-middle-class white men, Trump is popular in a variety of misanthropic subcultures, many of which did not really exist until the Internet provided them with a way to communicate and organize. Unsurprisingly, he is the subject of a great deal of discussion and admiration in the pickup-artist, or “seduction community,” of men who chat online and gather at conferences to complain about how feminism has destroyed dating culture while simultaneously discussing strategies for bedding as many women as possible. After Trump declared early in the campaign season, apropos of nothing, that supermodel Heidi Klum was “no longer a 10,” a popular blogger from the “men’s rights” movement approvingly wrote, “The alpha does not qualify himself to women, ever. He expects women to qualify themselves to him.”

What also unites the alt-right is a conspiratorial anti-elitism. Policies and principles don’t matter, nor do obsolete ideological divisions like left and right, because the American system itself is a sham. “Why are sh-t-tier whites voting for Trump, a barbarian who can’t even write a grammatical tweet in fourth-grade English?” Yarvin asks. “Because they’re done with being sh-t on by their ‘betters,’ who think invading Iraq and starting civil wars in Syria and Libya is a brilliant use for a third of their income.” In distinction to Bernie Sanders supporters, who at least know what they want to do with the reigns of power, these people loathe our social and political institutions and offer no alternative. Trump and the alt-right want to break everything and watch the world burn, like Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight, and they believe (hope?) that somehow everything will sort itself out. America, using a term that will be familiar to the real-estate tycoon, is a “tear down.”

What we are seeing here is a convergence of three phenomena: neo-reactionary philosophy, popular discontent, and a charismatic leader. Successful political movements need all three. As far-right traditionalists, Yarvin and Land claim to despise populism, and people more generally. “Predisposed, in any case, to perceive the politically awakened masses as a howling irrational mob, [neo-reaction] conceives the dynamics of democratization as fundamentally degenerative: systematically consolidating and exacerbating private vices, resentments, and deficiencies until they reach the level of collective criminality and comprehensive social corruption,” Land writes. And like many of the Republican office-holders and conservative media personalities who’ve glommed on to Trump while railing against “elites,” the neo-reactionary thinkers are themselves elitists.

But they, too, are just as unscrupulous in hitching their wagon to a popular movement in hopes that it will advance their agenda. In a 2008 installment of his Open Letter, Yarvin mused about himself as the Vaclav Havel of neo-reaction—the philosopher king who may one day find himself carried on the shoulders of a society demanding revolutionary change—or, failing that, its Machiavelli. For, “in order to make an impact on the political process, you need quantity. You need moronic, chanting hordes.” Well, he has them now.

One doesn’t have to share the normative interpretations of alt-right counter-history to believe that these thinkers have a point in arguing that human societal development is not a process of inexorable progress. Though conservatives have criticized President Barack Obama’s frequent invocation of “the right side of history” to justify his positions on issues ranging from gay marriage to counterterrorism, Americans have become largely inured to the idea, expressed by Ronald Reagan, that their country’s “best days are yet to come.” What if they’re not? What if things are about to get a whole lot worse?

I take no little pleasure in the fact that while the mainstream media doesn’t have any trouble in naming Allum, Milo, Moldbug, or Nick Land, they need to resort to weird, inaccurate descriptions –  a popular blogger from the “men’s rights” movement – rather than mention me directly.

It’s rather amusing. For over a decade, I was inaccurately described as a “conservative”. For perhaps the last three years, I’ve been described as an MRA, again inaccurately.

Is it really that hard to say “Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil” or “bestselling political philosopher” or even “right wing radical”?

Apparently.

Anyhow, they shouldn’t be terrified of us. They should be terrified by the fact that we are right and their system, the one that they believed had ended history, has failed. Everything is on the table now and anything can happen.

Conservatism and progress are dead ends

A commenter at Steve Sailer’s observes as much:

Social conservatism, which is largely concerned with morals legislation, is essentially dead, and has been since the Supreme Court Lawrence decision in 2003 (as Scalia correctly prophesied.) Thus anyone could have predicted the victory of SSM, and the discovery of all manner of rights in terms of sexuality, since, apparently, one’s membership card in LGBTQQIV2A is the only self-identification that means anything (not race, not religion, not language, not culture: just with whom and how you like to have sex: this includes asexuals of course, the “A” above: there’s another one for Allies.) So Ross can just give up on that. The same pertains to third trimester abortions or anything else, because virtually any attempt to police human conduct (except the ingestion of drugs, of course) can and will be carried into an argument about our innate right to do whatever we want.

Hawkish internationalism is also a dead letter, since we just had a decade or more of foolishly prosecuted wars, and one can (some cynically, I suppose) claim that with the most pressing issues for the DOD being the extension of selective service registration to women, and the integration of transgender drill instructors into the the Marine Corps Recruit Depots, it is highly unlikely that there will be any non-foolishly prosecuted wars in the near or far future.

Free market economics is also dead, since the American economy has already been heavily socialized by a variety of government controls, restrictions, and, most importantly, benefits, which the citizenry (at this point) cannot live without.

So Reagan is dead, so is Reaganism. The only question is what can we do to improve the lot of regular Americans, materially, and what can we do to generate some kind of purpose for our people and our nation.

The correct approach is not to attempt to save, or fix, the United States of America. As I noted back in 2004, it’s dead. It is no more a true nation than Yugoslavia, or South Africa, or the Austro-Hungarian Empire were.

The long term American focus should be on successfully doing what the South Africans failed to do, which is peacefully dividing the empire between the various nations. This will no doubt be difficult for many to accept, but it is what is going to happen anyway, and the sooner that “conservatives” understand that this is the only way to preserve the actual nation, as opposed to the mythical “proposition nation” which is now based on nothing more than Magic Dirt Theory, the more likely it is that they will be able to come away with something sustainable.

The very great irony is that the combination of multiculturalism, feminism, and propositionism is collectively less societally viable than North Korea’s insane political economy. North Korea is a totalitarian nightmare, but it has indubitably remained Korean, in fact, more Korean than England is English or Germany is German.

History demonstrates that a nation can survive evil kings and nightmarish ideologies, but may not be able to survive what many, if not most, in the West today consider “progress”. One really should be inspired to completely reassess one’s ideology when it is observably more societally destructive than Juche.

The case for separation

Fred Reed asks Black Lives Matter if they prefer integration and being subject to the white man’s laws or separation and freedom to live as they see fit?

In reading the endless complaints by blacks about shootings by the police, I usually find it hard to know what really happened. As far as I am aware, the media never allow an unedited interview, or any interview, with the police charged with the shootings but allow endless commentary by people who weren’t there.

I am also often puzzled by the motivation of the cops. Do they confer in the morning and say, “Hey, let’s shoot some totally innocent black guy in front of witnesses who probably have cell phones?” And why are cops not brutalizing Latinos, only blacks, especially in LA, which provides a target-rich environment?

If I could, I would speak to BLM as follows:

I cannot determine what you want. There seems to be a great deal of anger but little clarity. Discussion usually wanders off into demands for justice, but without specifics.

Since I am looking for practical recommendations, let us begin by acknowledging the circumstances we face. You say that white cops mistreat blacks, sometimes brutally. This is true. I have seen some of it, and know of more. White cops seldom like blacks, nor blacks, white cops. The cultures are irreconcilably different. On the other hand, beatings of whites, Latinos, and Asians by gangs of blacks are far outnumber beatings of blacks by white cops. In sum, no love is lost and I do not see a lot of moral high ground. So:

Do you want white policemen excluded from black neighborhoods?

The available answers are “yes,” and “no.” I do not mean to be abrupt about this, but vague considerations of abstract justice, alleged discrimination, and racism do not provide usable answers. So, do you want white cops pulled from black neighborhoods, or not? It’s one or the other.

Personally I think it wiser not to have whites policing blacks. I don’t want to see white cops raped in media circuses. Nor do I want blacks to be mistreated by white cops. It seems to me that BLM should support segregation of police as it would eliminate any possibility of racist behavior.

Speaking as a historically aware Red Segregationist, the eventual and ultimate solution will be segregation, war, and ethnic cleansing. The homogenous nations have always come out of heterogeneous nations, they are not the result of geography. The great sin of apartheid was not that it separated South Africa’s blacks and whites, but rather, that it kept them together in an immoral manner that permitted South Africa’s whites to economically prey upon South Africa’s blacks.

And if you say that you oppose segregation, then I ask you this: do you seriously support stealing more American Indian land by eliminating our reservations? Or is it merely a matter of moral posturing rather than principle?

DNA is destiny. Even those of us who are of mixed race are ultimately forced by everyone else into one tribe or another; look at those who deny science, heritage, and family alike by declaring that I am, regardless of my self-identification, a “white” – whatever that might be; precisely what nation is that? – by virtue of nothing more than my physical appearance.

Anacyclosis and the problem of productivity

Economics, free trade, the minimum wage, technological advancement, immigration, and the Singularity are all pointing towards the same problem, as Fred Reed notes:

People of IQ 130 and up tend to assume unconsciously–important word: “unconsciously”–that you can do anything just by doing it. If they wanted to learn Sanskrit, they would get a textbook and go for it. It would take time and effort but the outcome would never be in doubt. Yes, of course they understand that some people are smarter than others, but they often seem not to grasp how much smarter, or what the consequences are. A large part of the population can’t learn-much of anything. Not won’t. Can’t. Displaced auto workers cannot be retrained as IT professionals.

Few of the very bright have have ever had to make the unhappy calculation: Forty times a low minimum wage minus bus fare to work, rent, food, medical care, and cable. They have never had to choose between a winter coat and cable, their only entertainment. They don’t really know that many people do. Out of sight, out of mind.

Cognitive stratification has political consequences. It leads liberals to think that their client groups can go to college. It leads conservatives to think that with hard work and determination…..

It ain’t so. An economic system that works reasonably well when there are lots of simple jobs doesn’t when there aren’t. In particular, the large number of people at IQ 90 and below will increasingly be simply unnecessary. If you are, say, a decent, honest young woman of IQ 85, you probably read poorly, learn slowly and only simple things,. Being promoted, or even hired, requires abilities that you do not have. This, plus high (and federally concealed) unemployment allows employers to pay you barely enough to stay alive. Here is the wondrous working of the market.

The Polybian system of anacyclosis proceeds in the following order:
1. Monarchy, 2. Kingship, 3. Tyranny, 4. Aristocracy, 5. Oligarchy, 6. Democracy, and 7. Ochlocracy.

Some would say that we are living under a democracy, but this is observably not true. Rather, it appears we are somewhere between (4) and (5), even though the Aristocracy is not readily apparent. In reality, the theory probably needs to be updated, but regardless, the observable fact is that the transnational cognitive elite has no regard for the common masses, and more importantly, no longer requires them in order to maintain its standard of living. The logical conclusion is that the increased irrelevance of the competent white middle and working classes is why the former is entirely willing to replace them with an even more irrelevant, and less intelligent population who can be much more easily subdued and eliminated in time.

That sounds diabolical, but logic suggests that it is the purpose and the intended consequence of Cultural Marxism. It seems woefully short-sighted to me, but if one thinks only in terms of one’s own lifetime, I suppose it might be of some appeal.

The feudalism of the Middle Ages required peasants for agriculture. But the technofeudalism of the future doesn’t appear likely to require peasants for anything. So what will be done with them? What will be done with us? The long and bloody history of Man does not suggest an optimistic answer.

Kasich endorses amnesty

I find it hard to believe that anyone in Ohio is genuinely supporting this overtly anti-American lunatic:

1) “God Bless” Illegal Immigrants

Illegal immigrants are a “critical part of our society,” John Kasich told the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce last October. “For those that are here that have been law abiding, God bless them,” Kasich said—arguing that illegals “should have a path to legalization.”

2) “I couldn’t imagine” enforcing our current immigration laws: “That is not… the kind of values that we believe in.”

On the GOP debate stage in February, Kasich told millions of American voters that enforcing the nation’s immigration laws is not “the kind of values that we believe in.”

“I couldn’t even imagine how we would even begin to think about taking a mom or a dad out of a house when they have not committed a crime since they’ve been here, leaving their children in the house,” Kasich said. “That is not, in my opinion, the kind of values that we believe in.”

3) Kasich likened deporting the illegal population to Japanese internment camps

“To think that that we’re just going to put people on buses and ship them to the border—look at our World War II experience where we quarantined Japanese—I mean it’s a dark stain on America’s history,” Kasich said in November.

“We shouldn’t even think about it,” Kasich said of the “nutty” idea:

    “I don’t know many people that believe we should deport 11 million people—just because people shout loud doesn’t mean they’re a majority. I think most Republicans would agree that you can’t deport 11 million people. We shouldn’t even think about it. What are you going to do? Break their families up?”

I don’t think the people still relying on sob stories and worrying about breaking families up don’t understand that the long term alternative to repatriating most of the 60 million post-1965 immigrants is civil war. The USA is heading towards partitition at an increasingly rapid rate, and the more foreigners who are involved in the process, the more vicious the ethnic and religious cleansing is likely to be.

The dirt is not magic. The USA is not magically exempt from the same rules of power, politics, and war that have stricken nearly every other multiethnic society in history at one time or another. There is absolutely nothing preventing what has happened many times elsewhere from happening on US soil.

The post-1965 invasion is the largest invasion in all of human history. Think about it. What are the chances that it doesn’t end in violence? What is the scenario that doesn’t involve various ethnic groups scrabbling ruthlessly for power?

Deporting the illegals is only the first step to avoiding a nightmare, but Kasich is determined to keep making things worse.

Queens at war

A historical study of European queens produces some unexpected results:

After sifting through historical data on queenly reigns across six centuries, two political scientists have found that it’s more complicated than that. In a recent working paper, New York University scholars Oeindrila Dube and S.P. Harish analyzed 28 European queenly reigns from 1480 to 1913 and found a 27 percent increase in wars when a queen was in power, as compared to the reign of a king. “People have this preconceived idea that states that are led by women engage in less conflict,” Dube told Pacific Standard, but her analysis of the data on European queens suggests another story.

Interestingly, Dube and Harish think the reason why queens were able to take part in more military policy can be explained by the division of labor that tended to happen when a queen — particularly a married queen — ruled. Queens managed foreign policy and war policies, which were often important to bring in cash, while their husbands managed the state (think taxes, crime, judicial issues, etc.). As the authors theorize, “greater division of labor under queenly reigns could have enabled queens to pursue more aggressive war policies.” Kings, on the other hand, didn’t tend to engage in division of labor like ruling queens — or, more specifically, they may have shared military and state duties with some close adviser, but not with the queen. And, Dube and Harish argue, it may be this “asymmetry in how queens relied on male spouses and kings relied on female spouses [that] strengthened the relative capacity of queenly reigns, facilitating their greater participation in warfare.”

The queens’ marital status made a difference here; as the authors write,
“among married monarchs, queens were more likely to participate as
attackers than kings.” If a queen were single — which was the case with
13 of those they studied — she was more likely to be attacked compared
to the times when a king was in power, perhaps because her country was
seen in the outside world as being more vulnerable and thus easier to attack.

Ironically, as Nate pointed out, this means that female leaders are more strongly correlated with warfare than religion. And it would be hard to argue that this relationship is not causal, given the fact that the queens were responsible for the decision to go to war.

The preference cascade

Glenn Reynolds makes a connection between the Trumpening and #Brexit:

In America, Donald Trump — who many of the experts thought had no chance — is dominating the polls. In Britain, meanwhile, much of the public seems to be mobilizing in favor of exiting the troubled European Union — a British Exit, or Brexit.

Writing in The Spectator, Brendan O’Neill puts this down to a class revolt on both sides of the Atlantic. And he’s right as far as he goes, but I think there’s more than just a class revolt. I think there’s also a developing preference cascade. O’Neill writes: “In both Middle America and Middle England, among both rednecks and chavs, voters who have had more than they can stomach of being patronised, nudged, nagged and basically treated as diseased bodies to be corrected rather than lively minds to be engaged are now putting their hope into a different kind of politics. And the entitled Third Way brigade, schooled to rule, believing themselves possessed of a technocratic expertise that trumps the little people’s vulgar political convictions, are not happy. Not one bit.”

Well, that’s certainly true. Both America and Britain have developed a ruling class that is increasingly insular and removed from — and contemptuous of — the people it deigns to rule. The ruled are now returning the contempt.

Robert Prechter predicted this more than a decade ago. It’s also happening in other European countries. This is what happens when the social mood changes. The blithe, mindless optimism that permits the populace to be used and abused by the financial elite is gone. People are seeing more clearly now, and they are beginning to recognize what was done to them, and by whom.

There will be a reckoning. There will be many reckonings. And unfortunately, not all of them will be pretty, or even civilized.

When the tide goes out, it’s easy to see who was naked all along.

Traffic report 2015

The growth in site traffic this year was more than expected, as a surprising number of people initially stopped by to see what was going on with the Hugo Awards in August and then stuck around for the remainder of the year. Last year we saw a single 1.5-million pageview month; this year we had 10 in a row. All of the growth was at VP, as AG was pretty flat due to my sporadic posting there. But as was the case last year, 2015 finished very strong; December was not only up 30 percent over last December, but was the second-most-highly-trafficked month of the year.

In 2015, Vox Popoli had 16,211,875 pageviews and Alpha Game 4,565,094 for a total of 20,776,969 Google pageviews. The blogs are now running at a average rate of 56,923 daily pageviews. And yes, I do find it amusing that the blogs are now seeing considerably more genuine traffic than the “extraordinary amount” a certain SF blogger once lied about having. As for the running annual totals, they are as follows:

2008: 3,496,757
2009: 4,414,801
2010: 4,827,183
2011: 5,969,066
2012: 7,774,074
2013: 13,111,695
2014: 15,693,622
2015: 20,776,969

Thank you all for the part you have played in making that happen. However, there are some more important numbers that merit mention. 2015 ended with 465 Vile Faceless Minions pledging their mindless obedience to the Supreme Dark Lord and preparing for battle in 2016. Expect heavier use this year, VFM, as the SJWs react to our media offensive in a variety of means both fair and foul.

On Twitter, I ended the year with 6,230 followers and 14.628 million impressions for 2015. Not bad, but I can clearly put in a little more effort on that front.

Castalia House grew from 21 books published to 37, including 5 in print and 1 in audiobook. Book sales increased 145 percent and no less than six category bestsellers were published. We also added three editors, an Editor-at-Large, an Audio Editor, and a Blog Editor; see the Castalia blog later today for more details there. Speaking of the Audio Editor, the audiobook for Cuckservative is now available on Audible and Amazon, and is already one of the top 50 Philosophy audiobooks. We expect even faster growth for Castalia in 2016 with the release of upcoming books such as Riding the Red Horse Vol. 2 by Tom Kratman and Vox Day, Iron Chamber of Memory by John C. Wright, Clio and Me by Martin van Creveld, Do Buddhas Dream of Enlightened Sheep by Josh Young, and There Will Be War Vol. XI by Jerry Pournelle, among others.

And yes, one of those others will be A Sea of Skulls.

Thank you for your interest, even if it is no more than morbid
curiosity, thank you for your support, and while 2015 was certainly intriguing, I believe 2016 is going to be absolutely extraordinary.

The GT incident

VD, any reference to the GT incident that you are talking about? I
tried looking it up, but it is hard to search for, apparently, for
someone that isn’t already familiar with the story.

It’s a matter of public record:

Contracts; pleading; prevention of performance of condition precedent; repudiation and right to terminate; implied duty of good faith and fair dealing. Tortious interference with contractual relations. Alleged breach of agreement granting defendant rights relating to two software video games. Motion to dismiss (CPLR 3211(a)(7)). Standards for pleading breach of contract. The court upheld a breach claim. The court rejected an argument that plaintiff had failed to comply with a condition precedent because defendant had allegedly prevented the performance of the condition. The court dismissed a claim for repudiation of the entire agreement since under it defendant had had an unconditional right to terminate, which it did, and thus could be liable only through that date, there being no provision for acceleration of future payments. The court ruled that a fair reading of the contract indicated that defendant had an implied duty of good faith to assist, or not interfere with, plaintiff’s entering into bundling arrangements with computer manufacturers. A third claim was thus upheld. The court found that plaintiff had set forth only conclusory allegations regarding interference with prospective contractual relations and thus dismissed that claim. Fenris Wolf Ltd. v. GT Interactive Software Corp., Index No. 601206/99, 10/15/99 (Cozier, J.)

We were working on a groundbreaking SF 3D shooter with AI-driven squadplay called Rebel Moon Revolution that was signed to GT Interactive. We’d had a huge success with Rebel Moon Rising thanks to bundling deals with IBM and Intel; GT used to joke that we were the only developer who had ever sent THEM checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

(This is why I’m never bothered by people claiming I’m a failure. My most spectacularly stupid moves, the mistakes I would most like to have back, have usually been related to my failure to properly exploit either opportunity or success. We gave GT a percentage of our revenue to handle the tech support; it turned out to be the most expensive tech support in computer game history. Idiotic.)

However, GT lost their crown jewels to Activision and soon came under financial pressure due to their funding practically every type of shooter EXCEPT the one that we pitched them twice: a WWII shooter. No one, they explained, would be interested in THAT. No wonder they went out of business.

In the summer of 1998, they went weirdly silent after we delivered a milestone that should have been routinely approved and paid. I got a phone call from our producer, who was very upset and told me that the milestone was not going to be approved. When I asked what was wrong with it, he said, “nothing”. Then he told me it would never be approved, and that they were terminating many development contracts, pretty much everything that wasn’t due to ship before the end of the year.

I’d heard rumors that this might be in the works; Sega of Japan had recently shut down Sega of America, and with it our Dreamcast launch title, an SF RPG that we were developing with Julian LeFay of Daggerfall fame, so I wasn’t exactly shocked. I asked when we could expect the termination notice, which was due within 30 days of a milestone rejection according to the contract, and was shocked when he said, “yeah, that’s the thing, they’re not going to terminate.”

You see, what GT was doing was trying to get back the money it had already paid out to its developers by refusing to release their claim on the IP unless the developer returned a substantial percentage of the advance it had already earned via milestones. This meant that the developers couldn’t take their projects elsewhere; we had good relationships with Microsoft at the time and would almost surely have gone there. Unlike other developers, we resisted their legal pressure, filed a lawsuit, beat them in the initial rounds of court, and ultimately forced a settlement in the place of the simple letter of termination they should have sent us.

The victory came at a serious cost, though. The legal process takes a long time, and by the time GT offered us a settlement worth taking, our entire team was already dispersed throughout the industry in the jobs we’d helped them find. My partner and I were so burned out and disenchanted that we both left the industry for several years. It was a substantial victory, but a Pyrrhic one; we would have been much better off in the long term just signing up with Microsoft and letting them deal with the legal complications such an action would have created.

Hitler’s 125 IQ

It’s rather remarkable to see that the entire Nazi leadership was nearly a standard deviation more intelligent than the average Ashkenazi Jew, especially when we are so often informed that the reason for Jewish success is their exceedingly high level of intelligence. That being said, I suspect the average IQ of the current Israeli leadership is even higher; the same clearly cannot be said of the current U.S. or German leaderships.

As I recall from what I’ve read on Hitler and internal Nazi politics, of the above list, particularly “close associates” of Hitler would include: Goering; Ribbentrop; Speer; and until his “betrayal,” Hess. Their average IQ is 129.

While there was never much love lost between Hitler and the German military establishment, the closest military connection to Hitler from that list would be Keitel, who was infamous for his toadying behavior towards the Fuhrer. His IQ also happened to be precisely 129.

(Incidentally, while Jodl is regarded as far more competent than Keitel – he is the guy who actually made OKW command structure run – it’s interesting to note his IQ was actually lower than that of his boss, if marginally so).

In practice, Goering’s IQ during his time as Nazi bigwig might have actually been lower, due to his morphine addiction. On the other hand, there are suspicions that Speer was in fact considerably cleverer than his test scores indicated, because he was playing the “dumb dreamer architect” type so as to pretend ignorance of the death camps and avoid execution (if so he was successful). So these two factors might cancel out.

Adjusting for the Flynn effect – but only modestly, since the most useful (not rules-dependent) forms of intelligence haven’t improved all that radically, and we have an IQ of around 125 for Hitler normed to today’s Greenwich standards.

While I was initially skeptical of the idea of estimating Hitler’s IQ by those of his associates, on second thought, the fact that the average IQ in the Digital Ghetto was above 140 forces me to admit that it’s not a completely unreasonable basis for an estimate. It also fits with the available evidence; it’s pretty clear from reading Mein Kampf that Hitler was bright, but not highly intelligent.

For obvious reasons, the most successful popular leaders tend to be within the 30-point communications window of the norm. I would expect that Stalin was north of 130 IQ, both on the basis of his writing and his erratic, introverted behavior; unlike Hitler and Churchill, he had no need to rely upon personal popularity with the masses.