--- In beyondismscience 69, Dr. Steffen M. Stoewer wrote:
> I am currently in the process of translating the above
> mentioned book from English into German.

Great. Thanks, Steffen!


> It is only for academic interest, as most of the
> people who could comprehend the book should also be able to read
> enough English to do so.

Well, my understanding is that German internet users strongly
prefer to view web pages written in German. Perhaps that is not
the case for the German intellectual elite, but regardless I would
not be surpised to eventually learn that your translation project
helped to bring R. Cattell's Beyondism writings to a much larger
audience than it currently enjoys.


> Unfortunately, I am stuck now, as there have not been uploaded
> any further chapters of the book.

Well, I wasn't scanning it. I was typing it and proofreading it. (The
process was tedious but educational; I suppose I should get a
scanner, though.) I might not be able to post very much more very
soon. Apparently there are two used copies at Amazon right now.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0080171923

Also, if your local university does not have it, you might be able
to get it through inter-library loan. Please let me know if you
need any assistance in acquiring a copy of the book.

I am currently in the process of translating the above mentioned book
from English into German. I was delighted that hitssquad undertook the
task of scanning and uploading some of the book's chapters.
Unfortunately, I am stuck now, as there have not been uploaded any
further chapters of the book.
Hitssquad might be inclined to proceed with the upload, so I could
continue my work. It is only for academic interest, as most of the
people who could comprehend the book should also be able to read
enough English to do so. But in order to make it more widely
available, another handful of potential readers might help.

Steffen

> Variables covarying positively with dimension X:
>
> * Tipping
> * Lynn's Anxiety index
> * Faith in advertizing
> * Confidence in the church (stronger with MAS)
> * Religious upbringing (stronger with MAS)
> * Neuroticism

(I should have written that these correlate negatively with X):

> * Use of cosmetics and deodorants (stronger with UAI)
> * Latitude in wealthy countries (cold countries use more deodorant!)
> * Agreeableness
> * Conscientiousness

Note that I'm not the first person to come up with this - all I did
was demonstrate that Hofstede's four/five factor solution is a lower
level analysis which ties into, and may be less useful than, factors
in a cultural model which focusses on higher level factors. A variety
of analyses, including personality questionaires on the one hand, and
Richard Lynn's analysis on national cultures from purely
non-psychological data on the other, verify the existence of two
primary dimensions of culture, one relating to IQ, Extroversion,
Openness, wealth, Individualism, and (inversely) Power Distance, and
the other relating to Neuroticism, low Agreeableness, low
Conscientiousness, high Masculinity, and high Uncertainty Avoidance.

The second dimension is variously labelled "Neuroticism" or "Anxiety,"
but it correlates with a variety of curious cultural norms beyond
those strictly related to either personality trait - why would high
factor X cultures have more confidence in advertizing? Why would they
be less Agreeable? Why would they use less deodorant, despite being in
a lower latitude? Religion (particularly Catholicism and Orthodox
Christianity) might seem an ideal vector for carrying this cultural
norm, but Japan actually seems to be the highest on this dimension!
Maybe the culture clusters could give some clue:

* Romance and Eastern European nations are highest in this factor.
* East Asian cultures are also rather high.
* German cultures are high.
* English speaking cultures are low to moderate.
* African cultures (while poorly represented in data sets) are low.
* Scandinavian cultures are lowest in this factor.


--Mark

I recently figured out that the two national dimensions identified by
Hofstede as MAS and UAI actually tap into one sengle factor. Even
though, at the IBM survey level, they showed up as two orthogonal
dimensions, it is abundantly clear from validating data that they
load on only one single dimension.

To demonstrate this in a fair way, I went through the back of
Culture's Consequences, which lists a variety of correlates of the
five cultural dimensions, and compiled a list of all the measures
which correlate with both UAI and MAS, where both of these dimensions
are listed as independantly contributing to the regression analysis ,
in either the positive or negative direction. Here are the results:

< < Correlated Together > >

Home Life Balance: -UAI, -MAS

"Send unemployed aliens back": -UAI, -MAS
"Send illegal aliens back": -UAI, -MAS

Wealthy countries – "Most people can be trusted": -UAI, -MAS

Wealthy countries – "Women want home, not job": +UAI, +MAS

Will fight for Country: -UAI, -MAS

Delta grooms–brides on value of chastity: +UAI, +MAS (i.e. in high
UAI, high MAS societies, there is a greater sexual double standard;
brides are expected more than grooms to be chaste)

Percentage of women in government: -UAI, -MAS

Job ads require social abilities: -UAI, -MAS

Participation in associations: -UAI, -MAS

Catholics vs Protestants: +UAI, +MAS
(Wealthy only) Catholics vs Protestants: +UAI, +MAS

Corruption Perception Index: -UAI, -MAS

Ethnolinguistic vitality: +UAI, +MAS

(Wealthy only) Latitude: -UAI, -MAS



< < Correlated Inversely > >

Capacity leadership: -UAI, +MAS

(Wealthy only) Economic Freedom Index: -UAI, +MAS

1925 Need for Achievement: -UAI, +MAS


These results become even more impressive when noting that the
correlations with "Need for Achievement" only existed for 1925 survey
data, whereas the same survey repeated in 1950 gave no correlations;
thus Need for Achievement does not appear to be meaningfully related
to either UAI, MAS, or the joint factor which relates to both
dimensions.

This verifies the subjective impression that MAS and UAI are both
tapping into a single dimension, which I will momentarily call "X".
Here are several other variables which were not included in the
systematic analysis above which correlate with MAS and UAI.

Variables covarying positively with dimension X:

* Tipping
* Lynn's Anxiety index
* Faith in advertizing
* Confidence in the church (stronger with MAS)
* Religious upbringing (stronger with MAS)
* Neuroticism

* Use of cosmetics and deodorants (stronger with UAI)
* Latitude in wealthy countries (cold countries use more deodorant!)
* Agreeableness
* Conscientiousness


A couple things to note are that Lynn's Anxiety dimension was related
to frequency of storms and sunspots; both of these things may relate
to X as well.

The question of whether or not X exists seems to be answered. The
question now is: What should it be called? What does it mean?


--Mark

I suggest viewing it online so that the formatting is visible.


--Mark



www.childrenofmillennium.org/heroes/lykaios3.htm


The Black Death and European Intelligence:
An Evolutionary Perspective

December 5th, 2005

There has been much recent discussion in psychological and
sociological circles on the notion that the European plagues of the
Fourteenth through Eighteenth centuries had the effect of boosting
genotypic intelligence throughout Europe in a way which precipitated
the scientific and cultural advances of the Enlightenment. While any
conclusive analysis of history is necessarily impossible due to the
obvious restrictions on data collection, this subject seems
nevertheless to be worthy of some consideration. If it is correct
that the plagues increased genotypic intelligence in Europe, then two
things must be true, the first being that intelligence is a
characteristic with substantial heritability, the second being that
the plague disproportionately affected the survival and fertility of
the less intelligent relative to their more intelligent neighbors.

That the Black Death acted as a selection event is not a
controversial idea. Many researchers believe that the increased AIDS
resistance of ethnic Europeans is directly traceable to the plague
epidemic of the Fourteenth Century.1 When one third or more of a
population dies off, there will evidently be genetic consequences of
one kind or another, and the most obvious consequence of selection by
disease is genetic resistance to disease. The high incidence of
Sickle-Cell in African populations is an example of this process at
work-a single copy of the Sickle-Cell allele grants immunity to
malaria, the endemic plague of that region of the world. So the
concept that diseases such as the Black Death can alter the allelic
frequencies in a population group is uncontroversial. The question is
whether the Black Death could have had an impact on characteristics
besides those directly related to disease resistance.

Even before considering the specific details of the spread and effect
of the Black Death, there is good reason to assume that psychological
characteristics were of substantial importance in determining which
individuals succumbed, and which survived. In the modern world,
intelligence is known to correlate positively with the following:2

height,
health,
fitness,
metabolism,
lung capacity,
infant survival,
longevity, and
facial symmetry.
These correlates demonstrate a biological link between intelligence
and vitality that should logically transcend temporal and cultural
barriers which might prevent modern psychometric analyses from being
applied to the Fourteenth century. If individuals with less innate
intelligence had reduced health and fitness compared to their peers,
then the plague should have had a more severe impact on the less
intelligent - an impact which would inevitably lead to increased
intelligence throughout the entire population.

Intelligence probably served even better as a direct preventative
than as an indirect one. Figuring out how to survive an outbreak of
plague would have presented a difficult challenge to those alive
during the Middle Ages, and while healthier and higher status
medievals likely had better odds of surviving plague, those with
foresight would have been much better at avoiding the disease
entirely. Marchione di Coppe Stefani gives a horrific account of the
events in his contemporary Florentine Chronicle, writing that "There
was such a fear that no one seemed to know what to do."3 Yet there
were many who did manage to reason out a solution of one kind or
another; consider Boccaccio's words in the Decameron:


(T)here were those who thought that to live temperately and avoid all
excess would count for much as a preservative against seizures of
this kind. Wherefore they banded together, and dissociating
themselves from all others, formed communities in houses where there
were no sick, and lived a separate and secluded life, which they
regulated with the utmost care, avoiding every kind of luxury, but
eating and drinking moderately of the most delicate viands and the
finest wines, holding converse with none but one another, lest
tidings of sickness or death should reach them, and diverting their
minds with music and such other delights as they could devise.4

Compare this with another prevalent strategy for coping with the
horrors of the Black Death:


Others, the bias of whose minds was in the opposite direction,
maintained, that to drink freely, frequent places of public resort,
and take their pleasure with song and revel, sparing to satisfy no
appetite, and to laugh and mock at no event, was the sovereign remedy
for so great an evil: and that which they affirmed they also put in
practice, so far as they were able, resorting day and night, now to
this tavern, now to that, drinking with an entire disregard of rule
or measure, and by preference making the houses of others, as it
were, their inns, if they but saw in them aught that was particularly
to their taste or liking; which they, were readily able to do,
because the owners, seeing death imminent, had become as reckless of
their property as of their lives; so that most of the houses were
open to all comers, and no distinction was observed between the
stranger who presented himself and the rightful lord.4


It is not difficult to see why the former strategy would be not only
more successful at boosting survival chances, but would have had
greater appeal for the more intelligent, as it requires an
orientation towards the future rather than towards immediate
gratification. The failure to properly integrate present and future
in human thinking is described by Jensen as being a classic
manifestation of low intelligence:


(L)ow IQ individuals have a short time horizon; that is, they are
present-oriented and more lacking in foresight than most people.
Persons with low IQ fail to adequately and realistically imagine the
future consequences of their actions. Their immediate behavior is
therefore less thoughtful and more impulsive. 2

While other personality traits (such as Extroversion), and other
cultural beliefs (such as religious fatalism or a sense of
helplessness in the face of divine retribution) probably influenced
the decision to make merry and risk death by plague, this does not by
any means point to the conclusion that intelligence had no ability to
influence the outcome of an individual's decision. Consider for
instance the example of Isaac Newton; although he wasn't alive during
the original outbreak of plague in Europe, Newton left London to
avoid a then-current outbreak of plague, and survived to ultimately
become one of the most respected men of science.

Lastly, intelligence also shows merit as a candidate for selection by
the plague because of its correlates in the social arena - possibly
the most effective way in which intelligence could affect disease
survival is through social status and wealth. In the modern era, the
correlates of intelligence also include income the following:2

socioeconomic status of origin,
achieved socioeconomic status,
voluntary migration,
functional literacy,
accident avoidance, and
freedom from alcoholism.
Many of these have with larger correlation coefficients than those
related to general health, and all would have offered protection
against plague. Whether these social variables would have been
related to intelligence during the High Middle Ages is an interesting
question which lacks a definitive answer. Yet the relationship
between intelligence and social status is likely to be robust, given
that, according to David Buss' famous cross-cultural survey,
intelligence is universally valued as an attractive characteristic in
a spouse in wealthy and developing nations alike;2 this indicates an
old selective bias favoring intelligence which should logically allow
individuals with higher intelligence to climb the social ladder no
matter what the circumstances. Knowing also that intelligence in the
modern world grants improved performance in even the most mundane of
tasks such as cooking eggs or supermarket shopping,2 it is difficult
to imagine why intelligence would have lacked utility in the High
Middle Ages. After all, omelets and town markets are hardly an
innovation of the modern world; nor is social status, which was, if
anything, of more pronounced importance throughout the High Middle
Ages.

Of course, many historians imply that the Black Death could not have
acted as a selection event, making statements such as:

Few (families) can have been spared some loss, since the plague
killed indiscriminately, striking at rich and poor alike6

And:

Filth running in open ditches in the streets, fly-blown meat and
stinking fish, contaminated and adulterated ale, polluted well water,
unspeakable privies, epidemic disease, were experienced
indiscriminately by all social classes.7

If it is true that the plague struck indiscriminately, then there
would have been no way for any character trait to have been affected
by the plague. Yet contemporary accounts belie this interpretation;
John of Fordun wrote of Scotland that "This sickness befell people
everywhere, but especially the middling and lower classes, rarely the
great."8

This should come as no real surprise. The people of Europe were
already weakened before the onset of the plague by famine, brought
about in part by high population. More people in Europe meant that
more land had to be brought under cultivation, but much of the best
land had already been parceled off. But the wealthiest individuals
would have scarcely noticed food shortages; although perhaps not so
ignorant of hardship and food scarcity as Marie Antoinette, many
noble families, and even successful trades families living in the
High Middle Ages would have had more to eat for the entirety of their
lives than the lower classes, and would have therefore been in better
physical condition to resist plague. In other words, while there was
no perfect defense against plague, being rich and powerful was quite
helpful - and having rich and powerful relatives was the next best
thing.

It is useful to have this information on class effects, since there
is no good way that contemporaries could have estimated whether the
plague struck indiscriminately within social classes or had a
disproportionate effect on the less intelligent. The best that modern
scholars can do is attempt to make conceptual arguments and show that
the research carried out on modern populations, if it were applicable
to medievals, leads to the conclusion that the plague would have had
a positive net effect on genotypic intelligence in Europe.

But does psychometric research carried out on modern populations
really have any validity when applied to social groups which lived
and died six centuries ago? This is perhaps the lynch-pin of the
evolutionary argument: the assumption that medieval society was, even
if it differed in certain aspects, broadly comparable to modern
societies. Dunnigan and Nofi provide a brief and lucid summary which
should help to address this subject:

Medieval society was different, but not so different as to be totally
alien to what we experience in the 20th century. In the 14th century,
people were born, grew up, fell in love, married, had children, and
died. People ate, got sick, took baths, dressed up for special
occasions, went to church, attended wedding receptions, gossiped, got
drunk, went to work with hangovers, committed adultery, beat their
spouses, looked after their elderly parents, grieved for their dead,
went off to war, engaged in unprotected sex as adolescents,
celebrated Christmas, went skinnydipping, kept dogs as pets, and
consulted horoscopes.9

But most important of all is this simple statement:

You can still find medieval living conditions and sensibilities in
Third World nations.9
If true, this provides the necessary link between modern research on
the one hand and medieval society on the other. If the territories of
the Middle Ages - Fourteenth Century France, Fourteenth Century
Scandinavia, Fourteenth Century Britannia, and so on - can be viewed
merely as foreign, developing countries of the modern era, then there
is really nothing to prevent any analysis of modern nations from
being applied to the Middle Ages, provided that care is taken to
account for the uncertainties of history and the inherent quirks of
the medieval era.

Fortunately, most of these quirks can be largely subsumed into
variation which exists in the modern day. For instance, one of the
most profound differences between Fourteenth Century Europe and the
modern West is the existence of a powerful religious monopoly: the
Roman Catholic Church. Following the events of the Reformation, there
has been no such monopoly in the modern West to serve as a
comparison; the character of Catholicism has mellowed significantly
in the last several centuries. Still, the Islamic world may provide a
useful parallel to the medieval Church with its fervent religious
legalism, ritualistic devotional practices, powerful hierarchy, and
militaristic theological doctrines. While the comparison is of course
not perfect, the fact that institutions similar to the old Church do
exist in the modern world prevents the medieval religious structure
from creating an insurmountable barrier to comparisons between modern
and medieval societies: a modern data set is, in theory, at least,
broad enough to account for medieval religion.

Perhaps one difference with greater importance to this discussion is
the medieval castle. Lacking well developed military technology, the
stone fortress was an unrivaled symbol of autocratic mastery. Armies
defending in castles were so difficult to defeat that the only
reliable method for taking a castle required an overwhelming
numerical advantage applied over half a year's time, or longer -
siege warfare. This allowed nobles to firmly entrench themselves
within their private fortresses and easily resist attack from all but
the most dedicated, well armed, and well supplied of enemies. And
city walls of course provided similar defense for those residing
within them. This would have given medievals a sense of continuity
and stability lacking from the modern era, where firearms have become
ubiquitous in a way which renders the castle totally obsolete. Rocket
launchers and machine guns are common even in the developing world,
preventing useful fortresses from being built on the same scale as
those of the medieval era; this probably has the effect of making
modern societies more unstable than medieval ones.

But most other differences between medieval and modern societies can
be chalked up to technological differences, educational differences,
and differences in family structure, all of which are readily
observed to exist throughout the modern era. Thus, it is reasonable
to bring up cross-cultural research in order to compare societies
which are not only separated by geographic distance, but societies
separated by temporal distance.

Gerhard Meisenberg carried out a 2004 study on the World Values
Survey which is excellent for this purpose, titled "Talent,
Character, and the Dimensions of National Culture." In the abstract,
he reports the following (emphasis added):

This study investigates the dimensions of cultural variation in the
modern world as assessed by the World Values Survey. It confirms the
previously reported existence of two major dimensions of cultural
variation that can be described as 'modern' and 'postmodern,'
respectively. Modern values are characterized by skepticism and
critical thinking, with a rejection of religion and traditional
authority along with an interest in politics. In multiple regression
models, modern values are directly related to the IQ of the
population. Postmodern values are characterized by trust, tolerance,
and self-realization. In multiple regression models, they are
inversely related to corruption. Subjective well-being is positively
related to postmodern values and negatively to modern values. Modern
values are interpreted as the emancipation of reason from the
constraints of traditional custom and religion, and postmodern values
as the emancipation of pleasure-seeking and social emotions from the
constraints of dysfunctional social systems.10

Meisenberg's description of "modern" values is highly consistent with
general descriptions of value systems flourishing during the
Renaissance. The Middle Ages were generally characterized instead by
a broad acceptance of religion, metaphorical and literary thinking,
and defense of traditional authority and custom. Of course, it would
probably be inaccurate to claim that the medieval era was the
intellectual wasteland Enlightenment thinkers often described it as
being, but by the same token it is generally accepted that the
Enlightenment was characterized more by skepticism, critical
thinking, a rejection of religion and traditional authority, and an
interest in politics, than the preceding era. That such values
correlate with the average IQ of existing populations serves as
useful evidence suggesting that something - even if not necessarily
the Black Death - boosted the average intelligence in Europe during
the centuries preceding in a way that encouraged such values to grow.

It may be tempting to dismiss this unusual argument on the grounds
that evolution can't proceed over the span of a few generations. Yet
Vining found that genotypic IQ in the 1980's was dropping, due to
differential fertility alone, at the rate of 1.6 points per
generation in a white sample, and 2.4 points per generation in a
black sample.11 Herrnstein & Murray showed that a shift of IQ 3
points produces dramatic changes in societal functioning, changing
crime rates, education rates, and poverty rates by over ten
percent.12 It is also generally reported that most creative advances
come from those with IQs above the 130 IQ mark (for instance, the
chance of earning a Nobel Prize reaches its peak at 130 IQ);13 a 6-
point shift in average IQ from 97 to 103 would change the number of
individuals above 130 IQ from 14 per thousand to 36 per thousand,
roughly doubling the creative potential of a society undergoing such
a shift.

Remember, all that is necessary for natural selection to act on a
trait is for that trait to carry substantial heritability; in the
modern era, the heritability for measured IQ is approximately 75%, as
reported by the American Psychological Association.14 Could this
heritability have been lower during the Middle Ages? Indeed, it
probably was. Poor nutrition and widespread teratogens (such as
alcohol, which was consumed ubiquitously by medievals, even pregnant
mothers) would have added environmental variation to intelligence
differences existing within the population. This would not, however,
have eliminated the genetic contribution to intelligence, merely
watered it down. Even a more modest heritability of 60% or even 40%
would have been easily enough to allow for selective forces to act on
intelligence through a few hundred years of pestilence and plague.

As a final check on the utility of this model, it is useful to
compare the areas in Europe which were hit hardest with those that
suffered less overall from plague deaths. Because genetic diffusion
has taken place over the many generations since the primary selection
event represented by the onset of the Black Death in the middle of
the Fourteenth Century, the end of the plague in Europe during the
Eighteenth Century, and the start of the Twenty First Century, it
will not be possible to consider smaller areas and sub-populations,
but the hypothesis should still be testable at the larger scale.
According to Wikipedia, the Black Death struck Eastern Europe less
hard than Western Europe because of lower population density towards
the East;15 thus, the evolutionary model predicts higher overall
intelligence for Western than Eastern Europe. Does the data bear this
out? According to IQ studies compiled by Richard Lynn and Tatu
Vanhanen, Eastern Europe is significantly lower in average IQ than
Western Europe; here are the IQ figures themselves (all given
relative to a British mean of 100):16

102 IQ:
101 IQ:
100 IQ:
99 IQ:
98 IQ:
97 IQ:
96 IQ:
95 IQ:
94 IQ:
93 IQ:
92 IQ:
  Austria, Germany, Italy, Netherlands
Sweden, Switzerland
Belgium, United Kingdom
Hungary, Poland
Denmark, France, Norway
Czech Republic, Finland, Spain
Russia
Portugal, Slovenia
Romania
Bulgaria, Ireland
Greece



Despite a few outliers (namely, Portugal and Ireland), and further
despite some inescapable margin for error resulting from problems in
data collection and test design, it is apparent that the Western
European nations do indeed have higher overall averages than the
Eastern European nations in measured IQ, just as predicted.

Thus, the evolutionary argument can be considered complete: the trait
in question not only shows good heritability and apparent sensitivity
to selection by plague, but this model generates testable hypotheses
which are upheld by the available data. In a sense, then, what
medievals perceived as an act of divine retribution for their
sinfulness was instead a whetstone which honed their minds in such a
way as to allow for the scientific explosion modern historians
describe as "The Enlightenment."

But the outliers in the above table are worth further consideration.
Portugal has a substantial African element in its gene pool, as does
Greece, and it is therefore unsurprising to see these two countries
scoring low in IQ. But Ireland is more of a puzzle. Why would modern
Ireland score fully 7 IQ points below neighboring Great Britain? One
common answer, casually offerred by Matt Nuenke is that Ireland, too,
underwent a recent selection event after the Black Death: the potato
famine.17 Roughly a third of the Irish migrated from Ireland, leaving
half of the remainder to starve. Voluntary migration is correlated
with IQ, probably for many reasons touched on above such as foresight
or sufficient wealth for travelling abroad; the more intelligent left
Ireland and experienced with higher survival rates than the less
intelligent.

This is arguably what was observed in the recent New Orleans
disaster, where it was primarily the poorest and most strongly Black
element of the population that remained behind to suffer the brunt of
hurricane Katrina. It is especially interesting to note that New
Orleans has a large Creole population which, despite being socially
identified as "Black," was notably absent in disaster footage,
indicating that they generally fled the area alongside the ethnic
Europeans. Given that the heritability of racial IQ differences is
somewhere on the order of 50%,2 this is compelling evidence that the
selective model presented in this paper is in effect during many
different kinds of disasters, not only disease epidemics. It seems
especially effective with disease, however, given the extremely high
rates of HIV and AIDS in contemportary Black and Latino populations
relative to those of more intelligent racial groups.

One question this analysis cannot answer is "Why didn't East Asia
experience a Renaissance if Europe did?" East Asia also experienced
plague deaths, possibly more than Europe did, and shows a
significantly higher average IQ. This presents a problem for any
explanation on the European Renaissance which relies entirely on
disease and intelligence, and points out a weakness in the model, and
the necessity of bringing other explanations to bear. It is worth
pointing out that historians have never needed evolutionary or
psychometric models to explain the changing value systems of the
Enlightenment period; there have always been reasonable military,
political, religious, social, and economic explanations available.
Some probable environmental causes for the rise of the European
Enlightenment include:

Weapons technology, such as gunpowder and the crossbow which together
undermined the authority of the aristocracy by outmoding its knights,
and cannons, which greatly lessened the societal stability created by
castles,
The rise of the cities, which further weakened the power of the
aristocracy by developing the economic power to rival and ultimately
surpass that of most nobles;
Increasing education and literacy of the peasant classes;
Increasing anticlericalist sentiments germinated around the
Fourteenth century which weakened Church authority; and also
The plague itself, which destabilized the social system and created a
labor shortage which increased the economic power of skilled
tradesmen.

Disputing the salience of these points would be counterproductive,
since they all offer useful explanations for the events of the
Renaissance. But many of these can only offer a speculative
explanation for the lack of any obvious East Asian Renaissance, and
all of them lack the benefit of a century of psychometric and
sociological research, which the evolutionary explanation has behind
it. Consider for example anticlericalism, which, although a
reasonable explanation for the eventual Reformation with the added
appeal of being restricted to Europe and not Asia, is nevertheless
missing a scientific basis. There is also the further question of the
timing of the Reformation, which is imperfectly consistent with
anticlericalism as an explanation-opposition to the Church would have
been strongest around the time of the onset of the Black Death, so
why did the heresy of Wycliffe fail to take root when Martin Luther's
Reformation succeeded? Of course, this is precisely what the
evolutionary model would predict, since the early anticlericalism
would have arisen before intelligence had risen sufficiently to
encourage organized political action against oppressive religious
regimes; the plagues continued to wash over the European populace for
many centuries following the initial outbreak. The best use of the
analysis detailed in this paper, then, is to apply it as a supplement
to more traditional models rather than as a single overarching
explanation for the Enlightenment in Europe.

Although the conclusions drawn in this paper are obviously tentative,
they suggest a few interesting consequences for human society in the
future. Perhaps some disaster, affecting billions of human beings
over several generations, could someday raise intelligence to
Enlightenment levels and beyond. Perhaps an effective eugenics
program which raised the average intelligence by fewer than ten
points could spur a new Renaissance in the populace which dared to
apply it on itself. But most intriguingly, it appears that the
consequences of rising intelligence are an increase in
secularization, a rejection of traditional authority, and heightened
political participation. This appears true on both an individual and
national scale, given not only Meisenburg's analysis above, but the
evidence that IQ relates on an individual level to liberalism,13 to a
rejection of traditional religion13, and to the personal decision to
vote in democratic elections,12. This being the case, it appears that
the survival of traditional religious and governmental forms such as
monotheism and a centralized monarchy would be jeopardized by the
application of global-wide eugenics. Or, stated another way, perhaps
the only hope of substantially increasing human intelligence through
eugenic means resides in the adoption of modern religious and
governmental forms which anticipate the higher intelligence of future
human beings.



References


1. Trinkl, Alice. "A Relative Of Smallpox Is First Virus Found To
Invade Cells As Hiv Does." December 2, 1999.


2. Jensen, Arthur. The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability.
(1998)


3. Stefani, Marchione di Coppo. Cronaca Fiorentina. Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores, Vol. 30. , ed. Niccolo Rodolico. Citta di Castello: 1903-
1913


4. Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. M. Rigg, trans. Vol. 1, pp. 5-
11. London: David Campbell. (1921)


5. ABC Radio National Science Program. "Descent of Man: Stone Age
Minds in Modern Skulls." (2000)


6. Bolton, ed. Ormrod and Lindley. The World Upside Down: Black Death
in England. (1996)


7. Holt and Rosser, The English Medieval Town. (1990)


8. John of Fordun, Scotichronicon. (1384)


9. Dunnigan, James F. and Nofi, Albert A. "Medieval Life and the
Hundred Years War." Hundred Years War Archives. (1997)


10. Meisenburg, Gerhard "Talent, Character, and the Dimensions of
National Culture." Mankind Quarterly. (2004)


11. Vining, D. R. "On the possibility of the re-emergence of a
dysgenic trend with respect to intelligence in American fertility
differentials." Intelligence, 6, 241-264. (1982) 12. Herrnstein,
Richard and Murray, Charles. The Bell Courve: Intelligence and Class
Structure in American life Free Press (1994) 13. Henshaw, Mark W.
These Hidden Truths: Psychometrics, Society, and the Unspeakable
Heresies of Our Time Iuniverse (2005) 14. Neisser, Ulric. et
al. "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns." Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association. (1996)


15. Wikipedia: The Online Encyclopedia.


16. Lynn, Richard and Tatu, Vanhanen. IQ and the Wealth of Nations.
(2002)

17. Nuenke, Matt. "A Review of The Book Eugenics: A Reassessment by
Richard Lynn."

> I don't have a citation handy, but I remember reading
> that someone tried to match a variety of personality
> disorders with scores on the FFM, but decided it was
> worthless because the same pattern emerged time and
> again--high N with low A and low C.

I've read research showing that some PDs are high A. I can't remember which, but
I'd be surprised if Dependents or indeed most cluster C's were disagreeable.
However, cluster B defintely seems to fit the high low A, low C diagnosis -
perhaps the analysis was restricted to antisocial types?


> Another researcher claimed to have found that
> personality disorder was represented by a personality
> factor all its own, but I refused to pay $30 for the
> privilege of reading it.

That's Andresen's paper. He had plenty of relevant information in the abstract:


___________________

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1\
0629431&dopt=Abstract

Six basic dimensions of personality and a seventh factor of generalized
dysfunctional personality: a diathesis system covering all personality
disorders.

Andresen B.

Psychiatric Clinic, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.

The five-factor model (FFM) of personality has recently been claimed to be
comprehensive for all dimensionally conceived personality disorders (PDs). This
assumption is refuted on the grounds of a principal component analysis conducted
for three basic factor inventories (FFPI, NEO-FFI, Hamburg Personality
Inventory), 22 explorative facet scales for normal personality and a
questionnaire inventory (Inventory of Clinical Personality Accentuations) of 24
PD scales. Seven substantial orthogonal Varimax factors were found explaining
73% of the total variance. The five factors of the FFM were replicated. In
addition, a new basic factor 'risk and competition seeking' (basic dimension
'risk', BD-R) emerged replicating findings of Andresen. The massive seventh
factor was substantially loaded by all 24 PD scales and interpreted as 'general
dysfunctional personality' (GDP). Most of the highly loaded scales describe
varying forms of cognitive aberration. Together with GDP, the six-factor model
now explains about 73% of all PD scales, thus, a virtually comprehensive
descriptive diathesis system is achieved. Without GDP and BD-R, only 25% can be
accounted for by the FFM. Five of the six normal dimensions will be loaded with
positive and negative signs by some PDs. Neuroticism (BD-N) is still unique
regarding its positive substantial correlations with almost all PD scales. BD-N
is also the only normal factor which is correlated with GDP at about 0.50. A
geometric model for the relationships between basic and clinical factors is
presented.

__________________


Notice particularly that "Five of the six normal dimensions will be loaded with
positive and negative signs by some PDs. Neuroticism (BD-N) is still unique
regarding its positive substantial correlations with almost all PD scales." In
other words, low A and low C aren't predictive of all PDs; even though he
doesn't list them, apparently there are some high A, high A PDs. I wouldn't be
surprised if Histrionic and Dependent were Agreeable, not only by the
descriptions but because Histrionic is primarily female. It's less easy to say
which PDs might be high in Conscientiousness, but Obsessive Compulsive springs
to mind.

However, the take home message I see is that Neuroticism is a huge red flag for
personality disorder, and I've also heard that A and C were generally (if not in
all cases) protective against PD. Interestingly, this may indicate that
Psychometric GDP is nothing other than the inverse of coefficient "alpha," which
is the higher-order factor on which A, C, and (inversely) N all load on. If
you're interested, you should probably try to dig up information on that.
There's really more than can be put into this post, but we've been discussing
cultural differences on this list, and both cultural Uncertainty Avoidance and
Masculinity are linked to low coefficient alpha in a country; Japan has the
lowest alpha, while Sweden, Norway, and Denmark had the highest.


> On the Jews, a couple of (Jewish) writers have written
> that the Ashkenazi population was at around 1 million
> both early in the Middle Ages and at the end, even while
> the European population expanded greatly.  Presumably
> the difference was the result of assimilation.

Mmm... Not necessarily, but that seems to be a good call.


> What sort of personality is able to resist assimilation
> for hundreds of years while living in reclusive little
> ghettoes with a life hemmed in by a huge number of
> seemingly arbitrary regulations--far more demanding than
> the Old Testament-- governing every aspect of life in
> minute detail (do Jews have higher rates of Obsessive-
> Compulsive Disorder?), while mainstream society both
> despised it and yet kept the door wide open for
> assimilation at the same time?

Good question! I'll have to think about that.


> > The trouble is, I can't find any good information
> > on schizophrenia rates by race or geographical location.
>
> Examining several races in the same country would be better.

Of course, but when information is scarce, I'll take what I can get.


> Compare for example rates of AD(H)D diagnosis in the
> US with Europe.  Either we're way too high or they're
> way too low--I suspect the former.

I'm not so ready to accept that interpretation. Everyone *I've* met who admits
to having ADD seemed quite solidly ADD. There was clearly something strange
about them - they needed constant sensory input. Once I had a friend in my room
with no light but a candle burning and tried to have a quiet discussion with
him. It was pathetic; within five minutes I could see him casting about for
something - anything! - that might provide sensory stimulation. I regularly hang
around in darkness, of course (even as I type, my room is lit by nothing other
than the evening sky and a crescent moon) and none of my other friends ever
showed that kind of reaction to restricted stimulation. Knowing the relationship
that early television watching has with the development of ADD, I feel fortunate
that my parents discouraged me from watching - I only had about an hour a day
when most of my contemporaries were getting three times that dose.


--Mark


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> Whites: Cluster A
> Blacks: Cluster B
> Northeast Asians: Cluster C

Yep. The trouble is, I can't find any good information on schizophrenia rates by race or geographical location.

> If sound data and reasoning can back this up, this
> might make an excellent addition to the next revision
> of Rushton's *Race, Evolution and Behavior*.

Mmm, this kind of reasoning is in orthogonal to Rushton's r/K theory, since Euros are nominally in between East Asians and Blacks on all traits. If Rushton were interested in this at all, he's crossing his fingers that Euros are midway on B and C and that all three races are roughly equal on A. Or more likely yet, he's hoping that East Asians have the lowest overall rates, and Blacks have the highest overall rates.


> P.S. There seem to be a lot of Jews in Hollywood, in
> verbal current-events media, and in the business world
> acting quite Histrionic and Narcissistic (Cluster B PDs).
> But Jews are (as Woody Allen points out frequently)
> extremely neurotic (Cluster C PDs) and also hyper-prone
> to joining cults (a Cluster A behavior). I wonder where
> they might fit into this and if they tend to favor one
> PD cluster over another.

I suspect that what you are mistaking for disorders in the cluster B and C range is frequently either a manifestation of, or else is a comorbid disorder existing in combination with, a much more firmly entrenched and fundamental Paranoid personality. My observation is that basically no matter what kind of Jew you're dealing with, whether his or her behavior is dramatically self centered or shy and reclusive or stunningly creative or passively aggressive or belligerently antagonistic or whatever:

They're still paranoid.

Seriously, look at this, it's the declaration of Jewishness:

http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/paranoid.htm

Disaster is on the horizon!
The world is full of enemies!
There are no accidents - negative events are purposely initiated by hostile others!
All events relate to me!
*I* am never to blame or guilty. *Other people* are!
I am different from the rest of humanity; often I have unique awareness or insight.


I'll be surprised if you're not laughing by now.


--Mark


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> Whites: Cluster A
> Blacks: Cluster B
> Northeast Asians: Cluster C

Yep. The trouble is, I can't find any good information on schizophrenia rates by
race or geographical location.


> If sound data and reasoning can back this up, this
> might make an excellent addition to the next revision
> of Rushton's *Race, Evolution and Behavior*.

Mmm, this kind of reasoning is in orthogonal to Rushton's r/K theory, since
Euros are nominally in between East Asians and Blacks on all traits. If Rushton
were interested in this at all, he's crossing his fingers that Euros are midway
on B and C and that all three races are roughly equal on A. Or more likely yet,
he's hoping that East Asians have the lowest overall rates, and Blacks have the
highest overall rates.


> P.S. There seem to be a lot of Jews in Hollywood, in
> verbal current-events media, and in the business world
> acting quite Histrionic and Narcissistic (Cluster B PDs).
> But Jews are (as Woody Allen points out frequently)
> extremely neurotic (Cluster C PDs) and also hyper-prone
> to joining cults (a Cluster A behavior). I wonder where
> they might fit into this and if they tend to favor one
> PD cluster over another.

I suspect that what you are mistaking for disorders in the cluster B and C range
is frequently either a manifestation of, or else is a comorbid disorder existing
in combination with, a much more firmly entrenched and fundamental Paranoid
personality. My observation is that basically no matter what kind of Jew you're
dealing with, whether his or her behavior is dramatically self centered or shy
and reclusive or stunningly creative or passively aggressive or belligerently
antagonistic or whatever:

They're still paranoid.

Seriously, look at this, it's the declaration of Jewishness:

http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/paranoid.htm

Disaster is on the horizon!
The world is full of enemies!
There are no accidents - negative events are purposely initiated by hostile
others!
All events relate to me!
*I* am never to blame or guilty. *Other people* are!
I am different from the rest of humanity; often I have unique awareness or
insight.


I'll be surprised if you're not laughing by now.


--Mark


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--- In beyondismscience 61, Mark William Henshaw wrote:
> I have noticed that people who seem to display striking
> cluster-B personality disorder profiles
> (Narcissistic/Antisocial/Borderline/Histrionic) tend to have
> parents who also display a personality disorder in the same
> cluster, but not those of the same exact personality disorder
> as their offspring.
[...]
> If this is true, then we should expect to see high rates of
> Narcissistic, Borderline, and Histrionic PD in Black and Hispanic
> populations, as these are known to have high rates of Antisocial
> Personality Disorder. (I also wouldn't be surprised to see that
> East Asians with PDs are heaviest in cluster C, but I can't
> provide a shred of evidence to support this particular hunch).

I would expect the same since Cluster C is the anxiety cluster and
Northeast Asian is the anxiety race. Also, we should note that high
Openness is an important factor for both scientific-creativity and
schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, and that Nordic Whites tend to be
over-achievers in original science. Perhaps a strong hypothesis might
claim:

Whites: Cluster A
Blacks: Cluster B
Northeast Asians: Cluster C

If sound data and reasoning can back this up, this might make an
excellent addition to the next revision of Rushton's *Race, Evolution
and Behavior*.

Thanks for bringing this up, Mark.

P.S. There seem to be a lot of Jews in Hollywood, in verbal current-
events media, and in the business world acting quite Histrionic and
Narcissistic (Cluster B PDs). But Jews are (as Woody Allen points out
frequently) extremely neurotic (Cluster C PDs) and also hyper-prone
to joining cults (a Cluster A behavior). I wonder where they might
fit into this and if they tend to favor one PD cluster over another.


-Chris

I have noticed that people who seem to display striking cluster-B
personality disorder profiles
(Narcissistic/Antisocial/Borderline/Histrionic) tend to have parents
who also display a personality disorder in the same cluster, but not
those of the same exact personality disorder as their offspring. I
haven't noticed this with Cluster A or C, but there is reason to
believe that the cluster A disorders, Schizoid/Schizotypal/Paranoid,
are also heritable as a cluster - they tend to show up in people with
family histories of schizophrenia.

If this is true, then we should expect to see high rates of
Narcissistic, Borderline, and Histrionic PD in Black and Hispanic
populations, as these are known to have high rates of Antisocial
Personality Disorder. (I also wouldn't be surprised to see that East
Asians with PDs are heaviest in cluster C, but I can't provide a shred
of evidence to support this particular hunch).


--Mark

> > "Jewish nations."
>
> Alright, I'll bite.  How many "predominantly Jewish nations"
> are there in the world right now???

Answering this question is left as an exercise for the reader. One
thing I've noticed repeatedly when reading Hofstede is that he lacks
clarity of expression - and to such a degree that you can't be
confident on whether he means "X is very, very Y," or "X is extremely
not Y." Apparently this is a holy tradition which has been carried on
by others in his blessed name.


> Is it _Culture's Consequences_?

That's the title, yep.


> 1.  They tend to be very driven to succeed--they try harder.

Or they could be driven to *win.* A high E, high N, low A profile is
perfect for fueling that competetive drive.


> If their famous ingroup altruism is not explained by higher
> A, maybe it is explained by higher C, creating a sense of
> obligation.

Actually, *lower* Agreeableness probably creates a better sense of
ingroup altruism. As you may remember, I posted a few articles on e-l
regarding prejudice, and low-A came up as a positive predictor of
prejudice. (I can think of a lot of models that might explain this,
and my favorite involves a bell curve, but the simplest way to think
of it is like this: say that high-A's are suspicious of family 1% of
the time, and strangers 20% of the time, and low-A's are four times
as suspicious as high A's.)


> > IND correlates inversely with the importance attached to
religion.
>
> Now here is something else that's curious.  Supposedly prosperity
> increases IND. (And, according to John Wesley, it also undermines
> religious piety.)  However, David Landau in _Piety and Power_
writes
> that the Haredi (so-called "ultra-orthodox") Jews in America (as
> opposed to Israel where they freeload off the secular Israeli state
> and American Jewish generosity) are the most economically successful
> segment of Judaism as well as the most religiously intense.

I remembered thinking a while back, before I got my hands on
_Culture's Consequences_ and had only my own reasoning to rely on,
that the problem was always

intelligence --> wealth --> individualism --> dysgenesis

and I thought "if only there were a way to break the chain off where
it links wealth and individualism together."


> The key to Haredi success in resisting the temptations of
> prosperity seems to be intensive religious education through
> all grade levels, and self-insulation from
> the electronic mass media may also play a valuable role.

That's what I'm hoping to do with my cultist buddies.


> BTW, based on your first hand observation of Jews, do they seem
> to work harder than other whites?

No way. They're humorously Neurotic in my experience, but no, I
wouldn't describe them as hardworking.

The thing is that East Asians are Neurotic too, but they seem to
be "internally" Neurotic, assuminhg that there's always something
wrong with them - anxious, self effacing, and polite. The Jews are
more "externally" Neurotic and assume there's always something wrong
with the surroundings or with you - defensive, demanding, and hostile.


> How would you compare them with East Asians in similar positions--
> or, assuming you have had less exposure to East
> Asians in analogous positions, with the reputations that East Asian
> managers, entrepreneurs, and professionals have for working very
hard
> and putting in longer hours than Whites?

I really think it's just that East Asians try to achieve, and Jews
try to win. Jews are always looking for status; East Asians, never.
(LTO cultures feel that humility is a virtue.) This is why Asians
are "the silent minority." This is probably also why Jews are
perceived as parasitic; what do lawyers, politicians, actors,
screenwriters, advertizers, and bankers really offer to society? Not
much compared to architects, engineers, chemists, electricians, and
mathematicians. But they do get more status, and more wealth.


> Do you get the impression that
> Jews are extra-hard workers or put in longer than
> average hours? Or are they more like Aryans than Orientals?

According to my impressions, Jews and East Asians are on opposite
ends of the spectrum with Euros in the middle. East Asians are
annoyingly Conscientious; Jews are a lot more fun. I should stress
that all of this is just a general impression and that there are
exceptions; I mean, you've never seen competition until you've been
to a Tekken tournament.

(Tekken is a one-on-one fighting game dominated by East Asians who
share only one psychological trait: a complete absense of class and
style. These video games often encourage a practice known
as "juggling," whereby you punch or kick your computerized opponent
into the air and then repeatedly scrape his toes with your own
character's fists, thereby buoying him upwards while damaging him.
Your opponent, of course, has no recourse except to wait patiently
while you complete your tedious typing exercise and achieve as great
of an imbalance in your advantage as possible. This is viewed
as "skill" within the context of Tekken, while making fun of your
opponent for carrying out this ridiculous dance and asking how many
WPM he gets is frowned upon. I once asked a Tekken player "If there
were a button you could push which would allow you to automatically
win, would you push it?" And of course his answer was "Of course!")


> Traditional religions, especially monotheistic ones, tend
> to legitimize patriarchal authority structures and to
> discourage individualism.

(Protestantism legitimizes - or at least goes along with - low PDI
and low UAI, but it's still a high MAS religion.)


> So which is the chicken and which is the egg?

I think MAS and monotheism probably both influence one another.


> > I agree that LTO is better than I first gave it credit for.
> > Yet LTO still seems like a bandaid for a cultural schema
> > which doesn't include intelligence: LTO looks like -IND + IQ,
>
> I'm guessing that when you write "include," you mean "acknowledge."

Yes.


> LTO seems to me to be synonymous with cultural continuity.

No... it's really more to do with perseverence and thrift and
whatnot. High LTOers save a lot and invest a lot. They're big on
deferred gratification. In fact "respect for tradition" is part of
*short* term orientation, as well as saving face; high LTO represents
adaptability of traditions. Also, the family is a business to LTO
cultures, and they like to carefully nurture it into success; "work
and family life are one." There's a lot more to do with money than
with intangibles like human relationships and with culture.

Trust me, Alypius, 80% of what you are interested in is contained in
Individualism.


> It seems logical that this characteristic would be inversely
> correlated with IND; I'm not sure how important IQ would be to it

Let's put it this way: The Euros are very high IND and moderately low
LTO, and the Asians are very high LTO and moderately low IND. But
what about the brown people? Why, there they are, very low IND, very
low LTO! I can only assume that high intelligence creates a society
which is capable of either building a technological and economic base
and then immediately applying this to hedonistic ends, or, that high
intelligence creates a society which is extremely stable and fairly
safe to live in.


> although a high IQ culture that wanted to preserve cultural
> continuity would probably be better at creating the institutions
> and custorms that would allow its goal to be
> attained.  But Middle Eastern cultures are no doubt higher
> on LTO than higher IQ European cultures such as the US.

"No doubt?" Shame on you, Alypius. Shame! But maybe not too much
shame; high LTO cultures tend to think in terms of "either full or no
confidence." It's short term socieites which Hofstede identifies as
having "probabilistic thinking." Unless this relationship is
artifactual, Seekers might be stuck with a low LTO culture. This
isn't all bad, but it does suggest a decreased ability to withstand
low-tech, survivalist conditions; thrift is a necessity during a
civilizational brown out.


> Is it possible that increasing the rules and regulations--both
> de jure and de facto rules--can itself increase UAI?

Never ask a Seeker if something is possible; unless that something
creates an internal contradiction, the answer is "yes." (Apparently
we're more Aristotilian than Platonic. Oh and more STO than LTO;
Asians love contradictions, which explains why they never got
anywhere with science.) But if you want to know whether increasing
uncertainty avoidance in government will *probably* change the
underlying culture, I'm less sure. Maybe. If you run away from
something enough, it might tend to become scarier than if you try to
get used to it.


> > On the other hand, MAS, which I haven't discussed much in
> > the past, is much more interesting. It has implications for
> > eugenics (rich, low MAS cultures have higher birthrates
>
> How much higher? Like Sweden? They're still well below replacement,
> although they did manage stay near replacement longer than
> most European countries.

Page 331: "The relationship between MAS and population growth was
complex. Across the 28 poorer countries MAS showed a positive zero-
order correlation whith population growth; across the 22 wealthier
countries, a significant second-order negative correlation." I can't
give the actual numbers because I don't have them. All I could find
was this:

Respondents saying that "marriage needs children: -.72 IND"


> Yes, and I basically agree with your analysis of them.
> Their feminine tendencies did not arise solely from modern
> Marxism,

(Marxism is more a low PDI than low MAS phenomenon.)


> but had deep roots in their history and culture.
> I'm sure militaristic Sparta was also a
> low MAS culture (compare Viking Scandanavia and warlike
> Celtic Ireland, both, like Sparta, with relatively
> independent women), but culturally
> sophisticated Athens was high MAS.  Athens' foreign
> policy was also more expansionist than Sparta's.

Well, Celtic Ireland was also culturally sophisticated. It was
actually an interesting mixture between sophistication and
primitiveness; barbarism. Remember that the Celts had their own
writing system which they invented independently of others (but
seldom used because of social restrictions), understood astrology and
had advanced social networks which allowed the building of
Stonehenge, and had good hygiene - the word for "soap" is Celtic in
origin. I think the Greeks were blessed with a richer climate, and
were possibly more intelligent (although you have to wonder, since
the Greeks were further south, had a greater influence by
middleeastern DNA, and probably also had less Ice Age pressure to
develop high g). If you compare high MAS and low MAS cultures of
equal intelligence today when climate has been largely negated by
technology, I think you'll find that there's no difference in
cultural sophistication.


> > the more obvious culprit: Bioegalitarian hysteria is much
> > less prevalent in Japan.
>
> What do you think accounts for this? Why haven't they "turned
> against themselves" the way the Germans did after both countries'
> defeat in WW2?

* Germans are Individualist

* Germany is low LTO (short term cultures value "tolerance for
others" over thrift)

* Germany is low in Power Distance

* Germany's "peer group" is dominated by Jews who made Germany feel
guilty.


> I don't think American levels of IND need to be increased.
> Can they be lowered without making a country poorer?

You suggest religious education, but I think a little poverty never
hurt anyone. The amount of wealth in the modern West is ridiculous;
even the "poor" live like kings.


> Does adopting English, as both countries have done,
> tend to convey some influence that weakens UAI?)

Nah, Ireland and the Philippines just use religion as a cultural
identifier. At least that's what Hofstede claims, and I believe him.
Like I said, they aren't really Catholic, they just pretend to be
because the genuine non-Catholics piss them off.


> Or increase sex role differentiation? (Or decrease it to lower MAS?)

Sure, why not? Adopt a "kindfeindlich" culture, encourage boys to
fight and never cry, constantly grade your children's performance
relative to one another and to population standards, and insist that
they have to love their parents no matter how despicable those
parents are, and you could probably boost MAS.


> > How to boost PDI: ? Increase stratification ?
>
> Are you sure that low PDI countries are actually less
> stratified than high PDI? Or are the classes merely more
> permeable? Less class consciousness?

Don't ever ask a Seeker if he's sure of anything, either, because the
answer is going to be "no." Nevertheless, wealth is distributed more
evenly in low PDI societies. High PDI societies don't really have a
middle class. If you find some way to eliminate the middle class, you
might find people are more willing to genuflect towwards authority.
But they might just get angry and revolt.

One thing I thought was interesting is that people in low PDI
societies like consultative managers. People in high PDI societies
prefer authoritative managers or "democratic" managers who take votes
for everything and don't manage anything at all. In other words,
there is always a segment in high PDI societies which won't stand for
the stratification. Perhaps this segment is largest in the countries
characterised by the lowest PDI, and this may be what keeps economic
and social equality in place - if the system eliminates the middle
class, they might force the system to change in such a way that a
middle class comes to exist.

Really, though, PDI seems to me like "true" individualism; it's what
I always valued as individualism. People in low PDI nations have much
more leeway in their opinions and are encouraged to think for
themselves. Authorities are treated like ordinary people, and have to
take the opinions of their subordinates into account - people don't
obey tyrants in low PDI nations. There's also much less bureaucracy
and more personal responsibility; people don't pass the buck in low
PDI nations. They might arrange themselves into groups, but within
the group they aren't just part of some deindividualized mass, and
are "allowed" to think and feel. Parents ask their kids what they
think in low PDI nations; parents in high PDI nations dole out
spankings and hugs.

(Incidentally, PDI shows strong effects within society - the upper
classes endorse low PDI values, while the lower classes endorse high
PDI values. This harkens back to my finding that PDI and national IQ
correlate at around -40%.)


> > Note that IND and UAI, taken together, are especially
> > important in
> > dealing with ethnic strife: Collectivistic, Uncertainty Avoiding
> > cultures are full of purges and genocides. You've gotta love the
> > Middle East. Maybe if America is lucky it will be able to
> > recreate the wonderful conditions prevailing over there,
> > over here.
>
> Yes, it does seem to me there is a tendency in the contemporary
> West to become more like the Middle East and the Balkans

They say you should take care not to become what you fight against;
the United States hasn't fought a defensive war for a hundred years.
Meddling is the first sign of increasing UAI: a need to control
sources of anxiety.


> Canada seems to have decisively embraced the ME/Balkans model,
> and the formation of the EU virtually requires such a model,
> although there does seem to be some resistance to accomodating
> "undiluted" Islam.

Oh, by the way, consolidating countries might increase their
collective MAS. High MAS nations tend to be larger. So do high PDI
nations.


> The USA,
> which typically falls in with the dominant trends of other western
> countries, seems to be by far the most ambivalent country regarding
> multiculturalism (although George W. Bush has recently made it
> clear by some of his comments that he is not among the ambivalent;
> he is quite comfortable with moving in a more multiculti direction).
> The seeming ambivalence of the US regarding the current strong
> multicultural trend in Western civ may be due to our rising UAI.
> We are currently incapable of coming down either decisively for it
> or decisively against it, or of openly debating the question.
> Either we will "drift" to a decision, almost imperceptibably
> except in hindsight, which I think is the more likely case; or
> at some point American society will simply "snap" and do
> something drastic, although I have no idea in which direction.

Bah. High UAI cultures don't drift! Drifting is uncertain and
necessarily given over to chance, and high UAI cultures hate chance.
If they're going to invest, it will be in gold and gems, not
intangible "corporations" which could merge, split, or disintegrate
at any moment. If they are going to play games, it will be something
like chess, checkers, or shogi, nothing with cards or dice. And if
they are careening helplessly towards an uncertain future, they will
leap towards it rather than passively waiting to drown in the sea of
possibility that surrounds them. Aggression! Control! Strike first!
Strike now! It is our only defense against the lurking chaos that
lies in store for us all!

It takes a while to change a nation's character, of course, and in
the 1970's UAI was only 46 in America, but Neuroticism has also
increased a full SD over the last 50 years. The Jews had better watch
out for this society they've created in the 20th century to be
their "safe" haven in a "dangerous" world; only the poor, the
numerous, and the unintelligent have nothing to fear from political
purges and genocide.


--Mark

> And in fact, when averaging all predominantly Jewish nations'
> [Jewish communities'???--ams]

"Jewish nations."

 However, you'll find if you can get your hands on Hofstede's book

 it seems that Jews are indeed
> > high on Openness - but also low in Agreeableness and high in
> > Neuroticism, as I have suggested on previous occasions.
>
> ams: And higher on Conscientiousness

No, PDI correlates *positively* with Conscientiousness!

Thus, the extremely low PDI of Israel (higher only than one country - Austria, I believe) is inconsistent with claims of high Jewish C.


> Are there differences between the scores of secular Israeli
> Jews and fundamentalist Israeli Jews?

IND correlates inversely with the importance attached to religion.

Note that UAI tends to have a greater effect on the *style* of religion a country adopts; MAS and IND(inversely) are associated with traditional religiosity.

> And that LTO--Long Term Orientation--looks interesting.
> The US should score extremely low on that one.

I agree that LTO is better than I first gave it credit for. Yet LTO still seems like a bandaid for a cultural schema which doesn't include intelligence: LTO looks like -IND + IQ,

and probably also has some inverse function of Extroversion thrown in.

On the other hand, MAS, which I haven't discussed much in the past, is much more interesting. It has implications for eugenics (rich, low MAS cultures have higher birthrates

and tend to focus more on bio-related fields than mass production), war (high MAS cultures fight more), ethnic relations (high MAS cultures are much less forgiving of weeak minority groups) and intergroup struggles (high MAS cultures tend to see life as a zero sum game; feminism requires that men be lowered, affirmative action demands that Euros be lowered. Low MAS cultures are more interested in quality of life).

Note to Chris: Nordic nations are feminine. *Extremely* feminine.

 the more obvious culprit: Bioegalitarian hysteria is much less prevalent in Japan.

> How do these traits develop? Could a country's government
> "engineer" its culture in such as way as to raise or lower
> its scores on these various scales?

Yes, in some cases.

How to boost IND: increase general wealth.

How to boost UAI: increase perceptions of threat.

How to boost MAS: ? Encourage competition in children ?

How to boost PDI: ? Increase stratification ?

Note that IND and UAI, taken together, are especially important in dealing with ethnic strife: Collectivistic, Uncertainty Avoiding cultures are full of purges and genocides. You've gotta love the Middle East. Maybe if America is lucky it will be able to recreate the wonderful conditions prevailing over there, over here.

Your message comes in a timely fashion, since I just three days ago picked up
Hofstede's book from my college library. I now feel far more confident in my
understanding of these cultural dimensions, and am beginning to see how they are
often poorly described and even misnamed. Most notably, Individualism *is*
something directly caused by wealth and prosperity, and actually has little to
do with "true" individualism of thought - IND is really just hedonism and
selfishness, and this explains why the only personality characteristic it loads
on is Extroversion. Individualism is great in moderation, but in the extreme,
it's pure poison.


> > I've been wondering for a while about a puzzle presented by
> > the Ashkenazim. They seem phenomenally, paranoiacally racist,
> > yet at the same time they dominate liberalism and liberal
> > movements, moreso than conservative movements (although that
> > may be less true today).
>
> Other than Paul Gottfried, how many Jewish paleocons can you name?

I don't follow politics.


> > mwh:Is it really feasible for a fundamentally low-O,
> > nationalist/conservative group, to be able to get along
> > well enough with the high-O egalitarian/liberal mainstream
> > long enough to dominate its agenda?
>
> ams: I think your looking at this the wrong way.  In analyzing
> Jewish activism, I think the conservative-liberal axis is less
> salient than the nationalist-cosmopolitan axis.

I thought of that, and yes, that is the traditional way of looking at ethnic
breakdowns in Red and Blue team. It's even simpler if you state that Euros in
blue team like helping ethnic outgroups, while non-Euros in blue team like
helping ethnic ingroups. Yet, Jews and Euro liberals often form friendships with
one another, more often than Euro liberals and, say, Hispanics, or Jews and
Hispanics. (Then again, I don't have Jewish friends; my buddies are all Euros,
Asians, and Eurasians.)

Just based on personal observations on working in Jewish-run and primarily
Jewish-staffed organizations, Jews do have genuinely liberal attitudes - they
tend to have very open sexual attitudes, an easy acceptance of homosexuality,
concern for the environment, interest in art and intellectual pursuits, and so
on. They also tend to be very disdainful of people in "honest" lines of work,
such as repairmen and construction workers. They tolerate and even find other
opinions interesting. They are also uncomfortable with rigid command structure
and tend to be very polite about giving orders. However, they are extremely
fearful of any sort of implied threat and treat the world as a fundamentally
hostile place. Once the manager closed up shop because of mysterious "fumes"
that only she could smell. Also, they're great lovers of bureaucracy and
procedures. Getting the job done isn't the only concern: Nitpicking rules are
also important.


> > mwh: A quick look at Israel might be illuminating:
> > http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_israel.shtml
> > Their PDI is quite low - below 10.
> > Their IND is around 50.
> > Their MAS is around 40.
> > Their UAI is high - about 75.
>
> ams: BTW, what sample are these personality scales normed on?
> Mostly north European Prots who speak a Germanic language, such
> as English? Just curious.

They are not normed. Hofstede applied formulae to these scales which generally
gave world averages near 50 or 60, SDs near 25, and high and lowpoints near 100
and 0. (European Protestants have a high IND, low PDI, low UAI profile when
compared to world averages.)


> And in fact, when averaging all predominantly Jewish nations'
> [Jewish communities'???--ams]

"Jewish nations."


> > "The high Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), the
> > primary correlating Hofstede Dimension with Judaism, reflects
> > a low tolerance for ambiguity. This creates a highly rule-
> > oriented society that institutes laws, rules, regulations,
> > and controls in order to reduce the amount of
> > uncertainty within the population."
>
> ams: The US has more laws than any other country in the world.
> Does Hofstede mean primarily extra-legal rules (custom,
> religious law, etc.)?

UAI is focus on and attention to rules. Americans may have lots of rules, but in
the past, they have been blase about following them. However, you'll find if you
can get your hands on Hofstede's book that I was correct: UAI seems to be on the
rise.

One example of this comes from the increasingly aggressive stance the US takes
towards the world. Isolationism is a low UAI stance; high UAI, high MAS cultures
are uncomfortable with tension and tend to resolve generalized anxiety by
striking out - better to be at war than to have to live with the uncertainty of
an uneasy truce. If IND is a result of Wealth, then UAI appears to be a result
of danger.


> Might Protestant countries be aberrations? Have Orthodox,
> Hindu, and Muslim countries been studied? I'll look more
> closely at Hofstede's site later.

Protestant cultures are low UAI - they tend to have less interest in the
afterlife, less need to control uncertainty with superstition/magic in religion,
and less need for religious figures to be vested with "holiness" to ensure the
veracity of their statements.

Note to Chris: The Irish are low UAI - they're Protestants who pretend to be
Catholic because the real Protestants piss them off.


> > Insofar as low PDI and high UAI is reflective of Jewish
> > personality traits in general, it seems that Jews are indeed
> > high on Openness - but also low in Agreeableness and high in
> > Neuroticism, as I have suggested on previous occasions.
>
> ams: And higher on Conscientiousness

No, PDI correlates *positively* with Conscientiousness! Thus, the extremely low
PDI of Israel (higher only than one country - Austria, I believe) is
inconsistent with claims of high Jewish C.


> Are there differences between the scores of secular Israeli
> Jews and fundamentalist Israeli Jews?

IND correlates inversely with the importance attached to religion. Note that UAI
tends to have a greater effect on the *style* of religion a country adopts; MAS
and IND(inversely) are associated with traditional religiosity.


> And that LTO--Long Term Orientation--looks interesting.
> The US should score extremely low on that one.

I agree that LTO is better than I first gave it credit for. Yet LTO still seems
like a bandaid for a cultural schema which doesn't include intelligence: LTO
looks like -IND + IQ, and probably also has some inverse function of
Extroversion thrown in.

On the other hand, MAS, which I haven't discussed much in the past, is much more
interesting. It has implications for eugenics (rich, low MAS cultures have
higher birthrates and tend to focus more on bio-related fields than mass
production), war (high MAS cultures fight more), ethnic relations (high MAS
cultures are much less forgiving of weeak minority groups) and intergroup
struggles (high MAS cultures tend to see life as a zero sum game; feminism
requires that men be lowered, affirmative action demands that Euros be lowered.
Low MAS cultures are more interested in quality of life).

Note to Chris: Nordic nations are feminine. *Extremely* feminine.


> Just looked--we're low on LTO and high on PDI.

Not that high on PDI, though we will probably continue to develop higher PDI as
ethnic minorities become majorities.


> Interesting that Hofstede blames feminism on our somewhat
> high MAS score, yet Japan's MAS is 90% [!], and feminism
> is very weak there.

MAS relates to political views; in very high MAS countries, those who might
otherwise be liberal describe themselves as moderate. In addition, women take
less active roles in high MAS cultures. Thus, there aren't enough liberals, or
women in politics, to make for a good feminist base. But this still ignores the
more obvious culprit: Bioegalitarian hysteria is much less prevalent in Japan.


> How do these traits develop? Could a country's government
> "engineer" its culture in such as way as to raise or lower
> its scores on these various scales?

Yes, in some cases.

How to boost IND: increase general wealth.
How to boost UAI: increase perceptions of threat.
How to boost MAS: ? Encourage competition in children ?
How to boost PDI: ? Increase stratification ?

It appears that the US is pursuing all three of these strategies. In Western
cultires, PDI and UAI tend to go together, and we're doing our best to increase
both by importing hordes of ethnic outsiders who have vastly different IQs from
the mainstream. Fortunately, America's wealth is going to decline, thus
decreasing its unhealthily high IND.

Note that IND and UAI, taken together, are especially important in dealing with
ethnic strife: Collectivistic, Uncertainty Avoiding cultures are full of purges
and genocides. You've gotta love the Middle East. Maybe if America is lucky it
will be able to recreate the wonderful conditions prevailing over there, over
here.


> I notice that Germany and Swden are both low on PDI;
> Germany is high, like the US, on MAS, but MAS is almost
> nothing in Sweden.  This suggests to me a strong
> environmental effect on these scores.

Not so fast! PDI has a -40% correlation with national IQ, which is primarily
genetic in origin. And MAS has a strong relationship with latitude: very cold,
and very hot societies have verly low MAS.  Such societies evolved in hostile
environments which require cooperation against nature rather than competition
against other people. Check population density and that will give you a clue as
to MAS in an area. In temperate zones, life really *is* much more of a zero sum
game than in arctic zones and inhospitable deserts.

(Yes, I know that the Vikings are supposed to be Masculine, but women often were
buried in boat graves, indicating that they held high positions in Nordic
societies, and they were also often merchants rather than stay-at-homers in
Scandinavian society. In other words, gender roles were flexible. Also, the
Vikings were better at negotiating - consider the Danegeld - and trading than at
fighting. They were more raiders and merchants than fighters.)

I do agree that environmental changes can have a strong influence over national
culture, and after studying this issue I can tell you that I do think
environment is more important than genes in determining national character. But
some traits are less influenced by environment than others, and PDI is the ones
I'd chose as being least environmental and most genetic; MAS is probably second,
with UAI third and IND last.


--Mark


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I've been wondering for a while about a puzzle presented by the
Ashkenazim. They seem phenomenally, paranoiacally racist, yet at the
same time they dominate liberalism and liberal movements, moreso than
conservative movements (although that may be less true today). Is it
really feasible for a fundamentally low-O, nationalist/conservative
group, to be able to get along well enough with the high-O
egalitarian/liberal mainstream long enough to dominate its agenda? If
Jews really were simply conservative in their outlook, why wouldn't
they have sided with conservatives all along? And why do they seem to
perpetually anger and annoy conservative types? And, why are they
conspicuously active in science? Do they just get their Nobel prizes
by scratching one another's backs?

A quick look at Israel might be illuminating:

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_israel.shtml

Their PDI is quite low - below 10.
Their IND is around 50.
Their MAS is around 40.
Their UAI is high - about 75.

And in fact, when averaging all predominantly Jewish nations' scores,
we see the same trends. The above web page reports, "The high
Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), the primary correlating Hofstede
Dimension with Judaism, reflects a low tolerance for ambiguity. This
creates a highly rule-oriented society that institutes laws, rules,
regulations, and controls in order to reduce the amount of
uncertainty within the population."

A country's PDI correlates negatively with the average Openness and
Extroversion, and positively with the average Conscientiousness, in
that country. Likewise, UAI correlates positively with the average
Neuroticism, and negatively with the average Agreeableness, of a
country.

Insofar as low PDI and high UAI is reflective of Jewish personality
traits in general, it seems that Jews are indeed high on Openness -
but also low in Agreeableness and high in Neuroticism, as I have
suggested on previous occasions.


--Mark

I've been wondering for a while about a puzzle presented by the
Ashkenazim. They seem phenomenally, paranoiacally racist, yet at the
same time they dominate liberalism and liberal movements, moreso than
conservative movements (although that may be less true today).

mwh:Is it
really feasible for a fundamentally low-O, nationalist/conservative
group, to be able to get along well enough with the high-O
egalitarian/liberal mainstream long enough to dominate its agenda?

mwh: And, why are they
conspicuously active in science? Do they just get their Nobel prizes
by scratching one another's backs?

mwh: A quick look at Israel might be illuminating:

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_israel.shtml

Their PDI is quite low - below 10.
Their IND is around 50.
Their MAS is around 40.
Their UAI is high - about 75.

And in fact, when averaging all predominantly Jewish nations'[Jewish communities'???--ams] scores,
we see the same trends. The above web page reports, "The high
Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), the primary correlating Hofstede
Dimension with Judaism, reflects a low tolerance for ambiguity. This
creates a highly rule-oriented society that institutes laws, rules,
regulations, and controls in order to reduce the amount of
uncertainty within the population."

mwh: A country's PDI correlates negatively with the average Openness and
Extroversion, and positively with the average Conscientiousness, in
that country. Likewise, UAI correlates positively with the average
Neuroticism, and negatively with the average Agreeableness, of a
country.

Insofar as low PDI and high UAI is reflective of Jewish personality
traits in general, it seems that Jews are indeed high on Openness -
but also low in Agreeableness and high in Neuroticism, as I have
suggested on previous occasions.

~Alypius

I've been wondering for a while about a puzzle presented by the
Ashkenazim. They seem phenomenally, paranoiacally racist, yet at the
same time they dominate liberalism and liberal movements, moreso than
conservative movements (although that may be less true today). Is it
really feasible for a fundamentally low-O, nationalist/conservative
group, to be able to get along well enough with the high-O
egalitarian/liberal mainstream long enough to dominate its agenda? If
Jews really were simply conservative in their outlook, why wouldn't
they have sided with conservatives all along? And why do they seem to
perpetually anger and annoy conservative types? And, why are they
conspicuously active in science? Do they just get their Nobel prizes
by scratching one another's backs?

A quick look at Israel might be illuminating:

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_israel.shtml

Their PDI is quite low - below 10.
Their IND is around 50.
Their MAS is around 40.
Their UAI is high - about 75.

And in fact, when averaging all predominantly Jewish nations' scores,
we see the same trends. The above web page reports, "The high
Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), the primary correlating Hofstede
Dimension with Judaism, reflects a low tolerance for ambiguity. This
creates a highly rule-oriented society that institutes laws, rules,
regulations, and controls in order to reduce the amount of
uncertainty within the population."

A country's PDI correlates negatively with the average Openness and
Extroversion, and positively with the average Conscientiousness, in
that country. Likewise, UAI correlates positively with the average
Neuroticism, and negatively with the average Agreeableness, of a
country.

Insofar as low PDI and high UAI is reflective of Jewish personality
traits in general, it seems that Jews are indeed high on Openness -
but also low in Agreeableness and high in Neuroticism, as I have
suggested on previous occasions.


--Mark

In reading your message, it gradually dawned on me that we have completely
different conceptions of technological and knowledge development - my own
conception is probably unusual and may not accurately reflect the true nature of
technological development, but I think it has the potential to model the actual
progress of civilizations very well.

If I understand you correctly, you conceptualize knowledges as levels which are
achieved in a more or less binary fashion. I view knowledge on a sliding scale;
for instance, the early Germans who planted crops, harvested them, and then
burned everything and moved on, had a low "level of agriculture," whereas Romans
who made use of aqueducts and the three field system had a much higher "level of
agriculture."

Feel free to skip through this if you like (I think I had some aspects of
CULTURE and GOVERNMENT switched), but here is the full text I originally wrote
on each of the "five factors," just so that you can get a better idea of what I
mean:


________________________


AGRICULTURE

Level 0: Foragers who eat what nature gives them. While a few scattered crops
are grown in a haphazard fashion, organized farming is unknown to your people. 
(Move is 1 to start out with.)

Level 1: Simple farming has developed, along with the wheel, pottery,
domestication of food animals, and horses to allow for cavalry; your pieces get
+1 move. You may have 1 development token on any land, and build farmsteads to
increase your lands’ max population.

Level 2: City structures have advanced, allowing for basic sanitation and
medicine, the three-field system, and advanced breeding techniques allowing a
wide variety of crops and well-bred mounts. Your pieces get +2 move, you may
have level 2 developments on your lands, and you may construct aqueducts to
further increase the maximum population of your lands.



INDUSTRY

Level 0: Your people have no understanding of metallurgy or stonemasonry, and
only very simple crafts, making exchanges through barter, or occasionally with
feathers, shells, or some other natural currency. They wear furs and skins, and
use tools fashioned from bone, rock, and wood. Warriors wield slings, fire
hardened spears, and knives of bone. (Warrior strength is 2 to start out with.)

Level 1: Your people have learned to cure wood and leather, and to work with
soft metals such as copper or tin, allowing them to develop shortswords, axes,
and bows. They use precious metals such as silver for money, weave cloth and
fashion attractive clothes out of simple dyes, and construct light armor for
their warriors. Warrior strength is at +1, and you may build walls to reduce the
strength of enemy attackers by 1.

Level 2: Specialists have learned to work with steel and fashion machines. Coins
are stamped with your visage. Your rich wear silks and delicate jewelry, the
poor benefit from of all manner of metal tools, and your soldiers wield elegant
swords, polearms, crossbows, and catapults. Warrior strength is at +2, and you
may construct guild-run marketplaces which produce 1 extra labor per turn.



CULTURE

Level 0: A savage, illiterate society, passing knowledge through folk songs and
fireside tales. Your people are ignorant of mathematical, literary,
philosophical and ethical systems. Females are treated like chattel and the sick
and elderly do not last long. (Unity is 3.)

Level 1: This is a barbarian society with rudimentary musical theory and art, a
broadly monogamous social system, simple writing, and basic arithmetic
principles. Your unity is +1, and you may build libraries.

Level 2: Your civilization has developed high culture, with knowledge of
advanced mathematical concepts like zero and pi, humane treatment of children,
women, the elderly, and the lower classes, extensive literature, and a
rudimentary science. Unity is at +2, and you may build universities.



GOVERNMENT

Level 0: A chaotic society lacking consistent laws and governmental or military
traditions. Warriors are disunited and follow their own individual whims. Morale
is +0 (that is, 3 at the start of the game).

Level 1: A caste structure has developed with well understood traditions
governing punishments and the levying of fines. The military has a simple
command structure with loyalty given to established commanders, and trade is
well regulated. Your morale is +1, and you may build roads.

Level 2: The society has developed an intricate code of laws and customs
including trial by jury, mandatory service in the army, a budding bureaucracy,
moneylenders and tax collectors, and an efficient military chain of command.
Your warriors are drilled, disciplined soldiers; morale is therefore at +2, and
you may build courthouses to decrease the stealth of enemy agents by 1.



NAVIGATION

Level 0: Your people do not enter water except to fish, or possibly to swim for
recreation. (Your agents have a basic stealth of 2.)

Level 1: Small boats and rafts have been developed, allowing for swift movement
along coastlines and rivers. Rudimentary navigation is carried out by sighting
the sun and stars. Trade flourishes with nearby nations, and your people begin
to learn foreign languages from frequent contact with other population. Your
agents are +1 stealth, and you may use longboats.

Level 2: Your people know how to navigate using lodestones and have extensive
maps of land and sea. They build great sea vessels and trade with faraway
nations, developing embassies and economic contracts allowing for effective
espionage. Your agents are +2 stealth, and you may build docks whence ships can
set sail.


_________________________



> > also the Mayans seemed to have good mathematics
> > and literacy, but I
> > thought they were also highly superstitious and
> > uncultured in other ways...)
>
> ams: Yes.  For example, they, like the Aztecs and
> Inca, practiced human sacrifice.

Come to think of it, so did the ancient Celts, who also had good mathematics and
literacy. Do you think that our conceptions of humane treatment are an outgrowth
of some other technological advancements, then, or do you see them as a result
of leisure or some non-knowledge-based condition?


> 1. AGRICULTURE - Farming and domestication.  Until a society learns
> to subsist through agriculture, it cannot remain stationary for long
> enough or in large enough groups to build any improvements onto a
> land. Knowledge in the Agriculture domain increases the travel speed
> of your units (via domestication).

> ams: It also can't accumulate lots of possessions, or libraries,
> or support either large populations or substantial numbers of
> persons involved in activities other than food acquisition.

Right. (Actually in the game I allowed races without agriculture to have roads,
walls, and other developments in their homelands, mostly just to smooth
gameplay, but also to symbolize close adaptation to the environment. For
instance, a race which evolved for the last thousand years in a stretch of
deserts could build developments desert regions, but not other areas.)


> There are no disease epidemics, because sanitation is
> not a great problem in nomadic societies, and because
> our most serious diseases were acquired from the
> enslavement--oops, I mean "domestication"--of animals
> which is based on a agrarian and herding economies.

(Seekers are always talking about domestication/slavery issues. It's obvious
that animals and children are slaves. For the most part, they seem to enjoy it.
So why is "slavery" viewed with such horror? Modern society is deeply confused.
You may remember that my amateur research discovered a large correlation between
a society's average IQ as reported by Lynn & Vanhanen, and its PDI as reported
by Hofstede. Low E, low O, and high C also make for higher PDI scores. I'll bet
that the average American with an IQ below average, an E score below average, an
O score below average, and a C score above average, would probably take very
well to the life of a slave. If you look at it that way, Americans had it all
wrong - they should have used Amerindians rather than Africans.)


> However, I would make farming and domestication separate
> factors. Nomadic herdsmen can and do exist without farming,
> and farmers (hoe agriculture) can and do exist without
> domesticated animals.

It does seem that farming and domestication tend to be related, though,
especially in light of your previous comment. Do you believe that the exceptions
are so common as to suggest that there is no trend?


> 2. INDUSTRY - Crafts, metalworking, and trade.
>
> crafts and trade are innovations of pleistocene hunter-gatherers.
> Metalworking was later and many societies never developed it.
> Mining and metalworking seem to depend on the development
> of agriculture and settled lifestyles. I think it should be a
> separate factor from industry, because manufacturing and trade
> have often existed without metals of any kind.

I am aware of this, and it doesn't by itself mean that metalworking and crafts
are separate; I interpret it to mean that mining and metalworking represent more
advanced development in industry. Obviously societies with a strong
metallurgical background would have far more advanced tools for cutting stone,
blowing glass, tailoring clothes, cutting gems, producing money, and creating
machines. And, trade should benefit from more goods of better quality and
greater variety.


> (BTW, I believe we are still in the Pleistocene and this
> renaming of our era as the "Holocene" is a purely
> anthropocentric conceit based on no objective criteria.)

Eh, I don't know what either term means.


> I would add these three as separate factors to your list:
>
> MONEY
> LITERACY
> NUMERACY

> See below for my reasoning on literacy and numeracy.

I read through your post, and I don't think literacy and numeracy are separate
factors.

I do think you make a good case for changing the nature of GOVERNMENT and
CULTURE, or possibly splitting one of them into more factors. I agree that
religion fits very nicely in with government. Perhaps nationalism could be a
factor of CULTURE, or even vice versa? (Probably one smart thing to do would be
to have Culture boost combat morale, and government boost domestic unity and
obedience.)


> The arts in particular may have originated as a human equivalent
> to the peacock's tale (sexy son hypothesis).  Religion seems to
> serve a fundamentally different social function from art, one
> that is more fundamental to collective survival, so I would make
> ART and RELIGION separate factors.

The comparison with art and peacock feathers is common among Seekers. Do you
think they heard of that from somewhere else, or is it merely an obvious
connection to make? (By the way, my own argument that aesthetics is a natural
outgrowth of intelligence seems to have become widespread throughout
Millennium.)


> Until very recently in human history (and no doubt prehistory),
> RELIGION and GOVERNMENT/LAW were very closely related. Art and
> religion are both of great antiquity and human universals.
> Science (not the same thing as technology) is not.  It's
> basically a European invention of the 17th century.  I would
> make SCIENCE a separate factor.

This is what clued me into the fact that we're conceptualizing these issues
differently. True science, or even rudimentary science, is obviously an advanced
invention, yes. However, I conceptualize science as an outgrowth of other,
earlier "intellectual" developments such as literacy, numeracy, religion, and
philosophy, and therefore as a higher level of development in the same area. No
society with even rudimentary science (of which we are aware) ever lacked
literacy, numeracy, religion, or philosophy.


> (Nationalism) was an amazing innovation, one which forever
> eluded the ancient Greek city-states.  There is also a close
> relationship between nationalism and popular participation or
> representation in government; basically, I think the sustenance
> of national solidarity requires some form of popular
> representation.

This does seem related to what I'd conceived of as "CULTURE." Do you agree that
art, literature, philosophy, and similar breakthroughs also help to foster or
lead up to nationalism? If so, nationalism would work well as an aspect (or
"sub-factor," if you like) of CULTURE.


--Mark


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Mark William Henshaw wrote:

> for instance, the Mongols had
> excellent mounts, but I'm not sure if they understood how to farm;

ams: The Mongols' homeland in the Gobi desert was not suitable for
farming.  That's why the Chinese expansion stopped at the desert's
edge.  Except in bad times, it does produce enough grass for grazing.
The Little Ice Age began about a century earlier in East Asia than in
Europe; a resulting drought which occurred in the early 13th century
seems to be what drove the Mongolian tribes to unite for the first time
under Genghis and invade China after bribing their way past the guards
on the Great Wall.  Collective ambition or Genghis's personal genius
seems to have figured less in making the union of the Mongol tribes
possible than simple desperation.  The ancient Aryan invasion of India,
the volkerwanderung of Europe, the Arabian conquests, and the Viking
raids and migrations--all in the Dark Ages-- the Manchu conquest of
China in the 17th century and the acceleration of European colonization
of the New world in the 17th and 18th centuries all coincided with
significant cooling episodes which were geologically minor but for
humans of  vital consequence.  However, it's probably the hydrological
cycle rather than global cooling per se that causes most of man's
problems.  It's just that a cooler world is also a drier world.

>
> >also the Maians seemed to have good mathematics and literacy, but I
> thought they were also highly superstitious and uncultured in other
> ways...)>

ams: Yes.  For example, they, like the Aztecs and Inca, practiced human
sacrifice.

>
>
> 1. AGRICULTURE - Farming and domestication.  Until a society learns
> to subsist through agriculture, it cannot remain stationary for long
> enough or in large enough groups to build any improvements onto a
> land. Knowledge in the Agriculture domain increases the travel speed
> of your units (via domestication).

ams: It also can't accumulate lots of possessions, or libraries, or
support either large populations or substantial numbers of persons
involved in activities other than food acquisition.   There is little or
no personal property; most property is communal.  Theft is only
perceived when you are raided by a rival band.  There is no
"domestication" of humans (slavery or serfdom), because slaves or serfs
cannot produce a sufficient surplus to justify their existence, so you
take no prisoners during your tribal battles--unless you plan to marry
them or eat them.  There are no disease epidemics, because sanitation is
not a great problem in nomadic societies, and because our most serious
diseases were acquired from the enslavement--oops, I mean
"domestication"--of animals which is based on a agrarian and herding
economies.

However, I would make farming and domestication separate factors.
Nomadic herdsmen can and do exist without farming, and farmers (hoe
agriculture) can and do exist without domesticated animals.

>
> 2. INDUSTRY - Crafts, metalworking, and trade.

ams: crafts and trade are innovations of pleistocene hunter-gatherers.
(BTW, I believe we are still in the Pleistocene and this renaming of our
era as the "Holocene" is a purely anthropocentric conceit based on no
objective criteria.)  Metalworking was later and many societies never
developed it.  Mining and metalworking seem to depend on the development
of agriculture and settled lifestyles. I think it should be a separate
factor from industry, because manufacturing and trade have often existed
without metals of any kind.

> MH: Without industry, a
> society has no currency,

ams: You mean money.  Currency refers specifically to *paper* money.  I
also think money should be a separate factor in its own right.  In fact,
I would add these three as separate factors to your list:

MONEY

LITERACY

NUMERACY

See below for my reasoning on literacy and numeracy.

>
>
> 3. CULTURE - The arts, sciences, and religion, and also the level
> of "civilization" in society which comes from the ground up. Without
> knowledge in culture, literacy is impossible

ams: Literacy probably originated for the purpose of mundane record
keeping. The first true alphabet and early arithmetic were produced by
private Semitic merchants for business purposes.  Clumsier
pre-alphabetic writing probably originated to facilitate bureaucratic
record keeping by early governments. Religion and the arts benefitted
only incidentally.  The arts in particular may have originated as a
human equivalent to the peacock's tale (sexy son hypothesis).  Religion
seems to serve a fundamentally different social function from art, one
that is more fundamental to collective survival, so I would make ART and
RELIGION separate factors.  Until very recently in human history (and no
doubt prehistory), RELIGION and GOVERNMENT/LAW were very closely
related. Art and religion are both of great antiquity and human
universals.  Science (not the same thing as technology) is not.  It's
basically a European invention of the 17th century.  I would make
SCIENCE  a separate factor.

> MH:  Advances in culture automatically increase the unity and
> patriotism of the peasants.

ams: Not so sure of that, but it reminds me of another factor:
NATIONALISM.  Economists are beginning to realize that nationalism has
played an important role in accelerting industrialization.  It also
increases loyalty to the state, legal and tax compliance, and
facilitates the recruitment of loyal, motivated, "citizen-soldiers."
But it's not the same thing as "government."  It has roots in primordial
human psychology, yet it is more like an ideology.  Heck, let's be
trendy and call it a meme.  Classical Greece and Rome were early
varieties of nationalism, but they never figured out how to make their
proto-nationalisms work much beyond the  level of the polis
("city-state").  Perhaps modern nationalism should be described as
LINGUISTIC NATIONALISM, since it forged a single national consciousness
out of people speaking related dialects but otherwise not necessarily
having much more in common with each other than with nearby populations
speaking substantially different languages.  It was an amazing
innovation, one which forever eluded the ancient Greek city-states.
There is also a close relationship between nationalism and popular
participation or representation in government; basically, I think the
sustenance of national solidarity requires some form of popular
representation.

>
> 4. GOVERNMENT - Law and order, the level of "civilization" imposed
> from the top down. Without knowledge in governing, roads and
> courthouses can't be built. Improvements in government automatically
> increase the morale of warriors in battle (via discipline and
> organization of command structure).
>
> 5. NAVIGATION - Essentially seafaring ability, but also the amount of
> exploration carried out. Navigation allows longboats and ultimately
> docks for large ships which greatly speed travel. Improvements in
> navigation automatically boost the effectiveness of agents and
> informers (via familiarity with other cultures and languages achieved
> through exploration and long-range trade).
>
>
> Also, might a hierarchical rather than multi-factor explanation be
> more applicable?

I think many anthropologists feel that technology

> developed in a specific order, beginning with agriculture (and
> related developments such as pottery and domestication) at the
> bottom, but it seems to me that a culture could learn other
> technologies (navigation is a primary example) before agriculture.


ams: Yes, some, but not all.

I've been working on a game for a while, and I'd like to see if
anyone has any comments on the anthropological aspects. The game
simulates (more or less) the development of primitive tribes, and one
aspect of this is the discovery of early technology. For simplicity,
but also because it seemed realistic, I wanted the development of
knowledges to be categorized into related "factors;" does this
breakdown seem reasonable? Can you think of examples of cultures
which didn't fit with this breakdown (for instance, the Mongols had
excellent mounts, but I'm not sure if they understood how to farm;
also the Maians seemed to have good mathematics and literacy, but I
thought they were also highly superstitious and uncultured in other
ways...)?


1. AGRICULTURE - Farming and domestication.  Until a society learns
to subsist through agriculture, it cannot remain stationary for long
enough or in large enough groups to build any improvements onto a
land. Knowledge in the Agriculture domain increases the travel speed
of your units (via domestication).

2. INDUSTRY - Crafts, metalworking, and trade. Without industry, a
society has no currency, and walls and marketplaces cannot be built.
Knowledge in industry improves the fighting power of warriors (via
metalworking and craftsmanship).

3. CULTURE - The arts, sciences, and religion, and also the level
of "civilization" in society which comes from the ground up. Without
knowledge in culture, literacy is impossible and libraries and
universities cannot be built; these improvements increase the rate of
innovation. Advances in culture automatically increase the unity and
patriotism of the peasants.

4. GOVERNMENT - Law and order, the level of "civilization" imposed
from the top down. Without knowledge in governing, roads and
courthouses can't be built. Improvements in government automatically
increase the morale of warriors in battle (via discipline and
organization of command structure).

5. NAVIGATION - Essentially seafaring ability, but also the amount of
exploration carried out. Navigation allows longboats and ultimately
docks for large ships which greatly speed travel. Improvements in
navigation automatically boost the effectiveness of agents and
informers (via familiarity with other cultures and languages achieved
through exploration and long-range trade).


Also, might a hierarchical rather than multi-factor explanation be
more applicable? I think many anthropologists feel that technology
developed in a specific order, beginning with agriculture (and
related developments such as pottery and domestication) at the
bottom, but it seems to me that a culture could learn other
technologies (navigation is a primary example) before agriculture.


--Mark

Section 6.9, Summary of Chapter 6, has been added:
http://www.efn.org/~callen/ToC.htm#chapter6


Excerpt:

--
[...] the Beyondist position is that man as an individual
in the universe has no rights, any claim to such being a
delusion from the anthropocentrism of most traditional
revealed religions. As a member of a community, man has such
relative rights to benefits, in a contract with the rest of
the group, as a group of that type of person can wrest from
the environment. These rights, e.g., to a given standard of
living when not working, will therefore vary from group to
group, and cannot be abstractly specified by statements of
"inalienable or absolute rights" or narcistic, subjective
concepts of suitable levels of "human dignity."
--

OK Alypius, I just checked, and Hosftede reports that UAI has been (slightly)
rising over recent decades, so this argument is moot.

To go further, however, I want you to see what Hofstede reports about Lynn &
Hampson's study; they factor analyzed a set of sociological (not psychometric)
data for several countries, and came up with two factors, which they called
"Neuroticism" and "Extroversion." Here are the correlations they found:

Correlates of factor 1, "Cultural Neuroticism"
-79% with low chronic psychosis (# patients per 1000 pop)
78% with high suicide rate
69% with high caffeine consumption
68% with high alcoholism (liver cirrhosis death rate)
-68% with low daily calorie intake
-66% with low coronary heart disease rate
66% with high accident rate
51% with high punished crime rate (# prisoners per 10,000)

Correates of factor 2, "Cultural Extroversion"
73% high divorce rate
65% high murder rate
61% high cigarette consumption
61% high punished crime rate (also loading on Cultural Neuroticism)
60% high coronary heart disease rate
53% high illegitimacy (% of extramarital births)

The first factor correlates with UAI at a whopping r=.73, and you can clearly
see that the structure of it looks nothing like what you're talking about -
Lynn's factor 1, and UAI in general, really does tap into misery and societal
dysfunction with its suicide and chronic psychosis rates; don't you think
society used to be more functional and better able to satisfy its constituents
previously than presently? Remember, Neuroticism has been greatly increasing in
the US since the 50's. What you're trying to get at looks a bit more like factor
2, which may relate to individualism (although Hofsteded didn't mention any
correlation).


> You already have a source for
> Euro babies being calmer than Ashkenazi babies.  I've read in
> several places that East Asian babies are less easily disturbed
> than Euro babies, and more quickly calmed when they are disturbed.
> I think one place you'll find a reference to this is Rushton's REB.

I see - OK.


> > MH: As a personal anecdote, my sister, who tests
> > about as low as I do on
> > Agreeableness, which is extremely low,
>
> AS:  Mark, I'm glad you're smart! Imagine being so high
> on psychopathy *and* having a 2 digit verbal IQ!

I think you have to appreciate that part of my disagreeableness is likely a
*function* of my high verbal IQ. For instance, one aspect of disagreeableness
deals with your willingness to admit superiority over others; it's painfully
obvious that I'm far, far more intelligent, and pretending otherwise is
pointless. Then, too, there's the subcategory which deals with how much a person
sees others as basically good; anyone who is isolated from the mainstream will
not only feel less positively towards them, he will tend to be treated less
positively (like an "outsider") which will only further reinforce
disagreeableness. Moreover, conventional religions probably boost A, and I've
found solid information showing that IQ and conventional religiousness are
inversely linked. And even further, I'm rather ectomorphic - most criminals are
endomorphic mesomorphs.

In other words, if I had a verbal IQ anywhere near 100, my record would probably
be squeaky clean, just like it is now.


> > Hofstede *described* high UAI cultures as
> > xenophobic and superstitious.
>
> Isn't this typical of low O psychology?
> Especially the xenophobia?

Yet UAI is uncorrelated with O, and to my knowledge O is unrelated to
superstition.


> > Yet, their personalities and strategies do seem different
> > on simple observation. The Japanese seem far more
> > self-effacing, submissive, quiet, and friendly, while the
> > Jews are more religious (or used to be, anyway), more
> > domineering, and more warlike. It sounds like a
> > difference in both E and A. Perhaps this is the difference
> > between diasporic city-living and insular agricultural living?
>
> AS:  Not too quick.  A better comparison might be of Jews
> with the "Jews of the East,"

I agree, good call. (Of course, I haven't got any research on them.)


> I think most genomes are able to adjust well enough to
> either lifestyle if that is what they are raised in, with
> most dropouts being among individuals who are at the extremes
> of either genetic predisposition or adverse environmental
> influences.

This is probably the biggest thing I've come to learn in all of these
discussions with you - it's quite obvious that most people can adapt to a very
wide variety of cultural circumstances.


--Mark


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Chris Allen wrote:

> --- In beyondismscience 44, pellarius wrote:
> > Mark seems to be rather high on psychopathy (an
> > understatement?), whereas I am rather low on psychopathy.
>
> Do you mean *psychoticism* (Trait P)?

Yes, that was quite sloppy of me.  Psychoticism is more correct than
psychopathy.  AndI no more meant by "high on psychopathy" to say that
Mark is a psychopath (APD) any more than you would mean to say that Mark
is psychotic is you said that he were "high on psychoticism."  People
who score high on psychoticism are not necessarily or even usually
psychopaths, although they are even less likely to be psychotics.

~Alypius

Section 4.1, Problems in Deriving Objective
Non-Relativistic Ethics from Stating a Fixed
Goal in a Changing World, has been added:
http://www.efn.org/~callen/ToC.htm#chapter4

From the summary paragraph:

--
Our purpose in this section has been to clarify the inherent
principles in deriving moral values from a fixed goal in a changing
world. But, as mentioned in passing, there are also emotional
and "public relations" problems to be solved. Hitler in Mein Kampf,
and emotional writers of very different persuations elsewhere, have
equally tried to argue that science is unsatisfactory as a repository
of any popular faith because it is forever changing. That this
evolutionary movement dismays the political absolutist is perhaps as
it should be; but in the field of religion the call of the human
heart for ultimate certainty is to be respected, for that is the
meaning of religion. In the buffeting seas of immediate moral
conflicts a religion should give the emotional assurance and guidance
of an unwavering star. But this is what the basically fixed goal, for
those with imagination to see the adjustment to each changing local
scene in perspective, truly offers. Beyondism is a religion tied to
only one dogma — and that a scientific one — from which the
sentiments in all specific situations take their changing courses.
--


-Chris

> Something else that occurred to me: Mark seems to
> be rather high on psychopathy (an understatement?),
> whereas I am rather low on psychopathy. Might
> interactions between two low A people be more likely
> to bring out the disagreeableness in each of them?

It's a possibility. But my personal experience says that two low-A individuals
with half a brain between them will quickly realize that they have to
compromise; for instance, my sister is incredibly easy to get along with. Come
to think of it, so are my low-A friends.

Wait - bingo! *Neuroticism* is what makes people unable to deal with each other.
And Extroversion and stupidity as well; these traits are predictive of divorce.
Agreeableness isn't.


> However, I would
> guess that Trait A is a muddled construct -- confusing
> what might be termed real trait-agreeableness with
> crypto-A and crypto-non-A -- and therefore theorizing
> about its implications would be senseless until it becomes
> an unmuddled construct. (Please don't let that stop you,
> though. Maybe I am wrong about it being muddled.)

Speaking of muddled, what is this in plain English?


--Mark

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--- In beyondismscience 44, pellarius wrote:
> Mark seems to be rather high on psychopathy (an
> understatement?), whereas I am rather low on psychopathy.

Do you mean *psychoticism* (Trait P)? Psychopathy is trait
criminality/fanatical-pseudosocial-zealousness, today
known as Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD).
http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/apdtable.htm
http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/antisoc.htm

As Hans Eysenck and Richard Lynn point out, psychoticism
and psychopathy are not entirely unrelated, but I think
competent personality scientists today believe that the
vast majority of high-P persons are not APDs.


> Might interactions between two low A people be more likely
> to bring out the disagreeableness in each of them?

It has long been recogized that interaction of two
personality-disordered persons will tend to bring out the
basest stereotyped behavior in both of them (for example,
look at most any trailer-park family.) However, I would
guess that Trait A is a muddled construct -- confusing
what might be termed real trait-agreeableness with
crypto-A and crypto-non-A -- and therefore theorizing
about its implications would be senseless until it becomes
an unmuddled construct. (Please don't let that stop you,
though. Maybe I am wrong about it being muddled.)


-Chris

Mark William Henshaw wrote:

> ams:> With their plethora of strictly enforced rules
> > governing various minutiae of daily existence,
> > I would be surprised if they are not low on UAI.
>
> MH: , based on your arguments, you should be surprised
> if they are not *high* on UAI.

ams:  Well, Mark, you just have to understand my terminology.  Sometimes
I use the word low to mean "low" and sometimes I use the word low to
mean "high!" Since you seem to be "challenged" in the area of
mindreading skills,  I'll try to avoid doing this in the future--but no
promises!

>
>
> ams:> So do Catholics! (And the similarity here is no
> > coincidence--it was Puritans who created the emphasis
> > on "assurance of salvation," but they had little or
> > no effect on RC's or anabaptist sects who retained
> > the Catholic view.  So does this show that Catholics
> > are lower on  UA than evangelicals who emphasize the
> > importance of "knowing you're saved?" You've already
> > agreed that it is the other way around.
>
> mh:Interesting point. I can only say once again that this is an issue
> which I approach with a strong degree of humility, because I don't
> think I fully understand these cultural dimensions.

ams:  I think it's just very uncertain (ironic, huh?) to draw a
conclusion based on a single item.  This would be especially true of a
theological tenet, since they tend to be resistant to change even when
the conditions under which they originated have changed. But in the case
of the Amish and OO Mennonites, they're written rules (of course they
have unwritten customs as well, like any culture) are a living document.
Their rules tend to grow, because they add new ones faster than they
drop outmoded ones.  There is always a reluctance among them to discard
an old rule even when it no longer makes sense to retain it.  But new
ones must be added because technology is always changing, and the Amish
(and OO Mennonite) response to technology must be regulated; and some
Amish affiliations are more liberal or conservative than others.
Hutterites also regulate  technology, but I  think this more on a colony
by colony basis.  Their communist way of life permits them to be more
accepting of technology than Amish and OO Mennonites.  Mainly they
regulate access to mass media and education, while the private
property-based economies of the Amish and OOM create a need to regulate
everything.  For example, a motor vehicle is not a serious threat to the
group's way of life when it is owned by the colony for colony use, but
it does become a threat if motor vehicles are owned by individuals.

>
>
>
>
> > I would think it's possible, but not Bush.  He's too
> > supportive of multiculturalism, alien immigration, and,
> > in the area of religion, ecumenism.   And then there's
> > his  Mestizo nephew  whom he dreams of becoming the
> > next Bush in the White House.  Ignorant, arrogant,
> > and callous, yes; xenophobic, no.
>
> mh:Doesn't his mestizo nephew speak English?

as: Sure.  And Dubya himself speaks Spanish.

> mh:I think Bush sees the
> nonChristian, non-American hordes in the middle East with a great
> deal of xenophobia. (In other words, I think he is xenophobic in the
> way many bioegalitarians are xenophobic - they don't really fear
> different genetic groups, which they disbelieve in anyway, but
> different cultural forms give them the heebie jeebies.)
>
as: I don't think so.  Bush seems to be openly supportive of
multiculturalism.  And nonChristian especially doesn't bother him.  Far
from being a traditional Christian, he is very much the ecumenist.  As
far as I can tell, his views seem to be similar to the Freemasons--there
are many paths to God, if not equally good, at least close enough.
Dubya is  by no means religiously exclusionary.  He's surrounded himself
with even more Jews than Clinton, and mainstream evangelicals, no matter
how fanatically pro-Israel many of them are (but *not* the sect that
Dubya belongs to--the non-Dispensational and very liberal United
Methodists), all agree that non-Christian Jews are uniformly on the fast
track to hell.   I don't doubt that Dubya is sincere in his belief in
Christianity, but I think he is theologically ignorant (as he is about
most things), and that he adheres to an idiosyncratic version of
Christianity in which he  accepts or rejects particular teachings in
piecemeal fashion based on his individual judgment rather than embracing
Christianity (or one particular sect of Christianity) as a "seamless
garment," to be accepted or rejected as a whole.  Dubyaism is a
Protestant sect of its own, with a total membership of one.  I actually
think there are a lot of people like Dubya these days, as a result of
Protestantism's, and even more so evangelicalism's, very weak
ecclesiology and very individualistic approach to interpretation of the
Bible.  When Luther broke with the Vatican, he thought he could contain
the doctrinal and organizational fragmentation that he started, but he
was wrong.  The end result is "Dubya-ism."

  > ams: Yet high MAS Jap babies behave the opposite
  > of Jewish babies (with Euro babies in between)

>
> Do they? Can you provide a source? If true, this helps us to pinpoint
> the nature of Jewish crying as being Low-A (provided that you believe
> Jews are low-A and Asians are high-A).

ams: It strengthens the case.  You already have a source for Euro babies
being calmer than Ashkenazi babies.  I've read in several places that
East Asian babies are less easily disturbed than Euro babies, and more
quickly calmed when they are disturbed.  I think one place you'll find a
reference to this is Rushton's REB.  Also, behavioral differences are
observed to persist between Chinese and Euro offspring throughout early
childhood.  The Oriental children are observed to be  more pro-social in
their behavior, and also more task-oriented.

>
> MH: As a personal anecdote, my sister, who tests about as low as I do on
> Agreeableness, which is extremely low,

AS:  Mark, I'm glad you're smart! Imagine being so high on psychopathy
*and* having a 2 digit verbal IQ!

> MH: was absolutely petrified of
> strangers as an infant. Her earliest memories are of crawling under
> the table when strangers came into the house. Yet she also scores
> (like I do) very low on Neuroticism. This is just one example, of
> course, but information is scarce enough that it seemed worth
> bringing up.

AS: Yes, we really need more data.

>
>
>
> > ams: Isn't a society governed by lots of rules
> > regarding social propriety typical of UAI societies?
> > If so, that's what I have described: those rules of
> > propriety have decreased greatly since the '60's.
> > It's much more socially laissez-faire now, except
> > for certain matters that infringe on political
> > sensibilities.
>
> But these rules were generally *unwritten.* They were understood to
> be part of a grey area of culture which everyone took for granted.

AS: No, this was not a "grey area."  Grey areas are areas not covered by
rules.  And unwritten rules are not necessarily or even generally less
clear, explicit, and strict as written ones.

Second, not all the rules were unwritten. Many of those laws were struck
down by "progressive" judges and some even remain on the books but are
forbidden to be enforced any more.  Many of the rules separating blacks
and whites were written into statutory law--separate schools, separate
water fountains, separate restrooms, etc.  So were laws against
interracial marriage.  Divorce was only possible if you could prove in a
court of law that your spouse had committed adultery,  or abandoned you,
etc.  There was no "no fault" divorce.  The sexes also were unequal not
just by custom but by law.  For example, they didn't have the same
property rights.  And homosexual acts, if discovered, were felonies.
Some acts were even felonies in many states when performed between
husband and wife. Blasphemy was also a crime; I'll bet it's still on the
books in some places, but the courts won't let it be enforced any more.

Third, all high UAI cultures--haredi Judaism, traditional Japan,
Confucianist China, Medieval Europe--are governed by a mixture of
written and unwritten rules, of law and custom.  The Talmud itself only
started out as a written record of oral tradition, or unwritten custom
which the rabbis feared would be lost in the crisis of their age.

>
>
>
> > > I don't know much about Greece or Portugal,
> > > but do Belgians have traditionalist attitudes?
> > > Spanyards? The French? Have you seen the stuff
> > > they show on TV in Japan?
> >
> > ams: Mark, you're changing the subject.  What do
> > traditionalist attitudes have to do with our topic?
>
> MH: Every single example of "decreasing UAI" which you gave involved
> decreasing traditional values. Look:

AS: Yes, and I explained why that is inevitable in any long established
culture:

it is only incidental (although perhaps unavoidable) that these rules
usually grow out of  and eventually become regarded themselves as
traditional attitudes.

Mark, in case you haven't noticed, I think every example you gave of a
high UAI culture is also, or was until recently, a "traditional values"
culture (in terms of its own traditional values).  Did you really
imagine that was an accident?

>
> _
>
> With the exception of a few anti-miscegination laws, all of
> these "regulations" you describe were just the way everybody behaved.
> There were no laws against discussing homosexuals, no laws enforcing
> shotgun weddings, no laws preventing divorce, just, as you
> said, "stigma." This is all evidence for increasing IND over the last
> century, not decreasing UAI.
>
>
> > Well, you're not talking about the Empire
> > anymore.  You're discussing the barbarians.
> > I tend to agree that their Christianization
> > was not as deep.  Many of the Empire's
> > converts were the result of a mass movement.
>
> This is essentially what I was saying (or regurgitating - this is
> just Stark's idea, though I agree with it). Genuine conversions take
> place through friendly social networks, rather than being imposed by
> autocratic demands from above.

I agree that this is generally true, but I also think that reluctant
conversions, after a period of several generations, give you a nation of
many sincere believers in their no longer new faith.  But I also think
that in many families what began as passive resistance or dislike or
even just apathy toward a coercively imposed faith may evolve into a
lackadaisical attitude toward religion in general that will be passed
down throught the generations.  This may be why religious skepticism,
once pressures against it were relaxed in the early modern period, seems
to have been more pronounced among the former barabarian cultures of
northern Europe than among the Mediterranean cultures where Christianity
gained most of its converts via a mass movement.  I think universal
intensive religious education, which is what has revived haredi Judaism
when everyone thought half a century ago that it was on the verge of
extinction, could have ended this heritage of religious apathy or
skepticism, but that probably wasn't feasible under pre-modern
conditions.  I never thought before about the forcible conversions
having a long term effect different from mass movement conversions, but
it certainly seems like a logical explanation for some of the
differences we see between northern Europe (including Roman Catholic
France, where Clovis, King of the Franks, was converted in AD 500) and
Mediterranean Europe, where mass movements spread rapidly among a highly
urbanized culture with relatively easy mobility via the Mediterranean
Sea.  Inland transportation was excruciatingly slow in premodern times
though, there were few or no cities far removed from major waterways,
and during the Dark Ages urban life collapsed anyway.  This may also
explain some of the differences between western and eastern Europe.
Christianity spread more rapidly in subjugated Greek speaking areas,
which were mainly in the eastern Mediterranean, and more slowly among
the Latins, among whom pride in the achievements of their pagan
ancestors delayed the conversion of most Latin-speakers until the
political events of the fourth century.

>
>
>
>
> MH: How frequently do they [Jews] experience religious schisms?

AS: They don't seem to me to be any more prone to this than Protestants
are.  Evangelicals especially are notorious even among themselves for
"splitting their splits."

I just though of something else:

Mark wrote: Hofstede *described* high UAI cultures as xenophobic and
superstitious.

AS: Isn't this typical of low O psychology? Especially the xenophobia?

>
> > OTOH, you seem to have a point
> > that the crying is more likely explained by A than N,
> > because East Asians should not be lower N than whites.
> > The picture still looks very mixed to me.
>
> MH: This actually gives us a good basis for comparison - Jews and
> E.Asians are quite "K-selected." They have high intelligence, high
> rates of myopia, low fertility, high parental investment, are
> financially successful, etc. So they should show similar behaviors.

AS: And in some ways they do.

>
> Yet, their personalities and strategies do seem different on simple
> observation. The Japanese seem far more self-effacing, submissive,
> quiet, and friendly, while the Jews are more religious (or used to
> be, anyway), more domineering, and more warlike. It sounds like a
> difference in both E and A. Perhaps this is the difference between
> diasporic city-living and insular agricultural living?

AS:  Not too quick.  A better comparison might be of Jews with the "Jews
of the East," ie, the overseas Chinese diaspora, mostly an urban
phenomenon.  These both tend to be middle man minorities, and their
strategies are similar, but personalities still seem to be different.

warlike: Jews only appear warlike since the establishment of a Jewish
state in 1948.  The Japanese seemed to be warlike until we imposed a
semi-pacifist constitution on them in 1945.

> MH: Personal
> experience suggests that smart disagreeable people easily fool others
> into thinking they're nice, friendly, team players. This is probably
> how politicians do it! The only thing that bothers me about this line
> of reasoning is that it smacks of rationalization - if the data
> doesn't fit the theory, let's re-interpret it to fit the theory.

AS: Yes, but personality is complex, so you may have a point.

> MH:I'd
> like to have some actual hard data on Ashkenazi Jews, or at least on
> Semites in general;

AS: I certainly would too, but Semites are only a language group.
Genetically, fertile crescent peoples all cluster very closely, and the
"true" Arabs of the Arabian peninsula are somewhat farther removed
genetically. Also, the Yiddish have a unique occupational history that
their genome has adapted to over many centuries. Plus, religious and
secular Jews will probably have some significant differences largely for
cultural reasons.  Let's say you had a group of 100 clones.  50 were
adopted into haredi families and 50 into secular Jewish families.  I
venture to guess that a majority of one group would remain secular,
while a majority of the other group would remain haredi, although one
group of clones might have more losses than the other, through some
combination of chance enviromental influences and genetic
predisposition.  I think most genomes are able to adjust well enough to
either lifestyle if that is what they are raised in, with most dropouts
being among individuals who are at the extremes of either genetic
predisposition or adverse environmental influences.

~Alypius
------------------------------

Chris Allen wrote:

> --- In beyondismscience 41, HarkenBane wrote:
> > > With one notable exception, the Jews I have known
> > > have not struck me as especially disagreeable, but
> > > that may be a lucky accident.
> > You know, that may be because Jews are intelligent. Personal
> > experience suggests that smart disagreeable people easily
> > fool others into thinking they're nice, friendly, team
> > players. This is probably how politicians do it!
>
> Perhaps they have a strong need to believe that they agree
> with "good" people and "disagree" with bad people and
> reinterpret anything said to them

Something else that occurred to me: Mark seems to be rather high on
psychopathy (an understatement?), whereas I am rather low on
psychopathy.  Might interactions between two low A people be more likely
to bring out the disagreeableness in each of them?

~ams
------------------

> It seems to me that I have had this experience. Example:
> I try to explain some novel interpretation to someone and
> he superficially agrees and says that that is how he has
> always seen things -- then it becomes clear that he is
> projecting his own non-novel interpretation onto my words,
> no matter what phrasing and rephrasing I use.

Aw, you're still miffed about the way I "misinterpret" your ideas
about the pursuit of truth, aren't you? I think you'll find I'm very
receptive to people who use ordinary, understandable English. I think
you'll find I'm not the only one who realizes that you certainly
don't have a habit of speaking very directly.


> There is the concept in the study of Borderline
> Personality Disorder (BPD) called "splitting." It involves
> interpreting individuals only as either pure good or
> pure evil. It seems to me that when a person is
> interpreted by a splitter as a Good that everything he
> says must be reinterpreted as agreeing with everthing the
> splitter already thinks is true.
> That would be a Plotonic ideal case, and perhaps we see
> a little bit of splitting action in everyone -- and
> perhaps more often in certain races and populations.

That's "Platonic," and if it makes you feel better, I still think
you're a "Good." (Just halfway nuts.)


--Mark

--- In beyondismscience 41, HarkenBane wrote:
> > With one notable exception, the Jews I have known
> > have not struck me as especially disagreeable, but
> > that may be a lucky accident.
> You know, that may be because Jews are intelligent. Personal
> experience suggests that smart disagreeable people easily
> fool others into thinking they're nice, friendly, team
> players. This is probably how politicians do it!

Perhaps they have a strong need to believe that they agree
with "good" people and "disagree" with bad people and
reinterpret anything said to them -- by persons they are
having pleasant conversations with -- as being along lines
that they already agree with.

It seems to me that I have had this experience. Example:
I try to explain some novel interpretation to someone and
he superficially agrees and says that that is how he has
always seen things -- then it becomes clear that he is
projecting his own non-novel interpretation onto my words,
no matter what phrasing and rephrasing I use. It sometimes
gets to the point where the person is almost violently
insisting that my interpretation is not novel and in fact
perfectly in agreement with his own -- apparent to me --
starkly opposing interpretation.

There is the concept in the study of Borderline
Personality Disorder (BPD) called "splitting." It involves
interpreting individuals only as either pure good or
pure evil. It seems to me that when a person is
interpreted by a splitter as a Good that everything he
says must be reinterpreted as agreeing with everthing the
splitter already thinks is true.

That would be a Plotonic ideal case, and perhaps we see
a little bit of splitting action in everyone -- and
perhaps more often in certain races and populations.


-Chris

> With their plethora of strictly enforced rules
> governing various minutiae of daily existence,
> I would be surprised if they are not low on UAI.

Be sure you're using the terminology correctly. "UAI" is short for
Uncertainty Avoidance (and we think the "I" is for "Inventory"). If
the Amish have strict regulations to govern possibly uncertain
situations, then they are likely to be HIGH in Uncertainty Avoidance,
not low. Therefore, based on your arguments, you should be surprised
if they are not *high* on UAI.

That stated, I agree that you have a point. They don't have a very
high UAI profile in the sense that I'm used to seeing, but it's
obvious that they live highly regulated lives. If someone could
administer Hofstede's tests to the Amish, it would be very
interesting to see how they would score.


> So do Catholics! (And the similarity here is no
> coincidence--it was Puritans who created the emphasis
> on "assurance of salvation," but they had little or
> no effect on RC's or anabaptist sects who retained
> the Catholic view.  So does this show that Catholics
> are lower on  UA than evangelicals who emphasize the
> importance of "knowing you're saved?" You've already
> agreed that it is the other way around.

Interesting point. I can only say once again that this is an issue
which I approach with a strong degree of humility, because I don't
think I fully understand these cultural dimensions.


> > I think that's increasing IND and decreasing PDI much
> > more than decreasing UAI.
>
> ams: Yet you did say that UAI correlates postively
> with xenophobia, did you not? Doesn't increased openness
> to Blacks (internal aliens) and, via changes in
> immigration rules, foreigners (external aliens) signify
> less xenophobia and, logically, less UA?

Hofstede *described* high UAI cultures as xenophobic and
superstitious. So far as I understand it from snooping through his
books on Amazon.com, that was merely his own observation. I'm
inclined to trust his description as it seems to fit in very nicely
with everything I understand, but I don't think there's any hard data.


> I would think it's possible, but not Bush.  He's too
> supportive of multiculturalism, alien immigration, and,
> in the area of religion, ecumenism.   And then there's
> his  Mestizo nephew  whom he dreams of becoming the
> next Bush in the White House.  Ignorant, arrogant,
> and callous, yes; xenophobic, no.

Doesn't his mestizo nephew speak English? I think Bush sees the
nonChristian, non-American hordes in the middle East with a great
deal of xenophobia. (In other words, I think he is xenophobic in the
way many bioegalitarians are xenophobic - they don't really fear
different genetic groups, which they disbelieve in anyway, but
different cultural forms give them the heebie jeebies.)


> ams: Yet high MAS Jap babies behave the opposite
> of Jewish babies (with Euro babies in between)

Do they? Can you provide a source? If true, this helps us to pinpoint
the nature of Jewish crying as being Low-A (provided that you believe
Jews are low-A and Asians are high-A).

As a personal anecdote, my sister, who tests about as low as I do on
Agreeableness, which is extremely low, was absolutely petrified of
strangers as an infant. Her earliest memories are of crawling under
the table when strangers came into the house. Yet she also scores
(like I do) very low on Neuroticism. This is just one example, of
course, but information is scarce enough that it seemed worth
bringing up.


> --if this is evidence that Jewish
> culture is low A, it must also be evidence that high MAS
> Japanese culture is high A.  Not a tidy picture.

Perhaps UAI is a result of the personality of its constituents, while
the personality of its constituents is the result of MAS?


> How does the low A USA score on MAS?

About average, near 60 I believe. I'm offline right now but check the
links I gave previously; there are plenty of lists of country scores
on the internet.


> MH: I can only say that I think you're grossly
> misunderstanding UAI.

> ams: Isn't a society governed by lots of rules
> regarding social propriety typical of UAI societies?
> If so, that's what I have described: those rules of
> propriety have decreased greatly since the '60's.
> It's much more socially laissez-faire now, except
> for certain matters that infringe on political
> sensibilities.

But these rules were generally *unwritten.* They were understood to
be part of a grey area of culture which everyone took for granted.



> > I don't know much about Greece or Portugal,
> > but do Belgians have traditionalist attitudes?
> > Spanyards? The French? Have you seen the stuff
> > they show on TV in Japan?
>
> ams: Mark, you're changing the subject.  What do
> traditionalist attitudes have to do with our topic?

Every single example of "decreasing UAI" which you gave involved
decreasing traditional values. Look:

___________

"in many ways things are laxer now--sexual and reproductive
behavior are much more laissez-faire,  movies and television and
music and advertising all show things they wouldn't dare in
the '50's, the old social prohibitions on racial mingling are
relaxed; eg, it's no longer scandalous if you invite a visiting black
into your house rather than  just on the front porch. Homosexuals
generally weren't even spoken of, and sex roles were much more
defined in both custom and law.  No more shot-gun weddings or,
otherwise, get the disgraceful girl out of town for awhile and put
the baby up for adoption. Divorce has lost virtually all its stigma.
And in the '50's, peecee stigma was
simply directed against Commies and socialists rather than "racists,
sexists, and homophobes."
___________

With the exception of a few anti-miscegination laws, all of
these "regulations" you describe were just the way everybody behaved.
There were no laws against discussing homosexuals, no laws enforcing
shotgun weddings, no laws preventing divorce, just, as you
said, "stigma." This is all evidence for increasing IND over the last
century, not decreasing UAI.


> Well, you're not talking about the Empire
> anymore.  You're discussing the barbarians.
> I tend to agree that their Christianization
> was not as deep.  Many of the Empire's
> converts were the result of a mass movement.

This is essentially what I was saying (or regurgitating - this is
just Stark's idea, though I agree with it). Genuine conversions take
place through friendly social networks, rather than being imposed by
autocratic demands from above.


> > ...paranoid, suspicious, undisclosing, and
> > assertive, and these are all hallmarks of
> > disagreeableness.
>
> ams: Or perhaps of low O, low O, low O, and high
> E? A may not be the only trait involved here.

I agree that A may not be the only trait involved. But look at the
way the facets of A are described:


Agreeableness Facets

Trust. A person with high trust assumes that most people are fair,
honest, and have good intentions. Persons low in trust see others as
selfish, devious, and potentially dangerous.

Morality. (Some inventories name this "straightforwardness") High
scorers on this scale see no need for pretense or manipulation when
dealing with others and are therefore candid, frank, and sincere. Low
scorers believe that a certain amount of deception in social
relationships is necessary. People find it relatively easy to relate
to the straightforward high-scorers on this scale. They generally
find it more difficult to relate to the unstraightforward low-scorers
on this scale. It should be made clear that low scorers are not
unprincipled or immoral; they are simply more guarded and less
willing to openly reveal the whole truth.

Altruism. Altruistic people find helping other people genuinely
rewarding. Consequently, they are generally willing to assist those
who are in need. Altruistic people find that doing things for others
is a form of self-fulfillment rather than self-sacrifice. Low scorers
on this scale do not particularly like helping those in need.
Requests for help feel like an imposition rather than an opportunity
for self-fulfillment.

Cooperation. Individuals who score high on this scale dislike
confrontations. They are perfectly willing to compromise or to deny
their own needs in order to get along with others. Those who score
low on this scale are more likely to intimidate others to get their
way.

Modesty. High scorers on this scale do not like to claim that they
are better than other people. In some cases this attitude may derive
from low self-confidence or self-esteem. Nonetheless, some people
with high self-esteem find immodesty unseemly. Those who are willing
to describe themselves as superior tend to be seen as disagreeably
arrogant by other people.

Sympathy / Tender-Mindedness. People who score high on this scale are
tenderhearted and compassionate. They feel the pain of others
vicariously and are easily moved to pity. Low scorers are not
affected strongly by human suffering. They pride themselves on making
objective judgments based on reason. They are more concerned with
truth and impartial justice than with mercy.


> I do think you make a strong case here, but I'm not
> as ready to conclude it as you are.  They do seem to
> be very altruistic toward fellow Jews (a component of A);
> they co-ordinate their actions very well together,
> which should also indicate high A.  Likewise, there
> seems to be strong conformity of opinion within their
> ranks--a high A trait.

How frequently do they experience religious schisms?


> OTOH, you seem to have a point
> that the crying is more likely explained by A than N,
> because East Asians should not be lower N than whites.
> The picture still looks very mixed to me.

This actually gives us a good basis for comparison - Jews and
E.Asians are quite "K-selected." They have high intelligence, high
rates of myopia, low fertility, high parental investment, are
financially successful, etc. So they should show similar behaviors.
Yet, their personalities and strategies do seem different on simple
observation. The Japanese seem far more self-effacing, submissive,
quiet, and friendly, while the Jews are more religious (or used to
be, anyway), more domineering, and more warlike. It sounds like a
difference in both E and A. Perhaps this is the difference between
diasporic city-living and insular agricultural living? People who
live in cities tend to be higher on O and lower on A, if I remember
correctly, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a difference in E as
well. Perhaps long city life has bred certain of these traits into
the Jewish people, or, perhaps the traits traditionally associated
with them are transient characteristics imposed on them and everyone
else who lives in the city.


> With one notable exception, the Jews I have known
> have not struck me as especially disagreeable, but
> that may be a lucky accident.

You know, that may be because Jews are intelligent. Personal
experience suggests that smart disagreeable people easily fool others
into thinking they're nice, friendly, team players. This is probably
how politicians do it! The only thing that bothers me about this line
of reasoning is that it smacks of rationalization - if the data
doesn't fit the theory, let's re-interpret it to fit the theory. I'd
like to have some actual hard data on Ashkenazi Jews, or at least on
Semites in general; it would be better than going on conjecture and
personal experiences.


--Mark