I think people have poor understanding of nuances of statistical concepts like mean and they apply it like blunt tools. Kierkegaard is doing that here in my opinion based on how DDF has characterized his arguments.
Mean should always be interpreted in the light of other statistical properties of the variable. For example mean height of students in a school district has different signals than mean height of students in grade 5.
Nations are extremely diverse groups. India is a very large country and allegedly has one of the lowest average IQ. Yet, historically the nation has achieved a lot and its people are generally seen as pretty smart ones when they come as immigrants. Part of the reason is that it has a huge population so even if mean IQ is lower it likely has more individuals with IQ 130+ than say UK or Mexico.
But India is also ethnically very diverse. Which means different regions of India has drastically different average IQ levels than others. Bihar which has per capita income lower than nearly every sub saharan nation has 3rd highest IQ in India. Where as the richest and smallest state Goa is on number 5.
When it comes to immigration, IQ is a flawed measure. We need more average IQ plumbers than high IQ doctors. Benefits of 10 plumbers to society might be equivalent to benefits brought by 1 doctor.
But this plays out very differently when you consider groups. Let us say your prioritize immigration from nations with high mean IQ. Chances are that the poor people in UK (who might also have low IQ) will move to USA because the difference between being poor in UK and being poor in USA is pretty sharp. Where as a high IQ rich doctor working for NHS in UK might not find it worth moving to USA as being rich in London is same as being rich in SF. Reverse might be true for poor and lower mean IQ nations. A smart Nigerian or Indian might be more interested in moving to USA to make it big rather than an uneducated village bumpkin.
We already tried Prop 187, restricting the welfare state from immigrants, in California. It failed spectacularly.
Jim Crow is basically the most evil thing every in the American mindset and your basically proposing Jim Crow for immigrants.
And don't all immigrants eventually become citizens, at least their kids.
The hardest thing is that the immigrants themselves, like all people that tend to receive on net from the welfare state, tend to vote in favor of the welfare state. Thus it becomes a self perpetuating loop. Immigrants come for the welfare state, they provide more votes for the welfare state, which attracts more immigrants that want to sponge off the welfare state.
I think it's easier to just recognize that the potential upsides to lots of low IQ labor aren't particularly high, and that the potential downsides are huge. Just let the first world be the first world.
Very grateful for this post, as I find reading Emil K. often too convincing for my (or his) good. - Here in Germany the courts have decided that our constitution (§1: human dignity über alles) requires the state to provide the minimum needed to take part in society life (not merely survival): Section 1 SGB XII: “The task of social assistance is to enable those entitled to benefits to lead a life that corresponds to human dignity.” And this includes refugees from Georgia and Somalia as well as Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan. (We do even worse: first 3 months any work is strictly verboten, the first 4 years one needs to apply for being allowed to take a job. With the job-centers actively discouraging opening your own little business.)
The compromise you suggest would not work because there would be no way to guarantee that the government would keep its promise and not start providing the welfare benefits later.
It's Kirkegaard, not Kierkegaard. (Kierkegaard is the philosopher.) If you search Chisala's site with the Kirkegaard's name spelled correctly there are a couple of hits.
Good discussion, but I wonder what Kierkegaard, Chisala, Friedman, and Sowell would be called if they were a band? 3 Bruds and a Dud? Atomic Grapefruit? Suggestions?
My experience teaching for 20+ years in a very diverse college that drew heavily from Detroit Metro was that the problems evinced by my American-born Black students was not that they had lower IQ but that had been much less well-prepared in K-12. Even grad students.
I had plenty of second generation immigrant students, and they appeared, on the surface at least, to be of IQ similar to American-born white students.
Much more indicative of struggle vs success was which school system they came out of.
In a laissez-faire economy, it will be legal for people to make gifts, and to donate to voluntary charities. Either could permit immigrants to consume more than they are paid for their work.
The existence of white flight would seem to indicate that (3) is true at least on the neighbourhood level, i.e. it appears that people are willing to pay not to live near low-IQ immigrants, not to have their children in schools where their children would have to interact with the children of low-IQ immigrants, et cetera.
Friedman says: "He points out that Sowell’s data was from 1969, at which time his claims were true, and suggests that one reason they are no longer true is that later generations of West African immigrants assimilated into the African-American population and adopted its culture, including elements that led to lower incomes. That supports Sowell’s view that the reason for the poor performance of African-Americans is cultural not genetic."
I'm not sure why we should conclude that "the poor performance of African-Americans is cultural not genetic" from this data. Immigration is selective and it's entirely possible that West African immigrants differ genetically from the existing African-American population. This could explain why earlier generations do relatively well. But then regression to the mean sets in, and the children of immigrants regress toward the average of their populations of origin. Does Sowell have any means of distinguishing his cultural explanation from the genetic one? If not, then I think that the genetic one is more plausible since the underlying mechanism (regression to the mean) is well-established, while the cultural one strikes me as more speculative.
The very sensible argument that only citizens of the country should be allowed to receive welfare payments is like water off a duck’s back when you put it to opponents of immigration. It simply does not fit into their narrative that poor immigrants will always have a negative impact on both gov’t finances and society in general. Better to continue with the welfare payments to foreigners so that you can continue to blame them for all the ills of society, apparently.
The Economist wrote in 2011: "High immigration is threatening the principle of redistribution that is at the heart of the welfare state. ... Matz Dahlberg, of Uppsala University, reckons that immigration is making people less willing to support redistribution." I personally find that an extremely good argument in favour of more immigration, not less.
A crafty elite seeking immigrants for usual HLvM reasons would, sensing itself beaten for now, agree to your proposal, let many come in and then qualify them for welfare with sob stories in ten years anyways. Many caveats here, but in the main that's why right wing parties think nothing of such compromises.
"Since Kirkegaard quoted Chisala long before he wrote the reply to me I interpret his failure to deal with the argument he knew Chisala had made as evidence against his willingness to respond to the strongest arguments against his position."
I think this is a bit of a misunderstanding. Chisala and Kirkegaard pretty much agree when it comes to specifically to Nigerians specifically in the UK. Unfortunately the UK doesn't regularly collect data broken down by country of origin. But they are probably a highly selected group with high intelligence.
More broadly responding to Chanda and the issues with non native speakers. You can have a look here: https://psyarxiv.com/3txk4/download?format=pdf depending on the dataset Black samples are broken down to UK born, English as first language, occasionally country of origin. In all those cases the African-White IQ gap is still about 5.5, restricting only to Black English Speakers/UK born. (Higher for Caribbean).
Regarding your last point about immigration and the welfare state, the UK has partially implemented this, with some categories of immigrant (including legal immigrants) having "no recourse to public funds." It's only to a fairly limited extent though, and not combined with open borders.
"The immigrants’ net contribution to society is positive even though their contribution to government revenue is negative."
Similarly, while the Erie Canal was profitable, the various feeder canals (Black River, Chenango, Chemung, Oswego, Oneida, Champlain) were not profitable (their contribution to government revenue was negative), but the canals' net contribution to society is positive.
Our society needs to focus on how we want low IQ people to live: do the quite hard work of reading so as to graduate from HS/ GED, get a job and keep it for a year or more, get married before having kids, obey laws/ don’t commit crimes.
We’re doing sub-optimal on all of these, especially for the many many low IQ people.
Keeping a McDonald’s job for a year counts, but there should be more govt support for low wage jobs, like the govt paying the SS contribution for the company, or worker, or both; and the govt playing the unemployment tax.
We should be replacing no-work welfare with a Job Guarantee. Even if it costs a little more, tho I’m sure it won’t. Workers all earn some amount of Self-Respect, which no program can “give”.
I think people have poor understanding of nuances of statistical concepts like mean and they apply it like blunt tools. Kierkegaard is doing that here in my opinion based on how DDF has characterized his arguments.
Mean should always be interpreted in the light of other statistical properties of the variable. For example mean height of students in a school district has different signals than mean height of students in grade 5.
Nations are extremely diverse groups. India is a very large country and allegedly has one of the lowest average IQ. Yet, historically the nation has achieved a lot and its people are generally seen as pretty smart ones when they come as immigrants. Part of the reason is that it has a huge population so even if mean IQ is lower it likely has more individuals with IQ 130+ than say UK or Mexico.
But India is also ethnically very diverse. Which means different regions of India has drastically different average IQ levels than others. Bihar which has per capita income lower than nearly every sub saharan nation has 3rd highest IQ in India. Where as the richest and smallest state Goa is on number 5.
When it comes to immigration, IQ is a flawed measure. We need more average IQ plumbers than high IQ doctors. Benefits of 10 plumbers to society might be equivalent to benefits brought by 1 doctor.
But this plays out very differently when you consider groups. Let us say your prioritize immigration from nations with high mean IQ. Chances are that the poor people in UK (who might also have low IQ) will move to USA because the difference between being poor in UK and being poor in USA is pretty sharp. Where as a high IQ rich doctor working for NHS in UK might not find it worth moving to USA as being rich in London is same as being rich in SF. Reverse might be true for poor and lower mean IQ nations. A smart Nigerian or Indian might be more interested in moving to USA to make it big rather than an uneducated village bumpkin.
Looks like if I'm not mistaken that the US already did some limited form of barring immigrants from welfare: https://www.nilc.org/issues/economic-support/overview-immeligfedprograms/#:~:text=Federal%20Public%20Benefits%20Generally%20Denied,paid%20for%20by%20federal%20funds.
We already tried Prop 187, restricting the welfare state from immigrants, in California. It failed spectacularly.
Jim Crow is basically the most evil thing every in the American mindset and your basically proposing Jim Crow for immigrants.
And don't all immigrants eventually become citizens, at least their kids.
The hardest thing is that the immigrants themselves, like all people that tend to receive on net from the welfare state, tend to vote in favor of the welfare state. Thus it becomes a self perpetuating loop. Immigrants come for the welfare state, they provide more votes for the welfare state, which attracts more immigrants that want to sponge off the welfare state.
I think it's easier to just recognize that the potential upsides to lots of low IQ labor aren't particularly high, and that the potential downsides are huge. Just let the first world be the first world.
Very grateful for this post, as I find reading Emil K. often too convincing for my (or his) good. - Here in Germany the courts have decided that our constitution (§1: human dignity über alles) requires the state to provide the minimum needed to take part in society life (not merely survival): Section 1 SGB XII: “The task of social assistance is to enable those entitled to benefits to lead a life that corresponds to human dignity.” And this includes refugees from Georgia and Somalia as well as Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan. (We do even worse: first 3 months any work is strictly verboten, the first 4 years one needs to apply for being allowed to take a job. With the job-centers actively discouraging opening your own little business.)
The compromise you suggest would not work because there would be no way to guarantee that the government would keep its promise and not start providing the welfare benefits later.
It's Kirkegaard, not Kierkegaard. (Kierkegaard is the philosopher.) If you search Chisala's site with the Kirkegaard's name spelled correctly there are a couple of hits.
Good discussion, but I wonder what Kierkegaard, Chisala, Friedman, and Sowell would be called if they were a band? 3 Bruds and a Dud? Atomic Grapefruit? Suggestions?
My experience teaching for 20+ years in a very diverse college that drew heavily from Detroit Metro was that the problems evinced by my American-born Black students was not that they had lower IQ but that had been much less well-prepared in K-12. Even grad students.
I had plenty of second generation immigrant students, and they appeared, on the surface at least, to be of IQ similar to American-born white students.
Much more indicative of struggle vs success was which school system they came out of.
In a laissez-faire economy, it will be legal for people to make gifts, and to donate to voluntary charities. Either could permit immigrants to consume more than they are paid for their work.
The existence of white flight would seem to indicate that (3) is true at least on the neighbourhood level, i.e. it appears that people are willing to pay not to live near low-IQ immigrants, not to have their children in schools where their children would have to interact with the children of low-IQ immigrants, et cetera.
Friedman says: "He points out that Sowell’s data was from 1969, at which time his claims were true, and suggests that one reason they are no longer true is that later generations of West African immigrants assimilated into the African-American population and adopted its culture, including elements that led to lower incomes. That supports Sowell’s view that the reason for the poor performance of African-Americans is cultural not genetic."
I'm not sure why we should conclude that "the poor performance of African-Americans is cultural not genetic" from this data. Immigration is selective and it's entirely possible that West African immigrants differ genetically from the existing African-American population. This could explain why earlier generations do relatively well. But then regression to the mean sets in, and the children of immigrants regress toward the average of their populations of origin. Does Sowell have any means of distinguishing his cultural explanation from the genetic one? If not, then I think that the genetic one is more plausible since the underlying mechanism (regression to the mean) is well-established, while the cultural one strikes me as more speculative.
The very sensible argument that only citizens of the country should be allowed to receive welfare payments is like water off a duck’s back when you put it to opponents of immigration. It simply does not fit into their narrative that poor immigrants will always have a negative impact on both gov’t finances and society in general. Better to continue with the welfare payments to foreigners so that you can continue to blame them for all the ills of society, apparently.
The Economist wrote in 2011: "High immigration is threatening the principle of redistribution that is at the heart of the welfare state. ... Matz Dahlberg, of Uppsala University, reckons that immigration is making people less willing to support redistribution." I personally find that an extremely good argument in favour of more immigration, not less.
A crafty elite seeking immigrants for usual HLvM reasons would, sensing itself beaten for now, agree to your proposal, let many come in and then qualify them for welfare with sob stories in ten years anyways. Many caveats here, but in the main that's why right wing parties think nothing of such compromises.
"Since Kirkegaard quoted Chisala long before he wrote the reply to me I interpret his failure to deal with the argument he knew Chisala had made as evidence against his willingness to respond to the strongest arguments against his position."
I think this is a bit of a misunderstanding. Chisala and Kirkegaard pretty much agree when it comes to specifically to Nigerians specifically in the UK. Unfortunately the UK doesn't regularly collect data broken down by country of origin. But they are probably a highly selected group with high intelligence.
More broadly responding to Chanda and the issues with non native speakers. You can have a look here: https://psyarxiv.com/3txk4/download?format=pdf depending on the dataset Black samples are broken down to UK born, English as first language, occasionally country of origin. In all those cases the African-White IQ gap is still about 5.5, restricting only to Black English Speakers/UK born. (Higher for Caribbean).
Regarding your last point about immigration and the welfare state, the UK has partially implemented this, with some categories of immigrant (including legal immigrants) having "no recourse to public funds." It's only to a fairly limited extent though, and not combined with open borders.
"The immigrants’ net contribution to society is positive even though their contribution to government revenue is negative."
Similarly, while the Erie Canal was profitable, the various feeder canals (Black River, Chenango, Chemung, Oswego, Oneida, Champlain) were not profitable (their contribution to government revenue was negative), but the canals' net contribution to society is positive.
Our society needs to focus on how we want low IQ people to live: do the quite hard work of reading so as to graduate from HS/ GED, get a job and keep it for a year or more, get married before having kids, obey laws/ don’t commit crimes.
We’re doing sub-optimal on all of these, especially for the many many low IQ people.
Keeping a McDonald’s job for a year counts, but there should be more govt support for low wage jobs, like the govt paying the SS contribution for the company, or worker, or both; and the govt playing the unemployment tax.
We should be replacing no-work welfare with a Job Guarantee. Even if it costs a little more, tho I’m sure it won’t. Workers all earn some amount of Self-Respect, which no program can “give”.