If Mort Divine ruled the world

[Dak]

Quotes from Richard Haier:
https://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Intelligence-Cambridge-Fundamentals-Psychology/dp/110746143X/

Intelligence test scores are related to brain glucose metabolism. This helps validate that the test scores were not meaningless numbers representing a statistical artifact. In fact, as neuroimaging studies of intelligence continue to increase, old criticisms about intelligence test scores having no meaning are less and less meaningful, if they were ever meaningful at all.
........
We found a nearly perfect linear relationship between the g – loading of each subtest of the WAIS and the amount of gray matter correlated to each subtest score (Colom et al .,2006a ). Thus, we come to another important observation. IQ tests have the advantages of a standardized test battery but the scores combine the general factor along with other specific factors. So the question of how intelligence correlates to brain structure and function depends on whether the question is about g or about more specific mental abilities. Inconsistent results among these early studies likely result from confusion on this issue as well as from issues about sampling and image analysis.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Yes, war is murder on a massive scale.

Dictionary.com says .... the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

 

[Einherjar86]

In other news:
https://ijr.com/the-declaration/201...ging-hillary-clinton-colluded-new-york-times/

"I read the NYT for unbiased reporting."

Not to be a brainwashed peon, but this isn’t evidence that the NYT publishes biased reports—although that’s a nonstarter really because all news is biased.

Politicians have always forged inroads with the media, and it’s entirely unsurprising to hear that reporters give certain politicians a heads up when damaging stories/information are going to be published. This revelation (if it turns out to be true) doesn’t change the fact that the NYT still published its findings. It simply gave the Clinton administration a warning to expect bad news. There’s nothing unprecedented about that.

 

[Dak]

Not to be a brainwashed peon, but this isn’t evidence that the NYT publishes biased reports—although that’s a nonstarter really because all news is biased.

Politicians have always forged inroads with the media, and it’s entirely unsurprising to hear that reporters give certain politicians a heads up when damaging stories/information are going to be published. This revelation (if it turns out to be true) doesn’t change the fact that the NYT still published its findings. It simply gave the Clinton administration a warning to expect bad news. There’s nothing unprecedented about that.

There was never a Hillary Clinton administration (fortunately). It was the Obama administration. Was the Dubya administration given the same "courtesy"? Is the Trump administration given the same "courtesy"? We can be pretty sure of the answer. Furthermore, such an arrangement is indicative of sentiments, which - as you already noted by your acknowledgement of bias in media - shape the sorts of stories which are "newsworthy". There's no real journalism left within media houses. It's illeducated young partisan hacks writing drivel for people smarter than them but who ignorantly believe they are reading intelligent work by truthseekers. There's a significant amount of naivety among the intelligent. The upper half of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The lower half consist partially of a majority of journalists.

The internet has rendered the need for media houses close to zero. We can hear and read from the mouths of the horses themselves, as it were, as they so choose to speak.

 

[Dak]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...stations-raise-stakes-in-unrest-idUSKBN1EP064

Some 13 people were reported killed on Sunday in the worst wave of unrest since crowds took to the streets in 2009 to condemn the re-election of then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

 

[Einherjar86]

There was never a Hillary Clinton administration (fortunately). It was the Obama administration. Was the Dubya administration given the same "courtesy"? Is the Trump administration given the same "courtesy"? We can be pretty sure of the answer.

Uh, the answer is almost certainly "yes."

We all know you disdain the media, so this is getting kind of old.

 

[CiG]

The media are so shit that when Trump suggested he was going to open up the *libel laws so if media organizations intentionally write false or libelous articles they can be brought to court.

As in, something that is already fucking done in America (Trump being too uneducated on civics to even know this when he said it) and what did the media do? Claim he was trying to censor the media because they're too ideologically hysterical to go with the actual story which is: our president is so fucking stupid he proposes to put laws into place that already exist.

 

[Einherjar86]

Point taken; that's not misreporting though (and honestly, Trump probably does want to censor the media).

 

[CiG]

It's probably just as bad as misreporting: it's choosing to go with a #fakenews story that will generate emotion, outrage and fear rather than the actual facts which looks mediocre and passionless by comparison.

 

[The Ozzman]

liable laws

*libel laws

 

[CiG]

*libel laws

lol cheers, fucking autocorrect and my shitty fast typing.

 

[CiG]

I'm almost 100% sure this is ingenious satire, but:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2017/12/intersectional-feminist-first-date/

Answer the questions like a true ally would or FOAD.

 

[Dak]

Supposedly it's not, but "true feminists" hate it for perpetuating female victimhood or something.

 

[CiG]

Yeah, they could probably be a lot more subtle about it.

 

[rms]

misogynoir

that's a new one

 

[Dak]

https://qz.com/1172532/if-you-want-to-live-to-be-20-the-us-is-a-terrible-place-to-be-born/

A perfect example for using stats to hide rather than reveal.

It wasn’t always this way. In the 1960s, babies in the US were actually less likely to die than in these same countries. While infant mortality rate fell in all countries, starting in the late 1970s, it dropped much more slowly than in the other countries.

Huh. I wonder what happened since the 1970s?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Black immigrants are probably lowering the rate of childhood death, not contributing to it. No doubt that our statistics are skewed by anchor-laying Hispanics, but it only means anything if you take national statistics as a source of personal pride, which sounds very German and un-American to me.

 

[Dak]

Black immigrants are probably lowering the rate of childhood death, not contributing to it. No doubt that our statistics are skewed by anchor-laying Hispanics, but it only means anything if you take national statistics as a source of personal pride, which sounds very German and un-American to me.

Well Africa is such a genetically heterogeneous place it's pretty hard to determine. There's a place for national statistics but it's limited in many respects.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I don't think it's really a matter of genetics. If your child is dying in their first year of life, chances are you're not a legal citizen and/or have other barriers like language preventing you from finding a pediatrician or midwife or whatever. Childbirth and rearing are so damn easy in the 21st century West compared to any other place and time in history. Africans don't come here by raft like they do to Italy and France, they come here with education and money. Some exceptions exist like Somali immigrants and refugees in general, but at least the former group generally out-performs native blacks in most metrics aside from income.

 

[Dak]

I don't think it's really a matter of genetics. If your child is dying in their first year of life, chances are you're not a legal citizen and/or have other barriers like language preventing you from finding a pediatrician or midwife or whatever. Childbirth and rearing are so damn easy in the 21st century West compared to any other place and time in history. Africans don't come here by raft like they do to Italy and France, they come here with education and money. Some exceptions exist like Somali immigrants and refugees in general, but at least the former group generally out-performs native blacks in most metrics aside from income.

Dying in your first year is often a sanitation issue, which is cultural, not language or even SES related. My parents were poor but did homebirths for the majority of my siblings. The house was mostly cleaned by yours truly.

Otherwise it is a food issue, and America has plenty of food.