I’m Brazilian and I won’t try to argue over the claim that most people here hate reading because it’s true, not only for our huge underclass (who can’t read that well anyway) but also for those from the middle and higher classes.

However, I’d place most of the blame for the dumbing down of the latter groups on our mainstream media and the federal government which have been engaged for decades now in a relentless effort to glamorize the culture of our underclass, a culture put beyond criticism despite its destructiveness to our society.

We are now on the way to forming an even bigger underclass.

Exactly what we needed…

Great article. And if I may add, Rahm Emmanuel served in the Israeli military. Just think about this. Whom does their true allegiance lie with? So much for the so-called conservatives and their hysterical cries about Obama being a crypto-Muslim who would like to destroy their precious Zionist state. He is just another string in the same old neocon puppet show.

Asians overwhelmingly benefit from Affirmative Action or more to the point the white-hating racism that drives Affirmative Action, starting with benefit of being allowed to colonize this country. The standard isn't the performance of asians, it's their population numbers. If they were really victims of AA they would be restricted to something close to their numbers, because AA isn't about performance or equal opportunity it's about equal results, isn't it? (Actually it's just about robbing and destroying whitey, but let's just pretend it isn't for a moment.) And asians have shown you what they really think of the whole racial spoils system, and whether or not it really hurts them, with this last vote (only the benefits they get are more like 95-5 rather than 70-30). Crying about the minimal impact racist correctness has on asians smacks of self-loathing. It's also no more likely to sway asians, who understand the vast profits they get from the system of white-hating racism, than it has blacks or hispanics. Voting to rob whitey is a rational choice for these groups, it's how they earn a collective living. Whether it's moral is another question, but again they have given you their opinion on that score.

The other is the lack of institutional intellect.

The Republicans aren't stupid, they're dishonest. No amount of "institutional intellect" (whatever that is) will overcome the reality that the Republicans have allowed America to become, in the words of Eugene McCarthy "a colony of the world" in which the Republicans only constituency has been replaced by a population that is intensely hostile to that constituency AND to the ideas of conservatism and the Republican party. Maybe a cleverer campaign might have increased turnout and that might have benefited Romney, but it would have been the last time.

I’d like to ask.

Suppose in ancient but historical times there has been some more and fairly widespread admixture into h. sapiens populations from relict hominids who, like Denisovans, have not figured in the archaeological records much and no type specimens exist.

Would this be easily detected in comparisons of various ethnics and their DNA?

@John Derbyshire

There’s little need for genetic diddling real soon. Embryo selection, if applied widely, as memorably depicted in the film Gattaca would do more than reverse the decline in average intelligence due to dysgenic fertility.

I don’t know about their economy, but I drove through Hungary last year.

Being used to Slovakia and Czech Republic, seeing Hungary up close strongly reminded me of 1990’s.
Everything-private houses, airport, infrastructure seemed shabbier and poor.

In case you are wondering, eSports is watching other people play video games as a spectator sport. Why you would want to is unexplained.

No one ever explained to me why people watch sports. I’ve been mystified by that since childhood. I presume there’s people here who do watch sports? Why?

I mean, I get team sports. I’ve played soccer, basketball and even baseball (only a few times, it was fun).

But why would you watch other people do it?

When deciding whom to support in the Israel-Palestine conflict, the answer is easy.

Is one side Muslim? Then support the other guys.

Jews may have many vices but they aren’t bent on imposing their own superstition on the rest of the world.

Yang, to me, purely on his ideas / writings seems to be the best ever candidate.
But ideas and actually implementing them are a world apart.

Shame he’s not a good looking mulatto; then he’d have a solid chance of having to die in a tragic weight-lifting or freak traffic accident.

Estimating intelligence of women from their pictures doesn’t really work, outside of people with obvious congenital issues.

Given that Stacey Abrams has made it far, it’s almost certain her IQ >100, probably above 110.

Interestingly, a new experiment found out that women especially give very good estimates of male intelligence based on photographs of completely unrelated males they’ve never seen.

There is no left. It took me a long time to understand why some people seemed to hate me because I present myself as a leftist. Well now at last I understand: the “left” is a bunch of people calling themselves “progessives” (as if there were people adverse to progress) which in fact are only interested to impose their absurd vision of ethics onto everyone. Of course these people have understandabily made every leftist a suspect. People aspiring to true social justice – ie being treated fairly, in direct proportion to one’s contibution to society – should not call themselves leftists anymore. “Leftist” is now a sad joke word.

https://twitter.com/tomhanks/status/1210345105271459840

“Let this be the final lost pacifier of 2019! Hanx”

I understand north americans have been subjected to loads of anti-communist propaganda, but decades after the end of Mc Carthysm, maybe it’s time to understand what communism (and leftism) is. Small hint: it has nothing to do with anti racism, cancel culture, women’s rights, gay rights, finding excuses for petty crimes, condoning urban violence and is antithetic to global capitalism.

People should really start to think about what words mean and stop dividing along lines they obviously do not understand to face the real ennemy. Read Orwell (yeah, a Marx inspired leftist) FFS, he described exactly why you are failing at fighting back.

So as a biologist knowledgeable about these viruses, I am working for the international banking cartel. I am still waiting for the paycheck.
The truth is, in one year the virus will still be problematic because of idiotic articles like these.

I am baffled that some people believe countries like China, Iran, Israel, western european countries, Russia and the US would conspire together, would all have leaders that agree on a global conspiracy on their people expense. That alone is ludicrous, there is no need to expose any scientific stupidity – because frankly discussing these subjects with people with no scientific culture at all is tiring.

Hobbyist jet turbines have made jetpacks a practical thing.

There’s several designs. Flight time around ten minutes.

Look it up in YouTube.

“maximum dive speed” isn’t maximum dive speed, it’s just the maximum safe speed for which the plane is certified. Obviously, planes aren’t constructed in a way that if you exceed that speed it falls apart immediately, but there’s possibly stress damage.

A long shallow dive on full throttle is just the way to work up a very high speed.

510 Vs 460 isn’t va big difference.