[quote]Thomas Gabriel wrote:
Public education should be dismantled. I didn’t have a single good teacher in elementary, jr. high and high school. Many of the teachers were abysmal. All political discussion was biased to the point of propaganda. [/quote]
Well, what do you think they’re FOR?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
What is the correlation coefficient between the two?
[/quote]
From Wiki:
[quote]One study found a correlation of .82 between g (general intelligence factor) and SAT scores; another has found correlation of .81 between g and GCSE scores.
Correlations between IQ scores (general cognitive ability) and achievement test scores are reported to be .81 by Deary and colleagues, with the percentage of variance accounted for by general cognitive ability ranging “from 58.6% in Mathematics and 48% in English to 18.1% in Art and Design”.[/quote]
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
LOL. I need to start playing that game again.
[/quote]
Finally, something we can agree on. I installed Civ Revolution on my iPhone this week, not nearly as good as the real thing but at least it’s portable.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
RSGZ wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
I do not think your answer lies in intelligence, but education
Precisely.
I grew up in South Africa. The reason it went to hell is because people were/are not educated properly throughout most of Africa.
When European colonized South Africa, for example, although the economy might have been better do you really think the black people that were there first were happy about it? You think they enjoyed apartheid?
Interesting, your family didn’t stick around to enjoy the post-apartheid utopia. Most white South Africans I meet who make these kinds of pronouncements do so from afar. [/quote]
Who said my family didn’t stick around? Both my parents are Polish, and them along with other relatives all still live back there.
I, being someone on the other end of affimative action, couldn’t find a job because of my skin colour so I moved elsewhere.
[quote]RSGZ wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
RSGZ wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
I do not think your answer lies in intelligence, but education
Precisely.
I grew up in South Africa. The reason it went to hell is because people were/are not educated properly throughout most of Africa.
When European colonized South Africa, for example, although the economy might have been better do you really think the black people that were there first were happy about it? You think they enjoyed apartheid?
Interesting, your family didn’t stick around to enjoy the post-apartheid utopia. Most white South Africans I meet who make these kinds of pronouncements do so from afar.
Who said my family didn’t stick around? Both my parents are Polish, and them along with other relatives all still live back there.
I, being someone on the other end of affimative action, couldn’t find a job because of my skin colour so I moved elsewhere.[/quote]
I don’t understand why laws have to be passed to force companies to hire anyone. If a company hires a dummy, the company suffers. On the other hand, if someone comes to me with the best creds, I hire them whether they are black, white, green, or have the last name Hussein. I want the best for the kids in my department.
[quote]TBT4ver wrote:
orion wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
That book was shit, though the answer is no.
Exactly. Diamond wrote a book that recycled old arguments from the old Cultural Ecology debates in academic anthropology and “disproved” a long discredited theory that no one legitimately advocates anyway - that Race determined the “winners” in the race of civilization.
And his environmental determinism is as flawed now as it was when the original theorists pressed it.
But, to reiterate - race is irrelevant to intelligence.
I just know that you have never played Civilization I to IV.
If you have no iron or horses you are basically fucked and other civilizations will be mean to you.
Actually in civilization I you can discover The Wheel before you get horseback riding, which leads to chariots which have a better attack value than cavalry.[/quote]
I know, I dominated whole continents with my mighty chariots.
You need something to actually draw them though.
That is why the Mesoamerican Indians knew the wheel but never developed chariots, they had no animals that could have drawn them.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I don’t understand why laws have to be passed to force companies to hire anyone. If a company hires a dummy, the company suffers. On the other hand, if someone comes to me with the best creds, I hire them whether they are black, white, green, or have the last name Hussein. I want the best for the kids in my department.
[/quote]
The initial idea of affirmative action was to create some equality, and was meant to be enforced for 10 years from when Mandela was elected as president. Black people were held back and were not been educated equally, and this was meant to close the divide - so to speak. Instead, it’s done a full 180 - hell, they even reclassed Chinese people as black.
Now, white people are bottom of the food chain instead of giving everyone equal opportunity. You cannot even expand a company you own past a certain size without having a black person in a high management position. I believe in equal rights, but that’s taking it a step too far.
I know it’s difficult to rectify past mistakes, but they really need to let go of the race thing because it’s not helping anyone at the moment. Highly skilled individuals are leaving the country to find work in places where they will be appreciated. The recession has actually had a partially positive effect indirectly on the country, in a way, since many people are returning (of all races) to try rebuild the economy.
The 2010 Fifa World Cup is fast approaching and while people should be working together, they still are pulling ridiculous stunts such as delaying work on this tournament, which is just causing more problems.
[quote]RSGZ wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
RSGZ wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
I do not think your answer lies in intelligence, but education
Precisely.
I grew up in South Africa. The reason it went to hell is because people were/are not educated properly throughout most of Africa.
When European colonized South Africa, for example, although the economy might have been better do you really think the black people that were there first were happy about it? You think they enjoyed apartheid?
Interesting, your family didn’t stick around to enjoy the post-apartheid utopia. Most white South Africans I meet who make these kinds of pronouncements do so from afar.
Who said my family didn’t stick around? Both my parents are Polish, and them along with other relatives all still live back there.
I, being someone on the other end of affimative action, couldn’t find a job because of my skin colour so I moved elsewhere.[/quote]
Thanks. I read somewhere that since “affirmative action” was the post-apartheid government policy, things like power and running water are no longer reliable in many parts of that country.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
RSGZ wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
RSGZ wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
I do not think your answer lies in intelligence, but education
Precisely.
I grew up in South Africa. The reason it went to hell is because people were/are not educated properly throughout most of Africa.
When European colonized South Africa, for example, although the economy might have been better do you really think the black people that were there first were happy about it? You think they enjoyed apartheid?
Interesting, your family didn’t stick around to enjoy the post-apartheid utopia. Most white South Africans I meet who make these kinds of pronouncements do so from afar.
Who said my family didn’t stick around? Both my parents are Polish, and them along with other relatives all still live back there.
I, being someone on the other end of affimative action, couldn’t find a job because of my skin colour so I moved elsewhere.
Thanks. I read somewhere that since “affirmative action” was the post-apartheid government policy, things like power and running water are no longer reliable in many parts of that country.
[/quote]
Running water has never been an issue, unless you live in the rural areas.
The problem with the power is that since there is only one power company, they have a monopoly. Same goes for the phone company Telkom (though there is finally opposition coming about against them).
Eskom (the power company) just raised prices without increasing their infrastructure, so when the cities grew, a shortage arose. Pure greed - price increases of ~54% while they offer a reduced service. That, and ex-president Mbeki decided that it would be a good idea to help his upstanding friend Robert Mugabe by GIVING Zimbabwe electricity.
[quote]orion wrote:
TBT4ver wrote:
orion wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
That book was shit, though the answer is no.
Exactly. Diamond wrote a book that recycled old arguments from the old Cultural Ecology debates in academic anthropology and “disproved” a long discredited theory that no one legitimately advocates anyway - that Race determined the “winners” in the race of civilization.
And his environmental determinism is as flawed now as it was when the original theorists pressed it.
But, to reiterate - race is irrelevant to intelligence.
I just know that you have never played Civilization I to IV.
If you have no iron or horses you are basically fucked and other civilizations will be mean to you.
Actually in civilization I you can discover The Wheel before you get horseback riding, which leads to chariots which have a better attack value than cavalry.
I know, I dominated whole continents with my mighty chariots.
You need something to actually draw them though.
That is why the Mesoamerican Indians knew the wheel but never developed chariots, they had no animals that could have drawn them.
[/quote]
The last is a Jared Diamond fallacy.
They had wheels (on toy carts). They had slaves aplenty to be sacrificed, or to be put at hard labor. So why, Dr. Diamond and Orion, did they not use slaves to pull wheeled carts?
[quote]forlife wrote:
The IQ tests available on the internet are a joke, including the one Mensa provides to lure people into joining their club.
If you want a real IQ test, go to a trained psychologist. Mine consisted of a full day of testing. There are quite a few validated intelligence tests out there, which wouldn’t require an assessment that extensive. I just implemented the Numerical Reasoning and Watson-Glaser tests here at my company, and others like the Wonderlic are good instruments as well.
If you want a very rough measure, you can look at your SAT scores. There is a decent correlation between your performance on the SAT and general intelligence.[/quote]
The actual mensa test is a proctored exam, and is pretty exhaustive. The online thing is just some marketing deal.
I guess I’m wondering if there are study guides or exercises to improve IQ scores. Some here have suggested IQ is pretty much enviromental, right? So, could I employ resources (study guides, etc.) in my enviroment to markedly boost my IQ?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
I guess I’m wondering if there are study guides or exercises to improve IQ scores. Some here have suggested IQ is pretty much enviromental, right? So, could I employ resources (study guides, etc.) in my enviroment to markedly boost my IQ?[/quote]
It depends what the specific IQ test is, but all have ways to study and boost scores.
[quote]borrek wrote:
Sloth wrote:
I guess I’m wondering if there are study guides or exercises to improve IQ scores. Some here have suggested IQ is pretty much enviromental, right? So, could I employ resources (study guides, etc.) in my enviroment to markedly boost my IQ?
It depends what the specific IQ test is, but all have ways to study and boost scores.[/quote]
Hm. Yeah, don’t know which one. Not something I’m anxious to do, but I wouldn’t mind taking one at some point. For now, studying for classes takes up enough of my time.
[quote]RSGZ wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
RSGZ wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
RSGZ wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
I do not think your answer lies in intelligence, but education
Precisely.
I grew up in South Africa. The reason it went to hell is because people were/are not educated properly throughout most of Africa.
When European colonized South Africa, for example, although the economy might have been better do you really think the black people that were there first were happy about it? You think they enjoyed apartheid?
Interesting, your family didn’t stick around to enjoy the post-apartheid utopia. Most white South Africans I meet who make these kinds of pronouncements do so from afar.
Who said my family didn’t stick around? Both my parents are Polish, and them along with other relatives all still live back there.
I, being someone on the other end of affimative action, couldn’t find a job because of my skin colour so I moved elsewhere.
Thanks. I read somewhere that since “affirmative action” was the post-apartheid government policy, things like power and running water are no longer reliable in many parts of that country.
Running water has never been an issue, unless you live in the rural areas.
The problem with the power is that since there is only one power company, they have a monopoly. Same goes for the phone company Telkom (though there is finally opposition coming about against them).
Eskom (the power company) just raised prices without increasing their infrastructure, so when the cities grew, a shortage arose. Pure greed - price increases of ~54% while they offer a reduced service. That, and ex-president Mbeki decided that it would be a good idea to help his upstanding friend Robert Mugabe by GIVING Zimbabwe electricity.[/quote]
I think that given your age,you probably have a somewhat distorted view of how things went down here,so your opinions need to be viewed accordingly.The one thing I can tell you is that you,me,and every white person living here/was living here that we know,can consider themselves lucky that we didn’t get our throats slit in our sleep en masse.
I don’t remember any whites complaining about government monopolies when they all had guaranteed cradle to grave job security,their house in the suburbs,plenty of cheap domestic labour to tackle all the distasteful house chores,top notch government schooling for their offspring,cheap electricity and municipal services to keep them docile,and a whole host of other advantages too numerous to mention here.
It was then all braaivleis,rugby,sunny skies and chevrolet,to quote an old ad.It was ‘keep sport and politics separate’,so the locals could be kept happy with rugby and cricket tours.
All this led to a sense of white entitlement that was frankly nauseating.It continues to this day.And don’t for a minute think that the race based entitlements that whites had in this country don’t carry forward to the now and will still carry forward for generations to come.All those S.A. expats returning home during the current economic downshift?The majority couldn’t hack it in Europe,the U.S. or wherever they chose to go.The reality of doing your own housework while holding down a full time job,raising a family and living like the rest of the western world just becomes too daunting,because,well,you know,back home they had a domestic to pick up after them.
So now they whine that they can’t get a job here because of ‘affirmative action’,you know the color of their skin holds them down,cos they are like,so talented.I also didn’t hear much whining back in the day when the shoe was on the other foot.Hell no,then everyone felt they were employed because they were the best man for the job.Not because the system supported them due to their skin color.Why would you think that the wheel would not turn?
This doesn’t in any way infer that any or all this applies to you.You are from a younger generation,and good for you that you have made your choice to move and do what is best for you and yours.What I’m saying is that all of the things you opine on have a root cause going back much deeper than the 94 election and the last 15 years of majority rule,and you need to be aware of those causes before you pile all the blame on the wrong doorstep.There is plenty of blame to go around.
Having said that,it doesn’t mean for one second that one should not vociferously critique the current governmment,the parastatal enterprises like Eskom,or any other signs of mismanagement.The situation here will take a long time to sort out.If at all…
[quote]Neuromancer wrote:
I think that given your age,you probably have a somewhat distorted view of how things went down here,so your opinions need to be viewed accordingly.The one thing I can tell you is that you,me,and every white person living here/was living here that we know,can consider themselves lucky that we didn’t get our throats slit in our sleep en masse.
I don’t remember any whites complaining about government monopolies when they all had guaranteed cradle to grave job security,their house in the suburbs,plenty of cheap domestic labour to tackle all the distasteful house chores,top notch government schooling for their offspring,cheap electricity and municipal services to keep them docile,and a whole host of other advantages too numerous to mention here.
It was then all braaivleis,rugby,sunny skies and chevrolet,to quote an old ad.It was ‘keep sport and politics separate’,so the locals could be kept happy with rugby and cricket tours.
[/quote]
This is true. I think it’s still an incredible place to live, though braving it out in Joburg after becoming another statistic of 2 armed burglaries isn’t for everyone, if you can put up with certain things. The trade-offs certainly aren’t that bad nowadays.
[quote]
All this led to a sense of white entitlement that was frankly nauseating.It continues to this day.And don’t for a minute think that the race based entitlements that whites had in this country don’t carry forward to the now and will still carry forward for generations to come.All those S.A. expats returning home during the current economic downshift?The majority couldn’t hack it in Europe,the U.S. or wherever they chose to go.The reality of doing your own housework while holding down a full time job,raising a family and living like the rest of the western world just becomes too daunting,because,well,you know,back home they had a domestic to pick up after them.[/quote]
Good point. When I took my girlfriend back home last year, she was in awe at how people actually live there. “Does everyone have a housekeeper?” was one of her reactions. But that aside, yes, they are returning after losing their jobs or not being able to cope with life in these parts. However, it does create more competition in the job market from what I’ve heard from friends and family in the financial and marketing industries. People may actually work and appreciate their jobs more, though I doubt it.
[quote]
So now they whine that they can’t get a job here because of ‘affirmative action’,you know the color of their skin holds them down,cos they are like,so talented.I also didn’t hear much whining back in the day when the shoe was on the other foot.Hell no,then everyone felt they were employed because they were the best man for the job.Not because the system supported them due to their skin color.Why would you think that the wheel would not turn?[/quote]
Oh, I expected the wheel to turn, even though it’s not what should be happening. I am out of touch on current affairs though, so I probably only hear the worst of it. But the government keeps offering empty promises and people keep voting them back in - all while complaining that they aren’t doing their jobs. Contrary to popular belief though to other people reading this, the education system in SA, in my opinion, is pretty damn good. At least it was when I left school. That’s why I’m optimistic for the future, provided people like Julius Malema don’t take over.
Absolutely, I was just one of the people that wasn’t going to sit and complaing, while doing nothing about it. I’m not trying to shift blame to one particular side - everyone has made bad choices but I think the part of the problem is that they still continue to make them today.
Haha, back on topic though - do you think race and intelligence are linked?
Short answer,no.I don’t believe they are linked.Given an equal background,race is about as good a determinant of intelligence as hair or eye color.
[quote]Neuromancer wrote:
Short answer,no.I don’t believe they are linked.Given an equal background,race is about as good a determinant of intelligence as hair or eye color.[/quote]
I just linked a shitload of studies by university profs that show this ^^^ is false. I know you don’t want to believe it but there IS a reason Europe is a better place to live than most of the world and there IS a reason why eventually China will be the economic hegemon.
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
orion wrote:
TBT4ver wrote:
orion wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
That book was shit, though the answer is no.
Exactly. Diamond wrote a book that recycled old arguments from the old Cultural Ecology debates in academic anthropology and “disproved” a long discredited theory that no one legitimately advocates anyway - that Race determined the “winners” in the race of civilization.
And his environmental determinism is as flawed now as it was when the original theorists pressed it.
But, to reiterate - race is irrelevant to intelligence.
I just know that you have never played Civilization I to IV.
If you have no iron or horses you are basically fucked and other civilizations will be mean to you.
Actually in civilization I you can discover The Wheel before you get horseback riding, which leads to chariots which have a better attack value than cavalry.
I know, I dominated whole continents with my mighty chariots.
You need something to actually draw them though.
That is why the Mesoamerican Indians knew the wheel but never developed chariots, they had no animals that could have drawn them.
The last is a Jared Diamond fallacy.
They had wheels (on toy carts). They had slaves aplenty to be sacrificed, or to be put at hard labor. So why, Dr. Diamond and Orion, did they not use slaves to pull wheeled carts?[/quote]
Well it would not work for chariots because the trick is to be faster than your opponents.
As for why they had no slave drawn carriages, I dunno, they in part had slave carriers. It could be that slave labor was simply to cheap to gain anything from drawn carriages, much like the Egyptians that never made much of the steam engine.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Neuromancer wrote:
Short answer,no.I don’t believe they are linked.Given an equal background,race is about as good a determinant of intelligence as hair or eye color.
I just linked a shitload of studies by university profs that show this ^^^ is false. I know you don’t want to believe it but there IS a reason Europe is a better place to live than most of the world and there IS a reason why eventually China will be the economic hegemon.
[/quote]
That would actually mean that more intelligent people make for better places to live which is just an assumption.