Benjamin Jowett 1817-1893

My name is Benjamin Jowett.

And what I don’t know isn’t knowledge.

Nobody would write a poem like that about Yale’s current president Peter Salovey.

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A recent paper in the journal Intelligence is titled:

Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time

Highlights

• This is the first direct measurement of a probable dysgenic trend in IQ.

Abstract:

The Victorian era was marked by an explosion of innovation and genius, per capita rates of which appear to have declined subsequently. The presence of dysgenic fertility for IQ amongst Western nations, starting in the 19th century, suggests that these trends might be related to declining IQ. This is because high-IQ people are more productive and more creative. We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations, using high-quality instruments, namely measures of simple visual reaction time in a meta-analytic study. Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence (g) and are considered elementary measures of cognition. In this study we used the data on the secular slowing of simple reaction time described in a meta-analysis of 14 age-matched studies from Western countries conducted between 1889 and 2004 to estimate the decline in g that may have resulted from the presence of dysgenic fertility. Using psychometric meta-analysis we computed the true correlation between simple reaction time and g, yielding a decline of − 1.16 IQ points per decade or − 13.35 IQ points since Victorian times. These findings strongly indicate that with respect to g the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations.

Next time you watch Star Wars, I need you to remind yourself that all the dialogue you hear was recorded by a man in pink short shorts.

Milo Yiannopolis argues that everybody has got the good guys and the bad guys confused in the Star Wars movies. Jabba the Hutt, for instance, is a good example.

Jabba the Hutt is treated as this huge villain in Return of the Jedi, but this is simply unwarranted. Jabba is a responsible employer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is a capitalist hero. In the case of Han Solo, he took reasonable steps to recover a debt from a known intergalactic criminal. His agent Greedo was acting within the law when he was shot down by the notorious outlaw Solo. Lucas had to edit in special effects to cover this accidental glimpse of the truth, by showing Greedo shooting first.

Jabba the Hutt was actually pretty progressive. He ran a melting-pot society with criminals of every race, colour, and creed working together in harmony. He even employed the differently abled, like the Rancor monster. He personally financed entertainment for the downtrodden masses of Tatooine; imagine the trouble they’d get into without pod races to watch. In fact, I believe America’s rash of midnight basketball programs were based directly on Jabba’s pioneering work in the field.

Jabba disposed of his waste in an extremely eco-friendly manner, feeding enemies to the Sarlaac beast he kept as a pet. Human bodies digested over 1,000 years are way better for the environment than straight burials. The fact is Jabba would fit right in at Burning Man. He’d have his sand barge — destroyed by the terrorists, of course — and would hang out with Elon Musk and maybe sign a few multimillion dollar deals.

Jabba the Hutt, or as I call him Jabba the Hero, was brutally murdered by a white woman. Why don’t I see a single #GreenLivesMatter protest? Jabba’s main crime as far as I can tell was being an invertebrate of size. Leia brutally slugshamed him. No doubt if he had survived his throttling he would have had PTSD and would have started a Tumblr, except being an entrepreneur he’s not a whining loser so maybe not.

Speaking of Leia, a straight white princess murdering a minority businessman with no repercussions is the ultimate example of white privilege.

Read the whole thing.

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A Jedi’s Path to Jihad:

From introducing him to us in A New Hope (as a simple farm boy gazing into the Tatooine sunset), to his eventual transformation into the radicalized insurgent of Return of the Jedi (as one who sets his own father’s corpse on fire and celebrates the successful bombing of the Death Star), each film in the original trilogy is another step in Luke’s descent into terrorism. By carefully looking for the same signs governments and scholars use to detect radicalization, we can witness Luke’s dark journey into religious fundamentalism and extremism happen before our very eyes.

When we first meet Luke Skywalker, he’s an orphaned farm boy with barely any friends, living with his Aunt and Uncle, and wanting to join the Galactic Academy like all the other guys his age. You see, Luke didn’t become a space terrorist overnight, but he did exhibit signs that would make him a prime candidate for terrorist recruiters. The process of radicalization, as described by Anthony Stahelski in the Journal of Homeland Security, notes terrorists tend to:

Come from families where the father is absent (check)

Have difficulty forming relationships outside the home (check)

Be attracted to groups offering acceptance and comradeship (checkmate)

Luke is just the kind of isolated disaffected young man that terror recruiters seek out.

Obi Wan — a religious fanatic with a history of looking for young boys to recruit and teach an extreme interpretation of the Force — is practically salivating when he stumbles upon Luke, knowing he’s found a prime candidate for radicalization. …

Obi-Wan whisks Luke off to Mos Eisley using a Jedi mind trick to bypass security, knowing full well he likely appears on numerous terror no fly lists. After contracting a local drug smuggler for transportation, Obi-Wan and his newest Skywalker recruit are off. They are soon captured, however, and attempt an escape which culminates in a battle between Obi-Wan and Vader. During the fight, Obi-Wan notices Luke watching, and seeing an opportunity to fully inspire Luke to radicalize, says a Jedi prayer while committing suicide. Can you think of any other groups who try to inspire terrorism by yelling a prayer before a suicide attack?

Once Luke escapes and regroups with a terror sleeper cell, he joins them on an attack mission. As he nears his target, hearing Obi-Wan’s words in his mind, Luke closes his eyes, says a prayer and bombs a space station, killing everyone aboard. Young Skywalker has proven himself a quick study in the ways of armed religious extremism.

As the Empire Strikes Back begins, Obi-Wan appears to Luke as an apparition and gives him clear instructions on continuing his radicalization. Luke is ordered to travel overseas to receive training and religious instruction from Yoda, an extremist cleric who runs a Jedi madrasa on Dagobah.

Yoda accepts Luke into his religious “school,” teaching Luke Jedi fundamentalism and guerilla warfare. Like many extremist mullahs, Yoda demands total adherence to his strict interpretation of the Force and seeks to strip Luke of independent thinking. Yoda’s push to radicalize Luke, rob him of an identity, and instill obedience are apparent when at various points he instructs Luke to “Clear your mind of questions,” “Unlearn what you have learned” and, most grimly, “Do, or do not, there is no try.” The Jedi know it is imperative to force mindless devotion in warriors they recruit for their holy war. Armed with new combat training and cloaked in a hardline religious fervor, Luke leaves Dagobah, impatient to put his terror training to use.

In Return of the Jedi, we see a darker, hardened Luke, fittingly dressed in black and eager to use violence as a tool to enforce the twisted “judge, jury, executioner” value system of the Jedi. During a rescue mission, Luke exhibits their extremist binary worldview of “if you aren’t with us, you’re a viable military target” when he blows up Jabba’s barge, killing every man, woman, and child on board. Excited by so much bloodshed and mayhem, young Skywalker seeks to assassinate the Emperor and even his own father (!) if they won’t convert to Luke’s extremist interpretation of the Force. Luke enters the Death Star, hoping to gain martyrdom if he is killed. As Luke’s insurgent friends successfully bomb their target, Luke succeeds in killing the Emperor and, eventually, his own father. Luke’s path to radicalization is complete, his bloodlust sated … for now.

With Darth Vader the final casualty of Luke’s jihad, Obi-Wan and Yoda have succeeded in catching yet another young man in their web of Jedi extremism. As is now evident, Star Wars is clearly a cautionary tale of the dangers of radicalization, and how even a seemingly harmless young man who kept to himself on Tattooine can become the terrorist next door.

Zachary Stone

University of Texas senior and founder of UT Students Against Guns on Campus Zachary Stone, in the New York Times, deploys the classic liberal urban Jewish argument against Americans’ gun ownership rights: “I’m an incompetent idiot and a pussy, but the Constitution and the State of Texas actually allow me to have a gun! Obviously the rest of America is as effeminate, useless, cowardly, and lame as I am.”

[I]t was time to prove our shooting proficiency. We drove to a field with some silhouette targets lined up. “Standard B-27s,” the instructor told us.

“Load five bullets in the magazine!” the instructor shouted. My neighbors easily slipped five bullets into their magazines. I struggled with the Glock I’d rented from the store.

“Ready your weapon!” The others all put their magazines in their guns, pulled back the slides, and aimed. I put the magazine in the gun and then fumbled with the slide. Eventually, I got it. I looked at my neighbors to figure out how to hold the gun.

“Fire!”

I shot. The gun flew back. My neighbors each hit the center, but I missed a foot too high.

“Fire!”

I didn’t realize I’d have to shoot again so soon. I hadn’t taught myself how to aim yet, and I wanted a few seconds to learn from the first shot. I also hadn’t learned how to deal with the recoil. Anxiously, I pointed and shot — a few seconds after my neighbors. I still missed.

That’s when the instructor yelled at me. “You need to line up your sights!” I had no idea what that meant. He explained that for me to aim properly the dot at the front of the gun needed to be inside the post at the back of the gun.

That was remarkably useful information.

“Fire!”

My next shot hit the center “X.”

After five shots, the instructor told us to remove our magazines. I tugged on the magazine. It didn’t move, so I pulled harder. I pulled as hard as I could, nervous to put so much force on a gun — empty or not.

I called out to the instructor. “My magazine’s stuck!”

“Show me. Try to pull it out. That really shouldn’t happen.”

I pulled on the magazine for the instructor. “You need to push the release,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The button.”

I pushed something.

“No. The button,” he said.

That did the trick.

Daily Mail:

Archaeologists claim to have proved that Julius Caesar set foot on what is now Dutch soil, destroying two Germanic tribes in a battle that left 150,000 people dead.

The tribes were massacred in the fighting with the Roman emperor in 55BC, on a battle site now known to be in Kessel, in the southern province of Brabant.

Skeletons, spearheads, swords and a helmet have been unearthed at the site over the past three decades – but until now have not been linked to Caesar’s battle. …

The two tribes, the Tencteri and the Usipetes, came from an area east of the Rhine and had asked Caesar for asylum.

But the Roman emperor refused and ordered his eight legions and cavalry to destroy them, the university said.

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In the New Yorker, Jack Keohane imagines Lord of the Flies rewritten for our Politically Correct Age.

“Just because we’re stranded doesn’t give you the right to use non-inclusive language,” Jack said.

Read the whole thing.

Telegraph:

A Viking hoard discovered by an amateur metal detectorist could prompt the re-writing of English history, after experts claimed it shows how Alfred the Great “airbrushed” a rival king from history.

Ceolwulf II of Mercia is barely mentioned in contemporary records and largely forgotten by history, only briefly described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as an “unwise King’s thane”.

The hoard was found by James Mather, a metal detectorist, near Watlington in OctoberThe hoard was found by James Mather, a metal detectorist, near Watlington in October Photo: Julian Simmonds/The Telegraph

But as of today, his reputation might be rescued after a haul of coins dug up after more than 1,000 years suggested he in fact had a powerful alliance with Alfred, ruling their kingdoms as equals.

The hoard, made up of 186 coins, seven items of jewellery and 15 ingots, was found by amateur metal detectorist James Mather on his 60th birthday, after he uncovered it in a muddy field.

Guardian story

via GIPHY

Mollie Hemingway does not like The Donald. Neither (above) does Uncle Sam the eagle.

We’re now in month eight or so of Trumpmania. He has a core of support, and the media can’t get enough of him. The effect he has on people is fascinating. But it’s also remarkably annoying. Every casual utterance by Trump leads the news cycle until the subsequent outrage. And everyone flips out. Trump flips out. His fans flip out. His enemies flip out. The media flip out.

It’s enough to make you hate everyone. In fact, it does make me hate everyone. That probably includes you. …

I admire Donald Trump’s ability to singlehandedly control national conversations, expose the media as corrupt, and generate popular support through sheer force of entertainment will. I am serious. I think he’s an absolutely brilliant communicator operating at levels we’ve not seen before. He is the closest thing to the physical incarnation of the Sweet Meteor of Death 2016 that some have been praying for. Oh, and as someone who truly loathes the Republican Party for its incompetence and impotence, I sometimes love that he’s destroying it with such efficiency.

But he’s a demagogue with no real solutions for anything at all. He’s a narcissist who takes no responsibility for the negative consequences of his ill-conceived and incoherent verbal spews. He flip-flops incessantly. He is not honest when called to account for previous things he’s said. He insults individuals and groups of people gratuitously. His ideas always involve an expansion in the size and scope of government. And his blow-ups seem perfectly timed to help people in the party he’s not running in.

Read the whole thing.