Hi Suse,

You're right, Saudi Arabia - on aggregate - is one of the richest countries on earth, because of its vast oil deposits. That - being rich without having to work, what they call a 'rentier economy' - may fit the Islamist model, which has always disdained productive work, but it's hardly applicable to the rest of us.

I also agree with you that no particular ethnic group is all that much smarter than any other, it depends very much on opportunity: give any group of people opportunities, and some will grab them, some will not.

Of course, stand in their way, implement bullsh!t 'opportunities' and they won't. In the case of Aboriginal people, in remote communities, the 'option' of non-English has condemned children for a couple of generations now to the most rubbish education, which has left communities totally unskilled and powerless, totally at the mercy of the outside world on which they depend.

Meanwhile, mainly in urban areas, forty thousand Indigenous people have now graduated from universities. One in seven or eight adults. One in five women, one in ten men. In remote 'communities', people are closed off, spatially and culturally. In urban situations, people have access to an open society, standard schooling, access to the economy, and to standard trades training and tertiary education.

Keep people shut out of opportunities, and yes, they will seem to be stupider than others. But wrong policy can take generations to remedy.

Cheers,

Joe

Here we are banging on about race again, there is only one human race and we all belong to the that race.
Race is man's most dangerous myth.

The Saudis are floating on an ocean of oil, Susie. And what have they done with their wealth? Led space exploration? Invented any new life saving surgical techniques? Produced any wonder drugs? Are they renowned for their manufactured goods? Would you like to live in Saudi Arabia? The only Muslim countries which have any money and no oil are those with a bunch of Chinese running their economy.

I am glad that you are smart enough to figure out that whatever the race, some people are very dumb, some mildly dumb, most with average intelligence, some with above average intelligence, and some who are very smart. What is your explanation for this? Are all babies born with equal intelligence? And do they simply develop different intelligences through their life because of environmental reasons? Or does genetics play a big part?

If you have the smarts to figure out that intelligence can be heritable, and that genetics must play a part in any person's IQ, then you have just crossed the Rubicon.

Human races have different proportions of people with very low, low, average, above average, and high intelligence. That is not to say that there are no smart blacks or dumb Asians. But the different races have different bell curves of intelligence.

In most modern societies, the smartest (or most ruthless) people are at the top, and the dumbest are at the bottom. Smart people in the lowest class do not stay there because they are upwardly mobile. My own mother was a barefoot girl on a farm, a waitress, an usherette, a cook on sheep stations, and she became an executive on a TV station. As a former Housing Commission tenant, I know that most "disadvantaged" people are just plain dumb. Most criminals come from the "disadvantaged" classes because they are dumb.

And as with populations, so to with civilisations. There are some civilisations which are smart and successful, and some which are dumb and poor. And their success or disadvantage pretty well equates with the mean intelligence levels of their populations

Suseonline, "I believe Saudi Arabia is one of the richest places on earth? Aren't they predominantly Muslim?"

There is your compartmentalised mind at work again and your convenient short memory.

Would that be the same Saudi Arabia that has 100,000 large air-conditioned tents standing idle in a tent city that houses up to 3 million for Islamic knees-ups (and the Saudis turn a profit out of those tents!). The huge tents are also fireproof and equipped with kitchen and bathroom facilities.

However, Saudi Arabia has left it to Europe to take those Syrian 'refugees' you say Australia should be taking as well?

The Saudis take short term guest workers, but no way that they will offer a home to those Muslims from Syria and elsewhere. Not something you and would accept of the Australian government.

However Saudi Arabia is more than willing to fund mosques in western democracies.

One would think that you would be criticising the 'religion of peace'(sic) for largely being unresponsive to the crisis and not even taking care of its own (as you would slam Christian churches if they did similar), but of course you never do.

Well done Joe and onthebeach, I got the distinct impression that our arguments made Susieonline think twice. Her last post was feeble and simply consisted of a few sneery one liners.

I doubt if it will last though. Susie appears to be an Egalitarian who really does think that all humans are equal. Therefore, if any minority is not doing well, it is because somebody is "oppressing" them, or not giving them a fair go. She will go on advocating this philosophy, because she thinks that fighting against "oppression" and discrimination will stop wars and Save the World.

She does not know what to do if her philosophy is revealed as a fantasy. So she will keep on advocating this nonsense forever. She claims that she hates religion and does not support Islam. But her defence of Muslim immigration into western countries amounts to the same thing. She is doing exactly what the imams and mullahs want her to do.

Angela Merkel responded angrily to the fact that Saudi Arabia did not offer to take even one Syrian "refugee", but instead gave billions to Islamic organisations in Germany to build mosques for the millions of Muslims now pouring into Germany. Any intelligent person can see that the leaders of Islam see immigration and demographic change as the way to turn Europe (and Australia) Muslim. And it is a tactic which is working just fine because of people like Susie.

But Susie refuses to look at what she does not want to see. She will go on defending Muslim immigration into western countries because to oppose it would be "discrimination" and "racism", and according to her ideology, she can never support what she believes is morally wrong. Even when she knows that it is practical and the only answer.

So she is in a quandary. She hates religions and knows that Islam is utterly reprehensible. She does not want to live under Islam herself. She wants to live in western countries with their personnel freedoms, but she can't bring herself to oppose Islamic immigration because it contravenes her ideology.

LEGO, "Susie appears to be an Egalitarian who really does think that all humans are equal"

Then how come she has apparently spent years on this site alone doing her trademark drive-bys, caustic bullets aimed at 'white' men and so on?

Why is she determined as other self-loathing leftists (as opposed to the real Left -Jazz loving 'outlaws' who would never support a toxic, freedom-denying religio-political system that is Islam) to have endless diversity? The obvious answer applying Occam's' Razor is that Suseonline and other green leftists such as Greens Sarah Howling Young just hate the guts of the 'Whites' they despise and the inherited traditions from the UK and just because!

There are many before you who tried to reason with Suseonline and her tag-team, but to no avail. It is all water off a duck's back. There is nothing to see there but a feminist dino left over from the previous Millenium, half a century ago, who gets a buzz from her random drive-bys from arguing, and at the same is getting square with those men and the (RC) church who did her wrong.

Ever seen old dragons on public transport indulging themselves (and depressing other passengers) with the same life-wasting rituals? -Nags who dump on their in-laws, husband, friends, you name it? Sad compensation for lost youth and for the decisions they made, or should have made, in their own sorry lives? They get off the bus seemingly refreshed by their rituals. Everyone else gets off depressed - should have moved seats out of earshot, they observe.

You are earnest and kind, two positives of many that will see you have a happy life if you do not fall into the 'caring and rescuing' traps.

Just thinking, mothers really need to brief their boys and male youth on how to care for themselves. Along with telling them how to separate the wheat from the chaff, and not to waste the years of decent young women of course.