Wizofaust/dnicholson, I regard it as obvious that the social mobility of smart people is upwards, while dumb people are socially mobile in the other direction. “Class” is fundamentally a product of intelligence.

I know that there is no shortage of white dole bludgers, but since the Sydney “Muslim” suburb of Lakemba has the highest proportion of long term welfare recipients in the Commonwealth of Australia, why you would want to add to the number by importing more crime prone dole bludgers is beyond me.

As for failed races dying out, you might remember that Australia’s sainted Dr Fred Hollows was condemned by the homosexual community for telling aborigines that unless “certain practices” (initiating boys into tribes by screwing them up the bum) “did not cease immediately, there will soon be no aborigines.” Half the “highlanders” in Newgini have AIDS, and AIDS infected men in South Africa rape virgin girl babies because they think it is a cure. Doesn’t look too smart to me. Perhaps AIDS is a blessing in disguise for the improvement of the human race?

Criminality is primarily a product of low intelligence coupled with poor social conditioning. Since intelligence is heritable, it is obviously related to genetics. Dumb couples are not renowned for producing smart children, but smart couples usually do produce such a result. Why do you wish to burden your own society with dumb people from hostile cultures who are unassimilatable, and prone to criminality and welfare dependency? Haven’t we got enough problems to waste our money on without importing more problems? If the US prison population is expanding, has it occurred to you that this is because the white component of the US is reducing?

Your assessment of pre European aboriginal society had me shaking my head in pitying wonder. It would only take a 1000 word essay for me to blow that little “noble savage” myth right out of the water. Suffice to say that aborigines were unable to form a civilisation in 40,000 years and I am unable to fathom how you could consider that a virtue.

I regard it as obvious that the social mobility of people who make use of their talents is upwards. "IQ" very roughly measures one of many talents. The highest IQ in the world means little if you're inherently lazy/unambitious, or have zero people-skills, or circumstances out of your control mean that no window of opportunity is ever available for you to succeed. Further, there are plenty of very successful individuals who almost certainly have mediocre IQs (especially in sports).

So now you're claiming that *Muslims* have inherently lower IQs?
Aside from the fact that Muslims aren't even close to being a "race", as I pointed out before, it was Muslims (of predominantly Middle-eastern extraction, but also a percentage of sub-Saharan "blacks") that preserved advanced civilisation in the West during the Dark Ages.

Perhaps you could stop "shaking your head in pitying wonder" and actually stick to the points at hand. I provided a quote by Captain Cook based on his first-hand observation. No doubt, he only saw a small cross-section of the indigenous peoples, and it would be naive to assume that their entire existence was all peace, equality and happiness. But it is entirely safe to say that it was infinitely better than the condition in which many live today, especially the ones behind bars.

And why *should* we view modern civilisation as some pinnacle of existence? No doubt it has its advantages, and I certainly wouldn't give them up in a hurry, but until modern civilisation proves it is capable of sustaining itself for tens of thousands of years, it makes just as much sense to regard it as some temporary anomaly. At any rate, some of the reasons that Aboriginal people never did move past a largely nomadic, hunter-gatherer existence is well-enough explored in books like Guns, Germs & Steels.

(Oh and FWIW, I regard the crowing achievements of Western civilisation to be the principles of equality and liberty for all, which you so determined to dismiss)

BTW, I'm happy to accept that those who are unfortunate enough to be lacking in any form of intelligence are more likely to end up resorting to criminal behaviour - though of course, in reality, they are also far more likely to get *caught*, which skews the statistics. But realistically there's nothing much we can do about the fact that a percentage of the population will always fall into this category, regardless of their skin-colour. However we most certainly can make sure there is adequate support and a wide safety net to ensure that such individuals are able to live fulfilled, purposeful lives, without the need to resort to crime and anti-social behaviour. America's high prison population is very much a product of its inadequate welfare system, and an absurd emphasis on punishment and revenge over attempting to address the underlying causes.

My dear Wizofaust.

If you admit that intelligence levels largely determine social position, then why did you waste space in a 350 word post demanding how I knew that the people of Castlecrag and Bondi Beach were smarter than the people of Moe and Macquarie Fields?

I don’t know if Muslims have lower IQ’s than whites, but thirty generations of screwing your cousins would not have done much for their genetic diversity and Muslim crime rates in western countries is very bad. Putting your critical analysis circuits on low power while you bob up and down on a prayer mat waiting for Allah to solve all of your problems for would not do much for the “Flynn Effect” either.

If Middle Eastern civilisation surged when Western civilisation fell in 400AD, perhaps you could make the connection that that is exactly what will happen again if western pseudo intellectuals keep attacking their own civilisation and ignoring the faults of Eastern ones?

As for the abos, my reading of history would contradict your view that abos pre European were better off than they are today, especially if they were women. And I find that your opinion that Western civilisation does not reflect the pinnacle of existence to be amusing. If the best that the human race could achieve in 40,000m years was a bark humpy, would you consider that an achievement because it was attuned to nature? It was inevitable that the human race would eventually become so advanced and numerous that it would strain the resources of its own environment. That was as predictable as the rising of tomorrow’s sun. Implying that primitive lifestyles are therefore superior because they were incapable of making any impact on the environment does not look to me to be the opinion of a thinking person.

We may not be able to sustain our civilisation for tens of thousands of years, but that is hardly an argument endorsing the concept that we should never have tried to get out of our caves.

Where on earth did I admit that “intelligence levels largely determine social position”?
(And, BTW, you continue to conflate “IQ tests results” and “intelligence”).

Marrying and having children with cousins had been common practice among Western cultures for just as long as among Muslims. In Japan it has been considerably more common for many centuries. Further, there is far greater genetic diversity among Muslims, ranging from sub-Saharan Africans to Indonesians. I’ll leave it for other readers (if there are any left) to judge the sensibleness of your “bobbing up and down on a prayer mat” remark.

Where is the slightest evidence that being aware of the faults of one’s own civilisation is likely to be responsible for its downfall? If anything, remaining ignorant of them (or pretending there are none) is surely far more dangerous. I cannot speak for those who “ignore” the faults of Eastern civilisations, as I’ve never met anyone in that category.

I don’t dispute many aboriginals are better off now than pre-European settlement. My point was simply that the lousy state of existence that many others now suffer is a new phenomenon, and cannot be put down to some sort of genetic inferiority.

If I genuinely thought that “primitive lifestyles” were superior to modern civilisation, I would happily give the latter up and attempt the former. Except...I don’t even think I would be capable of it, to be honest. I don’t possess the sort of practical intelligence, patient temperament, or physical robustness required for it, and would no doubt have been a grand Darwinian failure in such an environment. I consider myself extreme fortunately to live in a world where having little else other than above-average talents in abstract and verbal reasoning in my favour is enough to do reasonably well.

redneck wrote "If the best that the human race could achieve in 40,000m years was a bark humpy, would you consider that an achievement because it was attuned to nature?"

I say yes, and I am in agreement with wizofaus on this question and differ from redneck, Shockadelic and others.

As I wrote earlier, "Only when we can learn to properly look after our natural environment, as well as hold on to some of the technological advances gained since our ancestors ended their hunter-gatherer lifestyles, can we truly claim to have progressed." (13oct07 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6482#96279) To those who haven't yet had a chance to look, I have written about this on my own web-site at http://candobetter.org/about

Our 'achievements' of the late 20th and early 21st centuries appear to be:

1. Digging up and exporting mineral wealth and in return for largely throwaway consumer items manufactured in slave-wage economies, and

2. Destroying what little arable land and native vegetation remains, in order, not to create any enduring wealth, but rather to facilitate the transfer of wealth from other Australians and, thorugh immigrants, from other countries, into the pockets of property developers, land speculators, banks, real estate agents, financiers and other sectors dependent upon this parasitic 'industry'.

These 'achievements' will seem extremely short-sighted and transient and selfishly motivated to our descendents who stand to inherit an overcrowded desert, far more bereft of arable land, water and vegetation than it was in 1788, and with its endowment of non-renewable mineral wealth exhausted. As Diamond, Wright, Broswimmer and many others have noted, the imminently threatened collapse of 21t century industrialised civilisation is far from the first time this has occurred in our history (see http://candobetter.org/about)

Compared to this stupidity, aboriginals and the other remaining hunter-gatherer societies of the world are highly advanced.

It is not as if Aboriginals were not aware of other civilisations. As pointed out earlier, Macassans had visited the northern shores of our continent for many centuries before Europeans arrived.

The Aboriginals chose not to adapt their ways because their own lifestyle, given the absence of the fossil fuel bounty since ...(tobecontinued)