August 8, 2009

"I, for one, welcome our new blue-eyed overlords"

One of the amusing aspects of Matthew Yglesias's blog is his 1966 liberal obsession with the superiority of the Blue-Eyed Utopias of Northwestern Europe. Each week he puts up a half-dozen or so posts on the general theme of "They do it better in Spitzbergen." For example, here's the opening of today's essay on "Postal Service in Scandinavia."

When considering a policy issue like the quality of mail delivery it’s often intriguing to ask oneself “how is this done in Scandinavia?” What appears to be the case is that the government of Denmark quasi-privatized its postal services, creating an independent corporation called Post Danmark that’s partially owned by a private equity firm, partially owned by the firm’s employees, and partially owned by the Danish state.

Meanwhile, Sweden has a state-run postal agency but a deregulated market in postal services. So the state-owned Posten AB needs to compete with a firm called Bring CityMail. Bring CityMail operates as a private company in Denmark and Sweden, but it’s actually a subsidiary of the Norwegian state postal service. Meanwhile, in order to better compete with this Norwegian juggernaut, Sweden’s publicly owned postal service and Denmark’s semi-public postal service are merging to form Posten Norden AB. This is going to be organized as a private firm, though a large share of the ownership will be in the hands of the Danish and Swedish governments.

Hmmhmmhmm ... There must be some common denominator among the postal systems of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark that makes them so good. Obviously, the reason for the difference in quality of postal service between Scandinavia and the Brown-Eyed Dystopias such as Italy, with their excessive clutter of paintings, statues, and other useless junk, must be some wonkish detail in organizational structure.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

213 comments:

1 – 200 of 213   Newer›   Newest»
Anonymous said...

In countries where there is a high per capita income and universal everything including retirement working for the post office is a step down. The postal service's main occupation in scandinavia is delivering mail not as a jobs programme or political spoil to be had by well connected ne'er do wells.

Bill said...

Most likely they have nothing better to do in Scandinavia. Other than skiing and fishing the place is a bore. Socially, it is purgatory.

Italy is a far more interesting and rewarding place. I feel sorry for the Norwegian postmen. Delivering the mail is probably the only social interaction they have all week. None of that "Il Postino" romantic action in bleak Norse lands.

I say this as a guy who is half Scandinavian (and half Anglo-Celt).

Lexington Steele said...

Does size have anything to do with it?

Anonymous said...

steve, any thoughts on the Gym Killer George Sodini?

Anonymous said...

Cold climates. They have to be organized.

Anonymous said...

Does size have anything to do with it?

Or even proximity to Canada?

Anonymous said...

Cold climates. They have to be organized.

I don't know... the Romans seemed pretty well organized.

Lexington Steele said...

"Or even proximity to Canada?"

Good point. Canada does not have a large population, but it is a physically massive member of North America.

Anonymous said...

"I don't know... the Romans seemed pretty well organized."

The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans. I'm not sure if Steve has directly addressed this on his blog, but he has confirmed this at GNXP among other sites.

beowulf said...

'Proximity to Canada' was a reference to Pat Moynihan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/23/AR2008042302983.html

Anonymous said...

Very funny Lex.

John Seiler said...

Who cares anyway now that we have email, Twitter, Facebook, texting, blogging, etc.?

Anonymous said...

One thing that irks me is the fetishistic admiration for other groups who are seen as personifying certain traits which they express more frequently - and which the person doing the 'seeing' views as lacking in his own ingroup. Such as Scandinavian organization being admired here, or Italian "passion" being admired in a post.

Its not that there isnt some case for these generalizations being true. Its just that so many more things attach to being Scandinavian or being Italian, that to take a snap-shot caricature in a moment of life where you feel you 'see' a group exhibiting a positive quality - its a distortion of reality; its an abbreviation of life to the point of absurdity. You'll see that if you ever try to make the idea more than verbal content in a post on a message board.

The organic whole of Italian life isn't like a blood cell that you can fractionate and take out precisely what you want - it demands to be lived in entirety, with its baggage and limitations, or for fetishistic foreign admirers, appreciated as a third-rate copy through the eyes of leering self-deprecating observers, not content with their own culture. Those are the options and for those not born into it, you only have one of those options.

There is, in this way of thinking, a remnant of the liberal mindset that believes emergent properties of nations can be 'chosen' and put on like a folk costume or tried like a national cuisine. One wants to try 'Italian passion' like a flavor of ice-cream.

The individual thus 'choosing' properties of foreign nations doesn't understand his own place in the natural and organic framework of the nation in which he was born - a framework that has exactly as much passion and as much stolidity as makes sense for them and arises naturally from them.

I speak, of course, as one who has tried to do this. Unresolved issues of self-contempt and judgmental stance against one's own ingroup linger in the background... the admiration is cloying, and false, because the admirer is dealing with issues of self-rejection. His embraces are thus impure.

Thats the tone I hear when someone tells me 'I really admire XYZ [foreign] culture...'.

Whiskey said...

I have something up on Soldini. Check it out if you're interested, Roissy in DC has about 2,000 comments on it. His take is Game could have saved lives (I agree).

Yglesias ignores the dystopia that is Denmark, Norway, and Sweden with Muslim immigrants. Muslims in Arhus, a major Danish city, regularly burn cars and blockade streets to prevent the Fire Dept. response, saying "Danes out" (of their own country). Rape of native Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes is at all-time highs, nearly all of it by Muslim immigrants, and the ruling parties and feminists and leftists have criminalized any discussion of this, or release of statistics by national origin/religion/ethnicity. Yes it's a criminal matter to discuss it or leak stats to anyone. Gates of Vienna blog has your usual round-up there. As well, the welfare state is breaking down in all three countries, as Muslim immigrants abuse it and view it as tribute not a common good belonging to people like them.

Young Swedish women are now wearing "anti-rape belts" that require two hands to undue. Gates of Vienna has a series of translated articles (from Swedish) that detail the attitude of young Muslim men (which is broadly, that Swedish girls "deserve it" and that it's no matter to them). Malmo, Sweden's second or third biggest city, is basically a no-go area for non-Muslims. Police and fire don't respond anymore to the place. It's been ceded by the government to Muslim gangs as defacto foreign territory. [Malmo is often a setting in the police procedurals written by Maj Sowall and Per Wahloo.]

Broadly speaking, the Welfare State in Scandinavia (and elsewhere in Europe) is breaking down, and the elite are so firmly ensconced that no citizen outrage has any effect -- think the response to Obamacare by elected Dem officials times ten. Feminists are politically quite powerful beyond their numbers (in terms of media power and political intimidation) and have moved to block any examination of Muslim crime rates, etc. (they share the same enemy: Swedish men). Some Swedish pre-schools are requiring boys to wear dresses and have female first names. Older children get lectures and activities by transvestites.

Oddly enough, Italy is probably better positioned. It's government, being more fragile and regionally fractured (Lega Nord vs, say, the Communists/Socialists in the South) has elected politically back from the dead Berlusconi to essentially ride herd on Muslim and Gyspy immigrants and kick as many out as they can. Not that their postal services run particularly well, but politically the fed-up anger of Italians at illegal and legal immigration is being responded by the system, however imperfectly. That's something the nutty and firmly established elites in Scandinavia can't do.

/I'm also testing99

Limey Oik said...

"The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans."

Huh?

Got any links for that?

I am an Englishman, but I am physically the nordic aryan type of Englishmen, so I'd love it if the Romans were just like us, but I don't think its true.

Britain is full of Roman remains and if you go to any well stocked museum you can see lots of stuff the Romans left behind.

One of the striking things I've noticed is the difference in size between Roman swords and Anglo-Saxon swords.

I'm over 6 foot tall and the hilts of the Saxon swords are about the right size for my hands. However, the Roman swords look like they were made for Hobbits.

The Romans were no doubt Aryans (Indo-European language and
Gods and all that) but I very much doubt they were the Nordic variety.

Limey Oik said...

"1966 liberal obsession with the superiority of the Blue-Eyed Utopias of Northwestern Europe."

One other thing...

What is the significance of 1966?

I am curious, because the British left also appear to have an obsession with the wonders of all things Scandinavian. They also criticize Americans for their ghastly overt patriotism.

However, I went for a cruise around the Fjords in May of this year, and not only is the Norwegian style of rural housing identical to the New England clapboard style, but practically every other house has a flag pole with a great big Norwegian flag fluttering in the breeze.

There is some sort of irony or something in that.

Or maybe like you guys I just don't get irony.

Anonymous said...

"The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans. I'm not sure if Steve has directly addressed this on his blog, but he has confirmed this at GNXP among other sites."


I'm trying to find a source to confirm that, but I can't. The Romans were descendants of the Etruscans, who don't have any connection with Nordic Aryans...right? What am I missing here.

Lexington Steele said...

"Cold climates. They have to be organized."

This was also mentioned in a big long thing they had on BBC recently.

RWF said...

"When considering a policy issue like the quality of mail delivery it’s often intriguing to ask oneself “how is this done in Scandinavia?” "

Is he just assuming that Scandinavia has an efficient postal service or is there some actual evidence to believe it is the case?

Anonymous said...

There are brown eyed people in Scandinavia and blue eyed people in Italy. NorthEASTERN Europe is the bluest eyed of all and they are less advanced than Northwestern Europeans.

Anonymous said...

""I don't know... the Romans seemed pretty well organized."

The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans. I'm not sure if Steve has directly addressed this on his blog, but he has confirmed this at GNXP among other sites."

Huh?

"Good point. Canada does not have a large population, but it is a physically massive member of North America."

Oooerrr missus!

T. Bolle said...

Italy is a far more interesting and rewarding place... None of that "Il Postino" romantic action in bleak Norse lands.

Bill, you are either talking about the Italy of some other era, or you are simply clueless. You sound like someone who has never actually been to Italy and your film reference reinforces this impression.

..."interesting"?

The reality is that today's Italy has entered yet another high water phase of depraved, sociopathic, nihilist culture. This phase is apparently part of an ongoing crisis in the Italian soul and one might cynically describe that as "interesting". But Italy no longer cherishes family or its bambinos and that really says it all. Think SPWL San Francisco attitude toward kids writ large--except the anti-family population in Italy is not gay.

..."rewarding"?

Modern Italy is rewarding mostly for tourists and mafiosos. It's the clueless tourist who believes modern Italy is a society of "romantic action" instead of an example of extreme social pathology.

Anonymous said...

"The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans."

Ah! Ah! Ah! Thank you for the laugh.

Andrew Ryan said...

My mom once told me that when she spent a summer traveling through Europe with a friend that the Italian mailmen through their mail off the dock so they could spend the day chasing American girls (this was the late 1950's). So maybe that explains the Italian deficiency in mail delivery.

Seriously though, I remember reading P.J. O'Rourkey's "Eat the Rich" and thinking it was brilliant. He tries to understand good socialism (Sweden), bad socialism (Cuba), good capitalism (Hong Kong), and bad capitalism (Albania). He viewed everything through the lens of ideology, so he was obligated to predict that Sweden was going down the tubes. However, now I realize there's a pretty obvious non-ideological explanation for his observations.

Still a very funny book though.

Anonymous said...

Ok, let's be fair here. I'm Canadian, and we have here backyards that are bigger than Denmark, so delivering mail there is not much of a challenge. On the other hand, yes, we are a vast country with a awful winter and with a population that is about 12% of the USA's. By most common measures, we have an excellent Postal system. Humm, can't be our proximity to Canada, eh ? Maybe our long distance from Mexico, then ?

l said...

One character trait Scandanavians are famous for is forbearance. They will tolerate lousy service, thinking it's a virtue to suffer quietly.

Kurika said...

"Romans were pure Nordic Aryans". Arians, yes; in the same sense that are the Iranians, Pashtuns, Tadjiks, etç... But Nordics? In all thousands of paintings and mosaics from that period there is almost no blonds (except slaves and specially gladiators). Try learn something, see Tacitus, Josefus, Amiano, etc, and why they spoke about nordics like a allien race... And sometimes expressing the same opinion about them, that you have (seems to me) about Negros...

Anonymous said...

The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans. I'm not sure if Steve has directly addressed this on his blog, but he has confirmed this at GNXP among other sites.

Er, link?

Anonymous said...

Cold climates. They have to be organized.

I don't know... the Romans seemed pretty well organized.


The Romans had the choice to be organized or not, the Norsemen didn't.

Anonymous said...

The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans.

Got any links for that?

[Would also be interested in similar assertions about the Greeks.]

Anonymous said...

I don't accept the assumption that the Scandinavian postal systems are any better than those of other countries. Where is the evidence for that?

Steve tries to nudge Matthew Yglesias into accepting the superiority of Nordics. But that is superfluous, since it seems to me that progressives have a huge pro Nordic bias anyway. That's what motivates them to look at and admire Scandinavia in the first place.

I don't think that progressives do in depth, unbiased and thorough comparative evaluations of different countries and just happen to independently conclude each time that Sweden is doing it right.

Anonymous said...

A friend of mine worked for many years as a mail handler in a large USPS facility. Most of his co-workers were black. According to him, the level of criminality was impressive. Theft of mail was an everyday activity. Bags would be removed to out-of-the-way spots and gone through for credit cards, checks, or anything of value. Stamps and cash disappeared from anywhere they were kept. As one of the few whites, he was left alone as long as he kept his mouth shut about what he saw. But black employees were expected to join in the fun. They got a share of the take in exchange.

If you want to know why your mail is so frequently "lost," it isn't. It's thrown away as a byproduct of being diverted from the delivery system by thieves. It's the same at airports - this is why your bag gets "lost."

99% of the people responsible for theft of mail, packages, and luggage are, shall we say, not white European-Americans.

Nora Helmer said...

And, yet, the efficiency of at least the Norwegian postal system is in decline.

Ten+ years ago one would've gotten A-post (first class mail) delivered overnight in Oslo. Don't hold your breath for that happening today!

The story is different in the rural areas of Norway, though. There one still gets A-post delivered the next day. I wonder what the difference between the postal system in Oslo versus rural areas of Norway could be? Hmmmmmm?

Robert said...

The French postal frequently delivers letter to the addressees and occasionally packages are not stolen.

Michael Carr - Veritas Literary said...

"The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans."

Well, no they weren't, but it doesn't matter anyway. By the height of the empire, in the 2nd Century, they'd been importing slaves and citizens for generations. They weren't pure anything.

Besides which, humans have changed a good deal in the last 2,000 years. The Vikings/Scandinavians are exhibit A.

Anonymous said...

"The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans."

Cite, please? You have seen genetic clustering maps of Europe, haven't you?

Big Bill said...

Whenever I read these "let's compare the corporate structures in order to understand why they are different" analyses, I get a chuckle.

I occasionally suggest a thought experiment to my liberal friends: let's swap countries and laws.

Let's transplant all Saudis to America, give them US passports and all the American laws currently on the books.

Let's do the same to all Americans: send them to Saudi Arabia with the full set of Saudi laws.

And then I ask, "Do you really think the now-American Saudis are going to file suit to defend infidel free speech because of their newly-gifted First Amendment?"

"Do you really think that the now-Saudi Americans are going to gather in stadiums to stone adultresses to death in accordance with their newly gifted Saudi shariah laws?"

The left has this magical belief in paper institutions. If we can just show those guysover there how to set up institutions with the right paperwork, bylaws or articles of incorporation, their mail will be magically delivered on time with no pilferage.

Laws reflect the people. Laws do not create the people.

Anonymous said...

"The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans."

I've read this claim before by crazy Nordicists. Does Steve actually believe it?

Here is what Tacitus had to say about the Germans:

For my own part, I agree with those who think that the tribes of Germany are free from all taint of intermarriages with foreign nations, and that they appear as a distinct, unmixed race, like none but themselves. Hence, too, the same physical peculiarities throughout so vast a population. All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames, fit only for a sudden exertion. They are less able to bear laborious work. Heat and thirst they cannot in the least endure; to cold and hunger their climate and their soil inure them.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tacitus1.html

Anonymous said...

Yes the Italians, like most of their European contemporaries, made stunningly beautiful art several generations ago. Art that sought to point the way - to we earthbound children - toward our heavenly Father and His son our Savior via visual interpretations of creation, salvation, death and resurrection, plus the fullness of life betwixt and between.

Today we witness the appalling spectacles of public "art" and performance "art" delivered with the calculated coldness, narrowness, efficiency, and repetition of the fascist (State-managed or directed or "partnered") postal systems of Scandinavia.

Anonymous said...

Well this is on topic to the extent that it relates to eyes: I have just discovered the reason for the race disparity in academic performance: lack of proper vision care!

I kid you not. Apparently, one Stephen Black of Birmingham, Alabama (who happens to be the grandson of SC Justice Hugo Black) has a theory that poor vision is the reason for poor academic outcomes among racial minorities. Don't question him: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has declared him one of ten "Extraordinary Americans." According to the site, "Black believes poor vision has an impact on how well the children perform academically. Since the program’s launch, FocusFirst has provided free, technologically advanced vision screenings for more than 40,000 children in all 67 counties throughout the state, helping to ensure many of these children begin their education with appropriate vision care." No data available on studies comparing Black's treated to students to untreated control groups to see how his theory pans out - and I doubt we'll ever be seeing any.

Anonymous said...

The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans.

Nope, don't buy it. It contradicts everything I've read about the demographic and genetic history of Europe. (Plus it's the kind of comment that make honest HBD sites like Steve's look bad. Feel free to post your links though -- let's see what you've got!).

Mr. F. Le Mur said...

If the article had documented superior delivery speed or costs, I would've guessed that the blue-eyed devils had Satan working for them....but it didn't, so I don't.

"Does size have anything to do with it?"
Sweden and Denmark = North Carolina and Wisconsin in population. They're so cute!

Anonymous said...

"The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans."

That's debunked. Look at their statuary from the side where you can see the noses.

Can you link to where GNXP says that?

Edward said...

>> Cold climates. They have to be organized.

>> I don't know... the Romans seemed pretty well organized.

The Romans didn't actually ever live in particularly cold environs - Britain is always much warmer than it should be for its latitude, compared to central and Eastern Europe, and this was particularly the case during the Roman climatic optimum. They actually built a wall in Northern England instead of conquering the mountain-loving Scots.

I suspect higher average IQ explains the better postal service in Scandinavia. If this is the case, the postal service in Northern Italy should be at Scandinavian levels of reliability compared to the service in the Italian Mezzogiorno.

Anonymous said...

Is Steve saying Italian mail carriers get distracted by traditional European cultural monuments while delivering mail? I thought it was using so many hand gestures while stopping to admire the fair sex.

I propose that Scandinavians are more efficient because they spent such a long time carving runes. They never learned how to write long letters or any other tedious form of communication because they had to hammer out things like "I Halgrim carved this," or even just "I". This difficult form of dialogue put them off their development of letter writing and thus there is less mail to deliver.

Anonymous said...

"The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans..."

Cool. Madison Grant seems to be posting here from beyond the grave...

Peter A said...

The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans

I assume this is a joke. Go read Tacitus if it's not. It's clear the Romans saw themselves as quite a different people from the blonde blue-eyed Germans. Ironically, until the late 18th century no one ever considered Germans to be "organized" or particularly efficient - the French were organized, the Germans were always fighting amongst themselves and were considered sort of a dull stolid peasant people by French and Italians. National characteristics can and do change over time - which is exactly what evolutionary theory would predict.

Lexington Steele said...

"That's debunked. Look at their statuary from the side where you can see the noses."

It's hard to tell much of anything from statuary. The passionate Romans/Italians have statues that all have a hard look about them. They all wear stiff, wooden expressions.

Anonymous said...

The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans.
...

Why does this get more attention than what Whiskey has written?

Steve Sailer said...

"I thought it was using so many hand gestures while stopping to admire the fair sex."

Yeah, that was pretty much my takeaway from my week in Italy.

Steve Sailer said...

Yes, I've frequently posted on how the Ancient Romans are of pure Spitzbergenian stock, suitable for admiration by Matthew Yglesias.

Anonymous said...

" Anonymous said...
The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans.
...

Why does this get more attention than what Whiskey has written?

I don't know but it sure is flagging lots of people who clearly type before they think.

PR

albertosaurus said...

The public Post Office in a Scandanavian country is likely to operate better than one in another part of the worls simply because of transparency (the inverse of governmental corruption). As is well known the published transparency rating of the nation's finds Scandanavia on top. Finland is first.

n/a said...

re: racial types of the ancient Romans and Greeks:

The original poster seems to be trolling, but since there are requests for more information, see here and here, or read Indo-European Origins: The Anthropological Evidence.

According to C.S. Coon, "the basic racial element among the Roman patricians" was "the Keltic Iron Age [Nordic] type". Roman patricians looked something like the British, and ancient Germans looked something like Swedes. Swedes are blonde compared to the British, but this doesn't mean the British are Sicilians -- nor were the ancient Romans.

Markku said...

Malmo, Sweden's second or third biggest city, is basically a no-go area for non-Muslims. Police and fire don't respond anymore to the place. It's been ceded by the government to Muslim gangs as defacto foreign territory.

Not the whole city of Malmö. Only a specific immigrant-heavy district called Rosengård.

Anonymous said...

Peter A sez:
...the Germans were always fighting amongst themselves and were considered sort of a dull stolid peasant people by French and Italians.


Gotta disagree. Much of the cultural heritage in Germany is from many centuries past. Cathedrals, for instance, were being built from 800 AD onwards. Much of the really glorious art is from earlier times. German craftsmen were always known to be good. Germany constituted the 1st and 2nd Holy Roman Empires. German warfare was always good, but the problem was the infighting amongst the aristocracy and the alignments with external forces (Vatican, Austria, France). This was also a function of Britain and France having always sought to hold Germany down because they feared (fear) a united Germany. Kissinger said as much in his “Diplomacy” book. Machiavelli suggested to his countrymen that they should develop proper fortifications for the cities such as the German cities had. Anglo-Saxons have been getting with an awful amount of denigration of the Germans, all on account of Germany having lost 2 WW's.

Markku said...

Big Bill:

The left has this magical belief in paper institutions. If we can just show those guysover there how to set up institutions with the right paperwork, bylaws or articles of incorporation, their mail will be magically delivered on time with no pilferage.

Laws reflect the people. Laws do not create the people.


Amen. This is what I've been telling many a leftist, mostly in vain.

Caballaria said...

I'm Italian - if mr Sailer had simply expressed dislike for our swarthy, genetically inferior mailmen, I wouldn't have had problems with that - I certainly don't expect everybody to like my country or my postal service.

However, I can't believe that he calls statues and paintings, which is to say art in general -the highest expression of Western civilization- "junk". Does mr Sailer really believe this?

No doubt that the dry, disciplinate Scandinavians are good at delivering mail and bad at creating art and culture. Make up your mind then - you can't have both. And guess what? No native art and culture, and you're prey for any outsiders with shining mirrors and a Koran.

Indeed, those great blue eyed mailmen, have an unfortunate tendency to obey outsiders, be it Muslims or whoever. They have already demonstrated this back in the Middle Ages, when it was they, the Scandinavians, who absorbed our Mediterranean religion, not the other way around - and they bowed to our Italian Popes and obeyed like sheep all those times we told them to go take Jerusalem. And in the end I think that's because the Scandinavian are unable to develop great culture of their own - you know, statues and other "junk".

I repeat so that nobody gets me wrong, I'm not scandalized because of Sailer not liking Italians - but I have to disagree strongly on his dismissal of art and its value.

Anonymous said...

"One thing that irks me is the fetishistic admiration for other groups..."

Anon, some of what you said makes some sense. HOWEVER, it is important to understand that ethnic groups do differ from each other in significant ways and that some groups have more universally-desirable traits than do other groups. Things like intelligence, honesty, self-control, artistic talent are distributed very unevenly.

Of course there's a limit to the usefulness of admiring groups to which one doesn't belong. Most of the traits people end up admiring are a combination of genetics and learned culture and you can't change your own genetics (your kids' genetics is another story).

I guess your argument is that the culture that the average person subconsciously picks up from family, etc. would usually suit his inborn proclivities better than foreign-to-him cultures that he may choose to admire?

I think that argument is too general. My attitude is that it depends. I don't think you can be harmed, for example, by striving to achieve a greater level of self-control than the one you're naturally drawn to. When a black guy does that conspicuously, he's branded as "acting white". If a white guy like me does this, no one will tell him that he's "acting Chinese", but that would certainly be one possible way of thinking about it.

Another example: Steve has written in the past about the sad state of Britain these days. Up until the early 20th century lower class Brits, who are surely genetically distinct from upper class Brits, were told by their culture to look up to and as much as possible mimic the upper classes. The genetic difference may not have been huge, but after centuries of in-class inbreeding it couldn't have been minor either.

Anyway, I have a feeling that since British culture stopped telling everybody to look up to middle and upper class norms, things have only gone for the worse there.

Even if hardware (genetics) is more important than software (learned ideas), one should still worry a lot about software because it's the only thing that can be changed on the fly.

Anonymous said...

I had forgotten where I had seen this crazy Nordicist stuff, but here is a whole web site discussing it!

Tell it to Tacitus...

http://www.white-history.com/refuting_rm/9.html

"Were the ancient Romans Nordic? Simple answer: yes."

Jeff S. said...

n/a,

"According to C.S. Coon, "the basic racial element among the Roman patricians" was "the Keltic Iron Age [Nordic] type". Roman patricians looked something like the British, and ancient Germans looked something like Swedes."

If Roman patricians looked like the British and if ancient Germans looked like the Swedes, then what happened to them? How come the Germans look much less Nordic than the Swedes today? Also, why do so few Italians have the Nordic look?

Lucius Vorenus said...

A while back, someone linked to this here at iSteve, and I find it to be just about the most fascinating piece of sociological anthropology [or archaeological sociology, or whatever] that I have ever encountered:

RACE MIXTURE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
by Tenney Frank
American Historical Review
July 1916, vol. 21, no. 4: 689–708
theoccidentalquarterly.com

Ken said...

n/a,

are there any good genetic data available?

i've seen a lot of the anthropological stuff over the years like in the links in your comment, but i haven't really been convinced either way.

perhaps i'm alone in this, but no matter how long i stare at those ancient Roman busts, i can't really conclude what racial type i'm looking at.

Nora Helmer said...

Whiskey said: "That's something the nutty and firmly established elites in Scandinavia can't do."

There's elections in a couple of weeks in Norway, and if the Progressive Party (FrP) gains control of Parliament immigration (at least the asylum racket) will be stopped. Priority number 1.

The party leads or ranks very high in most of the polls, so keep your fingers crossed for us.

Anonymous said...

"[Would also be interested in similar assertions about the Greeks.]"

If memory serves, a contemporary of Alexander the Great described him as having a "ruddy" complexion.

The bust of one Roman Emperor (I forget which one) makes him look just like LBJ. Still, I'm not arguing that ancient Romans were Nordic.

Nora Helmer said...

King M said: "Besides which, humans have changed a good deal in the last 2,000 years. The Vikings/Scandinavians are exhibit A."

Yeah, the Vikings:

a) emigrated to Iceland, the Orkneys, etc.;

b) died off in the Black Death (60% of Norway's population died during that plague);

c) emigrated to the Netherlands ("some 10% of the population may have emigrated, in a period [17th-18th centuries] when the entire Norwegian population consisted of some 800,000 people");

d) emigrated to the U.S. (any remaining "Vikings", that is). Norway saw one of the largest emigrations to the U.S. - "Between 1825 and 1925, more than 800,000 Norwegians immigrated to North America—about one-third of Norway's population."

Anonymous said...

"The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans."

"Huh?"

This is what Carlton Coon wrote about them in his "The Races of Europe", 1939, p. 194:

"Their facial type is not native to the Mediterranean basin, but is more at home in the north. Nevertheless, the Romans considered the Kelts who invaded Italy tall and blond; hence the blondism of the Romans, including rufosity, must have been in the minority."

"The facial features included the well-known "Roman" nose, which may have been partly derived from an Etruscan source."

Latin and its Italic relatives were closer to the Celtic branch of IE than to any other. Nowadays Celtic languages are only extant in the British Isles, but in antiquity the center of Celtic Europe was around the Alps. Both the northern and southern slopes of the Alps were Celtic.

The Romans were probably a mixture of Alpine Celtic-type invaders and Mediterranean-looking locals.

Anonymous said...

"Try learn something, see Tacitus, Josefus, Amiano, etc, and why they spoke about nordics like a allien race... And sometimes expressing the same opinion about them, that you have (seems to me) about Negros..."

Ha ha! Whoever wrote that obviously has never read Tacitus's "Germania". I've read it in English translation. It's a love letter to Germans. A fascinating book in many ways.

Tacitus thought (correctly) that the Rome of his day was morally decadent and he offered Germans as a contrast. He described them as more honest, more courageous, more efficient and more egalitarian than Romans. There is also a phrase there about them being unmixed with any other peoples. From the context it's clear that Tacitus thought that this was good. It's surprising that that phrase is still being reprinted in modern English editions of "Germania". You'd expect this kind of stuff to be censored nowadays. Is it still reprinted in German translations? Does anybody know?

And yes, I do know that the Latin "Germani" did not describe exactly the same people that we now call Germans. He included the Low Countries and Scandinavia in his description. But it was very close. And the differences he describes between his world and theirs are similar to the modern differences between Germanic and Mediterranean parts of Europe.

C. Van Carter said...

Romans with the cognomens Rufus or Flavius had red or blonde hair, respectively (except when they didn't).

Steve, have you ever read Tenney Frank's article "Race Mixture in the Roman Empire"?

Anonymous said...

I can't believe that he calls statues and paintings, which is to say art in general -the highest expression of Western civilization- "junk". Does mr Sailer really believe this?

Sarcasm, Caballaria, sarcasm. Americans use it too.

i am the walrus said...

'Proximity to Canada' was a reference to Pat Moynihan

Speaking of Moynihan and postal service, he advocated adding an extra shift to the US Post Office as an alternative to welfare expansion.

Anonymous said...

Me being a Slavic peasant, do not accept any overlords. That is why we Slavic individualist were always conquered by groups of greater than 2 or 3 ( or groups greater than the immediate tribe). We always succumbed to the idealogy of individualism and became slaves of groups.

Anonymous said...

@Caballaria:

I'm sure Steve is just mocking Yglesias' obsession with Scandinavia. A more obviously sarcastic post with the same theme is here:

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/06/nyt-italy-lagging-lamentably-behind-on.html

Anonymous said...

Italians apparently weren't born with sarcasm detectors.

Anonymous said...

Caballaria - I can't believe that he [Steve Sailer] calls statues and paintings, which is to say art in general -the highest expression of Western civilization- "junk". Does Mr Sailer really believe this?

No, he doesnt.

He was ironically joking about the mindset of those who, while lauding Scandanavian postal services to the detriment of similar in Italy fail to notice that - maybe - the payoff is great art.

bg said...

I am with the consensus here that the idea of Nordic Romans is pure BS. n/a posted links and we only saw statues of people who look like modern Italians, not swedes. Just because someone with a germanic name said 50 years ago that they were nordics doesn´t make them nordics


the real question is: Roman Italy was whiter or darker than Berlusconi´s Italy? The answer, for me, is yes for Italy, for Egypt and for Iran. but not white enough to qualify as "nordics".

bg said...

Obviously, the reason for the difference in quality of postal service between Scandinavia and the Brown-Eyed Dystopias such as Italy, with their excessive clutter of paintings, statues, and other useless junk,

this is beyond moronic. this is tupidity at its best. Even more than that, it is bitterness towards the superior lifestyle of italians


Steve is funny. All the great achievements of Nordics nowadays are done by SWPLs, from company creation to nobel rizes to financial innovations


unable to share those achievements with his ideological nemesis, Steve relieves himself by screwing Italians


HBD is much probably true,but it is still the domain of bitter beta losers

Tom V said...

Relax, Caballaria, Steve used the word "junk" ironically.

You must get up to speed on this, or you would get totally the opposite message when he calls firefighting a "moronic" occupation or some such.

Anonymous said...

The genetic difference [between different British classes] may not have been huge, but after centuries of in-class inbreeding it couldn't have been minor either.

I'd be interested to know one way or another.

I suspect there has been gene flow in both directions. Low born thrusters marrying their way up, distressed gentry sinking through the class system. And lets not forget the men from the stately homes having their wicked way with assorted maids, farm girls and the like.

A few years ago I met a guy who looked very much like this guy, Lord Brocket. He is only the 3rd title holder, from a non-aristocratic family made good.

Anyhow the guy I met said "Its funny you mention that, a lot of people say the same, I had a grandmother who worked at Brocket Hall". We all had a laugh about that. enough said.

Anonymous said...

Yeah. I've always wondered why progressives like Yglesias never start out an essay: "When considering a policy issue like the quality of mail delivery it's often intriguing to ask oneself "how is this done in Upper Volta?"
Why is it self-evident to them that the Nordics epitomize efficiency?

Antoine Zhang said...

All this antiquated talk about the phenotypes of the ancient Romans resembling those of today's Northern Europeans demonstrates the peculiar persistence of certain eccentric notions fostered by nascent 19th-century German nationalism, and more than anything else is redolent of contemporary Afrocentrism in the United States, which asserts that Hannibal of Carthage and the pharoahs of Egypt had faces just like 50 Cent's. It's the product of insecurity about one's ancestors lacking considerable accomplishment. In the case of German nationalism in the 1800's, this meant claiming that the people who were responsible for the civilization of Mediterranean antiquity were the same as themselves in appearance. But you don't have to look at modern DNA studies to know that this is untrue - just look at the portrait paintings they find on the front of Roman coffins.

Incidentally, the history of the modern era and the fact that Teutonic races were its exclusive authors proves why, in spite of the reality of HBD, it's perilous to make predictions sometimes about the future performance of an ethnic group based on its prior accomplishments. Until the 15th century - Gothic cathedral architecture, the sagas and Medieval poems of chivalry set aside - the civilization accomplishments of Germanic people's were utterly negligible - you would never have predicted that they would eventually be responsible for everything which now characterizes the modern era. Someone here has already quoted Tacitus - can you imagine his incredulity if you told him that those huge, belligerent, work-shy hicks roaming east of the Rhine would be the first people to set foot on the moon?

Anonymous said...

According to C.S. Coon...

No disrespect to Professor Coon intended, but he doesn't seem to have published anything in a while. Do you have anything more recent, anything that takes advantage of all this modern genetic technology we've developed?

Why does this get more attention than what Whiskey has written?

I'm not particularly interested in talking about what Whiskey had to say because, although I suspect he is overstating his case rather seriously, I do agree that the problem he is talking about is real, and I don't feel sufficiently well informed to weigh in myself.

OTOH, neo-Nazis who insist that Aryan Nordics are the only people who ever did anything worth doing are a significant threat to the whole HBD enterprise. They're a bunch of creeps who make everyone they are associated with look bad, so when one of them shows up and says something stupid like "The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans," I think it's important for the rest of us to sharply disassociate ourselves.

Anonymous said...

--this is beyond moronic. this is tupidity at its best. Even more than that, it is bitterness towards the superior lifestyle of italians--

Hey, even I caught the satire and humor of Steve's remark. WTF is wrong with you? As a dago, his comment had me laughing so hard, I spilled the olive oil. Unless of course, you are enaging in satire yourself...Mamma Mia this is confusing!

-Guido of Bensonhurst

Fred said...

"Yeah. I've always wondered why progressives like Yglesias never start out an essay: "When considering a policy issue like the quality of mail delivery it's often intriguing to ask oneself "how is this done in Upper Volta?"
Why is it self-evident to them that the Nordics epitomize efficiency?"


You guys are making this way more complicated than it is. Either that, or Sailer has confused the ethnicity-obsessed among you by mentioning blue eyes in the headline of this post. You want to know why Yglesias keeps bring up Scandinavia in these examples? Three simple reasons:

1) Scandinavian countries have generous social welfare systems.

2) They also have prosperous economies.

3) Yglesias wants America to have a similarly generous social welfare system.

Common sense: if you want to promote socialized medicine, what example would sell it better, Sweden or Cuba?

Anonymous said...

---2) They also have prosperous economies--

Where does Yglesias think the money comes from, trees? Seriously, he is of at least average intelligence as most liberals seem to be, but none of them can figure out what/who creates wealth? Has he ever visited the hood or barrio? I'm completely convinced that liberalism must be some kind of mental disease. No other explanation works.

Anonymous said...

Scandinavian countries have generous social welfare systems.




Scandanavia is able to have generous social welfare systems because it is full of Scandinavians.

As Milton Friedman put it, when a man told him that they have no povetry in Sweden -

"How interesting. In America we have no povetry among Swedes either."

Lucius Vorenus said...

T. Bolle: The reality is that today's Italy has entered yet another high water phase of depraved, sociopathic, nihilist culture. This phase is apparently part of an ongoing crisis in the Italian soul and one might cynically describe that as "interesting". But Italy no longer cherishes family or its bambinos and that really says it all. Think SPWL San Francisco attitude toward kids writ large--except the anti-family population in Italy is not gay.

List of countries and territories by fertility rate
en.wikipedia.org

UN, 2000-2005: 1.29
UN, 2005-2010: 1.38

CIA, 2000: 1.18
CIA, 2008: 1.30

I bet that Oriana Fallaci could have told you a thing or two about just who's responsible for that little uptick in fertility.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
The ancient Romans were pure Nordic Aryans.
...




Why does this get more attention than what Whiskey has written?




What Whisky has written has gotten a lot of attention. It helps (or maybe hurts) that he says the same thing over and over and over ...

Anonymous said...

Hey, what's with all the violations of Godwin's Law on this thread?

I am honestly interested in just who the ancient Romans and Greeks really were - where they came from, and why they went extinct [and/or where they disappeared to when their nations went kaput].

Anonymous said...

"...just look at the portrait paintings they find on the front of Roman coffins."

I know a bit about this. The only such paintings are the ones from Roman Egypt. It was an Egyptian peculiarity. The Romans themselves did busts of the deceased, not paintings. The Egyptian paintings from the Roman era are very important because very little classical painting, funereal or of any other kind, has survived to our days.

The faces depicted look like modern Egyptian faces. No surprise there. They do not look like the faces on the busts and sculptures from Rome itself, certainly not republican Rome.

Anyone can type in "Julius Caesar" or "Cicero" into Google Images and make their own judgments on what the Roman elite looked like. To me they look a bit more northern than does the average modern Italian, but there's room for argument there.

"Someone here has already quoted Tacitus - can you imagine his incredulity if you told him that those huge, belligerent, work-shy hicks roaming east of the Rhine would be the first people to set foot on the moon?"

I made a comment about this earlier, but it was either lost in the queue or censored. I've read Tacitus's "Germania" in an English translation years ago. He had a very high opinion of Germans. He admired their honesty, egalitarianism and courage. The whole point of that book was to contrast morally decadent Imperial Rome with the simpler, more robust Germanic society. Similar to the later "noble savage" idea.

While the Germans' scientific and technical contributions before Gutenberg were indeed minuscule, they were able to repulse the Roman Empire's attempt to conquer them in the years around 9 AD, which was no mean achievement.

In the Western half of Eurasia civilizational basics (agriculture, cities, writing) first appeared in the Fertile Crescent, but the highest cultural peaks were achieved only when those basics reached Europe. Most of Europe was still thawing out from the Ice Age when Middle Easterners came up with agriculture. Later, the Nile and the Tigris/Euphrates valleys could produce very high population densities if irrigated properly. Those population densities created conditions for more civilizational basics (writing being the most important one) to be invented.

Europe doesn't have any tropical rivers, so it missed that particular boat. However, when the Greeks finally acquired writing from the Lebanese Phoenicians, they did bigger things with it than Middle Easterners ever did or probably ever could have.

All of this is a long way of saying that perhaps the brains were always there in the West, but that hunters, and later farmers on isolated homesteads, did not have the means or a reason to use those brains the way city folk in Egypt or Assyria were using them. Once Westerners got civilizational basics from the Middle East, they did more with them than Middle Easterners did, and not once, but twice if you count the ancient Greek example.

You may dismiss that as special pleading, but this interpretation seems plausible to me. I think it's also likely that Middle Easterners and Northern Chinese invented agriculture exactly when they did (10-12 thousand years ago) not because both groups suddenly and independently of each other got smarter than they were 1 or 5 thousand years before that, but because the receding of the ice created the right conditions for already-intelligent people to do something new with their lives.

You can call it the brains-were-already-there-but-not-all-other-necessary-conditions-were-met-yet hypothesis.

Anonymous said...

"Has he ever visited the hood or barrio? I'm completely convinced that liberalism must be some kind of mental disease. No other explanation works."

Why because it's impossible for black skinned folk to create wealth?

So the Soweto workers who mined the gold and diamonds that made DeBeers rich, they didn't generate wealth but the guys who colonized them did?

Anonymous said...

Just because 19th century race theorists and "neo-Nazis" (whatever that means) said something, it doesn't automatically means that it's false. All this hysterical name-calling directed at one post seems a little excessive, and probably hides a deeper anxiety disconnected from the truth or falsity of the assertion.

Anonymous said...

Incidentally, the history of the modern era and the fact that Teutonic races were its exclusive authors proves why, in spite of the reality of HBD, it's perilous to make predictions sometimes about the future performance of an ethnic group based on its prior accomplishments.





I agree with the general point here. Prior to the "Golden Age" the Greeks were not very notable in the ancient world. Equally interesting, they have not been notable since it. These outbursts of creativity seem to come and go very quickly.

If they are genetic in origin, it's genetics of a much more subtle sort than we are used to considerng.

Anonymous said...

"However, I can't believe that he calls statues and paintings, which is to say art in general -the highest expression of Western civilization- 'junk'. Does mr Sailer really believe this?"

No, he was joking.

Mencius Moldbug said...

The key is ancient Romans.

"Ancient" in the Roman context doesn't mean Julius Caesar. "Ancient" means Numa Pompilius. That's about 750 years of genetic homogenization you're missing before all those short, swarthy curly-haired mosaics.

Even by the late Republican era, the distinction between plebeian and patrician was largely historical - many powerful families were nominally plebeian. But there's no question that the distinction originally had genetic meaning.

For instance, Stobart in The Grandeur That Was Rome, an excellent pre-PC survey, writes:

One thing is clear enough, if we can place any reliance whatever upon literary records - the national characteristics of the ancient Roman were very unlike those of the modern Italian. The one was bold, hardy, grave, orderly and inartistic; the other is sensitive, vivacious, artistic, turbulent and quick-witted. There is not a feature in common between them and yet the modern Italian is surely the normal South European type. As you go southward through France you find the people approaching these characteristics more and more. The Spaniard and the Greek share them. The Ancient Roman of republican days, unless he is a literary invention, is assuredly no southerner in temperament, though the southern qualities undoubtedly begin to grow clear as Roman history progresses. And then the whole of early Roman history is marked by a strife between the two orders Patrician and Plebeian, which is certainly not simply a struggle between two political parties, nor a mere conflict of rich and poor. There is a division between the two of religion and custom in such matters as burial, for example, and marriage-rites. The patricians fear contamination of their blood if the plebeians are allowed to intermarry with them. These considerations and others have led Prof. Ridgeway to formulate for Rome, as he has already done with success for Greece, a theory of northern invasion and conquest in very early days. Probably it is a theory which can never be proved or disproved, so woefully scanty is our evidence for the earliest centuries of Roman history. But it explains the great riddle of Roman character as no other theory does.

As for the genetic evidence, asking all the modern DNA analysis in the world to discover the genetic difference between patricians and plebeians in 750 BC is like asking the Hubble Telescope to read newspaper headlines on Alpha Centauri.

Linguistics is a better bet, and of course we know that Latin is an Indo-European language - most closely related to Keltic. Now, class, can you think of any synonyms for "Indo-European?" Bueller? Bueller?

gabe said...

re those ancient Roman busts that n/a links to.....

staring at those busts and determining racial type is like a racial Rorschach test.

Yukilis said...

Linguistics is a better bet, and of course we know that Latin is an Indo-European language - most closely related to Keltic. Now, class, can you think of any synonyms for "Indo-European?" Bueller? Bueller?

Linguistics is almost never the best approach in determining ancestry. Latinate vocabulary in English is a result of the Nordic Normans who had adopted a Romance language. This is just one of many examples of linguistics giving misleading signals with respect to ancestry.

ERM said...

To judge from art & literature (I was a classicist for too many years), Greeks by and large bear almost no ethnic resemblance to the Ancients, and are probably a blend of various ancient Asia Minor bloodlines. (We can actually analyze how a lot of the old marble statues were painted, and a fair number actually had blond hair, believe it or not.) Italians on the other hand? Well, thought experiment, everyone: Silvio Berlusconi. Laminate that head with marble and stick it in the Vatican or the British Museum; apart from size, you think anybody is going to notice any difference? Or take the literature: the old Greeks seem almost like Martians, so remote are they from any culture you'd meet today. The Romans? They seem a lot like Italians.

Worcester said...

"Linguistics is a better bet, and of course we know that Latin is an Indo-European language - most closely related to Keltic. Now, class, can you think of any synonyms for "Indo-European?" Bueller? Bueller?"

Wait a minute. So Jewish patriot Mencius Moldbug supports the Aryan ancient Romans hypothesis?!

Epic said...

"As for the genetic evidence, asking all the modern DNA analysis in the world to discover the genetic difference between patricians and plebeians in 750 BC is like asking the Hubble Telescope to read newspaper headlines on Alpha Centauri."

Mencius Moldbug, I can't believe someone as ostensibly bright as you would actually believe that the two are analogous. I can only conclude that you're using a misleading and confused analogy to avoid having to deal with, you know, evidence outside of the domain that you're comfortable with i.e. old books.

The method you endorse, that is relying on literary records, is much more akin to "asking the Hubble Telescope to read newspaper headlines on Alpha Centauri." Except I suppose you're not reading just the headlines, but parts of the bodies as well.

Linguistics and literary works can be very misleading, as commenter Yukilis points out. I've heard nutty Black Nationalist Afrocentric types seriously argue that surnames like "Black", "Blackman", "Schwartz", "Schwartzkopf" are evidence of an ancient black founding of modern advanced white civilization. And like you they invariably dismiss genetic evidence as being the white devil man's voodoo science and bogus. Although I suppose for you it would be FDR's voodoo, or Progressivism's voodoo, Calvinism's voodoo, etc.

LBK said...

There seems to be a lot of confusion about nordics/aryans. They are not the same thing. Old time physical anthropologists (pre Carleton Coon) assumed they were the same and used the two terms more or less interchangeably. That was the case with Madison Grant, for example. Many white nationalist groups have picked up this literature and use it as a basis for their beliefs, while ignoring the past 70 years of research.

Today, Nordic refers to the aboriginal inhabitants of northern Europe, while Aryan refers to the Indo-European language group.

A century ago, many scholars believed that Indo-European originated in northern Europe, hence the equation of Aryan with Nordic. Today, no serious scholars believe this.

There are many theories of Indo-European origins, ranging from serious to absurd. Currently the three leading theories are:

1. The Eurasian steppe north of the Caspian Sea, near the lower Volga.

2. Anatolia (Turkey).

3. Central Asia, in the area north of Afghanistan.

There is no consensus about which theory is correct, or even about the date of Proto-Indo-European.
Some authorities put it around 3000 BC, others as early as 7000 BC.
The problem is that the evidence is ambiguous, and can be interpreted in different ways.

There is a huge amount of literature on this, ranging from serious to crackpot. To read more, check out the works of Edwin F. Bryant, Colin Renfrew, or J.P. Mallory.

http://www.amazon.com/Indo-Aryan-Controversy-Evidence-Inference-History/dp/0700714626/ref=ed_oe_h

http://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Language-Puzzle-Indo-European-Origins/dp/0224024957/ref=ed_oe_h

http://www.amazon.com/Search-Indo-Europeans-Language-Archaeology-Myth/dp/050005052X/ref=ed_oe_h

Antoine Zhang said...

"To judge from art & literature (I was a classicist for too many years), Greeks by and large bear almost no ethnic resemblance to the Ancients, and are probably a blend of various ancient Asia Minor bloodlines."

I dunno - Minoan frescoes depict people who are pretty similar to modern Greeks in appearance. I'm aware that these people weren't Indo-European, but surely their genetic, cultural and linguistic contribution to the Greeks defined the character of the civilization that succeeded them. The Athenians made a big deal about their indigenous pedigree.

Even 2000 years ago, the speakers of Indo-European languages varied enormously in physical appearance and culture. I would tentatively guess, given the appearance of the mummies in Urumqi, that the proto-Indo-Europeans were flaxed-haired and had coloured eyes, and acquired their darker hair and complexions from intermarriage with conquered populations.

"Linguistics is a better bet, and of course we know that Latin is an Indo-European language - most closely related to Keltic. Now, class, can you think of any synonyms for "Indo-European?" Bueller? Bueller?"

Linguistics indicates that all the earliest Indo-European languages that enjoy written attestation harboured a huge amount of non-Indo-European vocabulary.

wake up said...

wow the *romans were pure nordic-aryan comment* got massive feedback......someone hit a nerve....

like other posters here I agree the terms nordic and aryan are fuzzy and mostly worthless but what's not fuzzy is that the a**holes who run europe and the pentagon and businesses like general electric (jack welch etc) their faces look exactly like the roman statues......many many many ceo types and military leaders in northern europe and especially the anglosphere have the same facial features as ancient rome.......it's obvious....

go to google and use the images link then search for the term roman statues.......the search results reveal a huge gallery of white bread honky cracker whitey the white man type faces.......and it's not just the facial features but the hair and the overall muscular-skeletal structure also.......the women and children are no different......

there are a million photos of the roman statuary on the internet and anyone who claims to be uncertain about the race of the subjects portrayed is being dishonest.......

here's a pic of a roman statue (julius caesar?) with a face so white bread in appearance that it's comical:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/14/20080513220509990003_2.jpg

julius caesar looks like the vicious frat boy central casting stereotype that hollywood is constantly using as the villain in their movies......hahahaha

Edward said...

Scandinavian countries, while they were still Scandinavian, also were better at surviving with large socialist welfare states.

Italians don't seem to have been any better at putting together a socialist state than they have their national Postal Service. Let's also not talk about modern Empire building and the Italian army.

The North of Italy doesn't have much more of a good reputation for postal service quality than the South. I'm beginning to doubt average IQ as an explanation.

Anonymous said...

ERM said:

"Or take the literature: the old Greeks seem almost like Martians, so remote are they from any culture you'd meet today."

Can you expound on this? In what ways were they different from any culture you'd meet today?

Simon said...

From what I recall, ancient Roman writers saw Romans as being smaller, darker, and weaker than Celts and Germans. Their superiority lay in better discipline and organisation. I don't recall them saying that the Germans & Celts were stupid, just that they were too individualist and undisciplined, especially in warfare.

Admittedly, busts of high status Romans do not much resemble modern Sicilians or Libyans. I guess the upper class may have been more Alpine than Mediterranean. They certainly weren't pure blond Nordics, though I do remember in The Aeneid, Queen Dido of Carthage is described by Virgil as having golden-blonde hair, a mark of beauty.

Simon said...

I dispute that modern Greeks bear no physical resemblance to the ancients. Among my Greek students, some have the very distinct Greek nose shape you see depicted on classical Greek vases. It's quite striking.

gig said...

Steve´s humor is well known by his readers. But what most people miss is the anti-Latin undertone of his writings and of Vdare.com, specially. The HBD crowd is so anti-Hispanic that they tend to put in the same group Cesar Chavez and Silvio Berlusconi

The HBD crowd will happily talk about income inequality in Bolivia and Venezuela, completely ignoring IQ inequality south of the Rio Grande. They will talk about lack of cultural achievements in Latin America while ignoring the rapid decline of cultural achievements of America once her population starts to resemble the (majority of) Latin-American population. Paleocons hate Latin-American whites with the same passion that neocons hate the Eastern Slavs, they are only more hypocritical about it. What is becoming clear is how Paleos extend that hate to all Latin (Mediterranean) whites

It is quite common to see people who want to include Italian-American as hispanics here and in other HBD foruns and are quite happy to ignore any positive facts about Italians, reducing Italian culture to the genealogy of the Corleone family.

Anonymous said...

I'm over 6 foot tall and the hilts of the Saxon swords are about the right size for my hands. However, the Roman swords look like they were made for Hobbits.

In what sense? Are the grips actually Hobbit-size, or are you referring to the blades?

Roman swords were made for fighting in tight ranks, Saxon swords were not. Right? Apples and oranges I think.

~Svigor

Anonymous said...

Romans =! Nordic aryans, duh.

However.

I've always suspected that the decline of the Roman Republic had a lot to do with the massive importation of slaves from elsewhere. Whether this was a HBD change or just a cultural one, I do not know. In any case, the Republican population appears to have been a victim of its own success.

America is following a similar path.

-Heinl

Anonymous said...

If its an HBD explanation, then Romans would be a classic case of enough-but-not-too-much hybrid vigor. They appear to have been a fair admixture of the Italic peoples during the years of their success.

-Heinl

Anonymous said...

Incidentally, the history of the modern era and the fact that Teutonic races were its exclusive authors proves why, in spite of the reality of HBD, it's perilous to make predictions sometimes about the future performance of an ethnic group based on its prior accomplishments





I agree with the general point here. Prior to the "Golden Age" the Greeks were not very notable in the ancient world. Equally interesting, they have not been notable since it. These outbursts of creativity seem to come and go very quickly.


Spengler (Oswald) could explain it. The course he traces to classical civilization and its parallells to western/Gothic civilization hold up pretty well.

Anonymous said...

Three simple reasons:

Four simple reasons:

4) Scandinavians seem to offer the least resistance to open borders and demographic invasion.

Types like Yglesias really appreciate that, the way con men appreciate little old ladies.

~Svigor

Anonymous said...

The whole point of that book was to contrast morally decadent Imperial Rome with the simpler, more robust Germanic society. Similar to the later "noble savage" idea.

Right; one explanation of Tacitus' Germania is that he was projecting Roman ideals onto the Germans, who were little more than a prop in his parable.

~Svigor

Anonymous said...

There is a somewhat surprising diffference between Finland and Russia, because I don`t think that west russian people are etnically very different form finns. Anyway The Russia is very corrupt and the finns consider the people there very emotional. The Russians also have a lot of nordic blood, because of the swedish vikings Varangians.
Rus_(people)
I rebember reading that Finland was more poorer than Afganistan around the year 1900. But my mom says that when she was very young in the fifties older people told her how much they felt sorry for the dirt poor norwegians. The Sweden and The Germany both have had some sort of empires, so they have "always" been rich. I guess that being a great power has always been a real good thing for a nation.

Anonymous said...

"I've read Tacitus's "Germania" in an English translation years ago. He had a very high opinion of Germans."

The question isn't about Tacitus' overall opinion of the Germans, it's whether he (clearly) recognized them as a very different people than the Romans. I'll place the key quote here again, for the reading challenged:

For my own part, I agree with those who think that the tribes of Germany are free from all taint of intermarriages with foreign nations, and that they appear as a distinct, unmixed race, like none but themselves. Hence, too, the same physical peculiarities throughout so vast a population. All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames, fit only for a sudden exertion. They are less able to bear laborious work. Heat and thirst they cannot in the least endure; to cold and hunger their climate and their soil inure them.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tacitus1.html

Although Tacitus had some respect for the Germans, it's also clear that he considered them barbarians. The lesson for HBDers is that one cannot easily extrapolate from the present state of a people to predict where they will be in a 500 or a thousand years.

Chief Seattle said...

Don't forget "Red haired Menelaus" of the Iliad and Odyssey. Are there still red heads in Greece?

Anonymous said...

All this hysterical name-calling directed at one post seems a little excessive, and probably hides a deeper anxiety disconnected from the truth or falsity of the assertion.




Thank you for that valuable psycho-analysis, Dr Freud. Shall we tell you of our realtionships with our mothers now?

n/a said...

Jeff S.,

"If Roman patricians looked like the British and if ancient Germans looked like the Swedes, then what happened to them? "

Roman patricians failed to reproduce themselves: In a journal about the West and its future, it is fitting to end this article by briefly recounting the fate of the Roman upper class. Among Indo-European peoples, the Romans offer an especially useful example because they left masses of records, enabling later historians to determine what became of them. The evidence found in ancient texts implies that this class descended largely from Indo-Europeans who had a decidedly northern European physical type, although that isn't something one reads in modern books about Roman history. In Rome, though, the upper class was always a tiny minority. Instead of protecting its interests, it allowed itself to wither away. Consider a bleak statistic. We know of about fifty patrician clans in the fifth century B.C., but by the time of Caesar, in the later first century B.C., only fourteen of these had survived.43 The decay continued in imperial times. We know of the families of nearly four hundred Roman senators in A.D. sixty-five, but, just one generation later, all trace of half of these families had vanished.44

Obviously, modern Germany and ancient Germania are not synonymous. Besides ancient Germanics, ancestors of the inhabitants of the modern German state include Celts, Slavs, and Balts.

For whatever reason, head form changed rather dramatically in central Europe over the past few thousand years.


Ken,

"are there any good genetic data available?"

Not of the sort that would offer definitive answers. As I understand it, most patricians practiced cremation, so we probably won't be seeing ancient DNA results for large, representative samples.

Interestingly, ancient DNA shows minimal or no genetic continuity between ancient Etruscans and modern Tuscans.

There's a strong North/South genetic cline in modern Italy, northern Italians being more similar to Europeans north of the Alps. This fact is of limited significance when discussing ancient Romans, but should probably be borne in mind when thinking about Italy's more recent artistic output: I'd expect someone who accepts Steve's formulation to find it a bit troublesome that the most disorganized and "passionate" regions of Italy contributed the least. How do the Dutch fit into Steve's model? I'm sure the amassing of great wealth in rather organized fashion through control of trade routes and banking was entirely coincidental to the production of great art during the Northern Italian Renaissance.

Mencius Moldbug said...

The *later* Romans seem a lot like Italians. Horatius, Cincinnatus, the Catos and Scipios... do they seem a lot like Italians? Martians sound about right to me.

You're definitely right about the Greeks. I've lived with modern Greeks. Plato is not in the building.

Anonymous said...

Spengler (Oswald) could explain it.




I think his fanatical Jewish supremacism would obstruct his viewing history clearly.

Anonymous said...

Whiskey is fucking crazy.

Yeah sure, the muslim immigration to Scandinavia has a ton of issues, but it's not anywhere near the trouble associated with blacks in the US. At least not yet.

He's basically taking the most alarmist headlines from local white power sources and presenting them as established facts.

You'd think he would learn to be somewhat humble when he hasn't been here, understand the language or checked any of the data.

Ralph said...

Mencius Moldbug,

It seems that you and n/a are promoting a similar hypothesis.

Though n/a is making much better and more plausible arguments.

Your usual style of citing old and obscure literary works, ignoring counter arguments and empirical data and non-literary sources of evidence, as well as employing wrong and ridiculous analogies in order to avoid various issues and claims, just doesn't work.

You can't bully your way through this one.

I suggest you leave it to n/a if you want your side of the debate to have a convincing case.

Limey Oik said...

Svigor

"Roman swords were made for fighting in tight ranks, Saxon swords were not. Right? Apples and oranges I think."

Yes. You are partly right. The Romans had short stabbing swords for use in a tight formation whereas the Saxon swords were designed presumably for a different style of fighting.

However, I'm talking about the hilts.

The Romans may have been 6 foot four strapping giants, but they seem to have had the hands of little children.

Ralph said...

Also, Moldbug, I had no idea that you know exactly what Plato was like.

Please do enlighten us. Us ignorant rubes just thought he was a guy that wrote down what Socrates said. We can't confidently assert (like you can with your esoteric knowledge) that Plato was or wasn't like this or that modern population group.

Truth said...

I love it,

You guys take a thread on Scandanavian post offices and turn it into a Swipopoply on whether the Romans had Nordic roots.

Anonymous said...

The reason the Nordic Romans question has struck a nerve is because people want to separate modern, scientific HBD from what came before.

Nordicists are biased in the same way that HBD-deniers (or Afro-Centrists) are: there is a certain conclusion they want to reach and they are willing to distort their thinking to get there.

HBD-deniers often attack a strawman version of HBD which more closely resembles the Nordicist (Madison Grant, etc.) position. Hence the sensitivity here.

Anonymous said...

Something I only realized recently is that they hate the Irish as much as the Slavs and Hispanics. Hating the majority of Americans is not exactly a recipe for success.

Err, I don't self-identify as a paleocon (I doubt I qualify - do paleos declare America dead, or consider themselves post-American?) but I don't hate Meds. I do hate the Irish, but in a way only a relative could. But in my experience, Meds have a chip on their shoulders about this topic, especially racially aware Meds (not that I this chip bothers me; odds are it's a symptom of a more healthy, ethnocentric behavioral (genetic) makeup).

I love it,

You guys take a thread on Scandanavian post offices and turn it into a Swipopoply on whether the Romans had Nordic roots.


For what it's worth, Swipples take a back seat to Jews and African-Americans vis-a-vis interest in the genetics of their ancestry.

In fact, I can't think of many things less Swipple-like than arguing that the Romans were Nordic.

But then, you seem a bit confused about the definition of Swipple; you are after all the guy who bizarrely supposed that my mother was disappointed because I'd turned out a Swipple (WTF? What white mother has ever been disappointed at having her offspring turn Swipple?).

~Svigor

Jeff S. said...

n/a,

Thanks for your response.

“Obviously, modern Germany and ancient Germania are not synonymous. Besides ancient Germanics, ancestors of the inhabitants of the modern German state include Celts, Slavs, and Balts.

For whatever reason, head form changed rather dramatically in central Europe over the past few thousand years.”

I find this issue really interesting even though I know basically nothing about it. I have heard a few “Nordicists” (I don’t use that word disparagingly, in fact, I consider myself one) claim that Nordics use to control a lot more land in Europe than they do now. At present, unfortunately, Nordics are only predominate in the northern fringes of the European continent -- Scandinavia, the British Isles, the Low Countries, northern Germany. However, even though I have no sources for this, I get the impression that in more ancient times Nordics were predominate over large swathes of central Europe as well. n/a, do you know any good articles or books that address the dispossession of the Nordics from Europe? I would be really interested in reading about this in detail.

Fred said...

"Are there still red heads in Greece?"

I assume so -- I went to high school with a tall, redheaded, fair-skinned Greek-American girl. Getting invaded/overrun by the Turks may have darkened the gene pool a bit, but there still are some fair-skinned Greeks.

MQ said...

Any study of history makes the enormous role of culture immediately clear, and people obsessed with genetic determinism have a hard time with that.

Lucius Vorenus said...

WTF? What white mother has ever been disappointed at having her offspring turn Swipple?.

God in Heaven - if there are any young, single iSteve-ettes [white or other] who do NOT want their children to grow up to be SWPL, then PLEASE contact me.

Peter A said...

Something I only realized recently is that they hate the Irish as much as the Slavs and Hispanics.

I don't hate the Irish, the Italians or the Jews. But I do find it grating when people in the media (usually Irish, Italians or Jews), point to the "success" of these groups as demonstrating that immigration is a "good thing." This is a very good example of the winners writing history. In fact most of the negative prognostications of the nay-sayers in the 19th century have come to pass, and Irish-Italian-Jewish immigration has been, from the point of view of a 19th century American, just as harmful to core American values, as practiced say in 1875, as predicted. In 100 years the result of Mexican immigration will be a further coarsening of our culture, a continued blending of the USA and Mexico to the point it will be hard to tell the difference, and the disappearance of the white lower middle class. Yet in hindsight I'm sure everyone will say what a "good thing" it was we allowed immigration.

Truth said...

"In fact, I can't think of many things less Swipple-like than arguing that the Romans were Nordic."

How about drinking a beer that has a commercial?

Or engaging in a sport that has an element of danger AND teammates?

Anonymous said...

"I don't recall them saying that the Germans & Celts were stupid, just that they were too individualist and undisciplined, especially in warfare."

The Germans' and Celts' track records of fighting against the Romans were very different. The Romans ended up conquering all of Celtic Europe except for the far fringe of Ireland and Scotland, in which they were simply not interested. With the tiny exception of Breton (another fringe) all the continental Celtic languages died. They were replaced by Latin.

The Romans were never able to conquer Germania. Their only serious attempt to do this ended in a catastrophic defeat in the battle of Teutenberg Forest in 9 AD.

Anonymous said...

"Why because it's impossible for black skinned folk to create wealth?

So the Soweto workers who mined the gold and diamonds that made DeBeers rich, they didn't generate wealth but the guys who colonized them did?"


Yes.

Hereward said...

The size of a weapon's hilt isn't a very good indication of the user's stature; it may just reflect the way it was held and used. For instance, Scottish dirks from the 17th and 18th Centuries have markedly smaller hilts than those of modern kitchen knives or fighting knives. This doesn't mean Highlanders were midgets, just that they used a different technique. Viking swords of the 8th and 9th centuries have smaller hilts than knightly swords of the 12th and 13th centuries, though the swords themselves are of comparable length and weight. They seem to have been held differently from the High Medieval swords. That said, there's little doubt the Germans and Celts were bigger than the Romans; the Romans themselves said so.

Anonymous said...

I do find it grating when people in the media (usually Irish, Italians or Jews), point to the "success" of these groups as demonstrating that immigration is a "good thing.




Good luck finding any Irish or Italians in the media.

That factual problem aside, the reality is that largest single group of Americas self-identify as being of Irish extraction. A movement which hopes to curb immigration and also attacks these people is cutting its own throat.

So even if you do think that the Irish and Italians have been bad for the country (a dubious proposition) it behooves you to make nice them if you ever hope to stop America becoming Latin America.

The Jews are a seperate case, having been the shock-troops for leftist radicalism for at least the last century. I'm pretty sure that nothing anyone can say will sway them from their self-destructive course.

But there's no inherent reason why your typical Irish cop is lost to us.

Anonymous said...

""Why because it's impossible for black skinned folk to create wealth?

So the Soweto workers who mined the gold and diamonds that made DeBeers rich, they didn't generate wealth but the guys who colonized them did?"

Yes."

Fascinating. To bad you were incapable of explaining your answer. From what I understood gold and diamond mines in South Africa are still running, even though it's a Black government now. (That's what economists (White ones even!) call wealth creation). I'd point out the contradiction to you, but hey, I don't want to disturb your dogmatic slumber, you might have to think for yourself at some point. It probably wouldn't feel good to you.

Thanks for the LULZ though!

Anonymous said...

The mines are running because they've still got whites to run them.

How many gold, diamond and coal mines were operational before whites arrived in SA?

The fact that there happen to be black people living on the land over said mines is entirely co-incidental. The mines would be there and operational if the land were entirely unhabited prior to whites arriving. The extraction and wealth of those resources bares no relation to the black population.

Sure they were available as cheap labour (increasingly less relevent with mechanisation) but thats a luxury that whites in SA, those who dwell upon it, know now they should have done without.

Back in the bad old days of Apartheid, us nice white liberals in the west were always being told (and telling each other) that the wealth of SA was founded on cheap black labour. You are just peddling a version of that story.

Anonymous said...

Fascinating. To bad you were incapable of explaining your answer. From what I understood gold and diamond mines in South Africa are still running, even though it's a Black government now. (That's what economists (White ones even!) call wealth creation).




The mining of gold and diamonds does not "create wealth", any more than printing dollar bills does.

God said...

The Romans were not Nordic, but the Greeks were. I have spoken.

Anonymous said...

"The mining of gold and diamonds does not "create wealth", any more than printing dollar bills does."

Funny, it helps the SA GDP. And darned if you can't do some nifty stuff with these materials.

Not sure what qualifies as 'creating weath' to you. You think those guys in suits on Wall Street packaging derivatives are doing it?

"that the wealth of SA was founded on cheap black labour." Do you deny they had cheap black labor? Does your denialism go *that* far? (Answer this to yourself, in your own heart my friend. I seek only to help and enlighten.)

LBK said...

"The Romans were never able to conquer Germania. Their only serious attempt to do this ended in a catastrophic defeat in the battle of Teutenberg Forest in 9 AD."

An interesting fact about that battle is that the leader of the Germans had previously served in the Roman army as a mercenary, and so had a good understanding of Roman tactics and organization, knowledge which he put to devastating use.

Lets see, I think some neocons have advocated that the U.S. should bring lots of foreigners into the military with promises of citizenship...

patrick said...

Tacitus regarded the Germans not as the Romans' cultural equals, but as "noble savages." He admired their toughness and lack of civilized vices, but he clearly did not believe that they were equal to the Romans in capabilities required for civilized life.

As for the alleged Nordic affiliation of the ancient Greeks and Romans, clearly this is not the case for their alleged descendants, myself included. I think everyone who has read any recent population-genetics studies knows that southern Italians and Greeks are genetically closer to Near Easterners than other Europeans are.

However, this may well have been true at the height of classical civilization, as modern anthropologists attribute this not to the Greco-Roman slave trade (as Tenney Frank did) but to migrations associated with the expansion of the Neolithic from the Near East, and (in the case of Italy) secondary migrations from the Eastern Mediterranean early in the first millennium BC.

I very much doubt the Romans were Nordic, but they weren't as "ethnic" as modern Sicilians or Calabrians- who are descendants of other ethnic groups, particularly Greeks (and in the case of the former, a small contribution from North African Arabs/Berbers).

Fred said...

"Their only serious attempt to do this ended in a catastrophic defeat in the battle of Teutenberg Forest in 9 AD."

Worth mentioning that the Romans were led into a trap by an ethnic German/Roman officer who betrayed them.

Bill said...

T. Bolle said...

Bill, you are either talking about the Italy of some other era, or you are simply clueless. You sound like someone who has never actually been to Italy and your film reference reinforces this impression.


Maybe I am talking about Italy from another era -- the 1980s to be precise.

I remember warm, summer nights in Florence, pretty girls on the beach on Ischia, and glorious ruins in Rome and Pompeii. I took the ferry from Bari to Dubrovnik, which was exciting and exotic at the time. It was great fun for an American boy.

In Norway, land of my ancestors, I remember endless hamlets with tufts of barren trees in the fields, bland food, and good skiing. I should add that the people were friendly and healthy, and physically probably the heartiest, healthiest people I saw in all of Europe.

Sweden, for its part, was so dour, unsmiling and proper that I felt I was back in the Pacific Northwest at a PTA meeting in a wealthy suburb.

LBK said...

Jeff S. said "...do you know any good articles or books that address the dispossession of the Nordics from Europe?"

A couple of good ones are Colin Renfrew's "Archaeology and Language" and Peter Bellwood's "First Farmers".

The thesis of these authors is that before the Neolithic the native European hunter-gatherers (Nordics) occupied most if not the entire continent. Then farming was developed in the Near East, and Near Eastern farmers began expanding in several directions, including into Europe. The expansion into Europe began around 6000 BC and was complete probably around 3000 BC.

The farmers had a much higher population density than hunter-gatherers, and so were able to push the latter out of their way and occupy the most productive land. There was quite a bit of genetic mixing along the way, with the result that most modern Europeans are descended from both groups. There is no sharp line separating Nordics from Meds, but rather a cline running from southeast to northwest. This cline is quite visible in the genetic maps created by L.L. Cavalli-Sforza, another author worth checking out.

By the way, modern academicians no longer use terms like "Nordic Race", because they would get clobbered by the PC enforcers, so they use terms like "Mesolithic European Population", which means pretty much the same thing but flies under the PC radar.

http://www.amazon.com/First-Farmers-Origins-Agricultural-Societies/dp/0631205667/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249970401&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Examining-Dispersal-Hypothesis-Institute-Monographs/dp/1902937201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249970475&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Language-Puzzle-Indo-European-Origins/dp/0521386756/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249970506&sr=1-6

http://www.amazon.com/History-Geography-Human-Genes-paperback/dp/0691029059/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249970561&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/Horse-Wheel-Language-Bronze-Age-Eurasian/dp/0691058873/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Anonymous said...

Funny, it helps the SA GDP.



Nothing "funny" about it, my economically illiterate friend.


And darned if you can't do some nifty stuff with these materials



They are used as mediums of exchange. You can use other things as mediums of exchange. Mediums of exchange are not "wealth". They are used to facilitate the movement of wealth.

When the Spanish conquered Central America they shipped massive amounts of silver back to Spain. This did not make Spain wealthy, it merely led to inflation. This result is perfectly understandable, to those who realise that silver, gold, and diamonds are not wealth, and incomprehensible to those like you.

Anonymous said...

I seek only to help and enlighten



You may indeed "seek" that, but you plainly are not such a one as can enlighten anybody.

"Cheap labor" is also not a source of wealth. If it were, China and India would be the richest countries on Earth, and America would be the poorest.

Your economic beliefs are neo-communist, suitable only for the pathetc products of the American college system.

Lexington Steele said...

Man, this thread has got to be the second longest thing I've seen today.

Rocco Siffredi said...

It's true, we Italians aren't as anal about our postal service as Scandinavians.

Peter A said...

Before the Germans and their admirers get too carried away with patting themselves on the back - the Romans never wanted to conquer Germania in the first place. There was no point - the place was a miserable cold backwater from the Roman point of view. Germania also served as a useful buffer between the Empire and the steppe nomads who were the real threat to Rome.

Anonymous said...

Or engaging in a sport that has an element of danger AND teammates?

Basketball vs. Rugby/Polo?

How about drinking a beer that has a commercial?

Sam Adams? Guiness?

So even if you do think that the Irish and Italians have been bad for the country (a dubious proposition)

Mmm, I dunno about that. You might want to look up Desmond Jones at majorityrights.com before you make up your mind. Let's just say I more agree with him than not, and I started from the opposite side of the argument.

it behooves you to make nice them if you ever hope to stop America becoming Latin America.

The goal is not to save America, but to save Our Precious Essence, as it were. This happens at the racial level of the mindspace, not in the voting booth, and so does not depend on majorities.

But yes, it certainly would be best to have all the descendants of European Christendom on the same page.

Good luck finding any Irish or Italians in the media.

Funny, I notice Irish surnames attached to much of the same sort of chicanery of the press as that of Jewish surnames. Generally, if the worst sort of anti-Europid message wasn't penned by a Jew, it was penned by an Irishman.

But there's no inherent reason why your typical Irish cop is lost to us.

Heavens no! Other than congenital stubbornness and an ethnic identity somewhat like "Jewish-lite," the Irish are all one non-error away from doing the right thing.

~Svigor

Anonymous said...

Peter A: In fact most of the negative prognostications of the nay-sayers in the 19th century have come to pass, and Irish-Italian-Jewish immigration has been, from the point of view of a 19th century American, just as harmful to core American values, as practiced say in 1875, as predicted.

I'd add Poles to that mix [maybe even before the Italians].

We've had a handful of prominent Italian conservatives in my lifetime, but, off the top of my head, I can't think of a single prominent Polish-American [Papist or Pharisee] who wasn't a flaming communist [and that includes the Brezhinskis, père et fille].

Oops - I thought about it too long, and the name "Jude Wanniski" just popped into my head.

Oh well, my bad.

ERM said...

With the tiny exception of Breton (another fringe) all the continental Celtic languages died. They were replaced by Latin.

Breton is an Insular Celtic language, brought by settlers from, natch, Britain, and is thus related to Welsh or Cornish or Manx; more distantly to Irish and Scottish Gaelic. The continental Celtic languages are well and truly dead.

Anonymous said...

"From what I understood gold and diamond mines in South Africa are still running, even though it's a Black government now."
"hey, I don't want to disturb your dogmatic slumber"

But LULZ-enjoying Anonymous, I DO want to disturb YOUR dogmatic slumber. You clearly do not understand much.

SA Gold and diamond mines are still running because they are largely run by Whites, as CEOs and board members. Black Economic Empowerment has not YET succeeded in ousting them all.

But the gold mines NOW are DEFINITELY in trouble, serious trouble, due to Black gov't incompetence. How? Because ESKOM, which provides the electricity to the country, is no longer capable of providing electricity to both the cities and the mines at the same time.

Black admin of Eskom has seen the neglect of necessary maintenance of the power plants, so power plants are unable to produce electricity, and BEE has caused the emigration of White technicians, to be replaced by Blacks who lack the critically necessary skills.

Gold production in SA in recent years is down double digits y/o/y as a result. And extrapolating the trendline, production will only continue to decline until gold production is no longer possible, at all.
Here's an example of the hundreds of articles discussing these issues.
http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?c=3&cg=2&t=1&id=33190

Really, LULZ-enjoying Anonymous, you ought to do some fact-checking before slinging the snark. It makes you look foolish.

Adam G. said...

Many historians think Greeks are basically slavs. At one point the slav immigration into Greece (which had suffered a net population decline since the era of the late Roman Republic) was so severe that at one point the Byzantines lost control of the entire place except for a few port cities. There's quite a bit of evidence that at that point the hinterlands were almost entirely slavic speaking.

Adam G. said...

Spengler (Oswald) could explain it.




I think his fanatical Jewish supremacism would obstruct his viewing history clearly.


Oswald Spengler was a fanatical Jewish supremacist? I think you're talking about the Asia Times Spengler.

Adam G. said...

The Germans' and Celts' track records of fighting against the Romans were very different. The Romans ended up conquering all of Celtic Europe except for the far fringe of Ireland and Scotland, in which they were simply not interested. With the tiny exception of Breton (another fringe) all the continental Celtic languages died. They were replaced by Latin.

The Romans were never able to conquer Germania. Their only serious attempt to do this ended in a catastrophic defeat in the battle of Teutenberg Forest in 9 AD


Not so fast. Gaul had German tribes who were defeated by Romans, as did Dacia. And as you point out, the Romans never conquered the celtic fringe areas. The reason? Like Germania, they were economically marginal and weren't well suited to the roman agricultural package.

Anonymous said...

Good luck finding any Irish or Italians in the media.

To judge by Steve's not letting through my comment refuting this obviously silly statement, I guess he agrees that there are no Irish or Italians in the media.

Or maybe Fox News doesn't count because Steve doesn't get cable.

Now back to the scintillating debate about who is the whitest of the white.

n/a said...

Jeff S.,

You might find Coon's The Races of Europe (available online here and here) useful. Some of the more sweeping theories offered in TRoE can be safely ignored (Coon himself later changed his mind on many issues), but I think the book provides a reasonable overview of skeletal change in Europe. (You may also find the race gallery at the SNPA site interesting.)

I have to disagree with LBK on Colin Renfrew offering anything of value on the question of IE origins, but I second the recommendation of David Anthony's book (The Horse, the Wheel, and Language) if you are interested in IE origins.

LBK,

Most authors use "Nordic" more narrowly than that. Modern genetic evidence does suggest the primary division in Europe today is between Northern/Central Europeans and Southern Europeans, but "Nordic" usually refers to a relatively long-headed/long-faced/light-pigmented subset of North/Central Europeans.

Anonymous said...

“I think everyone who has read any recent population-genetics studies knows that southern Italians and Greeks are genetically closer to Near Easterners than other Europeans are.”

That reminds me of Juvenal’s lament that

‘Long since has the Syrian Orontes flowed into the Tiber . . .’


“Many historians think Greeks are basically slavs. At one point the slav immigration into Greece (which had suffered a net population decline since the era of the late Roman Republic) was so severe that at one point the Byzantines lost control of the entire place except for a few port cities. There's quite a bit of evidence that at that point the hinterlands were almost entirely slavic speaking."

It’s been pointed out that linguistics does not necessarily equal demographics, but it can be noted that the ancient tongue of Macedonia was a dialect of Greek, while the Macedonian of today is an unrelated (except as being IE) Slavic language.

Limey Oik said...

"The Germans' and Celts' track records of fighting against the Romans were very different."

I think its worth pointing out that Julius Ceaser was defeated in a number of battles by the (Gallic/French) Celtic leader Vercingetorix and the final decisive battle between these two could have gone either way.

Our own dear Queen Boudica of the Iceni led a revolt against Roman rule that led to the massacre of the 9th Legion and so terrified the Romans that they seriously considered evacuating Britain.

Also, in the early days of the Roman Empire, the Romans sent envoys to negotiate with a Celtic army that was threatening to attack the Etrurians who were allies of the Romans. The Celts demanded that the Etrurians pay them to go away. The Roman envoys asked what right the Celts had to make demands of the Etrurians. The Celts replied with the immortal lines:

"Our rights are in the points of our swords, and as for property, all things belong to the brave".

So much for international law then.

The Celts weren't a push over.

Rurik said...

n/a,

what's the story on the unique Lapp phenotype? there's no mongoloid or other admixture, so could some of their unique features that seem slightly/somewhat mongoloid (rounder, flatter face, smaller eyes, etc.) be due to some sort of convergent evolution?

they split off from other IEs about 10,000 years ago I believe, and moved into the arctic, tundra area in the north that is apparently the type of environment mongoloids evolved out of.

any thoughts?

Anonymous said...

There's something pretty creepy about the term Aryan. Too Nazi/SS. I hope everyone can agree Hitler and his cronies and their demented racial philosophy were evil beyond belief and the murders of 6 million people in the concentration camps was horrific. This board attracts too many Neo-Nazi fanatics.

Population genetics is interesting for what it says about the relationships between different groups, but at this point we're all descendants of any Greeks or Vikings who had children in those time periods. The law of averages says as much.

Culturally, I think the Scandinavians and Germans may put more emphasis on punctuality and organization, which could explain the punctual postal service.

Anonymous said...

To judge by Steve's not letting through my comment refuting this obviously silly statement, I guess he agrees that there are no Irish or Italians in the media.





Maybe your comment did not get throught because it was silly. And what would the left do if Fox News did not exist? I think they'd have to invent it. It's just too useful to them in providing a pat answer to charges of media bias.

Anonymous said...

But yes, it certainly would be best to have all the descendants of European Christendom on the same page.



And yet, I notice that your commenting is quite hostile to that ever happening.

Funny, I notice Irish surnames attached to much of the same sort of chicanery of the press as that of Jewish surnames.



That is funny. It suggests that reading is not one of your stronger skills.

Other than congenital stubbornness and an ethnic identity somewhat like "Jewish-lite," the Irish are all one non-error away from doing the right thing.




If the Irish were "Jewish-lite" this country would have been overtly communist a long time ago. I see your critical thinking skills are as bad as ever.

Information on voting patterns by ethnic group is widely available on-line. Why don't you stop stoking your ego for five minutes and avail yourself of it?

Anonymous said...

"SA Gold and diamond mines are still running because they are largely run by Whites, as CEOs and board members."

So the guys who are at the top are the only ones who *create wealth* or add value?

My friend, you need to review your business history. Specifically, look at WorldCom, and let's say, Enron. The employees actually made calls and distributed gas. No thanks to their honchos, Ebbers and Lay, who are in jail now. According to you the Bernies were the guy's who created wealth! (LULZ!)

I still am chuckling here, but I'm kind of sad too. Please sir! Think, just a little, before you post. NIIROLF

gig said...

Romans as hobbits and Anglo-saxons as elves

Roman morons screwed in teutoshit by Germans

it has always been Spain versus England in 1588.

Jeff S. said...

LBK and n/a,

Thanks for your reading recommendations. I will definitely make sure to look into the books that are mentioned in both of your comments.

Anonymous said...

"When the Spanish conquered Central America they shipped massive amounts of silver back to Spain. This did not make Spain wealthy, it merely led to inflation."

Can someone define *wealth* and *wealth creation* ?

Who is wealthy and who isn't?

Anonymous said...

Re SA & mining.

You are confusing finance and industry and calling it "business". I believe Henry Ford had something to say about that. Of course the two are interlinked.

Enron seems to me an example of when something that should be industry becomes entirely of the world of finance. That really brings out all the scam artists.

The fact that the mines are still operational in SA tells me there are still enough white mining engineers, geologists, mechanics, machine operators etc around to keep things going.

Anonymous said...

Italy is a dystopia? Isn't that a little strong? The Congo is a dystopia, Iran is a dystopia, Cuba is a dystopia, relatively blue-eyed Russia is a dystopia, but I don't exactly see modern Italy as a seething mass of pitiful humanity. Maybe a country full of forty year olds living with their mothers, but I would guess that most people in the world would trade places with them.

Not perfect, of course, but the rumor is that the food is OK there. Although it is pitiable many Italians suffer from poor self esteem due to the lack of any celebrated Italian contribution to the wider modern society.

With several generations of selective breeding, those poor Italian suckers may manage to breed themselves into high enough IQs to learn to enjoy lutefisk, which obviously supplies micronutrition that would further enhance the Italian g factor.

Anonymous said...

Can someone define *wealth* and *wealth creation* ?



Wealth basically means "stuff", and in particular it means "stuff beyond the basic neccessities required for survival".

The sort of stuff in question varies from time to time and place to place. It may include cows, sheep, flint arrowheads, land, factories, houses, and even in some cases people and knowledge. The stuff in question must possess some utility before what we consider to be wealth can exist. You must be able to use it in the process of making something.


Wealth is often confused in many peoples minds with media of exchange - money. In fact the two have a somewhat casual connection to each other. Wealth can be created and destroyed. You can build a building, and blow it up.

A stone age hunter-gatherer would have (rightly) considered a mountain of gold and diamonds to be worthless. It would have had no utility, either in itself or as a medium of exchange.

If all the money in America soemhow vanished overnight, the wealth of the country would not be affected in the least, at least in the short term.

Flooding Spain with silver had much the same result as would occur if you flooded America with dollars. The amount of wealth (stuff) remains constant while the amount of things used to represent wealth increases. The result is what we call inflation - the value of the money (silver, gold, dollars, whatever) decreases.

Creating wealth boils done to making more stuff which people can use. Sounds simple, but figuring out what that stuff is and what is the appropriate amount of it tends to be extremely difficult.

All of this is at the macro level. Much of what goes on these days in terms of "creating wealth" - really, "making money" - on the individual level is neutral or even destuctive as far as actually creating wealth goes.

wilson said...

n/a writes:

"I'm sure the amassing of great wealth in rather organized fashion through control of trade routes and banking was entirely coincidental to the production of great art during the Northern Italian Renaissance."

I guess for Nordicists non-genetic factors only come into play when used to explain non-Nordic (or I guess in this case Nordicists would qualify as less Nordic) achievement and accomplishments.

Anonymous said...

A lot of stupidity on this thread. Svigor's comments are especially retarded. There was a kind of culture of critique lite from Irish Americans, but 1) it ended a generation ago and 2) it's influence pales in comparison to the Jewish culture of critique. By itself, it never would have amounted to anything.

I remember Alex Linder saying something similar about Irish people. He basically said he hated them and didn't want them as part of his movement. He only wanted "Southerners and German Americans." He also hates English people even though he is half English. That's when I stopped reading him. Except for a few blue collar communties in NYC, Boston, Philadelphia and maybe a couple other big cities, Irish Americans are indistiguishable from WASPs. You can't say that about Jews, Italians, Greeks or Portugese as a whole. If you are going to exclude Irish people from your movement, you might as well give up.


Coon's theory was that nordics were descended from the neolithic farmers and "alpines" from the paleolithic hunters. The first part of that thesis is largely correct, as seen by the high level of Near Eastern derived Y haplo-groups J and H in modern Germans and Swedes(actually, nordics are a mix of the two groups). The second part breaks down because Coon classed unrelated people together as "Alpines," including pure old Europeans like the Irish and Basques as well as mixed groups like Central Europeans.

The cultural differences between Sweden and Italy are not caused by IQ. Italy has actually scored higher on studies. They are caused by other psychological traits. The main one being concientiousness. Swedes probably are higher on this trait than any other European ethnic group. It explains some of the Asian like characteristis of their society, like the extreme empahsis placed on order, social harmony, shame, surpressing emotions, not giving offense and group think. Extroversion/Introversion is also a major factor.

Anonymous said...

"So the guys who are at the top are the only ones who *create wealth* or add value?"

The guys at the top are the leaders. They are the only NECESSARY ones.
That is, without them, nothing happens. Without CEOs (White) making decisions whether a mine is going to be profitable and finding the funding to build a mine, without mining engineers (White) to determine how the mine should be built in order to actually accomplish the task of getting the ore out without the mine collapsing, the mine doesn't get built -- or it collapses.
The (generally Black) labor hands who wield the mining jackhammers are easily replaced, and the mining continues. If they're not there, the CEOs and engineers can find someone else or acquire mechanization with equanimity. But if the CEOs and mining engineers aren't there, the mining DOES NOT HAPPEN -- and the Blacks have no jobs.
The (Black) miners do what they're told. So, no, they do not create wealth. They are just the tools the guys at the top use in their wealth creation. The CEOs and mining engineers are crucial. The mining-tool wielders are replaceable.
CERTAINLY, CEOs can be corrupt -- in which case the entity dies and all the hands lose their jobs. Thanks for bringing up Worldcom. You made my point.

Anonymous said...

If I dig something out of the ground that I can ship to other countries in exchange for food or manufactured goods, how am I not creating wealth? How does it matter, from my point of view, whether I'm trading a "useful" material, like copper, or something mainly decorative, like gold?

From this point of view, the black South Africans working in the gold mines are certainly creating wealth. You really do need to give credit where credit is due, or you end up looking biased and mean spirited. But you can still make reasonable arguments that without the white South Africans there never would have been any gold mines, and that without whites to run them now the mining operations would fall apart. (The first argument will always be speculative, but it's likely we are going to find out about the second!)

Anonymous said...

Flooding Spain with silver had much the same result as would occur if you flooded America with dollars. The amount of wealth (stuff) remains constant while the amount of things used to represent wealth increases. The result is what we call inflation - the value of the money (silver, gold, dollars, whatever) decreases.


No, because countries other than Spain also used silver as a currency so the importation of silver, while disrupting the spanish economy, could in theory have made Spain relatively better off to its neighbors. Also, silver has real value. It is itself stuff. No one ever dined on dollar dishes.
-Heinl

Anonymous said...

"You really do need to give credit where credit is due, or you end up looking biased and mean spirited. But you can still make reasonable arguments that without the white South Africans there never would have been any gold mines,"

That is exactly the reasonable argument I just made.
I DID give the credit where the credit is due -- to the White movers and shakers, i.e., the (White) CEOs and mining engineers.

"Looking mean-spirited" is NOT disallowed on this blog. Steve tells the truth, and allows his commenters to tell the truth, even when it's not "nice."
"Nice" you can get anywhere. The not-nice TRUTH you get here is what makes this blog WORTH READING.

Anonymous said...

If I dig something out of the ground that I can ship to other countries in exchange for food or manufactured goods, how am I not creating wealth?




Your own question tells you the answer. You are exchanging something rather useles for food or manufactured goods. You are not "creating wealth", any more than if you set up a dollar bill printing machine. Of course the person who set up the dollar bill printing machine would be able to "exchange" his dollar bills for "food or manufactured goods". But he is not adding any wealth to the overall system in doing so: he is siphoning off wealth which other people have created.

The exception is if you are digging something out of the ground which has some intrinsic value, such as iron or oil. In that case you are helping to add to the total amount of wealth in the world.

Your mistake is in thinkng that if you get richer, you must be creating wealth. That is seldom the case. Imagine a very rich lawyer who got that way be suing companies which make things. He is getting rich, but not by creating wealth. In fact he is acting to retard the creation of wealth.

Anonymous said...

But you can still make reasonable arguments that without the white South Africans there never would have been any gold mines, and that without whites to run them now the mining operations would fall apart.




No. Without the existence of civilizaton, which in this context means "what white people have wrought", gold would have no value.

You persist in pretending that gold is valuable in and of itself, even though that notion has already been debunked.

Anonymous said...

So the guys who are at the top are the only ones who *create wealth* or add value?




Maybe, maybe not. It depends on what they are at the top of. The people at the top of Goldman-Sachs are not creating wealth or adding value to anything except their own bank accounts.

Anonymous said...

does it matter, from my point of view, whether I'm trading a "useful" material, like copper, or something mainly decorative, like gold?



It does not matter much, from your short-term point of view. But it matters a great deal from the big picture point of view. Certain people can only be free to trade in decoratve items as long as the civlization in general is wealthy - as long as other people are engaged in the creation of wealth.
If they stop doing that, you will rapidly find that the market for your decorative items is disappearing.

Anonymous said...

because countries other than Spain also used silver as a currency so the importation of silver, while disrupting the spanish economy, could in theory have made Spain relatively better off to its neighbors.





By that logic the United States can make itself "relatively better off to its neighbors" by printing more dollars. (Dollars being accepted as currency by them.) Do I really need to show out why this does not work?


Also, silver has real value.


Everything has some "real value", even air. Silver's real value is negligible these days, in large part because of the reasons I'm pointing out here.


No one ever dined on dollar dishes.



People have dined on dishes made of copper, bronze, wood, glass, pottery, and even leaves. Should I assume that all these things are immensely valuable?


I find it disappointing that I need to explain rudimentary economic concepts on this blog. It's like I'm talking to people at Kos.

Anonymous said...

Italy is a dystopia? Isn't that a little strong? The Congo is a dystopia, Iran is a dystopia, Cuba is a dystopia, relatively blue-eyed Russia is a dystopia.

Good grief! Are we stiil picking the bones out of that?

Steve was obviously being ironic.

When he said dystopia - he was joking! What with the manifest cumulative contributions of Italy - St Peter's, Ferrari, Sabrina* et al - Italy is clearly not a dystopia, maybe not your actual utopia but certainly a non-dystopia.

So remember folks, when someone like Steve writes something thats so clearly not true, its really not be taken at face value.

*1980s pop star.

Tom Buchanan said...

Italy is non-dystopic insofar as and to the extent which it is Nordic.

Anonymous said...

From this point of view, the black South Africans working in the gold mines are certainly creating wealth. You really do need to give credit where credit is due, or you end up looking biased and mean spirited.

This is true. It's also true of dogs, mules, horses, cattle, chickens...etc.

Not trying to be "mean spirited" (how could I be, I'm using your logic!).

~Svigor

Anonymous said...

No. Without the existence of civilizaton, which in this context means "what white people have wrought", gold would have no value.

You persist in pretending that gold is valuable in and of itself, even though that notion has already been debunked.


Gold has intrinsic value because its pretty. Beauty is intrinsic value. And you don't have to be civilized to like pretty things. Africans used gold ornamentation before western civilization showed up. Heck, the Scythians loved gold, and they're nobody's definition of civilized.
-Heinl

Anonymous said...

People have dined on dishes made of copper, bronze, wood, glass, pottery, and even leaves. Should I assume that all these things are immensely valuable?


Gold and silve ornamentation are going to cost a lot more than the above and since neither metal is in widespread use anywhere as a medium of exchange, and since the markets for gold and silver are relatively unregulated, it follows that gold and silver are pretty valuable. I hate to think that on this blog I have to explain the something is valuable to the extent people are willing to trade good and services for it, but I suppose that nordicism or whatever you call it is an ideology that rots the mind just like all the others. Would it make you feel better if I told you that there are gold mines in white countries too?
-Heinl

Anonymous said...

Wow, the ignorance of elementary economics in some of these comments is astonishing! Let me see if I can make this clear:

If I can feed and clothe my family by digging some substance out of the ground and trading it to others, then I am creating wealth for myself and my family! There is absolutely no reason I need to know or care why other people want what I am providing -- the fact that they are willing to pay for it means that by definition it has value. That is what value is.

Maybe this will be more clear: let's say I spend my time creating works of art out of cheap raw materials. Let's say that other people really really like my work, and are willing to pay big bucks for it. Are you really going to tell me that I have not created wealth??? Human societies in all times and places have valued artwork, and considered it wealth. Are you telling us every human society ever recorded has been wrong about this? And if I can use gold to make my artwork more attractive, so that people will pay more for it, then that gold has real value, both to me and to my customers.

It's true that as some point, if things really go to hell, a sack of grain could be "worth" more than the Mona Lisa. But if you base your definition of "value" on that then you have a grade school understanding of economics. In the world as it really operates a thing is worth what people are willing to pay for it. This is an absolutely fundamental insight! It's something Marx didn't understand, and one of the reasons his economic theories ended up failing so badly.

Yes, some things, like art, can easily lose their value. An IOU (which is basically what a dollar bill is) can certainly lose value, especially if you hand out too many of them. But even "useful" materials like copper can lose value. In fact, under some circumstances even food and clothing will be worth nothing. There is no true value for anything; it's all a matter of the circumstances! Trying to distinguish between the "true" value of something and what people are willing to pay is a fool's errand, and it's kind of dismaying that some people here don't grasp that.

Anonymous said...

Gold and silve ornamentation are going to cost a lot more than the above



I suppose that might be because gold and silver are a lot rarer than "the above".

it follows that gold and silver are pretty valuable.


Yes, it does. Nobody said any differently.

What you failed to grasp, Mr Kossack, is that something being valuable is not the same thing as "wealth creation", which is the question which I was responding to.


I suppose that nordicism or whatever you call it is an ideology that rots the mind just like all the others



It is indeed. Sadly for you, this is just one more instance where you don't know what you are talking about. I am not a "nordicist" in any way, shape, or form.

Anonymous said...

Gold has intrinsic value because its pretty.



Being "pretty" is not an intrinsic value. It's a subjective value. Which is why many of the civilizations the Spanish conquered in South and Central America did not place the same high value on gold as the Europeans did.

you don't have to be civilized to like pretty things.



You have to possess a degree of real wealth to be able to indulge an interest in pretty things. The pretty things are not wealth themselves. They are things which wealth allows people to play with.

I'm sure if I just explain this to you eight more tmes, you'll get it.

Of course, you'll continue to pretend that you don't. Because admitting that wealth is not a constant which can be simply dug out of the ground by anyone who happens to find it would strike at the heart of the left-wing view of economics.

Anonymous said...

Look's like comment control has decided to give Heinl the last word.

Anonymous said...

Gold & silver are also used in various electronic components. Their use value has certainly broadened since the advent of the electronics industry.

Electronics invented btw by white folks, no black input that Im aware of.

Anonymous said...

Maybe this will be more clear: let's say I spend my time creating works of art out of cheap raw materials. Let's say that other people really really like my work, and are willing to pay big bucks for it. Are you really going to tell me that I have not created wealth?


Yes, that is exactly what I am telling you. You are not creating wealth just because people are willing to give you wealth (big bucks) for something. The fact that people are in the position to give you "big bucks" illustrates the fact that somebody, somewhere in the world is in fact creating wealth. But you are not he.

This is the common libertarian fallacy that any and all economic transactions ipso facto "create wealth".


In the world as it really operates a thing is worth what people are willing to pay for it.



We are not discussing what a thing is worth. We are discussing what wealth is and how it is created. But thanks for trotting out your off-topic talking points gleaned from your careful reading of Atlas Shrugged.

Anonymous said...

In the world as it really operates a thing is worth what people are willing to pay for it.




Thanks for sharing that with us, Einstein.

Lucius Vorenus said...

In the world as it really operates a thing is worth what people are willing to pay for it.

Yeah, like that 500 sq ft mansion in Compton which sold for $340,000.

In the world as it really operates a thing is worth what people are willing AND ABLE to pay for it.

FTFY.

Truth said...

"Electronics invented btw by white folks, no black input that Im aware of."

You're right, except This one

and This one

And about 12 others I could post.

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