Cata, intelligence, IS the most superior trait. The greater our ability to observe reality the more substance there is to it.

The tech elite is full of your political adversaries unfortunately.

Edited 9/8/2017 03:31:53

I don't derive my interests from whatever political constructs I happen to be associated with. So astute observation, I don't take states or whatever into account when figuring out what I care about. Government interests are based on citizens' individual interests, not the other way around.

I think anyone who places the state or the collective over the individual needs to take a good, hard look at how badly they're wasting their own life.

Edited 9/8/2017 03:30:43

I'm already too smart to reproduce.

Tabby, I'm not happy. I'm corrupt and evil and my mind is rotting away because the only stimulation I gets comes in small bursts. My options are limited because I cannot integrate into a society from a completely different century. The only thing that matters is my will-to-power.

will-to-power

I love how Nietzsche's work has lived up to his prophecy that it will be latched onto by idiots. A book for all and none, indeed.

Well, all work is latched onto by idiots. Something would have to be super unknown and obscure for it to not have idiots citing it as inspiration.

Yeah, but this guy's work got latched onto by Nazis and other sorts of people he directly attacks in the first few parts. It very closely parallels segments from his work where the narrator attempts to explain the concept of the Ubermensch only for the crowd to misinterpret him and think he was hyping up the tightrope walker.

Nietzsche wrote about superior (Ubermensch) and inferior (the Last Men) types of people, and hilariously enough it's the people who exhibit the traits Nietzsche ascribed to the Last Men that picked up his work and thought they were the Ubermenschen. It's similar to how most of the people who pick up Ayn Rand really don't have anything in common with John Galt or Howard Roark.

The wealthy have more children. I have anecdotal evidence of this, and there seems to be reliable statistics which bear this out.

Bryan Caplan reporting for the Journal of Economics and Liberty speaks to the subject:

The simplest story is that the elite values typical of the well-educated depress fertility - but regardless of your values, the higher your income, the more kids you want.

Caplan also says the following:

If you're prone to futurist speculation, trying re-imagining Idiocracy. The twist: in the real world, the most fertile people aren't those with low IQ; they're people who counter-stereotypically combine low education with high income. Plumbers shall inherit the earth!

There are those who assume that low education correlates with low intelligence. Bill Gates might have something to say on this subject. And the plumbers I have know have been reasonably witty folk.

Link: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/kids_are_normal.html

Conclusion is wrong because the first premise that we're "Nazis" is wrong.

Francis Parker Yockey uses "will-to-power" in his book Imperium; that is what I had in mind when I wrote my response. The traditionalist school of philosophy borrows elements from Nietzsche. Say they bastardized Nietzsche and drew conclusions from his premises that were not intended, fair enough. But to say they completely misunderstood his ideas is inaccurate.

It doesn't change the argument either way. Knyte's cerebral capacity for language is unsurprisingly weak; most of his rambling is sophistry i.e. not an argument. That particular verbiage "will-to-power" can be used by many political ideologies to the same effect. The concept is just like the concept of metaphysics, which is completely open for interpretation across the political spectrum.

@Padraig it's not surprising that the wealthy would try to have more children since they have more resources. But the opposite phenomenon is actually being observed in regards to global poverty rates and birth rates, isn't it? Birth rates in Niger are much higher than those in Sweden for example.

For Wulfhere:

There are multiple factors at work.

It has been seen that as populations have risen from abject poverty family sizes have decreased. More to the point there is a strong correlation between female literacy and smaller family size. This has been seen in Africa during the last century.

The linked article from the Population Reference Bureau, Is Education the Best Contraceptive?, treats the question in detail. I am inclined to trust the article because it agrees with the data (from the CIA website) on fertility and literacy in the various African nations which I researched while taking an economics course.

Link: http://www.prb.org/pdf/IsEducat-Contracept_Eng.pdf

"There are those who assume that low education correlates with low intelligence. Bill Gates might have something to say on this subject. And the plumbers I have know have been reasonably witty folk.

Link: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/kids_are_normal.html"


I'm not sure you understand what correlation is.

A correlation between education and intelligence does not mean there aren't educated morons and intelligent people lacking degrees.

It's also a hell of a stretch to claim wealthy have more children without a whole lot of qualifying information.

Women without high school diplomas have the most children, women with high school educations but no college degrees have the second most children, women with degrees have less children across the board, but women with advanced degrees have more children than women with basic degrees. This is typically assumed to be because women with advanced degrees are more likely to be able to afford things like nannies, maids, daycare, etc.

While the most highly educated women are having more children than their slightly less educated peers it is not nearly large enough of an upswing to swing overall correlation in the sense that "more money = more children" is true.


Women without high school diplomas average 2.24 children.
Women with high school diplomas average 2.09 children.
Women with basic degrees have 1.78 children.
Women with advanced degrees have 1.88 children.

Women with financial stability are still having 16% fewer children than women lacking education.

Nauzhor, I refer you to my previous answer:

The simplest story is that the elite values typical of the well-educated depress fertility - but regardless of your values, the higher your income, the more kids you want.

From the same article:

Controlling for education, higher income predicts higher fertility. (Adding age as a control variable slightly reduces the magnitude, but not too much).

So wealth and education are opposing forces with respect to fertility. The author I cite is asserting that when you examine a cohort of well educated individuals the wealthier are having more children.

While the most highly educated women are having more children than their slightly less educated peers it is not nearly large enough of an upswing to swing overall correlation in the sense that "more money = more children" is true.

I would love to know the source that you are citing. The fellow I am quoting is in turn looking towards an article which was published by demographics research (www.demographics-research.org) which is, as I understand it, a reputable peer reviewed journal.

Vegard Skirbekk in the 18th volume of that same journal asserts the following:

Contemporary fertility differences by status are ... much smaller than historical ones as there has been a partial convergence in fertility levels, individuals with high occupation/social class have slightly lower fertility, while those with high income/wealth have about the same fertility as those well off. (p. 162)

This description is indicative of fertility in the developed world. The point to all this is that a recent increase of fertility among those with high income/wealth, such that they are more fertile than society at large, would be something new.

more of that Classic Tabby (tm)