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Yeah, but that's a self-selected group. People who are capable of moving their families to another country to pursue a career are more likely to be successful.

by jbooth 16y ago

Yeah, but that's a self-selected group. People who are capable of moving their families to another country to pursue a career are more likely to be successful. Similarly people who grow up in poor, backwards communities (trailer parks and projects, meth and crack), tend to wind up poor and backwards. Maybe I'm a reactionary liberal but I have an easier time believing that than the inherent genetic superiority of the danes (oh and that's just SO close to certain ideologies I'm always wanting to accuse the Tea Party of harboring). Wanna see something really cool? Look at a satellite image of Denmark. It's almost entirely farmland, with little spots of ultra-dense village or city every so often. No suburban wasteland. I'd be 20% happier just for that.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
Swedish Americans are the descendents of lower class agricultural workers who left religious repression in Sweden between 1860 and 1910. In the case of Japanese Americans, they are descended from manual laborers who left Japan between 1882 and 1924. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_emigration_to_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_emigration_to_the_Unite... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American#Immigration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American#Immigration In any case, I don't get how you could read either of my factoids and suggest I was pushing genetic determinism. Clearly, some environmental factors are important. For example, living in the US rather than Sweden or Japan seems to cause people to earn 50% more money. Using US health care rather than Japanese health care seems to increase life expectancy by 2 years (no, I don't actually believe this latter point). But on the other hand, ethnicity does also seem to have some measurable effects. Asian Americans beat whites on most social measures in spite of the head start whites had. Feel free to call me a racist tea partier if you like.
- jbooth 16y ago
  Oh, I wasn't accusing you at all, just noting it was funny that we were talking about the Danish with their blonde hair and blue eyes, in the context of genetic determinism -- been reading about Hitler and Stalin's respective rises to power recently, so it's on my mind. As far as the Asian American thing, I'm personally partial to social factors there as well. At the risk of being a stereotyping a-hole, there's a lot of Asian Americans in SAT prep classes. Correlation with ethnicity doesn't necessarily mean that asians are genetically predisposed to be better at the SATs. Really, I just wanted to highlight those satellite pictures of Denmark. EDIT: Also, RE: the impoverished and hardworking immigrants, I agree, it's not like they were Saudi princes when they came to America, but those who did come were the ones who had the motivation to pull off the journey -- then, now that they've bitten it off, they're obligated to succeed. Still self-selecting to some degree to me.
Aetius 16y ago
When's the last time you flew coast to coast? There's quite a lot of farmland in the U.S.
- jbooth 16y ago
  There is indeed a lot of farmland in the US, but there's also more suburban wasteland than the entire land mass of Denmark (made up figure). Denmark manages to have a higher population density than us while still being like 90% farmland. That's efficiency.

by jbooth 16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago

Swedish Americans are the descendents of lower class agricultural workers who left religious repression in Sweden between 1860 and 1910. In the case of Japanese Americans, they are descended from manual laborers who left Japan between 1882 and 1924. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_emigration_to_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_emigration_to_the_Unite... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American#Immigration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American#Immigration In any case, I don't get how you could read either of my factoids and suggest I was pushing genetic determinism. Clearly, some environmental factors are important. For example, living in the US rather than Sweden or Japan seems to cause people to earn 50% more money. Using US health care rather than Japanese health care seems to increase life expectancy by 2 years (no, I don't actually believe this latter point). But on the other hand, ethnicity does also seem to have some measurable effects. Asian Americans beat whites on most social measures in spite of the head start whites had. Feel free to call me a racist tea partier if you like.

jbooth 16y ago
Oh, I wasn't accusing you at all, just noting it was funny that we were talking about the Danish with their blonde hair and blue eyes, in the context of genetic determinism -- been reading about Hitler and Stalin's respective rises to power recently, so it's on my mind. As far as the Asian American thing, I'm personally partial to social factors there as well. At the risk of being a stereotyping a-hole, there's a lot of Asian Americans in SAT prep classes. Correlation with ethnicity doesn't necessarily mean that asians are genetically predisposed to be better at the SATs. Really, I just wanted to highlight those satellite pictures of Denmark. EDIT: Also, RE: the impoverished and hardworking immigrants, I agree, it's not like they were Saudi princes when they came to America, but those who did come were the ones who had the motivation to pull off the journey -- then, now that they've bitten it off, they're obligated to succeed. Still self-selecting to some degree to me.

Aetius 16y ago

When's the last time you flew coast to coast? There's quite a lot of farmland in the U.S.

jbooth 16y ago
There is indeed a lot of farmland in the US, but there's also more suburban wasteland than the entire land mass of Denmark (made up figure). Denmark manages to have a higher population density than us while still being like 90% farmland. That's efficiency.