You would think that after the civil rights movement and half a century of affirmative action, that the racial income gap would be closing, but nothing could be further from the truth.
People look at billionaire media queen Oprah and President Obama and think blacks have made real progress. FALSE! Oprah has made real progress because she was born with a freakishly large brain and she used that brain power to not only make herself a success, but to put the Obamas in the White House.
However without this rare genetic mutation that caused one person to jump from poverty to Queen of the World in record time, there’s been little progress.
And yes I realize a genetic mutation is a “just-so story” but if other people get to tell them, why not me? At least I have physical evidence.
Pumpkin Person 
oprah has a small head.
people who admire oprah have extremely low IQs.
Why not just say “Oprah fans have extremely low IQs”? Your ong-windedness shows extremely low IQ.
And they have average IQs. You don’t get rich appealing to either extreme, but to the vast middle.
people can be fans and not admire and can admire and not be fans peepee-tard.
You admire him or you hate him. No one likes arnold. —George Butler
Captain James T. Kirk: [looking at a library picture of Khan on viewscreen] Name: Khan Noonien Singh.
Mr. Spock: From 1992 through 1996, absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world, from Asia through the Middle East.
Dr. McCoy: The last of the tyrants to be overthrown.
Scott: I must confess, gentlemen. I’ve always held a sneaking admiration for this one.
Captain James T. Kirk: He was the best of the tyrants and the most dangerous. They were supermen in a sense. Stronger, braver, certainly more ambitious, more daring.
Mr. Spock: Gentlemen, this romanticism about a ruthless dictator is…
Captain James T. Kirk: Mr. Spock, we humans have a streak of barbarism in us. Appalling, but there, nevertheless.
Scott: There were no massacres under his rule.
Mr. Spock: And as little freedom.
Dr. McCoy: No wars until he was attacked.
Mr. Spock: Gentlemen…
[Everyone but Spock laugh]
Captain James T. Kirk: Mr. Spock, you misunderstand us. We can be against him and admire him all at the same time.
Mr. Spock: Illogical.
Captain James T. Kirk: Totally.
Nice post-hoc rationalization.
Then why didn’t you just say “Oprah admirers have extremely low IQs”? Your brain is poorly organized; whatever its size.
or rather “to admire” and “to be a fan of” are NOT synonyms.
only a low VIQ chink would think that.
all other languages are INFERIOR to english because:
1. english is a creole due to 1066.
2. creole languages are simpler and much more able to incorporate lexemes from other languages. creoles other than english have very few speakers.
english is the least inflected (simplest) indo-european language. it has lots of irregular verbs and verb tenses but it has only three noun/pronoun cases, two numbers, and zero (or one) genders. and its many verb tenses are not inflected but use so-called “auxilliary verbs”. it has lots of consonants but fewer vowels than french.
3. latin, greek, and french are all part of english in that borrowing words and phrases/lexemes from these is common and expected.
english is incontinent. it has sex with all other languages. but its children are all anglo-saxon. that is, it’s core vocab is still 90+% anglo-saxon.
so the other languages of the world are english’s whores, mistresses, etc..
takes what it wants and leaves.
Interesting thoughts on English
The only way one can be an admirer and not a ‘fan’ is through equivocation. There’s ‘fan’ in the sense of a devoted follower and ‘fan’ in the sense of an admirer.
Captain James T. Kirk: Mr. Spock, you misunderstand us. We can be against him and admire him all at the same time.
This is why you quote Ed Meese.
Admiration connotes approval. So no, you can’t be against someone and admire him.
What Kirk means to say is that he is in (biblical/old sense) awe. Awe is a feeling of dread inspired by the raw talent or power of something else.
Although now even that has come to be conflated with high esteem.
And her cranial capacity is 316 cc bigger than yours.
because you know hers and mine. just more lies from doogla girl. sad!
she must have a tardis for a brain pan than, because her entire head would fit inside my head.
…brain pan
than, because…So you admit oprah fans are idiots?
right.
my OBVIOUS point to all non low VIQ chinks was…
oprah fans are 100% morons but someone might admire oprah despite not being a fan.
BUT
EVEN such people have extremely low IQs.
peepee should only comment in her native language from now on.
If both fans and admirers are morons, why not just say fans? It’s more economical.
Mug of Pee!
He so dumb!
People laugh & point for fun!
i’m not a devotee of oprah but i admire her.
only an idiot like me could respect someone who overcomes adversity and succeeds in a society prejudiced against them.
it’s not unlike respecting Bruce Lee — what value did he add that is so much better than an ‘Oprah?’ none. but i respect the fact that he essentially did what she did in another field.
just like i respect William Lane Craig for his rhetorical ability.
anyone see him steamroll Hitchens and Harris?
swank IQ 69 for sure. underdogs are to be despised by ‘smart’ people, of course.
^^^^
‘Average IQ’ people.
Well those guys obviously have IQs around 90, but many Oprah fans are like this clever woman who skillfully warned against the Iraq war at a time when most Americans supported it:
what actually large headed people look like.
She is trying to be cool and social but she sounds weird (and almost hysterical). I didn’t realized that she tried so hard to be in the media business and never made it. Being tagged with IQ matters was a chance (parade, books) and a curse (maybe she would have make it on tv. But I doubt it. Her voice is terrible . And while being social, she is very weird, despite her good sense of humour.
but she does have a head so yuge she has to do the opposite of oprah.
that is, oprah tries to conceal her tiny head with yuge hair.
vos savant has yuge hair to disguise her freakishly large head.
No Oprah’s cranium dwarfs hers. There’s no evidence that ANY living woman can match Oprah in influence or brain size.
But Marilyn does have a much higher IQ.
Wow…shes kinda pretty. But damn, she was (probably still is) awkward.
First of all I would like to commend you for your interesting content, it is especially brave of you particularly in this racially charged environment. However I have noticed a certain narrative that you are propagating that Oprah supposedly has a 25.25 inch head circumference. With all due respect that is absolute hogwash. There is not a chance in a trillion that her head circumference is that big unless she suffers from some kind of abnormality like extreme hydroencephaly or ridiculously thick and oddly shaped skull bones. If your claim were true it would put her roughly 7 SD above average in brain size(a statistical impossibility). Mind you this has nothing to do with her ethnic background.
But more to the point the pictures you are using to support yours/seemingly her, claims are just BAD science. If you haven’t clued up to this already even an inch differential in proximity to the focal lens can produce wildly different results. So using pictures is a bad idea unless the faces are extremely well aligned with the camera on a perpendicular plane and equidistant to the lens.
Another point worth noting is that Oprah has big hair, I mean really big hair, could it be that the head measurements she supposedly took were to accommodate her hair too? Are you adjusting your measurements to account for an obvious 3/4 inch(at least) her hair adds at the back to the length of her head or the 1.5-2 inch it adds on the top of her head?
I would encourage you to look at the finer details in all this as it seems to me that while you produce interesting work this hardly stands up to scientific scrutiny. Keep in mind that external head measurements(H,L,W) and especially head circumference(a terrible indicator that does not account for head height) have a large margin of error for brain size(up to 200 cc) and are highly predicated on the thickness of the skull bone and a spherical skull shape(box headedness underestimates volume while an elliptical elongated head overestimates volume). Once you take a look at her next to other celebrities(close face to face pictures) you will realize that although she is on the high end of the spectrum she could hardly be considered stratospheric. My guess is that we could safely subtract an inch from her HC bringing her down to a more reasonable ~1700 cc cranial capacity(a generous estimation), and while certainly big headed, even for men, this would not put her more than a few hairs over the 99th percentile(among men).
Your numbers are a bit off. It’s not 7 SD but more like 6.33 SD. So the odds are not one in a trillion but one in a few billion, which makes sense since she is/was arguably the most successful black and woman on Earth.
Sure hair could have skewed the numbers but even that’s not plausible because when she lost all her hair in her twenties, the TV station couldn’t find a wig big enough to fit her head, and head circumference stats include hair so that’s largley baked in.
Her huge head has also been independently verified by the late Gene Siskel’s hatter who was ASTONISHED at how HUGE Oprah’s head is, and he’s someone who has measured thousands of heads & knows the difference between head and hair. It’s also independently verified by the fact that in the film “The Color Purple”, you can see where they had to sew two wigs together to make one big enough to fit her head. There was also a lady who was obsessed with hats and wanted badly to have one of Oprah’s, but when she tried it on, it was so big it covered half her face.
The most parsimonious explanation is that she really does have a superhuman brain size and it helped give her the IQ to achieve superhuman success. No different from Yao Ming having superhuman height and becoming arguably the best Asian basketball player. I realize head size is a weak predictor of success, but she just happens to be a case where the numbers line up perfectly.
“Your numbers are a bit off. It’s not 7 SD but more like 6.33 SD.”
That depends what figure you are using for average cranial capacity for females. The established figures are around 1350 for females(slightly less for blacks). using 95 cc per standard deviation we cross the 7 SD mark quite comfortably. Keep in mind that you cannot use published external head measurement averages to infer the average cranial capacity of a population. It doesn’t follow that way, whenever multiplying or adding average anthropometric dimension to work out a combined mean the figures always get inflated. There is a formula to account for this but I forget what it is.
I think you place way too much importance at the feet of intelligence in working out life success. It is indeed the most important metric but last I checked it only accounts for about 10-20% of the variability. I would say a good combination of intelligence and conscientiousness is necessary for success while in Oprah’s particular field likability sociability and interpersonal/intrapersonal acumen are far more important. Lets also not forget the all important luck factor. So to go from brain size to intelligence and from intelligence to superhuman life success is the stretchiest of stretches.
Don’t get me wrong I acknowledge that those correlations exist but lets not lose our heads here. A perfect example in my view to illustrate how wildly off such inferences can be is Bill Gates, from the looks of it he has an average sized head yet he was the wealthiest man on the planet for longer than anyone else in recent history. How does that compute?
As for the facts you are using to validate her supposed head size I would say they are anecdotal at best. Not aware of her ever losing ALL her hair while I’ve already mentioned how hair can significantly alter the figures(particularly African American thick springy hair). The best image I could find where we can get a more accurate estimate of her head size is here: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/winfrey-oprah-2016.html
scroll about half way down it’s the image of her alone in a profile pose.
Based on that image I would suspect that her head length is no more than 210-220 mm her head height is around 140-145 mm while her width shouldn’t exceed 155-160 mm. Plugging those figures in the standard formula for cranial capacity from external head measurements gives us a an average figure of 1730 cc +- 80 cc. For your claim to be correct she would have to have a head that is 240x165x150. A head that is 165+ in width is Conan O’brien territory while at 150 height she would have to be a legitimate cone head(impossible to go unnoticed in a, there goes the freak kind of way) and as for 240 length she would have to worry when turning her head for fear of knocking people out. Simply impossible! Nice try though.
Having said this one could easily posses a a genius level IQ with such a head(already extremely large), in fact it is perfectly feasible with an average sized head though understandably the chances are dramatically reduced.
You have your photos. I have mine:
Oprah’s cranium is clearly twice the woman’s she’s holding.
The distribution of female cranial capacity depends heavily on how its calculated. Your numbers are not direct measurements but based on a regression formula predicting CC from external head measurements and that formula was derived from people living over a century ago and is not validated for people today who have much bigger (and differently shaped?) heads. To give you a sense of just how off they are, I recently blogged about research showing women today have a mean of 1471 cc SD 150.
The most scientific method is to compare apples to apples. Oprah’s self-reported measurement was in circumference and compared to other U.S. women of her era measured in circumference (including hair), she is +6.3 SD, making her arguably the biggest brained woman on the planet, at the peak of her neurological development.
No exact solution to this question is possible so we’ll have to agree to disagree. I realize success is way more complex than just who has the biggest brain, I just find it beautifully symbolic that ARGUABLY the most successful woman is ARGUABLY the biggest brained woman. There’s a perfect symmetry to that I find aesthetically pleasing.
To me this is more art than science. One vivid anecdote is worth 1000 correlation studies. Just as Bill Gates is the poster boy for the IQ-success correlation, and Chris Langan is the poster boy for the IQ-brain size correlation, Oprah completes the trilogy by being the poster-girl for the brain size-success correlation.
Yup well I think you pretty much said it yourself, that is but one study where the subjects were screened for health issues and defects perhaps skewing the figures upwards. According to Rushton the average cranial capacity for women is about 1350 cc based on a large US army sample and corroborated by countless other studies. As far as I know there is no study that reports a standard deviation of 150 for cranial capacity for women. That of men is well established at 95 while women’s shouldn’t be much different. Keep in mind cranial capacity is different from brain size which is also different from brain mass. Brain size is typically 150 cc less than cranial capacity which is then converted to weight by multiplying by 1.036 grams per cubic centimeter. Each measurement has a different standard deviation. Since the only thing we can actually speculate on is cranial capacity we should use the corresponding standard deviation while staying well clear of HC as a metric given it’s significantly lower correlation with brain size.
Just to be clear I am not trying to refute that the association you are attempting to make has no validity just that the figures you report are wildly off base. She is definitely not 2000 cc plus, that might even be beyond Conan’s capacity while the most optimistic figures put her at about 1800 cc with a more reasonable figure of about 1700 cc. Still highly impressive for a woman.
Yup well I think you pretty much said it yourself, that is but one study where the subjects were screened for health issues and defects perhaps skewing the figures upwards.
There’s no way it would skew it by that much, especially since other samples are skewed up too (only healthy people in the top 90% of IQ join the army). It’s obvious that different methods give wildly different results. Lynn and Rushton have both stated this.
I can only assume that the actual brain scans used by Linden et al would be more accurate than the human error involved in putting calipers around someone’s head (including hair, fat and skin around the skull) and then entering the data points into a 100 year-old regression equation (as Rushton’s study did).
According to Rushton the average cranial capacity for women is about 1350 cc based on a large US army sample and corroborated by countless other studies.
Countless other studies that may have used the same outdated regression equation. And Rushton found only about 1270 cc for U.S. Caucasoid women:
Click to access iq-brain-size-rushton-intelligence-1992.pdf
Of course Rushton’s data is 29 years old and brain size has likely increased since then, but even at the time I suspect his ancient formula underestimated modern crania. The much larger 1471 cc (SD 150) female crania reported by Linden et al makes more sense because:
a) the flynn effect makes more sense if brain size has been sky rocketing since WWII
b) Cromagnons and Neanderthals had brains much larger than Rushton reported for Americans living in the 1980s which implies Rushton underestimated unless you think the 4 million year trend of rising brain size suddenly reversed
c) In SD units, Rushton’s data shows much smaller racial differences than directly measured brain size from an excellent autopsy study, and WAY too small to explain racial IQ differences given the only moderate correlation between IQ and brain size, suggesting Rushton’s numbers are wrong
d) Rushton himself found that at least in kids, the formula for the volume of a hemisphere (circumference cubed/118.4) gives reasonable estimates for cranial capacity. Applying this formula to army data from the 1990s gives 1379 cc for U.S. women in general and 2229 cc for Oprah in particular.
e) I estimated that the average brain size of young white women in the 1980s (based on autopsy data) was 1273 cc and since even in young women, cranial capacity should be larger than brain size, Rushton’s numbers seem low. Indeed if we add 150 cc as you imply, we get 1423 (comparable to the 1471 cc reported by Linden et al)
f) studies of black women living in the malnourished Third World report larger cranial capacity than Rushton found for First World white women, once again showing his numbers might be too low
As far as I know there is no study that reports a standard deviation of 150 for cranial capacity for women.
It might be too high, but I doubt you’ve ever seen a study that measured cranial capacity directly (actually filling a skull with beads). You’ve only seen studies PREDICTING cranial capacity from external head size, and regression predictions will tend to have smaller SDs because people vary less in their predicted capacity than their actual capacity.
Keep in mind cranial capacity is different from brain size which is also different from brain mass.
The 1471 cc female mean reported by Linden et al was intracranial volume which I’m assuming is cranial capacity. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Since the only thing we can actually speculate on is cranial capacity we should use the corresponding standard deviation while staying well clear of HC as a metric given it’s significantly lower correlation with brain size.
But the SD for directly measured CC is not necessarily the SD for the predicted CCs derived from that formula, and just because directly measured CC is possibly a much better predictor of brain size than HC is, doesn’t mean predicted CC is (since both are based on external measures). Although predicted CC has the advantage of measuring cranial height and is less sensitive to hair, it’s extremely sensitive to how much weight the regression equation gives to each head dimension & those equations are only as relevant as the samples used to make them.
Just to be clear I am not trying to refute that the association you are attempting to make has no validity just that the figures you report are wildly off base. She is definitely not 2000 cc plus, that might even be beyond Conan’s capacity while the most optimistic figures put her at about 1800 cc with a more reasonable figure of about 1700 cc. Still highly impressive for a woman.
But her cranium is perhaps much longer than Conan’s. I don’t know what the exact figure should be, I’m merely stating that she’s arguably the world’s biggest brained woman (in the same way Chris Langan is arguably America’s smartest man). Both claims are based on crude proxy measures, not state of the art peer reviewed science.
“d) Rushton himself found that at least in kids, the formula for the volume of a hemisphere (circumference cubed/118.4) gives reasonable estimates for cranial capacity”
Kid’s head’s are far more spherical than those of adults. That formula is terrible for use in an adult population especially long headed Europeans. It might yield better results among Asians but still is a sub par proxy.
“e) I estimated that the average brain size of young white women in the 1980s (based on autopsy data) was 1273 cc and since even in young women, cranial capacity should be larger than brain size, Rushton’s numbers seem low. Indeed if we add 150 cc as you imply, we get 1423 (comparable to the 1471 cc reported by Linden et al)”
First of all your estimations for in vivo are wildly off. Assuming the figure you provided for the brain weight at autopsy(given the 1980 data sets you were drawing from) of 1252 g produces a brain volume of 1208 cc. Adding to this the CSF(cerebro spinal fluid) that fills up the remaining volume of the brain vault in the skull we get a figure of 1358 cc for cranial capacity. This is consistent with the figures I provided.
Keep in mind the figure of 150 ml for CSF is an average and is less for women more for men while it likely increases proportionally to the size of the skull. However I have seen studies where it can be as little as 110 for males of 1800 ml CC. Might have something to do with the use it or lose it hypothesis, but I digress.
So it seems you might have just inadvertently proven my point. I would advise you to be doubly careful with your calculations, I’ve seen a couple of other occasions where you were off. Note that in the study you posted the standard deviation for cranial capacity for women is 91 cc(I seem to remember seeing that somewhere) which is not too far off from the 95 cc for men that I was using. Given this information of 1358 cc cranial capacity(for white females mind you) and 91 SD, Oprah would be 7.45 SD above average making her 1 in the tens of trillions. If we use the figures for black women she would be at 8.44 SD, 1 in several quadrillion.
I hope by now you can see how preposterous your claims are. If we assume a more reasonable 1740 cc(I think this is too generous but lets just give it to her) then she would be just over 4 SD above average in CC which would be consistent with her IQ of around 130(assuming all else equal). Listening to her talk makes it glaringly obvious that her IQ is not much more than that. If I were to devise a quotient for social intelligence(an SIQ if you will) Oprah would probably be a genius in that regard, however that is highly speculative as a lot of people even doubt such a thing even exists let alone produce a reliable way to measure it.
“But her cranium is perhaps much longer than Conan’s. I don’t know what the exact figure should be, I’m merely stating that she’s arguably the world’s biggest brained woman”
People that are brachycephalic tend to mislead one into thinking that they have short heads but that is not necessarily true, what they actually have is a head that is shorter relative to it’s width, in other words a high cephalic index. It is very hard to estimate the size of people’s heads because, to use a cliche phrase, ‘everything is relative’. We compare one dimension of the head relative to the other dimensions relative to the body size relative to other people and so on and so forth. Throw into the mix unflattering(or flattering) camera angles and our perceptions can easily be fooled. Conan might have a shorter head than Oprah but I suspect it isn’t much shorter which he more than makes up for in width(up to an inch more) and in height(half an inch). I think Conan is a strong candidate for the 1900 – 2000 range. Oprah simply has a head that is well above average particularly in relation to her body size and sex, add to that a surprisingly long head(for a woman) and small ears(giving the impression of a high and large cranial vault from a profile view), add to that big bushy thick hair and an odd looking pony tail and walla, there goes mega brain.
Hmmm come to think of it she may have pushed this narrative herself(not beyond what is to be expected from these hollywood types) given that she has average looks and is overweight and the fact that she made her money as a TV personality rather than eye candy. She may have thought this is just another thing to add to my aura and mystique. Big brained, lovable, social genius and butterfly, Oprah!
Kid’s head’s are far more spherical than those of adults. That formula is terrible for use in an adult population especially long headed Europeans. It might yield better results among Asians but still is a sub par proxy.
Yes but it might give better results at the extremes though an adjustment for head shape should be applied.
First of all your estimations for in vivo are wildly off. Assuming the figure you provided for the brain weight at autopsy(given the 1980 data sets you were drawing from) of 1252 g produces a brain volume of 1208 cc. Adding to this the CSF(cerebro spinal fluid) that fills up the remaining volume of the brain vault in the skull we get a figure of 1358 cc for cranial capacity. This is consistent with the figures I provided.
I’m using data from Ho et al.’s 1980 autopsy study (described by Jensen as “Probably the most technically precise data on brain size for American whites and blacks”). The study estimated that white women at age 25 have a mean brain weight of 1339 g. However Rushton has noted that brain weight increases 9% after death so the in-vivo weight is 1339/1.09 = 1228. Then multiplying by 1.036 gives a volume of 1272. If we add 150 cc to get cranial capacity, that gives 1422 cc, but even if 150 cc is too much, Rushton’s data seems at least 1 SD too low, which makes sense since his regressions are from 1904 when height (and likely head size) was more than 1 SD smaller. Imagine how much we would underestimate weight from height if our regression was from 1904 when everyone was way skinnier. And you’re wrong about Haack & Meihoff validating Lee & Pearson’s formula in 1971; they merely mentioned it in passing while testing a completely different formula (based on the volume of a barrel).
I hope by now you can see how preposterous your claims are. If we assume a more reasonable 1740 cc(I think this is too generous but lets just give it to her) then she would be just over 4 SD above average in CC which would be consistent with her IQ of around 130(assuming all else equal).
Actually 1740 cc is +5.33 SD if we use enlisted Caucasian women in Rushton’s sample as the best proxy for U.S. women (mean 1260 cc SD 90). I would agree that she’s between +5 to +6 SD, making her arguably the biggest brained woman in the World, at least at her peak brain size (late teens, early 20s) when the population of peak age well nourished women was much smaller giving her far less competition, but I strongly suspect Lee & Pearson’s formulas are about 100 cc too low for ALL modern Americans, so the average woman should go from the 1200s to the 1300s and Oprah should perhaps go from the 1700s to the 1800s.
Listening to her talk makes it glaringly obvious that her IQ is not much more than that.
She dumbs herself down a lot, but when she makes the effort, she’s more articulate than any living president:
Hmmm come to think of it she may have pushed this narrative herself(not beyond what is to be expected from these hollywood types) given that she has average looks and is overweight and the fact that she made her money as a TV personality rather than eye candy. She may have thought this is just another thing to add to my aura and mystique. Big brained, lovable, social genius and butterfly, Oprah!
That’s very unlikely. Celebs lie about IQ but never about head size unless it’s some male comic trying to make self-deprecating jokes about his “fat head”. Other than eccentrics like me, almost no one today values head size or associates it with brain size, let alone genius. I doubt Oprah’s even made the connection between her head size and her brain size, let alone “genius”. It’s just an amusing factoid she’s very rarely mentioned in passing and drawn very little attention to. Indeed there was a 500 page biography of Oprah that didn’t even mention her head size claim, & it virtually never appears in her media coverage aside from one really old National Enquirer article.
Assuming the figure you provided for the brain weight at autopsy(given the 1980 data sets you were drawing from) of 1252 g produces a brain volume of 1208 cc.
Part of the problem is you’re dividing brain weight by 1.036 to get volume. You’re supposed to multiply (though only after you reduce by 9% to get in-vivo value). See this quote from Rushton (emphasis mine):
I examined the validity of the above formula by comparing (sex-combined) cranialcapacities calculated for 17,000 white children from head circumference data given byBroman et al. (1987) with brain weights from autopsies listed by Voigt and Pakkenberg CRANIAL SIZE AND IQ 11(1983, pp. 291-293, Table I; p. 294, Table II). At birth, 4 months, I year, and 7 years theresulting cranial capacities are 332, 578, 806, and 1154 cm3, respectively, compared tobrain weights of 373, 582, 919, and 1,296 grams. The brain-weights just presented, however,are approximately 9% above the weight in vivo because as Voigt and Pakkenberg(1983, p. 299) note, brain weight increases post-mortem, mostly during the first 12 hoursafter death. Thus, “real” brain weights at birth, 4 months, 1 year, and 7 years are 339, 530,836, and 1,179 grams, respectively, which transform to cranial capacities (1 cm3 = 1.036g; Hofman, 1991) of 351,549, 866, and 1,221 cm3, only about 6% higher than those I calculatedfrom head circumferences.
Notice how the sizes increase, not decrease, when going from in-vivo weight to volume.
Correction: the SD for cranial capacity in women is 90 cc not 91 cc(this is for men, not far off the 95 cc I reported).
Right, well, it seems to me that there are several problems with your work and those calculations made by Rushton.
1. It is well established that 1 cm^3 = 1.036 grams of brain matter(Rushton even includes this in his study). There is just no other way to slice that bit of information or interpret it. It means you divide when going from grams to cm and you multiple when going from cm to grams. I really don’t know what Rushton was doing there while he doesn’t seem to offer a valid explanation for this diversion from convention. Every other study that uses that conversion uses it the way I’ve described except for yours and Rushton’s in this instance( I believe I’ve seen him use it correctly elsewhere).
2. I could not find any information on this reported increase in brain mass post mortem. The best I could do is find the increase in brain mass of rats. In one out of three separate studies there was an increase of 2%. All the others actually reported a decrease. To me it makes no sense whatsoever that the brain would increase in weight post mortem(how does it gain the extra mass) unless some kind of preservative was used and that added to the weight. If we use the 9% reduction to the figure from the autopsy figures you provided(1980 study) based on my calculations this brings the white female brain up to 1258 cc(assuming division by 1.036) a far cry from your calculations of 1422 cc.
3. You seem to have used a figure of 1339 g for white women at age 25, is that at autopsy? Why would you use that figure instead of the average figure of 1252 g and why is there such a massive difference between white women aged 25 vs white women overall? Could it be that the 1339 figure was their estimation for in vivo weight(or volume) at age 25? Finally I still disagree that to get from weight to volume you multiply. That is exactly the opposite of what logic and convention dictates. Please explain your reasoning here other than it is what Rushton seems to have done(incorrectly in my view), or point me to Rushton’s reasoning for doing this if he provides it somewhere. If we were to do it by convention the 1228 g(assuming the 9% reduction is even valid) goes to 1185 cc which then translates to 1335 cc cranial capacity(with 150 cc CSF).
4. Finally I have to point out what seems problematic about this from the get go which is that all this was done for children up to the age of 7 in order to prove the validity of cranial capacity measurements based on HC. He used two different data sets one for cranial capacity from HC and another from post mortem brain weight. Not the same kids it seems, well that’s a terrible way to work this out and if it is the same kids the question is how much time has transpired between the first measurements and the autopsy measurements? Could the kids have grown during that period? Were the two groups, if separate, measured at exactly the same age? Even a few months difference can yield wildly different results because as you know kids grow at a rapid rate. It seems that the 9% increase used by Rushton is an extremely crude proxy inferred by a clumsy comparison between two distinctly separate data sets that used different units and measurement methods. In any case it turns out according to Rushton this points to a 6% difference between HC measurements and autopsy measurements, significant in and of itself before we account for the possibility of poor methodology.
“Rushton’s data seems at least 1 SD too low, which makes sense since his regressions are from 1904 when height (and likely head size) was more than 1 SD smaller.”
In my opinion this formula(which is based on the equation for spheroids) is good for measuring people with averagely rounded spheroid-typical head. It is terrible for measuring box headed individuals with a high cranial vault or tall individuals with thick bones/skull(or fat people for that matter, pointing to a reduced cranial capacity than ext. head measurements would imply). By box headed I mean less rounded at the back(virtually flat and vertical), flat and vertical foreheads with a less rounded top of the head. I suspect with such individuals one might under-predict by as much as 200 cc by using this formula. Having said this there are not many individuals with such heads especially among Europeans and Africans. You might find more among Asians who do tend to have box headed skull shapes at higher frequencies. But more to the point Oprah is definitely not such an individual which means that the formula should work pretty accurately with her(+- 20 cc, her additional weight aside).
“Actually 1740 cc is +5.33 SD if we use enlisted Caucasian women in Rushton’s sample as the best proxy for U.S. women (mean 1260 cc SD 90).”
Well I thought a while ago you were making the case for women today having cranial capacities well above 1400 cc. So which is it? Are you using cranial capacity measurements(for the 1260 cc) or are you using brain volume? The SD differs substantially between the two measurements while my estimation is for cranial capacity, we can only compare like for like. Even if we use the figure of 1323 cc(I remember seeing this in one of Rushton’s other studies) this gives us an SD of 4.63(1 in 500,000). There should be at least 250 white women with such cranial capacity or more, in the US alone. At your figure of 5.33 SD(1 in 20 million) gives us about 6 white American women. If we compare her to black women only based on a figure of about 1270 cc we get an SD of 5.24 giving us an expectation of about 2 in the US and 20+ women around the world. So the way I see it if you are really a proponent of the idea that human head size has increased significantly in the last few years(more than the figures i provided) you couldn’t honestly believe that she is the biggest of her race or her sex/race. I personally am of the opinion that currently white men(average among all european sub-populations) do not cross the 1500 cc mark, white women are no more than 1400 cc while african american women should be just over 1300 cc on average.
As for the clip you posted of her with DDL, I have to say that was a good description, but that plays right into what I think are her talents, namely social acuity. She probably has a very high interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence but that is not the same as IQ, different regions of the brain are used for those qualities. After all she is an actor herself, her whole career was predicated on her ability to interact with other human beings and to be able to do that successfully one needs to be able to get inside other people’s heads, so to speak. We all know about brain plasticity and I guess one could make the argument that if she was raised differently she could have been a NASA scientist or something. I think that could definitely be a possibility, after all I’m sure there are many NASA scientists with an IQ of 130-140.
Now to the likelihood that she is promoting this big brained Oprah narrative, I’m not really seriously advocating any of that(just a bit of fun speculation on my part). So on that premise I’m definitely not ruling it out, people are weirder than you think.
“Other than eccentrics like me, almost no one today values head size or associates it with brain size, let alone genius. I doubt Oprah’s even made the connection between her head size and her brain size, let alone “genius”. It’s just an amusing factoid she’s very rarely mentioned in passing and drawn very little attention to. ”
I think you are underestimating the level to which people are self aware. It is important that we differentiate between a certain politically correct narrative that most people adhere to(especially celebrities, they will jump through any hoop to avoid career damaging controversy) and personal introspections and observations people have about the world. I can guarantee you that there is no normally functioning big headed person on this planet that hasn’t at some point thought that they may on some level possess superior cognitive abilities, especially someone like Oprah where her achievements and aptitudes have brought her life success beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Trust me she’s made the connection at some point in her life, she probably suppressed it and chose a carefully crafted PC narrative to adhere to.
Once again this is speculation on my part. I think the most likely scenario is that her measurements were loose hat size measurements to account for her hair. She may have anecdotally mentioned this in passing but if she really is as smart as you say then on some level she either knows there is something off and possibly turns a blind eye in order to add to her mystique or someone else measured her and she hasn’t given it two thoughts since. I would be inclined to dismiss the latter as I would suspect that she probably has had countless conversations with people pointing out to her how big her head is meaning that she probably gave this a lot more thought than you think she has.
So speculation aside…once again, is she the biggest headed in her race, definitely not. Is she the biggest among black women, don’t think so, plenty of evidence pointing to the contrary. Is she one in fifty to several hundred thousand among all women, probably!
“arguably the biggest brained woman in the World, at least at her peak brain size”
She doesn’t even come close by almost 2 SD, I think women’s cranial capacities peak at 1900cc outside of some kind of abnormality like gigantism. The only context in which I would use the word “arguably” is when comparing her to African American women. She may be in the top 2-3 and even that is highly speculative and predicated on the calculations one subscribes to(in this case the most conservative for AA women and the most generous for her). Keep in mind that she is only 5’6″(not 5’7″ as i reported earlier), there are women that are 6 to 7 feet that probably have much bigger heads(and likely brains). It’s just that we usually compare the size of people’s heads in relation to their bodies so we often underestimate their relative head size to other individuals. A good example of this is:
That is Jarron Collins, NBA player almost 7 foot(close to Shaq’s height albeit in a more slender frame probably smaller head). Note that Oprah’s and Jarron’s heads are on roughly the same plane equidistant from the camera, which makes this a good photo for comparison. Compare head width, he has over an inch on her and I would be willing to wager that his brain is at least a couple of SD bigger than hers and I doubt he even gets close to the 2000 cc mark. Now Imagine his head on Oprah’s body, would that not be freakishly big? That is how big her head would have to look on her body for her to have a brain close to being as big as you suggest. Trust me 1740 cc is generous and after all, astonishingly big(bigger than 99.9% of white men).
pumpkinhead, I’m responding to some of your questions by writing new articles, but may return to this thread later to respond to more specific points.
Jarron Collins is the man to her left.
Correction: Jarron Collins is the man on the left.
Also the figure(according to my calculations) for cranial capacity based on the 1980 autopsy data and the somewhat dubious 9% increase in post mortem weight, for african american women is 1292 cc putting Oprah at 4.95 SD above her racial/sex mean. Meaning that she is among 7 other AA women who probably have equal or greater sized heads. That is assuming that my generous calculations for her cranial capacity don’t turn out to be too generous.
No worries, I hope our discussion was productive!
By the way here are a couple of studies done on MRI scans, the most extensive and thorough I could find of their kind. I could not find out whether race was accounted for but I think their data is from the US so the predominant race will be white. Note that the weighted mean(corrected for height and weight) for men in the second one is just over 1400 cc and in the first one its 1494 cc(for the control group, no correction) and a brain volume of 1352 cc. For women it is 1324 cc ICV and 1201 cc for TBV in the second study. Note that the difference between ICV and TBV is never more than 150 cc or a ratio of 0.908 (not 500 cc as one study you reported on seemed to show, a sure sign that something is wildly off with the study).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2958994/#S2
file:///C:/Users/mario/Downloads/sb205-2014-32885.pdf
IMO the only European sub-populations that exceeds the 1500 cc mark for men and 1400 cc for women in ICV are those of the most northern regions, perhaps the Scandinavians.
I also think that studies that are either heavily screened or use less than 100 test subjects should be ignored, their figures will be skewed while the standard deviation will be significantly inflated. SD for ICV should average around 95-100 cc for men(I still think Rushton’s figures are the most reliable) and 90-95 cc for women. TBV seems to always be less by about 5 cc.
It is more likely that she gave herself the Hollywood bump but instead of height she applied it to her head size.
It’s plausible she might lie about her height or weight but why lie about having a big head? A large head is not a socially desirable trait, especially not on a woman. Maybe in Victorian times when people associated it with intelligence, but today most people (wrongly) consider that pseudoscience & big headed celebs are mocked for being pumpkin heads.
The other possibility is that Pumpkin has a small head and thats why hes saying these things.
As far as I know big heads are extremely desirable in Hollywood, something about screen presence and aesthetics. I think this might be less about her lying and more about this being some kind of story that got passed on and inflated over the years. If they were to make a hat for her during the color purple it is likely that her bushy hair made it necessary for a bigger hat. Even 5 mm added in thickness by hair means over an inch is added in circumference and from the looks of it we can safely say that a fair bit more than 5 mm was added.
No that’s an urban myth. Professional actors do not have bigger heads than non-actors on average. Oprah herself claimed to have a 25.25″ circumference. It might be inflated by hair if her hair is much thicker than the average woman’s, but she did go almost completely bald back in Baltimore and was forced to wear scarves around her head because no wig was big enough to fit.
Of course HC is only a proxy for brain size, so it will always be an arguable point.
the other possibility is that peepee’s chart is CONSISTENT with higher income for negroes.
the wealth gap is explained by…
1. most wealth of americans is in their houses. black live in low real estate value cities and in low real estate value parts of cities.
2. blacks are spendthrifts. “nigger rich” is a genuine phenomenon.
3. even a small difference in income can cause yuge differences in wealth, the difference between enough and slightly more than enough.
4. blacks are very unlikely to major in finance.
It’s not so much the gap that needs explaining, but its failure to close after 50 years of “affirmative action”. The alt-right denies they have white privilege, and claims blacks benefit from affirmative action & “magic negro” effects. And yet the financial gap remains what it was during the height of anti-black racism.
Also note that she doesn’t exactly have what one might call a model figure. The fat under her skin would likely add several mm(we all know how a face thins out drastically with significant weight loss). So I might have to reduce my estimation to about 1650 cc max. Still more than enough for increased chances for a genius level IQ.
As to whether she really does have a genius IQ, hmmmm I think you know the answer to that LOL Come on man, how can you possibly think she is a genius? She is clearly very bright, but a genius? No way. Like I said I think she has the perfect combination of character traits, extreme likability, resilient, conscientious, hard working, emotional stability, perhaps exceptional intra/inter acuity(if you believe in Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences), throw in an IQ of 130+ and a crazy amount of luck and walla, super rich black lady!
You do know brain size only correlates with IQ at around 0.4(0.5 max). What does that mean, well it means that there is a whole lot more at play than we are willing to admit, brain configuration/structure, neuron density, connectivity, axon myelination, organization, brain chemistry and a whole bunch of other things we do not know about.
If you controlled for fat around the skull, her HC might be smaller, but the mean and SD for HC would also be smaller and since she so far at the extreme, she might be +6.5 SD instead of +6.3 SD. I’d put her IQ at 140, not 130.
“No that’s an urban myth. Professional actors do not have bigger heads than non-actors on average”
I don’t know man, have you seen the size of Chris Pratt’s head, or Conan, or Josh Brolin? I bet what you will rarely find is a small headed A list celebrity. In any case that’s a moot point, I’m not really arguing that. What I am saying is that even if she claims to have honestly and accurately measured her head at 25.25 in(highly suspect but anyway) it is a virtual certainty that it is inflated by hair(at least an inch in circumference) and skin fat(up to 5 mm in thickness which in and of itself adds at least 100 cc).
conan’s head is better explained by his IQ and height than by the stage presence of big heads
I doubt Oprah measured her head herself, but she likely had it professionally measured many times for wig and hat fittings. Without fat or her hair, Oprah’s HC would be smaller, but so would the average woman’s (though not as much), but more importantly, the standard deviation would decrease, so ironically, this correction would likely cause an outlier like Oprah to be even more extreme in SD units.
The mean I am working off is from large anthropometric data sets where interestingly enough an HC of 25.25 in is only at 4.5 SD above average for women. I suspect that at these levels the figures are probably heavily inflated by obese individuals. In any case keep in mind that HC for women tend to max out at 23 5/8 inches and so do their hat sizes. It’s no surprise she struggled to find a hat, if she is at or just above 24 inches.
In my data-set it’s +6.3 SD
“conan’s head is better explained by his IQ and height than by the stage presence of big heads”
I will agree that Conan is perhaps the smartest comedian period, despite his goofiness. However I would be willing to wager that A list actors are at least a standard deviation higher than the average actor in intelligence hence their larger heads. Of course that is one of the reasons the tend to be bigger headed but I also suspect their is something to the aesthetic argument while it may also be an innate human instinct to gravitate and give more credence to bigger headed individuals especially on screen.
“I doubt Oprah measured her head herself, but she likely had it professionally measured many times for wig and hat fittings. Without fat or her hair, Oprah’s HC would be smaller, but so would the average woman’s (though not as much), but more importantly, the standard deviation would decrease, so ironically, this correction would likely cause an outlier like Oprah to be even more extreme in SD units.”
Uhmmm NO! LOL That makes no sense whatsoever. No serious researcher would use HC as a proxy for brain size, as I’ve mentioned it does not account for head height which if you have not noticed yet varies greatly from person to person. Secondly if we were to gauge her brain size it would have to be done using the standard formula for external head measurements LxWxH where special calipers would be used to eliminate any effect hair might have. The very point I am making is that HC is a terrible way to gauge brain size especially given the fact that hair can(particularly an afro) inflate the figures.
Actually serious researchers do use HC as a proxy for brain size all the time and consider it adequate:
Head circumference was an excellent prediction of brain volume in 1.7 to 6 years old children (r = 0.93), but only an adequate predictor in 7 to 42 year olds.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12536365
I agree it’s a crude measure but so is using regression equations based on the external measurements of people 100 years ago when heads were much smaller and perhaps differently shaped. If you want serious research, then forget about head size all together and study MRI scans.
I think we may be in agreement there, MRI scans ARE the most accurate way short of actually taking the brain out and weighing it. As for brains somehow increasing in size dramatically over the last 100 years, forgive me but I might have to scoff at that(no more than 50 cc). However that is neither here nor there, I have not used any data that goes back more than 30 years while the formula was checked in 1971 with a mean error of 3-4%. If you think that in 40 years head size and shape would change dramatically then I think you might have to re-calibrate your thinking.
I suspect that living in a big city and frequenting up market places might alter your perception of what an average sized head actually looks like(assuming that is where you live). You might only be privy to the upper half of the distribution thus altering your perception wildly, making you more accepting of less substantiated studies and data sets.
The average for university student males is around 1550 to 1600 while they are still young, their brain is still growing and might gain up to a full cm in HC by the time they reach their late 30s.
By far the best place to get good anthropometric data is from the military which samples from roughly 90% of the population big and small. That is what Rushton has done and is why his data stands above the rest in terms of validity.
I have not even begun to address the fact that those figures are valid for white people while for blacks the averages are somewhat lower perhaps 1300 cc for women which would make your figures even more astronomical. Nevertheless I will agree that Oprah’s IQ is about 130+ perhaps even 140 but not more than that and a head that is a good 3 to 4 standard deviations above average perhaps leaving plenty of room for all those impressive character and socializing qualities she has.
In any case good chat, keep up the good work with the interesting posts.
Peace out!
As for brains somehow increasing in size dramatically over the last 100 years, forgive me but I might have to scoff at that(no more than 50 cc).
Richard Lynn claimed back in 1989 that better nutrition had increased head size by about 1 SD over 50 years, though I haven’t had time to check all his sources.
However that is neither here nor there, I have not used any data that goes back more than 30 years while the formula was checked in 1971 with a mean error of 3-4%.
Really? If you get time I’d love to see a citation. If the formula is still valid then that changes things.
Nevertheless I will agree that Oprah’s IQ is about 130+ perhaps even 140 but not more than that
The average self-made billionaire has an IQ in the 130s, but since Oprah’s HC is probably way bigger than even other billionaire HCs, her IQ might be higher, but given HC is only a rough proxy for brain size which itself is only a rough proxy for IQ, she’s likely no more than 140. For a more detailed analysis, see here:
https://pumpkinperson.com/2015/09/08/oprahs-iq/
In any case good chat
Indeed!
Click to access jaet02i1p85.pdf
“Cranial volume in the living :
Lee-Pearson (1901), have devised a number
of formulae for the estimation of cranial capacity
from the external measurements of the skulls and
living heads.The best of these formulae combine the
product of length, breadth and height with one multiplicative
and one additive constant. They reported a
mean error of 3-4% (Haack and Meihoff-1971).”
I suspect the error for cranial capacity from HC is much higher perhaps as much as 10%. So even though the Lee-Pearson formula is not quite as accurate as one would like it is to my knowledge still the best such formula for working out cranial capacity from external head measurements as evidenced from multiple studies to the present day that still use it.
As for Lynn’s work, I am willing to cede that he may be on to something, nutrition variance can significantly increase or hinder stature so why not also brain size as well but keep in mind that head size does not increase linearly with height. If that were the case the average 6’7” man would have a CC of almost 4 SD above average despite only being 3 SD above average in height(assuming a constant encephalization quotient).
I think 1 SD increase is too much, perhaps 0.5 SD is more reasonable although admittedly I’m running more on instinct rather than thoroughly substantiated data with regard to this. Come to think of it I find myself increasingly unable to ignore epigenetic factors which has me going back and forth from an HBD extremist to an HBD moderate but that’s another story entirely.
As for billionaires I find your work pretty spot on but feel that these days temperament, emotional stability/robustness a good work ethic and above all else social intelligence(which sadly IQ tests fail to measure) collectively play a far more important role than IQ.
Forgive my abrasive tone at times, I just found it far too improbable visually and statistically that Oprah would have a head that comically big. Think of Shaquille O’Neil’s 7’1” frame, head on Oprah’s 5’7” body.
They reported a
mean error of 3-4% (Haack and Meihoff-1971)
I think Haack & Meihoff are just reporting in 1971 what Lee & Pearson reported in 1904. So the 3-4% margin error is probably from the 1904 research but I’ll look into it.
As for Oprah vs Shaq, he might have a larger HC but she would have a larger body size adjusted HC. Adjusted for body size she likely has the largest HC in her race, and unadjusted for body size, she likely has the largest HC in her gender (not counting pathological cases). And at her peak she was the richest in her race & most influential in her gender.
But having said that, I agree other factors are collectively more important than IQ. Indeed Oprah herself helped turn sarah blakely into the youngest self-made woman billionaire, after blakely bombed the LSAT.
Even before adjusting for body size Oprah’s head looked bigger than Michael Jordan’s, though she had a hair advantage:
(3) is an important point. as far as personal income goes, the top 1% is not that much money. it’s enough money to build wealth over time if you live a moderate lifestyle, but it’s not enough for any real extravagance. and living the modern ‘moderate’ lifestyle is enough to create a huge difference in the ability to save at 100k versus 250k.
“I think Haack & Meihoff are just reporting in 1971 what Lee & Pearson reported in 1904”
Hmmm, seems kind of redundant don’t you think? Wouldn’t it be more likely that it was a validation study, perhaps even to account for a possible skull shape change(as you say)?
“As for Oprah vs Shaq, he might have a larger HC but she would have a larger body size adjusted HC”
What I mean is that if Oprah had a brain that was 2000+ her head would be the size of Shaq’s. So try to imagine Shaq’s head on her body, it would be way too comical, people would be freaked out, whereas now what is happening IMO is circumstantial hair styling that might give you the impression that she is something supernatural.
I think you are using photos incorrectly, you have yet to understand that even a cm differential in proximity to the camera can significantly alter relative dimensions. Note in the second photo MJ is perhaps an inch or two behind Oprah. Also her hair can be extremely misleading.
I think this image is far better at gauging her head length since it is flat in the back as opposed to the pony tail which is quite misleading as to where the back of her head begins. Note that she is wearing braids(with her thick hair mind you) that are quite long and collecting and bunching up at the back which is still somewhat misleading. However it is much better than a pony tail and easier to account for. So given this image and assuming the most generous value of 145 mm in head height(impossible but lets use an extreme upper limit to test your hypothesis) a simple geometric comparison produces a head length no longer than 210 mm(I’m adding 10 mm for to test the extreme). Plugged into our formula for cranial capacity(intracranial volume) and assuming a head width no greater than 155 mm(trust me there is not a chance in a million that her head is wider than that) we get a cranial capacity of ~1740 cc. Note that all the dimensions I gave were extremely generous producing a difference of 300 cc from the brain size you have been touting(without even considering skin fat). Meaning that it is statistically and mathematically impossible for Oprah to have a head size as big as you claim. She would be an absolute freakoid(circus worth) if her head was that big on a 5’7” frame.
I understand that you(like many intellectual scientifically minded people) are infatuated with a kind of symmetry and divine order to the world but perhaps you need to examine whether in this case you have been a victim of confirmation bias.
A couple more images to put some proper perspective on the issue.
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2015-02/18/13/enhanced/webdr10/original-21405-1424284112-11.png?downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto
So is she the biggest headed person of her race, a definitive NO! Is she the biggest headed person among black women, I highly doubt it! Is she just above the 99.99th percentile among all women, I think we can make a case for that.
I understand that you are not applying an exact science here and this is more of a fun exercise for you but there is a huge difference from 1 in several billion to 1 in several hundred thousand(surely you can appreciate the stark discrepancy). Just by eyeballing this I couldn’t possibly accept your claims.
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2015-02/18/13/enhanced/webdr10/original-21405-1424284112-11.png?downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto
What do elongated skulls have to do with brain size and Oprah?
nothing.
but you might like this:
Truth is that the “Europeans” (butter, not olive oil) never had a “RE-naissance”. They just had a naissance 600 y ago. The Nazis (& others bef) manufactured “Aryan” continuity linking themselves to the ancient world.
Meanwhile the Meds took a nap (& still half-sleeping).
a lot of alt-right-ers are nordicists. they must be purged for the alt-right to win, although the extra-european meds can suck it. taleb claims to be greek.
two yuge boxing matches before year end.
white vs black
fury vs wilder
povetkin vs joshua
it’s interesting how the primary reason why black men are so good at so many sports is also a reason why white women find them physically unattractive, namely their ridiculously long legs, high butts, short torsos.
i predict fury will win and povetkin will lose, just because height.
it’s NOT just about physical ability.
that is, joshua has likely had a better life than povetkin and russians are dirty.
fury is a white guy with something to prove.
I agree. There is a ten inch arm span difference and something like half a foot height difference. They are both world-class fighters, which means that the differential in skill won’t be meaningful enough to override physical attributes.
oh, i was agreeing with:
it’s NOT just about physical ability.
Your predictions…
Wilder is a bit smaller (not much) than Fury, and throws combos, unlike Klitch.
I’d give him a slight edge.
Povetkin will lose. Not because of what you said. He’s just outclassed. Oh…I guess that is what you said.
has taleb any chillens? has he ever been married?
the intolerant minority includes the upper classes.
that is, primogeniture.
that is, they will go child-less if they can’t hook up with a non-black woman.
and they have no chillens when they have no money.
the impecunious gentleman is a eunuch.
rr will be very interested in this tidbit from taleb…
https://www.vox.com/2016/5/18/11691818/barone-mocetti-florence
why drink?
it’s a mystery.
he laughed hysterically.
especially considering how italy is the ONLY non-cucked western european country.
pill and i bow to italian cock.
ONLY italy can save us.
That’s true. But no one listens to Italians.
People want to feel as though they have been treated fairly.
If you can make people feel like they have been treated fairly, they will accept whatever regime they are in.
The Roman Empire was mostly multi-cultural.
You cannot have a far-reaching sovereign without it being multi-cultural. It does not work.
Hitler was right, but no one understands why.
The creation of a national identity = good.
The refusal to expand the concept of that identity = bad.
in case you didn’t believe in miracles.
1. materazzi was the guy who fouled zidane for zidane’s PK.
2. materazzi was the guy who tied the game.
3. materazzi was the guy who got zidane sent off after the head butt.
democracy requires transparency.
if trump really thinks “black folk are inferior” he should SAY it.
people have so much to hide.
just be honest.
admit that you jacked off to gay porn.
and called your own mother a “cunt”.
it’s easy.
no one wants democracy. it’s a stupid form of government.
^^^the EXACT opposite of the TRUTH^^^
Yes, muggy…the prejudice of the mob should rule the country.
The Founders certainly didn’t want a democracy.
it’s easy.
in the long run…it’s easy.
it’s funny how these refs are so UN-weird…so USUAL…so NOT UN-usual.
Stairway to Heaven and Love Is All You Need
so gay!
only the good die young?
my grand-dad told me…
in that case you have nothing to worry about.
alt-right-ers who think italians are black aren’t as bad as…
blacks who think they’re italian…
like swank.
You need to treat yourself to a Spike Lee movie marathon. He’s all about blacks vs Italians. Watch “Do the Right Thing” and “jungle fever”
And yet, even though it isn’t my blog, the so-called smartest guy on it can’t go very long without mentioning me.
That’s the proof of heritage, buster.
It is the way cells branch across and into the cortex that allows information to be held and processed. This creates an integrated self-reference of the brain network/system. The reason intelligence can double ever number of IQ points is that layers of abstraction develop faster by the structure created with the self-referenced branching. Qualitatively a layer of abstraction exponentially increases how information is understood. That is why development is impacted by the direction of connectivity growth. The beginning structure directs growth of abstractions at a certain speed.
Oprah can grow new connections fast on top of the connections she already has, making new abstractions. Learning is easier and internally she can think broadly.
Because intelligence is exponential, the ability to understand should show a faster increase in complexity or otherwise become more intuitive in what is grasped.
Regarding:
“You would think that after the civil rights movement and half a century of affirmative action, that the racial income gap would be closing, but nothing could be further from the truth”.
One cause is likely the creation of dependence on the government leading to the demise of two parent families within the community.
Yes you’re probably right.
So whatever government policies have helped blacks have been negated by ones that have hurt them so on balance, there’s been little change
Or maybe institutional AA (not to ruff philo´s feathers) only helped blacks that didnt need the help or to an very smal degree as Afro used to say.
Well the reason alt righters say AA mattters so much is that the gap should be much worse. Read Thomas Sowell…..the media isn’t mentioning it, but there has been a complete and total collapse in black society.
I read something like 9/10 black children are born to unwed mothers and something like 25% of black men will be in prison at some point in their life, even with jewish judges and media trying to make them innocent psychologically.
Puppy I don’t think you have a strong grasp on how degenerate blacks have become in the US. Someone like Bill Cosby would be considered posh by black standards.
I think it’s something like almost 1/3 of black men will go to prison….that number has actually been decreasing since the high point in the early 2000’s. It’s higher than what you think though, still…at 28%.
But that’s mostly an age thing.
Young black men are the group that has the highest chance.
By about 35, the rate is comparable with whites….whites are 4%, blacks are 6%.
Even Uncle Sam knows unwed mothers cannot provide the same life as an intact family they continue to subsidize illegitimacy.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/beyond-bls/the-marriage-premium-and-the-economic-impact-it-can-have-on-children.htm
“Data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics show that there is an economic impact to children born to unwed mothers. Children from this dynamic often have lower levels of educational achievement and experience higher levels of teen childbearing than children born to married parents. Moreover, children born to unwed mothers experience lower employment and income levels while experiencing higher levels of incarceration and single parenting. In general, there are advantages for children in a two-parent household. These children benefit from the additional resources offered by both parents in terms of time, child development, and income”.
Uncle sam would say that blacks cant create an environment where polygammy isnt the case and need intervention.
My argument vis blacks is that without tight social regulation and whites basically telling them what to do, they will definitely revert to Kinshasa just like in South Africa, Jamaica, Brazil and wherever else.
My contention is that jews have long known this and support it for very self interested reasons.
My other contention is that Bill Gates is retarded, socially, because this is obvious to anyone that encounters blacks. Its basic intution. Basic instinct. And thats why other races of man have these ‘racist’ feelings towards blacks more than any other race. Think about what Im saying for once.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brazilian_states_by_murder_rate
Look at the North east (mullato/black zone) vs South (white zone). The trend came 2002-2007. Wierd.
Santo? do you have an explanation? why did homocide rise so much in Brazil? Better screening?
And so, if you accept my argument you will see Oprah is a jewish creation. Someone put on tv to encourage people not to think blacks are completely degenerate. Someone meant to mislead people.
If they actually put the statistically average black woman on tv, I can promise you you wouldn’t be hearing much about book clubs and vegetarian dishes.
No one who gets their own national talk show is statistically average for their race because no one would watch such a person.
And obviously she’s going to try to try to appeal to a white audience as black entertainers have been doing long before Jews had power so your theory explains nothing
No one who gets their own national talk show is statistically average for their race because no one would watch such a person.
If they’re statistically average aren’t they the most attractive member of their race?
Someone put on tv to encourage people not to think blacks are completely degenerate. Someone meant to mislead people.
This is any media personality. That’s what they do. Provide the fantasy of what people are like.
FRIENDS was a great propaganda success that convinced people that being a young white urban professional in NY was a great, wonderful experience in the late 90’s.
Book clubs and vegetarian cooking are classic white women stuff. You don’t find it odd how oprah has the exact same interests as her target market?
You don’t hear her talking about ‘the struggle’ too much either. Oprah is a tool used by elites to put across a certain message much like most other people on tv or in news programmes.
In a country of 400m, nobody ends up on national tv by complete accident or ‘hard work’ or ‘talent’. Most of these people sleep with the right jews, serve a political role or are actually related to elites like Amy Schumer.
^^^
True story.
You don’t hear her talking about ‘the struggle’ too much either. Oprah is a tool used by elites to put across a certain message much like most other people on tv or in news programmes.
if she were truly a tool for anti-white elites, shouldn’t she talk about the struggle against white racism much like all the CNN shows about blacks getting shot. Or is she a tool for WASPs?
You seem to be getting your conspiracy theories confused.
Occam’s razor suggests she’s simply marketing herself to a wide audience
And she was given a national talk show because the low budget local show she took over went from dead last in the ratings to #1 immediately
Not everything’s a conspiracy pill. Some things really are as they seem
Puppy, like his idiot hero Bll Gates, believes in the concept of ‘racism’, and never wonders whey non white people have even worse attitudes to blacks except, we are told anyway, american jews.
I wonder who Robert Rubins daughter is encouraged to date. I bet its not bugambo.
Just cause non-whites are more racist against blacks, doesn’t mean whites are not racist against them too.
If blacks are as bad as you say, it follows that people would be racist against them
You’d have to be a moron to deny racism
You’d have to be a moron to deny racism
so the entire alt-right are therefore morons.
i commented on LoTB.
when people can’t just admit that centuries of slavery and discrimination have an impact on a people….
….who can take them seriously?
and they wonder why no one does.
they seriously wonder.
what’s “racism”?
in the contemporary US it’s a pejorative, the ultimate pejorative.
but in reality bad racism doesn’t affect anyone, only a tiny number of race motivated hate crimes each year.
you can see this with BLM. the reality is that blacks are NOT killed by police more often than their criminality predicts nor more often than their own killing of cops predicts. nor are blacks more likely to be killed by white cops than by black cops. BLM is a YUGE JEW FRAUD.
“racism” is an excuse for the dumb and unmotivated, and a way to excluded and feel superior to bad whites, justify the privileges of good whites.
and btw i don’t like cops, but i realize their job is vital and inevitably attracts bad people.
Their job is not vital. Nearly half of the people in jail are there for drug offenses. Stop listening to Ed Meese; most erosions of the 4th amendment are a direct result of the drug war.
Its all a complete and total charade. Most americans are really really dumb, But even most europeans think they’re informed reading their mass media periodicals discussing human rights law in uganda and other angel dancing on a pin type nonsense for the petit intelligentistas.
Anyone with a functioning mind that isn’t autistic can see that most of what is on tv is carefully curated.
Absolutely never will they interview someone who hates illegal immigration who is good looking for example. i.e. there is ZERO % chance i will be on tv and asked about my views on immigration. They will always ask inbred looking people or old people. Sometimes they’re even actors. They caught the BBC doing that once. Paying people to pretend they hated immigration.
My dad is unbelievably retarded. Just so bad. Its not the in your face retard like Rain Man or Bill Gates. Its more the subtle childish wonder retard.
this is why you should be anti-HBDer like me and jimmy. if you’ve failed HBDers will explain this by your dad’s dumbness.
what matters is not the whiteness of the individual.
what matters is the whiteness of the society.
Great last few posts from Gregory Cochran. Especially this: https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/natural-aristocracy/
Even Mugabe would agree.
yes…the problem with all of that is it always assumes — although this post seemed to be decent in at least hinting at the nuance of “heritable” not quite meaning genetic and tacitly acknowledging that environments can run across generations.
crash course in civilization in various parts of the world:
group gains power by force/resources/etc./taking initiative ‘first’ (more support for the ‘whoever cares more or is motivated’ school of thought)
group directs others.
people see this group directing others and used to taking orders from this group.
whoever appears more like this group will attain more and more of the privileges afforded this group.
it’s about psychological programming.
if we admit to things like IQ (1) being a real innate quality and (2) an accurate assessment of intelligence, then it matters like genetics matter in modern bodybuilding.
Not until you’re in the top part of the group. Making it to the top part of the group is just about drugs/hormones.
drugs: bodybuilding
conforming to dominant group appearance:social status
It takes smarts to understand this, though.
However, it’s definitely a type of smarts most ‘smart’ people completely lack.
So is it g-loaded?
I’d say it is, but I don’t know what test would measure it.
Oh no !!! Killing people for their potential behaviour is evil ! And you don’t know what you loose by doing that. Like someone who would kill bees after someone bitten allergies had died ….
but hereditary hierarchy does have some good points. namely…
1. a place for everyone (but everyone in his place)
2. noblesse oblige.
putative meritocracies don’t have either…
1. a place for the lucky
2. fuck off loser.
good for whom?
(1) is antithetical to personal sovereignty
(2) even moreso — no one wants to be ‘helped’ due to his or her inferior station.
the “meritocracy” rules are misstated:
(1) Conform and you will do ok and maybe you’ll get lucky
(2) Fuck off everyone else
which one is better….
black people at the bottom and will always need help
…hey n**ger, conform in one way or another (rappers conform by selling stereotypes — they’re minstrels, for the most part) and you’ll do ok and maybe get lucky.
Tough call.
Im starting to think swank is actually black. The amount of times he points out how ‘racist’ society is to blacks even though thats completely made up by jews is ridiculous. The vast vast vast majority of blacks are much better off living in america than haiti.
That would require you starting to think in the first place. Hasn’t happened yet.
A yuge problem with CICO isn’t the energy balance…it’s the fact that people aren’t interested in losing weight. As far as ‘weight’ goes, CICO is….CORRECT.
Even adjusting for the various types of foods and preparations, the only adjustment happening is how many calories are represented by the foodstuff.
However…when it comes to (1) losing fat and (2) building muscle…CICO is nonsense.
You can gain muscle and lose fat in a caloric deficit.
However….
…without ‘enhancement,’ this requires committing to a near hunter-gatherer way of being.
It’s all about hormones.
Your body only needs amino acids to build muscle. That’s it. If you shift 500 calories from carbohydrates to protein (high quality) and up your intensity in the gym…you will lose fat and gain muscle. The extra burn will come from the added intensity.
You need to keep your insulin low — everyone knows this now with low-carb dieting.
What they fail to understand is that…growth hormone must ALSO BE HIGH.
You need 8 hours of sleep and high intensity cardio, along with a good fasting protocol.
I’ve already discussed a cheap diet that will take care of nutrition.
Now I’ll detail the life…
morning — wake up, do 20 minutes of some kind of fasted cardio.
eat a meal low in carbs.
lunch — another meal low in carbs.
evening —
workout on near-empty stomach — high intensity, go heavy at the start and then chase the pump for a few exercises at the end
—largest meal of the day, moderate in complex carbs.
8 hours of sleep minimum.
If you do the above, you will have the best possible body you can have naturally. You’ll also be in the best overall health of your life.
However, it’s not easy to do this, because our culture is centered around eating and inactivity.
the natural body of even an older man looks like this:
^^^fulfilling guido stereotype^^^
what i KNOW is…
1. excess calories without exercise make some people much stronger. that is, they put on weight but it’s mostly muscle. the anti-skinny-fat.
i am one of these people. most are the opposite.
sumos are strong. not just fat.
2. the savage diet is the best for health, but it isn’t promoted because food producers have no interest and because it’s expensive unless you’re willing to hunt and fish yourself.
“excess calories without exercise make some people much stronger. that is, they put on weight but it’s mostly muscle. the anti-skinny-fat.”
You know some strange people. How do you know they got much stronger if they don’t exercise?
Yea, Big Food doesn’t want the public at large to know that they’ve been lied to for the past 60 years starting with the Kelloggs BS.
I think it’s fair to assume that gaining more muscle mass = more strength. There’s a correlation.
But RR also hints at another good point.
Some people naturally adapt for strength more via their CNS than their muscles. So, one person may respond to training vis a vis muscle size very well, and another person may not, even though both are getting stronger.
However, the differences between natural trainees are pretty slight. I’d say the variance is probably around 5-10 pounds of muscle over a lifetime training career, if that.
Yea, Big Food doesn’t want the public at large to know that they’ve been lied to for the past 60 years starting with the Kelloggs BS.
The sad thing is that modern processed food can be deployed to GREAT effect for bodybuilding.
Fast carbs pre-workout are a GREAT energy boost to really up the intensity.
Ice cream POST workout or just occasionally on a cheat day can do wonders for your hormonal profile when cutting.
But they should be treated like the PEDs of food….not treated like the entirety of one’s diet.
Now…when you add hormones to the mix, processed food REALLY can help.
“The sad thing is that modern processed food can be deployed to GREAT effect for bodybuilding.
Fast carbs pre-workout are a GREAT energy boost to really up the intensity.
Ice cream POST workout or just occasionally on a cheat day can do wonders for your hormonal profile when cutting.
But they should be treated like the PEDs of food….not treated like the entirety of one’s diet.”
My diet is 80-90 percent whole foods. 10-20 percent high carb stuff (cereals etc). It keeps me motivated on gym days (along with greek yogurt and plain cottage cheese) because my rest days are like 1200 kcal, less than 30 g of CHO.
the savage diet for various sports is NOT the best.
(1) is consistent with everything I say: hormones have a lot to do with whether you put on weight as fat or muscle. but everyone will gain some muscle.
(2) a diet that is roughly equivalent to hunter-gatherer nutrition (the good parts anyway) can be constructed from food at Wal-Mart:
Tilapia
pineapple juice
bananas
rice
egg whites
the problem is that no one wants to eat the same things over and over again.
pineapple juice
bananas
rice
egg white
all non-savage.
https://vimeo.com/188835636
https://vimeo.com/188837113
the chinese guy just gets more muscular.
“the problem is that no one wants to eat the same things over and over again.”
They don’t want it bad enough. The longest I’ve eaten the same exact thing for was 2 months. I didn’t touch a morsel of food that was outside my diet. I was in amazing shape and damn strong.
Eating the same food is fine and fun because you know how much time you have to do what you want to do and you don’t need to think about what you’re eating because the menu is already prepared. People just are too used to getting pleasure from food. Obviously that’s what Big Food wants. Dr Mark Kessler has a solid book on this matter. Check out:
Yes I’m aware. But it’s a close mimic of the nutrient profile…
Rr is spot on.
Building a great body takes high IQ in this culture
Don’t really disagree with much… But…
“As far as ‘weight’ goes, CICO is….CORRECT.”
Meaning… That an isocaloric diet of HFLC and LFHC will result in the same weight loss? And of course “weight” is vague, being that “weight” is water, bone, muscle and fat.
“However…when it comes to (1) losing fat and (2) building muscle…CICO is nonsense.”
What do you think of Fung’s writings?
To lose one pound of fat (supposedly) you need to subtract 3500 kcal per week. Muscle is +2200 kcal per week. Though I’ve read that the 3500 kcal/fat is wrong recently.
What do you think of keeping insulin low for the high intensity individual?
And Yea, Gary Taubes talks about the low to nonexistent rates of western diseases in hunter gatherer populations in Good Calories, Bad Calories. (Chapter 5 for those who like to learn.)
Meaning… That an isocaloric diet of HFLC and LFHC will result in the same weight loss? And of course “weight” is vague, being that “weight” is water, bone, muscle and fat.
You’re right to point this out. I strictly meant ‘weight.’ Utilizing CICO tells us nothing about body composition. In fact, CICO without more results in skinny-fatness. That’s why when most celebrities diet, they just end up looking like smaller versions of their out of shape selves.
What do you think of Fung’s writings?
Eh, sometimes he goes overboard. He points out the lack of evidence for CICO by referencing the literature but fails to address the real problem with those studies: self-reporting. People are notoriously bad at reporting their caloric intake.
In studies where conditions are controlled and calories monitored — CICO does bear out.
His “body set weight” concept is good, but it’s just a shorthand for your body’s hormonal profile. And I think he risks misleading his audience with the way I’ve seen him write about it.
The body setpoint is just the result of the hormonal shift that occurs with weight loss. If you gain muscle and lose fat, your testosterone levels, gh levels, etc. change…with that change comes a change in your body’s predisposition to gain fat/muscle in ratio, among other things. It’s not really a “set-point,” it’s just your hormones. When you gain more fat, your estrogen rises, your testosterone drops, the stretch receptors in your stomach fire off at different times to signal satiety…etc.
So I disagree that it contradicts CICO.
He also (like many authors) is way too on insulin and leptin. Growth hormone is the KING of good body composition. Growth hormone has an insulin-antagonistic effect.
That’s why low carb (for bodybuilding) only really works with an IF protocol — IF boosts growth hormone by a lot.
That is also why getting enough sleep is one of the most important parts of (natural) bodybuilding.
“In fact, CICO without more results in skinny-fatness”
Because, as you rightly point out, since people are assuming that are kcal are “equal”, they don’t think about how different types foods affect body composition.
“People are notoriously bad at reporting their caloric intake.”
Does the energy balance equation support the eat less, move more dictum?
“And I think he risks misleading his audience with the way I’ve seen him write about it.”
I can see how this would be the case. Why do you think so?
“The body setpoint is just the result of the hormonal shift that occurs with weight loss. If you gain muscle and lose fat, your testosterone levels, gh levels, etc. change…with that change comes a change in your body’s predisposition to gain fat/muscle in ratio, among other things. It’s not really a “set-point,” it’s just your hormones. When you gain more fat, your estrogen rises, your testosterone drops, the stretch receptors in your stomach fire off at different times to signal satiety…etc.”
It comes down to hunger/satiety hormones, too. Ghrelin, PPY, leptin, CCK, NPY, PPY etc etc. Obese people have higher levels of ghrelin (the hunger hormone). Interestingly, ghrelin is decreased in obese Caucasians (https://sci-hub.tw/10.2337/diabetes.50.4.707). Another good paper (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5661704/). I have read other research showing that obese people have higher levels of ghrelin, though.
The brain is what regulates weight. The energy balance system—also known as the “weight thermostat”— is centered in the hypothalamus. It controls hunger, metabolism and physical activity based information from the body’s short- and long-term needs. Body weight is regulated by feedback signals from the hormone leptin. This tells the brain whether or not current fat stores are on target for the body’s defended range (its body set weight). So, for example, when kcal are decreased too much, the brain panics thinking that it is starving and so increases production of hunger hormones and decreases production of satiety hormones. This leads to high amounts of eating until they get back to their defended range (body set weight).
The fact of the matter is, one of the main drivers of fat gain is increased insulin production. When insulin is high, then so is blood glucose; since the body has the glucose to use for energy then body fat is not used for energy. Think about how much and how often people spike their insulin and then think why people can’t lose weight… because their insulin is not low enough.
Leptin and insulin respond to the brain’s responsiveness to satiety signals. So increased leptin means decreased satiety and so, since leptin is high, they stop eating sooner. Thus, the long-term goals of the energy balance system is reflected in short-term goals. Leptin resistance is one possible reason why the body set weight increases.
“So I disagree that it contradicts CICO.”
I think it does.
“He also (like many authors) is way too on insulin and leptin. Growth hormone is the KING of good body composition. Growth hormone has an insulin-antagonistic effect.”
I think hormones like that are the main culprit of the current obesity epidemic, and Fung focuses on those two hormones the most since they relate the most to obese and diabetic patients—the demographic he is targeting.
“That’s why low carb (for bodybuilding) only really works with an IF protocol — IF boosts growth hormone by a lot.”
I agree, but LC (how long?) for BBing, in my opinion, doesn’t make sense (kcal/macro cycling makes sense to me but not just straight LC).
I don’t agree an actual ‘body set point’ in the sense that your body has “defended range” of weight.
I think it’s a matter of if hormonal environment X is present, then caloric deficit equals Y:Z fat to muscle ratio lost and caloric surplus equals U:T fat to muscle ratio gained. The overall weight, once we adjust on-label calories for food processing, individual expenditure in digestion, etc., will equal what CICO predicts.
i.e. your body doesn’t give a shit about any particular weight range you’re at.
Fung focuses on those two hormones the most since they relate the most to obese and diabetic patients—the demographic he is targeting.
Growth Hormone relates to everyone past the age of 24 or so. You can drop insulin all you like…without good growth hormone, you’re going to struggle to get good body composition while trying to lead a somewhat normal life in this culture.
And to be honest, the biggest strike against Fung is…look at him
Another guy who talked a lot about set-points and leptin and whatever else was Lyle Macdonald.
Look at him:
I agree, but LC (how long?) for BBing, in my opinion, doesn’t make sense (kcal/macro cycling makes sense to me but not just straight LC).
Yes, I should say that when I use the term ‘IF’ I’m referring to the lean gains protocol 8:16 with carb cycling.
LC on rest days.
Carbs on workout days.
get good sleep
the reason why it works so well is that your insulin levels (even on workout days) will never get out of control and your growth hormone will be through the roof.
Martin Beckham is a good guide.
Why?
Look at him:
you can debate whether he’s full natty…
just looking at him you know he uses aids to cut — probably ECA, if not outright amphetamines.
…
but whether he is or not, he’s not too far from a natural physique. take 5-10 pounds of muscle away and he still blows the other two out of the water.
word to the wise…
(1) if they say anything about fitness and don’t look good…whatever they say is retarded.
(2) if they say anything about fitness and look good…check to see whether they are natural. if they aren’t, then whatever they say only applies if you figure out what they’re on. if they are, then you can follow whatever they say as a reasonable guideline.
Slow processing speed can cause the inability to focus. I don’t show it all the time or in everything I do but focus is one of my problems. Especially in my head, everything jumps all around so I mostly keep it still by going blank. A blank mind is a clear mind. Things naturally flow from there. But still, it is hard to be stable all the time. It all seems so random in a bad way. Like I cannot catch it. A big part of that was when I was in psychosis. I was really slow then. I just cannot think inside my head and when I try it all just stops. I become a zombie. If I could think inside my head I think my processing speed would be faster but currently, I feel stuck mentally. Something that is to do with focussing inside my head. Language is just fine but its the other things that are bothersome. Hard to describe.
Pumpkin can you do an IQ analysis of J. K. Rowling, please?
I think you might be thinking too much about how you think. Do you do this in real time? If so I would suggest you just try to stave off this type of thing and immerse yourself in the moment with singular focus, lose yourself so to speak with what you are doing(takes a bit of practice) and you will find that sooner or later things will start to click into place. What you are doing(analyzing your thoughts while you think) should only ever be done in great depth when you are alone to avoid distractions and avoid seeming aloof, and you should avoid doing it too much as it is hard to snap out of it when you are in a social setting.
You are clearly an introvert(not a bad thing, I am also an introvert) but you might want to figure out how to manage that introversion in a predominantly extroverted world. I doubt that you are slow, depression tends to slow things down for us and when we try to speed them back up again this creates anxiety which after extended exposure can cause all sorts of problems, even psychosis. I think you should shake it all off or at least try to accept that you aren’t quite were you want to be but have faith that with a lot of positivity and careful self management your brain will heal itself.
PS you may also suffer from ADHD, don’t worry, a lot of guys have this problem. The good news is it can be a superpower when you are feeling positive and strong(supercharged brain) but when you are depressed it can be quite disconcerting as you don’t have the energy or the positivity to stave off negative thoughts or avoid losing yourself in tangential thoughts. Solution, fix the depression first and everything else will follow(believe in yourself). Learn how to switch off your ADHD brain when you aren’t at your best or feeling a little depressed.
Hope this helps!
Is thinking a physical or functional process?
Every single programme, personality and message on tv is carefully chosen. People have no issue accepting that about China, Russia, Latin America, Eygpt, but when you say it about Western media people won’t accept it.
Talk to a middle easterner and he 100% thinks like me.
Theres a marxist angle which is – the elites are never going to share real knowledge with the plebs in any society.
But the ethnic angle is also massive. If the american media was run by the chinese, you would assume a chinese angle on everything.
Jesus and unbelievable song. I didn’t even know about this band until 2 weeks ago talking about grunge to someone.
pill! comrade!
i am the expert on “unbelievable”.
your taste in music is SAD!
please pill. no more music clips past 1981.
I love this album. I think a lot of music critics at the time thought they were sell-outs, ripoffs, trying to mainstream grunge music. But it sounds good so who gives a fuck??
Yeah, Chris Cornell has gotten a lot of that over the years. Esp with audioslave.
….why does it sound good?
any artist can’t be faulted for making art that is appealing enough to make an all right living.
but an artist who strives for more…
is selling out and should be reprimanded and stripped of their credibility…
…why?
why does the music they make sound better?
it appeals to more people?
why?
because it has been watered down and made less unique
the most popular product is the least offensive product.
if x million like it, it CANNOT say anything or be unique.
the fact that people can imagine top 40 anything or anything that has sold x million records to be unique is a testament to how unfuckable the USA’s mindfucking is.
the artist has killed his personal human experience in the pursuit of more power.
“The trend toward narcissistic flair has been responsible in large part for smiting rock with the superstar virus, which revolves around the substituting of attitudes and flamboyant trappings, into which the audience can project their fantasies, for the simple desire to make music, get loose, knock the folks out or get ‘em up dancin.’ It’s not enough just to do those things anymore; what you must do instead if you want success on any large scale is figure a way of getting yourself associated in the audience’s mind with their pieties and their sense of “community,” i.e., ram it home that you’re one of THEM; or, alternately, deck and bake yourself into an image configuration so blatant or outrageous that you become a culture myth.”
I have to admit my tastes in 90s-2000s rock tend to be pretty mainstream. I don’t know much about it other than stuff I heard on the radio growing up. So I may not have the most cultivated tastes.
Not all music has to be “counter-culture” to be good though. Prince and Michael were two of the greatest, most unique musicians of the 1980s, and they were two of its most popular. Although in case of Michael, I prefer “Off the Wall” to his much more popular “Thriller”.
scraibin = genius
all others = not genius
what about molotov?
What’s astonishing is that the best interpreters, for ewamp’e for Scriabin Sonata, are all Jewish whereas there is no great Jewish composer (except Mahler and Mendelssohn who are not so great ).
In that sense, people could say that Jewish are parasites of gentile but what they added is invaluable !
There’s good Jewish composers in the 20th century. Especially If you’re willing to extend your definition of compozer to those involved eith film/popular music.
and i thought it was only the romans who made a fool of hitch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-5HSjEwWzA
Hitchens can’t answer because once you take the position there is no creator/raison d’etre and there is no foundation you start talking like someone who believes in Allah or Krishna. I.e. all the scientific evidence so far shows the universe forces itself to exist and is designed to maintain its existence.
Hitchens just isn’t smart enough to answer like I did.
Humans are natural liars and storytellers.
Some lies serve group cohesion purposes and advantageous.
A group that has a fable which sets forth a relatively objective authority under which everyone answers to satisfies the innate human need for fairness and encourages cooperation.
The same phenomenon occurs with governments, i.e. “the constitution,” etc.
Interessting…
How do you make people feel objectivity?
Correlations?
the moral argument is misunderstood by atheists and religious people.
craig appears to get it, but he forms the possessive of “jesus” as “jesus'”, and he sounds retarded. aesthetics don’t lie.
that is, morality is real and thus naturalism is false.
it’s most powerful as a functional argument which doesn’t demonstrate the existence of anything or that naturalism is false.
it may well be that humanity’s evolution predisposes it to create fables as a way of facilitating group adherence to community standards.
“it may well be that humanity’s evolution predisposes it to create fables as a way of facilitating group adherence to community standards.”
Just-so stories
And thats why humans like to treat animals well right swanky? Or like to protect the environment? Not many environmentalists literally think about their potential grandchildren when chaining themselves to trees like Tyler Cown would suggest.
Maybe…but in the realm of philosophical possibility just-so stories are allowed.
And thats why humans like to treat animals well right swanky? Or like to protect the environment?
Not all humans do those things, so I don’t know what you’re trying to prove here.
Naturalism is false. Nagle has a good takedown of it in Mind and Cosmos.
(((nagle)))
rr is like a parody of a person whose mind is controlled by jews.
RR, do you belive in Cranial capacity being different between the races ceteris paribus? How by much?
Sure. But see:
Click to access remeasuring-man.pdf
Click to access KAPGOM.pdf
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002444
PP what do you think of these papers refuting Lewis et al 2011 and defending Gould’s analysis of Morton’s skulls, vindicating Gould’s argument that Morton was biased?
Those seem like shit samples.Why not just gather new samples by meassuring with an elastic ruler? Becuase of hair? Im sure you can find an representative sample with short hair, no? The advantage is that numbers would be higher as its more costly to store skulls than to meassure a bunch of people.
And the seed meassurment method made me laugh, Gould was right on criticising those meassurments.
The gender stuff is interresting, is that something the pioneer fund has done or is it only Morton?
Didnt Afro post something on west africans not having small brains? now its lost in the archives… do you have it? Pumpkin?
Most of real knowledge is unlearning ‘knowledge’ youve been pumped with since childhood.
Most learning is unlearning.
The drunk high school dropout literally knows more about the world than a Berkeley sociology major.
morality is real and thus naturalism is false.
it’s like you’re at a funeral, a high church funeral, and you’re in the mezz or balcony or box.
and you ask, “do you think he made it?”
atheist: what the fuck does that mean? i think you have mental health issues.
theist: of course he made it…Be of good hope in the face of death. Believe in this one truth for certain, that no evil can befall a good man either in life or death, and that his fate is not a matter of indifference to the gods.
If you believe morality is real and objective, why wouldn’t the first command of any jidge not be to conform whatever law to that objective morality?
Do you seriously think only maths people can access this morality?
The sages we’re all VIQ guys. Diogenes thought that theortical abstractions such as mathematical models were silly.
Socrates was a sophist….the proto lawyer.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230722646_Examining_the_effects_of_dopamine_genes_on_verbal_IQ_within_and_between_families
the legit cultural hero with similar name is Wilfred Owen.
theism is NOT some gnosis or the 3d degree or alex jones type stuff.
IT’S OBVIOUS.
it’s a contradiction.
1. the work of art is only good if it’s old. that is, one can only know it is good, if it is old.
2. it may be that great works of art are un-recognized, un-promoted, because the gate keepers are biased and not very good judges in the first place…maybe salieri was better than mozart.
art is good if the elites from many ages like it.
if the elites don’t like it, it’s shit.
that’s the reality of art.
this doesn’t explain my subjective response to art.
Your values that have been shaped in large part by the elite….and the degree of overlap?
Disagree got art will resonate with people who have a particular skill at communicating why it resonates with them.
For the past 50 years, we’ve had bill gates types explaining to teenagers in schools and colleges why a MLK speech brought tears to their eyes or reading certain non huwhite lit made them see ‘the struggle.
Some of these books like The Invisible Man are actually objectively well written works and I would recommend them.
But as soon as certain gatekeepers lose control over who gets to communicate this libertarian notion, which does hold in the long run, that the instrinsic values of assets will come through, will come through.
What people thought was great in turn of the century Paris because of some minor noble food critic or high society gossip won’t hold unless it has intrinsic value.
In many cases, art really is like other traditional asset classes in that at the end of the day, it will be about whether it resonates and not whether someone said it should.
Whether someone says it should and whether it does are closely intertwined. People do and feel what they’re told.
black men are so good at so many sports because they have spider proportions.
UN-attractive to most white women.
long legs, long arms, short torso, narrow torso, low subcutaneous fat.
michael phelps’s body is sexy to white women. the most sexy.
even though his proportions are freakish. chimp-like.
europeans combine…
1. the most UN-chimp features.
2. the most primitive features.
neanderthals had YUGE noses.
italians are super HAIRY.
the point is…
baldness and chest hair are sexy!
I am very hirsute.
Women love it.
they don’t like this…
as much as this…
ha there’s a jew for ya..
for example: trump.
trump is just a big guy. i heard seth meyers remarking on that this weekend.
despite his age and inactivity i’d be surprised if he couldn’t bench 200+.
200+ is pathetic for gym rats like rr and swank but it’s 99th percentile for the “naive”.
Wrong.
Trump weighs more than 200 pounds, so 1x bodyweight is definitely not 99th percentile for the untrained.
No wonder you worship lanky girlymen like Alan Alda.
Joyce had a long spiel on aesthetics in Portrait of a Young Artist. I can’t remember the point. It was very long winded. He broke good art down into a few truisms as I recall and they were all logical.
The reason people haven’t forgotten James Joyce, even though about 5% of the population can understand him is because those that can understand him can explain his genius, and communicate it.
Not everyone thinks Citizen Kane is a great movie. In fact the critics panned it for the first 20 years of its existence.
But eventually intrinsic value came through.
Now there is a twist in this libertarian fantasy, and that is – tastes to change over time and some art really is more relevant at some periods of history than others.
For example, knowing about the move ‘They Live’ starring pro wrestler ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper was basically confined 4chan threads and now people are seeing the genius of it.
But eventually intrinsic value came through.
Jive.
The reason people haven’t forgotten James Joyce, even though about 5% of the population can understand him is because those that can understand him can explain his genius, and communicate it.
People only listen to the elites or who the elites approve of enough to give a platform.
Libertarians are the right’s version of SJWs. Both SJWs and libertarians are very similar in many ways. They are both more like organised religion with priests and a doctrine than many actual cults like the one that canadian american guy was running with the celebrities.
Stefan Molyneux is a canadian libertarian cult leader.
He used to be, but now he is basically an sober alex jones + HBD.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘theism’. I always took theism to mean believe in an established religion. i include cults like Scientology or Kabbalah or Pizzagate Satanism because organised religions like Islam or Hinduism are basically cults that ‘went big’.
In that sense, all theism is totally nonsense usually made up by people like that guy in the documentary I linked to. Complete psychopath.
However, I would say I am a deist in the way Spinoza and Einstein are, I don’t know what created this or why, but there is definitely something peculiar and ‘just so’ about reality.
Even a simple thing like the passage of time is a bizarre thing. There was a guy on quora who wrote a book on the physics of time and its twilight zone stuff.
Theres a great series called through the wormhole narrated by sex pest Morgan Freeman that actually talks about all the cutting edge scientific research in a less dry way than Nature magazine or New Scientist.
If you watch the first few episodes, it should dawn on you something created this reality and there is a twilight Zone Shadow Play quality to everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Play_(The_Twilight_Zone,_1959)
Read this synoposis.
This was an episode where i literally sat in silence thinking afterward about the nature of reality t was that thought provoking. It reminded me of the stuff they talk about in the documentary a la Strauss discussing how the Big Bang was always meant to happen or Godel showing logic is self contained.
This was an episode where i literally sat in silence thinking afterward about the nature of reality t was that thought provoking
Anyone who needs evidence to believe in something higher is a girly man.
The feeling of free will and choice should be all anyone ever needs.
The guy that wrote that story, Charles Beaumont, literally has a twilight zone sounding life. I think with such genius, you also get the chance of rare mental conditions like he had.
If someone like Grant came from another dimension and started pointing how this and that part of our narrative seems implausible like in the show it would stump a lot of ‘scientists’ no matter how autistic:
“So youre saying the universe is continually expanding and as far as you know stretches into infinity”
“So youre saying time just happens to be an A series”
“So youre saying the law of thermodynamics was always there? When did it start?”
why is ultimate fighting NOT dominated by negroes?
why is ultimate fighting dominated by NOT negroes?
what’s interesting is how lenient phil and muggy are toward homosexuals…
…but…
…homosexuals rip through one another like nothing else.
it really is bedlam. something like 1/3 have 1000+ partners.
the entire lifestyle is completely degenerate
it has nothing to do with whether a man wants to love another man or whatever.
in this case, there really is a problem with the culture.
but why aren’t HBDers talking about a 1–4% subset of the populous that accounts for 60% of syphilis cases and 17% of all hospital admissions.
homosexuals score on general happiness measures.
homosexuals are extremely violent toward one another….like 50-100x more likely to be killed, 20x more likely to suicide, etc.
much lower life expectancy.
actively trying to recruit children….this is supposed to be some kind of bogeyman….
…
but swank knows the truth: it ain’t.
whether a man can love another man romantically is an academic question.
a culture where men can ‘love’ other men tends to reward or lead to behavior that is just…the height of civilization — the truth of civilization.
pederasty.
the triumph of complete domination (man raping child — usually boy) taking place of the natural desire to procreate.
homos and elites get along so well because enough wealth even seems to have this effect on straight men.
if it is as I say it is (it is), then are homosexuals merely the next stage in human evolution? they tend to be better off than average, right?
WRONG. And this is one that even SCALIA got wrong!
They’re slightly better educated but poorer and worse off!
The point that I make is that goddamit, I do not think that you glorify, on public television, homosexuality! You ever see what happened, you know what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality destroyed them. Aristotle was a homo, we all know that. So was Socrates.
Smartest US president.
the point here, isn’t about denigrating homosexuality per se.
it’s always about what lurks beneath.
and what we find…
…is that the same spirit lurks beneath every single label that we find ‘bad.’
be it ‘jew,’ be it ‘homo,’ be it ‘perv,’ be it ‘nigger,’ be it ‘white devil,’ ‘guinea,’ etc.
it’s the same behavior.
people need to look past the labels…
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
norm talked about that nixon comment on All in the Family.
jesus was a Cynic, capital C.
swank doesn’t get who’s actually behind identity politics. it’s the rich distracting the rest. and the jews trying to portray themselves as victims, making sure they can’t be named.
zizek, chomsky, thiel, eric weinstein, morris berman get it. three of these are jews yet chomsky and berman are 100% dishonest about the jews. berman even said trump was an anti-semite. this is why people hate jews. i haven’t heard weinstein talk about the jewish question except to claim they’re smarter for genetic reasons. he did that on rogan.
anti-racism = gay rights = gender equality = … = shilling for capital.
There is no who’s behind anything. The ideas move on their own.
That’s what you don’t get.
Because your spirituality is incomplete.
moron. if the media owner doesn’t like what his “journalists” say they get canned. if the regents/donors don’t like what you say you get canned even if you have tenure. if the donors don’t like what a politician says he gets no funding, he loses the election.
swank is a puppet.
what dictates who the media owner, regent, and political donor like and dislike?
everyone is trapped in ideology.
you’re the moron.
their economic/political interests fucktard.
yes, let’s see how many ways you can say the word ‘idea’ without realizing that you’re wrong.
as if anyone has the mainline to reality on what their ‘economic/political interest’ in beyond the realm of an idea about such things.
you’re just too scared to tell materialism to take it all the way out.
you like playing ‘just the tip.’
it’s gross.
what’s interesting is how lenient phil and muggy are toward homosexuals…
only a homosexual like yourself would make this obviously false claim.
only a homosexual like yourself would make this obviously false claim.
you’re the one who lies around naked thinking about me while lubed up and giggling.
in the US it illegal to fire someone because he has 1,000+ anal sex partners, but it is legal to fire someone for saying he disapproves of 1,000+ anal sex partners.
it is illegal to fire someone for acting black, but legal to fire someone for disapproving of black behavior.
As it should be.
The proprietor of a business is held to a higher standard than the employee.
Especially when dealing with the laws you’re talking about ..because the businesses they apply to
apply because they are large enough to be distantly supported by the federal government via the government’s provision of interstate commerce channels.
because of fraudulent supreme court justices.
the market is a mind control mechanism when the owners have solidarity. and they do. they think in the most marxist terms. expressing bad thoughts = no job.
this is also called “inverted totalitarianism”.
WRONG
what you’ve described is NOTHING NEW to America and has NOTHING to do with SCOTUS.
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
this was written not long after the founding.
the very nature of America is conformity
the revolution was conservative and UNLIKE the revolution in France.
Americans fought to preserve a way of life, not overthrow a previous order.
…if you want to run with it…
America is a business and Americans are fundamentally businessmen.
This is facilitated only by the widespread agreement on ideas, i.e. a nation of ideas.
Which is why Americans can uniquely accept doctrines such as natural law…when everyone mostly agrees with whatever you think and the society is conformist, it makes sense to believe.
[B]ecause of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith. And this naive faith requires necessary illusion, and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth-maker to keep the ordinary person on course. It’s not the case, as the naive might think, that indoctrination is inconsistent with democracy. Rather, as this whole line of thinkers observes, it is the essence of democracy. The point is that in a military state or a feudal state or what we would now call a totalitarian state, it doesn’t much matter because you’ve got a bludgeon over their heads and you can control what they do. But when the state loses the bludgeon, when you can’t control people by force, and when the voice of the people can be heard, you have this problem—it may make people so curious and so arrogant that they don’t have the humility to submit to a civil rule [Clement Walker, 1661], and therefore you have to control what people think. And the standard way to do this is to resort to what in more honest days used to be called propaganda, manufacture of consent, creation of necessary illusion. Various ways of either marginalizing the public or reducing them to apathy in some fashion.
With the system of government designed to run on popular consent in one form or another, the only true battleground is nearly platonic: ideas.
America may be exceptional because it quite possibly is the site of Armageddon.
Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation. Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist, with whatever suffering and injustice that it entails, as long as it is possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can. At this stage of history either one of two things is possible. Either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community interests, guided by values of solidarity, sympathy and concern for others, or alternatively there will be no destiny for anyone to control. As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority, it is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interests of the community as a whole, and by now that means the global community. The question is whether privileged elite should dominate mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must—namely to impose necessary illusions, to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority and remove them from the public arena. The question in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured; they may well be essential to survival.
A possible shorthand…by ‘heaven’ it could mean simply the realm of concepts and ideas.
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
Let’s assume that the ideas Chomsky refers to win out and the entire populace, given its propensity for (1) ruthlessly enforcing conformity and (2) having faith in whatever norms it holds…
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
….
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tucker+carlson+live