Ashkenazi Americans tend to be intelligent because of selection for high IQ genes during the Middle Ages. Pro-Palestinian Americans also tend to be intelligent because they have the ability to question the elite narrative while also showing empathy for a group that has suffered for decades. Thus if you find a person who is both Ashkenazi Jewish AND pro-Palestinian, they’ll tend to be very intelligent, because not only do they belong to two intelligent groups, but the two intelligent groups they belong to are almost diametrically opposed, so the odds of being both are slim.

The two men who host the show Due Dissidence belong to this unique demographic and they often have insightful things to say about the issues of the day. Below are their thoughts about Elon Musk.

One reason people have such a hard time believing evolution is progressive is that many primitive organisms like cockroaches and crocodiles, have survived for millions of years so from an evolutionary perspective, aren’t they the superior ones? The Earth is full of simple organisms that have always been simple and always will be simple. They were here long before we arrived and will be here long after we’re gone. So how does it make sense to say evolution drives life towards complexity?

In thinking about this question, I was reminded of a concept in business called “first mover advantage”. The idea being that if you’re the first to enter a competitive landscape, you don’t have to necessarily be the best because you can corner the market before superior competitors get a chance to emerge and you can exploit all the low hanging fruit.

So I think what probably happened in Earth’s history is a lot of really simple organisms lucked into certain ecological niches and specialized in them early. One such ecological niche might being an insect that can eat anything, or being a crocodile that can live in shallow water, thus having easy access to both water and land and all the prey that comes there to drink. Good work if you can get it, and thus animals that were lucky enough to get it, pretty much stopped evolving millions of years ago. Sure evolution tinkered with their phenotypes here and there, but their body plan remained essentially the same.

So people love to think they’re being provocative by saying, “oh cockroaches have survived for millions of years; they’re so adaptable!” But are they though? There’s a difference between being adaptable and adapted. Cockroaches and crocodiles are extremely well adapted to life on earth because first mover advantage allowed them to get some of the best ecological niches, but they’re not adaptable because they never change that niche. It’s so good they don’t need to.

By contrast our ancestors never found that one great niche so we kept on evolving. We never found a lasting adaptive niche so we evolved the ability to adapt. to whatever niche we were in, from the Sahara desert to the arctic tundra, and hopefully one day, other planets.

So yes evolution is progressive, but only if you actually evolve. Many, perhaps most; have stopped evolving millions of years ago.

I discovered this youtuber named Professor Dave, who claims that humans sit at the very top of the evolutionary tree, the only species to create a civilization. He even made a cute picture to illustrate the point.

Is this a sign from God? Afterall Professor Dave looks just like Jesus. Just kidding, there is no God, unless you define the origin of the universe itself as God cause it’s the only thing with free will.

You can see the full video here if you want a basic overview of taxonomy:

It’s just past 11 am Eastern time, on the 11th day of the 11th month of 2023. Jut wanted to do my small part in remembering those soldiers, many just kids, who so loved Canada that they risked, and in many cases gave their lives for the greatest country in the World.

More than 650,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders served in this war, then called The Great War. More than 66,000 of our service members gave their lives and more than 172,000 were wounded. Their contributions and sacrifices earned Canada a separate signature on the Treaty of Versailles. 

For roughly ten years I’ve been arguing that evolution is progressive and its gratifying to see some of the greatest scientists of our time agree.