Robbing Peter to pay Pablo

Intellectual leaders of the Democratic party fear that if President Obama is unable to salvage a health care bill that increasingly looks like it it's indefinitely stuck in legislative limbo, party members will be unwilling to touch it in the future:

"If Bill Clinton couldn't get it done, and Barack Obama can't do it, no Democrat will ever try again," said economist Len Nichols, health policy director at the New America Foundation.

...

"History is written by the victors, not the vanquished," said Chris Jennings, congressional liaison for then-first lady Hillary Clinton during the 1990s debate. "Failure would serve as the ultimate judgment as to whether this effort was worth doing."

In a recent VDare column, Steve Sailer linked to a handy report from the DHHS on the country's uninsured population.

The pertinent information I want to highlight follows. The index simply shows the ratio of a group's representation among the uninsured population to its representation among the population as a whole. For example, 48% of the country's uninsured are white (as of 2005, when the report was written) and whites comprise 67% of the population at large, so the white value is .72. A value over 1.00 indicates that a group is overrepresented among the uninsured population; a value under 1.00 shows that the group is underrepresnted.

Race
Hispanic	2.14
Native American	2.00
Black	1.25
Asian	1.00
White	0.72

Residency
Non-citizen	3.00
Citizen	0.85

The figures in the DHHS report are rounded to the nearest whole percentage point, so the range for the true value for Native Americans is enormous (2% of the uninsured, 1% of the total population--at 2.4% of the uninsured and .6% of the population, it'd be 4.00; at 1.5% and 1.4%, it'd be only 1.07) and should consquently be taken lightly. What is clear is that of the four major ethnic/racial groups in the US, Hispanics are the least likely to be insured under the current system.

Increasing tax rates on "Cadillac plans", forcing insurance providers to cover clients who are going to lose them money (those with pre-existing conditions), and expanding Medicaid benefits to everyone earning under 150% of the federally designated poverty line are real costs. And these costs are to disproportionately be borne by whites for the sake of non-whites, especially Hispanics. More specifically, with the specter of the amnesty apparition that was buried in 2006 hovering on the horizon and the total lack of credibility in all politicians' claims that non-citizens will be precluded from enjoying the health care bill's benefits, this means it is illegal Hispanic immigrants who stand to gain the most, primarily at the expense of white American citizens.

I'm too parochial to really invest myself in the debate. My employer provides me with 'free' full coverage that I never use and never plan on needing to use (like living forever, so far, so good!). Initially, I was intrigued by the idea of reducing Medicare benefits to cover the cost of the reforms, as just about anything that reduces Medicare payments--resources destined to have a negative ROI of close to 100%--is something I'm inclined to support. That's a moot point now, as the politically unacceptable idea died several months ago.

This, however, certainly encourages me to be more firmly critical of any plan to universally expand coverage. Like virtually all government programs not directed at those over the age of 65, it aims to take from whites and give to NAMs.

Colored people and blacks, Hispanics and Latinos, Asians and Orientals

In putting together a follow-up to the previous post tracking the descriptors for blacks through time, I checked the first few pages of return results to see if "colored" would be used as an adjective to describe something other than race. This article on an anniversary for the "colored home" grabbed my attention as a possible false-positive, but it's genuine. The colored house was apparently a sort of refuge for black street rats.

Yet there are surely a handful of returns having nothing to do with race. Although their significance may be minor, to be on the safe side, I elected to track the phrase "colored people", rather than just "colored". For comparative purposes with other descriptors, the unadultered plural of the noun is optimal, but "coloreds" is rarely used at the expense of "colored people", "colored folks", "colored voters", etc. Consequently, the "colored" adjective to identify those of African descent is relatively underrepresented below.

The following graphs show the percentage of all NYT articles written first by decade (through the 1950s) and then by year (from 1960 on), containing the indicated word or phrase.


Unlike "negroes", which is abruptly swapped out for "blacks" in the late sixties, "colored people" peaks ahead of the civil rights' era but subsequently experiences a gentle but steady decrease in use after that. It appears to stabilize in the eighties, but by that time, many, if not most, articles contained "colored people" as part of the NAACP ("National Association of Colored People"). By the beginning of last decade, the phrase had finally all but fell out of use. As it does not have the same perceived connotations of "negroes", once the popular lexicon gave primacy to "blacks", those who had come of age when describing a black man as colored was perfectly acceptable did not feel compelled to adjust their working vocabularly accordingly. Although they're in the twilight of their lives, there are still people who use "colored" instead of "black" or "African-American". My grandmother, for instance, is one of them.

Going in, I had little sense of the historical patterns in nouns used to describe people from south of the border. "Latino" seems to be favored over "Hispanic" by the 'aggrieved' and their sympathizers--the former is usually delivered with the most emphatic Spanish accent possible, in contrast with the rest of the speaker's words. When I hear an NPR correspondent from Mexico City or Los Angeles articulating Latino as if he's speaking Spanish, I presume he's making it known he's one with the Latino people.


"Hispanic" is still the most common descriptor used, though the commonality of usage of the two may converge in the media over the next several years. While the number of articles devoted to blacks appears to be on the decline, the continued increase in the size of the Hispanic population means an increasing amount of coverage will be devoted to their special interests going forward.

I've never heard someone from the most populous continent described as an oriental except in fun. East Asians, especially, tend to be too well-adjusted and successful to take offense at being referred to in such an antiquated way. A silly antic of mine is to introduce an Asian to someone else by earnestly saying (with emphasis on the word "oriental"), "This is my oriental friend, Kunal. He's from somewhere in Asia."


The reason I've not witnessed it used otherwise is because since the time of the Korean War, "Asian" became the noun of choice. It is in 1949 when "Asians" marginally overtakes "Orientals", but just a year later, the former is used twice as frequently. The gap has never come close to closing since then.


The aggregation of all non-whites is not novel. "Minorities" has been part of the media lexicon since the Great Depression. It predictably hit a growth spurt in the late sixties, but then dips again during the Reagan administration, shoots up again at the end of the decade, drops once more in the mid-nineties, hits another high at the turn of the century, and then sinks back to where it was before the Civil Rights movement got into gear. Hopefully someone more learned than me can offer a cogent explanation for the roller coaster.

The final graph shows the sum of all descriptors used for each of the three major minority (heh) groups--blacks, Hispanics, and Asians--as well as "minorities" as a whole. There is a bit of double-counting as a consequence of newspaper writers' attempts at elegant variation ("blacks" and "African-Americans" being used in the same article), but the relative change over time in attention devoted to the three groups is the graph's purpose.

Compared to the ten years preceding it, the first decade of the 21st century appears to have been mild in the amount of media attention devoted to non-whites. Blacks got a boost during the 2008 Presidential election, but in 2009 the trend of gentle decline resumed. This is, of course, just one way of arriving at a rough estimate of media focus over time, and it still may seem regrettably excessive, but it's a reasonable measure. Only attention to Hispanics seems to be holding firm, as media types continue to wait for the Hispanic tidal wave that is sure to be arriving soon.

M:TG thread

It was suggested by a reader interested in M:TG that a sidebar link be added so an ongoing discussion of the game's environment can exist without forcing those who have no interest to periodically scroll past Magic posts I put up. I've done that. I'm putting my thoughts on Worldwake up at the moment.

Big 5 personality traits and IQ, voting behavior at the state level

The Big 5 personality traits are intriguing, but aggregate measures are often unsatisfactory. I've previously posted on the counterintuitive inverse relationship between credit scores and conscientiousness at the state level as an illustration of this. Continuing that approach, the correlations with voting and estimated IQ for each of the five factors, as measured by Jason Rentfrow et al, follow*:

Voting for McCain and...	r-value	p-value
Extraversion	.10	.50
Agreeableness	.28	.05
Conscientiousness	.41	.00
Neuroticism	(.17)	.23
Openness	(.46)	.00

Estimated avg IQ and...	r-value	p-value
Extraversion	.01	.93
Agreeableness	.05	.70
Conscientiousness	(.22)	.12
Neuroticism	(.04)	.76
Openness	(.02)	.87

Because the data for all variables are by state ranking rather than by specific numerical value, linear correlations (for which I'm measuring) are likely to appear more robust than they actually are.

If a positive relationship between openness and voting for McCain was revealed, I'd really be ready to throw in the towel on inter-population comparisons, for reasons identified by Steve Sailer:

Personality testing really needs some way to norm across subcultures. It seems like it does a fine job on, say, distinguishing among University of Illinois psychology majors, but once you get outside of a particular group with the same references, it falls apart on the between-group predictions (while, apparently, remaining okay within group).

However, the two correlate in the expected way, so it doesn't appear we're trudging aimlessly through bitumen.

The slight positive correlation between agreeableness and conservative voting behavior doesn't strike me as surprising. Leftists seem to be more favorably inclined toward making their cultural and political opinions known than conservatives are, whether those opinions be solicited or not. Per capita, leftist causes also seem to draw more activists out to protest than conservative ones do--think gay rights demonstrations versus Nixon's Silent Majority. However, it contrasts with a 2006 study that found agreeableness, openness, and neuroticism correlated with voting for Kerry in 2004, while higher conscientiousness and extraversion correlated with voting for Bush.

The positive relationship between conscientiousness and supporting McCain is probably more expected. The attributes defining high conscientiousness tend to be celebrated as virtues by the Popular Right. They include being prepared, fulfilling duties and promises made, favoring structured settings to organic ones, being meticulous in one's work, etc.

The only relationship between personality traits and intelligence I've repeatedly heard or read about is the modest but positive relationship between openness and IQ. That is not evident here, nor are statistically significant correlations of intelligence with the other four traits.

* R-values show the strength of the correlation between variables and range from -1 to 1. Negative numbers indicate an inverse relationship (as one goes up, the other goes down), positive values show a positive relationship (as one goes up, so does the other), and zero indicates no relationship whatsoever. For our purposes, p-values essentially give the probability that the relationship is meaningless. For those of .10 or more, correlations should taken with little more than a grain of salt.

More on passing, running, and winning in the NFL

++Addition++Steve offers more on 2009, deeming it the year only passing mattered. He wonders whether or not the NFL's popularity will decrease if a successful passing offense and a winning record continue to become increasingly synonymous with one another.

It's my impression that football votaries like smashmouth, low-scoring field position games a lot more than casual fans do. I'd guess more than a few of those casual fans would judge a typical 48-31 game more thrilling to watch than a 9-6 game. Assuming I'm in it to see the most competitive sixty minutes possible, I wouldn't--I'd take the second game for sure. But I'll still follow the NFL as high-scoring, pass-happy games become more common, whereas casual fans (especially women) will be unlikely to stick around if this year's Jets became the NFL archtype. So I'd guess the current trend will be good for business.

To the extent that passing is more important in the regular season than it is in the post-season, it's unfortunate as far as the league's level of popularity is concerned--the other way around would be more desirable. More indoor arenas and closed stadiums might help.

---

Steve wondered if the pattern in 2009 of passing's dominance over rushing as a determinant of success was carried over from the season before. It could have been a fluke year, or the beginning of a secular trend. The following table shows the correlations between winning and both passing and running yards per attempt by regular season going back to 2002:

Year	Pass	Run
2009	.80	.09*
2008	.48	.15*
2007	.76	.24*
2006	.44	.10*
2005	.60	.40
2004	.56	.45
2003	.67	.07*
2002	.50	.11*

* not statistically significant at 90% confidence

In 2008, the pass-run gap was less pronounced than in 2009, but still significant. However, 2007 was similar to the just-concluded regular season. As we move back in time, passing maintains the upperhand, but not as overwhelmingly so. In 2004, when the playoff-bound Falcons (Vick alone ran for nearly 1,000 yards that year), Steelers (Staley-Bettis one-two punch), and Jets (Curtis Martin in his best season before complications with a knee injury forced him into retirement) built their offenses around the running game, rushing came within striking distance of passing in importance.

As Steve has discussed, the nimble, impatient quarterback who's comfortable being flushed out of the pocket to run is not the future of football, it is the past. The nearly total domination of passing relative to running today suggests that a new paradigm is emerging, where the running game is clearly superceded in importance by the ability to move the ball through the air.

If a football votary is up for investing a little time in it, it'd be interesting to see how the pass-run dynamics correlate with success going back several decades. NFL.com's stats on per-play averages extend back over 60 years, so the data are there.

Negro? No longer. Black? Bye bye? African-American? Affirmed!

After Harry Reid's remarks about Barack Obama's favorable political utility were revealed, my brother told me that he'd heard a local conservative talk radio host predictably sputtering over the majority leader's comments, which served to illustrate leftist racism and hypocrisy. What Reid said of Obama:

[Reid] was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama --
a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.

After apologizing to the President, he hastily spread his contrition around:

An aide to the senator told CNN that Reid offered apologies to several prominent African-Americans, including House Democrats Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Barbara Lee of California; the Rev. Al Sharpton; CNN political contributor and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile; NAACP chairman Julian Bond; and the head of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Wade Henderson.

My reaction was similar to Ward Connerly's. The popular right does those who hold freedom of expression in the highest regard no favors by being leftist-lite in their hysterical seizures over such inconsequential remarks. The next Trent Lott episode has now been cued, and the stupid omertas that support the perpetual fear people have of saying the 'wrong thing' are strengthened instead of sustaining welcome cracks in their foundations. A little candidness is refreshing. Everything Reid said is at least plausible, and in my judgment objectively true.

While many whites pay scant attention to the social consequences of differences in black skin tone, it's salient in the black community. But even in popular culture, melanin matters. Caramel-colored black women tend to rise to the top (Beyonce, Rihanna). When the rare jet does so, it's often by way of association (Michelle Obama) or through sheer merit (the Williams' sisters). And there are reasons nearer the ground for why people tend to associate lighter skin with greater competence. The following table shows the estimated mean IQ (converted from wordsum scores, under the assumption that the average black IQ is 85 with a standard deviation of 15) for three subgroups of black respondents as assessed by interviewers in 1982:

Skin tone	IQ
Light	87.2
Medium	86.4
Dark	81.5

As listening to the radio makes clear, black vocal inflections are usually easily detectable. Obama's strong frame and emphatic delivery are obvious political assets. If his public presence was akin to Ron Paul's, he wouldn't be in the White House.

Finally, "negro" is an antiquated but not necessarily derogatory term to use in describing people of African descent. The US Census uses it alongside "black" and "African-American", as older blacks apparently prefer it to the newer labels.

My brother was incredulous about the last point. I explained to him that "negro" used to be favored over "black". I wasn't sure when the swapping of acceptability occured, but guessed it was sometime in the seventies. Fortunately, Agnostic's clever method of tapping the New York Times' archives to gauge the popular presence of ideas, people, and phrases over time offers the chance for greater precision.

The following graph shows the percentage of total articles containing the word "negroes", "blacks", and "African-Americans" by decade from 1851 to 1959, and then by individual year thereafter*. The blue line tracks "negroes", the black line "blacks", and the red line "African-Americans":


There was a spike during the 1860s as the US Civil War was fought. A century later, focus again shifted to blacks as a separate group of Americans, and stayed there up through most of the previous decade. It's difficult to tell whether or not the decline in reference to blacks as a group has settled around 1 of 100 articles, or if it will drop further still. The decrease in usage may be due to the increasing attention given to Hispanics, leading to the substitution of "blacks" or "African-American" with the broader "minorities".

"Negro" was clearly the word of choice until 1969, the year of the 'culmination' of the black civil rights movement and the year following MLK's assassination. By 1972, "negro"--viewed as having an ugly association with slavery--had essentially fallen out of the respectable media's lexicon, thoroughly replaced by "black". The 20 to 30 articles using the word from that time are mostly referencing historical quotes from books or people.

In the late eighties, Teddy Roosevelt's dreaded hyphenated Americanism was given semantic legitimacy. Up to that point, it had never been used to describe American-born blacks. I was in preschool at the time, and given how inchoate politically correct phraseology doesn't seem to benefit from the most meticulous of record-keeping, I am not sure of the impetus for the third-generation descriptor. Please enlighten in the comments if you are able to [Xenophon has kindly done just that]. It looks as though "African-American" will assume primacy over "black" in the next few years.

Reid was thirty when "negro" went over the precipice. He grew up using it just as I use "black" to describe people today. God forbid that, in my seventies, I momentarily forget an update to the most current version of newspeak and say something I would've innocently said as a young adult. I hate political correctness.

GSS variables used: COLOR(1-2)(3)(4-5), WORDSUM

* The plural form of each term is used to avoid the problem of "black" as an adjective describing the color of something (other than human skin!). It seemed too arbitrary and tedious to run a string of phrases like "black man", "black woman", "black student", etc. The important thing is that each descriptor is plural, so the comparisons are not apples-to-oranges. Also, I made sure "African-Americans" would catch "African Americans" as well. It does.

2009 NFL regular season wins and stats correlations

With the post-season underway, I thought I'd have a little fun running correlations between stats and wins for the 2009 NFL regular season. There are plenty of professionals at NBC, FOX, CBS, and ESPN (just to name the major broadcasters) who slice and dice this stuff for a living, and I'm not interested in trying to give them a run for their money by controlling for other variables, matching up output with active players for various games, and the like. Just the raw correlations for entire teams here:

Offense
Points scored	.88
Team passer rating	.81
Total yards gained per play	.81
Yards gained per pass play	.80
Total yards gained	.77
1st downs	.70
Turnover ratio	.69
Pass yards gained	.68
3rd down conversion %	.64
QB hits allowed	(.53)
Sacks allowed	(.53)
Time of possession	.46
4th down conversion %	.25*
Pass attempts	.14*
Run attempts	.12*
Yards gained per rush play	.09*
Offensive penalty yards	.04*
Run yards gained	.04*
Pass/run ratio	.02*
Defense
Points allowed	(.68)
Run yards allowed	(.58)
Passing yards allowed per pass play	(.57)
Total yards allowed	(.56)
Total yards allowed per play	(.54)
Opponent's passer rating	(.47)
1st downs allowed	(.45)
Sacks made	.41
Run yards allowed per play	(.33)
4th down conversions allowed	(.30)
Passing yards allowed	(.24)
3rd down conversion % allowed	(.23)*
Defensive penalty yards	.14*
Special Teams
Average kickoff (kicking team)	.32
Average net punt yards (kicking team)	.27*
Average kickoff return yards allowed	.15*
Total penalty yards committed	.11*
Average kickoff return yards gained	.05*
Field goal %	.03*

* not statistically significant at 90% confidence

Points scored is the best predictor of a team's win-loss record. That's hardly surprising, since it's almost like saying a team's number of wins is the best indication of its success. But when considered along with other statistics, it does indicate how good offense (and passing, specifically) has come to supercede in importance good defense in posting a winning record. Every year, though, Chris Collinsworth or Boomer Esiason will remark in the course of a playoff game how crucial a good defense is to move forward in post season, insinuating that it matters more then than it does during the regular season. The NFL's official site archives stats going all the way back to 1932 (in a limited capacity), offering a way to empirically test that assertion for someone interested enough in it to make the required time investment.

The passer rating system as a measurement of QB performance has its critics. It doesn't account for yards gained on the ground or its corollaries, scrambling ability and sacks taken. But it's almost as useful as points scored in predicting a team's record.

Most teams win with their passing games. Of the top ten rushing teams, only four are in the playoffs. And the two odds-on favorites to win the Super Bowl, San Diego and Indianapolis, are #31 and #32, respectively. In contrast, eight of the top ten offenses in terms of total passing yards made the post-season, and only one playoff team, the improbable Jets, can't move the ball through the air.

Although special teams are often accorded one-third of a team's total equation by media figures and putative insiders, the layman's tendency to deemphasize them in favor of offense and defense looks pretty reasonable. It is nearly impossible to predict a team's level of success by looking only at its special teams statistics.

A defense that is worn down by being run at throughout the course of the game fares worse than one that gives up a lot of total yards in the air, statistically speaking. But this is surely obscured by the fact that teams that are winning run while those playing from behind pass.

Turnovers are huge. Penalties are not. Fourth down attempts are too infrequent to be of great consequence in aggregate, but the ability to convert on third down is important. Again, though, better teams are going to have more third and short situations than the Rams or Lions are.

Smarties fear nuclear power less than dummies do

In the comments of the previous post, a reader asserts a common perception (or misperception, apparently) concerning green luddites:

I'm glad to learn that the (self-described) "smarties" are now in favor of all that nuclear stuff they used to decry. I wonder if Hallmark makes a "I was stupid 'cause I was smart--I'm sorry!" card.

With the popularity among "smarties" of Red & Green anti-vivisection, anti-science, and anti-technology the "Scientists often pry into things they ought to leave alone" should have elicited close to 90% not 5.1%.

The GSS asked a couple of questions concerning the potential dangers of nuclear power generation--one about those posed to a respondent's family, the other posed to the environment in general--in 1993 and again in 1994. Responses are on a 5-point scale that I've inverted for ease of viewing. A 1 indicates the belief that the perils of nuclear power are minimal, a 5 that nuclear power is extremely dangerous. Respondents are broken up into five categories; Really Smarts (wordsum score of 9-10, comprising 13% of the population), Pretty Smarts (7-8, 26%), Normals (6, 22%), Pretty Dumbs (4-5, 27%), and Really Dumbs (0-3, 12%). The average (mean) response for members of each group is shown. One standard deviation for the question regarding the respondent's family is 1.10 and 1.04 for the question pertaining to the environment in general:

Group	Family	Environment
Really Smarts	2.94	3.15
Pretty Smarts	3.12	3.32
Normals	3.38	3.51
Pretty Dumbs	3.48	3.63
Really Dumbs	3.68	3.82

The tendency is clear--the more intelligent a person is, the less likely he is to fear nuclear power. The notion that hostile sentiments toward nuclear power disproportionately come from (or at least previously came from) affluent SWPLs is incorrect. That the most vociferous opponents are high-IQ types claiming to represent many other high-IQ types of the same mind may still be accurate, as that seems to be the case for protest movements in general (in addition to being sharp, it is my impression that they also tend to be underachieving leftists with little social prestige). But in aggregate, smarties are more technologically progressive than the masses are.

GSS variables used: WORDSUM(0-3)(4-5)(6)(7-8)(9-10), NUKEFAM, NUKEGEN

Clever sillies indeed, at least when it comes to HBD

++Addition++Steve Sailer makes note, calling out the inclusion of the question on astronomy out (and rightly so, as in reviewing the items chosen, it appears the least obviously commonsensical of the entire field) and waxing on the relationship between vocabulary and intelligence more generally.

---

Bruce G. Charlton, academic and editor in chief of the journal Medical Hypotheses, has previously described the perceived tendency for people of high intelligence to lack common sense, a consequence of ignoring instinctive reactions ("gut feelings" in the vernacular):

My suggested explanation for this association between intelligence and personality is that an increasing relative level of IQ brings with it a tendency differentially to over-use general intelligence in problem-solving, and to over-ride those instinctive and spontaneous forms of evolved behaviour which could be termed common sense.

Bruce suggested I take a look at the GSS to see to what extent it confirms or repudiates his assessment. To avoid the problem of cherry-picking, he thought it prudent to have someone other than himself peruse the data.

I scoured the entire library (in the process propitiously stumbling on some other interesting variables I had previously been ignorant of!) to assemble what is laid out below. Naturally, there is some level of arbitrariness in what is included and what is not. To minimize this, I cast a wide net to include those for which 'common sense' provides an obvious answer. Also, I did not break out responses by wordsum scores until after I'd settled on the questions to be included to avoid subconsciously favoring one item or another.

Items that solicit opinions without inquiring about consequences were passed over in favor of those dealing with predictable outcomes. That is, I'm less interested in whether or not a person favors governmentally enforced affirmative action, for which plausibly commensensical arguments can be made on both sides (the benefit to upper-echelon NAMs outweighs the harm done to middling and lower-end ice people or it doesn't), than I am in whether or not whites, specifically, are hurt by affirmative action. Obviously giving preferential treatment to a black job applicant hurts a more qualified white applicant who is passed over because of his ancestry.

Several potentially informative items are dead because they are not cross-referenced with wordsum scores. To avoid confounding factors, only white responses are included.

The items are separated into three categories; those for which the high IQ (smarties) people show more common sense than everybody else (the masses) does, those for which smarties and the masses demonstrate equal levels of common sense, and those for which the masses are more commonsensical than the smarties are. The percentages show in what proportions members of each group answered in affirmation of the question or agreed with the statement being made.

Smarties include only the sliver of the respondent pool scoring a perfect 10 of 10 on the wordsum test, equivalent to an IQ floor approaching 130 if the average white score is assumed to represent an IQ of 100 with a standard deviation of 15. They comprise about 5% of the population. The masses (wordsum scores of 0-9) includes everybody else.

Items for which smarties display more common sense than the masses do	Smarties	Masses
People must live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself.	27.9%	44.7%
Favor allowing women who are poor and cannot afford any children to have abortions if they want to do so.	64.7%	47.0%
Homosexual attraction is a conscious choice.	16.9%	49.2%
Are there situations in which it is okay for a man to punch another man?	82.9%	67.2%
Is it ever okay for a policeman to strike a citizen?	89.7%	77.1%
It is a civic obligation to report a crime if you witness it.	96.0%	91.8%
Scientists often pry into things they ought to leave alone*.	5.1%	29.3%
Morality is a personal matter and society should not try to force everyone to maintain the same moral standards.	66.7%	74.9%
Genes are important in determining whether or not a person's life turns out poorly or turns out well.	49.4%	36.2%
There is no sense in planning for the future. If things are to happen, they will happen.	11.7%	40.6%
Astrology is not scientific.	84.6%	71.3%
Refuse to eat genetically modified food.	19.6%	31.2%
It should be illegal to carry a firearm while intoxicated.	98.9%	91.6%
A single parent is able to raise a child as well as a couple can.	29.0%	34.8%
Modern science does more good than harm.	70.9%	62.9%
Animal testing is okay if it might result in human lives being saved.	70.0%	62.4%
Items for which smarties and the masses dispaly equal levels of common sense	Smarties	Masses
Favor busing black and white children from one district to another**.	24.0%	22.8%
Allow incurable patients to die if the patient and family support doing so.	70.1%	71.4%
It's okay for a man to hit someone who has broken into his house.	84.9%	85.1%
Political organizations based on race and/or ethnicity make it more difficult for everyone to get along with one another.	70.6%	72.6%
Items for which the masses display more common sense than the smarties do	Smarties	Masses
Average difference between the intelligence of whites and of blacks, measured in standard deviations.	0.20	0.53
Genes play a major role in determining personality.	20.7%	24.8%
Things for blacks in the US have improved over time.	51.1%	64.5%
It is better for a man to work and a woman to take care of home.	24.0%	36.9%
Blacks do worse in life because of their innate inability to learn as much as whites.	4.2%	12.9%
There should be more women in the US military than there currently are.	56.2%	33.6%
Women should be assigned to military roles where hand-to-hand combat is likely.	39.3%	34.8%
Poor schools are an important reason why there are poor people in the US.	81.8%	72.5%
Whites are hurt by affirmative action policies that favor blacks.	52.7%	71.6%
It is a shame that traditional American literature is ignored while other literature is promoted because it is written by women or minorities.	57.4%	70.7%
Increased immigration makes it more difficult to keep the US united.	45.6%	74.4%
Biological differences between men and women are important in explaining why women are more likely to take care of children than men are.	42.4%	57.4%
Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunities for future generations.	86.5%	92.0%

I don't gather from this that intelligence is a handicap when it comes to arriving at commonsensical conclusions about most things. The assertion that intelligence either lacks significant correlation with or correlates positively with nearly all desirable outcomes and behaviors seems to hold up here (though there are a couple of exceptions, including the question on genes and personality and also the question about future opportunities provided by advances in science and technology). With the glaring exception of HBD-related issues, smarties display more common sense in their thinking than the masses do.

However, when it comes to accurately assessing differences in human subgroups--or even acknowledging that they exist--society's brightest squelch common sense in the name of politically correct moral posturing. Virtually every question for which the masses are more grounded in reality than the smarties are involves race or gender. The epicycles constructed and maintained by smarties are demonstrably if one simply believes his own lying eyes.

The explanations for why this occurs are surely familiar to most readers. My favored working explanation is that smart whites compete primarily against other whites (and Asians). NAMs are abstract pawns used in a moral posturing game played against other whites. Ilkka puts a clever spin on it:

Liberalism is status signaling that demonstrates that you are immune to the
societal consequences of liberalism.

And Steve Sailer states it in no uncertain terms:

Political correctness makes people stupid.

To the extent, if any, that this challenges Bruce's assertion^, it strikes me as encouraging. Rather than being maladaptive in facing the mundania of life, ceteris paribus, intelligence improves one's quality of life and his ability to comprehend the world around him.

GSS variables used: RACE(1), WORDSUM(0-9)(10), GENEEXPS, BUSING, BLKSIMP, ANOMIA4, ABPOOR, HOMOCHNG, LETDIE1, HITOK, HITROBBR, POLHITOK, FEFAM, RACDIF2, FENUMOK, FIGHTLND, OB911, SCIPRY, PERMORAL, WHYPOOR1, INTLWHTS, INTLBLKS, DISCAFF, LFEGENES, PCLIT, ETHORGS, IMMUNITE, FEKIDS1, NOPLAN, NEXTGEN, ASTROSCI, EATGM, GUNSDRINK, SINGLPAR, HARMGOOD, ANTESTS

* (I hear Ned Flanders exclaiming, "Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins the movie by telling you how it ends. Well, I say there are some things we don't want to know!")

** Even though this solicits a personal opinion, it strikes me as being so disruptive to society to merit being deemed as an opinion lacking in common sense entirely.

^ Again, the criteria for selected GSS items, beyond adequate sample size and cross-referenced data on wordsum scores, was arbitrarily selected and is consequently open to crticism for not adequately finding proxies for common sense. Also, the reasonable responses to some of the questions seem as though they should be obvious to a thinking person of even modest intellect, but do not involve what would generally be deemed commonsensical in popular parlance, the question on astrology serving as an example.

Like most international terrorists, Mutallab and Hassan were well off

Umar Mutallab and Nidal Hassan, the underwear bomber and Ft. Hood shooter, respectively, are two more recent, highly visible affirmations of former CIA officer Marc Sageman's finding that rather than coming from the dregs of society, international terrorists tend to be more educated and affluent than is most of the population in the countries they come from:

Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to brainwashing - the sociopath, the criminals, the religious fanatic, or, in this country, some believe they’re just plain evil.

Taking these perceived root causes in turn, three quarters of my sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority—90 percent—came from caring, intact families. Sixty-three percent had gone to college, as compared with the 5-6 percent that’s usual for the third world. These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways.

Mutallab's father is a former bank executive and one of the richest men in Africa (though his father is not a villain--he warned the CIA that his son had cut off communication with him and was a potential threat). Mutallab was in college on his dad's dime. Hassan is a second-generation Palestinian who grew up in a Virginian middle class household where his parents owned a restaurant. These guys are not mired in destitute poverty, adopting 'extremist' views due to a lack of prospects for the future. Their comfortable lives are not exceptions to the rule--they are the rule.

Sageman also found that most (73%) were married, although Randall Parker and Dennis Mangan, among others, showcase compelling arguments that sexual frustration may play some role as well:

In Israel we have much experience with Arab suicide bombers and violent street mobs. One of the most effective remedies to the Intifada suicide attacks was to limit work permits in Israel to Palestinians over 40 and married. (That was improved upon by building a fence around Israel, which completely stopped that phenomenon). We cannot stop them coming to pray in the Jerusalem Al Aqsa Mosque, and every Friday prayer used to end in bloody confrontations with the police.

So now, when the Arab street gets excited, Israel allows the entrance of only people over 40 and married. About 50% of the Palestinian girls are married by the age of 18, while men usually have to build their house to marry, which is around 30. Marriage is generally an exchange = you have to supply your sister in esxchange for a bride. That's why "honour killings" are so common - if the sister does not agree, she "brings shame on the family" and the brother cannot marry. Whores are killed by the "morality police". The consequence is that sexual perversion (goats?) and murderous acts of running amok are quite common in the Arab society, but who cares? They are never reported not here nor in the USA which is OK. I am sure if Major Hassan had been married he would have reacted with less violence.

An assessment similar to the the one done by Sageman based on more recent terrorist profiles would surely be informative.

Parenthetically, the contemporary stigma surrounding men who are sexually frustrated is such that serious discourse on the subject rarely takes place. It is almost inconceivable in contemporary Western society that a well-off, healthy guy with a moderately prestigious occupation whose agoraphobic social awkwardness has left him sexually frustrated could be seen as more deserving of sympathetic pity than a chronically unemployed, uneducated cad who's been in and out of jail. The former is a loser deserving of ridicule while the latter is to be coddled and cared about, despite the fact that the burgher who can't get laid does a lot more good for society than the prolish thug who can't hold a job does. Yet for most people sexual fulfillment is one of the three most important elements (health and wealth being the other two) necessary for realizing contented happiness.

Andre Chapple has black hair and brown eyes

In the local pages of the Kansas City Star a couple weeks ago, this description of a murder suspect caught my eye:

Authorities issued a $500,000 warrant for [Andre S.] Chapple, 32. He is about 5 feet, 11 inches tall and 230 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.

The murder took place in KCK and it was, uh, murder, so chances are Andre is black. It's conceivable, though, that he is 'Latino' or even white.

A homicidal man is on the loose and the authorities are aware of a crucial aspect of his appearance (there is no way his eye and hair color could be known while his skin color remains a mystery) but are sitting on it to avoid the appearance of confirming an 'ugly' stereotype. The truth gets little consideration. As Bill Lind put it so well, political correctness is not a joke. It's deadly serious.

I am not aware of whether or not this is the standard practice of newspapers today as I rarely look at local street crime cases. Even if it is not, however, this is inexcusable.

TUJ parses fertility data and makes remarkable discovery

Writing for OneSTDV's blog, The Undiscovered Jew takes a look at fertility rates by age range and finds that from the age of 30 onward, IQ and white fertility correlate positively at the state level. That is, the smarter the state, the more fecund its 30+ population. The conclusion TUJ arrives at from this is that efforts to extend the span of viable female reproductive capacity using artificial reproductive technologies are the answer to below-replacement white fertility. Aubrey de Grey's drive to retard (and ultimately reverse) the aging process promises to carry eugenic consequences with it.

In the comments, Richard Hoste points to the same concern Francis Galton had 150 years ago; if one group breeds earlier than another group does, even if the total fertility rate of each group is identical, the early-breeding first group will outnumber the late-breeders of the second group.

A simple thought experiment demonstrates this. If hobbit couples have two children at age 20 and elf couples have two children at age 40, their TFRs (2.0) are identical. However, after 80 years, there are ten hobbits but only six elves. At age 20 (year 20), the first generation of hobbits have two kids. Twenty years later (year 40), their second generation offspring have two kids of their own, just as the first generation of elves are finally having their children. So after 40 years, we have two 40 year-old hobbits, two 20 year-old hobbits, and two newborn hobbits, to just two 40 year-old elves and two newborn elves.

But total population share and realizing replacement fertility are two separate (albeit related) issues. TUJ shows that if the fertility of white women in their late thirties doubled and fertility of white women in the early forties increased eightfold, without any other change in the fertility rates of white women under the age of 35, total white fertility would be above replacement. Although the white population would not grow as fast as the Hispanic population, the absolute number of whites would accrete over time. The formidable problem of an inverted age pyramid already facing Russia and Japan, with Western Europe not far behind, would thus be averted.

The desire for well-adjusted, industrious young people to get to work making babies instead of spending their twenties and thirties obtaining academic and then professional success may be hopelessly quixotic. A la Idiocracy, it's not going to happen on a largescale among those of European descent. For those concerned about the sustainability of white populations, extending female reproductive spans and getting the aging clock to tick in a counterclockwise direction are two of the most potentially fruitful strategies available.

Burden of boredom borne by blockheads

Razib has previously wondered whether or not GNXP readers ever become bored:

Do readers of this weblog ever get bored? It seems that life is short, and there's so much to do and read. I understand that work can quite often be tedious and mind-numbing, but that's not quite what I'm talking about. What I'm referring to is having leisure or free time, and being bored because you don't know what to do with it.

The post struck me as a reminder of how different the relationship with time is for those with an insatiable need for cognition compared to those who are intellectually incurious. For the former, it's in perpetually short supply. For the latter, time often cannot pass by quickly enough. In the words of Roman general and Hannibal nightmare Scipio Africanus:

I'm never less at leisure than when at leisure...

I cannot recall the last time I've been in boredom. I always keep at least one book in the car and have my iPod in pocket at all times. Just getting to work on my backlog of books to read and podcasts to listen to guarantees I won't be twiddling my thumbs for months, and even if I did nothing else with my free time but these two things, I've reached a sort of singularity in which my to-do stack grows at a faster rate than my ability to shrink it down does. Yet I get texts and calls frequently enough from people I know asking what I'm doing at the moment, and if I want to go do something with them because they're bored sitting at home. I would never be the originator of such a text. Even if it's with a vivacious girl in her late teens, I can't imagine going somewhere without having already formulated a desirable plan about what I'm going to be doing.

I am quite confident in asserting that the same is true for the vast majority of readers, who are both intelligent and curious (the two are not synonymous, of course, but they are good proxies for one another). Most high IQ people always have something stimulating to engage in with their free time.

This isn't just me speaking from personal experience--the data confirm it. The GSS asked respondents in 1982 and again in 2004 how often they have time on their hands that they don't know what to do with. Using the familiar categorization method employed here before*, the following table shows the percentage of each group's members who reported to "almost never" be without something worthwhile to do in their free time:

Unboreable	%
Really Smarts	69.6
Pretty Smarts	52.8
Normals	39.9
Pretty Dumbs	39.2
Really Dumbs	33.7

So much to do, so little time to do it. Now when are we ever going to get around to reproducing?

GSS variables used: WORDSUM(0-3)(4-5)(6)(7-8)(9-10), BORED

* Really Smarts (wordsum score of 9-10, comprising 13% of the population), Pretty Smarts (7-8, 26%), Normals (6, 22%), Pretty Dumbs (4-5, 27%), and Really Dumbs (0-3, 12%).

Quip of the day

I didn't quite time things right on Christmas eve, so when I came up from downstairs after working out, a few extended family members were already at the parents' house. I was in grey boxer briefs and a beater, so my arse was noticeably wet. My least favorite cousin--a shrill leftist in her early thirties who's back in school on the east coast (on my uncle's dime) for disparate degree number three, this one in elementary education, who proceeded later to share how while student teaching she'd elected to have her kids make "winter holiday" posters instead of Christmas ones as suggested in the teacher's lesson plan--cried out from the living room, "Ew, that's disgusting," as I flew up the second flight of stairs otherwise unnoticed.

She's a plump one, and time isn't making things any better. So I stopped, turned, and shot back "Some people call it disgusting. Others would say not doing it is what's disgusting."

Jund aggro-control, RDW, and 'Shroud Control'

The following post contains a discussion of the decks I'm working with in current competitive M:TG standard format. For the vast majority of readers it will consequently be of no interest, so if you are among them, don't waste your time. Maybe I should publish these niche posts at a different blogging location, but that would mean at minimum several weeks without a readership to speak of. It's taken time to earn the attention of those eyeballs, and I'll be damned if I'm going to squander rather than utilize my modest reach! Just forgo this post and forgive its author if you're not a fellow (or former?) planeswalker*.

For those still with me, I'm soliciting thoughts, critiques, and suggestions regarding the three deck types I'm currently tinkering with. I implore you to share them.

My top tourney deck is jund aggro, although I classify it as aggro-control because relative to the jund of the global meta, it puts heavy emphasis on the latter.

Jund Aggro-Control

Creatures (17)

4x Bloodbraid Elf
4x Sprouting Thrinax
4x River Boa
3x Broodmate Dragon
2x Garruk Wildspeaker

Spells (18)

4x Blightning
4x Jund Charm
4x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Bituminous Blast
3x Terminate

Land (25)

4x Rootbound Crag
4x Dragonskull Summit
4x Savage Lands
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
2x Forest
2x Swamp
2x Mountain

Side

3x Duress
3x Goblin Ruinblaster
3x Goblin Outlander
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Pyroclasm
1x Bituminous Blast
1x Terminate

River Boa is obviously less aggressive than Putrid Leech, the jund standard. I like boa better for a few reasons: 1) It's an more assured second turn drop than leech is. Jund's mana base is a wreck, as jund players who've played Spread 'Em have inevitably find out firsthand. Mountain, Rootbound Crag, and Oran-Rief to open doesn't feel as bad with boa as it does with leech. 2) Even late game, boa's valuable as a chump. Paths, terminates, and O-rings are the only ways it goes. The key to cascading is ensuring that whatever pocket the ball lands in, you're better off. leech is better than a rampant growth, but thrinax always feels better than leech. With boa, by contrast, I'm often more pleased than I would've been with thrinax. 3) I started out using leech, but became perpetually frustrated by removal on the stack after I pumped, especially in the mirror match. Take two and lose my 2-drop for a bolt? Awful.

States are still packed with leeches, while some are foregoing the 2-drop creature entirely, in favor of siege gang, so this contrarian is yet to be vindicated. The latter is usually accompanied by mana acceleration via rampant growth. That version of jund has the upperhand in mirror, but it's extremely vulnerable to RDW (see below), which is why I'm not keen on it.

An even more significant variation on my part is in electing to include charm maindeck at the expense of bolt, which I relegate to side in a diminished capacity. To play red and not use bolt is almost sacreligious, but so long as I have the mana for it, I'm almost always happier to see charm than I am to see bolt. Part of this is due to my local meta. Tokens (Conqueror's Pledge, Emeria Angel, Siege-Gang Commander) have an enormous presence, and jund charm is a crucial answer to them. In response to your dropping eldrazi, I'll jund charm. Eldrazi has a one turn clock and you're tapped out. Pwned! Cascading into a charm instead of a bolt also often means a +2/+2 pump on one of my creatures instead of throwing (away) 3 damage at his face.

Duress is a recent addition to the board for Mind Sludge, which wrecked me three games (first round) in a recent tournament. I got hit with it each game on his turn 5 (he won the roll, and also game 1 and 3)--twice my turn 4--for my entire hand. Jund wins on 2-for-1s and card advantage. Five for one in his favor is not how that is accomplished.

Outlander is for Green/White beast decks that are currently king in my meta. Yes, they are even getting the better of jund most of the time. I've not seen this deck with much of a presence yet in states, but I imagine that it's only a matter of time. It uses Noble Hierarch and Lotus Cobra for acceleration into Emeria, Knight of the Reliquary, Baneslayer, and Dauntless Escort (a stupidly overpowered card), as well as Thornling after game 1. Since it's only removal is path, slapping a jund charm on outlander presents a serious threat.

Pyroclasm is extra ammo for the token decks. It was tough to drop Great Sable Stag, but vampires look to be dead, and almost all the jund in my meta has dropped leech and most have added siege gang, so stag's gone from being game-changing to simply being good in the mirror match.

After the Zendikar pre-release, I got the bug. I'd been clean for six years, but a few old friends convinced me to go. A few weeks and one weekend of extensive Magic playing with several old friends back from all over the country later and 4x of the full common and uncommon library of each of the five current sets was on its way. I've still only played jund in tournaments, but the meta is so saturated with jund hate that I'm going to be mixing it up soon.

Red Deck Wins

Creatures (20)

4x Raging Goblin
4x Plated Geopede
4x Ball Lightning
4x Hellspark Elemental
4x Hell's Thunder

Spells (16)

4x Lightning Bolt
4x Burst Lightning
4x Quenchable Fire
4x Earthquake

Land (24)

12x Mountain
4x Teetering Peaks
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Arid Mesa

Side

4x Swerve
3x Unstable Footing
3x Dragon's Claw
3x Volanic Fallout
2x Banefire

I built this thing independent of any knowledge of it existing as a top-tier deck. One of the two differences I opted for is the use of raging goblin instead of the more favored Goblin Guide. I play the dek in a very disciplined manner--direct damage is to be reserved for players, not creatures, except for in the most exceptional circumstances. Creature drops first. Ball lightning before Hell's Thunder and geopede before hellspark because of unearth in the face of blightning. The staying creatures, especially the 1-drop goblin (whether raging or guide) becomes a chump blocker after two or three turns. I'm not sold on giving a 1 or 2 card advantage for a couple extra points of damage. I'm potent enough mid-game to still threaten if his life total is in the single-digits.

The other variance with the standard RDW is in using quenchable fire instead of elemental appeal. Wizards is currently giving blue the middle finger. It is the color with the least presence in the current environment, to such an extent that I'm comfortable running quenchable fire maindeck. Elemental appeal doesn't drop until turn 4, at which point it's an easy target for removal. Plus, I want to be throwing direct damage rather than creatures from turn 4 onward (it's not unusual to win on turn 6 or 7). In friendly games, I get jund 2-to-1 pre-board, but I haven't had much exposure with it against other decks.

Unstable footing and banefire are both for mill. Although I've not play-tested against it yet, on paper it's a tough match for me. If those aren't enough, I'll find room for Lich's Mirror.

Swerves are for spread 'em. I can't wait for the first time I get to throw that down in tournament play!

Dragon's claw is for mirror.

The third of my ongoing projects is by far my favorite. It's an AE original (it's nonexistence in competitive play should probably be taken as an indication that it is not a top-tier deck, but nothing is until someone introduces it, right?) with a cute name. What's not to like? As a Type I player (now "vintage"), my home has always been mono-blue control. Ever since coming upon the Wall of Air/Prodigal Sorcerer 'combo' back in the halcyon days of Fourth Edition's reign (I've since grown to Power Ten/Morphling, but we all have to start somewhere), my heart has yearned for islands. Unfortunately, mono-blue simply is not a viable option in the current standard environment because of the pitiable state of counterspells.

Shroud Control

Creatures (11)

4x Deft Duelist
4x Wall of Denial
3x Sphinx of Jwar Isle

Spells (24)

4x Flashfreeze
4x Oblivion Ring
3x Path to Exile
3x Negate
3x Hindering Light
3x Mind Control
2x Day of Judgment
2x Mind Spring

Land (25)

8x Island
5x Plains
4x Fieldmist Borderpost
4x Sejiri Refuge
4x Glacial Fortress

Side

3x Quest for Ancient Secrets
3x Celestial Purge
3x Baneslayer Angel
2x Luminarch Ascension
2x Devout Lightcaster
1x Negate
1x Day of Judgment

Because it renders terminate and bit blast dead cards while severely lessening the utility of pulse and bolt, this gets jund 2-to-1 in game 1. Deft duelist rapes bloodbraid, and wall of denial throws jund into slow motion. Hindering light is an amazing answer to blightning, turning a 1 card disadvantage plus 3 damage into a 1 card advantage without any loss of life. It also works to protect O-ring and mind control against the pulses jund is waiting for a target to throw at (flashfreeze and negate both work as well, without card advantage but with greater general utility). Sphinx can't be killed by anything in the entire deck save for a broodmate together with its, uh, broodmate.

Flashfreeze is dead against vamps and white weenie, neither of which have much of a presence in my meta (and deft duelist is amazing against both of them). But it's utility is huge against 80% or so of what's being run out there. It's a risk I'm comfortable taking.

Why baneslayer in board? To catch jund with its pants down game 2. Let him side out all his removal only to find I've brought a more potent (but removable) creature to pinch-hit for sphinx. Additionally, it's helpful against the green/white token matchup, which will be a tough one for me.

The quests are for mill. My kill is slow, but they allow it to still beat the mill clock, and at 1 cost, I have the counterspells to protect it even on the turn it is dropped (which is not turn 1 unless I happen to have two in hand).

* Using jargon associated with a nerdy activity in a public, generalist setting definitely marks one as a nerd, I know.

Peter's notations on nerdiness reviewed

Half Sigma has previously discussed blogger Peter's working theory on how some activities invariably come to be classified as nerdy while others do not. Concisely put, non-athletic activities not traditionally regarded as masculine that are primarily participated in by men are nerdy.

That strikes me as a pretty good description, but as I'll get to below, there is an element Half Sigma and Peter leave out. Athletic and non-athletic activities need to be looked at separately, because the sex ratio effects them in different ways. The more male-dominated an athletic activity is, the less nerdy it is. American football is among the least (if not the very least) nerdy sport in existence. Female participation in the game is accordingly paltry. This is in some contrast to baseball, a relatively nerdier sport with a significant amount of female participation in the form of softball. Tennis, a sport in which female competitions garner something close to as much media attention as male competitions do, is nerdier still. Again, this nerdiness is relative to other athletic activities--by virtue of gauging some combination of dexterity, strength, physical endurance, and kinesthetic coordination (often referred to as "athleticism" in aggregate), athletic activities are virtually all non-nerdy.

In contrast, the greater the female participation in non-athletic activities is, the lower the level of perceived nerdiness among those partaking. Activities primarily participated in by women, like interior decorating, are not considered nerdy. If a man happens to take interest in them, he is often suspected of being gay or at least effete, but not nerdy. Nerdiness is the male's domain. To the extent that women can be nerds, it is in being exceptions to the rule and participating in male-dominated nerdy activities.

Where Peter is a bit off the mark is in focusing on the level of masculinity (in the sense of majority-male participation, not necessarily the amount of virility required) traditionally associated with an activity. As Half Sigma points out, if time is what's required to move a male-dominated non-athletic activity from the nerdy category into non-nerdiness, we've had to wait a long time for chess to come around, and I still don't see the train coming into the station.

A more useful parameter for gauging nerdiness among male-dominated activities is to consider the intelligence threshold required of participants engaging in them. After all, the commonly understood definition* of a nerd is "an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit".

Chess is nerdier than checkers is because it requires greater intelligence to fully comprehend the elements of the game than checkers does. IT guys are similarly nerdier than auto mechanics are. The same goes for classical music votaries in relation to those who like rap. That is not to say that intelligence is unhelpful in becoming a champion checkers player, a top-tier car mechanic, or a hip hop connoisseur, but the participant pool of these activities extends further into the left half of the bell curve than it does for chess players, ITers, and classical fans. By way of being brainiacs, those who participate in nerdy activities engage in and discuss it with other brainiacs. Because they're all cerebral types, the level of discourse is such that average folks are unable to follow what the participants are talking about and consequently are also unable to see how it could be enjoyable and fulfilling from a 'normal' person's perspective (that is, their own).

That brings me to my own recently rekindled nerdy passion, Magic: The Gathering. Stripped of its Tolkienesque themes (with several historical references thrown in, many of them delightfully politically incorrect), which are completely irrelevant to actual gameplay, Magic is a competitive card game. It is to poker what chess is to checkers, except the gap is an order of magnitude wider than it is between the two board games. As the official rulebook demonstrates, the game's complexity is intimidating (and also rewarding). Most people can learn to play Texas Hold 'Em in a matter of minutes. Magic, in contrast, takes a few hours just to get the basics, and many people are going to be lost if attempting to go beyond that. A hold'em conversation is consequently comprehendible to most people, while overhearing a Magic conversation is like eavesdropping on a couple of klingons. With the essential aspects of a nerdy activity in place--male-dominated, non-athletic, high IQ threshold--Magic is quintessentially nerdy.

* Like the words "peruse", "terrific", and "awful", "nerd" is often used in a manner at odds with its primary literal meaning, which describes a foolish, inept, and unattractive person.