EPTMy latest trouble - Page 2
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reincremate
China2216 Posts
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Anc13nt
1557 Posts
On May 28 2020 15:34 reincremate wrote: Where's all this data about Chinese IQs in the 70s? i doubt there is very much data at all about the topic in general, let alone the 70s I don't know the date of the study he is talking about but my point stands as long as the study is during/after the 70s. | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
If the average "intelligence" in China is so high, why does no one in the country know how to stand on an escalator? (proof: come to China and see for yourself). While we're making sweeping generalizations here, I'd venture to say scoring higher on things like IQ tests is pretty much unavoidable when parents and teachers literally beat students into academic submission from a young age into adulthood. China and countries in its sphere of cultural influence have a long, well-documented history of valuing standardized test scores (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination), so it's not surprising if aggregately Chinese people and other Asians still score higher on standardized tests, "western" or not. Is IQ a meaningful measurement? Probably not. If so, please explain how. Otherwise, I don't see why you'd even bother to bring it up." You know the answer as well as I, but for everyone else : back when I was growing up in China, public electricity did not exist. Chinese people had to learn how to do everything anew. China has an aging population. I was born under the one-child-policy. When that was recently lifted, China's birth rates did not increase. It is still stuck at below replacement levels. Soon India will have the largest population in the world. This is a general trend among all confucian cultures with the low birth rates. I did not say that IQ scores meant anything. I said that positively, there was some piece of the picture that the tests are missing. What it is cannot be quantified. Some western academics have posited that IQ was as close to a relevant measure of what it is supposed to measure as compared to any other quantifiable measure that we have. I am thinking of the US army prohibiting anyone with an IQ of less than 83 from joining the army, determining that there was absolutely nothing that you could do for the army at that IQ. " This is like the pseudo-intellectual equivalent of "do you even lift bro?"" Okay. You were the one who was asking the question. You brought the question of my "education" up. So your comments are directed towards yourself. | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
On May 28 2020 13:35 Anc13nt wrote: One significant cause of iq differences come from defects, exposure to toxins and nutritional deficiencies acquired from birth or in the early years of development. That explains why the average IQ in a lot of poor countries is pretty low. I would imagine that infant mortality is a good proxy for how unfavourable the conditions are for infants in a certain country so I am basing my subsequent analysis on this (there are probably better ways to measure this but this one seemed easy to use). I'm guessing you are mainly referring to sub-saharan african countries for your last statement. I think the disparity in average iq may be somewhat explained by worser living conditions for infants. Sub-saharan african countries have very high infant mortality rates (overall, almost 50 per 1000 births) and has had much higher infant mortality rates than China for many years. There was a time when China was basically close to as poor as sub-saharan African countries but the government was able to provide healthcare to much of the rural population through the rural co-operative medical scheme, which greatly reduced infant mortality and increased life expectancy by a lot (this is probably one of the few good things that I think Mao Zedong did) during the 70s. My hunch is that sub-saharan african countries probably were behind the curve compared to China when it came to providing state-funded healthcare. So I think the difference in iqs between poor countries might be partially attributable to quality of healthcare but this is my speculation (yes I am aware of the lack of rigor in my argument). The question of the longevity of cultural traditions is another point to be considered. Even today, Chinese people have a different diet from Europeans. I do not know the factors that go into the fact that every European country is on average, overweight, whereas in East Asia people remain thin. I have also considered the question of whether oil is not a kind of poison for the Middle East. An Iranian recently told me on voice chat that in Iran, if you own a bicycle, you are an instant celebrity. That region of the world also rates the highest on the least daily exercise done per person. Very high on obesity. Everyone in that region of the world owns a car. In the China that I was born into, nobody owned a car. Everyone had a bicycle. Now of course there are many private cars in China, but habits are habits. China is not getting any younger. I do not know enough about the customary Middle Eastern or Indian diet to comment there. I have been to many Indian restaurants, but in my experience, all the Chinese food that they sell in Europe is fake. Maybe also for the Indians? Living in Germany, of course I have had my share of Turkish food... or what the Germans call fast food. They are certainly quick. I do not know about their health content, but they do not seem too fattening to me. Yet for some reason, the Middle East has the fattest countries in the world. I see that the countries that have the lowest infant mortality rates are in East Asia and Europe. There are numerous possible explanations for this, but let us take your example of better health care. I only know two of these cultures myself. I know that there are fundamental differences between the way that these two cultures regard children. I do not know the details, but I assume in India they also have their ethical "means" with children. The only thing I can think of right now is the so-called Only Child Syndrome. Europe and East Asia have child-bearing rates of below replacement. The opposite phenomenon is so of the Middle East and Africa. Does having more children mean that their lives are cheaper, so you care about each individual child less? I do not know. If you are born an Arab, does it mean your parents care less about you than if you were born Japanese? Fundamentally, cultural differences also become a factor with the way children were given the best possible healthcare and education that a country could offer. The Chinese had this kind of mentality. They exported it even upon emigration. There are many ways, as the previous poster said, in which children in that region of the world are raised which are not models for the west at all. Child abuse was rampant. I myself grew up under conditions in Canada which would have been outright illegal in local law. I never complained. I just took the beatings. That just brings into question the wisdom of importing so many immigrants with fundamentally different cultural values. They may fight, but the law of that country is always in the dark. They may never see eye to eye on anything but one thing: the legal system of their host country is phoney. They call Asians some kind of "model immigrants" in North America. There is more going on behind the scenes than is ever made public. The law is simply never brought in, so Asian-Americans have very low crime rates, etc. I do not know about the quality of healthcare, but I can say that I have seen the huge gap between how parents treat children... in China vs. the west. In China, police will leave families alone. In the west, if your teacher sees bruises on you and thinks that you have been abused, she will call in the police. In China, there was a kind of Patria potestas. Very sexist, the father had absolute authority over the family, up to and including abusing the mother. Feminism is not really a thing in that part of the world. And neither is the idea of democracy, on any level. In the west, everyone in the family has a say. In China, they do not. That authoritarianism is so pervasive in the mindset of those people, that I am sure it is also so of the "democratic" countries of Japan and South Korea. Power is democratic, thanks to the American occupation, but not the basic mindset of those countries. | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
I noticed that a previous poster from China said something where he thought he was trashing me, but really he was arguing against himself. I have also noticed plenty of this phenomenon in my own family. No matter their nationality. My mother abused me. Even when I had grown stronger than her. One day I got tired of her always throwing the punches, so I hit back. My mother stopped and screamed: you hit me! Just like your abusive father!!! She completely ignored the fact that she started it. Call it hypocrisy, but Asians cannot seem to understand the simple point that : if you don't want something done to you, do not start it yourself with others. If you start using their weapons, they will no longer fight by their own old rules, but switch weapons,whether committing to a war of words or whatever. It brings to me that concept of the word "fair." You cannot exactly translate that word from English into any other language. So the very idea began in England, the concept of fairness. Whether other cultures live by its meaning is interesting. Obviously most of northern Europe speaks English anyway, so they will understand the concept. What about other cultures, like in China, Arabia, Russia, etc? I myself have seen enough hypocrisy among Chinese people, even immigrants to believe that they do not live by the concept of fairness. I believe that is true of other cultures too, especially those with legendarily bad English. If no language you speak has a word for the idea, how can you even understand the idea? You cannot. | ||
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Anc13nt
1557 Posts
On May 28 2020 23:55 MoltkeWarding wrote: While I am waiting to resolve another issue of mine... I noticed that a previous poster from China said something where he thought he was trashing me, but really he was arguing against himself. I have also noticed plenty of this phenomenon in my own family. No matter their nationality. My mother abused me. Even when I had grown stronger than her. One day I got tired of her always throwing the punches, so I hit back. My mother stopped and screamed: you hit me! Just like your abusive father!!! She completely ignored the fact that she started it. Call it hypocrisy, but Asians cannot seem to understand the simple point that : if you don't want something done to you, do not start it yourself with others. If you start using their weapons, they will no longer fight by their own old rules, but switch weapons,whether committing to a war of words or whatever. It brings to me that concept of the word "fair." You cannot exactly translate that word from English into any other language. So the very idea began in England, the concept of fairness. Whether other cultures live by its meaning is interesting. Obviously most of northern Europe speaks English anyway, so they will understand the concept. What about other cultures, like in China, Arabia, Russia, etc? I myself have seen enough hypocrisy among Chinese people, even immigrants to believe that they do not live by the concept of fairness. I believe that is true of other cultures too, especially those with legendarily bad English. If no language you speak has a word for the idea, how can you even understand the idea? You cannot. that is an interesting point. I try to avoid talking too much about culture because I am very ignorant about it. nonetheless, i do think a lot of countries have some notion of fairness because the golden rule is shared by many cultures but maybe it is not as advanced or as sacred. for instance, I don't think most cultures necessarily believe that there are human rights that should generally not be violated, not even if it might appear to be utilitarian to do so. This may be one reason why the chinese legal system is/was so draconian.. I think many cultures see value in fairness and believe it is a good thing (I feel like there is a certain desire for fairness inherent to most people by nature), but they ultimately do not hold it in as high regard when compared to being a "good" member of the community. | ||
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starkiller123
United States4030 Posts
On May 28 2020 11:29 reincremate wrote: If the average "intelligence" in China is so high, why does no one in the country know how to stand on an escalator? (proof: come to China and see for yourself). While we're making sweeping generalizations here, I'd venture to say scoring higher on things like IQ tests is pretty much unavoidable when parents and teachers literally beat students into academic submission from a young age into adulthood. China and countries in its sphere of cultural influence have a long, well-documented history of valuing standardized test scores (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination), so it's not surprising if aggregately Chinese people and other Asians still score higher on standardized tests, "western" or not. Is IQ a meaningful measurement? Probably not. If so, please explain how. Otherwise, I don't see why you'd even bother to bring it up. This is like the pseudo-intellectual equivalent of "do you even lift bro?" dude you should see my personal library! its so big I must be a genius! /s | ||
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reincremate
China2216 Posts
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
On May 29 2020 12:03 reincremate wrote: lmao fairness is a uniquely English/western concept? You're definitely trolling at this point. "My mom's a hypocrite and words can't always be translated directly....therefore Chinese people have no understanding of the concept of fairness!" There is no direct translation for that word in any other language. Prove me wrong if you can. Otherwise you are just making my point by being here to call me names, not really having anything to say yourself. P.S. I suppose this notion of fairness even extends to notions like "fair play." Modern sport as we know it first became a thing in England. | ||
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reincremate
China2216 Posts
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
China has always had a sense of "peace" and public vs. private. Those are ancient Chinese values which go far back in time. The western notion of "fairness" is something else altogether. The word comes from Anglo-Saxon, and originally, meant something different, as you can see in Shakespeare's "Fair is foul and foul is fair." But I believe that the term as we presently use it came into its own with the advent of mass sports in England. | ||
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GeckoXp
Germany2016 Posts
On May 29 2020 15:43 MoltkeWarding wrote: There is no direct translation for that word in any other language. Prove me wrong if you can. Otherwise you are just making my point by being here to call me names, not really having anything to say yourself. How would that be possible for you or what would be the benefit for us? Given your postings thus far, I'm not sure you could possibly agree. It seems you take steps sideways and follow up any proof by saying it's not the translation you are looking for, even though you, as non-native, probably have a hard time to judge if the correct idiom is used. In German it's the word "recht" or "gerecht", which would fulfill your requirements and there's an entire philosphy behind what that construct might mean. German fair play ideology summed up by the English philosophers of Monty Python: Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside. | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
On May 29 2020 23:40 GeckoXp wrote: How would that be possible for you or what would be the benefit for us? Given your postings thus far, I'm not sure you could possibly agree. It seems you take steps sideways and follow up any proof by saying it's not the translation you are looking for, even though you, as non-native, probably have a hard time to judge if the correct idiom is used. In German it's the word "recht" or "gerecht", which would fulfill your requirements and there's an entire philosphy behind what that construct might mean. German fair play ideology summed up by the English philosophers of Monty Python: There are better translations for those words from German. "Recht" is "right" or the "law." Gerecht is "just," which comes pretty close to the meaning of that very English word "fair," but the word "fair" does not have anything to do with any notions of justice. I think the homage first came from sport. I think the way the guy replied before you strikes up another massive difference in Asian ethics. How they are rather consequentialist in comparison to Western ethics. They will think: if I do X and Y, Z will happen. It is a very different way of thinking. P.S. I just did a short google of whether you could translate that word from English into any other language. I speak several languages, and nothing is a direct translation for me. There was some debate about the notion when I searched about it, but one poster said: "PS. Of course Poles borrowed the word and an angry child's outburst would just as likely be "To nie fair!" as "To nieuczciwe!". Or "To nie w porządku!" ("That's not right!")." Everyone has a notion of what is right or wrong, what is permissible by law, etc. Fairness is something else altogether. | ||
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linestein
United States210 Posts
If the United States has an IQ of 100, I would not be surprised if the IQ of South Korea was 140 and the IQ of Japan was 145. That is just based on the IQ of Ethiopia. edit: Actually according to my calculations the net IQ of: China: 189,000,000,000 United States: 32,800,000,000 So China is really 6 times smarter than the United States. The only question is why the United States and Europe were richer than China to this point in history. In the FBW Discord it has been argued that IQ has a very high correlation to financial success and health. So you should think China would be far in the space age compared to where it is. Maybe China is just unlucky? | ||
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GeckoXp
Germany2016 Posts
On May 30 2020 00:29 MoltkeWarding wrote: There are better translations for those words from German. "Recht" is "right" or the "law." Gerecht is "just," which comes pretty close to the meaning of that very English word "fair," but the word "fair" does not have anything to do with any notions of justice. I think the homage first came from sport. I think the way the guy replied before you strikes up another massive difference in Asian ethics. How they are rather consequentialist in comparison to Western ethics. They will think: if I do X and Y, Z will happen. It is a very different way of thinking. P.S. I just did a short google of whether you could translate that word from English into any other language. I speak several languages, and nothing is a direct translation for me. There was some debate about the notion when I searched about it, but one poster said: "PS. Of course Poles borrowed the word and an angry child's outburst would just as likely be "To nie fair!" as "To nieuczciwe!". Or "To nie w porządku!" ("That's not right!")." Everyone has a notion of what is right or wrong, what is permissible by law, etc. Fairness is something else altogether. You have just proven my point, the hint towards the categorical imperative is right there, embedded in the sports metaphor. I'm pretty sure I have chosen a suitable idiom, yet you appear to side step out of the argument by hinting to two different languages. German words can have several meanings depending on context, as many languages do, even without using any of the compounds along the way. Trust me, there's more to a language than being able to have a conversation about a specific (every day) topic, especially when you try to discuss ethical/social constructs. | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
What do you mean by "you appear to side step out of the argument by hinting to two different languages"? Do you mean English and German or Chinese? Which two of them? I speak all three languages, and I am addressing each person one at a time. To your issues, if you speak English and German, and to his issues, if he speaks English and Chinese. Well, I am not talking about languages for daily use. Obviously I use them in that way too. But the entire philosophy of language...if your language cannot express a certain idea, how can you even understand that idea? I mean, there are many things you can say in Chinese which I know that are not translatable into any European language. I watched some of my childhood TV shows with some English subtitles, and I can only helplessly shake my head as I think: wrong, wrong, wrong! But then if I think about it, there is really no translation for what is said at all. We think in language. What we can even potentially learn depends on what we speak. | ||
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linestein
United States210 Posts
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
English itself is a kind of a mess with its etymology. The greater part of it came from three sources. Anglo-Saxon, French and Latin. Sometimes, many words would express the same thing in English, because once Englishmen spoke different languages. I just learned that Finnish for "German" is "Saksan." To the Finns, all Germans are Saxons in their language. Goes a long way back, obviously. The other issue is the English pronunciation of "R." Americans do not pronounce the same "R" as Englishmen. Even Englishmen do not pronounce the same "R" as other Englishmen. You can put the word "fair" into French or German or Russian...but how will it sound like? Which standard will they even try to adapt to, and ultimately probably fail in? | ||
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linestein
United States210 Posts
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Jealous
10282 Posts
PS: In Russian, "fair" is usually translated as "Справедливая" (this is the female-gendered adjective, but it can obviously be presented in male, neutral, plural, respetful/reverent form, etc.) - phonetically, "spravedlivaya" (where the "aya" is that feminine conjugatuin, the male being "i'y", etc.). The root word, etymologically speaking, is "truth" (you may be aware of the ironic naming of the "Pravda" newspaper). A similar, related word is "исправлено" which means "corrected" and has the same root. It is fair to say that the word/root for "truth" is a dirty slut in the Russian language, especially in the past few centuries, but the point I am making is that "fair" is directly related to "truth." It skips justice or any positive connotation and goes directly to the source, IMO. | ||
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