The highest IQ people ever: How they organized their lives?

According to Galton, the highest IQ people ever were the Athenians. Their contemporaries agreed. Athens of Pericles (pic) was the cutting edge of human culture. Athens' alter ego was Sparta, its black twin separated at birth: they measured up each other in a terrible 28 year Peloponnesian war, and Sparta emerged superior.

Spartans were of the Dorian race, tall and slim and Nordic-looking. Originally they lived in four agricultural villages in the high Eurotas river valley when somewhere in the Greek Dark Ages they held an assembly and decided to give up subsistence farming and appropriate the surplus production of the Messenians living on the other side of the mountain. The Messenians were Dorians like themselves, and they were many: 200 to 400 thousand, against Sparta's 10 to 20 thousand. So they carefully organized themselves for this ambitious project.

Each Spartan gave up his land and gold, and they formed themselves in regiments. They stopped eating with their families and established communal messes, each one contributing food. They organized intensive military training, use of weapons and experimented with battle formations. They established the agoge, a comprehensive war school till age twenty when they were recruited into regular regiments. For almost a generation they fought the Messenians, till they conquered them and divided the land among the homoioi (the similars, that is, "pure" Spartans that completed the agoge and had been accepted in a mess as equals).

To maintain the Messenians submissive, they created murderous Cryptic Patrols that systematically culled off the stronger-looking peasants. It was not conceptualized as a dysgenic/dumbing down program of the enslaved population, only as precautionary policing.

Being in campaign most of the time, they got a taste for male love and failed to care for families. Men being away campaigning, the women managed the farm. Eventually, Sparta learnt the business of war so well that conquered whole Greece.

They only neglected to reproduce themselves. There was no way to make young warriors to marry. The commune imposed fines and public shaming, but no children were a-coming. They would not accept non-Spartans, they would not share their wealth and power with strangers. At the peak of their power, no more than 3 or 4 thousand full Spartan citizens were left, lording over a Greece of 5 million.

When Alexander descended from Makedonia, the Spartans could not muster opposition for lackof manpower. Sparta was depopulated and abandoned, it became a tourist attraction, like say Venice today, with its North African gondoliers singing as tour guides.

My conclusion is that high IQ is unsustainable, it is poison. Eugenic societies don't last. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Pericles' open, liberal democracy is superior (*). It is a paradox because rationally, it should not be so, but the fact is that it is so. 
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(*) Note that its "openness" was strictly limited. Athens was an ethnic refuge or sanctuary in the extreme Southern corner of the Greek peninsula, surrounded by Dorian peoples like the Boiotians  that applied a permanent pressure to drive them into the sea. Almost all the Ionians migrated to the isles and to Asia Minor, and only Athens remained as the last Ionic settlement on the mainland. Not less racist than the Spartans, Athenians had a multilayer procedure to establish the genealogy of the ephebes (18 y.o.) applying for military service and full citizenship. Those founded of mixed blood were sold as slaves.   

How to keep the money in the family

Fortunes dissipate in the third generation, that is a well demonstrated fact. Dynasties last four-five generations, even adopting extreme endogamy like Egyptian Pharaohs or Alexander's  Διάδοχοι successor dynasties, they are unsustainable. Lasting elite groups in history are India's Brahmins (who maintain their status over two thousand years) and the Jewish people (upper middle class everywhere)  and possibly, European aristocracy (that emerged with Pepin of Landen and ruled till WWI - see pic of a representative selection of nine kings*).  In more diluted way, it appears that the Norman fighting elite that entered Great Britain maintains its position to these days. 

The "secret" of a lasting multigenerational elite position is moderate endogamy. Marrying within the group,  mostly among successful members and constantly dropping off the unsuccessful. It is almost impossible to follow this rule for long because humans are by nature promiscous and unattracted to the familiar (which explains the rarity of fertile sibling pairing). The dropping off happened naturally during harsh winters and famine years, no one was forced to do morally repugnant selections, but now subsistence is ensured. 

The opposite of "keeping the money in the family" i.e. losing elite position in one or a few generations, is exogamy. Mixing between human lines, which happens to be the norm in recorded history. I have seen that in the Dominican Republic where the Spaniards have completely dissolved. It is happening all over the world. That's how it is. Can't do a thing. Accept and enjoy.  

As an old man nearing the end of his life, with neither fortune nor position to transfer to the next generation, I don't care and lack the ambition to change reality. All I want now is to avoid depression/indolence and complete this Ramat Gan job, and write that article about sewage pretreatment that I am dodging for months. 

(*) None of the faces radiates intelligence, or am I prejudiced against antisemites?

The Gods Thirst for Human Blood

There is something terribly wrong with the human brain that invents phantasy gods, makes human images from wood and believes that they thirst for human blood, and if not supplied, they would be terribly punished. Crops would fail and there would be famine and epidemies, and the worst, they would be defeated and massacred in the next battle.

This lunacy is universal: human sacrifice was imperative for the Aztecs, the Inkas, African tribes, the Druidic Europeans … and now I am reading that even ancient Sparta did not escape from this craziness. The pic. shows the altar of Artemisia - Orthia, where human blood ran in abundance till historical times. This Spartan cult existed already in the 9th Century BC around a rectangular earthen altar near the river. Later it was upgraded with river stones and surrounded by a wall. The Romans built an amphitheater around to allow tourists to watch in all comfort the sadistic ritual.

Originally, the cult addressed a xoanon (wooden idol) (pic) of malevolent reputation. Pausanias writes that the four villages making up Sparta  fell to quarrelling, which led to bloodshed; many were killed at the altar and the rest died of disease. Whereat an oracle was delivered to them, that they should stain the altar with human blood. He used to be sacrificed upon whomsoever the lot fell, but Lycurgus changed the custom to a scourging of the ephebos, and so in this way the altar is stained with human blood. 

J's Prognosis: More bloodshed to be expected. 

The Post-China Balance

The size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world. Lee Kwan Yew. 

I am starting to appreciate the Singapore genius. The entrance of the Chinese people in the world scene has changed  everything. Few realize it, and even fewer (or none?) are courageous to think it over to the end.

American elite universities are unable to solve the dilemma of a balanced student body. If meritocracy is worth something, then the student body will be Chinese with a sprinkle of Ayers and Jews. If they opt for balanced democracy, they need to discriminate against the Chinese. In Malaysia and Indonesia the Chinese minority accepts second-rank citizenship. Is that the American solution too?

There are many Think Tanks in America and Europe mapping out the future. How will all this end? They are not saying. Maybe the end is unhappy.



Is it good for the Jews? The little we know about the Kaifeng Jews shows that most of the time they were rich and powerful. They travelled to Peking to take the Imperial Civil Service exam and were promoted to mandarin positions.

My aunt Kovacs spent the war as a refugee in Shanghai. Never said a bad word about the Chinese people. As far as I know, the Chinese helped them.

 The Chinese allow others to live and we shall be able to live with them. 

Bad News for POT and me

Deep under the North York Moors Area there is a reservoir of potassium fertilizer without Cloride. It is better than the Dead Sea Potash. Sirius is selling it as POLY4. This thing could disrupt worldwide fertilizer markets and devaluate investments in Israel, Jordan, Saskatchewan, Ukraine and even the Colluli project in Eritrea. Sirius estimates the cost of production of POLY4 at 32.60 $ per tonne, and sale price of 158 $ per tonne. If that comes to fruition, POT called ICL in Israel is doomed. What really bothers me is the projected price for potash fertilizer, which is lower than current price. If so, the probability of fat dividends is zero. This week I shall start liquidating my beloved shares.

Kibbutz in the North

The family spent the weekend in the kibbutz of my little daughter. They have two factories, nut tree plantations and sheep. The managing committee is a gerousia of retired elders. My impression is that the commune is unsustainable, there is a permanent loss of younger people and birthrate under replacement. They compensate by accepting working age candidates, including Arabs, who - private opinion here -  are unsuited for egalitarian communal life. Some colored children. It is not behooving to notice the browning of the kibbutz. Let's hope no one reads this. 

Crossness Sewage Pumping Station becomes a Circus

Crossness was a key element of the 19th Century London's sewage system and it has been nicely conserved. It embodies the industrial revolution, with its massive iron pumps. Improbably, Crossness was transmuted into a tourist attraction and now, a circus. I wanted very much to visit it when in London but it was closed (asbestos removal). Next time. I like London.