Tag: Fred Reed

This is a reprint of a column from long, long ago. I do it not from laziness, though I am fond of laziness, but because it may provide a window into a happier America that we will not see again. These days, we need any cheer we can get.

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In the year of the Great Radioactive Goat-Curd Craze and Flood-that-Wasn’t, Matamoscas was just another sleepy California town in the high desert near Barstow. The only geographical feature of note anywhere near was a low mesa called Las Pulgas, about three miles out of town where the Ark was.

Continue reading “Notes from a Lost America: Chuckie Manson, Thor, and the Ark. Average Day in California”

 

Today I will explain how civilization happened, to the extent that there has been any civilization  to happen, or that it can be explained, and where stuff comes from, and who done what, and why. Afterward there will be no more to say on the subject. You will hear doors slamming across the nation as university departments shut down.

Now, history is littered knee-deep with literature, and art, and inventions, like gum on the underside of a theater seat. Inventions are pretty important for civilization. Where did these inventions come from? Well, there’s a group of people who clutter up the web and  say that it was North Europeans. Yes. See, it’s genetic. These pale people invented everything. Nobody else did, especially Latins. It’s because northerners have creativity,  and nobody else else can. The Chinese copy stuff pretty fair, and make little paper umbrellas for expensive drinks, but can’t invent. Latins can’t either. Only North Europeans.

Continue reading “Nordic Genius and the Central Heat Theorem: Adventures in Genetics”

 

We’re all crazy. This explains everything. I will elaborate  in hopes of joining Plato, Burke, and Hunter Thompson as a lighthouses of the intellects

The human mind cannot think of more than a very few things at once. We cannot for example think of a billion citizens of China as individuals, so we say “China,“ or “the Chinese” did something or other when most of them hadn’t heard of it, didn’t want to do it, or wanted to do something else. The billion become one sentient being, a sort of sprawling person.

Thus, for example, people speak of Cuba as “Castro,” or say that “Cuba” must be punished for doing something that Washington doesn’t like, and thus the embargo on trade. In fact, there are 11,000,000 million Cubans, of whom only one is Castro. Most Cubans do not like Castro, as evidenced by their attempts to paddle ninety miles to Miami on inner tubes. The embargo doesn’t punish “Cuba.” It makes life miserable for 11,000,000-1 people almost none of whom have any influence on Cuba’s policies. The embargo certainly doesn’t discomfit Castro, who can have all the prime rib and good bourbon he wants, embargo or no embargo.

Continue reading “Compaction, Pack Instinct, and Territoriality: Some Aspects of Irrationality”

Appalachian white trash, presenting obvious neurological deficits consequent to inbreeding. A clear argument for eugenics.

Most considerations of eugenics, before wobbling off into discussions of Hitler, deal with intelligence and physical characteristics, notably health and strength. By those who constitute the best argument for eugenics, eugenics is usually interpreted as a means of oppressing the poor, maltreating the more bedraggled minorities, and euthanizing the retarded. Most commentators on the matter would be endangered by the latter, so I understand their concern.

However, behavior may be a more important field for eugenic consideration. Herewith a few ruminations, offering more questions than answers. See what you think.

Most of the gravest problems facing humanity today have existed since at forever. War, crime, genocide and its approximations, the desire for conquest, lust for power, and a nonsensical pursuit of unusable wealth. We often blame these on proximate causes that seem to make sense at the moment. Currently for example, the Chinese are evil, Iran wants to blow us up, Russia plans to conquer Europe, and ISIS threatens our existence. These reasons, it is now evident, are pretexts for the expression of unwholesome instincts. The Romans honestly conquered for empire and booty, the Americans in the name of Manifest Destiny, the Israelis for lebensraum. We always invent a reason. When cats hunt mice for thousands of years, one may suspect that it is built in. We fight because fighting is what we do.

Continue reading “More on Eugenics: What Fun”

 

Inasmuch America has a large population of Latin Americans, it seems to me that people, or some people, might want to know about them, and what they are, and where they came from. Most Latinos of the south are either a mixture of Spanish and Indian, or sometimes pure Indian. We have some idea of the Spaniards. They were European. But what were the Indians? What is their contribution to the great numbers of–whether you like it or not–new Americans? In particular, what are their blood lines? Are they, as nativists insist, of very low IQ–83–and have they enstupidated the Spanish? Horrendously primitive?

Without thinking about it, I had the entrenched idea that they were just that. I wasn’t conscious that it was either an idea or entrenched–just a fact. It didn’t occur to me that I knew virtually nothing about these  people, or that there was anything to know.

What pulled me up short was their architecture. Throughout a large region, sort of Yucatan through parts of Honduras, you find ruined cities of monumental architecture that would match most of what is found in the ancient Near East. A great deal of it is overgrown with jungle. To get to major sites like Palenque, you walk through dim  trails with unexplored walls and passageways.  But the existence of these ruins did not set well with the idea of primitive incapacity. The architecture was entirely Indian since they had no contact with Europe.

Chiapas. Compares well with a lot of Roman monumental architecture. There are lots of these: Palenque, Tikal, Piedras Negras, Copán, Yaxchilan, Teotihuacan, Caracol, Uxmal, etc.

Chiapas. Time and the weather have not treated this building well, but it seems to me that these things must take considerable engineering talent.

Pyramid at Chichén Itsá. For scale, note people at lower left.

Aha! I thought with the  brilliance of one who has been hit over the head by the obvious. Something screwy is going on here. How witless can you be and engineer these things? I started poking around. And found interesting stuff. For example:

Continue reading “The Maya: Who Woulda Thunk it?”