Darkademic

A strong positive correlation exists between economic freedom (a.k.a capitalism) and prosperity. darkademic.co.uk/research/econo…

@RichardHanania Assigning special significance to one set of groups and calling them "races" just demonstrates an inability to grasp the complexity of the variation, or to understand that superficial differences don't align well with the less obvious variation.

@RichardHanania You are conflating race with genetic variation that happens to coincide with or cluster around geographical ancestry. Variation exists in such a way that one could identify innumerable groupings that overlap to varying degrees.

The Atlantic: “Race-science adherents do not have evidence on their side. The consensus view among experts is that race is not a biological phenomenon, let alone one that could explain differences such as IQ and crime rates.” You don’t need to read a single study to know someone who writes like this is an either lying to you or not thinking clearly. If race did not have a biological basis, people would not predictably look different depending on where in the world they’re from. All studies about different propensities to various health outcomes would be gone. It would be one thing to argue against a genetic race-IQ link. To say that it can’t exist because race isn’t biological is simply discrediting.

@mburm201 @LevyAntoine @asymmetricinfo Median wealth per capita is higher in quite a few European countries (including France, UK, Norway, Switzerland and Denmark). US has higher GDP per capita, Norway and Switzerland still come out ahead, and PPP adjusted others aren't far behind.

@LevyAntoine @asymmetricinfo America’s poorest state is as wealthy as Europe’s wealthiest country.

- US and EU actually have the same GDP/hour worked! - actually there's a 20% gap - obviously I meant Western EU, they are the only ones you can compare to the US - ah [one week later] - US and EU are growing at the same pace! - But Western EU is stagnating? - I said EU!

@SashaGusevPosts Wrote this in 2005, seems like I wasn't far off the mark? darkademic.co.uk/essays/refutat…

I've written about race, genetic ancestry, analyses of large biobanks, and human history #h.v8wagygagcry" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">gusevlab.org/projects/hsq/#… I'll summarize the key points here 🧵:

@ClarkeMicah @MartThorn2024 Do you think Salman Rushdie and Charlie Hebdo should've been less provocative? Insane people can be provoked by anything, but that doesn't mean it should be a central determining factor for one's actions.

I agree, .@martthorn2024. The invasion was stupid as well as wrong. Reacting to provocation is folly. But Russia was provoked and people should not pretend otherwise. Big question: *Why*did the West provoke Russia for so long & so relentlessly? Did we hope they would not react?

@RockChartrand @stefan_mnl Quite a few countries in Europe rank higher than the US on the economic freedom index (i.e. are more capitalist), so it's not surprising that those countries might also be superior in some regards.

What he’s not saying is doing all the work. Here are the major omissions and sleights of hand, stripped of fluff. First, none of those things are free. “Free” education, healthcare, transit, welfare are paid for through higher taxes, lower take home pay, VATs, energy taxes, payroll taxes, and slower wealth accumulation. Freedom isn’t about whether you get services. It’s about whether you get to choose how your income is used. Second, he never mentions who pays. Europe’s systems rely on a narrower tax base squeezing the middle class far harder than in the US. Fewer people become rich, fewer people start large businesses, fewer people accumulate capital. That tradeoff is quietly ignored. Third, he ignores opportunity cost. Lower cost of living often coincides with lower wages, fewer high paying jobs, less upward mobility, and less innovation. Europe produces fewer world scale companies per capita and imports much of its tech dynamism. Fourth, life expectancy is not a clean policy metric. It’s heavily influenced by lifestyle choices, demographics, immigration patterns, obesity rates, drug use, and violence. It doesn’t isolate freedom, healthcare quality, or economic structure. It’s used because it sounds moral, not because it’s precise. Fifth, “quality of life” indexes smuggle values. They weight leisure, redistribution, and state provision as positives while discounting entrepreneurial upside, income growth, and choice. They measure comfort under administration, not freedom. Sixth, he conflates outcomes with rights. Freedom isn’t “the state gives me things and I’m comfortable.” Freedom is the right to earn, keep, trade, speak, move, build, and fail without needing permission. Europe regulates more, taxes more, licenses more, restricts more. That’s the trade. Seventh, he ignores exit and voice. Americans can move between states with radically different tax and regulatory regimes. Europe has far less internal competition. Centralization dulls accountability. Eighth, he never asks why America subsidizes Europe’s model. Defense spending, innovation, pharmaceuticals, tech platforms, and energy production disproportionately come from the US, lowering Europe’s costs while Europe criticizes the system producing them. Bottom line: He’s describing a managed lifestyle, not freedom. Comfort purchased with other people’s earnings and enforced by law isn’t liberty. It’s administration. Freedom is messier, riskier, and unequal. That’s because it treats adults as owners of their lives, not dependents of the state.

Why is Europe better than the United States? Uhh well, Europe has a welfare system. Europe has free higher education Europe has great public transport. Europe has a higher life expectancy. Europe has a much lower cost of living. Europe has good and cheap healthcare. Europe has a much higher standard of quality of life than the US in almost every measurable category. So…how exactly are Americans more “free” than Europeans

@CVW_IV @PeterMcCormack @SpencerHakimian Same %

@PeterMcCormack @SpencerHakimian Good thing that unlike all of Europe, our economy is more than just tourism

🚨BREAKING: The tourism industry is COLLAPSING because of Trump.

@elonmusk It'll also fall if that freedom continues to be mostly used to spread and amplify lies, create conflict, and defend or promote evil. When truth and morality are no longer respected or incentivised, the benefits of freedom of speech disappear.

Without freedom of speech, the West will fall

@bencsmoke @RedCoatChicago No it didn't. darkademic.co.uk/blog/uk-auster…

@RedCoatChicago the uk did cut spending egregiously in that time period and it kneecapped our economy, devastated our society and led to ~300,000 deaths all whilst billionaires continued to accrue wealth at a staggering rate so perhaps time to look for another solution…

omg just tax the fucking rich it’s really not that fucking difficult

@SussexAngle @CazB52 @anonymous_17089 @AllisonPearson Other countries doing it doesn't make it good.

@CazB52 @anonymous_17089 @AllisonPearson This is entirely normal and routine for most countries. Including those from whence the immigrants come. Friends who worked in Dubai, despite being in well paid professional roles, were told in no uncertain terms 'when job ends you leave, no exception'. Cont'd

Starmer thinks it’s “racist” to pursue an immigration policy that is common practice in every other country. Foreigners should not be given the same access to benefits, housing and pensions until they have been net contributors for many years. Common sense.

@JamesPGoddard90 @Draco7777777777 A passport has nothing to do with our history.

@Draco7777777777 Doesn’t want the baggage of a British passport. Doesn’t like our history

“I live in the UK but I don’t have a British passport or Citizenship” “Me and my family have been in this country for fu**ing 17 years we’ve paid our taxes, we work hard we’re basically English Bruv” “People are telling me to apply for citizenship, but I don’t want a British passport with all the baggage” Well done Jonny foreigner you’ve paid taxes like everyone else has too. People like this really do annoy me. Foreigners need to understand that them living in the UK is conditional.

@russellquirk @reformparty_uk This doesn't make a blanket revocation of ILR sensible.

Fun fact: 72% of Somalians living in the UK are in taxpayer subsidised social housing that you are paying for. Further fun fact: Around 70% of Somalians living in the UK are unemployed and on benefits that you are funding. NOW do you see why the @reformparty_uk policy announcement from @ZiaYusufUK and @Nigel_Farage is sensible?

@TiceRichard What exactly is gained by revoking ILR for people who do contribute and play by the rules? It surely wouldn't be difficult to revoke it only for those who don't.

Dan Just checking you are ok? You are misguided on ILR, unlike you. We welcome smart immigration, that contributes and plays by the rules. Standard for many well run nations to have 5 yr renewable visas and citizenship process. Few nations are so foolish to have ILR that allows folk to claim benefits & not work nor contribute nor speak the lingo We have major welfare crisis and face financial ruin as an economy. Frankly negligent not to tell truth to British people Hope helps 🙏🏻

@TongzhiCoven Along with every other metric of human well-being. darkademic.co.uk/research/econo…

@fiona_lali Communism/socialism is evil and causes nothing but stagnation, suffering and death to the extent it's implemented. darkademic.co.uk/blog/jeremy-co…

I told Farage that Jeremy's new party is coming for all the liars, thieves and warmongers. Including Starmer and including HIM. "How are you going to pay for it?" THE MONEY IS THERE! Join the revolutionary communists, and join the new party!

@KWend_nwo @geoeverything @NuryVittachi The war has been a massive net loss for Russia. They've gained some land .. which they don't need.. and that's it. For hundreds of thousands of lives, huge losses of military equipment, enormous economic damage, and becoming a pariah and/or laughingstock to much of the world.

@geoeverything @NuryVittachi Ukraine is fucked. Putin has won. Get over it.

The Chinese are the main people to blame for the west's disastrous ongoing war in Ukraine, the Economist magazine says this week. "China is the most important—perhaps decisive—enabler of Russia’s war machine," it claims. How come? Because Russia is winning the war using really good drones. Russian-made "drones were once stuffed with American microelectronics, smuggled in via Asia to circumvent sanctions. The newest ones, however, are filled with Chinese parts," the magazine says. "One example contained only two American components, out of 15." The magazine clearly wants readers to condemn China for this. But think about it. When Russian drones were filled with US components, why didn't the Economist criticize America? And will the unfortunate Ukrainian victims mind whether the Russian drone that just killed them had more American or more Chinese components?

@jsnnsa @malmaladei Your website says you wrote the code, along with 10 engineers.

"Robinhood Markets, Inc. is excited to announce the acquisition of Pluto Capital Inc., an artificial intelligence (AI) powered investment research platform that delivers highly-customized investment strategies based on customer needs and financial goals. With this strategic acquisition, investors can look forward to a new era of intelligent, data-driven investing at Robinhood." newsroom.aboutrobinhood.com/robinhood-acqu… workbyjacob.com/thoughts/engin…

cursor is a $100M business that will be worth $0 in 24 months not because they built wrong - they built perfectly but they built a sail for a race that's about to end when AI just writes entire codebases, even the best IDE becomes irrelevant

@elonmusk Vance would be even worse.

@TimPendry @gill1109 @ClarkeMicah If pointlessly murdering hundreds of thousands of people and inflicting vast destruction and suffering, while achieving a colossal net loss for your own country, isn't evil, then nothing is.

@gill1109 @ClarkeMicah Who are you to judge his morality? There is a morality in serving your country well and doing what is necessary in doing so. Morality is a social construct. Personal ethics and values are mine and mine alone. The pomposity of the Western moralist often beggars belief!

.@gill1109 . Putin is undoubtedly evil. But where and when exactly has he said Ukraine does not exist? Please provide referenced direct quotation.

@Aporiac1 @gill1109 @ClarkeMicah Or he's just evil and despicable and deserves to be demonised. Same goes for apologists who use vague allusions to some kind of deeper understanding to defend him, when they're really just simping for a mass murdering tyrant.

@gill1109 @ClarkeMicah Calling someone evil and despicable is to demonise them. Such remarks are lazy and betray simplistic thinking, which is the opposite of understanding. Such a view is to be expected. Putin is widely portrayed as such in the media in order to discourage difficult questions.