patrick.net

Yes, or Russia.

@AmericanKulak I added a relevant image to the original post.

Patrick says

AmericanKulak I added a relevant image to the original post.

@Patrick thanks man, that's great!

Somewhere I have a chart about the Welfare Spending vs. 19th Amendment. The correlation is spooky before and after.

Text of 19th Amendment:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

its so scary how much the fall of the Roman empire mirrors our current predicament. Out of control spending, endless war, welfare state, mob rule, criminals in positions of highest power blaming the Christians for everything.

AmericanKulak says

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a43469569/american-iq-scores-decline-reverse-flynn-effect/

Read old "Popular Mechanics" magazines. It's kind of the science magazine of, um, Rachael Maddow.

They are just a crappy version of Amazing Stories, which is before my time and probably yours. They just predicted short term futures, not far futures and none of it is accurate or predictive.

richwicks says

AmericanKulak says

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a43469569/american-iq-scores-decline-reverse-flynn-effect/

Read old "Popular Mechanics" magazines. It's kind of the science magazine of, um, Rachael Maddow.

They are just a crappy version of Amazing Stories, which is before my time and probably yours. They just predicted short term futures, not far futures and none of it is accurate or predictive.

Could be, never a reader of it, sounds like they are into flying cars and google glasses. Here is the Study the article is based on.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000156
Apparently the Reverse Flynn Effect has been observed since 1990s age cohorts in several other Western Countries, such as Finland and France.

Read below about Vivek Ramaswamy who is running for President as a Republican.

This goes to how not only white people have been under attack, but also math and science such as eliminating ACT and SAT requirements for college and university admissions, and now there are discussions about eliminating the MCAT for medical schools.

I suspect they'll soon try to eliminate the medical board exams and the professional engineering exams. I don't know about the bar exam, as the Left wing controls the legal profession and it may be the bar exam may be the holy grail for its profession.

I passed the PE (mechanical engin) in 2002 and it took me two times; the first time I went in totally unprepared but did not get discouraged as I at least got an idea of the complexity of the exam. Second time I was not as stressed or shocked, and more prepared.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

" In Nation of Victims, Ramaswamy critiques what he sees as the victimhood culture at the heart of America's decline. Using examples from history and incorporating themes from Western philosophy and Eastern theology, he suggests that the disappearance of excellence and exceptionalism, which he identifies as at the heart of American identity, has left a deep moral and cultural vacuum in the nation. "

If you go back to the early to mid 1990's I recall there was a "re base" of the ACT.

That is why I think a 27 today is equivalent to a 25 score before the "re baseline".

I suspect they'll just "re baseline" standardized testing from the MCAT and GRE to the medical board exams and professional engineering exams.

"Re baseline" is the one of the better euphemisms for dumbing down.

.

RedStar says

its so scary how much the fall of the Roman empire mirrors our current predicament.

Look at the map of the Roman Empire. Not that I condone it at all, but the gayness and pedophilia is not what brought it down. At its largest it had three massive land borders with aggressive neighbors and an easily navigable Med Sea. It's why Europe always has and always will be in a state of shit. We've just witnessed a somewhat calm period. Let me know when Europe has been prosperous for more than 60-70 years?

The Roman Empire went down because it was spread too thin. With the type of warfare and defenses they needed it was a sheer impossibility to sustain for the location. While it's sick what they were doing, it wasn't about men fucking boys.

Our biggest issue is letting states with too many electoral votes control policy. Like IL, CA and NY. Some of the worst states in the country. It's why voter ID needs to be law. I managed to get a drivers license, FOID card, and FAA license on my own like a big boy. Getting valid ID is no excuse. That's what will bring this country down. Everyone already witnessed it in 2020. If we the people cannot elect our representation we're screwed.

There are several reasons why America will destroy itself. But, I believe mostly G.R.E.E.D. has done it. All roads/motives/policies lead to wanting more, more and more. More votes, more $$ and more control.

What is the current social contract? Fuck you, I got mine?

GNL says

What is the current social contract? Fuck you, I got mine?

Yep. They only need the adrenochrome from our children.

ad says

I suspect they'll soon try to eliminate the medical board exams and the professional engineering exams. I don't know about the bar exam, as the Left wing controls the legal profession and it may be the bar exam may be the holy grail for its profession.

No, they will just change the standards. They need the boards to keep people in line.

The new standards will be more political than professional, and only those who fit the profile and support the narrative will be licensed.

RedStar says

its so scary how much the fall of the Roman empire mirrors our current predicament. Out of control spending, endless war, welfare state, mob rule, criminals in positions of highest power blaming the Christians for everything.

I get your perspective and the parallels are manifold. But Rome never fell, it went stealth mode, and became the Church of Rome, with armies of missionaries send round the world to conquer the spirit rather than the body. RCC is so important that virtually every western and many third world leaders pay homage. Their wealth and influence across the globe is an open secret. In 2022 they added 16 million people to their church and 17.7% of world population is Catholic. That is an impressive number, and that alone is powerful, but add to that their wealth and influence even over non Catholic’s. Rome is more powerful than ever.

PeopleUnited says

I get your perspective and the parallels are manifold. But Rome never fell, it went stealth mode, and became the Church of Rome, with armies of missionaries send round the world to conquer the spirit rather than the body. RCC is so important that virtually every western and many third world leaders pay homage. Their wealth and influence across the globe is an open secret. In 2022 they added 16 million people to their church and 17.7% of world population is Catholic. That is an impressive number, and that alone is powerful, but add to that their wealth and influence even over non Catholic’s. Rome is more powerful than ever.

That's a real stretch and much can be said, but I'll stick to just the basics.

You claim that 17.7% of the world's population is Catholic. But what exactly does that even mean? All across Europe, the bedrock of Catholicism, churches are closing due to dwindling attendance. The same can be said for America, particularly since the avalanche of news regarding pedophile priests.

Confessing your sins to a 'priest,' a dogma of the church, is ignored by the vast majority of 'Catholics.' Missing "Mass" is officially declared to be a 'Mortal Sin,' meaning that if you die without confessing your sin, pay your penance, and then attend Mass, you'll go straight to Hell (only 'venial' sins are paid for in fictional Purgatory).

So, if a Catholic consistently misses Mass (as the vast majority do), are they really Catholic? If a Catholic denies the vast majority of Catholic dogmas and doctrines, are they really Catholic? (they are not, according to the Council of Trent) So if this is the case, which it is, how is "Rome more powerful than ever" ?

IQ scores reached their height with birth year 1975 in the US. They’d been increasing for several decades prior, and have been decreasing ever since. Papers began to be written in the 90’s on the Flynn effect, as the high-water mark generation reached adulthood, and took entrance tests to college. SAT was an IQ test until 1995 when it was “renormed” (take off that last zero to obtain IQ).

So what happened? My guess: the generation that birthed the 1970’s kids was 89/10/1% white/black/Native American&mestizo. The demographic shift brought about by the 1965 immigration law was not yet seen in the birth numbers.

Additionally, as more bright women attended university — and universities remained for the top 10-15% of high school graduates — bright couples were marrying and procreating.

Demographic shifts, less selectivity in colleges, and educated women postponing childbearing all contribute to the reversal of the effect.

goofus says

Demographic shifts, less selectivity in colleges, and educated women postponing childbearing all contribute to the reversal of the effect.

Also, the American public education system shifted from actually teaching students 'reading, writing and arithmetic' to social engineering. In a very real sense, public schools are to blame for the dumbing down of our youth. It gets even worse if they go to college, which has lowered their curricula and standards in order to accommodate their dumbed down enrollees.

There was a time when having a degree actually meant something. Today, it seems to be just an extension of high school, and not a whole lot more. A university education used to train students to think analytically. Instead, they're turning out brainwashed Marxists that hate America and everything it used to stand for.

See for yourself. Talk to any college student and you'll find that their minds have been twisted into accepting all the liberal social mush along with a large portion of Marxism. A while back, I spoke with two juniors that were attending Michigan and Ohio State. They were both full of Marxist ideas. Both were working summer jobs in order to help pay for their tuitions. It was incredibly easy to illustrate the idiocy of their beliefs. I simply said to them, put your Marxism into practice. Take the money that you are earning, and give the bulk of it to those that are not working. If you are unwilling to do that, you are not Marxists. They were both dumbfounded because they were confronted with real life, and not some silly, whimsical economic philosophy that will not, and, cannot work.

ad says

If you go back to the early to mid 1990's I recall there was a "re base" of the ACT.

That is why I think a 27 today is equivalent to a 25 score before the "re baseline".

I suspect they'll just "re baseline" standardized testing from the MCAT and GRE to the medical board exams and professional engineering exams.

"Re baseline" is the one of the better euphemisms for dumbing down.

.

I can't speak for the ACT, but the SAT did exactly what you mention in 1996. It was called "re-norming" I believe. My dad worked for Education Testing Service (aka: ETS; makers of the SAT, GRE, LSAT, AP test, and hundreds of others) for about 30 years, so I kind of lived through this and saw it from behind the scenes.

When the SAT was first given, the raw scores were tabulated and the grading was mathematically set so that the median raw score was assigned 500. The range was mathematically set so that every raw score came to within plus or minus 300 of that median. Thus the now-famous 200 to 800 score we all know and love today. Or, combining the separate math and verbal sections into a single score: 400 to 1600.

Each time the test was given, it was correlated with previous tests so that the 200-800 scores were consistent over time. Meaning that a certain skill level of test taker would likely score the same regardless of which decade he/she took the test.
One section of the 5-section test isn't part of your score, but nobody is told which section it is so you better take all 5 sections seriously. That mystery section, which could be either a math or a verbal section, is used primarily for correlating the test with previous tests so that scoring remains consistent over time.

When the test was given for the first time (1950s?) only the top students took it. As years progressed, more and more people took it. To the extent that early takers were all the top students, those extra test-takers came from the population of less-than-top students. That is probably the main reason scores dropped steadily over time.

It's actually a bit scary that the scores dropped at all. Early on, people just took the test cold. No practice. Just taken once. Hilariously, only high-school guidance counselors and the colleges you applied to got the scores. That's right: The student theoretically never found out the scores! Nowadays, people take practice tests, study for it, and take the test multiple times. Sometimes, ringers are higher to take the test for a student! You would think that scores should be going up all the time, not down.

While the original test median was 500 verbal and 500 math for a total of 1000, that had dropped to about 420 verbal and 470 math by the mid 1990s. It was a pretty bad look for the government's "education" system. So, 1996 was the year of "re-norming." On one 1996 test, ETS re-normed the raw scores to again exactly hit the 500/500 levels. There's a conversion chart. I can't find ETS's official chart, but I assume this one to be accurate: https://www.greenes.com/html/convert.htm . When students received their scores that year (and for several subsequent years) the conversion chart was included with the correspondence. Since then, the scores are now correlated back to that test.

This is a reflection of the demographic changes.

Wow, with that SAT reconversion, I would look like quite the star.

I took the GRE for a fraternity brother who had scored really bad and wanted to go to grad school. I used his draft card for ID LOL! I came back one day and he was at the door fuming at me because he went from 40th percentile to 99th percentile on the two parts in one fell swoop. He thought I should have some way to target it to the lower 90's or 80's.

I was very relaxed for the test, but I have mixed results on my own, having trouble at times paying attention to the various tests when taking them. They are always in the higher ranges, but sometimes higher than others.

He wound up being caught out, and was given the option of striking the scores or re-taking the test under close supervision. He opted to strike the scores. He ragged on me for a long time as if I did it on purpose, but he did get into a psychology grad school that he liked.

RayAmerica says

So if this is the case, which it is, how is "Rome more powerful than ever" ?

It has more money and more minions than ever. And it has a larger footprint. And basically it is more popular than Rome ever was on the world stage. Don’t kid yourself Rome does and will play a major role in the end times, probably serving as the false prophet in Revelation.

Broke this one off from previous long message #25. I think it's actually more interesting...

ETS bowed to the mighty government "education" system in another way... a much worse way, actually.

For background, male brains tend to be generally more math/logic oriented and female brains tend to be more verbal/language oriented. Also, the standard deviation of males with respect to most measures tends to be greater than the standard deviation of females. When both of these observations were pointed out by James Damore, he was famously fired from his job at Google essentially for making the claim that male and female brains are not identical! Note that the observation about standard deviation means that for a wide variety of measures, the highest scoring and the lowest scoring of a measured characteristic are likely to be males; there's just more deviation in both directions.

So, putting both of those observation together... the boys tended to outscore the girls in the math SAT by a little bit, but the perfect scores were drastically skewed in favor of boys.

For some sort of equity fairness we must make the girls perform better than the boys! (</sarc>) Part of the scoring change in 1996 was that the math section was made a little easier such that more people were clipped to the top at 800. But through the magic of the bell curve, that meant that only 2x more boys got perfect math scores compared to girls. Before, it was something like 5x.

Now the girls had pulled up even with the boys. But that's nowhere near good enough in this modern age! So, separate the verbal section into two sections to roll out a 3rd score. Now there are essentially 2 verbal scores and only 1 math score. So the scores total range is 600 to 2400, but the verbal is effectively weighted twice as heavily. Now the girls are comfortably ahead even though more girls take the test than boys (so it's top 50% of boy students verses top 70% of girl students, which means more of the low-end girls).

But wait! Studious people are just memorizing the 10,000 vocabulary words. So that part of the verbal was removed. Given how people were gaming the system by memorizing the worlds without actually really learning the words, I think this was a good idea.

Finally, the old math section questions required very little formal math, but were instead more like brain teasers. i.e.: An intelligence test. That makes dumb people look bad, so the math part is now a comprehensive test of high-school level math up to, but not including, calculus.

Ceffer says

I took the GRE for a fraternity brother who had scored really bad ... went from 40th percentile to 99th percentile on the two parts in one fell swoop. He thought I should have some way to target it to the lower 90's or 80's.

He wound up being caught out, and was given the option of striking the scores or re-taking the test under close supervision. He opted to strike the scores. He ragged on me for a long time as if I did it on purpose, but he did get into a psychology grad school that he liked.

The "right" way to play the game is not to take the test, but to hire a professional such as yourself the first time!

SunnyvaleCA says

For background, male brains tend to be generally more math/logic oriented and female brains tend to be more verbal/language oriented. Also, the standard deviation of males with respect to most measures tends to be greater than the standard deviation of females. When both of these observations were pointed out by James Damore, he was famously fired from his job at Google essentially for making the claim that male and female brains are not identical! Note that the observation about standard deviation means that for a wide variety of measures, the highest scoring and the lowest scoring of a measured characteristic are likely to be males; there's just more deviation in both directions.

Great Post -- Thanks for this, very interesting.

Of course, resource earners need math and logic; resource distributors need emotive words.

Ceffer says

Wow, with that SAT reconversion, I would look like quite the star.

A lot of people say that. But the best bump is when they went from 2 sub-scores to 3 sub-scores, thus making everyone's total 33% higher! Now a 1600 isn't even very good. 2400 is what you want.

Actually, I think they have re-combined the two verbal scores back into one, so we're back to 1600.

AmericanKulak says

Of course, resource earners need math and logic; resource distributors need emotive words.

Ha ha! On a more serious note for the million year evolutionary history of humans: The ones equipped to give birth and care for children need to be consistently capable and social, but the ones out there fighting other tribes for resources and killing wild animals for food work out better if there is a wide diversity of capabilities. It's evolutionarily fine if the bottom 1/3 of males are so hopeless that they die young as long as the top 1/50 are so capable as to benefit the entire tribe.

PeopleUnited says

Rome is more powerful than ever.

IMO, every generation makes the mistake of myopically interpreting the times in which they live, while neglecting history. During the Dark Ages, Rome ruled Europe by proxy via the Catholic monarchies. It was called the Dark Ages because the light of truth, particularly Bible truth, was being forcefully extinguished by Catholicism. The despotic European Inquisition raged for over 600 years, and while the inquisitors tortured people in order to obtain their 'heretical confessions,' it was the government of the monarchies that carried out the sentences, which often resulted in burning at the stake.

One more point; for over 40 years, I've been hearing futuristic prophecy experts declare that 'there has never been a time such as these, we're in the end times.' Just one illustration; Hal Lindsey promised that the 'pre-trib rapture' (a false 'doctrine' that is a Jesuit invention) would occur during the decade of the 1980's. With time proving him wrong, he cleverly removed those passages in his reprints of later editions.

We might be in the end times, but, the times we are living in are a picnic compared to what Christians suffered during Rome's rule in the Dark Ages.