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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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Instead the racially diverse, hopelessly disorganized (IE decentralized), and utterly lacking in warrior spirit/tradition armies of the Aglosphere proved far more capable of cooperation, innovation, and stacking enemy dead like corde-wood than their ostensibly superior and racially homogenous opponents.

They didn't. Losses on the Allied side were way, way, way higher. Especially on the Eastern front, where the Russians eventually won because they quite simply had more peasants than the Germans had bullets.

Germany and Japan are relatively tiny, with few natural resources. The Russians had essentially limitless cannon fodder, while the US and the British Empire combined had essentially limitless natural resources. Any war becomes a war of attrition if it goes on long enough. As the Finns also found when fighting the Russians, you can kill the enemy ten to one, but that's no good if the enemy always has an eleventh man.

As far as HBD is concerned, Germany's biggest blunder was an anti-IQ move. The persecution of the Jews caused a huge brain drain, both of e.g. Jewish professors and intellectuals themselves and of their colleagues, long before the Holocaust proper started. The Nazis kicked out people like Albert Einstein, who went over to the US. It's thanks to the smarts of people like those, that the US managed to develop the nuclear bomb and force Japan to surrender. Without it, it would certainly have taken a lot longer.

They didn't. Losses on the Allied side were way, way, way higher.

Russia is not part of "the anglosphere."

Further, all war since the industrial revolution has been trending against the concept of numerical superiority. "Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun and they have not." Modern warfare has repeatedly generated completely lopsided kill ratios.

China evidently does real well in the IQ games, and they didn't have the disadvantage of discovering the industrial revolution fifty years late. Yet they were a complete basket-case, and spent world war 2 primarily in the role of "victim". Japan does real well in the IQ games, and they got absolutely wrecked. India has no shortage of high-IQ individuals, but their society was a mess then and is still quite a mess now.

IQ: "70% of the time, it works every time." Is that meant to be the takeaway? It's decisive except in those situations where it isn't decisive which can't be predicted in advance?

Further, all war since the industrial revolution has been trending against the concept of numerical superiority.

Sorry, what? Mass production of guns is what enables mass armies, it's a lot faster to learn to use gun than sword or bow (which required life dedication to efficiently use).

Completely lopsided kill ratios existed well before Maxium gun. Historically horses chariots were a big game changer too. Battle of Otumba, etc.

The Russians had essentially limitless cannon fodder

that's both unkind and untrue. The Soviets had numerical advantage but not that much. 170 million USSR in 1939 vs 80 million Third Reich (and what if you count only ethnic Russians)? . Considering how much better was German war machine than Soviet (in part, because of Stalin cleansed nearly all military leadership and officers) it wasn't impossible target.

India has no shortage of high-IQ individuals

For country of 1.5 billion, they do have a shortage.

Sorry, what? Mass production of guns is what enables mass armies, it's a lot faster to learn to use gun than sword or bow (which required life dedication to efficiently use).

Mass armies matter when you have rough parity in technology and tactics. Sure, lopsided victories have existed for much of human history, but the industrial revolution really turbocharged the process to an absurd degree. Notably, technology and tactics are areas where we would naively expect IQ to deliver outsized results.

that's both unkind and untrue.

...It also doesn't seem to be a claim I made. The post above was conflating "The Allies" with "The Anglosphere", as though the former were equivalent to the later.

For country of 1.5 billion, they do have a shortage.

Is the per-capita number what's important, or the absolute numbers?

They didn't. Losses on the Allied side were way, way, way higher. Especially on the Eastern front, where the Russians eventually won because they quite simply had more peasants than the Germans had bullets.

Yes they did. "Especially on the Eastern front" is woefully underselling things, half a million US casualties and another million from the British commonwealth is a drop in the bucket compared to the 8 - 12 million soviets (depending on who's numbers we trust), and the question must be asked just how many of those death's were a product of the Soviet Union's rather "cavalier" attitude towards spending human lives.