November 30, 2008

My book is now for sale

My book, America's Half-Blood Prince: Barack Obama's "Story of Race and Inheritance," is now for sale here for $29.95 plus S & H. You can read about it in my new VDARE.com column here.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

21 comments:

Bruce Charlton said...

SS conlcudes: "It’s time for new elites."

Charles Murray's new book Real Education also says something - the current elite is 'nice' but not 'good' (i.e. not virtuous).

Given the current secular liberal US elite's extreme reluctance to reproduce biologically and their self-hating, self-weakening, lifestyle-obsessed ideology; the current elite will surely be replaced by another with significantly different genetic and philosophical properties.

The only question is the identity of the coming elite.

The only groups that are fertile, self-confident, self-defending and self-promoting seem to be religious. If so, the future elite will be religious.

The question can therefore be sharpened to 'what will be the religion of the future US elite?'

However, most religious groups are of low-ish average IQ, and economically unsuccessful.

My current prediction is that the future US elite will come from the highest IQ and most economically-successful religious group that is fertile, self-confident, self-defending and self-promoting.

In other words Mormons.

I would regard a Mormon-dominated US elite as the best case future scenario (and likely to be preferable overall to the current situation) - but even if one dislikes the idea of a Mormon-demonated US elite, it must be admitted that most of the plausible alternatives are much worse.

Anonymous said...

Ever heard of Amazon?

"In other words Mormons.

I would regard a Mormon-dominated US elite as the best case future scenario (and likely to be preferable overall to the current situation) - but even if one dislikes the idea of a Mormon-demonated US elite, it must be admitted that most of the plausible alternatives are much worse.
"

With their higher IQs and lack of any kind of guilt pushing their own interests, I see no reason why it won't remain the Jews. They've never been more than 2% of the population, overal numbers don't really matter much.

Anonymous said...

...the dreams from Obama’s father: to gain personal political power for himself in service to his race.

One glaring contradiction to "service to his race" is his votes for legalizing alien trespassers, on bills which had they passed would have fallen hardest on his fellow blacks. (In other words, a feliz Navidad gift to the West Side, paid for by the South Side.)

This invites the question, did Obama vote for those bills knowing full well that they weren't going to pass? Were he and Tom Tancredo conspiring behind the scenes?

Anonymous said...

Sorry, guys, but there is no "current élite".

BGC makes a good point about the Mormons, but one can hardly write off reactionary (white) Catholics (the élite of which includes a large number of WASPy converts), the smarter evangelicals, and Orthodox Jews. These four groups will vie with and eventually replace the secularists. Each of these will survive and dominate different regions, but they will not knock the others off.

By the way, is Darwinism the first suicidal scientific theory? Once people accept it, they stop reproducing. So its adherents are, by its own definition, unfit.

Anonymous said...

"However, most religious groups are of low-ish average IQ, and economically unsuccessful. "

You're touching on a part of Steve's ideas which is a little bit shaky. IQ is not cast in stone. However it is not as pliable as the NYT would like it to be. Religion can be an enormous upward mobiliser but in a more indirect sense than the Obama type success story, which is more of an artificial one if you factor in all the AA-help.

If you look at Europe, which started out with the barbaric and primitive Germanic and Celtic tribes trashing the more sophisticated Romans: It took many centuries of religious practice, and the secular effects of that, to get to Porsche and Bach. Sorry if I forget the French equivalents, as a German I struggle a little with that. The monks did not start reading and writing (and making beer!) so that in 10 years there would be a new elite. The Porsche's and von Braun’s were unintended by-products of 1500 years spiritual development. And as the church fades in Europe, the von Braun's and Bach's will also disappear and be replaced by simplistic Ali’s and Mahmoud’s. So Christian religion does beget IQ, but not in a manufacturing sense as liberals always hoped they could achieve for blacks and Latinos by instituting AA. Basically it has to come out from the people themselves and not through little helping ladders as was the case with most of the anti-colonial movement.

Anonymous said...

"the dreams from Obama’s father: to gain personal political power for himself in service to his race."

Thats a funny one considering the kind of "service" black post-colonial regimes have been meting out to their underlings!

Dennis Mangan said...

Steve, you ought to sell autographed copies yourself.

And I know that you told everyone to quit finding errors in your book, but I'm afraid I found one. Emerson did not write about "events", the quote goes: "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind". Alternatively, rather than quote, it could be "to paraphrase" RWE.

http://www.emersoncentral.com/poems/ode_inscribed_to_william_h_channing.htm

Sincerely,
Pedant-in-Chief

Anonymous said...

"koos said...

If you look at Europe, which started out with the barbaric and primitive Germanic and Celtic tribes trashing the more sophisticated Romans:"

Not really true. The celts were by that time integrated into the Roman empire (the gauls fully integrated, the britons, less so). And the germans didn't trash "more sophisticated romans". They trashed a more sophisticated Rome, the Rome built by previous generations of romans. The romans of the third, fourth, and fifth century could never themselves have built Rome.

When the germanic tribes finally toppled the western empire, the difference in civilizational ability between germans and romans was not so great.

Jeff Burton said...

Why oh why did you not use CreateSpace instead of Lulu? You get to keep far more of the price of the book and it's in the Amazon system instead of the cul-de-sac that is Lulu.

Anonymous said...

"Reg Cæsar said...

One glaring contradiction to "service to his race" is his votes for legalizing alien trespassers, on bills which had they passed would have fallen hardest on his fellow blacks. (In other words, a feliz Navidad gift to the West Side, paid for by the South Side.)"

This is often said. I've said it myself. That illegal immigration hurts blacks the most, because illegal aliens directly compete for the jobs most likely to be sought by blacks. But is it true?

The black middle class often seek jobs in large corporations (a fraction of which jobs are reserved for blacks) or in the municipal, state, or federal civil service (a fraction of which are reserved for blacks, and all of which are reserved for U.S. citizens). And "working-class" blacks have, to a large extent, dropped out of the world of legitimate full-time work altogether.

Perhaps blacks don't much care about illegal aliens because they themselves don't feel economically threatened.

Anonymous said...

I hate to be a party pooper, but the fundamental thesis of your book is essentially false.

Obama did not write Dreams - William Ayers wrote it.

At best, Obama handed Ayers a broad outline for the work, but all the anecdotes and vignettes and metaphors and imagery are Ayers's, and I wouldn't be surprised if the central themes of the book weren't Ayers's, as well [to the extent that the book even has "central themes"].

Anonymous said...

I agree with everyone here about the negative effects of secularism on a society's prospects for survival. And yet I can't force myself to become a religious believer. It's like forcing yourself to believe that 2+2=5. Ignorance may indeed be bliss, but you can only fake ignorance to others, not to yourself.

Another example: sure, it would be great to sincerely believe that death isn't final, that there is heaven and hell, but how the hell am I supposed to convince myself of that if I already know that it's all fairy tales? I've already eaten the damn snake's apple.

Atheism being factually correct, but deadly to anyone it touches is probably the biggest irony that I know of.

Anonymous said...

BGC's comment was completely sensible until he mentioned the Mormons. Oh, if only it were the Mormons.

I think that unfortunately Richard H is right on this. The birth rate of Orthodox Jews is several times higher than the Mormons' birth rate.

Anonymous said...

1. The cover of the book looks terrible. The bright orange bands and the head of the deer?

2. Did you think of going to a mainstream publisher? Or what about a conservative books publisher like Regnery Press or the ISI? (ISI published Jim Kalb's "The Tyranny of Liberalism").

Stopped Clock said...

I suspect that no mainstream publisher would ever take on a book that has already been released for free as a PDF, regardless of its content. That it's a controversial book about a recently elected president isn't helping, of course, but really it all comes down to the money, and a publisher isn't going to put out tens of thousands of dollars to print a book only to find that most of its potential readers have already read it for free.

I have to agree that the cover is somewhat disappointing though. As I said earlier, I really only want this book as a conversation-starter, so it would have been nice if it had a picture of Obama on the cover. But I suppose that that could lead to some sort of lawsuit.

If it were a hardcover book I could buy it and then print my own cover. I suppose I could do that with the paperback too, but at that point it seems like it would make more sense to just go and print my own book from scratch, cover and all ... oh well.

Still, this is an excellent excellent book and I can't thank you enough for writing it.

matt williams said...

And "working-class" blacks have, to a large extent, dropped out of the world of legitimate full-time work altogether
huh?
Please explain

Lucius Vorenus said...
Obama did not write Dreams - William Ayers wrote it

SMDH

Ah yes, Blacks are not capable of doing anything great. We must have others hold our hands to guide us like blind children.
There are over 38 million Blacks in this country, your little tests and studies can't tell you about the abilites of each one of us.

Anonymous said...

Re Martin's comments about the Celts and the Romans:"All of Gaul was divided into three parts...",about all I recall from Latin class.Thats muy contribution.Hope it clarifies things. Also re the authorship of Obamas book(s). Steve has pointedly,er,pointed out that he has a lot of respect for O'B's writing ability,(tho less for his actual content) and he maintains that O'B DID write those books. Lucius states categorically that the pudgy terrorist Bill Ayers wrote them. You see what he said?? You gonna take that,Steve?? (Steve pulls out a gun and shoots Lucius in the foot...)

Anonymous said...

Of all municipalities in America with over 5000 population the one with the lowest median age (15) is Kiryas Yoel.

That's the Kiryas Yoel in NY not UT in case you're wondering.

Stopped Clock said...

Someone here who's Jewish or has a lot of experience with Jews might know better than me, but my experience is that Orthodox Jewish families consider themselves lucky if any of their many kids actually stays Orthodox when they grow up. A whole lot of them, the majority, seem to be converting to other branches of Judaism or even more commonly turning into nonobservant "Jewish atheists". (The blogger Jewish Atheist is of course a great example of this trend, but I am basing this on in-person experience (I used to live in a ~50% Jewish town before I moved to Maine) and not just people I see online.)

43% of Jews IN ISRAEL are atheists according to this page which I just found now.

I suspect the population of Orthodox Jews will never really grow significantly beyond their present population. Moreover, I am no expert on IQs, but it would seem to be not improbable to me that Jews, like pretty much everyone else, have their highest birthrates in the lowest-IQ segments of their population and the highest-IQ population having very few kids. I would be amazed if Kiryas Joel's average IQ was on par with the 117 often touted as the average for Ashkenazi Jews on the whole. If I was Jewish, I would want to learn English and get out of there so I could go live a normal life somewhere nicer.

Bruce Charlton said...

Thanks for the excellent responses to my comment about the future Mormon elite - and apologies to Steve for hijacking the comment thread.

As Stopped Clock implies, the particular advantage of US Mormons over *any other group* I have heard of in the whole of human history - is that of a chosen and also 'eugenic' fertility pattern.

Although Mormons use contraception and fertility trends are parallel with the US trends (but about 1 child extra) - religiousness, wealth and intelligence seem to be positively correlated with fertility.

Some historical data are at the Encyclopedia of Mormonism under Vital Statistics, and the author (Prof. Heaton) has published further studies:

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/EoM&CISOPTR=4391&CISOSHOW=4308

The special thing about US Mormons is therefore high levels of chosen fertility among the high IQ and most economically successful - and also the most devout.

So (given genetic and cultural transmission) natural selection among Mormons would not just tend to increase numbers (although this would also depend upon apostasy rates, and how much upbringing affects subsequent fertility among the lapsed) but would presumably amplify intelligence, strengthen traits such as conscientiousness, and also enforce religiousness.

To put it simply, I think the US Mormon elite have been unique in the combination of being a modernity-embracing, highly educated, economically-successful who are *choosing* to reproduce at above fertility levels.

If correct, the Mormon elite are not just growing in numbers, they are growing more elite, and more Mormon.

I don't think this applies to any other elite group?

Anonymous said...

"Chic Noir said...

"And "working-class" blacks have, to a large extent, dropped out of the world of legitimate full-time work altogether"

huh? Please explain"

A substantial fraction of non college educated blacks do not support themselves through full-time work, and seemingly have no intention of ever doing so. They are supported by the state: either by welfare in one form or another, or they are incarcerated in jail or prison.