The people who currently live in Haiti are utterly incapable of self government. They try to move illegally to the neighboring Dominican Republic but are deported back when caught. US politician make a lot of noise about the deportations. So basically we have a situation where white people tell brown people not to deport black people. But the brown people in the Dominican Republic don't care and don't want their country turning into Haiti. So they keep deporting the blacks.
It's amazing what can be accomplished by Dominicans when they have just a bit more European genetic admixture: a functioning peaceful society.
You want to help Haiti, colonize it. Complete take over of all institutions. Expect to run Haiti for 100 years (4 or so generations). Rule of law and social stability will create a Haiti “elite” to form—similar to America’s “talented tenth” W. E. B. Du Bois used to talk about. All things (good things) follow from rule of law and social stability.
Of course, social activists won’t do this because their main interest is in virtue signaling while tearing down the very society that gave them the ability to virtue signal in the first place.
I know many US Haitians and they are good people, smart and creative. Seeing the media spin what's happening as a series problems made by external actors is frustrating though. This is maybe their 36th coup if you include this and the last assassination. It's incoherent for people to explain such a deficit in cooperation and organization on a series of unfortunate events blamed on "meddling". Even the details of recent history are being spun exclusively in terms of external causation. This feeds into the conspiratorial populism that Both Americans and Haitians now default to, at least online. It shows how stilted our collective perception of reality has become now that behavioral genetics in populations is unthinkable to most people.
One cannot expect much from the people of Haiti for several reasons. The low IQ, characteristic of blacks predominantly from Sub Sahara Africa is perhaps a reason for their shortcomings. However they eventually made it to the island of Hispaniola; this is Dominican Republic on one side and corrupt Haiti on the other side. Corruption is rampant which comes as no surprise; blacks run the country. These blacks have brought with them from Africa the dark culture of Vudu, or Voodoo. This is a mix of African black magic and Catholicism. La Santeria is also common. The feral blacks practice these very dangerous religions, bringing nothing but very bad luck, horrible living conditions, and death.
So when you look at Haiti consider the leaders of the country: blacks. They are incapable of being leaders and trusted politicians.
At first glance, it sounds plausible to see the brain drain as human-capital lowering effects behind Haiti's decline. Then, suddenly, you realise that brain drain affects Dominica in the same way. And you enters the average IQ of 75 into the normal distribution calculator, and looks at how many out of 1000 students fall into the range above 120 IQ. Well 1 of them! This is the real reason for Haiti's decline...
A couple of decades ago, a scholar wrote a book on the etiology of Haiti's trouble. (I do not remember the name of the scholar or his book.) The island endured the harshest slavery on the planet. The French utterly depleted the island of its natural resources, including vegetation that left the soil and land in ruin. Right now Haiti is an indictment of humanity.
In his book The Negro Around the World, journalist and probable spy Willard Price blamed voodoo for Haiti's woes, and compared the nation unfavorably with its island neighbors, some of which he highly praised. Little seems to have changed in the 99 years since the book was published.
"Data published by the World Bank indicate that real GDP per capita is lower now than it was in 1960 – meaning the country hasn’t seen sustained economic growth in more than half a century."
That's not right; Haiti underestimated its economic growth and is now considered (since 2021) by the World Bank a lower middle income country. It is poor, but it is not a mere tenth as rich as the Dominican Republic.
Ah yes, let's blame brain drain as the main reason why Haiti is such a mess because it fits our "IQ supremacy" narrative while ignoring the punitive reparations the country has to pay to France for over 70 years for gaining freedom from slavery. The inability to look beyond your own assumptions and preconceived notions prevents you from seeing what is and that, ironically, subtracts from your intelligence.
"They can’t explain why fast-tracking visas for highly qualified Russians would be an effective way to destabilise Russia’s economy"
Is that so clear? In the case of the Soviet Union, it was very plausible, after all, the Soviet Union prevented people from emigrating for exactly that reason. But in the Soviet Union, highly qualified people could not earn much, that is quite different from today's Russia. Of course, they cannot earn as much as in the United States, but a) in purchasing power, the difference is smaller and b) for many people, the difference would have to be very large for them to be ready to live in a foreign country with a different language and significant cultural differences.
Apart from the question of Russia, recently I saw claims that the US could easily brain drain even Western European countries. I am quite skeptical. On one hand, for many Western Europeans who are really highly qualified, it is not that difficult to emigrate to the US if they want under current rules, and on the other hand, many Europeans would not want to even if they could, many would not want to even if they would have higher purchasing power in the US.
I think it is hardly an accident that the European countries the US brain drained most after WWII were the UK and Ireland - culturally closer countries where English is spoken.
Some European countries the US may brain drain more easily would be countries from which there is much emigration (now mainly to more affluent European countries), anyway, e.g. Romania, Bulgaria, or the Baltic states.
Of course, there would also be Russians who would be interested, but it is less clear than in the case of some smaller poor European countries, Russia does offer quite some opportunities for highly qualified people. Furthermore, if a serious attempt was made to attract Russians, current sanctions policies would be a hindrance - currently, they make it more difficult for Russians to be economically active in other countries. Some might be ready to cut economic ties with Russia, but many wouldn't.
The people who currently live in Haiti are utterly incapable of self government. They try to move illegally to the neighboring Dominican Republic but are deported back when caught. US politician make a lot of noise about the deportations. So basically we have a situation where white people tell brown people not to deport black people. But the brown people in the Dominican Republic don't care and don't want their country turning into Haiti. So they keep deporting the blacks.
It's amazing what can be accomplished by Dominicans when they have just a bit more European genetic admixture: a functioning peaceful society.
This is painful to read. I have been involved with charity work in Haiti for forty years. Your piece just reminds me how dire it is.
Lack of intelligence is not the only positive trait missing in Haitian people; integrity is also lacking, as Claudine Gay amply demonstrates.
You want to help Haiti, colonize it. Complete take over of all institutions. Expect to run Haiti for 100 years (4 or so generations). Rule of law and social stability will create a Haiti “elite” to form—similar to America’s “talented tenth” W. E. B. Du Bois used to talk about. All things (good things) follow from rule of law and social stability.
Of course, social activists won’t do this because their main interest is in virtue signaling while tearing down the very society that gave them the ability to virtue signal in the first place.
I know many US Haitians and they are good people, smart and creative. Seeing the media spin what's happening as a series problems made by external actors is frustrating though. This is maybe their 36th coup if you include this and the last assassination. It's incoherent for people to explain such a deficit in cooperation and organization on a series of unfortunate events blamed on "meddling". Even the details of recent history are being spun exclusively in terms of external causation. This feeds into the conspiratorial populism that Both Americans and Haitians now default to, at least online. It shows how stilted our collective perception of reality has become now that behavioral genetics in populations is unthinkable to most people.
One cannot expect much from the people of Haiti for several reasons. The low IQ, characteristic of blacks predominantly from Sub Sahara Africa is perhaps a reason for their shortcomings. However they eventually made it to the island of Hispaniola; this is Dominican Republic on one side and corrupt Haiti on the other side. Corruption is rampant which comes as no surprise; blacks run the country. These blacks have brought with them from Africa the dark culture of Vudu, or Voodoo. This is a mix of African black magic and Catholicism. La Santeria is also common. The feral blacks practice these very dangerous religions, bringing nothing but very bad luck, horrible living conditions, and death.
So when you look at Haiti consider the leaders of the country: blacks. They are incapable of being leaders and trusted politicians.
At first glance, it sounds plausible to see the brain drain as human-capital lowering effects behind Haiti's decline. Then, suddenly, you realise that brain drain affects Dominica in the same way. And you enters the average IQ of 75 into the normal distribution calculator, and looks at how many out of 1000 students fall into the range above 120 IQ. Well 1 of them! This is the real reason for Haiti's decline...
A couple of decades ago, a scholar wrote a book on the etiology of Haiti's trouble. (I do not remember the name of the scholar or his book.) The island endured the harshest slavery on the planet. The French utterly depleted the island of its natural resources, including vegetation that left the soil and land in ruin. Right now Haiti is an indictment of humanity.
This is really unconvincing. Brain drain is a feedback effect of many forces, not a single factor explanation of anything.
In his book The Negro Around the World, journalist and probable spy Willard Price blamed voodoo for Haiti's woes, and compared the nation unfavorably with its island neighbors, some of which he highly praised. Little seems to have changed in the 99 years since the book was published.
https://archive.org/details/negroaroundworld00pric/page/50/mode/2up
"Data published by the World Bank indicate that real GDP per capita is lower now than it was in 1960 – meaning the country hasn’t seen sustained economic growth in more than half a century."
That's not right; Haiti underestimated its economic growth and is now considered (since 2021) by the World Bank a lower middle income country. It is poor, but it is not a mere tenth as rich as the Dominican Republic.
https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/new-world-bank-country-classifications-income-level-2021-2022
Ah yes, let's blame brain drain as the main reason why Haiti is such a mess because it fits our "IQ supremacy" narrative while ignoring the punitive reparations the country has to pay to France for over 70 years for gaining freedom from slavery. The inability to look beyond your own assumptions and preconceived notions prevents you from seeing what is and that, ironically, subtracts from your intelligence.
What would Haiti's IQ be if they didn't experience significant brain drain?
I once read that there was not a single native-born college graduate living in Haiti. Is that really true? Was it ever true?
"They can’t explain why fast-tracking visas for highly qualified Russians would be an effective way to destabilise Russia’s economy"
Is that so clear? In the case of the Soviet Union, it was very plausible, after all, the Soviet Union prevented people from emigrating for exactly that reason. But in the Soviet Union, highly qualified people could not earn much, that is quite different from today's Russia. Of course, they cannot earn as much as in the United States, but a) in purchasing power, the difference is smaller and b) for many people, the difference would have to be very large for them to be ready to live in a foreign country with a different language and significant cultural differences.
Apart from the question of Russia, recently I saw claims that the US could easily brain drain even Western European countries. I am quite skeptical. On one hand, for many Western Europeans who are really highly qualified, it is not that difficult to emigrate to the US if they want under current rules, and on the other hand, many Europeans would not want to even if they could, many would not want to even if they would have higher purchasing power in the US.
I think it is hardly an accident that the European countries the US brain drained most after WWII were the UK and Ireland - culturally closer countries where English is spoken.
Some European countries the US may brain drain more easily would be countries from which there is much emigration (now mainly to more affluent European countries), anyway, e.g. Romania, Bulgaria, or the Baltic states.
Of course, there would also be Russians who would be interested, but it is less clear than in the case of some smaller poor European countries, Russia does offer quite some opportunities for highly qualified people. Furthermore, if a serious attempt was made to attract Russians, current sanctions policies would be a hindrance - currently, they make it more difficult for Russians to be economically active in other countries. Some might be ready to cut economic ties with Russia, but many wouldn't.
Nigeria and Ghana are both ranked below Haiti on that World Bank test score database. Interesting.
This account of working in Haiti with Haitian medical staff has been making the rounds via Drukpa Kunley, but apparently it's written by Scott Alexander? https://web.archive.org/web/20150407223525/http://squid314.livejournal.com/297579.html