20th anniversary of L.A. riots

Fox News reports that yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the L.A. riots. “Some 53 people were killed in what police have classified as riot-related homicides and accidents. Of those, some 22 homicides remain classified as open and unsolved.”

Will there be riots of this type again in the near future?

Comments

[John]

Many (most?) of rioters were not African Americans from South Central -- they were Hispanics from East LA. The Rodney King verdict was just a convenient excuse to steal stuff and set fires. It was "recreational rioting". It can and will happen again.

Also... The police allowed things to spiral out of control. At the start, they retreated rather than facing down the mob, and this fact was broadcast to the whole city by TV news helicopters. Hopefully police departments have learned from this experience, and won't do the same thing again. If all else fails, they'll know to shoot down the copters :-).

(I was living in LA at the time, but working on the West Side and living in The Valley. The shit went down some distance from me.)

[Dan]

I honestly don't think so. Several reasons:

(1) Very high incarceration rates have a lot of people off the street who would be leaders rather than followers in riots.

(2) Police show up in large numbers now whenever rioting is considered to be a threat.

(3) Urban populations are different, more spread out from the core at least into the inner suburbs. You don't have people packed into projects the way you did in the past.

(4) Urban populations are also older now, with less of a youth bubble.

(5) Since Obama's election, blacks feel less disenfranchised.

(6) Cocooning: the 'Dusk in Autumn' blog deals a lot with this. Cocooning is the opposite of rioting. Internet, TV, Video games, texting, and Facebook are all big contributors to the drop in crime.

(7) Obesity runs at like 50% in some places now, especially among certain groups. This means less ability to haul off stuff and lower T levels.

There hasn't been serious rioting in a long while and I think these reasons are part of why.

[Peter]

You can never say never, but I would be surprised to see anything of that magnitude happening again. The LAPD was very slow to respond when trouble first started, which allowed things to escalate. There's the notorious video of the chief, Darryl Gates, enjoying himself at a party during the first night of the riots. You won't see that sort of non-response again.

Look at what happened during the 2003 blackout in New York. As soon as the extent of the power failure became apparent, the NYPD went on full alert. It was near shift change, and the day shift cops were kept on duty even after the evening shift arrived. All cops who weren't scheduled to work were called in, and the cadets at the Police Academy were put onto street duty. I'm sure that any city faced with a potential riot would act likewise.

[Firepower]

Will there be riots of this type again in the near future?

...I certainly hope so!
I will rent my skills out to Korean store owners for a small fee.

[Thrasymachus]

One would think no, riots are too retro. In 1992 riots seemed like a 60's thing. But the '92 riots were proceded by a long period of delegitamizing the police and the justice system, and whipping up black anger. But also a lot of the worst damage was caused by illegal aliens from Central America. The Rodney King riots marked the end of white rule in California. If there are no riots now, it will be because the legal system is more arranged to submit to black power, and Zimmerman is guaranteed to do time.

[Dexelpred]

I can see riots like this happening in the future. However, I doubt they will happen in NYC, because NYC's police force is probably capable of defeating the infantry division of most armies.

[Camlost]

Yes, there will be riots after Zimmerman is acquitted, but where?

NYC would drop the hammer quickly.

Who cares about Los Angeles if Californians don't ever care about their own state? Plus, those Korean shop owners have tripled their firepower and readiness since then.

Southerners are too well armed, as well.

I predict another riot in West Las Vegas, where the National Guard will come out to protect the strip with full force (like in '92) but not really care about much else...

[Matt in RTP]

"NYC's police force is probably capable of defeating the infantry division of most armies."

Don't they have surface to air missiles, too? Different rules for NYC, I suppose...

I doubt such large-scale rioting will ever break out in the near future, for the reasons stated above by Dan and Peter.

[asdf]

Dan nailed it.

[Credo in Unum Deum]

"NYC's police force is probably capable of defeating the infantry division of most armies."

HA!

Ahem... Wanna bet, civilian?

The NYPD, for all of its good points, is still a civilian police force. They aren't trained for combat. They're not trained to deal with the pure brutality and team-work that modern armed forces can bring to the fight.

The militaries of the world don't play by the same rules as the civilians. It's perfectly okay for a soldier to shoot a corpse a few more times after its down, just to be sure it really is dead. In the civilian world that's called "excessive force" and "police brutality" and brings out the lawyers.

One USMC infantry platoon, made up of 18-22 year old guys fresh from Iraq or Afghanistan will carve up the NYPD like a Christmas turkey. One IDF infantry division will have the Israeli flag flying over NY City Hall by the end of the day. Hell, a Norwegian infantry division could cause some chaos in NYC if they really wanted to.

And, more on topic, I think there's gonna be riots again, I hope there isn't, but human nature being what it is, I'm not looking forward to the summer.

[Turambar]

"(5) Since Obama's election, blacks feel less disenfranchised. "

Try reading newsone. Victimhood sells.

[Park Slope Pubby]

I only know about NYC, as a native who still lives here. No way there would be riots. Interetingly, for all its propensity to vote Democratic on national elections, we have voted for Republican mayors for 20 years. We have very tough police, who are quietly supported by almost everbody for their policy of frisking black people on a regular basis. Blacks never raise this issue, or raise it so quietly nobody can hear them. I think this is becuase the non-criminal blacks want the criminal blacks locked up at least as much as the whites do.

Then there's another issue, in my opinion: almost everybody, from hugely paid white hedgefund people to black and Hispanic janitors, takes the subway. We are all hearded together on a regular basis. I know this is not going to be popular w/ the readers of this blog, but it makes us see each other as people. This is very different from a car society. I knew there wouldn't be riots after Rodney King in NYC, becuase of this, and there weren't.

[Peter]

It's ludicrous to compare the fighting ability of a police force with a military unit. Not only are the missions completely different, but the military unit will have far superior weaponry. Most cops in the NYPD have no access to anything more than pistols.
Along with better weapons, however, the soldiers face much greater risk. Only the most desperate or depraved criminals shoot at cops, but enemy soldiers have no such restraint.

[LAUSD]

Half Sigma,
I believe that the next set of giant riots will be in Chicago or Philadelphia.

Both cities have a large number of hipsters living in close proximity to the hood, and both have NAM populations that are just not afraid of the police the way NAMs in NYC and LA are.

In my humble opinion the hipsters in Williamsburg are safe, and the hipsters in Echo Park and Silver lake will do just fine.

Half, when are you going to next travel to Los Angeles ? Give your loyal readers in the LA region a heads up before you do - we can give you a guide to all the neighborhoods you should check out - you want a plan mapped out before you arrive

[Firepower]

In all seriousness, blacks will be forbidden to riot by the Obama Admin.

Such recklessness on blacks part would alienate swpl college kidz.

Not gonna happen.

[JP]

"a lot of the worst damage was caused by illegal aliens from Central America"

Yeah, thank God we don't have that problem any more! =)

[Van]

"Will there be riots of this type again in the near future?"

Yes. On or shortly after July 30, 2012 and on or shortly after November 6, 2012.

[JP]

"Cocooning: the 'Dusk in Autumn' blog deals a lot with this. Cocooning is the opposite of rioting. Internet, TV, Video games, texting, and Facebook are all big contributors to the drop in crime."

The flip side of this is that the bad guys can use cell phones and Facebook to coordinate their activities, as we have already seen in this country and others.

[jef]

Edward C Banfield caught hell in 1970 with his book The Unheavenly City, especially chapter 9, "rioting for fun and profit".

[Sgt. Joe Friday]

"Will there be riots of this type again in the near future?"

Unfortunately, the answer to that is "yes."

While I agree with Dan to some extent, one cannot rule out the possibility that troublemakers like Al Sharpton and Maxine "No Justice, No Peace" Waters will use the Travon Martin case as an excuse to incite violence. Sharpton is a clown, a cartoon-like character who seems to understand that his role is to be provacateur, an entertainer, so while I would not call him harmless, he probably isn't any more dangerous than Jesse Jackson. Waters OTOH is a genuinely malicious individual, who sees nothing wrong with her constituents shitting in their own nest, so to speak, if it means federal dollars make their way to her district, to be vacuumed up by her husband and his cronies.

[anonymous]

Back during the MLK riots, my dad got caught between two cars at a stop sign. A group tried to pull him out and give him the Reginald Denney treatment. He gave them the Bernhard Goetz treatment instead.

[Kiwiguy]

***There hasn't been serious rioting in a long while and I think these reasons are part of why.***

Maybe not in the US, but blacks in the UK had major riots last year. Also, social media such as twitter helped the rioters coordinate their movements.

http://www.economist.com/node/21528285

[Camlost]

"In all seriousness, blacks will be forbidden to riot by the Obama Admin."

LOL

Yes!! Kinda the same way that we never see "youths" with sagging pants anymore after Obama's MTV exhortation that "brothers need to pull up their pants."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1nzyRdp79A

[Newt]

If there are any riots, look for Obama to lose in November by 150 electoral votes.

I was astonished that Obama didn't do everything in his power to defuse the Trayvon thing. It's his biggest potential vulnerability.

Surely he must know enough about the law and the Floridians to know a jury is very unlikely to convict, federal or state. I expect Zimmerman will face the same charges at both levels. That's two verdicts and two chances to riot.

[HS: Why do you assume he's any less clueless than everyone else who believes the story that a 250 pound white man shot a little 12-year-old kid in the back in cold blood.]

[Vic]

Tom Bradley was the mayor at the time. He kind of acted like Dinkens did during the Crown Heights riots. In other words, let em run wild and blow off some steam, while the police stand down. Cities with minority or very liberal mayors should watch out. NYC should be ok as Bloomberg has shown sparks of conservatism. He did support the police over the muslim spying case.

[jay]

"One USMC infantry platoon, made up of 18-22 year old guys fresh from Iraq or Afghanistan will carve up the NYPD like a Christmas turkey. One IDF infantry division will have the Israeli flag flying over NY City Hall by the end of the day. Hell, a Norwegian infantry division could cause some chaos in NYC if they really wanted to."

You sound like Whiskey. He posts sh*t like this on every HBD website.

We're not talking about the NYPD against an infantry division. We're talking about them against a bunch of trayvons.

In NYC, most of the trayvons seem to be overweight or potheads. Latinos are in better shape, are more aggressive, and are more capable of a physical fight. But they are not going to riot.

[Sid]

Black issues have been demoted. Under a white president, it's very convenient to look at black poverty and blame it on the exploitative capitalist system, baneful negligence or downright vicious racism. With a black president, well, clearly the powers that be aren't trying to ruin blacks, so black poverty becomes less of a national shame and more of a national embarrassment.

Electing Obama was, for all the nice white people in America, a "Mission Accomplished" moment. We've proven that we're not racist! Now we can go home.

Obama has commented about race in America like an activist in at least two instances: the notorious beer summit and the Trayvon Martin case. Both instances hurt his popularity among whites. SWPLs don't want to be reminded of racism, while conservatives (whether they accept HBD or not) are fed up with the use of the race card, and are quick to condemn him for ever using it. For that reason, Obama hasn't really focused on black issues too readily.

Nice white people are now instead focused on other victims of the white-male-power-structure-industrial-patriarchal-complex, such as homosexuals. It seems like every new show is about gay people now. The Obama campaign has been decrying a supposed "War on Women," and not on blacks.

If Hillary Clinton were president today, it's probable that we'd be more focused on blacks than ever, and that feminism would be the after thought.

[Reggin]

"Maybe not in the US, but blacks in the UK had major riots last year."

I'd be shocked if the quiet, hard-working and family oriented black population in the US would ever be involved in rioting. Seriously, there is a high probability that there will be trouble with blacks. Think of that sucker punch incident in Baltimore, but on a larger scale.

[Eb]

The Flynn Effect (nutrition) has raised the intelligence of blacks (and other Americans) by about 0.3 SD since 1992. They are no longer enough dumb blacks to cause a large scale riot.

[Flico]

There will be a major riot at some point, the question is when and by whom.
Miami saw riots in 1980,1982,1989. There was Crown Heights in 1991, Cincinnatti in 2000.
I wonder if whites in California might go on an anti-Mexican rampage.

[Draftee]

Speaking of military units or more specifically, members of:

http://ginva.com/2011/03/female-soldier-photos/

[Big Don]

Big changes since 1992 Rodney King when there were few internet connections, few cell phones, and no social networking. Massive communications are now virtually instantaneous. Think Flash Mob times One Million. If Zimmerman is acquitted, this may be the first riot to go *Viral*. Look for the Feds to hit the Internet Kill Switch...

[Peter]

I'm watching an episode of (the racism!) Girls. So far one chick has gotten an STD, and another one (ahem) _pleasured herself_ in a bathroom. But no nudity, unfortunately.

There's undoubtedly some point to the show, but I don't get it.

[Fetzen]

From 1992 to 2012:

1) The United States transformed into a police state (and if there is one thing a police state is good for, it's preventing violence; even in very Black and very unequal countries, nothing happens when a sufficiently organized and powerful law enforcement is present)

2) New anti-riot technologies have arrived, such as plastic-coated bullets, better tear gas, tasers, and the Raytheon Guardian (which will probably be put into service in case of a big riot)

3) Riot prevention and suppression strategies have been fully studied and put into application by the government

4) Blacks are less frustrated than before (everything was done to cater to them), America is richer and gives more welfare, and the quality of entertainment (Internet, TV...) has improved. Panem et circenses have always been the most efficient way to keep a population in line.

[Abelard Lindsey]

Will there be riots of this type again in the near future?

I think so. The "flash mob" robberies and beatings that began about a year ago suggests the potential for violence in the near future. Black tend to burn a city about once every 10 years. The last one was Cincinnati in 2001. The Zimmerman case (although Zimmerman himself is part black) could touch it off. Obama losing the election this fall might also touch it off.

[Secret of NAM]

Dan's 7 part comment may be one of the best-reasoned thing that I've ever read here. Plus it introduced me to "cocooning" which sounds like the dude version of "nesting." It may be wrong (considering the number of black flash mobs around and even America's Hat's ability to produce a good riot) but it's interesting.

An aside, I've lost 50# by eschewing the cocoon and even though I'm ~40, I feel up for a riot 6/7 days. Don't miss your chance to merge with the retarded mob (if it can bother leaving the couch); get fit!

[Ian]

As others have said, riots if Obama loses the election and/or if Zimmerman is acquitted seem pretty likely to me. I think that's why gun sales are going through the roof - people remember that, during Katrina and the London riots (and the LA riots?), when the cops were nowhere to be found, armed neighborhoods got left alone, while unarmed neighborhoods got worked over.

[John]

@Vic: "Tom Bradley was the mayor at the time."

Didn't matter. Whatever other faults he had, you can't really blame this on him. The mayor of Los Angeles doesn't directly control the police department. Darryl Gates was chief of police at the time, and he was a hard ass. IIRC, he was away from police HQ giving a speech to some civic group at the time the riot started, and it took some time for him to get back downtown and take charge. I don't believe anything would have been different even if he was sitting at his desk. Things began to spin out of control when the cops on the ground decided to retreat and that fact was widely broadcast. That fateful decision was made by a small number of officers reacting to the situation developing around them -- the chain of command wasn't consulted. By the time commanders did get involved and marshaled their forces, it was too late.

[Peter]

@John -
That is very true about the cops retreating in the face of danger. While as far as I know none were disciplined for cowardice, the one consolation is that we probably won't see that again.

[Matt Strictland]

I don't think we'll have wide spread rioting, social changes don't really support it for various reasons mentioned here.

Note also much of the '92 crowd was the last of the lead paint and gas generation. That will have some small effect as well.

In some cities widespread abortion and use of birth control has had an impact though both were legal in L.A, when the 92 crowd was born (late 60's early 70's) it was far from common.

IMO we'll just get flash mobs and random poorly covered up race motivated beat downs by Blacks and very occasionally Hispanics.

[Fetzen]

"The Flynn Effect (nutrition) has raised the intelligence of blacks (and other Americans) by about 0.3 SD since 1992. They are no longer enough dumb blacks to cause a large scale riot."

Nutrition has no effect on the brain growth of mammals beyond the vital energy intake, so it is surprising it would be different for humans.

I have another explanation for the "Flynn Effect" (which remains to be confirmed; can we verify the test population and the IQ test given have not changed over the years?): race mixing.

In the 1850s, Blacks were of 100% pure African ancestry because they were kept as slaves and forbidden to marry non-Blacks; today, nearly all American Blacks have some White or Latino blood. The race mixing that happened in the interlapse has progressively raised their IQ.

I've noticed that all "environmentalist" arguments for a variety of things ignore the elephant in the room: race mixing and sexual selection.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

Better policing, longer incarcerations of young black men (at any given time, 10% of all black men are in prison), and an aging black American demographic profiles should keep rioting to a minimum.

Btw, Sigma, I think Coulter is a reader of you.

In this article, she says it's impossible for Republicans to reach out to Hispanic immigrants (legal or illegal) because they're too welfare dependent and (by implication) too stupid to vote Republican.

I agree, and would add that a better "immigrant outreach" policy for Republicans would be to pay $100,000 per person for LEGAL immigrants to renounce citzenship/turn in their greencards, and leave the US (illegal immigrants should simply be deported with no compensation). The Republicans wouldn't have to worry about dumb immigrant voters if they're no longer US citizens.

Also, pro-white policy platform like paying welfare dependent immigrants (i.e. low intelligence immigrants) to leave the US will help the GOP regain their foothold with white, college educated, suburbanites who have seen their cost of living and cost of housing increase as non-white immigrants (both illegal and legal) have flooded into their neighborhoods and reduced the number of public and private schools they can use.

Pro-white platforms have proven successful with college educated white voters in the suburbs. Look at how Lee Atwater used Willie Horton and and anti-welfare platforms in 1988 to beat Dukakis into the ground in key suburbs like the Chicago collar counties and the Philly suburbs. Bush even managed to win 35% of the Jewish vote in '88 running against welfare and crime.

These suburban voters moved left after they were turned off by Republican social conservatism in the 1990s, and after Bill Clinton neutralized the Republican advantage on economic and race policies by not harming the economy during the tech boom and by endorsing harsher sentencing of minority criminals.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/25/romney-doing-the-job-the-republican-establishment-simply-wont-do/

Today, 70 percent of illegal immigrant households collect government benefits — as do 57 percent of all immigrant households — compared to 39 percent of native households.

Immigrant households with the highest rate of government assistance are from the Dominican Republic (82 percent), Mexico and Guatemala (tied at 75 percent), based on the latest available data from 2009. Immigrant households least likely to be on any welfare program are from the United Kingdom (7 percent).

British immigrants aren’t picking the tomatoes Karl Rove doesn’t want his son to pick. (That’s how he justified Bush’s amnesty proposal.)

You can either pay a little more for tomatoes picked by Americans or you can pay a lot more in welfare to the illegal immigrants who will pick them as well as to generations of their descendants.

Yes, many illegal immigrants work hard, but it’s not our responsibility if their employers don’t pay them a living wage. This is known as an “externality,” which we hear a lot about in the case of greedy businesses polluting the land, but not when it’s greedy businesses making the rest of us support their underpaid employees.

Romney is one of the few Republicans to recognize that there is no need to “round up” illegal aliens (in the lingo of amnesty supporters) to get them to go home. Illegal aliens will leave the same way they arrived. They decided to walk across the border to get jobs — and welfare, apparently — and they’ll walk back across the border as soon as the jobs and welfare dry up.

Obama has a similar plan, but instead of using E-Verify to stop illegal aliens from taking American jobs, he did it by destroying the entire job market. Hmmmm, drug-war ravaged Ciudad Juarez, or Obama’s America … I’ll take Juarez! Under the booming economy President Romney is going to produce, we’re going to need a really high fence.

It didn’t take a government administrator “rounding up” foreigners and putting them on buses to get 20 million illegal aliens here, and it won’t take a government program “rounding them up” to get them home.

[Crop]

"Nutrition has no effect on the brain growth of mammals beyond the vital energy intake, so it is surprising it would be different for humans."

Well nutrition is presumably why humans have been getting taller over the 20th.  The fact that brain size (whether measured in weight at autopsy or circumference at birth) has been increasing too is what caused Richard Lynn to propose that nutrition is the cause of the Flynn Effect.

"I have another explanation for the "Flynn Effect" (which remains to be confirmed; can we verify the test population and the IQ test given have not changed over the years?):"

While a lot of the research leaves much to be desired, the Flynn Effect has been documented in so many different test populations and on so many different tests that it's impossible to deny, though I suspect its size has been exaggerated for the reasons you suggest, among others.

"In the 1850s, Blacks were of 100% pure African ancestry because they were kept as slaves and forbidden to marry non-Blacks; today, nearly all American Blacks have some White or Latino blood."

Actually most of the white ancestry in African Americans entered their gene pool during slavery.

" The race mixing that happened in the interlapse has progressively raised their IQ."

But the Flynn Effect has raised the raw test scores of all races, not blacks only.  And yet the 1 SD gap between American blacks and whites has remained constant since WWI.  

[HS: The Flynn Effect is well documented but poorly understood, and many aren't interested in understanding the real truth because not understanding allows them to assume that the Flynn Effect supports what they WANT to believe about race and IQ.

As I like to point out, scores on tests like Raven's Progressive Matrices have gone up, but scores on the SAT have not gone up. Maybe Raven's is testing something else in addition to g, and that something else has gone up and not g.]

[Big Don]

Preview of coming attractions---> http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Windows-smashed-as-May-Day-protests-wind-through-Downtown-Seattle-149713705.html
So much for heavy police presence controlling things. This was just a few nutcases, not millions of N'z...

[Fetzen]

"Actually most of the white ancestry in African Americans entered their gene pool during slavery."

I did know that (Thomas Jefferson himself couldn't resist banging one of his slaves).

What I meant is that over time, more and more White blood has entered the African gene pool, with a net acceleration after the end of the legal and social stigmas associated to race mixing.

"Well nutrition is presumably why humans have been getting taller over the 20th."

There is an alternative explanation, which is sexual selection: economic prosperity and feminism have led women to select men on their physical appearance rather than their ability to provide, and short men (as well as ugly men) have been losers in this change.

Here is a recent study documenting the fact men are getting handsomer because of sexual selection: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2137496/Darwins-theory-survival-fittest-continues-shape-human-evolution-modern-age-say-scientists.html

"But the Flynn Effect has raised the raw test scores of all races, not blacks only. "

I think the most obvious explanation here is an increase in national school attendance and general cultural immersion (everyone must go to college) leading to increased verbal scores on I.Q. tests.

Up to the 1960s, few people, especially in the lower classes, had an education beyond religious and moral teachings.

Now, I may sound like someone who absolutely wants to deny the Flynn Effect, but I don't; it's just the "nutrition" explanation that I find very unlikely and very bogus.

"As I like to point out, scores on tests like Raven's Progressive Matrices have gone up, but scores on the SAT have not gone up."

HalfSigma has summarized what is another big issue with the Flynn Effect: I.Q. tests results have gone up, but it has not translated into tangible achievement in other fields.

[Vic]

John: "By the time commanders did get involved and marshaled their forces, it was too late."

That might have been the case the first night, but they had the next day to regroup and plan out a strategy. Bradley was at the helm and his leadership failed the city in that crisis. Things would have gone down much differently if a Guiliani was in charge.

[Crop]

"HS: The Flynn Effect is well documented but poorly understood, and many aren't interested in understanding the real truth because not understanding allows them to assume that the Flynn Effect supports what they WANT to believe about race and IQ."

Well it's perfectly plausible that nutrition has raised the intelligence of both blacks and whites in the U.S. by over 1 SD but the 1 SD IQ gap between the races is 100% genetic and thus constant over time.  For example nutrition has raised the height of both men and women by about 1 SD but the height gap between the sexes is genetic. 

"As I like to point out, scores on tests like Raven's Progressive Matrices have gone up, but scores on the SAT have not gone up. Maybe Raven's is testing something else in addition to g, and that something else has gone up and not g."

This is consistent with the nutrition hypothesis.  Children who are born malnourished struggle with abstract visual puzzles but develop relatively normal reading and math skills.

[Crop]

"I think the most obvious explanation here is an increase in national school attendance and general cultural immersion (everyone must go to college) leading to increased verbal scores on I.Q. tests."

Except school type tests like the SAT show the smallest Flynn Effect.  It's the culture reduced tests devoid of scholastic content and designed to measure intelligence in populations as diverse desert bushmen and harvard law students that show the biggest Flynn Effects. 

Further, the full Flynn Effect shows up on infant development tests, so schooling can not be the explanation.

"Now, I may sound like someone who absolutely wants to deny the Flynn Effect, but I don't; it's just the "nutrition" explanation that I find very unlikely and very bogus."

If nutrition can raise a trait as heritable as height by about 1 SD over the 20th century, why not intelligence? 

"HalfSigma has summarized what is another big issue with the Flynn Effect: I.Q. tests results have gone up, but it has not translated into tangible achievement in other fields."

Yes it has.  Look at the level of scientific and technological progress humans have made in the last 100 years in fields as diverse as genetics and computers.     

[Fetzen]

"Yes it has. Look at the level of scientific and technological progress humans have made in the last 100 years in fields as diverse as genetics and computers."

Are you "Linda" coming here under another name? Because she/he advanced the same argument.

The jump in technological innovation has more to do with the accumulation of knowledge, itself caused by the end of the Ancien Regime and the Church influence in Europe.

[Crop]

"The jump in technological innovation has more to do with the accumulation of knowledge, itself caused by the end of the Ancien Regime and the Church influence in Europe."

Why the hell are you giving the church credit, and for science of all things? Are you Christian? If so, this discussion is over.

And I suspect the jump in technology is far too rapid to be explained by knowledge accumulation alone.

[Van]

"I did know that (Thomas Jefferson himself couldn't resist banging one of his slaves)"

Godammit. Unproven, and most likely not true.