I'm going to leave the ad homs to one side, though I suspect a review of your comment history would reveal a parade of unwarrantedly self-assured geek autodidacticism... hey, it's milder than 'asshole'. Here's a deal; I'll be less snarky if people like you can be less pretentious.
I'm still baffled as to your evidence; apparently the Mongolians are hard bastards and like fucking, or something. What's asinine is that you have no evidence for your wild, extraordinary claim. None. Never mind PhD level. Give a couple examples that you think support this idea that aren't equally well explained by the traditional 'stone broke and ignorant and breeding like mad to make sure at least one survives' model. Explain why Russia is at a fertility rate of 1.34 and Iceland is at 2.05, for example. New Zealanders are breeding like rabbits compared to Belorussians, etc. Not sure who has the Burberry and who has the fighter planes there, but I doubt it bears out your ideas...
I don't want a PhD thesis. I want you to come out with a single convincing case where your 'let's be warlike' stuff explains the way the world is better than the default "broke people breed more" model.
Appeal to authority are all very well (your idea has been 'noted' by 'notable' guys!), but Gibbon is a contentious source for any kind of assertion about the modern world, having not, well, seen it. Like many pretentious high school students, I've read him, but may not be the better for it. At least you could name-check Spengler or something; this would be just as embarrassing as anything else you've written on this thread but at least more topical.
+1, this really nailed it. Not just this thread either, but the all-too-common, arrogantly presented naive analyses that we see from time-to-time on the HN comment threads.
I'm still baffled as to your evidence; apparently the Mongolians are hard bastards and like fucking, or something. What's asinine is that you have no evidence for your wild, extraordinary claim. None. Never mind PhD level. Give a couple examples that you think support this idea that aren't equally well explained by the traditional 'stone broke and ignorant and breeding like mad to make sure at least one survives' model. Explain why Russia is at a fertility rate of 1.34 and Iceland is at 2.05, for example. New Zealanders are breeding like rabbits compared to Belorussians, etc. Not sure who has the Burberry and who has the fighter planes there, but I doubt it bears out your ideas...
I don't want a PhD thesis. I want you to come out with a single convincing case where your 'let's be warlike' stuff explains the way the world is better than the default "broke people breed more" model.
Appeal to authority are all very well (your idea has been 'noted' by 'notable' guys!), but Gibbon is a contentious source for any kind of assertion about the modern world, having not, well, seen it. Like many pretentious high school students, I've read him, but may not be the better for it. At least you could name-check Spengler or something; this would be just as embarrassing as anything else you've written on this thread but at least more topical.