Thursday, March 16, 2023

An odd stereotype from H. G. Wells: Orientals live fast, die young

The H. G. Wells story "The New Accelerator" is about a drug that allows the person who takes it to think and move thousands of times faster than usual, making it subjectively appear that the world around him has slowed almost to a stop. Wells's description of the experience is quite cinematic and brings to mind this scene from one of the X-Men movies:


The X-Man who has this ability is called Quicksilver -- another name for the element mercury (Hg). And no, it didn't escape my notice that Wells also went by H. G.

This passage from "The New Accelerator" caught my attention because of its strangeness. One expects racial stereotypes from writers of Wells's era, but one also expects them to be basically accurate.

Suppose a man repeatedly dosed with such a preparation: he would live an active and record life indeed, but he would be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at twenty-five, and by thirty well on the road to senile decay. It seemed to me that so far Gibberne was only going to do for any one who took his drug exactly what Nature has done for the Jews and Orientals, who are men in their teens and aged by fifty, and quicker in thought and act than we [Europeans] are all the time.

Isn't that weird? The song about living fast and dying young is called "I Wanna Be a Kennedy" -- not a Takahashi or a Silberstein.

I understand that "Oriental" covered pretty much everything from Istanbul to Tokyo, embracing a wide variety of racial groups, but at least as far as the East Asian races are concerned, Wells's characterization couldn't be further from the truth. The Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans very clearly mature and age more slowly than Europeans. College students look like they're in junior high school. Junior high school students look like little kids. Women keep their youthful looks well into their forties and even fifties. Puberty hits later than for Europeans, old people remain spry for longer, and life expectancies are the highest in the world. Jews are also overrepresented among centenarians and certainly do not age faster than Europeans.

Indians do apparently age more quickly than Europeans (as do blacks), and they are perhaps the "Oriental" group with which Wells would have been most familiar, but are they "quicker in thought"? If IQ is taken as a reasonable proxy for such quickness, the races that outdo Europeans in that regard are the longer-lived, slower-aging Jews and East Asians, not South Asians.

6 comments:

ben said...

My understanding is that there's an ongoing precipitous primitivisation in the West as part of the mutational meltdown situation (this process is now present in the rest of the world); as well as anti-adaptive/deathly/witch/suicidal orientation there's also declining intelligence, primitivisation of the body, probably decline in civilised personality traits.

It's possible that (at least some) European groups were slower life history than even the northern East Asians around Wells' time. In fact there might've been a time when all other (or nearly all) human groups were faster life history than say the North West Europeans.

Bruce Charlton said...

Wells seems *somewhat* correct in his observations, if not in his theoretical explanations. At the time he was writing (but maybe not so much now, due to strongly anti-intelligence patterns of reproduction for several generations, +/- mutation accumulation) Ashkenazi Jews and East Asians had a higher average IQ (although of different aptitudes) - and especially among European immigrants with whom Wells will (probably) have interacted.

As for life expectancy; 100 years ago East Asians in their native countries - assuming Wells had seen some demographic data - (but I'm not sure about Jews) had a much lower life expectancy than Europeans, and were much smaller and slighter - due to living on a meager, near-starvation, almost wholly carbohydrate, diet.

In A Farewell To Alms by Gregory Clarke, he describes that the low level of internal violence and infectious diseases (due to much better hygiene) in East Asia, meant that food became the major constraint on populations. And the higher level of calorie yield per acre of rice (compared to any other staple crop) - meant that there were much higher density, but shorter-lived and more-malnourished, populations in East Asia compared with Europe (whose populations were kept down by infectious diseases, mainly = plus more violence).

Do you know this interesting, and probably correct, account of E. Asian IQ and natural selection, by Ron Unz?


https://www.theamericanconservative.com/pdf/darwinism-china.pdf

The main theory of higher Ashkenazi intelligence in the past was by Harpending and Cochran

https://web.mit.edu/fustflum/documents/papers/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf

Ra1119bee said...



William,

You wrote : "The H. G. Wells story "The New Accelerator" is about a drug that allows the person who takes it to think and move thousands of times faster than usual, making it subjectively appear that the world around him has slowed almost to a stop."

My response:
Perhaps H.G. Wells was referring to the spiritual body and not necessarily the physical body, which although in this incarnation exists as one, however and IMO, they are NOT the same.

Maybe the 'drug' i.e. the Accelerator which Wells speaks of can be found in the pineal gland, which I believe the pineal gland houses the Soul. Which would explain at least
to me, why what we know as 'linear time' is extremely SLOW in this dimension especially.
for a high vibrational Soul which has the power to transcend linear time in our REM sleep.

Regarding your references to aging.
Does it really matter if we 'look' young at 50? When we speak of the physical body
it's the EGO that we're trying to appease, so yes looking young at 50 would be a desirable
trait to have, especially for women, whom many feel (because of Society dictates, especially in the West) undesirable as we age.

I believe that the Human Being (Bean?) can accomplish supernatural feats as I've commented on before which I believe takes many many lifetimes to accomplish, the Siddhis Powers for example.

Which may explain and answer the question :How was Lhasa in Tibet built? Did the Tibetans tap into a source of 'supernatural' power?
What explains the 'supernatural feats of the Lung-Gom-Pa Runners of old Tibet?
Did the Runners have a high IQ ....or a low IQ and more importantly according to Whose standards?

It can be a very powerful to be able to manipulate matter and frequency, because if we can do that we appear as GODS IN THIS DIMENSION.
Plese don't take that wrong, I AM NOT SAYING that Humans are Gods.
I'm saying that having power to manipulate and control matter is powerful.
A perfect example is technology.

Another example would be our ability to control Water and Fire. Which humans have done.
It's pretty cool to turn on a faucet and water flows out.
On a larger scale JFK, spoke of the dangers of 'weather manipulation' in his 1961 speech to the UN.
All power sources in this duality dimension can be manipulated and controlled and therefore can be used for good or evil. Depending on the intent.

I believe that the knowledge that our Soul acquires and retains from lessons learned and taught after many incarnations in this dimension can be tapped which I believe it's that deep well of knowledge that increases our frequency or as Wells
called it the Accelerator.

Looking good at 50 or being able to 'out do' another race with our mental 'quickness'.
Those are Ego pursuits.

However,that's not to say that intelligence isn't a very potent power source on this
dimension because I absolutely believe that it is, as it is needed to manifest on this dimension as that's how humanity progresses as well, IMO

Knowledge( from a Vast Spectrum of Ideologies, teachers and messengers even from those
whom we think is 'lesser than' ) is Power.
Check out the movie: The Legend of Bagger Vance for a' lesser than' example

Everything is Connected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhi

https://www.trailrunnermag.com/people/culture-people/the-lung-gom-pa-runners-of-old-tibet/

The Legend of Bagger Vance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znjcEycE4O4

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Debbie, I'm not trying to imply that it's somehow "better" to mature and age faster or slower. I'm just noting a stereotype that is markedly different from the generalizations we would make today and wondering why.

Ra1119bee said...

William,

I understand, however I'm sure you would agree 'comparison' is what humans seem to do best.
IQ is a perfect example.

Comparison is an Ego pursuit. IMHO

As I mentioned in my comment, perhaps H.G is referring to finding Truth
as a drug which I would certainly agree with that.
Transcending this illusion to find truth is a powerful Accelerator drug, one in which I must
admit I'm absolutely addicted to.
Just ask Marshall and those who know me best.;-))

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Bruce, I haven't read that paper, but I'll take a look.

Annunciation rescheduled to coincide with eclipse

I just saw this on Ann Barnhardt's blog : March 25th is the fixed date of the great Feast of the Annunciation… BUT since March 25th fall...