Emil O W Kirkegaard

Right. It's hard for people to remember patterns that the culture's system of incentive and disincentives inclines them not to, even ones as obvious as Olympic men's 100m dash finalists.https://twitter.com/QuasLacrimas/status/1076609383411445761 …

I first noticed in 1992 from Amby Burfoot's "White Men Can't Run" article that blacks made up last 16/16 Olympic finalists in 100m sprint. I wrote about it in 1997 when it was up to 32/32. Now it's up to 72/72. Burfoot's Natural Experiment is just jaw-dropping: 56/56 results.

But how many folks think hard about implications of this remarkable racial pattern in the World's Fastest Man race? Most people just are ignorant of it. In contrast, @nntaleb constructs a ludicrous rationale for dismissing it: it's "ludic," for fun, not serious, thus ignorable.

I accept that sports matter and draw a lot of people. And that heredity matters for some functions. But the tail is well... the tail. 90% and 99.9% of life lie by definition outside of the near and far tail respectively.

Questionable assertion. For instance, almost all scientific/technological progress is driven by the "tail". Average IQ of America's most eminent scientists in early 1950s as per Anne Roe's studies: ~155. Technological growth is ofc only real source of longterm economic growth.