Rural whites are mentally ill—and it's getting worse.

Obesity and ethnogenesis

Every time a hoarder dies, someone inherits the property. Sometimes the hoarder has no descendants, and the property is seized by the government. Other times, the son or daughter hires a company to clean things up.

The first task, in either case, is to remove the dead body. In cold environments, the body is generally well preserved. In hot and humid environments, however, decay begins almost immediately, and the result is beyond disgusting. Yet there is a kind of poetic rhyming between the decaying body and the surroundings of the hoarder.

From a scientific point of view, the smelly gases and other waste products which accompany a dead body are the result of a bacterial feast. Bacteria eat the body, and exceed the most noxious fumes imaginable. The hoarder can be thought of in the same way. Hoarding is a cycle of consumption and the build up of excretion. Piles of waste, trash, nonsense and filth build up in the house of a hoarder, just as the stench of a decaying body is a byproduct of bacterial consumption and excretion.

For an especially sensitive type, to even read such words can produce a physical reaction: gagging, wincing, pain in the pit of the stomach. Such types could never work for the clean-up company.

It is possible to pity the hoarder. In all likelihood, they suffered a great tragedy, such as the loss of a loved one. In order to deal with this tragedy, they adopt a general attitude of apathy to numb the pain. The result is that even the simple task of throwing away trash becomes too much to let go.

Hoarding is a mentality, or mental illness. Understood properly, we can also see obesity as a mental illness. Both are more likely in rural America than urban America.

The obesity of today has been attributed to the Jewish Monsanto and Sackler families and many other conspiracies. Seed oils, birth control, and anti-depressants all create hormonal imbalances which lead to obesity. But less understood is the role of mental illness on obesity. Just as a hoarder piles up trash within their houses, the obese pile up fat within their bodies.

Source.

Obesity is more common among blacks and Hispanics. Accordingly, one would assume that if obesity was merely biological, or physical, it would predominate in the inner cities. But this is not the case, especially if we look exclusively at whites. Rural whites are obese much more frequently than urban whites.

The term “nonmetropolitan” as used above does not actually refer to “rural”, but to cities with less than 50,000 people. By using a more rigorous definition of rural, the results are more shocking¹:

“Although rural America makes up a fraction of America's total population, it has been estimated that the prevalence of obesity is approximately [5.5%] higher than in urban America.”²

There are a few explanations for this:

1. Grocery stores in rural areas do not allow access to healthy foods, and only stock processed foods.

2. Rural culture is more tied to processed foods (frozen dinners, diners) than urban culture.

3. Rural whites are biologically distinct from urban whites.

The first two explanations are politically correct, and do justify some useful policies. For example, a nationwide ban on seed oils, anti-depressants, birth control, and processed foods generally would drive up the price of food, but this could be compensated for by boosting EBT and food stamp programs. By denying rural people access to toxic food options, by making those options illegal, health outcomes could likely be improved.

But when looked at from a biological perspective, the question becomes broader. Rural whites aren’t just killing themselves with food — they are also killing themselves with drugs. If the rural-urban divide between whites is deeper than “just culture,” then banning certain behaviors won’t solve the fundamental problem.

Source.

In fact, obesity is not the only marker of health where rural whites are worse off. Stroke, chronic lower respiratory disease (asthma), heart disease, and cancer are all worse among rural whites. If pollution was responsible for these maladies, wouldn’t there be more smog, toxic waste exposure, and chemicals in the air and water in cities?

One of the most damning pieces of evidence against the “environmental hypothesis” of rural disease is the category of “unintentional injury.” Unintentional injury covers an extremely large category of injuries. A study of over one million Swedish men found that “the most common cause of unintentional injury was falling, followed by road accidents, poisoning, fire and drowning.” What all of these various accidents have in common is their association with low IQ:³

After adjusting for confounding variables, lower IQ scores were associated with an elevated risk of any unintentional injury[.]”

Anecdotally, smart people also fall down, get in car accidents, and die in fires. But statistically speaking, these deaths are correlated with low IQ. While these deaths are the lowest in the most urbanized areas, they are the highest in the most rural areas.

It could be argued that the bad diet or environment of rural America is lowering the IQ of rural Americans, completely independently of any genetic factors. Even if this were true, over time, the epigenetic load of bad environmental toxins become heritable. Eating a toxic diet damages DNA, which is inherited by children. Additionally, having an environmentally low IQ through pollution, such as lead poisoning, leads to lower selectivity. People with high IQ are more likely to go to college, get a good job, and marry another intelligent person through selective mating. But someone with a low IQ, even for environmental reasons, is going to make worse life decisions which result in less sexual selectivity. As a result, even if the origin of low rural IQ was environmental, that environmental cause will result in genetic and heritable effects over time.

One of the worst arguments for the environmental origin of rural dysfunction has to do with “access to exercise.” The website “ruralhealthinfo.org” states that “Physical exercise [..] can be more difficult in rural areas to find areas to walk or engage in a formal exercise program.” The idea that it is easier to jog in the traffic infested streets of New York, and harder in the countryside of rural America, is ridiculous. These excuses are not serious, but such fantasies are necessary to ignore the scientifically warranted (but politically incorrect) genetic hypothesis.

Sexual Selectivity

One of the reasons why rural America is a dysgenic environment is because the breeding pool is smaller, allowing for less sexual selectivity. For example: in a city of one million individuals, there are, statistically speaking, 4800 individuals with an IQ above 140. If a person wants to select a highly intelligent partner, there are many potential suitable mates within geographical proximity.

However, in a small town of 1,000 people, there are likely to only be 5 people with an IQ above 140. In reality, these 5 people have a strong likelihood of leaving the small town behind to pursue obvious economic benefits in college and larger cities. But even if those 5 people were forced to remain in the small town, this is still an extremely small pool. Some of these 5 may be disqualified from mating due to physical reasons. Additionally, in sexually conservative cultures, it may be encouraged to “marry your highschool sweetheart.” Since the effects of intelligence (and other personality traits) are less apparent in highschool (there has been less time for their expression in career, criminality, income), the “highschool sweethearts” represent an even smaller and less sexually selective pairing.

Since rural areas are less sexually selective than urban areas, for reasons of geographical proximity and mating pool size, as well as for cultural reasons such as the encouragement to “marry your highschool sweetheart,” we can expect that, over time, urban areas will generate more assortative mating, while rural areas will be at a disadvantage. Therefore, the most intelligent children are likely to be found in urban areas, while rural areas, being less selective, are more likely to promote “regression to the mean.”

White Genetic Divergence

The dissident right, generally speaking, is sympathetic to eugenics, or at least willing to consider the problem of dysgenics. Yet at the same time, the dissident right bemoans the problems of rural America as a result of “corporations,” or, more transparently, “the Jews.” There is no discussion or consideration of the idea that biology could play some role in the systemic failure of rural whites across all metrics.

Source.

Is it possible that rural and urban whites could genetically diverge within only 400 years of European settlement? Steve Sailer was called out for denying the possibility of genetic differentiation over this time frame, when comparing American blacks with black Africans. Yet it is clear that genetic changes can occur within short time frames.

One of the quickest ways to create large genetic changes is through migration. In 2600 BC, Britain was populated by neolithic farmers descended from Anatolians. Within the span of a few hundred years, this lineage was almost entirely eliminated, and 90% of the population was replaced with Bell Beaker Indo-Europeans.

America has similarly experienced mass immigration since 1870. While the cities of the north east, including New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, were once 90% British, French Huguenot, Dutch, or Lutheran German, mass immigration between 1870 and 1890 replaced these Protestant populations with Irish Catholics, Italian Catholics, German Catholics, and Ashkenazi Jews. The White Protestants who once dominated and built these cities have now been replaced and represent less than 10% of the population of these cities (although they are still overrepresented in positions of power, such as the Boston Brahmin). Unless one maintains that Sicilians and Jews are genetically identical to Nordic Europeans, it is clear that a few short decades of mass immigration can result in huge genetic changes and the replacement of founding populations.

The Death of the Pioneers

In 1924, America fought its last battles with the Apache. It was at this point that the west was conclusively won, and the threat of Indian raids entirely eliminated. Indians were forced onto reservations and reduced to poverty and dependence on welfare. This was the turning point in the American history of the pioneer.

The first president to be born west of the Mississippi was Herbert Hoover. He was born in Iowa, and was one of the first graduates of Stanford in California. Hoover’s presidential victory signaled the end of the pioneer, and a trend of “back migration.”

In the 19th century, some of the most intelligent, entrepreneurial, and enterprising Americans headed west into the unsettled areas of the country. Among these, the Mormons stand out as exemplars of martial courage, religious faith, and openness to new ideas. Yet after decades of settlement, and the establishment of a national railroad system, the west stopped attracting these Americans. Instead, it was the cities which hosted America’s colleges that attracted the best and brightest.

The national highway system, built by Eisenhower, accentuated this “brain drain.” It was easier than ever for a smart kid from Kansas to end up in Washington, DC. When the country was wild and untamed, intelligence flowed away from the coast, inland toward the undiscovered territories. That is where the best and brightest made their fortunes. Once America lost its frontier, all of the decent elements from the former frontier were sucked up back into the gravitational pull of the cities with their universities.

Intelligent, open minded people naturally seek out adventure and challenge. That was once found in the frontier, and is now found in urban America. After decades and generations of this “brain drain” and “back flow” migration, the families which have stayed behind in rural America have been selected for the following traits: nepotism, low intelligence, close-mindedness, and mental illness.

The migration of millions of white Americans out of rural areas and into urban areas has resulted in genetic differentiation. White Americans are not one undifferentiated genetic blobs, but can be reasonably divided into two populations. Obesity is not the result of an unfortunate environment, but is a symptom of wider genetic factors.

This differentiation is not slowing down, but accelerating. Urban whites, who vote democrat, are actively and openly sexually discriminating against rural, conservative whites. Rural whites do the same. Political discrimination in sexual selection has now out-paced racial discrimination. White liberal parents are more fearful of their daughter marrying a white conservative than a black man. And conservative parents would rather their daughter marry a black conservative than a liberal.

This development does not signal the end of racism in America, but a new kind of racism or ethnogenesis. Liberal whites are forming their own breeding population, separate from white conservatives. Qanon and Liberalism are forming ethno-religions for different groups of white people. These ethno-religions are in the process of reinforcing distinctions between breeding populations, in the same way that Judaism and Anabaptism have created distinct populations of Jews and Mennonites.

It should be noted that “Wokism” is not an entirely liberal-urban phenomenon, and has a presence in rural communities, where it manifests as the “hicklib.” This bifurcation of wokism into rural and urban components creates paradoxical narratives. Is antifa a group of rich Jewish kids with trust funds? Or is antifa a group of lower class whites from Portland?

Wokism is a relatively recent phenomenon of the last 20 years, which I argue is the brainchild of Gen X highschool teachers. As America loses its capitalist meritocracy, and converges on a caste-oligarchy, wealth in America will be more and more determined by heritage. This means that elite families in America will be more intergenerationally nepotistic than they have been in the past. Rich white liberals are less likely in the future to be “self-made millionaires,” but are more likely to be the children of rich white liberal parents.

One of the effects of the rise of nepotism is that “wokism,” at least in its praxis, will be selected out of rich white liberal families. Homosexuals who don’t have children will donate their inheritance to institutions rather than continuing the family line. Other “woke” behaviors, like drug use or transgenderism, are also likely to disrupt the nepotistic chain of inheritance.

This is not to say that rich white liberals are going to become conservatives, but that they will increasingly be selected for a “dual morality”: degeneracy for thee, but not for me. If this sounds familiar, it is because many American elites already practice this behavior. They promote “wokeness” in the public square, but in the privacy of their homes, they are sexual conservatives.

American conservatives seem to be converging on an opposite strategy, where they promote social conservatism for the majority, but practice degeneracy in their own bedrooms. The American right fetishizes homosexuals like Rob Smith or Milo, who proclaim the greatness of Christianity, before going home to have an interracial threesome. Don Jr., a drug addict divorcee who is now with an older Hispanic woman, touts Caitlyn Jenner as a beautiful “conservative woman.”

Still, one of the reasons why conservative, rural whites tend to be more homophobic than urban, educated whites is for the same reason that blacks are more homophobic: they are more tempted by homosexuality. Homophobia is a cultural evolutionary strategy which is meant to combat high levels of homosexuality. This can be seen especially in Africa, which has the highest rate of AIDS in the world, and also the highest levels of homophobia. Meanwhile, east Asia, with its low rate of AIDS, finds homosexuality to be culturally irrelevant and not worth caring about.

Africans and conservative, rural whites have higher levels of mutational load, which leads to higher levels of homosexuality, and as a compensatory evolutionary strategy, also leads to higher levels of homophobia. Populations with low levels of homophobia allow for homosexuality to take its course. In populations where homosexuality is accepted or even encouraged, gays will stop having children, which acts as a selective force on the population. In populations where homophobia is high, homosexuals will be forced to reproduce, which passes on their higher levels of mental illness onto the next generation.

Conclusions

1. Rural and urban whites have been diverging in intelligence at least since the “west was won,” in 1924.

   1. This divergence in intelligence is due to a “brain drain” of intelligent pioneer whites from agricultural land through “back migration” into universities and major cities.

2. Rural whites are 19% more likely to be obese than their urban counterparts. If obesity is used as a proxy for mental illness (rather being viewed as a product of culture or environment), we can estimate that rural whites are 19% more mentally ill than urban whites.

3. Mentally ill people are more likely to have unstable personalities (paranoia, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder, BPD, multi-personality disorder).

4. People with unstable personalities are less adaptable, and more dependent on stable environments and family support. For example, people with anxiety and depression find it harder to move out of their hometown or parents’ house.

5. College education and urban environments offer greater economic opportunities. Those who remain behind in small towns are more likely to have unstable personalities or low IQ, which denies them access to these benefits. Those who are able to access these opportunities are less likely to remain in small towns, and will likely assimilate into the urban white population as time goes on.

6. Cults such as Qanon represent the rise of mental illness in rural whites.

7. Wokism, which is a product of Gen X highschool teachers, has also taken hold among rural whites.

   1. Transgenderism occurs at higher rates among poor whites than among rich whites, despite the fact that homophobia is higher among poor whites.

8. Homophobia will increase mutational load among rural whites over time, when compared with urban whites, where tolerance of homosexuality will decrease mutational load through “self selection.”

9. Because meritocracy is decreasing, the heritability of wealth is increasing.

   1. In the future, rich white people are less likely to be “self made millionaires,” and their wealth will be more likely to have been inherited.

   2. As a result, there will be a strong selective pressure for heterosexuality and sexual conservatism among rich whites, even among those who espouse “woke” ideas in public.

1. (2021) The Burden of Obesity in the Rural Adult Population of America. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8290986/

Also see: https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/obesity-and-weight-control

2. As a commenter pointed out, the original journal made a mistake here. I will endeavor to be more discriminating in the future.

3. (2009) Intelligence in early adulthood and subsequent risk of unintentional injury over two decades: cohort study of 1,109,475 Swedish men. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4170759/