I am in favour of countries, in the same way that I am in favour of houses having lockable front doors. Countries have good precedents: the first biological cell seen by Robert Hook in 1665 seemed to him like the small cellular rooms monks lived in. The cell is the motor of life, and it has a well-defended boundary. The great advantage of having a national border is that you can repel boarders, in the same way that biological cells repel intruders that seek to invade and destroy it.

Within a country you can establish laws that regulate what happens in the street outside your front door. That is useful, because even if your house is your castle, it is no use to you if strangers are allowed to lay siege to it. You must be able to have the quiet enjoyment of your abode, at the cost of paying taxes for the laws that protect it. Good fences make good neighbours, and fences are strongest when backed up by national laws. By Saxon times most arable land in England was spoken for, and in Mediaeval times most litigation was about access to water power, where every inch of water level mattered.

Question is: What is the right size for a nation? Too large and the nation may fall apart, under the weight of its contradictions. Too small and it is held hostage by more powerful entities. Is there a rational way to scale the optimal size of a nation? Small and homogenous sounds very good for a friendly and tranquil life. Large and sparsely populated sounds better for an independent and more exciting existence. This is an active debate in the United Kingdom, where Scotland wishes, or partly wishes, to leave England, and appears to be an incipient debate in the United States, where some states would like to be rid of some other states, particularly those which are costly nuisances. Right sizing a country is a difficult business.

Russia is very, very large; Canada, China, United States, Brazil and Australia are very large, but the wealthiest countries (on a per capita basis) tend to be smaller. Have those smaller places some secret sauce? Are there beacon countries, admired and envied, as in their time England and the United States were, and then Sweden perhaps, and so on, which have lessons to impart?

Recently the Financial Times suggested Uruguay, as The Economist had done some years ago. It is worth studying that recommendation, using the past beacons of US and UK as comparison, and taking as regional benchmarks Uruguay’s two big neighbours, Argentina and Brazil, and as cultural and genetic reference points Italy and Spain, where most Uruguayans come from.

Is Uruguay a special case?

Consider wealth per adult. Look at the map of the world, and it is evident that Europeans are the wealthiest in the world, (plus Japanese and Koreans). Europeans build wealth even in the frozen wastes of Canada and in the baking deserts of Australia. Not even Gilbert and Sullivan operettas can drive them to penury.

Find South America (bottom left) and note there is only one country on that continent where median wealth is in the $20,000-30,000 dollar range. That country, Uruguay, is 87.7% European. Case proved? It is on a level found in Eastern Europe, and in newly risen China.

Here is a small comparative table, drawn from United Nations or World Bank data. Remember that all these figures contain an error term, and other sources will be slightly different, though the rankings will be pretty similar. I prefer actual figures to rankings, since they are more informative.

Adult mill: adult population in millions
Density: population per square kilometre
GDP: per capita in actual dollars
GDP ppp: per capita adjusted in terms of local buying power (Nominal rates are more important for trade and influence, purchasing power parity for those who wish to emigrate in either direction).
Wealth: median wealth, which is most representative of the average person
GINI: coefficient of wealth differences, high score meaning large differences
HDI: human development index, showing the general quality of life per country
Honesty: meaning the opposite of corrupt
PISA: overall scholastic scores in most recent studies.

Population adult:
Population density: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-by-density
GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Median wealth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult

Uruguay is a very small country, with low population density, high wages, high GDP, and very wealthy in regional terms. It has a smaller gap between rich and poor than its neighbours, has a good human development index, and is extremely honest. Its countries of origin are more corrupt, its neighbouring countries even more so. (One of Uruguay’s biggest industries, paper mills owned by Finns, came to Uruguay because Argentine corruption was outrageous).

Can all these good things be true? If so, how do you become a resident?

Very simple: You need a clean criminal record and must be able to prove a monthly income of around 1500 USD per person. If you are a family of four, the main applicant having an income of $2,000 is permissible. Married people are preferred. (Despite my pleas, Uruguayans think in months). 1,500 USD is a good wage in Uruguay. Well qualified young people make about 1800 to 2000 USD per month. Those skilled in IT, mostly working for US companies, can earn two or three times that. The above route gets you citizenship in 3 years for families to 5 years singletons. Caution: in your first year you will be expected to be here for 9 to 10 months. By the way, when I say dollars, I mean the real market rate for the greenback. There are no restrictive lower rates imposed by the government.

For those in more of a hurry, invest. For a person to become a tax resident by having main economic interests in Uruguay, they must invest in real estate or an enterprise and stay in Uruguay for at least 60 days per year. The minimum amount accepted for a real estate investment is $390,000. The minimum amount for an enterprise is $1.7 million, so long as that company also creates 15 jobs throughout the year.

Those that move their tax residence to Uruguay are eligible for a tax holiday on their foreign-sourced financial income. As of 2020, a tax residence act extended this holiday to 11 years. After that, tax residents will pay a standard 12% personal income tax on foreign interest and dividends. Uruguay tax residents can live tax-free on any foreign-sourced income for 11 years.

All good? There are some drawbacks. The current Government is still clearing up the excesses of the last one. The economy is picking up, people are feeling richer, though prices are high relative to earnings. Like in other parts of the world, the young are finding it very difficult to buy property. Some youngsters prefer social benefits to employment. A barbershop owner tells me he has vacancies for another 3 to 4 haircutters, but cannot find them. The last candidate lasted a fortnight, then left. The owner was relieved, since the young man had spent most of his time on his iPhone.

Last night I went to hear some old guys talking about having eaten their friends.

I had met one of them, but it was the first time I had seen the others in the flesh, and flesh has a big part to play in this story.

The 1972 plane crash in the Andes of a Uruguayan rugby team, carrying 45 team members, families and friends has been told many times. The 1974 account by Piers Paul Read, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors brought it to a very wide audience.

The turbo prop plane crashed into a mountain, instantly changing them from airline passengers into a shattered platoon of dead, dying, injured and traumatised waifs abandoned on a treacherous glacier, alone in the high mountains, bleeding and freezing to death.

16 young men who survived by eating the bodies of their friends. Every one of them knew they were potential survivors and potential fuel, on which their friends could feast. “Take, eat, this is my body�. Soul or not, humans are heat machines.

It is one of the better-known survival stories, and will shortly be even better known to a new generation when the Neflix movie directed by J.A.Bayona is released later this year.

Five of them were onstage last night, on the 50th anniversary year of their Fall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571

All disasters are natural experiments. A selection of people are subjected to terrible events, and the rest of us later pick over the pieces, looking for heroes and villains, and imagining what we might have done, in armchair comfort and with the benefit of hindsight.

Pablo Vierci. La Sociedad de la Nieve. Planeta, 2008, 2022.

What stories do we want to hear? That in adversity it is “every man for himself�? That in this awful situation whatever happens is truer and more profound than everyday life can ever be? That you “don’t know what is in the teabag till you put it in hot water�? That modern man cannot survive primitive circumstances, and that conventional intelligence counts for very little? That everyone becomes religious in adversity?

One of the survivors, Roberto Canessa, described the crash as a sinister laboratory experiment designed by a mad scientist to test not guinea pigs but a group of young men. He made everything as awful as possible for as long as possible, just to see how much they could take.

Why are people interested in this particular tragedy, when there are so many instances of human suffering? The reason may be the taboo about eating human flesh, the almost supernatural courage and resourcefulness shown by the survivors, and the eternal doubt about what we ourselves would have done in such circumstances.

What was required of survivors in this situation? Everything, one might assume.

Roberto Canessa summed up the essentials:

Team spirit, persistence, sympathy for others, intelligence and, above all, hope.

Their situation was parlous. They were in this dreadful situation because of pilot error. The navigator was at the back of the plane playing cards, the pilots were over-confident, and did not bother to check the one instrument which would could have saved them: their wristwatches. Had they done so they would have realized they were turning North far too soon, and had not allowed for the headwinds against them. They had not yet gone far enough West, were not yet out of the Andes, and mistakenly descended North into the high mountain peaks. After hitting a mountain which tore off the wings, the fuselage careered down a glacier and slammed into snow.

They had many dead, and many injured they had to care for. It was reasonable to believe that planes would come to search for them, and some of those planes could be heard and seen overhead for the next 8 days of search, though they found nothing. Temperatures went down to -30 Centigrade at night, so to keep from freezing to death was essential. Body warmth was their sole source of heat as they huddled together in the remains of the fuselage. Most of them had never seen snow, and had no idea how to survive in high altitudes.

Some days later, when a small group ventured out into the snowy desolation, they all suffered from the bitter cold, one went snow blind, and the lack of implements to help them through the snow showed how helpless they were. Not encouraging. Staying put and waiting for rescue seemed better.

How to survive?

Intelligence is what you use when you don’t know what to do. (Carl Bereiter).

To provide drinking water, Fito Strauch worked out that snow collected in an aluminium shell would catch the sun’s rays and provide a trickle of meltwater, which they shared in very small gulps. He also designed improvised sun glasses to combat snow blindness. They used seat covers as protective clothing and footwear.

Roy Harley improvised an antenna so that a transistor radio they found hidden in a seat could provide them with news, the first being that the search had been abandoned. He also tried to get the batteries and remains of the radio receiver to build a transmitter, a task which understandably proved impossible. The batteries they found were of the wrong voltage to power the available equipment, even if they had been able to assemble it.

The survivors who had found the rear of the fuselage came up with an idea to use insulation foam from the rear of the fuselage, sewed together with copper wire, and waterproof fabric that covered the air conditioning of the plane to fashion a sleeping bag. Nando Parrado and Carlos Paez led the work on this.

Those with medical knowledge did a triage of the wounded, including removing a shaft of metal from a person’s intestines.

In short, when they did not know what to do, they improvised, and innovated. Such knowledge as they had of medicine, mechanics, navigation and engineering was put to good purpose.

When Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa anid Antonio Vizintin set off on their final rescue mission, they had no technical gear or clothing, no compass, and no climbing experience. Vizintin went back after 3 days, because there was not enough food.

As a matter of painful observation, and guidance from the few who had medical knowledge about the Krebs cycle (the body can convert protein into sugar, and fat into protein, so that on a meat only diet they could survive without malnutrition), it was obvious to the starving survivors that they needed to eat energy rich protein to survive. In ordinary conditions, warm temperatures at sea level, 2000 calories of food would be sufficient. Under sedentary conditions in the cold high glacier, 3,600 to 4,300 calories would be needed. For highly strenuous work in the cold, like climbing up a mountain, 4,200 to 5,000 calories would be required. (British soldiers training in Norway get 5000 calories, and an officer told me “You have to stand over them at breakfast to make sure they eat it�).

The fact that the world had abandoned them within a few days made them better able to feel justified in abandoning the taboo about not eating human flesh. Initially they spoke about this in whispers, then in small group deniable hypotheticals, then finally in open discussion. Not all agreed, though the lack of any rescue plans was an eventual clincher for most. For everyone’s protection, a small group made the first cut in the actual bodies, and gave it to others to further cut and dry the flesh strips in the sun, so that all could eat without knowing whose flesh it was.

National IQs were collected by one psychologist, Richard Lynn, sitting in his study. He said he found them more interesting than collecting stamps. Early in his career he had collected intelligence test results when working in Ireland, but thought that the results would be unpalatable, (they seemed to show that brighter Irish people had emigrated leaving duller ones behind) and so he sat on them for some years. Eventually he began collecting any papers which mentioned intelligence test results in different nations, and thus built up a picture of national intelligence test results. He also began encouraging researchers across the world to collect intelligence results in their countries.

Eventually in 2002 he published the results he had obtained, necessarily based on papers with variable sample sizes, somewhat different tests, administered at different ages. He was open about the fact that some nations had much better data than others, and that for many nations no results were available. Additionally, some nations participated in international scholastic tests, and others did not. The often-forgotten point was that for the first time he had gathered together data not otherwise easily available. He then showed that the results on these paper-and-pencil puzzles correlated substantially with national economic and social variables.

The results were interesting, and began to be incorporated into international studies, though they were infrequently mentioned in international economic studies. His work also drew criticism which cleverly drew attention to the weaker studies, thus seeking to invalidate the overall conclusions, which was that national intelligence levels were closely related to important economic variables. Unfair, but effective. Given the criticisms, I argued that it was necessary to re-work the entire database, listing every study in such a way that each paper could be evaluated in terms of a data quality. David Becker rose to the challenge, and the whole dataset has been worked over again and is available for researchers as an open resource.

One line of criticism of the original work was that the samples were too small and unrepresentative to serve as proper national results. However, since most psychology papers use very small and unrepresentative samples to make claims about all human nature, this would have invalidated all psychology. In fact, psychometric samples tend to be bigger than experimental psychology samples, so have a better claim on our attention.

Despite the re-working of the dataset by David Becker, in the current over-heated climate of denunciation, researchers have been heavily criticised for basing any of their work on national IQs. The usual procedure in academic research is to improve the data by further research, and by suggesting methodological refinements. Oddly, the dominant voice in academia has been those who denounce the work entirely, in a quasi-religious renunciation and condemnation. As the British say, this is somewhat Over The Top. All national measures can be improved, and we should not reject out of hand potential explanatory variables.

Not all national statistics on literacy, income, wealth and health are themselves reliable. A friend who worked at the World Health Organisation headquarters tried to improve their statistics by interviewing every national health minister when they came for a visit. He found that most of the African ones just gave him the figures without linking them to a source he could check, so he felt they represented national pride, not actual verifiable findings.

There are of course other refinements possible, such as comparing cities with provincial locations, so as to determine whether countries have strengths in depth.

Into this fist-fight about national IQs steps Russell Warne, to give his own evaluation of the controversy.

Warne, R.T. National Mean IQ Estimates: Validity, Data Quality, and Recommendations. Evolutionary Psychological Science (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-022-00351-y

In a calm and wide-ranging paper, Warne had followed a steady path in his evaluations. He shows that the general picture of national differences has been confirmed as broadly right. He also shows that the low African figures on intelligence tests are probably right when one looks at the similarly low achievements in very simple mathematics shown on scholastic exams. He explains why the low scores do not mean that Africans are mentally defective, as might be the case for low scores in European populations. (Jensen had explained this in 1980).

He also makes the case that Raven’s Matrices may present particular difficulties for African test-takers. I find this a worrying suggestion, because it may imply that Africans are different in kind, not simply in general intellectual power. If this is true, it has severe consequences. Far from just saying “Matrices are not a good measure of African intelligence� it could equally be argued that “Africans cannot follow logical sequences that all other races can solve�. This is not a pleasant proposal, though of course we should be open to testing it. Raven showed that his test items had similar response curves, with only three or four showing deviations from the normal pattern, suggestive of cultural artefacts. Personally, I think that power differences are more likely than type differences. Brains are similar, though they differ in power.

Personally, have listened to David Becker talking about low scores in Africa, I think that on occasion the tests are badly administrated. (As Warne and Rindermann and others have pointed out, many African teachers are of low ability, poorly paid, and consequently poor attenders at school). However, such defective administrations are usually detectable from looking at the results carefully.

As a consequence of his own researches, Warne identifies a matter which must be improved. The Lynn database was put together on the previously acceptable basis of gathering as many studies as possible by searching for them, and increasingly by collaborating with researchers across the world. All this is well and good, but modern standards are more demanding. One has to show exactly how references were searched for. This is a welcome improvement, because it ensures that the database is fully representative of the available publications.

Warne himself has found studies which ought to have been included, and this is of itself a contribution to the research project. Of course, this task is endless, but it would be excellent if more scholars contributed to the joint project. (In reality, this has proved difficult. Some researchers I encouraged to contribute felt that their methodological suggestions had not been taken up, so didn’t participate further. Others simply didn’t want to be associated with national intelligence research, a refusal which damages psychology generally).

Warne has done good work, and has gathered extra data which should be added to the overall database of national intelligence research. He has made a good case for continuing and improving the international research project. His overall judgment is “The database is useful, probably broadly accurate, strongly linked to other national variables, but should be improved by a more systematic inclusion process and the addition of other relevant research�. I hope some scholars will take up the challenge.

A final note: all psychologists should take heart that a single researcher collecting publications on a particular topic can sometimes produce findings of considerable international interest, with strong predictive power, and in line with other massively funded international scholastic studies.

It may have been a dream, a fairy tale, or a novel she had written, but the first time I met Fay Weldon she had lost her voice and was conversing with me by writing short notes. We were in a crowded room in a country house picture gallery full of visitors, so it was probably for the best. Very writerly.

For the next 14 years I spent two hours chatting to her most Saturdays.

Fay and I talked about everything except her writing. I assumed she was bored with talking about it; and probably also about doing it. I explained that my wife and I had formed the Novelism Prevention Society, and that when we saw a house where we thought a novel was being perpetrated, we would barge in to see if we could thwart it. Hence we always arrived at 10.30 am on Saturday with a packet of coffee, and then messed up the writer’s calm with a long interlude of chatter.

Even when in voice, Fay was very quietly spoken. Barely audible. Her laugh, on the other hand, was loud and her smile louder. She was an expert maker of coffee, putting an absurd amount in a cafetiere on her Aga, and then when her profligacy was unbearable to behold, peering into it, and adding more. Only when the hot water had been poured in could I intervene and carry the potent concoction to the table.

Fay was bright and inquisitive. She wanted intellectual entertainment, and loved irreverent takes on life. My wife and I and Fay had psychology in common (which she had studied at the University of Edinburgh), and scepticism in plenty. Something in the news would start us off, and then we would bounce into science, politics, religion, country life, publishers, and very occasionally the business matters of writing and trying to get paid for it. Science was a big topic for her, particularly genetics. She valued intelligence, originality, and truth.

Fay wrote in her upstairs room, looking out of the window to the church across the road. It was a very fine stone house, with a curving driveway, and a big garden, all in the heart of Saxon Shaftesbury, just yards away from the old Abbey.

She was famous in literary circles, and a very popular authoress, and had met everyone, though one did not know it unless a particular author came up in conversation. She wrote because it became her imagination, and was her salvation as an independent woman. She never boasted, usually revealing things about her past as curiosities. At our Christmas parties she gathered admirers simply because friends wanted to meet her, not because she courted attention.

She once said that rape was not the worst thing that could happen to a woman. This caused a torrent of criticism (perhaps in reality just an amplified trickle) because it was twisted into meaning that rape was no big deal. Cooler heads understood that the death of a child was more of a life event.

She was seen as a feminist, but that was a partial description. She was in favour of independence and not being restricted by the fact of being a woman. However, she did not follow any cannon of shibboleths, and was critical of many aspects of what feminism had become. Mostly, it was barely a topic in her conversation, whereas a twisted untruth about biological sex would raise her contempt and serve as a starting point for a debate.

Fay had done the first program of Upstairs, Downstairs, which was the prototype of the much later Downton Abbey series. She had grown tired of the tyranny of TV commissioner requirements. She would write a script as she wished it to be, and would then have to re-shape the characters into the race, sex and class required by her pay masters. She did this without enthusiasm or complaint.

She talked about her own life with amusement. She had a lovely photo of herself and her mother, which I admired every time I came into her salon, the kitchen where we spent so many hours, the tall window casting winter sunshine on the wooden table with its assorted mugs, ornaments, cards from friends, and books everywhere. The corridor to the kitchen was also lined with books, and there was an official library room full of books which we never ever spent any time in. Photographers always snapped her in that room.

She wryly recognised she had not chosen her men well, but circumstances had made her dependent, so she got on as best she could. She certainly still believed in the institution of marriage, whatever problems she had encountered within it.

She described with amusement her early scheme to set up a tea shop, brought to nothing by the realities of cooking small-scale for a small circle of customers.

She told her students at Bath University that novels were only read by young women, so if authors wanted to be successful they must cater for that demographic.

She knew that I did not read novels, but I once said I had enjoyed Treasure Island. She replied “Falls apart after about page 80�. She was right, of course, but the early pages were still magical.

Fay kept writing and her last book was a sequel to the She Devil. The book launch was at the Ivy in 2017 and she drew an admiring crowd, but her writing days were over.

Fay’s last years were not easy. We visited her in hospital and discussed her options. She separated from her husband and was lovingly cared for by her son and wife. Towards the end her voice totally gave out, but in her 91st year she continued the writerly tradition by mastering texting.

Her last text to me was in November:

“I hear they’ve decided that birds have intelligence. Whatever next? X�

Fay Weldon: novelist and lovely person.

To Church of St James of the Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem, as is my custom, to celebrate the habits of my tribe, as they have done since 1211. In King John’s time, Walter de Turberville gave the manor to the Knights, who formed a small Commandery and with local helpers built the church. Thomas Hardy was said to have used Turberville as an inspiration for the opening pages of “Tess of the D’Urbervilles�.

It was a cold winter’s night, at a sharp freezing zero, and we came early, in the hope of getting a good pew at the front. “Sit against the heating pipe� advised the Church Warden, struggling with recalcitrant candles. The pipe is large, hot against the wall, and then returns tepid in the pipe below, like a sinner seeking salvation in the purifying heat of the boiler. All this of little avail. The very stones were frozen, and such heat as leaked from the heating pipes rose swiftly to the rafters, leaving the nave and congregation cold.

The church filled quickly, every place taken: adult villagers all, with two impeccably behaved young girls and no other children. It was not a young crowd. There was one farmer, one smallholder farmer and former agricultural advisor, no others with country occupations, and no one from the few remaining oldest established country families. One adult, an oenophile with good technical skills, was asked to assemble the camping cooker, and took his seat last. “I got the stove going� he explained later “and my punishment was to be offered mulled wine afterwards�.

Now we faced the procedural problem of combining the standard hymnal with the Christmas selection on a specially printed sheet. The verses not to be sung were indicated by number, but when singing it is not always apparent whether you have reached verse four or five, so there were some hesitant pauses. To complicate matters, our kindly priest wanted boys to be able to sing with their fathers, and girls with their mothers, so he specified that particular verses were to be sung by male voices, others by female voices. Good idea, but a further burden on memory.

The Carols themselves presented a problem. Many had verses which probably should have been dropped on the grounds of being theologically confused, while others were strained in versification, or plainly repetitious. In the older, better-known Carols these verses could be accepted like the foibles of relatives, but for the newer and less melodious ones a harsher editing seemed necessary. And here, history repeated itself. In Christmases gone by the organist has sometimes stopped short, thus editing out the last verse, denying the congregation their last proper orgasmic shout. That happened in 2015, and nobody wanted to break it to the good lady that she had denied us a treat, so we lapsed into frustrated silence. This year it happened again, and there was a pause, as angels gathered in the firmament. The organist must have noticed the congregants in the front pews looking startled, because she chirped up: “Was there another verse?� and quickly rattled into it. Order restored.

One younger man made expressive good work of his reading, the lady verger also did well, the others were fine, but none thundered. The readings presented a staccato tale, like the perpetration of a crime revealed in disconnected videos, the missing sections left to the fevered imagination. As the service went on, the cold worked into fingers and bones, and the story unfolded, as it always does, the darkness unrelieved by the good news proclaimed, the candles still flickering round this frail coincidence of Christian observation. In the end, having remembered those on a further shore, we were blessed, and released from further obligations.

Then mulled wine, mince pies, conversation. I reminded the priest of his generously inviting a parishioner in to live with him and his wife for three months while he sorted himself out from various problems, during which time he found out that the young man’s social security payments were higher than his own priestly salary. “Like having a younger brother�, he said, “sometimes irritating, but still your brother�. A new aspect, he revealed, was that his Bishop found out about his charitable act, and was negative about it, fearing it was risky. Distinctly unimpressive, we agreed.

I asked a villager friend how he was, and he replied “Alive�. Sensing that something more was required, he added “I’m 91 and a half�. We agreed that the half was a cause for optimism. Turning to village matters, the road is narrow by his house, causing rural traffic jams, and he noted that few people nowadays knew how to reverse. “They keep banging into things as they go back� he lamented, “the men also�.

Then into the cold night, past chest tombs and yew trees, past Commandery and pond, past distant long barrows and Iron age forts, past houses with lit windows and dark fields with gloomy trees, past the ghosts of villagers who worshipped here, and farmed, tilled strip lynchets and kept sheep, past the Maypole and the battened hedges, past ponds and streams, walls and gates, all these spread out beneath the silent discant of the twinkling stars.

Merry Christmas to you all.