JTarrou
4d ago
FWIW, I think IQ testing should be used to track all public schoolkids into an appropriate educational stream. I think it explains a whole lot about the world nobody but places like this want to talk about. But it is not something to be optimized at the cost of all other endeavors.
For academics, it is the primary requirement. For everyone else, the diminishing returns kick in fast.
JTarrou
4d ago
ven when range-restricted to the top 1% of 13-year-old test-takers on the SAT math, the four quartiles among The One Percent follow a rank-order with respect to any doctorate, STEM publications, STEM doctorates, patents, whether-95th-percentile-income eventually attained.
Yes, IQ and its proxies predict academic success. That's what I said. Our economy is set up to award higher incomes to those with higher education, thus the income. But this is just circular logic. High paying jobs are mostly gated behind advanced degrees, which require at least an average IQ to fudge and a high one to excel at. Give out jobs based on who is the best basketball player, and height would predict income just fine.
JTarrou
5d ago
I've spent most of my life associating with the lower half of the IQ distribution. I'm well aware of the failure modes and ridiculous behavior of the dummies. Stupidity, however, is its own limiting factor.
The failure modes of intellect have basically no upper bound.
JTarrou
6d ago
Humans can survive nearly anything, and die to nearly anything. But injury is fucking easy. People pretend that anything short of death isn't a big deal, but death isn't why violence is scary. Every violent situation contains a distinct possibility of major injury for someone, usually everyone involved. The sort of thing that changes your life forever.
Even without death, a simple fistfight will almost certainly require months of healing and rehab, if you win. More if you lose. It is rare that a real fight ends without both participants having broken bones. Fingers and toes the most common, of course. Add weapons/vehicles and this risk skyrockets. There are a world of outcomes from violent situations, but few of them are as good for either party as before the fight. Even winning without injury has its psychological and social costs.
JTarrou
6d ago
Most positive traits correlate somewhat. So do most negative ones.
The problem with intelligence is that it makes you retarded. Smart people can convince themselves of anything, and thus lose connection with reality in proportion to how smart they are.
Take Scott's most recent post on child rearing for an obvious example. He's the smartest person I've ever met personally, and he's a tard.
JTarrou
6d ago
All well and good so long as we remember that "Merit" as measured by IQ is just the ability to do well in school and learn complicated things. It is not some end, just a talent like hand-eye coordination.
As to the rest, the absolute best any non-elite can ever hope for from the universe or a test is blind fairness. Anyone who thinks we can weight things one way or the other to offset "privilege" is just building a privilege generator.
JTarrou
6d ago
Violence is an inherently high-variance activity. Those who whine about the necessity of violence are fundamentally immature.
There's a common scene in street fights where a girl starts a fight, drags her man into it, then impedes him in the fight so he loses. This is the basic strategy of the political left, and the psychology that underwrites it is identical.
It's not difficult to see, and yet it keeps not happening.
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