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US physicians (I will not call them doctors unless they are an MD, the word doctor comes form the latin docere, meaning to teach; unlike how the uncultured may think about it, true doctors are those with a Ph.D, not those with a BChir, there's a reason why in places like Germany these people are not allowed to call themselves "Doktor" but instead go by "Arzt") are so far up their own ass with how highly they value themselves that it boggles the mind.
I have met many many doctors and the vast majority of them are sub 98th percentile mediocrities pretending they are the intellectual equals of the 99.5th+ percentile thinkers. I've said before that the 95th percentile human being has a lot more in common intellectually with a 10th percentile human being than he does with a 99th percentile human being and something similar applies for the average doctor who isn't much better than a 95th percentile human but has the ego of a 99.9th percentile one (not saying there are no amazing doctors, I've met some of those too but they are the exception, not the average and they tend to be MDs).
I'd be very interested in comparing the average outcome of a NP with the latest AI models trained on giving medical diagnoses vs a lone doctor. My prior is that the NP+AI performs at least as well as a doctor in most non-surgical specialties. If so then the optimal thing for humanity is to cry havoc, give NP+AI combinations the same powers and responsibilities as "full" doctors and let slip the dogs of war on the protection racket US "doctors" are running. Of course this is a pipe dream (never mind the extreme litigiousness of the US meaning NP+AI malpractice insurance costs will be through the roof but that's a discussion for another day) but yeah, either we all grasp the nettle and do something like this or the economic rent seeking of the AMA will continue to extract blood from the rest of society.
Really? How many 10th percentile people do you meet?
The 10th percentile are the ones breaking into bald men's heads looking for gold or deflowering virgins to cure their AIDS. Or they star in the genre of youtube videos exposing how stupid and ignorant American university students are: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AkIUqH498PQ
The more cerebral of this cohort might subscribe to conspiracy theories about how the earth is flat, how everything is actually naval law and most countries are secretly enrolled as corporations in Delaware... They still cannot string a sentence together though, nor can they spell.
Yeah, people tend to flatter themselves that there is a huge gulf in abilities between their own tier and the tier immediately below them (but, strangely, never the tier immediately above them).
It's why so much internet energy is spent talking about "midwits".
A simpler and more accurate model : intelligence matters a lot at every level with no high or low cutoff.
I freely and openly admit that the people above me are much more exalted than I could ever hope to be. I recently interviewed a candidate at work who was applying for a quant job and he absolutely floored me with how intelligent he was, telling me things I hadn't realized about the mathematical question I ask people a few short tens of minutes after seeing the question for the first time. I came away from that interview thinking that I had just come into contact with someone blessed with true shape rotator greatness.
At least I am at the level where I could appreciate what I had just seen, unlike the average 95th percentile person who is so far removed from it that he wouldn't be able to tell the difference between me and this person had he been the one taking the interview instead.
What intellectual percentile would you rate yourself?
If I'm flattering myself probably 99.8, but in reality more like 99.5 or 99.4. (normalized to white western levels, compared to my own people I'm significantly higher).
One in 200 is probably how unique I think my intelligence really is. I'm quite conscientious and like learning about basically everything so I think I present as smarter than I really am because I can talk decently about a lot of things.
Back when I was a child I had delusions of being Great. Those were shattered very quickly when I began my maths degree at Oxbridge and got a chance to mingle with IMO hall of famers.
They were just at another level to me and despite initially foolishly thinking all I had to do was work harder and then I too could reach their level (note: I did not succeed, all that happened was I burnt out) eventually after getting smacked around enough by reality I learned to love my lot in life and go down a gear. I had a lot more fun too after I did this.
My dharma is not to achieve great things but at least I am at the point where I am capable of truly appreciating greatness when it is presented to me (unlike most humans) and I am thankful for that. It's much better to get into a state of resonance with the music of the universe ather than try and fight against it vainly. That way lies the path of Morgoth and we all know how that worked out...
Well, you're doing better than Salieri, then.
Honestly I think Salieri gets unfairly maligned a lot. Modern scholarship (forget that movie, I'm talking academic scholarship) thinks there was no real beef between him and Mozart but the rumours, even during his life, led to him having a nervious breakdown and even now in the modern day the general public (to they extent they know of him) still boo him even though they wouldn't be able to distinguish a piece by Mozart vs one by him.
The dude tutored both Schubert and Beethoven, give him some respect!
I'm just riffing on the subject of the movie, which is very much about fictionalized Salieri's inability to cope with the fact that he was unable to "speak with the voice of god".
I'm aware the real Salieri's story does not neatly fit a morality play.
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