site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3604 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 30, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I saw someone on reddit link this greentext image which explains some of the difficulties with basic reasoning ability that people with low IQ have.

I've read some books on the basics of intelligence research (which shows that intelligence is positively correlated with many outcomes that are good, and negatively correlated with many outcomes that are bad), but this text somehow phrased it in very concrete terms that I found interesting. Are there any other readings people have found that tries to contextualize the reality of living at a different intelligence level?

I know that, when people empathize with others, they tend to do so by "putting themselves in other people's shoes", which is trying to figure out how you would act given a different set of circumstances. But doing this with people of vastly different cognitive ability than you is flawed, and I want to understand some of the ways in which it is flawed better.

This post was discussed on the old subreddit. I was skeptical then and I am skeptical now. "Dumb" people (IQ less than 90) have trouble with abstract reasoning and complex cognitive problems, but "Imagine if you didn't eat yesterday, how would you have felt?" is not beyond their ability to imagine. It's almost like the greentext is trying to argue that low-IQ people can't parse a past perfect conditional grammatical construct rather than "They can't grasp hypotheticals."

Or, more likely, the person writing this is the kind of graduate student that would write this shit, and feels nothing but obvious contempt for his interlocutors in prison orange, who then have no interest in playing along with his little games. The dialogue reads more to me like a dude being uncooperative than retarded. Like when I, as an annoying brat 11 year old, would try to get my schoolmates to play intellectual word games and they'd reply to every question with "cheese." Just to piss me off, which was easier than it should have been.

As though I went to San Quentin, organized a basketball game which none of the inmates were very interested in at all, and ran to 4chan to excitedly announce: did you know most convicts are actually very unathletic? Practically crippled! Just let me dribble right by them and make lay ups all day! They barely played defense, and when they got the ball they would almost always turn it over to me and then go back to barely playing D.

I think this was the Freakonomics guy, but there was someone who as a grad student who had to go to low income housing an get answers to a survey.

One of the questions was something along the lines of

How do you feel about being poor and black?

a) Very good

b) Good

c) Uncertain

d) Bad

e) Very bad

Of course the most common answer was

f) Fuck you.

reminds me of this

That was in Sudhir Venkatesh, Gang Leader for a Day (it was his first exposure to Chicago's South Side residents as a grad student), but I've seen his work cited many times in Freakonomics content.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats