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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3602 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 30, 2022

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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.

https://www.gwern.net/reviews/McNamara

Quote:

Some were trapped in boot camp: Gregory describes how many would be sent to remedial training repeatedly, failing the exercise requirements each time. They couldn’t understand how to correctly execute actions: in swinging from monkey bars, they would try to swing one bar at a time, coming to a halt each time; in running an obstacle course, they would have to pause in front of each arrow and think about what an arrow meant before understanding which direction to go, costing them too much time to ever beat the deadline; they would insist on throwing grenades directly at the target like a baseball, not understanding that throwing upwards in a high parabola would gain them the necessary distance; and in the mile run, they would sprint as fast as possible at the start and be surprised when they became utterly exhausted long before the finish line.

This was a great read; thanks for the link.

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