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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022

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Because the worship of intelligence/IQ I see in these circles, including on here, usually "X is really really good at STEM/maths". I've seen comments casually tossed off about 'normies', about '95 IQ rednecks', many assumptions that Ordinary People Are Dumb, and we know it because they must all be sub-100 IQ, we know that because if they were Smart Like Us they wouldn't be rednecks or normies.

From personal experience posting/discussing about IQ here, this is hardly true at all. Maybe it was more true pre-2018 but not anymore. Many on the right are as equally skeptical as those on the left about the worship of IQ.

Highly mathletic, SBF breezed through Crystal Springs Uplands, an elite prep school in Hillsborough, California. Though he earned top marks, he kept to himself, spending most of his free time playing computer games (StarCraft, League of Legends) and a trading card game, Magic: The Gathering. But at MIT he found his tribe: fellow pledges at Epsilon Theta, a coed fraternity of supergeeks similarly interested in Magic, and video games. Thetans are fond of debating math, physics, computer science, linguistics, philosophy and logic problems—for fun—at alcohol-free parties.

I dunno how indictive this is of genius IQ, probably not much. It's not that hard to do well in high school. MTG would not be so popular if it was only geniuses playing it. He got into Jane Street, which is pretty damn selective, so probably an IQ of at least 140 if I had to guess.