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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5375 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023

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?

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I found this archive of Scott's LiveJournal, but I'm wondering of there's a list somewhere picking out the most interesting articles to read. https://archive.fo/fCFQx

Ever wonder how the world's bluest person starts engaging with reactionary thought and HBD honestly? It's the power of (strike)rationality(strike) volunteering in Haiti and seeing every western institution replicated in cargo cult form.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150407223525/http://squid314.livejournal.com/297579.html

Excerpt:

"It has proven hard for me to appreciate exactly how confused the Haitians are about some things. Gail, our program director, explained that she has a lot of trouble with her Haitian office staff because they don't understand the concept of sorting numerically. Not just "they don't want to do it" or "it never occurred to them", but after months and months of attempted explanation they don't understand that sorting alphabetically or numerically is even a thing. Not only has this messed up her office work, but it makes dealing with the Haitian bureaucracy - harrowing at the best of times - positively unbearable."

Chicken or egg? The converse is that after spending a few years in east Africa you realize that the dude living in a dirt-floor hut who speaks multiple languages fluently and could run circles around the median ivy-league grad student is the norm rather than the exception because anyone who isn't speaking at least two languages and working three side hustles either emigrated or starved to death decades ago.

The norm? There are ofc plenty of africans who could succeed in academia, but in a country where average iq is optimistically, ~ 82 (2010) and gdp/capita is 1k - 10k ... how can they compare to a median iq of (from harvard undergrads in 2002, but should ballpark grad students) 128? You aren't just saying 'africans are as smart as random americans', you're comparing africans to americans who are heavily selected for test scores and academic achievement (even the AA-admitted blacks or hispanics are still the best available). (Even if the average white/black iq difference is entirely environmental, that still applies - starving, parasites, malaria, etc as a child does make one dumber).

Yes, "the norm" because mental plasticity, resilience, and ability to recognize and intergrate new information is only tangentially (if at all) related how high one scores on an IQ test. Ditto "academic achievement".

and ability to recognize and intergrate new information is only tangentially (if at all) related how high one scores on an IQ test. Ditto "academic achievement"

Attempts to study this empirically get results more like this,

The correlation between a latent intelligence trait (Spearman's g from CAT2E) and a latent trait of educational achievement (GCSE scores) was 0.81

rather than no relation.

What is "educational achievement" supposed to be a proxy for in this context?

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