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Notes -
A higher-IQ physical therapist is still better. Taking the example of a physical therapist, all else equal:
Comparing a physical therapist with 100 IQ to another with 130 IQ, the diminishing returns to IQ would have had to already hit 0 by 100 IQ, which I don't find plausible in the slightest for them to be interchangeable.
This matters not only for edge cases, but also for common cases. A smarter physical therapist has better recall and better ability to synthesize information ranging from exercise form to injury diagnoses.
Suppose a patient is doing PT to recover from a bicep tear. At some point a basic, traditional, bicep curl will likely be involved as a PT exercise, where the dumbbell is to be rotated with palm facing upward.
If the patient doesn't get good rotation on the curl (and thus not getting full bicep engagement), a dumber physical therapist might not even Notice. A smarter one would Notice and take a look at where the patient is gripping along the dumbbell and slide the grip if necessary. After sliding the grip, the smarter one would with greater probability remember to monitor and encourage the patient to concentrate on "pinky first" if necessary, and then troubleshoot from there.
And this is just from one exercise from one particular type of injury. Differences between a 130 IQ and 100 IQ physical therapist can add up from relatively routine situations, much less those with tail risk, when one is considering things from an ex-ante expected value standpoint.
You're not describing IQ. You are describing a combination of 1) specialized knowledge, and 2) attention to detail/conscientiousness. Only the first of these correlates to IQ, and then only because a higher IQ person can learn things faster, as I mentioned. Once the 100 IQ person works to acquire the knowledge/experience the difference between them becomes negligible in 99% of cases.
I’ll leave aside your unjustified confidence to characterize what I’m describing.
“Only because a higher IQ person can learn things faster” is doing a ton of lifting.
You’re looping right back into what was already pre-empted by OP. One could just as well sputter:
Anyway, let’s proceed.
It’s not just stock, but both stock and flow. Even allowing for the hypothetical that a 100 IQ person has the same stock of knowledge/experience as a 130 IQ person by turn of some magic genie, the 100 IQ person will forget things faster and learn new things slower, and be less able to pattern match among the things he does have in stock.
The 99% is just a made-up number backed up by your wishcasting.
And even then if we accept differences are “negligible”—“negligible” differences, as I explained, can add up quickly. If you’re a potential patient, all else equal you’d always go for the Physical Therapist with the more favourable “negligible” differences.
If you don’t like getting own-goaled by the physical therapist example that you yourself proferred, there’s always other real life examples such as various HFT marketmaking firms who make a negligible amount of money with each go (and often lose money on each go), but each go ends up accumulating to a lot.
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