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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   16389 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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The genius is also way better at self regulation and has less need for strict community based rules to apply to them, hence they can engage in stuff like polyamorism/drugs/etc other hedonistic activities with less risk.

I’m sorry, you lost me right away. This is not true. Visible geniuses (many of them) have good self regulation, but that’s selection bias all the way down. A ton of geniuses are badly dysfunctional outside of their “domain” (and some even within it). It’s also a bit self-contradictory in that “self-regulation” and following community rules often go together far more often than the opposite.

If you’re positing that successful (very) smart and high status people don’t ruin their lives with drugs as often as stupid people, that is hopelessly confounded (eg social support is a big factor and so is money) so we might have to settle for opinions. But my opinion is that excessive hedonism insofar as it leads to substantial QoL degradation is fairly independent of intelligence and tends to hit humans pretty equally.

It's a common belief among dumb losers that rich and smart people must have it bad too and it's just not true. Rich people tend to be less neurotic and more emotionally stable and wealth as a universal goal is a good general proxy for intelligence so we can presume that smarter people in general are also more stable and less neurotic.

That doesn't mean every rich person is problem free or smart, and it doesn't mean every poor person is mentally ill or dumb but these are general trends. If you're neurotic or otherwise fucked in the head you're obviously less likely to keep a high paying job. If you're stupid, you're less likely to keep a high paying job (and the ones that are available to you require to be an elite in some other way such as physical sports ability).

That doesn't mean every rich person is problem free or smart, and it doesn't mean every poor person is mentally ill or dumb but these are general trends.

Since black people are poorer than white people, this version too would lead you to a conclusion you would reject.

Since black people are poorer than white people, this version too would lead you to a conclusion you would reject.

I don't generally reject that no, but thanks for making up my arguments for me.

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