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This reasoning leads to the conclusion that a bunch of people you probably don't enjoy calling high intelligence are high intelligence. (Donald Trump seems to have gotten ahead in life far more than the average Mottizen has.) Or else it leads you to say "actually, looking at results isn't enough because they could still get lucky" in which case you just contradicted your own thesis, and also need a measure of intelligence that is not about getting results. (IQ tests?)
Wouldn't your standards require that you conclude black people are low in intelligence?
First of all general trends are general. Rich people can also become rich by things like sports/acting talent/looks/etc. Saying rich people are generally smarter doesn't mean saying a top quarterback must be super bright.
Also of course aging. People's mental facilities slow down and change over the years. You can see this with Biden for instance, in 2008 he was a perfectly normal sounding politician and in 2024 he had the famous dementia brain fart. Trump might have been a genius in the past for all I know, it doesn't mean he is now at 80 years old.
But also yes, Trump is generally smarter than a lot of people. For instance, his protectionism is really stupid and goes against basically everything ever observed in economics. His fanbase is equally dumb (if not worse) for thinking Trump tariff policy would be good.
The general population are price control loving NIMBY populists, Trump being one too doesn't make him especially dumb, it makes him normal dumb.
These are general trends, there is plenty of overlaps and exceptions. The line of best fit shows a strong positive correlation between success and IQ, but there are plenty of outliers of smart people with low success or dumb people with high success (like again, many top athletes)
In general black people do in fact tend to trend less intelligent.
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