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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   38190 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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I’m concerned that something that gets lost in these discussions is that there are a lot of psychological traits that are worthwhile besides just intelligence - honesty, conscientiousness, perseverance, a sense for fairness, and so forth.

Just because you’re intelligent doesn’t mean you’re a high-quality individual. One criticism you can’t make of the people who run the current western political establishment is that they’re not intelligent enough. There are many intelligent people who are actively malicious, or they’re lazy, they leech off society, or what have you; conversely, some of the people I admire the most are not very intelligent at all.

A eugenics program that optimized for intelligence above all else would be short-sighted.

there are a lot of psychological traits that are worthwhile besides just intelligence - honesty, conscientiousness, perseverance, a sense for fairness, and so forth.

These are all fluid in a way that intelligence is not. I can practice radical honesty, I can force my self to be more conscientious, etc. Intelligence is a hard limit on potential, and no such thing exists for how many lies I tell.

I don't think so. There's a reason for the aphorism "A leopard cannot change its spots". I suspect some people are basically dishonest in the same way others are basically stupid.

The thing about quoting aphorisms is that there's usually one that says the opposite.

Ok this isn't an aphorism, but quoting Shakespeare comes close:

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,

Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,

That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery

That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence; the next more easy;

For use almost can change the stamp of nature.

For use almost can change the stamp of nature.

"Almost"?

(And Hamlet may have said it, but Gertrude did not take his advice)

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