The piece, I think, conflates 'low defect rate' and 'high IQ' - in my experience this isn't really true. The 'defect rate' of an individual is incredibly local to whatever task is being done. There are plenty of lowish IQ people who are low defect rate because they're willing to follow rules and defer to smarter people when they are confused. Notice how the intuition pumps are all either active malice or people who are staggeringly stupid. They are also rare and newsworthy events, if they were common enough they wouldn't be newsworthy!
The general claim it makes (some people much better at others at various things) is true, of course.
I am confident there are/were many factories like the pakistan one in there run and staffed by people who would be A in america. Culture is a big thing!
All of that combined makes the idea that some countries have a ton of As and others have a ton of Bs and others have a ton of Cs not really true imo. IQ is a much more relevant metric I think.
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Notes -
The piece, I think, conflates 'low defect rate' and 'high IQ' - in my experience this isn't really true. The 'defect rate' of an individual is incredibly local to whatever task is being done. There are plenty of lowish IQ people who are low defect rate because they're willing to follow rules and defer to smarter people when they are confused. Notice how the intuition pumps are all either active malice or people who are staggeringly stupid. They are also rare and newsworthy events, if they were common enough they wouldn't be newsworthy!
The general claim it makes (some people much better at others at various things) is true, of course.
I am confident there are/were many factories like the pakistan one in there run and staffed by people who would be A in america. Culture is a big thing!
All of that combined makes the idea that some countries have a ton of As and others have a ton of Bs and others have a ton of Cs not really true imo. IQ is a much more relevant metric I think.
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