domain:abc.net.au
NullHypothesis
9m ago
So just a couple of thoughts I have.
There are many different methods of measuring IQ and intelligence, and IQ tests can break intelligence between crystallized and fluid. Are the people of the Ivory Coast averaging 70 IQ due to a lack of nutrition and education, or because they are genetically inferior and the 70 IQ is their genetically average potential? Or to put it another way, if we take a baby born to the average person in the Ivory Coast and raise them in a Western nation with Western nutrition and education, would they on average have 70 IQ?
Based on observations of the Flynn effect and the increase in average IQ over time for all populations, I'd say that they would likely have a much average IQ than 70 if they were raised in better conditions. In other words, I'm arguing that IQ scores between countries are not exactly the same and that a 70 IQ person from the Ivory Coast is not equivalent to a 70 IQ person in the USA. To Flynn's credit, I believe he does try to account for multi-country analysis by using the progressive Raven Matrixes version of the IQ test, which doesn't require reading, writing, or speaking, but it also means the range of intelligence being tested is limited. As highly correlated intelligence is across different types, it's not equivalent. Also, from what I recall from Flynn's work the data in Africa is quite limited and had to be extrapolated across various countries, Ivory Coast included. (Note that I am not arguing there aren't any genetical differences in average IQ, just that all the races have not had a chance to reach say their 90% potential in IQ distribution.).
IQ has much stronger predictive powers of income in the lower brackets than in the higher brackets. I find this to be strong evidence in support of my notion that IQ is a barrier to entry for being able to perform specific tasks. One Swedish study on intelligence and income finds that above 60,000 the predictive ability of intelligence drops and that the top 1% of earners score worse in cognitive ability than the bracket right below them. Once you reach an adequate amount of IQ, other factors about a person matter more.
I will concede that you could likely find a job for a 70-IQ person, but would they be able to keep that job, and would they be offered that job in lieu of a higher-IQ person? I argue most jobs have an "optimal" IQ where after a certain point having additional points of IQ would offer very little benefit. I will even go as far as to say that having a higher IQ could actually be a detriment since the job would be too simple for an extremely intelligent person and they would likely quit out of boredom and find a better job. I don't think there is a single job where 70 IQ is the optimal amount of intelligence for that job.
Hauser's Meritocracy, Cognitive Ability, and the Sources of Occupational Success" found that iq distribution of various jobs finds that only that "janitors and sextons", "construction laborers", "unpaid family workers", and "farmers and farm laborers" had at least someone with a less than 70iq in the 90th iq percentile distribution in people that work in those job categories between 1975-1977. The data from 1992-1994 shows there is not a single person in the 90th distribution of IQ that falls below 70 IQ. Most of this is explained by the Flynn effect, but as tools have become more complex it's more and more difficult for a low IQ person to be able to even do the lowest paying jobs. As I said, a 70 IQ person can not be trusted with something like a dishwasher because operating a dishwasher is actually quite a complex task compared to a task such as hammering an object in the same spot over and over. The economic output of workers in a modern nation must surpass the minimum wage, otherwise no business will hire such people except out of charity.
Gottfredson has a description of the ability of people at various IQ ranges in her paper Social Consequences of Group Differences in Cognitive Ability. There are descriptions for 2 cut off points of IQ I want to highlight - 75 IQ and 85 IQ:
IQ 75 signals the ability level below which individuals are not likely to master the elementary school curriculum or function independently in adulthood in modern societies. They are likely to be eligible for special educational services in school and for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) from the U.S. government, which is financial support provided to mentally and physically disabled adults. Of course, many do marry, hold a job, raise children, and otherwise function adequately as adults. However, their independence is precarious because they have difficulty getting and keeping jobs that pay a living wage. They are difficult to train except for the simplest tasks, so they are fortunate in industrialized nations to get any paying job at all. While only 1 out of 50 Asian-Americans faces such risk, Figure 3 shows that 1 out of 6 black-Americans does.
IQ 85 is a second important minimum threshold because the U.S. military sets its minimum enlistment standards at about this level. Although the military is often viewed as the employer of last resort, this minimum standard rules out almost half of blacks (44%) and a third of Hispanics (34%), but far fewer whites (13%) and Asians (8%). The U.S. military has twice experimented with recruiting men of IQ 80-85 (the first time on purpose and the second time by accident), but both times it found that such men could not master soldiering well enough to justify their costs. Individuals in this IQ range are not considered mentally retarded and they therefore receive no special educational or social services, but their poor learning and reasoning Social Consequences of Group Differences 29 abilities mean that they are not competitive for many jobs, if any, in the civilian economy. They live at the edge of unemployability in modern nations, and the jobs they do get are typically the least prestigious and lowest paying: for example, janitor, food service worker, hospital orderly, or parts assembler in a factory.
IQ 85 is also close to the upper boundary for Level 1 functional literacy, the lowest of five levels in the U.S. government’s 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). Adults at this literacy level are typically able to carry out only very simple tasks, such as locating the expiration date on a driver’s license or totaling a bank deposit slip, but they typically cannot perform more difficult tasks, such as locating two particular pieces of information in a sports article (Level 2), writing a brief letter explaining an error in a credit card bill (Level 3), determining correct change using information in a menu (Level 4), or determining shipping and total costs on an order form for items in a catalog (Level 5). Most routine communications with businesses and social service agencies, including job applications, are thus beyond the capabilities of persons with only Level 1 literacy. Their problem is not that they cannot read the words, but that they are not able to understand or use the ideas that the words convey.
The intellectual capability of the 70 IQ, or even 85 IQ population is made clear in these descriptions. These are significant ability barriers to entry to most jobs or functions and have a greater impact on a person than the additional gain in ability at the higher IQ tiers. To go back to my original point, a 100 iq racist arguing that an 85 iq population are 'animals' can construct a stronger argument than a 115 iq racist arguing that a 100 iq population are animals Both would be incorrect for reasons you already stated previously, but if they were trying to refine the definition of animal you get better arguments the lower the IQ goes.
We have seen IQ rise to match the jobs available, but I say that we are nearing our natural genetic potential in IQ for well-developed nations. Actually, we are seeing IQ points drop in developed nations due to the implementation of ludicrous and inane policies. Unless something like eugenics or gene editing becomes a reality I doubt the average level of intelligence will rise more than 5-10 IQ points for the developed nations.
We have no idea what a hypothetical society of a world where the average person's IQ is 130 will look like, but I still argue a 70 IQ person would struggle more in a society of 100 IQ individuals than a 100 IQ person in a world of people with 130 median IQ. There are almost no jobs for a 70 IQ person in a modern nation. Even if the hypothetical 130 iq society is able to automate away many existing job categories with robots and AI as @aardvark2 suggests, I doubt it would actually remove all all jobs where the barrier to be able to do the work requires a minimum level of IQ above 100. It's likely such a society could easily provide a luxurious peaceful life to the 100 IQ person and they wouldn't need to even work and could spend a life pursuing the arts or leisure.
Based on historical trends a lot of people would argue job availability will keep up but we actually don't know that! Historical trends don't always predict the future. @aardvark2 uses an example of a smartphone, and I'd like to point out Moore's law is no longer being met (the pace of development has slowed down). You can't assume past trends continue infinitely and there are good reasons to believe that there won't be enough new industries and jobs that are created where human labor is preferable to robot/AI labor, especially if robots and AI reach the point where it makes most current jobs obsolete.
KingOfTheBailey
14m ago
Great post. I think many LWers and HPMOR readers were probably so starved for a single decent teacher in their entire schooling that they latched onto themselves as Harry and yearned for someone with Quirrel's attitude to BS.
Hyperion
22m ago
I don't get it is Sachs claiming he was first hand knowledge of this stuff or is he just talking his ass off like all of us here? It sounds like he is just talking his ass off like he has about every other geo-political event in his lifetime. You can always expect him to be against the USA and for whatever is popular among the far-left. So his support of Palestine and Russia is no more surprising than his support of China and Venezuela.
What's somewhat interesting is the fact that these far-left and far-right voices have converged on so much, but you also saw stuff like this in the run up to WW2.
dr_analog
razorboy
47m ago
Ha. Amusingly, I had a friend who was consistently betting against Tesla on short-term puts but he forgot to renew them at some point this last go-around and that was right before the recent huge collapse happened.
Still too hard to bet against Elon.
I guess I consider the odds that your online communications will be intercepted and used against you are much, much more unlikely than your house burning down or being in a car accident.
I think this is because in the back of my mind I don't expect to receive at any time a call that we must start pitching molotov cocktails at the courts and then escape the state's retribution, whereas I suspect deep down a lot of people harbor that feeling. Or some other fanciful counter-cultural notion. And in that case I will regret not having swung everything over to Signal several years prior.
dr_analog
razorboy
1hr ago
Sure, but there's a >99.999% chance the people worried about this don't do anything edgy or counter-culture enough for the FBI to look twice at.
Quantumfreakonomics
1hr ago
…what? I admit I don’t have a great model of the federal government in 1860, but this seems like an insane claim to me.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Yes. I mean girls usually don't, but adolescent males have a deep instinct to buck taboos. In the US that's anti-black racist rhetoric, in Germany that's flirting with national socialism.
Quantumfreakonomics
1hr ago
To preserve the illusion of federalism? Let the state legislatures feel in charge. Everybody knows the one thing Grill-Americans won’t tolerate is not having the D or R on the presidential ballot.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
They're pretty small. Fact of the matter is subsidies for at home solar- which probably benefits Elon Musk more than solar power plants- are fairly popular among the republican base.
KMC
2hr ago
Another week, another Tucker interview, another transcription of a juicy part by yours truly. I promise, this is unusual, I haven't listened to two in a row, at all, ever.
This week is Jeffrey Sachs. The part below is just after 1:44.
JS: I also have a big measure of resentment: I don't like the risks we are being put under, Tucker.
TC:Yes, well I agree with that completely.
JS: I don't like it. This is not a game.
TC: Well, you've got children.
JS: I've got grandchildren, and I really care about this, and I don't like the games, and I want people to tell the truth. And if we told the truth, we could actually stop the wars, today. I don't mean, that sounds crazy, it's not crazy. If we told the truth about the Ukraine, if Biden called Putin and said, that NATO enlargement we've been trying for 30 years, it's off. We get it, you're right, it's not going to your border, Ukraine should be neutral. That war would stop today. Oh, there'd be lots of pieces to figure out, where exactly will the borders be, how will go, I don't say that there won't be issues, but the fighting would stop today.
JS: If the government of Israel either were told, or said, there will be a state of Palestine, and we will live peacefully side by side, the fighting would stop today. These are basic facts, basic matters of truth that if we actually spoke them, if we actually treated each other like grown-ups we would resolve to seem to be these insurmountable crises. They're not at all insurmountable, they just require a measure of truth.
That was the first mention of Israel, that I could recall, but the whole conversation is about Ukraine, Russia, Putin, and NATO. It's not exactly new to me, but it's refreshing to hear someone so clearly say that this is a war of choice, and the choice is being made by the USA, and their puppet states involved in NATO.
And that was all before any discussion of COVID. tl;dl, it's obviously from a lab, we (USA) pretty clearly funded it, and Fauci has been running the germ warfare branch of the DoD for decades. Which lab, and how is unknown, but, in his own words:
JS: Our government has lied to us about every single moment of this from the start, hasn't told us anything about any of this, it's all whistleblowers or Freedom of Information Act. That's the only way we know any of what I'm describing to you right now. No one has told the truth at all.
Great interview, and I'm glad that Tucker has twitter dot com to host his stuff, rather than be consigned to the fringes of the internet.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Realistically, Ohio doesn't actually have anything to gain from keeping Biden off the ballot, and the Ohio republican party just wants to be dicks about it because they can. Biden has like, a single digit chance of winning Ohio. Whether Biden is technically on the ballot is therefore a minor paperwork issue that Ohio is making a big deal about because it's an opportunity for shitflinging.
That also means that Ohio keeping Biden off the ballot doesn't actually bring any greater likelihood of secession/major consequences. It might indicate that those consequences are more likely than previously thought, but it's not a rung on the escalation ladder.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
The federal government lacks the state capacity it had in 1860.
jkf
2hr ago
I don't know how things are in the US, but in Europe you pretty much have to go underground to escape cell coverage.
I had cellular internet (also p2p wifi at one point) before Starlink, and while they sucked less than high-orbit, they suck more than Starlink.
It is extremely impressive that in a few short years Musk has been able to offer a service... lets say an order of magnitude better than literally any legacy telecom in the world -- these are extremely big companies with all sorts of infrastructure already in place, and he has totally slain them. I do believe that in the next year or two you will be able to connect a phone to his constellation from literally anywhere -- this is also very impressive tech-wise, and it happened super-fast.
BinaryHobo
2hr ago
The advantage of the software industry over hardware is that hardware is bounded by the laws of physics and the costs of making things and moving them around.
It does, but the downside is that your entire industry can be commoditized by a few people (fewer than people think) or completely destroyed by your competition exiting the market and just releasing their product. Effectively every area Borland was monetizing 30 years ago is completely free now.
Yeah, microsoft's product doesn't wear out naturally, but the other side is, how much more could they have taxed the industry if linux didn't exist? On the other hand, open source hardware has never really gone anywhere.
jkf
2hr ago
Indeed -- I'd venture that there is no longer in fact any product competitive with Excel in the general business market!
This is a vast improvement (for M$FT) from the 80s/early 90s when there were quite a few spreadsheet options with different pros and cons.
The product would have obviously been toast if it operated on pure value creation like if it was Coke versus Pepsi and Pepsi was free and Coke costs a $1.
Thing is it's free water vs dollar coke -- both will hydrate you, but one is clearly a different sort of product. (you will note that even though this is in fact the case, Coke sells a lot of Coke!)
SteveKirk
2hr ago
My friend I literally just linked an article last week about the FBI skimming through everyone's credit card purchases for "suspicious activity."
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2hr ago
I am 95% certain on this. In this 5% chance that it happens, I would like a followup bet that some portion of the US breaks off into its own country.
I could see some portion of the US attempting to split off, but what makes you think they'd be any more successful than the last time it was tried?
BahRamYou
3hr ago
Diversification seems like a really good idea here, in that it seems to bring the nature of the disagreement into focus. Almost all the replies I'm seeing are related to SpaceX, but Musk has multiple businesses. Is the general consensus that those other businesses are write-offs, and thus SpaceX has all the value? Does anyone actually expect him to crack auto-driving or tunnel boring or robots or making twitter profitable? Is it just the rockets? Maybe the rockets are enough, maybe not, but is any of the rest plausible enough to bet on, or is it essentially fog?
SpaceX is so far the only really "cool" company that Musk has. Maybe Tesla used to be cool, when EVs were new and they could shatter acceleration records while talking big about "saving the earth." Now they just seem normal- lots of other companies make EVs now too, and we've all had a chance to ride in them and see "OK yeah it's pretty just another car." It's decent but no where near enough to justify it being one of the most valuable companies on earth, ahead of other companies that produce way more money.
SpaceX can still trade on that "we're going to mars!!!!" sci fi aspect. But I think their real value is launching spy sats for the military, and maybe eventually ABM missiles like Brilliant Pebbls, or straight up weapons like "Rods from God." For that, they can pretty much name their price to the military and the US taxpayer.
Ballot Access - I said this back when Trump was potentially gonna get kicked off Colorado ballots. Neither of the two major parties will be off of a state ballot in any state. It does not matter what rules or procedures they fail to follow they will be on the ballot. I am 95% certain on this. In this 5% chance that it happens, I would like a followup bet that some portion of the US breaks off into its own country. Those are the consequences if you don't maintain the illusion of democracy.
The opposite is true of 3rd party candidates. A single failure to follow a single rule, or a single failure to get a triple the number of required signatures will result in them being off the ballot.
edit- went and did some research.
The most recent example of a major Democratic or Republican presidential candidate not appearing on a state ballot was in 1964. Lyndon B. Johnson, the incumbent president and Democratic candidate, was not on the ballot in Alabama. Instead, Alabama had former Governor John Malcolm Patterson as a stand-in candidate for the Democratic Party. This situation stemmed from complex political dynamics and disagreements within the party related to civil rights issues and other national policies at the time.
Before the 1964 instance involving Lyndon B. Johnson, another notable case occurred in the 1956 presidential election. That year, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican incumbent, was not on the ballot in Alabama either. In his place, a slate of unpledged electors was listed instead. This was due to internal disputes within the state's Democratic Party, which was deeply divided over issues such as civil rights. These unpledged electors were intended to be free to vote for a different candidate other than the official party nominees if they were elected.
So aside from Alabama being weird chatgpt could only give me two other examples:
- 1860 Presidential Election: As mentioned earlier, Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln was not on the ballot in several Southern states due to his anti-slavery platform. This exclusion was not limited to Alabama but included states like Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
- 1912 Presidential Election: In this election, Theodore Roosevelt, who had previously been a Republican president, ran as a candidate for the Progressive Party (also known as the Bull Moose Party) after failing to secure the Republican nomination against incumbent President William Howard Taft. In some states, such as California, the situation led to a split in which both Taft and Roosevelt were competing for Republican votes, effectively making Roosevelt a major candidate running outside the traditional two-party system, impacting ballot dynamics.
So in one instance we had a literal civil war. And in the other three instances we had major party realignments happening.
yofuckreddit
3hr ago
Worth reading?
yofuckreddit
3hr ago
I finished Through Struggle, the Stars after catching a glimmer of a rec from @IdealFireplace and man - I really enjoyed it. I'm less critical of the quality drop off outside of space. There was something strangely addicting about both of the books to where there was some sort of action leading me to turn the page over and over again. I burned through both books very quickly. it's supposed to be a trilogy so, be warned, the fucking author decided to never finish it, instead dedicating himself to an obscure video game that supposedly tries to make horrifically boring spaceship conflict exciting. In that vein, I'll be bitching about Homeworld 3 on Friday.
I also finished Mixtape Hyperborea. Looks like the author is pretty active on goodreads. I enjoyed it quite a bit, though I read some suggestions that you should listen to the actual mixtape on spotify while reading it. Frankly, I didn't like any of the music. The navel-gazing playlist selection and lack of violence were the biggest indicators that the author was most familiar with a prep school instead of public. One common criticism of the book seems to be that it's plotless, which I think is obviously untrue. Is it super exhilarating? No, but at least
Coming up next is me taking another crack at the Culture series. Finished book 1 (what a fuckin drag) and finally finishing up "Don't Sit Under the Grits Tree with Anyone Else but Me".
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
3hr ago
There are other reasons to care about digital hygiene, but the most anodyne people worrying that the FBI is maintaining a dossier about them is probably an effect of five decades of media obsession with counter-culture and rebellion.
Do you also complain about people buying insurance? The chances of your house being set on fire or destroyed are vanishingly small, so these people are just throwing money away for no good reason. Similarly, why waste time putting on a seatbelt when going for a drive? You're probably not going to be in a crash after all, so why subject yourself to the discomfort and wasted time?
Information security and privacy are probably not going to be terribly important for the average person, but you don't know if you're going to be in the minority for whom it becomes exceedingly important and the techniques used to protect yourself cannot be applied retroactively.
hydroacetylene
3hr ago
Lots of middle-class suburban homeowners get solar as a home improvement, many of them fairly red. As a minor datapoint, I drive all over DFW frequently and see about as many solar panels on roofs in Tarrant county(light red) as Dallas county(deep blue), and only slightly fewer in Denton county(deep red). Exurbs aren't eligible for solar subsidies, just the tax credit, but I still see plenty of panels in exurbs. It's often a reasonable financial decision to install solar panels, even if they're a retarded basis for a power grid.
Ignoring the whole Cyber Truck Fiasco, can the other EV cars be considered competitive with a Tesla from a branding perspective?
https://posts.voronoiapp.com/automotive/Global-BEV-Market-Share-Tesla-Retains-its-1-Spot-for-2023-733
The biggest competitors seem to be Chinese EV cars which sell to a mostly Chinese market. I haven't looked into it much but I have seen several videos about the poor quality of Chinese EV cars. I don't think they will catch on in the Western market.
Factor out China and Tesla is still well far ahead of the competition as of last year.
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