Doesn't it depress you that the course of someone's life is set by biological variables like IQ?

[Drvladivostok]

We are educated since little to the notion that everyone have the freedom (And ability in some sense) to become whatever they want as long as they try hard enough, study long enough, develop the amount of grit, and be the best in themselves. This is impart because of political development of liberalism that have liquidate the ideas of political social classes like feudalism and it's variation which survived until the 18th century (Unless you count in India), and our society have been more prosperous in part because of this development which allows unlimited social mobility (Or so it is believed), but even so, liberalism have not liquidate social classes which is in part to a high degree owe its origin because of biological reality of hereditary competency.

The neurological and psychological science doesn't support this rhetoric of everyone having equal ability to be social climbers, at least not entirely, one of the best predictor in life is IQ points, IQ have a very high correlation with education, occupation, mental and physical health, illness, mortality, average income, etc, in the book The Bell Curve it is stated that other that one of the things which distinguish the social classes in US just as apparently as income is IQ points, you can predict the IQ of the poor as much as you can of the educated middle class, or the rich, which is not to say that there are variations that deviate but the trend is very clear, also according to twin research IQ have been known to be 70-80% hereditary.

Hierarchal classes of competent few, mediocre many, and just as many incompetents seems to exist in biology of animals, productive animals are top of the hierarchy and gets all the pussy while unproductive, incompetent animals gets the scrap of their alpha counterpart and sometimes are wiped out of the gene pool, perhaps the only difference in human is we intervene before nature sets its course of natural selection (I'm not a Nazi, not implying we should, don't ban me).

Have we reached the limits of human equality now that IQ is dividing people just as much as feudalism (Not as severe but the same principle) even in an extremely meritocratic society?

Perhaps I'm just being childish in seeing that life's unfairness is something to be whined about, perhaps what makes this revelation very upsetting is that the inequality in this world (In the most part) isn't because of a bourgeoisie capital oppressions, or a feudal like political system but a psychologically valid facts.

 

[Black Rose]

IQ is more 3D than 2D like on the test measurements.

Internal control, layers of control, the ability to control thought.

What can be manipulated is not exactly what can be recognized.

The average makes it so differences are smaller than on a fair intellectual battleground.

I do question myself though. Some people just are 2D but with greater surface area than me.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

That bell curve book has been debunked more times than IQ itself, because while IQ has validity, that book is full of biased bullshit.

Humanity was born with no promise of fairness. Now that we can create fairness, we can see what influences IQ. Perhaps every bloodline is capable of intelligence we just have to cultivate it somehow.

For example societies that invented languages and written texts got a head start somehow, but now for the last century all the information in the world can access this knowledge and it's fair game for everyone. Well, in some regard.

IQ shouldn't be your measure of self-worth. If you understood what it does as concept you would see it as a guide to maybe brush up on deficiencies. This global dick measuring contest is just that. If you let that dictate your ability to thrive, for example not taking an opportunity for success, that is what gets you out of the gene pool. IQ is just a coincidental coefficient.

 

[Black Rose]

Even though there is not an objective measurement there is an objective thing called intelligence. The coincidental coefficient is making a relativistic comparison, not an absolute one. It is that absolute basis of intelligence that matters. I have tried to do certain intellectual work but was unable to. This bothered me. "Why can't I do this", "I tried really hard". We all face this situation, something we cant do intellectually. But then we find people who can. What makes them different? Are there people better than them at this task? We realize what being smart means.

We also realize there is no moral difference between people based on ability. Some people can't do what I do. This does not make them bad. Smarter people are not arrogant, they just know what they know.

If I am the absolute standard of smart or dumb, why? Why not a relativistic comparison. I am the middle of my sphere but not the absolute middle. More people can be smarter or dumber than me. Less people smarter or dumber. There is only the problem of an objective measurement. Statistics give probabilities. Imagine a ruler accurate to the foot rather than the millimeter. 0.7 coefficient between IQ tests is like that.

What the test told me was that I am smarter than 1 in 5 people. If there were 5 people selected from the population at random then on average I would be the smartest one. But that is statistics. The way an IQ test is constructed they take samples. The WAIS 4 was normed on a sample of 2,000 people in Iowa. Statistically, 1 in 2,000 is an IQ of 150. The tests can't measure beyond this. And since 50 * 0.7 = 135 IQ. The statistic shifts to 1 in 100.

If there were an absolute definition of intelligence it would measure the control structure, the wiring, between nodes in the brain. How fast and how much the network can shift workload. Network processing. a.i. could then have an absolute IQ because we objectively know how intelligence works. We would need a constant in order to base comparisons on. Then it would not be 1 in whatever number but concrete.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

no no no nonononono. I am trying to remedy someone's depression that they believe is tied to their ability. Not start another discussion on intelligence.

How did you prove you couldn't do certain intellectual work? Depending on how you did, your perspective could be very biased. Like the approach you took to the intellectual pursuit or the method of determining your inability to do said intellectual work. If you mean professionally, and the professional domain of that intellectual work is just hyper competitive, then that is it's own problem. But then again, Hollywood is hypercompetitive, and all the people there aren't super intelligent by any stretch.

Being among the most relatively successful people in any domain is hard, but that's not always because of IQ. Some people have more drive, or more invested in their work, and maybe they knew what they wanted to be when they were young and have honed those skills since then.

SO why does intelligence matter? Is it because if you are less intelligent then you have less free will? There is an attachment to some ideal here. Most people with higher intelligence don't care about their intelligence because an intelligent person keeps their priorities as far away as possible from vanity as they can. It's a red flag for wrong priorities.

Camus comes in clutch “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

 

[Black Rose]

You betray the very nature of my dilemma. If I were smart I would not care. Why? because I could accomplish my goals. Either the goal is too hard or not worth pursuing. You my dear friend are in the middle. You have a goal that meets your abilities. Yet you can't see why everyone is not in the middle. You think it's all easy because you found something easy yet rewarding. How did this happen, why is it so easy for you? Because you're smart? No, but you use smarts to explain it away.

You think competition is why I had trouble, no no no. I understand what I was trying to do and why I failed. I grasp what I am capable of. I just had a goal I was incapable of. I still have the same goals but it will be accomplished differently now that I know I was using other abilities not the current abilities I had absent looked over before. The way I was doing it was impossible because I can't do those things. Lots of memorization and abstract thought.

Environmental pressures cause intellectual pressures cause in my case depression anxiety schizophrenia. Thank God for Prozac. it's not easy. life is hard. there is no point in life. people commit suicide if they don't make life meaningful. sometimes you got to do it the hard way. brain burnout.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Problem Solving Attempt -> Problem Solving Fail -> Problem + Problem Solving Reassessment -> Problem Solving Attempt #2

I don't think your detour isn't additive in some way, but I'm just pointing out how your assessment seems to think that if you can address a almost completely unrelated problem that it will solve the problem you actually want to solve.

If I want to read a 100,000 word book in 8 hours, I have to read 12,500 words an hour, or 208.33 words a minute.
If I can only read 200 words a minute, then I will fail. I may be able to get close but I will fail that specific objective of reading the book in 8 hours. I might be able to do it if I try harder and lower my comprehension.

If I want to read a 100,000 word book from START to FINISH in ONE SITTING, I have to sit down and read for about 8 hours non stop.
If I can only get myself to read 3 hours before descending into brain fog and distraction, I will fail. I simply don't have the "muscle" to do such a thing, most people don't.

I'm perfectly comfortable being aware of my limitations and expanding them from within that Matrix of limitations. You should look into KPIs, businesses use them, there's plenty of short books on them. You are an intelligent being. You can develop measurements and increase them, even the slightest percentage is a lot of work to improve.

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
― Albert Einstein

The path you seem to be on would only be important if say, you're trying to find coaching parameters for general tips on how someone could cognitively improve themselves. A basketball player wouldn't do what you're doing. They would just be shooting hoops and dribbling. They do it so much they can visualize it in their brain and practice with their shadow to increase their score rate. Maybe you could somehow give a basket ball player a training routine, but what's the point unless that's really what you're going to do.

 

[ZenRaiden]

 

[Black Rose]

2011

Problem: how not to be bored
Problem: have no friends
Problem: left school have nothing to do
Problem: stuck in an apartment with only internt
Problem: can't find books to read at my level
Problem: have no money
Problem: sick from poor diet
Problem: was comatose 2 years prior
Problem: burnout
Problem: computer crash lost all my work
Problem: psychosomatic symptoms, can't talk straight
Problem: Hospitalized in the mental ward right when I tried to go outside.

and that was just 2011

I need things to do. I want to do things. It's not always possible to have something to do. Everything is just too hard. Life sucks.

I am a problem solver. I need to solve problems. Problem is that life makes the problems too hard and happens all at once. Having a problem I can solve is a blessing. It makes things not so horrible. Intelligence is a problem I can solve. I am not trapped by it. Not in the way people think. I do other things as well.

I remember playing video games in 2009 at my mom's house. It was fun. There were problems I could solve. But I stopped.

2011
Problem: No one to play videogames with

 

[ZenRaiden]

2011

Problem: how not to be bored
Problem: have no friends
Problem: left school have nothing to do
Problem: stuck in an apartment with only internt
Problem: can't find books to read at my level
Problem: have no money
Problem: sick from poor diet
Problem: was comatose 2 years prior
Problem: burnout
Problem: computer crash lost all my work
Problem: psychosomatic symptoms, can't talk straight
Problem: Hospitalized in the mental ward right when I tried to go outside.

and that was just 2011

I need things to do. I want to do things. It's not always possible to have something to do. Everything is just too hard. Life sucks.

I am a problem solver. I need to solve problems. Problem is that life makes the problems too hard and happens all at once. Having a problem I can solve is a blessing. It makes things not so horrible. Intelligence is a problem I can solve. I am not trapped by it. Not in the way people think. I do other things as well.

I remember playing video games in 2009 at my mom's house. It was fun. There were problems I could solve. But I stopped.

2011
Problem: No one to play videogames with

You should see a psychiatrist.

 

[Black Rose]

You should see a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrists I've seen did not understand my psychosomatic symptoms.

And seeing one is not a solution, the cause of psychosomatic symptoms is repression. I was not in a healthy environment. I had to repress myself to survive.

I need a psychologist more than a psychiatrist.

 

[ZenRaiden]

You should see a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrists I've seen did not understand my psychosomatic symptoms.

And seeing one is not a solution, the cause of psychosomatic symptoms is repression. I was not in a healthy environment. I had to repress myself to survive.

I need a psychologist more than a psychiatrist.

Well then get one.

 

[Black Rose]

Well then get one.

I asked and the social worker said my therapist was good enough. I need to go with the services provided. Therapists don't know much.

I got an assessment by a psychologist recently but I need to see one on a long-term basis. It's not good enough.

 

[Black Rose]

@nanook said I need love not pills.

That would be nice.

high IQ is not necessarily an indicator of an easy life.

life's meaning is about getting what you want. Achieving your goals.

High IQ helps you achieve easy goals. But goals too hard to achieve only bring frustration.

I want to solve intelligence. And I want not to feel bad. I don't need pills.

 

[ZenRaiden]

OKi

 

[dr froyd]

speaking in terms of developed countries, I tend to be amazed at how well you can do with an average- or sub-average IQ (or whatever metric we use for intelligence). Life is made simple and risk-free: you get employed, perform tasks at the level of your skills, you get a mortgage, put some savings in a mutual fund, you get a loan for a car, and boom you live like a king - a middle-class life in all its glory. All the complicated problems have been solved for you - the rest is paint by numbers.

 

[ZenRaiden]

speaking in terms of developed countries, I tend to be amazed at how well you can do with an average- or sub-average IQ (or whatever metric we use for intelligence). Life is made simple and risk-free: you get employed, perform tasks at the level of your skills, you get a mortgage, put some savings in a mutual fund, you get a loan for a car, and boom you live like a king - a middle-class life in all its glory. All the complicated problems have been solved for you - the rest is paint by numbers.

Since most of population have average IQ I see it as obvious not amazing.

I think you are confusing IQ with something else. You can survive with pretty low IQ no doubt. That should tell us that IQ has been driven by evolution by more factors than mere survival.

I think what drives IQ higher in evolution is population density and resource.
Explains why countries that have high population per land have highest IQ.
Minus Mongolia, but I think Mongolia confirms this theory, by being resource lacking, so lots of land with fucking nothing.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

An environment that is cohesive to having a public diverse library is indeed a hallmark of a smarter society. If no one goes to the library, why open it? If the laws don't allow such a thing, it it forbidden. No resource to open it, you are unable to open it.

 

[Black Rose]

Human cognition is extremely basic.
Goal: survive nature. Features: hands and voice.

Architecture: Make a prediction, follow up with a backup prediction, monitor success.

Self-monitoring is all you need to be a human being.

Low IQ people are not disabled, they have the basics.

The basics do alot!!!

 

[BurnedOut]

IQ have a very high correlation with education, occupation, mental and physical health, illness, mortality, average income, etc

In my country, I have not seen this happening. I believe that this is an outdated study and the correlations are dubious at best in this era. It might have been true for pre-millennials but certainly not true for this generation.

It does not depress anybody except some snowflakes on the internet who never seem to stop barking about the importance of IQ. I was one of them for a while but sadly nobody really cares in real life. The usual reaction is and should be this - 'Shove it up your arse.'

I will give you an example. If I compare my intelligence level to my batchmates of the last year of my degree college, it is clearly higher. This is not an assumption or a conjecture but something that I witnessed firsthand. It was noted and acknowledged by my professors also. I have been also been told several times by other people and my psychiatrist and my counsellor. But you know what? It never went beyond that. I never managed to get the highest marks and in fact I was close to failing in my first year despite the fact that my comprehension was much ahead than everybody. This is because of the way the education system works in general which disallows any aspect of creativity to manifest through the studying process. I am not a savant and I don't have superhuman levels of memory. Perhaps if that were the case, people would have had a reason to be depressed after looking at me.

 

[BurnedOut]

Hierarchal classes of competent few, mediocre many, and just as many incompetents seems to exist in biology of animals, productive animals are top of the hierarchy and gets all the pussy while unproductive, incompetent animals gets the scrap of their alpha counterpart and sometimes are wiped out of the gene pool, perhaps the only difference in human is we intervene before nature sets its course of natural selection (I'm not a Nazi, not implying we should, don't ban me).

Have we reached the limits of human equality now that IQ is dividing people just as much as feudalism (Not as severe but the same principle) even in an extremely meritocratic society?

Natural selection is wonkier than you think. Many times weaker species manage to propagate themselves through the better ones simply by chance or due to the stupidity of the better ones. IQ is not dividing people at all. There is no workplace in the world that takes your IQ score seriously while giving you a job.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Hierarchal classes of competent few, mediocre many, and just as many incompetents seems to exist in biology of animals, productive animals are top of the hierarchy and gets all the pussy while unproductive, incompetent animals gets the scrap of their alpha counterpart and sometimes are wiped out of the gene pool, perhaps the only difference in human is we intervene before nature sets its course of natural selection (I'm not a Nazi, not implying we should, don't ban me).

Have we reached the limits of human equality now that IQ is dividing people just as much as feudalism (Not as severe but the same principle) even in an extremely meritocratic society?

Natural selection is wonkier than you think. Many times weaker species manage to propagate themselves through the better ones simply by chance or due to the stupidity of the better ones. IQ is not dividing people at all. There is no workplace in the world that takes your IQ score seriously while giving you a job.

I agree no one cares about IQ most of the time, because one way or another there is not much to gain from selecting for higher IQ as I wrote many times on this board.
Then again how would you define "weaker species?"
Are slugs and snails weak, or is a medusa weak.
Are rats or mice weaker than say badgers or squirrels.

 

[Puffy]

I'm unsure I believe in the idea of absolute freedom as a human. It implies that we have more control in terms of shaping our lives than I think is realistic. For example, we have limited choice regarding:

* The societies or families we're born into and as a result our starting points in terms of wealth, education, culture, religion, etc.
* The subsequent conditioning of our upbringing which can have a very large impact on the development of our lives.
* Our characters: we can't change our characters with 100% fluidity. Generally speaking people change slowly and it takes a lot of work. Someone might deny certain possibilities in life simply as their characters wouldn't allow them to choose that and their character might incline them towards other choices. As Heraclitus said, "character is destiny."
* Events outside of our control: global events like wars, trauma, disease, opportunities and chance connections, choices of others which impact us, etc.
* Biological variables like the OP mentioned.

All of which can have an important impact on how our lives play out among other things in likelihood.

At the same time as this, we have choice and it is important. We can change, improve, grow, heal, learn, pursue our biggest dreams and see what happens. So, within this context of living in interdependence with others in a psycho-biological body and the limitations that imposes on us, free will does exist. It's the part of our lives that we alone are responsible for.

Rather than get depressed over what we can't control, i.e. what we're not responsible for, it makes more sense to take responsibility for your free will to move your life in what you feel to be the best direction.

 

[Black Rose]

Rather than get depressed over what we can't control, i.e. what we're not responsible for, it makes more sense to take responsibility for your free will to move your life in what you feel to be the best direction.

Free will is actually Gnosis. We know things and make choices. Question: are these choices free. Maybe not because of determinism but they come from what we know. We have a scope of what we know. Then we make a selection, choice is based on the options we have.

I had fewer options, choice was limited. But I made decisions that got me to where I am now. going to the library wasn't an option. ("headaches") I can't get what I want by memorizing all books. I already failed at academics. Instead of memorizing I just find stuff. mix and match.

I have emotional problems. If not I would not make poor decisions. A downward spiral. So now I am taking a new medication that fixes my problems. If I don't feel bad I can do more.

 

[Black Rose]

Free will Quotient FQ
Choice selection index
Animekitty: 103

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Free will Quotient FQ
Choice selection index
Animekitty: 103

While we're talking about statistics. The points that lower your overall score can be strategized against and reduced to nothing. Such as if you have a shitty short term memory, having pen and paper always near by and methods to do certain calculations quickly

They are misleading, who cares if someone judges you for your composite scores, it's their loss if you end up besting them, and now they feel like a fucking loser due to their own toxic logic.

If you decide to let that number define your chokepoints, sure I guess by proxy, you have less freewill. I would just say you're unenlightened.

 

[Black Rose]

I'm just not good at mental arithmetic.
The back of my brain still functions well. Perceptually I can get results.
Still, back to front ratio brain functionality gives me a gaited walk mentally.

edit

my profile is not symmetric
just like having unsymmetric limbs affects people I am affected by the ratio of mental features. Cognitive diversity is nice and all but my friend had ADD and he would rather be neurotypical. I wish that as well sometimes. (note: a learning disability is what I have I'm not blaming myself for it)

edit 2

I was not born with a learning disability, I was in the gifted programs in school.

But objectively I had so much stress and trauma I was reduced to where I am now.

The ratios show where the stress occurred.

 

[ZenRaiden]

I'm just not good at mental arithmetic.
The back of my brain still functions well. Perceptually I can get results.
Still, back to front ratio brain functionality gives me a gaited walk mentally.

edit

my profile is not symmetric
just like having unsymmetric limbs affects people I am affected by the ratio of mental features. Cognitive diversity is nice and all but my friend had ADD and he would rather be neurotypical. I wish that as well sometimes. (note: a learning disability is what I have I'm not blaming myself for it)

edit 2

I was not born with a learning disability, I was in the gifted programs in school.

But objectively I had so much stress and trauma I was reduced to where I am now.

The ratios show where the stress occurred.

It does not sound like the meds you take are helping any.
I personally went of meds and I am starting to feel much better off the meds.
I took them for years thinking its the mental illness when in reality the meds were really having sever side effects.
Maybe the prozac and shit you take is not really worth it if its not really making your life any better. I think psychiatrists will throw pills your way no matter what illness and frankly I figured out what is wrong with my brain already.
Its only knowing what is wrong vs knowing how to fix it.
But I think there are pretty huge numbers of alternatives to having your brain chemistry fucked up by some random administered brain chemical blocking pill.

I am off my pills for few months, but I am guess after they wear of 6 months or so I will be stable. After that I will probably have figured out how to solve my issues.
The problem is psychiatry and psychology a like sometimes work and sometimes it does not. Life is too short to be gobbling up random pills and feeling sorry for yourself on the internet. You keep writing this shit because you are on bad pills. My guess is you are better off without them.

 

[ZenRaiden]

In terms of IQ I think lots of people get a bad impression from IQ>
Because IQ sometimes puts people in different categories.
But people are different in many ways not just IQ.
IQ is just another variable among many.
Its good to have high IQ, but that alone is not all there is to intellectual performance.
As I said before other things factor in.
Real life is much more complicated than IQ tests.

More importantly education sets people apart more than IQ.
You cannot fix electricity if you are not a electrician no matter the IQ>
If you know zilch about electricity your IQ is besides the point its only magic to you.
Education is underfunded segment of most nations, those who take education seriously also have a huge success chance on building better future and thus economy.
However if people are too smart you won't have working class and obedient people with few options. You end up with people who get ideas, and get to do stuff, and they won't be so compliant with bullshit.

 

[scorpiomover]

We are educated since little to the notion that everyone have the freedom (And ability in some sense) to become whatever they want as long as they try hard enough, study long enough, develop the amount of grit, and be the best in themselves. This is impart because of political development of liberalism that have liquidate the ideas of political social classes like feudalism and it's variation which survived until the 18th century (Unless you count in India), and our society have been more prosperous in part because of this development which allows unlimited social mobility (Or so it is believed), but even so, liberalism have not liquidate social classes which is in part to a high degree owe its origin because of biological reality of hereditary competency.

The neurological and psychological science doesn't support this rhetoric of everyone having equal ability to be social climbers, at least not entirely, one of the best predictor in life is IQ points, IQ have a very high correlation with education, occupation, mental and physical health, illness, mortality, average income, etc,

INTPs have a higher IQ than INTJs and most other types, but are the 2nd lowest earners.

That alone should tell you that IQ doesn't correlate well with income.

in the book The Bell Curve it is stated that other that one of the things which distinguish the social classes in US just as apparently as income is IQ points, you can predict the IQ of the poor as much as you can of the educated middle class, or the rich, which is not to say that there are variations that deviate but the trend is very clear, also according to twin research IQ have been known to be 70-80% hereditary.

The vast majority of Europeans and Chinese people have been little more than pig farmers for the past several thousand years. If IQ was significantly hereditary, then the vast majority of Westerners and people ofChinese ethnicity would have extremely low IQs.

Hierarchal classes of competent few, mediocre many, and just as many incompetents seems to exist in biology of animals, productive animals are top of the hierarchy and gets all the pussy while unproductive, incompetent animals gets the scrap of their alpha counterpart and sometimes are wiped out of the gene pool, perhaps the only difference in human is we intervene before nature sets its course of natural selection (I'm not a Nazi, not implying we should, don't ban me).

Have we reached the limits of human equality now that IQ is dividing people just as much as feudalism (Not as severe but the same principle)

IQ isn't dividing people. Pseudo-IQ is dividing people.

People today recognise the value of IQ, because of the prevalence of high-level technology, which usually requires a high IQ to develop it.

So everyone is looking to find the smart people, to hire them. As a consequence, millions and millions of people are trying to convince other people that they are the smart ones.

But this is just a consequence of technology. Around the 1960s, Westerners developed enough technology that humans no longer had to invent their own technology, and could simply reverse-engineer other humans' tech and imitate.

Ever since then, what one company developed, the other companies developed, which means that most people are only offering products that people can get from lots of other people.

As a result, the world has gotten more and more competitive. That competition has been making people scared that they might lose their advantages over the poor. As a result, middle-class people and billionaires have been trying to distance themselves ever more from the poor, by expanding economic inequality more and more.

even in an extremely meritocratic society?

A society is meritocratic when the guy who earns twice your pay, grew up without a home or education but happens to be a much harder worker than you.

 

[Rook]

Nee.

 

[ZenRaiden]

INTPs have a higher IQ than INTJs and most other types, but are the 2nd lowest earners.

Do INTPs count as people though. I think its more of a subspecies branch. Apples and oranges if you know what I mean.

 

[Drvladivostok]

Human cognition is extremely basic.
Goal: survive nature. Features: hands and voice.

Architecture: Make a prediction, follow up with a backup prediction, monitor success.

Self-monitoring is all you need to be a human being.

Low IQ people are not disabled, they have the basics.

The basics do alot!!!

The problem is this; our society is getting more complex and AI is gonna take over every job which is repetitive and easy, how will the basics cope with that, it is already hard enough to live with limited understanding of the world, now they have to do that without a job.

That bell curve book has been debunked more times than IQ itself, because while IQ has validity, that book is full of biased bullshit.

I've seen many claims but little proof, and not one credible research, this research (2018), specifically done analyze the claim about IQ's correlation to poverty made in the book by Harvard Office for Scholarly Community confirms the book's assertion that a IQ is a very good predictor of poverty, even better than the variable used to measure Socio-economic Status!!

In my country, I have not seen this happening. I believe that this is an outdated study and the correlations are dubious at best in this era. It might have been true for pre-millennials but certainly not true for this generation.

Not based on the data I've read.

Natural selection is wonkier than you think. Many times weaker species manage to propagate themselves through the better ones simply by chance or due to the stupidity of the better ones. IQ is not dividing people at all. There is no workplace in the world that takes your IQ score seriously while giving you a job.

It's not about inter-species occurrence, but Intra-species, usually in nature the most competent and productive individuals are the ones that get to pass their gene, Hunter-Gatherers have higher than average spatial awareness, memory, and Pattern Recognition ability then modern human.

IQ is totally dividing people! Most research I've read about IQ's correlation with profession (The credible ones, like this) have been nearly unanimous. IQ also correlate positively with test scores and SAT which, guess what? determine which profession you can apply for.

More importantly education sets people apart more than IQ.

IQ is correlated with the ability to do mental arithmetic, the higher your IQ is it is only natural that it also correlate with higher educational achievement.

The vast majority of Europeans and Chinese people have been little more than pig farmers for the past several thousand years. If IQ was significantly hereditary, then the vast majority of Westerners and people of Chinese ethnicity would have extremely low IQs.

Nonono, IQ is genetics, you can be a farmer, an ironsmith, or a Lawyer but external circumstances (unless extreme) doesn't change IQ, the great thing about modern society is that it gives High or Moderately High IQ people the chance to socially climb the capitalistic ladder, if a thousand years ago I'm a farmer with an IQ of 130 I'd probably won't amount to much, if I ask the local parish to teach me to read or lent me books they'd refuse under the obligation of feudalism, but today I can be a lawyer or a Scientist, yet if my IQ is low there's a glass ceiling preventing me to be what my alternate intelligent self could be.

INTPs have a higher IQ than INTJs and most other types, but are the 2nd lowest earners.

That alone should tell you that IQ doesn't correlate well with income.

Well the correlation isn't perfect, a low IQ people can work hard, while a High IQ people can be an utter failure, INTPs are less industrious but if they aren't they can earn more.

 

[ZenRaiden]

IQ is correlated with the ability to do mental arithmetic, the higher your IQ is it is only natural that it also correlate with higher educational achievement.

Whoooosh completely over your head.

Yes IQ is important.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Nonono, IQ is genetics, you can be a farmer, an ironsmith, or a Lawyer but external circumstances (unless extreme) doesn't change IQ, the great thing about modern society is that it gives High or Moderately High IQ people the chance to socially climb the capitalistic ladder, if a thousand years ago I'm a farmer with an IQ of 130 I'd probably won't amount to much, if I ask the local parish to teach me to read or lent me books they'd refuse under the obligation of feudalism, but today I can be a lawyer or a Scientist, yet if my IQ is low there's a glass ceiling preventing me to be what my alternate intelligent self could be.

This is true, but IQ is not the only limit to knowledge.
Also adding up information in your head is pretty much a matter of memory and persistence.
For instance math is good example. Its not that math is hard, but it requires you to think in clear conscious matter. Much of math is simply following instructions and adding up from previous knowledge. Focusing and having the ability to put things in memory in orderly manner.
What does IQ do for math knowledge? Well mostly it makes all that effort easier on your mind and you can get done lot more in shorter time.
But as you say if you are a farmer you end up a farmer with no other options.

We have to however consider the following. How you teach people is how they end up thinking and talking. Its social as well as cognitive. IF you have schools, that pretty much work identically its because they almost are identical.
Main point is the job market is made in schools. Not vice versa.

However with new tech not just AI, but pretty much information, lots of things smart people do, will be done by calculators with some logic added.
This actually might end up meaning that Forest Gump will be able to do the job that was previously done by engineers. Drawing buildings, designing spatial relations, working out numbers just by inputting numbers.
Accounting might be completely automated, but imagine a smart person making a software that makes someone with accounting abilities a good lawyer.

Maybe the script will flip and smart people won't be that important in many jobs that are currently held by people with degrees.
I mean why pay for someone with a degree if you can have a kid diddling with wolfram alpha doing the work with same output.

 

[ZenRaiden]

In fact come to think of it the amount of people who pass through college really is not representative of smartest people.
IQs in college have dropped like acid on a rave.
Expectations are lowering, because of market.
Lots of smart people hate chores, and drudgery of their job that with smart software and AI can be really outsourced to not so smart people with minimal schooling just pressing buttons and following lame input protocols, then you need just one engineer with the high IQ to approve and proof the job done by bunch of not so bright engineers and voila your productivity has gone up.
Paper work, sifting through data, checking numbers in projects, overlooking various things. These jobs are currently held by people with degrees who really did not have the ambition to do much more or had not ability to do well among more difficult dimensions of the profession.
But you do not need everyone be super smart. Like many doctors learn shit ton of stuff, but in actual life, much of what they learn is still not used. Human brain no matter how smart still has limitations anyway. There is no way you can put such quantities of information into someones brain and make them understand everything perfectly. Most doctors are no doubt super smart, but at the end of the day they are still human no matter what IQ, they still need to process all of it, and they cannot do that. So that is why doctors developed specializations. So within various tiers of specialization automation of work might make jobs available to less smart people.

 

[Black Rose]

With the right tools, everyone contributes. I mean we are all nodes in the system but with the right connections, the direction the network takes can be radically different by a small portion. It's the position that is important. When a person is taken care of in the right way everything can change for that person the quality of life can be tremendous. Group dynamics in people and brains. Get things spinning in the right direction. Now a workload does exist, some spin faster but you get where you are by going with the current not against it.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Yes. Much unlearning to be done with that. It's why mentors, or rather people that are in fact able to pay attention to you, to give you a more impartial opinion of yourself is valuable. In the context of the modern workplace though forget it.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

That bell curve book has been debunked more times than IQ itself, because while IQ has validity, that book is full of biased bullshit.

I've seen many claims but little proof, and not one credible research, this research (2018), specifically done analyze the claim about IQ's correlation to poverty made in the book by Harvard Office for Scholarly Community confirms the book's assertion that a IQ is a very good predictor of poverty, even better than the variable used to measure Socio-economic Status!!

The book as a whole makes various false claims and tries to assert eugenics theory. Proposing that the issue of difference in IQ is primarily due to genetics rather than resource plundering and allocation. That alone should make you skeptical of any framing it uses.

It's like if I was trying to attack Harry Potter, and made a whole bunch of false assertions and like 1 good obvious one. Harry Potter is an evil coward, he isn't a talented wizard, his parents didn't even want him. He tried to fucking murder his cousin in the first movie with magic.

I'm not saying IQ isn't a real serious factor. It's just that, what is the point of such a tool if no one knows how to apply it? Even universities are apprehensive to fund research, RESEARCHERS researching using factors tangential to IQ but not specifically about IQ. Not even the research organizations trust themselves with using IQ correctly.

This is a graph showing the IQ of students who took the conventional US graduate admission test (GRE) So people who indtended to go beyond bachelors four year degree.

These are bar none, the MOST EDUCATED PEOPLE ON THE PLANET in sheer amount of knowledge and test that have been rendered to test that knowledge. So even within that environment, there are likely to be accommodations that teachers will give these students and future Masters and PhDs.

Now if we look at psychology, which is almost 1 standard deviation away from the mean. Almost 15 points above 100. These people have a higher IQ than 80% of the population. Would this satisfy you? Wouldn't you just want to be better, risking facing gold medal envy? Does it really bug you that in a class room or organization of 20 people, 10-4 of the people are "smarter" than you?

So what if you aren't the John Wick of Intellectualism. A physics major might be able to pick up a psychology textbook and pick up the points it has almost seamlessly. But then again, that graph are the AVERAGES, so perhaps, and statistically, that may not be the case at all.

 

[Black Rose]

I took the New Mexico Standards Achievement test and got a score of 1471. Now the test is not the SAT but the same score results in an IQ of 155. I think it all goes down to the base sample rate. I can process in my environment all I need but a fish out of water dies. So like the mental workspace absorbed the information needed and used it to score high. But objectively the mental workspace is not that high. The same amount of information is processed if a high workspace got little info. We have a function of education, expert-level knowledge. So I am educated to the level of 155 but the mental workspace is not able to tackle a specific workload. I leverage my expert learning style to do new problems. It takes effort but I know where to look when things are a certain way because I know so much previously.

 

[Black Rose]

Causal reasoning is finding out what happens because of what came first. Know the past fill in the rest. It is good to fill things in but then we have noise. The ability to take samples and extrapolate is blocked sometimes. Intelligence interprets as effectively as possible. Correlations are mapped and hypotheses are formed then they are tested, confirmed/reject. But size matters. What is possible is only limited by imagination. A big imagination allows things to be speculated on. But then confirmation bias needs to be looked into. We need to teach ourselves how tools are used because that is what education is, a mental tool.

Mental tool use is what IQ should measure if adequately?

 

[BurnedOut]

Not based on the data I've read.

There are many factors that work when the IQ test is being given too.

Firstly, IQ test has a nonsense GK part that WISC does not bother to get rid of for some reason.

Arithmetic ability is correlated with determination and hardwork more than IQ. During the exam, a simple thought in the head, "What a bunch of crap!" is enough to ruin the whole math section for you. For someone who did not pay much attention to math in their school time is going to suck at it and the final score will be ruined simply due to lack of practise and this has nothing to do with IQ and yet extraneous factors such as motivation play a big role in determining the IQ.

The tests have time-constraints. Motivation again plays a big part in this one. Moreover many people have test anxiety and that is enough to fuck the whole score up for them. Many people feel sleepy and others want to escape the place. You cannot not consider these factors which seem silly but affect your score.

Thirdly, Big 5 has shown that openness to experience has more to do with motivation to gain information than predicting innate intelligence. If stuff like chess, computer programming, music can influence even your fluid IQ, it shows how intelligence is, to a good extent, more about your character than your actual intelligence. Fluid intelligence is itself correlated with motivation an individual has to seek new things - we call that curiosity.

Lastly, I won't deny that high intelligence is a real thing, I just feel that IQ tests although theoretically well conceived fail to actually work in real life due to several factors that are not at all taken into consideration: Drowsiness, motivation, self-esteem, etc. People with high intelligence that I have seen in my life have one thing in common - depth of comprehension. You can see how they connect things with ease. It is not due to having lots of information but it is due to them processing that information unusually deeply as compared to normies. I don't understand why IQ tests are so archaic regarding this that they prefer to skip essay-writing and reading comprehension and creative thinking tests in lieu of a boring-ass exam that punches a number to your forehead.

I knew a girl who was tested to be above 130. I felt that that was bullshit because her depth of comprehension was very shallow and she was not intellectually inclined. She had no feats of comprehension or creativity or anything that has to do with flexing intelligence in a manner that happens naturally and shows how smart you are. She behaved like a completely normal person. She did not have any academic achievements or anything that might indicate that she's 130. I knew another girl who was tested to be 120 and by-god, I tell you, she managed to make everybody feel stupid from time to time because of the amount of stuff she was able to grok as compared to this 130.

My father himself is a good example. I gave him a sample Raven's IQ test one time and he was so annoyed he did not even solve one question. But he is an accomplished engineer in his own regard and I am very sure he has a very high spatial IQ but if anybody were to give him an IQ test, he would test as a normal person. That sounds like an irony but it is not because my father hates these official test thingies. If you were to ask him what is a good way to test intelligence, he would tell you to simply see how quickly that person understands things in depth and not only that is able to apply that knowledge to create something tantamount to his comprehension.

Impoverished people have no intellectual motivation. Wealthy societies have no intellectual motivation either but in the latter case, the society demands a certain level of knowledgeableness that is curiously helpful while solving IQ tests. If impoverished people were really that stupid, they would have perished a long time back but they did not because they are smart enough to create the most ingenious life hacks you would ever encounter in your life.

Modernity has not brought any kind of complexity to this world. Animekitty is right. Life is rather simple. It is only the level of abstraction at which you operate that matters. Hunters and gatherers might as well be smarter than modern humans given the constant pressure of survival which would make them more alert and creative with their approaches. Modern humans have become heifers who bark and scoff at everything that inconveniences them. Research has also shown that millennials are much dumber than Gen X and Gen Y.

 

[BurnedOut]

So what if you aren't the John Wick of Intellectualism. A physics major might be able to pick up a psychology textbook and pick up the points it has almost seamlessly. But then again, that graph are the AVERAGES, so perhaps, and statistically, that may not be the case at all.

Why is it that these statistics fail to consider the 'purity of academia' involved? Fields like psychology and social welfare get down to practicality in its application. It is more about experience than knowledge after a certain point. There is a good chance that many intelligent persons who took such fields were underrepresented because they simply considered the concept of IQ bullshit or were unaware or too busy.

People in the top fields as represented work with things that appear in an IQ test. A philosophy major will be obviously good at grasping logic because they deal with these complexities throughout their college life. Computer Application and Mathematics majors will obviously score well in the math section that overrepresents them. There is no offset to normalize these scores and thus the bias that plagues the minds of many people.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

So what if you aren't the John Wick of Intellectualism. A physics major might be able to pick up a psychology textbook and pick up the points it has almost seamlessly. But then again, that graph are the AVERAGES, so perhaps, and statistically, that may not be the case at all.

Why is it that these statistics fail to consider the 'purity of academia' involved? Fields like psychology and social welfare get down to practicality in its application. It is more about experience than knowledge after a certain point. There is a good chance that many intelligent persons who took such fields were underrepresented because they simply considered the concept of IQ bullshit or were unaware or too busy.

People in the top fields as represented work with things that appear in an IQ test. A philosophy major will be obviously good at grasping logic because they deal with these complexities throughout their college life. Computer Application and Mathematics majors will obviously score well in the math section that overrepresents them. There is no offset to normalize these scores and thus the bias that plagues the minds of many people.

There is a high degree of correlation between GRE scores and IQ for whatever reason. Same with the standard undergraduate admission test, the SAT. It's based off of people reported scores for the GRE scores, so if anything it's biased towards being higher if we assume prideful/insecure people lying or 'remembering' their score higher. They just converted it using their scores I belive, not a proper IQ test administered. Though they did publish this finding, and many people take it seriously, so Idk think about it what you will. My graph just had the added benefit of including percentage of women. Arguably a useless metric.

But no, my SAT score put me in the the 70% or so percentile of SAT takers for example. This is a sample size not considerate of the rest of the population, it will consist of people who know they are going to take the SAT test and may have even payed to take it. They say that you shouldn't really bother to take the test multiple times because they don't take into consideration if you improve for fear that you may have cheated.

I agree with you generally though. Knowing Fm=a and how that fits into the context of the nature of reality doesn't do much for understanding the dynamic nature of the body, society or psychology. Doctors btw, are mostly biology majors I think, so just so it's not confused with Health & Medical Sciences.

People in my town say a 4 year college degree is 2 years worth of job experience in the field of study. You do have a point. It's just that the worst thing a psychologist can do is become Hannibal Lecter, but a physicist can build a pretty effective explosive. Or idk, I'm trying to pin down the point of frustration too. It seems like if you want to study something, you just have to be able to stomach how slow you might learn a more complex thing. So vain.

 

[Black Rose]

Measuring IQ is like doing integration in calculus. You start with the big things and then chunks of the smaller things. Details get filled in. We can tell generally how integrated a person is by the tests. This is not generating as in creativity. But calculation. Take the information in, perform a transformation, and show results. That is IQ. we can measure big and small transforms. add them together, get intellectual results.

All the transforms add to one big transform. That is why a profile is important. Why does this girl @BurnedOut mentions make links between topics and groks it? It is because of the language transform in her head. A spatial transform in his dad's head to do engineering.

Now imagine a ruler that is 70 percent accurate. Dumb right. That's what IQ tests are now. They fail to measure the transforms. But statistics show accuracy is probabilistically measurable. Just not absolutely measurable. Quantum Mechanics.

If calculation were the only transform I would be 155 but it's not. So we say 103 because other people perform on other transforms better than average better than me. But what is 103 absolutely? What is an absolute transform? It must be in units. Abstract units. memorize 4 numbers your IQ is 80. 3 numbers its 60. 7 it's 100.

Abstraction is absolute IQ because discrete chucks exist.
An absolute transform works on discrete chucks.
Does an integral calculus exist for chuncking?

 

[ZenRaiden]

I knew a girl who was tested to be above 130. I felt that that was bullshit because her depth of comprehension was very shallow and she was not intellectually inclined. She had no feats of comprehension or creativity or anything that has to do with flexing intelligence in a manner that happens naturally and shows how smart you are. She behaved like a completely normal person. She did not have any academic achievements or anything that might indicate that she's 130. I knew another girl who was tested to be 120 and by-god, I tell you, she managed to make everybody feel stupid from time to time because of the amount of stuff she was able to grok as compared to this 130.

I did not know IQ is depth of thinking. I did not know there was even a way to measure depth of thinking.

 

[BurnedOut]

you want to study something, you just have to be able to stomach how slow you might learn a more complex thing. So vain.

Well done. You struck the right chord.

Albert Einstein's IQ being 160 is gibberish too. Man sucked at arithmetic throughout his school life. I wonder what he would have scored in an IQ test. He was very forgetful and messy as well. A perfect recipe for scoring a subpar score in an IQ test. I am sure he would have scored in 100s.

Many people would probably kick me in the nuts if I say that maybe he was very lucky to stumble upon the theories he concocted. But I won't say that. I believe that he was intelligent but he was utterly hardworking. Most people forget that even highly technical subjects require grinding as much as nontechnical subjects. Hardwork is key. Hardwork and coincidence may make you a genius in the eyes of others. Hardwork, creativity and coincidence will make you a legend. But the only factor that really matters is hardwork.

I can bet my arse when I say that even a 105 IQ-ed person can rock at mathematics and grow up to do a PhD in it given sufficient hardwork and motivation.

Why do I say this? I spent like 2-3 years trying to figure out how much intelligence matters and my academic performance was a kick in the nuts. I later realized how despite being ahead of everybody was not putting me ahead of everybody in reality as much. And despite the 'being-ahead-of-everybody' part, I am more miserable than an average person simply because life seems more complicated to me than to somebody else. That is more useless than useful. A simple life is a life well lived when you are determined and hardworking. l suggest you read American Sniper. You would understand how beautifully simple and cogent Chris Kyle's perspective of life was. On the other hand, try putting yourself in the shoes of Takeshi Kovac. His high fidelity always makes him more vulnerable than happy.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Never really cared much for IQ< but its a funny bench mark in cognition.
Kind of most interesting one out of all the things people can do.
I think this forum is obsessed with IQ, but its not surprising.
I mean most other feats people are capable of are kind of non essential compared to intellect. Can swim? Run fast? Kick a ball? Dive real deep? All cool stuff, but human brain is pretty much most important.

I am not sure if PhD is heavy on IQ though. phD is mostly research and putting the shit you learn into some work, but not knowing what it entails I assume its pretty narrow scope. I think PhD is precisely the type of patience testing and stress testing.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Never really cared much for IQ< but its a funny bench mark in cognition.
Kind of most interesting one out of all the things people can do.
I think this forum is obsessed with IQ, but its not surprising.
I mean most other feats people are capable of are kind of non essential compared to intellect. Can swim? Run fast? Kick a ball? Dive real deep? All cool stuff, but human brain is pretty much most important.

I am not sure if PhD is heavy on IQ though. phD is mostly research and putting the shit you learn into some work, but not knowing what it entails I assume its pretty narrow scope. I think PhD is precisely the type of patience testing and stress testing.

Once we had a PhD professor that told us she could FEEL CANCER emanating from earbuds and microwaves. She was in the Humanities department, so it might not be fair, but her emphasis was in Art history. No superstitious bias in that as we all know.

A PhD Philosophy professor was making an analogy for why we shouldn't ascribe a diagnosis from symptoms in the context of some philosophical argument. Argument being something like: the root cause of a sickness may be a virus, in which case ANTIBIOTICS would made the virus and the symptoms go away, but if the root cause isn't a virus the antibiotics won't do anything. Considering my background I knew how useful this root cause analysis was, but saw the literal error of the analogy.

I got out the words something like "Actually, antibiotics wouldn't treat a viral infection because-" he interrupts and says "Yes it would" and moves on. That professor wouldn't make it far in internet discussion. I'm sure now with the pandemic it's more common knowledge, but antiBIOtics treat biologically bacterial infections, you want antivirals for viruses. His argument was self-defeating and his unwillingness to hear counter information is an error even he, someone with likely over 120 IQ (1/10) could make.

I think I got brownie social points from that, but it's literally just because I happened to have knowledge that the professor didn't have the literacy to distinguish between. In this case because of Health Science background, and in the other case because I know how the electrical magnetic spectrum works, sound vibrations and the omnipresent radio waves in the air aren't the biggest priority to avoid for cancer.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Never really cared much for IQ< but its a funny bench mark in cognition.
Kind of most interesting one out of all the things people can do.
I think this forum is obsessed with IQ, but its not surprising.
I mean most other feats people are capable of are kind of non essential compared to intellect. Can swim? Run fast? Kick a ball? Dive real deep? All cool stuff, but human brain is pretty much most important.

I am not sure if PhD is heavy on IQ though. phD is mostly research and putting the shit you learn into some work, but not knowing what it entails I assume its pretty narrow scope. I think PhD is precisely the type of patience testing and stress testing.

Once we had a PhD professor that told us she could FEEL CANCER emanating from earbuds and microwaves. She was in the Humanities department, so it might not be fair, but her emphasis was in Art history. No superstitious bias in that as we all know.

A PhD Philosophy professor was making an analogy for why we shouldn't ascribe a diagnosis from symptoms in the context of some philosophical argument. Argument being something like: the root cause of a sickness may be a virus, in which case ANTIBIOTICS would made the virus and the symptoms go away, but if the root cause isn't a virus the antibiotics won't do anything. Considering my background I knew how useful this root cause analysis was, but saw the literal error of the analogy.

I got out the words something like "Actually, antibiotics wouldn't treat a viral infection because-" he interrupts and says "Yes it would" and moves on. That professor wouldn't make it far in internet discussion. I'm sure now with the pandemic it's more common knowledge, but antiBIOtics treat biologically bacterial infections, you want antivirals for viruses. His argument was self-defeating and his unwillingness to hear counter information is an error even he, someone with likely over 120 IQ (1/10) could make.

I think I got brownie social points from that, but it's literally just because I happened to have knowledge that the professor didn't have the literacy to distinguish between. In this case because of Health Science background, and in the other case because I know how the electrical magnetic spectrum works, sound vibrations and the omnipresent radio waves in the air aren't the biggest priority to avoid for cancer.

I always thought that basic or general knowledge would be something that people with high level of consciousness would excel at.
Personally I did not know the alphabet until 4th grade where I was placed in some special ed cult.
Did not need to know anyway.
IQ and bias don't cancel out.
Neither does education.
Its kind of interesting going through school system how many times you hear the phrase "You don't really need to know that".
Yeah like half the stuff you learn in school is something you will never need so its very arbitrary what person needs to know in life and what they do not need to know.
Id say in ignorance is universal, its just that academic should be more embarrassed about it.
Unfortunately according to research we all have biases, and we all fall pray to them, even when these biases are pointed out to us.
One explanation for biases is that our mind makes short cuts to save energy and figure out things faster, at the expense of making the occasional mistake.
So essentially the more careful thinkers should make less mistakes, but the biggest trick that our mind plays on us to fall on our knowledge and think we got all bases covered. That is how our mind grows lazy.
That is why constant learning is necessary to constantly over come biases and open mindedness . The ability to question what you already know.
Only problem with that is its a pain in the ass.
But the more I know the more I question so many common things said in general.
Because so many things often repeated in general turn out to be untrue, or only partial truths. With wider context they become different.

For example the word antibiotics is basically anti against biotic life.
Its something against life. Maybe it should be called anti microbiotic for better term.
The fact thought there are people with PhDs who cannot tell difference between basics like antibiotics or antiviral stuff does not surprise me.

The passing grade is often all you need to get through school, and I mean if an idiot like me can sometimes just wing this stuff by skim reading and not paying any attention to anything, most people who teach were also once students who basically just passed tests half drunk or half sleepy or crammed before test and then forgot everything.

Schools don't build complex intellectual foundation through testing, but getting through tests is alpha and omega of all study. Which is kind of what undermines the whole academic process.

I remember watching a documentary. Maxwells equations were initially rejected. Apparently they thought electromagnetism does not exists, and they basically told him to screw off.