IQ and life outcomes

[walfin]

This is a fork from the Racism is Innate thread by ApostateAbe as an interesting point came up about intelligence.

It would seem that people (both between as well as within races) are, with some exceptions, valued in proportion to their IQs. IQs appear to predict not just raw brainpower per se but a whole lot of other life outcomes, such as criminality, income, productivity and so on. Everyone talks about EQ being just as important as IQ, but the empirical evidence suggests that IQ is the true barometer of likely success in life (indeed, if the hypothesis of the existence of g holds true, IQ may even be positively correlated with EQ, a somewhat counterintuitive outcome for me as we all know smart but arrogant jerks and pleasant but less intellectually endowed folks).

My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?

And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?

 

[Rebis]

My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?

Finite resources, finite time. If you have a propensity to learn fast, it follows that you will pick up topics faster than others. If you pick up topics faster than others you will be designated as being good at those tasks.

And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?

Since IQ is a measurement of one's abilities to learn fast as measured by time it takes to complete a question and identify patterns in mathematical logic, then it seems like a paradox to teach people who perform poorly in terms of learning, to learn how to learn. There is a capacitive limit in their ability to learn outside of their frame of reference. However, an understanding of mathematics (if they learn to conceptualise it) will certainly boost their IQ points. But then that seems artificial as that'll teach them how to boost their performance in an IQ test rather than developing an innate ability to see the world through complex patterns. People do not wake up and say "From now until the end of the time, I will look for patterns in everything" We don't have that level of conscious control. So we may give them a switch to search for patterns in-depth but ultimately if they do not innately look for patterns, separate from exercising conscious pattern recognition then it's not feasible to improve people's performance in an IQ test.

Ways I believe to improve IQ, which are already implemented in most cases:
-Education (Let their mind grow to conceptualising a list of problems)
- Particularly mathematical logic (this could be improved in education).

Conditioning people to think logically, which requires a large degree of control over children in their infancy. Less socialising, less playing and just drill maths into them. But then they'll suffer in terms of creativity which can lead to poor abstraction: it's easier to abstract physical entities you can see than it is an equation or concept.

In most cases the state has done well to improve people's IQ through mathematical logic and problem solving.

 

[scorpiomover]

This is a fork from the Racism is Innate thread by ApostateAbe as an interesting point came up about intelligence.

It would seem that people (both between as well as within races) are, with some exceptions, valued in proportion to their IQs. IQs appear to predict not just raw brainpower per se but a whole lot of other life outcomes, such as criminality, income, productivity and so on. Everyone talks about EQ being just as important as IQ, but the empirical evidence suggests that IQ is the true barometer of likely success in life.

IME, IQ isn't a great predictor. INTPs tend to be very high in IQ and ESTPs much lower. So if it was, then INTPs would be much more productive and would earn a lot more than ESTPs.

IQ is a good predictor within a few points. E.g. if you consider plumbers, the plumbers who are 3 points above the average plumber, tend to do much better than the average plumber, and the plumbers who are a few points lower than the average, tend to do worse than the average plumber.

(indeed, if the hypothesis of the existence of g holds true, IQ may even be positively correlated with EQ, a somewhat counterintuitive outcome for me as we all know smart but arrogant jerks and pleasant but less intellectually endowed folks).

My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?

Work and interest.

People who score higher in IQ tests, tend to read more about STEM stuff, and do more questions and homeworks in STEM stuff. STEM stuff tend to ask questions that are incredibly similar to the sorts of questions you find on IQ tests, e.g. logic questions and pattern-finding questions. These sorts of people tend to be much more interested in STEM stuff generally, and generally put a lot more effort into studying STEM stuff and getting answers.

g doesn't measure intelligence per se, but rather is a general indicator of curiosity and a willingness to persevere in finding answers to those things. So it's a set of general traits that can be applied equally to a myriad of topics. So naturally, the same traits that they apply ubiquitously, also produce similar results on an equally ubiquitous myriad of topics.

And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?

Encourage curiousity.

Encourage and develop concentration and perseverance.

Encourage confidence that their efforts will result in a much better result, and are more than worth the effort.

 

[Cognisant]

My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?

And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?

Having beliefs that are inconsistent with reality results in false assumptions which are not only unproductive they can often be counterproductive.

Oh no bad things are happening to me I must pray for god's forgiveness. Oh no bad things are still happening to me but maybe this is penance? Bad things are happening to me but I won't do anything about it because god has a plan. I'm not going to do anything to improve my circumstances or reconsider my behaviors because when god wants me to be successful I will be. Etc

These people are not inherently stupid, well maybe some of them are but being the eternal optimist that I am I like to believe that for the most part people aren't really all that different, some people might have slightly better or worse brains but they still have a human brain. I think for the most part mental acuity has more to do with the proverbial software than the hardware. That if someone's brought up in a toxic environment they're going to exhibit toxic behaviors until they learn to behave otherwise. That if someone's raised in a religious household and has their head filled with nonsense they're going to have a tough time making sense of the world around them. And that if you raise a child in an environment that nurtures their curiosity, creativity and critical thinking skills you're going to end up with an intelligent and well educated adult who reasons clearly and acts accordingly.

 

[Black Rose]

To manipulate the world you must manipulate what is on the inside.
Manipulation is organizing an amount of information necessary.

Because organization can be done in many ways.
The more ways you can organize it the more creative you are.

Creativity is both working inside your head and the exterior outside self.
People who can manipulate only from the exterior perspective do well on IQ tests only.


So I would say creative intelligent people know how to go inside and outside the self.

 

[Hadoblado]

I don't think bumping up IQ test scores has any intrinsic worth. However, increased scores might correlate with things that are valuable.

Off the top of my head:
- reducing malnutrition
- access to education
- healthy lifestyle
- access to appropriate learning environments outside of school (home life, toys etc.)
- improving parents understanding of how children learn (this is criminally low rn, it's awkward how wrong people can get this)
- increasing employment opportunities
- internet access
- addiction guidance and support for pregnant women and parents in general

Genes play a huge role in IQ, but they're not the whole picture. Genotype typically correlates at .6+ while phenotype is around .3. That's a large amount of room to maneuver, especially for group differences.

My (very simple model) is intelligence = ability x motivation x opportunity, and that intelligence is more about what you have learned (through exposure to environment) than some intrinsic learning or problem-solving wizardry. If you are curious and able, you will pick up more strategies that make more and more problems easy to solve. Novel situations are few and far between by definition, but intelligence impacts almost every aspect of every context you find yourself in.

We can't (or shouldn't?) control genetics, so that leaves us controlling the environment. Funnily enough, a lot of the people that insist that success is something intrinsic to the ability of the person and not environmental opportunity, still shell out the big dollars to ensure their children go to a private school, and intervene to stop their children hanging out with the bad apples. Almost everyone acts as if environment is important, even if they claim otherwise.

Remove obstacles, increase opportunities.

 

[Elen]

Off the top of my head:
- reducing malnutrition
- access to education
- healthy lifestyle
- access to appropriate learning environments outside of school (home life, toys etc.)
- improving parents understanding of how children learn (this is criminally low rn, it's awkward how wrong people can get this)
- increasing employment opportunities
- internet access
- addiction guidance and support for pregnant women and parents in general

Game, set, match. If life is a race some people get to start start closer to the finish line.

 

[Rebis]

To add to my point I don't think there's any purpose to fixating on IQ when we're using computer algorithms to process high volumes of information. They're the computational evolution of our society. Plus, there's like 10-11 Billion People, that's a pretty large gene pool. You only need one Genius with a theory or mathematical model for everyone else (including computers) to learn from.

 

[walfin]

To add to my point I don't think there's any purpose to fixating on IQ when we're using computer algorithms to process high volumes of information. They're the computational evolution of our society. Plus, there's like 10-11 Billion People, that's a pretty large gene pool. You only need one Genius with a theory or mathematical model for everyone else (including computers) to learn from.

Hm, experience would suggest not.

In the software development world it seems that more and more geniuses are ever required to do more and more complex things.

Having beliefs that are inconsistent with reality results in false assumptions which are not only unproductive they can often be counterproductive.

Oh no bad things are happening to me I must pray for god's forgiveness. Oh no bad things are still happening to me but maybe this is penance? Bad things are happening to me but I won't do anything about it because god has a plan. I'm not going to do anything to improve my circumstances or reconsider my behaviors because when god wants me to be successful I will be. Etc

These people are not inherently stupid, well maybe some of them are but being the eternal optimist that I am I like to believe that for the most part people aren't really all that different, some people might have slightly better or worse brains but they still have a human brain. I think for the most part mental acuity has more to do with the proverbial software than the hardware. That if someone's brought up in a toxic environment they're going to exhibit toxic behaviors until they learn to behave otherwise. That if someone's raised in a religious household and has their head filled with nonsense they're going to have a tough time making sense of the world around them. And that if you raise a child in an environment that nurtures their curiosity, creativity and critical thinking skills you're going to end up with an intelligent and well educated adult who reasons clearly and acts accordingly.

Religious people are not necessarily unintelligent (or perhaps that is just me hoping that I'm not unintelligent as I am a Christian). There is some indication that atheists have higher average intelligence but, as always, there's a great deal of difference within groups.

Faith in a higher being doesn't entail a completely fatalistic mindset either.

 

[Rebis]

We'll always needs geniuses since existence is an inherent problem, but we don't need everybody to be geniuses. I think the rate of genius, if we were to measure it by IQ is rather high across the board.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

the world is an abstract place nowadays, you have to think differently than cavemen thought in order to succeed. So to the extent that your eye cue reflects your ability to think abstractly, it should explain your success to some extent.

if I recall correctly though, iq had good explanatory effect in the lower range and so much in the upper range

 

[Rebis]

the world is an abstract place nowadays, you have to think differently than cavemen thought in order to succeed. So to the extent that your eye cue reflects your ability to think abstractly, it should explain your success to some extent.

if I recall correctly though, iq had good explanatory effect in the lower range and so much in the upper range

When you mention eye cue are you referring to people's tendency to avert their eyes from the person they're looking it when they're visualising, or recalling information?

Hm, experience would suggest not.

In the software development world it seems that more and more geniuses are ever required to do more and more complex things.

I understand your point but it's precisely because you're speaking from experience that you neglect how automatic processing of systems reduces the actual amount of workers needed by a very large margin. I seen somewhere that for large social media giants the ratio of programmer: user is 1 to 1,000,000.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I say this – give all people of the world access to the Internet, so that they can boost their IQs by exposing themselves to the wealth of knowledge that exists on places like facebook, instagram and twitter.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

I'm pretty certain that IQ and epigenetics are closely tied, in that if you're lineage dealt with more complexity (such as the Jews who were early adopters of cultural societal expectations and duties) you are obviously also going to be built to handle it.

Spoiler: Explains the essence of epigenetics

This may be obvious but, I thought of this since, as peoples surnames used to be an indicator of the profession, such as someone with the last name Mason, which implies a lineage of masonry, I noticed that these people are a noticeable degree sharper/attuned to their environment. If everyone in your family is a doctor, then that is the baseline for how intelligent one would be, how much complexity your lineage is CONDITIONED to handle. Someone with the last name shoemaker, their lineage, I'm assuming, dealt with another level of complexity. The most common last name for doctors is.... Khan, which means ruler, like the late Genghis Khan.

Now, who would you value more, a shoemaker or a doctor? I think this is the rationale for IQ really. Though I feel like enough concentrated effort over a couple of generations would lead to a smarter gene pool, I doubt such a thing would be possible unless it was imposed by some sort of stringent organizational force, which of course only the rich can afford.

 

[walfin]

I understand your point but it's precisely because you're speaking from experience that you neglect how automatic processing of systems reduces the actual amount of workers needed by a very large margin. I seen somewhere that for large social media giants the ratio of programmer: user is 1 to 1,000,000.

This makes me think of Andrew Yang's "The war on normal people".

What if we just implemented universal basic income so that the vast majority of lower IQ people could survive?

 

[sushi]

it is better if you phase this as what are the obstacles of high IQ people
my belief:
iQ is irrelevant if you dont have acadmeic credentials to prove your intelligecne

social networking , adapting , luck , opportunism is sometimes more relevant than IQ


Chris Lagan is example of someone who fucked up

 

[EndogenousRebel]

I understand your point but it's precisely because you're speaking from experience that you neglect how automatic processing of systems reduces the actual amount of workers needed by a very large margin. I seen somewhere that for large social media giants the ratio of programmer: user is 1 to 1,000,000.

This makes me think of Andrew Yang's "The war on normal people".

What if we just implemented universal basic income so that the vast majority of lower IQ people could survive?

I don't know how to organize this post because I'm developing this and don't know where one point end or begins.. So have fun with this brick, it is relevant.

I think this alone is not solving the problem but converting it into another. We have to think on a generational scale of time. Humans are all about optimization and we're getting so good at it that we are making ourselves obsolete. We have to integrate everything, for one reason being that people will not be happy with the essential creation of a social class that will be subordinate to technology and not serve the human race in any way. Mind you the people not subordinate to technology will slowly shrink as time goes on, till one day even the smartest/most effective man on Earth is obsolete. There has to be a naturalistic reason for why IQ is a thing, and I put my theory for why it has happened in my previous post. The implication of my theory as that peoples will be trained to handle complexity on a generational scale, but I'm sure advancements in neuroscience will hasten the process. We can take the cheap and easy way through cybernetic enhancments, but that will be for the upper class. We are basically going to be designing our parents that will guide us to our ultimate existence. That is a best-case scenario. How it will be done exactly is beyond me, but simply saying "HERE TAKE THIS MONOPOLY MONEY" is not a standalone solution.

 

[Cognisant]

Religious people are not necessarily unintelligent (or perhaps that is just me hoping that I'm not unintelligent as I am a Christian). There is some indication that atheists have higher average intelligence but, as always, there's a great deal of difference within groups.

Faith in a higher being doesn't entail a completely fatalistic mindset either.

Fatalism is more intelligent than beseeching the favor of an imaginary friend who canonically has little to no regard for human suffering and doesn't require your feedback as he is all knowing, all powerful, and has already preordained your fate.
But you still have free will... somehow.

Intelligence isn't just an ability to think, it's also the willingness to do so.

 

[Rebis]

I understand your point but it's precisely because you're speaking from experience that you neglect how automatic processing of systems reduces the actual amount of workers needed by a very large margin. I seen somewhere that for large social media giants the ratio of programmer: user is 1 to 1,000,000.

This makes me think of Andrew Yang's "The war on normal people".

What if we just implemented universal basic income so that the vast majority of lower IQ people could survive?

To be honest I think life would be pretty good for the vast majority of people. I mean we've got cheap services to stream TVs, movies, videogames and music. We've got access to the internet which will eventually become a fundamental right. Most countries are nowhere near biological poverty so we'll always be able to eat. Basically I think life will be too good, too comfortable. I mean why would people go through infinite stress to get a dream job when they can realistically learn and consume any media they wish to? If universal basic income came about I think there'd be a drastic change in the philosophy of getting a job, based on the sheer amount of prime content we get for relatively free.

I mean if you got a good UBI and jobs were becoming increasingly stressful then most would default on UBI. Which over the long-term would force companies to increase wages and quality of lifestyle to reel in employees. Plus companies like when demand exceeds supply. When there are more people competing for a job it creates a healthy economy, capitalism and such. Companies don't want supply to exceed demand, then they'll accept people with less experience, and thus less economical output.

An interesting video on the topic:
I like UBI but speaking from the reality of a global capitalistic mindset that's why they want people to work and compete for jobs. When a change is made it's hard to revert it, particularly one of social benefit. I'm thinking the welfare state, female right to vote, abortion and slavery/discrimination. UBI is universally a better policy for all so once it's in place no one will ever want to go back. So I think in the context of corporations and the government as a whole, they will fight it until they cannot resist the movement anymore. It's only a matter of time, but once done it cannot be unchanged.

 

[Rebis]

I say this – give all people of the world access to the Internet, so that they can boost their IQs by exposing themselves to the wealth of knowledge that exists on places like facebook, instagram and twitter.

I just read an einstein quote "Fish can't climb tree, fish swim." the caption was three so i got +10 iq and now i am thinking of like quantum car mechanics. Einstein wasn't good at math i heard and I can't count to 5, we're basically the same person with different hairstyles.

 

[ApostateAbe]

This is a fork from the Racism is Innate thread by ApostateAbe as an interesting point came up about intelligence.

It would seem that people (both between as well as within races) are, with some exceptions, valued in proportion to their IQs. IQs appear to predict not just raw brainpower per se but a whole lot of other life outcomes, such as criminality, income, productivity and so on. Everyone talks about EQ being just as important as IQ, but the empirical evidence suggests that IQ is the true barometer of likely success in life (indeed, if the hypothesis of the existence of g holds true, IQ may even be positively correlated with EQ, a somewhat counterintuitive outcome for me as we all know smart but arrogant jerks and pleasant but less intellectually endowed folks).

My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?

And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?

"My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?"

Why not? The problem may only be nature's conflict with the ideological context of our own thinking. We grew up expecting some sort of grand equality or fairness from the start, as though God gave some people this "gift," and then to be fair God gave other people another "gift" of some other sort. The problem is that God does not exist except in our imaginations, and nature is objectively unfair. Not to pick on religious people: non-religious people tend to be even more deluded about the fairness of nature. We obviously would not have such expectations for athletic ability; somebody who can run much faster than average around the track is also expected to be, more likely than not, able to do more push-ups than average in one minute, and more sit-ups in one minute, and more laps in the swimming pool in ten minutes, and push more weight on the squat rack, and so on. The many facets of intellectual ability are related to each other, much like the many facets of athletic ability. And general intelligence is related to such boring physical variables like brain size and neural speed. And, g is of course mostly a function of genetics.

"And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?"

Easy answer, though it may occur to you only if you pay much attention to the popular science news (though I generally hate popular science news). We are now living in the dawning of the age of CRISPR, when we can change genetic differences more cheaply, easily and safely than we can change environmental differences. We really need to get a handle on this new age, fast. It needs to be a favorite topic of dinner table conversations. No American presidential candidate talked about it, not even Andrew Yang. The best we have is Zoltan Istvan of the Transhumanist Party. It is like a bad joke.

 

[walfin]

"My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?"

Why not? The problem may only be nature's conflict with the ideological context of our own thinking. We grew up expecting some sort of grand equality or fairness from the start, as though God gave some people this "gift," and then to be fair God gave other people another "gift" of some other sort. The problem is that God does not exist except in our imaginations, and nature is objectively unfair. Not to pick on religious people: non-religious people tend to be even more deluded about the fairness of nature. We obviously would not have such expectations for athletic ability; somebody who can run much faster than average around the track is also expected to be, more likely than not, able to do more push-ups than average in one minute, and more sit-ups in one minute, and more laps in the swimming pool in ten minutes, and push more weight on the squat rack, and so on. The many facets of intellectual ability are related to each other, much like the many facets of athletic ability. And general intelligence is related to such boring physical variables like brain size and neural speed. And, g is of course mostly a function of genetics.

"And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?"

Easy answer, though it may occur to you only if you pay much attention to the popular science news (though I generally hate popular science news). We are now living in the dawning of the age of CRISPR, when we can change genetic differences more cheaply, easily and safely than we can change environmental differences. We really need to get a handle on this new age, fast. It needs to be a favorite topic of dinner table conversations. No American presidential candidate talked about it, not even Andrew Yang. The best we have is Zoltan Istvan of the Transhumanist Party. It is like a bad joke.

Makes me think of the film Gattaca. Scary prospect, though - if the film was to be believed.

I just read this Wikipedia page - interesting read. Maybe history will vindicate this guy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair

I saw this on the Zoltan Istvan Wikipedia page:

His 20-point platform includes a universal basic income, increased funding for space travel and taking money from the military and putting it into science and medicine.

I like this guy already.

 

[Ex-User (15237)]

My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?

Patterns overlap and you can map a pattern in your head and you can then look and extrapolate it at different places
what makes people good is their efforts which when one learns the ins and outs of putting efforts, he gains a sort of superior processing of things in many aspects like emotional and logical which always help with other things when you go after them.

i think you can show people a pattern to see patterns through conversing with them and going deep and deep till they see it.
some people will see things fast then others it depends on what stimulus your brain seeks freely.

 

[ApostateAbe]

"My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?"

Why not? The problem may only be nature's conflict with the ideological context of our own thinking. We grew up expecting some sort of grand equality or fairness from the start, as though God gave some people this "gift," and then to be fair God gave other people another "gift" of some other sort. The problem is that God does not exist except in our imaginations, and nature is objectively unfair. Not to pick on religious people: non-religious people tend to be even more deluded about the fairness of nature. We obviously would not have such expectations for athletic ability; somebody who can run much faster than average around the track is also expected to be, more likely than not, able to do more push-ups than average in one minute, and more sit-ups in one minute, and more laps in the swimming pool in ten minutes, and push more weight on the squat rack, and so on. The many facets of intellectual ability are related to each other, much like the many facets of athletic ability. And general intelligence is related to such boring physical variables like brain size and neural speed. And, g is of course mostly a function of genetics.

"And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?"

Easy answer, though it may occur to you only if you pay much attention to the popular science news (though I generally hate popular science news). We are now living in the dawning of the age of CRISPR, when we can change genetic differences more cheaply, easily and safely than we can change environmental differences. We really need to get a handle on this new age, fast. It needs to be a favorite topic of dinner table conversations. No American presidential candidate talked about it, not even Andrew Yang. The best we have is Zoltan Istvan of the Transhumanist Party. It is like a bad joke.

Makes me think of the film Gattaca. Scary prospect, though - if the film was to be believed.

I just read this Wikipedia page - interesting read. Maybe history will vindicate this guy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair

I saw this on the Zoltan Istvan Wikipedia page:

His 20-point platform includes a universal basic income, increased funding for space travel and taking money from the military and putting it into science and medicine.

I like this guy already.

The environment of the movie Gattaca seemed miserable mainly because of the dark lighting.

Otherwise, it would seem like a utopia--bad only for the unedited minority (shown above), and only by comparison, much like how the poor of the first world are better off than the upper class of the third world. Such genetic inequality already exists in our world, except we tend assign a lot of false blame to everything but genetics. If the worst case scenario is an unequal world in which everyone is better off than they are today, then let's go for it.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Chris Lagan is example of someone who fucked up

Some years ago I heard about him. As far as my memory goes he was abused as a child. Early years of your development are important not just for intellectual reasons, but all other reasons such as social adaptation. Also not sure he fucked up. In his interviews he had a partner. He had a job and had his little farm. He explicitly said he was happy.

 

[ZenRaiden]

This is a fork from the Racism is Innate thread by ApostateAbe as an interesting point came up about intelligence.

It would seem that people (both between as well as within races) are, with some exceptions, valued in proportion to their IQs. IQs appear to predict not just raw brainpower per se but a whole lot of other life outcomes, such as criminality, income, productivity and so on. Everyone talks about EQ being just as important as IQ, but the empirical evidence suggests that IQ is the true barometer of likely success in life (indeed, if the hypothesis of the existence of g holds true, IQ may even be positively correlated with EQ, a somewhat counterintuitive outcome for me as we all know smart but arrogant jerks and pleasant but less intellectually endowed folks).

My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?

And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?

EQ is made up stuff. It is purely hypothetical. The emotions of humans and the role they have in human brain is very badly understood. We have no way of measuring emotions. We can only tell they exist and we have some subjective personal experiences. We cannot even say other than on subjective basis how strong an emotion is.
Empathy is very complex and not well understood concept still worth of a lot of research.

Instead of talking about IQ. Let us talk about perception and awareness.
We are bombarded by information. Unlike our ancestors we have too much information.
The game is about being able to make most of the information. It is all about taking in the information, processing them and generating relevant output. IQ does not guarantee this. IQ merely states the level of potential. I am certain that if low IQ people actual did pay attention more they could easily be successful as well.
Awareness is about knowing what to learn, when to learn, how to learn.

If you have low IQ you can easily skip all the higher IQ dummies just by paying more attention to the right kind of information.
Being life long learner is the only true solution to modern life. You can not sleep for 10 years on the job, learn nothing new and be top of the game. That is just plain fact.

Pretty sure having IQ 100 is good enough to be successful. In fact I think even 90 is still decent IQ.

 

[ApostateAbe]

This is a fork from the Racism is Innate thread by ApostateAbe as an interesting point came up about intelligence.

It would seem that people (both between as well as within races) are, with some exceptions, valued in proportion to their IQs. IQs appear to predict not just raw brainpower per se but a whole lot of other life outcomes, such as criminality, income, productivity and so on. Everyone talks about EQ being just as important as IQ, but the empirical evidence suggests that IQ is the true barometer of likely success in life (indeed, if the hypothesis of the existence of g holds true, IQ may even be positively correlated with EQ, a somewhat counterintuitive outcome for me as we all know smart but arrogant jerks and pleasant but less intellectually endowed folks).

My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?

And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?

EQ is made up stuff. It is purely hypothetical. The emotions of humans and the role they have in human brain is very badly understood. We have no way of measuring emotions. We can only tell they exist and we have some subjective personal experiences. We cannot even say other than on subjective basis how strong an emotion is.
Empathy is very complex and not well understood concept still worth of a lot of research.

Instead of talking about IQ. Let us talk about perception and awareness.
We are bombarded by information. Unlike our ancestors we have too much information.
The game is about being able to make most of the information. It is all about taking in the information, processing them and generating relevant output. IQ does not guarantee this. IQ merely states the level of potential. I am certain that if low IQ people actual did pay attention more they could easily be successful as well.
Awareness is about knowing what to learn, when to learn, how to learn.

If you have low IQ you can easily skip all the higher IQ dummies just by paying more attention to the right kind of information.
Being life long learner is the only true solution to modern life. You can not sleep for 10 years on the job, learn nothing new and be top of the game. That is just plain fact.

Pretty sure having IQ 100 is good enough to be successful. In fact I think even 90 is still decent IQ.

Success means competing effectively, and high general intelligence (not just high IQ) is a real big advantage, one way or the other. If you are a prospective professional lawyer or scientist or engineer or surgeon or large business executive or high political candidate, then you will be competing with a lot of high-intelligence people who will do anything and everything they can to get the same spot that you are going for, and a high-intelligence is just one of many traits you need. If you look like Shrek and you try to win a beauty pageant, then you had better have something else going very much in your favor before you can have even the faintest glimmer of hope. It is possible to succeed but just not likely. Likewise, don't try to get a career that requires high intelligence if you have a confirmed IQ of 100. High general intelligence is in part the ability to sort through the irrelevant and relevant information mixed together, so your advice is akin to suggesting that we need high intelligence as an alternative to high intelligence.

 

[walfin]

The environment of the movie Gattaca seemed miserable mainly because of the dark lighting.

Otherwise, it would seem like a utopia--bad only for the unedited minority (shown above), and only by comparison, much like how the poor of the first world are better off than the upper class of the third world. Such genetic inequality already exists in our world, except we tend assign a lot of false blame to everything but genetics. If the worst case scenario is an unequal world in which everyone is better off than they are today, then let's go for it.

But the story is about how he outdid his brother & Jerome!

EQ is made up stuff. It is purely hypothetical. The emotions of humans and the role they have in human brain is very badly understood. We have no way of measuring emotions. We can only tell they exist and we have some subjective personal experiences. We cannot even say other than on subjective basis how strong an emotion is.
Empathy is very complex and not well understood concept still worth of a lot of research.

Instead of talking about IQ. Let us talk about perception and awareness.
We are bombarded by information. Unlike our ancestors we have too much information.
The game is about being able to make most of the information. It is all about taking in the information, processing them and generating relevant output. IQ does not guarantee this. IQ merely states the level of potential. I am certain that if low IQ people actual did pay attention more they could easily be successful as well.
Awareness is about knowing what to learn, when to learn, how to learn.

If you have low IQ you can easily skip all the higher IQ dummies just by paying more attention to the right kind of information.
Being life long learner is the only true solution to modern life. You can not sleep for 10 years on the job, learn nothing new and be top of the game. That is just plain fact.

Pretty sure having IQ 100 is good enough to be successful. In fact I think even 90 is still decent IQ.

I'm sure one could be successful despite having an IQ of 100, possibly with much more hard work than somebody with a higher IQ, but I doubt anyone would consider 90 to be a decent IQ.

I don't think EQ is made up stuff. We all know of people who are exceptionally talented at getting along with other people. Maybe we just haven't found a reliable way to measure it yet.

However, I strongly suspect that there may be a positive correlation between EQ & IQ (contrary to popular belief), once we are able to measure EQ reliably. Reading people is also ultimately a cognitive activity. Of course, this wouldn't apply to corner cases like high functioning autistics / people with Asperger's / people with William's syndrome.

 

[ApostateAbe]

The environment of the movie Gattaca seemed miserable mainly because of the dark lighting.

Otherwise, it would seem like a utopia--bad only for the unedited minority (shown above), and only by comparison, much like how the poor of the first world are better off than the upper class of the third world. Such genetic inequality already exists in our world, except we tend assign a lot of false blame to everything but genetics. If the worst case scenario is an unequal world in which everyone is better off than they are today, then let's go for it.

But the story is about how he outdid his brother & Jerome!

Yeah, great movie for its futurism more plausible than most such sci-fi, but the social setting seemed to serve as the antagonist for the hero, with a story catering to the underdog-loving optimism of the American audience. We believe you can make it in this world if you just work hard, persist through adversity, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and surgically mutilate a cross section of your legs to imitate the height of an ubermensch.

 

[Rebis]

The environment of the movie Gattaca seemed miserable mainly because of the dark lighting.

Otherwise, it would seem like a utopia--bad only for the unedited minority (shown above), and only by comparison, much like how the poor of the first world are better off than the upper class of the third world. Such genetic inequality already exists in our world, except we tend assign a lot of false blame to everything but genetics. If the worst case scenario is an unequal world in which everyone is better off than they are today, then let's go for it.

But the story is about how he outdid his brother & Jerome!

Yeah, great movie for its futurism more plausible than most such sci-fi, but the social setting seemed to serve as the antagonist for the hero, with a story catering to the underdog-loving optimism of the American audience. We believe you can make it in this world if you just work hard, persist through adversity, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and surgically mutilate a cross section of your legs to imitate the height of an ubermensch.

Suppose for a second that anyone that is able to percieve inequality are usually the ones immune to the trap of wishful thinking. They do not pursue, they just do stuff because they could. If thats the case then the people that want to do something need to believe they can. Diversity and equality are a statistical advantage because they target the majority of the pooulation who for all cases have a low probability of getting anywhere compared to a predispositioned genetic lottery.

It's not a delusion, it's a precedent for social inclusion rather than propegating social occlusion by predicting your ability on genetic probability.

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[ApostateAbe]

The environment of the movie Gattaca seemed miserable mainly because of the dark lighting.

Otherwise, it would seem like a utopia--bad only for the unedited minority (shown above), and only by comparison, much like how the poor of the first world are better off than the upper class of the third world. Such genetic inequality already exists in our world, except we tend assign a lot of false blame to everything but genetics. If the worst case scenario is an unequal world in which everyone is better off than they are today, then let's go for it.

But the story is about how he outdid his brother & Jerome!

Yeah, great movie for its futurism more plausible than most such sci-fi, but the social setting seemed to serve as the antagonist for the hero, with a story catering to the underdog-loving optimism of the American audience. We believe you can make it in this world if you just work hard, persist through adversity, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and surgically mutilate a cross section of your legs to imitate the height of an ubermensch.

Suppose for a second that anyone that is able to percieve inequality are usually the ones immune to the trap of wishful thinking. They do not pursue, they just do stuff because they could. If thats the case then the people that want to do something need to believe they can. Diversity and equality are a statistical advantage because they target the majority of the pooulation who for all cases have a low probability of getting anywhere compared to a predispositioned genetic lottery.

It's not a delusion, it's a precedent for social inclusion rather than propegating social occlusion by predicting your ability on genetic probability.

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk

You say it isn't a delusion, but I can make sense of what you are saying only if you are intending to say that the delusion is a good thing. It is a noble lie. Most people will never achieve their dreams, nor anything close to it, but it is a good thing they have such aspirations. I think differently. You may have heard, "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land among the stars." Well, not really. You will fall back to Earth with 100 thousand dollars of student loan debt, for a law degree that is useless without the brains to go along with it, and you have a missed opportunity to make that much money in one year by being a pipeline welder in North Dakota, because you got married to a fellow law student who doesn't want to live in the cold, and now both of you are working in insurance in Georgia, and you will both die in debt. Realism pays more than optimism.

 

[ZenRaiden]

I'm sure one could be successful despite having an IQ of 100, possibly with much more hard work than somebody with a higher IQ, but I doubt anyone would consider 90 to be a decent IQ.

90 is pretty common IQ if you like to know. If you walk through the street chances are you passed 100 of people with such IQ. 90 means you solve for pretty much half the test problems. Enough to learn some basic things in life.

 

[ZenRaiden]

I don't think EQ is made up stuff. We all know of people who are exceptionally talented at getting along with other people. Maybe we just haven't found a reliable way to measure it yet.

Getting along with people is cool, but why should that me the metric? There are plenty times in life where getting along is counter productive to work.

 

[Rebis]

You say it isn't a delusion, but I can make sense of what you are saying only if you are intending to say that the delusion is a good thing. It is a noble lie. Most people will never achieve their dreams, nor anything close to it, but it is a good thing they have such aspirations. I think differently. You may have heard, "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land among the stars." Well, not really. You will fall back to Earth with 100 thousand dollars of student loan debt, for a law degree that is useless without the brains to go along with it, and you have a missed opportunity to make that much money in one year by being a pipeline welder in North Dakota, because you got married to a fellow law student who doesn't want to live in the cold, and now both of you are working in insurance in Georgia, and you will both die in debt. Realism pays more than optimism.

Most people fail, that's a self-evident truth in a society predicated on competition. Regardless of whether you divert your attention to another resource. People that are believers will be consumed by their belief until it's either self-actualized or they change their perspective. No one is saying it's financially solid but if everyone were to go for financially-stable roles then that market would be over-saturated and become less of a stability, then there'd be demand for complex roles that require more abstract thinking, the cycle continues. One precedent I don't think you're aware of is how intelligence allows people to percieve the world, distinguish patterns and somewhat come to a practical solution: This dream is not really for people with superior intelligence and a competency at a profession, it is for people that can be on the cusp of excellence, people that want to be important (and can be, regardless of the probability) and for those that want to play, or roleplay as an integral member of society.

Realism is for those who can associate disparate patterns in society, piece it all together to form a methodology of how to climb up the social or financial ladder. I think we're taking about a paradox here: The ones that become aware of this at a young age where they can decide their career are likely to be intelligent. the ones that aren't aware of this can only operate on what they know, what people have told them and the inclination of pursuing a dream. Intelligent people are fooled less in terms of proportion of ideas they're exposed to.

Everyone wasn't supposed to be successful, precisely as you said. Even if the dream wasn't perpetrated by a nation, i.e. "The american dream", it is perpetrated by the individual, who in all accounts can only know himself. Because they know themselves more than they do others, they can only think of themselves as important and competent compared to others. People do not think of themselves as bounded or limited, the realization of your limits can only be understood with the passage of time. Unfortunately for most people, that time is too late to retroactively change their career.

 

[walfin]

Getting along with people is cool, but why should that me the metric? There are plenty times in life where getting along is counter productive to work.

Perhaps that is an overly simplistic view of EQ. People who have high EQ do not just get along well with other people, but are adept at reading emotion, displaying the appropriate emotion to get desired responses from other persons, etc. This matters more in some fields (e.g. sales, law) but still matters to some degree in all fields.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Perhaps that is an overly simplistic view of EQ. People who have high EQ do not just get along well with other people, but are adept at reading emotion, displaying the appropriate emotion to get desired responses from other persons, etc. This matters more in some fields (e.g. sales, law) but still matters to some degree in all fields.

Being manipulative is also skill. Its not just about emotions thought. Its more about how you read people and understand where they are coming from. Then the next step is detecting deception. I mean most people are easy to read since they really make all their motifs and emotions obvious.

 

[walfin]

Being manipulative is also skill. Its not just about emotions thought. Its more about how you read people and understand where they are coming from. Then the next step is detecting deception. I mean most people are easy to read since they really make all their motifs and emotions obvious.

Yeah, well, the fact is that emotional intelligence is also useful. The only thing is we don't have a way to measure it yet (unlike IQ) and we haven't shown it's link to academic achievement, income, etc.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Yeah, well, the fact is that emotional intelligence is also useful. The only thing is we don't have a way to measure it yet (unlike IQ) and we haven't shown it's link to academic achievement, income, etc.

OK fine let me explain the problem with EQ. IQ has measure and its a valid concept. You say here EQ is not a valid concept. Then the question is why people connect word intelligence and emotion together?
If you ask me are emotions important... Id say yes they are they make who you are and they also make you capable of adjusting to situations.
We know pretty much people experience emotions differently. We know that people are emotional beings, because we recognize emotions we have in others.
There have been studies where damage of brain resulted in maladaptive behavior largely probably due to inability to control emotions.
It is also reasonable to say that emotions play role in our ability to experience the world, since without them we really would not have much of anything.
All this said its kind of intuitive to say there is something like EQ. However the words emotional intelligence are both misleading and useless. Its plain simple to talk about just emotions as we cannot really use a concept of EQ. Unlike IQ. However IQ is already misleading in the name since it also says intelligence quotient and we assume this is just about how we think and not how we feel. Pretty sure lot of thinking is also connected to how we feel and as result we act. It is also misleading to use the word IQ as synonym for actual intelligence of humans where in fact IQ is just part of human intellect and while it maybe a important part of our intellect it is not all of it and in fact it is not even clear what percentage of it is really that important.
It is also important to point out while being retarded can signify lot of practical life problems same as emotional problems can signify lot of problems, there is no clear cut way of saying what emotions and what intelligence is precisely optimal since we as people live in society where one persons traits might be optimal and another person traits might be horrible.

 

[scorpiomover]

Having beliefs that are inconsistent with reality results in false assumptions which are not only unproductive they can often be counterproductive.

Oh no bad things are happening to me I must pray for god's forgiveness. Oh no bad things are still happening to me but maybe this is penance? Bad things are happening to me but I won't do anything about it because god has a plan. I'm not going to do anything to improve my circumstances or reconsider my behaviors because when god wants me to be successful I will be. Etc

So do you think that this is how atheists think about studying and education, where someone else is in charge?

Oh no, I'm getting bad grades (bad things are happening to me at university). I must ask for the head of my department's forgiveness.
Oh no, I'm still getting bad grades. Maybe this is a punishment for me being making racist jokes?
I'm still getting bad grades. But I won't do anything about it because the head of my department has a plan.
I'm not going to do anything to improve my circumstances or reconsider my behaviors at work because when the head of my department wants me to get good grades, I will. Etc

So do you think that this is how atheists think about work, where they have a boss?

Oh no bad things are happening to me at work. I must ask for the boss' forgiveness.
Oh no bad things are still happening to me at work. Maybe this is a punishment for me being a bad employee?
Bad things are happening to me at work. But I won't do anything about it because the boss has a plan.
I'm not going to do anything to improve my circumstances or reconsider my behaviors at work because when the boss wants me to be successful I will be. Etc

That if someone's raised in a religious household and has their head filled with nonsense they're going to have a tough time making sense of the world around them.

And that if you raise a child in an environment that nurtures their curiosity, creativity and critical thinking skills you're going to end up with an intelligent and well educated adult who reasons clearly and acts accordingly.

[/QUOTE]Are you suggesting that if someone was raised in an atheist household and has their head filled with nonsense, then they would have an EASY time making sense of the world around them?

Is it if the house they are raised in, that makes it hard/easy for them to figure out the world?

Or is it if they are filled with nonsense, or taught to think reasonably, that makes it hard/easy for them to figure out the world?

 

[scorpiomover]

"My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?"

Why not?

Because someone asked WHY.

Did you ask why humans are born with 2 hands and not 20 hands?

No?

Why not?

Becuase people wonder about things that conflict with their experience. It's not usually the case that doctors are good at car mechanics.

The problem may only be nature's conflict with the ideological context of our own thinking.

We grew up expecting some sort of grand equality or fairness from the start, as though God gave some people this "gift," and then to be fair God gave other people another "gift" of some other sort. The problem is that nature is objectively unfair.

Sure. Most people believe that if their dads and mums did well, then they would, automatically. They rarely stop to ask themselves how hard their dads and mums worked to get there, and if they are putting in anywhere near the kind of effort their parents did that would justify an expectation of similar results.

Then when they make very little effort, and don't get very far, they say "Unfair! Unfair!"

They didn't work hard. Their parents did. That's the equation.

We obviously would not have such expectations for athletic ability; somebody who can run much faster than average around the track is also expected to be, more likely than not, able to do more push-ups than average in one minute, and more sit-ups in one minute, and more laps in the swimming pool in ten minutes, and push more weight on the squat rack, and so on.

Sure. But for the exact same reasons, we expect that someone who is good at car mechanics, is usually also good at plastering, and painting, and building. That's usually true.

The many facets of intellectual ability are related to each other, much like the many facets of athletic ability.

Not necessarily. Athletics relies on physical strength, agility, dexterity, and other similar skills. For the most part, you use similar muscles in different athletic games.

Intellect depends on knowledge and application of that knowledge. The ability to apply that knowledge might be the same for different subjects. But the knowledge is different.

And general intelligence is related to such boring physical variables like brain size and neural speed. And, g is of course mostly a function of genetics.

Elephants have much bigger brains than humans, and being an elephant and not a human, is genetic. In that case, elephants should be much smarter than humans.

"And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?"

Easy answer, though it may occur to you only if you pay much attention to the popular science news (though I generally hate popular science news). We are now living in the dawning of the age of CRISPR, when we can change genetic differences more cheaply, easily and safely than we can change environmental differences. We really need to get a handle on this new age, fast. It needs to be a favorite topic of dinner table conversations. No American presidential candidate talked about it, not even Andrew Yang. The best we have is Zoltan Istvan of the Transhumanist Party. It is like a bad joke.

Well, you are probably too young to remember the 11+ exams.

Schools would test students at 11 years old in a variety of subjects, and then combine the results. Then based on your results, students would be selected to go to different schools that taught to different levels of ability, and would follow on from there to go to university and become a lawyer/doctor/scientist, or to go to learn a trade and become a plumber/builder/plainter.

The basic premise of these tests was that intelligence was genetic, and your genes might change with your kids, but NOT with you, certaintly not at that point as no-one had CRISPR technology then. Therefore, anything genetic was fixed for your entire life, and so your intelligence was fixed and unable to be increased or decreased. Therefore, if they could test your IQ at 11, they could assume that would be the same throughout life, and would thus be a reliable indicator for if you would make a good scientist or not.

The scores from different subjects were combined, because back then, it was believed that if someone was good at maths, they would be good at everything, and if they weren't that great at maths, they would probably not be good at anything requiring advanced reasoning, and would probably make a good sh*t-shoveller, but could never be a good doctor, lawyer or scientist.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Elephants have much bigger brains than humans, and being an elephant and not a human, is genetic. In that case, elephants should be much smarter than humans.

I have talked about the correlation between intelligence and brain size in other places elsewhere, and this is a surprisingly common sort of response, seemingly because the correlation is just not well known. It is an established fact, but hardly anyone knows about it. The popular culture is completely oblivious to it, as though they think brain size has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. Stephen Jay Gould wrote his most popular book against the idea, as though it was only something that backward eugenicists and phrenologists used to believe. The elephant argument would be relevant if we had no data. But, again, it is established fact. See the meta-analysis by Pietschnig et al., 2015, "Meta-Analysis of Associations Between Human Brain Volume And Intelligence Differences: How Strong Are They and What Do They Mean." Weirdly enough, this is a paper that downplayed the correlation, but they still came up with a correlation coefficient of +0.24. A prior meta-analysis came up with +0.4.

 

[ApostateAbe]

The correlation applies to the human species. For the animal kingdom generally, the commonly-accepted variable that correlates with intelligence would be a ratio: brain volume over body volume. On that scale, elephants are at the expected place. Same with blue whales (each of their brains is the size of a beach ball).

 

[Rift]

most genuises are layabouts. .

from choice of field to end result.

we mind as well being measuring tits and arse, testicles and wang..

there's many factors that go into a success of an individual...

but frankly, in most of these stories, it's their best mates, partners, that succeeded and they were just dragged along for the ride.

--

populations of genius and higher range IQ in recent history -

one should examine to discrepancies

in how many children vs adults

children would provided the documented proof but alas, many lose their status when they choose unsuccessful lives.

Whereas the assumption leads the result with most adult research. . .

but in either case, we're largely dealing with savants. one or two subject mastery and higher than average proficient status in others.

Even then.. those with pstar proportions fair better than the smartest in the room. . . even when they remain insecure about it. But they tend to receive larger grants and awards, gain more exposure and have more successful networking, so by the time their body starts to head the other way... they're alreadye stablished. . . especially true within academia.. the more ugly, the less charismatic, the more quirks or specialized early on the more likely they have to rely on outside contracts and private donors. they may become well known and go down in history but their 'success' is often minimal.

but inanites. I was too lazy to read above. mostly thinking about a would mathematician that decided to become a traditionally orthodox mother and an exploited lad that intentionally became a barista. . . they sometimes get written up as hoaxes because of how they turned out. go figure, eh?

 

[moody]

My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?

Intelligence is largely how well we remember and how quickly we comprehend things, which is derived from how attentive we are. For example, individuals with "photographic memories" really have extraordinarily attention to detail. Our focus is key to what our IQ measures, or in any test of comprehension and memory retention.

Individuals who are attentive in once sector are likely attentive in others, which is why those with high IQs are people who are good at most things they set their minds to. (This is why child proteges are so commendable; it's rare to find a kid who has the drive to focus so much of their attention on honing a skill or academic subject).

That being said, tests with measure of IQ will always be bias as to who designed and whom administers the test. It is also much easier to test spacial and linguistic intelligence than it is to test any form of emotional intelligence. As a result, the "different intelligences" listen as part of an IQ or another aptitude test are more similar than they initially appear.

 

[peoplesuck]

Spoiler: tbh this is off topic

When it comes to fighting, and fighting games, being able to intuitively predict patterns is one of the most valuable traits. However, im not sure that is dependent on iq. I used to play a few fighting games, people were stuck in certain "skill levels", unable to beat people who were simply better at seeing patterns. Part of it comes from experience, but there is a very clear value in talent. When it comes to this sort of thing, talent beats skill almost every time.
my friend adel could always beat my ass, that never changed. Likewise, I could beat all of my other friends, and that never changed. Its infuriating to be beaten by a child, and Ive been on both sides of that exchange. It seems like all high level competitive spot, is simply predicting patterns, I would guess its around 20% sill 80% pattern detection.
avoiding patterns is also directly related, I think.

 

[moody]

unable to beat people who were simply better at seeing patterns. Part of it comes from experience, but there is a very clear value in talent. When it comes to this sort of thing, talent beats skill almost every time.

Ahhhh isn't talent offensive said yourself? (Because I'm a Besserwisser).

I'd say that seeing patterns is definitely an intelligence. It's critical in math. I remember taking aptitude tests as a really young kid, and there was a whole test that was only on recognizing an array of different patters. Visual, spacial, lingual (is that a word..?), and numerical. I did really well on that one.

 

[peoplesuck]

unable to beat people who were simply better at seeing patterns. Part of it comes from experience, but there is a very clear value in talent. When it comes to this sort of thing, talent beats skill almost every time.

Ahhhh isn't talent offensive said yourself? (Because I'm a Besserwisser).

I'd say that seeing patterns is definitely an intelligence. It's critical in math. I remember taking aptitude tests as a really young kid, and there was a whole test that was only on recognizing an array of different patters. Visual, spacial, lingual (is that a word..?), and numerical. I did really well on that one.

There are people who can pick up a fighting game, and beat people who have been playing for years. This is not skill, it is talent. I said that calling a skill, a talent, is very offensive. It downplays all of their work, its the equivalent of saying its god given.
I am somewhat talented with games, Im always above average by about 40%, but never as good as high level competitive players.(nearly independent of time played) I have no problem calling it a talent, because its unearned. Its a very strange thing, competing in fighting games, because you dont consciously know why you are destroying your opponent, but its consistent.

I think of talent like the opposite of skill, not worthy of praise, and essentially deducting respect points.
its kewl a person can accell in things ungodly fast, but it doesnt deserve any respect.
You dont earn respect by buying trophies, only if you earned them with dedication.
I would hold a talented person to a standard of effort, just like I would an untalented PLEB. Work is what earns my respect, not outcome.

Spoiler: plis see my meme cog

 

[peoplesuck]

obviously talent has value, and can be respectable. I dont mean to say anyone with talent deserves to be ignored, its just less impressive than sheer effort.
in my opinion

 

[moody]

obviously talent has value, and can be respectable. I dont mean to say anyone with talent deserves to be ignored, its just less impressive than sheer effort.
in my opinion

I think talent, in the way you’re using the term, doesn’t really exist. From what I’ve seen, it’s akin to an old wives tail, with no substantial evidence that supports its existence. People who call something talent are often copping out of examining the functions behind efficient thinking, and why some people tend to be better as things than others. (Other than what people think they know the cause of).

Here is a brief article written by a timpanist from the metropolitan opera who makes a really solid argument against the existence of talent. He explains it a lot better than I can, so I’m providing it below:

I Don’t Care How Good You Are -- I Care About the Trajectory You’re Willing to Set

I remained a mediocre musician until I decided to invest the time and energy to radically alter my trajectory. Once I started applying deliberate practice in a committed way, I accomplished more in the next 3 years than I had in the preceding 20. So I don’t care how good you are right now -- I...

jasonhaaheim.com

 

[Drvladivostok]

My question is, why is this the case? Why is it that people who are good at 1 thing are often also good at others?

Human activities are a manifested arrays of systematic decisions, if that 1 thing that you're good at is processing information and finding patterns to make more effective decisions, whether it is fixing a pipe or writing a program you ought to do better with a higher IQ.

And what can we do to improve not just our IQs but those of large groups of people who currently test poorly on IQ tests, and bring about a better world?

Universal Education... kinda.

The Flynn Effect tells us with the increasing quantity in general education received per capita, as have been the trend since much of our modern history, have lead to significant increase in IQ levels around the world, but the trend have been ultimately attributed toward the higher capacity of attribution and uniformed logic that the IQ test itself is utilizing (Obviously effect of uniformed in education) than actual increase in capability of abstract thought, so we haven't grown smarter, just better at IQ tests. If so, than the entire effect of universal education itself isn't necessarily to increase intelligence, but to provide a useful logical framework for children that will be utilized in the future.