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Intellect also sharpens and stays so only if you constantly exercise it. When you're too poor to pursue an intellectual job you end up doing menial labor which
by eigen-vector 8y ago
Intellect also sharpens and stays so only if you constantly exercise it. When you're too poor to pursue an intellectual job you end up doing menial labor which in turn means you're not exercising your intellect. Over time that inevitably leads to skill degradation.
- Pica_soO 8y agoIntellect is choosing between options. If you dont get to choose and usually circumstances or people in power determinate every aspect of your existence- this tool gets rusty.
- Andre_Wanglin 8y agoBut intelligence isn't a skill, it's a capability. The most interesting questions about it are what portion is fixed, what portion is influenced (dictated?) by environment, and which way the causation flows for correlated measurements. So, according to these "economists" being under financial duress affects intellectual performance. What does this tell us about the interesting questions? Would we be surprised to learn having cancer affects a sprinter's performance?
- chongli 8y agoYou can't measure intelligence, you can only measure skills. Any test you devise can be practiced to improve scores. Besides, it's hard even to define intelligence. Is Einstein more intelligent than Mozart? Our usual approach is to say "I know intelligence when I see it" but that usually results in arguments from personal incredulity.
- bradknowles 8y agoThere are tests that take that issue into account. Sure, you can study/practice and improve your score, but so can the other guy, and the relative difference between your scores remains largely the same.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- segmondy 8y agoI don't think the original OP implied that intelligence is a skill, but rather a capability like you said. Just like your capability to do physical work is not a skill but an ability dependent on your muscles which depend on how and how often you train em. It's the same with intelligence, if you train and exercise your intellectual muscle (brain), your capability to do intellectual work/exercises increases.
- Andre_Wanglin 8y agoCapability and performance are distinct, IMO. Capability is what one can do, performance is what one does do. We train to achieve as much as we are capable of but are bound by our natural limits.