No one on HN has mentioned my takeaway on the IQ subject that I've held for many years now. Upon learning more information over the years since, it has only sol

No one on HN has mentioned my takeaway on the IQ subject that I've held for many years now. Upon learning more information over the years since, it has only solidified my view. On his analysis, he has a nice argument but he's outright wrong about some of it. They're discovering more everyday about how advanced 'tribal Europe' really was. From the Vikings having more advanced societies than initially thought, back to the Celts when the Romans actually started to fear the Gauls and decided to stop their advances before they became so organized they also had centralized government. The planning ahead required for survival in northern Europe alone greatly increases the chance of evolving a higher minimum IQ vs more congenial conditions where little to no planning is required. Sometimes truth is inconvenient. I would defend IQ. It's real, and it does matter. What I would say is that in my years, I've learned that it is definitely not the most important attribute. It may not even be the second most important attribute. A cooperative nature is more important than IQ. What use is a highly intelligent person who won't cooperate with others or interact? Einstein without the willingness to collaborate with society overall is useless. Maybe even a nightmare if he's beyond uncooperative and a malevolent genius. A very uncooperative stupid person could potentially be a big problem too. If I'm ever picking people to be on my team for a zombie apocalypse, or even just managing a modern society today, I'll take someone with a cooperative nature and little regard for their IQ. In sum, I would agree with Taleb that IQ can potentially be a swindle, but wouldn't agree with the basis of his argument. IQ is an objective measurement of intelligence, but you don't really need to reach so hard as he did to disqualify the importance of IQ. It's obvious as to why it's secondary to other factors.