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I'm not saying it is largely determined by it and not claiming there are no injustices, but I'm saying it is not a negligible factor.

badRNG 6y ago
>The big question is whether the bottom end should starve. I think they should not starve and should have certain minimal living standards met, but they are going to be lower than the top end. You risk dividing the population trying to convince the smart to settle for less than they can get. They will simply band together and manipulate the system until they achieve it. This implies that poverty is largely a product of being on the wrong end of the intelligence scale, which ignores the substantial impact that social and economic structures play in determining one's economic success. When looking at factors that perpetuate poverty, IQ isn't even on the map.
- longtom 6y ago
  Yeah the system is not very meritocratic. Not sure to which extent one can change that though and not sure how much better society would look after enforcing those changes. If you wanted to make it more meritocratic the populations with lowest IQ would actually be worse off, unless you also increase the minimal living standards.
  - badRNG 6y ago
    > If you wanted to make it more meritocratic the populations with lowest IQ would actually be worse off, unless you also increase the minimal living standards. I agree with this. I'm not sure that making economies more "meritocratic" is necessarily the only solution we have when confronting larger structures that perpetuate inequality. Even if it were, It'd be important to know who or what quantifies "merit." If it is impersonal market forces, the same unjust social systems will still eventually develop as certain families, classes, and countries entrench their economic development to solidify and secure an advantage down the line.
  - empath75 6y ago
    > If you wanted to make it more meritocratic the populations with lowest IQ would actually be worse off, unless you also increase the minimal living standards. If you're talking about people who have some kind of mental handicap, then this is accurate, but I'm skeptical it will be meaningfully different for people with close to average intelligence or higher, because the effect of IQ will be dwarfed by other differences like how hard they work or how much they delay gratification and save.

badRNG 6y ago

>The big question is whether the bottom end should starve. I think they should not starve and should have certain minimal living standards met, but they are going to be lower than the top end. You risk dividing the population trying to convince the smart to settle for less than they can get. They will simply band together and manipulate the system until they achieve it. This implies that poverty is largely a product of being on the wrong end of the intelligence scale, which ignores the substantial impact that social and economic structures play in determining one's economic success. When looking at factors that perpetuate poverty, IQ isn't even on the map.

longtom 6y ago
Yeah the system is not very meritocratic. Not sure to which extent one can change that though and not sure how much better society would look after enforcing those changes. If you wanted to make it more meritocratic the populations with lowest IQ would actually be worse off, unless you also increase the minimal living standards.
- badRNG 6y ago
  > If you wanted to make it more meritocratic the populations with lowest IQ would actually be worse off, unless you also increase the minimal living standards. I agree with this. I'm not sure that making economies more "meritocratic" is necessarily the only solution we have when confronting larger structures that perpetuate inequality. Even if it were, It'd be important to know who or what quantifies "merit." If it is impersonal market forces, the same unjust social systems will still eventually develop as certain families, classes, and countries entrench their economic development to solidify and secure an advantage down the line.
- empath75 6y ago
  > If you wanted to make it more meritocratic the populations with lowest IQ would actually be worse off, unless you also increase the minimal living standards. If you're talking about people who have some kind of mental handicap, then this is accurate, but I'm skeptical it will be meaningfully different for people with close to average intelligence or higher, because the effect of IQ will be dwarfed by other differences like how hard they work or how much they delay gratification and save.