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I question the underlying assumption that the average person is more intelligent today than 100 years ago or even 20,000 years ago. Yes, the Flynn Effect is re

I question the underlying assumption that the average person is more intelligent today than 100 years ago or even 20,000 years ago. Yes, the Flynn Effect is real. IQ scores have risen internationally over the past 100 years, but that's more likely due to greater access to education and education systems that teach the kind of test-taking skills that IQ tests measure. IN the US, the average GPA have been increasing for both HS and colleges, but that's almost certainly not evidence of an increase in general intelligence. It takes for more intelligence to create today's technology and society than that of 100 or 20,000 years ago, but it requires far less intelligence for an individual to survive in today's society than it did to survive 20,000 years ago. For example, 20,000 years ago if you wanted to eat you needed to be able to distinguish between dozens of subtly different berries and mushrooms with no books or reference works. Make the wrong choice and you die. Today you just push a few buttons on your smartphone. Edit: Better nutrition has definitely had an effect on the average number, so I guess I'm really talking about a hypothetical well-fed human not exposed to toxic chemicals at any point in time.

IkmoIkmo 6y ago
> it requires far less intelligence for an individual to survive in today's society than it did to survive 20,000 years ago. Survive, perhaps yes. But to simply process the world around you? How much mental stimuli did you have sitting in the forest and doing menial labour much of the day, collecting and discerning berries which you were likely taught to eat by your parents/community anyway. Versus the mental stimuli of a 24/7 worldwide news cycle. We may feel much of our media is superficial, and indeed compared to reading a great book it is. But at the same time I've researched the local real estate market and did some calculations. I got updated on a complex political scandal in my country (Netherlands) which affects multiple institutions and puts our governance system in question and relates to the last 10 years of political history. I've listed much of the evening to Punjabi music. I browsed an online market with thousands of articles with designs I'd never seen before to look for a friends' birthday gift. I read about the discovery of Neptune by way of mathematical deduction even before it was actually observed. I watched a Tik Tok dance. I watched an hour of two elite competitors in a 4X strategy game (Supcom) tournament. I read about a blind person's eye being repaired, but needing years of training to be able to process and understand the new stimuli. And I spent a few hours playing a space exploration/rpg/colonybuilding game, managing a fleet and a number of colonies. In all of this I posit I did vastly more mental calculation than the guy in the forest. And it's just an ordinary Sunday, a day of leisure instead of my job which is a constant mental challenge, even if somewhat soulless at times. Hell, even spending time in a large supermarket making permutations of tens of thousands of meals. The average supermarket has 20-40 thousand items. Processing prices versus weight/size/marketing info, is likely a bigger daily mental hurdle than picking grain and grinding it into flower and baking bread and eating that.
- timoth3y 6y ago
  > How much mental stimuli did you have sitting in the forest and doing menial labour much of the day, Quite a bit, I imagine. We tend to discount the complexity of tasks we don't have to do. In the same way you dismiss the complexities of living off the land as "sitting in a forest", someone could uncharitably describe your day as "sitting in front of a computer." Also, be careful not to confuse the importance of the subject matter or tool with the difficulty of the task. Reading about the discovery of Neptune or a political scandal likely requires much less mental activity than identifying an animal by its tracks and then tracking it though a forest.

IkmoIkmo 6y ago

> it requires far less intelligence for an individual to survive in today's society than it did to survive 20,000 years ago. Survive, perhaps yes. But to simply process the world around you? How much mental stimuli did you have sitting in the forest and doing menial labour much of the day, collecting and discerning berries which you were likely taught to eat by your parents/community anyway. Versus the mental stimuli of a 24/7 worldwide news cycle. We may feel much of our media is superficial, and indeed compared to reading a great book it is. But at the same time I've researched the local real estate market and did some calculations. I got updated on a complex political scandal in my country (Netherlands) which affects multiple institutions and puts our governance system in question and relates to the last 10 years of political history. I've listed much of the evening to Punjabi music. I browsed an online market with thousands of articles with designs I'd never seen before to look for a friends' birthday gift. I read about the discovery of Neptune by way of mathematical deduction even before it was actually observed. I watched a Tik Tok dance. I watched an hour of two elite competitors in a 4X strategy game (Supcom) tournament. I read about a blind person's eye being repaired, but needing years of training to be able to process and understand the new stimuli. And I spent a few hours playing a space exploration/rpg/colonybuilding game, managing a fleet and a number of colonies. In all of this I posit I did vastly more mental calculation than the guy in the forest. And it's just an ordinary Sunday, a day of leisure instead of my job which is a constant mental challenge, even if somewhat soulless at times. Hell, even spending time in a large supermarket making permutations of tens of thousands of meals. The average supermarket has 20-40 thousand items. Processing prices versus weight/size/marketing info, is likely a bigger daily mental hurdle than picking grain and grinding it into flower and baking bread and eating that.

timoth3y 6y ago
> How much mental stimuli did you have sitting in the forest and doing menial labour much of the day, Quite a bit, I imagine. We tend to discount the complexity of tasks we don't have to do. In the same way you dismiss the complexities of living off the land as "sitting in a forest", someone could uncharitably describe your day as "sitting in front of a computer." Also, be careful not to confuse the importance of the subject matter or tool with the difficulty of the task. Reading about the discovery of Neptune or a political scandal likely requires much less mental activity than identifying an animal by its tracks and then tracking it though a forest.