6 ms·

>But we can conclude, and with absolute confidence: Elon Musk is not more intelligent than I am, or you. We’re different. Yeah okay.

chrisseaton 5y ago
I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is much more intelligent than I am. I don't know why there's such a taboo over saying some people are more intelligent than others. It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value.
- camehere3saydis 5y ago
  > It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value. But it is, even though it actually means nothing at all. Let me try and explain. Our society prides itself on being both rational and egalitarian at the same time. Its most basic ideological paradigm basically says: "everyone is equal". Of course, that is a meaningless statement - people themselves are not quantities to be measured and compared; "everyone is equal" is just a shorthand for "everyone is just as much a human being as everyone else, regardless of the physical characteristics of their body, and deserves to be treated with equal dignity, because every person has a human mind." Now imagine a trait, "intelligence", which basically says "this person has more mind than that person". This is in contradiction with the premise of equality; in the rationalist paradigm, this is more or less equivalent to saying "this person is inherently superior than that person". So either differences in intelligence do not exist and intelligence is a meaningless signifier (perhaps a performative role ascribed by particular situations)... or rational egalitarianism is in contradiction with itself (and therefore factually wrong by the rules of its own logic). Either option is enough of a bummer that a normal person would be driven to ignore the matter entirely. Hence, the taboo.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    This definition of "rational" strangely excludes values such as reliability, endurance, initiative, charm, beauty, or leadership. But when has it ever been the case in any society for people to simply bow down to geniuses? Hasn't intelligence often taken a backseat to charm and beauty? Intelligence is but one value competing in an ecology of values.
    - loopz 5y ago
      After someone died, it's ok to revere a person. Generally, it's unhealthy to put alive people on pedestals too.
    - camehere3saydis 5y ago
      I'm not trying to redefine rationality. I'm referring to [Rationalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism), a system of values which is fundamental to the modern Western world, and trying to point out that it is inherently flawed and essentially self-contradictory exactly because its hinges on notions like "rationality" and "intelligence" but in practice anyone is free to redefine those to whatever suits the situation. I'm not trying to put "intelligence" or "geniuses" on a pedestal, though I would argue they're already being put there by our culture's norms. If they were really so important, wouldn't people be a lot more outraged about faulty definitions and fallacious reasoning? Instead, we get sarcastic variants of the "well, ackshyually" meme any time anyone insists that correct reasoning is a prerequisite for a meaningful conversation, and indeed colloquial language doesn't really optimize for the use case of honest, unambiguous representations of reality
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > this is more or less equivalent to saying "this person is inherently superior than that person" Strong disagree. Intelligence is not a more valuable attribute than any other. Concrete example: there's no point being a more intelligent officer in the Army if you aren't able to physically get yourself to the fight in time and someone else who's less intelligent but is more fit is there on time to have an impact.
    - camehere3saydis 5y ago
      >a more intelligent person is inherently superior I also disagree with this statement. >a "more intelligent" person is defined as "having more consciousness" which, in a system that ascribes value to humanity and consciousness, is equivalent to saying that a more intelligent person is "more of a person", and therefore inherently "superior in value" This is what I meant. Do you still disagree with this statement? And, well... should I make my posts more detailed or less, considering they fail to communicate the idea? Or should I go back to just saying nothing?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- BallCramp 5y ago
  > I don't know why there's such a taboo over saying some people are more intelligent than others. Makes it easier to seed resentment and division. There's a notable cohort of ideologically-possessed individuals whose mission in life seems to be flatly denying the existence of meritocracy. If everyone is as smart as the smartest people in the world (and we'll repeat this until it's accepted as true), then some injustice logically must be taking place. Our ideology just so happens to have a solution to address this, so you should give us power. It's a pattern that's been playing out for a while now.
- seba_dos1 5y ago
  > I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is much more intelligent than I am. Just wondering - what exactly makes you think so?
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Very long stream of very successful business decisions.
    - seba_dos1 5y ago
      So what you're saying is that given the exact set of capital, connections, knowledge and market conditions that Musk initially had you wouldn't be able to make business decisions like he did because you're not intelligent enough?
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        I doubt it. It takes intelligence to make the best of those resources to create a success. What's so unlikely to you about the idea that he's relatively intelligent and that's played a part in his success? People want to pretend it's all luck and connections. I don't think it is, and I think people pretend that to make themselves feel like they could have done it if only they had the same resources.
        seba_dos1 5y ago
        > What's so unlikely to you about the idea that he's relatively intelligent and that's played a part in his success? Nothing, I haven't even questioned his intelligence or said anything about him at all. I just don't have a slightest clue in how to assess his intelligence and compare it to mine based on what I know about him, which makes me wonder what's making it so obvious to you. Especially when talking about things so blurry as "business decisions", since there are so many outside factors at play in any business that one's intelligence is never a single thing that determines business success.
        5y ago
bpodgursky 5y ago
Anyone who concludes anything fuzzier than formal algebra with "absolute confidence" is probably not pushing the end of the bell curve anyway.

chrisseaton 5y ago

I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is much more intelligent than I am. I don't know why there's such a taboo over saying some people are more intelligent than others. It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value.

camehere3saydis 5y ago
> It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value. But it is, even though it actually means nothing at all. Let me try and explain. Our society prides itself on being both rational and egalitarian at the same time. Its most basic ideological paradigm basically says: "everyone is equal". Of course, that is a meaningless statement - people themselves are not quantities to be measured and compared; "everyone is equal" is just a shorthand for "everyone is just as much a human being as everyone else, regardless of the physical characteristics of their body, and deserves to be treated with equal dignity, because every person has a human mind." Now imagine a trait, "intelligence", which basically says "this person has more mind than that person". This is in contradiction with the premise of equality; in the rationalist paradigm, this is more or less equivalent to saying "this person is inherently superior than that person". So either differences in intelligence do not exist and intelligence is a meaningless signifier (perhaps a performative role ascribed by particular situations)... or rational egalitarianism is in contradiction with itself (and therefore factually wrong by the rules of its own logic). Either option is enough of a bummer that a normal person would be driven to ignore the matter entirely. Hence, the taboo.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  This definition of "rational" strangely excludes values such as reliability, endurance, initiative, charm, beauty, or leadership. But when has it ever been the case in any society for people to simply bow down to geniuses? Hasn't intelligence often taken a backseat to charm and beauty? Intelligence is but one value competing in an ecology of values.
  - loopz 5y ago
    After someone died, it's ok to revere a person. Generally, it's unhealthy to put alive people on pedestals too.
  - camehere3saydis 5y ago
    I'm not trying to redefine rationality. I'm referring to [Rationalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism), a system of values which is fundamental to the modern Western world, and trying to point out that it is inherently flawed and essentially self-contradictory exactly because its hinges on notions like "rationality" and "intelligence" but in practice anyone is free to redefine those to whatever suits the situation. I'm not trying to put "intelligence" or "geniuses" on a pedestal, though I would argue they're already being put there by our culture's norms. If they were really so important, wouldn't people be a lot more outraged about faulty definitions and fallacious reasoning? Instead, we get sarcastic variants of the "well, ackshyually" meme any time anyone insists that correct reasoning is a prerequisite for a meaningful conversation, and indeed colloquial language doesn't really optimize for the use case of honest, unambiguous representations of reality
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > this is more or less equivalent to saying "this person is inherently superior than that person" Strong disagree. Intelligence is not a more valuable attribute than any other. Concrete example: there's no point being a more intelligent officer in the Army if you aren't able to physically get yourself to the fight in time and someone else who's less intelligent but is more fit is there on time to have an impact.
  - camehere3saydis 5y ago
    >a more intelligent person is inherently superior I also disagree with this statement. >a "more intelligent" person is defined as "having more consciousness" which, in a system that ascribes value to humanity and consciousness, is equivalent to saying that a more intelligent person is "more of a person", and therefore inherently "superior in value" This is what I meant. Do you still disagree with this statement? And, well... should I make my posts more detailed or less, considering they fail to communicate the idea? Or should I go back to just saying nothing?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
BallCramp 5y ago
> I don't know why there's such a taboo over saying some people are more intelligent than others. Makes it easier to seed resentment and division. There's a notable cohort of ideologically-possessed individuals whose mission in life seems to be flatly denying the existence of meritocracy. If everyone is as smart as the smartest people in the world (and we'll repeat this until it's accepted as true), then some injustice logically must be taking place. Our ideology just so happens to have a solution to address this, so you should give us power. It's a pattern that's been playing out for a while now.
seba_dos1 5y ago
> I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is much more intelligent than I am. Just wondering - what exactly makes you think so?
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Very long stream of very successful business decisions.
  - seba_dos1 5y ago
    So what you're saying is that given the exact set of capital, connections, knowledge and market conditions that Musk initially had you wouldn't be able to make business decisions like he did because you're not intelligent enough?
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      I doubt it. It takes intelligence to make the best of those resources to create a success. What's so unlikely to you about the idea that he's relatively intelligent and that's played a part in his success? People want to pretend it's all luck and connections. I don't think it is, and I think people pretend that to make themselves feel like they could have done it if only they had the same resources.
      - seba_dos1 5y ago
        > What's so unlikely to you about the idea that he's relatively intelligent and that's played a part in his success? Nothing, I haven't even questioned his intelligence or said anything about him at all. I just don't have a slightest clue in how to assess his intelligence and compare it to mine based on what I know about him, which makes me wonder what's making it so obvious to you. Especially when talking about things so blurry as "business decisions", since there are so many outside factors at play in any business that one's intelligence is never a single thing that determines business success.
        5y ago

bpodgursky 5y ago

Anyone who concludes anything fuzzier than formal algebra with "absolute confidence" is probably not pushing the end of the bell curve anyway.