4 ms·

You do need both, and therein lies the problem. If you don't have the IQ, your hard work is meaningless.

PartiallyTyped 5y ago
That’s absurd. Discoveries are rarely made by lone scientists, progress is made by tens or hundreds of people, each exploiting their comparable advantage, even if that is digging ditches.
- fuzzfactor 5y ago
  >Discoveries are rarely made by lone scientists Any more. Because they are not in the mainstream. To overcome this you better not be intimidated by however hard the work is.
TameAntelope 5y ago
Yes, you need both to be the best in the world in a given field, but why is that a problem?
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  That is not a problem. The problem I see is touting the value of hard work to people who may not have the requisite IQ to go along with it for their desired outcome (Best in the world in their field, for example). You said, Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general". I think it's actually understated in general. Telling people who don't have the mental horse power to, "work harder", is cruel. Would you tell someone with an IQ of 100 to "work harder" if they wanted to be a Software Engineer/Lawyer/etc?
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    While I agree there is a certain threshold of skills below which one can't really function as a lawyer/software dev, after passing that threshold your IQ matters less. There is the top 1% or even 0.01% of performers out there and then there is the rest of us. The difference between a software dev with an IQ of 115 or 125 doesn't sound that big to me. A lot in their careers will depend on their people skills and work ethics more so than on their IQ. This is especially true for jobs like lawyers or even doctors, but if we go back to software development - a lot of it is quite repititive and actually favors well people with strong work ethic. Unless you work on cutting edge algorithmic computer science stuff (which isn't really software development), we all keep building classes and models and glueing libraries together; or we gain some deep knowledge in some mobile platform or even some embedded programming. Even stuff that sounds super complex to a web developer like Kernel development probably gets repititive after awhile.
    - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
      Yes, I agree. If we're talking about a normal career then having 115 vs 125 IQ probably won't make much of a difference compared to being diligent. However, I think that if you want to be a very high performer IQ might be a hindrance. For someone like Musk or Jobs I think it definitely is.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    There is no requisite IQ, and I absolutely would tell someone with a definitionally average 100 IQ to "work hard" to become a software engineer/lawyer, as they could be in the absolute top of their field if they did.
    - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
      You really believe that? Do you think there is any threshold then? Could it be done by an 80-90 IQ person?
      - TameAntelope 5y ago
        There's probably a limit to how much "work hard" can make someone competent/successful in any field, and it'd guess it's around 85, or 1 standard deviation lower than average. If IQ is important to you, I think you'd be quite alarmed by the number of successful doctors and lawyers who don't meet the 100 IQ bar you're setting here.
        ZephyrBlu 5y ago
        IQ range by occupation: https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx The 10th percentile of MDs is still above 100. The 10th percent of legal occupations is 100. Also: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-IQ-of-a-medical-doctor https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-IQ-of-a-medical-do... Sources + people's estimates place the average IQ of a doctor well above 100. You seem very out of touch if you think that there's a large proportion of doctors and lawyers who have an IQ below 100. IQ isn't important to me, it's just reality. The difference between 100 IQ and 120 IQ (For instance) is palpable and you can't overcome that with hard work.
        TameAntelope 5y ago
        Who said anything about 10th percentile? There is no universal ranking of doctors, you can't really claim "percentile of success" for doctors or lawyers, and it's weird you're trying to do so. Why is it so important to you that you have to be "smart" to be a doctor/lawyer?
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Wow, I expected broken money systems to twist people's minds but not to this extent. Of course, in a broken money and work system there is a cutoff point for IQ at which corporations decide who to hire. The inverse position is that money isn't wealth. It's work and the product of our work that is wealth. Therefore willingness to work should be proportionally rewarded with work. Of course, since corporations hire whole individuals no such thing happens. Instead, work that could have been allocated to two people fairly is allocated to one person. Now employers have to think of hard to cheat measures to determine the person who the work will be allocated to. The IQ cutoff point is the result. The chosen one then gets to feel superior because he both has the intellectual, moral and financial upper hand while he simultaneously gets to chastise the lazy, stupid, poor hobo. It is so easy to rebrand this process as "personal responsibility".
    - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
      This is not really what I meant or how I view this, though I completely agree with this: > The chosen one then gets to feel superior because he both has the intellectual, moral and financial upper hand while he simultaneously gets to chastise the lazy, stupid, poor hobo. It is so easy to rebrand this process as "personal responsibility". Regardless of whether companies have their own cutoff point, competition amongst people will create a natural cutoff point. If there are a limited number of jobs, people will have to compete for those jobs. Sought after jobs will attract more people and have fiercer competition. More intelligent people will generally outcompete less intelligent people for these jobs, and so a natural IQ cutoff will form.
fuzzfactor 5y ago
I see no reason to downvote, I agree, >You do need both This has been proven to me over and over. >therein lies the problem. But I see no problem. >If you don't have the IQ, your hard work is meaningless. I don't think meaningless if it's well guided, it can still get each person further if they do go there.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  > I don't think meaningless if it's well guided, it can still get each person further if they do go there Sure, I don't think hard work is a bad thing as long as people temper their expectations. The issue I have is that hard work often seems to be touted as a magic pill for success.

That’s absurd. Discoveries are rarely made by lone scientists, progress is made by tens or hundreds of people, each exploiting their comparable advantage, even if that is digging ditches.

fuzzfactor 5y ago
>Discoveries are rarely made by lone scientists Any more. Because they are not in the mainstream. To overcome this you better not be intimidated by however hard the work is.

TameAntelope 5y ago

Yes, you need both to be the best in the world in a given field, but why is that a problem?

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
That is not a problem. The problem I see is touting the value of hard work to people who may not have the requisite IQ to go along with it for their desired outcome (Best in the world in their field, for example). You said, Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general". I think it's actually understated in general. Telling people who don't have the mental horse power to, "work harder", is cruel. Would you tell someone with an IQ of 100 to "work harder" if they wanted to be a Software Engineer/Lawyer/etc?
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  While I agree there is a certain threshold of skills below which one can't really function as a lawyer/software dev, after passing that threshold your IQ matters less. There is the top 1% or even 0.01% of performers out there and then there is the rest of us. The difference between a software dev with an IQ of 115 or 125 doesn't sound that big to me. A lot in their careers will depend on their people skills and work ethics more so than on their IQ. This is especially true for jobs like lawyers or even doctors, but if we go back to software development - a lot of it is quite repititive and actually favors well people with strong work ethic. Unless you work on cutting edge algorithmic computer science stuff (which isn't really software development), we all keep building classes and models and glueing libraries together; or we gain some deep knowledge in some mobile platform or even some embedded programming. Even stuff that sounds super complex to a web developer like Kernel development probably gets repititive after awhile.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    Yes, I agree. If we're talking about a normal career then having 115 vs 125 IQ probably won't make much of a difference compared to being diligent. However, I think that if you want to be a very high performer IQ might be a hindrance. For someone like Musk or Jobs I think it definitely is.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  There is no requisite IQ, and I absolutely would tell someone with a definitionally average 100 IQ to "work hard" to become a software engineer/lawyer, as they could be in the absolute top of their field if they did.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    You really believe that? Do you think there is any threshold then? Could it be done by an 80-90 IQ person?
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      There's probably a limit to how much "work hard" can make someone competent/successful in any field, and it'd guess it's around 85, or 1 standard deviation lower than average. If IQ is important to you, I think you'd be quite alarmed by the number of successful doctors and lawyers who don't meet the 100 IQ bar you're setting here.
      - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
        IQ range by occupation: https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx The 10th percentile of MDs is still above 100. The 10th percent of legal occupations is 100. Also: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-IQ-of-a-medical-doctor https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-IQ-of-a-medical-do... Sources + people's estimates place the average IQ of a doctor well above 100. You seem very out of touch if you think that there's a large proportion of doctors and lawyers who have an IQ below 100. IQ isn't important to me, it's just reality. The difference between 100 IQ and 120 IQ (For instance) is palpable and you can't overcome that with hard work.
        TameAntelope 5y ago
        Who said anything about 10th percentile? There is no universal ranking of doctors, you can't really claim "percentile of success" for doctors or lawyers, and it's weird you're trying to do so. Why is it so important to you that you have to be "smart" to be a doctor/lawyer?
- imtringued 5y ago
  Wow, I expected broken money systems to twist people's minds but not to this extent. Of course, in a broken money and work system there is a cutoff point for IQ at which corporations decide who to hire. The inverse position is that money isn't wealth. It's work and the product of our work that is wealth. Therefore willingness to work should be proportionally rewarded with work. Of course, since corporations hire whole individuals no such thing happens. Instead, work that could have been allocated to two people fairly is allocated to one person. Now employers have to think of hard to cheat measures to determine the person who the work will be allocated to. The IQ cutoff point is the result. The chosen one then gets to feel superior because he both has the intellectual, moral and financial upper hand while he simultaneously gets to chastise the lazy, stupid, poor hobo. It is so easy to rebrand this process as "personal responsibility".
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    This is not really what I meant or how I view this, though I completely agree with this: > The chosen one then gets to feel superior because he both has the intellectual, moral and financial upper hand while he simultaneously gets to chastise the lazy, stupid, poor hobo. It is so easy to rebrand this process as "personal responsibility". Regardless of whether companies have their own cutoff point, competition amongst people will create a natural cutoff point. If there are a limited number of jobs, people will have to compete for those jobs. Sought after jobs will attract more people and have fiercer competition. More intelligent people will generally outcompete less intelligent people for these jobs, and so a natural IQ cutoff will form.

fuzzfactor 5y ago

I see no reason to downvote, I agree, >You do need both This has been proven to me over and over. >therein lies the problem. But I see no problem. >If you don't have the IQ, your hard work is meaningless. I don't think meaningless if it's well guided, it can still get each person further if they do go there.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
> I don't think meaningless if it's well guided, it can still get each person further if they do go there Sure, I don't think hard work is a bad thing as long as people temper their expectations. The issue I have is that hard work often seems to be touted as a magic pill for success.