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I dislike the notion that some individuals are off the scale on cleverness. It's easy enough to arrive at the conclusion that a person who is dimmer than us is

I dislike the notion that some individuals are off the scale on cleverness. It's easy enough to arrive at the conclusion that a person who is dimmer than us is cognitively challenged; it's much harder to assess the smarts of someone who is smarter than us. Is he 1% smarter than me? 10% smarter? Hell, 100% smarter? All I know is that he understands stuff that I don't, and solves crosswords faster. But I don't believe that anyone is so much smarter than the average that they need to be paid 100x what I could earn.

fnordpiglet 4y ago
Ok. But since you’re walking a distribution if you keep applying that without insight into how much smarter, just smarter, you’ll understand the tail. Identify A as smarter than B A identifies A’ A’ identifies A’’ … There’s no need to know the quantified smartness, just the ordinal smartness.
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
> and solves crosswords faster I like this example, especially, as we're all aware, you can get better at both crosswords and IQ tests with practice.
bena 4y ago
> I dislike the notion that some individuals are off the scale on cleverness. Why not? You accept that some individuals are off the scale of various physical abilities. That try as you might, you'll never be the fastest or tallest or strongest. What makes intelligence different? Why should we believe that everyone is roughly equal in intelligence? If you are mediocre in obvious ways, what's left? Everyone wants to be good at something. Everyone wants to be better at something than others. But it is fairly obvious with anything with a physical component. I am a mediocre guitar player. I am not tall. I am not fast. I am not exceptionally strong. These are things that can be sussed out fairly quickly with some basic tests. But intelligence. Well. That's not only fluid, but it's also abstract. What does it mean to have an IQ of 129 versus an IQ of 130. Especially when one could score both depending on how much sleep one has had. So you can just say IQ is bullshit. Intelligence don't real. Everyone is smart in their own way. No. That's just simply not true. Yes, one could test differently based on conditions. However, it will fall within a range. Which is why IQ is often expressed as a range. If you score a 129, you'll be within the 125-135 group or something. And it's just like with physical traits. Like right now, I will be much slower than normal because my quadriceps are fucking cooked. I overexerted myself and I'm sore as shit. Even though I am not normally fast, timing me now wouldn't give an accurate representation of my average speed. And you can tell when someone has spent any time among the truly gifted. Because running into people like this is something else. They will come into a situation blind, get what you've already gotten, and then make a realization you'd never would have. They do process on a different level. And it's not about knowledge. It's not how much they know. It's about how fast they can acquire that knowledge, understand it, and then build upon it. It's how they can relate knowledge from different areas in new and novel ways. People who have spent time with the truly gifted know there's a such thing as intelligence. People who have only spent time with people who are average to above average have never actually seen intelligence at work.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > You accept that some individuals are off the scale of various physical abilities. No I don't! I'm getting on, and not very fit; I can run about 30 yards, slowly, before I run out of steam. But even Olympic runners can't run 100x faster than me. I know how fast Olympic runners can run. > Why should we believe that everyone is roughly equal in intelligence? Why, indeed. Why do you think that I believe that? > Which is why IQ is often expressed as a range. I have avoided mention of IQ; I don't think it's equivalent to intelligence. > and then make a realization you'd never would have. Yes, of course. I've met a lot of people that are quicker on the uptake than I am. But I'm sorry; "truly gifted" suggests there's some kind of magic going on. I don't believe in magic, and I don't believe in gifts from the gods. And I don't believe that there are people that are orders of magnitude smarter than the average; my observation was simply that average people like me aren't in a position to estimate the smarts of brighter people. So there is a tendency to assume there's magic occurring; that they aren't just brighter, but there's some other ingredient. There's no magic ingredient; we're all made roughly the same way, from the same ingredients.
  - bena 4y ago
    I think you believe that because you say basically that. Then you say that you don't believe there are people that are orders of magnitude smarter than the average. There are. There's no magic. Just like the fact Usain Bolt running the 100m dash in 9.58 seconds isn't magic. No one else has been capable of reproducing that feat. Including people who train to do exactly that. And I don't suggest there is magic. You're forcing an argument on me that I am not making. IQ is as good a measure of intelligence as there is. IQ is not a measure of human worth. IQ is not a measure of success. IQ is not a measure of a lot of things. IQ is the rough measure of the raw processing power of a human brain. I am simply pointing out that intelligence is no different than any other attribute one can possess. And some people possess it at the extremes.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      > Usain Bolt running the 100m dash in 9.58 seconds isn't magic Sure it is. But it's not orders of magnitude. > IQ is the rough measure of the raw processing power of a human brain. [citation needed] That claim is both specific and vague at the same time. I'll try to work out how you did that :-)
somenameforme 4y ago
Distributions of human skill that we can measure tend to be on long-tailed power scale distributions. Chess is one of the most obvious examples of this. Chess world champions tend to be just dramatically better than the 2nd best players in the world. One early 20th century world champion (Emanuel Lasker) retained (and actively defended) his title for 27 years! And he was also a research mathematician (who made some significant discoveries) and more 'on the side'. And while that exact stretch remains unbroken, similar levels of dominance in the game are typical. Kasparov was world champion for 15 years. And in current times Magnus Carlsen has been world champion for about a decade, and #1 in the world (by a wide margin) for years beyond that. On things we can't measure, one can observe facts like the open problem that Einstein would go on to solve (in his twenties, while working at a patent office) was being dug into by countless brilliant minds, to no avail, since Einstein was 8 years old! And his work after that point makes it clear it wasn't just a freak coincidence. --- I definitely do think there are plenty who are "that much" smarter than average, but I don't think they need to be paid to succeed. Nor do I think one having an official affirmation that he is a "genius" is conducive to clear-headedness. It naturally drives a sense of entitlement, and can be detrimental to actually putting in the work necessary to make things happen. All the potential in the world is irrelevant without a corresponding work ethic.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  Chess is an interesting example. I learned to play chess as a kid. I never got even slightly good; people that were dimmer than me could beat me easily. But how many chess grandmasters are also fabulously wealthy CEOs? They tend to stay chess-players. I'm curious about what skill in chess consists of. It seems to correspond to general cognitive capacity; but that's certainly not all of it.
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    People aspire to different things. It's difficult to explain if you've never really gotten seriously into chess, but the game is, by far, one of the most satisfying and rewarding activities in existence. You can put infinite mental energy into the game and continue to get ever more out of it. It is extremely addictive, especially once one reaches a certain level in the game. If I had the choice of retiring to a life endless beaches and scantily clad ladies delivering me all the drinks and pleasures of life one could imagine, or retiring to a [safe] ghetto full of nothing but old highly skilled chess players - I would pick #2 in a heart beat. There are plenty of chess player anecdotes along the lines of Gata Kamsky. He became frustrated with his progress in chess at some point (as one of the best in the world, but not the best in the world) and just casually decided to become a lawyer. So he did that and breezed through law school and set himself to a traditional path of money and even power. But, as is always the end of these stories, the game called him back. Today he streams himself playing chess for hours a day (on Twitch) to an audience of tens and is clearly more content and satisfied than ever.

fnordpiglet 4y ago

Ok. But since you’re walking a distribution if you keep applying that without insight into how much smarter, just smarter, you’ll understand the tail. Identify A as smarter than B A identifies A’ A’ identifies A’’ … There’s no need to know the quantified smartness, just the ordinal smartness.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

> and solves crosswords faster I like this example, especially, as we're all aware, you can get better at both crosswords and IQ tests with practice.

bena 4y ago

> I dislike the notion that some individuals are off the scale on cleverness. Why not? You accept that some individuals are off the scale of various physical abilities. That try as you might, you'll never be the fastest or tallest or strongest. What makes intelligence different? Why should we believe that everyone is roughly equal in intelligence? If you are mediocre in obvious ways, what's left? Everyone wants to be good at something. Everyone wants to be better at something than others. But it is fairly obvious with anything with a physical component. I am a mediocre guitar player. I am not tall. I am not fast. I am not exceptionally strong. These are things that can be sussed out fairly quickly with some basic tests. But intelligence. Well. That's not only fluid, but it's also abstract. What does it mean to have an IQ of 129 versus an IQ of 130. Especially when one could score both depending on how much sleep one has had. So you can just say IQ is bullshit. Intelligence don't real. Everyone is smart in their own way. No. That's just simply not true. Yes, one could test differently based on conditions. However, it will fall within a range. Which is why IQ is often expressed as a range. If you score a 129, you'll be within the 125-135 group or something. And it's just like with physical traits. Like right now, I will be much slower than normal because my quadriceps are fucking cooked. I overexerted myself and I'm sore as shit. Even though I am not normally fast, timing me now wouldn't give an accurate representation of my average speed. And you can tell when someone has spent any time among the truly gifted. Because running into people like this is something else. They will come into a situation blind, get what you've already gotten, and then make a realization you'd never would have. They do process on a different level. And it's not about knowledge. It's not how much they know. It's about how fast they can acquire that knowledge, understand it, and then build upon it. It's how they can relate knowledge from different areas in new and novel ways. People who have spent time with the truly gifted know there's a such thing as intelligence. People who have only spent time with people who are average to above average have never actually seen intelligence at work.

denton-scratch 4y ago
> You accept that some individuals are off the scale of various physical abilities. No I don't! I'm getting on, and not very fit; I can run about 30 yards, slowly, before I run out of steam. But even Olympic runners can't run 100x faster than me. I know how fast Olympic runners can run. > Why should we believe that everyone is roughly equal in intelligence? Why, indeed. Why do you think that I believe that? > Which is why IQ is often expressed as a range. I have avoided mention of IQ; I don't think it's equivalent to intelligence. > and then make a realization you'd never would have. Yes, of course. I've met a lot of people that are quicker on the uptake than I am. But I'm sorry; "truly gifted" suggests there's some kind of magic going on. I don't believe in magic, and I don't believe in gifts from the gods. And I don't believe that there are people that are orders of magnitude smarter than the average; my observation was simply that average people like me aren't in a position to estimate the smarts of brighter people. So there is a tendency to assume there's magic occurring; that they aren't just brighter, but there's some other ingredient. There's no magic ingredient; we're all made roughly the same way, from the same ingredients.
- bena 4y ago
  I think you believe that because you say basically that. Then you say that you don't believe there are people that are orders of magnitude smarter than the average. There are. There's no magic. Just like the fact Usain Bolt running the 100m dash in 9.58 seconds isn't magic. No one else has been capable of reproducing that feat. Including people who train to do exactly that. And I don't suggest there is magic. You're forcing an argument on me that I am not making. IQ is as good a measure of intelligence as there is. IQ is not a measure of human worth. IQ is not a measure of success. IQ is not a measure of a lot of things. IQ is the rough measure of the raw processing power of a human brain. I am simply pointing out that intelligence is no different than any other attribute one can possess. And some people possess it at the extremes.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > Usain Bolt running the 100m dash in 9.58 seconds isn't magic Sure it is. But it's not orders of magnitude. > IQ is the rough measure of the raw processing power of a human brain. [citation needed] That claim is both specific and vague at the same time. I'll try to work out how you did that :-)

somenameforme 4y ago

Distributions of human skill that we can measure tend to be on long-tailed power scale distributions. Chess is one of the most obvious examples of this. Chess world champions tend to be just dramatically better than the 2nd best players in the world. One early 20th century world champion (Emanuel Lasker) retained (and actively defended) his title for 27 years! And he was also a research mathematician (who made some significant discoveries) and more 'on the side'. And while that exact stretch remains unbroken, similar levels of dominance in the game are typical. Kasparov was world champion for 15 years. And in current times Magnus Carlsen has been world champion for about a decade, and #1 in the world (by a wide margin) for years beyond that. On things we can't measure, one can observe facts like the open problem that Einstein would go on to solve (in his twenties, while working at a patent office) was being dug into by countless brilliant minds, to no avail, since Einstein was 8 years old! And his work after that point makes it clear it wasn't just a freak coincidence. --- I definitely do think there are plenty who are "that much" smarter than average, but I don't think they need to be paid to succeed. Nor do I think one having an official affirmation that he is a "genius" is conducive to clear-headedness. It naturally drives a sense of entitlement, and can be detrimental to actually putting in the work necessary to make things happen. All the potential in the world is irrelevant without a corresponding work ethic.

denton-scratch 4y ago
Chess is an interesting example. I learned to play chess as a kid. I never got even slightly good; people that were dimmer than me could beat me easily. But how many chess grandmasters are also fabulously wealthy CEOs? They tend to stay chess-players. I'm curious about what skill in chess consists of. It seems to correspond to general cognitive capacity; but that's certainly not all of it.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  People aspire to different things. It's difficult to explain if you've never really gotten seriously into chess, but the game is, by far, one of the most satisfying and rewarding activities in existence. You can put infinite mental energy into the game and continue to get ever more out of it. It is extremely addictive, especially once one reaches a certain level in the game. If I had the choice of retiring to a life endless beaches and scantily clad ladies delivering me all the drinks and pleasures of life one could imagine, or retiring to a [safe] ghetto full of nothing but old highly skilled chess players - I would pick #2 in a heart beat. There are plenty of chess player anecdotes along the lines of Gata Kamsky. He became frustrated with his progress in chess at some point (as one of the best in the world, but not the best in the world) and just casually decided to become a lawyer. So he did that and breezed through law school and set himself to a traditional path of money and even power. But, as is always the end of these stories, the game called him back. Today he streams himself playing chess for hours a day (on Twitch) to an audience of tens and is clearly more content and satisfied than ever.