4 ms·

There's a good HL Mencken quote about the likelihood of people getting collectively smarter: "No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the re

There's a good HL Mencken quote about the likelihood of people getting collectively smarter: "No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. "

revskill 4y ago
That's why i said "as people get smarter", it's for the great mass of plain people.
komali2 4y ago
I feel quite strongly about this. Aligning society along a hierarchy of "intelligence" is really just aligning it on a hierarchy of access to education, which is just a function of economic class privilege (or racial class privilege really, these are tightly integrated even today in many societies for historical or otherwise reasons). Therefore I believe that as our society reaches for further egalitarianism, this hierarchy of "intelligence" should flatten, imo towards people being more knowledgeable. Not like you need to take away people's Harvard PHDs to make sure every American has what they need to at least graduate highschool, or, you know, be able to read. I don't necessarily agree that greater education leads to greater invulnerability to ads and the modern poisons in our society: most of my friends are smarter than me by many measures, and yet as far as I know I'm the only one not at least mildly addicted to Instagram and co., despite all of us often having conversations where we all seem to agree that that shits bad for you. Nah it takes something other than knowledge / educational privilege, i don't know what specifically, but something else.
- jongjong 4y ago
  It's worse than that. It's not about education anymore but pure credentialism. Did you study at MIT, Harvard or Yale? Did you work at FAANG? No? Then surely you must be an idiot. Nevermind all these difficult projects you worked on. Nevermind that your ex colleagues gave you glowing references. Nevermind all your open source projects. Nevermind that the project you led and worked on has never been hacked in 3 years in spite of having hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. It's all worthless because I don't see any fancy branding in your resume.
  - spritefs 4y ago
    > It's all worthless because I don't see any fancy branding in your resume. According to who exactly? Some stupid person somewhere? Why should anyone here care?
    - jongjong 4y ago
      According to people (especially HR people) who work at any large company... Or just about any company which has any money at all to hire people.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- spritefs 4y ago
  > Aligning society along a hierarchy of "intelligence" is really just aligning it on a hierarchy of access to education, which is just a function of economic class privilege (or racial class privilege really, these are tightly integrated even today in many societies for historical or otherwise reasons). This is the claim: intelligence is just some combination of education, class, and race Let's state the obvious here: genetics. Why did you conveniently leave that one out? Are you in denial about (inherently) stupid people existing or something? Can you prove that they don't exist? Also, before you assume I'm being more specific: I'm not saying equal access to education is a wasted endeavor. Sure, make the public school system good in rich and poor areas But we're talking about intelligence in general here, so leaving genetics out is just avoiding the obvious because it isn't politically satisfying
  - astrange 4y ago
    This is cope. Nobody goes around denying Down's syndrome exists, so when you say "they're denying genetics" you actually mean "they're denying it except for all the times they don't". Nevertheless I do deny it. Genes don't cause anything, they just sit there in nucleuses. If you don't include the entire causal chain you're not serious either.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - komali2 4y ago
    Can you demonstrate that genetic factors play a stronger part in how our society defines "intelligence" than the things I mentioned? I doubt this can be demonstrated to have a much stronger effect than educational opportunities, which is a function of class, which in some societies, such as American society, is a function partially of race, for historical and contemporary reasons, as well as a function of economic condition (the two are inexorably linked for reason of generational wealth). > leaving genetics out is just avoiding the obvious because it isn't politically satisfying I'm very much of the opinion, and as far as I understand it research backs me up here, that while of course various aspects of intelligence can be affected by genetics, the overall outcomes are vastly more affected by things we have lots of control over, such as the egalitarianian-ness of our society, than things we don't really have control over, such as each individual's genetics (and do we want to go down the path of structuring our hierarchies around this? shall I go get the swath of sci fi warning against this?) You seem to disagree, not sure why, though I'm curious! > Are you in denial about (inherently) stupid people existing or something? Nope, just seems mostly irrelevant in this conversation. What's the point of talking about genetics here? How about we do achieve educational access egalitarian, truly, and we find out some people aren't doing quite as good of art, or writing quite as good as poetry, or dreaming up quite as interesting apps, or doing engineering quite as fast, because they lost a genes lottery. Do you think it's a good idea to start structuring hierarchies around this? Seems cruel and pointless to me.
- idlewords 4y ago
  There is no hierarchy of intelligence. Stupidity is independent of IQ.

revskill 4y ago

That's why i said "as people get smarter", it's for the great mass of plain people.

komali2 4y ago

I feel quite strongly about this. Aligning society along a hierarchy of "intelligence" is really just aligning it on a hierarchy of access to education, which is just a function of economic class privilege (or racial class privilege really, these are tightly integrated even today in many societies for historical or otherwise reasons). Therefore I believe that as our society reaches for further egalitarianism, this hierarchy of "intelligence" should flatten, imo towards people being more knowledgeable. Not like you need to take away people's Harvard PHDs to make sure every American has what they need to at least graduate highschool, or, you know, be able to read. I don't necessarily agree that greater education leads to greater invulnerability to ads and the modern poisons in our society: most of my friends are smarter than me by many measures, and yet as far as I know I'm the only one not at least mildly addicted to Instagram and co., despite all of us often having conversations where we all seem to agree that that shits bad for you. Nah it takes something other than knowledge / educational privilege, i don't know what specifically, but something else.

jongjong 4y ago
It's worse than that. It's not about education anymore but pure credentialism. Did you study at MIT, Harvard or Yale? Did you work at FAANG? No? Then surely you must be an idiot. Nevermind all these difficult projects you worked on. Nevermind that your ex colleagues gave you glowing references. Nevermind all your open source projects. Nevermind that the project you led and worked on has never been hacked in 3 years in spite of having hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. It's all worthless because I don't see any fancy branding in your resume.
- spritefs 4y ago
  > It's all worthless because I don't see any fancy branding in your resume. According to who exactly? Some stupid person somewhere? Why should anyone here care?
  - jongjong 4y ago
    According to people (especially HR people) who work at any large company... Or just about any company which has any money at all to hire people.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
spritefs 4y ago
> Aligning society along a hierarchy of "intelligence" is really just aligning it on a hierarchy of access to education, which is just a function of economic class privilege (or racial class privilege really, these are tightly integrated even today in many societies for historical or otherwise reasons). This is the claim: intelligence is just some combination of education, class, and race Let's state the obvious here: genetics. Why did you conveniently leave that one out? Are you in denial about (inherently) stupid people existing or something? Can you prove that they don't exist? Also, before you assume I'm being more specific: I'm not saying equal access to education is a wasted endeavor. Sure, make the public school system good in rich and poor areas But we're talking about intelligence in general here, so leaving genetics out is just avoiding the obvious because it isn't politically satisfying
- astrange 4y ago
  This is cope. Nobody goes around denying Down's syndrome exists, so when you say "they're denying genetics" you actually mean "they're denying it except for all the times they don't". Nevertheless I do deny it. Genes don't cause anything, they just sit there in nucleuses. If you don't include the entire causal chain you're not serious either.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- komali2 4y ago
  Can you demonstrate that genetic factors play a stronger part in how our society defines "intelligence" than the things I mentioned? I doubt this can be demonstrated to have a much stronger effect than educational opportunities, which is a function of class, which in some societies, such as American society, is a function partially of race, for historical and contemporary reasons, as well as a function of economic condition (the two are inexorably linked for reason of generational wealth). > leaving genetics out is just avoiding the obvious because it isn't politically satisfying I'm very much of the opinion, and as far as I understand it research backs me up here, that while of course various aspects of intelligence can be affected by genetics, the overall outcomes are vastly more affected by things we have lots of control over, such as the egalitarianian-ness of our society, than things we don't really have control over, such as each individual's genetics (and do we want to go down the path of structuring our hierarchies around this? shall I go get the swath of sci fi warning against this?) You seem to disagree, not sure why, though I'm curious! > Are you in denial about (inherently) stupid people existing or something? Nope, just seems mostly irrelevant in this conversation. What's the point of talking about genetics here? How about we do achieve educational access egalitarian, truly, and we find out some people aren't doing quite as good of art, or writing quite as good as poetry, or dreaming up quite as interesting apps, or doing engineering quite as fast, because they lost a genes lottery. Do you think it's a good idea to start structuring hierarchies around this? Seems cruel and pointless to me.
idlewords 4y ago
There is no hierarchy of intelligence. Stupidity is independent of IQ.