6 ms·

I actually do think it would be great if we didn’t have so much IQ concentration in so many rather niche, high-competition, low-impact-on-daily-life arenas. A l

I actually do think it would be great if we didn’t have so much IQ concentration in so many rather niche, high-competition, low-impact-on-daily-life arenas. A lot of these people are competing in zero-sum games where their intelligence is all but canceled because of one another. If we could take half the 120+ IQ folks working at high frequency trading firms or on online advertisements and scatter them to work in local trade businesses, restaurants, civil services, etc, I think it’d be a net positive.

MeImCounting 3y ago
This. So much brain-waste in professions that generate little to no value for society. How many highly intelligent people waste their lives as lawyers doing endless corporate lawsuits or minority shareholder lawsuits or whatever other useless court proceedings? Society could allocate the resources spent on stuff like that to train more engineers or researchers. Or accounting, so many highly intelligent people spending years navigating endless mazes of occult tax law or useless bureaucratic nothingburgers who could otherwise be engineers or researchers. Such a waste
- sxg 3y ago
  How is it that society is preferentially allocating resources to creating lawyers rather than engineers or researchers? It seems to me that people chose to become lawyers, engineers, or researchers of their own free will. Sure, many researchers are government funded, so you could draw more people to that field with more resources, but I'm not seeing how society is pushing people into law over engineering at least.
  - thorncorona 3y ago
    > How is it that society is preferentially allocating resources to creating lawyers rather than engineers or researchers? money.
  - Teever 3y ago
    “If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain, do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set?”
  - MeImCounting 3y ago
    Like another commenter suggested, money. These professions are generally rather high paying and come with quite a bit of prestige. "Lawyer" is listed up there with doctor with the stereotypical aspirational jobs.
    - sxg 3y ago
      Sure, I guess I’m conflating society with government. Yeah, doctors and lawyers make more money than other professions, but those incomes are a result of innumerable positive and negative incentives (eg, cost of education, opportunity cost of education, work/life balance, “meaningfulness”). It seems nearly impossible to intentionally modify those incentives in a specific direction without causing unintended consequences elsewhere. Example: society wants more quality teachers, so society chooses to increase the federal education budget to increase teacher salaries. Consequently, more highly educated people choose to become teachers, however, this unintentionally exacerbates the doctor shortage and further increases corporate lawyer salaries due to decreased supply of lawyers.
s1artibartfast 3y ago
I dont think i get your point. you view tech as low-impact, then offer restaurants or civil cervices as an alternative? why are those higher impact? for what it is worth, IQ of 120 is pretty tame e.g. 1 in 10 people and I think there are lots of smart people that DO work in trades, restaurants, and civil services. I am friends with many .
- sudosysgen 3y ago
  Not all tech, of course, but a lot of tech (eg, HFT and adtech) is zero-sum, so it's low impact by definition.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    I think I see. You are framing impact ( I think) as something similar to net positive utils in a utilitarian framework
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      If I am an HFT engineer, making a faster trading platform literally has very little impact. It doesn't create any value, it just moves value from the slower guy to the faster guy. Then all the HFT companies hire smarter engineers and all improve their latency just as much, and there is literally zero impact to society.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        I get the zero sum part, it is the other part that was less clear to me. Eg having an iq 120 dmv teller or server at brunch or But then again, I disagree with your premise that these other careers are intelligence starved - some of my smartest friends do them. I think rather those careers are simply more stifling and less creative. That is to say your HFT seems flashy because they are doing novel work in a developing area. If they were in the civil service, they probably wouldn't be reinventing the wheel, but just an efficient bureaucrat.

MeImCounting 3y ago

This. So much brain-waste in professions that generate little to no value for society. How many highly intelligent people waste their lives as lawyers doing endless corporate lawsuits or minority shareholder lawsuits or whatever other useless court proceedings? Society could allocate the resources spent on stuff like that to train more engineers or researchers. Or accounting, so many highly intelligent people spending years navigating endless mazes of occult tax law or useless bureaucratic nothingburgers who could otherwise be engineers or researchers. Such a waste

sxg 3y ago
How is it that society is preferentially allocating resources to creating lawyers rather than engineers or researchers? It seems to me that people chose to become lawyers, engineers, or researchers of their own free will. Sure, many researchers are government funded, so you could draw more people to that field with more resources, but I'm not seeing how society is pushing people into law over engineering at least.
- thorncorona 3y ago
  > How is it that society is preferentially allocating resources to creating lawyers rather than engineers or researchers? money.
- Teever 3y ago
  “If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain, do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set?”
- MeImCounting 3y ago
  Like another commenter suggested, money. These professions are generally rather high paying and come with quite a bit of prestige. "Lawyer" is listed up there with doctor with the stereotypical aspirational jobs.
  - sxg 3y ago
    Sure, I guess I’m conflating society with government. Yeah, doctors and lawyers make more money than other professions, but those incomes are a result of innumerable positive and negative incentives (eg, cost of education, opportunity cost of education, work/life balance, “meaningfulness”). It seems nearly impossible to intentionally modify those incentives in a specific direction without causing unintended consequences elsewhere. Example: society wants more quality teachers, so society chooses to increase the federal education budget to increase teacher salaries. Consequently, more highly educated people choose to become teachers, however, this unintentionally exacerbates the doctor shortage and further increases corporate lawyer salaries due to decreased supply of lawyers.

s1artibartfast 3y ago

I dont think i get your point. you view tech as low-impact, then offer restaurants or civil cervices as an alternative? why are those higher impact? for what it is worth, IQ of 120 is pretty tame e.g. 1 in 10 people and I think there are lots of smart people that DO work in trades, restaurants, and civil services. I am friends with many .

sudosysgen 3y ago
Not all tech, of course, but a lot of tech (eg, HFT and adtech) is zero-sum, so it's low impact by definition.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  I think I see. You are framing impact ( I think) as something similar to net positive utils in a utilitarian framework
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    If I am an HFT engineer, making a faster trading platform literally has very little impact. It doesn't create any value, it just moves value from the slower guy to the faster guy. Then all the HFT companies hire smarter engineers and all improve their latency just as much, and there is literally zero impact to society.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      I get the zero sum part, it is the other part that was less clear to me. Eg having an iq 120 dmv teller or server at brunch or But then again, I disagree with your premise that these other careers are intelligence starved - some of my smartest friends do them. I think rather those careers are simply more stifling and less creative. That is to say your HFT seems flashy because they are doing novel work in a developing area. If they were in the civil service, they probably wouldn't be reinventing the wheel, but just an efficient bureaucrat.