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I guess we need to define precisely what we mean by cognitive strength. Living in the modern world successfully requires you to understand things like understan

I guess we need to define precisely what we mean by cognitive strength. Living in the modern world successfully requires you to understand things like understanding interest rates, monthly payments, and logging into your bank website to check the balance on your account. The amount of intelligence required for that is either greater, or we are talking about a different kind of intelligence, than the kind that required you to hunt and find shelter in caves.

jholman 13y ago
You are absolutely proving my point. No, modern life provably does not require any of those skills in order to stay fed and warm and dry. For example, zero of my cousins (I have two cousins) have ANY of those three skills, and both of them have survived into their thirties. I wouldn't be shocked if one of them had reproduced, in fact (if so, I pity the female involved). On the other hand, all three of those skills help to "determine how well we function in these new surroundings" of modern culture. The minimum intelligence requirements to stay fed and warm and dry, in modern society, are far lower today than any time in the history or pre-history of "humanity". Just like with the minimum requirements for strength. This isn't even a claim about social safety nets. Society is just so rich, food is just so cheap, that you can be a pretty crappy contributor, and even so some other smart guy will figure out how to put you to work, to his profit, and give you just enough to live. It's a good time to be a loser. (It's a great time to be a winner.) (Oh, and also, I happen to disagree that the intelligence required to understand monthly payments or logging into a website is greater than that for reliably hunting or finding reliable shelter. Interest rates, I'm not sure. But this whole paragraph is beside my main point.)

jholman 13y ago

You are absolutely proving my point. No, modern life provably does not require any of those skills in order to stay fed and warm and dry. For example, zero of my cousins (I have two cousins) have ANY of those three skills, and both of them have survived into their thirties. I wouldn't be shocked if one of them had reproduced, in fact (if so, I pity the female involved). On the other hand, all three of those skills help to "determine how well we function in these new surroundings" of modern culture. The minimum intelligence requirements to stay fed and warm and dry, in modern society, are far lower today than any time in the history or pre-history of "humanity". Just like with the minimum requirements for strength. This isn't even a claim about social safety nets. Society is just so rich, food is just so cheap, that you can be a pretty crappy contributor, and even so some other smart guy will figure out how to put you to work, to his profit, and give you just enough to live. It's a good time to be a loser. (It's a great time to be a winner.) (Oh, and also, I happen to disagree that the intelligence required to understand monthly payments or logging into a website is greater than that for reliably hunting or finding reliable shelter. Interest rates, I'm not sure. But this whole paragraph is beside my main point.)