The importance of increasing human general intelligence

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Ricky, Jul 12, 2017.

  1. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    While I agree with the idea of higher intelligence, I don't see how higher intelligence is a panacea. There are high IQ people today who have little faith in science, who can place their future in religion, who can vote for the dumbest president in the history of the USA, who can steal and lie and murder. I think we also need to look at our micro-cultures and how they can negatively effect our outcomes. For example, when government allows ghetto conditions in major cities and other areas across the nation, most of which are drug-infested, gang-infested, riddle with crime, what are the chances of school-age kids in those areas succeeding in education and higher personal performance?

    I also believe that perhaps generally speaking humans have hit an artificial wall in which we are no longer competent to manage our very complex issues today. Technology growth continues on steroids, and much of this expansion is at faster rates than the general population can conceive or understand. So it seems to me many humans are going to be left behind, going to be governed/managed by artificial intelligence. Maybe in 100 years, but not today or the near term, do I see any way to significantly increase the aggregate intelligence levels...
     
  2. Ricky

    Ricky Active Member

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    Pursuing increases in baseline intelligence does not mean we then ignore the rest of life and stop learning from the best and brightest. Yet every one of them would likely score >125 on an IQ test. The IQ test is not just arbitrary. It's a constantly evolving test that presents the best measure of general intelligence that humanity has to offer, and it's not considered completely reliable measurement until around 18-20 years of age. However you're touching on an important issue- that is, that we don't want to streamline human intellect down a single corridor. Make people who are only good at solving math problems, or something similar. These are rational concerns that can be accounted for if we don't rush to judgement.
     
  3. Ricky

    Ricky Active Member

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    Undoubtedly. Increasing baseline intelligence is a project that doesn't mean we stop improving our society in other ways, but one can hope that by increasing general intelligence we may also increase the resources from which we draw to combat these issues. However statistically, high IQ people do have faith in the scientific method and are not particularly religious.

    The wall you speak of only exacerbates the need to increase human intelligence. Most AI specialists surveyed that artificial general intelligence is about 20-200 years out. That is to say- they have no idea. There are rapid advancements in genome mapping and CRISPR happening alongside machine learning. Genetic engineering is becoming a reality, but if it's not pursued openly as a public project then it will likely remain within the confines of private organizations and military labs.
     
  4. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    You may not believe in IQ, or regard it as important, but it seems that it's becoming a more important feature of getting along in modern life, particularly when it comes to employment. As jobs are automated to robotics and AI, more and more people will be unqualified to do anything in a near feature job market.

    While you concern yourself with multiple types of intelligence's, more and more it looks like it's the traditional type that is needed to succeed in a modern economy.
     
  5. bois darc chunk

    bois darc chunk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think we, as a society, are too often quick to judge others as inferior and cast aspersions their way. Do we simply judge peoples' ability to earn money, or do we judge them on what they contribute to society? Having considerable basketball skills will make you more money than healing the sick. Which one is more important to the economy?
     
  6. bois darc chunk

    bois darc chunk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm glad you got the point in bold above. I'm not against methods to increase intelligence. I am against the idea that we should allow anyone with an IQ under 100 to reproduce.

    We have some very skewed values in our capitalistic society. We often value and financially reward beauty, athletic ability, and those that can entertain us more than we value IQ.
     
  7. Liberty_One

    Liberty_One Active Member

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    Here's your solution: stop stealing more from smart people and giving it to dumb people to have more dumb kids.
     
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  8. logical1

    logical1 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It is without a shadow of doubt child abuse.
     
  9. logical1

    logical1 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    When you see these "man on the street" interviews, unfortunately it seem the intelligence of the average college student is going down.

    To a one when asked how many people did you interview to get those really dumb ones, they say to get 5 we filmed 6. Sad state of affairs.
     
  10. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    If you have considerable basketball skills, you are not going to be unemployed and unemployable. It's got nothing to do with "judging" people as inferior, it has to do with the increased cognitive demands of most employment (your rare NBA player excluded) as robotics and AI eliminate most repetitive type jobs.
     
  11. bois darc chunk

    bois darc chunk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Your previous post related IQ to the ability to compete in the economy.

    It doesn't take more than an average IQ to play pro basketball. It takes some physical gifts, good eye hand coordination, and lots of practice. IQ is simply a measurement and has very little to do with finding success in the economy. Kim Kardashian found lots of success in the economy, but her IQ had nothing to do with it.
     
  12. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I don't think that basketball player or reality TV star represent growing percentages of the employed economy. I connected IQ to the ability to compete in the economy because the jobs that are being created have more cognitive demands, and the jobs that are being eliminated have fewer cognitive demands.

    So...I guess I'm not sure what your saying. Are you saying that IQ is irrelevant to the types of jobs that are available? We don't have millions of jobs for either basketball players or reality TV stars so I'm not even clear if you are even making an argument or merely disagreeing with mine by throwing out irrelevant examples.
     
  13. Belch

    Belch Well-Known Member

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    Midget porn stars probably make quite a bit too, but they are the fringes.

    Lebron makes a ton of money, but do we really want to tell people who can play basketball that they have a valuable skillset based upon their IQ in the market place?

    Well, that's what bois darc chunk says...
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2017
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  14. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    That's why I don't understand what point he's trying to make in this conversation.
     
  15. Belch

    Belch Well-Known Member

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    He's merely saying that it's not always about IQ, but that there are some fringe jobs out there that involve things other than IQ, like for example, models.

    He's just trying to say that it's not 10000000% of jobs out there that pay according to IQ.

    I think that's a fair point, although it takes nothing away from the idea that on average, the higher your IQ, the more you are worth to society.

    Although I have no idea why he thought that was relevant to the discussion...
     
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  16. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    I agree but abuse is also bad care. So is drinking when you are pregnant doing both is even worse so is doing drugs...
     
  17. bois darc chunk

    bois darc chunk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm saying we should value people, regardless of their IQ. Most people have something to contribute to our society and our economy. We need people that can maintain our cars, but may not have great reading skills. We need someone willing to change the beds and bedpans of our elderly, that may not have a high IQ, but they are kind. There are a variety of intelligences. Those with empathy and people skills are as important in some jobs as those that know astro-physics are in others.

    There's nothing wrong with wanting to raise intelligence levels. The problems come when we start judging and placing value on one attribute and ignoring others.
     
  18. bois darc chunk

    bois darc chunk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Value to society and value to the economy are two very different things, and that was my point with Mike. I don't have a problem with finding ways to increase intelligence. Smart people do some really good things. I just think we, as a society, tend to judge and dismiss the worth of others, whether that is from their economic situation, intelligence, beauty, etc. Earlier in this thread, a suggestion was made to sterilize anyone with an !Q below 100, when that is a perfectly average IQ.
     
  19. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I'm not arguing that people with lower IQ's don't have value. Of course they're fully human, with all that implies. But since I wasn't even arguing that, you seem to be making points that really are to denigrate the importance of IQ. We have no shortage of people with IQ's sufficient to change bedpans, but I worry that in the very near future we won't have the jobs for those people. I'm not arguing human worth, I'm arguing the lack of employment for them, and the social, political, and economic consequences of that.
     
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  20. bois darc chunk

    bois darc chunk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If you aren't making the above bolded argument, then we're cool. When you mentioned those with high IQs being more economically viable, that is what I thought your argument was.

    We're going to lose jobs for highly educated, high IQ people too, as we move toward more automation. Robots are already doing the job of pharmacists. People with jobs in health services and care, education, and social work are the least likely to be replaced by automation. That goes back to my point about emotional IQ, which isn't tested on IQ tests, as one of the multiple intelligences that should be valued as much as linguistic and mathematical IQ.
     
  21. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    I continue to believe we need to collectively become smarter...no argument on this. But reality today says we do have some very intelligent people in society but look at the condition of the nation. Supposedly 'some' of the more intelligent people are in government positions yet look at the dismal performance of governments at most all levels. Graduates and PhD's manage our education system and look how that's going. I've wondered but will never have the data about how many high IQ kids in our society today will never reach their potential? I suspect the number is larger than we might guess. So I question what does this nation need to do to afford all Americans a great chance to realize their full potential? IMO the answer is a better education system and society must fix their problems.

    What I'm saying is that based on our collective behavior today, it appears to me humans have hit that wall, and since many of them are intelligent, I don't see how we can force them to be smarter? I think what will happen in the future will mirror the past in which 'some' people will possess the knowledge and ideas, and they will be a minority who will forever try to convince the majority there are better ways to go. Regarding genetic engineering for intelligence those who fear it won't allow it to happen and those who embrace it must do so with great constraint...
     
  22. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Well since I didn't say that, you shouldn't have assumed it. What I actually did say, that the higher IQ, the more economically viable, is absolutely true. Hopefully no one is denying that.

    Granted, higher IQ people will lose jobs as well. In fact it's been happening for a long while. Think how tax preparation software has impacted tax accountants. But high IQ people have more flexibility to learn other, complicated g loaded skills. That's not true of low IQ people.

    I'm unclear as to the relevance of "emotional intelligence" or other vague non intelligence related factors.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2017
  23. Ricky

    Ricky Active Member

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    I think that imposing pressures in some form of eugenics- nothing so extreme as sterilizing wide swaths of the public- is better than the state of affairs we have today, in which it is the most unproductive and untalented who are systemically rewarded in terms of reproduction through social services, while the best and brightest go to university, graduate, get a job in a city, and end up with a birth rate that's even below replaceable. This is almost the polar opposite of the situation humanity was in pre-industrial revolution when food scarcity meant the middle and upper-class of any society was more fruitful in terms of children. Almost anything is preferable to the current status quo, which seems destined without intervention to result in the lowering of baseline intelligence even as globally it rises due to nutritional and hygienic improvement.
     
  24. Ricky

    Ricky Active Member

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    I think you would be hard-pressed to find any country in the world with a population with low IQ scores that manages to be better in any of these regards due to a superior education system. At the end of the day, it's the teachers that make up the education system, and if the teachers, administrators, and parents themselves aren't intelligent, the results are predictably poor.

    They can become smarter because intelligence is a facet of the brain, which is a physical organ affected by multiple factors including genetics.
    Would you have the same attitude had Hillary won the election? I severely doubt it. Yet she won the popular vote.
    I think your view of how society is functioning is fundamentally pessimistic and not founded on reliable observation, but rather out of not having your way politically.
     
  25. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    I never mentioned a 'superior education system'? I said a 'better education system'. I don't care what the rest of the world does? All I care about is how we do in the USA. The teachers are only part of an education system. The teachers and administrators and parents are what they are...you CANNOT force them to be smarter or wiser or anything they don't wish to achieve on their own.

    You just ended our dialogue when you inject the comments in bold above...you have zero idea who I am, zero idea how I voted, zero idea how I go about my life, zero idea about my dreams and preferences for this nation and it's people!
     

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