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American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

theatlantic.com

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Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#91

Post by Godel_unicode »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #15
jackgavigan wrote: post #4

A meritoracy can reward qualities other than intelligence - integrity, talent, dedication, diligence, courage (both physical and moral), kindness, generosity, willingness to help others...

It would be nice, but I don't see it happening any time soon. http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2014/12/15/is-homo-eco... Peter Ubel writes: "The researchers paint a powerful picture of Homo economicus: “We see a person who is intelligent, driven to excel and to dominate other people, and capable of impulse control and of working toward long-term goals. In other words, Homo economicus is the prototypical member o…

The implication here being that intelligence, impulse control, and the ability and desire to work towards long term goals are not merit? I'm curious, what then do you think constitutes merit?

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#92

Post by MawNicker »

x5n1 wrote: post #85
MawNicker wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where everyone literally has the same power over everyone else I'm sympathetic to these sorts of ideals. I think you've gone too far though. I want Elon Musk to be able to exist. The working world is a lot shittier than it needs to be. It's the ultimate buyer's market. The masses are forced to sell their labor under penalty of death. The owners, however benevolent, know this. They design our jobs with it in the bac…

http://www.biznews.com/undictated/2015/05/13/elon-musk-the-b... Elon Musk can be brutal with himself and then he has to convince other people to join him and those who want to experience brutality or know how to be brutal with themselves, to meet his standard will do so. And that's about it. I don't think "forcing" this on the world is a bad thing, as it's more closer to the natural order of things in hunter gatherer…

> we won't get X product fast.

I am also very sympathetic to this view. That the work would get done anyway if capitalism weren't aggressively "stimulating" us with an insidious short-term mindset. We will certainly get there regardless. It would be ideal to do it without all the externalities. But locking Elon Musk up in your utopia won't make him a constant beacon of happiness. I imagine he isn't alone in that regard. You're making a utilitarian trade that seems strikingly suboptimal. When you go off the spectrum of motivation, as Elon Musk has, you tend to get a little cranky. There needs to be a place for cranky people to work. We just can't let them dominate other people with their madness. There are plenty of willing converts. Lets actually get rid of slavery. Then there can be a flood of ex-Tesla workers if need be. I suspect Elon Musk would topple your utopia from the inside out before launching his space empire. Getting in his way is not the solution.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#94

Post by bby »

WalterBright wrote: post #84

Anti-intellectualism runs deep in American society. Consider the words nerd, wonk, geek, brainiac, college boy, the negative Hollywood stereotypes, etc. The Big Bang Theory is the latest incarnation of that. My father learned to keep his book collection out of the living room.

Fuck that. Keep the book collection on display.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#96

Post by onion2k »

gwern wrote: post #64

I disagree. American society has always had something of a love-hate relationship with intelligence, and there have always been examples like _Big Bang Theory_ venerating intelligence ('Sputnik moment' and astronauts, anyone?). Intelligence correlates with success cross-culturally and over time, so that's not in question. What is in question is the 'increasingly'; the only evidence offered, aside from anecdote, is th…

The Big Bang Theory is a show where most of the laughs are derived from the characters being incompetent in some way or another. The basis of the show is "people failing at things outside of their specialist domain." That isn't venerating intelligence.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#97

Post by powera »

powera wrote: post #90

Was this article ghost written by Diana Moon Glampers? I disagree with basically every sentence in the article and don't even know where to begin.

OK, a few specific complaints:

* The very first sentence is horribly misleading, as intelligence (among other things) was necessary to avoid dying in wars or starving to death before then. This describes every decade in human history before the 20th century.

* It also only applied to white men in the US (or Western countries) in the 50s. African Americans, women, people in India surely feel differently about how the 50s were for getting jobs.

* The author blatantly ignores Duke Power, which generally bans IQ tests as part of hiring.

* Apparently decreasing poverty is impossible, but all of the author's proposals aren't.

* The author dislikes the term micro aggressions, yet immediately uses it to refer to calling anything "stupid".

... and I'll stop again.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#98

Post by optimusclimb »

ctrlalt_g wrote: post #73
throw2016 wrote: post #57

American society worships financial success and the mythology of supermen and superwomen to the exclusion of nearly everything else and this extracts a huge price in the individual and social sense of well being. Since capitalism will rarely allow more than 20-30% 'success' that leaves a huge percentage of your population feeling inadequate. Sometimes it feels the focus on individual brilliance without context of soc…

To be honest, it's really confusing. It's not so much that I worship financial success, it's that I'm scared of being financially insecure. It feels as if the only way to secure my future and the future of my children is to become the best. Perhaps some of this insecurity is translated into aggression toward anti-intellectualism, which I see as an attempt to make me feel guilty about wanting to be secure. There's als…

> It's not so much that I worship financial success, it's that I'm scared of being financially insecure.

I'm taking some time off from working right now and I think about this a lot.

American life right now is a lot like a combination wager/equation you have to solve.

At some point in life, you're own your own. This could be at 18, post college, or for some - after your parents have paid for college, a car, and maybe a down payment on a house for you.

Whenever this is for you, the game is on - how long will it take you to amass enough savings to pay for your housing, food, and health care, until the age you think you'll die? Variables include your earning capacity, investments (which obviously have all sorts of options and risk), at what age you will no longer be able to do your work (and thus, forced to live off of savings), if you have offspring, etc.

Failure at this game results in potentially terrible living conditions in old age, losing potentially years of life because you can't afford to treat some sort of condition, not being able to pay for food, etc.

Personally, I think it's a tough game to play even with a marketable skill (though to be fair, I wasn't one of the lucky few starting out at 0 when I entered the workforce after college, but most of us aren't.)

I shudder to think how the average American is supposed to win that game.

Taking a year off, it really messes with your head doing the calculus of balancing extended time/freedom to enjoy your life, do want you want, reduce stress, exercise, read, not be a sycophant to some boss/comapny, etc - vs the loss of a six figure salary, and what that would turn into by age 65 (or thereabouts) after hopeful compounded interest and all that.

On the other hand, I could die at 40, or earlier.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#99

Post by PeterStuer »

As a non-American, and so 'judging' America only through the media, it does feel like the complete opposite. Deep ingrained anti-intellectualism, idolization of stupidity and love of the brazen and the rich. Scary decline of the sciences and rapid expansion of superstitions. Of course this does not apply to this here readership, but at least from an outside perspective we see 'idiocracy' surging onto the stage at breakneck speed.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#100

Post by optimusclimb »

exratione wrote: post #6

In a world that is increasingly data, the ability to process and react to that data becomes worth. Marking worth is just more data processing, a declaration of subjective value in the scheme of your choice. Nothing special. The nature of your interactions with those of lesser worth, and your views of them, however...well, there is a defining thing for a human being.

Except that the world around us is buildings, made of raw materials, i-beams, 2x4s, piping, etc. Built by people with trade skills. Filled with beds, sheets, refrigerators, dish washers, art on the walls, TVs, etc, etc.

The whole world may seem just focused on data if you live in silly valley, and your job is to increase conversion rates and improve SEO so some founder can sell more overpriced clothes to people with disposable income.

To the majority of people out there? The world is not all just data.

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