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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

#151

Post by chongli »

WalterBright wrote: post #130
curioussavage wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Citing a few labels is easy, Hollywood and popular culture have stereotypes for every kind of person. Everybody thinks they are the persecuted group. I think the opposite. America most certainly worships intellectuals, who control public education. So starting at age 5-6 kids are brainwashed into thinking that they are 'stupid' if they can't do arithmetic in their head, or remember all the inane rules of…

Check out the mania (and enormous $$$) around sports and sports figures, actors, and musicians. I can't recall a nerd ever getting an endorsement contract. The only nerd prize is the Nobel; the Oscars, Emmys, Grammies, Halls of Fame, Heisemann Trophies, etc., are for other professions. Just for a small slice of it, the mania over the Olympics. Billions and billions of dollars, wall-to-wall TV coverage, of 2 weeks see…

Nerds get endorsement contracts all the time. They're called research grants. Just look at the example of PMERP [0], for one.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_External_Researc...

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#152

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #130
curioussavage wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Citing a few labels is easy, Hollywood and popular culture have stereotypes for every kind of person. Everybody thinks they are the persecuted group. I think the opposite. America most certainly worships intellectuals, who control public education. So starting at age 5-6 kids are brainwashed into thinking that they are 'stupid' if they can't do arithmetic in their head, or remember all the inane rules of…

Check out the mania (and enormous $$$) around sports and sports figures, actors, and musicians. I can't recall a nerd ever getting an endorsement contract. The only nerd prize is the Nobel; the Oscars, Emmys, Grammies, Halls of Fame, Heisemann Trophies, etc., are for other professions. Just for a small slice of it, the mania over the Olympics. Billions and billions of dollars, wall-to-wall TV coverage, of 2 weeks see…

[deleted]

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#153

Post by caseymarquis »

xivzgrev wrote: post #65
tbabb wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an economy where work is increasingly automated, those humans who can do things which machines can't are finding themselves more valued. That seems expected, and I am not convinced it is indicative of any problem or unfairness.

The unfairness component comes from your genetics and upbringing, both outside your control - some combinations are better suited to navigate this economy than others. So what do we as a society do with those at a disadvantage, sometimes severe (eg IQ below 90?) we can move toward finding ways to include them, or we can move toward excluding them. The problem from the article is a societal one trend toward exclusion,…

In theory, 25% of the population has an IQ below 90. If that's a severe disadvantage we're talking about ~75M people just in the US.

Edit: I read comments before the article as the HN discussion is typically more interesting than the article itself. Didn't realize this exact stat is in the article.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#154

Post by rplst8 »

x5n1 wrote: post #74
guscost wrote: post #43

I'm a huge fan of Mike Rowe. He's done some amazing journalism with "Dirty Jobs" and his mikeroweWORKS foundation is terrific. He claims that unconditional encouragement toward intellectual dreams does not help most people, and argues that more kids should be pursuing professional trades. This overlaps with one of the better suggestions from this article. In general I think these are hit or miss, and maybe too academ…

At the end of the day say that you paid everyone the same amount of money regardless of whether they worked or did not. And there was no additional way to make money. Maybe there was an additional barter economy where you could work for things that you could then trade for other things. How would that change things. Because now no one would have to work and would only do things if they wanted to do them. And everyone…

The system we have now is far from perfect, and it's being changed with every passing moment by more forms of automation. However, it's a system that was able to take a species of this earth and raise it out of the dirt to be able to mostly conquer its domain - and possibly the solar system and outer-space if we play our cards right.

While some people who have gained powerful positions through their abilities (or their forefather's) have abused them, many have not. That said, "survival of the fittest" is still in some part responsible for the great achievements of mankind which has benefited civilization as a whole.

What's interesting here is that with your plan, those achievements may end up being its downfall too. A slow slide into mediocrity is the fastest way to lose our grip on the controls of our own destiny. Barring an asteroid, super-powerful alien race, or spiteful deity, I like our chances playing the long game with what has (mostly) worked until now.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#155

Post by sebastianconcpt »

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.

But the Big Bang Theory show is Reverse-Anti-intellectualism.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#156

Post by lucio »

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…

Why is everybody talking as if the communist experiment wasn't already tried?

If you forcibly remove "freedom" to keep the fruit of your labor, you'll get general misery and poverty. It's false that "things will be done but slowly", the reality is that things will not get done at all, meaning lack of everything and the distribution of misery. For real examples look into any communist country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIcmoY3_lE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_...

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#157

Post by DonaldFisk »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #91
DonaldFisk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Merit can't be defined generally, varies according to circumstances, and people disagree on what is desirable. When it can be defined, it is usually difficult or impossible to measure. When we attempt to measure it, some people find ways of "gaming the system". And when it is easy to measure accurately, it's often of little practical use.

We have created a society, or rather one has been created for us, in which borderline psychopathic behaviour is rewarded. Many people are beginning to wake up to this. Instead of trying to create a meritocracy, we should decide what sort of society we want and work towards that.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#158

Post by k-mcgrady »

WalterBright wrote: post #130
curioussavage wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Citing a few labels is easy, Hollywood and popular culture have stereotypes for every kind of person. Everybody thinks they are the persecuted group. I think the opposite. America most certainly worships intellectuals, who control public education. So starting at age 5-6 kids are brainwashed into thinking that they are 'stupid' if they can't do arithmetic in their head, or remember all the inane rules of…

Check out the mania (and enormous $$$) around sports and sports figures, actors, and musicians. I can't recall a nerd ever getting an endorsement contract. The only nerd prize is the Nobel; the Oscars, Emmys, Grammies, Halls of Fame, Heisemann Trophies, etc., are for other professions. Just for a small slice of it, the mania over the Olympics. Billions and billions of dollars, wall-to-wall TV coverage, of 2 weeks see…

There seems like a pretty obvious distinction here. Sports brings people together because it's something we can all understand quite easily and it's entertaining. Actors do the same thing. As do musicians. Nerds help improve our lives but do you expect wall-to-wall TV coverage of someone coding the latest app? Most viewers wouldn't be able to understand what's going on and even for most coders it wouldn't be entertaining. When it comes to the awards you've mentioned - they're setup by the very organisations the winners work for. It's not like the world is recognising someone for an achievement. It's their employers and colleagues.
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