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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

#171

Post by engi_nerd »

zizzles wrote: post #167

Are you guys living in the same world that I am? Nerdy geek-type intellectuals are at the BOTTOM of the totem pole in terms of respect and human worth in the 21st century. They are ostracized, bullied in school, most are awkward virgins (intellect is the anti-thesis when it comes to being a "womanizer" or "stud") and it's only getting worse as society progresses.

Are you living in the same world as the rest of us? Sure, there are people who fulfill the stereotype that you've repeated here. But among the nerdy people I've known you'll find some great people with rich, full lives. People who spend their work lives searching for evidence of dark matter can also climb mountains and have great family lives. Telemetry engineers who spend their days working on RF systems can spend their lunch breaks learning sign language or brushing up on their knowledge of Korean.

Those are just two of the people I've worked with.

And look around. The most popular movies are based on comics. The most popular books are fantasy (Harry Potter) or science fiction dystopia (Hunger Games). Video games often have budgets on par with blockbuster films. Where is the social stigma on being a "nerd"? Largely gone, or at least it seems to me.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#172

Post by ACow_Adonis »

zizzles wrote: post #167

Are you guys living in the same world that I am? Nerdy geek-type intellectuals are at the BOTTOM of the totem pole in terms of respect and human worth in the 21st century. They are ostracized, bullied in school, most are awkward virgins (intellect is the anti-thesis when it comes to being a "womanizer" or "stud") and it's only getting worse as society progresses.

As i'm sure I'm not the first one to observe, a (better?) more accurate statement: "American society increasingly mistakes corporate heads of (tech?) companies and/or large amounts of money for intelligence..."

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#174

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

mtbcoder wrote: post #162
smt88 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sentence wasn't very clear. When I was talking about Trump and Sanders, I was referring only to the idolization of the rich. Both Trump and Sanders spoke out against the wealthy elite controlling politics. Trump even rejected partisan campaign financing until recently.

One of the biggest culture shocks I had when I first moved to the US was the near constant push of consumerism and celebration of consumption. I had never seen or experienced this before at such high levels and even 15 years or so later, I still cannot come to grips with it (although I am a bit more desensitized to it). It permeates every aspect of American life and is quite difficult to escape. Perhaps this is a bad…

The article is - sadly - a lie. There's an idealisation of productivity, which has somehow become correlated with IQ. (Even though in practice the relationship between IQ and productivity is subtle and context-dependent.)

Most of US culture has absolutely zero interest in clever people unless they're also making money and/or running a business. There is no situation where IQ and abstract intellectual output are valued purely for their own sake and not for their financial productivity - not even academia.

Which means the real problem is the way that "business" has become the de facto state religion - in the sense of being the ultimate moral arbiter of personal value and the one true absolute definition of how "good" people are recognised.

Hard work and money. Or money at least.

Trump's success is based on a weird identification - the belief that Trump represents the interests of the 99% because he's a non-intellectual plain speaker who says what he means and means what he says using language that everyone can understand.

That makes him "one of us" to many people, even though of course he's nothing of the sort.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#176

Post by petra »

lucio wrote: post #156
x5n1 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

Nordic countries have very high taxes("taking away one's fruits of labor"), and manage to do well.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#177

Post by sitkack »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #161
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…

It's the ultimate buyer's market. The masses are forced to sell their labor under penalty of death. In that case, how come millions of non-workers aren't dead? [edit: to clarify, I mean in the US and similar western countries.]

They are http://www.who.int/gho/child_health/mortality/mortality_unde...

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#178

Post by sitkack »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #155
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.

It still pigeon holes the smarts by reinforcing stereotypes. It is only because the rise of startup culture that this show exists.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#179

Post by facetube »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #161
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…

It's the ultimate buyer's market. The masses are forced to sell their labor under penalty of death. In that case, how come millions of non-workers aren't dead? [edit: to clarify, I mean in the US and similar western countries.]

I can show you some gravestones if you'd like. The US health system is essentially inaccessible to those with chronic but treatable conditions who aren't continually holding down relatively good jobs. I can go and get my major depression treated at $5 per minute because I have an employer that pays $20k per year for health insurance.

I know families of five whose household income is less than my health insurance premium. I live in a first-world country where people buy antidepressants that they need from their friends and off the street, and have to beg/barter to refill the prescription that keeps their body from destroying their GI tract. Suicide is an ever-increasing problem. I step over the homeless on the way to work and reflexively look for signs of respiration. The dead are everywhere.

Re: American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth

#180

Post by auganov »

Hondor wrote: post #47

It makes a valuable point that our popular culture that we think makes us "civilized" is really just a sham and we're no different from olden-days racists and homophobes but with a few extra rules applied. We're very careful not to abuse people because of their race, religion or certain types of sexuality, but for all the non-taboo classes of people, the gloves are off and we're no different from slave owners who jus…

I'll agree that if there is such a thing as moral aptitude we perhaps indeed aren't much better than previous generations. But I don't see that precluding us having a much better body of moral rules.

And as far as pedophilia goes we are definitely adopting more nuanced views of it as of lately.

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