Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

> The only IQ-Tests I know of are the ones alike to the Mensa Online Tests

All online IQ tests are fake, no exception. Most "Mensa online tests" are unrelated to Mensa; they just say so, because it makes people more likely to click on them.

A serious IQ test would look like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices

> I can't fathom it being anything other than an indicator on how well someone can solve these matrix association problems.

Well, this is one of the interesting findings about intelligence. Turns out that how well people can solve these tests, correlates strongly with many other things.

At some moment in history, there was a competing theory of "multiple intelligences", assuming that the kind of intelligence for doing math is independent from the kind of intelligence for solving verbal problems. But when people were given different tests, it turned out that the people who score high on one kind of test are also likely to score high on the other kind of test.

So the reason why the "matrices" tests are so popular is that it doesn't matter much what kind of test you use, and the matrices are less culturally sensitive (i.e. in English verbal test, it would matter a lot whether English is your first or second language).

> what would be a rigid definition of IQ?

Approximately: That thing that allows you to do better in a wide range of problems. (As opposed to a talent or learning disability, which is that thing that allows you to do better/worse in one specific thing.)

Using this kind of language and attitude does not help your position in the slightest - it just makes Walter's well thought, rational arguments even stronger.

> "tautological" comes generally from logical reasoning as a field (in which i have interest but no formal training). is that what you're asking? it's "circular reasoning": a (usually hidden) premise comes around to "prove" the causal chain, which means it's not really proven at all, but merely reasserted. it's a pretty common logical mistake to fall for, because it's hard to detect without that close reading (the platitude that "falsehoods can travel the world before truth has had breakfast" comes to mind here as well).

The degree to which humanity runs on tautological reasoning is the part that I find interesting. And I very much agree with the "pretty common logical mistake to fall for" part - I've encountered very few even intelligent people who are highly resistant to it, at least on certain topics (generally: culture war topics, or anything from a non-deterministic problem space).

> i think political scientists do research the multidimensionality of issues all the time. it's just that politicization (as in partisan politics) wants to collapse the problem space into memes that can lodge in people's brains without further thinking, and simpler (binary) memes are more easily remembered and propagated.

Agree...

> in any case, the standard remedies certainly include voting reform (to lessen the incentive towards this binary collapse), parliametary systems (accommodating multiparty coalition-building), federalism (smaller governments are more responsive to the local populace), direct democracy or finer representation, etc.

It would be interesting to see what the world would be like if we actually ever tried these "reforms" instead of only talking about them. It is bizarre to me how no one seems to notice that we only talk about certain things, year after year, decade after decade, while simultaneously becoming angry at how suboptimal the world is....it's like "Well duh, what do you expect!!??? lol".

Fine, I'll bite.

Mr Bright said:

"Americans have the highest standard of living in the world. That's why the poor from everywhere are trying to get into the US. Do you watch the news about all those migrants pouring over the border"

and you said:

"it just makes Walter's well thought, rational arguments even stronger. reply"

His reply is neither well thought[out], rational or strong whatsoever. His reiteration of Americans having the highest global standard of living does NOTHING to address any of the issues I raised with this statement in my previous comment, he literally just repeat his assertion.

Which is also untrue, SOME Americans have the highest living standards, many many many times more do NOT.

You will see neither my comment never mentions crime whatsoever. Mr Bright inserts the topic of crime, drug addiction, criminal enforcement and theft as though criminals and addicts are the only Americans who live in poverty and the only metric for establishing living standards is crime. This is clearly illogical and irrational.

Many of the people suffering at the hands of US capitalism simply got cancer, were in a car accident, were born with disability, got hurt at work, too old to work but no retirement fund, etc.

Frankly, I dont care about "helping my position" or if the language I use upsets you! Anyone with the faintest whiff of logical integrity can clearly see that Walther Not-So Bright is espousing bullshit that he believes, not that has any rational basis.

You're right next to him at the bottom of the intellectual barrel.

> yah, this is the amazing part. societies are much more resilient than we might otherwise give them credit for. we can endure a lot of suboptimality and hardship, and even reasoning our way into tenacious consent, because the activation energy for change is so high and the final outcome so uncertain. perhaps this is the best we can do--find stable local optima for limited spans of time.

You know, on one hand this is harmful...but then on the other hand I think it is also a bit of a silver lining. As it is, it seems to me that we are on some sort of a collision course with Mother Nature, climate change being the biggest threat but certainly not the only one (nuclear weapons, AI, etc). But if the shit was to ever really hit the fan, a "Get Out of Jail Free (maybe)" is in existence: humanity could [1] upgrade its firmware/software.

[1] Or, the option exists - whether we are able to actually take advantage of it is another matter, but even if we're not doing so good, I think a "bootsrapping" type deployment could maybe be pulled off, so we could maybe "work our way up" slowly, despite our inability to go directly to higher versions.