191–200 of 400 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hence item b.
Isn't that intuition, so Kahnemans criteria [0] apply? This means item b comes down to: > So all we need is an unchanging environment, lots of practice, and immediate feedback. [0] https://fs.blog/2012/03/daniel-kahneman-on-intuition/
Frankly, I'm incredibly disappointed in Taleb's recent writing. This article is one of many where the actual point being made is buried beneath unnecessary and divisive ad-hominem attacks. Does the caption "Mensa members: typically high “IQ” losers in Birkenstocks." usefully contribute to a serious, scholarly conversation on IQ? Is it reasonable or fair-minded to immediately tar opponents to your argument as racists,…
It's funny. Normally I place a high value on civility and decency in discourse. But I don't have any problem with this style of communication from Taleb. I think it's because I've read/heard enough of his material over many years, and I understand the game he's playing. He's not cruel, and he means no harm to people personally. Indeed he cares a lot about the general wellbeing of society and individuals, about avoida…
If that's the case, then why did he expend so many words on matters that were irrelevant to his core thesis? Why not just concisely set out the evidence demonstrating the inadequacy of IQ?
>People who have something to hide will respond by getting offended at his tone, rather than simply defending/explaining their ideas on their merits.
There is an overwhelming amount of information and opinion on the internet. Most of it is very bad. Winnowing it down requires some heuristics. The heuristic "do these words look like those of a careful and thoughtful person making a good-faith argument?" has served me well. I do often encounter bad ideas dressed up in faux erudition, but I very rarely encounter good ideas delivered with a string of irrelevant insults and ad-hominem attacks.
More broadly, being polite in your writing is a simple matter of neighbourliness. Causing upset or inflaming anger is occasionally necessary to pierce the veil of indifference, but we should do so only with great caution. There is already more than enough discord in the world without us adding to it. I see abundant evidence for the fact that civilisation is a fragile and precious thing, held together with the glue of civility. We should think twice before discarding the norms of social behaviour that most of us learned in kindergarten.
Frankly, I'm incredibly disappointed in Taleb's recent writing. This article is one of many where the actual point being made is buried beneath unnecessary and divisive ad-hominem attacks. Does the caption "Mensa members: typically high “IQ” losers in Birkenstocks." usefully contribute to a serious, scholarly conversation on IQ? Is it reasonable or fair-minded to immediately tar opponents to your argument as racists,…
I have no way to navigate this, I've heard psychologists claim that IQ is the most well proven concept in the social sciences. Now this guy comes along saying the complete opposite. Anyone have any advice on how to weight this up and figure out what the truth is?
There's a lot of good evidence that correlates race and IQ. Even when controlling for as many factors as possible. To the best of our current scientific knowledge, this is a thing. Obviously this is an excellent source of ammo for racists and likewise those fighting racism see it as a threat. By extension, anyone who speaks of this science must also be racist and the science itself must be wrong because it is racist.…
Frankly, I'm incredibly disappointed in Taleb's recent writing. This article is one of many where the actual point being made is buried beneath unnecessary and divisive ad-hominem attacks. Does the caption "Mensa members: typically high “IQ” losers in Birkenstocks." usefully contribute to a serious, scholarly conversation on IQ? Is it reasonable or fair-minded to immediately tar opponents to your argument as racists,…
It's funny. Normally I place a high value on civility and decency in discourse. But I don't have any problem with this style of communication from Taleb. I think it's because I've read/heard enough of his material over many years, and I understand the game he's playing. He's not cruel, and he means no harm to people personally. Indeed he cares a lot about the general wellbeing of society and individuals, about avoida…
Really? My mental heuristic is that the more aggressive and flowery language someone uses, the less they believe in the strength of their argument; they’re trying to erect barriers to discussion and debate
IQ is undoubtedly overemphasized by some factions, especially those with an axe to grind and a dog whistle to blow, if it helps them feel less guilty about their position in the world or otherwise rationalizes injustice. OTOH there's definitely a difference between people, people who aren't mentally defective, people that are quick on the uptake, sharp and alert, who adapt to new mental models. IQ might be an unscien…
The point Taleb is making is that IQ works well in the lower half of the distribution, but not in the upper half. Which makes sense, considering that questions for IQ tests are created by people with close to average intelligence. Imagine third-graders writing college-level math tests, or beginner chess players coming up with chess problems to separate masters from grandmasters.
This isn’t true. Designing, testing questions and norming a new IQ test or updating an existing one is very expensive. At minimum you’ll need a Master’s in Psychology, Psychology or Psychometrics to get those jobs. Look at the Educational Testing Service.
https://www.ets.org/research/internship-fellowship?WT.ac=res...
> The Harold Gulliksen Psychometric Research Fellowship Program > This program seeks graduate students who have completed their doctoral coursework and are at the dissertation stage of their program, working on a dissertation related to statistics, psychometrics, educational/psychological measurement or quantitative methods. Selected Fellows study at their universities during the academic year and conduct a research project under the supervision of an academic mentor and in consultation with an ETS researcher or psychometrician. Selected Fellows are required to participate in the ETS Summer Internship Program.
I have no way to navigate this, I've heard psychologists claim that IQ is the most well proven concept in the social sciences. Now this guy comes along saying the complete opposite. Anyone have any advice on how to weight this up and figure out what the truth is?
Ignore Taleb, he’s a self-appointed expert among “charlatans” in every topic he’s ever encountered. The sheer hubris of the man is breathtaking. Every once in a while he’s correct about something important. At this point, though, it seems like those times are basically accidents.
Lol, you just summarized the book he keeps writing. Black Swan and Anti-Fragile are alright long drive audio books. He's pretty funny once you figure out that he uses being a prick as a filter. He's like a human r/spacedicks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We would likely do better to deal with biomedical issues, like inadequate nutrition and unidentified health issues.
Malnutrition only has effect on intelligence at extreme levels that basically never occur in the US. The American poor sometimes go hungry, but are never actually starving, and don’t lack micronutrients either. Don’t get me wrong, terrible food and atrocious eating habits, resulting in serious health problems, are one of the most serious problems in this country. However, this doesn’t impact intelligence.
Then I ended up very ill and homeless.
My comments in online forums during that time were filled with typos and tended to sound like an idiot wrote them.
I've gradually gotten healthier. My typos and other issues have gone way down.
There are a lot of Americans living with various sorts of chronic health issues.
So, in short, I don't agree. But I'm probably not up for trying to "prove it" and just contemplating the possibility makes me feel tired and aggravated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IQ is definitely not a good measure of value, contribution, quality of thought. I think it's probably correlated, and for some contributions may be a gating factor, but I've seen plenty of smart people examining the wrong things, for sure. Meta-analysis of focus doesn't seem to come free with IQ. I think it's a skill.
IQ is an EXCELLENT measure of "value, contribution, quality of thought". The idea it isn't is weird to me. What IQ fails at is being an ABSOLUTE measure of those things, e.g. John Nash is a genius, but his schizophrenia likely made a lot of what he did and said questionable. Just taking IQ and ignoring other factors would lead you awry. Even then, John Nash came up with the Nash Equilibrium. I think the mistake is th…
Actually, it is not. At best, IQ is correlated with intellectual potential.
However, having potential is not the same as being able to perform.
Even a V8 without gas fails to perform on par with a filled 2-stroke motor.
Frankly, I'm incredibly disappointed in Taleb's recent writing. This article is one of many where the actual point being made is buried beneath unnecessary and divisive ad-hominem attacks. Does the caption "Mensa members: typically high “IQ” losers in Birkenstocks." usefully contribute to a serious, scholarly conversation on IQ? Is it reasonable or fair-minded to immediately tar opponents to your argument as racists,…
It's funny. Normally I place a high value on civility and decency in discourse. But I don't have any problem with this style of communication from Taleb. I think it's because I've read/heard enough of his material over many years, and I understand the game he's playing. He's not cruel, and he means no harm to people personally. Indeed he cares a lot about the general wellbeing of society and individuals, about avoida…
The ad hominem attacks (particularly the "losers in Birkenstocks" remark) in this essay are the exact opposite of that.