If true, this would explain tensions here on HN when discussion of economic issues happens. HN readers are self selected high cognitive ability people.
HN is maybe 1.5 standard deviations above mean, which is a very dangerous place to be.
Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
21–30 of 197 posts
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty much. For those who possess average intelligence, centrism(compromise) and status quo maintenance is a decent decision heuristic.
The thing is, right vs left doesn’t necessarily capture extreme positions. For example, you have r/neoliberal on Reddit. There users are overwhelmingly in favor of YIMBY policies (zoning reform, banning single family zoning, focusing on high density coupled with public transit), getting rid of the Jones act, pro free trade, automating ports, pro carbon tax, etc. while also being very liberal/progressive (imo) on most…
Certainly. That's the downside of heuristics and in this case collapsing a multidimensional non-linear space down to a linear value. Any point on that projection doesn't necessarily map to a commonly held/centrist belief.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#23If true, this would explain tensions here on HN when discussion of economic issues happens. HN readers are self selected high cognitive ability people.
Quoted post unavailable.
This view is actually very narrow-minded, much more than simply having views you aren't able to deftly articulate or defend against a dedicated opponent. It compresses an absolutely huge realm of human experience (believing things???) into a very small one (arguing about them on the internet), and then tries to judo it so the first doesn't matter unless you can ably commit to the second. Tragic reduction of your world here.
This is such a content-lite view of intelligence it's embarrassing to even take it seriously. It really comes across that you consider intelligence a virtue and it just isn't. You probably have a lot to learn from "people of average intelligence" about actual virtues like obligation and responsibility, commitment, compassion, understanding, and growth. We aren't lesser than you and I'd take a "average intelligence" person over this sort of smart ass shit as my teammate, business partner, lover, or friend in a second.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#24anything that starts off with "left" and "right" as an underlying political model is already hopelessly lost in poor thinking. this particular model is especially prone to tautological "evidence" of its own potency but it's simply uncovering a bias embedded in its own premises. start with a more realistic multidimensional model of political space and then maybe we can have productive conversations about things like i…
Conflict tends toward dualism, and politics is inherently about conflict. The space of possible positions is indeed very wide and multidimensional, but the process of effective contention and coalition building drives everything into two sides. Actors who don't want to do this can avoid falling into that binary, but they're also then less engaging in politics than philosophy.
I was stuck in between 5 groups all arguing over a data interchange format. Several groups insisted that the system should categorically not be allowed to support some of the business cases of the people they either got information from or gave it to. I still don't understand how they thought having the whole project fail was going to get them whatever status they were looking for.
I got real fond of saying, "compromise means everybody is equally unhappy with the solution" and giving them solutions that worked but often took each of them a couple extra lines of code. Helping them figure out what those lines were smoothed some feathers, but I don't think any of those people were comfortable unless at least a couple feathers were out of place. It's weird when people 10 years older than you are acting like babies. It's not like 'mature' is the first adjective people would use to describe me at that time. When you don't want to be the adult in the room, it's all the more annoying when you have to be.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#25They have not controlled for the most obvious variable: class.
Obviously higher class individuals would score higher on their intelligence test having received better education
It should not surprise anyone that people higher up the class hierarchy have more moderate, centrist views while those that are struggling and for which radical change is an objective need because the current system is not working for them, embrace radicalism.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#26So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do[1].
[1]: http://jjcweb.jjay.cuny.edu/awinson/public_html/eng100-act/e...
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#27anything that starts off with "left" and "right" as an underlying political model is already hopelessly lost in poor thinking. this particular model is especially prone to tautological "evidence" of its own potency but it's simply uncovering a bias embedded in its own premises. start with a more realistic multidimensional model of political space and then maybe we can have productive conversations about things like i…
Conflict tends toward dualism, and politics is inherently about conflict. The space of possible positions is indeed very wide and multidimensional, but the process of effective contention and coalition building drives everything into two sides. Actors who don't want to do this can avoid falling into that binary, but they're also then less engaging in politics than philosophy.
> the process of effective contention and coalition building drives everything into two sides.
This doesn't seem right.
First, there are a lot of political systems with more than one "side", and in which coalitions are at least somewhat fluid. This is even true in the United States; if you have ever served on a board that proposes a bond issue or tax increase, you know that that coalitions are quite local and easy to fragment (need to build a new school on the south side, but the north side has lots of tax hawks? Include a new football stadium on the north side as part of the issue).
Second, think about conflict outside of politics. There is a lot of conflict in markets, for example, but most markets do not tend toward duopoly.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
This view is actually very narrow-minded, much more than simply having views you aren't able to deftly articulate or defend against a dedicated opponent. It compresses an absolutely huge realm of human experience (believing things???) into a very small one (arguing about them on the internet), and then tries to judo it so the first doesn't matter unless you can ably commit to the second. Tragic reduction of your worl…
I think they're referring to the NPC programming that people receive through media/authority figures, and only have those views because "my fellow tribe member on Fox News/CNN said so"
You can't really blame them though, the average person simply doesn't have the time to be well researched on a given topic, and so are going to default to tribal thinking that when you poke at, falls apart.
It has nothing to do with inability to articulate their position, and everything to do with the fact that there simply isn't enough time for most people to become well informed on a given topic.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#29They have not controlled for the most obvious variable: class. Obviously higher class individuals would score higher on their intelligence test having received better education It should not surprise anyone that people higher up the class hierarchy have more moderate, centrist views while those that are struggling and for which radical change is an objective need because the current system is not working for them, em…
Then you should be very surprised that they seem to have found higher test scores implying more demand for change.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#30Could be because the people who even know what those extremes are tend to be high IQ. It could still be true that self selecting into these beliefs conditional on knowing they exist predicts lower IQ.
E.g, people who knows what ararcho-syndicalism is have a mean IQ of 125. People who believe it's a good idea are a subset of this group with an IQ of 115. So it appears that the belief predicts IQ but it's actually the knowledge that it's even an option.