| ▲ | WarmWash a day ago |
| The actual problem is that we are not blank slates, and wealthy parents tend to be wealthy because they are more intelligent, and likewise give birth to predisposed-to-be-intelligent babies. I always find it slightly ironic how mother nature gets so much reverence from ostensibly communal types, despite her being the most shamelessly power hungry entity ever conceived. |
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| ▲ | triceratops a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| > wealthy parents tend to be wealthy because they are more intelligent Not "more intelligent", just "unusual in some way". People can be wealthier than average for all sorts of reasons unrelated to intelligence (as defined by IQ). Here's a sampling of them: Being social and good at sales. Most successful real estate agents I've met don't strike me as particularly brilliant. Working a boring job, living modestly, and investing in index funds for 20 years. Winning the lottery (either literally, or by accidentally buying something cheaply that turned out to be worth a lot) Marrying rich and divorcing. Inheriting wealth. Being a successful athlete or entertainer. |
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| ▲ | jimbokun a day ago | parent | next [-] | | A lot of those correlate with intelligence and “grit.” Being good at selling to people absolutely requires intelligence. So do many entertainment fields, and athletic achievement more than you might expect. Investing consistently in an index fund over 20 years requires a bit of intelligence and a lot of grit. | | |
| ▲ | triceratops a day ago | parent | next [-] | | I defined intelligence up-front as IQ points. IQ isn't perfect but it's the best single measure of raw cognitive ability we have. Grit is basically conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is not correlated to intelligence. [1] This is why the stereotype of the dim but methodical plodder exists. Sales ability is obviously a thing, since there are successful and unsuccessful people. But being able to connect with people (EQ) is crucial to be good at sales. Likeable people make more sales than unlikeable people. Being likeable is orthogonal to IQ. I'm not denigrating successful entertainers' and athletes' cognitive abilities. They are brilliant in their fields. That's not the necessarily same thing as IQ. I'd expect the IQ distribution among that population be the same as the general population. That means some of them are high-IQ individuals in addition to being world-class singers or swimmers or actors, but most are average IQ. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10416... | |
| ▲ | mikkupikku 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > and athletic achievement more than you might expect. Yeah, it flies in the face of Hollywood's jock/nerd dichotomy, but in my experience there's an awful lot of correlation between honors students and athletic participation. I think the root of it might be good genetics and early life nutrition contributing heavily to both. |
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| ▲ | WarmWash a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Intelligence correlates highly with not having anti-social behaviors. So a lot of the time, it's not "being smart" that carries you to wealth, its avoiding the "disastrously stupid things" that stops you from being poor. | | |
| ▲ | triceratops a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > Intelligence correlates highly with not having anti-social behaviors. If we're talking about IQ, then there isn't strong evidence for this. | |
| ▲ | hirvi74 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Looking at all the horrible and macabre weapons of warfare, destruction, and death that humans have created, I find it hard to believe those instruments were imagined, engineered, and developed by unintelligent individuals. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | They weren't. Intelligent people can be anti-social too, and usually with terrifying large scale outcomes. But thankfully, most crime in the aggregate is done by unintelligent people. | | |
| ▲ | hirvi74 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | If a child shows some sort of exceptional proclivity for academics, then I strongly believe there needs to be an examination for empathy and pro-social behaviors prior to being enrolled in some sort of advanced program. > most crime in the aggregate is done by unintelligent people. That is a tough one. For I believe there is more to reality than what data can currently capture. While I do agree that most violent crime is carried out by unintelligent people, there is an untold amount of crimes being committed by individuals that are average to beyond intelligent. So, I would argue the unintelligent ones get caught more frequently and that skews the perception that they commit more crime. | | |
| ▲ | Jensson 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | > If a child shows some sort of exceptional proclivity for academics, then I strongly believe there needs to be an examination for empathy and pro-social behaviors prior to being enrolled in some sort of advanced program. Luckily that is no longer needed, as in capitalism such a person can provide good value to society just via greed. He shouldn't be a leader, but a greedy engineer isn't an issue. |
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| ▲ | atomic_reed a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | simonask a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This take is bafflingly unscientific. You are spewing pure unadulterated ideology here - a particularly ugly one too. |
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| ▲ | WarmWash a day ago | parent [-] | | Yes, behavioral genetics is the climate science of the left. If there are PhDs and university departments studying it, I'm not gonna be someone who sticks there head in the sand for the sake of their flavor of political identity. | | |
| ▲ | simonask a day ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | Jensson 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | simonask 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, I used it as a euphemism for “fascist”, which is a somewhat stronger descriptor than simply “wrong”. The notion that the deeply oppressive status quo is somehow fair and just is one of the worst post-hoc rationalizations that purportedly smart people can fall into. Open your eyes. |
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| ▲ | jimbokun a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | What studies support your critiques? | | |
| ▲ | simonask 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | The amount of effort I’m willing to dedicate to counter wild Social Darwinism is very low. Please just do the bare minimum and go to Wikipedia. |
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| ▲ | ryandrake a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > wealthy parents tend to be wealthy because they are more intelligent, and likewise give birth to predisposed-to-be-intelligent babies What the actual.... This is on HN? How low have we sunk here? |
