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Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 2, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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There's a great deal of productive work people can do with very little abstract thinking skill. I went through basic training recently. I was probably the smartest, or at least close to it, at stuff like algebra and writing essays and reading comprehension. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people there would have trouble with those sorts of problems and would need to go through a couple hours of lessons to consistently get those problems correct, and even then would probably forget those lessons after a few months.

But that didn't matter at all. In boot camp, the things that mattered were how well you polished boots, folded clothes, made it to the place you were supposed to be on time, could do the multi-step safety check on your rifle, could put together a lean-to to sleep under, and all the fitness stuff. Almost all those people with lower IQs could blow me out of the water at those tasks(although there were a couple people that I expect would be especially bad at math and were even worse than me at basic skills). For regular life skills, stuff that wasn't abstract, they could do great- they weren't some barely conscious apes that barely managed not to kill themselves, like I feel like we'd both expect after hearing they couldn't answer 100-17 with mental math.