This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
If coal miners became politicians today it would mean our entire meritocracy and educational system has failed.
I think it’s reasonable to say the leaders of our complex society should be IQ 130 and probably around a 1500 SAT score. The entire filter for our system would be failing if that kid isn’t getting selected into a top 25 university today.
It’s also been said of unions that the leaders no longer come from the workers but from outside of it. Back in the day poor immigrant kids who were smart might not have been caught up into our systems filters for leadership and would have taken the mill job. Their intelligence would have led them to leadership. But now they are filtered out earlier.
It just feels like going backwards and a thing for poor countries to not identify their most talented individuals early. Do we want 1500 SAT kids working at Wal-Mart for 20 years so they can be good working class people?
many such cases. https://www.prepscholar.com/sat/s/scores/1500-sat-score-is-this-good
Not sure on your point. I wasn’t saying that can get you into any school. But it does seem to be a reasonable IQ level for top American public offices.
Also every school in the top 17 except Cal Tech has per class enrollment of over 1k. So I’m fairly sure being the 20k best SAT score makes you competitive far earlier than the 17th school.
The 20th school is Notre Dame. In the fictional world of the West Wing the POTUS went to Notre Dame which seems to be a reasonable place approximately to start the academic achievement area for smart enough to handle the intellectual rigor of top office.
I guess my point was, 1500 isnt all that special. Theres a lot of other kids with that score, and only a limited number of spots at top universities. Plus, the US system puts a lot more emphasis on things like sports, extracurriculars, legacies, and DEI than raw test scores. So a whole lot of smart kids dont get in to top schools (eg, me) while a lot of not-that-smart kids do.
Special - No.
But IQ 130 level does seem to be the line for smart enough for upper management in the US. Elon Musks had lower SAT scores but when it was harder so he’s probably about 140. A lot of Presidents seem to be around 130. We probably have 600k-1.5 million people around that level. For the pure IQ it seems a good place for the filter. Then other characteristics and experiences matter.
It also does seem to be the area where you start to be filtered into the top schools. And if not your like Honors College at big state school where they don’t have numbers to filter on whether you have the right DEI experience and activities.
Do you have any evidence for your claim that "a lot of presidents seem to be around 130?" I would peg most of them around 115. Smarter than average, but still close enough to average that they can relate to regular people and build up their social skills. I think a lot of very-smart individuals suffer from being alienated from other kids their age and grow up with poor social skills as a result. Or at least, that's what I tell myself... :/
edit: see for example JFK's Harvard application essay: https://archive.is/ss2qE which seems like something a bad student would grind out to try and salvage a C from a class where he understood nothing. Though, as that article notes, he did seem to understand the social importance of going to an elite university, in a way few teenagers fully grasp.
I just have the IQ charts which were trending on Twitter recently. They all seem to indicate 130 area. Kennedy fwiw seems to rank highly. I do not know how to interpret grades from the ‘30s. Seems like most of our Presidential candidates went to Harvard/Yale etc which even for a rich kid isn’t that easy to buy your way in if you are sub 120 IQ.
https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/05/27/poindexter-in-chief-presidential-iqs-and-success-in-the-oval-office
https://thoughtcatalog.com/january-nelson/2021/06/presidents-ranked-by-iq/
That seems totally made up. Especially the way they report it to two decimal places, that's absurd. All we have for most presidents is vague rumors: https://www.powerfulprep.com/searching-for-the-presidents-test-scores/ . But apparently W Bush got a 1200 on his SAT score. It's still easy for him to get in anywhere, he wasn't just "a rich kid" but the son of a soon-to-be-president. Same with Chelsea Clinton and the Obama girls- they get in wherever the hell they want. It's such a stupid corrupt system.
I am seeing Bush took the SAT in 1964.
I am seeing in 1967 a high school drop out rate of 17%.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_219.70.asp
For high school graduates it looks like males went to college in 1964 at a 57% rate.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d99/d99t187.asp
It looks like in 1969 a 550 verbal SAT score was at 79% of SAT users and at 90% of a national representative sample. Bush was 566. A 650 math SAT was 89% of SAT users for boys. Bush scored 640. That probably puts him around 95% for everyone.
I did a google for top 5% of Americans IQ and it returned 125. This analysis would put George Bush around 123 IQ. The chart I shared before had him at 124.875. The chart seems broadly correct for Bush based on his SAT scores.
I think you forgot to adjust for changes in benchmarks on the SAT. Scores have gone up as the test has gotten easier. Similarly, I believe the average GPA is like 3.8 at Harvard now. B’s and C’s look bad today compared to today’s grading but they would essentially be A’s and A-‘s today.
My analysis points towards Bush being in the 94% based on SAT scores.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Well, you can't have it both ways. You can't have "tell your kids they can be and do anything" and also "only the top top men get the top top jobs".
I don’t believe any kid can be anything. So no hypocrisy there.
I would say though until you truly know a kids ability telling them they can do anything is a good thing and probably helped me. But that’s because I grew up lower class where most can’t rise up anymore but did end up having top 1% test scores. Until you figure out if someone has talent you should leave the door open.
That's true, and I don't mean never encourage them. But be realistic: unless they do have particular talents, if they come from an ordinary background they are not going to be the superstars, they'll have an ordinary life, and having an ordinary life is fine and good. Do your best, but if your best is "average" that does not mean you're dumb or a loser.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Take the transitive closure of the inference steps you are doing here, and you basically arrive at "groups that are definitionally unsuited for governing roles should not self-govern". This may sound attractive to you as long as you can model the qualification as a one-dimensional parameter like IQ, but what if society develops sufficient complexity that a caste emerges which is (genetically, socially) optimised for politics in particular, rather than general intelligence? Would you then also consider it a failure of the system if any group is represented and governed by people who are not members of the caste of Superior Politicians, and thus either a born Superior Politician's potential was wasted, or administration is suboptimal? In that case, you've basically reinvented one standard argument for a medieval aristocracy.
It’s not a gotcha to me.
In that case society would be better governed by the Superior Politicians provided you mean by that they make decisions that mostly benefit all of society on net.
I also have no problem saying S Africa would be better off for everyone if only whites could vote versus everyone. I also believe that is being proven true.
And in the case of S Africa that with the whites not even giving a shit about the blacks. Your super politicians are implying that they actually would have a feel for how to benefit everyone versus being only incentivized to benefit themselves.
More options
Context Copy link
The public should be educated such that members of the public who are capable of understanding self-governing are taught it.
You could ask "what if society is so complex that it's not even possible to teach people?" but I'm skeptical that this can be a thing if the elite is capable of understanding it. And "the populace can't be taught" is a magnet for motivated reasoning (or lying thinly covered by motivated reasoning) and probably won't result in an accurate assessment of whether the populace can be taught.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I don't agree with this at all. Leaders should be people who actually have had to deal with the real world that most Americans experience on a daily basis. I don't give a damn about their IQ or their SAT scores.
Do you have an example of a well functioning government led by low IQ people?
Rwanda and Botswana have massively improved with black Africans in a dominant position. So has Namibia.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That is obviously terrible, but the problems with the leaders no longer coming from the workers is that not only are their interests no longer aligned with the workers' interests, but even if they were benevolent they aren't going to really understand the workers' interests.
IMO I mostly think the elites have done a good job for US workers. They work fewer hours than their parents and their homes have 10x the stuff.
In my opinion the actual erosion isn’t with economics it’s all the social policy that is hurting them the most. The working class was a lot better when they had more religiousity governing their behavior and not the elites culture of today. The tran stuff just confuses them. For every 1 in a couple thousand kids with actual biological transexualism there are hundred if not more working class kids confused who just work better with simpler sexual culture and traditions. Most would be better if the rule was just have sex with the person whose about your intelligence and attractiveness within a 10 min.walk and marry them for 70 years.
I disagree with your view on elites but I agree 100% with this. This is what people did for a very long period of time, and it's what led to all the old couples I know being happily married for decades. There are multiple stories in my family history of either a guy or girl at age 15 seeing the cute-one-next-door riding their bike and saying, out loud, "I'm going to marry that one." And then it happening. They found an eligible person who met their minimum standards for attractiveness and similarity, and chose to commit to them. By contrast, my girlfriend's mom had an insightful commentary on people in relationships today: "They keey divorcing because they just keep shopping." Stop shopping, stop comparing, stop optimizing, make an acceptable choice and allow the natural human instincts for pair-bonding do their job, and then continue to choose your partner even when it gets tough. That's what love means!
Divorce is actually dropping because people aren't marrying. Again, the exploding in divorce in the 70's and 80's was basically 25 years of pent-up demand and shifts in how people marry.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The problem with that is you are brain-draining the labor class of all their natural leaders, and assimilating them into the gentry culture that considers working class culture its enemy. When the union leaders and managers come back from their elite colleges to manage the coal miners and Wal-Mart workers, they will no longer be working class kids who rose through the ranks and who understand and represent the interests of their people; they will instead be culturally-foreign occupiers.
Sure but then obviously you would need an India style class system where some people by birth would be restricted in their career options. This is contra to all of American history.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link