
American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth - guscost
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-war-on-stupid-people/485618/?single_page=true
======
guscost
I'm a huge fan of Mike Rowe. He's done some amazing journalism with "Dirty
Jobs" and his mikeroweWORKS foundation is terrific. He claims that
unconditional encouragement toward intellectual dreams does not help most
people, and argues that more kids should be pursuing professional trades.

This overlaps with one of the better suggestions from this article. In general
I think these are hit or miss, and maybe too academic, but the problem is a
real one and it's not going to go away tomorrow. People have this notion that
robots will just replace all manufacturing jobs next year or whatever, but as
usual it's a lot more complex and subtle than that. And it's a cultural
problem as much as an economic one.

Of course I'm not able to say this from firsthand experience, having had
little difficulty in school, and having accumulated enough skill with
computers to find plenty of good work. And I can't really call for some given
change before understanding more about the people in worse situations. I did
go to a trade school though and more of those sounds like the best idea so
far.

~~~
x5n1
At the end of the day say that you paid everyone the same amount of money
regardless of whether they worked or did not. And there was no additional way
to make money. Maybe there was an additional barter economy where you could
work for things that you could then trade for other things. How would that
change things. Because now no one would have to work and would only do things
if they wanted to do them. And everyone could enjoy their lives rather than be
treated like disposable machines. I think that sort of future is one to look
forward to. One without class or coercion. Where everyone literally has the
same power over everyone else and the little trinkets and things that they
produce themselves are traded by individuals with other individuals not for
money but for things that they themselves made which then determines their
worth.

Even supposedly technically superior well paying work usually treats the
workers like tools. Management which is often staffed by not the most
intelligent has the most power in an organization. They stress coerce and
harass people in order to get work out of them, work which is often earning
the company multiples of what they are paying people. And that's how the whole
economy is structured. It is still not is possible to be a technical person
who is well paid yet still not feeling happy, pleasant, or even healthy. It
can still be a somewhat miserable way to live your life. Not as miserable as
being not intelligent and employable, but still can be problematic.

The economy is general is not a healthy place for mental health or physical
health, especially things like getting fired or layed off. You have to go out
of your way already exhausted by work to find that.

~~~
MawNicker
> Where everyone literally has the same power over everyone else

I'm sympathetic to these sorts of ideals. I think you've gone too far though.
I want Elon Musk to be able to exist. The working world is a lot shittier than
it needs to be. It's the ultimate buyer's market. The masses are forced to
sell their labor under penalty of death. The owners, however benevolent, know
this. They design our jobs with it in the back of their minds. They don't want
to acknowledge it directly. They know they've won more power than a
meaningless game should grant any person. But I think there's a way to fix
even the subtlest (and not so subtle) forms of oppression without reverting to
the Harrison Bergeron society. Just guarantee _everyone_ 's basic security. I
want to be able to work. Both because I like nice things and because I want to
contribute to society. But frankly, I'm pretty indignant about having to do it
just for my basic safety.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_It 's the ultimate buyer's market. The masses are forced to sell their labor
under penalty of death._

In that case, how come millions of non-workers aren't dead?

[edit: to clarify, I mean in the US and similar western countries.]

~~~
facetube
I can show you some gravestones if you'd like. The US health system is
essentially inaccessible to those with chronic but treatable conditions who
aren't continually holding down relatively good jobs. I can go and get my
major depression treated at $5 per minute because I have an employer that pays
$20k per year for health insurance.

I know families of five whose household income is less than my health
insurance premium. I live in a first-world country where people buy
antidepressants that they need from their friends and off the street, and have
to beg/barter to refill the prescription that keeps their body from destroying
their GI tract. Suicide is an ever-increasing problem. I step over the
homeless on the way to work and reflexively look for signs of respiration. The
dead are everywhere.

~~~
willholloway
Obama (almost) fixed this. The Affordable Care Act extended Medicaid coverage
from the absolute indigent, to those making up to 133% of the poverty line in
their state, something around $16,000 per year.

The group that is in a bad spot are those right above that number, as even
though their premiums are subsidized, deductibles are anywhere from 2400 to
6400 per annum.

That said, you are right the dead are everywhere.

Poverty kills. It deteriorates every system of the body, and it's first target
is the brain.

The status quo is an evil waste of humanity, and poverty is grossly expensive
and inefficient.

UBI can't come fast enough.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Western-style poverty (i.e. little work + wealth transfers adding up to approx
$15-20k/year) doesn't kill.

We have various randomized control trials which demonstrate this.

Giving poor people money doesn't significantly affect health:
[http://m.qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/2/687](http://m.qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/2/687)

The medicaid expansion similarly had no statistically significant effect on
health, though it does make people feel better:
[https://www.nber.org/oregon/](https://www.nber.org/oregon/)

The RAND experiment back in the day had similar results based on variation in
coinsurance levels:
[http://www.rand.org/health/projects/hie.html](http://www.rand.org/health/projects/hie.html)

Why do you keep spreading myths?

Now, you may have discovered some correlations between poverty and bad health.
As correlation is not causation, and an RCT is the best way to check. So
apparently the correlation is caused by something else - i.e., some third
factor which makes people both poor and unhealthy.

~~~
willholloway
Have you lived in Western style poverty? Have you mingled with those who
patronize pawn shops and payday lenders?

Please cite the various randomized control trials, and I would say it is far
too early to draw conclusions on the effects of the medicaid expansion as it
has only been two full years since rollout.

I speak from experience, as someone from a wealthy family and a wealthy area
that shunned the family business and went out with nothing to seek startup
fortune. I had a good start in 2009 with a success in affiliate marketing,
when that dried up I put all that I had made into another venture that limped
along at sub-ramen levels for a while and then I pulled the plug.

The fallout was not fun, and the effects not benign. It was pre medicaid
expansion and there was no healthcare to be had, and almost no safety net to
be found whatsoever.

I could have gone home and had everything I needed but I wanted to make it on
my own. I had been living in Boulder, Colorado and thought a move to Austin
would lower expenses and extend the runway for the company.

That was ill-advised, and another story, but it added another dimension to my
troubles at the time.

Was it a stupid risk? It was but I was young and felt invincible, and in 2010
with a liberal arts education there weren't a ton of jobs waiting for me.

The wealth transfers you speak of are not easy to get. I'm not even sure where
you get the 15-20k number. What else is there for a low earning single male
besides SNAP, and now Medicaid.

In that time, as someone who found themselves with no assets and no income the
only benefit I seemed to have qualified for was about $160 a month that could
be spent at the grocery store.

Feeling a tremendous amount of shame I applied for SNAP benefits, even though
I knew that they were really a subsidy for American farmers, ideology had
trained me that subsidies for corporations are virtuous, while subsidies for
basic human needs are shameful.

Even though I qualified, the overworked staff denied my valid claim. It took
them over a month to tell me this. It would have taken another month to apply
again and maybe they would get it right that time. I gave up and having good
credit financed my nutrition via credit card.

I hadn't coded since elementary school, but I was able to pick up django web
dev and find a high paying job in a couple months.

But that happy ending is not typical. There is no way that the stress from
that period didn't shave a little bit of time off my life.

And the lack of liquidity prolonged the period by a good bit. I spent so much
time doing this or that to get $200 for the rent, it was tremendously
inefficient and stressful. Bad terrible memories, a place I never want to go
back to. I was sad during all of this. It broke up the relationship I was in
with someone I really loved.

I spent a lot of time with those who ride the bus, with those who pawn. Their
lives are very different than the lives of the families from my coastal home
town. Their lives do kill them slowly, which is why life expectancy is a full
dozen years longer for the wealthy.

I have since moved back to the wealthy coastal town I grew up in. Life is so
easy here, because there is wealth here. You can get a nice boat for almost
nothing because someone just doesn't want it anymore.

Someone I knew was just gifted a boat for $1 because the owner was just happy
it was going to stay on the island.

No one ever gives my former bus riding compatriots anything.

The thing is the people that live here are no different genetically than the
people at the pawn shops back in Texas. The only difference is the presence of
wealth, and the virtuous effects that has when it's sustained for a few
generations.

~~~
maxerickson
The Oregon thing started in 2008.

It has mostly benefited the recipients financially rather than medically.

~~~
willholloway
Oregon is just one program, why is life expectancy for wealthy rising, and
falling for the poor?

Why is the gap around a full dozen years?

~~~
yummyfajitas
Probably because the poor behave differently from the rich - they tend to
overeat more, exercise less, smoke more and drink more.

Also any disabled person (who probably has other health problems that reduce
life expectancy) is by definition poor (poverty is defined as low market
income).

~~~
willholloway
It is poverty itself that creates short term thinking that leads to those
choices.

This is why poverty is expensive for society, and investment by society to
eliminate it would be paid back and much more.

~~~
yummyfajitas
No it isn't. Again, please read the RCTs I linked to. One of them addresses
this exact question.

------
manachar
Alternatively, American society values a human's worth by economic output and
the economy has shifted to value humans who can successfully navigate the new
more intelligence-based economy.

~~~
duaneb
> the new more intelligence-based economy.

Was intelligence not valued before?

~~~
tbabb
In an economy where work is increasingly automated, those humans who can do
things which machines can't are finding themselves more valued. That seems
expected, and I am not convinced it is indicative of any problem or
unfairness.

~~~
xivzgrev
The unfairness component comes from your genetics and upbringing, both outside
your control - some combinations are better suited to navigate this economy
than others.

So what do we as a society do with those at a disadvantage, sometimes severe
(eg IQ below 90?) we can move toward finding ways to include them, or we can
move toward excluding them. The problem from the article is a societal one
trend toward exclusion, not economic as you pointed out.

~~~
tbabb
Someone who is personable or eager or hardworking (or the opposite) is as much
so because of the cards they are dealt by nature or their upbringing as a
person who is intelligent (or the opposite). When you get down to it, everyone
is _exclusively_ a product of their genes and the environment, and they are in
control of neither.

A just society judges and rewards people based on what they contribute.
Racism, sexism, ageism, and the like are unfair not because they select based
on something "outside your control", but because they deprive a person of the
opportunity to succeed or fail based on merit.

Intelligence is a direct factor (though not the only factor) in a person's
success at performing just about any job. If it is not a fair criteria by
which to judge, then there are _no_ fair criteria.

~~~
MawNicker
I'm more concerned about the act of "judging". What does that involve exactly?
I'm fine with giving everyone A, B, C, D and F grades. I wouldn't care if you
made people sew them into their clothing. But I'd like a person who got an F
to have food and shelter. I don't see how they'd ever get another grade
otherwise.

------
eggy
I grew up in a poor, working class, crime-ridden neighborhood of Brooklyn in
the 1970s, and I remember being smart as a kid was a reason to harass, and
sometimes beat on somebody who was seen as too smart in class. This wasn't
happening in the wealthier, more educated neighborhoods in NYC (I had friends
there afterwards). Although, all parents wanted their kids to exceed in both
areas.

I think there was also some anger and negative fallout against college, since
a lot of working class folks went to Vietnam, and saw college-educated
protesters as disrespectful, and actually not so smart.

~~~
ianai
I experienced the same for being smart in the "wrong neighborhood" in
Albuquerque, NM (1990s).

~~~
nononosisisi
Or in the wrong school. Which of unfortunately causes a revenge of the nerds
syndrome.

~~~
eggy
The movie, 'The Revenge of the Nerds' came out in 1984, after I had left my
neighborhood, and for all of its silly comedy, was a sign that things were
changing.

My parents and other parents in my poor, working class neighborhood saw
education as the way to a better future, not just financially. Intelligence
was berated by others in my age group in class. I don't equate education with
intelligence, since I have met so many bright people who never finished high
school (my father), and so many phDs whose intelligence I question to this
day. That piece of paper, a university degree, can be earned with average
intelligence, but costs a fortune for most non-public universities. As an
acquaintance said to me about his son going to an Ivy league school, 'he's set
up for life'. Regardless of his son's IQ, or final GPA, the societal strata he
will interact with and form networked connections with, along with the
school's reputation, will guarantee him a higher-than-average floor of entry
compared to my children. For the record, I am not for that type of education.

------
WalterBright
Anti-intellectualism runs deep in American society. Consider the words nerd,
wonk, geek, brainiac, college boy, the negative Hollywood stereotypes, etc.
The Big Bang Theory is the latest incarnation of that.

My father learned to keep his book collection out of the living room.

~~~
curioussavage
I disagree. Citing a few labels is easy, Hollywood and popular culture have
stereotypes for every kind of person. Everybody thinks they are the persecuted
group. I think the opposite.

America most certainly worships intellectuals, who control public education.
So starting at age 5-6 kids are brainwashed into thinking that they are
'stupid' if they can't do arithmetic in their head, or remember all the inane
rules of the english language in their writing or what have you. It is
ingrained into their skulls that if they don't go to college and take out
loans to get what is basically now a glorified high school diploma++ they are
failures.

If you are having a conversation with someone and they ask where you went to
college, and you reply that you dropped out or didn't go there is always an
awkward moment. If you are making a good living or you hit it big, you are the
exception. You slipped through the cracks thats all.

Don't get me wrong As someone who grew up with his nose in a book, I know you
ridiculed. But getting made fun of by a bunch of insecure children/teenagers
is one thing. All major modern institutions of any importance exalt the
intellectual while debasing anyone who hasn't been blessed.

~~~
WalterBright
Check out the mania (and enormous $$$) around sports and sports figures,
actors, and musicians. I can't recall a nerd ever getting an endorsement
contract. The only nerd prize is the Nobel; the Oscars, Emmys, Grammies, Halls
of Fame, Heisemann Trophies, etc., are for other professions.

Just for a small slice of it, the mania over the Olympics. Billions and
billions of dollars, wall-to-wall TV coverage, of 2 weeks seeing who can run
faster than the next.

~~~
chongli
Nerds get endorsement contracts _all the time_. They're called research
grants. Just look at the example of PMERP [0], for one.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_External_Researc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_External_Research_Program)

~~~
WalterBright
Research grants are not endorsement contracts. Have you ever seen a Nobel
prizewinner on a box of Wheaties? pitching Hertz rent-a-car? Me neither.

~~~
chongli
Elinor Smith, not a Nobel prize winner but a big-time nerd[0], was on the
Wheaties box.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Smith#/media/File:Elino...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Smith#/media/File:Elinor_Smith_\(1942\).jpg)

~~~
WalterBright
She's a heroic pilot, not an intellectual.

------
tbabb
Intelligence is a perfectly fair criteria by which to judge a candidate, as in
most jobs it will have a direct effect on the candidate's ability to perform
their duties.

If an employer over-weights intelligence to the exclusion of other criteria,
like work ethic or social aptitude, then she may wind up with a candidate
deficient in some other important area to her own detriment.

It _is_ important that everyone, regardless of their abilities or what they
can offer for society, have access to certain basic standards of living. But
it's absurd to suggest, as the author does, that we should hobble economic
output just to favor creating meaningless busy work over automation. If that's
important to us, we should just offer a basic standard of living directly.

If intelligence isn't a valid/fair selection criteria for job candidates, then
there is _no such thing_.

------
WalterSear
No, it confuses material success with human worth.

And this is not a new human behaviour, it's just exacerbated by increasing
inequality, and made more obvious when the rules of success change, favouring
different social groups.

American society's infatuation with gungho capitalism certainly plays a part
(thanks, Edward Bernaise), but I'm convinced it's a hard wired behaviour, like
our preference for attractive people. Associating ourselves with both
attractive and the powerful provide an evolutionary advantage.

~~~
jasonm23
Maybe you meant Edward Bernays?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays)

~~~
WalterSear
Yes. He is a saucy fellow.

------
CodexArcanum
There are two rather egregious flaws in this line of thinking from the very
start.

The first is that "intelligence" is purely an inborn trait. That "being
stupid" is a condition on par with serious mental disability. Stupidity isn't
mocked by the smart to belittle the dumb. It's mocked by the majority of
society to promote feelings of superiority in the mockery yes, but also to
share lessons about what not to do.

Anyone (barring mental disability, and even then) can learn, and can be
taught. I've certainly encountered my share of the intelligentsia too
brilliant to lower themselves to the common level, but I've encountered far
many more gifted people who wanted deeply to share their knowledge with those
around them. Yes, our society fetishises intelligence, but the vast teeming
masses of "dumb people" are a lot smarter than most would believe.

The second fallacy here is that financial earning or being able to survive at
all are somehow connected to "human worth" which is connected to intelligence.
As we automate more and more fields of labor, we are moving towards a post-job
society. The issue isn't that Americans over value intelligence, it's that we
over value the concept of "hard work." Especially as enshrined in the old
advice of many parents, "you have to work hard to get ahead in the world."

Well, no, you don't. Working smart helps a lot, but soon you won't have to
work at all. Or you won't be able to. Forget our negative perception of "the
dumb." We need to fix our negative perception of "the lazy." We must learn how
to value people for something beyond their contributions to labor, and maybe
we must also teach people how to have and feel valuable beyond labor.

And we should do it fast, because after we automate away the drivers, the
merchants, and the laborers, it won't be long before we've automated away the
lawyers, artists, programmers, and doctors. And then there will be nothing
left but politicians, and is that the world you want to live in?

~~~
mgkimsal
> Anyone (barring mental disability, and even then) can learn, and can be
> taught.... the vast teeming masses of "dumb people" are a lot smarter than
> most would believe.

I'm generally in agreement with the potential, but people need to desire to
learn (or be smarter, or whatever you want to call it). There seems to have
been a backlash against 'intelligence' which glorifies 'stupidity'. Not
specifically with that word, but the notion of 'book learnin' being something
to look down on, people getting 'too smart for their own good', etc.

There are many folks who have far less 'raw intelligence' \- whatever
biological component we're born with - than I do, but are far more capable
because they've applied themselves far more rigorously than I have over the
years. So yes, of course, almost anyone can really learn more, but they have
to want to do it in the first place, and get out of whatever cultural norms
bind them to their notions of looking down on intelligence (and accomplishment
in general).

------
osazuwa
I don't buy this.

This is not a problem. Anti-intellectualism is the problem. Our culture
encourages people not to be smart. In a sentiment captured by Marco Rubio when
he said it is better to be a welder than a philosopher, we teach young people
that non-intellectual pursuits are more noble (so long as they make money). We
teach men that it is more manly to work with your hands. We teach women that
service-sector jobs, or jobs that require more social acumen are more womanly.
We teach people the false-dichotomy of left-right-brain dominance, making it
easy believe that one is simply unequipped for logic and quantitative mental
work. We teach black youth that their role models should be athletes and pop-
stars, not people successful in STEM-fields (personal experience). Our popular
culture characterizes smart people as weird, eccentric, and disconnected from
the rest of humanity -- those tropes are obvious in the article's examples of
"Big Bang" and Sherlock Holmes.

When my wife learned coding, all her old college girlfriends were amazed that
she turned out to be so "smart". She was shocked, as she never saw herself as
particularly smart (though she is), successfully learning to code is just a
function of putting in the practice. It became apparent that her friends were
socialized to believe that this coding was the exclusive domain of this
mythical class of brainy people.

Sure some people are naturally smarter, thus it is relatively easier for them
to do mentally laborious work. However, If the economy increasing favors
people who can carry a heavier mental workload, then the first step to
preparing citizens for participating in that economy is overcoming our
culture's resistant strain of anti-intellectualism.

------
robg
And gets it very, very wrong. "Intelligence" moves around with nutrition,
stress, sleep, pollution. The brain is organic. We miss out on human potential
in all the neighborhoods around the world that aren't safe and supported. The
good news is we are headed in the right direction as a planet, but
surprisingly this article doesn't mention it [1].

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)

~~~
danieltillett
The Flynn effect had stopped in most western countries including the USA.

~~~
sangnoir
Your statement would only work as a rebuttal of parent's argument if
_everyone_ in the west had equally good nutrition (from birth), stimulation,
emencouragement asand education as these factors are suspected to be behind
the Flynn effect.

~~~
danieltillett
I was just countering the parents argument that we are heading in the right
direction - sure there is still some individuals that will benefit from
whatever drives the Flynn effect but overall it is now insignificant.

------
throw2016
American society worships financial success and the mythology of supermen and
superwomen to the exclusion of nearly everything else and this extracts a huge
price in the individual and social sense of well being.

Since capitalism will rarely allow more than 20-30% 'success' that leaves a
huge percentage of your population feeling inadequate.

Sometimes it feels the focus on individual brilliance without context of
social value impoverishes rather than nourishes.

It can induce an adversorial state of hyper competition, in and out groups and
a heightening state of frenzy to belong that leaves little room for niceties
like empathy and community.

The folklore of America's success reinforces the mythology of individual
brilliance, but rational heads need to question without taking away from
individual brilliance in the past, now or the neccessity of it in the future,
the benefits of the colononization of an entire continent.

The downside to this single minded focus is the simple fact that individuals
are disempowered. They cannot effect any change. It takes real community and
society to effect even the smallest change and that requires a functioning
social setup with community, cooperation, empathy and mutual respect. Any
communal action will require large numbers of americans to cooperate for
instance protests or activism, at that point americans will discover their
social structure does not allow for it and will not deliver. There is very
little if any sense of community. It's been engineered out. It's unlikely
individuals who have been devalued and left feeling worthless will make common
cause in a hyper adversorial social structure.

~~~
ctrlalt_g
To be honest, it's really confusing. It's not so much that I worship financial
success, it's that I'm scared of being financially insecure. It feels as if
the only way to secure my future and the future of my children is to become
the best. Perhaps some of this insecurity is translated into aggression toward
anti-intellectualism, which I see as an attempt to make me feel guilty about
wanting to be secure.

There's also the larger concern over foreign competition. I know that social
well-being is important, but when faced against countries who don't value
social well-being, it feels as if America is at a significant disadvantage.
After all, who could have competed against China's manufacturing prowess when
the Green Movement was unique to the West? If America enacts strong
protections for unintelligent people, will we see intelligence be outsourced?

I know that my fears are selfish and childish and irrational, but I don't know
how else to be. On one hand, I know how absurd it is to believe that
intelligence is the solution to all of my problems. But if being smart can't
solve my problems, what can? It seems equally absurd that being compassionate
is the answer.

I don't know. I'm sure none of this makes sense, but it's how I feel. Sorry
about the rant.

~~~
optimusclimb
> It's not so much that I worship financial success, it's that I'm scared of
> being financially insecure.

I'm taking some time off from working right now and I think about this a lot.

American life right now is a lot like a combination wager/equation you have to
solve.

At some point in life, you're own your own. This could be at 18, post college,
or for some - after your parents have paid for college, a car, and maybe a
down payment on a house for you.

Whenever this is for you, the game is on - how long will it take you to amass
enough savings to pay for your housing, food, and health care, until the age
you think you'll die? Variables include your earning capacity, investments
(which obviously have all sorts of options and risk), at what age you will no
longer be able to do your work (and thus, forced to live off of savings), if
you have offspring, etc.

Failure at this game results in potentially terrible living conditions in old
age, losing potentially years of life because you can't afford to treat some
sort of condition, not being able to pay for food, etc.

Personally, I think it's a tough game to play even with a marketable skill
(though to be fair, I wasn't one of the lucky few starting out at 0 when I
entered the workforce after college, but most of us aren't.)

I shudder to think how the average American is supposed to win that game.

Taking a year off, it really messes with your head doing the calculus of
balancing extended time/freedom to enjoy your life, do want you want, reduce
stress, exercise, read, not be a sycophant to some boss/comapny, etc - vs the
loss of a six figure salary, and what that would turn into by age 65 (or
thereabouts) after hopeful compounded interest and all that.

On the other hand, I could die at 40, or earlier.

~~~
Noumenon72
The wager would be a lot easier if you didn't have the uncertainty about
living 30 years after retirement or 10. I would like to see suicide become a
socially approved choice so we could eliminate the risk of those potentially
terrible living conditions in old age.

(I have stretched my year off to 2.5 and counting... would definitely rather
live like this for fifteen years and check out than go back to work to support
thirty years in a nursing home.)

------
Aloha
I learned when I was a child it was dangerous to be the smartest person in the
room. It's much safer to appear to be the village idiot, or at least less
bright that the brightest.

I do disagree fundamentally with the concept of the evils of merit - merit is
so much more than smarts and formal education, its a mix of capacity for the
role, agreeability and eagerness, productivity, effort expended, grooming and
appearance, and a dozen other factors, most of which are intangible. You don't
have to be information work level of smart to achieve these qualities either.

The problem is a belief that certain kinds of education make one more suitable
for a role. I'd take someone with 4 more years of real world experience over
that college degree any day.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I think many find the same thing. Don't prove the teacher wrong. Too smart in
a few subjects or suddenly figuring stuff out? Accusations of cheating. "You
are too smart for your own good" the adults say. "Yeah, they are smart, but
smart people don't have common sense and it shows" (which is really more
noticing that the kid acts just like other children due to maturity levels or
that they are thinking outside of the box).

And it carries over into adulthood. One of the unfortunate things to learn is
that sometimes, one just has to not say anything. Don't be smarter than the
boss, nor too independent (yet not too clingy or stupid). Always a balance.
Fitting into the mold actually goes further than actual intelligence.

~~~
Aloha
For me at least, its more.. don't stand out, hide in the crowd - I've never
been one who's good at blending in, I don't need one additional thing to make
me a target.

------
sixtypoundhound
Part of the problem is inserting the same standard across multiple roles; for
example, mandating all managers have a college education.

You don't need a college degree for most sales, customer service, and
operations roles. Some of the best people managers and sales people I've met
have sketchy degrees (or none at all).

On the other hand, putting someone in charge of a process which is highly
reliant on statistics or technology who doesn't have a college degree (or real
world experience which proves ample ability) can be a total disaster. I've
seen what happens when you take a non-statistical director and put them over a
data science process.... they hide in familiar details (project plan!
communications!) and can't understand the harder decisions involved in the
role. Like does the magical black-box system even work....

------
sandworm101
>> The 2010s, in contrast, are a terrible time to not be brainy.

That sums it up. Intelligence doesn't matter, rather the appearance of
intelligence gets one ahead. Appearing "brainy" counts more than actually
being brainy. TheBigBangTheory is part of that trend. Intelligent people are
expected to project a particular image. IRL that never happens. Many very
smart people couldn't care less for trek, comics or any of the other
stereotypes. And conversely, there are many absolutely not-smart people who do
very well by simply dressing the part. I say bring on the standardized tests.
Let us separate the smart from the fashionable.

~~~
curioussavage
While I agree mostly with what you said initially. IMO if you think your
"smart" or "dumb" based on the results of standardized tests then either way
you are just a gullible fool. Standardized tests are designed to sort people
based on what they can remember/understand at a given moment in time. A very
crappy measure of 'intelligence' (whatever that word really means) indeed.

~~~
sandworm101
>> Standardized tests are designed to sort people based on what they can
remember/understand at a given moment in time.

Maybe the knowledge-based tests such as the SATs, but there are plenty of
aptitude tests that are not based on memorized knowledge.

I also think it is naive to assume that there is some testable form of
intelligence completely devoid of cultural knowledge. Someone may be very
smart, but if they lack the basic tools to express themselves within a culture
then those smarts are behind a real bottleneck.

------
kartan
The premise is erroneous and it creates a difficult debate.

> American society increasingly mistakes _intelligence_ for human worth

I think that we are just in the same place that we have always been.

There were this intelligence tests in the 1900s that is what, still nowadays,
commonly people mistakes as innate intelligence. "Yerkes intelligence exams
(alpha, beta and individual) were culturally biased, taken under markedly
different conditions and tended to reflect years in the U.S. and familiarity
with dominant culture, rather than innate intelligence"
[http://www.understandingrace.org/history/science/race_intel....](http://www.understandingrace.org/history/science/race_intel.html)

Even innate intelligence is more complex than a number as there are different
components to account for.

So when the article reads "American society increasingly mistakes intelligence
for human worth" it should read "Americans increasingly immature when judging
others".

I blame this phenomenon at the lack of education quality. Memorizing and doing
mental calculus is far from what a good education should give you. Critical
thinking, capacity to self-learning, appreciation of universal human values
should be the main part of that education.

And as it says America I don't think that it is restricted to any country.
Education could be a lot better everywhere. But shrinking education budgets
all around the world, because "crisis", are jeopardizing our future.

------
rrecuero
As I see it, the world, and america in particular is worshipping the culture
of the intellect to the extreme, forgetting other innate and arguably more
important human qualities.

As philosophers like Jacob Needleman have said before, there is a line of
knowledge and a line of being. If one progresses too further ahead from the
other,it becomes useless and even harmful. We see examples everyday of people
that are really smart but can't treat others like humans.

The canonical example is a great coder that is a total jackass. There is a
dire need for empathy, now more than ever...

------
BuckRogers
That's a huge improvement over where we were a few years ago, when Steve Jobs
died and I noted all the human misery and pain he caused with his employment
of Foxconn sweatshops.

My coworker said Jobs' life was worth more than those factory workers. I
reminded him that everyone has equal worth and he seemed stunned at my
forceful response. Noting that your life has to feel pretty hopeless to jump
out the window of the factory you work/live in.

I guess being a do-well white boy in Chicago afforded him quite the luxury of
deciding the world pecking order. Except I was also a white boy in Chicago
calling him out on it. Considering we had multiple 2nd generation immigrant
coworkers around us, who should in theory empathize with 3rd world work
conditions, I was the only one who spoke up.

Probably because the Steve Jobs > all guy was a fairly influential architect.
But almost nothing stops me from piping up anyway. Still, judging human worth
over intelligence is definitely a bit better than judging based on
entrepreneurial capacity as my colleague was.

Maybe in a couple more years we'll all agree that humanity has equal worth and
dignity. Then all life, and we'll be set.

~~~
astrange
Foxconn workers are less likely to commit suicide than Chinese in general, not
more, which really weakens this argument.

Although Steve Jobs made more from investing in Pixar than Apple (I think) so
the mental health of Toy Story animators could be an issue?

~~~
BuckRogers
That reads as quite the troll, politically or financially motivated but I'll
indulge you. To start off, extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence, do you have citations for either of your claims? Your entire
argument rested on them yet you didn't produce.

Even once you produce those, I disagree with your premise. The comparison
should be work-related suicides in other factories in nations with better
labor conditions. Fiat factory suicides vs Foxconn would make more sense than
the population as a whole. Making more money with Pixar, if true, is not
correlation or causation.

You can make money, and not drive your employees or sub-contracted to suicide.
Exploitation is not a requirement for financial success or otherwise. That was
the point.

------
jackgavigan
A meritoracy can reward qualities other than intelligence - integrity, talent,
dedication, diligence, courage (both physical and moral), kindness,
generosity, willingness to help others...

~~~
DonaldFisk
It would be nice, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2014/12/15/is-homo-
eco...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2014/12/15/is-homo-economicus-a-
psychopath/#7da50b1842c5)

Peter Ubel writes: "The researchers paint a powerful picture of Homo
economicus: “We see a person who is intelligent, driven to excel and to
dominate other people, and capable of impulse control and of working toward
long-term goals. In other words, Homo economicus is the prototypical member of
the social and economic elite.”

And the social and economic elite think our society is a meritocracy, and that
they deserve their wealth and place in society, and through their control of
the media, have convinced most other people that this is true.

~~~
Godel_unicode
The implication here being that intelligence, impulse control, and the ability
and desire to work towards long term goals are not merit? I'm curious, what
then do you think constitutes merit?

~~~
DonaldFisk
Merit can't be defined generally, varies according to circumstances, and
people disagree on what is desirable. When it can be defined, it is usually
difficult or impossible to measure. When we attempt to measure it, some people
find ways of "gaming the system". And when it is easy to measure accurately,
it's often of little practical use.

We have created a society, or rather one has been created for us, in which
borderline psychopathic behaviour is rewarded. Many people are beginning to
wake up to this. Instead of trying to create a meritocracy, we should decide
what sort of society we want and work towards that.

------
selectron
I don't have any problems with a society that is a meritocracy. This article
is nonsense. If anyone wonders why so many people don't like political
correctness just point them to this article.

~~~
dopu
Your comment adds nothing of worth to the discussion. So what if you don't see
any problems with meritocracy? Explain why you feel that way.

~~~
selectron
The whole premise was based on the assumption that meritocracy is bad - my
point is that this is a flawed assumption. The proposed solutions were the
government could step in and "discourage hiring practices that arbitrarily and
counterproductively weed out the less-well-IQ’ed." This is counter to science
- it has been shown that intelligence is one of the best predictors of the
quality of an employee. Why should the government subsidize stupid people, or
interfere in companies hiring the best qualified employees anymore than it
already does? The reality is smarter people are on average better employees,
which is not at all surprising. This article is using politically correct
logic, as opposed to actually correct logic.

A fundamental assumption of the article is that every person is of equal
worth. Anyone who objects to this idea is labelled as racist or sexist or
whatever-ist. But it is objectively just not true that people are all the
same. A murderer is not equal to a doctor. Most people would choose to save a
drowning doctor rather than a drowning murderer if forced to pick one.
Similarly, if I a rational person had to choose between saving a drowning
doctor who is an idiot or saving a drowning doctor who is a geniue, the
rational person would save the smarter doctor.

~~~
zemblan
There's no reason that a doctor can't be a murderer. See Harold Shipman. That
speaks to the core problem here. A less intelligent but more diligent and
trustworthy person can be the better employee.

------
emptybits
I'm having difficulty reconciling this claim with how I see American society
judging the worth of political candidates. (Also in the journalistic outlets
American society values the most.)

~~~
Hondor
People tend to overestimate their own competence (and I suppose intelligence),
so they must also see anyone who agrees with them as being of high
intelligence too. That means we think the politicians we vote for are smart.
It's just the ones other people vote for that aren't.

Nobody will say "I want X but I'm not very smart so the politician who
promises X is also not very smart and I won't vote for him."

~~~
icebraining
I don't think so; for example, back in 2004, a poll showed that way more
people considered Kerry intelligent compared to Bush. Yet Bush was seen as
more decisive and made more people "feel more optimistic about the future".

[http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/lnews/2004-07-14/poll...](http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/lnews/2004-07-14/poll-
bush-is-decisive-kerry-is-intelligent/)

------
Hondor
It makes a valuable point that our popular culture that we think makes us
"civilized" is really just a sham and we're no different from olden-days
racists and homophobes but with a few extra rules applied. We're very careful
not to abuse people because of their race, religion or certain types of
sexuality, but for all the non-taboo classes of people, the gloves are off and
we're no different from slave owners who justified mistreating blacks because
they were sub-human. We can't call people niggers but we can call them
retards. We can't lock up homosexuals but we can lock up pedophiles and
zoophiles. We can't deny jobs or voting rights to women but we can deny jobs
and voting rights to foreigners.

We really aren't any more moral than we were 100's of years ago, we just fool
ourselves into thinking we are.

~~~
solipsism
_We can 't lock up homosexuals but we can lock up pedophiles and zoophiles_

It's extremely offensive to compare homosexuality to the others. They aren't
on the same spectrum, they're categorically different. Homosexuality involves
to consenting adults, the others cannot by definition (according to legal and
social norms).

 _We can 't deny jobs or voting rights to women but we can deny jobs and
voting rights to foreigners._

Consider that this method of constructing comparisons is ridiculously
arbitrary and creates a slippery slope. "We fish with worms but not with
Chinese. Therefore no morals!" Huh?

~~~
Hondor
> the others cannot by definition (according to legal and social norms).

Your argument could equally be used to justify criminalizing gay sex as long
as it happens in a country where it's illegal and people generally don't like
it. But really I'm not talking about sex but about sexuality. That's just what
goes on inside people's minds. We aren't even tolerant of that. It's not a
crime to be attracted to children but it's certainly ground to be abused by
otherwise moral people.

I'm not comparing fish with Chinese. I'm comparing one group of humans with
another. You could choose Americans and Chinese. How is it that we can ban
members of one group from working for money but not the other? Of course this
sounds ridiculous seen through the lens of current culture, but that's my
point. We're so immersed in our culture that we can't see its hypocrisies.

We think it's wrong for employers to advertise "Irish need not apply" but
today employers advertise "work permit required" and to get a work permit,
you're not allowed to be Irish except for some special cases.

~~~
solipsism
_Your argument could equally be used to justify criminalizing gay sex as long
as it happens in a country where it 's illegal and people generally don't like
it._

No it can't. It's the notion of consent that is subject to legal
interpretation. In a symmetric relationship like homosexuality how would
consent apply?

 _We think it 's wrong for employers to advertise "Irish need not apply" but
today employers advertise "work permit required" and to get a work permit,
you're not allowed to be Irish except for some special cases._

You seem to be missing my point. I'm not saying our categorizations aren't
constructed and somewhat arbitrary. They are. What I'm saying is that your
comparisons are poorly chosen. It's wise to wonder why we eat cows but not
dogs. But a relationship between two consenting adults is not comparable to
one between an adult and an animal. If you want to wonder why some farmers
prefer sex with goats to sex with sheep, knock yourself out.

~~~
Hondor
So you agree? Our ideas of right and wrong are largely arbitrary so we aren't
actually very good people compared to our ancestors. Your main concern is that
the examples I used to show that aren't as good as showing that we arbitrarily
eat pigs but not dogs?

Your argument using consent seems to be more arbitrary than it needs to be.
The legal definition of consent isn't the reason we don't allow those things.
That's just a tool we use to decide if it's a crime. The reason we don't allow
them is probably because it can psychologically harm the children. I'm not
sure about the reason for animals but it's probably more similar to the reason
we don't eat dogs but we do kill and torture them. That is, it's not for the
benefit of the animals, but something arbitrary in our culture.

~~~
solipsism
Sorry but you aren't making much sense to me.

 _Our ideas of right and wrong are largely arbitrary so we aren 't actually
very good people compared to our ancestors._

This does not follow. The definition of "good people" hinges on a moral
system, arbitrary as it may be.

------
gravypod
I'd just like to chime in and say that the word meritocracy was not invented
in the 50%.

You can clearly see that here:
[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=meritocracy&ye...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=meritocracy&year_start=1800&year_end=1900&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmeritocracy%3B%2Cc0)

------
teraformer
In America, lots of excessively toxic, obnoxious bastards get much farther
along in life than so many others by trading on unsophisticated deception,
intimidation and betrayal, and not much else.

After a while, you get tired of being smart and getting nowhere for all the
effort you expend.

Then, knowing what you know, and having noticed what's surrounded you for so
long, well... intellectuals can decide for themselves a logical corollary to
this.

------
powera
Was this article ghost written by Diana Moon Glampers?

I disagree with basically every sentence in the article and don't even know
where to begin.

~~~
powera
OK, a few specific complaints:

* The very first sentence is horribly misleading, as intelligence (among other things) was necessary to avoid dying in wars or starving to death before then. This describes every decade in human history before the 20th century.

* It also only applied to white men in the US (or Western countries) in the 50s. African Americans, women, people in India surely feel differently about how the 50s were for getting jobs.

* The author blatantly ignores Duke Power, which generally bans IQ tests as part of hiring.

* Apparently decreasing poverty is impossible, but all of the author's proposals aren't.

* The author dislikes the term micro aggressions, yet immediately uses it to refer to calling anything "stupid".

... and I'll stop again.

~~~
danieltillett
Duke power only bans IQ tests if you can't show a correlation between job
performance and IQ. If you want to use IQ tests you just need to do the
studies that show that IQ is an important factor for the position you are
hiring for.

------
stronglikedan
I wonder how the stats and facts in this article would compare to other
developed countries. I know it's not a comparison article, but more of a call
to action for America, written by Americans, but I would still be interested
in the comparison. Especially, since they mention a couple of world-wide
examples in the Darwin Awards and reddit.

------
jondubois
A terrible thing about society today is our diminishing ability for self-
reflection (which is a form of emotional intelligence). Most of the stuff we
do as individuals is driven by marketing and social pressure - So much so that
many of us have become oblivious to our true internal needs. Maybe that's why
so many people go to psychologists nowadays.

In the past, people put more value on self-reflection, philosophical thinking
and other types of emotional intelligence (e.g. wisdom) over raw I.Q.

------
mcguire
I am not sure that the author isn't confusing America's wealth disparity with
differential treatment of intelligence (which still seems to remain
undefined).

Sure, those with high SAT scores have greater access to the means for economic
success, but I don't think that is because of any intrinsic difference in
high-SATers and the run of the mill dummy. Rather, I'd suggest it is due to
the winner-take-all nature of the current American society.

------
djokkataja
Sortition[1] (randomly selecting from the population for government positions)
combined with direct democracy where possible would fundamentally address
problems of inequality regardless of their source. Meritocracy, plutocracy,
nepotism--you'll end up with a small group of people in power in any system
unless the system is carefully designed to prevent it.

Put another way, the article mentions several possible measures to try to
provide for better outcomes for everyone who isn't "smart"; these are bandaids
for cancer. These are top-down methods for "the elite" in various forms to
provide for "everyone else" so that the have-nots have at least enough to
avoid offending the sensibilities of the powerful. If fairness is a genuine
concern and central goal for a society, then positions of power should be
filled by a _statistically representative_ sample of the population. Until
then, inequality will be the status quo.

As I see it, the primary benefit in this specific situation (technological
unemployment or underemployment for the "not smart enough") would be faster
reaction time. You might see similar solutions to those proposed in this
article, but you wouldn't have to wait for people like Mike Rowe to write
about problems of inequality (and you wouldn't have to wait even longer for
people in positions of power to decide to do something). Random selection
would produce many people who deeply care about the "not smart" because that
describes about 50% of the people selected and many people they personally
know.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition)

------
vasilipupkin
Incentivizing companies to resist automation seems like a terrible idea that
would make everyone poorer, including the "less brainy"

------
jacquesm
I'd substitute 'wealth' for 'intelligence', and it goes much further than just
American society.

~~~
grossvogel
In fact, I'd say the unspoken premise of the article is that economic success
equals human wealth. From there, it argues mainly that economic success is
increasingly determined by intelligence.

Strangely, the article ignores the strong anti-intellectual undercurrent in
American _culture_ , which may be a byproduct of these economic changes, and
which seems to be the focus of many comments here.

~~~
grossvogel
Oops: "...economic success equals human _worth_ "

------
osazuwa
Reading illiteracy is no longer a big problem. STEM-illiteracy is the new
problem.

It is easier for some to learn how to read than it is for others. Yet as a
society we don't give people who find difficulty in learning to read a pass on
reading. Nor should we for STEM fields.

------
anortons
"The qualifications for a good job, whether on an assembly line or behind a
desk, mostly revolved around integrity, work ethic, and a knack for getting
along"*

* also being male, White, straight, Christian

...As though the 50's were the bastion of fair hiring practices.

~~~
defen
That's not a refutation of the article, unless you think that 50s-style
"integrity, work ethic, and a knack for getting along" hiring practices
inherently preclude women/non-whites/non-straight/non-Christian people. Your
comment reads like you're just trying to score cheap diversity points against
the standards of 60 years ago instead of engaging with the point of the
article.

~~~
afarrell
What actually matters is _perception_ of "integrity, work ethic, and a knack
for getting along", because people can only make decisions based on their
perceptions. Many* assert that the 1950s was a time when people widely
believed that Negroes were shiftless, Queers were deviant, and women were
hysterical. If you believe this, then it is natural to conclude that a Black
man needed to be twice as hardworking in order to overcome the priors of those
around him.

* including myself and pretty much everyone I know.

~~~
defen
That's still utterly irrelevant to the article. Unless your claim is that the
increased workforce participation from reduced discrimination today
_inherently_ leads to a "war on stupid people". Otherwise it's just a nitpick
on a small point that doesn't detract from the article and invites off-topic
comments like mine.

~~~
powera
It's a lot easier to have above average jobs for everyone when you only care
about 20% of the population.

------
kstenerud
This is pretty silly. In any society, we must decide how to distribute the
resources generated by that society. So you make the rules, set up
enforcement, and plod along, making changes as you go, as far as you dare in
the face of the inevitable political machinations of everyone involved.

The more intelligent and clever always benefit, because they know how to use
the system to their own purpose. This has been so since the beginning. The
less intelligent either end up in a position where their labor can be
exploited, or they're left to slow decline or even death, depending on how
much society values keeping them alive.

That's any given society, in a nutshell. They may dress it up in value
statements, laws, philosophies, religions, and so on, but in the end it comes
down to power, and who has enough of it to extract the resources and status he
wants.

The difference is that now the "menial" jobs are almost gone, and the higher
up jobs are on the chopping block. And so the first to die off will be those
without power (as usual). We can come up with all sorts of platitudes about
the value of human life, but in the end it always comes down to this. Welcome
to the true nature of man.

Of course, nowadays we have middle class folks who can experience the
philosophical angst of the less fortunate, and come up with all sorts of
rules, decide which words are acceptable or not, and police outward
appearances and speech.

You wouldn't think twice in deciding what to call someone who implemented a
password policy with a max of 8 characters, or stored the passwords unsalted
or even plaintext behind a system that hasn't had a security update in 10
years. But soon you will, because "stupid" is not an acceptable word anymore,
nor is any word that compares intelligence or ability. We're all equal, after
all, and that person deserves his job and the income it generates by virtue of
his being human and equal to every other human. You wouldn't want him to
starve now, would you?

~~~
rmah
Human worth or, as I like to call it "respect" has nothing to do with equality
of outcomes.

There is a difference between benefiting materially or politically from how
society is structured and social respect. There is a difference between paying
someone more or less for doing a job and how you treat someone when you
interact to them.

Let me put it a different way... why should you respect raw intelligence over
a person's height? After all, both simply an accident of birth (genetics and
early nutrition). Neither are something one _achieves_.

I do not respect raw intelligence. I respect personality traits such as hard
work, honesty, reliability, affability and bravery. I respect _achievement_ ,
not _potential_. To tie someone's worth to inherent traits such as
intelligence is, to me, somewhat shallow.

~~~
ctvo
I understand your point, but your example of height is odd because we do value
height, even if just subconsciously.

[http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2014/06/09/tall-ceos-how-
height-...](http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2014/06/09/tall-ceos-how-height-
helps/)
[http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/standing.aspx](http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/standing.aspx)

------
gwern
I disagree. American society has always had something of a love-hate
relationship with intelligence, and there have always been examples like _Big
Bang Theory_ venerating intelligence ('Sputnik moment' and astronauts,
anyone?). Intelligence correlates with success cross-culturally and over time,
so that's not in question.

What is in question is the 'increasingly'; the only evidence offered, aside
from anecdote, is that the returns from education have increased. This is
inadequate. The research literature I'm aware of
([http://www.gwern.net/Embryo%20selection#iqincome-
bibliograph...](http://www.gwern.net/Embryo%20selection#iqincome-
bibliography)) shows that intelligence has consistently been correlated with
SES/income/occupation and it's not that clear it has been increasing at all.
Particularly relevant is Strenze 2007, "Intelligence and socioeconomic
success: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal research"
[http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-
content/uploads/Intelligence-...](http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-
content/uploads/Intelligence-and-socioeconomic-success-A-meta-analytic-review-
of-longitudinal-research.pdf) who says:

> Several studies have investigated changes in the association between
> intelligence and success during past decades. Although Herrnstein and Murray
> concluded that “ the main point seems beyond dispute ” (1994: 52) and some
> studies have found support for this point ( Murnane, Willett, & Levy, 1995
> ), there are still serious reasons to doubt that the importance of
> intelligence is or has been growing. Neither the meta-analysis by Bowles et
> al. (2001) nor the review by Jencks et al. (1979) found any clear trend in
> the correlations between intelligence and success. The same conclusion was
> reached by Flynn (2004) and Hauser and Huang (1997) . Breen and Goldthorpe
> (2001) found that the association between intelligence and occupational
> status in England is, if anything, declining

Strenze's own meta-analytic results using ~44 studies are on pg13 Table 2,
where the correlation of intelligence with education/occupation/income over
the 20th century show no clear pattern of increase or decrease:

> The influence of the third moderator variable, year of success (i.e., year
> of the measurement of success), is analyzed in the third section of Table 2
> . Year of success ranges from 1929 to 2003 in the present meta-analysis.
> Judging by the sample size weighted corrected correlations ( p ), there
> appears to be no historical trend for any one of the moderator variables:
> correlations with education and occupation remain more or less stable
> throughout the period under study; correlations with income fluctuate more
> but without any obvious direction. Quite surprisingly, if unweighted and
> uncorrected correlations ( r ) are observed instead, then the correlations
> with education and occupation exhibit a declining trend.

So, if American society 'increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth'
and 'as recently as the 1950s, possessing only middling intelligence was not
likely to severely limit your life’s trajectory', why are the more
intelligent, if anything, _less_ likely to be successful when we go from 1920
to 2000?

~~~
onion2k
The Big Bang Theory is a show where most of the laughs are derived from the
characters being incompetent in some way or another. The basis of the show is
"people failing at things outside of their specialist domain." That isn't
venerating intelligence.

~~~
vacri
It's also just a standard sitcom, one that just happens to have the trappings
of higher education in its scenery. Same jokes, same cadences, same formula as
so many others. Curiously, I find Raising Hope, a sitcom about a dumb-as-rocks
family, to be far more intelligently written.

------
aplummer
"based on a candidate having a critical skill or two and on soft factors such
as eagerness, appearance, family background, and physical characteristics..."

I don't know if the author is trying to make this sound _better_ than today,
considering "physical characteristics" often meant "white and male".

------
maker1138
After all human history where jocks ruled the earth, they're now upset that
nerds are becoming important?

~~~
nickpeterson
You might be surprised by the intelligence of the ruling class from a few
thousand years ago..

~~~
mahmud
Not too hard to be intelligent when you have a monopoly on the means of
knowledge transfer (books) and the time to persue leisurely learning.

But it all changed widespread literacy. To steal a quote from Hilbert, "No one
shall expell as from the paradise Guttenberg has created".

------
arisAlexis
In the European Commissiom aka the public sector the only test you take to go
into any position even clerical is an IQ test. I can't comprehend this it
should be the other way around. Since maximizing profit is not so important
but serving the public is.

------
DominikD
Society historically confusing religious convictions with human worth is
somehow becoming worse by confusing intelligence with human worth. Fascinating
case of rationalization.

------
ken47
For those who count themselves among the intelligent, we should not doubt that
in a generation or few, our skills may also be automated away.

------
exratione
In a world that is increasingly data, the ability to process and react to that
data becomes worth.

Marking worth is just more data processing, a declaration of subjective value
in the scheme of your choice. Nothing special.

The nature of your interactions with those of lesser worth, and your views of
them, however...well, there is a defining thing for a human being.

~~~
optimusclimb
Except that the world around us is buildings, made of raw materials, i-beams,
2x4s, piping, etc. Built by people with trade skills. Filled with beds,
sheets, refrigerators, dish washers, art on the walls, TVs, etc, etc.

The whole world may seem just focused on data if you live in silly valley, and
your job is to increase conversion rates and improve SEO so some founder can
sell more overpriced clothes to people with disposable income.

To the majority of people out there? The world is not all just data.

------
ss108
This hardly seems to be the case if you follow politics and talk to people
about it.

~~~
aswanson
Politics, religion, and their close correlate, global warming, are subject to
opinion sans facts. Hence, the average discourse re: those three tend to the
degenerate case.

------
leecarraher
worthington's law: more money = better than
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke9iShKzZmM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke9iShKzZmM)

------
threepipeproblm
Don't be stupid vs. don't be stupidist?

------
cmurf
If only this were true in elections.

------
PeterStuer
As a non-American, and so 'judging' America only through the media, it does
feel like the complete opposite. Deep ingrained anti-intellectualism,
idolization of stupidity and love of the brazen and the rich. Scary decline of
the sciences and rapid expansion of superstitions. Of course this does not
apply to this here readership, but at least from an outside perspective we see
'idiocracy' surging onto the stage at breakneck speed.

~~~
smt88
Your assessments are not consistent with facts. You imply that the media is a
distorting lens, but then you go on to espouse views that come entirely from
the media. I'm not sure I understand that.

The US is becoming less religious, and it is the least religious it has ever
been. People aren't increasingly idolizing stupidity or loving the rich, or
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders wouldn't have done as well as they did (both
used anti-elite messaging). In fact, the on-going presidential election is
proof that the rich are falling from grace. Occupy Wall Street, anti-"1%"
sentiment, and a Democratic Socialist almost becoming the President are all
indications that neoliberalism is dying in the US.

~~~
PeterStuer
Yes, i accept that the media is a distorting lens, that is why I specifically
put this in as a disclaimer, but not living there it is the only lens I have
available. I'll give you Sanders as a point in showing at least an attempt at
curbing extreme neo-liberalism, but Trump seems (to me) like the front runner
in the race to 'idiocracy'.

~~~
kofejnik
There's very little doubt that Trump is an extremely smart person. Also, see
[http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-
liberali...](http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism)

~~~
lorenzhs
I don't think the GP meant to say that Trump isn't smart. It's that the
policies he suggests are meant to appeal to feelings, not rationality. They
are thus more likely to attract voters who don't think through what those
policies could mean, were they to be implemented. (Not saying those are all of
his voters, there are other motivations as well. Also not from the US.)

~~~
internaut
To play devil's advocate:

I think Trump supporters would say that there are simple truth about the
universe that faux sophisticated liberals don't grasp or weight equally with
less important things.

I believe that orthodoxies of the past half century have been a failure. If
average wealth has not risen for decades, a fact, then there is something
wrong with your model. Notice the slogan is not Make America Great. It is Make
America Great Again.

That admission of failure is fascinating and completely ignored.

------
known
marks != merit

voting != democracy

------
zizzles
Are you guys living in the same world that I am?

Nerdy geek-type intellectuals are at the BOTTOM of the totem pole in terms of
respect and human worth in the 21st century. They are ostracized, bullied in
school, most are awkward virgins (intellect is the anti-thesis when it comes
to being a "womanizer" or "stud") and it's only getting worse as society
progresses.

~~~
engi_nerd
Are _you_ living in the same world as the rest of us? Sure, there are people
who fulfill the stereotype that you've repeated here. But among the nerdy
people I've known you'll find some great people with rich, full lives. People
who spend their work lives searching for evidence of dark matter can also
climb mountains and have great family lives. Telemetry engineers who spend
their days working on RF systems can spend their lunch breaks learning sign
language or brushing up on their knowledge of Korean.

Those are just two of the people I've worked with.

And look around. The most popular movies are based on comics. The most popular
books are fantasy (Harry Potter) or science fiction dystopia (Hunger Games).
Video games often have budgets on par with blockbuster films. Where is the
social stigma on being a "nerd"? Largely gone, or at least it seems to me.

~~~
zizzles
This is an all too common occurrence with "nerds" such as yourself on Hacker
News: You are perhaps intelligent and high IQ. You are perhaps a successful
telemetry engineer, yet you are BLIND when it comes to even a BASIC
understanding how everything operates socially.

Raw intelligence by itself, is scoffed at by the general population. Outside
of your tight knit nerd-circle or a back office server room in Silicon Valley,
nobody actually cares about your quirky radio-frequency system hobby. Not even
your boss cares, he just wants you to bust your back to help turn a profit.

On a social level, athletes and high-school football jocks take higher
precedence than you. Pop musicians take higher precedence than you. Actors
take higher precedence than you. Your local handsome extroverted bartender who
can't even operate a computer takes a higher precedence than you (especially
in the eyes of ovulating women) That is what human-worth means, in the 21st
century.

Sorry guys. The show is over. Perhaps in the near future high-IQ nerds will
finally engineer fully immersive virtual world(s), because that will be only
world they will ever get any respect.

~~~
jazzyb
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I suspect the differences of opinion between
you and the person you replied to may be due to age differences.

I was a nerd in high school and was picked on when I wasn't being out-right
ignored. My college experience was noticeably better, but the stereotypical
extroverted "jock" still had me and my friends beat in the dating pool and
other social circles. By graduation I too would have agreed that "Your local
handsome extroverted bartender who can't even operate a computer takes a
higher precedence than you".

However, ten years later into a highly technical career, I am constantly
amazed at how beautiful my coworkers' partners are and how much respect they
command from their social circles. It turns out that by the mid-thirties
intelligence, and the success that comes with it, are _incredibly_ attractive
qualities. Most of these coworkers were introverted outcasts like me in
school, but it's hard to ostracize someone in the prime of their life with a
beautiful spouse, intelligent children, and a six figure salary.

~~~
engi_nerd
If you're in your mid 30s, then you and I are about the same age. I'll turn 33
in a few months.

------
frozenport
>> hiring decisions were “based on a candidate having a critical skill or two
and on soft factors such as eagerness, appearance, family background, and
physical characteristics.”

Because this would be a much better world?

------
darpa_escapee
Behold, the most Hacker News post on Hacker News.

~~~
dang
We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11926528](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11926528)
and marked it off-topic.

------
milesward
Uhm, STFU. Geniuses = good. Sexism = bad.

~~~
dang
> STFU

The civility rule here doesn't switch off just because someone else is wrong.
Please don't do this again. Instead, please (re)-read the following, which
describe what we're looking for in comments on this site—the idea is to post
civilly and substantively, or not at all:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11926598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11926598)
and marked it off-topic.

