**** Elections thread *****

[Poopadoop]

It doesn't bother me that I can't control everyone... It does seem to bother you.

No, you're assuming it bothers me. It doesnt bother me, I just recognize it as a fact.

It's just too tiny for you to care about.

Exactly.

I'm not trying to convince you to vote, that's up to you, I'm just pointing out that when you vote, you're part of a collective that has an influence as a whole.

Correct.

I think we just differ in opinion on whether a vote "is"or "seems" inconsequential. I'm in the "seems" camp.

Ok.

Sure, but you're not the only person holding this opinion. If everyone who felt like this changed their mind, that would be significantly less inconsequential.

Ok, but again we aren't talking about everyone. I'm not in control of what everyone does, I'm in control of what I do.

But if nobody voted, then democracy doesn't work.

It doesn't work now lol. Watch the video I posted and see if you agree with it.

First off, I don't care if I offend a sensitive soul.

That's what makes it antisocial. The rest of your argument is irrelevant.

I helped boost turnout, reinforcing democracy, so it does benefit society, albeit very slightly.

How so? How is society better off now that 32 000 001 people voted rather than 32 000 000?

Not the worst suggestion I had thrown at me. I currently volunteer for Oxfam, so I'm not against this idea.

Seems more productive than what you did this time.

[OngBonga]

How so? How is society better off now that 32 000 001 people voted rather than 32 000 000?

Turnout is a fraction of a percent higher. And let's not just think about me, think about everyone who spoiled their ballot. I can't yet find how many spoiled ballots there were nationally, but that info should be available somewhere. Between us we might have increased turnout by a whole percent. I have no idea, but higher turnout shows more confidence in democracy. Which is good, at least in my opinion.

Yes I know that me, as an individual, have virtually no impact, but I don't see why that means I shouldn't bother. I want to take part and say to myself "this is as good a system as I can hope to live under". Maybe there are better systems out there, but the one talked about in that video raises a lot of questions and I'm in no position to decide which is preferable.

Seems more productive than what you did this time.

I had a moment of personal amusement, and participated in a democratic process. Both are productive.

[OngBonga]

It doesn't work now lol. Watch the video I posted and see if you agree with it.

I did just watch the video, and I do like it. It's an interesting concept. I'm surprised you find it preferable though because it puts power in the hands of dumbasses. If such a system is truly random, then a sample of 650-odd MPs from a population of something like 40 million would not necessarily reflect the average person. You could have a collective of people with an average IQ of 90 running the country. The probability is small, but over a century or two, it becomes a significant risk.

I'd be inclined to support this with caveats... a competency test, and significant education and training in advance. But then comes with it the usual problems... those who educate are in a position to indoctrinate, even if unknowingly, and corruption is still a potential problem. Who decides who is and isn't competent? How do we ensure the selection is truly random? And who dictates foreign policy? Can we afford to allow random people to have the collective finger on the button? If not, who controls the military and how do we stop them from taking over?

It's a great idea in principle, but I feel it works better in relatively small, well educated communities such as ancient Athens.

[Poopadoop]

I did just watch the video, and I do like it. It's an interesting concept. I'm surprised you find it preferable though because it puts power in the hands of dumbasses. If such a system is truly random, then a sample of 650-odd MPs from a population of something like 40 million would not necessarily reflect the average person. You could have a collective of people with an average IQ of 90 running the country. The probability is small, but over a century or two, it becomes a significant risk.

A sample of 650 randomly-selected people would have an average IQ very close to the population average. Some would be very smart, some would be dumbasses, and most would be in the middle.

The advantage is none of them are motivated to be re-elected, they much less likely than politicans to be either power-hungry sociopaths or corrupt, or both, and their job would be to consult with experts and decide things.

It's like jury duty. You get picked at random to do a job with a bunch of other people. Some will do it better than others, but most will at least try and most will be honest.

I'd be inclined to support this with caveats... a competency test, and significant education and training in advance. But then comes with it the usual problems... those who educate are in a position to indoctrinate, even if unknowingly, and corruption is still a potential problem. Who decides who is and isn't competent? How do we ensure the selection is truly random? And who dictates foreign policy? Can we afford to allow random people to have the collective finger on the button? If not, who controls the military and how do we stop them from taking over?

It's a great idea in principle, but I feel it works better in relatively small, well educated communities such as ancient Athens.

Individual competence would matter, but these people aren't runnng the entire show. You don't select your PM by random for example. They're MPs, and some of the better ones get cabinet jobs. And just like real MPs, they consult experts and make decisions.

[Poopadoop]

Here's another question: You went to the polling station and saw some candidates, none of which you thought were good enough to vote for. What if at the bottom of the list there was another choice, "random person in your riding".

It could end up being Emmy the student, Tony the bus driver, Mary the teacher, or Joe the retired mailman, or anyone else who lives there.

Do you think they would likely be better or worse than the other candidates, and why?

[OngBonga]

Another problem, and this would drag down the average IQ of any given government, is that the more intelligent people are probably earning more money than most politicians. Or, to put that another way, they wouldn't quit their job, they would decline their selection. Someone with an IQ of 150+ is probably not interested in quitting his job as a doctor, and we certainly should make it a legal requirement for him to do so.

We'd have to set a minimum threshold, perhaps an IQ at at least 95, or some other measure of intellectual competency. That would be a good place to start.

[Poopadoop]

Another problem, and this would drag down the average IQ of any given government, is that the more intelligent people are probably earning more money than most politicians. Or, to put that another way, they wouldn't quit their job, they would decline their selection. Someone with an IQ of 150+ is probably not interested in quitting his job as a doctor, and we certainly should make it a legal requirement for him to do so.

Nope. We don't have an opt-out for jury duty or getting drafted into the army in time of war (besides something serious like you're too sick or whatever). This would be considered your civic duty and you'd be required to do it.

We'd have to set a minimum threshold, perhaps an IQ at at least 95, or some other measure of intellectual competency. That would be a good place to start.

We don't have a minimum IQ threshold for people to run for office now. But yeah, probably not a lot of IQ 70 types running. So yeah, I think someone would have to have finished high school at least.

[OngBonga]

There's no meaningful way to measure how smart someone is in a vacuum.

Chess.

[MadMojoMonkey]

"Chess"

Then you'll be happy to know that I'm functionally retarded.

[OngBonga]

Then you'll be happy to know that I'm functionally retarded.

I'm sure had you taken up chess at the age I did, you'd be better than I am.

[Poopadoop]

Going back to the IQ debate, scores on different subsets of IQ tests (e.g., verbal, maths, spatial, logical) tend to correlate fairly highly with one another. IOW, people who score highly on one subset tend to also score highly on the others, and people who score lowly on one subset tend to score also lowly on the others.

The only reason this would occur is if the different subsets are all tapping into the same general mental ability to learn and understand things.

[OngBonga]

A sample of 650 randomly-selected people would probably have an average IQ very close to the population average.

Added bold for accuracy. But just like you can toss a coin ten times and get all heads, you can randomly select a bunch of dumbasses. It won't happen often, but it only needs to happen once to destroy faith in the system.

The advantage is none of them are motivated to be re-elected, they much less likely than politicans to be either power-hungry sociopaths or corrupt, or both, and their job would be to consult with experts and decide things.

This was great until we mentioned "consulting experts". I mean, yeah, we obviously need to do that, but who are these experts and are they accountable?

Here's another question: You went to the polling station and saw some candidates, none of which you thought were good enough to vote for. What if at the bottom of the list there was another choice, "random person in your riding".

The problem with that is if a random person is selected, that person has no time to prepare and train. If I were selected at random, I'd want at least two years training and education on matters such as economics, and any other relevant subjects. You can't just throw a random person into government if they are not prepared. That's a really bad idea.

I do like the idea of random selection, but it has its problems.

[Poopadoop]

Added bold for accuracy. But just like you can toss a coin ten times and get all heads, you can randomly select a bunch of dumbasses. It won't happen often, but it only needs to happen once to destroy faith in the system.

30 is considered a large sample according to the Law of Large Numbers. 650 is a lot bigger than that.

It would be virtually impossible to draw a sample of n=650 with a mean IQ outside the range of 98-102. If it were 95 that would be a statistical catastrophe. And 95 isn't that much different from 100.

This was great until we mentioned "consulting experts". I mean, yeah, we obviously need to do that, but who are these experts and are they accountable?

They're people educated on the topic who provide opinion in return for a fee.

Going back to the court example: if you have DNA evidence you don't ask the jury to evaluate it. You provide an expert opinion.

The problem with that is if a random person is selected, that person has no time to prepare and train. If I were selected at random, I'd want at least two years training and education on matters such as economics, and any other relevant subjects. You can't just throw a random person into government if they are not prepared. That's a really bad idea.

I do like the idea of random selection, but it has its problems.

A person who gets elected for the first time has no time to prepare and train either, or at least no more than the random person would.

[MadMojoMonkey]

TL;DR: IQ tests are stupid, pointless, hopelessly flawed, and support elitism in their existence.

There's no meaningful way to measure how smart someone is in a vacuum. We can only compare how smart people are relative to each other on very specific tests. Those tests are biased, and there's no way to make an unbiased test, so comparing results from different regions, or even the same region over decade-scale time spans, is mostly futile. A test favoring one cultural perspective will work better where that culture is dominant, but not so well where it's not.

Hypothetically, an IQ test that works well in North Korea is going to look completely different than an IQ test for Birmingham. Even so, in order to get a fair and accurate result for the entirety of Birmingham, you'd still need multiple tests.

Those tests are intended to be similar... I.e. 2 people roughly equally smart should score roughly equally on the most appropriate IQ test for them. However, how can it be proved that the tests are appropriately designed for this?

Further complicating things, the results of each test are scaled to the group of testees. IQ is "Intelligence Quotient;" it's literally a percent from average.

If you gave kindergartners (and no one else) a math test with 20 counting questions and 80 calculus questions, then scored it as an IQ test, the mean would still be 100 IQ. The fact that none of the participants could correctly answer 80% of the questions is just shuffled off the table. You're not comparing the test group to some outside group (people who haven't taken this test), only to itself.
Give that same test to college students, and now the 5 year-olds look brainless. What was actually a not-too-bad test for the 5 year olds is now destroyed by including a group with a different cultural background in the same test results, and the college students score significantly above average.


Take that with the fact that you can't use the same test anywhere year after year, because the culture in that spot changes over time, and you're left with a load of nonsense, that is only anecdotally comparing the relative ability of a sample population to perform on a specific, biased test.

OK, but what if it's still useful?
It's not.
It's used in this forum as ad hominem and appeal to authority falacies.
"My IQ is higher than yours, so you should trust me, you simpleton." type of stuff.

[Poopadoop]

TL;DR: IQ tests are stupid, pointless, hopelessly flawed, and support elitism in their existence.

They're certainly not flawless, but if they're not measuring intelligence it's hard to imagine what they are measuring.

There's no meaningful way to measure how smart someone is in a vacuum. We can only compare how smart people are relative to each other on very specific tests. Those tests are biased, and there's no way to make an unbiased test, so comparing results from different regions, or even the same region over decade-scale time spans, is mostly futile. A test favoring one cultural perspective will work better where that culture is dominant, but not so well where it's not.

No-one has designed a proper, validated IQ test that has a particular cultural perspective for 100 years. The people who make these tests aren't stupid, they know you don't ask a person from Poland questions about baseball.

Hypothetically, an IQ test that works well in North Korea is going to look completely different than an IQ test for Birmingham. Even so, in order to get a fair and accurate result for the entirety of Birmingham, you'd still need multiple tests.

Not sure what you're talking about here. How is math (for example) different in NK than it is in Birmingham? How is a logical puzzle different? Or the ability to mentally rotate and compare objects? These are basic intelligence skills that don't depend on the culture where you grow up, unless the culture doesn't bother to educate people.

Those tests are intended to be similar... I.e. 2 people roughly equally smart should score roughly equally on the most appropriate IQ test for them. However, how can it be proved that the tests are appropriately designed for this?

You can't PROVE it in the sense you can prove two people are the same height. But, you can provide a measure that has a reasonable degree of certainty.

Further complicating things, the results of each test are scaled to the group of testees. IQ is "Intelligence Quotient;" it's literally a percent from average.

Right, and the group one is compared to is the most relevant group. You wouldn't compare me or you to someone from 1880 with a 6th grade education.

If you gave kindergartners (and no one else) a math test with 20 counting questions and 80 calculus questions, then scored it as an IQ test, the mean would still be 100 IQ. The fact that none of the participants could correctly answer 80% of the questions is just shuffled off the table. You're not comparing the test group to some outside group (people who haven't taken this test), only to itself.
Give that same test to college students, and now the 5 year-olds look brainless. What was actually a not-too-bad test for the 5 year olds is now destroyed by including a group with a different cultural background in the same test results, and the college students score significantly above average.

That's why you don't compare five year olds to college students. When they say a five year old has an IQ of 120, they mean he's smarter than the average five-year old, not that he's smarter than the average college student.

Take that with the fact that you can't use the same test anywhere year after year, because the culture in that spot changes over time, and you're left with a load of nonsense, that is only anecdotally comparing the relative ability of a sample population to perform on a specific, biased test.

The culture? An IQ test doesn't ask you who Taylor Swift is. It asks you questions that test your intellectual skills.

And yeah, they do basically give the same test every year. They might replace some of the questions with others of equivalent difficulty, but that's only so people taking the test multiple times don't keep getting better through practice alone.

Only the scaling of the test changes because of overall increases in IQ, mostly associated with education, but probably also nutrition and whatnot.

OK, but what if it's still useful?
It's not.
It's used in this forum as ad hominem and appeal to authority falacies.
"My IQ is higher than yours, so you should trust me, you simpleton." type of stuff.

Actually no-one is using it that way. I am smarter than most people by anyone's definition of intelligence. I understand things lots of people can't grasp. Same with you, same with Ong. There's no reason to pretend we're not smarter than others.

That said, there are arguably lots of types of 'intelligence' that aren't covered in those tests, if you define the term broadly enough to include any kind of mental skill. Motor intelligence, creativity, perceptual skills, etc.

[MadMojoMonkey]

They're certainly not flawless, but if they're not measuring intelligence it's hard to imagine what they are measuring.

They measure intelligence and a ton of other things.
The other things dominate unless the person taking the test is one whom the test is biased toward.

No-one has designed a proper, validated IQ test that has a particular cultural perspective for 100 years. The people who make these tests aren't stupid, they know you don't ask a person from Poland questions about baseball.

Are you saying there's no cultural bias in IQ tests (in the last 100 years)?
I don't even know what to say to such a clearly absurd statement being delivered unironically.

I'm not sure we understand each other's use of words on this one.

What counts as intelligent behavior in the poorest communities is not equivalent as what counts as intelligent in the most affluent communities. The way intelligence expresses itself is a function of the values of the culture.
How do you fairly compare the streets' smartest thug and the city's smartest CEO?

Inability to do so is bias. That's what I'm calling cultural bias.

Not sure what you're talking about here. How is math (for example) different in NK than it is in Birmingham? How is a logical puzzle different? Or the ability to mentally rotate and compare objects? These are basic intelligence skills that don't depend on the culture where you grow up, unless the culture doesn't bother to educate people.

It's not that those ideas are different. It's the assumption that the knowledge of those ideas is indicative of intelligence that is wrong.
A person growing up in an impoverished community and/or abusive home values very different things than those you've stated. Their lack of skill in those tasks is not related to their intelligence, but reflecting that they don't have the luxury of security that the test takes for granted.

You can't PROVE it in the sense you can prove two people are the same height. But, you can provide a measure that has a reasonable degree of certainty.

That's just it, though. You can't provide that. You can only assert as much and hope you're right.
You can make a test that accurately measures the intelligence of thugs, and one that does similar for CEO's.
Comparing those results, though... It's basically mysticism.

The tests must be different to accommodate the bias that makes them fair.
That's a big deal.
It means the results of the tests are only roughly comparable, not directly comparable. They're measuring totally different things, all under the banner of "intelligence."

It's the inherent flaw in trying to boil something so vastly interesting and complex down to a single number, IMO.

Right, and the group one is compared to is the most relevant group. You wouldn't compare me or you to someone from 1880 with a 6th grade education.

Then how can we compare thugs and CEO's? How can we compare farmers and city-folk? How can we compare prisoners and ... um... non-prisoners? Missourians to Congolese?

How can you assert that IQ's are "generally increasing over time" or however you phrased it?

That's why you don't compare five year olds to college students. When they say a five year old has an IQ of 120, they mean he's smarter than the average five-year old, not that he's smarter than the average college student.

No. That's how you disenfranchise impoverished communities.

You give the same test to affluent communities as you give to the impoverished communities.
That's only fair, right?
Then you show that the artificially lowered scores of the impoverished communities and the artificially boosted scores of the affluent community are the reason those communities are what they are.

Of course [minority] live in slums... they're not as smart.
Of course [minority] doesn't deserve our sympathy. They're genetically predisposed. We can't change that. Not our fault.

Elitism.

The culture? An IQ test doesn't ask you who Taylor Swift is. It asks you questions that test your intellectual skills.

See above.
In order to do so, it must presuppose your environment and project a value system which delineates what is "worth knowing."

Only the scaling of the test changes because of overall increases in IQ, mostly associated with education, but probably also nutrition and whatnot.

"basically" - meaning it's not the same.
"[...] through practice alone" - I find that hard to believe.
What psychologist is testing the same patient with the same test multiple times?
I was tested a few times, but never with the same test twice.

The tests change to reflect advances in the relevant psychological fields of study. Among them is the acknowledgement that changes in the cultural background in which the testee has lived render certain questions useless.

Only the scaling of the test changes because of overall increases in IQ, mostly associated with education, but probably also nutrition and whatnot.

So you agree that access to education and nutrition are significantly relevant factors!?
I wish you'd lead with that.

Do you agree that those 2 things vary wildly across even the population of a single city, let alone a nation or the world?

Do you agree that variance in those 2 factors is more often indicative of cultural status of the community in which the testee was raised than anything related to the intelligence of either the testee or their parents?

Do you agree that those 2 are not the only confounding factors in these tests?

Actually no-one is using it that way. I am smarter than most people by anyone's definition of intelligence. I understand things lots of people can't grasp. Same with you, same with Ong. There's no reason to pretend we're not smarter than others.

Lol. I disagree about how it's used.
When someone bring up their own IQ, it's never intellectually honest.

I bet if I followed you around for a day, I could list more than a handful examples of your lack of intelligence.
You certainly would if you followed me.
I'm good at some things, OK at some things, and terrible at most things. Just like the rest of us.

Just because we test well, and have a skillset that makes us better than most at book-smarts, doesn't mean we're smart.
It's more that we're lucky the things we're good at are valued as "smart" by the cultures we've lived in.

That said, there are arguably lots of types of 'intelligence' that aren't covered in those tests, if you define the term broadly enough to include any kind of mental skill. Motor intelligence, creativity, perceptual skills, etc.

If you don't, you're not being intellectually honest, and are probably virtue signalling, IMO.


If you don't, it's hard to interpret any direct relevance or predictive power of the IQ score, anyway.
It's not indicative of a person's dedication, commitment, loyalty, leadership, etc.
It's not indicative of whether a person has capacity for good or bad.
It's not indicative of how observant, patient, empathetic, or compassionate a person is.

[OngBonga]

Is that true? I mean I get it if you're needed for some task no-one else can do that saves lives like cardiac surgeon, but I don't think your boss can say 'sorry Fred, you can't do jury duty we need you on the night shift packing widgets'. Pretty sure that's illegal.

According to the government's website, yes it's true. Although, I did more digging to see what obligations employers have, and they have to give a reason. Moreover, they can only do so if it will "seriously harm their business". Further, they can only do it once in a 12 month period. So Fred who works for the widget business could be excused, assuming the business was small, understaffed, and had a large order of widgets to sort. Basically, if no replacement was available and his presence was necessary to protect the business' commercial interests. It's pretty unlikely that such a company will suffer "serious harm" if an employee is missing, but it's also not out of the question, so sure, Fred's employer, in extreme circumstances, can block his civic duty.

Or let's say you could opt out ahead of time if you don't want the job. Better?

Yeah, I don't think it's the kind of job you can enforce on someone, not for a period of years anyway. And it's a job you'd need for years. You have to be able to opt out. I think also the right to resign has to be present, some people might not be able to handle the pressure that comes with such a role.

[Poopadoop]

According to the government's website, yes it's true. Although, I did more digging to see what obligations employers have, and they have to give a reason. Moreover, they can only do so if it will "seriously harm their business". Further, they can only do it once in a 12 month period. So Fred who works for the widget business could be excused, assuming the business was small, understaffed, and had a large order of widgets to sort. Basically, if no replacement was available and his presence was necessary to protect the business' commercial interests. It's pretty unlikely that such a company will suffer "serious harm" if an employee is missing, but it's also not out of the question, so sure, Fred's employer, in extreme circumstances, can block his civic duty.

Fair enough.

Yeah, I don't think it's the kind of job you can enforce on someone, not for a period of years anyway. And it's a job you'd need for years. You have to be able to opt out. I think also the right to resign has to be present, some people might not be able to handle the pressure that comes with such a role.

Seems right. You can resign from any other job. If you got this job and then realised you don't know wtf you're doing and you're stressing out, or if you get sick, or whatever, quitting has to be an option.

[Poopadoop]

They measure intelligence and a ton of other things.
The other things dominate unless the person taking the test is one whom the test is biased toward.

What things? Are you saying someone who performs a logic puzzle better than another person, can do mental rotation more accurately, or has a larger vocabulary and better comprehension is reflecting something besides intelligence?

Are you saying there's no cultural bias in IQ tests (in the last 100 years)?
I don't even know what to say to such a clearly absurd statement being delivered unironically.

I'm not sure we understand each other's use of words on this one.

Yeah I don't think we are. I was referring to the kinds of knowledge you get as a function of growing up in a particular culture, like the baseball example I used.

What counts as intelligent behavior in the poorest communities is not equivalent as what counts as intelligent in the most affluent communities. The way intelligence expresses itself is a function of the values of the culture.
How do you fairly compare the streets' smartest thug and the city's smartest CEO?

Ah, ok.

"Street smarts" or more generally, "wisdom" are forms of social intelligence. I'm referring here to cognitive intelligence (i.e., the kind tapped into by IQ tests, and what most people mean when they use the word 'intelligence'). These are largely independent as far as I know and in fact rely on different parts of the brain. Happy to elaborate on that if you want.

It's not that those ideas are different. It's the assumption that the knowledge of those ideas is indicative of intelligence that is wrong.
A person growing up in an impoverished community and/or abusive home values very different things than those you've stated. Their lack of skill in those tasks is not related to their intelligence, but reflecting that they don't have the luxury of security that the test takes for granted.

If you don't have the time or motivation or security to develop your intellectual abilities, then it's not surprising you become less intelligent. It doesn't follow from that that IQ tests aren't measuring intelligence.

That's just it, though. You can't provide that. You can only assert as much and hope you're right.
You can make a test that accurately measures the intelligence of thugs, and one that does similar for CEO's.
Comparing those results, though... It's basically mysticism.

You can do very straightforward tests that measure cognitive abilities and provide very clear data about them, which is in fact as clear as a measure of a person's height or weight. For example, if you measure someone's reaction times or decision-making times to onset of stimuli, or measure their ability to inhibit a response to a stop signal. You can measure their working memory capacity. You can measure their visuoperceptual acuity. The results you get are measured in milliseconds or items of memory, so very precise. A person's scores on these kinds of tests correlates very highly with their scores on more conventional IQ tests.

The smart brain is very likely operating in a quantitatively better way than the dumb brain. It's faster and more accurate, and so can learn more and learn it better.

It's the inherent flaw in trying to boil something so vastly interesting and complex down to a single number, IMO.

It's important to keep in mind that a number like IQ is only measuring certain kinds of intelligence that are cognitively-rich and closed-ended and so on. But it's still measuring intelligence.

Then how can we compare thugs and CEO's? How can we compare farmers and city-folk? How can we compare prisoners and ... um... non-prisoners? Missourians to Congolese?

Why can't you compare them? The only problem I see is comparing Missourians to Congolese, if there are differences in language that make translation impractical. Otherwise you give them all the same test and see how they do. Note again you're only measuring cognitive intelligence (verbal, math, reasoning, logic, spatial) and not other kinds (social, motor, creativity, musical, etc. etc.) with conventional IQ tests.

How can you assert that IQ's are "generally increasing over time" or however you phrased it?

Because when they give the same test to large groups of people across long time spans, the scores go up over time. Do you find this hard to believe? Education gets better, people stay in school longer, people have better nutrition, more access to learning materials, etc. I don't think it's surprising we get smarter (as a group) over generations.

No. That's how you disenfranchise impoverished communities.

You give the same test to affluent communities as you give to the impoverished communities.
That's only fair, right?
Then you show that the artificially lowered scores of the impoverished communities and the artificially boosted scores of the affluent community are the reason those communities are what they are.

Of course [minority] live in slums... they're not as smart.
Of course [minority] doesn't deserve our sympathy. They're genetically predisposed. We can't change that. Not our fault.

Elitism.

I agree with you. And I wouldn't make those arguments. I would say the lower IQ in the slums reflects the lack of access to proper education/nutrition/etc., not a genetic inferiority.

But we are talking about what IQ tests measure here, not the social ramifications of how they can be abused by people with bad intentions.

In order to do so, it must presuppose your environment and project a value system which delineates what is "worth knowing."

Sure.

"basically" - meaning it's not the same.
"[...] through practice alone" - I find that hard to believe.
What psychologist is testing the same patient with the same test multiple times?
I was tested a few times, but never with the same test twice.

You were tested in school I presume? So was I. Those tests are geared towards the age of the children they're testing. That's why they don't have grade 11 math questions on a grade 5 test.

Psychologists' tests for the general public of adults are applied more rarely, usually following brain injury or assessment of dementia (remember the test Trump took?) but there's lots of them, and they are cross-validated (at least the good ones are), meaning that if three tests say your IQ is 100 and the fourth one says it's 140, the fourth one is invalidated and people stop using it.

And yes, a lot of the questions are basically the same. It's fairly clear that, e.g., 4x+2y=8 is functionally equivalent to 2x + 6y = 10 in terms of who can and can't solve it.

For vocab tests, they test a large number (say 30) words, and in the next test a large number of words matched on difficulty. And in both, there will be some people who score higher than others.

The tests change to reflect advances in the relevant psychological fields of study. Among them is the acknowledgement that changes in the cultural background in which the testee has lived render certain questions useless.

This has been known for a long time. When the US entered WWI in 1917, they used an IQ test that asked a lot of culturally-biased questions (such as 'how many are on a baseball side'). Not surprisingly, people born in the US scored higher than immigrants from English-speaking countries, who scored higher than immigrants from non-English speaking countries). Also not surprisingly, racists abused these results for their own ends. Also not surprisingly, the test has since been modified to avoid these kinds of problems. Even the army learned it's lesson on that one.

So you agree that access to education and nutrition are significantly relevant factors!?
I wish you'd lead with that.

Of course they are. So is exercise and whether or not you smoke and if you're slim or a fatty. All factors relating to health affect the brain.

Do you agree that those 2 things vary wildly across even the population of a single city, let alone a nation or the world?

Do you agree that variance in those 2 factors is more often indicative of cultural status of the community in which the testee was raised than anything related to the intelligence of either the testee or their parents?

I agree with all of this, yes.

Do you agree that those 2 are not the only confounding factors in these tests?

Only if you ascribe test scores purely to genetics and not acknowledge the impact of these other factors. But this question is different from 'what does an IQ test measure?' This question assumes it measures some kind of cognitive abiity(s) and describes the source of a person's IQ score as being purely innate as opposed to what it really is, a combination of genetics and environment.

Lol. I disagree about how it's used.
When someone bring up their own IQ, it's never intellectually honest.

Well in our convo, Ong brought up my IQ, not his own. Not sure what you think that means but anyways...

I bet if I followed you around for a day, I could list more than a handful examples of your lack of intelligence.

Letting you follow me around for a day would be the first one. And sure, you'd see some examples of things I do that aren't very smart. I'm fairly sure you'd also see more than enough examples of things that are smart enough to convince you that overall, I'm smarter than the average bear.

I'm good at some things, OK at some things, and terrible at most things. Just like the rest of us.

I don't think most people are terrible at most things. They're certainly not expert at everything, but that's not what IQ is measuring.

Just because we test well, and have a skillset that makes us better than most at book-smarts, doesn't mean we're smart.

It pretty much does though by the standard definition of intelligence.

It's more that we're lucky the things we're good at are valued as "smart" by the cultures we've lived in.

I agree it's more fortunate to be smart than to not be smart.

If you don't, you're not being intellectually honest, and are probably virtue signalling, IMO.

Maybe, but it remains the case that most people think of the term 'intelligence' in terms of cognitive abilities rather than those other things. So it's not disingenuous to use the word in that sense imo.

If you don't, it's hard to interpret any direct relevance or predictive power of the IQ score, anyway.

It predicts a lot of things. It predicts that it takes an intelligent person less time to read and understand something. It predicts they can follow a chain of logic. It predicts they are good at math.

It's not indicative of a person's dedication, commitment, loyalty, leadership, etc.
It's not indicative of whether a person has capacity for good or bad.
It's not indicative of how observant, patient, empathetic, or compassionate a person is.

Nor was it ever meant to indicate any of those things. It's an intelligence test, not a 'how good a person are you' test.

[MadMojoMonkey]

"Intelligence" isn't a well-defined term.

Social intelligence is useful to politicians.
Logical intelligence is useful to scientists.
Physical intelligence is useful to athletes and musicians.
etc.

The assumption that a person with the skillset that makes a good medical doctor translates to a good politician seems absurd to me.

[OngBonga]

It would be virtually impossible to draw a sample of n=650 with a mean IQ outside the range of 98-102. If it were 95 that would be a statistical catastrophe. And 95 isn't that much different from 100.

I'm just going to take your word for this. The maths is just too complex. I'm sure if I set about it I could do it, but I am lazy when it comes to using my brain for menial tasks.

We don't have an opt-out for jury duty

Furst of all, jury duty takes weeks, not years. Also, you can be excused, for example if your employer refuses to give you time off.

or getting drafted into the army in time of wa

This is a last resort in time of national emergency.

This would be considered your civic duty and you'd be required to do it.

This is no longer more appealing than the system we have.

We don't have a minimum IQ threshold for people to run for office now.

We don't need it. Dumb fucks won't get voted in. Say what you like about Boris, but if you think he's stupid, you're mistaken. I doubt very much Trump is as stupid as some people think he is, either, but I really don't want to get into American politics at a time when British politics is stressful enough.

[Poopadoop]

you can be excused, for example if your employer refuses to give you time off.

Is that true? I mean I get it if you're needed for some task no-one else can do that saves lives like cardiac surgeon, but I don't think your boss can say 'sorry Fred, you can't do jury duty we need you on the night shift packing widgets'. Pretty sure that's illegal.

[Poopadoop]

This is no longer more appealing than the system we have.

Or let's say you could opt out ahead of time if you don't want the job. Better?

[MadMojoMonkey]

What things? Are you saying someone who performs a logic puzzle better than another person, can do mental rotation more accurately, or has a larger vocabulary and better comprehension is reflecting something besides intelligence?

No, I'm saying that a high score is probably indicative of the type of intelligence the test was testing for, but a low score could indicate a wide range of things, most of them not related to the test.

But also, YES, I would say that.
You've listed examples of knowledge, not intelligence. Measuring one and calling it the other is weird.

"Street smarts" or more generally, "wisdom" are forms of social intelligence. I'm referring here to cognitive intelligence (i.e., the kind tapped into by IQ tests, and what most people mean when they use the word 'intelligence'). These are largely independent as far as I know and in fact rely on different parts of the brain. Happy to elaborate on that if you want.

This is a huge problem, and failure to incorporate all forms of intelligence into IQ tests is misleading.
Or rather, failure to comprehensively expand the testing process to show the many, nuanced ways intelligence expresses in humans renders the results useless without the handful or more other numbers to get an actual glimmering of someone's intelligence.

I've never heard anyone equate "street smarts" and "wisdom" before. Having high wisdom will lead to more street smarts if you spend time on the streets, but not otherwise.

"What most people mean [...]," citation needed.
Do you mean the people you spend the most time with? or most of the people you spend time with?

If you don't have the time or motivation or security to develop your intellectual abilities, then it's not surprising you become less intelligent. It doesn't follow from that that IQ tests aren't measuring intelligence.

As far as I understand, a 5 year old with a ~140 IQ is most often going to mature into a teenager with a ~140 IQ and then an adult with ~140 IQ, provided things go well enough (e.g. no head trauma).
Ergo, intelligence is not dependent on how you spend your time. However, your ability to score well on a given IQ test certainly is if it's asking vocabulary questions and visualize a rotating shape questions.

The smart brain is very likely operating in a quantitatively better way than the dumb brain. It's faster and more accurate, and so can learn more and learn it better.

Then why are you talking about memorization as an indication of smarts?
You should be measuring how fast a person is at incorporating new information and accurately applying it, right?
I.e. intelligence cannot be measured based on the past, but only based on the present, right?

It's important to keep in mind that a number like IQ is only measuring certain kinds of intelligence that are cognitively-rich and closed-ended and so on. But it's still measuring intelligence.

It's important to remember that when describing a pizza, I'm only really talking about the pepperoni... which your pizza may not have, but "most people's" do. But I'm still describing a pizza.

Why can't you compare them?

Comparing the IQ's of test subjects from different cultures is bogus. Each group is normalized to itself, and there's no mathematical way to compare the mean of one group to the mean of another group, since the tests themselves are different.
We can say, "people who are on the top of the bell curve in one group will tend to be on the top of the bell curve in another group." That's fine. What we can't say is, "This group scores systematically higher/lower than that group."

Because when they give the same test to large groups of people across long time spans, the scores go up over time. Do you find this hard to believe? Education gets better, people stay in school longer, people have better nutrition, more access to learning materials, etc. I don't think it's surprising we get smarter (as a group) over generations.

Hard to believe? No, the opposite. Previously novel ideas embraced by only a few become ubiquitous knowledge over time, and therefore no longer reflect an "advanced" knowledge of anything. Other ideas, once ubiquitously agreed upon as "true," are shuffled out of the culture, as their importance and "truth" is not really all that.

A test based on cultural norms becomes outdated as culture evolves.

Education getting better doesn't make people smarter, it makes them more knowledgeable. Same for additional schooling. Good nutrition increases security and free time, allowing more time for whatever intelligence to express itself on non-survival based thoughts, which are not prized as "smart" in our culture.

Grog the cave man was as statistically as likely of being a genius by today's standards as a child born today. The human genome hasn't changed since his time. Intelligence hasn't changed in many tens if not hundreds of thousands of years. There is 0 evidence that people have "gotten smarter" over the entire human geological record.
Maybe you can't agree with me based a genetic record. Fine. I'm a bit dubious on that assertion, myself.

Ancient history, the oldest writings, Ancient Egyptian culture... if you study it at all, you will see the genius of those people. The smartest people alive today are not in consensus about how the Egyptian pyramids were built. They had genius 6,000 years ago.
What has changed is culture, not intelligence.

But we are talking about what IQ tests measure here, not the social ramifications of how they can be abused by people with bad intentions.

You've solidly agreed with me that the tests are biased toward the cultural status of the testee, and that comparing results of disparate cultures on the same test is bogus.
We already know you can't directly compare the results from different tests, so ...
I don't see how the result (some bigotry) is anything but a foregone conclusion.

You were tested in school I presume?

Yep. Bunch of condescending douchbags. (the testers)

If I locked you in a room with nanners (as opposed to a nice person) and he was testing your IQ, do you think that would tend to increase or decrease your score on that test?
Is that more a reflection of your intelligence, or your patience?
Maybe your determination to remain focused despite distraction?

The tests are sensitive to so many unquantifiable factors beyond what they're designed to test.

This has been known for a long time.

Also not surprisingly - an expert such as yourself continues to deny the extreme relevance of cultural bias to the tests and their results until after you've spent a couple paragraphs saying some things that any statistician should get all squinty-eyed at.
"You can't do well on any of the tests unless you could do well on all (or most) of the tests."
you say while sweeping this under a rug:
"while a high score tends to indicate intelligence, a low score indicates nothing at all."


***
This is too long.
White flag.

I'll try to respond in summary on these long topics. The wall of text thing is fun, but overwhelming and daunting to read, IMO.

[Poopadoop]

As far as I understand, a 5 year old with a ~140 IQ is most often going to mature into a teenager with a ~140 IQ and then an adult with ~140 IQ, provided things go well enough (e.g. no head trauma).
Ergo, intelligence is not dependent on how you spend your time.

Sure it is. If you take two five year olds with an IQ of 140 and one goes to school everyday and studies and the other's parents decide school is for suckers and pull him/her out of it and lock him a closet for 10 years, the former is going to end up ahead of the latter at age 15 on IQ.

Then why are you talking about memorization as an indication of smarts?
You should be measuring how fast a person is at incorporating new information and accurately applying it, right?

Working memory is memory for the last 30 seconds or so. I think you're conflating that with long-term memory, which is beyond 30s and forms the basis of what we consider 'knowledge'.

WM is pretty critical for doing anything that requires you to hang onto information while you process it (and as such, makes it easier to acquire long-term knowledge). If you can't remember what you just read in the previous sentence (context), the storyline will be harder to comprehend, and you will suffer on an IQ test of verbal comprehension. Similarly, if you're doing math or logic tests. So if you have a larger WM capacity, you'll be better at these things than someone who forgets where they started from when they get halfway through a task.

Also not surprisingly - an expert such as yourself

not at all an expert, but I've learned some things about it here and there along the way.

continues to deny the extreme relevance of cultural bias to the tests

well, I don't really. I've said repeatedly that environment (including culture) affects intelligence and hence IQ scores.

Or, if by that you mean the cultural bias in how we define intelligence, this is changing. There are now tests to assess social intelligence, moral intelligence, musical intelligence, creativity, etc.. They just arent incorporated into standard IQ tests- and maybe they should be. But that just means IQ tests are limited, not that they're bogus.

and their results until after you've spent a couple paragraphs saying some things that any statistician should get all squinty-eyed at.

I'm more of a statistician than I am an expert on IQ. Pointing out the existence of correlations isn't in the least bit questionable.

"You can't do well on any of the tests unless you could do well on all (or most) of the tests."

Not what a correlation means, nor what I said. I said you are more likely to do well on one subset of an IQ test if you do well on another subset of an IQ test, and similarly for other more objective tests of cognitive processing speed and working memory capacity. These are established facts, and not controversial.

I added something along the lines of it seems likely from this that these different subtests are tapping into some underlying cognitive ability. I don't think there's anything outrageous about that statement. You can disagree, but then you have to provide some alternate explanation for the existence of this matrix of correlations among all these various things that prima facie seem to be measuring intelligence.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The House Impeached Trump, BTW.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I disagree with your view of what constitutes intelligence. I think you're pigeon-holing human intelligence into too simple a model to be in any way meaningful or useful.
Intelligence is multi-faceted and turns up in many and surprising ways, IMO. Any attempt to describe something so complicated with one piece of information (a number) is going to be hollow.


I don't need to provide any "alternative explanation" than what I've been offering this whole time.
The tests are measuring things that are valued by our culture. People that are good at those things we currently value are called "smart."
Those "smart" people are also good at other tests which measure things we value in our culture.
People that are good at the things we value in our culture remain good at tests which probe exactly that.

I've never denied that the tests can measure intelligent behavior. When a person is actually smart, that intelligence manifests in lots of ways, and so long as the test hits on some of those ways, it will probably be good enough to earn a high score.

I cite that high test results are probably indicative of high intelligence, but low test results don't indicate anything at all.

I cite that the tests are biased in their nature, and that trying to use a single test on too large a group is going to skew the results. Furthermore, the bias is toward the majority (by design, to accommodate the largest number of test-takers) and skewed in their favor and against any minorities.
Frankly, the more I think about this one, the harder it is to see it as unintentional that some bigotry comes out of it.

***
It just goes on and on. The tests are bad because they're based on a flawed idea. The whole notion that human intelligence is 1-dimensional and can be boiled down to a single number is just nonsense.

[wufwugy]

The moment Kanye wins the 2024 election:

On the debate stage, one of the press asks him why he would run as a Republican since everybody knows that Republicans are such super dooper racists.

Kanye tilts into the mic slightly and says "Abraham Lincoln is a Republican."

And every brain in the country goes "hmm".

[OngBonga]

Change have got 3% so far. That's just beautiful.

Worst name ever for a political party. I'm glad the voters are seeing those people for the frauds they are.

[Poopadoop]

so far.

Dude, there's like 3 seats declared right now. One of the two Brexit took they got from UKIP lol. Take a nap.

You're like those guys on TYT who saw Hillary win New York and thought she had POTUS all sewn up.

[OngBonga]

Dude, there's like 3 seats declared right now. One of the two Brexit took they got from UKIP lol. Take a nap.

You're like those guys on TYT who saw Hillary win New York and thought she had POTUS all sewn up.

This aged well.