Lisbon, Portugal - End of Ramadan
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (42)
sorted by:
You didn't answer the question, unless you meant to reference everyone on that list form Singapore down.
Which one of those are 'low IQ populations incapable of creating functional societies'?
You're obviously not going to get an unassailable answer, becuase there is no exact cutoff point, and the aggressive tone you've approached this with tells me that there is no answer that is going to satify you.
However, if you press me I'd say the line is somwhere around 85 to 90, or about one standard deviation below the mean.
The US army doesn't accept anyone with an IQ under 83, because they've found that these people are not useful for anything and including them make it hard to maintain order.
I'd expect the ability to create and maintain an innovating and stable society to requre more brainpower than the absolute minimum for functioning in a strictly organized system like the army, so a bit above that doesn't sound unreasonable.
Anything under 79 is considered mentally retarded (with the higher range being classified as 'borderline retardation').
IQ is heritable, about level with height. And a nation having a low IQ average is not just a problem because they'll lack people who innovate and create and organize and stabilize. That too, but an even bigger problem is the strain the low IQ put on a society. IQ correlates with everything from financial success, health, life expectency, level of education, social status, emotional maturity, and productivity - to crime, impulse control, ability to delay gratification, violence, poverty, religious fanatisism, and competence.
With an average IQ of 85, 15% of your population is going to be in the 60s and lower. These people are extremely high maintenance, any country would struggle with more than a few % of people in this range, and especially countries that otherwise lack infrastructure due to the upper ranges being capped too (i.e. you'd expect Singapore to do better if you imported 1/4 of their population's worth of under 60 IQ indivuduals, because the population numbers above 100 are still going to be significant - not so with 85 average countries).
Does this satisfy you, or were you looking for something more like: "Now that you mention it, you're right, we can't know for sure, so therefore that must mean that IQ has no impact whatsoever on nationbuilding!".
Just give me a range if you can't provide a firm answer. I don't expect you to say 93.763.
Seems reasonable enough. But if I look at your list, that means that many people who are proven capable of having a civilization have an average IQ that is lower than that. Are the Egyptians too retarded to have a civilization, while the higher IQ peoples who were then living in dirt in the north? Indians have an average IQ of 81. But the Indus Valley civilization was a great one. Same for Iran, which according to the list has an average IQ of 84, but the Persian Empire was one of the greatest in world history.
As far as I know, IQ correlates less with negative characteristics in populations with a lower average IQ. That is, while a white person with an IQ of 75 will be emotionally stunted as well, a black person will not be (at least not necessarily).
IQ is highly heritable in developed Western countries, because all the environmental 'efficiencies' have already been reaped. That is not true for parts of sub-Saharan Africa. If you're starving and living in mud huts, that is not going to bring the best out of whatever genetic endowment you do have (and there's a chicken and egg problem there). The fact that blacks in Western countries still underperform, suggests that there may be a genetic element to it, at least for some black populations.
Not really, it's just that you dismissing entire populations as 'low IQ'. It also makes little sense, because testing individuals on IQ is pretty cheap and reliable. If you don't want to import low IQ individuals, that is more effective than letting in retards if they are from 'high IQ countries' and denying entry to high IQ people from 'low IQ countries'.
Note that I'm not accusing you of anything for not wanting immigration. I oppose any and all immigration myself. It's just that your rationale would not make much sense.
(1)
You can't just compare ancient empires with modern liberal economies.
"Proven capable of having a civilization" /= "capable of creating and maintaining a free and open society".
Egypt was controlled by a Greek family for centuries. Before that it was some weird death cult in the hands of all powerful god-kings.
IQ is less of an issue in pre-industrial times where people were expected to do as they're commanded, economies are top-down and rigid, retribution is swift and final and most people are either farmers or salves. These systems are designed to deal with low IQs - like every human the low IQs are going to be obedient under threat of immediate brutality.
Just because a few managed to keep the masses under strict control, build up armies to conquer,and the upper crust of society produced some art and poetry, doesn't mean that those peoples can transition into a meritocratic, innovative, democratic, free economy. And in a world where different types of societies exist, the meritocratic higher IQ ones will outcompete the others, and the low IQ ones will be dysfunctional unless lorded over by an iron hand.
Of course the low IQ will grow more resentful in a society where they're constantly bottom, than in some ancient world where everyone more or less were subsisting on the same misery.
(2)
I don't intuitively believe this. I'd have to see some sources. It makes no sense. They may be from different races, but they're not a different species. And in the context of low IQ populations of the US this is just blatantly false, those correlations I mentioned are just as relevant for low IQ as everyone else.
(3)
IQ is highly heritable everywhere, but you are right that heritability is not the only thing that affects IQ, and poverty factors in particular can have an outsize effect. As long as the average IQ is low the prospects for a functional society are low too, but of course if the average IQ rises then those prospects improve.
China went from an average IQ of around 80 to over 100 in record time, as their economy improved and things like malnurishment declined. But the Chinese people in western nations were already above 100. So a better indication of the potential for IQ in populations is the IQ of their people in western countries. Some populations have stagnated around 85. I suspect we only know this because it's so shockingly extremely low that it was impossible to hide. You probably won't be able to find any further breakdown of other races. Couple that with the reality that the IQ cutoff point for both creating and maintaining competitive, democratic, wealthy societies may very well be over 90 and it's naive to dismiss IQ as a significant factor for why some nations are underperforming.
(4)
I know what a normal distribution is. A more charitable reading of "Low IQ populations incapable of creating their own functioning societies watching western nations over the internet and worshipping it like some sort of promised land" would be "The people of nations where the average IQ is low are watching western nations over the internet and some of them, presumably the midwits and lower IQs of thier societies, worship it like some sort of promised land".