CMV: Greater average intelligence in the population will improve society.
Posted Apr 12, 2015, 9:20 PM UTC · edited
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So you're saying a society where everyone has a 170 IQ but are wickedly selfish and evil will be a better place to live than a society with 120 IQ people who are humble and caring?
I think whether or not a society is better is based on a range of factors, many of which do not necessarily involve intelligence.
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Please define "evil".
I'll note that with the current way we measure I.Q. 170 doesn't really make sense.
I'll also note that both of your examples of I.Q. are above the average we currently measure (yes I understand how I.Q. tests are calibrated to 100, and adjusted to follow the flynn effect). A fairer comparison would perhaps be between a society where the average is 80 and one where it's 130.
I would probably be much happier to live in a society where the average is 120, from that point to a society where the meaningless 170 is actually a measure, and of the average would be so different as to be incomprehensible (I'm not creatively smart enough to imagine it).
It is possible that a society of more intelligent people could develop ethically superior morals, compared to what the current western oriented, politically correct, mainstream selection of morals is.
In some cases, these might seem "evil" to one another, but that really depends on your definition of evil.
To make an example of contradictory theories of evilness; suppose one person observes that poverty causes a great deal of crime (due to greater proportional incentives to steal and break laws for money) and suffering (due to not being able to fulfill all needs), and so a great politician, or even a political activist makes a grand plan to employ lots of people, and it'll be cheap, they just need to harness the natural resources in the area, and manufacture things with them. The largest resource happens to be brown coal, and it is most profitable to remove the ground which covers the deposits, and burn it nearby for energy, which is used to power aluminum refineries (which are built wherever energy is cheap). The plan would work, it really would, but of course there are some evil environmentalists who lobby for obstructive environmental laws and regulations which make it too expensive to build the factories and plants, of course they cite how burning brown coal in such volumes will cause acid rain, brown the forests, and poison the waterways, eventually the soot production would cause increased incidence of lung diseases in the area, which results in deaths and lowering the quality of life in the area.
Such a situation, I imagine, is exactly the sort which causes people to end up in endless political debates over which side is most evil, instead of trying to actually solve the problem. My presumption is that in a society where a greater percentage of people can come up with original, intelligent, or creative solutions which solve multiple problems will be a society which implements these solutions more often. But that's why I am here, CMV.
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On my phone so can't do a long response, but by evil perhaps I meant a slightly more intelligent society that is materialistic, self centered, and narcissistic, vs a more basic society (less overall knowledge) that is caring, family centered, etc.
I mean, the Europeans in the 1600's probably "knew" more stuff and built more advanced weaponry, boats than some of the native islands in the Gulf, but via primary source records it sounded like a lot of those native cultures lived kind, happy and caring lives. Not all cultures (there were many), but a lot of them.
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I'm sure that native people's probably lived more sustainably, but I doubt their quality of life was better than an average person's is today, for example, you could suffer from an inexplicable disease, suddenly die in a thunderstorm, or from animal attack, or simply not have sufficient clothing, as first the industrial revolution and after that globalization and automation have caused clothes to be an incredibly cheap commodity, nearly post scarcity, indeed, as artificial scarcity, the use of "fashion" is required. Food too is more abundant and of better quality than ever before, sure some vegetables do have lower vitamin counts, but people can actually afford to practice things like veganism, or gluten free diets, which are entirely unnecessary for survival, and you can be sure that at every level of the production chain, there is some form of quality assurance, mandated by an organization that makes sure people don't consume stuff that will kill them without even knowing about it, unless you grow your own food, that is.
I find it interesting that you propose intelligent people must automatically be more "materialistic, self centered, and narcissistic" Whether this is just an example of the Straw Vulcan trope, or because in current society, people who are significantly more intelligent than average are by definition quite rare, and are marginally alienated by most people who feel uncomfortable, or threatened around these individuals (and perhaps they have fewer people they can relate to) and as a result resort to life strategies which are more focused on status advancement which is not based on person to person interaction, but instead more immutable material wealth, perhaps they are driven, or encouraged to take pride in their mental abilities, and so more often naturally become narcissistic, yes, if you have few or no people you can call friends, then you do become self-centered.
However in a society where everyone's intelligence is higher, there is no particular reason why the average person will be more likely to have any of these qualities, perhaps some superstitions will be less common, but personally I view that as a positive change.
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I didn't see that second half in OP's post. Where are you getting "wickedly selfish and evil" from?
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This implies that all of society's ills are caused by stupidity. You can certainly find instances of smart people being lazy or committing crimes, can't you?
False. It would be true if he said society would be fixed if we all had a high IQ. He simply said improved. So it only implies that some of societys ills are caused by stupidity. That is certainly true.
No, certainly not, but there's no lack of crimes and systemic inefficiency caused by uneducated, unintelligent people, even if there was no "ill intent" less intelligent people can cause harm through not understanding the bigger picture, or other oversights or ignorance.
My argument is that in a society where everyone is more intelligent, on average, the fewer instances of crime and unintentional harm would occur, and more instances of intelligent (better than average) solutions to problems would not only be imagined, but actually implemented. (there's an awful lot of apparently great ideas which are not even tested to see if they would work or not, but are instead disregarded immediately)