Baldur Bjarnason
The thing about people who have a lot of whatever it is that we're measuring with IQ is that they quite often tend to be way _more_ wrong than those who have less of whatever it is that those points stand for.
High IQ is kind of like superglue for opinions
Not only doesn't IQ compensate for ignorance or poor methodology, it acerbates the issue.
Rationalisation is a powerful drug. Most people can convince themselves of almost everything but those with high IQ tend to be _extraordinary_ at it.
DC Rat
@baldur First read that as βrationalism is a powerful drugβ and, honestly, it works either way. This is one of the clearer explanations of this Iβve ever read. Thanks!
Baldur Bjarnason
Reasoning from first principles about unfamiliar fields is a popular past-time among many smart people in tech. They love to try to "solve" long-standing fields based on nothing more than their wits and personal observation.
But most fields have points in their history where they were stuck in false paradigms or fallacies because those were the conclusions a smart person would draw based on their wits and observation.
It takes years of collective work for fields to break out of these fallacies
Baldur Bjarnason
What these guys miss (and the tech industry misses because it's largely run by these guys) is that collective work using a structured process will trump high-IQ every time. It's the basis of progress in most fields: the scientific method, arts and humanities, construction, etc
Reading up one unfamiliar fields is actually a lot of fun. You can study and follow the arguments made in a field over the years and even come to a reasoned disagreement based on the current state of the field
Baldur Bjarnason
Now smartypants tend not to apply this to astronomy, because the story of Galileo is a powerful warning tale about exactly the problems with thinking like this. But biology, art, and sociology remain popular targets despite this.
Now that's normally fine. If you want to make shit up in your head about neuroscience, fine arts, or human behaviour when you're at home, kicking back on the sofa, and want to indulge in feeling like a smartypants, have at it. Enjoy yourself.
Baldur Bjarnason
It becomes an different issue if you're in a position of power and influence and you begin to affect public policy or opinion. Which is pretty much where we're at with the US's current plague of dunce-savant tech CEOs
I can't change their minds so I'm appealing to the rest of you. Don't be like that. Approach fields with a genuine curiosity and try to engage with their history
Try not to pay attention to the tech types who are too far gone down this road. We'll all be better off for it
Baldur Bjarnason
For example, a smart person, adhering to an ad hoc "I'm smart therefore what I see is true" process, reasoning from first principles, would come to the conclusion that the earth is at the centre of the solar system
It'd be next to impossible to change their minds with data
The effort to reason from first principles creates an emotional investment in the (wrong) conclusion that makes the conviction extremely hard to undo afterwards.
Derek Caelin
@baldur This one is evergreen. :)
Baldur Bjarnason
Fields are rarely homogenous blobs with only one opinion. Odds are if you disagree with a field's orthodoxy, there will be a heterodox movement within it that's based on the current state of the field
Have a little bit of curiosity about other people's ideas. It's fun!
/fin
i disagree
@baldur thank you for explaining why I'm smarter than everyone who has an IQ higher than me sir
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I've thought long and hard if I should answer, especially because I don't know your experience or knowledge of the subject, but I think you've got a wrong idea about what IQ tests are.
An IQ test does not measure the ability to convince oneself of something, nor others. E.g., there are many highly gifted people who are incredibly shy (and some are also anxious).
IQ tests are a lot more complicated than that, and usually try to measure intelligence across different topics.
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