Taleb is clearly someone who is willing to bend his intellectual arguments to fit his politics and preconceptions, rather than the data. Just look at how badly he failed on Bitcoin and COVID.
Not unfair to call him a crank...
https://medium.com/incerto/no-covid-19-is-not-an-old-person-problem-6968f720d153
Anyway, the ugly reality is IQ is certainly real, genetically heritable, and IQ distributions vary. The reason why so few engineers are black isn't primarily racism. It's because black populations around the world tend to have lower IQ.
Conversely, in spite of vicious racism in the past (and present...) Jews still managed to dominate the sciences is mainly because their average IQ is high. Same with Asians, though not as extreme.
Of course, distributions are distributions, and some people will beat the odds and you should evaluate individuals on their own merits. But as long as the genetics (and culture) of so much of the world is awful, those parts of the world will remain poor and backwards. And allowing the more talented people in those parts of the world to immigrate to western countries just increases that inequality through brain drain, while dragging down our countries if we're not careful. Canada's prior immigration policy was careful... and probably did the rest of the world a disservice by taking their best people.
The irony here is convincing yourself that IQ isn't real takes intelligence... 😂
Do you actually have a (link to a) serious argument as to how his IQ statistical reasoning is wrong?
To the extend I read it back in the day, along with his book Statistical Consequences of Fat Tail, it seemed plausible. I've learned enough statistics back in uni to be extremely skeptical of any social science statistics, and I'm about 90% confident Charles Murray (where most of this stuff comes from) is a grifter.
(don't want to force anyone to work through Taleb books though, we can just disagree on this topic)
It's Taleb. I've got better things to do than debunk him given how he's obviously become a crank.
As for IQ in general, anyone with a bit of sense can see how obviously some people are just smarter than others, and how children tend to be similarly intelligent as their parents. Intelligence in general is _obviously_ a genetic trait: humans have it in ways animals _clearly_ do not, and different animals _clearly_ have it in different degrees.
As I said, you have to actively fool yourself to convince yourself otherwise; the burden of proof is not on my views here. The only reason there is an IQ denial movement is because IQ (especially the inherited component of it) is so utterly toxic to DEI beliefs.
What's DEI?
Diversity Equity Inclusion (pretty much on its way out)
that intelligence is a thing, that doesn't mean that IQ specifically as a score measures anything worthwhile, general intelligence is hard to nail down (and that it defines someones worth is a very specific view, too)
IQ correlates well to success in life, measured in all kinds of ways. It's not the only factor. But it is an important one.
It's just wishful thinking to believe that it doesn't.
i think believing that it does is the wishful thinking 🙂 in my experience, the people circlejerking over their IQ, are rarely the people that contribute a lot to anything
Circlejerking over IQ has little to do with having IQ. Indeed, you're assuming those people aren't lying about their IQs.
The harder thing to swallow is that IQ is inherited.
If you believe Jordan Peterson, at least in areas of his expertise, IQ is the best predictor of professional success, especially when coupled with conscientiousness (which, I think, consists of diligence plus industriousness).
Hopefully there will be a day when people don't need to drown at sea trying to escape poverty. The IQ arguments laid out by Peter are so hurtful and offensive to read but I respect his freedom to speak his mind. The migration issue is a hard one and I can understand why people from the west are fed up with it but saying people are low IQ and they deserve to die is just sad to read. But I am not the creator of the universe, so I have to accept that people will believe and say hurtful things in the open and that they should be free to do so. I appreciate your empathy in how you are exploring this topic. ✊️
Sometimes the truth hurts and it's useful to have offensive people saying it out loud.
Sometimes saying the truth is not useful. In that case I would call it impolite, but not wrong.
And sometimes offense things are just wrong or at least founded on junk science. Fortunately we don't have an algorithm here to boost that latter category disproportionately, but people have made entire careers out of a they-don't-let-me-say-this Schpiel. Social media algorithms love that, hopefully Nostr doesn't amplify it.
Right to speak goes without saying.
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