Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[rms]

good. you're even testy with dak, must be that time of the month for that neo-masculinity

 

[Einherjar86]

Oh believe me, with the cycle of bullshit I put up with from you, it's nonstop.

Okay, NOW I'll stop being an asshole.

Maybe...

 

[Dak]

I know. Because you can't substantiate them.

The samzdat piece states:

I think the point is that why not approach the "is" of rising tides lifting all boats, but some higher than others, as simply an is? Why must guilt be involved? Etc. There's no reasoning supplied, even from assumed values of "not wanting to see poverty" or that "rising tides are good". At least we can assume that both the writer of the samzdat piece and Mr Greif have similar values, at least on some level.

The bigger problem I have, which the other piece from samzdat touched on, iirc, is that this materially minded approach strikes out no matter which side you come at it from. But then again, if you don't have basic necessities, nothing else really has a chance to matter. Stated another way: The freedom to consider ones position and have the time and freedom to complain about it indicates relative levels of wealth of historic proportions - a perspective lost to the microwave mentality of modernity.

I don't think you can ever convince me that this is true. But I'll read your argument if you think it's worth your time.

Well obviously to begin with I'm talking about poverty in absolute, material terms. The basic necessities for human life. Food, clothing, shelter. None of which is available without some measure of human action. If all humans ceased to work, food and clothing stocks would rapidly deplete, food and clothing from said stocks would not disperse except to locals, and shelter would degrade at various speeds until eventually most humans are dead and the world looks like "The Earth Without Humans". What alternative process has ever made ample food, clothing, and shelter available to people doing literally nothing?

This assumes that lower IQs and higher aggressiveness preceded poverty. You can't prove that it did, and the evidence doesn't present a persuading case that it does.

Since poverty is the original state, obviously at some point in history absolute poverty preceded IQ gains. The real question is why and how did IQ gains and related wealth spirals ever occur at any point and place. I don't think things like "welfare" or "desegregated schools" are historically available explanations, both because they didn't exist before and data from now shows no such gains.

But you can't say that Greif is "simply wrong," because that would demand a proof from you. And you don't have one.

Discounting biology as "negligible" (maybe he doesn't, I'm just taking your word for it) when the bast science and statistics we have available states that it explains at least half the variance in all behavior is absolutely "simply wrong", unless he has some counter evidence on the effects of genetics or lack thereof.

 

[Dak]

The video is cut short but the genetic magnification achieved by the flattening of critical access is touched on. Subsequently, the differences in distribution over time by mere chance. In either case alone, no room for discussions of "systems of oppression". Synthesized, the takeaway should be to admire how the system doesn't wind up more grossly unequal.

 

[Einherjar86]

The bigger problem I have, which the other piece from samzdat touched on, iirc, is that this materially minded approach strikes out no matter which side you come at it from. But then again, if you don't have basic necessities, nothing else really has a chance to matter. Stated another way: The freedom to consider ones position and have the time and freedom to complain about it indicates relative levels of wealth of historic proportions - a perspective lost to the microwave mentality of modernity.

The samzdat piece is more rhetorically reserved than Greif's--they're stylistically very different. But I of course disagree with your sweeping dismissal of materially-oriented arguments. There are important differences between poverty and what you're calling absolute poverty (which I don't think exists).

Well obviously to begin with I'm talking about poverty in absolute, material terms. The basic necessities for human life. Food, clothing, shelter. None of which is available without some measure of human action. If all humans ceased to work, food and clothing stocks would rapidly deplete, food and clothing from said stocks would not disperse except to locals, and shelter would degrade at various speeds until eventually most humans are dead and the world looks like "The Earth Without Humans". What alternative process has ever made ample food, clothing, and shelter available to people doing literally nothing?

What you call absolute poverty would be raw, unbridled animal existence. This is an inappropriate application of poverty. Wealth and poverty cannot be used to describe any natural state of existence because they are always relative terms. Applying the idea of poverty to some natural existence is a rhetorical and political move, not a logical one.

There are no misers among animals. If we think of nature-state homo sapiens as being in poverty, then we must also think of all other animals as being in poverty; but this makes no sense. The accumulation of wealth, to which we contrast poverty, applies only to beings who may perceive value in terms of future transactions. This is always how it's been used. I'm not sure if you're appealing to some philosopher or idea with your use of the term, but I think it's wildly inaccurate and primarily rhetorical.

Since poverty is the original state, obviously at some point in history absolute poverty preceded IQ gains.

Well, as per my above statement, no it didn't. And it's pointless to pursue an argument that argues which came first.

I don't see how, once the accumulation of wealth begins in developed civilizations, it doesn't have an impact on disparities in social station, intellect, and education. You want to say that IQ is the primary causal factor in where wealth accumulates. I'm saying that the location of wealth largely conditions what we perceive as lineages of low IQs.

Welfare and desegregation are good, but that hasn't changed the economic situation of many schools, especially schools in the south where African Americans are clustered. As far as educational centers for blacks in the north, many of them are in poor urban areas, which blacks moved into and occupied.

Ever since Reconstruction, impoverished economic and social conditions have followed blacks everywhere they went. You'll probably say that this is because of lower IQ. I would say that it's because of the perpetual resistance of white America toward black assimilation. They're trying, and in many cases they're doing; but in many other cases it's a Sisyphian struggle.

Discounting biology as "negligible" (maybe he doesn't, I'm just taking your word for it) when the bast science and statistics we have available states that it explains at least half the variance in all behavior is absolutely "simply wrong", unless he has some counter evidence on the effects of genetics or lack thereof.

He doesn't say that, I was just trying to circumvent some unrelated comment that rms made in hopes of preventing a derailment (lot of good that did).

I didn't mean to imply that biology is negligible when looking at social conditions and behavior. I meant that it was negligible for Greif's argument at hand, which doesn't need to concern itself with the ins and outs of inheritability. Of course biology will still have an impact on individuals in Greif's imaginary society; but that doesn't factor into his proposal, and it doesn't really need to.

Greif is being confrontational and heavily rhetorical in that essay. He's not bothering to substantiate many claims, and he also waxes poetic at moments it seems that being more philosophically grounded would benefit his argument. First and foremost, it's a thought experiment. Secondly, it's a revaluation of what individualism can mean. Thirdly, it's a thought-provoking alternative to wealth distribution that doesn't follow the standard guidelines of communist redistribution. I think it's simply a way to reimagine how we think about income.

 

[Einherjar86]

Synthesized, the takeaway should be to admire how the system doesn't wind up more grossly unequal.

Indeed, it was Marx himself who said that capitalism was emancipatory in its ability to break archaic institutions of aristocracy and royalty and establish the possibility of economic mobility through individual labor and trade.

We can oppose these two value judgments (i.e. samzdat's and Greif's) as simply putting forth the following question: is it better to have enormities of wealth accrual and less poverty than we used to, or no enormities of wealth accrual and no poverty?

I should point out that Greif ends his essay with this comment:

The eradication of diseases is not something you would like to see end; nor would you want to lose the food supply, transportation, and good order of the law and defense. On the other hand, more cell phones and wireless, an expanded total entertainment environment, more computerization for consumer tracking, greater concentrations of capital and better exploitation of “inefficiencies” in the trading of securities, the final throes of extraction and gas-guzzling and—to hell with it. I’d rather live in a more equal world at a slower pace.

I'm not sure that I agree with this. But even if I disagree with gut-level distribution, I still think the enormities of wealth accrual and the vast technological developments we've made since the mid-twentieth century can afford to provide welfare and other programs for the bare subsistence of certain peoples.

 

[Dak]

The samzdat piece is more rhetorically reserved than Greif's--they're stylistically very different. But I of course disagree with your sweeping dismissal of materially-oriented arguments. There are important differences between poverty and what you're calling absolute poverty (which I don't think exists).

hat you call absolute poverty would be raw, unbridled animal existence. This is an inappropriate application of poverty. Wealth and poverty cannot be used to describe any natural state of existence because they are always relative terms. Applying the idea of poverty to some natural existence is a rhetorical and political move, not a logical one.

Absolute poverty in the most extreme sense doesn't exist because humans (and animals) engage in action to procure what is needed at a minimal level. But it's a fixed baseline for measurement. Means, medians, and outliers (statistical points for assessing relative wealth and poverty) are useless without a fixed scale to refer to for context. There is a logical and practical reason for the reference.

There are no misers among animals. If we think of nature-state homo sapiens as being in poverty, then we must also think of all other animals as being in poverty; but this makes no sense. The accumulation of wealth, to which we contrast poverty, applies only to beings who may perceive value in terms of future transactions. This is always how it's been used. I'm not sure if you're appealing to some philosopher or idea with your use of the term, but I think it's wildly inaccurate and primarily rhetorical.

I agree to some degree with your comment about transactions, particularly as it renders a comparison with animals faulty. Absolute poverty vs relative and other forms of poverty are abstract ideas available only to humans, and are an ongoing source of disagreement:

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social...mes/international-migration/glossary/poverty/

I think relative poverty is important for psychosocial considerations of wellness, but only after considering broader history, implications, expectations, etc. In other words, context.

Well, as per my above statement, no it didn't. And it's pointless to pursue an argument that argues which came first.

I don't see how, once the accumulation of wealth begins in developed civilizations, it doesn't have an impact on disparities in social station, intellect, and education. You want to say that IQ is the primary causal factor in where wealth accumulates. I'm saying that the location of wealth largely conditions what we perceive as lineages of low IQs.

No clothes and food killed or gathered as available came first in every case. The agricultural revolution is genetically new.

Welfare and desegregation are good, but that hasn't changed the economic situation of many schools, especially schools in the south where African Americans are clustered. As far as educational centers for blacks in the north, many of them are in poor urban areas, which blacks moved into and occupied.

Ever since Reconstruction, impoverished economic and social conditions have followed blacks everywhere they went. You'll probably say that this is because of lower IQ. I would say that it's because of the perpetual resistance of white America toward black assimilation. They're trying, and in many cases they're doing; but in many other cases it's a Sisyphian struggle.

I think there's too many points of difference on the statistical facts and my observations living most of my life in the Black Belt (a term used to refer to both the soil and the overlapping African American distribution in the US) here to even begin to address them in a way either of us are going to come out in a satisfied manner about, agreement or otherwise.

Of course biology will still have an impact on individuals in Greif's imaginary society; but that doesn't factor into his proposal, and it doesn't really need to........he also waxes poetic at moments it seems that being more philosophically grounded would benefit his argument............. I think it's simply a way to reimagine how we think about income.

A reimagination that doesn't take into account biology or monetary systems and theory is probably missing a significant majority of the relative picture. Bastiat talks about "That which is seen, and that which is not seen" http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html . Missing that which is not seen is a common although absolutely understandable error for non-economists (although unfortunately common for economists as well). Greif is missing that which is seen.

I understand it is not the nature of poets and other non-scientific writers to concern themselves with details in scientific fields (even if they broach into "soft science"), but then again they need to understand not being considered seriously on scientific matters by those in respective fields. I would say the problem is that they bear little direct responsibility for being catastrophically wrong, but that is a nearly universal and potentially fatal flaw in the distributed nature of responsibility in the "democratic era", so I can't single them out for this.

 

[Einherjar86]

Absolute poverty in the most extreme sense doesn't exist because humans (and animals) engage in action to procure what is needed at a minimal level. But it's a fixed baseline for measurement. Means, medians, and outliers (statistical points for assessing relative wealth and poverty) are useless without a fixed scale to refer to for context. There is a logical and practical reason for the reference.

But humans and animals have access to resources before they're even born.

It sounds to me like absolute poverty is a purely abstract notion (something you do allude to) that would be properly represented by a human body floating in a vacuum. This might be an imaginable scenario, but it strikes me as virtually nonexistent.

A reimagination that doesn't take into account biology or monetary systems and theory is probably missing a significant majority of the relative picture. Bastiat talks about "That which is seen, and that which is not seen" http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html . Missing that which is not seen is a common although absolutely understandable error for non-economists (although unfortunately common for economists as well). Greif is missing that which is seen.

How so? He's simply placing greater emphasis on something else.

The effect of material conditions on social station is absolutely "seen." Or, it's at least as seen as the correlation between IQ and social station.

I understand it is not the nature of poets and other non-scientific writers to concern themselves with details in scientific fields (even if they broach into "soft science"), but then again they need to understand not being considered seriously on scientific matters by those in respective fields.

I think that Greif would be taken seriously by scientists interested in thought experiments.

 

[Dak]

But humans and animals have access to resources before they're even born.

It sounds to me like absolute poverty is a purely abstract notion (something you do allude to) that would be properly represented by a human body floating in a vacuum. This might be an imaginable scenario, but it strikes me as virtually nonexistent.

At the "0" scale, generally speaking, it is a thought experiment . But there are real places on such a scale of material wealth not far removed, and any point on the scale requires action from either the person or other persons, even if it means walking to a nearby cave. On that sort of scale, the material luxury enjoyed by those in the US (even extending to many of the homeless!) exceeds that of some of those in Africa and Asia.

How so? He's simply placing greater emphasis on something else.

The effect of material conditions on social station is absolutely "seen." Or, it's at least as seen as the correlation between IQ and social station.

There's a lot of different ways to approach the seen/unseen problem Greif is entering, but I don't want to get into the weeds when there's a primary problem which relates to the others. Capping incomes (like setting minimum wages) is a form of price control, controlling the price of labor.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PriceControls.html

 

[Einherjar86]

At the "0" scale, generally speaking, it is a thought experiment .

Can't argue with that.

But there are real places on such a scale of material wealth not far removed, and any point on the scale requires action from either the person or other persons, even if it means walking to a nearby cave. On that sort of scale, the material luxury enjoyed by those in the US (even extending to many of the homeless!) exceeds that of some of those in Africa and Asia.

Yes, but now we're talking about relative poverty. We can talk about relative poverty without the axiom of absolute poverty to fall back on.

There's a lot of different ways to approach the seen/unseen problem Greif is entering, but I don't want to get into the weeds when there's a primary problem which relates to the others. Capping incomes (like setting minimum wages) is a form of price control, controlling the price of labor.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PriceControls.html

You're right, it is. It's a very, very different way of thinking about the political economy (very different even from Marx).

 

[Dak]

Can't argue with that.

Yes, but now we're talking about relative poverty. We can talk about relative poverty without the axiom of absolute poverty to fall back on.

Price controls create shortages and saturation (inadequate supply for some demand and oversupply to available demand elsewhere) whereever imposed. Minimum wages create a shortage of jobs which do not justify the minimum wage, hurting the most vulnerable of workers and reducing access to OTJ skill development. Maximum wages would similarly lead to a shortage of jobs which demand a level of work and/or expertise development which is not adequately compensated. All of that is an aside to such an arbitrary mark like "$100,000", although that mark is not only ridiculously low from the perspective of the number of jobs and productivity lost, but also to how quickly inflation would require that the ceiling be raised.

You're right, it is. It's a very, very different way of thinking about the political economy (very different even from Marx).

I don't see price controls as a different way of thinking about the political economy. Price controls are, unless I am mistaken, the first/earliest command option for an economy. The creation of official currency is a form of price control. Set exchange rates,, import/export quotas/limits, etc. are also directly or indirectly attempts at price control.

 

[Einherjar86]

Both of those very good points still assume that the primary reason people go to work is to make the most money they can. Greif's hypothetical scenario is intended to liberate people from the concern over making the most money, and asks what people would do if they didn't have to worry about this. It's counterintuitive for us to extricate the amassing of wealth from the reason for working, and understandably so. We approach the notion of work/labor as something we would rather not do, but we do it anyway because we have to. We've built a system of values around the practice of hard work. I don't think Greif's proposal is practical or sound, but I do think it reveals how our standard way of viewing work isn't totally rational, but is a little bit pathological.

One of the standard touchstones for contemporary Marxist intellectualism is that other forms of social existence and organization are possible, but that our cultural ideology makes it nearly impossible to imagine them (hence Jameson's famous line that it's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism). I personally am not convinced that there are more effective alternatives to the general system that has developed over the past several centuries; but just because our current system is functional doesn't mean it isn't also slightly insane. We don't have to tolerate the bugs just because the operating system is still running.

So, to return to my original point, it depends on how we locate and organize our values.

 

[Dak]

Both of those very good points still assume that the primary reason people go to work is to make the most money they can. Greif's hypothetical scenario is intended to liberate people from the concern over making the most money, and asks what people would do if they didn't have to worry about this. It's counterintuitive for us to extricate the amassing of wealth from the reason for working, and understandably so. We approach the notion of work/labor as something we would rather not do, but we do it anyway because we have to. We've built a system of values around the practice of hard work. I don't think Greif's proposal is practical or sound, but I do think it reveals how our standard way of viewing work isn't totally rational, but is a little bit pathological.

I think the apparent pathology is simply a mirage born of the complexity in the ever-lengthening process of production. In other words, we think we do not have to work to eat (or have anything else) because we didn't personally plant the seed, water it, weed it, harvest the produce, pack it, ship it, etc etc and maybe not even know anyone who did. The process becomes magical and why work for what can be magically produced. Modernity turns our understanding of productive processes into the myth of Gandalf's Sack (or a similar sack from any number of fables).

Secondly, and this has been said before, the primary reason people work is absolutely to make money. There is a seriously small minority of people who would continue to do what that do, or what dive headfirst into other meaningful work even absent some sort of directly connected compensation, but I will insist until proven wrong by such an actual application of work-reward decoupling that all economic, sociological, and psychological evidence points towards a further explosion of entertainment consumption, grievance movements, and general cognitive and social decline in response to such a decoupling.

One of the standard touchstones for contemporary Marxist intellectualism is that other forms of social existence and organization are possible, but that our cultural ideology makes it nearly impossible to imagine them (hence Jameson's famous line that it's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism). I personally am not convinced that there are more effective alternatives to the general system that has developed over the past several centuries; but just because our current system is functional doesn't mean it isn't also slightly insane. We don't have to tolerate the bugs just because the operating system is still running.

So, to return to my original point, it depends on how we locate and organize our values.

Well, the more detachedly one views life, everything seems absurd and/or insane to a degree. I think the fact that the most heavily produced pieces of software require ceaseless updates to the updates suggests that there's a difference between recognizing that nothing is perfect and intolerance of bugs. Rather, we have to be able to provoke change while at the same time being tolerant of the problem.

Other grist:

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai/

 

[Einherjar86]

The process becomes magical and why work for what can be magically produced. Modernity turns our understanding of productive processes into the myth of Gandalf's Sack (or a similar sack from any number of fables).

Secondly, and this has been said before, the primary reason people work is absolutely to make money. There is a seriously small minority of people who would continue to do what that do, or what dive headfirst into other meaningful work even absent some sort of directly connected compensation, but I will insist until proven wrong by such an actual application of work-reward decoupling that all economic, sociological, and psychological evidence points towards a further explosion of entertainment consumption, grievance movements, and general cognitive and social decline in response to such a decoupling.

Your diagnosis of the myth is slightly misplaced, I think. It isn't "why work for what can be magically produced," because, as you say, people do still work. But as you also say, people don't work for food or some other direct object; they work to make money. So in this respect, yes--people do absolutely work to make money.

Because that's the system we've constructed for ourselves. Change the structure of distribution and accumulation, and you change people's motivations.

I'm still reading the piece on grievance moments from the Mort thread. It's long, but good.

Other grist:

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai/

This I'm on board with. Really nice critique of contemporary pop-culture perspectives on AI, which tend to shape intelligence around a human mold. I actually addressed this in my course this past spring. We kept discussing the difference in intelligence between human beings and nonhuman entities, and I eventually asked my students to think about the difference between human consciousness and intelligence, and whether the former implies the latter, or whether the latter necessitates the former. With regard to survival, I brought up things like ant hives and cockroaches and asked if those qualify as "intelligent."

All this said, the author's problem seems to be with the name "superhuman," rather than with anything that might be described as "superhuman." We tend to imagine superhuman intelligences in film (e.g. Terminator, The Matrix, Transcendence, etc.), but these are fictional fantasies of artificial intelligence--not scientifically informed possibilities.

Closer approximations would be films like Her, or the philosophical meditation on embodiment that we find in Ex Machina; but even these fall victim to anthropomorphism (although they're aware of it, I would say).

What the author seems to want to say is that we have an uncritical and inaccurate tendency to describe intelligences of expanded scales as "superhuman," which implies an amplification of human faculties and concerns (hence that superhuman intelligence could solve our problems). A more accurate description of these systems would be, simply put, different.

For my part, I've never used the term "superhuman." I prefer the phrase "complex system," or "complex intelligence." I definitely do think these kinds of intelligences are possible, and I don't think the author would deny this... I think he's saying that what we fantasize as "superhuman" is impossible, but complex intelligences are possible (and already exist, in fact).

 

[Dak]

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/08/two-kinds-of-caution/

I worry there’s a general undersupply of meta-contrarianism. You have an obvious point (exciting technologies are exciting). You have a counternarrative that offers a subtle but useful correction (there are also some occasional exceptions where the supposedly-unexciting technologies can be more exciting than the supposedly-exciting ones). Sophisticated people jump onto the counternarrative to show their sophistication and prove that they understand the subtle points it makes. Then everyone gets so obsessed with the counternarrative that anyone who makes the obvious point gets shouted down (“What? Exciting technologies are exciting? Do you even read Financial Times? It’s the unexciting technologies that are truly exciting!”). And only rarely does anyone take a step back and remind everyone that the obviously-true thing is still true and the exceptions are still just exceptions.

 

[rms]

twitter and forums in 2017

 

[Einherjar86]

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/08/two-kinds-of-caution/

Is this an argument for the potential risks of AI development, or a more abstract argument for adopting meta-contrarian positions in order to challenge popular belief?

Also, did you follow the link to the LessWrong piece? I read this paragraph with a raised eyebrow:

According to the survey, the average IQ on this site is around 145. People on this site differ from the mainstream in that they are more willing to say death is bad, more willing to say that science, capitalism, and the like are good, and less willing to say that there's some deep philosophical sense in which 1+1 = 3. That suggests people around that level of intelligence have reached the point where they no longer feel it necessary to differentiate themselves from the sort of people who aren't smart enough to understand that there might be side benefits to death. Instead, they are at the level where they want to differentiate themselves from the somewhat smarter people who think the side benefits to death are great. They are, basically, meta-contrarians, who counter-signal by holding opinions contrary to those of the contrarians' signals. And in the case of death, this cannot but be a good thing.

I'm not sure what this paragraph is suggesting. There are plenty of people with IQs of ~145 who would probably say that science and capitalism are bad (I wouldn't, but then my IQ is ~132).

Also, for the record, I wouldn't say that I'd argue for the philosophical value of "1+1=3" because it makes me look smarter, but because I'm fascinated by the philosophical arguments that promote such an equation. Actually, I wouldn't recommend any philosophical arguments on this matter, but Ted Chiang's awesome short story "Division by Zero."

The LessWrong author seems to be saying that people of about my IQ (~130) adopt counterintuitive arguments, and that these arguments don't fool the slightly smarter genius group (~140). I think this is pretty presumptuous. Let's say we have a group of people of equal intelligence (~135); those among this group won't treat each other's counterintuitive arguments as automatic signals that she or he is really smart. When I hear a counterintuitive argument from an intellectual peer, I might think to myself "that's interesting"--but I'd also treat the argument with suspicion and look into it myself. So, I think the LessWrong suggestion only works when a circa 135 argument is being offered to those of lower intelligence, let's say the average IQ of 100 (maybe the author said this, I didn't read the whole thing). Among a group of intellectual competitors though, circa 135, this simply doesn't happen. Counterintuitive arguments don't get free pass as clear signs of intelligence; they're subject to challenges and alternative possibilities.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the general gist of both blogs.

 

[Dak]

Is this an argument for the potential risks of AI development, or a more abstract argument for adopting meta-contrarian positions in order to challenge popular belief?

Also, did you follow the link to the LessWrong piece? I read this paragraph with a raised eyebrow:


I'm not sure what this paragraph is suggesting. There are plenty of people with IQs of ~145 who would probably say that science and capitalism are bad (I wouldn't, but then my IQ is ~132).

Also, for the record, I wouldn't say that I'd argue for the philosophical value of "1+1=3" because it makes me look smarter, but because I'm fascinated by the philosophical arguments that promote such an equation. Actually, I wouldn't recommend any philosophical arguments on this matter, but Ted Chiang's awesome short story "Division by Zero."

The LessWrong author seems to be saying that people of about my IQ (~130) adopt counterintuitive arguments, and that these arguments don't fool the slightly smarter genius group (~140). I think this is pretty presumptuous. Let's say we have a group of people of equal intelligence (~135); those among this group won't treat each other's counterintuitive arguments as automatic signals that she or he is really smart. When I hear a counterintuitive argument from an intellectual peer, I might think to myself "that's interesting"--but I'd also treat the argument with suspicion and look into it myself. So, I think the LessWrong suggestion only works when a circa 135 argument is being offered to those of lower intelligence, let's say the average IQ of 100 (maybe the author said this, I didn't read the whole thing). Among a group of intellectual competitors though, circa 135, this simply doesn't happen. Counterintuitive arguments don't get free pass as clear signs of intelligence; they're subject to challenges and alternative possibilities.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the general gist of both blogs.

I did not follow the link (irregular behavior from me!). I've never taken an actual IQ test but based on all other testing I have taken I'm guesstimating in the 125-135 range (IQs have confidence intervals), so on par with yours (both us of probably punch above our weight due to a heavy cognitive bias to the verbal over quantitative).

I think your point here is interesting. I would tentatively agree that the tendency to make a big deal out of "counterintuitive arguments" would be an attempt to signal intelligence (rather than virtue - unless intelligence is the virtue in question), which would ironically mean that this "meta-contrarianism" complaint winds up being the next level of one-ups-manship. Meta-meta-contrarianism?

Edit: I do appreciate that SA tends to be skeptic of the LW community tendency to pat itself on the back too much.

 

[Einherjar86]

The SSC piece was more nuanced than LW, I think.

The LW piece looks wobblier under closer scrutiny. For instance, from what I saw, it doesn't much consider the difference (if there is one) between intelligence and signaling intelligence. The author treats the two things as ostensibly distinct--i.e. circa 130 IQ people are smart, but their attempt to signal their intelligence is actually a kind of intellectual dishonesty; meanwhile, circa 145 IQ people see this as a form of unintelligence designed to deceive (crafty unintelligence?). None of this is explicit (again, from what I read), but the author's breezy use of these terms invites skepticism, I think.

I would want to ask the author whether signaling faux intelligence precludes being itself an act of intelligence--i.e. does signaling faux intelligence actually signal real intelligence? The only generous reading I can see of this argument is that people of moderate intelligence (~130) adopt counterintuitive positions so as to signal that they actually have a higher intelligence (~145); and that people of higher intelligence (~145) can spot these prevarications. My problem with this is that people of moderate intelligence (~130) don't need to communicate extra intelligence to those of lower intelligence (~100), since all they need to do to prove their intelligence to that group is act in accordance with their own level of intelligence. The only people it would make sense to signal extra intelligence to are those of higher intelligence (~145); but these are precisely the people who can spot the deception.

Sorry for that headache of a paragraph, but the whole LW premise just looks really shaky to me.

 

[Dak]

I haven't had the time to read the LW piece but I would assume signaling isn't inherently target-able unless one is only talking with one other person. Here's my off-the-cuff psychologizing on it: Paying attention to the obvious thing is what the average person would do naturally unless "enlightened" (maybe they grew up around lots of smarter people or whatever and overheard things). Paying attention to the exception is what the smarter group would do (using 130 as the line, that's 2 out of 100) as a way to distinguish itself from average. 2 out of 100 is good, but you're still mistakeable for 115s who vastly outnumber you (~12 out of 100). The top career choices for 115-135 heavily overlap due to supply/demand law, so differentiation requires more social nuances. Once you're at 145, so like, 1 in 1000 people or whatever, you don't give a shit about signaling your intelligence because it's probably pretty damn obvious in a myriad of other ways.