If idiots are reproducing out of control and that will lead to a bad result, doesn't that mean we should reduce the reproduction of idiots and increase the reproduction of the intelligent? To avert Idiocracy we need eugenics, no?
Satisfactory nutrition and exposure to positive and engaging environments during childhood affect your intelligence no matter who your parents were
* other than that educated parents are more likely to provide the positive and engaging environment, maybe? Not in the least due to the correlation between education and $, which certainky affects both nutrition and the environment (e.g. toys, lessons, travel, etc.)
Late disclaimer: I have no idea if this is what the scientific areas that study human intelligence believe
The literature is too extensive to provide individual citations, but Google for [genetics of intelligence] or [heritability of intelligence] to get a sampling.
We can probably make a lot of progress investing in schools, making higher education more accessible, finding more engaging teaching strategies, ensuring that parents have all the resources they need to care for their children...more access to mental health services...
Where have you looked? People have been talking about this for awhile now.
> If idiots are reproducing out of control and that will lead to a bad result
Yeah...
> doesn't that mean we should reduce the reproduction of idiots and increase the reproduction of the intelligent?
Who's "we" in that sentence? Intelligent people are unlikely to adopt foolish plans, by definition.
E.g. consider the (as yet fictional) Bene Gesserit.
You're confusing intelligence with wisdom. Intelligent people are likely to recognize a plan as foolish. They may or may not have the wisdom to avoid adopting it. Knowledge doesn't necessarily change behavior -- there are many many smart people who've gotten addicted to harmful substances, for example.
Well, to a first approximation wisdom is second-order intelligence, intelligence-about-intelligence, eh? Put another way, I see a continuum from mere cunning to intelligence to self-referential intelligence to sublime wisdom.
E.g. the Tao Te Ching is (IMO) one of the clearest and greatest written expositions of wisdom, consider chapter seventeen on leaders:
With the best kind of leader
when the work is complete
the people all say
"We did it ourselves."
In the context we're talking about, the "we" is (again by definition) the smartest (or, if you will, the wisest) minority, at the far end of the bell curve. The idea that idiocracy should be fought with eugenics is itself a layer of the idiocracy, not something that these very intelligent people would credit.
> Knowledge doesn't necessarily change behavior -- there are many many smart people who've gotten addicted to harmful substances, for example.
I disagree, I think that knowledge (by definition) is that information that makes us capable of changing our behaviour at will. Intelligence is operational. Smart people that become addicts and can't stop are obviously less intelligent than those who avoid it in the first place or who find ways to stop, surely?
Do you have a definition for hyper-intelligence?
> I disagree, I think that knowledge (by definition) is that information that makes us capable of changing our behavior at will. Intelligence is operational. Smart people that become addicts and can't stop are obviously less intelligent than those who avoid it in the first place or who find ways to stop, surely?
No, because intelligence and impulse control are separable things.
Trivially, anyone much much smarter than me. :)
Hypothetically, take the top N% of the high end of the bell curve, where N is 0.1 or 0.001 or 0.000001 or whatever. But then you have the question of how to survey intelligence?
Which brings me to my answer to your second point,
> intelligence and impulse control are separable things.
A quality called "intelligence" that does not engender impulse control isn't actually intelligence, eh? In other words I would define intelligence precisely as the ability of self-control combined with the ability to effect desired changes in the world. What's the point of "intelligence" that gives no "leverage", especially in the context of some "we" who are supposedly effective enough to institute a world-wide eugenics program?
I mean, that's pretty dependent on the definition of intelligence.
Going off a dictionary definition:
> the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
versus wisdom:
> the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.
That to me sounds like every place you're saying intelligence, you mean wisdom. Redefining intelligence to wisdom isn't a thing, because words have meaning.
The relationship being that intelligence makes acquiring wisdom faster. There isn't a strict requirement between the two.
> What's the point of "intelligence" that gives no "leverage"
Self enrichment/gratification/entertainment.
Wisdom, on the other hand, is much harder to define. The definition you quoted is circular, as are almost all dictionary definitions of "wisdom". I've heard it said "A fool never learns, a man learns from his mistakes, the wise man learns from the mistakes of others." Some would say that wisdom comes from loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. You say that they are different and that I'm "confusing intelligence with wisdom", but I say that wisdom and intelligence are on the same spectrum or continuum, that the former is the refinement and maturity of the latter.
In any event, my original point is that proponents of eugenics are not as intelligent as they think they are.