I'm going to flip conventional wisdom on its head here. The common way of thinking, especially among the right, is that highest intelligence leads to higher socioeconomic and political status. In fact this belief is generally tacitly shared by the moderate left/"liberals" as well.
But what if intelligence is negatively correlated with status? The people running the countries and economies of the West seem very confused and highly incompetent. The people running our cultural industries are likewise. No one around the top, or in positions to influence those at or near the top, seems to have much idea how to run things properly.
Our societies are a complete mess. All high status people seem to be good at is benefiting themselves in the near term and that's it. They don't even know how to raise children properly and their fortunes are a house of cards.
>The people running the countries and economies of the West seem very confused and highly incompetent. The people running our cultural industries are likewise. that is correct, the information you are missing is that the masses are (somehow) way worse still
Isaac Jackson
Intelligent people don't necessarily want power. Actually, they most likely wish to stay away from the immoral and utterly disgusting environment that constitutes modern politics. That leaves room for morons and traitors.
Andrew Ortiz
So humans are basically just stupid animals from top to bottom, and those at the top are like chimpanzees compared to colobus monkeys closer to the bottom? Very few are even at the level of a Homo erectus in this analogy?
Luke Rivera
Yes
Leo Ward
You’re missing a few elements still tho
Logan Ortiz
And it’s not that stupidly linear
Henry Myers
Except there are way more stupid people who are poor and low status. You might have a case that there is no correlation. You'd have a better case at considering who was born into the right "club".
Robert Jenkins
default state of man is wretched, any good civilization is a deviant one from what is most of history
Jonathan Gomez
alternatively, some of the most influential elites want this 'controlled' demolition of our society.
Ian Wood
No way, have you even conceptualized how your society works? Every town and city has lords still, you won’t see them walking around on the streets ever. But they do go to private schools, they have private parties, private weddings, etc.
There’s always going to be people falling out of the high class by making mistakes, that’s called being downwardly mobile. This is why all massive societal changes are caused by new elites taking over. Today, a lot of elites will still be around in 100 years. They’re ultimately more important than the ones who hog attention on cameras like celebrities and politicians (modern jesters). >b-but they’re not reproducing user Did you know the white demographic with the highest birth rate (above replacement rate) are the ones with over $200k annual income? Not sure about other races but the point stands, elites will always exist, they will rise and fall but many elites that you don’t even know about are well off and fine for now
Bentley Lopez
>So humans are basically just stupid animals from top to bottom, and those at the top are like chimpanzees compared to colobus monkeys closer to the bottom? >Very few are even at the level of a Homo erectus in this analogy? yes
look at how many inventions humanity made, around 100 thousand, look at how many humans lived and died in the last 10 thousand years
99.999% of humans can hardly be considered sapient, basically chimps that can talk
Easton Diaz
This meme was made by a 140 I.Q. individual. He said the elites are rarely over 130. That is why some police departments won't let anyone join if their I.Q. is over 120. I.Q.s 140 and up get very rare so the 130 types also network to keep themselves in power. These people tend to have the highest intelligence possible to socially have the patience to deal with the average person.
Not quite true, though. Our civilization mostly only knows its perverted form, but it’s not natural
Luis Wilson
Geniuses are not allowed in the "elite". This is because they are evil, and evil people fear smart subordinates. As a result, any evil organization becomes stupider over time.
Christian Smith
This sounds about right.
This doesn't consider the possibility that elites are stupid in absolute terms even while non-elites, in general, are just stupider. Like French user said, maybe 99.999% of humans have contributed next to nothing in terms of advancing civilization.
Jack Williams
>advancing civilization I didn’t know I was talking to a technocrat complaining that every human isn’t slaving away to move to another planet, rather just living a fun life if possible
Adrian Martinez
Yes indeed. People on /pol tend to obsess over the "virtues" of the top 5% when in reality, it's the top one percent of one percent of one percent -- one in a million, minimum 180 IQ -- who have done almost all the heavy lifting in advancing civilization.
Dominic Peterson
True geniuses are motivated to make their ideas known and understood, to the extent possible, rather than just loafing around.
Luke Adams
Also, technocracy kills genius and favors the moderately above average, like the top 10%.
Isaiah Sanders
In other words, technocracy kills innovation, since innovation comes from the top one percent of one percent of one percent.
Brandon Perez
many continents, most needed to be conquered for anything good to happen there
Dominic Bell
> The people running the countries and > economies of the West seem very confused > and highly incompetent. Intelligence correlates with income and you don't get to the top of a field by being stupid. They are not stupid. You can get to the top by being evil though. It is far more likely that they are evil. In modern terms, narcissists, sociopaths or psychopaths and just using stupidity as a smoke screen.
