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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
byMidnight_Falcon ( 2432802 ) writes:
I've worked with many Harvard graduates, ranging from the college to the business school to the law school. I can't say any of them are smarter, more qualified and better at their jobs than others who attended far less prestigious schools. It seems the key benefit of a Harvard education is getting connected to others, including students with wealthy families, private equity/venture capital etc..and being able to work those connections to get jobs as non-founder CEOs, General Counsel etc or to be able to r
byregistrations_suck ( 1075251 ) writes:
Same as it ever was.
Getting connected to others, including students with wealthy families, private equity/venture capital etc..and being able to work those connections to get jobs as non-founder CEOs, General Counsel etc or to be able to raise money to become founding CEOs.
byhsthompson69 ( 1674722 ) writes:
It's a social club and hotel that pretends to educate people.
I figure we're less than a generation away from employers requiring IQ tests to make up for the deflation of our credentialing system.
byThird Position ( 1725934 ) writes:
It's already illegal to use IQ tests (with some exceptions). That's why employers used to use degrees as a proxy, although recently they seem to be getting cautious about that, too.
The object of the game is to make sure the employer has no objective data by which politically preferred people can be disqualified.
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byhsthompson69 ( 1674722 ) writes:
The exceptions seem to be pretty broad:
https://www.contractrecruiter.... [contractrecruiter.com]
With a little bit of due diligence, it seems that it'll be pretty defensible.
Heck, now that I think about it, they should be giving IQ tests to immigrants.
byHiThere ( 15173 ) writes:
Giving IQ tests to immigrants, historically, was basically a measure of how well they understood English, and secondarily whether the examiner was prejudiced against them.
byLuckyo ( 1726890 ) writes:
Do you realise that contents of IQ tests are language-agnostic?
(Provided a sufficiently developed language, i.e. it has basic mathematical concepts, some aborigine languages of barely contacted or uncontacted tribes may be missing these).
So you can just administer the test in immigrant's native language.
byHiThere ( 15173 ) writes:
Look up the history of the Stanford-Binet IQ test.
byLuckyo ( 1726890 ) writes:
Why? Because that one has the most accusations?
Or are you just a typical anglo supremacist who genuinely believes that IQ tests in other languages do not exist?
byhsthompson69 ( 1674722 ) writes:
Or maybe they don't believe IQ exists in other languages :)
byLuckyo ( 1726890 ) writes:
Having read through history of DEI programs in US universities recently, I wouldn't be that surprised if that was a reasonably widely held opinion in some circles.
Upper class anglo supermacy is very much a real thing, and quite destructive to societies where it manifests at scale.
●our current threshold.
byLuckyo ( 1726890 ) writes:
So foreigners are so dumb, they can't do complex abstractions?
Can you be any more racist if you try harder?
●our current threshold.
● current threshold.
byhsthompson69 ( 1674722 ) writes:
Understanding of English seems like a reasonable criteria for immigration to an english speaking country.
Have a computer run the examination to eliminate any prejudice.
byjbmartin6 ( 1232050 ) writes:
Why not just skip ahead to giving IQ tests for voting? Or just citizenship in general regardless of birthplace?
byhsthompson69 ( 1674722 ) writes:
I'd start with IQ tests for running for office :)
As for citizenship, I figure instead of having immigrants come to the US from other countries, we should simply declare the home countries the US and make them live under the US constitution. Make the rest of the world the 51st state :)
byJoey Vegetables ( 686525 ) writes:
Median IQ levels vary dramatically from one country to the next.
This speaks to me of a large degree of bias in the test.
I have a lot of trouble believing that the smartest Nepalese are less intelligent than the dumbest Japanese.
That being said, intelligence, even imperfectly measured, is such a huge predictor of success, that I can't in any way blame those who seem some sort of indicator thereof.
I don't have a lot of answers on this subject, but I do recognize that there is a problem in need of a better sol
bysfcat ( 872532 ) writes:
This is, in no way, reflected in the data.
byLuckyo ( 1726890 ) writes:
>I have a lot of trouble believing that the smartest Nepalese are less intelligent than the dumbest Japanese.
This demonstrates that you do not understand how distributions work. Median is the point in the Pareto distribution (which is the distribution of IQ within pretty much all large groups of humans) doesn't say that much about the extremes. It just tells how how many you'll find at the extremes. The problem is that if you take a "top 50 of the distribution" from two distributions that are slightly sh
bydasunt ( 249686 ) writes:
A better example of it a society can function with a low average IQ score is the US.
IQ increases by roughly 3 IQ points per decade, and the tests are periodically renormalized so that the "average" IQ is 100.
In 1932, the average IQ in the US is estimated as being less than 80 if we were using the modern scale.
Why IQ has increased over time is up for debate. It may be a healthier population, it may be a more stimulating environment, or it may just be that more people are familiar with taking tests.
byLuckyo ( 1726890 ) writes:
First of all, effect has long peaked and is starting to trend down in most of the world. Second, the main reason is nutrition. IQ is primarily modulated by two factors: maximum potential which is genetic, and expression of the potential which is environmental, primarily by receiving sufficient nutrition for maximally effective development during childhood.
This was all but proven during Malawi starvation, when psychometrists got to study the consequences. Basically people who were in specific years of their
byhsthompson69 ( 1674722 ) writes:
Applying IQ to individuals == good.
Applying IQ to groups != good.
Every massive problem I've seen with IQ arguments has revolved around this. Rather than using IQ tests to denigrate an entire group as substandard, it can be used to elevate the few people in that group who have superior IQ. It was supposed to be a way of eliminating group identity as a variable, but people keep analyzing it at the group level.
byLuckyo ( 1726890 ) writes:
>Applying IQ to groups != good.
Notably, this delusion is responsible for one of the biggest generator of deaths, criminality and poverty in modern West. All government policy is fundamentally group-based, from tax brackets to allocation of funds for different schooling opportunities. And allocating latter based on something other than relative chance of each group to succeed leads to exactly two massive problems:
1. More intelligent groups get underserved at scale, meaning their ability to generate wealth
byhsthompson69 ( 1674722 ) writes:
I'm agreeing with you as hard as I can. I'd only change one phrasing:
1. More intelligent **individuals** get underserved at scale, meaning their ability to generate wealth cannot be exploited to its maximum potential to serve them and others.
2. Less intelligent **individuals** get overserved at scale, becoming unable to actually meet the goals set and resulting in horror shows like Killer King.
I once picked up a friend who got an ambulance ride to Killer King in the 90s - it was, with no exaggeration, the
byLuckyo ( 1726890 ) writes:
The problem with your interpretation is that it's not realistically actionable, and that it inevitably leads to the current situation. Because your view is where DEI started. "We want to promote the best individuals".
It doesn't work because on policy level managing how to distribute resourcing to hundreds of millions of people, you cannot consider individuals. This is an issue of human biology. We cannot think at that resolution. We lack the biological capacity to. Policy has to be made on large group level
byhsthompson69 ( 1674722 ) writes:
I wasn't trying to claim anything actionable, I was simply paraphrasing your conclusions, which I agree with, with a slightly different word. Really, I'm agreeing with you as hard as I can.
That being said, I don't think DEI ever wanted to promote the best individuals - they explicitly measure group identity, and then judge themselves based on that. You cannot have a meritocracy with gender or skin color quotas...unless your definition of "best" is "looks like a 80s benneton ad".
As for policy on the group
byLuckyo ( 1726890 ) writes:
I'm not really disagreeing with you either, I'm just trying to provide context that I think you're missing. For example, DEI is a prima facie racist movement aimed at promoting some groups and suppressing others.
My point is that DEI exists in similar form under different name almost everywhere in the wider West today, and all of it came as a result of the same starting point, which lead to elites modelling a solution, giving the task to bureaucracy, which rapidly realized that task was utterly impossible. W
byhsthompson69 ( 1674722 ) writes:
I see what you're saying - the lip service DEI gives about merit is a mask over the actual and effective results. I understand your point.
As for "genetics are destiny", I'll note that culture plays a critical role there too, maybe expand it to "genetics and culture are destiny". You're not going to easily get someone steeped in victimhood culture, raised with no father, to become a good citizen, even if they have a 120 IQ. IQ is definitely an advantage and disadvantage depending where you are on the scal
byLuckyo ( 1726890 ) writes:
I would simply add that "culture" is too low resolution to be actionable. Same problem of us as humans trying to lower resolution when our brain runs into the wall of limit of our ability to comprehend a set of complex concepts. It's essentially a placeholder sum of several factors which do not fit well together under the same umbrella:
1. Access to sufficient nourishment.
2. Access to sufficient stimuli.
3. Access to sufficient development paths.
4. Access to status.
Just to name a few. And it obviously works i
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