Why super-smart people may be drawn to a life of crime
qz.com
qz.com
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the overall amount of crime in this range is still “much, much lower” than among people with very low IQ scores.
In fact what I would expect you find is that these groups of people break different laws, not fewer.
The "low IQ" group likely have less capability of breaking say, regulatory laws, by virtue of standing or access. They are more likely to break laws like B&E, drug dealing, petty larceny, etc... that are more harshly and more frequently prosecuted.
The laws that high performing, and High IQ people would be breaking, securities, privacy, regulatory etc... might not be prosecuted at all, or at most would lead to civil fines.
I think the bottom line is that "high IQ" people will tend to have more capability to break white collar crimes, and will do so with better cover (lawyers, special accounting etc...).
These included minor offenses such as trespassing and copyright violations, but also serious crimes such as arson, fraud, and kidnapping.
Only one crime mentioned qualifies as "white collar".
I'm not saying arson is a white collar crime just that if you're desperate for money for whatever reason, and you're generally pretty smart, you may be inclined to try to get away with something like that. The same with kidnapping, although that seems much more violent and likely to end badly for everyone involved than arson.
The way you put ityou are likely to get even anti-IP people, like myself, on the other side because we don't want to be associated with you.
Switching back to copyright, I think that saying "copyright is not a monopoly" it is not as cut and dry as the linked site would indicate. I think one's ability to hire lawyers matters here.
Consider Disney, they will have a much easier time defending themselves, where a smaller author might not be able too. Disney will also have a much easier defeating a legitimate defense of another real author than a lone author might be able to. It is not hard to imagine a hypothetical Disney of yesteryear suing people to keep other space operas down with their Star Wars IP. It is harder to imagine a small defendant succeeding in that defense even if it is legitimate. I think this is largely a non-issue, because Disney of today is less of jerk.
Of all the kinds of Intellectual Property I think Copyright is most fair, the kind of legal abuse I described is much more common with Trademarks and Patents. I think the recent "flow" trademark issue or anything King software (the candy crush guys) does with game names so how asymmetric IP laws can be in general.
I don't think that is true. Neither does everybody know that a monopoly is bad, nor, and more importantly, is a monopoly inherently bad. Take for example the monopoly on violence. And even if you want to restrict the meaning to monopolies in the economic sense, even then is a monopoly not inherently bad. It only becomes so if its powers are abused. Sometimes having competition will increase the total costs, think for example of having five competing power distribution networks. In such cases it may be a better choice to have a monopoly and regulated it to prevent its abuse instead of having competition.
A natural monopoly would be associated with a public utility; probably the various libraries. An electronic library might become a public utility, but so far Spotify, Netflix, etc. have had incomplete catalogs and there's not much support for the compulsory licensing scheme they'd need to make it work (which would be its own public service...)
> minor offenses such as trespassing and copyright violations
Without knowing more the best we could say is that high-IQ people are more aware of their crimes or maybe more willing to admit to them. For example, a property lawyer might be more likely to admit to trespassing than the average person just because he's more aware of how often he commits it. At the same time, his awareness of and persistence in such unlawful behavior doesn't mean he's flouting the law more than anyone else except in the most pedantic, literal sense.
The whole study sounds dubious. Relying on self-reporting is excused as necessary. That there are no practical alternatives doesn't make the method magically sound or even remotely accurate. That in the aggregate self-reporting roughly corresponds with crime statistics says absolutely nothing about the accuracy of self-reporting for niche subgroups.
It's this kind of pseudo-science that gives science in any field a bad name. I can appreciate that it might be especially difficult to find funding for a study that, first, establishes a strong correlation between self-reporting and IQ. But until there's significant push back from the community for studies premised on barely-tenable assumptions that funding will never be forthcoming.
It's almost like drugs are a business and businesses take intelligence to run.
If you're smart enough, you get someone else to break the laws with the highest chance of arrest.
I'm sure there are organizations that would easily make it to the Fortune 100 if they could be listed as such. They're also smart enough to let disposable thugs break the street level laws. Real drug kingpins never physically handle product.
Case in point, a report from a couple of years ago claimed that the Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta had a turnover of 53 billion euros, approximately 3.5% if Italy's GDP. This is one of the articles discussing it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/ndrangheta-maf...
I'm actually currently reading a good book on that topic, "Narconomics: How to run a drug cartel"[1]. One chapter is about "the people problems of a cartel", because they have huge HR issues. The problem is that you can't officially hire good people, like regular business can do. So they have to refrain to personal connections. Training is another problem. The main training facility are prisons.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Wainwright-Narconomics-Cartel-Har...
I mean, who here doesn't know at least one intelligent person, who because of issues with upbringing, socioeconomic status, mental health, etc earns considerably less than their peers of similar ability (because they couldnt go to or dropped out of college, because they didn't have the network to get a job after, etc)?
My experience is that it's often those people who make the transition from street and neighborhood level dealing to managing portions of the supply chain, because their cousin's uncle's friend said they knew a way to make a lot more than their dealing small-scale to pay bills or whatever dead-end job they're at. Then once you're in the network, it's entirely a business of managing op-sec, negotiating deals, and efficient operations -- all of which require traditional intelligence, the same as actual businesses.
Literally the same way anyone I know goes from small time employment to a serious position.
I want to challenge this a bit. With common crimes, its obvious you're committing a crime. Breaking into someone's home, mugging, etc are clearly victimization.
Now compare that to a technical crime that may or may not be a crime depending on which judge you get or how a jury decides to interpret a regulatory bill that's hundreds of pages long and can only be understood by a team of experts who most likely don't agree with each other. Or the creation of a new kind of investment vehicle no one has seen before. Or starting a new industry that no one understands. It becomes very difficult to equate these with street criminals who go into something knowingly they're breaking the law and acting unethically compared to a technical violation of something incredibly complex. More often than not, these kinds of things only become illegal well after their creation. So we're talking more about doing novel things and the lag between doing and regulation. That's not really crime.
For example for a tech industry perspective, how many patent laws has even your most hobbyist of coders violated? The Linux kernel was analyzed a few years back and found to be potentially infringing on over 200 patents, for example. So anytime we monetize linux we're potentially 'white collar criminals.'
The extra leverage (and thus reward) that comes from bending the design of social constructions and the ease in dissembling is exactly why I think it should be more harshly punished, rather than less.
Consider two scenarios. My finance firm creates a new security that in the long run hurts people. A criminal breaks into a home and rapes a woman. I get the death penalty and he a lighter sentence for... reasons. I think you're just engaging in classism here. If anything, violence should have more serious punishments as its never justifiable outside of self-defense and can be expected to continue unless the state steps in.
Also, the finance people are the bad guys right now but when society sees what automation is truly doing to their jobs, they'll come after us. So all of us who are automators are now going to jail. Beware witchhunts, because there's nothing that keeps you from becoming a witch. Law, morals, and intent won't matter once we're designated, as a class, as 'white collar' criminals like you are doing to finance people currently.
Instead we should lean on the rule of law and not make special exemptions or special witch-hunts for any group. Write good law and policy. Don't engage in classist rhetoric that makes no sense outside of feel good and frankly, hysterical, ranting about "jailing the bankers!"
It's easy to point at the rapist; it's much harder to point at the chap who got away with his bonus while the government propped up his bank. But how many people died because of redirected funds, reduction in spending on healthcare, or even something as mundane as road upkeep, increasing vehicle accidents? White collar criminals indirectly kill people. They are scum, parasites on our social constructs.
It's not feel-good ranting, BTW. It makes me extremely angry that people try to push hot buttons like rape and murder that would anger animals, to distract from greater crimes perpetrated in more abstract ways. It's a cheap but effective trick; and I'm sick of it.
(2) False idols - We have been told since we are children, "work hard, and get ahead" or "you need an education to get ahead". We know this is only works to a certain degree. The wealthy stay wealthy because the game is rigged. The laws are tailored so that they can maintain wealth. They don't have to pay the same amount of tax and there are multiple tax-loopholes that allow them to keep their money. They get the public to pay for their expenses and are not forced to share the wealth that they generate.
Smart people recognize this and do not want to play that game. Why should I bust my ass to make some millionaire more money? It is obvious that the 'easy' way to make money is to break the law. It's only the poor people who end up getting caught/punished.
A lot of people frankly don't care enough about the lives their children, if any, will lead, and want a wealthy lifestyle fast. As you pointed out, more intelligent people also see how the system works and may resent it more.
I've never killed anyone, although I can think of one instance where I considered it and would certainly have gotten away with it. It would have been a big hassle, though, and honestly who wants that on their conscience?
At the end of the day it seems to me that I've only done the things other people would have also done if the opportunity arose. I may be somewhat more attuned to those opportunities than the average person, but in many cases they arrived after a cascade of events that weren't specifically aimed at any kind of criminality. At worst I was initially guilty of a high degree of curiousity.
The only thing that really resonates for me in this article is low attachment, although I find it hard to really quantify that. I do seem to have fewer friends than most people, but there are probably mathematical reasons for that. I am confident in my ability to make friends, but don't feel like making the effort usually. I have a busy life and can barely keep up with work and family -- having more than a few good friends outside those two groups takes more time than I have.
HN is not your shrink. I would avoid making these kinds of admissions on a public forum.
I mean seriously, are we so constrained by society that we aren't even allowed to consider things? I guarantee I am not the only decent person who has considered that I could take a life and decided against it. It's probably a daily occurrence in some fields.
But basically, your interests are not necessarily aligned with your doctor's interests. If they are trying to find grounds you are a risk to yourself or others, then such statement can be taken as such.
Wow, your campus used one lock type and the same master key for all buildings? That's great foresight and coordination across multiple levels of business, construction and maintenance teams. What about older buildings with completely different types of locks? They switched those out as new buildings came up, or are all the buildings new?
I think everyone thinks about taking somebody out. For instance, a large pick up truck cutting in front of you, people honking behind you at a red light etc.
It's not the hassle that stops you but you know at the end of the day, it's ephemeral. Going postal on highway 99 to work while satiate your blood lust, the overwhelming punishment and destruction should offer enough of a foresight for higher IQ individuals to short circuit their violent desires.
“Not only does it mean that elites are just as likely to lie, cheat, and steal as anyone else,” Oleson writes, but it also means that our prisons are largely filled with “unlucky people whose real crime was getting caught.”
Do you see the problem with your statement here. The word crime is a selection bias filter. You automatically assumed that high IQ people committed less crime and immediately discounted they get caught less for crime.
These styles of biases are rife in law enforcement communities. For example the idea that (poor|ignorant|minority) groups do more drugs than the average person. Therefore the police search those groups more and when they find drugs it is a justification for their behavior. Meanwhile studies outside of law enforcement show that illegal drug use across all spectrums of wealth, IQ, and race are similar.
Also, another similar observation is the saying "You're likely to be murdered by someone you know 70% of the time". The problem with that statement is it only take in account solved murders. The other 33% (or way higher in some places) of cases that are unsolved are not counted in that statistic. If we had perfect information on who committed a murder we might say that "50% of the time you are murdered by someone you know". This may have a major influence on how cases are handled. Juries are lead to believe that in the majority of cases it is someone the murderer knew and they become biased against the charge. If it was a 50/50 thing a jury may not be as willing to pin a conviction on circumstantial evidence. That said, it may also be that those 70% of murder cases that convict someone the victim knew are correct and murdering someone you know is a good way to get caught.
tl;dr, be careful using law enforcement statistics. Systemic bias in law enforcement procedure can make them invalid.
No idea whether those studies have accounted for your comments, but you'd think if they're academic studies they would have?
The sample is drawn from a high IQ club. You won’t find many Nobel laureates, brilliant engineers and so on in these clubs. Why would they bother? They have nothing to prove and better things to do with their time.
Broadly speaking, people join a high IQ club because their performance on standardized tests is the ONLY thing they have going for them.
And by the way, the average IQ of the sample was 149, so many must have been below that score. Smart, but not exactly Hannibal Lecter.
> Oleson is quick to point out that the results presented in his book should be seen as preliminary rather than conclusive, especially considering how rare his subjects are. Another issue is that the bulk of his gifted cohort was recruited from a private high-IQ society, and people who join such clubs might not represent highly intelligent people in general.
H.L. is a fictional character with IQ 200, and Einstein is only 160, so who would qualify as an "Hannibal Lecter" for you? If the average is 149 and the group is spread in a gaussian curve with exactly one Einstein, then the dumb guy of the group will be 138.
Which is under 1% of the population, especially in US where the average IQ is 98. So the first 3 paragraphs of your criticism are well-reasoned, but I wonder why you feel the need to down-play the smartness of that group with your first and last sentence.
I don't believe Einstein is ever recorded as having taken an IQ test.
In any case, IQ scores quickly lose their meaning when you get to 160 or above. Try taking a physical fitness test designed to make fine distinctions across the general population, and extending it to Olympic athletes. The athletes would just laugh at you.
> Which is under 1% of the population, especially in US where the average IQ is 98. ... I wonder why you feel the need to down-play the smartness of that group with your first and last sentence.
It's the use of words like "super-smart" that bugs me.
A US male in the top height percentile would be about 6'4". Tall, but no André the giant.
It's the socioeconomic lineage that gives you to access to such position where it's very easy to commit crimes that the law is not designed to punish. Much of the written laws are around hauling violent criminals away from civilization.
While high IQ could empower someone to feel that they can get away with white collar crime, such disposition are innately built from their lack of attachment that arises from being isolated from poverty and all the bullshit that comes with non-upper class life.
You go to an elite school, meet other friends who think rules for tools, they go onto work at powerful positions, it's all too simple to collude and create secret societies to further their collective monetary ambitions.
It really seems to be true what they say. There are rules for those who made it (because they create the rules) and conditions and terms for those who didn't make it (you follow the rules). It almost seems to me like the whole system is a sham.
Imagine if Ghengis Khan discovered the best way to conquer people and other nations is not by force but by credits and materialism. In a chaotic and lawless reality, law is created by individuals who impose their power on rest of society. We are so entrenched that we are "right" and rest of the world is "wrong", we've become a slave because we are told we are free to make our own decisions-limited by powerful men who play God.
As someone who's been around this scene, the kids from these unis are surprisingly down to earth.
The kids are happy, very open, and hopeful. I don't think I can do this sort of energy justice, but if you get a chance, go onto one of the campuses and have a chat with any student. You'll know what I'm talking about.
Work's still hard, but they seem to enjoy it. They seem fulfilled.
The stories about the rich microcosm are not as widespread as they've been made out.
Do you have anything else in mind? Some specific part you're unsure about?
I thought maybe they just cherry-picked students, but I guess not. Everything you said backed it up.
I ask because I'm just curious about things in different cultures and social circles. (And to destroy any stereotypes I might unintentionally believe in.)
Thanks for mentioning this. I just looked through some of the First Class* series on YouTube, and other NHK shows, and it looks both pleasant and very interesting.
I can see myself watching this regularly.
But yes, people who go their primarily to study (often grad students or international students) can be very down to earth.
Frankly, I'd expect more narcissistic or mentally unstable people in high-IQ clubs (though two fellow students at university were at some point placed in the closed psychiatric ward).
> Many of Oleson’s respondents discussed the alienating effects of their high intelligence; social maladjustment could be a possible explanation for their elevated crime rates.
> Another issue is that the bulk of his gifted cohort was recruited from a private high-IQ society, and people who join such clubs might not represent highly intelligent people in general.
To that last point, this has the same vague smell of the kind of study whose participants were from the college it was sponsored by and so as he says it should be taken as preliminary and I'd add with a large grain of salt.
But Schwartz stresses that the overall amount of crime in this range is still “much, much lower” than among people with very low IQ scores.
“Not only does it mean that elites are just as likely to lie, cheat, and steal as anyone else,” Oleson writes
Do these people simply disagree, or am I misinterpreting one of them?
The smartest criminals don't get caught.