American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth (2016)

"Nice guy? I don't give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here - close!" Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross

As for the dating thing, dating someone far more or less beautiful than you comes with some problems, but sometimes is worth it. There are lots of people at all levels of beauty, so I don't buy the idea that you might have no options due to ugliness.

I would add a qualifier here - "in some situations". As human beings per se we all are "worth" the same.

When acting in a specific capacity, however, your ability to perform in that capacity determines your objective worth in that role. And of course it's pretty obvious that some occupations are better suited for ppl with different abilities. Master programmer will (most likely)be a worthless pro running back and (most likely)vice versa.

The thing is - ppl are very accepting of the physical differences between individuals but contrary to what the article is saying - intellectual differences are way more of a taboo.

According to whom? Why do they have the authority to say? You can say that person A produces more economic output than person B, but the true worth of that is subjective.

Higher IQ doesn't necessarily mean you're more competent, it means you're better at solving certain kinds of puzzles. Unless it is your job to solve that kind of puzzle you should directly measure what you care about.

I also don't see how a preference for high IQ scores is inextricably linked to the notion of progress.

But why should that be? If someone, for whatever reason, is less able to produce utility, does that mean that person deserves less of that which is produced? That they should experience a worse life because of their lesser talents?

And if someone is, for whatever reason, more able to produce utility, do they deserve more? Should we divert resources to improve their life at the expense of others?

You can argue that inequality is necessary to create incentives. I don't personally believe that's true, but I understand the argument as a reasonable moral position. But to argue that some people are morally worth more than others is to discard the very notion of human equality.

Your point isn't "hard to swallow", rather it is the conclusion of a moral framework which many find abhorrent.

This type of rhetoric is what put an incompetent lying reality television star in the White House. Signaling to people they are worth less than others hurts them on an emotional level regardless of veracity. People who are emotionally hurt can and will make problems for you.

People with high emotional intelligence understand this, will avoid pressing that button, and will achieve better outcomes in their endeavors as a result.

Then, look at differentials in the US that came after 1950.

If someone is not good at _anything_ then it's a good bayesian guess to say they're stupid. If someone has high-achievement in one or more specialities it's safe to say they're smart.

[edit: Feel free to explain the downvotes! I understand the parent-comment was arguing for a "there are different types of intelligence" kind of theory, but I do think that the "aggregate smartness" is more useful/correct. Think of the smart people you know-- aren't they often kind of polymaths? And even things they're new to, they kind of pick up fast? And think of the really stupid people you know--- don't they kind of suck of everything?]

Competence (which is probably closer to what society is increasingly valuing as opposed to intelligence) is always context dependent (although society has also generally respected the idea of the accomplished generalist, see the idea of the Renaissance Man).

You're describing skilled vs unskilled.

There was this essay by pg where he called this concept "upwind".

Also, from what I know, “socialist” societies in the eastern block were closer to socialism-flavored dictatorships resulting from power grabs and nepotism on epic scale.

The prerequisite being social skills and/or ability to BS and politic.

Sadly, as you pointed out, reality is never fooled for long and the consequences of bad leadership eventually catch up.

In my experience, most people put a lot of energy and care into their jobs, and most are proud over what they do even when they are not doing especially important or valued tasks.

They also seem to be putting the interest of the company above other concerns.

However, to be precise, conscientiousness isn't the same thing as grit. To illustrate the distinction, look at John McCain - he embodies a sort of tenacity and resilience I would call "grit" (thumbs down at 2am), but isn't the most conscientious (didn't vet Sarah Palin).

I'm sure there's studies to say charisma and social intelligence correlate with intelligence, or some academic would argue those are a form of intelligence, etc. The article specifically calls out IQ / test taking intelligence as being overvalued by society in general, which is what I mean in my comment as well. Eg, The SAT doesn't test you for these traits and these traits will not make much of a difference in an academic setting.

For (a crude) example, if we all drew the same conclusion that being wealthy and [say] a technologist living in a $10M condo in NYC with spending money and travel time was the ideal life style— many of use were born closer to that, even those born poor here, than say a peasant from the outskirts in Darfur.

That's one hell of a handicap.

Being intelligent, emotionally intelligent, charismatic, and tough will get you farther than if you weren't any of those traits personified. But on your way going about your business you're probably much more likely to be robbed of your acquired wealth and your life in some dangerous parts of those outskirts and so you just need that much more luck.

I'm thinking of trajectory, some people keep on advancing in their careers, others get stuck or spin their wheels. Over time this difference adds up, though, as you say, it is not completely fair to the those who never got a shot in the first place because of circumstances.

re: "tough, persistent, high-character, talented people are poor & suffering"

This is covered in the article about how the educational system is failing the poor and points it back to an overemphasis on cognitive ability / IQ smarts.

ex: "Even if we refuse to prevent poverty or provide superb early education, we might consider one other means of addressing the average person’s plight. Some of the money pouring into educational reform might be diverted to creating more top-notch vocational-education programs"

From the perspective of a culture/society? No way.

For example you have no choice that you grew up in a single parent household - but society and culture have a huge influence over how likely/often that happens.

Etc etc etc.

If there is a God (or equivalent deity), he would be worth infinitely more than any other sapient being, thus disproving that all sapient beings are of equal worth even in a spiritual sense.

Generally, God does care about other things, though - so still not equal :-)

That's a pretty forward statement about how every brain works. Who comes up with the training? Clearly new ideas must arise somewhere, and where they do intelligence gets involved.

A poor person understands that thousand dollars is more than ten dollars, and million dollars is more that thousand dollars. A poor person can recognize an expensive car; for a sufficiently poor person even the fact that someone owns a car already suggests certain level of wealth. Of course there are ways to make yourself appear more wealthy than you are -- the car may be rented, and you may actually be deep in debt -- and there are "invisible" forms of wealth -- no one knows how much you own in stocks or bitcoins -- but when you observe people, there is some correlation between how rich they are and how they live, and you don't need to be rich yourself to see the difference.

On the other hand, levels of intelligence that are above you seem pretty much the same. Not just intelligence, but also education, etc. If you know absolutely nothing about quantum physics, you may listen to Stephen Hawking and Deepak Chopra, and have no idea which one of them is right. Under specific experimental conditions you may be able to compare levels of intelligence above you, otherwise IQ tests would be impossible to construct for people smarter than the average psychologist -- a person who can solve puzzles 100 times faster than me is probably smarter than a person who can solve puzzles "only" 10 times faster than me -- but in normal life, when you meet two highly intelligent people in different circumstances, when they have different professions and different hobbies, it is difficult to compare them.

I guess what I am trying to say is that a person with IQ 100 and a person with IQ 150 can both be sapiosexual, but it will make the latter much more choosy. In other words, you cannot be a choosy sapiosexual unless you are intelligent yourself. (A person attracted to 50% of population probably would not label themselves as "sapiosexual", if all they mean is pretty much that they are not attracted to retarded people.)

(You could probably find people who think it's egalitarian to have generous state-funded child care and uniformly high-quality primary and secondary school, but competitive university entrance exams, for instance.)