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Comment by mannyv | Hacker News Reader

Except that data says you're wrong. As a classic example, look at (1) the effects of adding iodine to salt and its impact on IQ, and (2) the withdrawal of leaded gasoline and it's impact on IQ.

And in general, IQ goes up as nutrition goes up (to a point). It's hard to be smart if you're calorie-reduced.

That said, is IQ important? To an extent, yes. In general a higher IQ means someone can hold more things in their head, which means they can handle more complexity.

Is it important? It depends. I would rather have a high-IQ doctor than a low-IQ doctor, for sure. I would rather have a high-IQ network engineer than a low-IQ network engineer.

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All of this seems to be dancing around the actual question: are people getting dumber?

It's not possible to look at modern trends in the US and answer anything but, yes.

When a major portion of the US population can believe that space lasers are guiding hurricanes along the contrails, there has obviously been a major reduction in intelligence, regardless of IQ test results.

The pandemic led to a quantum leap, downward, in intelligence across the US. The rise of asocial media's viral influenzas are significantly to blame.

A person's imagined ideals are held to be more real than physical reality.

There is no doubt that across the breadth of the US population, intelligence has significantly declined.

Believing obvious lies is orthogonal to IQ, as stated before. It‘s not that people are getting “dumb”, but that people are falling into politically-focused echo chambers and believe stupid things because “trusted” people say so. I mean just look at how many people, even doctors and researchers who should know better, believed the, often contradictory, statements Fauci made during Covid. I mean there was and still is genuine belief that face masks of any kind stop you from getting sick, when that’s simply not reality. Only surgical masks applied properly provide the right seal, but even those are meant to mostly prevent others from getting sick. Yet we still have people who believe they’re some holy barrier against illness.

Beliving stupid things can only happen when the person can't dismiss those things as impossible or at least very improbable.

That can happen:

1) due to IQ becoming more specialized (they can't reason to reach the logical conclusion) and

2) due to education becoming more and more specialized and lacking in the general all-domains knowledge and common sense (they don't have the basics to start any reasoning logic).

That is not proof that people are getting dumber. For a start, believing stupid things is somewhat orthogonal to the number you get on an IQ test. It is not purely a test of logic and reasoning.

There have always been a large number of credulous folks. I would say that what we're seeing recently is a result of connecting those people together on the internet, which also exposes them en masse to those would would take advantage. Instead of local gossip, people are able to participate at a regional, national and global level. Before the internet, and social media in particular, the cost barrier to communicate this sort of ridiculousness was too high.

I agree "All of this seems to be dancing around the actual question: are people getting dumber? It's not possible to look at modern trends in the US and answer anything but, yes."

Same in Europe too

    When a major portion of the US population can believe 
    that space lasers are guiding hurricanes along the 
    contrails, there has obviously been a major reduction 
    in intelligence, regardless of IQ test results.

The trend you're talking about is a real problem, for sure. This society has some serious problems.

I'd absolutely not describe that as a sudden plunge in the sort of acute intelligence that is measured by IQ tests.

Think about the great misinformation campaigns and widespread delusions in history. To jump to the most obvious example: do you really think the German people became literally dumber during the rule of you-know-who in 1933-1945, when a significant portion of the population fervently supported his lies? And then suddenly became smarter again?

What you're describing is a social problem, not a biological one.

Neither of your examples really contradict my point. If we are measuring a subset of things you need a brain for, of course factors that make your brain generally less effective are going to show up on them. Lead poisoning and inadequate nutrition also decrease libido for example, and I don't think it's reasonable to conclude that this provides strong evidentiary support that libido should be our proxy for people's general capabilities and declare it equivalent to "intelligence", though there are certainly those who would try to make that case too

Very well stated

I haven’t seen you disagree anywhere with OP. You said they’re wrong, then you affirmed a cornerstone of OPs argument when you said “it’s hard to be smart if you’re calorie-reduced.”

In truth, the data is weak and nonsensical and it’s used to peddle mysticism-tier shit out on unsuspecting rubes under the guise of “Science.” But that’s a separate discussion.

I’d argue emotinal intelligence is at least as important. The most successful people in business I’ve met are exceptionally good in empathy and highly social. Hard IQ is just a piece of the puzzle.

Yea, like I'd rather have a doctor who actually listens to what I'm saying than one who got top marks in medical school, and honestly network engineers I've worked with who strike me as "higher IQ" often fall into the pitfall described by the adage "the perfect is the enemy of the good" (which I empathize with, because I am also a high-IQ person with this kind of bias, but it's actually quite counterproductive at times)

I would agree, but about 1/5th of CEOs are psycopaths, as opposed to the 1/100 in the general population[0]. While emotional intelligence may help in some fields, such as employee retention, it’s not universally related to success. Additionally, EI doesn’t map well to psychopaths and similar disorders due to EI being a measure of how well you conform rather than a measure of what you truly feel[1].

[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/201... | https://archive.is/3jHZV [1] - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-els... | https://archive.is/Z2Oif

I think that statistic is a good indicator that we have significant broken incentives in the way liability can be shunted away from the people with decisionmaking power in businesses. The "corporate veil" for example is a deep loophole in the whole concept of rule of law, and I for one would prefer it not to exist

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