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Dmytry comments on A belief propagation graph - Less Wrong
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Good point. Humans are example of borderline intelligence. The intelligent humans tend to have less of this habit.
Do we have evidence for this? This looks dangerously like a belief that I want to have.
Simple matter of better prediction. You can look at incarceration rates or divorce rates or any other outcome of the kind that induces or indicates regrets, those are negatively correlated with IQ in general populace.
These are all highly correlated with other issues (such as lower average income, and distinct cultural attitudes). It may for example be that lower intelligence people have fewer opportunities and thus commit more crime, or less intelligent people may simply get caught more often. This is extremely weak evidence.
Why would those correlations invalidate it, assuming we have controlled for origin and education, and are sampling society with low disparity? (e.g. western Europe).
Don't forget we have a direct causal mechanism at work; failure to predict; and we are not concerned with the feelings so much as with the regrettable actions themselves (and thus don't need to care if the intelligent people e.g. regret for longer, or intelligent people notice more often that they could have done better, which can easily result in more intelligent people experiencing feeling of regret more often). Not just that, but ability to predict is part of definition of intelligence.
edit: another direct causal mechanism: more intelligent people tend to have larger set of opportunities (even given same start in life), allowing them to take less risky courses of action, which can be predicted better (e.g. more intelligent people tend to be able to make more money, and consequently have a lower need to commit crime; when committing crime more intelligent people process a larger selection of paths for each goal, and can choose paths with lower risk of getting caught, including subtle unethical high pay off scenarios not classified as crime). The result is that intelligence allows to accommodate for values such as regret better. This is not something that invalidates the effect, but is rather part of effect.
The poor also commit significantly more non-lucrative crime.
I found your top-level post hard to understand at first. You may want to add a clearer introduction. When I saw "The issue in brief", I expected a full sentence/thesis to follow and had to recheck to see if I overlooked a verb.
I wouldn't call present-day western Europe a society with low disparity. Fifteen years ago, maybe.
What are you thinking of as different between 1997 and 2012?
The purchasing power of middle-low classes is a lot less than it used to be, whereas that of upper classes hasn't changed much AFAICT.
Still a ton better than most other places i've been to, though.
I've never been there, but I've read that Japan has much lower disparity.
I dunno ... I'm mindful that you have to be smart to do something really stupid. People who are dumb as rocks don't tend to make and execute large plans, but that doesn't mean the smart people's plans can't be destructive.
I think the issue is that our IQ is all too often just like engine in a car to climb hills with. You can go where-ever, including downhill.
If IQ is like an engine, then rationality is like a compass. IQ makes one move faster on the mental landscape, and rationality is guiding them towards victory.
Empirical data needed. (ideally the success rate on non self administered metrics).
I hate to say it, but that's kind of the definition of rationality - applying your intelligence to do things you want done instead of screwing yourself over. Note the absence of a claim of being rational.