Based on three sets of experiences, I'd say there is a strong overlap between people who do not value intelligence and people who have little of it (in three different ways).
First, I've worked with deaf people who are acquiring language late in life. Second, I've worked with young children. Third, I've worked with homeless people. Some of each of these are blindingly intelligent by any measure. Some are not depending on how intelligence is measured. Among the later, higher intelligence is mistrusted and seen as making trouble.
The exception in life is clergy, who are granted smarts as a good. The exception in fiction is 'nerd on a leash' - the doctor or navigator or smart guy kept for his use by a barbarian horde.
I agree with this in part. But there seem to be two distinct types of dim people. Self-aware dim people go the Nietzchean route and devalue the virtue of intelligence. But there are also what you might call Dunning-Krueger dim people. These people don't devalue intelligence; they just don't realize how little of it they possess.
This post is to raise a question about the demographics of rationality: Is rationality something that can appeal to low-IQ people as well?
I don't mean in theory, I mean in practice. From what I've seen, people who are concerned about rationality (in the sense that it has on LW, OvercomingBias, etc.) are overwhelmingly high-IQ.
Meanwhile, HPMOR and other stories in the "rationality genre" appeal to me, and to other people I know. However I wonder: Perhaps part of the reason they appeal to me is that I think of myself as a smart person, and this allows me to identify with the main characters, cheer when they think their way to victory, etc. If I thought of myself as a stupid person, then perhaps I would feel uncomfortable, insecure, and alienated while reading the same stories.
So, I have four questions:
1.) Do we have reason to believe that the kind of rationality promoted on LW, OvercomingBias, CFAR, etc. appeals to a fairly normal distribution of people around the IQ mean? Or should we think, as I suggested, that people with lower IQ's are disposed to find the idea of being rational less attractive?
2.) Ditto, except replace "being rational" with "celebrating rationality through stories like HPMOR." Perhaps people think that rationality is a good thing in much the same way that being wealthy is a good thing, but they don't think that it should be celebrated, or at least they don't find such celebrations appealing.
3.) Supposing #1 and #2 have the answers I am suggesting, why?
4.) Making the same supposition, what are the implications for the movement in general?
Note: I chose to use IQ in this post instead of a more vague term like "intelligence," but I could easily have done the opposite. I'm happy to do whichever version is less problematic.