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Viliam_Bur comments on Rationality & Low-IQ People - Less Wrong
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Comments (107)
The low-IQ people would probably benefit from non-meta advice.
As a part of raising the sanity waterline, it could be useful to compose a textbook of good advice for average people. But we probably shouldn't expect to make them able to create such books for themselves.
It's like a division of labor -- the people who are good at thinking (i.e. intelligent and rational) should do the thinking. The others are more efficient when then follow such advice. Yes, this has a lot of problems. I just don't see a way to avoid them, if the person has a low IQ. And the low-IQ person is probably going to follow someone else's advice anyway, because that's all they can do. Giving them some good advice at least gives them a chance of picking a good advice to follow; because the bad advice is already there.
We should see people as what they are, not as we wish them to be.
The thing that "average" people need isn't so much a textbook as a recognition that maybe intelligent people are better role models than the latest football star or rapper.
If you don't have the status the advice that you are giving won't be heard.
Rappers are probably a bad example. Most if not all of the great rappers are notable for being extremely intelligent, especially in the sense that IQ measures.
Most if not all of the great X are notable for being extremely intelligent. For any X to arrive at the very top you probably also need to be smart.
Rappers are much more cerebral than football players, as a class, as a profession, as an endeavor. There's no rationalizing around this.
Rap battles reward quick wit as few other things do (maybe improv theatre/comedy also?)
People need to stop equating single parameters with anything, like Villiam Bur does in the original post.
Some people use their intelligence to do intelligent decisions; those would be good to follow. Some people use their intelligence mostly for signalling intelligence (see your local Mensa for examples); those would be bad to follow.
The necessary part of the low-IQ person's strategy would be to recognize the former from the latter. Unfortunately, those good role models often don't fit the popular stereotype of an intelligent person. They often even don't consider themselves to be highly intelligent.
Some anecdotal data: Despite me generally expressing contempt for Mensa in LW forums, I actually do recommend people I consider smart to go take the Mensa IQ test. Not to join the Mensa, only to do the test; to calibrate on their own intelligence. A few people who later did the test successfully at first completely denied the idea of being highly intelligent. And it's actually those people I would recommend as the best role models. But if they don't recognize themselves and even actively deny their intelligence, how should their neighbors recognize them?