maybe intelligent people are better role models
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?
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.