[woodruffw]

Is there a coherent train of thought in these tweets, other than Taleb's disdain for IQ[1]? I'm struggling to understand why a measurement that appears to have no value "measures best the ability to be a good slave," or why any of this entails the belief that "the only robust measure of "rationality" & "intelligence" is survival."

[1]: A position that, as far as I know, is neither controversial nor contentious in academia.

[dogma1138]

I couldn’t find any and it was painful to read, no actual argument or a hypothesis just random anecdotes and banter.

For example: “I've spent 34 years working w/"High IQ" quants. I've rarely seen them survive, not blow up on tail events.”

How many “low IQ” quants did he work with? With all due respect to Taleb I’m not sure that anyone who’s even simply above average would make it as a quant or even be attracted to mathematics to this degree.

From my experience with quants not only that they are exceptionally intelligent even if only in a narrow field they also see data and numbers very differently than how “normal” people see them even if these normal people score pretty high on which ever arbitrary scale of intelligence you pick.

I would bet good money on the fact that Taleb likely haven’t worked with any Quant with an IQ lower than say 135 which already makes them exceptional, in fact I’m not sure how much experience a person in his position has with average not to mention low IQ people to begin with considering the social circles he hangs out in.

Another one: “Perhaps the worst problem with IQ is that it seem to selects for people who don't like to say "there is no answer, don't waste time, find something else".“

I’m not entirely sure if we would have deferential mathematics and Newton’s law of motions, yet alone something like GR if everyone followed this attitude, while this might be a reasonable attitude to have to some extent in say business I’m not sure about applying it to our advancement as a species.

IQ might be a poor indicator for intelligence it might be a good one, but his rant offered no arguments or alternatives.

Yes plenty of people can be “obnoxious losers” and have high IQ plenty of them might even be that because of it, however it would be interested to see how much better these people have it than people who chosen to waste their life in just the same manner but who are average or below average and I have a feeling that the basement dwelling Twitter troll unicorn who is indeed correct about their 150 self proclaimed IQ still manages to come on top simply due to the rare occasions when push comes to shove and they have to apply themselves.

[vixen99]

In other words, IQ is a statistical parameter (offering no information whatsoever about individuals) but this smart guy quotes local anecdotes and moreover from the vantage point of an environment populated by outliers.

[barry-cotter]

IQ is the most replicated finding in psychology, and almost certainly the most used. It is very far from being of no value.

http://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatte...

Why g Matters: The Complexity of Everyday Life

LINDA S. GOTTFREDSON University of Delaware Personnel selection research provides much evidence that intelligence (g) is an important predictor of performance in training and on the job, especially in higher level work. This article provides evidence that g has pervasive utility in work settings because it is essen- tially the ability to deal with cognitive complexity, in particular, with complex information processing. The more complex a work task, the greater the advantages that higher g confers in performing it well. Everyday tasks, like job duties, also differ in their level of complexity. The importance of intelligence therefore differs systematically across differ- ent arenas of social life as well as economic endeavor. Data from the National Adult Literacy Survey are used to show how higher levels of cognitive ability systematically improve individuals’ odds of dealing successfully with the ordinary demands of modem life (such as banking, using maps and transportation schedules, reading and understanding forms, interpreting news articles). These and other data are summarized to illustrate how the advantages of higher g, even when they are small, cumulate to affect the overall life chances of individuals at different ranges of the IQ bell curve. The article concludes by suggesting ways to reduce the risks for low-IQ individuals of being left behind by an increasingly complex postindustrial economy.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0963-7214.200...

Intelligence Predicts Health and Longevity, but Why?

Large epidemiological studies of almost an entire population in Scotland have found that intelligence (as measured by an IQ-type test) in childhood predicts substantial differences in adult morbidity and mortality, including deaths from cancers and cardiovascular diseases. These relations remain significant after controlling for socioeconomic variables. One possible, partial explanation of these results is that intelligence enhances individuals' care of their own health because it represents learning, reasoning, and problem-solving skills useful in preventing chronic disease and accidental injury and in adhering to complex treatment regimens.

[freyir]

The point was that Talib argues it has no value (above ~85), and then says it’s a good predictor of one’s value as a “slave” (very high IQ makes a good slave).

In any case, he comes off as childish and bitter. It’s all filtered through the idea that success means being a multimillionaire, and everyone else is a failure. His perspective seems limited to finance and academics in that sphere.

[TEJOOS]

Maryam Mirzakhani the High IQ fields medallist lady died from cancer microsoft co founder had cancer 3 times intelligence has nothing to do with cancer occurence

[techbio]

I just see more personal liberty at the high end and therefore more variance in possible outcomes.

[everybodyknows]

That's a plausible mechanism, within modern liberal society anyway, supporting Taleb's claim:

> ... when they say "IQ works well between 70 and 130" it means: "IQ works well between 0 and ~85, maybe"

[KMag]

And why does higher variance imply a shifted mean?