[astazangasta]

Claiming success is a social construct seems to me to be trivially true, not a staggering claim. Intelligence is less obvious since there is a vast literature around it, but, again, it is clearly a social construct; we must struggle to agree on a useful definition of intelligence, therefore it is a social construct.

I'm also not sure what "scientific evidence" would look like here. You seem to have had some sort of allergic reaction to the assertion of social construction and retreated instinctively to familiar but hollow epistemic grounds.

[Retra]

>we must struggle to agree on a useful definition of intelligence, therefore it is a social construct.

This makes everything a social construct, which negates any usefulness of the distinction. Having to agree to definitions cannot be a realistic definition of social construct, because it's a basic part of using language.

[astazangasta]

Yes? And? This is one of the most profound and basic observations of twentieth century philosophy. That is what social construction is, it underlies our basic notions of perception and reality.

Read this book: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Construction_of_R...

[Retra]

What you've said is not profound. When you go around saying "the sky is blue" people aren't wrong to assume you meant something relevant, rather than just tossing out vague and trivial statements.

[astazangasta]

I'm not sure what to do with this remark. You said my definition of social construction was untenable because the implications were too broad and you seemed to find that frightening. I responded by saying that social construction IS a theory with broad implications and gave you a reference to read, since you seem to be unfamiliar with these concepts. Your response seems a non sequitur.