[aduitsis]

Slightly off-topic, but besides all the important contributions of Alan Kay, there is also his famous quote:

> Point of view is worth 80 IQ points

The wisdom of it is that it suggests a profound change in the point of view of what intelligence is. Although I suspect this must have been researched well before the quote, it summarizes so beautifully the fact that intelligence isn't just some single-dimensional hard coded genetic trait, but something transferable and even contagious through language. Love that quote.

[locallost]

I've seen him mention this in talks and the example he used was that Leonardo da Vinci was smarter than Henry Ford, but he couldn't build anything he envisioned because he was born in the wrong century. So I think he meant something a bit different, that knowledge of something somebody else solved can be more valuable than raw intelligence.

[jonahx]

The quote isn't an argument against IQ. Here is a 3 minute video of Kay elaborating the idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI9rPNxFG5Y

You'll notice he presupposes that IQ exists, is real, and is important. He just also notes that its effect will be dwarfed by having access to paradigm-changing ideas and knowledge.

"If you can get a supreme genius to invent calculus, those of us with normal IQs can learn it"

[Tommabeeng]

In prior talk(s) he’s famous for saying “IQ is a lead weight”.

[creamytaco]

Akan Kay is obviously referring to "genius", someone who is able to see things outside of the consensus POV and make leaps that others can't. Alas, this is not transferable through language. There have been precious few that fit the characterization of genius, and fewer still recognised today, due to contempary societal conditions being actively hostile to it: https://geniusfamine.blogspot.com/

[MaysonL]

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