[threethirtytwo]

Another thing overtaking the US is average IQ scores. Both in the current baseline and in rate of change. US has been declining, China has been increasing.

> This is to say nothing of the CCP and their record on human rights and free expression.

To be very practical here… the lack of rights and freedoms as they exist in China typically has no consequence to the lives of individual people. For example you have no right to protest. But how many of us have exercised that right in the US? Personally I never did. And honestly those protests end up being just parties and parades

[tptacek]

I see claims like this all the time on HN. Where is this data supposed to be coming from? When I look it up on Google, I get data ultimately sourced from shady online IQ tests (which nonetheless purport to provide a monotonic ranking of every country in the world from China to Nauru, despite the fact that virtually none of these countries collect IQ scores from their populations).

I have no reason to doubt that China is modernizing and improving their gross aptitude for knowledge work! The directional point you're making may very well be valid! I'm just wondering how anyone could be quantifying it in terms of "average IQ", a metric that generally does not exist.

[threethirtytwo]

It does exist. You take all iqs of people measured and you average it. Boom it exists.

As for iq by country all you need to do is google it. Many sources… all pretty aligned.

That being said lots of people in academia question the validity of these per country iq scores but that’s because they scored low from the aforementioned country in context.

[tptacek]

This is obviously, fatuously untrue. The problem has nothing to do with uncertainty about the validity of IQ. The problem is that most countries don't routinely administer IQ tests. I'm always struck by Americans who make this claim, given that virtually nobody in the US is ever asked to take a real IQ test.

I encourage you to cite the actual source you claim has authoritative "average IQ" scores broken down by country. According to you, they're readily available with a simple Google search. Fire away!

[threethirtytwo]

https://www.technotheoria.org//p/most-accurate-national-iqs-... from google.

Also every measurement on google is remarkably inline with each other even though it's from sources that are noisy.

A better way to put it. If you have 20 noisy/biased sources of data but each source is unique and gathered in distinct ways. And all 20 sources show a unique pattern of Asia beating the US... then it's quite likely, the consistency is NOT noise.

[tptacek]

Just skimming, and tell me if I'm wrong, but the preprint this article is about acknowledges the obvious fact that IQ tests are not generally administered across broad populations of countries and attempts to reconstruct IQ from available statistics of income, life expectancy, and educational attainment. I'm sure if I dig deeper into its cites we'll get back to the same online IQ quiz most of these IQ maps end up citing, too.

[threethirtytwo]

It's a blurry lens. But it's also the best lens that we got.

Also if we have 30 blurry lenses looking at the same thing from different angles and we see the same feature... that says something very likely about reality.

I hope we're not in the sort of discussion where if no absolutely solid statistical evidence or scientific paper says something about it then the topic cannot be discussed.

Put it this way. I'm quite likely to be right.

[bluGill]

I write my congressman every few months about something. Sometimes just to send a form letter that one of the various organizations writes for me. I also vote regularly.

You should too.

[threethirtytwo]

futile attempts at change. All your work logically amounts to know measurable difference in change. Imagine the counter factual if you didn't vote or write letters. Nothing changes. Your actions are irrational in nature and that is the tragedy of the commons.

Additionally because your actions are irrational, the majority of people don't actually exercise the rights you exercise. That again is the tragedy of the commons.

So in short I'm still right, and you've proven nothing.