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by luxpir 4405 days ago
Doesn't the standard IQ (I know, I know) bell-curve indicate that the majority of humans are less intelligent than the most intelligent? [1]

I suppose the question is how much less intelligent does the majority have to be for the world to look like Idiocracy? How likely is that to happen, given the communication tech and education options that are emerging?

EDIT: [1] Fair point, riffraff. Actually quite tough for me to rephrase without spending significant time on it (I'm clearly not in the minority...), how about: "the most intelligent humans (by IQ) are naturally in the minority, as with any natural distribution/bell-curve, meaning the 'less intelligent' majority already dominate, as in Idiocracy, and by definition they must always continue to do so". That's a mouthful, but I hope the point is clear enough.

2 comments

I think you should rephrase your first line, as it would seem to me the majority of anything is always less anything than the top. (i.e. half of the people are of below average intelligence)
In a constant distribution, the majority equals the max.

Some phenomena ate approximately constant. (How many eyes do you have?)

In other words, the mean is less than the median.