I've met a lot of really smart people & I've never met a single one who wasn't aggressively wrong about something that a much dumber person could have explained to him
People are finite & pretty small relative to the systems they try to apprehend https://t.co/pHWhoWwRH4
— Bennett's Phylactery (@extradeadjcb) January 7, 2025
Regarding the embedded video, a measured IQ above 140 or so not exist, except when such a score is extrapolated from what is called ‘mental age’, typically during childhood. This does not translate reliably to a normed score in adulthood. People with >140 IQs must exist by virtue of the distribution of IQ as a biological trait, but IQ tests typically do not have the fidelity or granularity to identify them.
This dismissal of IQ or the valorization of ‘folk wisdom’ does get annoying. He’s not wrong in so far that smart people can and do believe dumb things compared to ‘salt of the earth’ commonsense, but who is buying all those scammy infomercial products or scam products pitched on social media? Or falling for crypto scams? If poor judgement was limited to only the right-end of the bell curve, much of modern capitalism would not exist.
Selection effects also matter. If one’s social bubble is limited to smart people, when someone from that bubble espouses nonsense, it’s more likely to stand out.
The susceptibility of being misled is part of the human condition. This was seen with many educated people early on during Covid regarding the overhyped purported efficacy of masks and social distancing. In hindsight, those did little to stop Covid. Such dissent was labeled as misinformation on social media. People believe narratives as shortcuts to navigating the complexity of reality. It’s infeasible regardless of IQ to research all issues thoroughly enough or have enough epistemological certainty to always have the ‘correct position’ for all issues, or know in hindsight what information will be later proven wrong.
I think this is what the midwit meme describes–someone who is smart enough to research issues, but does not have the intelligence to critically appraise expertise or narratives, so they end up parroting stuff which is wrong or incomplete. But this can be just as much of a laziness issue and not so much an IQ one. ‘Flatten the curve’ was a compelling narrative that was even backed by math, and many people just assumed uncritically it would work. Except it made unrealistic assumptions that rendered it useless when put to practice.
I have observed this a lot in regard to discussion about AI, as has Scott and others, in which people who may otherwise be smart lose IQ points when certain topics or opinions are broached. Perhaps there is a certain mental block that is triggered, or these people may not actually be that smart despite having a lot of followers or clout. That is always a possibility worth entertaining too. Much of this AI doomsaying comes off as just another variant of flatten the curve, in which something which is highly speculative is spoken with as much conviction as if it were a fact like gravity. There is some science behind it which adds to the credibility, but it again makes unfounded assumptions. Maybe we don’t know.
Overall, IQ may not matter much, except when it does, which is a lot. I can draw from experience that IQ matters, like investing. Even if possessing high IQ is not totally protective at being mislead or wrong at life, again, so what. There is nothing useful or profound about belaboring this point when no one actually has ever believed it.