Similar to physique or strength inflation, where anything less than shredded abs or 600lbs deadlifts are seen are ‘mid’ or average, a similar trend, I think, is observed with intellect, such as claims of Elon Musk being dull, unread, or not sounding that smart. Certain pundits have unrealistic or inflated expectations of what is expected of nominally smart people. The sort of world-class erudition that passes for truly being an intellectual par excellence is closer to a 150+ IQ than 110-120, which is sufficient for only being ‘highly competent’.
Like how a 300lbs deadlift is no longer considered strong, just being competent and successful is no longer sufficient. We also want our industry leaders to be pillars of knowledge who can converse extemporaneously and intelligently on a breadth of topics, like Tyler Cowen or something. But I posit that is a rarer level of IQ than even being as successful and competent as the likes of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. As I wrote earlier, when people on Twitter opine they want a society run by competent, business-minded people–when translated to IQ–this means midwits, which is the system we more or less already have.
You cannot both complain about midwits and complain about the lack of competent people in government or business. Who do you think are running those leading companies and franchises. Except for maybe tech, it’s not guys with 150+ IQs, who either tend to do more theoretical stuff or are excluded. The fact that possessing merely ‘above average’ IQ is now seen as a negative online, with an entire meme culture that exists that relegates the unfortunate 10-15% of the population whose IQs lie between 1/2-3/2 standard deviations above average to second class status, is evidence of such inflation.
Elon’s inability to produce off-the-cuff smart responses to complicated foreign policy situations, or getting facts wrong for things outside of his areas of expertise, is what is expected of anyone who is not in this rarefied level of IQ reserved for only a select few, that is more exclusive or a rarer distinction than even being a very successful businessman. I would say shitposting and reposting fake news is a worthwhile tradeoff for the economic value Elon produces, or as being a counterweight to the left.
Scott Alexander in the early 2010s pioneered the long-from blogging format, but it would be another 7-10 years until Substack saw widespread popularity, raising the bar for content creators and intellectuals overall. In 2012-2013 I had subscriptions to the NYTs and WSJ and had been a reader of op-eds of such mainstream publications as Time, National Review, and The Wall Street Journal as far back as 2001, and the quality of the writing was not that good. The options for high-quality, long-form online writing were limited to The New Yorker, The Washington Post, or the occasional deep-dive by a local paper.
Save for maybe David Brooks, the typical Substack blog post of today is easily way better than the typical op-ed from the 2010s in terms of content and style, yet the output is scaled by a factor of 10 by having many independent writers instead of a roster of columnists. People assume that to write for the NYTs you have to be brilliant or something–not at all, or at least that is not the descriptor I would ascribe to Charles Blow or Gail Collins. Since 2022, things have changed, in that the rise of Substack and e-zines, such as Works in Progress, has created pressure on these mainstream publications, such as The Atlantic, to start publishing wordier, smarter-sounding content instead of mediocre opinion pieces.
Many of the intellectual ‘greats’ of the past were not as smart or erudite as the hagiography that has been built around them would suggest. Their publications were sporadic, ghostwritten, and failed to replicate or were easily countered. They relied extensively on mass media and publicists to curate their message in such a way as to limit criticism and to play-up the significance of their ideas, whereas social media has the opposite effect of leveling the barriers to criticism. Guys like Matt Yglesias, Trace, and Hanania, as mentioned before, occupy a level of intellectual rarity that even the greats of the past could scarcely match. So of course, someone like Elon is going to come off as dull compared to them; most will.