Larry B. wrote:Bandit72 wrote:Thing is Larry, you don't have to be of superior intellect to ask questions or do a bit of research. I think people are more apathetic than stupid. And I guess mainstream media doesn't help matters as that pushes the naivety along.
Hmmm... actually, I do believe you have to be of superior intellect to do a bit of research. "Superior" as in "not-an-average-American". And apathy is a normal characteristic in people with low IQ.
Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the ... of_Nations
The US is ranked 31, with an average IQ of 98. The category says "High IQ", which is a load of bullshit, since 100 is actually the
Normal intelligence point. And yes, the median of human beings have an IQ around 90. The median human being has an intelligence below normal.
The world is shitty simply because it's filled with stupid, scientifically stupid people.
So, when you're a little smarter and question some things and theorize about some things, you're most likely considered a weirdo. Unless you have charisma, in which case you might be immediately considered a genius, and you will most likely end up shot by a religious whackjob, a fan with an endless hard-on or by some CIA agent. And they'll blame some Puerto Rican guy.
That might be the stupidest, scientifically stupid thing you've ever said. And you've said a lot of stupid things. IQ and the Wealth of Nations is
prima facie stupid --- you can't guesstimate the IQ of an entire nation and pretend it corresponds to some real fact about the collection of people who live there. Even if IQ were able to tell us anything other than a weak correlation with how far you go in school, it wouldn't tell us anything meaningful about a country. A country could have the smartest people on the planet, but if it has a terrible government that blocks people from doing cutting-edge work in some field, then it's a moot point. Even if the United States has a preponderance of stupid people in it, it also has a highly developed R&D and tech. sector, as well as massive amounts of funding for academic research. And quite frankly, I'm prone to agreeing with the view that there are a lot of stupid people in the United States, if only because I think all people, including intelligent people, are stupid, quite a lot of the time --- stupidity is, I believe, best understood as failing to act according to reasons one has (ignorance is less blameworthy since it is merely failure to recognize, or be exposed to, reasons), but this has nothing to do with IQ or whether the country as a whole is somehow "stupid".
But even if we granted the supposition that IQ measures some real thing called 'intelligence', 100 is not "the Normal intelligence point". There's no such thing as "normal intelligence". All intelligence is normal, because it's normally distributed. AVERAGE intelligence, however, is anywhere within one standard deviation of the mean (100), which is to say, between 85 and 115. So even if "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" were not an absolutely fraudelent piece of shit, 95 countries would, as a whole, be considered to have an average IQ that is AVERAGE (makes perfect sense, right?). Now, frankly, the other 90 nations listed can't possible have an average IQ that's below one standard deviation. Intelligence is normally distributed. Think about it.
Jesus fucking christ, Larry... you really ought to think more carefully before you utter libelous slurs against almost half the planet.
