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People are afraid of the truth. They always have been but now we have gone full circle back to the Middle Ages when the truth could be controlled and thereby avoided. In the 18th and 19th Century truth arrived with full force. If you got sick you died, if you didn't work you starved. If you were born a man or a woman you stayed that way. Not now.

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"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!"

If we aren't careful we will be arriving at that truth sooner rather than later again. And it's not a better society where someone unable to work, starves, and those that are sick, die. But we are "rationalizing" ourselves into such a development through trying to not to hurt others feelings.

This is why when I speak of myself, I use the word "fat" rather than big when referring to my size. I am fat. I got fat through many years of bad food choices. Genetics played a part as well, but in the end, I was the one who chose my lifestyle, slowed down my metabolism, and I have to deal with the fallout of that. To spare my feelings by calling me "big" or offering some body positive message isn't going to magically make my issues go away.

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Weak minded people are afraid of the truth.

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No truth in the Middle Ages? How do you explain the advancements in science, philosophy, law (Magna Carta anyone?), and constitutionalism, going on nearly a millennia ago? The church was also busy founding the great universities in Oxford, Bologna and Paris at the time too. A lot of truth to be found there; it didn't suddenly and miraculously appear with so-called "enlightenment" thinkers.

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Sure for the one tenth of one percent of people who had access to those resources some of what you call "truth" was available. But don't tell me the church was a beacon of enlightenment and personal freedom. The Catholic Church didn't investigate truth it proclaimed truth then ran governments with it. Most heretics quickly found out what the consequences of "becoming ungovernable" really meant and the other 99.9% of the population were too busy trying not to starve.

The plain fact is that America's founding and the subsequent immigration of millions of people from Europe and Asia was the pivotal event in the discovery of truth which requires unfettered freedom and prosperity in its pursuit. Both are now disappearing before our very eyes.

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I see that you conveniently avoided any discussion of foundational work of Science, Philosophy, Law, Constitutionalism, and Representational Government done in the Middle Ages that all require a foundation of truth. Nice try.

Since you’ve brought up America’s founding, be grateful for Pope Gregory’s Dictus Papae that launched a 150-year fight for the successful separation of church and state and led to the development of representational governments and common law. BTW, it’s the Church that kept the STATE from being tyrannical with their ideas of popular sovereignty, right to revolution, etc.

Know too that this was the time of the philosophical idea that the world was the product of divine intellect and therefore knowable. If creation was the product of intellect, then it could be apprehended by reason. This then obliged man to know and discover and set western civilization on its path. This is no small thing; in fact, it is monumental TRUTH that led to tremendous human flourishing. Miss that and you miss everything.

So please disabuse yourself of the idea of the fact that the world before America operated in the absence of truth. It makes you look like a cultural narcissist (and us Americans like elitists).

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I'm not interested in arguing with an apologist for the Catholic Church. I was just in Venice and (using mostly slave labor) they built great some cathedrals and basilicas. But you're a fool to think anything any Pope did is basis for English common law. Read some decisions from the Exchequer and Chancery courts during the 17th Century and do let us know the first time you find any judge even mentioning a pope. In modern America the church mostly an afterthought, relegated to the fringe--for good reason.

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Cajetan is generally correct. You must understand that the anti-Papists of the Reformation bequeathed English-speakers a massive load of bs propaganda concerning their ideological but primarily ECONOMIC foes, the medieval aristocracy and Church. Yet if it were not for the monasteries, even what classical science survived and resurfaced in the Renaissance would have been destroyed. If it were not for centuries of patient monastic work in physics and mathematics (often applied to astrology!), Kepler and Copernicus could never have calculated the existence of heliocentrism. Modern genetics owes its first baby-steps to a Russian monk -- you may have heard of Mendel? -- as does modern bee-keeping to a French monastic. For roughly a thousand years, the Church maintained and supported what scholarship existed in Europe.

Yes, they had their weaknesses and set certain limits. But for the most part they were not nearly as anti-science as modern propaganda paints them. Galileo, for instance, was not condemned solely for claiming that the earth moved around the Sun. He also had the very bad taste to do so in the form of an extremely nasty parody of one of the highest leaders of the Church, while living right down the road. Copernicus and Kepler, in contrast, published without fanfare in Poland, and were mostly ignored.

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Propaganda, indeed. The English protestants needed to cover their crimes of theft, torture and murder, so tarnished the achievements of the pre-"enlightenment" world.

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So then what was the impetus for the Magna Carta then if not for Pope Gregory and the determined work and big brain of Cardinal Langton?

And how does the Scientific Revolution get kick-started if not for the idea that creation was the product of intellect, then it could be apprehended by reason?

As much as you might like it to be, this stuff didn't just happen. Arnold Schwarzenegger had to grind it out in dirty Austrian gyms you know.

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Yes. Technocracy is the modern day equivalent of Latin.

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There was period in the middle ages where knowledge and "truth" were dictated and inquiry suppressed. History books used to refer to this period as the dark ages, and in some tangible ways, progress was suppressed. Inquiry into the workings of the physical world were seen by some as unimportant as the focus became understanding the spiritual and divine, while others viewed inquiry of all kinds not driven by the one true doctrine as evil and dangerous. Humanity emerged form the dark ages with renewed thirst for inquiry, and what we measure now as progress accelerated.

Still today, the tendency to adopt a "one truth" litany and the desire to suppress inquiry continue, often by the people professing to be objective and "science driven". If this kind of science driven by an predetermined ideological or political outcome continues, we may see a new dark ages. Which I think is the warning of the essay.

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Credit where due: Although as an atheist it pains me to do so 🙂 early Christian monastic traditions are to be thanked for preserving what little ancient wisdom had been gathered. Note I said "preserving." The church encouraged scholasticism (discussing old knowledge) rather than what later would be called scientific inquiry. A good portion of "ancient" (Greek and Roman) wisdom also came by way of the Arab world, too. The West has enjoyed ~500 years of relative advancement. Alas, history offers no assurances it'll continue. In fact, things tend to ebb and flow...

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You should check out a book called "Medieval Cosmology" by Pierre Durheim, which traces the development of modern ideas of time, space, and motion through the Paris cathedral schools. In fact, the Church supported -- financially -- a great deal of what today would be called theoretical physics and mathematics -- science that could be pursued by pure reason and calculation without the need for expensive experimentation. It also developed the entire tables of logarithms, which underlie the operations of modern computers -- BY HAND.

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Kudos to you, SD, for acknowledging the contributions of the early church in keeping wisdom alive. Few atheists have the honesty (and courage) to do that.

It didn’t stop at mere preservation, however. The Benedictine monks, unlike the Roman aristocrats, believed that work was noble and tilled the fields, conducted experiments, and made advancements in agriculture. Spurred on by the idea of Reason over Will (that was unique to the Christian world), the Medievals soon gave us the monk-scientists Roger Bacon and Copernicus as well the St. Albert the Great who taught philosophy, astronomy, physics, mathematics, theology, chemistry, zoology, biology, and law.

It's an inconvenient fact in our narcissistic times, but without developing the virtuous, educated, truth-seeking man in the medieval world, the “Enlightenment” doesn’t come around.

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If by "early Christian" you mean Jews, yes: we've been preserving and passing on the early wisdom for over 5000 years :-). I'd think as an atheist you'd be aware of the very pragmatic sources of the Mitsvahs. Many can be traced to observational scientific method :-). See what doesn't kill us and do that....see what kills others and don't do that.

Also, part of the Jewish law is that we teach our children to read. This literacy mandate has been, at many periods over the last 5000 years, a key reason Jews are persecuted. In many cultures, even today, literacy is a privilege reserved to only the upper classes. Jews were seldom in those classes. Literacy makes people harder to control...thus the need in modern times to control WHAT they read (and hear, see, etc) via the media.

Educating our kids, all of them, is fundamental to our laws and culture (tho it seems many Jews have forgotten this). BTW, the Torah, Mitsvahs and stories used to teach the lessons thereof acknowledge that not all kids are the same: we talk about teaching the lessons different ways for different children based on what today we'd call "learning styles" or in the past we might have called intelligence.

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There was another thing about the dark ages that we really, really have to avoid coming back into prevalence again; and it's also something those pulling all the "woke strings and levers of civilization" from the shadows want - even more than increasing human stupidity and delusion - and that's technocratic, trans-human serfdom. Forever... We gotta stop drinking the kool-aid (new & improved with extra flouride) and get smart again...

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Serfdom never went away. It's part of many cultures today. Most of those places keep the serfs in line so that the rest of the world need not notice.

What's sad is that it's gaining ground in the "civilized" western world. Just as you said, far too many people seem willing to become the serfs, thinking that they're getting a good deal.

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This is an important essay because it gets to the crux of what are, essentially, deliberate impediments to intellectual curiosity which represents an impediment to the development of knowledge and so human development and progress.

Actually, however, this is NOT a new phenomenon. I have always worked in the Private sector but by virtue of my work I have often interacted with senior academics who, over the years, have highlighted this as an issue in academia. That certain avenues of "research" are essentially closed because they are not "politically correct". The more recent Covid "thing" has provided ample further illustration of this phenomenon.

I find it most difficult to understand how intelligent, highly educated people can at their fundamental belief level, go along with this thinking. Yes, I understand the self-preservation aspect but there seems to be more than that going on. Like with Covid, there seems to be a macro psyop in operation which forces people to "take sides" perhaps out of "fear" and persuade themselves that "truth is lies"?

I have no political axe to grind as I regard myself as an Agorist and have no affiliation with either side of the same Red/Blue political coin, but I think any impartial observer can see the effects of such "intellectual thinking" impacting US society today. There comes a point where society must decide which road to take in the wood?

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indeed, i suspect the first incidence of this issue was probably some cave man saying "thag no research fire! fire upset gods!"

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"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light."

~ Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

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Reminds me of an old Ray Bradbury story I read in high school. I think it was "The Flying Machine". Ironically set in China, it is the story of a young man who demonstrates flight wearing wings he invented. The emperor is sufficiently impressed he has the young man killed and the flying machine destroyed. He doesn't want an enemy to acquire the technology and use it to improve war-making skills.

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Philipat is right. This is a foundational essay.

We feel as if we are living in a house of mirrors because we decided a long time ago not to be faithful to the truth.

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I can remember reading an article about testing IQ and such in the military. The army was puzzled why black recruits had more prostate and urinary tract problems, so they began testing for testosterone levels. They found that the black soldiers' T-level was something like 18% higher than the whites on average. This should be interesting because it could go a long way to explaining certain racial traits...superior athletic ability might be one advantage, but others might not be as beneficial...aggressiveness, poor control of impulse and anger, etc. Nobody will touch this now, of course, even if society might be helped by understanding and developing ways to moderate behavior.

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That is amazing. It would be helpful to know this because it might help point to therapies or whatever to help people. Or just shed light on things. No one would touch this with a 10 foot pole.

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May want to look into what higher testosterone actually does, as most of those things listed are misconceptions. Sapolski does a great job in Behave of covering these.

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"I used to live in a room full of mirrors

All I could see was me

Well I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors

Now the whole world is here for me to see"

-- Jimi Hendrix [the rest of the song is rather less coherent 😁]

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Lmao. Reminds of the early 80's movie "Caveman".

Ta : [re-appearing from behind a rock and pointing at the 'mud'] Doo-doo!

Atouk : [Angrily] Ca-ca.

Nook : [looking with disgust at his fingers and then right into the camera] Shit.

It had Ringo Starr in it. Which was funny in its own right!

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"Everything the government touches turns to crap."

~ Ringo Starr

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"What happens if the government touches crap?"

-- Doorknob creating a testable hypothesis

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endless recursive crap loop, requires hard reboot to escape

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There is no need to get metaphysical.

Crap is crap.

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True, but at that time, the incentive was a nice medium rare Wagyu ribeye steak which made it difficult for the "leaders" to restrain the popular sentiment?. And that was before the world developed and understood propaganda and totalitarianism. And their "sophisticated" application.. Now, the incentives are reversed? For other than the Puppet masters.

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I was thinking the same to LA_Bob's comment......today our corporate leaders, whether directly, indirectly through lobbyists and politicians, sell our technologies to our adversaries for their short term gains.....the Global Express or Gulfstream 650 is the new Wagyu Ribeye Steak for the Puppet Masters while the Wagyu Ribeye is the fodder for the masses they have enslaved via golden handcuffs and propaganda....and most have willingly bought into this business model b/c why rock the boat when that boat contains your retirement portfolio?

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That would seem to be why those who "steal fire from the gods" always end up horribly punished in creation myths. I am afraid humans have a very long history of doing this, possibly the longest history we have.

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I think one issue is that we routinely (and incorrectly) conflate the terms 'highly educated' and 'intelligence'.

Especially given the current state of the 'academy', I have doubts that the former correlates well at all with one's ability to 'think'. Students are mostly indoctrinated and trained to regurgitate teacher/professor X's subjective views (how long before 2+2=5 be on Ms Kousta's IQ test?). And I'd argue that kids who are 'trained' to do well on IQ math problems (or the SATs) w/repetitive drilling, but then can't find their way out of a paper bag, are not 'intelligent' either.

It may be more likely that the 'discipline' instilled in them w/the drilling is more responsible for the observed IQ/future success correlation than their perceived (IQ test 'measured') 'intelligence'.

Similarly I know/have worked with plenty of people who matriculated through the most preeminent universities in the world whom - while 'trained' and 'excel' in their respective fields - I would still contend have limited 'intelligence'...to the point that their 'educational pedigree' was actually more of a pejorative (also not sure 'Nobel Prizes' are an objective measure of anything either...except of course the 2009 Peace Prize!). :P

Anyway, I'm still stuck on question 4, since it would take at least ~1/3 of the 1st rotation to get the first people into the building. :P

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I like to illustrate the difference between "highly educated" and "intelligent" with this story.

While I was in college, I helped a friend move some of her stuff that had found its way to another colleges frat house back to her dorm room. This college was and is still well known for turning out well educated engineering students. Anyhow, while attempting to move her stuff out the frat house basement, we discovered that the light bulb burned out in the basement. Since this was a time before cell phones, and not everyone carried around a flashlight, this was more than a minor inconvenience. The best answer I got out of the inhabitants was "the light burned out." and that settled the issue. For them, that was where the discussion ended.

I asked if there were any replacement light bulbs (there were not) and suggested finally that we temporarily remove a light bulb from the upstairs to the basement in order to locate this friend's stuff. I felt like Obi Wan Kenobi at that moment having successfully done a Jedi mind trick on them. A light bulb was given, lights were on in the basement and her stuff was successfully transported back to her dorm room.

I do not know how to built a light bulb, although I could find out by reading a tutorial online, but I do know how to change one.

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My better half has 2x Degrees, 1x MSc. and 1x PhD.

She cannot tie her own shoe laces . . .

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My former wife has 2 MS & 2 PhD's all in hard core biology of Plant Pathology & Soil Science...she even does peer-review for some of the top journals in her area of expertise......what is especially curious about someone as "intelligent" as she is this: She does not even question nor is curious of the current Human Pathogen, despite her being someone who actually has the education, tools and training to actually evaluate the pathogen itself or the 'solution' to it . . . she defers to the experts including her doctors/clinicians rather than evaluate it trusting her own abilities....for example if the data to justify the current policy were presented to her for anonymous peer-review the study design flaws, data and conclusions would have been rejected out of hand as not acceptable to even consider, let alone try to work with the authors to address the holes the peer reviewer might come across ......the Human Condition is an interesting thing and probably why reverting to 'el gato' has some basis in fact!

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I've found that intelligence which is validated through advanced university degree and a title like 'Dr.' comes with a certain confidence in ones own acquired knowledge which often undermines their curiosity. Moreover, it takes a certain type of person to even accomplish advanced degrees. They need to be good at following rules, must have the focus to read and memorize prepared and approved materials, and in the end they must conform to the whims and opinions of subjective professors. Basically, to succeed you need to fall in line and defer to "the experts". Some of the most curious people don't do well in such a system as their curiosity to seek out and read all material (including unapproved material) is stifled and they are not elevated or praised for original thought that runs counter to what is being taught. All that to say, that I've observed the same lack of interest in the most highly educated of my Family and friends. The aren't willing to entertain ideas that aren't put forth by "the experts". They feel they already know it all, instead of recognizing that the more you know, the more you realize the less you know.

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There is a certain process that occurs while going for a PhD. I watched someone close to me pursue her doctorate and masters in education, and observed changes in them. And because of those changes I was able to know without much thought as to where they would come down politically, where they would side in regards to Covid, and other issues. There is a vetting process in this level of learning that makes most academics "get with the program" ethically, and it is questionable why anyone of differing viewpoints would put themselves through such a process.

To be sure, academia could use a variety of different viewpoints, as such a stance towards dissenting views leads to mediocrity and more intolerant thinking.

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I have seen similar in several friends & family during their academic indoctrination processes. One was vet school, and that almost seemed to be cult-like brainwashing and ritual abuse in the aspects of the continuous sleep deprivation for several years straight, cut-throat competition, seemingly arbitrary hazing by professors & other staff. calculated psychological warfare by the system to turn out people who, in most cases, simply cannot buck the system any more. Is it any wonder the medical and allied science professions have acted the way they have with the whole Covid genocide thing?

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This rings true...same in my extended family

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Precisely, my former wife is brilliant (on the Asperger's Syndrome spectrum) and curious as the basic research scientist she is but she is definitely a rule follower, whereas I fall into the other category, the kid that won't stop asking questions.....the more I learn the less I know so for each answer leads to a dozen questions....and I've paid dearly for being on the outside and my lack of credentials is one small part of the failure of that relationship......so your observations are aligned with mine....but what do we know, especially on some obscure thread on a blog by a feline.....

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"...the more I learn the less I know..."

Amen!

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This is interesting. I have 1 hard core bio MS. I'm female. But I'm also schooled in holistic nutrition (not the RD / gov't food pyramid variety). (And I would call my nutrition work another MS degree, although The Powers That Be would not.) I said HELL NO to these vaxs initially based solely on the new technology for humans, dead ferrets, & based on my personal knowledge/understanding of auto immunity.

However... I am not a very female female. I'm a bit of a tomboy, I don't give a shit what others think or if they want to be around me, that's fine I'll go do whatever it is by myself (and I'll probably enjoy it more without someone yapping in my ear). I don't strive to be a part of the group as so many others do. So I wonder if a prickly disposition contributes to whether people are swayed to take these shots?

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i once read a good book called Functional Intelligence, which discussed the difficulties in quantifying intelligence. Areas like math, music, writing, “street”, emotional, etc. can all be exhibited more in some people than others. I think it supports El Gatos premise— that quantifying and discussing facts doesn’t necessarily reflect “poorly” on a group. Some other research may find the same group is at the top percentile in some other dimension of intelligence. Having respect for individuality should reinforce the desire to learn more. I suspect those purportedly protecting collective groups don’t really value or even consider individuals in their internal statistics.

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There are many aspects to this. I was thinking of the Jordan Peterson interview where he was asked about the inequity of wages men and women earned. He stated that there were many variables as to why there was a 9% wage gap between men and women, and said that gender, and prejudice were factors, but were not nearly as high as the reasons for the gender gap. Agreeableness was a huge factor. As was what choices in professions men and women tend to choose: ie. in Scandinavian countries where free choice was a laudable goal for professions. Women chose 20 to 1 over men to go into healthcare, and men chose 20 to 1 to go into engineering. Women face a "crisis" in their lives between age 28 to 32 as to the direction their lives will take in regards to family, and there are many other factors. But this is one of those subjects that is verboten.

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It's an open question which species of reality denial will destroy civilization first. Race denial? That's feeding the competence problem. Sex difference denial? Ditto, and wrecking relationships as well. The carbon cult? My money is on that, actually, since it points straight at a nosedive back into the iron age.

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what if the true answer to the fermi paradox is that no tool using species survives the invention of social media?

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What if it leads to speciation?

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well then you should all get used to being ruled by cats...

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I, for one, welcome our new feline overlords!

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The experiment has failed.

Felinarchy is the way.

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Some cats are more equal than others.

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Too much. Lol

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Bastet approves, please proceed with this plan

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Your observation reminded me of this cartoon for some reason

https://explosm.net/comics/dave-theevolutionofcommunication

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you gotta think outside the cat box for this one. we're in a word war. we've gone from slinging shit at each other to throwing words at each other. we have to get out of the animal mode. I think we aught to start a new Category in the literature right now for human beings, separate from animals, while we still know what a human being is and before a family of centaurs moves into the house next door. this Category shall be called Loving Beings and encompass all people. It will not have a definition because we all know where defining and dividing leads us - right into the mouth of the AI system.

John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Isaiah 43:18-19 Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Revelation 21:5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Isaiah 43:16-19 The Lord will make a way for you where no foot has gone before. That which, like a sea, threatens to drown you will be a highway for your escape.

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Great question. To bring it back to the “garbage in, garbage out” metaphor, there’s only so long you can feed a program garbage before it craps out entirely. As to where reality denial will blow up first, another option you didn’t mention is the military. If the greatest world power is hit with a military defeat... well, whatever happens, it won’t be good.

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Watching Russia struggle gives great pause. Of course the Ukrainians are fighting for principles, but still Russian incompetence is obvious. The Russian leaders are poor and the soldiers are aware yet fight on, fearful of their own selves.

The defeats for the US invariably relate to politicians caving to perceived political pressure. In each failure the carnage that followed was awful.

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Do you have a solid sense that Russia is struggling? I really can’t tell what’s going on, but the economic indicators for their domestic sector indicate that they are doing better than the rest of us.

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Their economy is doing OK given that fuel exports (along with certain metals!) provides an income. They can't get parts for a lot of their stuff from foreign sources. I suspect they will build new (illegal) supply chains to get around the sanctions, but that takes time and can be quite difficult. As equipment in service breaks it's hard to repair.

Better than the rest of us sorta depends on what is normal. The Russian citizen is quite used to shortages and long lines.

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We'll be lucky if we have charcoal or coal to smelt the iron ore.

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Maybe we don't need to worry too much about that - wood cutting/burning and digging coal are 'functional intelligences' and probably don't require too much more than a level 3. But you'd still want solid 4's and at least a few level 5's on the mining operation's civil engineering design team...

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You're feeling optimistic tonight...

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None of these "equality of outcomes" types ever seem to even consider that it might just be possible to have a lower IQ, have poorer outcomes, and also not be intrinsically inferior as a human being...or that others might be able to consider this to be true.

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"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. "

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Do you know who said this? I generally find that when I enjoy one quote from a source, there are others from the same source I enjoy as well.

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Bing says it was John W. Gardner, but I could have *sworn* that I saw it from Jerry Pournelle; OTOH, he might have been quoting Gardner, and I forgot the cite.

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Thanks. I'll try both. Good quote btw.

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Fantastic

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Yes! There’s nothing wrong with jobs that don’t require smarts. We need them done, and those who perform these jobs deserve our respect and decent pay.

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That sounds great in principle. The bad news is that automation has taken away many of them and [illegal] Lain American immigrants have taken the rest. One of many dysphemisms of our most backward minority is "obsolete farm equipment." Disparaging to be sure, but historically accurate. The awful truth is that for a significant fraction of our population are unfit for much work, even menial labor.

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True, and give them an example of different aptitudes and they still refuse to see it. Asking such questions as:

Can a 3'4" person be as successful at basketball as a 7'8" individual?

Who will be more successful in politics, an introvert of extrovert?

Who do you want calculating space telemetry, someone who was incapable of graduating from high school, or a graduate of MIT?

Who will be a more effective sumo wrestler, someone who weighs in at 350 lbs, or 150 lbs?

The list goes on and on. Success at times is based on genetics, and there is nothing that can be done about that, but you can maximize your chances at success in a given field with training, and self improvement.

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Yet they also preach non-stop about how their political enemies are inferior.......

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When I grew up, the superhero's nemisis was the mad genius. The idea someone could be smart, talented and dangerous was not just fiction, but had happened to my parent's generation resulting in WWII. If you have a superhero, the villian needs to be a challenge, and I think evil mad scientists were scary and still are.

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The perfect example of the consequences of this type of GIGO thinking is found in our headlong rush towards 17th century living as a result of the "settled science" of "Climate Change." I have yet to find a single shred of reproducible, hard evidence to support either the green grifters loud pronouncements of impending doom or the idea that any of the idiotic measures thus far taken have amounted to anything other than the enrichment of a select few individuals. Any attempt to point this out is met with screams of anger, but no facts. It saddens me. The new joke making the rounds: What did Europeans use for lighting before candles? Electricity!

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Because it’s faith based. You’re insulting their religion

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This is what Saifedean Ammous would call "Fiat Science." End the Fed, end fiat currency, and so much of this would go away, because the marketplace would not reward it and the government would not be able to.

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A product of the Science Wars from the 1990's. Link is to a good basic primer on the history and progress of. (written from a Marxist perspective, but surprisingly balanced and contains links to good, credible references)

https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/vol22-1/science-wars-the-next-generation/

The social sciences have imposed themselves into health care policy for a long time. This Nuffield Bioethics Council guide written in 2007 explains the thinking of our self-imagined betters, our "good stewards" (benevolent authoritarians) that gets into the need for social inclusion in public health policy, nondiscriminatory coercion and manipulation with sensitivities for victim groups. (Nuffield Council is funded by Wellcome Trust - GlaxoWellcome, Big Pharma - a peer health public policy influencer of the Gates Foundation, relied upon by local and national governments around the world. The current head led the authoritarian response of the UK pandemic team, resigned when it wasn't authoritarian enough for him. The head of Nuffield LEAP has worked in senior positions in Big Tech, Big Media and DARPA - national defense psy-ops. Important note: Anthony Fauci's wife, Catherine Grady, heads up Bioethics at the National Institute of Health, works with and is heavily influenced by groups like Nuffield Bioethics Council)

https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Public-health-ethical-issues.pdf

Marx and Engels wrote:

"We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. The two sides are, however, inseparable; the history of nature and the history of men are dependent on each other so long as men exist."

http://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/marxsci2.html

The nonpharmaceutical interventions of the pandemic like masks, social distancing, lockdowns, etc are all behavioral science-based "nudges." Behavioral science is a social science. Called the "Science of Totalitarianism." Masquerading as medical science, natural science.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210519003131/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/14/scientists-admit-totalitarian-use-fear-control-behaviour-covid/

Marxism and Fascism are both authoritarian governing models. By merging both social and natural sciences into "one science" authoritarians are able to eliminate the contradictions found in natural science, like medical science, from their public policy dictats. Like religion, any authority capable of contradicting authoritarian public policy that the masses respect must be co-opted and made subsidiary to government or eliminated altogether. There can be only one science. The science of history. We are suffering Marxist and Fascist authoritarian governance across the globe today. We must separate the social from the natural sciences, just as surely as Galileo, Descartes and Locke did by using natural science to dispel the edicts of churches and monarchs. When they say, "follow the science" we must respond, "what *type* of science." And not let them obfuscate and continue to hide in the ambiguity of the word, "science."

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Excellent post!

“The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history.” - Niall Ferguson

It really doesn't matter to me. It is obvious that every single measure taken during this nonsense wasn't thought through (indeed made up) and resulted in much more suffering than any lives "saved ". Total species level fail. The first day of the lockdowns I looked at my wife and said; They are going to sacrifice saving the MOST lives for trying to save EVERY life. She looked at me and said; They are going to DESTROY lives in order to SAY "if it only saves one life". My wife is smart!..:)

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Thanks. But don't kid yourself. Every single measure taken during this nonsense WAS thought through. Not by the majority of public policymakers themselves. But by the most powerful and influential public policy expert advisers, like the heads of groups like Nuffield and Gates, DARPA and the like. They knew EXACTLY what would result. The destruction of lives is a feature, not a flaw of their chosen public policy. They are breaking eggs to make an omelet. Eggs = skulls.

https://www.nytco.com/company/prizes-awards/new-york-times-statement-about-1932-pulitzer-prize-awarded-to-walter-duranty/

Our local public policymakers who didn't do their own research and question the advisers, who fell into groupthink are absolute failures. Exposed for their intellectual deficiencies and weak characters. The product of social promotion in education and career advancement based on factors other than merit. Still largely clueless that they've been the useful idiots employed for the destruction of our society. If only the nonsense was as benign as incompetence. It would be easier to deal with than the malign intentions of those in the highest positions of power.

The sooner we dispel with the comforting myth that this is all just sheer incompetence the sooner we can join together to defeat a global cabal of death and dystopia. This link describes the global social credit system that is ascending just below the horizon. From Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet) publication. Billions of dollars invested in building the infrastructure for it as we speak. Acknowledging the pandemic response has been the key to gaining public acceptance. They speak in certainties, saying it *will* be in place by 2026. Just over three years from now. Not "may," "might," "could," no words of equivocation. It WILL be. Unless we stop pretending the pandemic response wasn't thought through and made up. This is the prize they seek. We must wake up our friends, neighbors, colleagues and families. Or we WILL surely suffer under this oppressive existence for the rest of our lives. However long they have in mind for us to live.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211223005270/en/

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Thx for the clarification.

Was thought through*

INDEED. Mostly to induce FEAR for all their machinations.

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Follow the Science. Of totalitarianism, like the link in the UK Telegraph above explains. The science of fear. How free people willing give up their freedom. It's Science!

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Agree 100%.

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When there is no accountability, incompetence is a perfect excuse. They say oops and keep going

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September 21, 2022
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"People of France - we have saved you from the terrorists ! "

Team America - World Police (opening scene)

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+10 for quoting The Good Ferguson.

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But the transmission of knowledge is no longer the purpose of education, changing the worldview of each student at the level of perception and having interpretation of experiences deeply tied to emotion is. That's why the term originally developed in the 1990s--Transformational Outcomes Based Education--was created and I have tracked its use all over the world. It is tied to Theories of Change and social goals as laid out in this recent webinar. https://www.aecf.org/blog/webinar-features-experts-on-developing-a-theory-of-change

The change is sometimes at the micro level of the student's mind, neural net, or values and attitudes or at the meso level of the school or workplace, or at the macro level of a nation, its society, or the economy. It's all about how do we get to these desired goals that few of us are even aware of. Note the "so-then" chain in that webinar's graph--all those manipulated outcomes to get to a goal that is being declared with no democratic input mostly out of sight.

IQs are not the point because the changes need to occur at a neurobiological level of the vast majority of future voters. The point is not reality, but how the desired changes are likely to affect future behavior.

And yes, this is a vision that has thrown a monkey wrench into the essence of education worldwide.

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Be careful with that assessment. Buck v. Bell exists as stare desisis in American jurisprudence for a century now. "Three generations of imbeciles is enough." The law of eugenics that the Nazi regime cited as justification for their racial purification. Buck v. Bell raised as a defense at Nuremberg. Never repealed, only tweaked in the 1950's, upheld as recently as 2001.

https://bioethics.georgetown.edu/2016/02/buck-v-bell-one-of-the-supreme-courts-worst-mistakes/

https://sci-hub.se/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/106591295300600409

It's even guiding the bioethics of transhumanism

https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1622&context=lawineq

Everyone focuses on Roe v Wade. It was based on Buck v. Bell. Indulge low-IQ people as the source of our societal ills at great peril. Buck v. Bell stands ready to uphold the cleansing of us all, even the intelligent but defiant, to be deemed antisocial, genetically criminal for being unwilling to sacrifice for a declared greater good.

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also recall that bask in the 1970's, the US state department predicated food aid to india during a famine on mass sterilization programs being implemented on 10's of millions of people.

there is no question there are real ethical issues here.

the issue is only "at what point of the knowledge cycle should we address them?"

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Good point Gato. And as I've already pontificated somewhat at length above, allow me to be briefer this time (or maybe not!): science and ethics/morality/custom are two totally separate entities. One can inform and guide the other, but it's the responsibility of the human being(s) involved. The issue is not unlike David Hume's famous "is-ought" problem. The natural world (ex-human beings) merely exists, in other words, "is" implies either existence or perhaps description. Only man can say "ought," which means an attempt at valuation is being made (= morals, standards, customs, etc.) Any number of examples could be found. For example, Is it raining? If so, that's purely an act of nature. "Ought it" or as most of us say now, "Should it be raining?" That depends entirely upon the person's judgment. A farmer suffering a drought will probably answer in the affirmative, while a man standing on his roof surrounded by floodwaters more likely in the negative. In ether case, Nature takes no notice of Man's wishes.

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There should be an educational requirement to learn about net positive/negative outcomes.

So many of the problems we have are a result of the inability to think forward on a net basis.

This is exploited through vehicles of collectivism.

Net terms are the only terms at the end of the day.

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Iron Law of Woke Projection never misses. They fear the agenda that would be pushed if certain science gets published, because they themselves see science as a tool to push an agenda.

If you believe that science is a direct producer of choices rather than of data, then you *must* stop any science that you consider to produce the "wrong" choices.

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This makes me think of how, since it might be construed as "fat-shaming," very few people are talking about the direct correlation between obesity and poor covid outcomes. There are real steps people can take to protect themselves if objective data is allowed to come to light. Hiding truth to protect someone's feelings could, in fact, be a death sentence. The United States was founded by people who had a much higher opinion of the general population's ability to receive input and make decisions for themselves.

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More simple things like Vitamin D levels. This was known 2 years ago and crickets from CDC, FDA, media, Fauci, etc. Pretty sure these correlations were never mentioned by the agencies.

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Fauci said he took vitamin D.

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Yep! If anything, covid should have blown 'healthy at any weight' right out of the water. The health experts should have been telling us to get out in the sunshine and go for a walk and lose some weight.

Instead they told us to sit inside and watch Netflix.

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I think it’s deeper than just an opinion on whether people can make decisions for themselves. Obviously some people have trouble doing so, and this underpins justification for an authoritarian society. It’s a kinder, gentler authoritarianism though, because they are doing it for your own good. People who are afraid, or just want to be taken care of are susceptible to this new authoritarianism. The alternative was the view that we are all sovereign beings and need the freedom to learn how to govern ourselves. The founders put ordinary people in the driver’s seat. The new authoritarians have given in to the hubris that they know better and can govern from the top down. After all, it’s working in China, right? Just takes the ability to hook everyone up to a digital control system. I seems obvious to me that covid was an opportunity to push this dream forward. Look at Australia (covid camps) Canada (can’t travel without vax papers) and NZ (like Fauci the prez said I am the sole source of truth).

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Yes. As C.S. Lewis said, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

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Fantastic quote

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Interesting article but I'm a bit confused about the maths test stuff. Surely an ability to do maths is connected to the quality of the teaching as well as to a mental ability to understand it? If you are in the DRC you might be as intelligent as Einstein but if nobody teaches you any mathematics you won't be any good at it. So your test results will be rubbish. How many clever people have lived and died without achieving much because they were the wrong sex, class, race so didn't get the education? IQ, intelligence, cleverness are surely only the foundations of the building - education are the bricks (and 99% of teaching seems to be absolute crap!). You might get computer scientists in Sinapore or Hong Kong or Taiwan but you got Beethoven, Mozart, da Vinci, Shakespeare in European countries. Different sorts of intelligence?

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This is the problem with most online IQ tests (or let's be honest, ANY standardised test). MOST "IQ Tests" only test STEM. That doesn't test history, philosophy, understanding of cultures, or even come close to addressing "Do you know what to do with the knowledge you have??"

What I mean is IQ tests don't test if you know/understand how to apply your knowledge to develop new things (or new/better ways of doing old things).

And that's the difference between knowledge and intelligence. IQ tests (Like any other standard test) only tests knowledge. It doesn't actually test intelligence - the ability to take knowledge and apply it in many different ways.

The other thing is that IQ tests are horribly biased, some you mentioned above. Even if you take a test from a psychologist, there's a lot of bias going on. For instance - I was given puzzles to solve for part of my IQ test. One of the puzzles I had solved before the tester could even start his stopwatch. He still wrote down that it took me 5 seconds to solve, even though it was less than 1. (If you think that did NOT effect my score, you're kidding yourself.)

IQ tests don't take into account if you're a verbal/auditory learner/test taker vs a reading one. I'm far better on verbal tests than I am at paper/online tests. Does that mean I'm not intelligent or that I don't have the knowledge I have? No. It just means I can't express it in an online format.

Long story short, all tests are biased as hell. Tests only test what the test WRITER decides is important. And if you don't fit the mould the test-writer is developing, you're going to fail the test. I have yet to find anyone show me any proof that any "IQ test" legit tests a person's full intelligence in an unbiased way.

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that is because history, philosophy, etc are not fundamental measures of IQ/G.

they are measures of knowledge. tests of raw intelligence cannot be knowledge based but rather focus on logic, shape rotation, pattern recognition, analogy, and (to some extent) language.

and while many have argued that "the tests are are biased" the case there actually looks extremely weak. they are really quite good and remarkably objective.

the results of these tests correlate so tightly to so many outcomes that it's obvious they are measuring something VERY real, it's it's not knowledge or education, as their readings stay very consistent from very young ages until senescence begins.

the "all the tests are super biased" argument was very popular in the 80's, but it's been pretty definitively debunked.

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What it measures might not even be necessary to know; perhaps the most important thing is, how do the outcomes correlate? We might design a test of something and discover a highly correlated outcome with "has children with high levels of emotional regulation and interpersonal success." We might think we were testing some particular aspect of parenting, and we could be completely wrong, but if the correlation were strong, we would at least have that indicator.

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"they are measures of knowledge. tests of raw intelligence cannot be knowledge based but rather focus on logic, shape rotation, pattern recognition, analogy, and (to some extent) language."

And who made those decisions about what IS or ISN'T logic for these tests? People in STEM. Who debunked the idea that tests are biased? People in STEM.

"Results correlate so tightly..." Yes, still measuring ONLY STEM.

I never disputed that the tests measure STEM. I said it held biased towards it and ignores all other aspects of intelligence.

You have only repeated the STEM argument that non-STEM areas are NOT fundamental measures of IQ, which is the sales pitch provided by STEM.

These tests take ZERO account that people who live in non-STEM areas of the world have their own understanding of logic (very Earth-based), which STEM doesn't test - or even acknowledge. It is very foolish to say "you can't solve this Math word-problem, so you're not intelligent" when those people can grow enough food to feed their entire village without the "help" of machinery, man-made fertilisers, etc.

On IQ tests, I never scored below 128 and usually score in the mid 130s . So I'm not saying this because I do poorly on those tests. I am saying all of this as someone who's done/researched many tests over the years, because I was very interested in tests in general: how they're developed, why, what their function is, how they work, etc. (Not Just IQ, but MBTI, Enneagram, tests teachers write for students, etc, etc) ALL TESTS have some biased connected to them, to deny this is to be as blind as believing that Tony Fauci is "The Science".

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In my recent reply to Gato, I was thinking about an issue that you raise directly here, which is: what outcomes are desirable? IQ scores correlate highly with certain outcomes that are desirable; if we see one, we are likely to see the other. So then it might make sense to look at those outcomes alongside other outcomes that are also desirable ( or not, such as fatherlessness and crime), and ponder how you measure the inputs. Maybe *what* the test tests is much less important than that the test is consistent and correlates strongly.

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Looking to see that "the test is consistent and correlates strongly" doesn't resolve the biased aspects. In fact, that generates more, because then you're looking for specific things that you want to see.

Even giving a person a test like "tell me everything you know about 'X'" involves bias when evaluating the answer.

If the person doesn't list the specific markers you are looking for (date, time, place of birth or death, events that happened in on country in a given year given preference over another country, etc) then you will mark their answer as lower than if another person lists all those specific details.

But, maybe that first person, went into the larger ramifications and showed how 'X' led to 'Z', the significance of that, what could have been done differently during 'X' to ensure that 'Z' didn't happen.

Who is the more intelligent then? The question was "tell me everything you know about 'X'". BOTH answers are correct. Both are intelligent in different ways. But, teachers will likely mark the person who gave names, dates, places, higher, because they've been trained to value that more.

This is the problem with tests in general and why your considerations would lead to more problems, not less.

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If the bias is consistent, why wouldn't it cancel out? The point here is the correlation. Why would it matter if IQ tests had a bias, if the bias was consistent, and thus always led to high scores which were then seen to correlate with certain outcomes? I'm not talking about extrapolation, but just those same correlates. Remember the movie Stand and Deliver? Jaime Escalante was such a good teacher that every one of his students made the same mistake on the AP exam, because he made a mistake when he taught it.

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You have some valid criticisms. In the first place, an IQ test is not supposed to be a knowledge test. It's also true that they don't test all human abilities, nor are they intended to. They typically attempt to measure problem solving ability. "Horribly biased" is an opinion. You are entitled to yours. I've read a bit on the topic and while they'll never be perfect, I am under the impression that they are intended to be as bias free as can reasonably be done. Excluding any extreme accusations of bias (e.g. a blind person unaided will surely fail a written test, no matter what his native intelligence may be) IQ tests actually do a reasonable job of measuring what they propose to measure. Much to the dismay of those who denounce them, they also predict to a high degree a person's potential for success -- or failure -- in many areas, not only problem-solving.

It's telling that much of the screeching charges about IQ (and similar) tests being racially or culturally biased often fall flat when it's pointed out that, given enough test-takers, there will be high scorers even from among those supposedly disadvantaged groups.

If you are interested in the topic, there are many books available (they haven't all been banned or burned yet.) Many are rather dry academic writings, though.

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I'm a freak of nature like that. I have an IQ of 145, but both my parents were alcoholics and I grew up on the streets in abject poverty. No books at home, no trips to the library, no music, no intellectual stimulation whatsoever. No one told me education was important and no one took an interest in educating me. My world was drugs and alcohol, gangs and thieves. A friend strangled a woman for a few bucks. Not a recommended way to raise a child but one doesn't choose one's childhood.

As an adult, only those closest to me recognize my intelligence, although no one would mistake me for dumb. I know a little bit about almost everything, from quantum mechanics to Shakespeare, but not a lot about hardly anything. There is very little I can't understand if I want to learn it but my knowledge has significant gaps. One of my best friends calls me Unabomber smart. None of this to brag or elicit sympathy, but merely to reinforce your point about environment and to show that there are even high IQ people who fall through the cracks.

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But in thinking about this further, IQ was predictive. None of my childhood friends made it out alive to accomplish anything; all jailed or dead.

My accomplishments are modest; I run my own small business with 8 employees, homeschooled my children with a couple in college, married to the same woman for almost 40 years. But I did make it out of the ghetto, and I suppose IQ would have predicted this.

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But also determination and luck. Being intelligent would certainly have helped but also could have made you simply not bother because you were intelligent enough to be able to see the mountains you needed to climb! I also think intelligence can be seen as a nuisance in the education and welfare system - smart kids are a nuisance in a class of 30 average kids!

Funnily enough, nobody told me education was important - I only went to school because my mother told me the police would come and take my father to prison if I didn't go! I left school at 16 with nothing (I too have a stupidly high IQ level - for what it's worth)

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I definitely gamed the educational system, not so much because I saw the mountains I needed to climb, but because the mountains presented by school were ridiculously small and I was bored. Read the entire book the first two weeks of class, get a friend to give you a heads up on test dates, ace the test, do nothing else and get Cs & D's. I left school early as well. Lol, maybe we should start a club--Stupid High IQs With Little To Show For It. (Needs work on the acronym!)

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When so many people struggle at basic math, manipulating the COVID stats for some second rate themselves public health morons was like taking candy from a baby. Part of the “maths problem” is genetic, but the deeply inadequate morons that pass for teachers in a lot of countries is also part of the problem.

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Over the last two years, I have seen almost nothing written about the reduced ability of dark-skinned people to synthesize their own Vitamin D from sun exposure. All persons with darker skin should get their Vitamin D levels checked and if low, supplement with Vitamin D3 for maximum immune system enhancement. I believe this has not been promoted for many reasons, including the suppression of natural solutions to Covid infections. But the fear of racism is likely the main factor. Much shame applies here.

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In fact, the only place I even remember seeing this mentioned at all is Sweden, which has a large number of (Somali?) immigrants.

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They just need more UVB. (Sunlight heat might get uncomfortable.)

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Excellent analysis. Not bad for a cat! Much of what passes as "science" these days is actually what CS Lewis called "Scientism" -- and this trend is only getting worse. Wish you could come to our conference, el gato. This is exactly the sort of thing we want to talk about: freespeechinmedicine.com

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Woke thinking on gender, race, climate, law, history and covid, garbage in garbage out for the purpose of destroying Western Civilization and America to institute global technocratic, transhumanist government and a covert, controlled, eugenics depopulation plan.

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