Leo D.M.J. Aurini - June 17, 2014


Do Not Underestimate Stupid People


Episode Stats

Length

10 minutes

Words per Minute

118.57482

Word Count

1,248

Sentence Count

109

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary

In this episode, I talk about the importance of IQ, and why you should never underestimate stupid people. I use the analogy of a desert island, where there are only two products to make: apples and oranges, and one person can only make a certain number of them. And yet, if they trade, they will both be better off.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Do not underestimate stupid people.
00:00:05.680 Now, I trust with this audience that you are well aware of the science behind IQ testing.
00:00:12.600 You already know that it is the most accurate diagnostic tool, the most useful one ever invented by modern psychology.
00:00:20.820 That it predicts life outcomes, the probability that you'll have a good income, the probability that you'll go to prison.
00:00:27.640 It predicts so many vital things.
00:00:31.660 And despite so many people attempting to denigrate it, to say that it just measures how well you do at testing,
00:00:37.620 or it doesn't measure emotional IQ, even though it does correlate to that,
00:00:41.860 saying that it's just a culturally learned trait, etc., etc.
00:00:46.060 You know the science on it. You know that IQ is genetic.
00:00:49.380 I trust I don't need to go over all of that anymore.
00:00:52.200 The fact of the matter is that the importance of IQ should not be understated.
00:00:57.640 However, it's also quite easy to overstate the importance of IQ.
00:01:07.160 For instance, the following slideshow.
00:01:12.060 These are weapons that were designed in prison.
00:01:16.740 Now, I'm sure there's going to be some naysayers saying that this was a German prisoner, a German prison.
00:01:23.000 Well, that's because it was a German photographer.
00:01:26.760 The fact of the matter is that inmates, despite not being particularly intelligent,
00:01:32.140 can show some incredible ingenuity, some incredible creativeness, cleverness.
00:01:38.260 They can do things that will absolutely shock you.
00:01:41.000 Things that they would never do on the outside world.
00:01:47.340 As Reality Doug recently pointed out,
00:01:50.860 it's not that stupid people are stupid, per se.
00:01:55.260 When we see them laying about, having irresponsible children, collecting welfare, so on and so forth.
00:02:03.220 When we see all of this, they look completely incompetent, completely obedient, slavish to the system.
00:02:10.900 They look like a product, not a person to us.
00:02:16.480 You're only seeing the surface.
00:02:17.980 What you are actually getting with this huge and ever-growing underclass of welfare recipients
00:02:25.300 is a highly, highly adapted organism.
00:02:29.940 The same people that are completely useless outside of prison will do amazing things in prison
00:02:35.680 because all of a sudden there's a purpose to it.
00:02:39.120 These people are not about to get any Nobel Prizes.
00:02:42.160 You know, they're not going to learn how to do differential calculus.
00:02:45.100 But yet, yet, these people are capable of some pretty amazing things under the right circumstances.
00:02:53.600 Don't underestimate them.
00:02:55.440 They're dangerous.
00:02:57.660 But also, don't underestimate them as potential allies either.
00:03:03.320 You know, when you're explaining basic economics to students, you start with the analogy of the desert island.
00:03:16.300 You're explaining to them why trade benefits everybody.
00:03:21.100 Because you take Joe and you take Bill.
00:03:25.300 And you take it that there's only two products to make on this island.
00:03:28.800 Apples and oranges.
00:03:29.520 And so, you've got Joe.
00:03:33.180 He can make ten apples in an hour or eight oranges.
00:03:39.000 You've got Bill.
00:03:40.380 He can make ten oranges or eight apples.
00:03:43.540 And so, if each of these guys just focuses on what they're good at, one will have five apples and four.
00:03:51.720 Or if they completely stay separate, one will have five apples and four oranges.
00:03:56.220 The other will have four apples and five oranges.
00:04:00.160 Where areas, if they trade, they now have five of each.
00:04:05.160 By trading, they are both better off.
00:04:08.400 But see, economics, as with any true science, when you start looking into it, starts coming up with some very counterintuitive and very surprising outcomes.
00:04:23.800 So, you take the same situation.
00:04:27.140 You take Joe and Bill on the desert island.
00:04:30.460 Except this time around, you make Joe absolutely better at everything.
00:04:36.320 He is a genius.
00:04:39.040 Whereas Bill, Bill took the short bus to school.
00:04:42.720 So, Joe, he can make 20 apples or 15 oranges in an hour.
00:04:49.300 Whereas with Bill, he can make, he can only make, just tossing numbers out there, five oranges or three apples.
00:05:01.760 So, Joe is clearly superior in all facets.
00:05:04.780 And yet, and yet, if they trade, they will both still be better off.
00:05:12.880 Because there's a differentiation between the skills.
00:05:16.640 This is called comparative advantage.
00:05:18.000 Even though Joe is absolutely better at everything, their skills are not perfectly aligned.
00:05:28.880 And so, by trading, by each focusing on their specialty, they are still better off than if they didn't trade.
00:05:38.000 It's important to remember that with the human species, that as divergent as our brains are, as different as we are from one another.
00:05:53.400 You know, you have the, in all of human mind space, you've got the greatest tyrants and the greatest humanitarians.
00:06:03.200 You have a huge amount of space, on the one hand, until you start comparing human minds to animal minds.
00:06:10.800 And the difference between a genius and a retard, assuming we're, we're talking about somebody with a low IQ, not somebody with brain damage or an extra chromosome.
00:06:24.300 The difference between those two minds is absolutely minuscule, as between that human mind and a dog, or a chimpanzee, or a dolphin.
00:06:36.160 You see, you take the chimpanzees, you put them on an island, you run an experiment to see what happens.
00:06:47.540 You run that experiment a thousand times, each time you're going to get the same result.
00:06:52.940 The chimpanzees never rise above basic animal behavior.
00:06:58.260 They can learn to use a stick to poke an anthill, but they can never conceptualize grammar, the order of thought.
00:07:05.640 And they can never, they can never find a way to overcome their animal natures, to maximize their animal natures.
00:07:17.840 They just can't conceive of it.
00:07:20.900 Whereas humanity can.
00:07:22.940 Humanity can build civilizations.
00:07:27.860 Now there is, there is an element that you do need a certain percentage of the population with an IQ above a set number to achieve any level of civilization.
00:07:40.420 Absolutely.
00:07:41.840 But the thing is, once you get that, once you have enough people with an IQ of over 120, or enough people with an IQ over 140,
00:07:49.900 they can show all the other humans how to do it.
00:07:54.220 How to be constructive members of society.
00:07:57.460 You get that divine spark of creativity that rises, rises above the base nature of reality.
00:08:06.140 That, in a metaphysical way, goes against thermodynamics.
00:08:11.120 You're getting something new, something different, something building upon itself.
00:08:19.240 And that thing does involve the stupid people.
00:08:23.580 So don't write them off.
00:08:26.860 If you're on a desert island with a person that's a stupid person, you are still better off working with that person than working all by yourself.
00:08:36.880 The stupid people have a lot of untapped human potential in them.
00:08:42.340 And it says quite a bit about our society that the only time that potential gets tapped is once they're in prison and being slothful no longer benefits them.
00:08:55.660 So don't underestimate them.
00:08:57.640 On the one hand, they're extremely dangerous.
00:09:00.520 They are clever.
00:09:01.820 What you're seeing right now is a very highly adapted organism who's benefiting from sloth and laziness.
00:09:09.540 They could be a major threat.
00:09:13.440 But at the same time, don't discount them as potential allies.
00:09:18.120 Because they do have that spark of creativity.
00:09:21.460 That ability to do things that are just absolutely amazing.
00:09:25.580 To absorb knowledge and to build technological products.
00:09:31.240 Stuff they maybe couldn't invent.
00:09:33.580 They maybe need somebody sharper to invent it.
00:09:39.540 But they can figure out how once they've been shown.
00:09:47.600 Keep your powder dry, folks.
00:09:49.460 And do not underestimate people.
00:09:53.020 Or write them off.
00:09:55.220 Because if you do, you're only harming yourself.
00:09:59.940 Arini out.
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