In the film Idiocracy, Joe Bauers spends 500 years in suspended animation and wakes up in world where dysgenic pressure has lowered the global average IQ to moron level. (Actually everything is set in the U.S. and there is no mention of other countries, but there is no reason to think anything is different elsewhere.) Society is one huge low-class trailer park, all aspects of culture and daily life are crude and vulgar, everybody is incompetent, everything is held together by spit and baling wire and a high technology that must have been invented by long-ago geniuses to be used by contemporary idiots.
What if it went the other way? What if the Flynn effect, or a conscious government eugenics policy, or applied genetic engineering, caused the average IQ of humanity to move a standard deviation or two to the right? What would society be like then?
I think the difference between what we call “stupid” and what we call “clever” is smaller than many of us imagine. The apparent differences are largely down to nurture and circumstance, rather than nature. So I don’t think selective breeding for intelligence, even if you could somehow measure it, would make much difference.
Then assume the average IQ has been raised by improved education, nutrition and health care (as it has been, in many countries, since WWII). The question remains: If what we now call a “genius” (by the standards of the most highly developed nations) represented the mere average of human mental ability, what would society be like?
Member of Mensa here. I love the organization, but most any active member will admit that if high IQ people ran the world, everything would be talked to death before anything got done. And there would be a lot more puns.
We (and I include myself among the superintelligent) will retain a substantial population of morons to do the scut work.
The super brains will battle for control over resources using armies of morons as fodder, as the one thing all the brainiacs agree on is that you can never have too much cool shit and hot chicks.
The end result will be no visible change whatsoever, though like today’s increasing gap between rich and poor, the future will have an increasing gap between the smart and the stupid.
That’s plausible, but it is a scenario different from the hypothetical; let’s stay focused. The present “bell curve” IQ distribution still holds, but the median point has moved one or two deviations to the right. There’s a vast majority of (what would now be considered) garden-variety geniuses – Mensa level, say (to qualify for Mensa you need be in only the upper two percent of the general population); a left-tail minority of persons now considered average; a vanishingly small number of morons; and a right-tail minority of supergeniuses, such as now would qualify for the Prometheus Society.
Ok, we can always go the “robots to do all the scutwork” route.
For this I see a great class war ahead. There will be almost no places in the economy for human labor, no earning potential for 95% or more of the population. A population that will (or could) get progressively older as well due to increases in medical technology.
So we as a society will have to come to grips with the question of what is the inherent worth of human life. Wealth will only be economically measurable in terms of natural resources and the energy needed to convert the resources into useable products. Everything else will be trivial.
The war will be fought over what are the benefits of the “dole” that we will almost all be on. Maybe war isn’t exactly the right term, it might as easily be fought with birth control devices and genetic engineering as guns. Perhaps if a large population isn’t needed to sustain the infrastructure, the underclasses will be discouraged from breeding at all, more “firmly” than what happens now.
Ok, I’m running out of ideas now, I’ll give this some more thought.
I do think you’d end up with a society with a robot based economy.
There would be far more atheists, given the general tendency for smarter people to be atheists. The religions that survive will largely change in emphasis from the simple “God is Love” gooey style, to the “let’s devise ever more complicated and confusing theology” style.
Entertainment in general will lean a lot more towards the intellectual; people with an ability tend to like to exercise it.
Disdain for the past. They’ll say “Those people were morons” - and from their perspective, they’ll be right.
As has been discussed on this very board, IQ means squat. Education and the ability to USE that IQ potential (very important word right there) is what’s most important.
I am willing to bet there are a ton of folks who post to this board with 130+ IQ’s. I would also be willing to bet that a lot of them do menial or unimportant work, despite their “higher than average” IQ’s.
This more than anything else makes me feel that were something to shift the curve over a notch, not much would change. Science may advance a smidge faster as those that would gravitate towards those fields would have the increased potential, but overall… I wouldn’t see much change.
And, as my customary stab at Der Trihs, religion wouldn’t change much, as there are just as many smart people that are religious as there are morons who are atheists, I bet.
And what makes you think that a society full of smarter people, better technology, and no need for scutwork thanks to robots ( which is likely with or without an intelligence boost ) isn’t going to make more of an effort in education, and to use that brainpower ?
Unlikely. Especially the moron part; a moron would be more likely to just believe what he was told, and he’d be told about God. And intelligent people are less likely to be religious, for the simple reason that religion is stupid. It’s harder work for an intelligent, educated person to be religious; they need to delude themselves more than a stupid, ignorant one.
Japan has one of the most robotic industrial infrastructures on the planet, and is on the cutting edge of technology. They also have a history of focusing like mad on education. Not sure how that’s working out for them, but they don’t seem to be the overlords of Asia…
Ah, but are you using that admirable and high IQ to help create a better society, as BrainGlutton seems to be implying would happen?
Can’t say that I am. But let’s say 10% of brilliant people use their resources for good, while the rest are slackers. I think that’s pretty low. In a world of six billion geniuses that means 600 million smarties working for good. I can’t see how that could make such a small difference as you suggest.
This may be true, but I feel that human nature is a constant (sort of) and no matter hwo smart the smarties may be, they aren’t going to be able to overcome the human drive to differentiate. We’ve all seen how vicious infighting can be amongst academics. 600 million of them are not going to be able to agree on what’s best for society.
(note: I’m not slamming on your for this. I’m in the same boat… I’m not doing much in the way of changing the world myself)
I also don’t think much would change, and it could concievably get worse.
First off, being smart does not mean you will put it to much good use. Some of our smartest people in the world are hanging around designing weapons that chances are nobody will use, or researching stuff that doesn’t affect anything whatsoever, or making art nobody likes. Chances are an equal percent of people would work towards making human kind worse as would be working to make it better.
The things that change the world for the better have as much to do with human kindness, vision, optimism, risk-taking and creativity, none of which has much to do wtih raw intellect.
You know, I thought that sounded familiar when I typed it. When you find yourself quoting David St. Hubbins in all seriousness, it’s probably time to shut up.
If the SDMB is any indication, society would collapse because everyone would be too “smart” for their job and no one would be able to get themselves laid in order to continue the population.
Back in high school, who used to dominate? Was it the nerds or the good looking athletic and socially adept kids? Simply having a high IQ is not enough. Social skills, leadership, a simple desire to get the job done is often much more valuable.
Wasn’t there an episode of The Simpsons where Lisa and a counsel of “learned citizens” ran Springfield, ultimately to disaster?
