There are millions of poor people in America. At least a few of them must be beautiful.
You’ve never been to a trailer park? I’ve seen hot blondes at trailer parks and in the run down parts of town. You just have to find them before they end up physically destroyed by 4 kids and years of smoking and drugs.
I have a lot of trouble with this issue myself; I grew up with a reasonable amount of advantages, so I can’t anything about what would have been different if thqt wasn’t the case. But then, I need to interact with all kinds of people, and it’s just too difficult for me to be a humble and non-judgemental person sometimes. You see it over and over again, the dumb decisions people make, the rediculous things they think are important (bling bling yo) and on and on and on. But they were not exposed to the same things as I was. And I think that the fact that they are always sort of looked at like they are scum all the time makes them have all sorts of emotional issues that any human being would have if they were put in that situation, unless they were psychopaths. And then it just becomes a viscious cycle of people thinking they are scum and them just living up to those low expectations.
I agree, to a degree. We *should *be investing more into intellectual pursuits like science, instead of marketing to the lowest common denominator.
On an individual level, it takes “more” to fulfill an intelligent person than a stupid one. More what? Well, education isn’t free. It costs money and time–time that an unintelligent person could happily while away with inexpensive entertainment. There are transportation/communication costs needed for a smart person to interact/create with other great minds. Someone less intelligent could happily sit at home watching TV, playing games with family, etc.
I don’t think that there should be unequal access to medical care or that unintelligent people should be stripped of human rights, though.
Many people have mentioned IQ as if it is somekind of authoritative measure of intelligence from very low to very high.
It isn’t, the tests really focussed on a very narrow set of skills that are purported to be related to academic ability. In fact the test were originally contrived not to separate out the most able, but the least able. A test that was supposed to identify various levels of retardation came to be used as an arbitrary test to decide who should have access to institutions that award diplomas that get well paid jobs.
Intelligence is not easy to define. Restricting it to a narrow set of skills relevant to academia with its emphasis on very short logical problems based around grammatical and number patterns. Well…it is not very clever! It maybe suits the purposes of ambitions parents and self regarding institutions to have a test (which they can finesse with coaching) to separate out various grades of pen pusher. But let us not pretend that this is anything more than than this.
Human beings have all kinds of qualities and intelligence can be defined in many ways. A parent who has the emotional intelligence to nurture children has a valuable skill. An athlete, a singer, a mechanic, a hunter, a farmer, a leader, a priest, an artist…there are a long list of qualities we can regard as intelligent.
IQ? Not a very clever way of measuring a persons worth, so very narrow minded. :dubious:
These are all very valuable skills, and I don’t think any of the people you mention deserves more or less respect than any other, but I’m not sure why we want to group them all under the term ‘intelligence’. Surely there are names for all these individual qualities you’re talking about. Intelligence is only one of many possible desirable traits and qualities that might be nice to have.
I think some of this is a semantic difference, when I say intelligence I mean more or less ‘the thing that’s approximated by IQ tests’, and no, I don’t think high IQ people are more deserving or morally meritorious than anyone else, though they may be better suited for certain professions.
Generally yes. And here’s why.
The OP mentions the film Idiocracy. So what happened in the film? Joe “Not Sure” Bauers wakes up in a future where humanity is so stupid that they are on the verge of causing their own extinction (plants do not, in fact, crave electrolytes). Joe uses his superior intellect to help save them from themselves.
Taken to less of an extreme, the world depends on intelligent people. For running businesses, performing complex tasks like engineering, medicine or law, inventing stuff, designing new ways to help people and generally just solving problems. If society depends on and values these things then it should reward them.
Speaking as a university instructor, most factory workers in the US today probably make more money than most university-teaching employees. Worry not!
Fortunately, people are generally rewarded by what they accomplish and not by how well they do on a standard IQ test. But as a general rule, unless you go into a high reward/low employability occupation like professional athlete or A-list Hollywood entertainer, the free market tends to reward occupations that require a higher level of intelligence and education.
It doesn’t make any difference what you inherited if you don’t use it. I believe it is up to us to create as much value as we can of the assets we are born with. Of course those who bring a more valuable product to the table should receive more. I was blue collar all my life, I never read or studied much but had a good work ethic, above average intelligence and could usually gravitate into foreman or middle management positions. I have seen smarter guys pass me up and keep on going further up the ladder many times and don’t begrudge them in the least.
Success is no measure of intelligence because successful people often have the dice loaded in their favour. They have the right parents, get coached in an education that introduces them to professional networks and have mentors to guide their career. Members of some favoured group will always go far. That has little to intelligence and everything to do with undeserved privilege in societies that a not at all meritocratic. There are plenty of buffoons in positions of great power. Many have degrees and awards from great institutions. What do they call them…heritage students. Daddy donates a million, junior gets an MBA.
On a level playing field, there are plenty of candidates to choose from. Brains are cheap, so there is no need to favour them. There are many other qualities that are just as valuable.