Do you think there would be less conflict in the world if the average intelligence went up 50%?
1mon 8d ago by lemmy.world/u/TheReanuKeeves in asklemmy@lemmy.ml
There are people that only think about making things better for themselves no matter how it effects others. These people would just use that "extra" intelligence to up their game. So no, I don't think there would be less conflict.
I think part of the reason some of those people live that way is because they don't think through the effects of everyone else living their lives that way. Perhaps the stat boost to INT would give them the ability to follow that course of action to it's logical conclusion and therefore choose to live differently?
Exactly. If you do nothing about greed and selfishness/narcissism then nothing changes, you just have smarter greedy people. :/
Things like good public education make society more pleasant to live in for everyone including greedy opportunists and their families.
Same with balancing resource extraction against environmental stability.
What billionaires are doing seems totally illogical and self destructive even from a greed perspective.
Even if we assume they’re thinking they can escape on a space ark it makes no sense to want to live in the cold, harsh, hostile environment of a space instead of on the one planet that we can naturally breathe on that also happens to grow delicious things and stuff.
From no perspectives can this be a smart move, I refuse to believe it!
Theoretically, the people opposed to manipulative narcissists also become more intelligent
Ultimately, however, leftism is an intellectual position. It's typically held by people who are either well-read, or at minimum understanding of the concept of fairness for all people (which requires abstract thinking and a good theory of mind). Very few people believe in leftism due to stupidity. That's why it's in Republicans' best interest to keep people stupid.
Increasing intelligence of the general population would be a basal necessity for changing the economic system.
IQ is not a proxy for education, though. Raising intelligence without changing education wouldn't accomplish much. People are kept stupid by means of propaganda, regardless of their intellectual ability.
I think as it is now leftism is an intellectual position, but historically I don't think that's always been true, when leftist movements saw more broad popular appeal like during labor organizing there were definitely dumb leftists.
The reason it's in Republicans best interest to keep people stupid is that stupid people are much easier to propagandize to. Analyzing the information you're receiving helps make you less likely to fall for blatant lies. (Leftists know we need better propaganda, but it's also deeply cynical to think we need it.)
The reason it’s in Republicans the duopoly’s best interest to keep people stupid is that stupid people are much easier to propagandize to.
FTFY
If you mean emotional intelligence then yes. Being able to solve puzzles better (standard IQ) doesn't mean squat to reducing conflict of the puzzles you solve are how to exploit others more
I don't see why that would help. But if everyone's empathy increased by 50% of the average amount of empathy, that might help. (Not that it is measurable, but this is obviously fantasy)
No, but if empathy went up 50% and greed went down 50%, there would.
This is not about intelligence at all. School tells you that intelligence is important because it makes you a better worker for the corporations.
But if you think about a good person in life, their intelligence is not going to be top of the list of their best qualities.
People are so focused on intelligence that they often completely forget about other qualities a human being can have.
Realistically, the world is too complex and too large to even remotely be able to predict the outcome of making everyone 50% smarter.
My best guess though is that it wouldn't change much. If everyone is smarter, no one is smarter. High intelligence doesn't automatically mean Mr. Spock. I used to be involved with Mensa and many of the people I met were nuts, lacked critical thinking skills, or were so full of themselves for testing well they were blind to external information. I myself am highly intelligent on paper, but if you looked at my life you would see a lifelong series of dumb choices and in many cases choosing the worst possible option even knowing it was.
What I mean is being smart isn't as valuable a skill to have as one might think. Especially at the top end of intelligence, smarter basically equates to faster at solving problems. Raw processing power does play into it for sure but the difference between someone with an IQ of 130 and an IQ of 160 is how fast they finished the test.
The best way to make the world a better place would be to teach everyone critical thinking and emotional intelligence skills.
As an estimate, how many problems in your life do you think can be attributed to people thinking the wrong thing or being confidentially incorrect in general?
I agree with emotional intelligence being important, I think IQ and EQ should be consolidated as one because recognizing patterns in behaviour on paper isn't that much different than recognizing patterns in shapes/numbers
I'd say less than 10%? The vast majority of my problems result from my own irrational actions and poor choices. I've had problematic idiots in professional and social settings but again the main issue in those cases are largely because I cannot stand willfully ignorant people. If I were more chill about morons, it'd be 0%. But that's just me personally and I'm usually an outlier.
This is kind of a hot take, but I don't think we should try to measure and assess IQ and EQ at all. The IQ test in use today tests very specific, very narrow types of intelligence and is not a meaningful measure. In a practical sense intelligence is mostly a matter of speed. Someone with a low or average IQ can solve any problem a high IQ person could, it would just take longer. At every step of thier journey a low IQ person spends more time. Learning the requisite knowledge, understanding the concepts, breaking down the problem, and crafting a solution. Most folks in that situation opt not to continue at some point along the way, but they would eventually get there with enough time and knowledge.
With EQ that's learned behavior. Some people have a natural knack for it, but outside some types of mental illness, emotional intelligence can be taught.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
There's a difference between IQ and EQ.
Absolutely not, some of the smartest people I've ever met have zero emotional intelligence. You can be incredibly accomplished academically and still be totally unable to work productively with others. A lot of these people lean towards aspie/AuDHD supremacy as well funnily enough - they think everyone else is just far too irrational to agree with their horrendously undeveloped philosophies.
I think the world would have less conflict if the average "emotional intelligence" went up 50%
No chance. Have you seen what grad students and research professors are like at top universities? Especially during grant proposals? Competitive doesn't begin to describe it. Cutthroat barely does.
Would they use violence though? We might still be better off with the paper conflicts that these people have with each other 🤔
Personally I don't think intelligence is the solution, it would justake conflict more complex and thought out. You would need more empathy for a better world.
Exactly. There are lots of smart people making bombs.
Probably not. Conflict doesn't arise because people don't have the right ideas, more so conflict is the result of material conditions and processes. The battle for resources, the right to surplus extraction, class struggle, imperialism, all of these result from the evolution of class society, and not because of intelligence.
Wouldn't intelligence also be a material condition? How your brain is wired plays a significant role in how it interacts with the environment, so if humans evolved with a more intelligent brain it would significantly alter our trajectory from early civilisations, no? Would probably also kick off civilisations much earlier.
It would likely make a difference, but probably wouldn't reduce conflict by much. Capitalism doesn't exist because humans are evil, or unintelligent, for example.
No, there would be less conflict in the world if we were to cure people from psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissism, racism and other ails that lead to destructive selfishness.
Measuring intelligence is not like measuring a cup of flour. The IQ tests are not wholly scientific. So the premise of your question is not without controversy. But if we disregard that, then: no. Very clever people still bicker and get rubbed the wrong way. Intelligent people follow populists. Conflict is not solely the result of low intelligence. We might have different types of conflict (there are fewer incidences of fisticuffs at the chess club than at football) but not fewer.
I think what can be meant by intelligence is a whole complex of different things. So I think the answer depends on what exactly you mean by intelligence. If we focus in some of the aspects that might be called wisdom, or aspects that fall more under what's been called "EQ", the answer might be yes. If we mean what's typically measured by an IQ test, I'd say no.
There's all kinds of intelligence. If specifically emotional intelligence went up we'd be better off. If it's the kind that makes you good at day trading or computer science we'll just end up with more tech bros trying to decide who deserves to live or die.
There'd be more conflict for a little while as the people finally come together to overthrow our oppressors, but after that I imagine things would settle down. It wouldn't be perfect, because there would still be conniving people who do everything they can to take more than their fair share, but a populace with significantly more intelligence than today will be much harder to exploit, even if our oppressors become more intelligent as well.
Well, if we look around today, some of the best minds in world are busy making people click on ads
Plenty of intelligent people that are absolute Ghouls and monsters.
If it could be raised enough to keep people from voting Republican the world would improve pretty damn quick!
Intelligence isn't really one thing, so you have to be more specific.
I can see both sides. Smarter people would make the pie bigger. But a flat %increase would make the absolute intelligence gap even wider, which is what I think is the more relevant metric. Evil spirited smart people would manipulate stupid people even harder and that benevolent smart people may not do much to stop it.
Would the world be better? Maybe. Would the world have less conflict? I bet not.
Prices would just go up because no one wants destroy the ruling class.
No, the conflicts would simply be more damaging.
Humans, regardless of intelligence, are destructive. More intelligence just means more destruction.
We are the Fermi paradox made flesh.
points at everything humans have built look at everything humans have destroyed
I’m sorry I can’t hear you over the collapse of the AMOC.
For the ten millionth time, its capitalism
And humans built it.
"Humans" can be violent, short sighted and ignorant when people stop thinking critically and start applying dumb, impractical abstractions to complex and ever-changing objective reality -- and then stubbornly pretend like the dumb abstraction is objective truth.
On a thread about being more intelligent to prevent human suffering, don't be on the side of stupidity and suffering by pretending that a deeply contradictory social order that directs all human activity toward the production of war and human suffering, is the only social order humans have ever been capable of producing, let alone, will ever produce.
You're entitled to be a misanthrope and hate humanity, but entitlements granted by capitalism on one side, are paid for with victimization on the other side. Being on the side of the victims, but receiving entitlements (often unintentionally) means that the victimized class both hates them self for their even involuntary role in in the victimize/entitlement social relation, but also unable to imagine anything different.
Ultimately, it is a fear of freedom that prevents humanity from advancing beyond capitalist social relations. But fear in some inspires courage in others. And in that courage, is hope.
A lot of societies produced war and suffering long before capitalism existed.
And many didn't, and none produced the kind of mass industrialized war capable of dozens of millions of casualties. But yes their ruling classes still waged war for the same reason as our ruling classes do. So it isn't a problem of human nature, but a problem with having a ruling class.
But never before have the underclass actually held the tools and means of production, and been as directly opposed in every rational interest, as the exploiting and exploiter classes produced by capitalist social and economic relations. Furthermore, the working classes are broadly opposed to war, broadly in support of rational, secular government, human rights, and freedom of association. But because the education and dissemination of info to the masses is overseen by the ruling minority, people lack the ability to name the problems which we face.
So our social forces that produce war, are imperialism, which is a historic stage of capitalism. So we can concretely identify specific tendencies in a society built by people, name them, and subsequently resist them; rather blaming all problems of society on "human nature". We can be much more accurate and specific than that. And the moment we are, we have an imperative to do something. Which is why fatalism is so convenient for people who fear freedom.
That's how people who consider themselves rational and scientific end up falling for apocalypse myths; with facts underwriting eschatology. I think there would be less conflict and difficulty in the world if people were 50% less gullible.
The USSR had a huge number of nukes, tanks, planes, and other warfighting equipment and they weren’t capitalist.
China also has a huge army and the biggest navy in the world by hull count. Also not capitalist.
That's an interesting observation, whether or not USSR and/or China is/was capitalist, and in what ways, is a rich topic of discussion. There are a ton of different theories about them, and I'm familiar with a few.
Why do you think USSR and China still had militaries? Was it to make imperialist war, or to defend against it? There's an abundance of different views on the topic that are much more scientifically and historically honest than "its just human nature."
So any country that does bad things is capitalist and the worse the things the more capitalister it is.
And they are absolutely for imperialism more than defense.
Did I agree or disagree with you that the USSR and China were not capitalist? I'm open to different interpretations. I can see ways that USSR and China were capitalistic in some ways, socialistic in some ways, and had their own unique character in other ways. China and USSR weren't even allies after Stalin, and China's economy changed dramatically after Deng Xiaoping took charge of organizing the Chinese economy after the cultural revolution. I'm actually quite critical of the USSR after 1921.
I think you should try to be a little more specific. The creation of the military of the USSR was a carry over of the armies of WW1 who were being sent to die senselessly by the Tsar. Afterward, Russia was invaded by like 6 separate countries, including the USA, and had to deal with a counter revolution by the Tsarists. I think those are two specific circumstances where the maintenance of a military was verifiably not imperialist but necessary for preservation of the worker state. Afterward, the military was used for repression by the Stalinist bureaucracy, but industrialization was necessary after the destruction of the early 1920s, if not how it was carried out.
The carving up of Eastern Europe by Molotov Ribbentrop might be considered imperialistic, I think there's a lot of different ways to look at the only thing that Stalin and Trotsky agreed on: that the Germans and Italians were going to be the opponents in another world war. I'm actually very critical of Stalin, and think he made many mistakes. But other than being a bastard and a motherfucker, I think the historic circumstances, that were the motivators for a the mistakes that were made by the Stalinist bureaucracy, were objective, often defensive. And while imperialists always claim national defense when claiming some foreign prize, there is much more basis for a defensive posture against the Nazis, who actually invaded the USSR and killed 20 million Russians, mostly civilians; than there is when, for example, the USA invaded Vietnam.
Vietnam might be a good example of an imperialist agenda on behalf of the Chinese. The USA and China both supported the villainous Khmer Rouge. But other than soft power, what evidence has China demonstrated of imperialism? Genuinely curious about what your answer might be.
Don't make me out to be something I'm not. Yes I'm a socialist and an anti capitalist but I'm not a sucker, at least not a willing one.
I remember 20y ago thinking the internet was creating a sort of intellectual "travelator", where some people would get on and be launched far ahead of the rest. The result would be a huge division in intelligence across society, which would lead to a feeling of disenfranchisement and civil unrest.
So no, if everyone's intelligence went up by 50% of their own intelligence, you'd just have more of the same problem.
I believe public education is vital, but we didn't place enough emphasis on the importance of uniform funding across districts and states, rather than having "good schools" and "bad schools".
Probably not. In fact if you mean everyone gets smarter starting tomorrow but up til today we're in the same crappy world as always, that's probably a disaster. Yeah we have some sociopath criminals in high places, but lots more of them are in prison or doing really dumb things (there's a tv show about them, "world's dumbest criminals"). Now imagine they suddenly get a whole lot smarter. Everyone else also becoming smarter won't help that much.
If you mean human evolution somehow went on a different path making all humans smarter all the way back to prehistoric times, then it's harder to say, but it doesn't sound so great either.
Emotional intelligence isn't the answer either, for the same sorts of reasons. Maybe there's a separate thing called "wisdom" but there will always be gaps.
You might like HPMOR, a Harry Potter fanfic novel that philosophizes a lot about these types of questions. It's at hpmor.com. Warning, the main character is insufferable a lot of the time, especially near the beginning. So you might hate it, in which case feel free to quit after a few chapters.
For a more positive take, try the old school science fiction novel "Protector" by Larry Niven.
I keep seeing this type of comment but people seem to ignore that everyone is increasing their intelligence. The malicious, and the benevolent.
I don't see that as helping much, at least without creating a horrible police state. Imagine thousands or millions of James Bond villains or other mad scientists running around and finding ways to evade detection. Making the cops smarter only goes so far.
What does it even mean for one person to be 50% more intelligent than another person?
Surely that's just meant as a general concept and we don't need to split hairs on the definition of that? Imagine an IQ test or whatever else people normally understand when using the word intelligence, and that such a person would get 1.5 times as many questions right
Did you ever see a downie fight? World would probably more peaceful if it went down 50% or more given people had what they needed