I am not saying they can all be doctors or other very high aptitude roles but I have no doubt they can learn new skills that will enable them to do more productive things with their minds than warehouse work for example.

I don't have an answer to be honest though and I am not sure [m]any people do right now. It is a difficult problem but one we need to discuss and work on a solution for. I don't feel a universal basic income is the answer like some have suggested. Not that I am against UBI as part of a bigger solution but it is my personal opinion that a mind wasted is a tragic thing.

> I am not saying they can all be doctors or other very high aptitude roles but I have no doubt they can learn new skills that will enable them to do more productive things with their minds than warehouse work for example.

I have less faith than you that the market will value those new skills at the same level.

The Rust Belt in the US is the example I would point to. No job has appeared in those areas to absorb those people who would have been working in the mills or the mines.

I'm no romanticist. Those jobs sucked.

However, the market valued those jobs rather well at the time. Nothing has come along since that valued those people at the same level.

Grow food, learn an instrument, how to paint, build something.

Not all "work" in life should be based around mercantilism.

Agreed, but the problem is that the economy can't support the citizenry. Learning an instrument is unlikely to change that for someone who doesn't have a job.

there is no bottom half. there is only a group of people that don't perform well on IQ tests. what should they do? whatever they want. humans are free, inherently. maybe a lot of them would fuck up or become idle. or maybe not. they might find much better ways to use their time and talents (which are substantial, if not well represented by what is tested for on an IQ test) if they didn't have to pick books off of shelves to make rent money.

Let me guess, you took a test and are in the upper half?