>> Start respecting the fact that intellectual development & progress is only one axis on the map that is the human experience.

> Excellent all too overlooked view IMO.

Intellectual development and logical reasoning serve as the basis for proper personal health, family nucleation, social improvement, and other axes on the human experience map.

Without being able to think, how can you improve your health, friend, family, or financial standing? This is why most of America is overweight, poor, and doesn't care for anyone other than themselves (as shown by both democratic and Republican political platforms) -- they simply don't have the intellectual capacity to care.

> This is why most of America is overweight, poor, and doesn't care for anyone other than themselves (as shown by both democratic and Republican political platforms)

And yet all those people are still just as valid and worthwhile humans as anyone else. They all make up the rich tapestry of life. One of the most important skills to be able to relate to people is to realise that, to be able to see the world from someone else's perspective, and to understand what's important to them.

> they simply don't have the intellectual capacity to care

Caring is an emotional response, not an intellectual ability.

This is only true up to a certain degree. A Phd will almost certainly not help you with your health or your social development. It is true that there is a minimum of basic education needed to find these things worthy of your time, but it's definitly not needed and you are talking about people who never experienced that basic education.

I also think the second part of your comment incredibly dismissive, because it asserts that those people will never "be smart enough" to care about this things. You mix up education and intelligence which are not the same thing.

> This is why most of America is overweight, [...] -- they simply don't have the intellectual capacity to care.

counterpoint: overweight doctors

Personal health, social and financial success is mostly about psychology, not intellectual capacity.

Logic only gets you so far, otherwise natural selection would've made sure it's the absence of Asperger's that's a disorder, not the other way around.

My theory is that the reason for these widespread ailings in American and other modern societies is that we're down in terms of average raw numbers of human interactions, compared to some centuries ago.

Emulation of successful people can guide a whole tribe towards the best path of action, no logic needed. But that mechanism is currently weakened because:

1/ There's only so much emotional understanding possible without face-to-face engagement. It's way harder to guess that someone is unhappy and "defective" despite an appearance of success without real-life meeting. It's way harder to know a certain way of life is detrimental if you've only seen that one. We have less "emotional" data points to pick from.

2/ Centralized dissemination of information (mass-media), isn't diverse enough for any kind of natural selection to occur. People instinctively know who to admire and emulate when they meet them, but unidirectional mass-media only pushes arbitrary success stories. Naturally selected role models are scarce.