Additionally, IQ measures a very specific type of cognitive ability. I am not so sure that those cognitive abilities are perfectly correlated with the sort of social and emotional intelligence required to assess the likely effectiveness of a political system.

Instead, we have more general problem-solving skills that allowed us to develop things like statistics and economics and political theory. I leave it to the reader to determine how much social and emotional intelligence is required to excel at those. (As opposed to the merely analytical intelligence that IQ measures, I suppose. I have yet to see a definition of social/emotional intelligence that is coherent enough to be measured, and also actually meaningfully exists when measured.)

Nice quip, but what's your point? ;-)

> Anyhow, my lukewarm take is that no level of "social and emotional intelligence" will allow you to assess the likely effectiveness of a political system, because why in the world would the built-in intelligence for interacting with a couple of hundred people be any good at predicting the aggregate behaviour of billions of people.

I at least have a high degree of belief in the contrapositive -- if one doesn't have a high degree of social and emotional intelligence then they won't be able to assess the likely effectiveness of a political system.

We don't need to rigorously quantify the cause to notice an effect, whatever it turns out to be.

Since you seem knowledgeable in it, what would be a rigid definition of IQ? As opposed to the vague definition of social intelligence?

All online IQ tests are fake, no exception. Most "Mensa online tests" are unrelated to Mensa; they just say so, because it makes people more likely to click on them.

A serious IQ test would look like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices

> I can't fathom it being anything other than an indicator on how well someone can solve these matrix association problems.

Well, this is one of the interesting findings about intelligence. Turns out that how well people can solve these tests, correlates strongly with many other things.

At some moment in history, there was a competing theory of "multiple intelligences", assuming that the kind of intelligence for doing math is independent from the kind of intelligence for solving verbal problems. But when people were given different tests, it turned out that the people who score high on one kind of test are also likely to score high on the other kind of test.

So the reason why the "matrices" tests are so popular is that it doesn't matter much what kind of test you use, and the matrices are less culturally sensitive (i.e. in English verbal test, it would matter a lot whether English is your first or second language).

> what would be a rigid definition of IQ?

Approximately: That thing that allows you to do better in a wide range of problems. (As opposed to a talent or learning disability, which is that thing that allows you to do better/worse in one specific thing.)

We definitely won't be measuring it with a self report questionnaire though.

My guess is that people who score higher on "intellect" are more likely the kind of people who "take ideas seriously". That is, they tend to follow ideas to their logical conclusions.

Does that mean these high IQ people don't think IQ exists. It obviously exists. It's a real measure that people use.

It's not like midichlorian count which is a measure from Starwars. Which doesn't exist because it only exists in the movies and doesn't measure something real (the force).

lots of complaints I've heard - can't say one way or the other if there is any salt to them.

I haven't heard the complaint before that IQ is imaginary, that's a new one... I think through reading the exchange I see where the semantics shifted between people's thoughts, I doubt that's what the the poster above you meant - likely they meant a combination of the many complaints to dismiss the general usefulness of IQ tests as a predictor of intelligence.

The complaints I hear about IQ are completely opposite! People dislike standardized exams, including IQ tests, because of their standardization! That is, the need to assess everyone the same way precludes assessment specific to the individual being assessed. Detractors of IQ, insofar as they would like assessment at all, would prefer a more holistic procedure where the characteristics and capabilities of the assessee are analysed with due attention paid to the specific life history of said assessee.

In regards to income, I briefly skimmed the Wikipedia section for IQ and Income, which can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Income

"Highly correlated" would not be the choice of words I use to describe correlations between (0.23 - 0.5).

We, as people, should cherish the contributions of one's intelligence instead of obsessing over an arbitrary, qualitative value painted as a qualitative value like one's potential intelligence.

lol, this range is 0.5 to 0.7 variance explained (R squared) which is an insane value. in typical social studies a correlation of > 5% is considered a major improvement. In finance a correlation or > 1% is considered amazing.

You are either a hyper-intelectual drinking Taleb's kool-aid or simply don't know what you are talking about :D

Also 10% variance explained in social science is considered pretty good (which is depressing, but such is life).

Very far from it. I'm just an idiot with Internet access.

> drinking Taleb's kool-aid

I do agree with some of what he has said about IQ, but I am not well-versed in any of his other writings.

> simply don't know what you are talking about

Perhaps, but I am still not convinced.

If 0.23-0.5 correlation is "very high" then what is 0.7-0.9? Would r >= 0.7 be literal causation at that point for psychologist? (I'm kidding, of course)

Again, I am not saying that a correlation of 0.23-0.5 is statistically insignificant by any means. I just think I needed "very high" to be coupled with "for psychology."

Anyway, I saw an interesting theory once that suggested IQ simply measures motivation and highly motivated people will tend to do better on standardized tests as well as more generally in life.

I believe that IQ exists, but I don't believe it's an effective measure of the things people typically expect from it once you get into average or above average scores.

Leaving aside the problem of the tests themselves and how they're conducted, I suspect that even a "perfect" test wouldn't predict how well a person would manage their life, perform in their job, or contribute positively to society.

At the low end, IQ testing can identify individuals with problems that will certainly cause them difficulties, but a person with a high IQ won't necessarily outperform someone with an average IQ in tasks that aren't IQ tests.

> effective measure of the things people typically expect from it once you get into average or above average scores.

But I don't think that's what IQ is, it's just a measure of a type of assessment relative to other participants. Beyond that, there are strong correlations at various IQ levels on how people perceive certain spatial and logic questions/tasks. IQ does not measure your personality or job performance.

This is something social psychologists have authority in and not the opinions of techbros.

and if that's not convincing enough, how about Alexander Grothendieck