The Spaceballs Argument for Unconditional Basic Income

Re:The Spaceballs Argument for Unconditional Basic Income by sebzim4500 on Wednesday January 11, 2023 @07:04PM (#34347000)

>And if 99% of the population is too dumb to do it, then it probably doesn't need to be done.

This is very hard to believe. That's basically conceding that we will never cure cancer/colonize mars/solve productive nuclear fusion etc.

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Re:The Spaceballs Argument for Unconditional Basic Income by Dylan16807 on Thursday January 12, 2023 @05:48AM (#34351734)

Damn, you really don't have a high opinion of the bulk of the world's population. You really think it takes special geniuses to do those things, not just experts? 125 IQ need not apply?

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Re:The Spaceballs Argument for Unconditional Basic Income by ben_w on Thursday January 12, 2023 @11:43AM (#34356360)

IQ 125+ is a bit less than the top 5%.

The country with the highest percentage of PhDs is Slovenia, at 3.8% of 25-64 year-olds.

I know academic performance doesn't perfectly equate to IQ, especially at this level because right now smart people have many other options, but on the other hand that's the highest percentage and the OECD average is just short of 1.1%.

OECD PhD percentages: https://doi.org/10.1787/888933978645

China I'm not sure about, but seems to be about 500k/year, so if I estimate population of 1.5e9 and 80 year life expectancy, that's a steady-state level of 3.75% of the entire population.

So the minimum for those things being above IQ 125 seems at least plausible. May not be correct, but it is plausible.

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