[Bobb Johnson]

You guys are basically right. They think they are better than everybody, that everybody should heed them, and that they know what is best for people. Their ideas may seem amazing in the classrooms but is a horror nightmare when implementing it in reality.

Everything from communism, socialism, gun control, disarmament, victimhood narrative and the welfare state, liberalism, political correctness, feminism, homosexuality, cultural Marxism, etc. These ideologies have ruined millions of families and killed millions of people.

Thomas Sowell has many great books on these subjects wherein he literally DESTROYS leftist/liberals.

The books are:
Intellectuals and Society, A Conflict of Visions, The Vision of the Anointed, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, etc.

I recommend you guys to really read his books, this man is an under-appreciated American treasure.
If you can't read them all, then just read the Wikipedia pages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Conflict_of_Visions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vision...e_Anointed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectuals_and_Society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Redn...e_Liberals

Here is a short video which he explains between these intellectuals/leftists/liberals and others.

Another video, quite long but worth the watch.

[BortimusPrime]

(01-15-2016 03:45 PM)dicknixon72 Wrote:  

Those with high intelligence or mental aptitude are coddled into a sphere almost completely divergant from the rest of mainstream society. This begins in elementary school with gifted and honors classes and carries forth through college. I know because I experienced it firsthand

Instead of attending a pre-university high school comprised of the 'elite,' I, for geographical reasons (namely, I didn't want to continue making 1-1.5hr bus rides the morning and afternoon and neither me nor my father was in a position to provide me with a 'free' car) I chose to attend a 'normal' but very good public high school. I find that to be my most valuable unforseen choices in my life as it resulted in me obtain a decent (albeit mildly unchallenging) education in an environ where I was exposed to people from all economic and social backgrounds, abling me to see how the 'real world' functioned. Also, my father at the time was a general superintendent for a steel fabrication firm, so my weekends and days off consisted of doing homework in the backseat of his car while we drove the state checking out job sites and meeting all sorts of 'regular' people - from Mexican laborers to redneck welders to foreign company reps. You can't put a pricetag on real-life experiences.

Going back to how acadamia can stunt practical growth, remember that high-functioning people concentrate their studies in the theoretical in a world of formulas and perfection where 2 +2 = 4 and constants always are. In the actual world, the only constant is perpetual change. That's why these high-concept 'feel good' thoughts and social welfare programs work so good on paper...and fail so miserably in the real world.

Sometimes, these 'intellectuals' are the easiest to convince, too. My easiest retail car deals have been to doctors, professors, teachers, and the like. Just tell them what they want to hear in a convincing manner and they're done.

This could explain high IQ liberalism when you factor in the correlation between IQ and criminal behavior. Essentially, low IQ people are far more prone to criminal activity than high IQ people, even if you compensate for economic situation. Now if all the smart people self-segregate, they're going to have a biased perception of people in general; no one in their personal experience is a criminal thug that needs to be beaten into submission, so they're more apt to agree with philosophies that assume everyone is inherently good. (We just need to teach muslims not to rape instead of putting them on spikes like that intolerant Dracula, as if these animals are somehow just innocently confused on whether or not raping women is a bad thing)

Conversely, low-IQ people have a very accurate real-life sampling of the predations of their ethically retarded peers, but they have an incentive to promote liberalism out of rational self-interest, welfare checks involving less effort than scrubbing toilets. So when you compare the genius voting against self-interest and the moron voting in self-interest, who's the real dummy?

[Speculation]

(01-16-2016 01:25 AM)Wutang Wrote:  

(01-16-2016 01:03 AM)Speculation Wrote:  

I met a progressive last night who reflected many of the talking points we hash over here.

He wanted a utopian society and couldn't understand why everyone else wasn't on board with creating it. He didn't realise the majority of the world's population has an IQ<100 and its consequent effects on tribalism vs openness. Growing up in Canada he had never experienced want and was insulated from the raw desire and self-interest that it generates.

He was a good guy who genuinely meant well, but he was steeped in the 'you are a good person if you are progessive' mindset. I can't bag him out too much because that's exactly how I was in my early 20's growing up in Australia. There wasn't enough opposing viewpoints to be exposed to and with all the garbage going on in my life at the time I couldn't develop one independently.

I think the situation in Europe and especially Germany and Sweden with regards to the migrant crisis is a good example of this.

Germans and Swedes despite being intelligent and being able to create and run the highly successful societies they inhabit are currently "losing" to migrants who are coming from failing societies. No matter how many rapes or robberies happen these Europeans seem to think if the migrants are coddled and nurtured enough then they'll suddenly turn into good citizens. After all, it works for their own native citizens and because we're all the same it should work for everyone else right? Another example of being blinded theory and ideology and ignoring the realities of flesh and blood people.

Exactly. That's where I was going with that.

Rather than demonising all progressives, I respect the intent of some of them in that they genuinely want to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, in practice many of their good intentions pave the way to hell.

[Genghis Khan]

This. I'll admit I used to be a hardcore leftist (also an engineer with an PhD). The ideas in theory seem amazing. I started pulling away from the left when I got more exposed to the real world and some red pill truths. I think the biggest eye-opener was regarding welfare (leftist idealogy will make you believe every poor person is only poor because of circumstances, not their own inherent low IQ, laziness, victimhood mentality, etc)

Also seeing the amount of leg-up women got in engineering fields and very quickly getting fed up with the entire "we need more women in stem" bullshit.

Leftist ideas are so attractive in the abstract, it's only when I started interacting with people outside of academia I started noticing the humanity of people.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

But what happens when one of the "clever sillies" moves beyond theory and gets involved in the actual life of one of the low-IQ criminals he champions?

Let's take a look at the havoc caused by the late writer Norman Mailer, shall we? Back in 1980, Mailer struck up a friendship with a convicted murderer named Jack Abbott, and helped Abbott get parole. At the time it was a liberal cause du jour -- very trendy.

But about a month after Abbott was paroled, he stabbed a man to death. As such, Mailer was indirectly responsible for someone's murder.

That, I think, serves as a metaphor of what "clever sillies" do to the whole society when people take their position papers and editorials seriously and create policy based on them.

As for Mailer, his friendship with the killer resulted in book about the prison system, "In the Belly of the Beast." So what if a mere commoner was murdered? Mailer got a best-seller out of the deal! In some ways, that also serves as a metaphor for the careers of the "clever sillies."

(All of this info, disturbing as it is, is documented and sourced on Wikipedia.)

[Hotwheels]

(01-15-2016 11:25 PM)Hades Wrote:  

Bosch mentioned this, you find your Peggy Hills in the social sciences.

Trump has low IQ language because it's the most persuasive. Older Presidents didn't use it because the research wasn't out yet.

Frankly, Trump's speech patterns annoy the hell out of me.

I understand why he does it however. One has to look at the big picture.

The intellectual elite is a decided minority and unlikely to be swayed.

[The Beast1]

I've mentioned this in another thread, but i'll bring it up here.

High intelligence is dysgenic. It produces individuals who think they're smarter than the world around them. Instead of acknowledging their inferiority at simply not knowing they'd rather recreate the wheel and claim the material world is all that their is and there is nothing more to aspire to.

This thinking leads to nihilism which leads to death. These people never marry and if they do they never have any children to pass their "intelligence" onto out of some perceived gift to not bring a new being into what they perceive as a shitty planet.

All the while, the less intelligence hustlers of the world who have some spiritual aspirations not only pop out 2+ kids you also have the low impulse ghetto trash not giving a shit who the baby daddy is.

It's evolution in action, and nature has dictated that those who do not have children didn't have the mental/spiritual/whatever fortitude to pas their genes onto the next generation. Thankfully those in academia will die without passing on their genes hopefully lessening the amount of dysgenic individuals occupying higher education.

As for my own beliefs, I used to call my self a socialist liberal until I went to college. In my 3rd year I began to see that liberalism was being used to shelter the inferior from their own faults and no one who calls themselves a liberal actually wants to participate in self improvement. Something I came upon myself. I angered a lot of people because of that and subsequently was pushed out of many circles.

The sooner higher education as a whole is defunded and left to the purveyor of the rich and talented the better. We could probably eliminate the social sciences and be better off for it as a society. Point me to ground breaking research in sociology, philosophy, and poli sci and i'll reconsider my stance. But as of now, these programs provide no value beyond deconstructionist BS ideas.

[roberto]

There's a strong correlation in my experience between high intelligence and a lack of practical skills. Practical people tend to be right wing as they can use logic effectively to solve problems.

[CynicalContrarian]

Wisdom & intelligence are not one & the same.

You may be able to recite the periodic table off by heart.
Yet it helps to know that mixing H20 with potassium is not a wise choice.

[Glaucon]

These academic people are not clever, they are just good at vomiting up the bullshit they have been fed.

They are weak,coward, useless and just a drag on society.

[CynicalContrarian]

(01-16-2016 06:33 AM)Glaucon Wrote:  

These academic people are not clever, they are just good at vomiting up the bullshit they have been fed.

They are weak,coward, useless and just a drag on society.

Which reminds me of one girl I knew in high school (Yr 11) who was
essentially regarded as the highest achieving student that year.

Pretty girl that she was, of a pleasant personality.
To hear here talk in general or discuss her antics on the weekend,
there was nothing to suggest she was near genius nor a deep thinker.

She was simply the most capable of regurgitating the material
presented to her.

Whereas my one buddy at the time was the one reading Steven Hawking's
'A Brief History Of Time'. Nerd that he was, he was actually
a charismatic nerd & I'd not be surprised if he went much further in
life than the girl in question.

[RichieP]

There are some very smart conservatives who are also jaw-droppingly dumb in areas beyond their expertise (and even crucial spots within their supposed expertise. *cough* Economists.)

There are different kinds of intelligence, and you rarely find them all within the same person.

I've known genius software developers with atrocious social skills, highly sharp computational biologists who at the same time are dogmatically religious and believe in creationism, etc.

Some VERY smart and prominent economists and finance people have no clue about good scientific methodology or rigorous logic, and regularly make massive errors in these areas (unfortunately to the massive detriment of global wealth/welfare).

I also know very successful people - real high achievers - who have no clue how to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Different kinds of intelligence. I also agree that wisdom and intelligence are different.

[zombiejimmorrison]

I don't think anyone's mentioned this yet but INDOCTRINATION! The school systems are controlled by governments and governments have been progressively growing and leaning left, this is not a coincidence. Anyone growing up in the west and especially people who go through universities will be more left leaning, they spend an extra 4 years in higher indoctrination.

When was the last time a teacher told you that tax is theft at a point of a gun and that in principle they're receiving a salary through violence, the answer is never. Same with the professors at universities. Or the scientists who receive government grants.

People want power, money, prestige and they'll use the path of least resistance. Parroting leftist dogma, which is really just another way of saying big government dogma isn't going to get you fired from your job or cause controversy. Quite the opposite, you'll be seen as kind, wanting to help the disadvantaged, open minded and possibly given a raise.

It doesn't matter what your IQ is, at this point in time in the west, the liberal ideology is the ruling one and you'll imbibe it until you consciously break away through philosophy or religion.

Leftist ideology is centered around the government growing, taking control of private institutions, redistributing wealth and blaming the free market. All fields of work and study are corrupted by governments not even STEM is immune.

However the institutions who are dependent on this redistributed money are the most vocal and use all the sophistry to keep cash flowing from productive people to themselves who are unproductive, e.g. gender study professors.

Challenging the status quo is time consuming and has a net negative on you as a person. Why challenge something when you're living comfortable, most smart people have good jobs that pay the bills, the system is immoral but it's not uncomfortable yet. People will lean left because it's easy and some of them because their jobs depend on it, Aaron Clarey summarizes the left into one eloquent word, lazy.

[storm]

Politics is not the only way to change the world.

Some people have other priorities, for example they are working on a new polymer which can make a space elevator a possibility. If that is their goal, it is better to simply agree with the popular consensus.

[BortimusPrime]

It's a good idea to make a separation in one's head between "intelligent" and "credentialed". People can obtain advanced degrees via grade inflated mollycoddling at Universities, or even in a difficult program it's still possible to end up with an advanced degree despite a middling intellect by studying and working harder than everyone else.

[AnonymousBosch]

(01-16-2016 04:42 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

High intelligence is dysgenic. It produces individuals who think they're smarter than the world around them. Instead of acknowledging their inferiority at simply not knowing they'd rather recreate the wheel and claim the material world is all that their is and there is nothing more to aspire to.

Whilst I agree with what you're saying, this is the attitude I'm talking about in the Illusory Superiority set.

A Midwit such as science-fiction typist / social justice champion John Scalzi would sit in the 100-120 field I'm thinking of. No matter what topic is brought up, they believe they are the unquestioned expert on the subject, to the extent of discounting experts with specialised knowledge in that field if they disagree with them. It's why they're such dreary writers and uncreative souls, regurgitating what they've watched and heard in entertainment media in their own 'work', because they have no real world observational experience and personal point of view.

It's not so much that they lack humility: they're too stupid and arrogant to believe the concept even exists, and, as such, they can never, ever admit when they're wrong about something because that moment of losing public face, tiny and inconsequential to most of us, is their greatest fear: for a moment, their ignorance is revealed.

My observation is highly-intelligent people fall into two camps: they either respect specialised knowledge and defer to expertise, as they understand intelligence above their is possible; or they're too specialised and obsessive in their interests to care if there's intelligence higher than theirs unless it specifically relates to their obsession.

This is how I spot it in a social situation:

- Bring up a particular stop that is considered 'intellectual' in a social group that the listener isn't familiar with:

The < 100 listener will try and steer the conversation elsewhere. This is a fair action, and why social success for the intelligent is having realistic expectations of your audience and knowing what level to pitch your conversations towards. These people aren't 'stupid' to me: they have specialised, real world knowledge that is their to be mined if you can downplay your intellectual arrogance.

The 100-120 listener will try to dance around the topic as if they're intimately familiar with it, dominating the conversation but not really saying anything of value in case their ignorance is discovered. If challenged on a point, they then need to 'win' at any cost, including intellectual dishonesty. (This is why the media is so interested in closing down comments from their readers- their ignorance is constantly being revealed). They are the dreariest people alive, because conversations are about avoiding truth for fear of discover, so everything is vagueness and evasion. This is why they love Social Justice: it gives them a clear script of the right thing to say to be considered 'smart'.

The 120+ listener is intrigued and lets the listener talk, only commenting if they have something of value to add. Obviously, their level of self-confidence and insecurity plays into this.

Above 135, assuming they're interested in socialisation, they're generally-confident enough to not only listen with interest to a topic they're unfamiliar about, always hoping to add to their knowledge, they won't interrupt to 'score points' in the conversation, but to seek clarification. This is why I love this forum: we all have our different strengths and weaknesses, and everyone adds to my knowledge.

The key tell for high intelligence for me is this:

I was listening to Quintus Curtius on a podcast a while ago - an obviously highly-intelligent man - and told him it spoke highly of his character when the host asked him if he was familiar with (I think) an obscure French Writer from the 1800's.

Quintus said "No, I'm not familiar with that writer. Do go on..."

See that simple, confident admission of ignorance, which pivots into a sign of interest in knowing more, with the invitation to continue talking so as to no longer be ignorant? That's high intelligence.

Meanwhile, John Scalzi would have this train of thought:

- A French Philosopher from the 1800's is someone a smart person would have read and know all about

- If they realise I don't know about that Philosopher, they won't think I'm Smart, and I need everyone to believe I'm the Smartest Person in the room!

- "I know that Philosopher! [Vague Statement confiming the fact] I'm such an expert on his [vaguely-described] work that I know their [vaguely-described] obscure influences [that I hope scares off the speaker from continuing on the topic because, after all, they're only pretending to be smart*, like me] and how it relates to [steers the topic around to an area they're more comfortable with and can display their authority on]."

See how nothing is ever said? It's all a complex dance of evasion to maintain social status. Now imagine being trapped at an art showing with these people all pontificating on the art as they sip wine and eat 'nibblies'.

It's hell on earth for me.

-----

* This is the core belief of the Illusory Superiority Set: no-one is actually smart - it's inconceivable that anyone could be smarter than themselves - so anyone who appears to be smart is just faking intelligence out of deep-insecurity, like they are, so are simply better liars than them.

These are the sort of university girls who have whole shelves full of Penguin Classics, but can never elucidate upon them, and read Young Adult fiction when no-one is looking.

These are the sort of girls who would accuse me of using a Thesaurus for saying 'elucidate' in writing in order to 'appear smart'.

[Disco_Volante]

Sean Penn's naïve involvement with El Chapo, and in the process making himself a target, is a good example of this leftist arrogant naivety. Their ideas crash in the real world.

[BortimusPrime]

(01-16-2016 11:49 AM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  

The 100-120 listener will try to dance around the topic as if they're intimately familiar with it, dominating the conversation but not really saying anything of value in case their ignorance is discovered. If challenged on a point, they then need to 'win' at any cost, including intellectual dishonesty. (This is why the media is so interested in closing down comments from their readers- their ignorance is constantly being revealed). They are the dreariest people alive, because conversations are about avoiding truth for fear of discover, so everything is vagueness and evasion. This is why they love Social Justice: it gives them a clear script of the right thing to say to be considered 'smart'.

Damn, you just described 90% of the conversations I've had. I was thinking about how to word something similar in this thread, but you've explained it far better than I.

[dispenser]

(01-15-2016 11:31 PM)HankMoody Wrote:  

(01-15-2016 11:25 PM)Hades Wrote:  

Bosch mentioned this, you find your Peggy Hills in the social sciences.

Trump has low IQ language because it's the most persuasive. Older Presidents didn't use it because the research wasn't out yet.

I'm an attorney and I communicate in small words. Not because I don't know the big words, but because there are older, simpler, and better words. Those are the ones I use.

I learned that from Hemingway.

You're both right.
It's a legacy of the Norman conquest; a French speaking, Latin writing elite, versus an illiterate Anglo-Saxon peasantry. The old "pig" versus "pork" distinction.

Pigs are the reality of sty tenders. Pork is the reality of the ones being served the meat. The work on the ground versus the status report.

Trump is speaking to the white working class in their own language, not the language of administrative reports, not in any second-hand, abstracted, rhetorical or theoretical way.
Which is why it rings of truth.

Can be a little annoying to people who value their education, who take pride in it.
But most college students and graduates have a hypocritical sympathy for the working class, while at the same time looking down on folksiness.
So they're not able to pop their monocles about this with a completely clear conscience.

[AnonymousBosch]

(01-16-2016 02:30 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

Damn, you just described 90% of the conversations I've had. I was thinking about how to word something similar in this thread, but you've explained it far better than I.

My condolences, mate.

Once you recognise the pattern of intellectual posturing via deliberate vagueness; constant evasion' focusing on a more comfortable tangential aspect; reframing the topic; outright dishonesty; and the need to 'win' to 'prove' their intelligence, then you'll never unsee it.

These are the desperate tactics of the Illusory Superiority Midwits with Self-Worth Issues (most of them) and you can instantly peg their IQ by their use. The only believe they're the Intelligentsia because smarter people find them tedious and untrustworthy, so they don't have more intelligent friends.

This wasn't such a problem when humility was considered a virtue. With the destruction of Objective Morality, these people have become uncontrolled monsters, dominating the cultural landscape, which is why the culture - books, movies, media, music and art is in such a sorry condition. They can only reconstruct what they've consumed, ('what if we add zombies to Jane Austen'), ('what if we remake Nancy Drew but she's Asian'?), which explains their voracious appetite for constant distraction. No genuine interior life: just fear of their flaws being discovered and judged negatively for them.

Of course, their Dysfunctional Nature guarantees they'll never shut the fuck up reframing their flaws as virtues, because they're trying to subconsciously-generate the rejection from others their insecure natures believe they deserve.

Religion really kept these Midwits in check. This is why Social Justice Warriors so often resembles Religious Crusaders.

Obviously, everyone in this IQ band aren't dangerous or stupid or dishonest by default: correctly-socialised, they're fine. However, if they're not popular in high school, or were never considered 'cool' by their peers, or struggled with the opposite sex, or grew resentful of society due to being gay, or fat, or mentally-toxic, then you're in trouble.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

(01-16-2016 10:11 AM)zombiejimmorrison Wrote:  

I don't think anyone's mentioned this yet but INDOCTRINATION! The school systems are controlled by governments and governments have been progressively growing and leaning left, this is not a coincidence. Anyone growing up in the west and especially people who go through universities will be more left leaning, they spend an extra 4 years in higher indoctrination.

When was the last time a teacher told you that tax is theft at a point of a gun and that in principle they're receiving a salary through violence, the answer is never. Same with the professors at universities. Or the scientists who receive government grants.

People want power, money, prestige and they'll use the path of least resistance. Parroting leftist dogma, which is really just another way of saying big government dogma isn't going to get you fired from your job or cause controversy. Quite the opposite, you'll be seen as kind, wanting to help the disadvantaged, open minded and possibly given a raise.

It doesn't matter what your IQ is, at this point in time in the west, the liberal ideology is the ruling one and you'll imbibe it until you consciously break away through philosophy or religion.

Leftist ideology is centered around the government growing, taking control of private institutions, redistributing wealth and blaming the free market. All fields of work and study are corrupted by governments not even STEM is immune.

However the institutions who are dependent on this redistributed money are the most vocal and use all the sophistry to keep cash flowing from productive people to themselves who are unproductive, e.g. gender study professors.

Challenging the status quo is time consuming and has a net negative on you as a person. Why challenge something when you're living comfortable, most smart people have good jobs that pay the bills, the system is immoral but it's not uncomfortable yet. People will lean left because it's easy and some of them because their jobs depend on it, Aaron Clarey summarizes the left into one eloquent word, lazy.

Excellent point. This deserves its own post "How were you indoctrinated in school?"

For me, it was buying their ideas that women were "oppressed" -- as if men sat around for thousands of years with nothing to do but hold women back.

They should have taught instead that men didn't oppress women -- they emancipated them from their own biological constraints by coming up with all sorts of technological innovations so that women didn't have to chase after kids in a hut all day.

Did the teachers think all those dishwashers, houses with heat, and immunization vaccines appeared one day by magic? All the things we take for granted need to be taught as things we should not take for granted.

[BortimusPrime]

(01-16-2016 08:36 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  

Obviously, everyone in this IQ band aren't dangerous or stupid or dishonest by default: correctly-socialised, they're fine. However, if they're not popular in high school, or were never considered 'cool' by their peers, or struggled with the opposite sex, or grew resentful of society due to being gay, or fat, or mentally-toxic, then you're in trouble.

I'd say college is the big shifting point for these people. That seems to be a big stage of individuation in our society since you're away from your parents and high school social clique that has already cemented a social status for you. So pseudo-intellectuals have this opportunity to reinvent themselves and I guess they build a narcissistic shield where they re-remember their high school years as having been bullied for being too creative or smart, rather than for lack of social skills or just having a really punchable face.

I remember my first year in college I roomed with a friend from high school, and he underwent this transformation. It was a bizarre spectacle to watch: he started taking black and white photographs of random objects and pasting them up on his side of the dorm, developed a zealous interest in environmentalism, started dressing in vintage clothing. This was around the beginning of the age of the modern hipster.

Notably the people who had cultivated genuine skills didn't seem to have this kind of shift into a Portlandia-esque stereotype going into college. I'd surmise that the type of self-esteem developed through childhood is an essential factor in the behavior we're discussing. I'd have to go digging to cite this, but it was a psych blog attempting to explain why trying to encourage minorities in school with affirmative action doesn't work out well. The premise was that genuine accomplishment creates healthy self-esteem, but being told how wonderful you are without hard evidence to back it up makes a person defensive and competition-avoidant: they don't want the house of cards of them being geniuses to fall apart. This describes the +1 std dev pseudo-intellectual to a tee.