The Maelstrom of Violence

[pbrower2a]

(09-27-2017, 10:09 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 09:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Can a person of low-normal intelligence lead a happy life? Sure -- with depressed expectations and a good work ethic. 



http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/occupations.aspx

Contrary to myth, many successful people are not particularly brilliant. "Janitors and sextons" may on the average have an IQ of about 92, and physicians may have an average IQ around 120 -- but 10% of "janitors and sextons" are smarter than  about 20% of all physicians. Now try figuring how someone with an IQ of 105 got into and through med school and into medical practice  and how someone with an IQ around 110 couldn't find a more dignified way to make a living than as a janitor. Didn't apply oneself effectively when such was possible and appropriate?

Now, what is success? If all that one dislikes about one's job is low pay, then things are not too bad. If all that one likes is the paycheck, then one is in a very poor fit of a job.

Some caveats to this scheme. First of all, some people may work as janitors or other such low-paying jobs while they study to be doctors, or while they develop or supplement their career in a field that requires more intelligence but doesn't pay well, such as an artist or musician, or else is working to get a business going.

Second, it is assumed that IQ is genetic, and/or that it stays the same and is inherently fixed throughout life. But it's all dependent on an IQ test. That the test is skewed toward white people is well known. The test itself may change over time too. Aside from this, the IQ test result can change, first as one matures in childhood (I know that mine went up), or it can go down with age (I think that has happened to me too), or abuse of the body and brain (drug users and addicts, alcoholism, depression, etc.)

Third, the IQ test is assumed to measure intelligence, but many aspects of intelligence are not measured, or not measurable, such as emotional, social, physical kinds of intelligence. Western society has overemphasized the clerical, intellectual kinds of intelligence. That was to my personal advantage on such tests, but did they accurately measure my "intelligence"? I don't think so.

True. One could be a 'janitor or sexton' because after being fired for embezzlement as an accountant or being driven out of a professional occupation for a felony conviction (let us say for DUI or drugs), that might be all that is available. Someone might have found carpentry supremely satisfying despite having an IQ well above the average (95) for the occupation. Note also that occupations in which there are huge numbers of people (as in "elementary school/kindergarten teachers") has a 10th percentile near 85 and a 90th percentile around 122. It can be a rush to influence a child in a positive way, which may explain why many successful people like to be involved in Scouting, 4-H, FFA, Boys' and Girls' clubs, etc., so someone who thought of teaching as a stopgap until saving enough funds for law school remains a teacher. But that does not explain the rather narrow range for "clerical work and supervision", which has huge numbers of people, in which the 10th percentile is around 91 and the 90th percentile is around 117. There is a clear hierarchy of intellectual difficulty in clerical work. Categories can also change. "Computer occupations" once included data-entry people who needed not be especially bright, so that category has shifted to the right from where it might have been in the 1980s.

No occupation has more than 10% of its members with an IQ at 140 or higher -- not even attorneys, natural scientists/mathematicians, college professors, electrical engineers, or physicians. There simply aren't that many people with IQs much above 135.