The Maelstrom of Violence

[Classic-Xer]

(09-29-2017, 08:41 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: More on this theme:




It is possible to look at this chart and see at the low end (10th percentile) what the intellectual qualifications are. A not-so-brilliant physician might be consigned to specialties that might not be so intellectually demanding. Getting into the medical profession is obviously difficult, requiring much intellectual proficiency before getting into med school. The second-most demanding looks like "legal professions".  I can imagine the low end being involved in such activities as collecting a debt through the use of a threat with a legal firm. Better this than the dead fish delivered to the doorstep of someone who gambled on credit and lost. College professors? The 10th percentile is around 95%. This may suggest the pedantic professor at a liberal arts school who knows one book and teaches it in a Great Books tradition. As such schools disappear, that sort of professor is clearly dying out or being consigned to a high school, where he needs more flexibility (10th percentile at an IQ of 91).

Hard work and dedicated specialization may put one in a surprisingly-strong field.  Could it be that smart but lazy, troubled, or indecisive people can end up as janitors or truck drivers?

But if one is smart, has a good work ethic, has access to credit and the willingness to use it, then the sky might be the limit. I would guess that although a job description can describe a paper-pushing clerk well, it poorly describes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Albert Einstein. Those two were basically what they did, and they got to choose what they did. For this one can look at the 90th percentile. Yes, there might be a janitor with an IQ of 130, but I doubt that such a janitor would be happy with such a job. 90% of all janitors have an IQ under 111...

I look at the 90th percentile for physicians, attorneys, college professors, and natural scientists/musicians, and I see an IQ of 132. It is easy to assume that someone like Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Noam Chomsky loves what he does. It is safe to assume that the 91st through 99th percentiles of intelligence encompass people like this. There just aren't that many people with IQs over 130 that people so smart can be 10% of any profession.

So let's look at the 90th percentiles for people in some other categories:

electrical engineers 128
material and design engineers 128
finance/insurance/real estate occupations 128
computer occupations 128
social scientists 126
administrative occupations 126
high-school teachers 125
creative occupations 125
service managers 125
social workers and clergy 124

These fields offer much to those who do them. Even if the pay isn't so great for high-school teachers, social workers and clergy,  and lots of artists and writers are 'starving', the work offers potentially far more satisfaction than 'it pays the bills'.

Now let's look at the other end for the 90th percentile.

metalworking craftsmen 107 (the lowest level of IQ at the 90th percentile)
"operatives, other" (whatever that means) 109
truck drivers 109
freight and material handlers 109
janitors and sextons 111
carpenters 111
construction craftsmen other than carpenters 111
plumbers 112
assemblers 113

It is clear that one does most of these jobs solely for the money. It's hard to imagine any intellectual satisfaction from doing them.  Maybe there are virtues in having low expectations in life. Plumbers are skilled workers, but their work is unpleasant and often dangerous. Metalworking craftsmen? That includes foundry work. It might be more skilled and demanding than "janitors and sextons", but if you have ever worked in a foundry you have experienced a world that fits some images of hell. Maybe no brimstone, but certainly much fire.

It is obviously difficult to keep working for long in an occupation for which one lacks the intellectual standards. But working at an occupation far below one's talent? That is one possible component of alienation.

The work requires a variety of skills and a variety of knowledge and know how relating to different tasks and is often very fulfilling. Guess who was in that category 30 years ago. I've advanced since then. I assume you've never had a person standing and watching  in awe of what you are capable of doing or the work your capable of accomplishing or the problem you're able to solve.