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This is the plot to a fictional movie. Intelligence is a factor of many things, and most of those factors are not genetic.
Your observation seems close to the opinions of old school eugenicists. "The wrong people are having children".
The intro to Idiocracy doesn't actually mention genetics.
Smart people value intelligence and people who value intelligence will raise their children as such.
Parents who don't value intelligence don't raise their kids with intelligence in mind.
Public schools aren't actually about education. They're about job training and obedience, so they wont fill the gaps the parents are leaving.
I agree with everything you said, but I'm going to point out something. If there is a common kneejerk reaction to some particular topic, there's probably a reason for that. You yourself said its annoying? I suppose its predictable then. If you can predict that people are going to react in some way, you can write with more explanation to clarify that you aren't actually supporting something like eugenics. The poster I'm responding to did not do this.
I took this lack of explanation as support (which, on reflection, might be leaping to conclusions). The overall tone of the comment is rather judgemental.
The commenter is also wrong; IQ hasn't been "drifting towards the bottom", the average IQ increases every year. Its why they have to constantly adjust the tests, because 100 is meant to be an average score by design. This is primarily why I chose to respond to him. He's not saying " which is why we should invest in family planning" or "we should invest in children's education", he's making an untrue statement, and then pretending that this will cause some sort of feedback loop. Dumb people making more dumb people.
IQ is not some absolute quantitative metric of intelligence. The people who treat it like it is... I find that a lot of them are pushing some sort of angle or simply don't understand it.
A kneejerk reaction from an unreasonable populace doesn't mean shit. If i point out the Christian religion is cartoonishly evil most people will have a kneejerk reaction to defend the evil religion, but that doesn't make it any less true.
You are very vague...
Im not going to write some big long podt, just two things:
people, on average, are not getting dumber. Anything you noticed observationally about dumb people having more children does not seem to have any effect on the world. Human nutrition has improved vastly over the past 100 years, as has education, etc.
IQ increases every year. I don't think this is evidence people are getting smarter because I think IQ is a poor measure of intelligence. I'm pointing this out to you because your statement about "IQ drifting toward the bottom'" is factually untrue.
So, this post is wrong?
Sorry, I thought this was in another thread that was actually talking about IQ. I've clicked through too many articles.
This article doesn't mention IQ at all, even though your response does. IQ isn't an absolute quantitative measure for intelligence even though many people conflate them - this is probably why the article doesn't mention it.
I'd dig into the Financial Times article that this Neoscope article is about but it's pay-walled. The neoscope article makes some case for intelligence declining (I don't have time to read those citations right now), but I'd point out this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with less intelligent parents having children. It could be evidence that the material conditions for us ordinary citizens is declining as a whole (I think we would both agree on that point). Cost of living is up, people are working longer. Long COVID probably has something to do with it, and stress.
The problem with eugenics is proposed solutions, or criteria based of prejudice.
I claim it’s both fine and correct to state that the wrong people have too many children. You’re the wrong people if you have more children than you can adequately care for, to raise sufficiently for them to have a successful life. You’re the wrong people if you have children you’re not prepared for or otherwise can’t commit to raising or don’t have the ability to raise.
It’s wrong, eugenics, when
Better answers include