I had a series (roughly 1300 people) where self reports of team roles was compared with observer based evaluations. I made sure each person got at least 6 observers. There was so little overlap that when giving feedback I told people to concentrate on what their observers had reported about them
I don't think the predictive power is ever what has made IQ more compelling. It is how we think about choice and possibility.
If you predict that someone will fail to become an engineer because they aren't conscientious enough people treat that as something they are choosing. It feels like they could just put in more effort, focus more of details or whatever. If you tell them they will fail because they lack the IQ to be an engineer it feels like you are saying to them they aren't good enough or they are inferior in some way.
Basically, we care about IQ because we’d all like to be smarter but we don't all want to have different big 5 traits. We may vaguely say we want to be less lazy but at each time we choose to be lazy it feels like a choice we make while not being as quick to get a solution or see a possibility feels like something we'd like to do but can't.
Imo an underrated aspect of personality literature is the combination of likely high heritability of personality plus high inter-decade within age cohort personality ranking (people get more conscientious and less neurotic as they age, but that happens to everyone - major personality shifts relative to your age cohort are rare).
The implication is that telling someone at thirty that all they have to do is go from 3rd percentile conscientiousness to 50th, is equivalent to telling someone at 70 IQ to raise it to 100. Good luck with that.
But accuracy not what makes a prediction feel like an inability. Its the general point about free will. Even if you could make a perfect prediction from fundamental laws of physics that I will decide not to do something that doesn't mean I didn't have the choice about whether or not to do it -- it merely means you can predict that choice. And whether or not you are a compatabilist the point is that predictive accuracy isn't the only, or perhaps even primary, determinant of the judgement that you couldn't do it if you really wanted to.
It is also true that it is usually more plausible to adjust the amount of conscientiousness required than the amount of intelligence required. If you were really set on proving the Riemann hypothesis and were extremely mathematically gifted but you were pretty sure you lacked the conscientiousness needed to do it you could move to a remote mountain cabin with nothing else to do or get yourself thrown in prison. Less you could do if you lacked the intelligence.
It all depends on why you are looking at this prediction.
Intelligence is the most important thing of all to understand, more important than the origin of the universe, more important than climate change, more important than curing cancer, more important than anything else. That is because human intelligence is our major adaptive function, and only by optimizing it will we be able to save ourselves and other living things from ultimate destruction. - Douglas Detterman ‘16
I grew up with a former child prodigy, his interests were chemistry, computer hardware, software (especially AI). He was super depressed and I told him he could easily get a well paying job in the tech industry. After 3 years of pointless depressing suffering, he finally searched for a job, attained it and is doing very well in his career. That makes me glad. His real father left him early and his mom is average.
His bottleneck was just mental issues. Whenever geniuses whine about being smart, I want to slap them silly, they have an extremely practical, god-like trait!
I really find it disgusting that we waste so much high quality human capital with our culture. Lazy 130 IQ+ers should be forced into a bootcamp of sorts. Give them liberty back once they get their shit together.
We should get genius chad and genius stacey to become sperm/egg donors and make lots of beautiful, smart embryos for surrogacy. Pressure normal families to adopt and raise some of these kids as their own. Remind them that the whiz kid will probably get a high earning career for them to leech off of, so it is a smart investment.
Cranking out an army of geniuses will help us reach civilizational milestones like very long lifespans, reuniting with some dead loved ones, better leisurely activities, better QOL, blah blah.
I am only like about 1 SD above average. May as well cuck out to 6ft+ gym nerd chad with blonde hair, blue eyes, an idea north european phenotype, Taylor swift fan and is not racist. Then combine his seed with genius stacey egg. Then me and my queer, diverse polycule raise some of these kids together!
If you a had a nerd boot camp school in your neighborhood and for free, they would go there and get stressed in a good way. Then you'd have a native pipeline for high IQ jobs and would not need to import from South or East Asia.
I'm sure that most children these days are suffering under darkened intellect, damaged judgements, recall, prudence, focus, and most other mental faculties, mind-crushing levels that did not exist back or before early 1970s when society was Sane, virtuous-valued, trusting safe society were fathers were the rule and mothers and most women were not delusionally baby-murdering accepting insane.
I've written this up here.
Ever wonder Why is this world insane, most women and the children they raised are so Sick?
You missed the most significant Jung's influence and concept that so Sickens our nation and perhaps most of West .. the 'devouring mother'. In this masculine rejecting Feminized level of nightmare we live in; fatherless children and young child education that is now never lighten with masculine presence so the predators can mind-rape their childhood victims without fear of being discovered and what would have been Witch trials.
The public school system (as well as too many fatherless families) has become a psychological abuse system with one major goal - to retard adulthood and extend infancy 'Devouring Mother' where 28 year olds are still stalling starting life while psychologically still breast-feeding, filled with programs of how to feel, not how to think, so 'men without chests' feelie-thinkys.
I recently used AI to first list what a K-12 education should cover, then paired it down to k-8th and argued that replace most of the touchy-feelie delusional women teachers and admin with get the job done focused men teachers (and the few women that can hold even with those men) and any child that can't keep up with that rate must go away into a different 'pepper-picking' education track and not hold back the class.
At end of 8th grade a systematic test given and the top 15% get university track free of cost, it they want and if they are good enough can extend to Masters and PhD. Starting in 8th grade like was normal 150 years ago when Latin and Greek was expected to a large degree by 8th grade.
Those other 85% go into trades or such so by age 20 they may be earning a level that can marry and start a family, men at 20 marrying women at 16 for example, throw out a bunch of children that bother their parents mostly raise, and march into full productive adulthood without all the Witch-Evil Mind-raping that is standard today.
--
And what about effects of poverty? Who can we know has greatly driven poverty?
I've tracked down the information to argue that since 1979 Gov and corp have been silencing and impoverishing regular people. If Synagogue of Satan Zionist and other minions had left well enough alone, you would not believe how much better we all and our nation would have been. Listen for taste, read for truth.
very low R squared in those models, in science anything below 0.7 means the model tells you nothing yet social science likes to draw a long bow. the take away should be the model does not have enough information
It's not IQ which is the driving factor for high IQ people in squalor but conscientiousness. They care hence are poor. I'm one of those people and am so because the courts ordered me to not work for five years because I have a shit about my fellow man.
I think it's clear IQ is a mental quality that is distinct from personality facets such as conscientiousness, openness,etc. Look at how E Asian and N Euros can have similar IQs but quite different personality profiles.
I have no reason to disagree with the distinction you pointed out. However, my concern when I typed the initial comment was that a too rigid (bordering on reified demarcation) between IQ and personality fails to consider the very high likelihood that while personality may not impact much on performance IQ, IQ (especially in the very high and very low margins) can significantly affect personality.
When I was an older boy I tested at 136. Not anymore, I'm sure, at 62+ with a life full of TBI (physical and chem) and a near death. I struggled with dyslexia until I did not. It's the first story in this AI generated audio overview of a part of my journal.
Do selective breeding and crank out an army of geniuses to make transhumanism happen. That's basically the only practical way to flatten differences from genetic dispositions. Pressure average families to be surrogate parents to embryos created from the gametes of geniuses. Tell them of the financial rewards of adopting a genius kid who will probably get a high earning career.
I had a series (roughly 1300 people) where self reports of team roles was compared with observer based evaluations. I made sure each person got at least 6 observers. There was so little overlap that when giving feedback I told people to concentrate on what their observers had reported about them
Self report is next to useless, particularly if people sense which parameteres are socially wished for.
I don't think the predictive power is ever what has made IQ more compelling. It is how we think about choice and possibility.
If you predict that someone will fail to become an engineer because they aren't conscientious enough people treat that as something they are choosing. It feels like they could just put in more effort, focus more of details or whatever. If you tell them they will fail because they lack the IQ to be an engineer it feels like you are saying to them they aren't good enough or they are inferior in some way.
Basically, we care about IQ because we’d all like to be smarter but we don't all want to have different big 5 traits. We may vaguely say we want to be less lazy but at each time we choose to be lazy it feels like a choice we make while not being as quick to get a solution or see a possibility feels like something we'd like to do but can't.
Imo an underrated aspect of personality literature is the combination of likely high heritability of personality plus high inter-decade within age cohort personality ranking (people get more conscientious and less neurotic as they age, but that happens to everyone - major personality shifts relative to your age cohort are rare).
The implication is that telling someone at thirty that all they have to do is go from 3rd percentile conscientiousness to 50th, is equivalent to telling someone at 70 IQ to raise it to 100. Good luck with that.
But accuracy not what makes a prediction feel like an inability. Its the general point about free will. Even if you could make a perfect prediction from fundamental laws of physics that I will decide not to do something that doesn't mean I didn't have the choice about whether or not to do it -- it merely means you can predict that choice. And whether or not you are a compatabilist the point is that predictive accuracy isn't the only, or perhaps even primary, determinant of the judgement that you couldn't do it if you really wanted to.
It is also true that it is usually more plausible to adjust the amount of conscientiousness required than the amount of intelligence required. If you were really set on proving the Riemann hypothesis and were extremely mathematically gifted but you were pretty sure you lacked the conscientiousness needed to do it you could move to a remote mountain cabin with nothing else to do or get yourself thrown in prison. Less you could do if you lacked the intelligence.
It all depends on why you are looking at this prediction.
Don't disagreee with the broader message, but specific talent (e.g. skill at maths, music, sports, etc) matters more than intelligence itself.
Here is a disagreement.
Intelligence is the most important thing of all to understand, more important than the origin of the universe, more important than climate change, more important than curing cancer, more important than anything else. That is because human intelligence is our major adaptive function, and only by optimizing it will we be able to save ourselves and other living things from ultimate destruction. - Douglas Detterman ‘16
a citation would be helpful. ie, I doubt what you are asserting.
I grew up with a former child prodigy, his interests were chemistry, computer hardware, software (especially AI). He was super depressed and I told him he could easily get a well paying job in the tech industry. After 3 years of pointless depressing suffering, he finally searched for a job, attained it and is doing very well in his career. That makes me glad. His real father left him early and his mom is average.
His bottleneck was just mental issues. Whenever geniuses whine about being smart, I want to slap them silly, they have an extremely practical, god-like trait!
I really find it disgusting that we waste so much high quality human capital with our culture. Lazy 130 IQ+ers should be forced into a bootcamp of sorts. Give them liberty back once they get their shit together.
The carrot works better than the stick.
Make it more likely that high performing intelligent people can get married and start families.
This is a major problem with men’s motivation generally, these days.
"Whenever geniuses whine about being smart, I want to slap them silly, they have an extremely practical, god-like trait!"
Agreed. But life at the extremes of the curve is rather challenging.
FIRST. SORRY, ILL READ IT NOW LOL.
We should get genius chad and genius stacey to become sperm/egg donors and make lots of beautiful, smart embryos for surrogacy. Pressure normal families to adopt and raise some of these kids as their own. Remind them that the whiz kid will probably get a high earning career for them to leech off of, so it is a smart investment.
Cranking out an army of geniuses will help us reach civilizational milestones like very long lifespans, reuniting with some dead loved ones, better leisurely activities, better QOL, blah blah.
I am only like about 1 SD above average. May as well cuck out to 6ft+ gym nerd chad with blonde hair, blue eyes, an idea north european phenotype, Taylor swift fan and is not racist. Then combine his seed with genius stacey egg. Then me and my queer, diverse polycule raise some of these kids together!
I study sexual orientation/interests. Self report is Queen here. King, when possible, is measurement of genital arousal patterns to relevant stimuli.
Say you're a smart kid. You can do half the work and get good grades. Then you're expected to work full time. Some never change their work habits.
If you a had a nerd boot camp school in your neighborhood and for free, they would go there and get stressed in a good way. Then you'd have a native pipeline for high IQ jobs and would not need to import from South or East Asia.
I'm sure that most children these days are suffering under darkened intellect, damaged judgements, recall, prudence, focus, and most other mental faculties, mind-crushing levels that did not exist back or before early 1970s when society was Sane, virtuous-valued, trusting safe society were fathers were the rule and mothers and most women were not delusionally baby-murdering accepting insane.
I've written this up here.
Ever wonder Why is this world insane, most women and the children they raised are so Sick?
AI generated audio overview of article;
https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/dcc1110c-6fdc-4966-a0a6-10948155a59c/audio
"Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2220:, 9th July 2025, A Letter to Traditional Catholic Bishops, Calling for Champions."
https://stevenwork.substack.com/p/multiverse-journal-index-number-2220
--
You missed the most significant Jung's influence and concept that so Sickens our nation and perhaps most of West .. the 'devouring mother'. In this masculine rejecting Feminized level of nightmare we live in; fatherless children and young child education that is now never lighten with masculine presence so the predators can mind-rape their childhood victims without fear of being discovered and what would have been Witch trials.
The public school system (as well as too many fatherless families) has become a psychological abuse system with one major goal - to retard adulthood and extend infancy 'Devouring Mother' where 28 year olds are still stalling starting life while psychologically still breast-feeding, filled with programs of how to feel, not how to think, so 'men without chests' feelie-thinkys.
I recently used AI to first list what a K-12 education should cover, then paired it down to k-8th and argued that replace most of the touchy-feelie delusional women teachers and admin with get the job done focused men teachers (and the few women that can hold even with those men) and any child that can't keep up with that rate must go away into a different 'pepper-picking' education track and not hold back the class.
At end of 8th grade a systematic test given and the top 15% get university track free of cost, it they want and if they are good enough can extend to Masters and PhD. Starting in 8th grade like was normal 150 years ago when Latin and Greek was expected to a large degree by 8th grade.
Those other 85% go into trades or such so by age 20 they may be earning a level that can marry and start a family, men at 20 marrying women at 16 for example, throw out a bunch of children that bother their parents mostly raise, and march into full productive adulthood without all the Witch-Evil Mind-raping that is standard today.
--
And what about effects of poverty? Who can we know has greatly driven poverty?
I've tracked down the information to argue that since 1979 Gov and corp have been silencing and impoverishing regular people. If Synagogue of Satan Zionist and other minions had left well enough alone, you would not believe how much better we all and our nation would have been. Listen for taste, read for truth.
AI generated audio overview of article;
https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/9fc1b713-4c44-49bd-9c29-04fc3fe09744/audio
"Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2223:, 14th July 2025, State's Organized Planned Disempowerment of the American Citizen"
https://stevenwork.substack.com/p/multiverse-journal-index-number-2223
Feedback welcomed.
God Bless., Steve
Doesn't that sound better?
Excellent. Thanks.
very low R squared in those models, in science anything below 0.7 means the model tells you nothing yet social science likes to draw a long bow. the take away should be the model does not have enough information
It's not IQ which is the driving factor for high IQ people in squalor but conscientiousness. They care hence are poor. I'm one of those people and am so because the courts ordered me to not work for five years because I have a shit about my fellow man.
I see that this article takes for granted that intelligence isn't in fact a component of personality.
I think it's clear IQ is a mental quality that is distinct from personality facets such as conscientiousness, openness,etc. Look at how E Asian and N Euros can have similar IQs but quite different personality profiles.
I have no reason to disagree with the distinction you pointed out. However, my concern when I typed the initial comment was that a too rigid (bordering on reified demarcation) between IQ and personality fails to consider the very high likelihood that while personality may not impact much on performance IQ, IQ (especially in the very high and very low margins) can significantly affect personality.
When I was an older boy I tested at 136. Not anymore, I'm sure, at 62+ with a life full of TBI (physical and chem) and a near death. I struggled with dyslexia until I did not. It's the first story in this AI generated audio overview of a part of my journal.
https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/d3d50ae1-20db-4749-8c7b-6ce30c248e7b/audio
God Bless., Steve
Do selective breeding and crank out an army of geniuses to make transhumanism happen. That's basically the only practical way to flatten differences from genetic dispositions. Pressure average families to be surrogate parents to embryos created from the gametes of geniuses. Tell them of the financial rewards of adopting a genius kid who will probably get a high earning career.
Currently, research in psychometrics and genetic enhancement is being conducted, which gives promise to the future.