Tag: freakshow

Separating superintelligence from intelligence

I’m informed this ecard is “very me”, which I suppose is probably true, considering the source.  But in my defense, I should like to point out that when people quite reliably fail to understand what one is saying in a very clear, precise, and articulate manner, assuming that one will have to explain oneself to the unwashed, overweight, and quasi-illiterate masses is the decent and civilized thing to do.  Contra common assumptions, assuming MPAI is much more fair to one’s audience and one’s interlocutors than the assumption that everyone is capable of understanding what one is saying.  While I may happen to be arrogant, that is merely a coincidence and the impression that I may occasionally appear to be talking down to people is less an indicator of that arrogance than material evidence that I am a decent and civilized individual dedicated to mutual comprehension in conversation.

However, it did remind me of this article in the New Yorker, which helps explains why so many intelligent and educated people regularly make such prodigious asses of themselves:

Perhaps our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the “bias blind spot.” This “meta-bias” is rooted in our ability to spot systematic mistakes in the decisions of others—we excel at noticing the flaws of friends—and inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves. Although the bias blind spot itself isn’t a new concept, West’s latest paper demonstrates that it applies to every single bias under consideration, from anchoring to so-called “framing effects.” In each instance, we readily forgive our own minds but look harshly upon the minds of other people.

And here’s the upsetting punch line: intelligence seems to make things worse. The scientists gave the students four measures of “cognitive sophistication.” As they report in the paper, all four of the measures showed positive correlations, “indicating that more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots.” This trend held for many of the specific biases, indicating that smarter people (at least as measured by S.A.T. scores) and those more likely to engage in deliberation were slightly more vulnerable to common mental mistakes. Education also isn’t a savior; as Kahneman and Shane Frederick first noted many years ago, more than fifty per cent of students at Harvard, Princeton, and M.I.T. gave the incorrect answer to the bat-and-ball question.

This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. I’ve long observed that most smart people don’t actually want to question their core assumptions anymore than stupid people do, and they’re far more inclined to attempt to BS people into letting them skate by on a bluff. I think this may be part of what separates the superintelligent from the intelligent and it’s something that we’ve seen at work here numerous times, most recently in the discourse with the Three Pound Brain gang. It’s what I tend to think of as “the second pass”. While I’m just as susceptible to the shortcut problem as anyone else, I have a natural tendency to mentally “check my work” before answering. This doesn’t mean I’m any less biased than anyone else, or that I don’t have the usual blind spots, only that I am inclined to take the time to go and search those blind spots and see what my biases have caused me to miss on the first pass. The object is to treat one’s own mind as harshly, ideally even more harshly, than one treats the minds of others.

For example, when I looked the two problems in the article, my brain leaped immediately to the conventional wrong answer, only it noted that the answer couldn’t possibly be correct. On the second pass, I worked it out instead of attempting to justify the initial assumption, and that answer subsequently turned out to be the correct one. The trick, I think, is attuning your mind to be suspicious and look more deeply when the answer seems obvious, but something doesn’t seem quite right about it. The fact that one’s intuitive thinking is prone to these errors doesn’t meant that one’s logical thinking will be. My philosophy is that since I will probably commit errors, I might as well be the one to catch them if I can.

This, of course, is why I am so adept at setting traps for others. The reason I know where to place them is that my intuitive mind has already fallen for them.

A blog of very particular interest

Being reliably informed that I may happen to possess a few idiosyncracies of my own, I’m always pleased to see when others unabashedly let their freak flag fly. Jamsco has launched a new blog that will no doubt be of massive interest to the State Park-visiting community as he is providing what he describes as A Guided Tour Of The Best State Parks In The World. And he’s not afraid to court a little controversy either, as exhibited by this daring call-out of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Last week the Star Tribune published its “Best Of Minnesota” magazine and in it they claim that the best state park in Minnesota is Whitewater State Park. They cite “miles of cool rivers, steep bluffs and deep valleys, drumming grouse and gobbling turkeys”

Now I will say that (A) Whitewater is a very pleasant place to visit, as I said in my review, and (B) it would be very difficult to choose the best state park, but no – Whitewater is not the best one. I will go on record and say that any one choosing a best state park that is not on the “East Coast” (i.e. Lake Superior or the Mississippi or St. Croix Rivers) will be wrong. Okay, probably wrong.

That’s right, it’s on record, bitch! While I am not among what I can only imagine to be the vast State Park-visiting demographic, I am very excited about the Guided Tour, as I cannot wait for the first serious East Coast-West Coast State Park blog war to kick off. Best of luck to Jamsco aka Biggie. (flashes sign) East Coast!

Obama’s IQ is still ~116

It will be interesting to see the disbelievers in pattern recognition attempt to explain this one away. You may recall that back in 2008, I noted that Obama’s IQ had an absolute sub-Mensa ceiling of 129 and that there was good reason to believe it is around 116. So, it was interesting to read this article discussing the relatively low quality of the 1981 class of students transferring to Columbia, which included one Barack Obama:

Breitbart News has learned that the transfer class that entered Columbia College in the fall of 1981 with Obama was one of the worst in recent memory, according to Columbia officials at the time. A Nov. 18, 1981 article in the Columbia Spectator, “Tight Housing Discourages Transfer Applications to CC,” written by student Jeremy Feldman and quoting admissions officials, reported: “On paper at least, the quality of the students accepted [as transfers] has declined along with the number of applicants, the officials say.”

Among accepted transfer students, the average combined math and verbal score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test is a 1,100 and their grade-point average at their former schools is about 3.0, Boatti said.

There were 67 transfer students with an average SAT score of 1,100. Guess what that equals on the SAT to IQ conversion chart? It’s between 115.51 and 116.55, depending upon whether one uses an SD of 15 or 16. Now, this isn’t absolute and conclusive proof that Obama’s IQ is 116, as it could well be a little bit higher or a little bit lower. But probably not much higher, because if he scored even 100 points more on the SAT, he wouldn’t have had to go to Occidental in the first place.

This is because the range from which that average SAT score was calculated was the 67 selected from the 450 who applied. That average was also 100 SAT points lower than the average Columbia freshman score of 1200. So, I would assume that the absolute low end SAT that Columbia accepted for transfers was probably half that gap, or 1050, which equates to a 111 IQ. So, we can reasonably conclude that Obama’s IQ is probably somewhere between 111 and 118, which is not very far from my original estimate of 116.

Nor am I the only one to have concluded that Obama possesses moderate intelligence rather than the exceptional intelligence in which the more credulous still believe despite the accumulating evidence of his presidential term. At the end of his 2011 post on the subject of Obama’s intelligence, which focuses on the Harvard Law Review and Harvard’s graduating honors, Ace of Spades said this:

Hah! This guy guesstimates that based on tangible proxy evidence, which is right in the middle of where I figured it would be. Now, this guy is not just completely making things up. He knows, because there are records of it, that Obama was not a National Merit Scholar, or National Merit Finalist, or the lowest subcategory, “Outstanding Participant.” (This seems to be an honor conferred by the College Board (the SAT people) primarily if not exclusively based on SAT scores.)

Since Obama did not make the list for any of those automatically-conferred SAT-based recognitions, we know his SATs must be below those thresholds, setting a hard upper cap on his possible SAT scores. We can then figure his highest, likeliest IQ score, because the SAT is just a modified version of the old Army IQ test. Current IQ tests and the SATs are both derived straight from the old Army IQ test, testing pretty much the same things and in pretty much the same ways. Different scoring system, but same ultimate term of comparison — how you rank compared to the general population, expressed as percentile.

Not dumb, but I never thought he was dumb — just not a genius. 116’s a perfectly respectable score, but no one goes bragging on it and claims to be a genius at 116. No on ever says, “I’m a mere 30 points away from qualifying for Mensa,” for example.

Good catch on that National Merit thing.

Well, its absence on Obama’s record appears fairly glaring when you’re a National Merit whatever yourself. Hilary Clinton, for example, was National Merit. I don’t remember if I was a finalist or a semi-finalist, though. I know they gave me some sort of certificate at a school assembly, but I can’t recall which one it was. I would assume semi-finalist, though, since in addition to having the SAT scores confirm the PSAT, being a finalist requires “having an outstanding academic record, and being endorsed and recommended by a high school official” My academic record would be better described as “unique” than “outstanding”, since I was the first National Merit student to graduate without honors in the school’s history. Intelligence is a poor substitute for hard work.

Furthermore, it should be noted that a 116 IQ is a full standard deviation above the norm. It’s not calling someone stupid to estimate that they are smarter than the majority of the American people. In fact, based on the 30-point communication gap, there is reason to believe that a 116-IQ president is more likely to be successful than a Mensa-qualified 132-IQ president. There is far more to success than raw intelligence, particularly in a field such as politics that requires lots of people to like you.

R stands for Rape

Does Undead Press publish Wängsty?

There’s recently been a flurry of posts about Undead Press, a small publishing house that a) doesn’t pay, b) allegedly humiliates its authors by inserting gratuitous rape scenes into their stories, without asking those authors if they want those rape scenes to be there, and c) has apparently published and continues to advertise a sequel to George Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD, showing an absolute lack of respect for copyright or concern for the legal consequences.

Trick question. As anyone who has ever read R. Scott Bakker knows, there is no such thing as a gratuitous rape scene. Or rather, as anyone who has ever read R. Scott Bakker possesses justified true belief, there is no such thing as a gratuitous rape scene.

One of these days, I’ll have to go through Bakker’s books in order to create a poll on Black Gate where the legions of Bakker readers can vote on their favorite rape scene written by Rapey McRaperson. After all, it’s so hard to choose between the one in Neuropath where the woman rapes the man accompanied by some of the worst sexual dialogue outside of 1970s era pornography or the one in The Warrior Prophet where the Sranc – a demonic winged creature with an Alien-style double skull – not only rapes a man, his wife, and their child to death, but also manages to make the woman climax while raping her. (Contra Umberto Eco, I have long regarded the orgasmic rape as the definitive indicator of pornography.) But make no mistake, these rape scenes are not gratuitous! They are philosophy.

I have to admit, however, that Mr. Giangregorio’s publishing style appears to be more than a little awesome. Some might see it as a strange little man humiliating female authors, but I tend to interpret it as a sardonic commentary on the sex scenes in seventies and eighties science fiction, which always seemed to feature that one completely pointless scene in which the hot primary female character – usually red-headed – seduces the unsuspecting male protagonist without ever having given any signs of being attracted to him. I always viewed it as the fat, clueless SF author’s perspective on the Stygian mysteries of inter-sexual relations.

He’s mad, mad, I tell you!

Delavagus is really reaching now… and he wants your opinion:

pdimov, 691 — you ‘like’ Vox, right? Meaning, you read Vox’s blog, you came here from there. Is that right? If so, I’m really interested to know what you make of posts like the above, from Vox. This post in particular seems to me addled, delusional, paranoid. I’m honestly beginning to think that Vox is mentally ill. (I’m entirely serious — I don’t mean this as an insult.)

So what do you make of it? Your posts here — at least the ones responding to me, i.e., the ones I’ve read — have struck me as sane and well-thought-out. So what do you think of Vox? Do posts such as this one not strike you as insane?

Okay. But what do you make of the post I was asking about? Can you recognize the features of it that strike me as delusional, paranoid, etc.? Can you provide any insight into what you think I’m supposed to make of the things he says? I’m honestly having trouble viewing him as a rational animal.

You all know what I have to say on the matter. Vox’s First Law. Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.

President to leave First Lady

That’s the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from this belated announcement:

It was a long time coming: President Obama spoke out today in favor of marriage equality. “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” he said in an interview with ABC News.

Considering what an absolute vote loser this issue is, proven by the fact that 30 states have passed anti-homogamy laws and amendments now, one can only wonder exactly how personally important it is to Obama. It’s rather remarkable, as Obama appears to be making a stronger effort to throw the election than John McCain did, and it’s only May. At this rate, he’ll be wearing women’s clothing, eating dogs, and openly calling for human sacrifice by September.

The fictional memoir

Obama admits to writing fiction… how long will it be before he admits to NOT writing it?

One of the more mysterious characters from President Obama’s 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father is the so-called ‘New York girlfriend.’ Obama never referred to her by name, or even by psuedonym, but he describes her appearance, her voice, and her mannerisms in specific detail. But Obama has now told biographer David Maraniss that the ‘New York girlfriend’ was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago.

The only real question here is if, by “multiple”, he meant “imaginary”, or if by “girlfriends”, he actually meant “boyfriends”.

Still smarting

Wängsty’s posterior is apparently still stinging from the spanking I gave him more than eight months ago:

The fact is, someone has to call these people out, same with Vox, challenge them. As powerful as moral indignation is, it has a short shelf life, if you doggedly engage, engage, engage… People need to be ‘radical’ about reason and moderation…

To which I responded: Come now, Wängsty, you did nothing of the sort. After admitting you couldn’t make heads or tails of a fairly simple analogy and whining about my “refusal” to answer rhetorical questions that I directly addressed, you ran away rather than even attempt to defend your own perspective. I answered your questions, but I don’t recall you ever getting around to answering mine. I’ve been challenged by Keynesians, atheists, biologists, feminists, Calvinists, and Trinitarians and engaged in substantive debates with all of them. You’re a talented writer, to be sure, but as a thinker and an intellectual disputant, you’re not even a contestant at this point.

If you want to debate anything from the aesthetics of fantasy fiction to your philosophic uncertainty principle, I’m always game. But your philosophic posturing is seriously weak dishwater; there is no intrinsic virtue in uncertainty.

In case one has forgotten, here is a link to my last post concerning The Prince of Wängst. The idea that he still thinks I am given to moral outrage simply underlines how stubbornly clueless he remains.

Voltaire had it wrong

This is absolutely the best of all possible worlds. You can’t possibly tell me otherwise:

Harp seal activist William Walkman has long been admired for his devotion to the cause of saving baby harp seals from their annual slaughter. For years, Walkman has lived among the seals, befriending them, and caring for the babies while the parents went off in search of food. Walkman’s story is made even more compelling through the video he has shot of himself interacting with the seals. On one day he is seen beating off a killer whale with a pole as it attempts to catch seals, a staple of the killer whale diet. The next day he is seen trying to feed fish to the baby seals, as adult seals nervously circle him, barking and pounding their tails on the ice in their attempts to protect their babies….

The recent discovery of Walkman’s body by some fishermen, beaten to death in his sleep, was met with widespread suspicion that seal hunters had taken matters into their own hands. But an investigation by Labrador provincial police has now revealed that blood samples taken from the tails of several adult seals match Walkman’s blood.

The tragic death of Walkman is now believed to be the result of an attack by the adult seals, probably in the middle of the night while Walkman was trapped in his sleeping bag.

Whether it is true or not, if this heart-warming story of a self-righteous activist being beaten to death in his sleep by seals doesn’t put a little spring in your step this morning, you simply cannot be considered to have evolved sufficiently claim membership in homo sapiens sapiens. It’s at moments like this that I am certain Dr. Pangloss was right, for on what other worlds are men beaten to death by angry seals?

Now, I’m not particularly a fan of slaughtering baby seals, mostly because I think they are extremely cute, but I have to admit, the fact that all that bloody seal-beating appears to have laid the foundation for the death of William Walkman does prove rather conclusively that it is all for the best.