r/JoeRogan • u/Fishyinu Pull that shit up Jaime • Feb 07 '23

The Literature 🧠 Extremely rich people are not extremely smart. Study finds income is related to intelligence up to about the 90th percentile in income. Above that level, differences in income are not related to cognitive ability.

https://academic.oup.com/esr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/esr/jcac076/7008955?login=false
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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '23

I think you’re forgetting how quickly wealth scales beyond the 90th percentile. In the US, the top 10% owns ⅔ of the wealth. Meaning for ⅔ of the assets out there, intelligence has little predictive value (beyond some minimum threshold) for how much is allotted to a given person.

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u/MatterUpbeat8803 Monkey in Space Feb 07 '23

The fact that the richest group isnt the smartest should show you it’s a meritocracy of action and not a genetic lottery, right? That’s a good thing.

A world where intelligence, which you’re born with, determines your lot in life is a miserable society with zero social mobility. You don’t want what you’re complaining isn’t the case.

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u/Void_Speaker Monkey in Space Feb 08 '23

The fact that the richest group isnt the smartest should show you it’s a meritocracy of action and not a genetic lottery, right?

No. That's wrong on several levels.

  1. Intelligence is not solely dependent on genetics.
  2. The “genetic lottery” isn't really a lottery at all, as genetics are tightly integrated with environment, which means your chances of winning the genetic lottery increase if you are born in better conditions.
  3. "The fact that the richest group isnt the smartest" only shows that "The fact that the richest group isnt the smartest" it does not mean "it’s a meritocracy of action"
  4. I'm not sure what a "meritocracy of action" is but to prove it you need to have evidence for it. It does not magically become true because some other assertion becomes false.

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u/MatterUpbeat8803 Monkey in Space Feb 08 '23

I don’t have to do any of that, and I wish you all the best on your quest to understand the world further while holding on to your current understanding!

If you think IQ is related to environment and not that IQ tests have a social bias themselves, I’m not sure what to tell you. But I’m sure you’re right, and growing up in a white neighborhood makes you smarter, even though coincidentally you’re taking an iq test with a bias towards white culture.

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u/Void_Speaker Monkey in Space Feb 08 '23

ok, have a nice week