Shall We Deprecate Social Status?

I used to believe that IQ didn't make you morally better.

@Nick_B_Steves Be sure to check out his recent post: https://t.co/PAmVJOMlQM

— Lex Corvus (@LexCorvus) March 28, 2016

Then I managed to verify moral nihilism. The above statement is isomorphic to, "I used to believe painting yourself orange didn't make you more widdershins."

There are still problems. IQ confers social status. Indeed 'morally better' is often a dog-whistle meaning 'higher social status.'

More troublingly, it makes perfect sense that it would. Higher-IQ individuals are more trustworthy and find it easier to cooperate, have longer time horizons, and generally commit fewer crimes. (Caveat: that may actually be get caught committing fewer crimes.) High IQ confers better reflexes - e.g, makes it easier to get inside the opponent's OODA loop. (Football players are not stupid, they're uninterested by e.g. books.) IQ doesn't test domain knowledge, but does test the ability to acquire domain knowledge. If you find a poor stupid person, it is highly likely that their poverty is caused by their stupidity, and it is comorbid with several other unsavoury traits - even in the unlikely event you can help them be less poor, you'll prefer to do so from a distance.

Moreoever this isn't due to 'the knowledge economy' or whatever modern myth is most popular these days. Clark's Malthusian grinder has been increasing IQ in the Europe, and is likely the reason Hajnal Europe's IQ is significantly higher than the peoples of Asia minor or northern Africa. Meaning, IQ has been directly improving life outcomes for centuries.

The above is a long-winded way of saying Yarvin is being utopian. He is advocating for the status equivalent of amorality. People of Earth! Lay down your respects, that we may lay down our contempts.

 For instance, if a smarter person was actually a better person, a court should take his testimony more seriously. He’s more likely to tell the truth, since he’s a better person.

Is your grandma a vampire? In this case, science (at least currently) says yes, your grandma is a vampire: higher-IQ folk in fact lie less. Ha....ha....oh shit.

 He’ll be a better husband and parent, since he’s a better person. Wat?

Clark's Malthusian grinder works via surviving children. I think 'surviving' is a decent proxy for 'better parent.' How about you?
Dumber folk are more likely to get divorced. (See also Charles Murray's Fishtown.) Again, whether we get divorced doesn't directly tell us whether we profit or suffer from having been married, but it gives us a good first guess.

IQism is the arrogant ideology of a live ruling elite. 50 years ago, the jocks and cheerleaders handed over Detroit to the professors and journalists. How’s that working out for Detroit?

I'm not sure if it's worse if Yarvin is lying here or if he really believes this. It's sophism. Effective, but misleading at best.
The rulers of Detroit made out very well at the expense of Detroit itself, because they were rewarded for looting it and punished for stewarding. These incentives have nothing to do with their social caste, except insofar as the gatekeepers of the ruling class wanted other scholar-caste folk like themselves.

50 years ago, in every major city in America, there was a thriving African-American business district — Bronzeville in Chicago, Sweet Auburn in Atlanta, Third Street in SF. Where are they now?

Again, not caste. Turns out bad ideas, pursued seriously, have bad consequences. It was hardly unknown that they were bad ideas. Carlyle, Plato, etc. However, they were popular ideas, and thus outcompeted unpopular ideas. Which is why it's a bad idea to reward ideas with status based on popularity - not that I expect that to stop happening anytime this eon.

Our whole society works by picking the kids who do the best on tests, hazing them in high school so they hate jocks and cheerleaders  

Much of Prussian school worked exactly as planned, but I think the above is an accident. They were trying to turn the warrior and merchant castes into scholar folk like themselves, who conferred status by intellectual dominance. When it turned out the warrior caste seized the high status ground, they ended up in a divide-and-conquer situation due to the dynamic Yarvin describes. Then they didn't fix it. (On purpose?)

It’s true that a high IQ is useful in almost every field, including government. In no field is it sufficient. A much more important qualification is a clue.

In which we learn Yarvin is aware that what the brain believes is at least as important as how much power it has behind believing stuff.

It’s difficult not to connect this with the fact that everyone who is smart feels the right to rule.

Shocking news, high moral status causes the feeling of being entitled to tell others what to do. See also: (un)holiness spirals. Worse, it seems most folk support this, being as they hope to obtain this status for themselves, because one of their fondest wishes is to tell others what to do.

I’m all ears, since my eyes are telling me you’ve taken their votes and f*cked them. Like any arrogant ruling elite.

I don't see the point of being scrupulously diplomatic, then subsequently coming out with lines like this. Perhaps someone can explain.

We know a good function isn’t in the data.

Probably untrue. Twin studies underestimate IQ heritability for a few reasons, meaning it's probably 100% heritable. The data is complicated due to the sheer number of genes for IQ, but eventually a gene printout will be equivalent to an IQ test. "The best information about the phenotype is… in the phenotype," only for now.