> OBSERVATION: There are zero examples of any intelligent species which is vastly more capable than another species, yet surrenders decision-making control over its own future to the less-capable species.
Does the set of intelligent species only have one member? I cannot treat this observation as a general rule if there is literally one example of an intelligent species to theorize about.
My problem with this is that yes, looking at the species level from our sample of ~1 the most intelligent species wins out (although there seems to be a lot of debate as to if Neanderthals were more or less intelligent than humans).
But within the sample of the human species it is more common for less intelligent people to control more intelligent people.
This happens within political systems (political leaders are usually above average intelligence, but hardly the most intelligent) and within companies and other economic systems.
I don't see this fairly obvious point discussed, and not really sure what it shows.
it shows that you don't get anything for free. If it was without any cost in other areas to make a human massively more intelligent, it would presumably happen over time via the same processes that led to us.
As it is, the higher (and lower!) ends of the distribution tend to be highly correlated with other issues (mental+physical), and the further you go, the more unfortunate things which make it harder to do stuff in general start to crop up like psychosis, autism, ocd, anxiety, addiction etc
Maybe there are other things ("leadership", "likeability", "appearance" etc) that are more important in the pursuit of power than intelligence.
I think it's telling that it is usually conventionally intelligent people making the claim that intelligence is what leads to power.
scared_together · · focus · HN ↗
Does the set of intelligent species only have one member? I cannot treat this observation as a general rule if there is literally one example of an intelligent species to theorize about.
nl · · focus · HN ↗
But within the sample of the human species it is more common for less intelligent people to control more intelligent people.
This happens within political systems (political leaders are usually above average intelligence, but hardly the most intelligent) and within companies and other economic systems.
I don't see this fairly obvious point discussed, and not really sure what it shows.
RugnirViking · · focus · HN ↗
it shows that you don't get anything for free. If it was without any cost in other areas to make a human massively more intelligent, it would presumably happen over time via the same processes that led to us.
As it is, the higher (and lower!) ends of the distribution tend to be highly correlated with other issues (mental+physical), and the further you go, the more unfortunate things which make it harder to do stuff in general start to crop up like psychosis, autism, ocd, anxiety, addiction etc
nl · · focus · HN ↗
Maybe there are other things ("leadership", "likeability", "appearance" etc) that are more important in the pursuit of power than intelligence.
I think it's telling that it is usually conventionally intelligent people making the claim that intelligence is what leads to power.