[extropy-chat] Collective Singularities

Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu
Mon Jun 5 13:47:53 UTC 2006


On 6/4/2006, Lee Corbin answers Anders Sandberg answering George Dvorsky:
> > >> Increasing individual cognitive capacity has a big multiplicative effect
> > >> on the economy, according to some of my current analysis (stay tuned
> >>
> > > While I'm sure that there's some truth to your analysis, one factor you
> > > must be sure to consider is the impact of wide scale under-employment.
> > > Already today the cognitive demands of work isn't matching what many
> > > people are truly capable of (ie people are over-educated relative to
> > > their jobs). In the future, I can imagine more of the same; just because
> > > you have groups of populations with high IQs doesn't mean that the
> > > cognitive demands of jobs will follow accordingly.
> >
> > Having overeducated people in simple jobs suggests that there isn't enough
> > entrepreneurship, venture capital or whatever for them to find new niches;
> > I don't think that is an unavoidable consequence of too much brainpower.
> > Maybe it is rather a sign that we have too little economic flexibility
> > (individually and societally).
>
>Anders knocks the ball out of the park!   (To use an American expression.)
>Omigod!  I can't find anything whatsoever to disagree with here.
>And I swore that I'd never write a "me too" post.   Huzza.

I agree that it doesn't make sense to say people have too high an IQ for their
jobs.  A higher IQ can make people more productive on just about any job.
But as I note in http://hanson.gmu.edu/dreamautarky.html (and as many others
have said for a long time) our modern economy demands more cognitive
specialization that our minds were designed for.  So most people do naturally
and correctly feel that their jobs do not exercise most of the cognitive range
they are capable of.

> > But overall, the impression I get is that higher intelligence overall
> > produces a big effect on the overall economy, even if it might be just a
> > smaller group that does most of the smart work. A bit like Florida's
> > creative and service classes: if the creatives are smart and productive
> > enough, it doesn't matter that most others do macjobs. The entire economy
> > grows fast anyway.

I'm not much of a fan of Florida's work, and have a longer comment on that
coming online elsewhere in two days.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323 




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