[extropy-chat] it's all understandable, except

[Lee Corbin]

Eugen wrote

> On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 07:29:41PM -0800, Lee Corbin wrote:

> > The Singularity (or its preceding technological innovations) need 
> > above all to get people smarter, especially the great hordes of 
> > children today who simply are incapable of difficult technical work,
> > and who will (because of IQ limitations) perform rather poorly 
> > whatever they try to do that is of any use.
>
> I try to avoid me-toos, but above passage can't be overemphasized.
> The issue isn't differences in issued equipment between the ears.
> Motivation is the key, and almost all current education environments
> (nevermind prior poor parenting) actively demotivate.

Since Eugen wrote this, a number of people have chimed in to agree.
I ask, where is the evidence that the key problems are current educational
environments or poor parenting?  Are there studies?

The studies---your anecdotes aside---report what I said they did,
namely that it's genes 50%, peers 50%, parents 0%, and schools, 0%.
(I should add, to be careful, that these are determinants of adult
personality.  But I think that it applies to contributing technically
to society too.)

And furthermore, contrary to what Eugen states, the limiting factor
*is* what is between the ears.  Researchers on intelligence admit,
however, that intelligence is like money.  It really doesn't matter
how much you have so long as you have enough.

But the overwhelming part of the populace does *not* have enough
cognitive ability, not enough for today's technical needs.

And even in your anecdotes, from dyslexia to "boredom and
frustration" causing dropping out, we could segregate  :-)  those
with certain proclivities and try to specialize the instruction they're
given.  That would be a good idea.  But many kids simply rebel,
and unless you provide very expensive tutoring (with a touch of
compulsion), they're not going to use all their potential anyway.
You can suggest remedies.  That would be nice.  But why not
point to somewhere among the 6 billion people where the problem
as you see it *has* been solved?

Eugen continues, rather obscurely:

> Not only does demographics limit the quantity, the quality has been
> going down monotonously since middle last century, or even before.

What do you mean by this?  IQ has been going up (cf. Flynn effect).

> The job market does the rest to discourage entering technical fields.
> The message is certainly loud and clear enough, and it's being heard.

How does the job market discourage entering technical field?
I'm not following you.

Lee

> This is no way to drive progress forward, or event to sustain it.
> Many places are regressing, but slowly enough that it isn't too
> obvious. And The Great Depression v2.0 (new and improved,
> now with even more suckage) seems to be ante portas in earnest. 
> What we here need to do is to figure out how to prevent the coming
> crash, that is looming clearer with each passing year.