Member-only story
Intelligence / Status / Rationality
Trump vote shows a hiatus for these factors in the US Population.
I have just read an interesting anecdote by Harry Hogg: https://harryhogg-com.medium.com/trump-the-instigator-of-americas-new-wisdom-160f90e9adb1
The anecdote questions, on the basis of the Trump win, whether an apparently intelligent woman, whom he met by chance on a train a few months ago, was right in her assertion that Trump was a fit person to occupy the Oval Office, despite his own disagreement. — She wasn’t.
IQ has little to do with it beyond the fact that those who have real cognitive issues are more likely to be gullible and manipulable than most — but that’s not saying much.
On a basis of collective IQ the US is around 27th of the nations in the World at around 97. Average IQ is not 100 as many think it is but actually considered a range from 85 to 115, i.e 30 points. So most people operate fairly similarly when it comes to ‘intelligence’, if indeed that is really what IQ measures. However that discussion is for another time and place.
My point is that intelligence or rather the ability to use it well, i.e. intellect, insight, ability to analyse and synthesise, as well as ability to use language well and understand nuance and recognise mis and dis information from that which is accurate, is not so common.
