“We have a confusing situation here.” -- Indeed, I think this post is a little confused, mixing up a few very different questions:
Is it a good idea to literally punish & reward people based on their level of intelligence, in the hopes that they will spontaneously make themselves more intelligent?
Usually no, as your example of Frank illustrates. Because your own intelligence level is a hard thing to change. Punishing people for being born dumb is thus a bit like punishing people for being born short—pointless to try and get people to change something that they can’t change.
Is it a good idea to reward intellectual achievements and hard work on important problems, while punishing laziness / wasted time / underperformance? And similarly, to reward open-minded thoughtfulness while punishing “lazy thinking” and knee-jerk responses.
Yes, because this is a way of motivating people about something they can change—what they choose to work on, and how hard they work, and etc. It’s a good thing that we have Nobel Prizes to reward people who discover breakthrough cancer medicines, but not for people who discover breakthrough strategies in esports videogames, or for that matter Nobel Prizes for people who just sit around watching TV. For instance, it would be a good idea to praise Frank when he does a good job at work, or if he shows a bit of openness towards the idea of going to the doctor.
Is it a good idea to effectively “reward” & “punish” people on a societal level, by trying to have a meritocratic society where we find the smartest (and hardest-working, and most prosocial, and otherwise virtuous) people to run important institutions, while dumb people get less well-paying, less-impactful jobs?
Yes, because a society/corporation/government/etc run by effective, virtuous people will work more smoothly and create a better life for everyone. For instance, I would rather have you be my financial advisor, than have your dog be my financial advisor!
Is intelligence good for happiness on an individual level, or is it better for your own sake to be dumb?
Opinions differ on this; personally I think that intelligence is very good for personal happiness and life-satisfaction and living a meaningful life. Here I will quote from another comment I recently made: “You could probably find some narrowly-defined type of happiness which is anticorrelated with intelligence. But a lot of the meaning and happiness in my life seem like they would get better with more intelligence. Like my ability to understand my place in the world and live an independent life, planning my career/relationships/etc with lots of personal agency. Or my ability to appreciate the texture/experience of being alive—noticing sensations, taking time to “smell the roses”, and making meditative/spiritual/introspective progress of understanding my own mind. My ability to overcome emotional difficulties/setbacks by ‘working through them’ and communicating well with the person I might be angry at. My material quality of life, enabled by my high-income job, which I couldn’t hold down if I wasn’t reasonably smart. My ability to appreciate art on a deep level (see my lecture series about the videogame “The Witness”, an intellectual pursuit which brings me great joy). And so forth.”
Re: happiness, it’s that meme graph:
Dumb: low expectations, low results, is happy
Top: can self-modify expectations to match reality: is happy
Muddled middle: takes expectations from environment, can’t achieve them, is unhappy.
This is funny, although of course what this is really pointing to isn’t a literal U-shaped graph, but that it’s really better to think about this in a much more multidimensional way, rather than just trying to graph happiness vs intelligence. Of course there are all sorts of other traits (like conscientiousness, etc) that might influence happiness. But more importantly IMO is what you are pointing to—there are all sorts of different “mindsets” that you can take towards your life, which have a huge impact on happiness… maybe high-IQ slightly helps you grope your way towards a healthier mindset, but to a large extent these mindsets / life philosophies seem independent of intelligence. By “mindset”, I am thinking of things like:
- “internal vs external locus of control” - level of expectations like you say, applied to lots of different life areas where we have expectations - stoic vs neurotic/catastrophizing attitude towards events - how you relate to / take expectations and desires your social environment (trying to keep up with the joneses, vs deliberately rebelling, vs lots of other stances). - being really hard on yourself vs having self-compassion vs etc
“We have a confusing situation here.” -- Indeed, I think this post is a little confused, mixing up a few very different questions:
Is it a good idea to literally punish & reward people based on their level of intelligence, in the hopes that they will spontaneously make themselves more intelligent?
Usually no, as your example of Frank illustrates. Because your own intelligence level is a hard thing to change. Punishing people for being born dumb is thus a bit like punishing people for being born short—pointless to try and get people to change something that they can’t change.
Is it a good idea to reward intellectual achievements and hard work on important problems, while punishing laziness / wasted time / underperformance? And similarly, to reward open-minded thoughtfulness while punishing “lazy thinking” and knee-jerk responses.
Yes, because this is a way of motivating people about something they can change—what they choose to work on, and how hard they work, and etc. It’s a good thing that we have Nobel Prizes to reward people who discover breakthrough cancer medicines, but not for people who discover breakthrough strategies in esports videogames, or for that matter Nobel Prizes for people who just sit around watching TV. For instance, it would be a good idea to praise Frank when he does a good job at work, or if he shows a bit of openness towards the idea of going to the doctor.
Is it a good idea to effectively “reward” & “punish” people on a societal level, by trying to have a meritocratic society where we find the smartest (and hardest-working, and most prosocial, and otherwise virtuous) people to run important institutions, while dumb people get less well-paying, less-impactful jobs?
Yes, because a society/corporation/government/etc run by effective, virtuous people will work more smoothly and create a better life for everyone. For instance, I would rather have you be my financial advisor, than have your dog be my financial advisor!
Is intelligence good for happiness on an individual level, or is it better for your own sake to be dumb?
Opinions differ on this; personally I think that intelligence is very good for personal happiness and life-satisfaction and living a meaningful life. Here I will quote from another comment I recently made: “You could probably find some narrowly-defined type of happiness which is anticorrelated with intelligence. But a lot of the meaning and happiness in my life seem like they would get better with more intelligence. Like my ability to understand my place in the world and live an independent life, planning my career/relationships/etc with lots of personal agency. Or my ability to appreciate the texture/experience of being alive—noticing sensations, taking time to “smell the roses”, and making meditative/spiritual/introspective progress of understanding my own mind. My ability to overcome emotional difficulties/setbacks by ‘working through them’ and communicating well with the person I might be angry at. My material quality of life, enabled by my high-income job, which I couldn’t hold down if I wasn’t reasonably smart. My ability to appreciate art on a deep level (see my lecture series about the videogame “The Witness”, an intellectual pursuit which brings me great joy). And so forth.”
Yeah, I like how you further divide this up into more specific questions and I generally agree with your answers to those questions.
Re: happiness, it’s that meme graph: Dumb: low expectations, low results, is happy Top: can self-modify expectations to match reality: is happy Muddled middle: takes expectations from environment, can’t achieve them, is unhappy.
This is funny, although of course what this is really pointing to isn’t a literal U-shaped graph, but that it’s really better to think about this in a much more multidimensional way, rather than just trying to graph happiness vs intelligence. Of course there are all sorts of other traits (like conscientiousness, etc) that might influence happiness. But more importantly IMO is what you are pointing to—there are all sorts of different “mindsets” that you can take towards your life, which have a huge impact on happiness… maybe high-IQ slightly helps you grope your way towards a healthier mindset, but to a large extent these mindsets / life philosophies seem independent of intelligence. By “mindset”, I am thinking of things like:
- “internal vs external locus of control”
- level of expectations like you say, applied to lots of different life areas where we have expectations
- stoic vs neurotic/catastrophizing attitude towards events
- how you relate to / take expectations and desires your social environment (trying to keep up with the joneses, vs deliberately rebelling, vs lots of other stances).
- being really hard on yourself vs having self-compassion vs etc
And so on; too many to mention.