Intellect or below,  what would the world be like now?

And by average, I mean the average at any given time point. Basically, what would the world be like without all of them pesky experts.

I’m not sure you’ve really understood the concept of average!

I do. Maybe I should frame it better, if in a hypothetical world no one broke our average intellect in our reality at any given time point. Ever.

How do you like your diseases?

Also average would be a bit of a strange word as nobody would really know what it was for

How do you like your diseases?

18th century and of an airborne persuasion

if in a hypothetical world no one broke our average intellect in our reality at any given time point.

That’s not much better!

Are you suggesting some sort of thought experiment along the lines of: what would the world be like if everyone of above average intelligence throughout history had mysteriously disappeared?

Ignoring the fact that we’d then need to re-calculate the average and remove a second batch of ‘above average’ and so on…

We’d probably still have progressed but much more slowly and not so far is the fairly obvious answer.

So .. you’re glorying in your intellectual superiority by saying something idotic?

What if everyone had exactly the same IQ, and the chosen number just happens to be what we currently call average?

so, by definition, nobody is clever. Or stupid.

18th century and of an airborne persuasion

you’re probably going to be in luck – Scarlet Fever and TB both due to make a comeback. Even cow pox even had a surprise appearance the last few weeks.

You’ll be up to your pustulated arm pits in retro lurgy soon 🙂

There would be a hell of a lot less of us for a start. We would be living in a way closer to a primitive tribe than what we are at present.

There would be a hell of a lot less of us for a start.

one person’s invention is currently preventing a third of the world’s population from starving to death – and he was an utter arsehole too.

And by average, I mean the average at any given time point.

I agree with spin, it’s still not making sense …

At any point in time ??  Human intellect or intelligence hasn’t really changed in tens of thousands of years…

The Romans weren’t thick because they didn’t have electricity….(for example) any more than someone born today in a deep amazon tribe is thicker?

Basically, what would the world be like without all of them pesky experts.

Presuming what you mean is everyone is thicker… so the most intelligent are what we would score average then you are still going to have experts…. going back to this hidden amazon tribe… (or whatever) you’d still have people who were specialists in one thing or another… regarded as “experts” .. someone would be “expert” at making darts and someone else in identifying frogs … or picking berries etc.

This forum  would be a damn sight less entertaining I’d imagine

Like clones… what if we were all clones that maybe looked different, but all had the same personality? Cos Intellect is all part of personality isn’t it.

Man, that would be weird. We’d all have the same opinions and everything. There definitely wouldn’t be an Internet.

I too don’t understand the OPs requirement, yet do understand the concept.

If humans were less intelligent, not fewer, but less then I suspect (rather imagine, because that’s all I have.. an imagined scenario) then presumably we’d be still back about 200 years with the industrial revolution just becoming a thing.

The problem with that is there will always be smarter intelligent humans in a group, it’s part of what a humans make up is. We have the ability to both comprehend a problem and solve it, or seek to solve it.

So.. we may have progressed slower, but we’d still be on the same trajectory.

IMO

Imagine a low pass filter that only let’s people of average intelligence or less through to reality since the dawn of time. All the really clever people are in limbo busy not existing in our reality. What would the world be like if that were the case? And are you sure it isn’t the case already?

Intelligence is irrelevant. Our world has evolved by the masses following leaders, so it’s leadership qualities that mater and history tells us that there is no correlation to leadership qualities and intelligence – there have been plenty of stupid leaders through history and plenty of intelligent people willing to follow stupid leaders. I don’t intelligence does not correlate with making the correct decision at any given time – intelligent people are not immune to making stupid decisions. And if everyone had equivalent leadership ‘skills’ we’d all be killing each other because that’s what has happened in history when leaders clashed….they declare war.

If smart alec’s hadn’t invented religion as a means of control and subjugation for the masses, we would be living in the world of the future by now.

Human intellect or intelligence hasn’t really changed in tens of thousands of years…

thats not strictly true – the genetic potential for intelligence doesn’t necessarily change but the ability to reach that potential does. Diet, longevity, health, civilisation, culture, language and a whole bunch of other things have an influence on what degree of an individuals or society’s potential gets expressed.

Intelligence is a mix of genetic and environmental factors and it even ebbs and flows in an individual as their circumstances change

Intelligence is irrelevant. Our world has evolved by the masses following leaders, so it’s leadership qualities that mater and history tells us that there is no correlation to leadership qualities and intelligence

Codes, the silicon chip, the internal combustion engines, nuclear physics, Wifi etc.

All discovered by leadership?

Codes, the silicon chip, the internal combustion engines, nuclear physics, Wifi etc.

All discovered by leadership?

All the result of patronage

At any point in time ??  Human intellect or intelligence hasn’t really changed in tens of thousands of years…

In all seriousness, see the Flynn effect.

But the thread was more aimed at being idiotic light hearted banter.

Intelligence is irrelevant

Don’t worry about that, answer the question. What would the world be like? Please thoroughly consult Wikipedia to know which contributions to the world made by people of above average intelligence to remove. Once done, please post back. Thank you.

Everyone would win a prize, just for taking part.

The neanderthals would have won…

There would be no countdown on channel four.

Our world has evolved by the masses following leaders, so it’s leadership

So, like explorers, inventors, engineers, mavericks, never done anything for the World’s development… I, myself, think that is bollocks.

(sorry, mikews, just noticed saying the same. Good)

There would be no countdown on channel four.

And Rachel Riley would just be an ordinary attractive woman.

Intelligence is irrelevant. Our world has evolved by the masses following leaders, so it’s leadership qualities that mater and history tells us that there is no correlation to leadership qualities and intelligence – there have been plenty of stupid leaders through history and plenty of intelligent people willing to follow stupid leaders. I don’t intelligence does not correlate with making the correct decision at any given time – intelligent people are not immune to making stupid decisions. And if everyone had equivalent leadership ‘skills’ we’d all be killing each other because that’s what has happened in history when leaders clashed….they declare war.

Some contradictory points here – the masses do follow leaders – but it was usually the less than stellar leaders, in terms of intellect that led their people off cliff edges. See the various civil wars around the world, and the idiots that have led those. Hitler has been estimated as having a verbal IQ of about 120, whilst Roosevelt was up there at 146. Who made the better decisions out of those two?

one person’s invention is currently preventing a third of the world’s population from starving to death – and he was an utter arsehole too.

The Just Eat app?

The neanderthals would have won…

They did, very cleverly by marrying their DNA with Homo Sapiens ensuring they would live on

They did, very cleverly by marrying their DNA with Homo Sapiens ensuring they would live on

By marry, do you mean getting gang raped by homo sapiens? Wasn’t the problem with neanderthals, that their social groups were nowhere near the size of Sapiena?

I’m not sure you’ve really understood the concept of average!

Averages can can be tricky. After all, I have more than the average number of legs. Really, I do.

People seem to be taking the question a bit too literally. It’s an interesting thought experiment even though the nature of intellect or IQ means that it’s not really possible for everyone to be the same.

The question really seems to be, what would it be like if there weren’t any geniuses (or idiots too)? Whether you count interpersonal skills/verbal ability/leadership etc. as part of intellect complicates it, of course, but if we just limit it to things like maths, science, etc., I think we would still be living in caves. Technology like making stone tools can be discovered by accident and mastered by average people, but I don’t think average people could have developed geometry and other more abstract mathematical tools. Without that, you wouldn’t get very far. Things that seems simple and obvious to us, like clocks and navigation at sea, took seriously smart people centuries to work out. Average people can understand them once they are explained, but figuring it out in the first place requires a completely different level of smarts.

How do you know this isn’t already the case?

How do you know this isn’t already the case?

What, that everyone is the same?

What if

, by definition, nobody is clever. Or stupid.

We wouldnt have needed the thread about Geraint Thomas!

What, that everyone is the same?

He said everyone of average intellect or below. So that just means removing the most intelligent but still leaving a variation. This could already be the case no?

We wouldnt have needed the thread about Geraint Thomas!

We didn’t need it anyway.

There would be more deaths and illnesses along with a more simple lifestyle.  The more deaths is bad, the different lifestyle not really.

You would be living in simpler times but would have evolved as even the average person can think of better ways to do stuff but they would just be more simple (and generally not as good) solutions

Notice I say “You” as I wouldn’t be part of it as I am above average 🙂

There would be more deaths and illnesses along with a more simple lifestyle.  The more deaths is bad, the different lifestyle not really.

Theres a bit of a Catch 22 though. More death, more illness … a ‘Simple Life Style’ would be one of hardship and fear. That in itself has an impact on intelligence – or more the ability for people’s capacity for intelligence to reach its potential. That kind of lifestyle is very blinkered – hand to mouth, day to day – there isn’t room to have bigger ideas, take long views, make plans.

Poverty impares cognitive function

At a society level those pressures of death and illness are burden for every one, not just the sick and dying. A lot of the advances health care we made in the past century were partly the work of clever people having great ideas and partly because a previous cure or treatment relieved a burden of care and freed up time and money to address wider issues. The artificial hip – for instance – was developed in a dedicated TB hospital that suddenly didn’t have any patients. The burden of treating and caring for people with TB was huge a century ago it was the countries single biggest health concern – over 100,000 cases a year all needing weeks and weeks of treatment and followed by a lifetime of complications (my uncle still suffers complications from losing a kidney to TB 70 years ago) – cure and immunisation gave the whole medical profession time to get on with something else.

Average = xbar = (x1+x2+x3+…xn)/n

if everyone has an intellect of xbar or below then everyone must have the same intellect xbar. The real question is are we more intelligent, and if so what drives that increase? Is it genetics? Do more intelligent people breed more intelligent offspring. Is this countered by having fewer offspring?

Variation certainly plays a part, but as mentioned, epigenetics probably plays at least as big a role.