CLASS DIFFERENCES AND THE CONSEQUENCES
(I don’t make the rules. I just try to stop us from lying about them.)
I know this will probably upset you but yes there are genetic differences between the classes, but it’s more accurate to say that there is variation from the middle class (center) of the distribution of the population.
Mutations and permutations result in accumulation of genetic load, and genetic load *tends* to accumulate in the lower classes. In general, the upper middle, lower upper, and upper classes rotate up and down from the middle classes.
If middle, upper middle, lower upper, and upper classes practice high-investment parenting, and selective marriage, they can often maintain their class status for generations – as we have seen in the Norman descendants in England, the stable upper classes in Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy, all of whom have persistent classes for centuries.
The primary difference between the classes is (a) trait conscientiousness (b) intelligence (c) extended time preference (d) high investment parenting (e) selective marriage and reproduction.
The primary problem with the lower classes (lower middle, working, laboring, and out-of-sight) is either trait conscientiousness, trait intelligence, or genetic load manifesting in phenotypic deviation (esp asymmetry).
When for example Scotland made education and achievement on merit, there was a large reserve of intelligence and conscientiousness in the working, lower middle, and middle classes, the result of which was the Scottish enlightenment. The same for the migration of vast number of germans to the USA – a large reserve of genetic middle classes limited by the availability of land in Europe. The same was true of the Chinese development of the state by meritocratic testing for participation in the bureaucracy.
The problem is these “reserves” have been rotated out of the lower classes, and the normal distribution is restored, so we are seeing a reversal of the Flynn effect in all developed countries. It’s compounded by the reproductive asymmetry between lower classes and middle and upper high-investment parenting classes. And the result is lower intelligence, and less competitive institutions industries, and economies.
So the average northern European population has lost something on the order of a standard deviation in IQ over the past century and a half. And the USA is headed from 97 to 95, at which point it will have the IQ distribution of a second-world country.
So, ‘the smart fraction over 125-140+ is all that matters’ in producing the economic, political, military, and strategic competitive capacity of any given polity. If we combine that smart fraction with high-investment parenting, (which Asians excel at) then the group will outperform those who do not practice high-investment parenting, and those with neither IQ nor high-investment parenting are uncompetitive for other than administrative, clerical, craftsmanly, and laboring functions. Below 95 people rapidly degrade in employability, and those below 85 are functionally unemployable. And in either case, if they have low conscientiousness or high neuroticism they have difficulty holding constant work and maintaining personal care.
For example even with the minor difference between east Asia and Europe. The Japanese 1/2 standard deviation of 7pts over present western countries, means that they produce the same number of “smart” people in japan as the USA, with half the population.
IQ is the most predictive measure we have of human quality of life. If we list countries by IQ it mirrors every single measurement from GDP to criminality.
Why? IQ = rate of processing, rate of adaptation, degree of future prediction, and capacity for self-regulation.
If stop lying about it, we can work to provide people with what they need to succeed rather than promise them what they will never achieve.
-Curt Doolittle
Reply addressees: @markd17 @KaiserSoso1 @andante147