“Join the collective. Or else.”Intelligence and Dysgenics showed that average IQs have made huge gains while general intelligence (g) has declined. Why worry about falling g? Physical and mental mutations are usually co-morbid.[1][2a] 84% of the human genome involves the brain[3], so a decrease in g means higher physical mutations (e.g. fewer alpha traits). Therefore, g predicts mutational load—something to worry about.
Lowering ability (g) while improving environments and raising specialized skills (IQ) leaves a population less intelligent, but more ‘capable’[4][8a]. It does so at a significant cost: the rise of bureaucracy.
“In every day terms; the academics of the year 2000 were the school teachers of 1900, the school teachers of the year 2000 would have been the factory workers (the average people) of 1900, the office workers and policemen of 2000 were the farm labourers of 1900, while the low level security guards and shop assistants of 2000 were probably in the workhouse, on the streets or dead in 1900.”[5a]
Bureaucracy is leadership by command hierarchy, rule following, and functional specialization. This is workable—even rational—when it utilizes individual decision making by qualified decision makers.[9] This is not practical with g decline—with most workers less intelligent than factory workers or farm laborers of 1900—due to the huge demand for, and decreased supply of, qualified decision makers. In its place is mindless red tape, blind adherence to rules, and automation (e.g. computerization) that explicitly rejects individualism. Decisions are made by compromise, agreement, group think, and uniformity, especially by utilizing committees.[6]
Like the Parable of the Lifesaving Station, failure begins when the mission is lost. The parasitic propensity to expand defines modern bureaucracy, incorporating ever more of an organization’s structure into bureaucratic procedures. It becomes self-maintaining, disconnected from reality.
“Modern bureaucracies have simultaneously grown and spread in a positive feedback cycle; such that interlinking bureaucracies now constitute the major environmental feature of human society which affects organizational survival and reproduction. Individual bureaucracies must become useless parasites which ignore the ‘real-world’ in order to adapt to rapidly-changing ‘bureaucratic reality’.”[6]
What started as a way to efficiently organize decision making becomes a mechanism for producing enforced conformity and busywork. At its best, bureaucracy makes life difficult for those few who do the real work. More likely, bureaucracy cripples an organization and becomes a force for evil.
Bureaucracy is a first-order evil. It is the mechanism behind most societal evils. Everything—including feminism and rejection of religion—is facilitated by bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is inherently evil, yet most people are so desensitized to bureaucracy and its evil that it must be explained:
“Why are there so many bad systems, organisation, and processes in the modern world? Why are governments so incompetent, inefficient, and often corrupt? Why are big companies and institutions so poor at innovation, so good at creating huge bureaucracies, and so bad at balancing factors such as profit and social responsibility?
We must establish that my claims against these organisations are true. That is difficult, because there is no valid basis for comparison, and no good objective way to measure good and bad attributes. But I think most people know through anecdotes, or just through their own personal opinions, that what I said is true, at least in the vast majority of cases.
I think it relates back to Dunbar’s Number.”
Organizations that do not rely on hierarchical leadership and delegation will fail when they hit the limitations of Dunbar’s Number. However, since there are not enough qualified decision makers, bureaucracy is inevitable. The larger an organization grows, the more leadership it theoretically needs to be effective, growing the organization further. This creates the demand for more when it inevitably fails. This is one way that bureaucracy self-feeds.
Even though IQ has peaked, there are hardly any geniuses anymore and innovation rates have fallen dramatically.[2c] Bureaucracy has successfully contributed to the elimination of excellence and motivation.[11] Nevertheless, despite the fall in intelligence and the growth in bureaucracy, society is still moving forward on momentum. It is unclear how long it can continue:
“Arguably this reversal has already happened in The West, and we are now living off capital – well embarked on a downslope of reduced societal efficiency which affects all nations (because the innovations and breakthroughs created by geniuses of European origin have usually spread to the rest of the world).”[5c]
Bureaucracy turns people into cogs of the machine, destroying creativity and genius. Those individuals who manage to be effective risk being pushed out or failing upwards to their level of incompetence (i.e the Peter Principle), further feeding the bureaucratic machine. In some cases, such as government bureaucracy, it can actually punish or destroy those individuals who don’t conform.
Consider a typical school made up of many interlocking bureaucracies: school and district administration, a system of tenure, teacher unionization, state educational standards, and so forth.
Students, by and large, are ‘taught to the test’. While programs exist to support kids who exceed or fall behind, these tend to be one-size-fits-all approaches. In the rare case where a school provides one-on-one support staff, it is a coin flip whether they’ll be qualified. Schools must follow their procedures, no matter what. They will literally sue you in court before deviating from bureaucratic script.
It is almost impossible to fire bad teachers. They can only be transferred to other positions or schools. Once a bad teacher is in the system, the bureaucracies ensure that they will stay, perhaps even be promoted due to their incompetence.
Schools must ensure that feminist sociopolitical goals are met: boys should not exceed girls, and girls must be given enhanced opportunities and rewards.
All of these things are actively harmful to the purported goal of educating children, a job that schools do quite poorly.[10]
Government is arguably the biggest, most powerful, and most obvious bureaucracy. The growth of government bureaucracy is roughly exponential. It is also negatively correlated with g. It is an unsurprising truism that the government does everything poorly, nonetheless the recent growth in government bureaucracy is astoundingly large. The impeachment hearings provide an excellent example of the insanity of government bureaucracies:
“The system can be described as a nonsensical bureaucratic run around, with gatekeepers of information at every step. State department officials are left with the claim that “they just work for the department,” and must follow those procedures.”
Democracy requires a highly intelligent population to work effectively.[5b] America was founded as humanity was approaching its peak level of intelligence. The Founding Fathers were able to understand deep philosophical concepts in order to produce the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They had no idea that one day a large percentage of the voting population would be completely unable to understand why certain rights were essential—freedom of speech, abhorrence of censorship, or the right to defend ourselves from tyranny. Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) presciently declared:
“Every nation gets the government it deserves.”
Or as H. L. Mencken put it:
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Bureaucracy is totalitarian and anti-democratic. Government and voters are steadily replacing democratic ideals with an anti-democratic, totalitarian, bureaucratic state. It isn’t that America is in late-stage capitalism, as some have suggested, but that we are just too dumb to have an effective democracy.
In the next part of the series, we’ll see how massive social changes combined with intelligence declines have served to dramatically change society itself in a very short time.
[1] “Sartorious N. (2013). Comorbidity of mental and physical diseases: a main challenge for medicine of the 21st century. Shanghai archives of psychiatry, 25(2), 68–69. doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-0829.2013.02.002
[2] YouTube Videos
[a] Dutton, Edward (2019) “The Mutant Says in His Heart: There is No God”
[b] Dutton, Edward (2019) “At Our Wits’ End I: The Rise and Fall of Western Intelligence”
[c] Woodley, Michael A. (2019) “Why Are We Getting Less Intelligent“
[3] “Human brains share a consistent genetic blueprint and possess enormous biochemical complexity” Allen Institute for Brain Science (2012).
[4] ‘Capable’ refers to being able to do specialized work. Many of our professions require specialized mental skills that our ancestors would never had had to consider. As Flynn notes, moderns have a greater requirement for abstractions. This does not imply that the work is of high quality or creative.
[5] Dutton E, Charlton B (2016) “The Genius Famine“
[a] Chapter 12, section “Measuring the decline of intelligence”
[b] Chapter 13, section “Genius and the educational system”
[c] Chapter 12, section “Historical trends in the prevalence of genius”
[6] Charlton, Bruce G. (2010) “The cancer of bureaucracy: How it will destroy science, medicine, education; and eventually everything else” Med Hypotheses, 74(6):961-5. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.11.038
[7] Giuseppe, C. (2012) “Bureaucracy and medicine: an unholy marriage.” Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine. 15(9):243–244. doi:10.4414/cvm.2012.01693
[8] Charlton BG (2013) “Not even trying: the corruption of real science”
[a] “I suspect that overall human capability (leaving aside specific domains) reached its peak or plateau around 1965-75 – at the time of the Apollo moon landings – and has been declining ever since.”
[9] Hierarchical leadership and delegation is required to avoid the limitations of Dunbar’s Number.
[10] It’s well known that children perform better academically when they are separated by sex. Not only does the bureaucracy forbid this (due to forced inclusion) in favor of social interaction, but they are no longer even allowed to acknowledge that girls are girls and boys are boys.
[11] Everyone gets a trophy.
So many of the captains of industry and innovators from the end of the Victorian era through the 1920’s were not Harvard graduates, nor straight A students in school…………in fact many were home educated or had limited schooling until 6th grade (most states by the late Victorian era had required education / school at least on the 1st thru 6th grade level……if there was a school. New England had this dating back to the early 1700’s). Many were immigrants from the great wave from Europe…..and had just about zero proper education. They were the scum of their home-country and the powers that be there were happy to get them out….and ship them out.
What they had was common old-fashioned “horse sense” about how the world worked. It doesn’t take a high IQ for that. This isn’t a “noble savage” defense of the average IQ person…..then or now………mind you.
Thomas Edison who was home schooled, “afflicted with dumbness” and had no future and would not amount to anything lamented in his journal when the Muscle Shoals project was being built……….using his inventions of generators and motors from his Schenectady General Electric works: “It is so sad for me……….my inventions which will bring electricity and a better life to so many because of this project……..men with degrees, who run the banks, the law firms, the local politics….men that on paper are much smarter than I will with a stroke of a pen make more money in their days work than the man who works six months digging, moving the earth and building the project…..and when it is finished, something we all can be proud of…..this working man will be paying off the bond. Not the banker, the business man, nor he financial wizard. If I indeed was more articulate, perhaps I could have made it different. My ideas and labors, and struggles again are making men who had nothing to with any of them very, very rich.”
This again is what high IQ people do. Even in Edisons day. Today it is amplified by who has the loudest voice and who is the best looking as well. People with high IQ’s are not necessarliy smarter….they just know how to manipulate better
Jason, you have a good intuition. Are you by any chance left-handed?
Genius Famine describes the “Endogenous personality” of potential geniuses as:
and
This essentially matches your observations of known geniuses. To a certain extent, geniuses must be unsuccessful. Geniuses have very high intelligence, but not necessarily high IQ. Education, training, and other positive environmental factors are required for high IQ, but high intelligence is innate. It’s really easy to see how bureaucracy will crush these kinds of people.
This corresponds to the “Head Girl” archetype, but is the opposite of the creative genius. She (or he) is characterized as follows:
This, IMO, sounds like how you often describe manosphere leadership, but it also applies to any leader (e.g. government; business; church). These are the ones who have it all figured out, they have the evidence to show how great they are, and masses of adoring followers to prove it. They may be ‘edgy’ in a social trend-setting way, but they won’t alienate the powerful.
Yes I am left handed. My parents tried to force me to be right handed as a child (even holding my left arm behind my back…gently of course…..during my nursery school years trying to “make” me right handed). They gave up by the time I hit Kindergarten (in 1975) because I was so stubborn. Interestingly enough though……I golf right handed (apologies, I hate golf, but at IBM you had to play or know how to play…..I liked the exercise and walking part, but I really hate this sport). When I take a bat in baseball, I bat right handed. I also have no problem when driving a car right handed (probably bc I am so used to it).
Years ago…..Trump had that “apprentice” TV show. I’m guilty. I watched an episode here and there. One that still sears me with anger, and the usual “nothing changes” attitude hence why I don’t waste my time trying to be “alpha” anymore, or even classifying myself or other men into the dead greek language…..
I can’t remember it exactly……….there was this tanning lotion company….from Australia of all places. Well, they wanted a marketing campaign for their lotion. Over and over and over again they said “we want and expect our koala bear logo or a koala bear in the ad” Did I say over and over again?
The two teams went to work.
The one team did have a good idea, but it didn’t involve the koala bear….the other team members said “Dude, we gotta have the bear, the customer wants that…” Well, the big shot, arrogant, self appointed team lead replied “Yeah, but my idea is better than than that.” Even when the company came to check on how things were going, they again said “we want and expect our koala bear logo, or a koala bear in the ad”
The team leader smiled, gladhanded and said “yeah…..got it, I have a great idea you’re going to love”
He had effectively squelched any opinions or ideas of his team concerning the use of the bear. He refused to listen “Yea, but my idea….”
Well, when it came time to see the results……….the company said “Umm….its good, we like it but where is the koala bear?” The other team’s idea was not as good, but it effectively made use of what the company requested. A koala bear in the ad.
So…Trump now tries to explain to the self-appointed leader of the one team “Hey, why didn’t you give the customer what they expected?” This jerk still couldn’t understand. Would not accept. Was convinced his idea was better than what the compnay wanted and expected. He then blamed and threw his other team members under the bus………he did get the “you’re fired” line; but this jerk still didn’t understand why. He then went into about how smart he is, brilliant, creative………
Maybe he was….but he still couldn’t follow basic instructions. In church. In business. Serving on a Board of Trustees I have *always* seen this behavior. This crowd never pays for it. Everyone else does……yet they’re the leader. Women think they’re hot. People *still* and continue to respect them.
It’s something I could never put my finger on. Usually it just boils down to that they are above average in intelligence…I won’t deny that……but they have an arrogance about them, and cannot handle the word “no” and think everyone is beneath them.
I thought you must be, but was thrown off by your WordPress Gravatar photo which shows you leaning out from your right side. Until I started the research on my series, I thought Gunner Q’s physiognomy was complete pseudoscience and I thought alpha/beta distinctions were pseudoscience as well. I’ve moderated my views substantially since then.
It’s been suggested that potential geniuses are often left-handed and bald. Their unstable inner-focused personalities make them rather poor at interpersonal relationships.
While your IQ is average, I don’t think your intelligence is. Your comments are often a bit chaotic and disorganized, but you consistently make insightful and intuitive observations. You are successful in your career and often share your frustration with things that I associate with bureaucratic thinking. It is no surprise that people in the sphere find you to be socially disruptive.
I don’t know if I’m the only one who has made this connection.
As an aside, I wonder if your IQ sub-test scores show would show a difference based on the g-loading of the sub-test. Assuming you are not color blind, what score do you get on the Munsell Hue Test?
I pose to the right because it looks appropriate socially / culturally in photos when I do this. When I pose to the left, it brings out negative comments or presumptions from people. Everyone in a group photo poses to the right, and I to the left looks really bad. At home I am normal, or out and about with no camera
I scored 17 on that test btw
Hey, that was a pretty fun test! Is there some correlation between color discrimination (or lack thereof) and intelligence?
Even if the “tests” or other facyors “being left handed” or bald (which is fast happening now) say I am a supposed genius, it means nothing. In my walk in life I’ve notice over and over again, you just have to have an ego the size of god, above average looks and an overbearing / extroverted personality. I tend to side on if I were really a genius, I would actually have useful skills and traits. I can make a good cup of tea. I like living in a clean and tidy, picked up home. I am an audiophile, and can spend a whole day off listening to music without boredom. My hearing and pitch is not on the level of Beatles producer George Martin (rip) but I do have an ear for this.
This is not “genius” stuff here. A genius can take conceptual concepts and sort them out and apply them. My skill set fits none of that. Even if I “deemed” on on paper, its just in the end something to make me “feel good about myself” and the reality is, someone out there would tell me different anyway
physiognomy is dangerous because it now focuses on a persons physical appearance only. Anyone deemed handsome or beautiful is deemed “good” and anyone who isn’t is deemed “evil” or maladaptive. We know throughout history……..the supposed “good” people have done terrible things at the micro and macro level to others. It also borders on eugenics and it also “locks” a person into by genetic traits of “who they are” and I don’t like that
I tested myself and four of the kids. I just need to get my wife and other son to take it. Should be an interesting at-home-scientific-test to see if the scores correspond to our intelligence.
Yes. Color discrimination scores in the population have been consistently falling on a decade-by-decade basis along with various other low-complexity indicators of g.
Caveats: One in twelve men are colorblind and color perception starts to decline quickly above age 40. Women are rarely colorblind and are expected to get better scores (best-case averages ~44 vs ~28). Women are very rarely geniuses. Good scores from men are more impressive than women, but of course most women benefit from having better color perception on a day-to-day basis. Lastly, if you wanted to estimate your own g, you would need a battery of tests. There is simply too much variability to be individually predictive.
This is a very good score. I’m not sure your age, but I believe this is in the 80th to 90th percentile.
Pitch discrimination is correlated with g.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but no, it isn’t saying you are a genius. An average person today would be expected to have a 15-point drop in g compared to an average person of 1900. For today’s average person (50% of the population), this is not a very good score. If I had to speculate.this is just my opinion and doesn’t mean much.I’d say that if you were living in 1900, you’d be an average person. In today’s population that would put you anywhere from the 65th to 90th percentile, which is above average intelligence.
I’ll be discussing these issues when I get to the final part of this series. Keep in mind that I deduced your left-handedness mostly by analyzing observed behaviors not physiological indicators (and I could have been wrong).
Derek….I’m no genius…..even if “paper” says so, by what standard? By what right? Who says? I personally believe tests like this are good baselines…..and can be used to help a person….but by no means, and sadly they are used by too many (even in the sphere) as “this test said this, so I am a leader, an amazing good person, better than you, I have these amazing traits and you don’t” kind of thing. I am still shocked by how many people use the Meyers Briggs as Scripture, or still trying to “one up” that their personality is somehow superior. Did you know this test was normalized in the 1940’s? Did you know it was used in the military and for screening for work / jobs. It was used mostly *gasp* on the average drafted guy. It wasn’t used to screen out men for “alpha” positions…….at IBM which has used it since the late 1940’s they used it for / as a baseline to see what type of office environment you might function best in. It wasn’t a “directive” to the corporation that “they must accommodate to your personality. It wasnt a directive to finding a future spouse. It wasn’t meant to lock you into something.
Most people are average. That goes for most people. We men assume that if someone is of average intelligence today they will only be good for mopping floors and riding on the back of a garbage truck or leaning up against a post all day. For all the “non exceptional” proclaimed by the christian red pilled world, and their faith, and god which tells them to behave in this manner…….there sure is way too much “exceptionalism” about them of course. Most are behaving like the soy-boys and “cucks” they bemoan. I see through their bullshit. Most are decent average guys….sadly, they believe they are better than everyone else, only they can have insights and skills. You can’t, or if you indeed do….you’re using them *wrong* or *incorrectly*
I’m average. The scale says so….my work says so for in the career I am in. Could Bancorp Property Mgt survive if I just left tomorrow? Yes? Well, I am worth every penny they are paying me. Could a solid younger man who died on the job….would his family be able to stabilize? Sure….some could. Many if not most could not financial wise.
This shows me that some of the greatest work on the earth is NOT compensated. Cannot have any value (monetary or otherwise) put upon it. A man who provides the best he can for his family (rich or poor, good looking or not, leader or not) suddenly dies. No amount of money or how smart he was, or what his personality type was will ever make up for that loss. Makes you wonder what is really important.
Marriage and being a father now are only for the elite. Christianity is only for the intelligent and the elect. More basis on “who you are” is being cast upon tests, metrics, intellectual batteries, qucik three-minute microwave tests, data control, IBM….and “science is mankinds brother” nonsense, how much money you make………how many women bedded and how hot they were and between what physiognomy says versus anything.
I don’t like it, and I am becoming more alienated by this stuff by the day. Hence why I think men in the sphere would have a man like me “taken out” VERY quickly if they ever got in charge……
Jordon Peterson had a test I took, and paid for. I believe it was okay, but it stressed the potentials, and not your detriments. It focused on challenges you may have………but didn’t lock you into desperation of being stuck…nor an ego of “this is how I am, look at me the unique snowflake”
If you are enjoying the repartee between these dizzying intellects discussing their left-handed genius…
It has only just begun…
…Wait for it…
Soon we’ll arrive at…
@Sharkly
Well played sir. Alas, you have found me out. I am indeed right-handed.
Reread what I wrote. I never said you were. One can only speculate as to what any person’s real intelligence is anyway. Whether you agree with my assessment or not is no matter.
Bottom line, I think it is illustrative that it’s possible to tell that someone is left-handed (about a 1 in 10 chance) based on observed above-average levels of insight and intuition, and that it correlates with above-average visual and auditory acuity and baldness. I hope I’m not the only one who finds this interesting.
“dizzying intellects discussing their left-handed genius”
Its been made very clear from my postings over the years I am no genius. Nor do I claim to be one, I’ll leave that to you, the “club” in Dalrock and DS to hairsplit over that. I’m left handed. Big whoop. Its another thing I am not “normal” in having and I really hate it if truth be told.
I know the difference between ‘King Lear’ and ‘King Kong’ hardly blinding genius. I struggle with keeping up with most conversations (most are WAY over my feeble mind) and I really dislike smart people….not because they are smart…but because I am made to “wish” I was like them. Best to leave you folks alone.
My mother is left-handed. My wife is left-handed and hates scissors being right-handed. My son is left-handed. At least one of my adopted kids is left-handed. I like the way left-handed people think, which might have been an unconscious factor in why I married one. You may hate it, but we all benefit from your perspective. You undervalue yourself.
Statistically there may be one or two more left-handers in Boxer’s audience, but I can’t identify them.
“You undervalue yourself”
Nonsense. No one benefits from my perspective. The only thing that at this point that keeps me sane is the sound of my own voice. The cat has no idea what I am talking about, but at least he feigns interest. Also the fact I don’t cut myself shaving as often as I used to……finally learned to use dad’s old straight razor to shave without needing a blood transfusion. Takes more time, but a better shave for sure when I have the time to shave this way.
Never got the grasp of using right handed scissors either. I still hate it when I am writing a letter, and I smudge the ink by crossing the paper left to right. If we wrote the other way, this problem would be solved. #lefthandedproblems
lastmod @ 2019-11-22 at 14:18:
“physiognomy is dangerous because it now focuses on a persons physical appearance only.”
Limited, not dangerous. It’s not different than assuming that a person smiling is in a good mood or a ripped man goes to the local gym regularly. Why he’s in a good mood or whether he’s using steroids isn’t something you can learn from the face.
“Anyone deemed handsome or beautiful is deemed .good. and anyone who isn.t is deemed .evil. or maladaptive.”
Entirely not true. Example, facial asymmetry is considered ugly but physiognomy instead reads each side of the face differently… right side for public life, left side for private life. (I don’t know if left-handedness alters that.) There are no rewards for symmetry.
Similarly, I know of men with “pedoface” physiognomy who have proven themselves honorable and respectable by their actions. One was a coworker that I got along very well with. Physiognomy is neither destiny nor morality.
At this point in the Convergence, I’d worry more about men wearing pink shirts & ties than pedofaces. That’s because at least in California, marital/sexual stress lines are omnipresent… too many broken homes and hurting kids… while the predators are bold enough to advertise in plain sight.
“It also borders on eugenics”
Correcting for race is the only genetic factor in physiognomy. Example, a White reading of Asian eye corners will be wildly inaccurate if adjustments for naturally different eye shapes are not made.
The most deterministic element of face-reading is adolescence, when the sex hormones kick in and give the skull its final, permanent shape. If you follow my blog, you’ll notice I almost never read children. That’s not just a privacy thing; they’re too young to have faces shaped by their choices and experiences.
The only exception I recall offhand is Greta Thunberg and she was a study in fetal alcohol syndrome.
“Similarly, I know of men with .pedoface. physiognomy who have proven themselves honorable and respectable by their actions. One was a coworker that I got along very well with. Physiognomy is neither destiny nor morality.”
This statement debunks the whole thing right there
It is indeed negatively correlated with facial symmetry. Left-handedness is associated with all manner of relative negatives. Roughly speaking, if something is bad, it’s worse in left-handed people. Health, wealth, social status, happiness, you name it.
Left-handers have disproportionate representation among geniuses, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean left-handers have an appreciably higher chance of being a genius. They don’t. I believe left-handedness is actually weakly correlated with lower intelligence. Geniuses also get all the negatives of being a left-hander.
Because the brains of left-handers are asymmetrical (and certain parts of it may be larger), they are known to be more artistic, creative, and intuitive. This is the primary benefit of being left-handed. These also appear to be essential attributes of genius. Half of the last 12 presidents have been left-handed too.
If you could look at someone and tell that they were left-handed, I would think this would be useful for physiognomy.