I/O

The analyses in some of the press of the divisions which this referendum has exposed – by age, by education, by class and by geography – seem pretty thorough. It becomes clear that the voting had little to do with the question on the ballot and a lot to do with putting up two fingers to authority of any kind. What worries me is that if future governments learn anything from this debacle it will be that asking the populace will be asking for trouble. So the shackles of popular ignorance and irrationality, in large part forged by the promotion of infantilism by sections of the entertainment industry and the press, will be screwed frantically tighter. This may be the last chance for genuine reform for quite a while. But tragically, there appear to be no leaders on the scene capable of attempting it. We have no Solon to implement the seisachtheia that we desperately need.

it will be that asking the populace will be asking for trouble.

The government are extremely stupid for not learning from Boaty McBoatface.

Phew! IQtest.com rates me as having an IQ of 124, though the whole concept of an IQ test is heavily slanted against those with mathematical difficulties. Some of the questions (this bunch of numbers is to this other bunch of numbers, true/false) I just picked a reply at random. It would take me a long time to figure out how those numbers relate to each other, and really there is a lot more to being intelligent than simply playing with numbers.
I understand a reasonable bit of French, a tiny bit of Japanese, three computer languages (one being extremely low level); and the authors of the books on my e-reader are Carl Sagan (who is the closest I have to a personal hero), Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, and Stephen King (one day I’ll actually finish Dome!). But I suck at maths.

the whole concept of an IQ test is heavily slanted …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0ZC12G

Way to go England. Wow. At this rate you’re gonna be hated even more than the Norks. ;-)

Phew! IQtest.com rates me as having an IQ of 124, though the whole concept of an IQ test is heavily slanted against those with mathematical difficulties.

There’s no doubt the IQ testing system is slanted against many things. The problem arises from the thinking of the people that design the tests and their assumption that they are perfect arbiters of what intelligence is.

The tests become less accurate as the person being tested approaches the IQ of the person setting the test and is pretty much tosh once the tester is outmatched.¹

Then take the observed fact that you can practice the tests and come to recognise the style and thereby increase the score. It’s not increased intelligence it’s familiarity.

¹ The phrase I recall being used was “you aren’t smart enough to test me”

Just in case anyone didn’t get that, I was taking the **** about an IQ test.
But 120 was a figure that I reckoned most people on here would be able to get. High enough so you should be allowed to go outside, but not too high so you shouldn’t be allowed outside ;-)
But this made me chuckle…
“Mohit Bajaj, director of ETF trading solutions at WallachBeth Capital LLC in New York, said the severity of the sell-off was partly due to investors misreading the outcome and betting the wrong way.” – Oh so traders making huge bets on things and screwing the economy, not heard that before!

My point about sheep was to make it about both the referendum and online polls and that there is plenty of “stupid” to go around on all sides.

I was taking the **** about an IQ test

I thought it was the done thing to take the **** out of the IQ test.

No, but fair point.it should have been

While we can agree that IQ tests are flawed – it does raise two interesting questions: How does one define intelligence, and then how does one measure such a thing?

Let’s take the last five unique posters to this topic. Who is the most intelligent? Who is next? It’s okay, you can rank me last if you wish. However I would ask that you quantify the method used to determine.

I’ll give you an example. Look at the recent post by Gavin. “We have no Solon to implement the seisachtheia that we desperately need.” He isn’t just using fancy words to make himself seem learned, the entire sentence is a self contained reference to ancient Greek law, specifically fixing a bad debt problem (sound familiar?). That to me is a clear indicator of intelligence and being better read than your average late twentieth century comprehensive. However the ability to recall such historical information and relate it to modern day events absolutely does not factor in to so called intelligence testing.

So, intelligence quotient testing is flawed. What should we be using instead?

So, intelligence quotient testing is flawed. What should we be using instead?

Why?
As in why test? What does the intelligence testing achieve?

Fitness for the task at hand is far more useful. If everyone did what they are good at the world would be a smoother running place. They usually like doing it so it isn’t really “work” is it?

Thank you for the kind words Rick. I count myself as no expert; but I am prepared to admit the existence of experts, by which I mean people who have studied or gained their expertise by experience, and whose advice is objective. Of course, experts can get things wrong. Then they get blamed. But when they get them right they get little credit.

As far as I can see the Leavers are people who mistrust experts or who cannot conceive that experts exist. They feel, possibly with justification, that they are the victims of a conspiracy. This poisonous belief has been carefully fostered by their leaders, or by the injustices of our society.

This is no doubt a gross oversimplification, and I hope nobody feels insulted by it.

I know virtually nothing about our society, having led an exceptionally sheltered life. I was never taught, and never learnt, anything about law, politics, business or money. I am in no position to sound off about life. But I do think the Remainers have a more rational and practical approach than the Leavers.

I did once take an IQ test. I must have been 8 or 9 years old. We took the test in a classroom of another school. I have no idea what my score was. It was all a piece of nonsense that I was content to humour at the time.

I’ve just read a comment here blaming the English again. The Welsh must be thrilled that their view counted for nothing.

Selective facts are just as bad as outright lies.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/25/view-wales-town-showered-eu-cash-votes-leave-ebbw-vale

PS: the ~16M who didn’t want this must be thrilled that their view counted for nothing. The 16 and 17 year olds who couldn’t vote must be thrilled that their view counted for less than nothing. Shall I go on?

Wow, you completely missed the point of what I was saying.

My point was that if you expect to be able to call people liars and stupid and not able to understand what they voted for, then you should at least make sure you present all the facts.

If you don’t post balanced comments then how are you any more right?

Somehow, I think I preferred the Basic compiler discussion.

Let’s take the last five unique posters to this topic. Who is the most intelligent?

Dunno.

Who is next?

Dunno.

It’s okay, you can rank me last if you wish.

Okay. You’re last.

However I would ask that you quantify the method used to determine.

My method was to follow your instructions. You did say “if you wish” but I have no preference, so it was a practical solution to ranking at least one out of the five.

Being serious, and referring back to an earlier post of yours:

And Boris looks like he is trying to find positive things to day while his face says “oh crap”.

That’ll be because Boris doesn’t want out of the EU. Despite often acting the bumbling fool, he’s not a stupid bloke, and he knows leaving the EU is not a wise move. Like many, though, he was expecting the leave vote to be high, but not high enough – and he very likely thought that if he had a high profile on that side of the debate, that would mean a very high percentage of the UK public would see him as being “on their side”. (If he was on the side of remaining in the EU, his voice would have been less prominent compared with Cameron, etc).

So by siding with those wanting out, if he then went on to become Tory leader, this would improve his chances of moving into number 10 after the next general election. (Technically, we don’t vote for the person to be PM, but many people have that in mind when they’re voting for their local MPs).

He was playing a longer game that required a specific outcome in the referendum. Unfortunately for him – and even more unfortunately for us – that backfired, and we now have to deal with the consequences.

As far as I can see the Leavers are people who mistrust experts or who cannot conceive that experts exist.

Or resent and then dismiss any ‘expert’ whose views don’t agree with what they want to believe. Note the thread though all this of labelling people as the ‘elite’.

The real problem in this case, though, is that a lot of the ‘leave’ campaign was based on deception and ‘dog whistle’ slogans. Thus suckering in the unwary and pandering to some nasty views. They took those people for a ride for their own personal political advancement… only to find that we are now all riding a tiger.

The ‘dog whistle’ was particularly marked in the use of phrases like “We need to reduce the number of immigrants.” To some that meant “We need to reduce the number of new immigrants who arrive from now on.” For others it meant “There are already too many immigrants around here and we’ll get rid of them.”

Similar for lovely semantics like “Our Country back”, etc.

Then, after the vote came all the reverse-ferrits. e.g. the UKIP MP on TV yesterday who said the vote had “nothing to do with immigration”, and various ‘leave’ campaigners who now disown what they actually said over and over again.

I wonder: as politicians are supposed to plan, even quite far ahead, and do lots of strategy, did they do this deliberately?

Who’d plan to flush their own country down the toilet?

Yes, Rick, I can’t imagine that as well, but the question remains.

Machiavelli?

The reality, I fear, is that BoJo and the head prefect thought this was a great bandwaggon to help them gain more power. They expected to lose, but be very popular with the Tory party. Be careful what you wish for, as you may get it… Alas, in this case the rest of us are saddled with it as well. Plus the great prospect of BoJo the genius as PM handling negotiations and making decisions.

Maybe when credit card interest rates and food prices start to rise, people will wake up and find they have a really serious hangover. House prices may fall, but people remain unable to buy them because they can’t get or afford a mortgage even for the smaller amounts. Feedback rules.

I suspect Private Eye will have a field day with all this.

The turkeys voted for Christmas.

I wonder: as politicians are supposed to plan, even quite far ahead, and do lots of strategy, did they do this deliberately?

Hanlon’s razor?

Speaking of research, I found this paper on a page on Wikipedia a few days ago. It’s now linked to from the United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union page.

Hanlon’s razor?

Ah, a new razor. I knew the one from Occam. And Gillette’s… I don’t assume malice or conspiracy, but I think the whole thing is carefully orchestrated though.

Thank you for the link (this paper), ik will be a good read tomorrow (in the train on my way to my mother’s birthday (101)).

Brexit vote: 48% Sense & Sensibility, 52% Pride & Predjudice…