Are the “cognitive elite” the natural ruling class of society?
Have you ever had to endure listening to a high IQ individual assert their superiority?
Have you ever noticed the striking similarity between (1) the belief that the “cognitive elite” are the natural rulers of society and (2) “the divine right of kings”?
Have you ever noticed that, beneath the veneer of the insufferable virtual signalling, an unusually large percentage of those at the top of the social hierarchy in 2020 seem to be unusually unrestrained by conscience in their quest for money, status and power?
The “ivy league” schools
Did you know that the Chinese Communist Party has a “longevity program” [http://bit.ly/3rxdeWV] which keeps Falun Gong members alive in prison until a party member or high paying customer needs an organ transplant. The ~1.5 million innocent human beings executed in this fashion are just a small fraction of the ~100 million killed by the most murderous regime in human history.
Have you ever wondered why the ivy league schools, supposedly the bastion of the “cognitive elite”, the natural ruling class of society, are where the top members of the Chinese Communist Party send their children? There are no coincidences.
The failing public school system
How much of what you learned in school do you remember today?
Have you ever asked yourself what was the point of investing all that time and effort learning things that were never actually incorporated into the skills which you bring to the market? The underperforming public school system, where children are rewarded for (1) test taking and (2) obedience to authority rather than for their (3) ability to develop skills to contribute to society, is on the verge of being replaced by the “school choice” movement.
Isn’t it interesting how, at the very same time, a hysterical “divide and rule” religion of “identity politics”, is suddenly being forced upon us all by the ivy league schools and the billionaires who control the mainstream media and big tech companies? There are no coincidences.
Ask yourself:
Who benefits from the education system?
Who benefits from the religion of identity politics?
The eugenicists
Have you ever wondered why eugenicists like Margaret Sanger and William Shockley were so obsessed with removing people of lower IQ from the gene pool? Why did they feel so threatened by them? Have you ever noticed that the people responsible for the mass abortion of black babies and the use of IQ tests to exclude African Americans from high paying high tech jobs are the very same liberal ruling class who are the strongest #BLM virtue signalers? There are no coincidences.
Bend the knee to your lord, serf!
Of course, if you bend the knee to your master by confessing your inferiority, and pledging to fight the enemies of your master, they may reward you with handouts, so long as you never forget your place … on your knees.
Jordan Peterson and “The divine right of kings”: rule by “dominance” or “competence”?
Dr. Jordan Peterson, who for most of his career, referred to the social hierarchy as a “dominance hierarchy”, has recently changed his tune by referring to it as a “hierarchy of competence”. He has been a leading force behind the theory of the “cognitive elite” — by which he means those who score high on IQ tests — being the natural rulers of society.
Interestingly, Dr Peterson admits that, amongst the 12 rules he encourages everyone to live by, “telling the truth” is the one he finds most difficult to comply with. The dark side of the force – the urge to be “top primate” – is strong in this one.
It is indeed true, that high IQ does correspond with high social status. However is it really true that IQ is a measure of “competence”? Or could there be another explanation. Could IQ, in fact, be a measure of “dominance”?
A “first principles” perspective
One of my favorite thinkers is Elon Musk. Elon famously builds superior predictive models of the world by “reasoning up from first principles”. This enables him to make confident predictions and better decisions which has benefitted him and his companies enormously.
Were we to reason from first principles here …
We know that cognitive speed varies in direct proportion to synaptic myelination. When learning a new skill, each time you engage in spaced repetition of recall practice, the struggle to recall the information increases the strength of the connections and myelinates them. Over time, recall becomes effortless and involves very little energy expenditure. New concepts can then be layered upon these concepts in a similar fashion.
Speed of skill acquisition then, would seem to depend upon 2 variables: (1) The speed of making new synaptic connections and (2) the speed of myelination.
So what variables contribute to these 2 variables?
“absence of internal conflict”
One variable is “the absence of internal conflict”.
Think about it.
Think about all the times in your life when your forward momentum has been slowed by the presence of internal conflicts.
Recall how the inner civil war consumed your cognitive resources and prevented you from fully utilizing them to, say, study for an upcoming test.
Now imagine how things would be different for you if those inner conflicts never existed.
Imagine if you were able to fully utilize every neuron in your brain in the pursuit of self advancement without ever having to worry about harming others, for example.
Imagine if every single neuron in your brain was assigned to the aim of the pursuit of your primal desires; to advance your position in the dominance hierarchy and to reap the rewards of doing so.
Compare that to the situation where perhaps only half of your neurons were so assigned the aim of self advancement and the other half were assigned to the competing aim of “care and concern for the wellbeing of others”.
Which of these 2 brains would do better on IQ tests?
Which of these 2 brains would do better in the Game of Thrones that is the battle for position in the dominance hierarchy?
Which of these 2 brains would do better in an education system which rewarded test taking and obedience to authority rather than the development of superior skills to make superior contributions to society?
The cognitive trade-off theory
You probably lived most of your life believing the LIE that IQ is a measure of intelligence.
Now, you are about to watch a video that will rock your world.
Evidence of brutality
But first, to understand the context, watch 30 seconds of this video (starts at 0:40):
Take away: A chimpanzee “will eat a monkey alive with the damn thing still screaming.”
The master of cognitive test taking
Watch 2 mins and 30 seconds of this video (starts at 15:42):
Observe how badly the chimpanzee beat the human in the cognitive test.
Take away: Notice how badly the chimpanzee resolutely defeated the human in the cognitive test.
Think about that!
Now think about the claims of the cognitive elites to be the natural ruling class of society. Who is more “evolved”? Humans or chimpanzees?
How to explain the cognitive elite chimpanzee?
Watch 3 mins of this video for an explanation (starts at 6:00):
When it comes to the satiation of primal sense desires, the chimpanzee brain is far superior. It is as if every neuron in its much smaller sensory-motor brain seems to be dedicated to the satiation of sense-desires.
The “Cognitive Tradeoff Hypothesis” is that our ancestors traded “memory” for “language”. The ability to communicate with each other proved to be a tradeoff that was selected for by evolution.
But what force in the environment might have led to the evolution of language?
Is “the origin of language” the same as “the origin of the battle between good and evil”?
What compulsion had to evolve which might have given risen to the compulsion to develop language?
Any parent of a baby in pain who desperately wants to understand why they are in pain knows the answer.
“Care and concern for the wellbeing of others” was almost certainly the driving force for the evolution of language.
Tetsuro Matsuzawa suggested on the video that the environment which selected for this trait was one where our ancestors, who had been kicked out of the trees, were forced to collaborate with each other to defend themselves from predators.
The cognitive tradeoff then was not a tradeoff between “the satiation of sense-desires” and “language”.
The cognitive tradeoff was a tradeoff between “the satiation of sense-desires” and “care and concern for the wellbeing of others”.
i.e. This is almost certainly where the battle between good and evil began.
The chimpanzees among us?
It just so happens that there is a certain type of human who has much in common with the chimpanzee.
1: affective empathy deficit
A chimpanzee will “eat a monkey alive with the damn thing still screaming.
So too, human beings who possess “trait narcissism” also have a physiological inability to experience affective empathy.
As you might imagine, the inability to feel remorse is a competitive advantage in the zero-sum Game of Thrones that is the battle to ascend to the top of the dominance hierarchy. Imagine how tempted you would be to betray your friend to advance your position if you felt zero moral restraint against doing so. Those who are strongly restrained by conscience, on the other hand, are competitively disadvantaged.
2: grey matter volume
Chimpanzees have much smaller brains than humans.
So too, human beings who possess “trait narcissism”, have been shown by science to have significantly less grey matter in the brains. This is especially true in the area of the left anterior insula in particular. [http://bit.ly/2LWVqS1]
The chimpanzee beat the human in the cognitive test.
Who is more evolved? The chimpanzee or the monkey?
The High IQ narcissist beats the Lower IQ humans in cognitive tests.
Who is more evolved? High IQ narcissists or humans whose cognitive tradeoff is more strongly skewed to “care and concern for the wellbeing of others”?
High IQ narcissist, do you still feel superior?
Could it be that deep down the narcissists KNOW this to be true?
Perhaps only on an unconscious level?
Could it be that they desperately climb the dominance hierarchy for the same reason that a cat desperately climbs a tree?
Because they are terrified?
Summary and caveat
So, in summary, the theory is
“Internal conflict” slows down the cognitive processing speed of the IQ test taker.
“Internal conflict” arose with the ascent of “care and concern for the wellbeing of others” to rival “sense-desire satiation” as a competing aim in the sensory-motor brain.
Because “sense-desire satiation” is the older compulsion, and the reason why the sensory-motor brain evolved to begin with, the competing aim of “care and concern for the wellbeing of others” was initially weaker, but has been progressively growing stronger.
It is likely, therefore, that the “cognitive elite” and their “dominance hierarchy” are the last remnants of our chimpanzee like ancestors.
There is a very important caveat to this theory, however.
“Internal conflict” can be strong or weak.
One way in which it can be weak is if “care and concern for the wellbeing of others” is weak relative to “sense-desire satiation”.
But another possibility is that “sense-desire satiation”. is weak relative to highly developed “care and concern for the wellbeing of others.
Given the order in which the 2 evolved, the letter scenario is less probable. Nevertheless, it is possible.