However, basically everyone I know who takes innate intelligence as “real and important” is dumber for it. It is very liable to mode collapse into fixed mindsets, and I’ve seen this (imo) happen a lot in the rat community.
To the extent that that this is actually true, I suspect it comes down to underrating luck as a factor, which I could definitely see as a big problem, and not understanding that general innate intelligence isn’t widely distributed (such that even selecting pretty hard for general innate intelligence will at best get you an OOM better than average, if a supergenius and a ridiculous outlier, with the real life attempts being at best 2-3x median human, and that’s being generous.)
In essence, I think general, innate intelligence is real, it matters, but compared to luck or non-intelligence factors, it’s essentially a drop in the ocean and rationalists overrate it a lot.
To the extent that that this is actually true, I suspect it comes down to underrating luck as a factor, which I could definitely see as a big problem, and not understanding that general innate intelligence isn’t widely distributed (such that even selecting pretty hard for general innate intelligence will at best get you an OOM better than average, if a supergenius and a ridiculous outlier, with the real life attempts being at best 2-3x median human, and that’s being generous.)
In essence, I think general, innate intelligence is real, it matters, but compared to luck or non-intelligence factors, it’s essentially a drop in the ocean and rationalists overrate it a lot.