This site needs more special sklansky pua forum

I heard Feyman was a pick up artist, lol.
http://www.roberttwigger.com/journal...technique.html

I wonder if he used his name as a pun.

"Hey, bebe, I'm the Fine Man. And I'm issuing you a ticket for breakin my heart."

That's not an algorithm. It's really basic wit. Maybe social science majors are smarter than everyone else? :')

They are not. Its just that there are some specific personality types that just loves to view everything in this world as dependent on "intelligence". They somehow got the impression that they are intelligent themselves and then continue this romantic view that everything humans do is a product of their rational though. But its not. Its just a lack of knowledge that misleads these people, and this is so damn simple to understand that its hard to have much sympathy with their delusions. Im sorry to bring it to you, intelligence is not everything in this world. Return to reality, you are not special.

You are ascribing a lot more to my words than what is really there. Its not even so much my opinion about people as my opinion about endeavors. Namely that most of them have enough of a mathematical, scientific or logical component to them that someone who would otherwise be in the 50th percentile if they didn't learn these components would move up to about 95% if they did. Bowling and building sand castles would be two more examples.

You missed the point of that comment. It wasn't meant to be funny.

Where on earth did you get these numbers from lol? And this...

Honestly this just sounds like complete BS. IDC how analytical your mind is or what training you have in logic, there is absolutely no good reason to assume a logical/analytical mind will get you anywhere when it comes to pole vaulting, writing a symphony, designing a bridal dress, delivering stand up comedy or picking up strippers.

Tell me how a mathematical mind is going to help you "deliver" stand up comedy? Delivering stand up is about rhetoric and has absolutely nothing to do with mathematical thinking.

(On that note, how insanely smart are some comedians?!)

In fact, for most of these things, an analytical or logical mind is going to be antithetical to success in these endeavours.

And now you are adding to it. Suddenly they have to be in the "50th percentile" for this to work. Its already getting less general, and you will find that this whole idea will get more and more chipped away as you look more into it.

And yes, a number of things will have some components like mentioned to it, but for most things it will be quite meager and very far from bottomless, and the impact of it might be so much smaller than the impact of e.g who has the stronger bone in their nose, or who can endure longer, or who is more devoted, and who has the more advantageful length of body, or who is more blunt or who has better memory while still sucking in maths or logic, or who is willing to throw away all their values to reach a goal, or who is more cultivated to fit in. Welcome to a complex world. And there is no reason why someone that is not as clever can learn these math/logical things for some activity just as good as someone more intelligent, the intelligence might not be needed, maybe they just need slightly more time. If you are a stock analyst then there will be loads of math or logical things where you gain an edge. When it comes to picking up women there is close to none that will have an impact, and when it comes to playing a FPS game then whoever has a more advantageful neural system to guide her will do better, not the one who is stronger in math and not the one that know strategy or theory better.

Social "science" majors usually lack an internal/intellectual life. They are creatures of the social world and do nothing but live in it. That's why so many of them are very damaged; their sense of self is strongly constructed by other people.

They are however incessant talkers, and, being society's dregs, practiced lowbrow manipulators.

I think Sklansky's general point that raw intelligence will take you way further in nearly any pursuit is pretty valid. Would a physics major or chess expert destroy a social science major on any topic or acquiring any skill if both their lives depended on it? Yes, without question.

The only exceptions are the Aspergery types where there is literally something defective with their brains. They have a higher concentration in math subjects I would say. But as long as there is nothing functionally wrong/missing, high intelligence crushes in the end.

Obv i was joking about social sciences. But you must also remember everyone lies somewhere on the Aspergers spectrum and imo the more super good at math you are the more asperger as **** you are.

But yeah I agree with everything you're saying though the sweeping defamatory generalizations toward social science majors - so not cool bro, I have done a SS elective before. :/

lol we got a post that is completely devoid of reality, and then some bread that "agrees".

It this even true? It's probably true for your average high school math nerd, but I'm quite certain it's untrue for the bolded.

They're truly dealt a bad hand at life though. Let's introduce some data into this discussion. This is from Gene Expression at Discover Magazine. You'll have to expand to see the data points.



Basically, physicists beat all comers on the SATs. Social work isn't even in the race.

Verbal is in an interesting measure, since it's something that someone naturally acquires with an interest in the world. Physicists have verbal SATs much higher to just above everything from sociologists to psychologists, and social work isn't even in the race.

The most fascinating cluster for me is in linguistics, Russian and philosophy - extremely high verbal scores, far higher than lit students, with a not-terrible math score. All of the linguists I've met have been extremely bright people. The philosophers, not so much, so it's interesting that they score similarly, at least on the SAT.

I have no idea on the source for this graph, but I enjoyed it nonetheless:



Ignore the gender stuff as it's irrelevant to the discussion - it's the only graph I could find attempting to plot IQ vs major.

One of my closest friends is autistic. He is a professional diplomat with a greater ability to understand and control social situations than anyone else I know, in part through the application of an algorithmic (i.e. rule-based, incremental, and evidence-based) approach to his relationships. I think Sklansky's point is that even people who aren't naturally very good at social interactions will still be more successful than average if they use an algorithmic approach - which is more common I guess among math and science types.

tooth tries to "introduce some data" to prove his overly ignorant claims from his first post but fails miserably. do you even understand what your claims were, there is no proof for this. also he claims they have been dealth "a bad hand at life", which is also untrue since loads of people dont even study anything at a university and might have other abilities that carry them.

Also he praises linguistics, but sometimes social sciences (which he talks smack about) actually includes this branch, from wiki: The main social sciences include economics, political science, human geography, demography, and sociology. In a wider sense, social science also includes some fields in the humanities[1] such as anthropology, archaeology, jurisprudence, history, and linguistics.

this guy seems to be writing amazingly ignorant posts. maybe he is even slipping outside my borders of who i will bother engaging, i have limits.

The reputed source(s) for the graph are in the bottom left hand corner of the graph itself. The font is small and somewhat blurred but can be made out without too much difficulty for those that have a desire to do so.

I have an ex-girlfriend like that. Extremely bright in multiple ways. A genius at social manipulation. But lacking in some types of empathy and shockingly ignorant about certain basic human needs and desires. Although she was a normal child in every sense, she had classic physical Asperger symptoms when young - aversion to sounds, low to non existent display of affection, stuff like that.

I picked up that something was off right away - I think that's why she dated me, apart from intelligence, good looks and charm - but 98% of other people have no clue. They legitimately think she's an amazing person and near perfect and socially extremely graceful.

She says she had to learn social skills by watching people and learning the rules of social interaction, like a puzzle. That it's not natural and she hates it and she doesn't "get" people at all - they're a total mystery to her but she's learned algorithmically and incrementally how to get the outcome she wants. She would happily retreat into playing Liszt and Rachmaninoff for 12 hours at a time. And she would sometimes avoid people for days because she finds them stressful. But purely by watching and algorithmic learning, even with a huge emotional deficit, she's gotten good enough to completely fool 98% of people and manipulate anything to what she wants.

So your story is very much my experience with people like this as well. Quite scarily, nearly all of us are programmable social animals, easily manipulated by someone (or thing) intelligent enough who's figured out how.

I'm not particularly or extra impressed by acts of intelligence a calculator can perform.

So since when did we start measuring or framing "social success" in terms of who is more "manipulative" or who is more able to reach some specific forumlated target or goal in a social setting. Its not about that, its about a whole lot of other things. Sharing and caring and chilling out and networking and experiencing validation, for instance. Does it sound familiar.

One of the distinguishing factors of psychopaths is that they are manipulative. Psychopaths have lower iq then than the average population, contrary to popular belief. Taste that.

How on earth can a person that have much lower abilities for social understanding than the average somehow become a social boss by producing some "algorithm". There are professors that are ripping their hairs out every day trying to understand social life, they have studied the data, the theories, and everything the sociology field has produced since its birth. And then somehow a random person void of social understanding can somehow deduce an algorithm that makes them social bosses like its nothing. Try to measure social success in terms of who is more popular, or who is more liked, or who has more close relationships, for example. Maybe it helps on the delusions.

I apologize for making "amazingly ignorant posts". I seem to have a problem with making statistically true generalizations about groups of people.

Here's the thing. A couple of times, to help out friend who was struggling, I've written sociology papers that got an A. The subject is a joke I'm afraid. High verbal reasoning skills + flattering the ideological prejudices of your idiot professor (with a little bit of a mind of your own - maybe even throw in some irony!!), lets you ace the subject. It is a trivial and stupid subject if someone with no knowledge in the area can do that.

Contrast that with physics, or advanced linguistics, or advanced mathematics, or electrical engineering. There is no possible way you can enter that field without knowledge and not go "WTF...!!" and have to actively reorganize, challenge and expand your conceptual range over an extended period to even reach a level of basic competency. In contrast, a literature/sociology degree can be completed to a high level by a moderate intelligence that possesses strong verbal reasoning skills, without ever really stretching themselves.

I find the same thing in philosophy. Barring stuff that's basically computation (formal logic), there's no concept in the field that's beyond someone of reasonable intelligence. Perhaps that's a combination of the limitations of language and the imprecision of the concepts being discussed. Either way, it's not hard, in the way physics is hard. In my opinion it means that the people who do it aren't as intelligent. For one because intelligence seeks the greatest challenges, and for two because poor and sloppy thinking and thinkers are not as easily weeded out. The last point is David's and imo it guarantees that that field will have lower intelligence.

In fact if you look at the graph above, it's very clear that the intelligence of those in a field is highly correlated with the precision of that field.

Talking about "sharing and caring" in a thread about whether philosophers or physicists are more intelligent is a little...social work, no?

And again, you're only validating my point, with each post, that social "science" students are indeed in need of external validation and lacking an internal life.
What exactly am I tasting?

Because they can? Because people are easily manipulated social animals?
If you want a genuine answer to this? The same reason athletes can run faster than professors who study biomechanics. The same reason experienced computer programmers can writer better real-world code than professors who study formal logic. Intellectual inquiry is mostly a clown show for things for which we have specific trainable talents. The intellect is narrow and slow and easily diverted and fooled, even for generations. It can't grasp 99% of what people do, and even when it does, that grasping is irrelevant and a pale shadow of doing. A repeatedly applied attempt-learn-change-attempt will quickly crush any intellectual inquiry in its effectiveness over time.

If that's not obvious to you, consider leaving an academic environment ASAP and trying to do things in the real world. See how far your theories of sociology get you, compared to immersive applied empirical testing.
It should be immediately obvious to you that your sociology professors are fools. People who are actually good at the act of applied sociology are out, you know, applying it.
Hah?

You just dont have a clue what you are talking about, and it really clogs up the whole discussion. Because you think you can just jump in here and burp out all sort of random junk statements and think its clever. Its not. Just please gain more knowledge or stop talking.

E.g i will respond to the following, although everything you say is basically in lack of knowledge or understanding, so its a timesink for me "answering" it.


"And again, you're only validating my point, with each post, that social "science" students are indeed in need of external validation and lacking an internal life."

- Who the hell doesnt. You just dont understand what social interactions is about, but you are talking about it like you do. Every damn person on the planet forms its identity through external validation. Your brain have an idea about who you are and what you are worth and it tests these ideas against the response it gets from the environment, then it modifies its vision of who you are and what your worth is. Its a constant process.

And who doesnt have an "internal life". Everyone walks around caught by the voices in their heads and their ideas all the time. Your chart even tells us that social scientists have far above the average intelligence. Its impossible to say they are disadvantaged in life in terms of intelligence.


And then you write something along the lies of "athletes are faster than professors in biomechanics" etc. The whole point is that the type of person you guys are talking about, people with autism, can use their theories to deduce whats going on in social life. I am ALSO talking about people that do this, namely sociology professors. Why the hell would these autists be better when professors have all the logistics and investments in the world to do a better job at discovering whats going on in social life. Its not a matter of a theorist vs someone who do it in practice, is a matter of theorist vs theorist. Professors cant produce an algorithm for everything that is going on in social life. If som autist somehow found it, then PUBLISH IT. But they dont, because they dont have any. Maybe they can be manipulative or have certain social targetrs or goals they can master, but they cant become social bosses in the way i have outlined. Do not pretend that being a social master is a question of who is more manipulative.

"It should be immediately obvious to you that your sociology professors are fools. "

If you are going to discuss with me then dont be so incredible silly, i dont have time for it. "Professors are fools" is a bad way to waste my time. Try to be a bit more reflected and clever than this.

Just because something is complex analytically or can't be done without prior knowledge or understanding of specifics, does not make it more worthy of intelligence.

I.e. the smartest person on earth might not have studied first year linguistics and therefore wouldn't be able to pass the final. It may simply be that their interest isn't linguistics or mathematics or physics.

You make it seem like no one can be smart unless they participate in these activities? I couldn't care less for mathematics or physics and therefore don't know how to do it. I might choose a sociology or philosophy major because it interests me. Does this make me less intelligent than the mathematician? If I made an effort to do maths and worked as hard or harder than current math majors, and became proficient in maths, would I now be a smarter person?

I'm chuckling right now, dude.
Here's the thing. I know exactly what you're talking about. The problem is that your comprehension is extremely poor, which comes from being very narrowly read. When Original Position and I are using words like "algorithms", "rule-based", we are describing something. What we are describing is not what you imagine we are describing. You think in terms of definition rather than actual meaning given the context. Thus your mind goes: "algorithms are just procedures that people figure out, and the best people at figuring out how social things work are sociologists, therefore if they haven't found anything, then some autists sure haven't". This is comical on several levels.

Are you saying a good con man couldn't wipe the floor with a sociology professor?
That is purely your distinction. It exists only in your mind. You're basically arguing with yourself at this point, and not anyone external to you.

Again this is all some hackneyed, rigidly thinking 13 year old's view of what "algorithm", "autism" and academia mean. It has zero relevance to what Original position and I are discussing. It's the kind of stuff you'll get out of an AI bot in maybe 15 years time, that needs some tweaking.
I'm sorry, but who can best achieve a specific goal is a good objective measure of competence. And in fact, such was precisely Sklansky's point - that a physicist can far overtake an average person in reaching any specific social goal, if properly motivated.
This is simply a statement of fact, sir.

I disagree. Complexity - both horizontal and vertical (abstraction) - is the best way to measure intelligence objectively. You cannot get the answers right in physics unless you have X intelligence. You cannot become a top person unless you have Y intelligence. I contend that X & Y are greater in physics than philosophy, because physics is far harder. Some part of developing a keen intelligence is intellectual weightlifting, imo, and another is honing. Physics is the hardest weight and sharpest honer.

Well sure. But the OP is talking about the top groups in each. And I think minds are naturally flabby. I don't think you can become highly practically intelligent (i.e. beyond potential) without having pushed through insanely hard barriers. And physics has the hardest barriers of all, no question. And the sharpest. Precision hones a mind like nothing else. If you have to take 20 complex steps to get to an answer, and that answer can be objectively shown to be right or wrong, you're going to end up with a keener intelligence than the person who can take 20 steps and end up with something that can't be shown to be true or false. Why? Because when you study physics/math, you'll realize that minds are full of huge amounts of flaws. And you will see them and correct them. That will never happen to that degree in any other subject. Bending your mind to correctly model complex precise non-familiar abstractions is the ultimate stress test, and the ultimate honer.
No, you can be smart. Obviously. The question is about the relative groups, however.
But why could you not care less? Intelligent minds look at difficult subjects and see challenge, the chance to self improve, etc. Other subjects are simply intellectually boring in comparison. Imagine you weigh 300lbs of muscle. You're going to be bored ****less by the dumbells your grandma uses. That's just how it works.

Probably, on average. Intelligent minds tend to reject utter nonsense like sociology. They look at it, they see its flaws/low grade thinking, and they move on, for the same reason a 10 year old isn't interested in a 5 year old's coloring book.

Linguistics, philosophy, etc, are a lot closer to physicists though. There's a gap but there's not a huge gap like there is with say, physicists and sociologists.

You'd have a far sharper mind. But more importantly, if we took 100 meales, randomly distributed in intelligence, the only meales that would make it through would be the very intelligent ones. Whereas if we put 100 meales in a sociology course, most could make it through.