How Can This Country Possibly Be Electing Trump Again?

[u/ben_watson_jr]

https://newrepublic.com/article/181287/can-america-possibly-elect-trump-again

[u/CaptNemo2733]

To paraphrase George Carlin: “think about how stupid the average American is. Then realize half of them are stupider than that.”

[u/4ivE → u/CaptNemo2733]

To paraphrase recent studies, the average IQ in the United States is 98

Now, there are some brilliant people in this country. Lots of them. I mean truly, incredibly intelligent people.

Think of how many subnormal idiots there need to be to drag shit down to 98.

[u/Flowers_for_Taco → u/4ivE]

The link you included shows the average us iq as 99.6 and the whole thing is set up such that 100 is average

[u/Raileyx → u/Flowers_for_Taco]

99.6 is the average of the states, 98 is a different measure, average of all people.

You get 99.6 if you just count each state as 1 and then divide by 50. If you weigh by population, you supposedly get 98, but when I tried with their numbers, weighing by population estimate from 2023, I got 99.07. So not sure what's going on there, maybe they've made a mistake, or probably it's only counting the adult population or subsampling in a different way, but these are two different figures.

1. Average of the states, not weighed by population. (99.6)

2. Average of the population. (98, according to the article)

[u/Legitimate-BurnerAcc → u/Raileyx]

They tried telling me I had a gifted iq but I'm a total fucking moron so idk how well iq works

[u/Raileyx → u/Legitimate-BurnerAcc]

It works pretty well for some things and not so well for others. If you have doubts, you can always retake the test and see how you do.

[u/Stock_Car_3261 → u/Legitimate-BurnerAcc]

Fun fact...

People of lesser intelligence tend to overestimate how smart they are, and people who are highly intelligent tend to underestimate how smart they are.

[u/[deleted] → u/Raileyx]

Ah, they attended the electoral college

[u/IceNein → u/Raileyx]

IQ is intentionally designed so that 100 is the average. If the average of millions of people is not 100, then the scale is wrong and needs to be adjusted.

I think maybe someone who thinks the average of 300+ million people’s IQ is anything other than 100 has a sub 100 IQ.

[u/Raileyx → u/IceNein]

IQ tests are intentionally designed so that the average IQ score is 100 within the chosen norm group, which is a representative sample of a population. This doesn't mean that when you run the test again that there can't be deviations,

• perhaps things changed over time (requiring recalibration)
• perhaps it's just a minor error within an acceptable margin (the more people you test on the smaller this margin would be)
• or perhaps the group you tested was in some way not representative. Some degree of sampling variability is also normal and expected
• lastly, the norm group might not be representative of the group you're looking at, like when you're trying to learn something about differences between groups. It wouldn't surprise if that's what is happening here

These are all things that can happen and that would lead to an average of not 100, despite the way the scale is designed.

When doing comparisons of nations, it's reasonable to assume that maybe the norm group was drafted from test-takers of multiple nationalities, who are supposed to be representative of the global population. If that was the case, then it wouldn't be weird at all that the US-sample doesn't get an average of 100, as they're not representative of the norm group.

I think maybe someone who thinks the average of 300+ million people’s IQ is anything other than 100 has a sub 100 IQ.

That's a nice jab, but it's perfectly possible that they didn't use the US-scale for these values, but an international one. In fact, that would make the most sense if you're talking about the IQ of a country, and in that case it is indeed possible and expected that 300+ million people wouldn't have an average IQ of 100.

[u/IceNein → u/Raileyx]

That was a whole lot of words to misunderstand what IQ tests are, and what they represent 😂

[u/Raileyx → u/IceNein]

ok I guess when we look at different countries to compare them, the results are always just:

• Eritrea: 100
• France: 100
• USA: 100
• Japan: 100
• ...

like here! https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country

see how they're all 100? Oh wait, they aren't. The US is Ø 97.43?? How can that be, I thought that's the rule, when you have 300+ mil people, that it has to be 100? Because it has to be that because that's how it works, right?

Maybe you can explain it to me. Maybe they have made a mistake!

[u/IceNein → u/Raileyx]

IQ scores, indicative of educational quality and resources in regions, are based on standard tests adjusted by national academic assessments and data quality considerations.

Once again proving that neither you nor that pop-sci website understand what IQs are or measure

😂

lol, he blocked me, so now he’ll never know what IQ actually is, how it is measured, and how you cannot use the same test across multiple countries because language competencies affect the outcome of the test, but have nothing to do with IQ which is a measure of the ability to reason outside of learned facts.

IQ is something that is inherent to a person and is not affected by education or resources.

[u/Raileyx → u/IceNein]

oh yeah, a total pop-sci website that's totally not based on serious research that was compiled into a 400 page book, that can be accessed here, and that also goes into detail on the methods used from pages 12 onwards. OBVIOUSLY you can't just use national scales when you compare countries.

This is a pointless conversation, blocked.

[u/Twystov → u/Raileyx]

They were just desperate for you to stop talking because they were talking out of their ass and they know it. Best course: ignore the replies and know that everyone reading can tell you’re not the one who’s full of shit. It’s obvious.