Exclusivity?

[Mustard]

So, I was wondering something just now. See, I had this question of "what would happen if 'country club' exclusiveness was convened into an actual state". For example, I'm sure most of you are aware about the kind of wealth exclusivity that you would expect to see at a country club. So, for example, what if there was a country club whose membership isn't limited to those people who possess great wealth or hold seats of power, but one which was limited to those who, more or less, have high intelligence.

I suppose we already do have orgs like this in the form of MENSA and TAG (in school) but they offer little or nothing to their members other than the fact that they can just find other smart people to shoot the breeze with. But like I was wondering before, what would happen if a group, exclusive only to the most intelligent, was to exist, and actually have power and authority. What would things be like in a state (not state as we Americans know it, but a nation-state) that you could only live in if you met a certain intelligence? Could it work? What about kids? Egos? Would chess be the national game of choice?

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here? I dunno. Basically, the whole point of this is to figure out just how far a group can go to enforce or submit to exclusivity, and whether or not being exclusive to a certain idea, talent, race, sex, group, etc. can be a good thing for humanity in the short run, the long run, or both?

So many questions. So much time...

[Archangel]

If such a group existed, the imbeciles would gather, throw stones at them and call them faggots while high fiving each other.

[Mustard]

Hahahaha....... but wait just a minute. In retaliation, I could easily see the brainiacs go on a passive-agressive power trip, and poison the cretins MGD supply with some kind of genetic sterilization genome.

[Archangel]

In today's society, intelligence is a liability. The envy of the retards makes you a social outcast, while on the other hand, the principles on which modernity operates are so insane that any intelligent person trying to reconcile the craziness of our world with whatever decency he might have will be broken by that very attempt.

[Mustard]

Hence the exclusivity factor that I likened to a country club, but on steroids so to speak. In a state of civility where intelligence rules supreme and the voices of the envious are merely ignored, new rules can be established to shift the principles to the most optimal rationalization, serving to be a new precedence, or standard.

Impossible? Wel, nothing is impossible, I say. Of course, this is all just hypothesis and speculation. I haven't even considered the effects the highly intelligent sycophants, devious, and diabolical would have on such a society.

[Insomniac]

Couldn't be done. If you've read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, think of the example given of the island where everyone who was born was made to be an Alpha.

Hierarchies are stabilizing, and you need still need manual laborers today. Everyone can't be in charge. But folks with IQs of 125 are too smart to do service work for others, even if they're the dumbest in the state. They can read books and rationalize resentments. And let's not forget, most revolutions may have ideologies of intellectuals, but it's frustrated pseudointellectuals who usually put it into practice.

The only way to make this society work as I can see it would be to have some group playing the role of ******* (I mean in idea and function) to give the others something to band around and let them vent their frustrations on. Otherwise they'd just claw each other to pieces.

[Archetype]

Oh noes, you sunk my egalitarian yacht/batthleship!

[Mustard]

Couldn't be done. If you've read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, think of the example given of the island where everyone who was born was made to be an Alpha.

Hierarchies are stabilizing, and you need still need manual laborers today. Everyone can't be in charge. But folks with IQs of 125 are too smart to do service work for others, even if they're the dumbest in the state. They can read books and rationalize resentments. And let's not forget, most revolutions may have ideologies of intellectuals, but it's frustrated pseudointellectuals who usually put it into practice.

The only way to make this society work as I can see it would be to have some group playing the role of ******* (I mean in idea and function) to give the others something to band around and let them vent their frustrations on. Otherwise they'd just claw each other to pieces.
I understand what you're saying and all, but I have just two words for you.

Robot servants

*bows*

[Archetype]

Get out OF MY HEAD!!!

[Mustard]

Make me!

[Insomniac]

I understand what you're saying and all, but I have just two words for you.

Robot servants

*bows*

The Second Renaissance.

[Mustard]

Its going to be fabulous. I'm getting a "personal therapeutic" robot that won't say no, or get a random headache.

[Archetype]

0WCGgbDoMWo

[freegood]

It does exist, and yall aren't in it.

[Mustard]

Yu shurt yer hol

[Archangel]

A society made up of intellectually superior people won't work for the same reason that a battalion made up exclusively of highly trained officers is a shit idea. You need peasants to shovel the shit, just as you need grunts to do the dying.

And even with robot servants, what would those intellectuals do? Write books to try and uplift mankind? What for, at that point? Art? Please. Have you ever seen art professors appreciate a piece of art? They would be smart, but with no one to be smart for.

[Claydon]

If such a group existed, the imbeciles would gather, throw stones at them and call them faggots while high fiving each other.

hmmm, sounds like GMF.

[Archetype]

Have you ever seen art professors appreciate a piece of art?
Seems to me that's all they do. Gets kind of annoying.

[Archangel]

hmmm, sounds like GMF.
NO! Really? What a coincidence.
Seems to me that's all they do. Gets kind of annoying.
You guys are lucky. Here, with the possible exception of musicology, most people become professors in the arts in order to tell people how stupid Kleist or Klee were.

[vasili denisov]

You could have such a thing, but only under different conditions; intelligence is more coveted now than at any point in human history. Say you had a village containing people of extraordinary high intelligence and education, they would continually be leaving the place, recruited for work or academia. You also have such a high level of specialization at this point, that there's no possibility all intellectual fields could be satisfied in such a small area; people would leave not just for reasons of money but to work on a supercollider or in a stem cell lab.

You might have had such a thing two centuries ago, with people drawn to a particular point because it had a large library. If it was located in a place of lousy weather, it would deter anyone other than those who wanted library access. It wasn't uncommon to have a village that was self-sufficient, or largely self-sufficient, which wouldn't require guest workers. Citizens would trade hours in vocational work for access to the library.For obvious reasons, such a society would be impossible now.One last question would be how, other than historical accident (refugees from another collapsing civilization) such a great library would end up located in a location distant from any port or place of commerce, where you'll have a wide mix of people.

My only personal question would be, why bother with such a thing? You don't need a population that's above a specific IQ (whehther such a measure is of any worth anyway, which I doubt) to keep a city functioning well, just conditions that are conducive to people behaving civilly and rationally, as well as attractive to business. In terms of socialization, there's such specialization now among people, that even those of great intelligence aren't necessarily going to have things to talk about, and even if they do, the shared virtue of intelligence won't necessarily make them congenial to each other. Take the most distinguished philosophers, scientists, and artists of human history, and you'll have one of the densest clusters of dysfunctional, morbid, lonely, disturbed men and women possible, a lousy group for any party, and a poor choice to run any collective organization.

[freegood]

^The Talent Myth- Are smart people overrated? (http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_07_22_a_talent.htm)

[Archangel]

It would be nice if the "Obama's a terr'st, man! Look at his name!" crowd weren't allowed to decide who gets to bomb other countries, though.

[vasili denisov]

Intelligence is relative. Read Howard Gardner.
The evaluation of any quality can be said to be relative to a group evaluated for said quality. The thesis of Gardner, and others, is that intelligence is a multiplicity of qualities, which may or may not be discretely identified, only some of which may be evaluated in traditional intelligence testing.

[freegood]

Without experience, you don't know whether good ideas can fail or when to take a risk on a seemingly bad idea.

[smith42687]

"Simpsons Already Did It!!!"

episode 'They Saved Lisa's Brain'. The commoners always revolt, that's why smart people created things like economy and social standing to keep the peasants in check to a point just below revolt.


Robot servants will be awesome to get rid of the excess population humanity has (which is also our best shot at long-term survival on this planet), but one of us will be stupid enough to teach robots how to think, they become self-aware, and we being the inferior warrior ultimately lose (see Terminator).

[Mustard]

But if we can teach the robot masters compassion for their creator, then they will treat us as God/s, right?

[Insomniac]

"Simpsons Already Did It!!!"

episode 'They Saved Lisa's Brain'. The commoners always revolt, that's why smart people created things like economy and social standing to keep the peasants in check to a point just below revolt.


Robot servants will be awesome to get rid of the excess population humanity has (which is also our best shot at long-term survival on this planet), but one of us will be stupid enough to teach robots how to think, they become self-aware, and we being the inferior warrior ultimately lose (see Terminator).

Friend, what makes you think you wouldn't be considered excess?

And let's not forget, sometimes a swine breeds with a swine and produces a da Vinci.

[smith42687]

But if we can teach the robot masters compassion for their creator, then they will treat us as God/s, right?

It wont take robots as long as it did mankind to figure out the whole God thing....


Friend, what makes you think you wouldn't be considered excess?

Absolutely nothing beyond my own self-worth. Although my eager willingness to sell-out the rest of mankind may come in handy to our new robot masters.

And let's not forget, sometimes a swine breeds with a swine and produces a da Vinci.The sole non-religious argument against abortion.

[worldsnemesis]

Another problem with this idea is how to define intelligence. There is not a simple test to take that will tell who is intelligent and who is not. IQ tests are ok for this matter, but they are too subjective. Because there are different types of intelligence, it is impossible to have a single test to determine who would go to this nation-state.

[Archangel]

Yeah, n00b, we had a thread on that already.