Our World, "Brave" and "New"

David H. Freedman, writing in The Atlantic, looks at the extent to which our present society has become one in which those with below average IQ (average = 100) really have little place. He makes the point that as recently as 60 years ago this wasn't the case.

Analyses suggest that each IQ point is worth hundreds of dollars in annual income--surely a painful formula for the 80 million Americans with an IQ of 90 or below.

From 1979 to 2012, the median income gap between a family headed by two earners with college degrees and two earners with high school degrees grew by $30,000, in constant dollars.

Instead of bending over backwards to find ways of discussing intelligence that won't leave anyone out, it might make more sense to acknowledge that most people don't possess enough of the version that's required to thrive in today's world.

Decades ago, when "automation" first became a hot topic, I remember telling my B-School students society would struggle with how to occupy the people who were displaced as their simple jobs were automated. Our 1970-80s world had no mechanism for supporting large numbers of essentially unemployable people.

Today, we see increasing numbers withdraw from the workforce. At the same time see increasing death rates among the middle aged poor.

The sketchy outlines of a default support "mechanism" are emerging. It includes long-term unemployment benefits, food stamps, disability payments, opiod and crack abuse, alcoholism, and suicide. Not a pretty picture; somewhere the ghost of Aldous Huxley laughs mirthlessly.