I understand the 2nd and 3rd points. High IQ people would likely be more conscientious and questioning of existing conventions which meant they're more likely to plan their families (and hence not have large ones) and be more secular. I don't understand why it would nudge them towards socialism though. Are you telling me the majority of people in Venezuela are above average IQ?
Anyway, don't let your religion kill you these holidays. Be easy on all the parties and on Christmas dinner.
Both the extremes of high and low IQ appear to nudge people towards socialism. Here is the original source for that point of discussion.
Disadvantages of high IQMensa Magazine June 2009 pp 34-5
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.com/2012/08/disadvantages-of-high-iq.html?m=1
Sidis himself demonstrated, in exaggerated form, three traits which I put forward as being aspects of high IQ which are potentially disadvantageous: socialism, atheism and low-fertility.
1. Socialism
Higher IQ is probably associated with socialism via the personality trait called Openness-to-experience, which is modestly but significantly correlated with IQ. (To be more exact, left wing political views and voting patterns are characteristic of the highest and lowest IQ groups – the elite and the underclass - and right wingers tend to be in the mid-range.)
Openness summarizes such attributes as imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, preference for variety and intellectual curiosity – it also (among high IQ people in Western societies) predicts left-wing political views. Sidis was an extreme socialist, who received a prison sentence for participating in a May Day parade which became a riot (in the event, he ‘served his time’ in a sanatorium).
Now, of course, not everyone would agree that socialism is wrong (indeed, Mensa members reading this are quite likely to be socialists). But if socialism is regarded as a mistaken ideology (as I personally would argue!), then it could be said that high IQ people are more likely to be politically wrong. But whether correct or wrong, the point is that high IQ people do seem to have a built-in psychological and political bias.
The article contradicts itself. On one hand, it states that high IQ individuals are more likely to be selfish and then it says that they are more left-leaning.
People who support socialism (and its derivative communism) do it for two reasons: to get free stuff or are genuinely concerned about the well being of the less fortunate.
I suspect that some high IQ individuals are more empathetic (because they can foresee multitudes of outcomes and identify multiple root causes of the issues) to the less fortunate, that is why they lean towards socialism. And there are some high IQ individuals who see socialism as a power grab and are vehemently against it.
In either case, high IQ people generally see a couple of moves ahead of everybody else in this chess game called life.
IQ is irrelevant when it comes to politics, religion or lack thereof, IMHO. You don't need to be super smart to become an atheist.
You just need to be educated a little bit. Learn how to eliminate your personal bias, follow the evidence wherever it will lead you.
There are extremely stupid and smart atheists, socialists, and capitalists. You can do data cherry-picking to get whatever outcome you desire.
But back to your original criticism of society with only high IQ individuals, I have to agree with you, a society with only high IQ individuals would not work with our current human condition. They would just kill each other. You would end up with the same result if you had only dumb barbarians in society. Without stratification, societies become unstable. That is one aspect. The root cause of the failure is actually the selfish gene that leads us to wars despite of attempted social engineering to prevent it (religion's love you neighbor or progressive thought, love everyone, etc.)
We have a selfish gene that helped us survive to this day. And we needed some sort of social engineering to control it. Religion, politics, tribalism, nationalism were tried in the past to achieve this function, with limited success. Look at our inability to act in the face of a global climate change and destruction of ecosystems.
How do you stop the expression of that selfish gene? That is a very difficult task.
The only way to solve this evolutionary 'defect' is to develop artificial reproductive technology where we can control the outcome and produce individuals who would be incapable of being selfish. Eventually, 'messy, selfish biological offsprings' would die-off and you would have only selfless people who were manufactured to order. Assuming the last 'selfish person' dies without abusing this technology, you'll end up with civilization that might be able to survive what is ahead of us.
