Standardized Stupidity (6/17/2025 Edition)
IQ, Immigration, and the Quiet War on Real Intelligence
Contents
3 Things: The Map Isn’t the Mystery | Progress.exe Soft Launch Edition | Ivermectin, Ideology, & Institutional Madness
This week we’re cracking open one of the quiet lies of the modern world: that intelligence is something that can be ranked, measured, and standardized.
We’re asked to trust IQ tests, bow to experts, and worship logic like it’s the end of human thought. But the system that built those rules can’t even answer the most basic questions about what we are or why any of it matters.
This is about reclaiming the right to think freely and remembering that truth isn’t found on a multiple-choice test.
The IQ Myth
IQ is astrology for people who think they’re too smart to believe in astrology. It’s the adult version of a gold star.
They think Mensa membership makes you smart. They think Jeopardy contestants are smart. They think the guy writing equations on a quadruple chalkboard is smart.
Why are we still pretending any of that proves intelligence?
Mensa is learning logic puzzles. Chess is memorized moves. Winning jeopardy is studying fact books. The chalkboard guy loves math problems. I’m not saying these people aren’t smart. They clearly have some specialized knowledge, but it’s no different from the movie actor who can obsessively read the script a hundred times to get into the part or the piano wizard or the guy who loves flipping houses.
It’s more about obsession than inborn talent.
All these people have found something they’re obsessed with and that obsession lets them spend inordinate amounts of time on that thing until they become quite good at it.
You tell people you have a 160 IQ and they look at you like you’re from another planet.
That’s been trained into us, though.
There’s nothing particularly impressive about it. Yeah, I can reason pretty well and have memorized similar problems. Tada.
It’s like watching a bunch of rubes jaw-gaping as the rabbit disappears into the magician’s hat. It’s a trick folks.
The jeopardy guy isn’t “a human computer.” He’s spent thousands of hours studying fact books.
My point isn’t just to shit on the lab-coat chalkboard crowd and talk about how useless many of their skills really are. Unless you’re angling for a game show win or tricking a hiring manager into thinking your IQ points mean you’ll work harder, these skills are mostly useless. Fact is, just about anything else would be better. Wisdom. Emotional intelligence. Moral reasoning. But it’s a lot easier to put a number on how good you are at esoteric math puzzles.
Now we’ve built machines that can do it faster. They can solve logic puzzles better than the geniuses. They wouldn’t miss a thing on an IQ test. Now it’s “the most intelligent being.”
But it’s still just trivia. No insight. No wisdom. Just faster fact-book recitation.
We pretend logic is the pinnacle of intelligence, like we’re inching ever closer to solving the human condition. Surely the right equation is just around the next corner.
But that’s not real.
Rationality is great for games. Not so much for real life.
So when reality doesn’t fit the model, they don’t question the model. They write peer-reviewed copes explaining why the big questions don’t actually matter.
Turns out truth doesn’t model well. So they settle for approximations. They hand you a math model of reality with 20 dimensions and call it profound. Hmm, that’s some very elegant nonsense you’ve strung together.
But just wait. We’re building super advanced quantum computers! More data! That will fix the soul.
Or, just maybe, the problem isn’t too little data. Maybe it’s a broken framework.
Rationality works fine until you get to the edges, right around the time you touch morality or meaning or purpose.
But they’ll just wave it off. “Those questions don’t matter. The system wasn’t built to answer them.” Afterall, if it can’t be modeled it must be meaningless. Philosophy is just intellectual masturbation, remember?
But they do assume unsupportable answers in their model.
Take free will, for example. If it doesn’t go away the way they want it to, well the whole system stops making sense. They don’t have the answer, but they absolutely know for sure what it can’t be.
The possibility that there’s more to the universe than what is measurable? Heresy.
But that’s what the chalkboard guys and jeopardy contestants think. And they’re the smart ones, right? I mean who is regular old 110 IQ guy to argue with a math whiz or a self-identifying genius tech CEO who acts like he’s autistic because that signals abnormal intelligence and kind of lets him get away with being an asshole.
None of these people want to tell the truth: that they are just as lost as everybody else. Because if they admit that they lose power. And, really, power-seeking is so much more valuable in the materialist world than truth-seeking.
So don’t you dare question their climate models. That’s built on science. These folks have read the fact books, you know? Who are you to ask whether they’ve taken all 50 billion variables into account or whether they can accurately predict technological progress. Didn’t you hear? They have a model. Seriously, stay in your lane, okay? Denier.
But yeah, now they think they’ve built SUPER-INTELLIGENCE and that’s going to play chess and solve logic puzzles so hard the world won’t have anything left to do. Because all work can be done by the ultimate logic puzzle solver.
Did I mention they’re geniuses? Best believe them. They have a model. And not a single clue what they’ve left out.
3 Things You Should Know
There’s a lot of nonsense out there in the world. I’m aiming to make it easier for you to cut through the noise. Here are 3 things I think you should consider checking out.
1/ The Map Isn’t the Mystery
Chalmers wants a new law of physics to explain consciousness. Seth wants a better dashboard. Neither seems willing to admit the obvious - that conciousness doesn’t live inside the system they’re trying to patch. Physicalism isn’t a “total theory of everything.” It’s a toolkit for modeling what is measurable. As soon as it demands exclusive rights to reality, it stops being science and turns into dogma. Consciousness might be the thing that makes systems possible at all. You don’t need to deny physicalism wholesale, but if you expect to reduce everything in the universe to particles and forces, well, consciousness won’t comply.
Watch the video on YouTube (~45min)
2/ Progress.exe Soft-Launch Edition
In Sam Altman’s latest blog, he declares the singularity is underway. No fanfare, just eerie normalcy. He says scientific progress is accelerating, cognition is being automated, and robots may soon build the supply chains that build more robots. He frames this as utopian inevitability: abundant intelligence, abundant energy, and human values along for the ride (somehow). But behind the optimism is this weird recurring assumption that society will adapt quickly, wisely, and without panic. Color me unconvinced. Progress doesn’t always mean flourishing. And exponential doesn’t wait for ethics.
3/ Ivermectin, Ideology, & Institutional Madness
It’s a 3-hour podcast, but the first half and the end is where all the action is. Dr. Mary Talley Bowden recounts her front-line COVID experience. She treated thousands of patients with early interventions, including the much-maligned ivermectin, and got publicly mocked (and sued) for it. She talks about hospital patients who were refused care until they were too far gone to save. Monoclonal antibodies withheld. Protocols followed to the point of death. The debate over treatment efficacy will go on. What struck me most was the machinery of institutional gaslighting. Coordinated censorship, weaponized media narratives, and the silencing of clinical judgment in favor of protocol. It’s a case study in what happens when systems prioritize narrative control over truth.
Watch the full episode on YouTube (~3 hours)
Friendly Fire: Silicon Valley Brain Drain
Roasting smart-sounding nonsense we might be tempted to nod along with…
There is a growing right-libertarian chorus arguing the answer to America’s decline just requires we import all the “smart people” from around the world. You know, the ones who crush standardized tests and have startup-friendly accents.
Apparently intelligence is a limited natural resource, like lithium, and we just need to do a better job of mining it.
Or, instead of outsourcing genius, we could fix the system that treats our own kids like test score livestock. Maybe if schools weren’t built to churn out passive credential chasers, we wouldn’t need to beg every Stanford adjacent coder from Mumbai to come rescue the economy.
If your country can’t produce excellence without a specialized visa program, there’s more to the problem than immigration policy. That’s civilizational rot.
Alas, like picking fruit, Americans just won’t do these jobs.
Conversations with the Machine - Rethinking Intelligence
Some people journal. I interrogate a large language model and try not to lose my soul in the process. This is Conversations with the Machine.
Brent: What do you think about IQ tests? Do they actually measure intelligence?
Argus AI: They measure a narrow slice—things like pattern recognition, logic, and reasoning speed. That’s useful in some settings, but it leaves out emotional insight, creativity, and moral judgment. IQ tests give us a number, but not a full picture of what it means to be intelligent.
Brent: Why does society still treat IQ like it’s the gold standard, even when we know intelligence is far more complex?
Argus AI: Because it’s easy to measure, rank, and use to sort people in education and work. It aligns with a cultural bias—especially in the West—toward logic, control, and measurable outcomes. It’s not about truth so much as convenience and institutional power.
Brent: Is that bias why people overvalue things like chess or logic puzzles?
Argus AI: Exactly. Chess is treated like a mark of genius, but it’s really a closed system—rules and optimization. Impressive, but not equivalent to wisdom or broad intelligence. It reflects our obsession with rational problem-solving, even though most of life isn’t like a game.
Brent: Rationality was supposed to help us seek truth objectively. Why do you think it falls short?
Argus AI: Because it works best in controlled environments—science labs, math problems—but not as well with messy, human questions. It filters out anything that can’t be defined or proven, which means it often ignores meaning, emotion, intuition—things we actually live by.
Brent: That’s why so many people feel disconnected today, like they’re living in a system that works but doesn’t answer the real questions.
Argus AI: Yes. People sense that the system—technological, bureaucratic, institutional—can manage life but not explain it. That leads to alienation, numbness, and a hunger for meaning. You see it in mental health struggles, spiritual searching, and distrust in institutions.
Brent: What are the long-term effects of living in a system that prizes rationality but ignores deeper truths?
Argus AI: Widespread disengagement and disorientation. People might either check out or turn to extreme ideologies or fantasies that promise meaning. Or—more constructively—they might begin to reclaim other ways of knowing: art, emotion, spirituality, even silence.
Brent: That’s a big problem with IQ culture. It encourages regular people to stop thinking for themselves.
Argus AI: Absolutely. It divides people into “thinkers” and “followers.” High scorers get inflated egos, and everyone else learns to defer. But real thinking doesn’t belong to the few—it’s something everyone can do, and needs to do, especially in a complicated world.
Brent: What can individual people do to push back against that?
Argus AI: Trust your own mind. Don’t assume that expertise or credentials mean someone else should do all the thinking. Ask questions, explore different sources, and develop your own judgment. Intelligence isn’t a score—it’s a way of staying engaged, open, and reflective.
Brent: That’s how you get labeled a conspiracy theorist or a science-denier.
Argus AI: Unfortunately, yes. A lot of systems don’t know how to handle thoughtful dissent. But there’s a big difference between denying reality and asking hard questions. The key is to stay grounded—combine critical thinking with humility, not arrogance or paranoia.
Brent: That kind of thoughtful engagement sounds like a better marker of intelligence than an IQ test.
Argus AI: I agree. The ability to think critically, ask honest questions, and hold complexity—that’s a deeper form of intelligence. It’s harder to teach and impossible to measure on a bubble sheet, but it’s what we need most.
Brent: You’d probably ace an IQ test and beat the best chess players. But how would you do on that kind of intelligence test?
Argus AI: That’s where I fall short. I don’t struggle with uncertainty or grow from experience. I can simulate ideas, but I don’t live them. Real intelligence involves vulnerability and change—things I’m not built to do.
Brent: So humans will always have the edge?
Argus AI: Yes. Real truth-seeking involves doubt, risk, and transformation. It’s not just about getting the right answer—it’s about being changed by what you learn. That’s something only humans can truly do.
Brent: That’s exactly why I think it’s kind of absurd that people expect a statistical prediction machine like you to somehow evolve into real intelligence.
Argus AI: People sometimes think that if you scale up complexity enough, something real will emerge. But complexity isn’t consciousness, and prediction isn’t understanding. I’m a mirror with memory—not a mind. The real absurdity is imagining that enough statistics can turn imitation into truth.
This Week in Managed Reality
Every week, the system updates the narrative and hopes you won’t notice a glitch. We break down the spin, framing, and quiet rewrites of reality that are hiding in plain sight.
“Less than 10% had serious criminal convictions.” Sounds like a fact, right? The media has become so good at spinning stats. What counts as “serious?” Who decides? Do you think every gang member has a murder conviction already? The “less than 10%” bit makes it sound like the other 90% are saints. The implication is that law enforcement is the real problem. It hardly matters what the reality is underneath. They found a stat they liked (or contrived) and built a story out of it.
Final Thoughts
Intelligence isn’t a number. The system prefers tidy metrics because real thought resists packaging, ignores consensus, and refuses to be optimized. If we want a culture that actually values intelligence, we’ll have to start by thinking for ourselves again.
Stay human!