[*Original date – 15 May 2018]
When you think about it, being more intelligent than someone really doesn’t matter for the most part. The majority of “high skill” jobs can be done by the average person. Sure it might be a little easier for the more intelligent one, but attitude and sociability matters more.
Sure, there are some jobs that really do require someone who is extraordinarily intelligent. However, I could probably count the companies on my fingers that require these individuals (e.g. NASA, CERN, IBM, R&D of major countries). The jobs at these entities easily make up less than 1% of the jobs available to the population. Using the best case scenario that there is 1:1 ratio of jobs:population (~7.5billion jobs: ~7.5billion people), and assuming 0.5% of those jobs require extraordinary intelligence, that would mean that there would only be 37.5million jobs available.
I have always had high intelligence. Generally I would score in the 97percentile in national exams, I was apart of the top 5% intelligence in a school that was probably top 10% in the nation, and -before my head injury- I scored ~155 on my IQ test (after my TBI, my IQ was still ~147). I’m not writing all of this down to brag. I’m using this data to emphasize my next points.
Let’s apply my 97 percentile intelligence to the population. If this number is accurate, I should be more intelligent than approximately ~7.275billion people. That means that, including my percentile, there are ~225million people who are as smart or smarter than me. Making another assumption that the 0.5% of high skill jobs that require extraordinary intelligence can be performed by anyone in the the 95percentile, then that means that there’s a ratio of 1 job for every 10 people (1 job:10 population).
Now that I’ve established some background, the main/unifying point I that I’m making is that even though I may have finally accepted that I do indeed have a significantly higher intelligence than the majority of the world, I’ve never really felt extraordinary intelligent. I was one of the smart kids at the nerd school. I took a bunch of honors/AP courses, and I finished with a 3.9GPA. I was among the best of the best, but every grade from freshman-senior had 2-5 people that made even us “smart kids” feel average. There would be times where the majority of my AP class would be so confused we might has well been hearing the lecture in greek, and the 1 or 2 geniuses who actually understood could actually correct or teacher. One teacher used to put bonus questions on our AB calc tests that required BC calc, and these kids were able to answer the questions either by either naturally figuring out these BC calc techniques, or because they were able to teach themselves it because they’d be too bored in class. These kids were easily in the 99percentile. They were only 2percentile points above me, but the difference in our intelligences felt more like the difference between (mine) the 97percentile and the 50percentile.
[this relationship can be expressed by the following equation: ∆g1 = ∆g2; ∆g1=97-50=47; ∆g2=99-97=2.]{may have to revise}
The increase in intelligence as percentile increased was more exponential than linear. But what blew my mind even more is that I knew there were people even smarter than them. Imagining the people in the 99.9percentile is daunting. If the same trend follows, even just a 0.9 point difference in intelligence would have a huge effect on the increase of intelligence.
(level of intelligence of people in the 99.9percentile would be around the level of: Newton, Einstein, Tesla, Aristotle, etc).
Another point to make that I’m going to make is that it is statistically statistically possible that I could end up with a job that ~50% of the population could adequately perform. Sure I may perform better than the majority of people with the same attitude, but the difference in performance would not be catastrophic. I may objectively do a better job, even to the point that significantly affects my employers/the company, but the average person would be able to perform his duties at a level where the company doesn’t fire them/doesn’t actively search for a replacement (i.e. They may be fired, but only if cuts were being made or a perfect candidate with a significantly better attitude and/or intelligence presents itself).
My next point is that people are very much like computers/machines. The better the performance/capabilities, the more it costs to maintain. So when you’re choosing a worker, it makes more sense to maximize your performance to cost ratio by choosing the person with just enough skill to adequately perform the task. Using a machine metaphor, it makes much more sense to solve 4+4=? with a 4-function calculator than with a $1trillion super computer. Sure the super computer is complete the same task and objectively more powerful than the calculator, the cost to run&maintain it + the level of training required to even use it makes it impractical to use in this instance. Now let’s use a more human/practical example. If the job that an employer was trying to fill was working on an assembly line, it would make more sense to hire someone just smart enough to assemble the product rather than someone like me. Sure I may be useful if the assembly line breaks down and I can quickly fix it before maintenance comes, or if I come up with a more efficient assembly/flow/layout method, but the drawbacks that come with me (and a lot of overqualified people) is that I would feel unsatisfied with my work, have to maintain my anxiety/depression levels that become more common as intelligence increases, may feel like I deserve higher pay than my coworkers, and may have a large amount of debt because I was intelligent enough to attend an expensive/prestigious school, but the availability of jobs that could adequately provide a return on investment is very limited.
Because of factors like these, often times having a higher level of intelligence is detrimental. Either I have to put in much more energy/effort to maintain myself, or I have to prove that the cost of maintaining me is worth the increase of performance.
An example for this from pop culture is Dr. House (as well as any other character inspired by Sherlock Holmes). Dr. House is a very high maintenance employee. He costs the hospital a lot of money, and he incredibly difficult to work with. However, his diagnostics ability is so much better than anyone else, that he is still valuable to the hospital because he not only is able to diagnose patients no other doctor could, his reputation increases the hospital’s reputation/standards, which often attracts wealthy and power people from around the world. Basically, he’s the arrogant asshole you want to hate, but can’t bring yourself to since he can actually back up everything he says (another example would be Zlatan Ibrahimovic).
Now let’s look at another doctor on the show “House,” Dr. Wilson. Wilson is an incredibly talented and intelligent doctor. Probably one of the best in the world. The fact that he works at the same hospital as the world renowned Dr. House says a lot about his own capabilities as a doctor. However, if he acted like House, he’d probably get fired in a week. Even though he is incredibly smart and an asset to the hospital, his skills are not irreplaceable. Because of this, he has to constantly maintain himself: he’s almost always clean shaven/professionally dressed, he acts professionally with his patients, bosses, and subordinates, and he attends/speaks at conferences to maintain his medical standards and his reputation among his colleagues. He’s the opposite of House. He’s the guy who got can’t believe is so perfect and likable that you can’t believe he exists. His attitude and professionalism, not his intelligence/technical skills, are what set him apart from his colleagues, allow you forgive his mistakes more willingly, and make you willing to increase his pay to keep him at your institution. He is probably as valued as House to the hospital, but it requires a lot more energy and self maintenance from him. If he didn’t work his ass off everyday to maintain and improve himself, he could relatively easily be replaced.
♡Sugar☆World☮ 