PBS's Next Avenue article about ERE makes HuffPo & Forbes

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Ian
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Re: PBS's Next Avenue article about ERE makes HuffPo & Forbe

Post by Ian »

Chad wrote:It would be interesting to see a study of the average IQ for commenters on various websites. I believe the average for the largest websites would be quite low. I don't even bother to read comments at any of the major news websites, as the people commenting there are barely human.
Sometimes I feel the same way, but I still hesitate at this. If we're only considering statistics, the largest websites' average IQ would be closest to the human average. There could be mechanisms that would either attract more low IQ people to those websites or keep out higher IQ people, but I think that'd be hard to prove. For example, maybe higher IQ people are more likely to seek specialized websites than mass market appeals.

That sounds plausible, but I'm always cautious about telling myself stories I like to hear. There could also be environmental effects in play: people behave less intelligently under certain conditions that are common on large websites. But regardless, I try not to read comments on any major website. I know all I'll get out of it is misanthropy.

Disclaimer: I know IQ is a complicated and problematic measurement, but I'm just using it as a proxy for talking about general intelligence.

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