No one considered sham marriages. It was only put on the table as one of those crazy "options" that I theoretically had if I did not want to get deported. Now I do not know. I was informed by some other source that I had nothing to worry about legally. I will try calling back and getting more information soon.

I do not know about that word, Spravedlibaya. My Russian is still too noob to ever have encountered that word. I am wondering about translations of that word, but I am not sure yet.

Liquid`Zephyr

United States996 Posts

June 08 2020 08:11 GMT

#42

re: iq stuff - its mostly a measure for short term job performance and/or finding cognitive deficits. it (wais-iv) correlates to some other stuff too but those are the main uses in the field. iq scores are fluid, not fixed and are impacted by myriad factors (though you wouldn't ever really see someone to go from 100 to 130 because of a few more years of school). in terms of iq scores for african americans, the average iq difference is ~halved when you adjust for SES. the more variables you control for, the closer the scores become (years of schooling accounting for one of the next largest shares of the variance and then cultural bias in questioning). still, differences exist. the remaining score differences are generally conceptualized as a an indicator of lifelong restriction to some percentage of opportunities.

re: iq score differences across other countries - same rationale follows. some tests will be translated and renormed for the correct population better than other tests. its not something i'm super knowledgeable about. as useful as iq tests are, they have many failings. do they measure whatever it is that most people generally assume they do? no. are they the best measure of that effort that we have? maybe - but again, given fluidity of iq scores and susceptibility of influence through environmental factors, reading anything biological into iq scores per country would be a massive overstep. but it could in part be looked at as systemic restrictions to opportunities (but again, those opportunities that would improve scores on iq tests are generally defined by western cultures as being important). iq tests have pretty massive blind spots for certain populations that excel as well (e.g. highly creative people). its easy to imagine how culture might shape exceptionally smart people who would still perform poorly on iq tests.

On May 30 2020 02:33 MoltkeWarding wrote:
We think in language. What we can even potentially learn depends on what we speak.

some people have no internal monologues. you could say people think out loud through speech, or use another internal type of experience/sense modality (e.g. mental imagery) as a form of language, and I wouldn't fault that usage of the word. just a bit of a nitpick - and then an opinion - i think people actually vary a reasonable amount in how they think (consider/manipulate/conceptualize/rehearse) information (through type of inner experience probably).

Jealous

10282 Posts

June 08 2020 13:37 GMT

#43

Just to add on to what Liquid`Zephyr said about the intersectionality of IQ tests, in one of my cognitive science classes the professor used this example (roughly, from memory):

Researchers arrive to the Amazon rain forest, with an IQ test that they successfully launched in a number of countries. The feedback they got from the Mexico City, Moscow, New York City, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo trials has all been positive. Eager to see how the Amazonian war chief performs on this test, they hand him the paper and pencil.

The only problem is that the Amazonian war chief has never used a paper or a pencil. He has never taken a test. He doesn't know how to write or read. The first question asks you to make a parallel analogy to "bus : car" but the war chief has never seen any of those either.

After trying over and over to make the test approachable for the Amazonian people, the researchers finally cleared all of the hurdles that they perceived to be present. In the end, the Amazonians had an average IQ of 70. Satisfied with this answer, the researchers begin to head home, led by their Amazonian guide who has a mental map consisting of hundreds of landmarks in a 10 mile radius, their bellies full of elusive wild boar which the Amazonians caught in a complex and coordinated fashion, their skin covered in an Amazonian natural balm of 14 oils and minerals that protects them from mosquitoes which was meticulously derived through careful trial and error, with their guide having a home-made anti-venom prepared just in case anyone gets bit by a poisonous snake that is local to the area.

Upon reaching the edge of civilization, the researchers finally confer about their results, outside of earshot of the Amazonian guide: "I can't believe these idiots can survive in the jungle with such a low IQ."

Jealous

10282 Posts

June 08 2020 13:42 GMT

#44

On June 08 2020 15:46 MoltkeWarding wrote:
I do not know about that word, Spravedlibaya. My Russian is still too noob to ever have encountered that word. I am wondering about translations of that word, but I am not sure yet.

Only put it because you were asking for the translation of "fair." Spravedlivaya*

PS: The "s-" prefix is Indo-European meaning "good," so the word is a feminine adjective of "good truth," though the "good" much less colloquially apparent/known.

MoltkeWarding

5195 Posts

June 09 2020 04:29 GMT

#45

We do not have any recorded history of the amazonian peoples because of our lack of knowledge of any written language which has been decoded. However in theory, there must be some way of getting at the IQ for even pre-literate peoples. I do not know how they conduct IQ tests for illiterate peoples, but they must have some manner of doing so for all those peoples who can not read or write.

Obviously, IQ has no correlation with survival. We have done some testing on some higher apes, some of whom we have also taught how to communicate in reasonable sign language. It brings to mind about how sapient homo sapiens really are, when the IQ estimates for some apes exceed the averages for some human countries. I have no doubt that those apes can taught in the use of common human tools too.

The link between memory and IQ is another one of those questionable things. Interestingly, the more you can remember, the higher your fluid IQ seems to be, but there is no correlation with how you remember them. That is another thing that I was thinking about. Maybe some countries in the world average very high IQs because they remember a lot of things. But we are back to that "Asian creativity deficit" problem. They have very high IQs, but they do not seem to ever innovate. I do not know, but perhaps the more things you have to remember, the fewer new things you can learn.

Jealous

10282 Posts

June 09 2020 14:05 GMT

#46

The point is that IQ tests designed by Western scientists for populations which they are not intimately familiar with, in an effort to compare multiple populations, are inherently flawed - and there is a ton of literature on that. The average IQ of the entire human race would necessarily have to be 100 by nature of the test design, and for every individual population as well. A more accurate IQ map of every country and peoples on the planet would just be 100s covering the entire globe. It is impossible to control for every element of culture, lifestyle, SES, and upbringing to a satisfactory point, and designing a test that is completely "fair", after which comparisons can be made.

PS: The Amazonian warchief was a hypothetical extreme to demonstrate most clearly the types of faults that occur when trying to apply standardized tests intersectionally - it was not meant to be taken literally, but as a figurative expression of the types of pitfalls that international IQ comparisons have historically had.

EDIT: PPS: There is definitely a link between IQ and survival, otherwise there would never have been a reason for us to advance to the point of having a concept of IQ in the first place. We are scantly haired apes with a severely limited arsenal of physically imposing factors. The only thing we have going for us is a now absent or nearly vestigial stamina. The provider hypothesis of evolutionary psychology postulates that our evolution was sparked by our ability to hunt, which for us as apes hinged necessarily on communication, teamwork, the use of tools and tactics, etc. These are all factors of IQ, in my opinion. You may be familiar with some of the more broad approaches to intelligence, such as Gardner's "Theory of Multiple Intelligences" which is composed of 8 factors. There are others, numbering upwards of 13 and beyond. We currently don't have a comprehensive understanding to determine which theory/approach is most accurate, much less so an ability to universally measure any of them to a satisfactory standard. Thus, it is an acceptable topic to discuss but it is largely a matter of opinion, and my opinion is that your opinion is too restricted by a dependence on what is essentially a faulty and dated approach to answering the question.