I will be adding category-specific mailing lists in the near future so that loyal readers can be notified only when a post comes out that they care about. For now, if you would like to be placed on one of these lists, please email me privately at sometimesprofound@gmail.com.
Intelligence as Compounded Interest
9 Mar
What does IQ mean?
A=Pe^(rt) is the formula for compound interest. Suppose that intelligence compounds over time during the first 21 years of life, as the brain is developing. Intelligence quotient is supposed to represent the rate at which intelligence increases during that period. But what does that mean? Does that mean that IQ is a kind of APR in a compound interest formula? Lets take a look at what that would imply.
Suppose everyone starts out with 10 intelligence (an arbitrary number that doesn’t really matter).
If V has has a constant IQ of 40 (mentally disabled), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(0.4*21), or just 44,471. That’s 3/1,000,000ths of the intelligence of an average person.
If W has a constant IQ of 90 (a bit below average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(0.9*21), or 1,614,974,644. That’s 36,315 times the intelligence of the mentally disabled person, but only 12.25% of the intelligence of an average person or 1.5% of the intelligence of a person with IQ 110.
If X has a constant IQ of 100 (presumably exactly average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1*21), or 13,188,157,345. That’s 12.25% of the intelligence of a person of IQ 110.
If Y has a constant IQ of 110 (a bit above average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1.1*21), or 107,696,733,712. That’s 8.17 times the intelligence of an average human.
If Z has a constant IQ of 160 (genius), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1.6*21), or 3,911,061,021,110,377. That’s 296,559 times the intelligence of an average human or 87,946,325,046 times the intelligence of the mentally disabled individual.
And that is why rely on people like Einstein to solve the mysteries of the universe.
Of course, this isn’t the whole story.
1) The brain may not develop at the same rate throughout life. If it slows substantially in the late teens, then the differences in intelligence between people of different IQs should be less dramatic.
2) Over time, the brain may deteriorate at a rate that is related to its earlier rate of growth. If those with more intelligence lose it faster, then one would expect the population to converge somewhat at older ages, long after the brain finished developing.
3) The brain may not start and stop developing at 0 and 21. It likely begins developing while still in the womb, and it could be through with major development at a much earlier age. Or, it could continue developing at a reduced rate through adulthood. As far as I know, we simply don’t have sufficient data on when the brain develops and at what rates.
4) The brain might not develop at a compounding exponential rate. It could develop at a flat rate, or by some weird hybrid complicated function.
What happens to the numbers if we assume, instead, that the brain develops only from 0 to 18?
If V has has a constant IQ of 40 (mentally disabled), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(0.4*18), or just 13,394. That’s 2/100,000ths of the intelligence of an average person.
If W has a constant IQ of 90 (a bit below average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(0.9*18), or 108,535,199. That’s 8103 times the intelligence of a mentally disabled person, but only 2.7/100ths of the intelligence of a person with IQ 110.
If X has a constant IQ of 100 (presumably exactly average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1*18), or 656,599,691. That’s 6 times the intelligence of a person with IQ of 90.
If Y has a constant IQ of 110 (a bit above average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1.1*18), or 3,972,196,658. That’s 6 times the intelligence of an average human.
If Z has a constant IQ of 160 (genius), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1.6*18), or 32,187,042,897,020. That’s 49,020 times the intelligence of an average human, or 2.4 BILLION times the intelligence of someone who is mentally disabled.
Implications
IQ is believed to be driven by a mixture of environmental and genetic factors. Although the genetic underpinnings of intelligence are not well-known, a handful of alleles have already been identified in the human genome as being statistically correlated with as much as a single IQ point even after controlling for 1 million independent DNA regions in a sample of over 100,000 people. There may be something like 10,000 of these minor genetic variations, any random 100 or so would be responsible for about 15 IQ points. Some have postulated that artificial genetic modifications would someday allow us to create future generations of humans that have most or all of these alleles expressed optimally, generating theoretical normal IQs in the hundreds, or perhaps even over 1000.
How smart would a super-human be with an IQ of 1000?
Under the 18-year model discussed above: *only* 2-with-70-zeroes times smarter than a current average human.
Under the 21-year model discussed above: 1-with-82-zeroes times smarter than a current average human.
Think about the most powerful supercomputer in the world (as of November 2015), China’s Tianhe-2, which has about 1,408,000,000,000,000 bytes of memory, and compare it to a single byte of data (8 1s & zeroes, representing basically a single letter, number, or character). Take that amount of memory to about the fifth power, and that is how smart a 1000 IQ superhuman would be compared to us (a single byte).
Why do some people hate Barack Obama? Is it because he’s black?
24 Feb
Why do people try to climb Mt. Everest? Because they can.
There are literally over 7 billion people on this planet. If you asked (even just the English-speakers) what the answer to 2+2 is, you would get probably get multiple percentage points worth of people not saying 4.
If you ever get a job calling people on the phone and asking them about their opinions (which I did for about a year in college), I can virtually guarantee that you will be shocked at the number of people who say things that are completely ridiculous, dumb, and/or based on obvious factual inaccuracies.
I worked for a summer in a congressional office, and I didn’t answer the phones (luckily), but there was this one guy who just kept calling and asking ridiculous questions about President Obama’s positions, and the weird thing is that we were pretty sure he actually believed what he was saying.
So, yeah, there are a shockingly large number of people that are just unimaginably dumb, or downright crazy. But, there are a few more answers to your question:
1) Yes, some people hate Obama because he is black. Probably something like 5% of the population would actually admit that they hate him because of his race. Another 5%-10% of the country is likely influenced by a more subtle, but still substantial racist element. Perhaps they feel threatened in general or they are afraid of what he represents. Perhaps they are afraid that their kids or grandkids might someday NOT be on top of the world, and their natural instinct is to try to make sure that “someone” from some other demographic stays down.
a) NOTE: People’s satisfaction with their lives is largely relative, not absolute.If you ask people whether they are happy with their standard of living, people in first world countries who have running water, televisions, computers, cars, and savings will say “no” because they are comparing themselves to those around them. In that sense, then, being part of the “in” crowd, or the group that is on top is by definition a zero-sum game.
2) There is this psychological effect called “lens vision.” People CRAVE stability in their lives, and especially in their perspective of the world. Partisan identification starts to develop in childhood before most people are capable of seriously vetting issues. Then, later, when they are confronted with a statistic or an argument that undermines the supremacy of their choice, they subconsciously look for a way to justify retention of their partisan ideology. The result is that in a world where sociopolitical issues are complex, it is very difficult to change someone’s partisan identity. When people’s partisan identity DOES change, it is usually because it didn’t mesh well with that of the people around them.
In other words, partisan ideology is as at least as much about identity and social relationships as it is about actual issues.
In that context, it should not be hard to see how the story unfolds: In the information age, as it becomes increasingly possible for people to segregate into communities where they only live near people that are like them, where it is possible to only get news from news sources that don’t piss you off (news sources that match your ideology), people begin to experience an amplified “echo chamber” effect: The people around you, the news, and your own gut all tell you the same thing, and they all reflect and amplify eachother, reinforcing your partisan identity and your lens vision, and generating increasingly strong sentiments about political issues.
Due to your partisan tunnel vision, you don’t realize that you haven’t actually thoroughly vetted a lot of the things that you say. You aren’t particularly careful about how you say what you say, since you are already pretty sure that you are right.
HERE’S THE KICKER: People in the other party are going through the same process. They are certain that they are right. They are overly certain about the things that they say, and don’t adequately vet themselves.
Then, people from opposing partisan ideologies get into a conversation, and it quickly escalates. Over multiple conversations, dormant emotional memories arise irrationally to the surface and cause increasingly quick emotional escalation. The more emotions rise, the less the parties bother to vet themselves, and the less credence they give to the other party’s opinions and perceptions. In other words, they trust themselves MORE and the other party LESS. Since this process is occurring on both sides, it becomesincreasingly difficult to find compromise, because you are both demanding an extraordinary burden of proof from eachother both to prove one’s own point, AND to dissuade the other from his/her irrational position. You both rightly feel that the other party is being unfair, and you eventually give up and go back to your echo chamber to complain.
CONCLUSION
To a greater or lesser extent, this cycle of doom is responsible for the increasing partisan rancor in the United States. There are a lot of factors, but they all seem to feed on eachother. In the end, it is hardly surprising that you end up with a shockingly large percentage of Republicans who believe the most asinine things about President Obama, and have actual hatred for a man that they have never even met.
If nothing else, they hear infuriating things about him on a near-daily basis from their colleagues, friends, news sources, and (Republican) elected representatives. They can’t understand how he can believe such infuriating liberal nonsense, or they see him as the face of hypocrisy and greed (redistribution). Perhaps they see him as a threat (or a representation of a threat) to their lifestyle. Perhaps they believe that HE hates THEM.
I fancy myself as a fairly intelligent, even-tempered person, and an experienced debater. But even I have difficulty sometimes with keeping political discussions cool and focused. For people who are not experienced, or who are less intent on keeping the discussion under control, it is hardly surprising that emotions accelerate and leave ordinary americans spitting bile at one another.
President Obama SHOULD Make Death a Taxable Event
8 Feb
I recently stumbled across a Forbes article complaining that President Obama would like to make death a taxable event. The article was referencing a January 17th, 2015 press release that called for, among other things, a new realization event when appreciated property is received by gift or bequest.
Vocabulary
In tax law terminology, if you own property that increases in value (or “appreciates”), you have “income” because your net wealth has increased. But, the tax code doesn’t usually make you “realize” that income (and pay taxes on it) until you actually sell the property and “realize” the income.
Why? We are concerned that you won’t have money to pay the tax, or the value of the property might go back down before you sell it, or we didn’t have an easy way of accurately measuring its value in the first place. It just wouldn’t be feasible or enforceable.
The tax law has both “realization” events and “recognition” events. You have to both realize income and have the tax law recognize that you realized the income, otherwise you don’t have to pay tax — yet.
The amount of money you pay for a property is its “basis.” Basis gets adjusted by certain things, and so your “adjusted basis” is supposed to represent your investment in a property. The actual fair market value of the property minus the basis equals the amount of income/gain that is built into the property, and which can be realized/recognized at an appropriate event.
So what is the problem?
Americans decided long ago that 1) people shouldn’t pay taxes at death; and 2) the heirs shouldn’t have to pay taxes on appreciation that occurred when they didn’t have control of the appreciated property. Hence, the “stepped-up basis” rule. When you die, the basis in the property is automatically “stepped up” to fair market value at the time of death.
Ordinarily, realization and recognition rules only ever delay taxation on income. But, the stepped-up basis rule means that if you can hold off on selling those stocks of Apple that you bought back in the 1980’s long enough, then neither you, nor anyone you know or love will EVER have to pay taxes on your gains.
Take, for example, a hypothetical guy named Larry. Larry decides to found a massive corporation and call it Moracal. Since he built it from the ground up, his basis in his personal Moracal shares is approximately $0. Decades later, Larry’s net worth is around $50 billion. But Larry is getting old. He knows that if he can just hold out for a few more decades, he will have built a massive empire to last his family through the next, say, 20 generations+, all without ever paying any income tax whatsoever.
Suppose Larry wants to buy an island. He locates one that costs about $1 billion. Larry would have to sell over $1.2 billion worth of shares in order to generate $1 billion in after-(capital gains) tax return. Then, he would have to fork over about $250 million to the government. Larry would rather have his kids inherit that $250 million. So, Larry decides to take out a loan from his friend, Bill, instead. Larry agrees to pay 5% interest (capitalized into the loan), with the full principle and any accumulated debt payable one year after Larry’s death. Larry puts up $1 billion of Oracle stock as security for the loan. Larry has successfully purchased his island and avoided paying any income taxes ever. In fact, if Larry wants to, Larry can set up shop and run a tourism business on his personal island to help defray the interest expense from his $1 billion loan.
So what is the solution?
There are a number of possible solutions.
- We could put a cap on the amount of time that an asset could appreciate without being taxed (say ten years or five years).
- We could simply tax all gain every year, and do away with these rules.
- When we DO finally collect taxes, we could charge interest on any tax that might have been levied, but was instead deferred (this is actually the best solution, in my book, for reasons that I will explain in a later post; in particular, it would seriously undermine the current incentives to waste billions of dollars on clever tax-planning).
- Or, we could get rid of the stepped-up basis rule and make billionaires who have deferred taxes their entire lives finally pay a tax on their estate when they die.
So what is wrong with this last solution, which Obama has proposed?
Nothing. There’s not a damn thing wrong with it, unless you happen to be a billionaire looking for ways to avoid ever paying a fair tax on your income.
As previously mentioned, I have plenty of other ideas about how the tax code could be improved. But that simply isn’t and can never be a criticism of a completely rational, non-partisan, sensible, and obvious solution to a single, discrete problem in the tax code.
The Carrot Spatula
5 Feb
Have you ever found yourself cooking meat and onions and at the same time holding a raw carrot? If not, you should try it, because it’s fun.
Have you ever been slowly poisoned by something without really noticing? It’s generally something considered “inadvisable.”
Anyways, now you can COMBINE your desire to not be slowly poisoned to a cruel and painful death WITH your desire to hold and consume a raw carrot while cooking meat and onions.
I call it… The Carrot Spatula.
Here’s how it works: You take the fork out of your right hand and stab it partially into a piece of meat so that the sharp tines are muted. Then, you take the carrot, and you use its blunt, crisp, delicious end to stir the meat and onions. This allows you to consume your meal of meat and potatoes without risking the consumption of any toxic poisonous flakes of non-stick frying pan.
Plus, it makes your pictures look WAY better. First, check out this perfectly gorgeous-looking full-colored pan of food.
Now, compare this ugly, sepia-toned picture of THE SAME FOOD sans carrot.
Tragic.
AND BONUS —
Your carrot is likely to soak up freaking delicious meat and onion juices, fat, and spices, and thereby increase its flavor factor substantially WITHOUT ceasing to be an official health food.
Brought to you by your local carrot snapper (person from Utah).
A Better Primary System
3 Feb
- Let Iowa and New Hampshire continue holding nominating contests in early February.
- Then, sort all remaining states (and voting territories, like Guam) by size, and classify them into three tiers, with an approximately equal number of delegates at stake in each tier.
- All states in the first tier (the smallest states) vote on the second Tuesday in February.
- Tier two votes on the second Tuesday in March.
- Tier three votes on the second Tuesday in April. And then you can hold the conventions in May.
- Tiers 1 and 3 rotate places every four years.
WHY SHOULD WE ADOPT THIS SYSTEM?
The current primary system is a mess.
Almost every state is faced with a dilemma: 1) leave the primary where it is and resign oneself to a state of irrelevance, or 2) move the primary inexorably earlier, wasting millions, or even hundreds of millions of dollars (as in the case of California in 2008) just in the transaction costs of hosting Presidential primaries separately from local primaries. The alternative (moving all of the local primaries earlier and earlier every year) is likewise sub-optimally palatable.
The public are forced to coexist with an inexorably lengthening election cycle, in which national elections have become a near-constant phenomenon.
Those few states that take a moral stand and refuse to move their primary to gain influence are punished for it.
Finally, the primary system is lumpy. Some states’ primaries are all alone amidst a sea of media coverage. Others’ are all clogged into Super Tuesday.
It is, quite simply, a senseless mess. And, everyone knows it.
If everyone knows and agrees that it is a mess, then why hasn’t anyone changed it?
That’s a great question. One might similarly ask why Congress never seems to get around to passing budget bills until the government is brought to the brink of collapse. The simple answer is that a complex system with many stakeholders contains a lot of obstacles to doing things. Few states have a strong interest in reforming the primary system. But, the traditional first few states have a very large interest in retaining their primacy.
Plus, not everyone has coalesced around the same solution yet. A lot of people would like the states to all be equal. Iowa and New Hampshire want to retain their primacy. Some people think that the race fundamentally changes once the first couple of actual votes are cast and recorded, and so it is a good idea to put a couple of states without a ton of delegates a bit ahead of everyone else, so that the system has a chance to adjust to whatever happens and really vet the candidates. Some people want a drawn out primary, so that the candidates are more thoroughly vetted. Other people advocate a shorter primary, so that the eventual winner is less damaged by the time they go up against the opposition.
This system gets around those concerns.
By retaining Iowa and New Hampshire as the first states, this plan simultaneously avoids pissing off those states and retains the advantages of having a couple of states out front for early vetting. The inhabitants of both states are actually quite used to performing this job, and take cultural pride in it. Anyways, they really only have a few delegates between them, so it doesn’t make that much difference to everyone else.
Then, this system puts all of the other states on equal footing with eachother. Under this system, there are no states that are truly irrelevant, as there is a substantial possibility that any given competitive election will still be undecided by the time it gets to the third wave.
In the current system, campaign events are heavily concentrated in the first 4 states, and almost non-existent for states whose contests occur after Super Tuesday. This system would allow candidates to focus their efforts in states that are conducive to their message. All states would see campaign events.
By the same token, we should do away with the electoral college, and enter an era of true representative democracy.
On the LDS (Mormon) Church’s Decision to Disallow Baptisms from the Children of Gay Couples
10 Nov
Whatever.
The Church doesn’t want to sow confusion and contention in families, and doesn’t want to allow children to sign away their lives into a religion when they are far too young to understand the consequences. Good.
Kids shouldn’t be baptized at 8 anyways.
That is way too young. Mormons baptize at eight because it is the “age of accountability.” In oher words, you are old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong. But baptism isn’t about recognizing the difference between right and wrong; it is about recognizing the difference between Mormonism, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Atheism, and Deism, etc. I was a pretty smart cookie at 8, if I do say so myself. But I had no idea. Literally.
Kids can’t understand complex logical arguments. Most adults aren’t even capable of really understanding and expressing their religious beliefs in coherent English.
If baptism isn’t about picking a religion and coming to a determination about how you live your life, then what is it about? And if it is about those things, then why is the Mormon Church making silly assumptions that 8-year-olds are at the right age to do that? Eight-year-olds are in like 2nd grade. When I was in second grade, I think I peed my pants at school once. These are like, practically toddlers. They just barely learned to read. Some of them are still working on that!
The decision is still blatantly discriminatory.
The LDS Church is not letting in the kids of gay couples. Basically, they are saying, “We love you, but your kids need to go through a cleansing process before we will touch them.”
The decision is contradictory.
The LDS Church makes a pretty big deal about all of the blessings that come with having the Holy Ghost in your life. After you get baptized, you are bestowed with “the Gift of the Holy Ghost” during your confirmation. The Holy Ghost can still visit you if you aren’t a member of the Church, but once you get the Gift, he is basically always there, helping you along your way.
The Mormon Church never really goes into much detail about who this Holy Ghost guy is, aside from the fact that he is a member of the Godhead (along with Jesus and God), so he is basically a God. But, leaving aside the fishy bit of non-doctrine, it doesn’t really make any sense for the Mormon Church to not want to extend those benefits to some kids.
The way I see it, you have two choices: Either 1) things are predetermined and bad people do no good by trying to be good, or 2) things are not predetermined, and you can potentially be instrumental in someone else getting into the Celestial Kingdom by being a great example and by welcoming them into your church and your social circle. The Mormon Church’s decision is practical in a temporal, non-religious sense (they aren’t sowing contention within families). But, from the standpoint of “Let’s get everyone to accept the one, true gospel as quickly as possible and get them to come to the church because it really will make God’s plan come true,” it really makes absolutely no sense at all to exclude those people from the church that you fear are most likely to fall away from its teachings. Something I learned when I was young is that we learn by example from the people around us. If the Mormon Church is denying kids the ability to be around other people who would set precisely the example that the Mormon Church thinks that they would need, then the Mormon church is not really looking out for their best interest, consistent with its hypotheses that it is the one true church, etc.
Conclusion
Whatever. The Mormon Church has been anti-gay since its inception. They used to conduct electro-shock therapy, and do other inhumane stuff. The church isn’t true. It is convenient. It plays on people’s evolutionarily-driven tendencies to believe in God and morality, and their desire to wrap their perception of the world up into a neat package. But morality is just collective action (If you don’t know what that means, then feel free to ask in the comments, and we can have a conversation.). The world is a beautiful thing of order, but the order is perfectly explainable in terms of a bunch of stuff following a small set of inflexible rules over a long period of time. The world is a creature of random chance, not convenient human fantasies. The fact that the Mormon Church is willing to twist itself into knots like this just adds another straw to the argument that they don’t, at heart, even fully believe in themselves.
To all my Mormon relatives and friends out there, you know deep inside that you don’t have an irrefutable reason to believe what you believe. You believe it because you can, because it gives you a sense of stability and order. You believe it because you have always believed it. You believe it because the Cruel Truism (again feel free to ask in the comments section) makes you believe it. It’s BS. But, if it makes you happy, then whatever. ;P
About the Author
Some of you may be aware that I was raised Mormon, and identify as such no more. Some of you may also be aware that I am in a long-term relationship with my boyfriend, Trevor. If not, you are now.
Thought of the Day: 100 cheeses that start with “A”
8 Nov
I love cheese sooooooo much. So, here are 92 cheeses that start with “A,” courtesy of cheese.com!
Enjoy!
Abbaye de Belloc
Why I’ve Stopped Doing Interviews for Yale
22 OctIt’s a random process, disguised as a deliberative one.
Adam Lambert is Back with “Another Lonely Night” Music Video
9 Oct
Adam Lambert’s new music video is on Youtube. Although, as of 10/9/15 12:50AM, it is still unlisted and therefore won’t show up in a search or on Lambert’s list of music videos, you can watch it if you have the link to the direct URL. Luckily, I do. And now, I am sharing it with you. ;P You can watch “Another Lonely Night” HERE.
“Another Lonely Night” is the second single off of Lambert’s third studio album, The Original High. Luke Gilford directed the music video; Adam Lambert, Sterling Fox, Max Martin and Ali Payami co-wrote the song.
Internationally, “Another Lonely Night” was released early in Poland and South Africa. It is currently charting at #s 28 and 35 on the iTunes charts of the two countries, respectively. “Ghost Town,” meanwhile, remains at #52 on MediaTraffic’s global singles chart, at #44 on the worldwide Spotify chart, and in the Top 25 on 12 countries’ iTunes charts (#3 Kazakhstan; #9 Finland; #9 Hungary; #11 Luxembourg; #12 Czech Republic; #14 Belarus; #16 Portugal; #21 Germany; #22 Namibia; #22 Netherlands; #23 Poland; #24 Austria). “Ghost Town” peaked in the Top 20 of the US Pop and Adult Pop Songs airplay charts, and at #64 on the US Hot 100. It peaked at #1 on Poland’s official airplay chart and at #2 on the official singles charts of Australia and South Africa. It has been certified for platinum sales in both Poland and Australia. It is currently sitting at a to-date peak of #12 on Germany’s official singles chart.
My personal opinion? I’ve always thought “Another Lonely Night” was a stronger single choice than “Ghost Town.”
REPOSTED FROM:
Adam Lambert is Back with “Another Lonely Night” Music Video
Check out Music Industry Sandbox for in depth coverage of artists and the music industry.
Adam Lambert reaches Top 20 on Pop Songs
22 SepAdam Lambert has finally reached the Top 20 on Billboard’s Pop Songs airplay chart in its 18th tracking week. For full details on the milestone this represents, and how it was achieved, see the full post on Music Industry Sandbox:
Adam Lambert finally reaches Top 20 on pop radio spins per mediabase
Sometimes Profound 