I buy all of this up to the university gatekeepers section. Sure, you can be very quiet about your political views and become a STEM PhD, but this can be quite humiliating and alienating. Not only do you have to conceal your views, but you will regularly encounter people who mock your views or treat them as beneath contempt throughout your education. Some programs also require “diversity statements,” which, from what I understand, while not weighted heavily in admissions or hiring, do require many conservatives to be deceptive in order to even ‘do no harm’ with the statement.
Diversity statements are recent and on their way out - if you filter to older STEM majors there won't have been any filtering of this sort but it's not like it evens out there. Everyone is also lying their ass off during the admissions process anyway starting from the college admission essay.
The degree to which you're punished for being conservative is also exaggerated. It might filter out very loud, outspoken conservatives who want to post politics on social media under their real name, but most fellow engineering students simply don't care and you can easily get along as long as you aren't posting online about how racist and eugenicist you are.
If we are defining "gatekeeping" as "being in a place where most people disagree with you", then the whole narrative of the tough, no nonsense, manly right frankly becomes ludicrous.
Which it is. "Unlike those snowflakes on the left, I am not easily triggered. Except when I see a keffyeh, then I fear from my life. Except when I see somebody with blue hair, then I have a fit of uncontrollable rage. Except when my peers disagree with me, then I need to go into hiding. Except for..."
I think the seriousness of this charge depends on how the people who disagree with you treat you, but also I’m not trying to uphold a narrative of tough, no nonsense manly right.
In my experience at least, the right seems comparably sensitive to the left (at least in terms of propensity to get upset, maybe not in terms of how that affects them afterwards).
I hope someone addresses some of your other thoughts here but I can tell you, from over thirty years in the trenches of education reform, that very few liberals care if their kids brains are pithed for 13 years by room temp IQ public school teachers. Very few liberals have ever defended us in the public square (even though we do educate their kids) and the deep blue teachers we've hired have (about 60+% of the time) proved to be trouble, toxic, or lazy. I don't know exactly what intellectual means (kind of like art) but I know who I can talk to, who I can interview and release into the classroom safely, who is willing to learn something new, and who is willing to either bend, move, shift, or change an idea. And 90% of the time, it isn't the liberals in education.
I'd also like to add that we've been attacked from all sides (not just the left), but the virulence and hypocrisy of the left regarding education is beyond nauseating. They can be the highest intellectuals all they want. I'm sure Satan (if you believe in that sort of thing) would be the head of the NEA and the DOE, and the smartest demon in the room. Intellect is irrelevant if your motives are vile.
Everything starts in primary school. If the 23 year old primary teacher is your mom, then fine. But if it is some young, dumb girl with tattoos and an ax to grind about the traditional family, your kid is going to lose out. And those people are never people of the less intelligent right.
Some of this argumentation is just stupid, and like most liberal slop, it confuses agreement with your political world-view for intelligence.
Points 6-10 exemplify this, as they are just using a lot of words to assert that people who don't share your risk profile or preferences are foolish (even though by any metric they objectively succeeded while you have failed). It's behaviour typical of stupid, jealous liberal academics who can thrive in academia through conformity and credentialism, even while completely lacking any capability and then assume that people with self-respect or ambition are stupid for not doing so and that's why academia is liberal.
The fact that anyone takes this sort of drivel to be an argument that conservatives are dumb is just mind-blowing.
Sure, this is a problem for conservatives. Have you paid no attention to the modern right's attempts to escape the branding and policies of conservatism in the last ten years?
I don't think you can separate "smart" and "bad at prediction", since all intelligence can be boiled down to prediction; that's the core insight that allows LLMs to work. Being able to multiply ten digit numbers in your head is the same as being asked to predict what a calculator would output.
More practically, Elon's financial success at SpaceX stems entirely from his skill at successfully predicting what designs and methods of manufacturing will work to build a functioning rocket cheaply.
#6:
While taking the guaranteed lower payout maximizes utility (only for non-altruistic people) in a very clean hypothetical scenario, it generally does not do so in the real world. In the real world, it's much better to take the high-variance high-potential-payoff option, and then simply buy insurance.
#8:
Flawed premise I believe due to #6, but even if true, there's no reason to believe this selection effect would outweigh all the other selection effects in favor of rationality among the wealthy.
In fact, I'd be willing to bet that if you gave a rationality test (not IQ test) to the ultra-wealthy, they would score better than the population average.
This list reads like you're looking for rationalizations for why rich people must be dumb. I think from a neutral viewpoint it's quite obvious that, while there are *some* incredibly stupid rich people (e.g. Trump) and others who are very smart in some ways and very dumb in others (e.g. Elon), on average they're significantly more intelligent and more rational.
#2 We're talking about prediction in relation to things like public affairs etc., not business strategies.
#6 Insurance is typically unavaliable in these situations due to moral hazard and asymmetric information.
#8 We need to think at the margin. Are we comparing billionaires to literally the average person taken off the streets- in which case your conjecture is plausiable but by no means certain-, or are we comparing them to others -who would likely take their role in the public attention or more general influence economy if billionaires weren't there-? If that's too hard a counterfactual, what about comparing them to matched demographics- same level of interest politics, same level of education etc?
Conservatives took a bad deal when they exchanged wisdom for intelligence.
'Facts don't care about your feelings' is not conservative.
Conservatism isn't Socrates; it's the execution of Socrates. Conservatism is the village elder, not the philosopher. Some embrace it. Most aren't willing to bite the bullet.
I'm a big fan of biting the bullet. Conservatives aren't the smartest. And that's ok. Conservatives shouldn't go to complicated justifications. They need simple ones. The thing about the wisdom of elders is that it's really easy to create a sound bite that pattern-matches. Which is why conservatism is about trusted people. Because anyone can say something smart. And there are many people smarter than you, which makes argument untrustworthy.
When they lied to the public to go on war of adventures, willfully ignoring all the ramifications? When they lied to Congress to illegaly fund their death squads and shattered the little respect for Constitution and the Government that was left? When they engaged in "ratfucking" (sic) their opponents so hard that it became a judicial case, the Nixon tapes had to be released, and it changed the political landscape forever? When they mess with complex systems they have no understanding of, be it global supply chains or the climate, assured that any warning could only come from "panicans" and bet the future of the country on the idea that we could build a parachute while already in free fall?
When have actually-existing Conservatives ever adhered to this idealized conservativism that is popular on Substacks? What fence have they not torn down without a second thought? What cherished, traditional institution have they not tainted? What noble principles have they ever upholden?
When will the high priests of Traditions, the idolaters of the Gods of Copybook Headings, stop blessing the most radical proponents of change just because they half-heartedly mutter the right words?
There is an important divide between people who think that someone like Jeff Bezos is a generational talent, and those who think he's just a smart guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time. On the latter view, business success is paid out more or less randomly – as if by a slot machine – and doesn't require a "rich understanding of how things work."
With regards to the kind of understanding I talk about in the article- My gut says JB in particular is pretty worldly and mostly has a good grasp on things, better than average, but is not particularly special
I am a lifelong normie liberal. I find myself becoming more and more attracted to an embrace of intellectual elitism, Hanania style. Considering a pivot to embrace the idea that the primary issue to be addressed, the problem holding us back from a better world, simply is not conservatism: the problem is stupidity in all its forms.
Donald Trump could embrace historically liberal policies tomorrow -- and in some cases he is! -- and that wouldn't / doesn't make him any less of a danger to the world.
"left of center" politices, anyway -- maybe not "liberal" if by liberal one means "classical liberal" aka libertarian-leaning.
Anyway. Policies that would have been clearly left-identified if proposed 15 years ago (before anyone had ever thought Trump would be a politician): (1) no tax on tips; (2) price controls on pharmaceuticals; (3) [not really a policy] publicly shaming companies (e.g. Apple) to try to make them build their products in America.
I consulted with Co-pilot about pharmaceutical price controls. It said:
The Senate’s version of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful bill” does not include any provisions for pharmaceutical price controls. The focus of the bill remains largely on tax-related measures, spending cuts, Medicaid reforms, and issues like the federal debt ceiling—not on controlling drug prices.
So it does not look like price controls are on the agenda.
OTOH, when I asked about no tax on tips it said:
The Senate has indeed moved forward on a measure to eliminate taxes on tips. Specifically, they've passed the No Tax on Tips Act—a bill that creates a federal income tax deduction of up to $25,000 for workers in industries that customarily receive tips, like food service and hospitality. This bill, which received unanimous consent in the Senate, focuses solely on providing tax relief for eligible tipped workers and now awaits action in the House.
So there has been some action on this. So you are correct here.
However, this is a small-bore initiative compared to the big-time liberal policies (No Child Left Behind, Part D Medicare), passed by Trump’s Republican predecessor. I would note than GW Bush was seen in his day as a more conservative Republican that his Republican predecessor and yet compared to Trump he and his administration are now seen liberals (or at least RINOs) by Trump Republicans.
So I can see your allusion as narrowly correct, but it looks like grasping at straws.
Wow, I knew the midwit meme was just silly cope right-wingers up to pretend that secretly they're the smart ones even though everyone else on their side is stupid, but I didn't know it was literally the opposite of the truth!
I'd be hesitant about saying it's literally the opposite of the truth. As I say in the footnote, the sample of people in the 0-3 range is quite small because the graph represents proportions of respondents. Thus in reality the "bump" of extremely dumb liberals pictured is quite small.
I buy all of this up to the university gatekeepers section. Sure, you can be very quiet about your political views and become a STEM PhD, but this can be quite humiliating and alienating. Not only do you have to conceal your views, but you will regularly encounter people who mock your views or treat them as beneath contempt throughout your education. Some programs also require “diversity statements,” which, from what I understand, while not weighted heavily in admissions or hiring, do require many conservatives to be deceptive in order to even ‘do no harm’ with the statement.
Diversity statements are recent and on their way out - if you filter to older STEM majors there won't have been any filtering of this sort but it's not like it evens out there. Everyone is also lying their ass off during the admissions process anyway starting from the college admission essay.
The degree to which you're punished for being conservative is also exaggerated. It might filter out very loud, outspoken conservatives who want to post politics on social media under their real name, but most fellow engineering students simply don't care and you can easily get along as long as you aren't posting online about how racist and eugenicist you are.
If we are defining "gatekeeping" as "being in a place where most people disagree with you", then the whole narrative of the tough, no nonsense, manly right frankly becomes ludicrous.
Which it is. "Unlike those snowflakes on the left, I am not easily triggered. Except when I see a keffyeh, then I fear from my life. Except when I see somebody with blue hair, then I have a fit of uncontrollable rage. Except when my peers disagree with me, then I need to go into hiding. Except for..."
I think the seriousness of this charge depends on how the people who disagree with you treat you, but also I’m not trying to uphold a narrative of tough, no nonsense manly right.
In my experience at least, the right seems comparably sensitive to the left (at least in terms of propensity to get upset, maybe not in terms of how that affects them afterwards).
I hope someone addresses some of your other thoughts here but I can tell you, from over thirty years in the trenches of education reform, that very few liberals care if their kids brains are pithed for 13 years by room temp IQ public school teachers. Very few liberals have ever defended us in the public square (even though we do educate their kids) and the deep blue teachers we've hired have (about 60+% of the time) proved to be trouble, toxic, or lazy. I don't know exactly what intellectual means (kind of like art) but I know who I can talk to, who I can interview and release into the classroom safely, who is willing to learn something new, and who is willing to either bend, move, shift, or change an idea. And 90% of the time, it isn't the liberals in education.
I'd also like to add that we've been attacked from all sides (not just the left), but the virulence and hypocrisy of the left regarding education is beyond nauseating. They can be the highest intellectuals all they want. I'm sure Satan (if you believe in that sort of thing) would be the head of the NEA and the DOE, and the smartest demon in the room. Intellect is irrelevant if your motives are vile.
Everything starts in primary school. If the 23 year old primary teacher is your mom, then fine. But if it is some young, dumb girl with tattoos and an ax to grind about the traditional family, your kid is going to lose out. And those people are never people of the less intelligent right.
Some of this argumentation is just stupid, and like most liberal slop, it confuses agreement with your political world-view for intelligence.
Points 6-10 exemplify this, as they are just using a lot of words to assert that people who don't share your risk profile or preferences are foolish (even though by any metric they objectively succeeded while you have failed). It's behaviour typical of stupid, jealous liberal academics who can thrive in academia through conformity and credentialism, even while completely lacking any capability and then assume that people with self-respect or ambition are stupid for not doing so and that's why academia is liberal.
The fact that anyone takes this sort of drivel to be an argument that conservatives are dumb is just mind-blowing.
"You're wrong and I am right." But it took you three paragraphs.
Nope I'm not saying "You're wrong". I'm saying your argument is stupid. There's a pretty large difference, which you should be able to discern.
Sure, this is a problem for conservatives. Have you paid no attention to the modern right's attempts to escape the branding and policies of conservatism in the last ten years?
#2:
I don't think you can separate "smart" and "bad at prediction", since all intelligence can be boiled down to prediction; that's the core insight that allows LLMs to work. Being able to multiply ten digit numbers in your head is the same as being asked to predict what a calculator would output.
More practically, Elon's financial success at SpaceX stems entirely from his skill at successfully predicting what designs and methods of manufacturing will work to build a functioning rocket cheaply.
#6:
While taking the guaranteed lower payout maximizes utility (only for non-altruistic people) in a very clean hypothetical scenario, it generally does not do so in the real world. In the real world, it's much better to take the high-variance high-potential-payoff option, and then simply buy insurance.
#8:
Flawed premise I believe due to #6, but even if true, there's no reason to believe this selection effect would outweigh all the other selection effects in favor of rationality among the wealthy.
In fact, I'd be willing to bet that if you gave a rationality test (not IQ test) to the ultra-wealthy, they would score better than the population average.
This list reads like you're looking for rationalizations for why rich people must be dumb. I think from a neutral viewpoint it's quite obvious that, while there are *some* incredibly stupid rich people (e.g. Trump) and others who are very smart in some ways and very dumb in others (e.g. Elon), on average they're significantly more intelligent and more rational.
#2 We're talking about prediction in relation to things like public affairs etc., not business strategies.
#6 Insurance is typically unavaliable in these situations due to moral hazard and asymmetric information.
#8 We need to think at the margin. Are we comparing billionaires to literally the average person taken off the streets- in which case your conjecture is plausiable but by no means certain-, or are we comparing them to others -who would likely take their role in the public attention or more general influence economy if billionaires weren't there-? If that's too hard a counterfactual, what about comparing them to matched demographics- same level of interest politics, same level of education etc?
Conservatives took a bad deal when they exchanged wisdom for intelligence.
'Facts don't care about your feelings' is not conservative.
Conservatism isn't Socrates; it's the execution of Socrates. Conservatism is the village elder, not the philosopher. Some embrace it. Most aren't willing to bite the bullet.
I'm a big fan of biting the bullet. Conservatives aren't the smartest. And that's ok. Conservatives shouldn't go to complicated justifications. They need simple ones. The thing about the wisdom of elders is that it's really easy to create a sound bite that pattern-matches. Which is why conservatism is about trusted people. Because anyone can say something smart. And there are many people smarter than you, which makes argument untrustworthy.
(See Eruvin 13b, discussion of Rabbi Meir.)
When were the conservatives wise, exactly?
When they lied to the public to go on war of adventures, willfully ignoring all the ramifications? When they lied to Congress to illegaly fund their death squads and shattered the little respect for Constitution and the Government that was left? When they engaged in "ratfucking" (sic) their opponents so hard that it became a judicial case, the Nixon tapes had to be released, and it changed the political landscape forever? When they mess with complex systems they have no understanding of, be it global supply chains or the climate, assured that any warning could only come from "panicans" and bet the future of the country on the idea that we could build a parachute while already in free fall?
When have actually-existing Conservatives ever adhered to this idealized conservativism that is popular on Substacks? What fence have they not torn down without a second thought? What cherished, traditional institution have they not tainted? What noble principles have they ever upholden?
When will the high priests of Traditions, the idolaters of the Gods of Copybook Headings, stop blessing the most radical proponents of change just because they half-heartedly mutter the right words?
There is an important divide between people who think that someone like Jeff Bezos is a generational talent, and those who think he's just a smart guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time. On the latter view, business success is paid out more or less randomly – as if by a slot machine – and doesn't require a "rich understanding of how things work."
With regards to the kind of understanding I talk about in the article- My gut says JB in particular is pretty worldly and mostly has a good grasp on things, better than average, but is not particularly special
I am a lifelong normie liberal. I find myself becoming more and more attracted to an embrace of intellectual elitism, Hanania style. Considering a pivot to embrace the idea that the primary issue to be addressed, the problem holding us back from a better world, simply is not conservatism: the problem is stupidity in all its forms.
Donald Trump could embrace historically liberal policies tomorrow -- and in some cases he is! -- and that wouldn't / doesn't make him any less of a danger to the world.
To what liberal policies is Trump embracing are you referring?
"left of center" politices, anyway -- maybe not "liberal" if by liberal one means "classical liberal" aka libertarian-leaning.
Anyway. Policies that would have been clearly left-identified if proposed 15 years ago (before anyone had ever thought Trump would be a politician): (1) no tax on tips; (2) price controls on pharmaceuticals; (3) [not really a policy] publicly shaming companies (e.g. Apple) to try to make them build their products in America.
Thanks for the repsonse.
I consulted with Co-pilot about pharmaceutical price controls. It said:
The Senate’s version of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful bill” does not include any provisions for pharmaceutical price controls. The focus of the bill remains largely on tax-related measures, spending cuts, Medicaid reforms, and issues like the federal debt ceiling—not on controlling drug prices.
So it does not look like price controls are on the agenda.
OTOH, when I asked about no tax on tips it said:
The Senate has indeed moved forward on a measure to eliminate taxes on tips. Specifically, they've passed the No Tax on Tips Act—a bill that creates a federal income tax deduction of up to $25,000 for workers in industries that customarily receive tips, like food service and hospitality. This bill, which received unanimous consent in the Senate, focuses solely on providing tax relief for eligible tipped workers and now awaits action in the House.
So there has been some action on this. So you are correct here.
However, this is a small-bore initiative compared to the big-time liberal policies (No Child Left Behind, Part D Medicare), passed by Trump’s Republican predecessor. I would note than GW Bush was seen in his day as a more conservative Republican that his Republican predecessor and yet compared to Trump he and his administration are now seen liberals (or at least RINOs) by Trump Republicans.
So I can see your allusion as narrowly correct, but it looks like grasping at straws.
Wow, I knew the midwit meme was just silly cope right-wingers up to pretend that secretly they're the smart ones even though everyone else on their side is stupid, but I didn't know it was literally the opposite of the truth!
I'd be hesitant about saying it's literally the opposite of the truth. As I say in the footnote, the sample of people in the 0-3 range is quite small because the graph represents proportions of respondents. Thus in reality the "bump" of extremely dumb liberals pictured is quite small.