Increase Intelligence
In this article, we’ll talk about a key determinant of success in the New Reality, and how you can get the most out of life through harnessing it.
That determinant is intelligence. Intelligence is a contentious subject; with people believing that intelligence is fixed, that there are various components to it that are politically incorrect to talk about, and that, on the flip side, intelligence “isn’t important for life success.”
Those things are all things you must stop caring about, and in doing so, you’ll give yourself a better chance at succeeding at life.
Harnessing your intelligence is key to succeeding at-or-above your current potential. In volatile times, you need to spot and make the most of opportunities and you need to stop getting in your own way.
We’re entering economic conditions where, unfortunately, intelligence in its various forms will be important. Gone are the days where you can safely secure yourself a nice warehouse operative role where you stack shelves, get a living wage and then 40 years later, draw a nice pension.
I say “unfortunately” above because that dramatic shift is not going to be kind to millions of people. You don’t want to be one of those. Still, this isn’t the economy section, so we’ll save that for another article.
Let’s go back to intelligence. You want to make the best decisions possible, and you want to make those into opportunities that give you whatever it is you’re seeking. That requires being as smart as you can be.
This is made difficult by current conditions. The idea of gaining the maximum possible intelligence available to you is a war on several fronts:
- There are countless opportunities to get smarter
- There are huge pitfalls making everyone more stupid
- The state of psychology and identity in the 21st Century
- It’s almost certain there are deliberate actors on all of this
We’ll talk through each of these.
Is It Possible To Increase Intelligence?
People, and by that I mean armchair-experts, will say that IQ is fixed. And be under no illusions, in this article, I’m talking about IQ – which is general intelligence. I will not evade the question by saying, “there are different types of intelligence and some are intelligent in a “cuddling bunnies” way.”
Those people will say, “Studies say you can’t change intelligence!”
Those people have never read the studies they are telling you to.
I have.
In fact, to make sure I wasn’t being a moron, I tracked down basically every study on the heritability and nature of general intelligence. And none of them suggested IQ was fixed. Heritable? Sure. Likely within a certain range? Mostly. Accurate determiner of success? Absolutely.
Not fixed, and in fact, IQ varies considerably due to various factors. Also, IQ is limited in scope, but it’s pretty strong as an indicator overall.
Now, to avoid having comments littered with, “You’re wrong” in its various forms, here’s my general – and mostly accepted position.
Your overall intelligence (g-factor, general intelligence,) is mostly fixed but your actions absolutely have an effect. Your actions are inside your control. Therefore, you can assume that optimum performance within the specific parameters of your natural range are open to you.
To use an analogy, most of us are not going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, nor be as physically gifted. With drugs, without drugs… it doesn’t matter. And you might naturally be inclined to gain muscle mass like a bodybuilder does. You might not.
On the other hand, everyone can gain muscle and get stronger, provided they have the right stimulus. You might not end up looking like a Greek statue, but you benefit immensely from doing so.
Mental performance is the same. So what are the right stimulus?
How To Train Your Brain?
Brain-training as a discipline is new and incredibly weak in scientific circles. Most of the, “IQ is fixed!” nerds base their opinion on the fact that Dual-N-Back training doesn’t work. Dual-N-Back is one of a few “brain training” app approaches that were the rage a few years back. They work based on pattern recognition and test your working memory.
They are effective within a very small range of intelligence, and it’s temporary. You can test the effect out by playing a game on your phone. If you play solitaire or chess or something similar every day for a couple of hours, you will get a lot better at recognising the patterns. If you then stop playing, you’ll regress at playing the game.
This doesn’t affect your overall intelligence outside the initial complexity of solving the puzzle. If you’re not very good at games like chess or solitaire, then you absolutely increase your pattern recognition skills to a point by playing them and learning how they work.
That’s one element of intelligence.
There are – and this is contentious because nobody can really decide what constitutes general intelligence, (and isn’t that a loss for the oh-so-sure nerds,) – over a dozen elements to general intelligence.
While many will say, “You can’t increase IQ!” when you look at some of these elements:
- Vocabulary
- Audio-visual memory
- Mathematical reasoning
- Visual pattern recognition
- Fluid reasoning
You realise that not only are they not-fixed, but you’d be an idiot for saying they can’t be improved.
Hence the assertion that IQ is not fixed. And general intelligence is heritable; fixed within your genetics, more so than the other, key elements of what we consider “intelligence.”
Situational Awareness and Worldly Wisdom
When most people talk about someone who is “smart,” they aren’t talking about their ability to multiply odd numbers and work out how much you’re saving on buying a kilo of oranges as opposed to getting them individually. And that’s a useful real world example.
Most people are talking about two things:
- Situational awareness
- Worldly knowledge
The secret third thing is wisdom, which is honestly just the application of whatever intelligence you have, usually gained through insight and experience.
As always, there’ll be people who’ll quibble about all of this, argue that some people are more gifted at one, that nerds can’t be street-smart and that reading doesn’t make you smarter. It’s all mostly nonsense from people who aren’t as smart as they think they are.
You can develop both of these things, and you should. Going back to the introduction; it’s important to know about the world and how it affects you. It’s important to be situationally aware as well. You’re in an environment and you need to thrive.
And honestly, these things are within anyone’s grasp, providing they’re willing to read, experiment, learn and digest information and then apply it.
These, and general intelligence increase, are aims of this section of the site.
Unlike the brain training apps which have limited effect, brain training and increasing your intelligence is a long-term play. It’s also made difficult by the environment we’re currently in.
Psychology And The 21st Century Environment
The above is the good news. In this section there’s good and bad news. The good news is that with the internet, cheap travel and a growing sense of the inter-connectedness of everything, it’s never been easier to get smarter. Not to mention that access to good nutrition and healthy lifestyle stuff has never been better.
The bad news is that as a counterpoint to that, it’s never been easier to fall into the trap of a negative feedback cycle that lowers your intelligence, mood, and general well-being.
Whilst the internet provides opportunities to learn about anything and dramatically increase your general knowledge, it also allows for people to get sucked into intelligence-lowering propaganda campaigns that are designed to incite, enrage and polarise a person’s thinking into binary situations.
Or, you might fall into the trap of scrolling social media, playing computer games and binge-watching TV shows. None of these things are the devil, but they allow you to stagnate.
Outside information, there’s never been more choice when it comes to poor nutrition either; ready-meals, cereals that are probably made of cardboard, and again, a politicised food environment that honestly helps nobody mean that while good nutrition helps your brain as much as your body, bad nutrition limits your brainpower.
To add to that before we move on, your environment will make you more stupid if you allow the vices in. People who’ll tell you it’s fine to eat a high-fructose diet, binge-watch Netflix for 8 hours a day and work in an office not moving staring at a spreadsheet are the victims of this environment, because they’re too stupid to realise they’ve been had.
Nefarious Actors
There are designs to make you more susceptible to the above. Political parties, companies and advertisers want you in a volatile state of mind for various reasons. For advertisers, if you’re anxious about your life, you are more likely to buy something to fix it. I should know; I’ve written the campaigns that sell you things. Big business want you to be in a state of complacent mental-vegetable state so that they can ply you with content and sneak in the advertising for profit. I should know… again, I’ve written the campaigns.
And politicians want to provoke you into binary thinking because they’re trying to win your votes, approval and the like. I should know… I’ve written the campaigns.
It’s very easy to take the above and become a conspiracy nutjob. I recommend you don’t do this on account of the fact that conspiracy-takes tend to be in the same emotional territory as all of the other anxiety-anger-low emotional range-high emotional stakes- takes as the above. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you’re blaming Big Pharma or the Democrats or the Communists or the Deep State: if that’s your line of thinking, you’ve fallen into the trap of blaming an external source rather than surveying your own territory and finding what you can make of it.
Let’s assume then, that there are various parties interested in various things and none of them are concerned with you getting smarter, healthier or better off. It’s up to you to get the best out of life and avoid the sharks.
And to avoid the sharks, you have to be as smart as possible.
That’s what this section is all about.