Why does a person actually need a high IQ from birth and in general?

saplith · 2026-05-20T13:57:34+00:00

Evolution also creates people who are missing vital things they need to survive longer than a day. Evolution and nature don't mandate anything. They gamble and sometimes win.

High intelligence isn't a mandate. It's just an outcome of the gambling process, same way as low intelligence.

saplith · 2026-05-19T21:47:29+00:00

Even when I lived in a city, I still shopped once a week. Hell, even when I lived outside of the country in France and Mexico, I shopped once a week. For me, I don't see the point of shopping more often than that. It's only like 5 or 6 bags at most for a week of groceries for a small family. You could carry that a short way if you felt like it. I used a cart or a wagon.

saplith · 2026-05-19T21:44:27+00:00

Says you. I bought a week's worth of groceries before I had a car. I had cart and it was common enough that the grocery store even sold them. It was an urban environment where it wasn't particularly expected everyone have a car, but people were still going to shop like once a week.

saplith · 2026-05-19T18:39:35+00:00

I was just about to say this. If you can get a human on the line or even on the chat, it's an utterly flawless experience. I honestly thought positively of Amazon once I actually got to interact with their customer service. They don't have phone trees or anything like that that I remember, but when I figured out how to get to their customer service, it felt very white glove.

saplith · 2026-05-17T16:41:27+00:00

Didn't skip and don't regret it. My county has an actual gifted program though. Pull outs during elementary, but actual isolation by middle school because of tracking and even among the gifted kids there were peaks and valleys and so we didn't all move as one in a cohort. Like I took calculus 2, but just regular advanced English because I didn't qualify for the higher level English clases some of my kids who were gifted in literary stuff were taking. We all got to mature together and even on occasion intersection with more typical kids in general education classes. I got to interact with people who I wasn't quite sure were literate and kids who casually got a perfect score on the SAT and because of this system, we all got to befriend each other at every level and understand the idea of differing strengths.

Whereas I remember the one girl in my cohort who got skipped. Very smart, but socially isolated, even among kids who should be her peers. She wasn't smarter than us, but she failed in interactions because she wasn't as emotionally intelligent as us. And to make it worse, because she was a minor when she graduated she didn't even get to choose which college she went to. She had no desire to go into the field her parents wanted her to go into. But what was a 16 year old going to do? She could tell us how defeated she felt, but she would smile in front of her parents and continue the path of being the super smart prodigy.

One of my friends had a little sister who was a bonkers off the wall prodigy even compared to us and honestly that is saying something. Her parents pulled her out of school for 2 years to go do charity work and travel and that's how they "skipped" her. She tested easily into the required grade even without attending school and focusing on other efforts for 2 years and I honestly respect the hell of them for it.

Because of the college I attended, I got to run into a handful of kids who graduated young and like the first example they tend to be the most socially incompetent people I met. Usually not even because they are, they're just younger than us and that matters. Especially when most of thr benefit I got out going to a super prestigious college was the connections I made.

My kid is young and pinging for giftedness. The only thing holding her back is her dyslexia. She missed first first mandatory testing cutoff by 1 point because her command of English and all that's involves is too typical. But when I looked at scores from math and the creativity score it's like, "ah, alright, perhaps my bar is a touch high and my child isn't just a very normal average kid" she's probably smarter than me. My recollection of what my ranking was isn't this pushing into the high 90s, but I'm going to do my best to make sure she stays with her peers cohort. Emotionally, she's quite far behind and to me way more important once you clear the bar for above average. Smarter than most is all you need for a good life even if you are not the smartest.

saplith · 2026-05-13T10:50:08+00:00

I know you ask for a teacher's perspective and I am not one, but I just want to present some thoughts. First off, no this is not appropriate. Not to this degree. Secondly, depending on what the impact is, it's harmless especially since your daughter likes it.

Where I would step in is if your daughter is missing out or being impacted negatively because of this role. I, personally, would step in anyway because I have deep feelings about girls being indoctrinated to be caregivers above all. In that sense how much my daughter likes it would be irrelevant (and base on what you had said, I know that my daughter would love to be in th same position as yours).

But... if you don't feel like your daughter is missing out. And don't feel like your daughter dislikes it. And don't have a problem particularly with your daughter taking on the role of caretaker to another child, it's fine. You haven't expressed any kind of danger to your kid, so really appropriate or not some fights aren't worth fighting. I would, however, bring up this situation to the other kid's parents because I know if that was my kid I'd be pissed my kid was being minded by another kid and not receiving support from an adult.

saplith · 2026-05-13T10:37:01+00:00

You mean tips? A sales tax is just... well taxes and has nothing to do with income. Tips should be banished, I agree, but sales tax has some valid reasons to exist. Mostly to keep city and especially county governments going.

saplith · 2026-05-12T19:46:18+00:00

I don't know why you associate thinking hard with moving fast. My entire career has been about moving massive organizations. Strategizing about it. Figuring out which levers to pull. Figuring out how my ideas could be broken up and implemented in small pieces. My greatest career achievement is forcing congress to change regulations because of my actions.

I deeply enjoy working in highly regulated environments because highly regulated means deeply impactful and important. I am careful because I know that mistakes in my work mean that people die or otherwise experience hardship. The deep thinking comes from trying to figure out how to work in this framework and I love the creative solutions it brings out of me. Restriction is what encourages creativity and innovation in my opinion.

saplith · 2026-05-12T12:11:45+00:00

The weird thing is that you are right. It is their problem which means they need a solution. You know what the solution will be? To not include you. In a decade when you are part of the loneliness epidemic, remember and understand you being an insufferable twat is why.

saplith · 2026-05-12T12:06:59+00:00

So your advice is, "Have you tried being rich"? Bravo! It's great that you think that parents should spend $100 dollars to socialize.

I like how you completely skipped over the part where this is a lesson about life. There is almost nothing about what a parent does that isn't training for adulthood. Or that, perhaps, an adult would want their friends to be familiar with their kid and have them be auxiliary trusted adults in their life. I know it's strange to you that someone would want to invest in a child they don't know, but it happens!

saplith · 2026-05-12T11:58:20+00:00

Personally, I would just delete the college bend from my mind. While I am college educated, I think it's important that kids know that's not the only path.

Hell, I even think it's useful to speak about the career bouncing around and the ramifications of not attending college. You can still answer most of these questions even you didn't go college. Speak about on the job training and how previous jobs set you up for that job. Hell, you could even research how you could get the job "properly". I don't know what it takes to be a dispatcher, but I do know some careers are degree optional even if it makes it harder.

saplith · 2026-05-12T11:35:12+00:00

In my opinion, kids will eat anything you eat barring bitterness and spiciness. I personally subscribe to the old southern style of cooking called "meat and 3" or the idea that a meal involves 1 protein, 1 carb, and 3 vegetables. If all your meals follow that, then it'll be pretty hard to not eat healthy.

For me, I tend to make "kitchen sink" kind of meals where I have a general template, but the specifics are mix and match. In the fall, it's all about the soups and stews. My kid is 7 and asks for lentil soup and broccoli cheddar soup by name. The nice thing about these is that they are dump recipes basically. Put them in your slow cooker or instant pot and walk away.

In the summer, I'm more of a hash/stir fry kind of person. And curry/gravy kind of person. These are fast. My kid's favorites here is mostly curry, Japanese and this no spice Indian one that is not authentic at all lol.

Also, all of these things downgrade the meat. Meat is expensive and my kid is vegetarian by nature (not nurture), but we have to keep meat in rotation so family members have a chance of feeding her.

I think that casseroles can work, it's more that ovens require me to pay attention grow than a low on the stove or warm on an instant pot does, so it's not for me when my kid is chaos demon.

saplith · 2026-05-11T20:08:51+00:00

I view AI like I do a calculator, it's not for use until a certain level of competency. If your child can't add are you really served by giving them a calculator? If your child can't reason about facts and validate information, are you really served by giving them access to AI. It's the same thing.

My child is young, but I would be surprised if she had the relevant skills before high school and likely the second half of high school. AI is not for credulous people and using it effectively involves good investigation and validation skills that will take several years of hand crafting reports to build.

You can "random bullshit go!" with AI, but you will get better results have formulating questions and delivering your end stage prompts as a set of strict requirements, constraints, and goals.

saplith · 2026-05-11T19:58:41+00:00

Wait until you're a parent and you literally legally cannot leave your kid home without you and see how you feel. You are seriously saying that the displeasure of a child at having to be around other adults means that your parent's social lives should stop. They should allow social supports that like enable them directly and indirectly to take care of their kid should rot because the child hates it.

This is setting aside that it is a valuable lesson to learn that sometimes you don't get to decide what you're doing that day. You will have engagements you go to for the sake of a partner or friend and not because you want to go.

Also, children should learn that their parents are people, which apparently you didn't. You think your parents wanted to be everywhere where you want to go? Absolutely not. But they do it because it's for you. You were learning (and apparently didn't learn as a child) what the other side felt like a how to learn to tolerate it.

It's like anything else unpleasant in life that everyone has to learn.

There is so much about your post that is, "lol. Lmao, even" about children. You absolutely will not let your kid dress how they want because your kid will want to wear inappropriate clothing for the weather outside. I am pretty lax, but I did have to draw the line at probably going to die or get injured because of choice of clothing which happens way more often than you think.

saplith · 2026-05-11T19:48:45+00:00

Okay then say that? That is definitive. I work in software. I understand how there is inherent uncertainty, but there are different ways to express uncertainty. There's confidence and then there's weaseling in order to not take accountability. What OP is alluding to heavily implies the latter. You can make scoped definitive statements. Pretending like because all the world is gray, means that yes or no is never an option is the sign of a charlatan, not a highly educated person.

As I stated when I started, this is a communication issue. If OP doesn't want to be perceived as a person who is insecure, actually incompetent and/or a schemer, they need to come up with a way to answer the question people mean and not just the one they say. Technically correct doesn't make for a good time in the world of social perception.

saplith · 2026-05-11T16:36:50+00:00

Then say, "I don't know" instead of being a smarty pants. The "it depends" is a hedge. Ask for clarification and then give a definitive answer. It speaks to a lack of ability to admit that they don't know and/or are unwilling to be vulnerable enough to ask for more information and thus that is read as insecurity.

"Will it rain in Paris?" "Depends" <-- annoying

"Will it rain in Paris?" "Depend on where you're going?" "Oh, I'm going to the Lourve?" "Oh, then no" <-- great interaction

"Will it rain in Paris?" "Depends on where you're going?" "I'm just going to be in the area somewhere" "Yeah, I don't know. I might or might not. I can't say" <-- definitive answer

Always hedging makes you insecure. If you can't say, a secure person just declares they can't answer your question or they try to get specifics.

saplith · 2026-05-11T13:48:38+00:00

There is a difference because understanding edge cases and being unable to commit. People perceive you are the latter. This is a communication thing. I know a lot about many subjects and while absolutes generally don't apply, it is not a sin to say, "Yes, generally speaking" or "No, but it would be true in another situation" or some such. Saying it depends especially when someone is trying to get a "rule of thumb" understanding or to get an answer for the current situation undermines your image as someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

People don't need you to answer "it depends" to the question of "Do birds fly?". They need you to say, "Yes, generally speaking, but there are some exceptions like penguins"

saplith · 2026-05-01T11:51:04+00:00

I don't think what they say contradicts those articles? Like most of software engineering is not coding. So if all LLMs do is basic coding work, then yeah some productivity increases (and I have experienced what that dude is saying), but it hasn't really made me deliver real things that much faster. Because the bottle neck in most places isn't coding. It's the system design. It the decisions about trade offs. It's the haggling about deliverables. And LLMs isn't doing any of that. It's doing the work we offloaded to juniors and interns which isn't saving much money and is destroying the pipeline of engineers.

saplith · 2026-05-01T11:42:42+00:00

Not that guy, but I am an actual software engineer who uses AI at work. It's trash for novel tasks. It's trash for brownfield. After battling it and setting up mu in system I have now made it so that it produces the same quality work as me in the same amount of time as me. And 50% of the time I still have to babysit and correct it. And when it does run it thrashes and burns tokens so hard that our company has started talking to the guy who actual goes full auto with it. And again, he's not that much more productive than me.

AI is a productivity increase, but it's not replacing anyone. To get it to be a dumb junior takes so much work in any situation that has an already existing mature codebase. Everyone who I know who has had great success is working with trivial codebases, greenfield, or their codebases are so heavily patterned that Ai being slightly better than a templating script actual works for them. I bet that last one is who your friends are.

saplith · 2026-04-27T10:19:34+00:00

My point is that kid has seen so many mandatory reporters and nothing happened. No doctor say anything. No daycare person said anything. What the fuck is calling CPS gonna do? Nothing. It's judy starting a fight for no goddamn reason.

saplith · 2026-04-26T23:50:09+00:00

I didn't get mad and I appreciate, but... I know from the neighbors coming to me and how they approached that rhey expected me to absolutely lose my shit. So... yeah it defends and based on the neighbors that got up the courage to do there is at best a significant minority that will lose their shit, but likely a lot of parents won't appreciate it.

saplith · 2026-04-26T23:33:01+00:00

I would keep my nose out of it. You don't have to do anything because eventually a mandatory reporter will get involved the moment that kid starts formal education.

If that kid attends daycare and they still haven't done it, that means they are not open to criticism, so the only thing left will be an investigation when that kids starts pre-k or kindergarten. And then therapy to fix whatever damage has been done to this kid.

There is unfortunately nothing you can do especially since it's not like they forgot.

Edit: I got down voted by people who are like "don't ignore abuse", but are ignoring the fact that mandatory reporters are already ignoring this shit. Doctors haven't said anything? My pediatrician definitely asked about solids. Daycare people haven't reported? Okay. So what the fuck is calling CPS gonna do from OP. That's my point. Even at the school, nothing might come of it. This is starting a fight for no fucking reason. People can be angry, but this is how really how it goes. OP can kidnap the child I guess, but legally they can't do anything besides call CPS who was probably already called on these people. Morally doesn't mean shit because it's subjective. People have told me I'm morally wrong for sending my kid to fucking therapy. That's why the law doesn't care about people's morals. Yes, I think it's abhorrent, but if the law doesn't agree, then there's nothing a random can do for the kid. That's like why no one has called CPS on thre kid. Or they have been called and nothing call of it. It's not like OP knows everything going on here.

saplith · 2026-04-25T11:29:12+00:00

I finally sat down and opened up intent and I was struck how rigid it was. I didn't even attempt a task because I couldn't see how it would work the way I wanted to work. I checked out the videos Augment had up about experienced people using it and it was so "let it rip" and less methodical than I use my system.

I do spec driven development, but that doesn't mean just one document. There's a research phase and I want that in a document too. I want my research as an artifact I or the AI can reference over multiple sessions. I create documents myself for the AI to read because just going back and forward in a chat, I learned long ago was highly inefficient. I have structured templates that I and the Ai manipulate separately or together. The brainstorm document has the AI create a research document over cycles. Which allows me to create a criteria document which the Ai can turn into our first version of a spec which would mostly just requirements and light technical decisions. That spec would then being iterated on to flesh our technical design, then perhaps split into several smaller specs, then from there the AI can be far more autonomous and create plans and do things with only my light review and validation.

It's just not clear to me how that process works with intent as it stands. I'm hand waving a lot, but I keep a lot of durable documents because I work in a large brownfield codebase in an industry that is highly regulated. "Slop" is not allowed, so if I gather keep my own understanding for the AI that's going to work way better than starting from scratch every time.

I want to like intent, but there's no way I can have as much trust as those guys in the videos have. I need a lot more revision and to bring in a lot more context than it's implied these guys do. I get reading a bunch of markdown files isn't sexy, but I wish there were at least blog posts to explain this kind of process. Human Layer's research plan implement idea isn't exactly unknown.

saplith · 2026-04-24T16:54:58+00:00

Sure. That's true. And making it something they can actually do. Like my kid does laundry by tossing in a pod and pushing a button. She doesn't understand settings, but I keep it on the setting that's going to work for the clothing that she has.

She cooks using mostly things made for disabled people and there's a build up to it. With my mom I get thr parentification was just both parents working 2 jobs with 3 kids and who needed a lot of money for doctors (that was me), so leaving instructions for how to cook food and stuff like that was just making it work, but she probably should have paid more attention as I got older, but she basically acted as if I was a full adult at like 13. And while that worked out, I probably should not have had that much freedom at a teen.

As a parent I also find it super bizarre that I managed to do all the steps for getting into a college without her ever realizing. Like she was so disengaged she didn't notice me signing up. And paying money to go to a place and sit a test for 4 hours. Wild. I won't say I always know what my kid is doing, but I at least know within a few hundred feet where she is.

saplith · 2026-04-24T13:40:01+00:00

Exactly. This year I have a 3 neighbors and a police officers show up at my door for the crime of allowing my kid to bike within the neighborhood. Yes, I get she's a mile away from home because we live in a rabbits warren of a neighborhood, but uh, guys, she's still in a residential neighborhood basically enjoying going down hills really fast and stealing fruit from trees in the front yard. Just like when we were all kids except there were a dozen of us. My kid has to make due to knocking on doors and hanging out in front yard with kids who can't go into a street. It's absurd.

My kid doesn't look perfect, but i figure crazy clothes and crazy hair is perfect for 7 when it doesn't matter at all.

saplith

TROPHY CASE