Why are Great Intellectuals so Rare?
These are the necessary qualities that a great intellectual must have:
The ability to communicate accurate information that is novel and important.
The ability to engage with different fields of study: a political scientist must know about genetics and an economist must understand statistics.
The ability to generate a following or a platform.
Being a great intellectual may be simple, but it is extremely difficult.
The greatest filter to becoming an intellectual is cognitive ability. Hard cutoffs and minimums do not exist for cognitive ability, but realistically speaking a great intellectual is going to be one standard deviation above the mean in verbal, quantitative, and general ability. Even though these abilities covary heavily (r = .8 between all 3), applying this restriction alone cuts off 92% of the general population.
The relationship between narcissism and intellectual eminence is complicated. A good intellectual is ideally full of themselves enough to be confident in their own work, but not so narcissistic that it distorts their work in favour of their self-image. One way this manifests is ethnonarcissism - views on racial issues will become biased in favour of their ingroup. People accuse certain Jewish intellectuals of doing this, but it’s common among intellectuals of all ethnicities. Not to focus on anybody in particular, but a notable alt-righter recently posted his reason for no longer being a White nationalist, which boiled down to him personally not identifying with White people anymore.
Like narcissism, mental instability should exhibit a curvilinear association with greatness in intellectuals. Being extremely mentally unstable is obviously deleterious, but having the right amount of mental instability can manifest as creativity instead. Notably, diagnoses of mental disorders decrease the odds of being in high status creative positions, but the opposite is true for diagnosis that are given to siblings. This finding has replicated in two in extremely large (n > 100,000) studies:
Two other psychological traits will have linear relationships with intellectual eminence instead - openness and conscientiousness. Diligent intellectuals will also be more likely to check sources/methodology for errors, resulting in more accurate beliefs, and open minded ones will be more able to dive into various fields of research.
Besides psychological traits, there are many incentives that influencers and intellectuals have that divert them away from greatness - I count among them:
Appealing to focus groups (e.g. incels) to increase reach. This could be exaggerating the importance of height on male sexual success, promoting the existence of a “sexlessness pandemic”, and/or posting content that exacerbates anti-female sentiment.
Promoting ideologies: ideologies sell, but ideologies are gay. They serve as a political organization tool instead of coherent blends of ideas.
Posting content with innate virality that is vacuous: discussion of issues or ideas that are dead ends and most current events.
Funding: most intellectuals past a certain threshold of popularity will start to become noticed by the wealthy, and will recieve donations from some of them. Depending on the personalities of the funder and the funded, this can result in large distortions of intellectual integrity within the person being funded.
There is also the issue of being able to accept certain truths about the world that are important but not known or desirable. A lack of knowledge of heredity at an individual and group level will make analyzing racial issues, sexual issues, social class, international politics, the education system, crime, immigration, and dating impossible. Other truths regarding social signalling and self-deception might be understood by some at an instinctive level, others will blind to this until they read about it in academic literature, such as The Elephant in the Brain. Steve Sailer once said something along the lines of “truths connect to each other, but lies are dead ends”. This is true - though an intellectual doesn’t need to uncover every single hidden truth about the world - only enough to make the truths about the world connect to each other.
There is also a dark side to intellectual non-conformity that is underdiscussed - once people accept one socially undesirable belief, other socially undesirable beliefs start to become much more plausible: holocaust denial, weird health shit, and esoteric conspiracy theories. It turns out that most socially undesirable beliefs are false; if people ignore the social undesirability beliefs when analyzing the world, then the base error rate of their brains will cause them to endorse socially undesirble beliefs that are false. What’s worse, is that people who take one redpill are likely to see other socially undesirable beliefs as more plausible and “overdose on redpills”.
Some may object to the fact that all of these traits and environments are necessary - this is correct. It is possible that somebody could make up for low levels of conscientiousness by being extremely intelligent and creative. Or, that somebody could make up for bad luck by being extremely talented. Most of these traits are necessary, though - I fail to see how somebody who has low levels of intelligence, interest in ideas, integrity, cannot endorse unpopular ideas, or is pathologically narcissistic could become a great thinker.
It’s impossible to calculate how difficult exactly it is to become a great thinker, but it’s at least worth taking a crack at for fun. Starting out with 100% of the population:
95% are filtered due to insufficient cognitive ability. 5% remain.
Of those 5%, 1% are filtered out due to being too narcissistic or not narcissistic enough. 4% remain. (Note: narcissism is uncorrelated with cognitive ability).
Of those 4%, 2% are filtered due to being too uncreative, and a few more (0.5%?) are filtered due to being too mentally unstable (Note: intelligence and psychopathology are negatively correlated (r = -.35), and there is no nonlinear trend, so most of this sample will be skew towards low levels of mental instability). 1.5% remain.
Of those 1.50%, .50% are too lazy, and their cognitive ability/creativity doesn’t make up for it. 1% remain. (Note: intelligence and conscientiousness should correlate positively genetically due to assortative mating, but the phenotypic correlation is either zero or negative. I’m not sure why this is, but I have a crazy theory).
Of those 1%, 0.9% are insufficiently interested in ideas. This might seem like an overly brutal cut given that IQ and openness correlate positively, but great intellectuals must be highly curious, as knowledge of a wide variety of fields (genetics, human psychology, political theory, statistics) is necessary to become a great intellectual. This leaves 0.1% of the population.
Of those 0.1% with the psychological talent, 0.06% fall out due to occupational selection. They take on professions that are difficult to balance with intellectual life; they become businessmen, pro gamers, shopkeepers, wagies, housewives, and whatnot. Some people might be competent enough to balance a bland job with intellectual interests, but those will be in the minority. Most great intellectuals are writers by trade or work in a field (e.g. academia, media, arts) that can be balanced with intellectual interests. This number in particular is difficult to estimate for various reasons - the people who have been selected until now will be more likely to be in intellectual jobs, but those not in them still have a marginal chance of being a great intellectual. Occupation also changes across lifespan - it’s not uncommon for great intellectuals to start out as wagies and then move into creative work. 0.04% remain.
Of the 0.04% who remain, 0.03% fall prey to incentives: they optimize too much for fame and money instead of truth and greatness. 0.01% remain.
Of the 0.01%, 0.009% don’t have it in them to swallow redpills. This might seem like a large amount, but the amount of people who are racial hereditarians in the US population is 5% - this proportion is probably even lower in people who work as academics or writers. Belief in racial hereditarianism is not necessary to become a great intellectual, but the statistic does show that most people are unwilling to oppose orthodoxy when faced with it. 0.001% remain.
Of that 0.001%, 0.0003% don’t have it in them to avoid ODing on redpills. I know this is a low estimate, but it’s reasonable given that this is an extremely capable subsection of the population. 0.0007% remain.
Of those 0.0007%, only 0.0004% are able or willing to communicate their theories to a broad audience.
I can’t think of any other inhibiting factor that would select people out of the population anymore - so we are left with an estimate of 0.0003% of the general population. There are currently 258 million adults in the USA - this translates to about 900 great American intellectuals, and maybe about 3000 outside of it, translating to 3900 great intellectuals worldwide.
The answer to the question as to why there are so few “great intellectuals” is that intellectual eminence depends on the presence of several necessary traits (intelligence, will to oppose orthodoxy, interest in ideas, avoiding perverse interests) that are rare to find in the population, so as a result very few people who write become great thinkers.
The concept of a “great intellectual” is somewhat arbitrary, as the definition is a function of how selective the criteria are. That said, tails do exist, and they should be noticed when appropriate - the average culture war grifter with a ghostwritten book is much less valuable than a genuine writer like Scott Alexander, Steve Sailer, or Bronze Age Pervert. I would go as far as to say that the average “great writer” is worth 1000 guriftors - differences in productivity between writers increase when value is taken into account.
Further notes
In League of Legends, it is easy to find great players - they naturally climb to the top of the ladder and join pro teams or stream. For intellectuals, the equivalent is the “market of ideas”, where people can promote ideas. I do have some faith in this system - but it falls apart when analyzing important or controversial issues. Ibrahim X Kendi and other wokes can afford to not engage with Steve Sailer and Charles Murray, but pro players can’t dodge each other on the competitive ladder.
Realising I ticked a lot of these boxes I wrote some stuff articulating my position trying to think of which way I fell out of the running...
Narcissism, open to new ideas: created a good balance between proof and non-proof markers of not disbelieving without proof but having a lower epistemological belief in them - but still reallowing them consideration in a looping fashion when new information is brought to light that may affect them.
Ability to remove association with people and find new ones: lack of interest in funders, but ability to swoon them and not dislike them as high extroversion - ie, praise from those unskilled is not addictive, if a man says a woman is attractive, the woman knows he doesnt understand the work, but a supermodel saying you are attractive carries substantial weight - funders are all flavours of humans looking at you and your work and are unlikely to be able to engage intellectually about it enough for their praise to carry the addictive "insider" element. IQ segmenting out Narcissism to control it. Realisation there is different "quality of foods" makes some food seem unappetising and easier to fall flat on your palete, Narcissism and peoples words are the same. A truly skilled high IQ Psychopath is harder to avoid because they make sure to have a wide range of topical knowledge alongside the excellent swooning skills, but its rare. Most people have one or the other. I find most people put skill points in the latter and lack the sheer intellectual depth to keep up complex conversation and get caught in politeness loops.
"What do you think about rats?"
[person has a mental flickering of behavioural learning that rats should have a disgust reponse due to times pre sewerage, but do not have the same response to cats whom also carry disease as they go into sewers].
"Did you know in Asia rats are symbolically associated with intelligence?
[person then makes a decision, i am asking them to 180 their disgust response. it may be interesting, but they shake about being 100% anti-rat to mixed, to maybe pro rat when looking at how unwaveringly casual and charming I appear... whilst they are considering this fight or flight...]
"Did you know rats are really genetically similar to humans and thats why we do research on them... fucking fascinating how such a small animal is so closely similar..."
[I give the person an out, i swear - implying low status, their brain is sometimes looking for some box to tick to find something wrong with me so they dont have to absorb the data].
"Thats great... sorry I just have to go get a drink," and they take the card I gave and they go.
Most people can be charming, but most people dont have the mental dexterity to bend 180, and if they do, they cant bend 180 multiple times in an hour. I do this as introductory. If they cant, comprehend, the new antipoliteness data, I lower their praise weight. Like as a person, they are less "weighted" in their ability to fuel my Narcissism as their brain has less use to me - they lose peer connectivity, th3 weight in their words stops being absorbed. My need for peers is to have them feedback loop my new ideas, thats what I think friendship is, interest in my ideas, comprehension and feedback, and then repeat and I aim to offer the same in return. As we both get interested in each others ideas then get competitive about who knows more so become more depthful in knowledge, both, on the subject.
I do this for average IQ strangers often, show highly complex interest, which is simulated and not true interest but I simulate it long enough for them to go incredibly deep into their concept for the short time I am there to obtain a new nugget of data about it found within their own subconscious. Dunno whether I enjoy it with the average IQ/mid-to-high openness strangers talking about common stuff, which is the majority of cases, but I 'have the skills' so do it. Cause I can and the Narcissism gets fed from doing it even though it drains you to force their brain through the complexities.
Dont care about ideologies: extroversion/openness so high i see millions of opinions and teams and feel they must speak for themselves - i am a mouthpiece for myself/my creations. Took me a long time to realise people were doing that with me/i was innately doing it for others and had to learn that blind support for friends was actually cruel rather than kind. As i can create damage with my forcefulness which they didnt intend, ie, i 'crush' their opponents as I dont have as easily to judge stop markers because they are the source rather than myself.
I have sheer interest in all that is on the edges and an extreme love of debating them and making others both uncomfortable and have awe. Sit next to someone on a bus and ask them about x and y, just spewing out my thoughts and gain the randomised feedback with little consequence (low politeness has its good and bad sides).
My issue is laziness and occupational selection which in a sense go hand in hand. In my youth being so noncomformist, my desire to put my blood sweat and tears into someone elses concepts/company disincentived me. When i did my journalism degree out of school I realised how fraught the industry was with forcing you to be the mouthpiece of the organisation. I wanted to be a writer and the journalism industry wasnt what I, as a nonconformist, seemed to be looking for. Toeing the line in academia with generally those higher in agreeableness and not being truly peers didnt appeal to me... agreeable people dont scratch my back the same way diaagreeable people do. I wanted a mix of staff where construction worker personality and academic personality were mixed together for my intellectual pursuits and that industry never seemed to manifest. So whatever career I chose I felt the only places I could do mentally what I needed to would be self-employed. But academia is a complicated place. People tell me all the time I should be a professor but its complicated - years of study just to be fired seems unneccessary. I thought about RnD within corporates but then your research can be squashed by the company and im sure it routinely may and its selective research.
Quite complex about "where to take yourself" if you tick those boxes to best use your skills.
Who was the notable alt righter