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  • Depends on what you mean by "low." At a certain level low enough IQ is associated with intellectual disability, and a difficulty functioning in society. IQ is normalized so half of people have, by definition, an IQ lower than 100, and half have an IQ above 100. 15 points is a standard deviation, so about 68% of people fall between 85 and 115, and the remaining 32% fall within the "tails". I assume by "Low IQ" you would mean the ~16% of the population below 85 IQ, and probably the ~13.5% that fall in the range of 70-85, as below 70 is getting into intellectual disability territory.

    Statistically, people in this band do worse in just about every metric for social success. Lower income, higher crime rates, higher rates of drug addiction, poorer health outcomes, etc. However, it is difficult to disentangle these impacts from poverty. Populations' IQs raise when they become less poor, and people regardless of income tend to be less poor if they have higher IQs. The cycle of poverty is deeply intertwined with IQ, and poverty causes a lot of the social issues associated with low IQ. There is a lot of evidence that as access to education and a more "intellectually rich" upbringing increase IQ, and such things are less available to poor people for a variety of reasons.

    As for what it's like, from my understanding speaking to people I suspect are in this band the main things are a non-inquisitive world view, a sense of resignation around not understanding abstract concepts, and low self esteem associated with these perceived shortcomings. Society does not treat these people kindly as a whole, and I think that we could all stand to be kinder to one another. I also think that our economic system is geared in such a way that not only are low IQ people punished for that, but they are also made to feel that it is a personal shortcoming even though these things are defined statistically such that there is always a group of people at the bottom who are going to be left behind.

  • I'm not stupid stupid, but I'm a lot less intelligent now than I was as a child. Not sure if that's standard growing-up stuff or other factors. I think I'm average now, but I used to be really quite smart.

    Whatevers to blame, it sucks. I struggle to remember names of people/things/processes, or things to do today. I go through the day based on vibes. I look at a page of information, or a tedious form to fill in, and it's physically uncomfortable to slog through it. I can feel my brain groaning, there's tension and anxiety in my body. Frustration that this should be so easy and instead I'm having to actually concentrate.

    • I'll be honest man, this doesn't sound like "Low IQ", it sounds like maybe a mental disorder that you haven't been able to treat yet (ADHD is the first one to come to mind.)

      I say that because I can relate a bit, but I have been formally diagnosed with ADHD. I would maybe look into the symptoms of that and others and you might be surprised to find that you relate to it.

      You're not stupid because you can't concentrate, just my two cents 🤙

      (I would also argue that a "Low IQ" individual wouldn't necessarily be able to recognize the issues you describe.)

  • There was a guy on youtube once who uploaded a video talking about this who has the channel name "crazydumbsick".

    Unfortunately I can't seem to find the video as it looks like he regularly deletes content, and it currently only goes back about a month on his channel at present.

    Take everything below with a block of salt because this is from memory, and it was a few years back where I watched his video once, so I could be misremembering one or more things here.

    If I recall correctly he has Schizophrenia, Crohns, and an IQ of ~45, hence his channel name. He talked a lot about how hard it was to live, particularly pertaining to his IQ. He said that he has a hard time with remembering things and therefore most of his meals are made from pre-made microwaveable packages as he is capable of operating the microwave without too much difficulty, and he found it generally easy to follow the instructional lists on the packaging.

    He made note that operating any kind of machine much beyond a microwave or TV remote was largely beyond him, except his computer and camera which he had recently figured out well enough to be able to record and upload content - but outside of those actions, he really had no idea how to use them.

    I believe he also said that due to one or more of his conditions, he could not drive, which largely compounded the difficulties of his life.

    He talked about how finding work for someone in his situation is basically impossible and just as impossible to hold onto for very long. I believe he talked about a couple jobs he had been fired from and why, and while I don't recall the specifics, I believe he had talked about how he was not even entirely certain why he had been fired. I think he said that he had done some things incorrectly, and at the time, had some vague concept of them being incorrect, but despite this, he was unsure why he had gone ahead and done them anyway.

    Overall, he seemed very sad in the video; he was terribly aware of how hard it is to live life being himself, and knew that there were basically no solutions to it.

    Having said all of that, he continued to upload videos and there were some good events and some bad events. I believe at one or more times he discussed having tried to take his own life. Other times he seemed fairly upbeat and was trying to better himself - trying to read through a textbook on auto work for example.

    Anyway, I think the original video I spoke about is one of the better videos I've seen uploaded to the internet. It was somewhat sad, but it was highly enlightening and certainly one of the most honest videos I've ever seen someone upload.

  • In my experience, people are generally unaware of current events and history. They don't understand basic math. They are very poor at critical reasoning and don't comprehend things like evidence or facts, so they're easily convinced by hunches or baseless claims prominent people make.

  • What do you mean with "IQ"?

    • Intelligence quotient. A bunch of people take a test and they’re compared to each other. Your result is your intelligence quotient.

      Its origins were noble, because it was designed to identify students who needed extra help in school. The creator of the test knew that people could change their results with good instruction. However, that noble origin story was besmirched by what happened later. Eventually, IQ tests were used as a way to classify people in more brutal and rigid ways. The USA military used it as a cutoff for aspiring cadets. USA colleges use tests that effectively are IQ tests to let people in or not. The worst part is that bigots around the world injected pseudoscience into IQ and used it to decide who they think are worthy of life and who aren’t. It’s as awful as it sounds.

      You may notice that helping struggling students sounds wonderful, and you may think that we should go back to that.

      However, some people believe that tests aren’t useful at all to tell us something about anything. They believe IQ tests should be banished and never used.

      Others people believe IQ tests are a snapshot of how a person answered the questions to a test in a given day. Additionally, these people notice that, in research, IQ scores are robustly associated with other things, such as quality of relationships, happiness, income, and other measures. These results suggest that learning to solve problems helps humans solve problems!

      If the noble origins of the test are a guide, poor performers would receive help. More people would get the benefits of a higher IQ, not because of the fear of being classified in a brutal and rigid way, but because a good education makes the mind curious, nimble, and open.

  • When you have a low IQ, you are more prone to naive solutions to every problem.

    E.g. there are people who have less money than others? No problem, let's print more money and give it to them.

    Or there are people with no homes to live at? No problem, let's steal some homes from the rich and squat there.

    In general, you are going to be manipulated by the leftists telling you they can solve all the world's problems just like that.

  • They will never get past the join lemmy page when it starts talking about federation. So there is no point asking that here.

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