Jordan Peterson - IQ and The Job Market

So, here you go. This is from the Wunderlich people They're a commercial company that makes general cognitive ability tests. And it's often used by corporations (whispering) Even though it's actually illegal.

It's actually illegal to use IQ tests. But the Wunderlich doesn't. .

. promote themselves as testing IQ I think they - I think it's general cognitive ability which is the same thing but whatever. The SATs, the GREs, the LSATs, all of those, they are IQ tests so.

. Now they're more crystalized than fluid; we'll get to that in a minute Crystalized knowledge is what you accrue across time So you could say that fluid intelligence is what programs your brain, It fills it with facts, let's say, it fills it with knowledge But you can get an estimate of your intelligence then By sampling your domain of factual knowledge and the reason for that is, well obviously, The better the programmer, the better the content And so what that also means is that you can If your prefrontal cortex was damaged later in life your fluid IQ could plummet but your crystallized IQ remains more or less intact So even though they're not different, One produces the other, and then once the producer. .

. has produced, then the producer could disappear and you've still got the encoded knowledge so, then at least that's how it looks to me Okay so how smart do you have to be to be different things in life? Well.

. . If you have an IQ of 116 to 130, which is 85th percentile and above, so It's one person in 8 up to one person in.

. . (to himself) 130 I believe is 85, 90?

95? Is it 95? I think it's 95.

One person in 8 to one person in 20. Then you can be a attorney, a research an analyst, an editor, an advertising manager, a chemist, an engineer, an executive manager, et. cetera that's the.

. . now That's not the high-end for IQ, by the way You know, it can go up Well it can go up indefinitely, Although there's fewer and fewer people as it goes up.

So, if you want to be the best at what you're doing, bar none, Then having an IQ of above 145 is a necessity And maybe you're pushing 160 in some situations and maybe that's making you one person in 10,000 or even in 100,000 And then also, To really be good at it you probably have to be reasonably stress tolerant and also somewhat conscientious So people, and you think well Why is it that smart people are at the top of dominance hierarchies? And the answer to that, in part, is because they get there first. Right?

And everything's a race, roughly speaking And the faster you are, the more likely you are to be at the forefront of the pack Intelligence in large part is speed That's not all it is, So if you're moving towards something difficult rapidly, the faster people are going to get there first So IQ of 115, 110 to 115 So that's 73rd to 85th percentile Copywriter, Accountant, Manager, Sales Manager, Sales, Analyst, General Manager, Purchasing Agent, Registered Nurse, Sales Account Executive If you look at universities, the smartest people are -they're above this- Who are the smartest people at university? What do you think? Mathemeticians.

Physicists and Mathemeticians, right. I could tell you who's on the other end but I won't! (laughter) Yea I'd like to though!

(laughter continues) Anyways, okay. Going down the - now. .

. 103 to 108 is slightly above average, right? 60th to 70th percentile Store Manager, Bookkeeper, Credit Clerk, Lab Tester, General Sales, Telephone Sales, Accounting Clerk, Computer Operator, Customer Service Rep, Technician, Clerk, Typist So you see at this level People have some technical skill and some ability to deal with complex things Okay, that's dead average 100 is average Dispatcher in a General Office, Police Patrol Officer, Receptionist, Cashier, General Clerical Inside Sales Clerk, Meter Reader, Printer, Teller, Data Entry, Electrical Helper.

(silence) 95th to 98 Machinist, Food Department Manager, Quality Control Checker, Security Guard, Unskilled Labour, Maintenance, Arc Welder, Die Setter, Mechanic. Good IQ range for relatively qualified tradespeople 87 to 93 Messenger, Factory Production Worker, Assembler, Food Service Worker, Nurse's Aide, Warehouseman, Custodian/Janitor Material Handler, Packer. Now what you're seeing - what you're starting to see is that as you move down the hierarchy The jobs get simpler They are more likely to be assigned by other people, or they're repetitive because what IQ predicts to some degree is how rapidly you could learn something but once you've learned it, it doesn't predict how - necessarily how well you do at it.

and so the more repetitive jobs tend - people with lower IQs are more suited to more repetitive jobs under 87, Is there something? Well! No!

Right. That's a big problem. And it's something our society has not addressed at all!

Jobs for people with IQs of less than 85 are very, very rare. So what the hell are those people supposed to do? It's like, it's one - it's fifteen percent of the population!

What are they supposed to do? Well, we better figure it out. Because one of the things that's happening too is that as the as the high-IQ tech Geeks get a hold of the world The demand for cognitive power is increasing, not decreasing, right?

You want to be a teller? Well you know, those checkout machines they're not so simple! You want to work at McDonald's?

You think that's a simple job? You don't see robots working at McDonald's! And the reason for that is that what McDonald's workers do is too complex for robots to do!

So Well, so this is a discussion that no one wants to have. But that's okay. It's still a problem.

And it has to be dealt with. So the US Government - I think I told you this at one point already - It's illegal to induct anyone into the US army if they have an IQ of less than 83, right? It's about 10% of the population Because the US Army, they've been doing IQ testing since IQ testing began Because they want everybody they could possibly get into the army Because at peace time they use it as a way of moving people up the socioeconomic ladder.

. . And in war time, well obviously You need as many soldiers as you can get your hands on And so you're not going to be any pickier than you have to be.

So when the US Army says it's illegal to induct anybody into the armed forces if they have an IQ of less than 83, then you know that they've done it for absolute necessity. Right? And when people have made a finding that contradicts what they want to hear, and they're doing it out of absolute necessity, you can be reasonably true that it's one of those facts that just won't bloody-well go away And so you might think that well if there's nothing for someone with an IQ of less than 83 to do in the army, what makes you think that there's something they can do in the general population?

And then the issue is - because you know the conservatives, they'll say "well, they should just work harder" it's like, sorry that ain't going to fly! And the liberals will say "well, there's no difference between people anyhow! .

. . .

. . And you can just train people to do everything" and that's wrong!

So they're both wrong! And they're seriously wrong! And the fact that neither side of the political perspective will take a good cold hard look at this problem Means that we're going to increasingly have a structural problem in our societies because we're complexifying everything so rapidly that you can't find employment!

Unless - increasingly unless you're intelligent You guys are really going to face this you know, Lawyers are disappearing like mad and the reason for that is - you can look it up online - increasingly you can do things yourself if you're smart and so the working class people have been wiped out pretty nicely you know, in the last 30 years by automation and various other things It's the low end of the white collar class that's coming up next so I'm not saying that lawyers are in the low end, but low-end lawyers are in the low-end of the white-collar class So there are still going to be plenty of positions for people who are creative and fast on their feet and super smart In fact those people are going to have all the money and that's already happening to a great degree you know, because if you're smart and you can use a computer, you're so smart it's just absolutely unbelievable and if you can't use a computer, and lots of people, and I don't mean you know, you can open word, that isn't what I mean I mean - maybe I mean you can program and if you can't program, well, you're right at the next end so if you haven't got that with you, you're. . .

you're going to be left behind (student) what's going to happen to them, when that happens? When you have, you know - (Peterson) oh well a lot of them will take Demerol That's what's happening in the United States Yea, it's an opiate. Yea, so there's a massive drug problem emerging and - (student) *inaudible* .

. . under 83, or whatever it is, is about 15% of the population (Peterson) yea, yea, no I'm telling you, that is what's happening, they're - (student) what you're talking about seems like that percent of the population is going to increase (Peterson) Yes.

Drgs! Yea, drugs of abuse. (student) *inaudible* .

. . 15% of the population falling out of society well that's what is happening to a large degree is people drop out of the employment race they get very depressed, they develop chronic pain problems especially if they're men, because chronic pain and depression are very much the same thing, and then they subsist on opiates, which are subsidised by Medicaid in the US.

I'm not kidding about this, this is exactly what's happening! What else is going to happen to people for whom there is nothing to do? They have a terrible time, especially if they're conscientious.

(student) how large will that stratum of people grow? (Peterson) That's a good question! You know, the AI guys are pushing hard on this Hey!

What's the biggest employment category? Drver Think about it. What's Tesla doing?

What are all the AI guys working on as fast as they possibly can? Drverless Cars! No problem Except that's the biggest employment category for men.

So what are those guys going to do? Yea, they're going to sit at home and, you know, be miserable with their wives and take opiates because they have chronic pain problems right Nasty and you might think well - could they think up something else to do? Well if you have an IQ of 83 or less you're not going to be doing a lot of thinking about something else to do you know, that isn't how it works because you're more of a - you're an 'act' person, not a 'thinking' person.

roughly speaking you know, and so if you have a task at hand, and especially if you're conscientious, you can diligently go about it but you know, I've tried to train people with IQs of 80 and less to do. . .

what I would consider tasks that that one of you could learn to do in 10 minutes and never make a mistake again and it's like tens of hours with bare-minimum mastery of the task Yea it's an ugly situation, no doubt about it.