I think I was 27 or 28 when I starting learning about IQ. I have a background as a foot soldier in psychiatric work and was always interested in people and how brains work.
Not on a scientific level of course, but I always wondered why some people never seemed to GET certain things that I got. And I'm not talking about trying to teach someone really hard stuff. My IQ is around 120-125, so I'm certainly not stupid - but I'm more of a practical person. I'm smart enough to get most concepts and I can find information and apply that. However..if someone were to try and teach me advanced physics, I wouldn't be able to keep up. I'm just not smart enough! Simple as that.
But it always amazed me how some people never seemed to understand very basic things. I often gave them the benefit of doubt arguing to myself that they probably just lacked interest. And sure..if someone tried to teach you how to do math and hit you in the face all the time while doing it..you probably aren't going to be a noble price winner in maths.. But generally - unlike the misconception I had - smart people are pretty good at stuff. We have this vision of the "maad" scientist who is really amazing at physics..but for some weird reason he can't boil an egg! He's really hopeless!
That just doesn't make any sense if you think about it.
I just listened to Stefan Molyneux interviewing Richard Heier on his new book - The neuroscience of intelligence, while I was skiing today (I ran into a Moose btw..always exciting to fly past a 300kg Moose standing 2 meters away from you) and in that interview he quotes from his book that:
Only 4% of Americans are able to calculate how much it would cost to put floor tile in a room when you know the size of the room and the price of the floor tile.
I'm not sure if I believe that, but there must be some truth to it. And even if that number would be 8% it plays a massive role. Yeah, and you might say; "well, I don't know ANYONE who doesn't know how to calculate that" Me neither. Everyone in my family and friends could do that. But the point is that we usually end up surrounded by people with somewhat the same intelligence. If you have 120 or 130 it doesn't make that much difference. Not 110 either. But most likely you're not hanging around people with 95 or 89. Probably not even 100. The average Joe is not that smart.
And I don't think I'm offending anyone (not that I care), because if you made it all the way to Steemit - chances are that your IQ is above 100 at least. Well done you! Imagine standing at the train station..and for every 50 people you see, one has an IQ of 70.
But, let's not talk too much about IQ - because to be honest I don't know that much about it - and what would be more embarrassing than dissing people with low IQ and not getting shit right yourself?
Let's get back to the..let's call it fact, that only 4% can do a pretty simple math task. Regardless of things you might come up with to explain that other than IQ, the number - if correct, is pretty scary. Even double the number, and it's still very scary. TEN X it and it's still incredibly scary.
So why aren't more people into Crypto Currencies....?
I think that answers itself. It's just too damn complicated. I know we're saying that all the time, like "it's difficult for aunties around the world" no no no..it's too difficult for most 30 year old men in the western world. For most people, and this has struck me more than once - it's difficult just to operate a cellphone or to log in to your bank and press the right buttons. Most people actually doesn't have the capacity to even comprehend what the fuck a ledger does. It just gets overwhelming for them.
You just log into MEW, then plug in your Ledger, then click click click, then open Binance, use your 2FA password, find the right coins, buy it, then paste address send" I mean..for us it's cakewalk.But I had to use some braincells the first times I did it. Hell, I still have to concentrate. I'm guessing I'm using 102 of my IQ to do this stuff.
Why Regulation Might Help Adoption
I haven't gone full statist. Don't worry. But as things are, we could need some regulations. Even in an ancap society or minarchy there would be private institutions overseeing that fraud was not being committed. Let's be honest. We want to take down and punish people who prey on others and scam them.
The problem now is that for the average Joe, who's not that great at finding information - well, he's all alone now in this new Crypto World. He's downloading Bitcoin wallets on his Cellphone, he thinks he's mining while playing some game..hell, he doesn't even know what Bitcoin is. He tries to log into an exchange, but ends up on Plus500 or some other shit, and he is basically just gambling. He doesn't understand ANYTHING about the underlying technology, he hasn't done the ground work gradually so that he knows what is what. He didn't have the patience to learn things step by step. And more importantly, he lacks concentration and impulse control (which is correlated with IQ) to do the right thing
So Poor Joe loses all his money because of either stupidity or to some scam artist. And now he runs crying around saying Cryptos are scams. He runs to mommy (government) and begs for regulations so that he doesn't have to do any work or take any responsibility.
Unfortunately(?) there are Joe's everywhere. According to Richard Heier, apparently 96% of the population are Joe. So in order to get that 96% with us, we need to help them. Sure, we know how to operate our Ledger and MEW and the exchanges and so on. But Joe never will. He needs it simple. He need an app.
And here is the important thing. He need an app - and it can be a DAPP that runs on the Blockchain. But he doesn't have to know. As long as the DAPP works smoothly and has an easy interface - we will eventually get Joe into Cryptos for real.
Luckily other, smarter people than me all ready know this - so these DAPPS are all ready in the making. DAPPS like Ethos, Substratum and many many more.
Just have some patience.