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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9130699" data-attributes="member: 18">It's based on a real-but-unproven scientific theory, not science fact, to be clear. On the other hand, the only evidence we have (and it's fairly low-quality) is that actually that intelligence is slowly increasing, rather than decreasing, as one might expect, so if we can't casually understand that advantage it appears that, actually there is some minor advantage.Complicating the matter is that (and this is probably a good thing) intelligence is incredibly complicated, genetically, there are literally hundreds of genes associated with greater intelligence (and potentially even larger numbers depending on how you define it). This is why you get couples who are both very smart who have genuinely thick kids (without the kids having any mental or learning disabilities) - the kids can just get the "less intelligent" variant of each gene - or equally ones where to unremarkable parents produce a child who is very bright (I imagine you've probably seen both of these school, Paul). Because there are so many spread across so many people, that probably serves to mitigate the issue.All that said Dougal Dixon's Man After Man remains the most chilling and disturbing SF work I've ever read (and it's extremely hard SF too), because we're basically leaning in to everything he predicts.Back on topic, having worked in corporate law firms most of my life, it is clear that, to be a good lawyer doing complex (and thus expensive) work, you do need to be pretty intelligent (connections will get you some distance, but there's a limit, with the law), but to be a successful businessman, even a billionaire (I've met a few), it's less of a necessity and more of a nice-to-have.</blockquote>

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