By default, most authors write for their own IQ bracket. My IQ is somewhere around 130 (at least for verbal), so my writing is geared toward readers with a similar IQ. Genius-level readers, if I have any, would view my writings as simplistic and boring. Average-level readers would view them as esoteric nonsense; they’re unable to grasp most of what I’m trying to say. Readers with an IQ of 85 are too busy watching TikTok, rap videos or low-brow comedy.
Ideally, I’d like my writings to be comprehensible to a wider audience. However, if past real-life conversations and online debates are any indication, trying to reach the sub-90 IQ crowd is a waste of time… unless, maybe, I become a rap artist and convey my messages that way.
Speaking of real-life conversations, I had an interesting one today.
There is water dripping from my ceiling into my apartment. Management had their Dominican plumber come over to take a look. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that the dripping was coming from the light fixture in the ceiling.
“This is not a plumbing problem; it’s an ELECTRICAL problem” he pronounced.
If I were writing in default mode, I would leave it at that – because the absurdness of the plumber’s statement is self-evident.
At first, I didn’t know how to respond; it took me a while to force myself to think at his level. In his (very African) view, since the water was coming from the light fixture, it’s an electrical problem. After all, a light fixture is “electrical.”
I’m sure that, upon further reflection, he would realize that the water is coming from SOMEWHERE, and the origin is definitely NOT an electrical circuit. I would hope that he’d realize this, but who knows.
Either way, a higher-IQ person would probably never come up with a statement like that; it shows a profound lack critical thinking skills.
I would be willing to pay in order to be at that level of thinking for a few days, just to gain a better understanding of how most of the world thinks. It would be a form of “low-IQ tourism.”
I find that readers usually have lower IQ than their bloggers. For example, I read you. Scott Alexander is a brainy fellow, in his own way, but the comments there can be dumb, often degenerating into retail politics or slogans.
My blog is unusual for having clever readers, but every so often it’s demoralizing to get a comment that shows the reader didn’t grasp the post at all. Sometimes I find myself spelling out the obvious (“I’m not saying that ~”) just to avoid the annoyance.
Haha. Very funny Nikolai 🙂