this post was submitted on 10 May 2026
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Realistically, the world is too complex and too large to even remotely be able to predict the outcome of making everyone 50% smarter.
My best guess though is that it wouldn't change much. If everyone is smarter, no one is smarter. High intelligence doesn't automatically mean Mr. Spock. I used to be involved with Mensa and many of the people I met were nuts, lacked critical thinking skills, or were so full of themselves for testing well they were blind to external information. I myself am highly intelligent on paper, but if you looked at my life you would see a lifelong series of dumb choices and in many cases choosing the worst possible option even knowing it was.
What I mean is being smart isn't as valuable a skill to have as one might think. Especially at the top end of intelligence, smarter basically equates to faster at solving problems. Raw processing power does play into it for sure but the difference between someone with an IQ of 130 and an IQ of 160 is how fast they finished the test.
The best way to make the world a better place would be to teach everyone critical thinking and emotional intelligence skills.
I couldn't have said it better myself.