Atomized intelligence
Real intelligence is embedded in an environment, it cannot be decontextualized. But the system favors obedience, not intelligence
There is no such thing as intelligence in a vacuum. At the very least you need a body to stay alive, but more importantly, to think well, one must be in good health. More than individual health, I am talking here about collective health. For instance, reading is ultimately a collective activity, even if the author in question is dead, because someone has to at least trust one contemporary person or contemporary collective to give the dead author a chance, since there are so many books they could be reading from, and activities to use their time on.
Speaking of, time is probably one of the greatest allies to find gems in any domain, as can be seen from the classics in literature for instance, which become classics not because of some type of populist appeal—though it doesn't mean they are obscurantist works either—but because they manage to point to something close to universal, which is why people hundreds of years later one can still find value in them.
Seen this way, it isn't surprising then that a decline of culture and even our information ecology—the network involved in transferring information and from which we inevitably build narratives—would have downstream effects on the individual well-being and intelligence. When people do not even have the attention span to do difficult things over a long time, then it doesn't matter how many points they score on an IQ test, the reality is that their isolated intelligence doesn't matter.
For all practical purpose, intelligence cannot be decoupled from how well one uses their intelligence. It's like talking about the performance of an incredibly powerful engine without thinking about what type of car could accommodate it. Perhaps an interesting academic exercise, but ultimately not useful to anything tangible. As such, being able to communicate well with other people—in my experience talking clearly is very well correlated with genuine intelligence—or having the emotional maturity to face adversity and work through one's own delusions, are examples of incredibly key components of a more holistic sense of intelligence, which is the only thing which can meaningfully produce genuinely good and truthful works.
One might be very intelligent at solving abstract problems, but why would that be a good thing if one also hates every person one encounters? It's like giving a sharp knife to a mad, mad man. To see this in a specific context, the people in charge of school are very concerned with transmitting the right type of information, but they seldom, if ever, think about how to cultivate a student's virtues and their care. My experience with academia has been one of being confronted with utter automatons of system which are called "teachers". They do not have the flame of aliveness burning in them, the spark of curiosity in their eyes, the tonality and rhythm of great speech, and as such, they are merely middlemen of information, not great people who inspire others to cultivate their own qualities.
This is probably why many people believed, and might still believe, that the internet can make education obsolete. While it is certainly a far more efficient mean of providing access to information to a large number of people, learning is far more than simply "knowing things".
First of all, one must know the right things and how to use them in the context at hand, which we could adaptability. Learning concepts and patterns in a book is completely pointless if you can only spot them in a classroom, and not in a real life situation. The latter does not come with convenient labels such as what chapter you are in, and thus discernment of what the current situation entails, and the integration of what one has learned, are often even more important than the knowledge itself.
This leads me to the second point, which is that knowing, understanding and embodying are all three distinct levels of learning. To know is to have information, but to understand is to internalize it such that you can spot it in your life and such that it shapes your thinking, and are then able to explain it in other ways and frames. Understanding is still intellectual though, which is to say it is mostly found in the mind, but it is getting integrated, until it can finally lead to an embodied sense of knowing.
You can know intellectually that different people see the world in vastly different ways, but you might lose track of that while interacting with others who heavily disagree with you, by assuming that they think just like you but are somehow "dumber". Then you might understand in a deeper way just how much of our lives are shaped by partial perspectives which can never capture the whole of reality, but merely be good maps for navigating the territory at hand, and that no map is really "the best". But then, you might still feel compelled to argue with people, because they might try to make everyone else see the world through a single lens. Eventually, you might fully embody the lesson that different people can see the world very differently, and as such, in many contexts it isn't even possible, or simply useful, to argue them out of their views, for it is not through reason that they built their lives, but more so out of convenience and the constraints of survival they grew under.1
And my third point about how learning is far more than simply knowing things, is that ultimately, nothing can be built without a significant degree of care. The modern world can bypass that constraint and give people the illusion that care isn't needed because the external world2 can in fact be manipulated mechanically, at least in the short term.3 This is why we can manufacture basically all the objects we need, from furniture, to computers, to cars, to books and school supplies to clothing and so on. But the same cannot be said about genuinely good people. School doesn't even create intelligent people because nothing can do that, instead it domesticates and traumatizes people such that they prioritize obedience to the system above everything else, and become proficient at thinking within its frames. Within that incredibly inefficient and coercive process, some students do happen to be bright, but it’s more so despite the system than because of it.
Learning requires a deep core of care because it is ultimately about the ability to make a connection with another part of Reality, i.e. Love. To truly master an instrument, or a craft obviously requires a great deal of practice and care, but even in Science, the greatest insights of our history weren't born from technicians working away at problems in an incremental manner, but rather from those who learned the frameworks of their time, and were playful enough with them to experiment with ideas outside of their field.
To care is to be able to soften one's sense of self enough that one can perceive someone or something more fully. Not in a sentimentalized, me-shaped manner, or a utilitarian thing-dissecting lens, but rather, to try to see it as it really is, and then try to express it in a way that can convey the unique quality that one felt. Which is why works produced by people who don't care ultimately do not leave much of an impression on anyone, such that they are difficult to even remember, let alone fully reminisce with one's senses.
The modern world can sustain the illusion that learning is only about information, and that intelligence is only about pattern-matching because ultimately, it has no use whatsoever for conscious human beings, living with one another truthfully and beautifully, creating what we might actually call a culture. There is no culture in the modern world, simply a series of algorithms4 feeding system-friendly propaganda, or the inane distraction of the day. This distinction isn't merely about a word-game, it's rather to point out that a culture grows organically, to serve those who maintain it, while the equivalent for the system is certainly not for the well-being of most people.
Most people do not consciously engage with social media, rather they are more like soldiers unconsciously recruited by forces which they do not know of, because to see them for what they are, not cabals of elites but rather egregores which build up the technological system, would undermine the very same unconsciousness upon which the system maintains and grows itself.
And this is why the notions surrounding intelligence have been so corrupted in our world, because genuine intelligence is conscious and connected with its context, which are utterly antithetical to the system we live under. Obedience is rewarded, not true intelligence.
Just to be clear, this applies to me as well. I am not a "rational" thinker, I think rationality is a myth because survival is far too important of a priority for humans, and that intelligent people are simply more crafty at the survival game than more simple-minded folk. All that to say, my views are not the “objective” truth(TM) but rather a way to make sense and navigate the world I live in, the modern world, with the means that I have.
Though in an important way, the external isn't really external, for our environment inevitably shapes our social life, and our inner world, and the influences work in both directions.
Because such a top-down relationship to the Universe isn't sustainable in the long term, since it leads to the exploitation of the very same Nature we emerge from and require to maintain ourselves.
As much as I hate to use the word "algorithm", because in reality that word simply refers to a series of instructions to solve a problem, usually by performing computations. But if I used any other term it would needlessly add confusion to the reader. But usually the term "recommendation systems" is more accurate.