Do you mean to tell me that you are not actually a flying squid!?

Consider the numbers presented. If you can figure out the math on how to get the 24th ranked countries out of 102 rankings to be below 100, then I’ll reconsider.

The countries who rank higher than 100 only have about 1.5 billion people within them and their average is only slightly higher compared to the countries that have an average significantly lower. For example, India with its 1 billion people is on there at an average of 82.

The math doesn’t add up for an average global human. I think we need to know more about how the scores in the study are calculated.

What does the abbreviation stand for?

Per the Wikipedia definition:

An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardised tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence.

This is a well written article. I’m not sure how the OP came to their conclusion. The US ranks 24th on average IQ (with an IQ of 98) and is in good company with France, Denmark, Australia also at 98. For those curious, Canada, Finland and Germany were 99.

24th out of 102 should not be considered “dumber than average”. Additionally, as the article clearly states, the average has been going up, approximately 3 points per decade, and this is partly due to an increase in logical thinking.

East Asia is the outlier here, with many countries at 101 or higher (China at 105) though I find it curious that Hong Kong and Macau were singled out separately from China.

I wonder if these higher numbers have something to do with the homogeneity within these cultures, the average age of the county’s population, and/or, as another commenter mentioned, the way in which the higher IQ countries approach education.

I don’t know about y’all, but I’d prefer not to win a Darwin Award.

I’m more a visual person, so let me show you some graphs: Famine rates are down: https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Famine-death-rate-since-1860s-revised_850.png

We can do so much more with our computing resources - Note, logarithmic scale: https://www.singularity.com/images/charts/MicroprocessorClockSpeed.jpg

Poverty is down: https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2545610/Screen_Shot_2014-12-12_at_10.34.38_AM.0.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100

Billions of people live in a democracy, before 1850 almost none did: https://bigthink.com/the-present/democratic-rights/

No thanks, I’ll take it without the butter.

Lime? Don’t see a lot of lime candy all by themselves.

Butter too. So many candies include butter, but it’s rarely hyped as the star flavor.

Get a Dietician and physical trainer. Use this opportunity to get yourself into healthy shape and never look back. I did something years ago and had no clue just how bad I was actually feeling before the improvement. Both physically and mentally. We are not designed to sit at desks all day.

Do your feet crack sometimes? Consider testing for athletes foot.

Blood, STD and Cancer screenings, as many as they’ll give you. Hell, depending how old you are, maybe a colonoscopy.

Sleep study. MRI, ECG, EKG. Allergy test. Dermatology/mole screening.

IQ test, find out your best skills and then learn how to use them to your advantage.

DNA testing, if you really want to know some things you may be perceptive to…though personally i don’t know if I would want to know if Huntingtons is in my future.

And I replied to you, specifically, regarding sports not being a hack on our emotions.

I suppose this begs the question, do you burn couches when a movie takes an emotional turn?

I have no contribution to why certain people do so around sports, other than to say 20% of the population also believes that the earth is flat, that is to say, they’re morons.

The difference is that movies and TV shows are often specifically made to elicit those reactions. Storytelling is essentially a hack that uses our emotions to implant lessons.

The same can’t be said for sports events.

What part of this did I miss?

Way to completely miss my point.

Hmm, gonna try and narrow this down further. Did you climb any light poles as part of your celebration festivities?

Seriously!? A Cinderella team spends a full year working their way to the sweet 16 and perhaps eventually the final four? Then loses by one point. Do you not see the struggle, the passion, the determination and the heartbreak in that?

Or a champion tennis player, significantly past her prime, coming back to championship after multiple years out and winning the title.

Or two soccer superstars at the absolute peak of their field going head to head. Can you not sense the tension, and suspense as these two juggernauts battle it out to see who comes out on top?

Or a man, born without arms, overcoming adversity at all points in his life to become the fastest swimmer and winning the gold.

Do you not see how sport can be an allegory for the human condition? The struggle, the heartbreak that comes with failure, the celebration of success, the toll of aging.

If not, I challenge you to take up a sport for a year, just a year. Try to get as good as you can with it. Celebrate your successes. Reflect on your failures. Document your milestones as you progress . Try not to give up. Make friends along the way. Become the true definition of an amateur. Living through your own experiences, you may discover that sport is full of emotion.

How does this square with the whole libertarian bend?

Not going to go into details due to confidentiality, but I recently was involved in an initiative to utilize AI to scan education databases and identify students who may be at risk of dropping out, with the goal of having an early safety net for these folks. And also raising the schools retention rates, thus better outcomes overall.

So yes, AI can absolutely be used for good.

I disagree with your having kids sentiment. I didn’t find the right woman until I was 33 and didn’t have kids til 39. I worked hard, got promoted and accumulated wealth before then. I started from nearly nothing. Now, my kid (hopefully) won’t have to struggle as much as I did.

And I chase that kid for 30 minutes until she gets worn out.

…

My advice, in your 20s: travel, make friends, make mistakes.

Get a job that has growth potential or become a rockstar in a small pond.

Find some hobbies, work out. Even better, find a hobby that also is a workout. Sock away 5% of your income towards retirement if you can handle it. Volunteer. Habits are formative in your 20s, you’ll find them easier to maintain (or avoid) in your 40s.

Don’t spend all of your time chasing tail or trying to find a mate. That’s a trap. instead, open yourself up to experiences, events and places where those things can naturally happen. And make memories along the way so you have fun things to share with that person when you do find them.

Get out of your comfort zone, get off of your comfort phone. Read a bit, learn to weld or sculpt or play an instrument. Take a dancing class, even if you go alone, there are usually people around to partner up.

Learn 5 or 10 jokes. Don’t be embarrassed to tell them often. Anyone from politicians to public speakers to hey, even comedians, will tell the same jokes over and over and over.

Get an Education, even if it’s a community college or a few professional certifications. It will demonstrate that you can learn. Absorb as much as you can while you’re young, because it’s true, learning does get harder as you age.

Take a course or two in psychology. Avoid people who bring you down, find people who build you up but are honest enough to keep you grounded when you need it.

Don’t live for anyone else, live for you. That isn’t to say be selfish, you’ll need people in your corner. But know that, no one else can experience how can experience. No one else lives through your eyes; no one else loves through your heart; no one else dreams how you dream. We have so few precious years on this tiny rock, so make them tell the story of you.

I visited Panama for an agricultural trip about a decade ago where we focused on coffee agriculture and production. Coincidentally, there are some coffees that blend in beans or peanuts to mellow the flavor. This is usually done for cheaper coffees that use robusto beans instead of arabica. It’s also to relieve some of the acrid taste that can develop during the drying out process if the beans are dried around animal droppings.

If you’re interested in what a mellowed coffee would taste like, I think chock full of nuts is a brand you can try in the states.

Edit: ok so I did some more research and it appears that chock full o nuts likely no longer does this, they just have typical coffee nowadays. I’ll leave it to you other internet sleuths to find a brand that does.

I’d donate a few dollars a month. Newgrounds is a great content creation space. I still play games there from time to time. The Mario 63 game is off the wall. Dead Estate is also a fantastic retro style shooter like the ones I remember from my childhood. I think places like this need to survive.

Looks like a country that could use some Freedom™.