Stop Intelligence-Based Discrimination
Stop Intelligence-Based Discrimination
Every day, people are denied opportunities because of their intelligence. They work just as hard or harder than others, are good neighbors and friends. But because they were not given the intelligence others have, they are excluded.
Think of how that would feel if it happened to you. You try your hardest, and get nothing for it, while someone else who was lucky to be born with something you don't have gets all the reward. You'd be hurt and angry.
Our society systematically denies people opportunity and reward for having lower intelligence. No matter how hard they work, or how fair and kind they are to others, they just can't get ahead. They are then trapped in a cycle of poverty, despair, drug use and self-destruction.
Throughout history people for whom intelligence is a challenge have been discriminated against, bullied, and exterminated. The Nazis under the infamous "Action T4" declared many innocent people to be retarded and killed them. We do not have the right to kill ANY person for what is not their fault.
Every day, you will hear people talking with cruelty in their voices about those they perceive to be of lower intelligence. But how do we define that? There is no intelligence gene. We do not have the right to call ANY person stupid for what is not their fault.
You can help reverse intelligence-based discrimination. The following demands are the fight against intelligence-based discrimination:
* IQ tests are scientifically inaccurate and should no longer be used. The same goes for any standardized test or procedure which claims to assess intelligence, which is something we cannot even define.
* Saying "that's stupid" or "he/she is stupid" is discrimination and will hurt others and make a society based on cruelty and inequality. Instead say "You haven't thought that all the way through."
* Rewards and awards based on intelligence discriminate against those of perceived lower intelligence. We are all equal human beings and to give some rewards for things they have not earned is injustice.
* Instead of assuming that physical risks are obvious, we need more warning labels and regulations to make sure that we do not discriminate by hiding risks from people of perceived lower intelligence.
It is cruel and unjust to discriminate. That means everyone. With the power of caring people and empathy, we have beaten back discrimination in many other forms, but one ugly secret remains: our society discriminates on the basis of intelligence. Help us end this unfairness now.
People Against Intelligence-Based Discrimination
Stand up and be a hero. Stop this unjust, cruel and unlawful form of discrimination now.
Alas, I fear I have not developed enough empathy or acted in enough solidarity with the oppressed group majority you have mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI was unfortunate enough to be a recipient of a 180 I.Q. from a Euro-Danish and regrettably not Turko-Danish ancestry. This kind of predisposition did not affect either of my parents, and must have been a recessive trait from some distant ancestor. My homeschooled early learning environment combined with not much socialization with other children reinforced this unchallenged acceptance of my own privelege.
Every day I must wrestle with my aversion to T.V., I try to listen to more Lil' Wayne and have kicked my Bach and Buxtehude addictions. Whenever I am tempted to read the Upanishads, Arthur Schopenhauer, the Pali Canon, Ken Wilber, or the Adavita Vedanta scriptures, I pray to Jesus Christ, a sure cure for most unfortunate victims of heredity like me.
But because of my handicap, I recently had a relapse when trying to test myself at a college, normally a safe place for people trying to overcome the shame of my condition. It was a kegger, and long story short I found myself comparing the notes I had made just for kicks on the Tain Bo Cuilnage and the Baghavadgita. I didn't even get drunk and have sex with a stumbling crying coed. It is a struggle.
But even for me there is hope. I used to smoke about an eighth-ounce of my own hydroponic Indica-variant a day, from a multi-refractory-lensed laser vaporizer I had designed and built myself when I was still a teenager. But the THC, somehow due to some no-doubt genetic quirk, could not seem to stop me from developing my negative and discrimination-abetting habits, In fact it even seemed to make my unjust attachment to my intelligence stronger. At that depressingly naive time in my life, I would days reading Plato, Virgil, Nietzsche,Poryphyry of Chalcedon, Goethe, Sri Aurobindo, Dante, and Heideggar, while fixing electronics and donating plasma for additional income. Truly, my life was hell. But now I have added 4-5 32 o.z. cans of Steel Reserve High Gravity malt liquor, and cut out the reading, and the "socially responsible" and "productive" hobbies that it encouraged. I no longer frighten girls with big or expressive words, I can even breathe through my mouth, cuss and slouch.
Although I worry about the effect my past has had on my family as my sister is now a psychologist Summa Cum Laude with a 4.1 average due to extra projects, things have been looking up for me. I am now more socially accepted and was recently promoted to assistant manager at Denny's. I am proof that intelligent people can change with support to stupidity-valueing socially benign citizens of a global and stupidity-enriching community.