# Work, Intelligence, and Societal Value By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2024-02-29 Examining something uncomfortable is often revealing, but it is dangerous precisely for the same reasons. What is discovered and how society or one's organization will respond to the results is unknown and risky. Yet, it also creates opportunities for paradigmatic shifts in the human condition. Rarely, if ever, has a change in ideologies and paradigms occurred without a serious examination and revolution. With revolution comes suffering and uncertainty, but hopefully, it is less than the path of suffering that is the status quo. One such area that needs serious consideration is the role and limits of intelligence in our society. The problem statement is straightforward: the intelligence required for a sustainable wage job is increasing exponentially, and large population segments cannot keep up. Rarely do we talk about poverty, economic mobility, wages, employment, and the future of work in these terms. Either we are unaware of this dynamic or choose to ignore it. However, consider the following. When was the last time you had someone over for dinner who didn't have a college degree? Why does the US Military roughly restrict membership to those with an IQ of 83 or above, which leaves out approximately 15% of the population? Why is the industrial complex obsessed with Artificial Intelligence and robotic assistants? These are troubling questions when one considers the acceleration of work complexity versus fairly slow increases in average human intelligence. Eventually, vast segments of the population may be incapable of performing the work deemed valuable by society. The question for humanity is whether we want to continue down this path. If we continue, we must recognize it, support our fellow humans as valuable beyond our intelligence bias, and establish paths for meaning beyond work for all to partake in. If we reject this path, who knows what will happen as we may have already opened Pandora's box. New economic systems will need to be created with entirely alternative valuation systems. Interestingly, the questions are the same regardless of the path we think we want to take. We need the means of valuing humanity beyond industrial output. The work of caring for someone, creating joy, generating peace, building companionship, and showing compassion is extremely valuable and decidedly human. Intelligence does not play the same kind of a role in these tasks as it does within the industrial work complex. How much would one pay to have joy in one's life? We must steer the system towards something better precisely because it is hard to imagine how to put a dollar value on this. #### Related Items [[Intelligence]] [[Work]] [[Value]] [[Paradigms]] [[Society]] [[Norms]] [[Revolution]] [[Progress]] [[The Human Condition]]