What's wrong with being dumb?

"We have a confusing situation here."  -- Indeed, I think this post is a little confused, mixing up a few very different questions:

• Is it a good idea to literally punish & reward people based on their level of intelligence, in the hopes that they will spontaneously make themselves more intelligent?
  • Usually no, as your example of Frank illustrates.  Because your own intelligence level is a hard thing to change.  Punishing people for being born dumb is thus a bit like punishing people for being born short -- pointless to try and get people to change something that they can't change.
• Is it a good idea to reward intellectual achievements and hard work on important problems, while punishing laziness / wasted time / underperformance?  And similarly, to reward open-minded thoughtfulness while punishing "lazy thinking" and knee-jerk responses.
  • Yes, because this is a way of motivating people about something they can change -- what they choose to work on, and how hard they work, and etc.  It's a good thing that we have Nobel Prizes to reward people who discover breakthrough cancer medicines, but not for people who discover breakthrough strategies in esports videogames, or for that matter Nobel Prizes for people who just sit around watching TV.  For instance, it would be a good idea to praise Frank when he does a good job at work, or if he shows a bit of openness towards the idea of going to the doctor.
• Is it a good idea to effectively "reward" & "punish" people on a societal level, by trying to have a meritocratic society where we find the smartest (and hardest-working, and most prosocial, and otherwise virtuous) people to run important institutions, while dumb people get less well-paying, less-impactful jobs?
  • Yes, because a society/corporation/government/etc run by effective, virtuous people will work more smoothly and create a better life for everyone.  For instance, I would rather have you be my financial advisor, than have your dog be my financial advisor!
• Is intelligence good for happiness on an individual level, or is it better for your own sake to be dumb?
  • Opinions differ on this; personally I think that intelligence is very good for personal happiness and life-satisfaction and living a meaningful life.  Here I will quote from another comment I recently made [LW · GW]: "You could probably find some narrowly-defined type of happiness which is anticorrelated with intelligence.  But a lot of the meaning and happiness in my life seem like they would get better with more intelligence.  Like my ability to understand my place in the world and live an independent life, planning my career/relationships/etc with lots of personal agency.  Or my ability to appreciate the texture/experience of being alive -- noticing sensations, taking time to "smell the roses", and making meditative/spiritual/introspective progress of understanding my own mind.  My ability to overcome emotional difficulties/setbacks by 'working through them' and communicating well with the person I might be angry at.  My material quality of life, enabled by my high-income job, which I couldn't hold down if I wasn't reasonably smart.  My ability to appreciate art on a deep level (see my lecture series about the videogame "The Witness", an intellectual pursuit which brings me great joy).  And so forth."

Related thought: because intelligence is often a proxy for status, calling someone or something dumb implies low status. This is why, for example, I think people get really worked up about IQ: being smart is not a matter of simple fact, but a matter of status assignment. As a society we effectively punish people for being dumb, and so naturally the 50% of the population that's below the mean has a strong incentive to fight back if you try to make explicit a way in which they may be treated as having lower status. Heck, it's worse than that: if you're not in the top quartile it's probably worth doing as much as you can to hide exactly how intelligent you are so you may sometimes be able to fake greater intelligence and thereby bid for greater status and avoid the risk of being handed low status by others.

(I don't really think this is right, especially to the extent people assign not just status but moral worth by level of intelligence. I argue here that this is what's going on in society, not to claim this is a good norm.)

It feels like you're saying "dumb", and treating it like it's a single-dimension fixed value, the precise opposite of a uselessly narrow definition of "intelligent".   You're assuming that it doesn't change and shouldn't be used as information in your decisions.  Both of these beliefs are dumb.  The focus on incentive as the only reason to label someone is also dumb - that's only part of the reason for judging people's behavior and capability.

I don't need a god's-eye view to be frustrated by people who routinely make bad decisions.  Bad behavior is a mix of cognitive failure, world-modeling mistakes, poor impulse control, and likely other factors.  At least some of these factors DO seem to change over a person's lifetime.  And at least some of them are susceptible to intentional change if the person sees bad effects, including the judgement of peers and loved ones.

Labeling an agent "dumb" is useful BOTH to let that agent know that you've noticed their bad decisions AND to inform others (and remind yourself) that they are problematic on those decisions.  It's not sufficient, of course - one word never is.  The details and dimensions that this person causes risk or needs unusual support or behavioral guardrails is the important part of the judgement.  "dumb" is just a handle and a generalization.

Frank is dumb. You can reward him for being smart all you want, but that's just not gonna get him to take any community college classes. He is content with his life. It works for him. He enjoys his job, loves his family, owns his home, and just isn't interested in change.

He sure sounds smart. Or at least life-smart. He knows what he wants, he achieved it and he is happy. He may not get far in the Raven progressive matrices test, but this test does not affect his ability to achieve what he wants and probably even live in harmony with himself.