Too close…

“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”
― Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) Founder of the Tuskegee Institute, a black school in Alabama devoted to training teachers.

In a recent post in the Second Life Forum a person stated 10-15% of the residents ‘obviously’ have less than average intelligence. Which of course there is no way to objectively measure. One would have to test all residents. The Lab is not going to give out contact information for all the users. Thus, for practical purposes: it is impossible to know.

So, what was that person actually doing? And what might you think about the speaker’s level of intelligence?

Another pointed out the statistical FACT that it would have to be 50%… which is applying broad generalized stats to small specific groups. Something reasonably educated people know doesn’t work.

There is the probability that the population of SL would be similar to the RL world population. However, we know Internet access and a computer are required to access and participate in the Second Life community. That certainly would skew the numbers based on economic status and geographic location. I could keep adding factors to suggest how the stats are skewed and in which direction. It would still leave us guessing and dealing with opinion.

It is the sayings of those people we admire for various reasons that we often use as a measure of intelligence or wisdom and allow to shape our thinking. From the combined wisdom and knowledge humans have aquired we can build our personal knowledge and beliefs. It is then my belief it is no longer intelligence or the lack of which I see in others, but their level of ignorance being different than mine.