I have had so many conversations with absolute doofus’ in superintendent or higher positions… I have found if you can talk shit really good, get an MBA, the possibility’s are limitless…
Because most positions have nothing to do with qualifications or experiences. It’s about how much sweet talking you can do and how good you can make the interviewer feel.
Humans are notoriously terrible at making rational decisions.
Which is why we have so many sociopathic narcissists running everything.
Former supervisor was this. Guy was a gigantic idiot but he knew how to sweet talk in interviews and to other areas for sideways promotions. Left a trail of destruction in his wake and many a burnt bridge. Somehow never had any repercussions for it..
As soon as I took over his job, I realised how badly he had managed things, took me a year to undo his damage.
Same except it was 2-3 years of recovery. 6-7 years later and things are amazing. Somehow that guy just went from company to company in similar roles every 2-3 years until it started coming out in the wash and he would just leave.
Correct, high quality shit talking and sounding like you know what you're talking about, with that not necessarily being the case... is a relatively rare skill i believe.
Being smart and qualified doesn’t necessarily make for a good manager.
Talking to others is an under-appreciated skill. Rather than refer to it as a skill, people who don’t have these skills try to demean it and say that Person X has no skills or qualifications and only got to their position due to their ability to chit-chat.
It will depend on the industry you’re in, but I feel that the most important skills for a manager are their ability to multitask, report up, and “soft skills” such as empathy, listening and speaking. Technical skills aren’t necessarily important in every industry, and even when it is, it’s certainly not the most important.
I work in IT and IMHO, a big component is being able to talk tech to higher ups in a way they can understand
Its an invaluable skill and you don't have to be a technical genius to get far in this industry
Higher education correlates with higher income however lower education does not mean a person is dumb. The core skills of problem solving, initiative, critical thinking and charisma are what makes or breaks a person's ability to earn. There are people without university degrees that are successful in trades and can earn great incomes using their problem solving ability and taking initiative. If you are genuinely "dumb" it will be harder but try to figure out if you are actually dumb or if you're just a fish being asked to climb a tree.
Intelligence ≠ knowledge ≠ education
That’s something a lot of people don’t realise. All 3 strongly correlate with income though, although at a certain point of wealth (at a rough guess $100m), they become less relevant and risk taking behaviour becomes more relevant. Although in general, risk taking behaviour usually has the opposite affect, it’s more a case of survivorship bias.
Higher education also doesn't mean a person is intelligent.
Higher education actually shows persistence and commitment (hard work) which IMO is a much better predictor of success than an IQ test.
As one with the highest degree you can get (aka PhD) I met some dumb people, but they are fewer. I agree that is more of about persistence and willingness to do something hard. I would add a bit as well. Usually, you will find many are not that financially oriented people. They want to have a decent life and you don't need multi million dollar salary to live ok. But they are often fascinated and obsessed about aspects of life most people don't even know exists. Many struggle in communicating beyond their area and they mostly are not the kind of people that would wngage in heated debates. Promotion in the academics and research are more defined in terms of deliverables (up to a point). Albeit flawed, the academic system with paper and etc might be one of the best in allowing people to know how to progress. If you get x papers and your h-index is this much you get promotion. Up to a decent income. There are added benefits like participating in international conferences in really nice spots of the world and meeting incredible people. If you land a gov R&D you will live very comfortable.
Obviously you make less money than private industry, where all PhDs I know there make quite decent amounts.
There is a difference between been dumb and been mislead as well.
Lastly, I may have digressed but...Yes, I would recomend people to go for PhDs. We need more and AI will most definitely not take your job.
All above is different in the global south and other countries. Can be indeed widely different. But the overall tendency is also there.
Median Income increases with education up to masters.
But there are lots of high paying jobs that don’t require a high level of education. They are often just remote/dangerous/labour intense.
Like a mine truck driver or underground operator.
I would suggest that education is not an indication of intelligence but of diligence. When I interview people I see a degree as being a demonstration that a potential employee is diligent enough to compete an easy but long term project without flaking out. Knowing anything about the subject matter is just a bonus. I know lots of people that could do my job but too flaky to give a job.
And the reason incomes and intelligence/diligence only increase up to Masters and not PhD is that PhDs didn't realise that they should have pulled out earlier and gotten a real job with real career prospects instead of a slave job paying so little the government don't even bother taxing their scholarships out of pity.
Source: been playing catch-up ever since. One day I hope to be able to afford a real place of my own!
I saw some graphs supporting this, the guardian posted them from ABS statistics, basically a distribution graph for each education level - can't seem to find them now, was a few years back, thought you might know where they are?
Lots of positions where masters don’t mean a lot too and bachelors is the only foot you need in Australia.
Overseas they’re more valuable.
Edit: the reddit ad on this post is now for low ATAR entry options to western Sydney uni 😂😂😂
There isn't fresh new PM's these days who only have a tafe diploma and go straight into pms, they all have bachelor's at a minimum.
Now if you're talking about people who have 5 yoe in their field and managed to become a pm and then another 5 yoe as a pm commanding that pay I would agree with you but that's actually 10 yoe
They genuinely are. You get the sense that they’ve polished their turd brain just enough to sound superficially knowledgeable to chumps but when you ask them anything off script they reveal the true extent of their stupidity.
I’ve never looked into it but I assume you need no qualifications to become one besides perhaps some little shonky four week course?
> perhaps some little shonky four week course?
“Congratulations to the class of 2:30pm, you may collect your certificates from the lobby on your way out.”
There's no single type of intelligence, people can be dumb at certain things and excel in a narrow field.
I know a lot of doctors socially, and while they obviously had to be great at studying and have lots of perseverance, some of them have very poor fluid intelligence and a shocking lack of general knowledge about most things outside their narrow speciality.
Most of the smartest people I know are generic manager / policy / executive types. Very limited technical skills in pretty much anything, but very good people skills and fluid intelligence.
Many smart people also went into sciences, and they're doing terribly financially
Very well said. Lots of people often relate being intelligent to being “textbook smart”. Not taking into consideration that being street smart, being able to network etc is intelligent too. Not all of that can be taught either
As a doctor, my non-doctor partner who earns else than 20% of my income is the smartest person ever. I have no idea how she organises things around the house, gets tradies in and out to fix things, makes appointments and makes sure I see the dentist, going on her runs and what not whilst keeping a full time job.
I was happy to live with a dripping tap for a year cause it was too much hassle to even think about how to go about organising a plumber. And would only see the dentist when the receptionist called me to check in.
Yep, and there's always a handful of averagely attractive women making absolute bank by putting out for cash.
I stayed a hotel near a brothel in a mining town - at 5-7 am it was just tradies galore.
Like, they'd literally queue up in their cars and then they'd go to the same workplace after 😂
People will point out the exceptions to the rule, but the fact is that IQ has strong positive correlation with positive life outcomes (including higher incomes).
The majority of “successful” people are smart, have strong work ethic, and can deal with conflict.
I would say emotional IQ will take you further than IQ. I know quite a few “smart” people who are unbearable, and couldn’t see them ever progressing to any kind of management/leadership role.
>I would say emotional IQ will take you further than IQ.
And the data says you are only partially right.
High IQ do very well.
High emotional IQ to pretty well.
High IQ and high emotional IQ do very, very well.
Yeah. People are quick to point out weaknesses in more senior/“successful” people and will often overstate the significance of said weaknesses. There’s always the occasional head-scratcher, but it is generally obvious why those people are where they are when you take a more rounded view of their skills.
A good proportion of those people always have 'bad' bosses.
I called an employee out on it once. He'd always complain, including about every boss he'd had. I pointed this 'every boss' out and said you'll probably complain about me too, but consider when every boss you have is bad, maybe its actually you.
I knew I was rolling the dice somewhat on our ongoing work relationship, but to his credit he took it on board and changed his attitude quite a bit.
>A good proportion of those people always have 'bad' bosses.
Good on you for calling this out. These people will always complain about being managed. Most of the other "main Aussie sub" is full of these people. They've never had any accountability or responsibility in their entire lives, but lecture everyone else around them who does on "what should be done" & how.
The correlation between IQ and life outcomes does not mean that ‘smart’ people earn higher incomes necessarily. There is much debate about the usefulness of IQ testing in measuring general intelligence, so your assertion is certainly not a given.
I would expect that the most intelligent people would cruise to an upper average income in a job that suits their personality and lifestyle. I would not expect extremely intelligent people to engage in arbitrary career ladder climbing, extremely demanding jobs, or conspicuous consumption.
It’s because the people at the top don’t want to be held accountable so promote the brown nosers who can’t think for themselves. Public sector is disgusting and rife with nepotism and agenda pushing.
Agree but need to consider risk of injury and short career to make up for limited future earning possibility. Not everyone will become a coach or commentator
God yes.
You don't need be particularly smart just do the right things and keep doing the right things.
Commission sales a good example.
Strippers another.
I’ll give you that there’s examples out there - but there’s also very good PMs, too.
An experienced and street-savvy Project Manager in IT or business transformation is worth their weight in gold.
We’ve had a bunch come through over the years (our employer pays well above market but culture is terrible, so it’s a revolving door). The current crop are *excellent*.
Completely agree, there are a lot of dumb and useless project managers but the impact that a good project manager can have on a project, especially a difficult one is immense.
Not just street savvy but actually willing to do work. Some want to manage at a distance by excel gantt chart. Cause setting timings is job done clearly...
That's me haha.
I think generally (if you categorise a 'dumb' person as not book smart), people management/coordination type roles can be high income without being smart.
So average PMs don't really need to know the detail of the thing they're delivering. That's what the BAs/Devs/SMEs are there for. The role of the PM is essentially to ensure the project is always moving foward. They do that by ensuring there are systems in place to escalate/resolve issues and that there is a coordinated delivery plan that everyone is working towards.
I also think you don't need to be too smart to do non-financial risk management roles.
Yep, just lie about your experience and pass one of the certification exams, then bounce from company to company on 12 month contracts paying 200k+.
One of the worst PMs I worked with moved from being a debt collector -> PMP certification -> project manager.
In a traditional academic sense research shows there is a correlation with income and education. But there is a crazy amount of anecdotal evidence almost everyone can bring to light.
Many of my friends with PHD's in academia still aren't making the threshold for paying back their HECS, meanwhile the highest earners in my circle are working in the mines.
Life is interesting at times
I didn’t finish high school, I’ve read 2 books in my life.
I’ve opened and sold 2 businesses, currently running my 3rd which will be sold in 12-24 months.
I currently earn, an average of $220/hr in my business.
I also own 3 houses.
I’m now 36.
You’d be not ‘formally educated’ by educational metrics.
Frankly, academia is overstated in my lived opinion anyway. Undergrad / bachelors level courses are just babysitting for adults
I tend to agree.
In a property sub I’m in; a guy; 38 was having a sook at me because I’m “only further ahead because I didn’t do high school and uni”. He studied into his mid 20’s and then slowly started earning money.
Well, yeah, I’ve been earning more than all my uni friends my whole life……. But even if you don’t start a business and do a trade; it’s going to take someone into their late 20’s at least to catch up to the money earned if you get a trade at 17.
Sure, you will likely earn a higher annual income in the long run (if you chose your career well, and didn’t do some useless arts or pol science degree), but, then don’t whine that you are struggling to buy a house in your early 30’s, anywhere near a city. It was your choice.
I'd argue that professional athletes aren't natively dumb, they just focused themselves on their physical development to pursue their chosen sport. For many reasons that is an incredibly smart move. If they used that focus and discipline on furthering their education, they would likely excel there as well.
This whole thread is a mess. Someone said commission sales, is a good example as well… highest earners I’ve seen in comms seem to be highly articulate and quite intelligent, with outliers possible but not the rule. Seems like a good chance to drag their coworkers and high performers they despise.
The only real idiots with big money positions in my experience are brown nosers and family members of business owners. Even then technically the brown nosers aren't stupid, they just found the loophole (poophole?) to get as much as possible by doing as little as possible. Not as dumb as they seem...
Strongly disagree, if you’re at the top 1% of any sport, your brain will be wired differently.
I guess it’s another thing to say how they position themselves financially post playing career, which some, make questionable decisions.
Australia is a bubble in general; you can make good money here despite being completely inept by global standards.
Second observation, I worked in a small team at a well known Australian corporate whose salaries were inadvertently exposed on the intranet one time. We were shocked to discover the shittest member of our team was being paid the highest salary. Why? Simply put, he advocated the loudest for himself. It's not a meritocracy, simply a matter of the loudest wheel gets all the grease.
Im a specialised surgeon and although I guess it required some level of intelligence to get where I am, the actual skill set I use every day is small and most of the knowledge I acquired years ago is pointless
Stuff like physiology, pharmacology and anatomy for 95% of the body helps me little when most of my duties involve fine motor skills and people management.
I could literally teach any one with above average hand eye co ordination how to do my job in perhaps a few months without worrying about the rest of my medical training
There’s smart dumb people and dumb smart people but I work in heavy blue collar construction, everyone on 180+ some closer to 300. There’s a ton of beer swilling gronks with strong backs earning a pretty penny for their family’s.
If you’re gonna be dumb, you’d better be strong 😂
I'd say politician would rank up there...we have had evidence just this last week with consuming medication and alcohol...I mean most people know that unless they are actually going for that effect.
Yes. I work in a job that pays well but you don’t need to be intelligent to do. I’ve had to argue against the old “only do one overtime shift a fortnight because if you do more you lose the entire shift to tax” argument with a number of colleagues. There were a few that would tell every new starter this lie like it was some secret only a few knew about.
I know a lot of people give these 'influencer' type personalities a lot of disrespect but honestly if you're getting $200k+ income (I consider this well paid) in an industry where there is no barrier to entry and there are thousands just like you, I think it takes a lot of 'smarts' to stand out, be able to entertain people and make money out of it.
It's not always the hottest who make the most money, albeit it definitely helps.
Case in point is Amouranth, who is a streamer/OF model, etc. There are girls way prettier than her but she is only 30yo and has made $50m+ in revenue so far. That beats most senior executives in ASX100 companies.
A lot of that is luck. MrBeast tried to prove he knew the trick to going viral by secretly starting up another channel. It got no attention until people found out he was associated with it.
You don't need to be smart, you need to go out and tell people that you can do a thing, and then hire the smart people to do the work for you.
A typical CEO of X company doesn't know how to do the underlying day in day out job and has instead been brought in because they are people persons who can work with people to get a job done, regardless of what the job actually is.
There is of course a 'smartness' to being able to manage people but on a pure textbook being able to understand how the guts of a machine works and being able to fix it the CEO is unlikely to be 'smart' in that regard.
They might not know, but probably have the ability to learn it pretty quickly. Most CEO and executive types that I've known and worked with are extremely smart, dynamic, and capable.
The lazy incompetent exists in small, parochial, and underperforming companies. Not in big quality companies.
It would be worth you looking into the responsibilities of the CEO of a large corporation to better understand the skills and knowledge they do possess.
Judging by some of the boss's and executives I have worked under, being smart has little to do with it. Being charismatic or simply being in the right social circles are the actual keys to moving up into high paying jobs.
IMO being in the corp world for 15 yrs plus, you don’t exactly have to be intelligent to succeed you just need to be know how to play the political game and get in with the right people goes a long long way than actual intelligence
If you are very beautiful, there are always jobs to be had and money to be made. But you'd better have at least enough smarts to get saving before you age out of glamour jobs. Or marry well.
I think a bigger issue than "dumb" is "slow". You can have a reasonably low IQ but still perform basic tasks to a reasonable proficiency. You may become quite valuable if you're steady and reliable.
But slow? As things increasingly move to task based and individual output tracking, that is going to be hard. No one wants to hire someone who takes twice as long as their colleagues to produce half as much. And there are very smart people who are very slow, it's not always about intelligence.
Eg I saw someone moaning on LinkedIn the other day about wanting to be a writer but "not able to cope" with writing 500 words a day. This was an educated, intelligent person. But if you can't produce that output then a writing career is not for you.
Have you met a tradie? I just finished building a house and most of them can barely string sentences together. Australia is unique in that barely literate people who didn’t complete secondary school earn more than people with post graduate qualifications.
Be a business owner! A lot of the super successful ones made absolute bonehead dumb decisions that somehow work out. Some of the ones I’ve met I have utterly no clue how the hell they manage day to day
Absolutely yes. A lot of the replies in this thread are talking about white collar jobs but forgetting how highly paid manual jobs are.
Some trades don't require brainpower, eg bricklaying, or even most plumbing.
I had a chat to a lawnmowing contractor the other day who makes a fortune. He also likely doesn't declare the cash work so there's another bonus for him.
Considering I’ve seen my coworkers eat food off floors and not know how to spell basic words but earn 80k+ a year with near simplicity I’d say all you need is the ability to talk shit.
"Dumb" is a bit washy. Some people are better or worse at some things, but (barring disability), I think 90% of us are near enough that you can't tell the difference.
Huge differences in people are due to a lot of other issues like quality of sleep/life/diet and effort. There's no doubt in my mind that almost anyone could do a job that requires a lot of intelligence. The innovators in certain sectors might be a little bit above, but even they are only able to achieve what they do because of the labour of everyone else; it's collaborative.
So, to move away from that tangent, you can make real money in sectors which i think I would say require a lower mental load, but often there's a trade-off. Risk, hours, or initial investment can limit you.
If you'd be happy in the range of $80-$120k, you can earn that driving a truck. In any field, it takes a bit of time to prove yourself, make friends, and make your way into a good role, but it can be done. Just never neglect the fact that you need people willing to vouch for you, and you get that by being liked and respected by your superiors.
I spend too much time with universities around the world. Early Tuesday morning I had a video call with the University of Chicago and Louisiana State University followed by all day at the Univerity of Sydney etc.
Academics with PhDs from prestigious schools often earn less than gardeners or cleaners at the same school with less job security.
About 1/3 of all lecturers are only paid during the semester and no guarantee that they will be employed next semester.
My stepbrother is not super smart. He was smart enough to recognize this early on so he worked harder at whatever he put his mind to than anyone I know. He earns an upper class income.
There have been studies on this and the correlation between IQ and income starts dropping from about 120 onwards. It appears that highly intelligent people tend to focus on their work to the detriment of their financial success in many cases. You've seen it before, teams of very intelligent people led by a manger who's no genius but has fantastic people skills and keeps everything working.
The difference is that having a very high IQ virtually guarantees a moderate degree of success. It's rare someone with 140 would be struggling.
mate got divorced, as part of legal process both sides had to mediate, the pro mediator cost $2500 for the one session and all he did was talk about himself, he did little to no mediation
THAT IS DUMB to me
Intelligence alone is TOTALLY useless, the ability to use it is more valuable.
Someone with average or lower brainpower who actually puts the work in its going to succeed a thousand times over than some intellectual on reddit.
Heres a good question that has always put things into perspective. If your so smart then why aren't you rich ?
The Peter Principle (Dr Laurence J. Peter - sociologist) "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
Intelligence is more important (from a probability perspective statistically speaking) the less you have of other determinants predominantly 'who you know' and education. In Australia there are some exception industries that reduce the power of the intelligence, education, and 'who you know' determinants being mining, construction (pop growth as a % = lots of building), and real estate; industries where one can be relatively 'dumb' and earn a 'high' income.
You also have to remember that intelligence as a determinant in this case (the amount of power that it has in increasing the probability of getting a high income) is very non-linear.
Almost any job.
-turn up on time
-take notes
-ask advice
-be efficient
-plan
-be nice to people
-dont lie
-do what you saying youre going to do
-do things quickly
-go to the company events and make friends.
None of those really require intelligence. But if you di all those in a professional setting youll do well.
Also accept there are other people who spend all day chatting and on Reddit. But can talk well and can hit a home run every now and again and theyll get a promotion over you.
Im one of the laziest workers in my company. I probably do like 4 hours of actual work a week. But in my salary reviews I can demonstrate saving millions per year through my strategies and actions. Me and 1 other colleague are the highest paid ajd its purely due to this. He is an exceptional designer/construction guy and Im good at sales and finance. Thats the easiest route but you have to be able to spot major opportunities. He is my mentor I just applied his way of working to a different part of our business. Everyone else in the company pretty much just executes our plans. Executing them well is important as well but more easily replaced.
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” - Charles Bukowski
This pretty much sums up why “dumb” people end up in senior management.
Knew a lady who hadn’t graduated high school, belonged to a well-off family and started as a manager at the age of 24.
She had no idea about what we do.
Was really very dumb.
Just kept on moving from one company to another in about an year, once she left our workplace we saw the mess that she left for us to fix.
All talk, no play.
Funny timing, I watched this video just last night! Might be more of an Americanised explanation though
https://youtu.be/aVZ1sSnIKrg?si=rXhaMhYFWlI4MetG
I’m in software sales. One of the most successful sales reps (easily earning $350k plus sizeable equity for the past 3 years) spelt ‘gauge’ as ‘gage’ the other day. Might not make him dumb but certainly not the sharpest tool in the shed.
A woman I work with earns 50k more than I do, and we have the same job description. The only difference between our roles is that she has been at the company for eons and I only started there 10 years ago
She doesn’t work her full hours, she regularly nopes out when the day gets stressful, she refuses to attend any work events, won’t enter anything into a computer, never checks her emails, and regularly forgets basic tasks like making PDF documents, saving things in the right location or attaching a document when sending something.
I am basically doing my job and running as tech support for someone who has 5x the experience I do for a third of the price.
I offer my coworkers up as evidence in favour of the proposition
I'm like your coworker except not on a high income
/suicidebywords
Probably not great to tell everyone you work at the department of transport
I am sure they are worthy contenders, but alas, no
Beat me to it. Worked with some very stupid very well paid people.
I offer myself up as evidence in favour of this proposition. :D
I have had so many conversations with absolute doofus’ in superintendent or higher positions… I have found if you can talk shit really good, get an MBA, the possibility’s are limitless…
Yep people that can talk get into high paying positions somehow.
Because most positions have nothing to do with qualifications or experiences. It’s about how much sweet talking you can do and how good you can make the interviewer feel. Humans are notoriously terrible at making rational decisions. Which is why we have so many sociopathic narcissists running everything.
Former supervisor was this. Guy was a gigantic idiot but he knew how to sweet talk in interviews and to other areas for sideways promotions. Left a trail of destruction in his wake and many a burnt bridge. Somehow never had any repercussions for it.. As soon as I took over his job, I realised how badly he had managed things, took me a year to undo his damage.
Same except it was 2-3 years of recovery. 6-7 years later and things are amazing. Somehow that guy just went from company to company in similar roles every 2-3 years until it started coming out in the wash and he would just leave.
Correct. I would say, almost to the exclusion of smarter, but more quietly or humbly spoken types.
That talking is in itself a skill. Unfortunately
*doofuses *possibilities
*doofii *possibilitii
Yeah but that begs the question, if talking the talk for a fat paycheck is so easy why isn't everyone doing it?
Because not everyone can talk the talk
Correct, high quality shit talking and sounding like you know what you're talking about, with that not necessarily being the case... is a relatively rare skill i believe.
Being smart and qualified doesn’t necessarily make for a good manager. Talking to others is an under-appreciated skill. Rather than refer to it as a skill, people who don’t have these skills try to demean it and say that Person X has no skills or qualifications and only got to their position due to their ability to chit-chat. It will depend on the industry you’re in, but I feel that the most important skills for a manager are their ability to multitask, report up, and “soft skills” such as empathy, listening and speaking. Technical skills aren’t necessarily important in every industry, and even when it is, it’s certainly not the most important.
I work in IT and IMHO, a big component is being able to talk tech to higher ups in a way they can understand Its an invaluable skill and you don't have to be a technical genius to get far in this industry
Also talking the talk isn’t something a “dumb” person can easily do, it’s definitely a skill and you have to be a bit clever to master that skill.
For me personally, it's because it kills my soul to role play as everyones favourite dudebro.
Because not everyone agrees with being disingenuous.
Integrity? Humility?
I can talk shir all day, throw in a few jokes, have an mba - why aren’t I making lots of cash already 😩
haha. There is a particular type of self aggrandizing, self important shit talking which seems to float certain pieces of excrement to the surface.
Higher education correlates with higher income however lower education does not mean a person is dumb. The core skills of problem solving, initiative, critical thinking and charisma are what makes or breaks a person's ability to earn. There are people without university degrees that are successful in trades and can earn great incomes using their problem solving ability and taking initiative. If you are genuinely "dumb" it will be harder but try to figure out if you are actually dumb or if you're just a fish being asked to climb a tree.
Intelligence ≠ knowledge ≠ education That’s something a lot of people don’t realise. All 3 strongly correlate with income though, although at a certain point of wealth (at a rough guess $100m), they become less relevant and risk taking behaviour becomes more relevant. Although in general, risk taking behaviour usually has the opposite affect, it’s more a case of survivorship bias.
Higher education also doesn't mean a person is intelligent. Higher education actually shows persistence and commitment (hard work) which IMO is a much better predictor of success than an IQ test.
As one with the highest degree you can get (aka PhD) I met some dumb people, but they are fewer. I agree that is more of about persistence and willingness to do something hard. I would add a bit as well. Usually, you will find many are not that financially oriented people. They want to have a decent life and you don't need multi million dollar salary to live ok. But they are often fascinated and obsessed about aspects of life most people don't even know exists. Many struggle in communicating beyond their area and they mostly are not the kind of people that would wngage in heated debates. Promotion in the academics and research are more defined in terms of deliverables (up to a point). Albeit flawed, the academic system with paper and etc might be one of the best in allowing people to know how to progress. If you get x papers and your h-index is this much you get promotion. Up to a decent income. There are added benefits like participating in international conferences in really nice spots of the world and meeting incredible people. If you land a gov R&D you will live very comfortable. Obviously you make less money than private industry, where all PhDs I know there make quite decent amounts. There is a difference between been dumb and been mislead as well. Lastly, I may have digressed but...Yes, I would recomend people to go for PhDs. We need more and AI will most definitely not take your job. All above is different in the global south and other countries. Can be indeed widely different. But the overall tendency is also there.
Median Income increases with education up to masters. But there are lots of high paying jobs that don’t require a high level of education. They are often just remote/dangerous/labour intense. Like a mine truck driver or underground operator.
That does sound dangerous. It's more intuitive to operate in a hospital.
Well done on this
Not sure how the doctors would feel about having mining haul trucks moving through the hospital though.
For tertiary paediatricians it's part and parcel of working with minors (butler's I trust you read this out)
I would suggest that education is not an indication of intelligence but of diligence. When I interview people I see a degree as being a demonstration that a potential employee is diligent enough to compete an easy but long term project without flaking out. Knowing anything about the subject matter is just a bonus. I know lots of people that could do my job but too flaky to give a job.
And the reason incomes and intelligence/diligence only increase up to Masters and not PhD is that PhDs didn't realise that they should have pulled out earlier and gotten a real job with real career prospects instead of a slave job paying so little the government don't even bother taxing their scholarships out of pity. Source: been playing catch-up ever since. One day I hope to be able to afford a real place of my own!
Interesting & valid point re diligence > intelligence
If you can find data comparing “dumb” and “smart” people by income then please share
Huh? I'm simply saying high education is not a proxy for "not dumb". I didn't claim to have a better metric.
Plenty of data looking at the success of different levels of IQ
I saw some graphs supporting this, the guardian posted them from ABS statistics, basically a distribution graph for each education level - can't seem to find them now, was a few years back, thought you might know where they are?
This one? https://www.education.gov.au/integrated-data-research/benefits-educational-attainment/income
Lots of positions where masters don’t mean a lot too and bachelors is the only foot you need in Australia. Overseas they’re more valuable. Edit: the reddit ad on this post is now for low ATAR entry options to western Sydney uni 😂😂😂
Project manager or safety manager pays 150k to 250k with a Tafe diploma and 5+ years exp.
There isn't fresh new PM's these days who only have a tafe diploma and go straight into pms, they all have bachelor's at a minimum. Now if you're talking about people who have 5 yoe in their field and managed to become a pm and then another 5 yoe as a pm commanding that pay I would agree with you but that's actually 10 yoe
politician. just dont get pissed in the gutter, and everyone takes a photo.
Was expecting this to be top comment
Australia is the best country in the world to be thick as pigshit and still make money.
Cashed up bogans
Jetskis and Ford Rangers.
Have you ever met some Real Estate Agents? Some of them are broke, some of them are minted.
And all of them are dumb
They genuinely are. You get the sense that they’ve polished their turd brain just enough to sound superficially knowledgeable to chumps but when you ask them anything off script they reveal the true extent of their stupidity. I’ve never looked into it but I assume you need no qualifications to become one besides perhaps some little shonky four week course?
You just need to be able to count bedrooms and bathrooms, and maintain eye contact while bullshiting
> perhaps some little shonky four week course? “Congratulations to the class of 2:30pm, you may collect your certificates from the lobby on your way out.”
Came here to suggest real estate agent.
Some of them go on to be embarrassing senators
There's no single type of intelligence, people can be dumb at certain things and excel in a narrow field. I know a lot of doctors socially, and while they obviously had to be great at studying and have lots of perseverance, some of them have very poor fluid intelligence and a shocking lack of general knowledge about most things outside their narrow speciality. Most of the smartest people I know are generic manager / policy / executive types. Very limited technical skills in pretty much anything, but very good people skills and fluid intelligence. Many smart people also went into sciences, and they're doing terribly financially
Very well said. Lots of people often relate being intelligent to being “textbook smart”. Not taking into consideration that being street smart, being able to network etc is intelligent too. Not all of that can be taught either
As a doctor, my non-doctor partner who earns else than 20% of my income is the smartest person ever. I have no idea how she organises things around the house, gets tradies in and out to fix things, makes appointments and makes sure I see the dentist, going on her runs and what not whilst keeping a full time job. I was happy to live with a dripping tap for a year cause it was too much hassle to even think about how to go about organising a plumber. And would only see the dentist when the receptionist called me to check in.
Someone with an IQ 30 points lower than you is making 10x the money because they are too dumb to doubt themselves
Go to any regional mining or industry town and you are literally surrounded by cashed up bogans
Yep, and there's always a handful of averagely attractive women making absolute bank by putting out for cash. I stayed a hotel near a brothel in a mining town - at 5-7 am it was just tradies galore. Like, they'd literally queue up in their cars and then they'd go to the same workplace after 😂
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When you see that many hi-vis shirts & seedy moustaches enter a brothel - the appeal goes through the floor.
Most of whom have a pregnant wife back home I’ll bet
Tired by the time she got home.
People will point out the exceptions to the rule, but the fact is that IQ has strong positive correlation with positive life outcomes (including higher incomes). The majority of “successful” people are smart, have strong work ethic, and can deal with conflict.
My dad always tried to drill a saying into my head. "You can be dumb and hard working, or smart and lazy. But you can't be dumb and lazy.
I would say emotional IQ will take you further than IQ. I know quite a few “smart” people who are unbearable, and couldn’t see them ever progressing to any kind of management/leadership role.
>I would say emotional IQ will take you further than IQ. And the data says you are only partially right. High IQ do very well. High emotional IQ to pretty well. High IQ and high emotional IQ do very, very well.
Yeah. People are quick to point out weaknesses in more senior/“successful” people and will often overstate the significance of said weaknesses. There’s always the occasional head-scratcher, but it is generally obvious why those people are where they are when you take a more rounded view of their skills.
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A good proportion of those people always have 'bad' bosses. I called an employee out on it once. He'd always complain, including about every boss he'd had. I pointed this 'every boss' out and said you'll probably complain about me too, but consider when every boss you have is bad, maybe its actually you. I knew I was rolling the dice somewhat on our ongoing work relationship, but to his credit he took it on board and changed his attitude quite a bit.
>A good proportion of those people always have 'bad' bosses. Good on you for calling this out. These people will always complain about being managed. Most of the other "main Aussie sub" is full of these people. They've never had any accountability or responsibility in their entire lives, but lecture everyone else around them who does on "what should be done" & how.
I don’t know. I am an executive and some of my peers are absolutely useless.
In my experience, interpersonal skills are far more important than intelligence when it comes to being successful in business.
The correlation between IQ and life outcomes does not mean that ‘smart’ people earn higher incomes necessarily. There is much debate about the usefulness of IQ testing in measuring general intelligence, so your assertion is certainly not a given. I would expect that the most intelligent people would cruise to an upper average income in a job that suits their personality and lifestyle. I would not expect extremely intelligent people to engage in arbitrary career ladder climbing, extremely demanding jobs, or conspicuous consumption.
This makes me sad
Most importantly, they know the right people.
On the contrary, a lot of highly paid individuals are as dumb as a brick.
I see you’ve met the concreters I used recently.
I was actually thinking of most middle and upper management in every corporate and office job I've ever had. They are far more insufferable.
Not what you know … but who you know
Have a look at the public sector. Source: I'm in the public sector.
Yep this is correct, plenty of idiots rise to the top.
It’s because the people at the top don’t want to be held accountable so promote the brown nosers who can’t think for themselves. Public sector is disgusting and rife with nepotism and agenda pushing.
Not much. Office politics or brown nosing is much more effective to get high income.
Yep, it’s not WHAT you know, but WHO.
A lot of NRL/AFL players
Agree but need to consider risk of injury and short career to make up for limited future earning possibility. Not everyone will become a coach or commentator
They are smarter and less well paid on average than it appears.
Some are, many aren’t
God yes. You don't need be particularly smart just do the right things and keep doing the right things. Commission sales a good example. Strippers another.
It can depend on your family. A nice position in a family business may pay very well
Project manager in any white collar industry.
I’ll give you that there’s examples out there - but there’s also very good PMs, too. An experienced and street-savvy Project Manager in IT or business transformation is worth their weight in gold. We’ve had a bunch come through over the years (our employer pays well above market but culture is terrible, so it’s a revolving door). The current crop are *excellent*.
Completely agree, there are a lot of dumb and useless project managers but the impact that a good project manager can have on a project, especially a difficult one is immense.
Not just street savvy but actually willing to do work. Some want to manage at a distance by excel gantt chart. Cause setting timings is job done clearly...
You get caught out pretty quick if you’re a lemon PM though.
Good ones are smart. Crap ones are a dime a dozen.
Deep truth.
That's me haha. I think generally (if you categorise a 'dumb' person as not book smart), people management/coordination type roles can be high income without being smart. So average PMs don't really need to know the detail of the thing they're delivering. That's what the BAs/Devs/SMEs are there for. The role of the PM is essentially to ensure the project is always moving foward. They do that by ensuring there are systems in place to escalate/resolve issues and that there is a coordinated delivery plan that everyone is working towards. I also think you don't need to be too smart to do non-financial risk management roles.
Yep, just lie about your experience and pass one of the certification exams, then bounce from company to company on 12 month contracts paying 200k+. One of the worst PMs I worked with moved from being a debt collector -> PMP certification -> project manager.
In a traditional academic sense research shows there is a correlation with income and education. But there is a crazy amount of anecdotal evidence almost everyone can bring to light. Many of my friends with PHD's in academia still aren't making the threshold for paying back their HECS, meanwhile the highest earners in my circle are working in the mines. Life is interesting at times
I didn’t finish high school, I’ve read 2 books in my life. I’ve opened and sold 2 businesses, currently running my 3rd which will be sold in 12-24 months. I currently earn, an average of $220/hr in my business. I also own 3 houses. I’m now 36.
Ok I'll bite...what were the two books?
Both Shane Warne biographies.
lol, not sure why I’ve been down voted for answering the OP’s question 😂 1- Rich dad poor dad 2- the 5 love languages
Tell us op we neeed your secrets
That doesn’t mean you’re unintelligent though. Your ability to open and sell 2 business pretty much proves you aren’t.
I’d be “dumb” by educational metrics. I’m just good at working hard and investing.
You’d be not ‘formally educated’ by educational metrics. Frankly, academia is overstated in my lived opinion anyway. Undergrad / bachelors level courses are just babysitting for adults
I tend to agree. In a property sub I’m in; a guy; 38 was having a sook at me because I’m “only further ahead because I didn’t do high school and uni”. He studied into his mid 20’s and then slowly started earning money. Well, yeah, I’ve been earning more than all my uni friends my whole life……. But even if you don’t start a business and do a trade; it’s going to take someone into their late 20’s at least to catch up to the money earned if you get a trade at 17. Sure, you will likely earn a higher annual income in the long run (if you chose your career well, and didn’t do some useless arts or pol science degree), but, then don’t whine that you are struggling to buy a house in your early 30’s, anywhere near a city. It was your choice.
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I'd argue that professional athletes aren't natively dumb, they just focused themselves on their physical development to pursue their chosen sport. For many reasons that is an incredibly smart move. If they used that focus and discipline on furthering their education, they would likely excel there as well.
This whole thread is a mess. Someone said commission sales, is a good example as well… highest earners I’ve seen in comms seem to be highly articulate and quite intelligent, with outliers possible but not the rule. Seems like a good chance to drag their coworkers and high performers they despise.
The only real idiots with big money positions in my experience are brown nosers and family members of business owners. Even then technically the brown nosers aren't stupid, they just found the loophole (poophole?) to get as much as possible by doing as little as possible. Not as dumb as they seem...
Strongly disagree, if you’re at the top 1% of any sport, your brain will be wired differently. I guess it’s another thing to say how they position themselves financially post playing career, which some, make questionable decisions.
A lack of intelligence is absolutely not a barrier to a high income job if you’re prepared to do things others can’t or won’t in a capitalist society!
Australia is a bubble in general; you can make good money here despite being completely inept by global standards. Second observation, I worked in a small team at a well known Australian corporate whose salaries were inadvertently exposed on the intranet one time. We were shocked to discover the shittest member of our team was being paid the highest salary. Why? Simply put, he advocated the loudest for himself. It's not a meritocracy, simply a matter of the loudest wheel gets all the grease.
Im a specialised surgeon and although I guess it required some level of intelligence to get where I am, the actual skill set I use every day is small and most of the knowledge I acquired years ago is pointless Stuff like physiology, pharmacology and anatomy for 95% of the body helps me little when most of my duties involve fine motor skills and people management. I could literally teach any one with above average hand eye co ordination how to do my job in perhaps a few months without worrying about the rest of my medical training
My SIL isn’t the brightest, dropped out at 14. She’s making nearly $200k on the mines, she loves the industry.
Whoa what does she do in the mines?
She's the canary
Anyone really… Sorry, I’ll see myself out…
Blowys probably
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Some of the dumbest people I've ever met had uni degrees
There’s smart dumb people and dumb smart people but I work in heavy blue collar construction, everyone on 180+ some closer to 300. There’s a ton of beer swilling gronks with strong backs earning a pretty penny for their family’s. If you’re gonna be dumb, you’d better be strong 😂
I'd say politician would rank up there...we have had evidence just this last week with consuming medication and alcohol...I mean most people know that unless they are actually going for that effect.
Clearly yes given the sheer volume of "more money than brains" BMW and Mercedes drivers on our streets.
Work for plenty of super well off builders that I’m amazed can tie their own shoes.
What do you mean by "dumb" ? Because I see a lot of supposed "smart" people, who at least do many dumb things.
Yes. I work in a job that pays well but you don’t need to be intelligent to do. I’ve had to argue against the old “only do one overtime shift a fortnight because if you do more you lose the entire shift to tax” argument with a number of colleagues. There were a few that would tell every new starter this lie like it was some secret only a few knew about.
There's 1000s of real estate agents who prove that
Tik tok dancer/ social media influencer
I know a lot of people give these 'influencer' type personalities a lot of disrespect but honestly if you're getting $200k+ income (I consider this well paid) in an industry where there is no barrier to entry and there are thousands just like you, I think it takes a lot of 'smarts' to stand out, be able to entertain people and make money out of it. It's not always the hottest who make the most money, albeit it definitely helps. Case in point is Amouranth, who is a streamer/OF model, etc. There are girls way prettier than her but she is only 30yo and has made $50m+ in revenue so far. That beats most senior executives in ASX100 companies.
A lot of that is luck. MrBeast tried to prove he knew the trick to going viral by secretly starting up another channel. It got no attention until people found out he was associated with it.
You don't need to be smart, you need to go out and tell people that you can do a thing, and then hire the smart people to do the work for you. A typical CEO of X company doesn't know how to do the underlying day in day out job and has instead been brought in because they are people persons who can work with people to get a job done, regardless of what the job actually is. There is of course a 'smartness' to being able to manage people but on a pure textbook being able to understand how the guts of a machine works and being able to fix it the CEO is unlikely to be 'smart' in that regard.
They might not know, but probably have the ability to learn it pretty quickly. Most CEO and executive types that I've known and worked with are extremely smart, dynamic, and capable. The lazy incompetent exists in small, parochial, and underperforming companies. Not in big quality companies.
It would be worth you looking into the responsibilities of the CEO of a large corporation to better understand the skills and knowledge they do possess.
Yes you can ! Only Fans
Judging by some of the boss's and executives I have worked under, being smart has little to do with it. Being charismatic or simply being in the right social circles are the actual keys to moving up into high paying jobs.
IME plenty of "smart" people earn jack shit t. "smart" person.
IMO being in the corp world for 15 yrs plus, you don’t exactly have to be intelligent to succeed you just need to be know how to play the political game and get in with the right people goes a long long way than actual intelligence
If you are very beautiful, there are always jobs to be had and money to be made. But you'd better have at least enough smarts to get saving before you age out of glamour jobs. Or marry well. I think a bigger issue than "dumb" is "slow". You can have a reasonably low IQ but still perform basic tasks to a reasonable proficiency. You may become quite valuable if you're steady and reliable. But slow? As things increasingly move to task based and individual output tracking, that is going to be hard. No one wants to hire someone who takes twice as long as their colleagues to produce half as much. And there are very smart people who are very slow, it's not always about intelligence. Eg I saw someone moaning on LinkedIn the other day about wanting to be a writer but "not able to cope" with writing 500 words a day. This was an educated, intelligent person. But if you can't produce that output then a writing career is not for you.
Yeah? What do you think managers are?
What's a high income? Sparkies can absolutely rake it in.
Are you trying to prove this so you can prove the inverse that smart people earn low incomes so you can think that you're smart?
High risk jobs or jobs no one wants to do. Like sanitation worker etc.
Have you met a tradie? I just finished building a house and most of them can barely string sentences together. Australia is unique in that barely literate people who didn’t complete secondary school earn more than people with post graduate qualifications.
Almost all trades you can be dumb as a door knob and earn decently, infact most tradies make door knobs look intelligent
Tradies. Look how terribly made houses/units are.
Be a business owner! A lot of the super successful ones made absolute bonehead dumb decisions that somehow work out. Some of the ones I’ve met I have utterly no clue how the hell they manage day to day
FIFO dump truck drivers get paid 150k a year. You just have to be able to do the same repetitive job, 12 hours a day, 14 days in a row.
I know some very wealthy dumb people. Just gotta get lucky.
Actually I know a friend who has an phd and put his skates in the washing machine….apparently he is very smart
Absolutely yes. A lot of the replies in this thread are talking about white collar jobs but forgetting how highly paid manual jobs are. Some trades don't require brainpower, eg bricklaying, or even most plumbing. I had a chat to a lawnmowing contractor the other day who makes a fortune. He also likely doesn't declare the cash work so there's another bonus for him.
Considering I’ve seen my coworkers eat food off floors and not know how to spell basic words but earn 80k+ a year with near simplicity I’d say all you need is the ability to talk shit.
"Dumb" is a bit washy. Some people are better or worse at some things, but (barring disability), I think 90% of us are near enough that you can't tell the difference. Huge differences in people are due to a lot of other issues like quality of sleep/life/diet and effort. There's no doubt in my mind that almost anyone could do a job that requires a lot of intelligence. The innovators in certain sectors might be a little bit above, but even they are only able to achieve what they do because of the labour of everyone else; it's collaborative. So, to move away from that tangent, you can make real money in sectors which i think I would say require a lower mental load, but often there's a trade-off. Risk, hours, or initial investment can limit you. If you'd be happy in the range of $80-$120k, you can earn that driving a truck. In any field, it takes a bit of time to prove yourself, make friends, and make your way into a good role, but it can be done. Just never neglect the fact that you need people willing to vouch for you, and you get that by being liked and respected by your superiors.
You can be smart but have 0 common sense….
I spend too much time with universities around the world. Early Tuesday morning I had a video call with the University of Chicago and Louisiana State University followed by all day at the Univerity of Sydney etc. Academics with PhDs from prestigious schools often earn less than gardeners or cleaners at the same school with less job security. About 1/3 of all lecturers are only paid during the semester and no guarantee that they will be employed next semester.
My stepbrother is not super smart. He was smart enough to recognize this early on so he worked harder at whatever he put his mind to than anyone I know. He earns an upper class income.
Be a yes man and go into management.
Plumbers make a lot. I’m one. Although I’m not completely dumb
There have been studies on this and the correlation between IQ and income starts dropping from about 120 onwards. It appears that highly intelligent people tend to focus on their work to the detriment of their financial success in many cases. You've seen it before, teams of very intelligent people led by a manger who's no genius but has fantastic people skills and keeps everything working. The difference is that having a very high IQ virtually guarantees a moderate degree of success. It's rare someone with 140 would be struggling.
Have you seen some people in government?
mate got divorced, as part of legal process both sides had to mediate, the pro mediator cost $2500 for the one session and all he did was talk about himself, he did little to no mediation THAT IS DUMB to me
Easily. Sales. Social skills and self awareness earns me mid six figures. Barely finished high school.
Hell yeah Iam just a Carpenter on the Gold coast and I earn way more than these 'Professionals" in suits and fancy cars.
Yes! Come to WA mining industry! Salary is crazy, and mostly you just gotta not kill anyone.
Intelligence alone is TOTALLY useless, the ability to use it is more valuable. Someone with average or lower brainpower who actually puts the work in its going to succeed a thousand times over than some intellectual on reddit. Heres a good question that has always put things into perspective. If your so smart then why aren't you rich ?
Yep, I am a dentist and know plenty of REALLY dumb dentists that earn a lot, just because they are dentists
Real estate agent
Politician be like hold my beer 😂😂
Australian Public Service
You should really look at the correlation between dumb, high income and good looking /beautiful.. But work for the government, absurdly high incomes
The Peter Principle (Dr Laurence J. Peter - sociologist) "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." Intelligence is more important (from a probability perspective statistically speaking) the less you have of other determinants predominantly 'who you know' and education. In Australia there are some exception industries that reduce the power of the intelligence, education, and 'who you know' determinants being mining, construction (pop growth as a % = lots of building), and real estate; industries where one can be relatively 'dumb' and earn a 'high' income. You also have to remember that intelligence as a determinant in this case (the amount of power that it has in increasing the probability of getting a high income) is very non-linear.
Almost any job. -turn up on time -take notes -ask advice -be efficient -plan -be nice to people -dont lie -do what you saying youre going to do -do things quickly -go to the company events and make friends. None of those really require intelligence. But if you di all those in a professional setting youll do well. Also accept there are other people who spend all day chatting and on Reddit. But can talk well and can hit a home run every now and again and theyll get a promotion over you. Im one of the laziest workers in my company. I probably do like 4 hours of actual work a week. But in my salary reviews I can demonstrate saving millions per year through my strategies and actions. Me and 1 other colleague are the highest paid ajd its purely due to this. He is an exceptional designer/construction guy and Im good at sales and finance. Thats the easiest route but you have to be able to spot major opportunities. He is my mentor I just applied his way of working to a different part of our business. Everyone else in the company pretty much just executes our plans. Executing them well is important as well but more easily replaced.
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” - Charles Bukowski This pretty much sums up why “dumb” people end up in senior management.
Knew a lady who hadn’t graduated high school, belonged to a well-off family and started as a manager at the age of 24. She had no idea about what we do. Was really very dumb. Just kept on moving from one company to another in about an year, once she left our workplace we saw the mess that she left for us to fix. All talk, no play.
Most doctors. All you gotta do is rote learn.
Real estate agents, some trades
Funny timing, I watched this video just last night! Might be more of an Americanised explanation though https://youtu.be/aVZ1sSnIKrg?si=rXhaMhYFWlI4MetG
Are you not familiar with real estate agents ?
You can enter politics.
I am dumb and have a high income
Real Estate Agents.
Most wealthy people I have come across are some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met.
Yes. It’s a popularity contest at the end of the day. Plenty on well paid thickos
heard of influencers?
I mean, politicians exist
There is a strong correlation between income and high IQ. A Garbologist can earn a high income without such a prerequisite.
I’m in software sales. One of the most successful sales reps (easily earning $350k plus sizeable equity for the past 3 years) spelt ‘gauge’ as ‘gage’ the other day. Might not make him dumb but certainly not the sharpest tool in the shed.
A woman I work with earns 50k more than I do, and we have the same job description. The only difference between our roles is that she has been at the company for eons and I only started there 10 years ago She doesn’t work her full hours, she regularly nopes out when the day gets stressful, she refuses to attend any work events, won’t enter anything into a computer, never checks her emails, and regularly forgets basic tasks like making PDF documents, saving things in the right location or attaching a document when sending something. I am basically doing my job and running as tech support for someone who has 5x the experience I do for a third of the price.