IQ is very important to many people in the TESCRÉAL movement. Many of them are, as they say, “IQ realists”. He believes that IQ measures something real about the human brain, and this thing is very important.
A lot of psychologists, philosophers, etc. think that IQ is complete nonsense. The idea of IQ was actually well criticized by a statistician named Nassim Taleb. He explains that IQ tests can potentially be useful for identifying individuals who will score very low on IQ tests, but when it comes to above average people, it is basically meaningless, because there are a million different ways to be “intelligent”. There are some people who are great at math, there are some people who have amazing common sense and intelligence, and there are some people who are brilliant scientists but they have no common sense and wisdom to share.
I would compare the idea of intelligence to skill. If someone says, “You should meet my friend Joe, he’s really skilled,” I’m thinking, “In what sense? In what way?” I need more information. Could he write a string quartet? Can he make a really good dinner? Can he make a good cabinet?
Historically, IQ was closely associated with eugenics. The tests were developed by prominent eugenicists, many of whom had deeply racist and sexist views. He believed that the “white race” had superior intelligence compared to other racial categories, and he developed tests to confirm what he wanted to show.
There is a very clear continuity between the twentieth-century eugenics movement and the emergence of the Tesreal movement. Prominent figures within the TESCRÉAL movement have warned about the possibility of dysgenic pressure, with “dysgenic” being the opposite of eugenic, where eugenic literally means “good birth”. The idea that intelligence is hereditary is highly questionable from a scientific perspective. For example, if “less intelligent” individuals outcompete their “more intelligent” peers, dysgenics will occur, resulting in the prevalence of people with lower IQs within the population increasing across generations.
People in the TESCRÉAL movement are clearly concerned about this. And this is an idea that even twentieth century eugenicists were completely terrified by. What would happen if the non-white population of the United States increases in size and exceeds the white population? Well, according to this point of view it could be really bad. This may cause dysgenic pressure, because according to these racist IQ realists, the non-white population has a lower IQ. This led to an old-school eugenics program that included banning interracial marriage or curbing immigration.
Transhumanism is unquestionably a form of eugenics. In fact, transhumanism was pioneered by some of the leading eugenicists of the twentieth century, such as Julian Huxley, a biologist who published several books on the subject. Transhumanism is eugenics on steroids. Eugenicists of the old school wanted only to improve the human species. Transhumanism says: Why stop at perfecting humanity? Why not create an entirely new and “superior” post-human species?