Answered on Quora:
Tell you what. Go to a town where many Hispanic or Latino Americans live. Walk around a bit and talk to some people. Your average US Hispanic has an IQ of 90. So your average person in that town will have about a 90 IQ, and after you talk to a few of them, you should get a feel for how someone at that IQ score thinks.
You can also go find a bunch of White high school dropouts. They also have 89 IQ’s, right around the same. That would be a lot harder to do though.
I don’t want to use Hispanics as an example, but since they have an average IQ of 90, once you have talked to hundreds of them, you get a feel for what people at that IQ level are like.
I hate to say, but the difference between 100 IQ people and 90 IQ is quite noticeable, even dramatic.
My experience is with people who seem to have 90 IQ’s, both Whites and Hispanics. Their ignorance was shocking. They had never heard of labor unions, the Latin language, or artificial respiration.
One told me that Mixteco, an family of Indian languages in Mexico with ~40 different languages in it is a dialect of Spanish! Of course it isn’t. It’s an Amerindian language, as far from Spanish as Chinese. When someone is that preposterously and idiotically wrong, I don’t even argue with them. I just nod my head.
One told me Salinas is right next to San Diego, and he laughed at me when I insisted it wasn’t. On the contrary, they are 400 miles apart. This guy grew up in Salinas, and he had no idea where it was on a map within hundreds of miles!
Starting to get the idea?
They simply have no use for what a lot of us would call book knowledge. They exist at a much simpler level, and I imagine they are probably happier than we brooding brainiacs are.
However, they are certainly intelligent enough to do their jobs as restaurant clerks or servers, supermarket cashiers, secretaries and whatnot. They do very well at those jobs. They’re in their element.
Also their ignorance is not dangerous the way the ignorance of others is. As you move up on the IQ scale towards 100 or 110, you start finding people who are horribly ignorant, can’t think properly, but are just smart enough to get the complete wrong answer and end up reading you the wrong way, interpreting innocent remarks as bizarre, insane, incomprehensible, or dangerous.
In other words, they are too stupid to get the right answer (which is fine) but they are just smart enough to completely misread you and get the absolute wrong answer.
Some are too suspicious due to ignorance, but they are pretty easily ignored. Simply don’t ever speak to them or deal with them at all.
On the other hand, the 90 IQ person just listens to you and either understands you or doesn’t. If you are incomprehensible, they just give you a blank look or ask what you are talking about. They aren’t smart enough to read you the wrong way and get the wrong answer, because they are not coming up with any answer!
90 IQ people are pleasant enough. Most are rather simple people who do not have strong emotions. They breeze through life don’t want to cause a lot of worries, fights or problems. They take life as it is without challenging it, seeing through it, or feeling angry or frustrated with it.
They live for simple good times, conversation about basic life issues and especially people, have some understanding of psychology, and like to gossip. Some of the older ones have some understanding of business, law, taxation, duties as a citizen, how to negotiate around government and insurance bureaucracies, and even medicine, believe it or not.
They don’t expect much out of life, but they don’t cause many problems either because a lot of problems are caused by people thinking too hard and getting the wrong answer.
90 IQ people don’t ever think too hard, so they end up being rather pleasant, happy and enjoyable people.
They like jokes, sex, and food. They love to joke and laugh. There are some who work at stores around here who I joke with, tease, and laugh with all the time. We make fun of each other in the simple, friendly, and non-offensive way of close friends.
I don’t want to have a brain like that, but in a way, I envy them. It must be so much easier to breeze through life. Maybe the less you think, the happier you are.
So there is your 90 IQ person, a mixture of good and bad. The ignorance is not good from my POV. It won’t fly with me, but these people are almost four SD’s below me. I won’t have close friendships with them, but casual acquaintanceship is pleasant enough if you keep the discussion to the basic commonalities of human existence that we all share.
On the other hand, their ignorance could be seen as outset by their many positive qualities in their simple, easy-going, laughing, joking, non-serious, fun-oriented attitude towards life.
