>This scene hints that the cashier's analytical skills are >next to none and this alone explains why she is a cashier.
Her numerical analytics skills perhaps, but she might be great at something else. Maybe she is a poet, or a musician, or great at handling 5 kids, or something else that you are terrible at.
Just something that doesn't pay well, so she has to be a cashier.
This is kind of a form of Moravec's paradox: we assume what is easy for us must be easy for others, and what is hard for us must be also hard for others too.
I can't find the reference right now, but this was a famous problem in early testing of monkey's intelligence. They showed the monkey's pictures of humans and they couldn't distinguish them, so it was assumed they were fairly dumb. But then eventually someone figured out they were much better at distinguishing pictures of other monkeys.
Of course it's still possible that the cashier is not good at anything, but in my experience that's very rare. Most people have some skills.
Eh. Poetry and handling kids is orthogonal to intelligence.
Intelligence is a very narrow and specific skill of discerning the real. It allows us to predict things. Coincidentally, it allows to make money and thus is well paid. It's ok if others disagree with me.
My two examples above are meant to hint that intelligence consists of two distinct skills: ability to keep a still detailed image in your mind (the 3x3 grid example) and ability to analyze this still image (the counting bottles example). The latter builds on the former because if the image is blurry in your mind, there is nothing to analyze (you can't see words in the 3x3 grid if it keeps floating away). We can go further and divide the two skills into say 10 distinct levels of mastery, define their characteristics, but the point remains the same: it's a steep ladder that has to be climbed if one wants to get this skill.
Poetry, music and handling kids are different skills and are of no help in climbing the ladder of intelligence. No, I agree that compassion and other skills can be as useful as intelligence, but they are different skills and have to be mastered separately.
Handling kids maybe but poetry and music are only orthogonal to intelligence at ameteur level. Professional poets and musicians tend to be highly intelligent even by your definition.
Her numerical analytics skills perhaps, but she might be great at something else. Maybe she is a poet, or a musician, or great at handling 5 kids, or something else that you are terrible at.
Just something that doesn't pay well, so she has to be a cashier.
This is kind of a form of Moravec's paradox: we assume what is easy for us must be easy for others, and what is hard for us must be also hard for others too.
I can't find the reference right now, but this was a famous problem in early testing of monkey's intelligence. They showed the monkey's pictures of humans and they couldn't distinguish them, so it was assumed they were fairly dumb. But then eventually someone figured out they were much better at distinguishing pictures of other monkeys.
Of course it's still possible that the cashier is not good at anything, but in my experience that's very rare. Most people have some skills.