There are people that only think about making things better for themselves no matter how it effects others. These people would just use that "extra" intelligence to up their game. So no, I don't think there would be less conflict.

If you mean emotional intelligence then yes. Being able to solve puzzles better (standard IQ) doesn't mean squat to reducing conflict of the puzzles you solve are how to exploit others more

I don't see why that would help. But if everyone's empathy increased by 50% of the average amount of empathy, that might help. (Not that it is measurable, but this is obviously fantasy)

No, but if empathy went up 50% and greed went down 50%, there would.

This is not about intelligence at all. School tells you that intelligence is important because it makes you a better worker for the corporations.

But if you think about a good person in life, their intelligence is not going to be top of the list of their best qualities.

People are so focused on intelligence that they often completely forget about other qualities a human being can have.

Realistically, the world is too complex and too large to even remotely be able to predict the outcome of making everyone 50% smarter.

My best guess though is that it wouldn't change much. If everyone is smarter, no one is smarter. High intelligence doesn't automatically mean Mr. Spock. I used to be involved with Mensa and many of the people I met were nuts, lacked critical thinking skills, or were so full of themselves for testing well they were blind to external information. I myself am highly intelligent on paper, but if you looked at my life you would see a lifelong series of dumb choices and in many cases choosing the worst possible option even knowing it was.

What I mean is being smart isn't as valuable a skill to have as one might think. Especially at the top end of intelligence, smarter basically equates to faster at solving problems. Raw processing power does play into it for sure but the difference between someone with an IQ of 130 and an IQ of 160 is how fast they finished the test.

The best way to make the world a better place would be to teach everyone critical thinking and emotional intelligence skills.

There's a difference between IQ and EQ.

Absolutely not, some of the smartest people I've ever met have zero emotional intelligence. You can be incredibly accomplished academically and still be totally unable to work productively with others. A lot of these people lean towards aspie/AuDHD supremacy as well funnily enough - they think everyone else is just far too irrational to agree with their horrendously undeveloped philosophies.

I think the world would have less conflict if the average "emotional intelligence" went up 50%

Probably not. Conflict doesn't arise because people don't have the right ideas, more so conflict is the result of material conditions and processes. The battle for resources, the right to surplus extraction, class struggle, imperialism, all of these result from the evolution of class society, and not because of intelligence.

No chance. Have you seen what grad students and research professors are like at top universities? Especially during grant proposals? Competitive doesn't begin to describe it. Cutthroat barely does.

Personally I don't think intelligence is the solution, it would justake conflict more complex and thought out. You would need more empathy for a better world.

There'd be more conflict for a little while as the people finally come together to overthrow our oppressors, but after that I imagine things would settle down. It wouldn't be perfect, because there would still be conniving people who do everything they can to take more than their fair share, but a populace with significantly more intelligence than today will be much harder to exploit, even if our oppressors become more intelligent as well.

No, there would be less conflict in the world if we were to cure people from psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissism, racism and other ails that lead to destructive selfishness.

There's all kinds of intelligence. If specifically emotional intelligence went up we'd be better off. If it's the kind that makes you good at day trading or computer science we'll just end up with more tech bros trying to decide who deserves to live or die.

Measuring intelligence is not like measuring a cup of flour. The IQ tests are not wholly scientific. So the premise of your question is not without controversy. But if we disregard that, then: no. Very clever people still bicker and get rubbed the wrong way. Intelligent people follow populists. Conflict is not solely the result of low intelligence. We might have different types of conflict (there are fewer incidences of fisticuffs at the chess club than at football) but not fewer.

Conflicts in the world dont come from the lack of intelligence. Its class conflicts that are at the root of everything else

Intelligence isn't really one thing, so you have to be more specific.

Depends what you mean by intelligence, but i would argue that there would be more conflict.

People who do not move, do not notice their chains.

Well, if we look around today, some of the best minds in world are busy making people click on ads

Plenty of intelligent people that are absolute Ghouls and monsters.

Intelligence, no. We need empthy, self-love, unity.

I can see both sides. Smarter people would make the pie bigger. But a flat %increase would make the absolute intelligence gap even wider, which is what I think is the more relevant metric. Evil spirited smart people would manipulate stupid people even harder and that benevolent smart people may not do much to stop it.

Would the world be better? Maybe. Would the world have less conflict? I bet not.

No, we would just use it for better confict

No, the conflicts would simply be more damaging.

Humans, regardless of intelligence, are destructive. More intelligence just means more destruction.

We are the Fermi paradox made flesh.

I remember 20y ago thinking the internet was creating a sort of intellectual "travelator", where some people would get on and be launched far ahead of the rest. The result would be a huge division in intelligence across society, which would lead to a feeling of disenfranchisement and civil unrest.

So no, if everyone's intelligence went up by 50% of their own intelligence, you'd just have more of the same problem.

I believe public education is vital, but we didn't place enough emphasis on the importance of uniform funding across districts and states, rather than having "good schools" and "bad schools".

Probably not. In fact if you mean everyone gets smarter starting tomorrow but up til today we're in the same crappy world as always, that's probably a disaster. Yeah we have some sociopath criminals in high places, but lots more of them are in prison or doing really dumb things (there's a tv show about them, "world's dumbest criminals"). Now imagine they suddenly get a whole lot smarter. Everyone else also becoming smarter won't help that much.

If you mean human evolution somehow went on a different path making all humans smarter all the way back to prehistoric times, then it's harder to say, but it doesn't sound so great either.

Emotional intelligence isn't the answer either, for the same sorts of reasons. Maybe there's a separate thing called "wisdom" but there will always be gaps.

You might like HPMOR, a Harry Potter fanfic novel that philosophizes a lot about these types of questions. It's at hpmor.com. Warning, the main character is insufferable a lot of the time, especially near the beginning. So you might hate it, in which case feel free to quit after a few chapters.

For a more positive take, try the old school science fiction novel "Protector" by Larry Niven.

What does it even mean for one person to be 50% more intelligent than another person?