IQ shredder

The IQ Shredder is a sociopolitical concept developed by neoreactionary theorist Spandrell in 2013 that describes how modern cities function as mechanisms that attract high-IQ individuals but prevent them from reproducing at replacement rates. The theory posits that major urban centers draw intelligent people from their surrounding regions, subject them to competitive pressures and progressive social norms that reduce fertility, and thus "shred" potential genetic intelligence from future generations.

Core concept

According to Spandrell, the IQ shredder process operates through several mechanisms:

• Cognitive sorting: High-IQ individuals migrate to major urban centers for educational and professional opportunities
• Status competition: Career advancement and consumption replace family formation as status markers
• Progressive social norms: Urban environments promote lifestyles that delay or prevent reproduction
• High costs: Expensive housing and living costs make family formation prohibitively costly
• Assortative mating: Highly educated people pair with each other but produce fewer children than required for population replacement

The theory specifically focused on cities like Singapore, which Spandrell characterized as "probably the most efficient IQ shredder in human history" due to its combination of meritocratic sorting, intense educational competition, high housing costs, and low fertility rates despite government incentives for reproduction.

Theoretical context

The IQ Shredder concept emerged within the neoreactionary and Dark Enlightenment intellectual movements of the early 2010s. It builds upon several established and controversial ideas:

• Dysgenics: The theory draws on concerns about declining cognitive ability in populations, a concept dating back to Francis Galton's work in the late 19th century
• Demographic transition: The observed pattern that more developed societies tend to have lower fertility rates
• IQ heritability: The assumption that intelligence has a significant genetic component

The IQ Shredder concept connects these ideas to urban development and globalization, suggesting that modern cosmopolitan cities function as evolutionary traps for high-IQ individuals and their potential offspring.

Legacy and usage

The IQ shredder concept has become part of the standard vocabulary in neoreactionary, alt-right, and dissident right circles. Writers like Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug) and figures in the post-rationalist sphere incorporated the concept into broader critiques of modernity, progressivism, and globalization.

Broader migration discourse

The concept has been adapted to discussions of "brain drain" and regional inequality, with some commentators using it to describe how global cities extract talent from peripheral regions and smaller nations. This usage often strips away the explicitly hereditarian elements of the original formulation while retaining the focus on population flows and fertility differences.

Anti-urban narratives

The IQ Shredder has been incorporated into broader critiques of urbanism and cosmopolitanism from traditionalist and nationalist perspectives. These narratives position cities as sites of cultural and demographic dissolution that undermine traditional values and national cohesion.

Academic reception

While largely ignored in mainstream academic discourse, elements of the IQ Shredder concept have received oblique attention in demographic studies examining fertility patterns among highly educated populations and urban-rural divides in family formation. These studies typically avoid the hereditarian framing of Spandrell's original formulation.

See also

• Bioleninism
• Neoreaction
• Dark Enlightenment