This is a survey of people who joined MENSA. I would posit that most normal, healthy, high-IQ folks never bother, and there's a selection bias at play.
Haha, absolutely not. I get almost nothing out of it. I sat the exam out of curiosity, but if you qualify and want to join, you have to do so immediately — you can't decide to later on. I've been a member for 3 years, and doubt I'll renew next year.
There's a private Facebook group for members, which has some lively discussion from time to time, but that's about it. To be honest I just posted my earlier comment to stir the pot a little :)
He's saying that, on average, a high IQ person does not find Mensa valuable or interesting and so does not bother to join.
Whereas, someone who is lonely, searching community, depressed, etc and _also_ has a high IQ would be more likely to apply and join.
The fact that you happen to be normal, healthy, and a Mensa member isn't particular important when speculating about the possible selection bias. Although, we are just speculating.
Yeah, I was well aware what the implication was :) I was just stirring the pot really...
It's always interesting to read the general sentiment towards Mensa members — implying they join out of "loneliness" or "depression" is a hilariously unfounded assumption. I agree that Mensa is fairly pointless overall, but in my experience, its members are generally pretty representative of the general population.
My contention would be that many (not all) people are drawn to Mensa because they have difficulty forming relationships in mainstream society. I’d suggest it’s this trait that correlates with mental and physical disorders.
You have to frame it in familiar terms for Mensa members:
What conclusions can you draw from the following sentence?
"I would posit that most normal, healthy, high-IQ folks never bother, and there's a selection bias at play."
a) All Mensa members are unhealthy.
b) There may exist some normal, healthy, high-IQ folks in Mensa.
c) All Mensa members have high IQ.
d) No Mensa member has high IQ.
Literally that you’re a spaz? (sorry, I’d say this if you were my best friend, so nothing personal. It was just too easy. This snark was totally be worth the inevitable downvotes)
Mensa is the most boring organization I ever joined and its members the most self-aggrandizing. I quickly dropped my membership after a year. The Chamber of Commerce was infinitely more interesting.
I did that! Doubt I'm the person you're thinking of but it was something to put on my otherwise empty resume that would have consisted of jobs at Burger King and a oil change store. Once I had my first professional job under my belt, I left it off. No idea if it helped or hurt getting that first job but I suspect if nothing else it gave me a bit of confidence going into those first interviews after university.
This was not that situation and I have no issue with someone young and bright using it (Mensa) to get their foot in the door. My guy was middle-aged, from privilege and used Mensa and other BS accomplishments to swindle people into thinking he was some sort of tech luminary.
This is a common discussion point amongst members, and almost everybody agrees it's a terrible idea. (Unless you look up the hiring manager in the membership directory first, and see they're a member too...)
What I find interesting on that page is that the more recent (past 2-3 decades) college preparatory tests (e.g. SAT) are not accepted as substitutes to IQ tests. Shows the trend of dumbing down the tests, I guess.
That is odd. If the tests were simply dumbed down, wouldn't Mensa just raise the required score? The implication is that these tests have become less IQ-correlated. I'd be interested to see a comparison in the type of questions from the 70s vs today.
Responding in a vacuum, but the other explanation could be that these tests fail to discriminate at the high-end. If everyone with a high score is squished together, raising the floor just amplifies relative noise
Probably less reliable and more overhead. You have to constantly evaluate what the new equivalent score and who knows, maybe even the max score isn't good enough anymore.
That's exactly what they did - they have 3 bands of years for the SAT. Two year bands (<1974, 74-94) are accepted with different scores, and the more recent tests (94+) are not accepted.
The major change in 1994 was the allowance of calculators during the math portion. I don't know why MENSA couldn't make a similar score adjustment here.
Not exactly. There may be some correlation, but there are certainly people who can get in via an aptitude test who would not be able to get in using an IQ test. The testing methods are completely different.
A person can improve an aptitude test score with some appropriate training, but a higher IQ person will tend to score proportionally higher given the same training/experience.
Yes, but the tests don't account for a similar amount of training, and so do not provide an adequate comparison. The whole point of IQ tests are to present problems which the test taker sould not have previously encountered, thus measuring their ability to quickly devise a solution, and indicating their intelligence on a standard distribution vs the population in general.
There is so much correlation that the correlation of an aptitude test with an IQ test is basically equal to the correlation of one IQ test with another IQ test. (Around 0.8) By any definition other than "it can't be an IQ test unless that's part of its name", the aptitude tests are IQ tests. They do not differ in function.
That's simply not true. The form and function of the tests are fundamentally different. The biggest difference is that you can study for one, but studying for the other is considered cheating. You can see my other comment for further clarification.
You can respond to facts by saying "that's simply not true", but it's not going to be an effective way of convincing anyone else or of developing a coherent model of the world. The facts are that aptitude tests are psychometrically identical to IQ tests. They have the same characteristics and reveal the same information. Someone's score on an aptitude test as is predictive of their score on an IQ test as their score on an IQ test is.
What you claim is counter to the intended uses of the tests and their very definitions. One measures innate flgeneral intelligence, whereas the other measures skill or acquired knowledge in a specific area.
Then show me some sources to support your argument, because repeating false statements doesn't further your point either.
>The many different kinds of IQ tests include a wide variety of item content. Some test items are visual, while many are verbal. Test items vary from being based on abstract-reasoning problems to concentrating on arithmetic, vocabulary, or general knowledge.
The SAT tests abstract reasoning (read a story and answer questions), arithmetic, vocabulary... It's an IQ test.
I haven't taken an IQ test since... A billion years ago, so maybe it's the same, but having taken the LSAT, you can certainly learn them. My first LSAT I ever took was 78 percentile, whereas by the end I was scoring 95-98 with relative ease.
A normal IQ person can improve their IQ/LSAT/GRE test score with appropriate training, but a higher IQ person will tend to score proportionally higher given the same training.
First of all, over 6 of the test listed do not give results in IQ points. So they're not nominally IQ tests.
Second, and more substantially, here's an explicit clarification for one of them (LSAT):
"The LSAT is not an IQ test. It does not measure intelligence the way IQ tests are designed to measure innate ability. A person who is very smart can receive a low LSAT score."
You can find similar declarations for the others (non-IQ) tests listed.
The LSAT is not an IQ test. It does not measure intelligence the way IQ tests are designed to measure innate ability. A person who is very smart can receive a low LSAT score.
What's interesting in the context of the post is that apparently I qualify for MENSA on the basis of several test yet have had not the slightest inkling to even figure that out, nor absolutely any interest in joining now that I know.
Maybe MENSA is a representative sample of smart people, but I have a lot of friends and colleagues I consider much smarter then me and none of us are in MENSA, so I'm skeptical.
I went to their meetings a couple times by invitation, and it never really "clicked" - for many of their members, their MENSA membership and related activities are a big part of their identity and their life, and I wasn't able to connect. I heard the same thing from a couple of friends who also met their entrance criteria, and there's certainly a lot of selection bias. Which is fine, but it's not representative by any means.
I joined at a young age and after a couple of meetings realized it made no sense at all to me. Joining a club because you have a high IQ is like joining a club because you have a leg or a head. I think immutable attributes in general just aren’t enough to hold a group together, or at least make it interesting. Could be wrong on this one, though.
> Joining a club because you have a high IQ is like joining a club because you have a leg or a head
That's a bit too loose analogy. A more precise is like joining because one is tall.
While the principle still somewhat holds, the difference is in the consequences. One may join Mensa because they're likely to find people with similar tendencies/interests, as much as tall people may like certain sports.
Where are all of the satisfied Mensa members? Every time Mensa gets brought up a whole swarm of dissatisfied former members shows up to explain how it's not worth attending, and yet the organization persists. What's the other side of the story?
I know of two Mensa members. They don't seem to be dissatisfied, but they don't seem to be active in it either. Maybe it depends on the expectations one has before joining.
The selection bias works the other way as well: people who are happy with their Mensa social group get their social contact from that and don't bother hanging out on HN.
Maybe it's actually HN that attracts dissatisfaction? /jk It's a well known phenomenon that people are more likely to speak on the negative/critical opinions they have than to go out of their way to give praise.
So, first, Mensa groups vary considerably across countries (US has many people that seek some activity after retirement; in Hong Kong some seem to be attracted by the mensa email they can put on their CV; in Germany it seems a fairly mixed bunch, many of which are bored in their parochial hometown).
But I thought membership was well worth it. Discussions about random arcane topics, meetings and conferences, contacts when traveling, dating, a fairly open and tolerant social circle, etc.
The friend who invited me was (and is) a happy member - he skips the large meetings/gatherings and simply uses the network to find folk with similar interests.
To me, as an outsider, I don't see the immediate purpose of the club. I imagine most clubs are about activities or a mission.
I used to go social dancing and the purpose of that group of people was to dance, and they would have various events all about dancing or improving your dancing. If you join a social justice or politically minded group, I imagine your purpose is to engage in activities to further your ideals. But to join a club where there are other smart people... your goal is to what? Share interesting puzzles with each other? :D Try to make other people smarter?
I feel like it is because it's a group of people in the same field, which is constantly changing. There are topics related to the group that make sense to discuss.
With smart people, I suppose any topic is on the table. It's not specific enough for me.
It seems like most commenters are in software engineering or related jobs. But it doesn't appeal to lots of people in those fields. There are biologists and truck drivers too. And lots of people have pointed out most companies are tech companies now.
Most topics here might interest people for professional reasons. But they include things like "High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders" too. People love to debate politics. And "Is the Ship Still Stuck?"[1] is the top article right now.
I think you're only looking at "smart people" as people who want to share how smart they are. You seem to be ignoring the social isolation that can come with it. Your interests might no be similar to those around you, if you're a child you might be able to meet others who are different in the same way, etc.
I very rarely discuss IQ since so many people are hostile to it. A high IQ makes you different. Sometimes it's subtle, like as an adult you'll typically have different interests compared to a lot of peers, and other times it's far less subtle, like when you're a school aged kid and you're always made to feel different (FYI most school aged kids don't want to feel different).
I suppose so. It's probably more akin to a club for tall people, or a club for twins. There are things specific to who you are in those cases that outsiders wouldn't "get" and I can see the value in meeting up with those folks to feel a sense of belonging.
> for many of their members, their MENSA membership and related activities are a big part of their identity and their life
That's the case for many people that join a club, though, be it chess, functional programming, golf, gardening, or what have you, and happens naturally if that's where you spend a good chunk of your free time.
There seems to be some implication here that you believe joining mensa means you associate with people only for their high IQ. Just because that's the entrance criteria doesn't mean you hang out with some subset of those members soley based on their IQ.
Just as joining a sports team doesn't mean you only hang out with members of that team because they enjoy the same sport - the same holds true for people who join mensa or any other group I'd imagine.
This may be a consequence of the place you live in or the language you're reading their material in. I expect there are plenty of people doing environmental things (possibly under other names) in Africa/India/China.
White people also invented "rolling coal", so we have both extremes.
If something is true, I don't really care if you're going to try to attach a negative emotional connotation to it (at least if we're discussing things at arm's length).
A lot of people in prison also have those and also better off people like mesa members are going to have easier access to heath care to even get a diagnosis.
> It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ. For example, people preoccupied with intellectual pursuits may spend less time than the average person on physical exercise and social interaction, both of which have been shown to have broad benefits for psychological and physical health.
Is Mensa really an "intellectual pursuit"? I'm not sure exactly what Mensa does, but maybe people insecure enough to join an IQ-restricted club are more likely to be those who suffer from setbacks in other parts of their lives.
My limited experience with Mensa is that it's a social/dating club for high IQ people. It's been too long for me to remember the details, but I recall reading about studies that suggest relationships where IQs are too far apart (more than 5-10pts) have a high failure rate. If you're more than a standard deviation from the mean, it probably makes sense to have a special dating circle if you're looking for a long term partner.
That's interesting. Similar to how many people rely on university networks to segregate their dating pool roughly by IQ (although more informally). Is the gender ratio reasonable for straight couples? My imagined version of Mensa is a club that mostly attracts men.
IQ is not distributed equally among men and women. The median is the same, but there are more men at the extremes for IQ (both high and low). Mensa membership is 66% male. https://www.us.mensa.org/learn/about/demographics/
This is a weird one. There does seem to be evidence in support of the variation hypothesis, but merely mentioning its existence while not being a woman is enough to get you sacked.
The thing I don't get about that, or at least I obviously do get it but it lead to think, surely if you were hiring in volume you might be better off hiring women anyway since you can more precisely know what kind of candidates you want to hire?
Variation hypothesis actually makes sense from evolutionary point of view: you need as many women as you can get to produce offsprings, but only small number of men suffices to impregnate them all. So men are disposable, therefore they are where the mother nature does its risky experiments.
For diversity and inclusion in AI papers, they bring up facts like "All of the top 10 most-cited AI researchers are men" and then posit this as bad, and in support of a 50%-50% gender representation in AI. Like in: The field still has a long way to go. Not: we judged these extremely rare geniuses on their gender, and when you do this, you get bad diversity-and-inclusion optics.
And how to solve that perceived problem? Judge other academics on their gender, place them in a victimized group, and then compose your reference list with that in mind? The top 10 starts doing exactly that, because the guilt they feel is real. So they say nothing when privileged researchers can use the LatinX-in-AI, Women-in-AI, Black-in-AI, Gay-in-AI, Jewish-in-AI backdoors to get in a prestigious AI conference publication.
I joined to have something to put on my otherwise bare resume coming out of university. Never renewed my membership. Their magazine was better than I expected but the local newsletter didn't inspire me to actually show up at any meetings. From the few other Mensa members I've met, it seemed like they were active members in order to be able to socialize with people who were of "birds of a feather" so to speak rather than out of an insecurity but this is from a rather small sample size of maybe seven or eight people.
I was happy I had a score, but like you, I let my membership lapse. I also remember magazine to be good.
It is nice to talk to people who think well, I had few friends who were also eligible and it was really nice to talk to them even if their interests didn't exactly match mine.
While the literature does seem to support the theory that SAT is a good measure of intelligence, I still find myself jumping to the defense of candidates who may have scored poorly on the SAT. I feel it’s unfair to judge someone’s qualifications for a specific job NOW, based on the score they received on a basic general knowledge test in high school. I don’t like this idea either, but why wouldn’t college gpa be an even better measure? It’s more recent, relevant to the job they’re applying for (in most cases), and achieved independently of parental control (in most cases).
I'm not exactly sure, I've just been told so by others. My guess is that since you take it as a teenager, it's considered strange to include it as an adult. But I haven't taken any standardized quasi-intelligence tests as an adult, so it still seems like a useful signal.
People could also just lie though. I can't imagine actually confirming an applicant's SAT score.
Update: I'm reading people with (more) negative experiences. I guess YMMV :) Still, I wouldn't draw absolute conclusions based on this.
I was a Mensa associate, and participated to evening meetings in two countries (evening meetings are only part of the activities).
You're assuming, with "people insecure enough to join an IQ-restricted club", that associates sit on a high horse due to their IQ. It was quite the opposite; the clubs are very friendly, and what I remember is actually, fun nights playing board and social games (it's amusing to think that a significant part of a "high IQ" club is games :)). Definitely, nobody would recognize it was a Mensa meeeting if they didn't know it already.
In my personal view, joining the club because of (relatively) high IQ was no different than joining, say, a chess club - meeting people who have something in common.
Needless to say, there were lots of programmers :)
Just like in a fraternity, you get connections. Mensa is basically a network of highly intelligent people (or at least people with high IQ) that help each other in different ways for further their education and career. Being part of Mensa can open doors that would otherwise be locked or very hard to open.
I don't really care one way or the other, but my impression is the group offers a setting for like-minded (read 'higher-IQ') individuals to come talk about anything and not just the thing they are there for.
But what topic are they of like mind about? "High IQ" individuals might be left-wing or right-wing, religious or secular, capitalist or communist, etc. The only theme likely to be in common among all Mensa members is a pride in their IQ.
I think most people in that category love having people to have intellectual conversations with. I've been in a space with people who are naturally incredibly high IQ, and there's a special kind of comraderie that comes from not having to go through the lonely exercise of scaffolding everything that you're deeply passionate about.
It's community. Pride in IQ != The main reason to be centric around an IQ.
I've tested well in that sphere. It's an incomplete measure, but it does measure something, and I like being around/with people at that caliber in the "IQ" arena.
I want to be challenged. I want to have community where my heart is in intellectual things. I don't want someone to just absorb my information-excited rants, I want someone to fight me on them and challenge me to grow.
Most of all, I don't want to feel isolated or lonely in my experiences. We all desire community around what makes us us. It's a fundamentally human thing, I think, and denying it because it's some measure that some people use to prop up their insecurity feels a bit hurtful and/or harmful to people really seeking community there.
Not currently a member of any sigma-type IQ-only organizations. Just my thoughts. I love other kinds of people too. But people who think in that level and way are my safe people, and I can feel seen and heard with them.
Note: there's EQ and a host of other things not mentioned here. I'm just talking about the above specific insight in general. :)
> The only theme likely to be in common among all Mensa members is a pride in their IQ.
This is wrong in two ways. 1) IQ is not among the most discussed topics, not even close; so presumably other themes are in common. 2) Pride is not the prevalent emotion, generally or specifically with regards to the own IQ.
If it's a group in real life, then you also have the common factors that you wanted to join a social group and you live near each other.
That can mean a lot - it's why meetup.com has always worked for me when I've tried it, even if the group has no official topic. (Of course I stopped after I'd gotten enough out of it.)
I'm thinking about more typical clubs and interest groups. In a chess club, you can talk about chess without worrying about whether the person is interested in chess. In an underwater basket weaving club, you can talk about underwater basket weaving without worrying about whether the person is interested in underwater basket weaving.
The irony is: by your own definition, what makes you like minded is that you are all in MENSA.
Hey, let's start a "people who wear blue shoes" society. We're all like minded, I bet the conversation will be fascinating.
Put another, less sarcastic way: there's no guarantee they will be interesting because there is literally nothing guranteed to be in common except we're smart. But a chess club will be, because everyone talks about chess. This is why I found MENSA dull.
But also, this isn't a subjective analysis: it is a logical deduction. I'm identifying sets and drawing conclusions. You know, rational Ayn Rand stuff.
I'd rather hang out with dumbasses who can woodwork, or dumbasses who can tune car engines, or dumbasses who can cook, or dumbasses who can run marathons, over smart people who have no other connection to me other than we all scored high on an arbitrary test.
I was in an ultra-high IQ society called The Thousand. Not because my IQ is in the 99.9%, but because they weren't smart enough to figure out how to password protect their Ning group.
There was very little content, and the average poster was probably less intelligent than the average HN poster.
No idea and not vested.
I don’t see the difference between that and a group of friends, because not all groups of friends exist because of a shared activity, some exist because they like to be around each other
It's disingenous, or, more precisely, rhetoric, to state that there are no correlations at all between people with certain IQ and traits/interests/likemindedness.
You've asked questions of whom you don't have interests in the answer (it's fairly easy to find correlations, in particular, reading the whole conversation), so this classifies as trolling in my opinion. If you had this attitude when you joined the club, I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't been treated friendly.
Many who join Mensa are/were developmentally gifted children/adults. For many such folks, finding a peer group with similar experiences (owing to them being precocious, not fitting in, not often meeting people with similar interests -- especially before the advent of the Internet) was/is generally harder (or at least low probability).
Mensa was one avenue where they could bond over those shared experiences with people of like-mind. It certainly wasn't perfect -- gifted children often struggle with loneliness and isolation, and don't have the easiest time with social interactions, hence the manifested social dysfunction in certain local chapters -- but sometimes it works out and they find a community of diverse individuals with whom they relate (as was my case).
No need to walk back your comment! I'm glad you had a positive experience, and didn't mean the "insecure" thing as an attack.
I guess it feels weird to me because according to the scores page, I could join this club, but my brother would be excluded. We could both join a chess club.
I've indeed heard about many good experiences. In my country they weren't particularly active (maybe still aren't, it's been a long time I don't follow their news any more).
My experience wasn't good. I think it was the most heterogeneous group I've ever met. That's not bad by itself, but it was detrimental under the circumstances.
Besides, almost 100% of them were at least 20 years older than me, so our interests didn't match. I think that that might have played a role on my discomfort -- I had the high IQ but didn't had the repertoire and experience to hold constructive conversations with them. And being extremely socially awkward didn't help me either.
However, between them, there were many disputes over silly subjects, pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, a constant, extensive and aggressive use of irony, and other "unanticipated" stuff.
I only paid the first annuity and didn't want to participate any more.
Yeah, it's kinda embarrassing and funny at the same time how this study is likely saying more about Mensa members than about high IQ people in general.
I've never seen that at Mensa in Germany, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Malaysia, UK, US, or elsewhere, really.
In fact, the matter of IQ has rarely if ever come up at all (except in abstract discussions of testing, factor analysis, operationalisation, objectivity/reliability/validity, etc.).
Gives a mermbership certificate and a number that they think they brag about to socially naive, gullible and arrogant (but otherwise smart), people (I say "think they can brag about" because nobody will actually be impressed by it, and it just makes them appear as crude idiots - IQ is not an accomplishment by itself, and the proof of genius is in genius work).
It’s your requirement though, not theirs. I’m not part of Mensa and have no chance neither will to join, but this attitude “do some genius work then we’ll talk” really annoys me. It’s unlikely that I will do, but if I did, we wouldn’t talk, cause who cares. Like they need to work hard to prove something to a stranger (I’d make it invalidate membership). Some people can beat that score, some cannot, that’s it. Social people do things to feel accepted and loved (or feared, or hated). Unsocial may do that for themselves, out of curiosity, for an idea, to fight with reality, because they can. But not to impress some guy out there. It doesn’t have to be utilitarian; analyzing sudoku solving methods with 4 digits or playing other hard “games” is as intellectual as creating a cure for cancer. The only difference is how some Joe judges or benefits from it, which is irrelevant.
If this reads harsh, I did not mean it, but you social guys think you understand better, but often you do not.
I never announced my iq because I’ve seen that the answer other people usually get is either “ooh that’s high” or “what are you bragging about, it’s a number” or “mine is N”. Never heard the one that I find actually interesting: “which test it was, and oh, how did you analyze Nth, because it has three patterns with similar fitness, but only two were available as an answer”. Never once.
>I’m not part of Mensa and have no chance neither will to join, but this attitude “do some genius work then we’ll talk” really annoys me
It's not "do some genius work then we’ll talk" though.
It's more "Until you do some genius work don't brag to me about how smart you are in IQ points".
>It’s unlikely that I will do, but if I did, we wouldn’t talk, cause who cares.
It's actually the opposite: people do care about genius work others do, as it can be touching (e.g. in art), evolutionary (e.g. in science), impactful (in tech, etc).
Whereas people don't care for others' IQ scores or MENSA membership.
>Unsocial may do that for themselves, out of curiosity, for an idea, to fight with reality, because they can. But not to impress some guy out there.
Well, that's another thing, and we can respect that.
But MENSA members ofter are more annoying braggards than even vegans...
I've never joined Mensa but I very clearly see the thing about neglecting physical and social pursuits because they are harder than intellectual ones :) Makes sense to choose things you're naturally good in, it's not really a 'preoccupation' as such.
Someone who is great at sports will tend to focus on that. It's just natural to direct yourself towards pursuits that come easily.
The problem with this thing of course is that it's self-enforcing. Less experience with social interaction causes even less ability. In the end that can lead to psychological issues. It did for me too, but I was really helped by my therapists and put back on track <3
A good example is that world chess champions are actually very athletic, especially the Soviet ones in the past and Magnus Carlsen today.
My FAANG experience is that people like outdoor sports and going to the gym too, I wonder where all the Linux con t-shirts and drinking Jolt cola people went…
While I was still in school I joined an event for people that were really good at math, like 1-2 students per school could attend. I think it went for almost a week and then there were subsequent monthly lectures, unfortunately about discrete mathematics which I didn't enjoy that much.
In retrospect, you could definitely see that some people came from bad social backgrounds (and thus didn't wear the best clothes for instance) that were just there because they were so smart. But for instance there was also a guy from a very privileged background who went to private school (yes, clean clothes, confident and good at sports) who was actually a jerk. Anyways, there were also fairly average appearing people.
What I want to say is, I think the whole observation is very skewed. People from not so privileged backgrounds are usually not that visible, but just because of a high IQ might enter opportunities (university, job, social circles) that might be otherwise inaccessible und thus they get into the spotlight.
People curious about Mensa should check out Jamie Loftus's podcast My Year In Mensa[1]. She is a writer/journalist/comedian who wanted to investigate the organization. She passed the test, joined Mensa, and was immediately ostracized once she began reporting on her experience. I'll just charitably summarize it to say that there are a variety of reasons why people join Mensa and many join for reasons outside what we might consider traditional "intellectual pursuits". I don't think their members are truly representative of people with high IQs or I at least hope not.
Keep in mind that there is huge variety among the national Mensa groups, and presumably also within a country. I haven't gotten around to listening to that podcast, but from what I gather it is not representative of Mensa, either.
I tried not to paint with too broad a brush. There are clearly people who join for those "intellectual pursuit" reasons, but that doesn't negate the people who join for less noble reasons. I have no idea of the percentage breakdown in the two, but the second group clearly does exist and can be a real problem.
Yes, your comment seemed fair! I was referring to the podcast itself. However, instead of responding further, let me first listen to the podcast, rather than relying on second-hand assessments.
The podcast definitely focuses on those problem members more than the good because egotistical assholes make for a more interesting story than mild-mannered retired college professor types who certainly make up a sizable portion of Mensa. However I also think it is fair to criticize a group as a whole when they fail to do anything to even try to curtail their worst members.
And obviously don't feel like you owe me any response after you listen or to even listen at all, I just recommend it for those interested in what Mensa can be like and the whole series is a relatively quick listen coming in at under 3 hours.
It'd be funny if the organization behind Mensa decided to re-test everybody on account of the COVID pandemic to ensure that their high standards are maintained and that members who drop below the required IQ for entry get culled accordingly. And of course ditto for those reaching a certain age, we would not want any accidental cases of Alzheimers posing as high IQ individuals now, would we?
I'm indeed a bit insecure about my intelligence. But when I took the test I was actually surfing an overconfidence wave, getting extremely positive feedback on my first job and being considered a prodigy -- it turned out that I was suffering from a very bad case of illusion of competence and my coworkers weren't particularly strong on electronics. Well, but I didn't know that by then.
It turns out that, now looking back, I realize I sought Mensa because I was feeling extremely alone. I was always thinking or working on something alone, since my teenagehood, and I was getting tired, despite the admiration I sporadically sparked.
Unfortunately Mensa didn't help on that. I really disliked the experience. The people, its goals, everything. The only piece of advice I got regarding my loneliness issue happened right after I delivered my test to the psychotherapist. She only said that I should try to find friends regardless of their IQs, because life isn't only about that.
> people insecure enough to join an IQ-restricted club
I don't understand this sentiment. There are race/ethnicity-restricted clubs, men-only clubs, athletic clubs, equestrian clubs, farmers clubs, car ownership clubs. However, when it's about IQ (something which you say you hold in disdain), suddenly out come the insults. Insecure nerds, right? They only have their insignificant test scores, they must be a despicable lot!
Did you ever stop to consider that people might be seeking something different, that this is their attempt at finding other people with similar interests? There is nothing wrong with one valuing their own high IQ test score.
Disclaimer: I have never taken an IQ test, but if I did I probably wouldn't get into Mensa, extrapolating from previous test scores and grades.
I was just about to make the exact same comment, but I think you articulated it perfectly. People are fine with literally every other type of neurodiversity but god help you if you so much as mention intelligence.
I mean just look at all the negative sentiment going on in the rest of these comments. Guys, there’s nothing wrong about seeking out people similar to yourself.
A score on a test doesn't imply enough for you to actually have things in common. (However, just being in a secret club might motivate you enough to find some things to talk about.)
You can get the Mensa experience without joining by having a Quora account - their AI always picks the oddest topics to send to you. For the longest time it would send me all the "what's it like to have a high IQ?" questions and I noticed 1. it wasn't really like anything, and 2. I didn't want to hang out with the people answering them.
You could also read rationalist-associated blogs, several of which are written by people who if you leave them alone for ten minutes try to reinvent eugenics.
e.g. I was linked this one yesterday: https://fantasticanachronism.com/2021/03/23/two-paths-to-the...
and there is like no self-reflection on the concept that maybe optimizing babies for "IQ" will not get you what you want, and that maybe Singapore is not actually genetically better or worse than other places, and neither was John von Neumann.
Maybe this analogy will help: joining a high-IQ club is not like joining just any athletic club. It's like joining an athletic club that's restricted based on a metric. What if you wanted to join a hiking club in your area but found out the only way to join was to prove you hiked X mountains first? I could see why that would turn some people off. It's not the interests; it's the cutoff.
Huh? Plenty of clubs are like this, especially athletic clubs, but all sorts of clubs have cutoffs. E.g. improv clubs have auditions, chess clubs have ELO rankings, and so forth.
Sure. My point was only that Mensa is not _just_ a club about a shared interest, which was implied by the examples given by the person I responded to. I suspect it's the cutoff that people don't like.
> There is nothing wrong with one valuing their own high IQ test score.
To me it suggests someone who's more concerned with being something special than doing something interesting. It seems like a kind of narcissism, and suggests that they're probably pretty boring.
I think LGBTQ-positive spaces are ideally supposed to operate as support groups for people at high risk of ostracism by conventional social groups. That's very different from a group celebrating possession of a marker of conventional success/moral value.
I never said I hold IQ with disdain. It's just an attribute, not a hobby. Mensa is more like a tall-people's club (descriptive, generally regarded as positive, quantitative cutoff) than it is like an ethnic club (shared culture) or an equestrian or car owner's club (shared interest).
"I decided to take an I.Q. test administered by Mensa, the organization of geniuses. If you score in the top 2% of people who take that same test, you get to call yourself a “genius” and optionally join the group. I squeaked in and immediately joined so I could hang out with the other geniuses and do genius things. I even volunteered to host some meetings at my apartment.
Then, the horror.
It turns out that the people who join Mensa and attend meetings are, on average, not successful titans of industry. They are instead – and I say this with great affection – huge losers. I was making $735 per month and I was like frickin’ Goldfinger in this crowd. We had a guy who was some sort of poet who hoped to one day start “writing some of them down.” We had people who were literally too smart to hold a job. The rest of the group dressed too much like street people to ever get past security for a job interview. And everyone was always available for meetings on weekend nights."
The "My Year in Mensa" podcast is a good (and entertaining) way to understand some of what really goes on in Mensa, and what type of people are likely to join.
> but maybe people insecure enough to join an IQ-restricted club are more likely to be those who suffer from setbacks in other parts of their lives.
to me this reads similar to the old misconception that all bullies are insecure (it's often quite the opposite). what makes you think that people engaging in a group based on what they feel is a big part of their identity are insecure? Do you think gay people in pride parades, minorities in various race groups, etc are insecure? I'm not taking a position on mensa, gender, etc. I just don't agree with the idea that people joining mensa are necessarily insecure.
> Do you think gay people in pride parades, minorities in various race groups, etc are insecure?
Well, uh, yeah, sort of.. I thought the whole point of gay/ethnic/etc pride events was to overcome the insecurity caused by marginalization in society. Is that not the case?
I don't know, I don't have insecurities relating to personal identity (despite being in various categories that some people would label marginalized, though I disagree with that worldview fundamentally) so I can't say how people who do have such insecurities think. If I joined a group about XYZ it would be because I want to engage in XYZ activity or discuss XYZ topic with others, just like religious people go to their various religious activities and so on. I'm not disagreeing that some of these people in Mensa, parades, etc may in fact feel insecure, but I do want to point out that engaging in a group about a topic doesn't mean you're insecure
Its popular to imagine that smart people have some pitiable deficits. I'm afraid that many, many smart people are doing just fine. If they join a club, its often for the same reason anyone else joins a club - to meet people with like interests.
I'm not drawing a distinction between smart and not-smart people here. I'm suggesting that perhaps the 99% of people qualified for Mensa who don't join are better-adjusted than the 1% who do join.
I joined Mensa at age 12 on a whim just to check out what it was all about. I had mostly positive experiences -- Mensa gave me a peer-group of grown-ups (mostly professionals) from whom I learned a lot. As a kid, my development was a little out of sync with that of my peers, so I really appreciated having a venue for conversations with adults who weren't my parents. I think I grew up faster that way because Mensa folks interacted with me as though I was an adult (even though I wasn't yet) -- no one talked down to me. Folks also really took care of me (paid for my meals, gave me rides home because they knew I had to take 2 buses to get to the restaurants we usually met in). We had a lot of fun eating out together and talking about life.
There was also the monthly national newsletter, in which members wrote in about their varied interests, from computers to chess to philosophy (this back in the early 90s when the Internet wasn't yet a thing). So many of my interests of that era came about from learning about new stuff through the newsletter. I remember having great fun corresponding via snail mail with people of like mind.
I can't vouch for the experience in every Mensa chapter (I have been in meetings which were full of hyper-rationalist types who were low in emotional intelligence), but the chapter I was part of during my formative years really left a mark on me. (in a good way)
> Although the reasons are not fully understood, they also tend to live longer, healthier lives, and are less likely to experience negative life events such as bankruptcy.
I’ll tell you why. Smart people listen to experts. Dumb people listen to other dumb people based on feeling.
Case in point, the current pandemic. High-IQ people will get vaccinated. The people who won’t because of various conspiracy theories and misinformation are probably all low-IQ, so more of them will die.
One would think so, but not so much. MENSA forums are rife with conspiracy theories, as any MENSA member can attest. Anecdata, but shrug. It's all anyone has, AFAIK.
I suspect that high IQ people are in fact more susceptible to conspiracy thinking than most. The randomness of the universe is scary. Sometimes bad things happen to good people for no reason. Much easier emotionally for some to live in a world where things happen for a reason, even if that reason is due to malevolent intent. At least a malevolent conspiracy can be fought or exposed or understood.
IQ measures pattern recognition. If one is mentally ill, or otherwise intent on finding explanations where none exist, one might see patterns where none exist. If you have a high IQ, the more plausible and internally consistent your narratives will be, and since you're generally right about a lot, all the more reason to believe that your theory isn't a theory at all, but reality.
I am not getting vaccinated, because I've analyzed that my odds of dying of Covid-19 at my age and health are less than my odds of dying in a car wreck. And I'm comfortable with that risk as opposed to the unknown long-term risks of RNA therapy.
The RNA therapy doesn't stop you from being contagious. And yes, it IS about me, because it's something being injected into my body. We are all going to get Covid at some point, if you haven't noticed. I can't put that genie back in the bottle. If your risk profile deems that the vaccine is worth it for YOU, then YOU do it. Don't pressure other people to. Their health choices is none of your business.
You have not addressed any of my points and you're just reiterating a trope without providing any critical reasoning. A person who has contracted Covid and gotten over it is almost assuredly less likely to become contagious again than someone who has had the mRNA therapy but not contracted the actual virus.
You have no idea what the long-term risks of RNA therapy are. They are brand new. I might change my mind in 10 years. But right now, I'm not getting an mRNA therapy against a virus that both my parents have already survived in their 60s. I'm not getting an mRNA therapy against a 1 in a million chance of dying, in particular when the mRNA therapy itself isn't 100%. It's not going to save anyone's life and it's not prevent anyone from contracting Covid-19.
I did directly address your very first trope: that you claim it’s solely a decision for yourself, when it’s not.
As for the rest of your complaints, I can’t manage to find the patience or empathy to respond in as productive of a manner as others[1] have already done in this same thread.
Good luck to you, wishing you good health. Glad your parents recovered well.
It very much is, because if you have the gene therapy and you think that protects you more so than your own natural immune system, then you have nothing to worry about from me. You're protected. Anyone else who fears Covid is protected the same. You get to make your choice based on your own personal health choice and risk profile. I get to make my own choice. That we arrive at different conclusions based on our own individual nature, is the beauty of living in a free society.
You have no idea if it causes cancer or Alzheimer's or any other complication down the road and you can't point me to a long term study that proves that because it hasn't been around long enough. As I said before, if in 10 years time there's a long track record of success in the odds of any long term complications are less than my odds of dying in a car wreck, I may change my mind. As it stands, already the AstraZeneca has been paused in numerous countries on account of blood clots. And I've already seen one person get Bells palsy from it.
It's not worth it to me. And I've had plenty of vaccines, but this is gene therapy, it's not a traditional vaccine.
>>A person who has contracted Covid and gotten over it is almost assuredly less likely to become contagious again than someone who has had the mRNA therapy but not contracted the actual virus.
The rates of re-infection (especially with new variants) in COVID-19 patients vs the protection via mRNA vaccines indicate otherwise - where is your data?
>>You have no idea what the long-term risks of RNA therapy are. They are brand new.
Pardon the language, but this is straight-up ignorance or bullshit
mRNA vaccines are NOT new (or they are only new to you because you are ignorant).
The first mRNA published studies were in 1989 [1][2] and in numerous human trials since 2011. Any substantial risks with this technology would have already shown up [5]. mRNA vaccines do not alter your DNA and are very specific, and likely safer than standard vaccines.
You act like simply another random grifter free-riding on the herd immunity maintained by those who are smarter and more ethical. Your clever self-important justifications may hide your deliberate ignorance from yourself, but they don't hide it from others, and your cleverness shows that you know how to do better, but choose not to.
Reconsider; you are not fooling anyone but perhaps yourself
Getting a virus is also "something being injected into your body" and it's much more dangerous than mRNA, which has no reported risks and is 100% guaranteed to be not self reproducing.
Actually, we know that getting vaccines (esp. flu shot) somehow improves your health even beyond not getting what they vaccinate for. Getting the covid vaccine appears to cure long-term effects of covid infection in patients.
There's a difference between requesting that something be injected into your body and something injecting itself into your body against your will, and it's disingenuous to conflate them.
Really? You can think of no instances of people choosing to inject themselves with a substance that subsequently causes them harm? And far worse harm than a few days sick in bed.
* Death is only a small part of the risk. COVID-19 is not just a respiratory disease, it is more of a blood disease, and can permanently damage many organs.
* Lung damage can be severe and permanent, as in worse Smokers' Lung than heavy long-term smokers, even for large numbers of asymptomatic cases. [1], [2]
* Extended long-COVID can occur even after very mild cases. Initial data shows that these are significantly reduced by the vaccine [6]
* it is not just about you, but about you not becoming a vector. Public health matters to a society, you enjoy the benefits of the society, and share it's duty to contribute. Don't shirk.
* mRNA vaccines are not new, having been first published in 1989 [3][4] and in numerous human trials since 2011. Any substantial risks with this technology would have already shown up [5]. mRNA vaccines do not alter your DNA and are very specific, and I'd say likely more safe than standard weakened- or dead-virus vaccines.
Serious question: How is a mRNA vaccine different from getting a cold, where the cold virus, which is mostly genetic material wrapped up, induces your cells to produce it?
Well, the mRNA vaccine only produces some parts of a whole virus, so it seems less risky. What makes it more risky, in your assessment?
What long-term risks are introduced by "RNA therapy" that we aren't bombarded with all day?
Long, long ago, I came to the conclusion that intelligence was inversely related to sanity. Not a scientific observation, just that people who I knew who were very smart also tended to have difficulties in more ways than the people I knew who had typical intelligence. Typical issues were depression, insecurity, difficulty relating or communicating with others, ... Certainly you can find people with these issues in all groups who have these attributes, and certainly there were many very intelligent persons who had their shit together, but issues seemed to be more common among the very intelligent persons.
Very-low-intelligence people also have high rates of psychological disorder as well though. Perhaps brains that are atypical in their intelligence also tend to be atypical in other ways.
my ignorant hypothesis is that being too far from average decreases your chances of having a healthy social life and being highly social would be the underlying factor in predicting health both physically and mentally.
Agreed. If you live in a world that is designed mostly for and by people who are unlike you in some significant way, it's hard not to feel like an outsider.
And if feeling like an outsider is classified as a type of poor mental health or anxiety, well...
I feel that the best thing someone with a really IQ can do is enter into a work culture where their IQ is going to be kind of average. Their work peer group will overlap their social peer group and they'll have a sense of belonging. If you have a really high IQ child then get them into schools/clubs where they are more normal.
I'm pretty sure "psychological disorders" map a lot more to being abnormal than smart specifically. It's really hard to cope when you aren't getting that social hit that comes from belongingness.
Too much thinking is unhealthy. The brain's main purpose is to be idle as much as possible. Perhaps your intelligent friends would do better if they meditated regularly.
Downvoting without thinking is also not healthy, because @amelius is right. In fact, there are quite a few HN submissions discussing the side affects of too much thinking.
Someone who has high IQ and depressed, may still perform poorly at school. This can also be a vicious cycle. High IQ alone isn't sufficient for educational attainment, it's not even particularly necessary in most fields: for most people education is a matter of hard work and rote learning.
Of course. Gifted students are sometimes failed by schools. But I think it's safe bet that a random large group of college grads will have a higher average IQ than adults who only finished high school. Don't you?
It's open for debate though, whether the effect of depression (and other mental disorders) could have just as much influence as IQ when it comes to educational attainment.
Both factors can play their own part (though they may be correlated with each other as well)
Have you heard of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis? The idea that being really smart comes with major pitfalls most of the time is part of it IMO. I love the idea of the tortured genius, and really enjoyed Good Will Hunting. But by every study out there, having high IQ almost always leads to a better life across the board (relationships, physical health, mental health, money). There are exceptions, but some people are just smarter and that pays off in many ways. It's not fair, but neither is life.
Average quality of life is higher, but the variance may well be different also. Survivorship bias. Kind of like how senior leaders tend to have higher incidence of psychopathic traits than the general population, a trait which is also more common among the lowest-status individuals in our society (the prison population).
I find this really interesting because they seem to be tightly linked in both directions.
I know from personal experience that one's mental wellbeing affects how well I can absorb information. I think it’s also pretty clear that being better-off financially, as comes with higher levels of education, lowers certain types of stressors in one’s life.
I spent years thinking this was hell and people were actively trying to fuck with me because I could not understand peoples ability to be ignorant... it literally was not possible in mind to be so oblivious.
I've since realized that "herd mentality" is a totally functional survival mechanism, and as long as you don't think logically the other parts of the brain have no problem accepting that culture isn't just some made up game of pretend, or that popularity is a reasonable judgement of correctness.
I've met many another unique thinker who couldn't understand how so many people could be so blind to things right in front of their face. And it drives them a little bit crazy too.
Very smart people use “heuristics”. They will do something, tell you it was obvious, not be able to rationally explain why they are right, and turn out to be 100% correct. It is a pattern I have seen in some very smart people I know that appear illogical on their surface.
"Not being ignorant" requires studying a lot, which might be caused by relative inability to go out and play sports, or a condition like hyperlexia, or ADHD-type hyperfocus on refreshing HN.
Plus it's not always beneficial. For instance people like to heavily research before they vote in major elections but it's not like that's worth the effort.
It is also very intelligent to understand that “logical” thinking is not an optimal solution for many needs.
Seriously: watch for smart “illogical” people and be prepared to have your mind blown by just how smart some people are at something you are likely subpar at (your comment fits a stereotype of mine).
I think the article points at the correct root cause of most of this - “overthinking”.
It isn’t just the overanalysis of day to day occurrences, the worrying about tangibles and the ratifying possibilities of every decision, the playing out of realistic hypotheticals - there are vast categories of intangibles to mull over which will really get you down if you consider them deeply enough.
Most hyper-intelligent people I know are more or less consumed by existential dread. Some cope better than others - and that’s usually environmental.
I found building a business ultimately unfulfilling, as no matter what success we found, it all just felt like so much artifice, sand castles in a playpit - and in the meantime I’d worry about the collapse of civilisation (my god, it’s a razor’s edge we blunder blithely along), the insignificance of all human existence in an immense and dispassionate universe, whether anything is even real, anyway, and then, what does real even mean. Down the miserable fucking rabbit hole you go.
A change of scene was good. I dig holes, build things, cut and plant trees, sow seeds, and while the dread is still most definitely there, it’s bearable with a more direct connection to the here and now, the simplicity and challenges of the changing seasons, of just surviving in nature. Oh, and appreciating just how little control I actually have over my environment - my decisions don’t mean shit more often than not, as nature usually has other ideas, and a coin toss is just as good.
Which makes me wonder if perhaps the problem isn’t intelligence itself, but what the intelligent choose to do with it - typically some highly abstracted field, where it’s easy to feel disconnected from everything, and where the decisions to be made are complex and deeply interconnected in their inputs and outputs.
It’d be interesting to slice the Mensa survey by profession. It might be stronger than the IQ correlation.
You ever have to watch someone struggle with something you know how to do extremely well?
Like watching someone take 5 seconds per keystroke because they have to hunt and peck on the keyboard while slowly and deliberately sounding out the letters they're typing?
You know that feeling of wanting to just push them out of the way because you could get whatever completely done by the time they finish the next step in the process?
You ever felt like grabbing someone's face and just point blank ask them why they don't "get it"? Because it's the simplest thing in the world to you?
Now imagine your entire life was that. Of essentially having to wait for people to catch up to where you were. Couple that with the nagging thought in the back of your mind that you could be the one that's wrong because so many people are on the other side of the issue. What do they see that you don't? And then when they finally do catch up, treat it like it was the most obvious thing ever.
I can see how that would wear on people. How that would make them depressed, how they would be difficult to relate to, how it would be difficult to communicate with them.
Sometimes I feel saying that intelligent people have difficulties relating to people or communicating with others is akin to saying it's difficult to run as fast as Usain Bolt. It's like "No shit, but it's not a problem on Bolt's end".
Yes, and they wind up working alone because they don't have the patience to explain to people who take too long to understand what they are trying to do. That behavior gets interpreted as self-centeredness and lack of team spirit, leading to loneliness and a more or less self-imposed banishment.
No, because you should shape your life differently in that case. The people I know who were both intelligent and depressed dramatically improved their life by doing less thinking.
Exercise, play a musical instrument, explore nature, help people in need, go after that girl/guy you like.
But no. Instead, those aforementioned people spent the majority of their time doing stuff that require intelligence: solving hard problems, debating others "for fun", philosophising. And then, at the end of the day, they felt sorry for themselves because they were oh so intelligent.
Luckily they fixed their issues, and I'm convinced that most people who fall in this category can do the same.
What makes you assume that they don't exercise, play an instrument, etc?
And why is it on the intelligent to "do less thinking" instead of the world to understand that they can't think on the same level?
We don't ask those with extreme physical gifts to sell themselves short in order to accommodate those less gifted. We don't ask those with virtuoso talents to "do less creativity".
Why must those with extreme intellectual gifts "think less"?
That does them and the world a disservice. Why can't we accept them as we accept every other category of people.
> What makes you assume that they don't exercise, play an instrument, etc?
I clearly speak of people I know: "The people I know", "Those aforementioned people". Also, they often did do one, maybe two of these things, but their life wasn't balanced at all.
> why is it on the intelligent to "do less thinking"
The other alternative you offer is hoping that the world will change, which it obviously wont.
> Why must those with extreme intellectual gifts "think less"
Nobody should think too much.
> Why can't we accept them as we accept every other category of people.
Intelligent people are accepted. Understood? Not so much, but they are accepted.
When you're depressed due to your intelligence, you should fix your issues. Learn how to cope with things, talk to a therapist, spend more time doing and less time thinking, talk to people, stop feeling sorry for yourself, take responsibility for your life.
> Intelligent people are accepted. Understood? Not so much, but they are accepted.
Accepted because you conform to a certain societal expectation is not really acceptance. And if they were truly understood
> I clearly speak of people I know: "The people I know", "Those aforementioned people". Also, they often did do one, maybe two of these things, but their life wasn't balanced at all.
So not just anecdotal data, but highly subjective anecdotal data. That's not convincing at all.
> Nobody should think too much.
Nobody should run too fast, lift too much, be too tall, be too short, be too good at anything. Don't ever risk making the average even the slightest bit uncomfortable.
> Accepted because you conform to a certain societal expectation is not really acceptance.
Social acceptance heavily depends on conformity. Groups don't welcome you if you do not conform to group identity. This is why not every group works for every individual. Sure, sometimes groups should overcome prejudice or stigma, but when you're "difficult to relate to", or "difficult to communicate with" (your examples), then most groups won't be welcoming and I find that quite understandable. Luckily however, some groups (Mensa perhaps) will welcome you. That's usually also why such groups are founded in the first place.
> So not just anecdotal data
This was the entire structure of my first comment, and I never hid that one bit.
> but highly subjective anecdotal data
Those people were way happier after they lived more balanced lives, but happiness is an emotion and thus subjective, that's definitely true.
> Nobody should run too fast, lift too much, be too tall, be too short, be too good at anything. Don't ever risk making the average even the slightest bit uncomfortable.
This is just twisting my argument into an apagoge.
I mainly wrote my comments to offer a different view to the depressed intelligent people, as it often feels like there are quite a few here on HN. I've met very smart and depressed people, and they often felt very sorry for themselves and blamed the world. I tried to convince them that a different approach would help more, and they live way happier lives now. I know that's anecdotal, I know that's subjective. I never hid that, but just tried to offer my take on the issue.
That stands to reason, if we assume that evolution arrives at largely efficient (specifically locally optimal) solutions: any trait that comes in handy would be selected for until its negative consequences (on average) just compensate any further increase.
This would predict that higher intelligence is correlated with something detrimental, whether it be insanity or something else.
My pet (and layman) theory is that people with exceptionally high IQs might have a higher rate of genetic mutation compared to the general population. In my experience people with exceptionally high IQs often look unusual.
If that relationship is true, it might also explain a higher rate of mental and physical disorders, many of which can result from genetic mutations.
I have read the opposite hypothesis, that is, people with exceptionally high IQ have a smaller mutation rate so to speak. The argument is based on the belief that most mutations are destructive or disruptive and thus, when intelligent people procreate, there are fewer chances for the offsprings to be as intelligent or smarter than parents due to mutations.
In essence, it is the same argument as to why it is harder for viruses to become more potent through mutations.
However, I am not a geneticist nor a virologist or anything remotely close so take my comment with a large grain of salt.
Huh? I have met many high IQ individuals in my life and they've all looked relatively normal. Are college professors unusual looking? Are doctors and engineers unusual looking? I just don't see it. This article is a fluff piece based on a non-scientific survey of a non-scientific sample size.
Just because someone chooses not to do something, it doesn't mean they can't figure out how.
I'm quite sure I could learn the techniques for choosing fashionable clothes or applying makeup, but the list of things I'd rather do with my time is extremely long. I won't have time to get to half of them as it is, even if I live 200 years.
Aside from this being particularly focused around Mensa members rather than the population at large, it's unsurprising to me that there's a correlation between IQ and anxiety/depression. I'm reminded of a quote from Jiddu Krishnamurti:
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
They define high IQs as off the normal curve (on a given side), in the same way they define disorders. Why would they scream surprise when they correlate both factors?
As I am currently watching a documentary on the college admissions scandal I would love to see a correlation between standardized test scores, preparation in dollars, and IQ.
My initial assessment is that there isn’t any correlation between IQ and test scores, ergo the tests are measure of preparation and preference not merit or performance.
> The SAT – ASVAB correlation is quite strong and it is probably weakened by range restriction effects. People with lower IQ scores and/or lower HS GPA are much less likely to sit for the SAT.
That's a bullshit guess.
More importantly that study did not account for performance disparities versus preparation.
Putting aside the question of the selection effect (which, frankly, seems like it could only realistically go in one direction, unless you want to propose a plausible mechanism by which people with higher than average IQ are _less_ likely to sit for these standardized exams)...
You could also spend 5 seconds Googling the question and find that that this is not exactly an untrod ground in academic literature. The relationship is strong and well-established, far more so than almost any other result from the social sciences.
Also, yes, test results, can, in fact, be improved by studying (or other things!). This does not mean that they are not strongly correlated to IQ. Reality is generally not monocausal. I don't see how this contradicts the original claim.
> This does not mean that they are not strongly correlated to IQ.
It does not mean they are related or that they aren’t, which only suggests you are missing the point: selection bias.
> You could also spend 5 seconds Googling the question and find that that this is not exactly an untrod ground in academic literature.
It has been studied exhaustively. The relation between IQ and academic performance is poor according to research from the APA in addition to the personal opinions of people who perform college selection professionally. That correlation is better than a random guess but isn’t anything close to alignment.
People, despite the evidence, need this to be true. After all it is a money making industry. Standardized college selection tests are like tax preparation, an industry that can be easily eliminated by a more simplistic unbiased and more effective tool. With enough effort to the contrary the arguments begin to sound like a self-sustaining fraud built around a fictional necessity and a bunch of bandwagon fallacies.
We aren't talking about the relation between IQ and academic performance (although that is also clearly established to be significant). We're talking about the relationship between IQ and ACT/SAT scores.
I certainly don't "need" it to be true - things are either true or they aren't, and needing or wanting differently doesn't change that.
"That correlation is better than a random guess but isn’t anything close to alignment."
Do you want to make a more specific claim? Again, the original claim you're attempting to rebut is "Many test scores (e.g. ACT) are heavily IQ/g-predictive." How strong does the effect need to be? Since, again, nobody is claiming that it's 100% predictive, merely a significant factor. Do you want to give me an effect size? Keep in mind the typical social psychology effect size comes out to r usually between 0.15 and 0.3:
> We aren't talking about the relation between IQ and academic performance (although that is also clearly established to be significant). We're talking about the relationship between IQ and ACT/SAT scores.
What is the practical difference?
> I certainly don't "need" it to be true - things are either true or they aren't, and needing or wanting differently doesn't change that.
You are confusing truth for fact. Truth is where you hang your belief.
To be clear this is the basis of the APA's opinion on the matter: http://psych.colorado.edu/~carey/pdfFiles/IQ_Neisser2.pdf and the APA suggests there is only about a 81% alignment between IQ and academic/test performance. A 50% alignment, when there are only 2 items to compare, is random guess.
All opinions that test results correlate with performance are, either directly or indirectly, rooted in Lewis Terman's famous work on IQ which has been disqualified many times. His research wasn't even good and failed in his own assessment over a longitudinal study. Yet, people still follow this garbage.
Some measures of educational aptitude correlate highly with IQ tests – for instance, Frey & Detterman (2004) reported a correlation of 0.82 between g (general intelligence factor) and SAT scores; other research found a correlation of 0.81 between g and GCSE scores, with the explained variance ranging "from 58.6% in Mathematics and 48% in English to 18.1% in Art and Design".
The first paragraph of that Wikipedia article affirms my opinion:
> The correlation between IQ scores and grades is about .50. This means that the explained variance is 25%. Achieving good grades depends on many factors other than IQ, such as "persistence, interest in school, and willingness to study" (p. 81).
While that paragraph specifically mentions school grades instead a more narrow subset of certain specific tests the point still stands as affirmed by the APA. The numbers you quoted from the third paragraph allow are only about 80% aligned. That is a tiny bit better than half between perfection and a random guess.
The unfortunate reality is that performance on those tests is primarily a direct correlation of time and money spent on preparation specifically for those tests. A major differentiator between those standardized tests and many general IQ tests is centrality versus assessment distribution. You wouldn't for example test creativity with a multiple choice question with only one correct answer the same for everybody.
Look, most people who are from a higher income population want to believe that standardized tests are a fair reflection of intelligence, because with enough practice and preparation they can score higher and thus believe they are more intelligent than the population at large. If the population at large spent less effort preparing for the test then its value as a tool of performance compared to other people is less valid. That is selection bias.
Agreed, there are probably some stability concerns. But I expect the largest aspect is just energy usage. Brains use a lot of energy and until recently it was the primary limiting factor.
Otherwise we would also all have more muscle mass. There doesn't seem to be much downside to that.
Humans have (IIRC nearly unique) ability to have adaptive muscle mass. Gorillas get huge muscles without needing to exercise and by only eating vegetables, but we grow and shrink with our diets.
This is helpful because it means we can survive with unpredictable diets. But there might be other benefits like heart health or avoiding cancer.
Another big issue with huge brains is that your babies take longer to develop and are very hard to give birth to.
And your babies have to be born exceptionally helpless and vulnerable, often taking a year or more just to walk, whereas many animals begin walking in a matter of minutes or hours.
A significant portion of their development has to be moved outside the safety of the womb or their heads would get them stuck!
> or to be tantamount to training on IQ tests themselves which destroys their meaning (like memorizing vocabulary)
I have trouble understanding how people can make this point and still be big believers in (utility of?) IQs. If training for IQ tests destroys their validity they never had much in the first place.
There's a lot of “smart” people who were forced to be so by their parents, and suffer as a result of it. (Bad childhood experiences can cause all sorts of lasting damage.) I can see that being a possible factor for high IQ being associated with e.g. anxiety.
Many people are tested w/o their knowledge in childhood, so there is no cost. If you ever get a chance to examine your grades and/or middle school records then you may find an IQ there.
High IQs also associated with being irritated by editors who write headlines like this. (n=1)
They buried the lede: "It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ. For example, people preoccupied with intellectual pursuits may spend less time than the average person on physical exercise and social interaction, both of which have been shown to have broad benefits for psychological and physical health."
When understanding any sort of genetically determined trait, it's important to remember that there are often two orthogonal forces at work.
One is the overall concentration of rare mutations. The vast majority of mutations have a negative impact on fitness, so rare mutations (which haven't had enough time to be selected by evolution), almost always are bad across the board. This is why we see an association between IQ and facial symmetry. A random cosmic ray that flips a bit in the genome will lead to transcription errors which cause subtle but persistent problems across the phenotype. Individuals with a high mutagenic load are more likely to have a whole cluster of unambiguously bad outcomes.
The second force at work though are specific tradeoffs made by natural selection. Unlike rare mutations, an allele that's penetrated some fraction of the population comes with both advantages and disadvantages. Otherwise over time, it's penetration would either fall to zero if unambiguously bad, or rise to one if unambiguously good. You're more likely to see this allele have varying penetration for populations in different environments. For example Africans have high rates of sickle cell, because the advantage of malarial protection outweighs the disadvantages. Northern Europeans have high rates of hemochromatosis, because a very high dairy diet creates a high risk of anemia.
With that in mind, it's very hard to disentangle the relationship between phenotypical traits. To a first approximation, high IQ people are mostly those who won the genetic lottery and have low mutational load. You'd expect them to be healthier along virtually every metric.
However, that doesn't tell you if there's a fundamental evolutionary tradeoff. It very well could be the case that intelligence increases the risk of anxiety, schizophrenia or autism. There may be certain design constraints that evolution's working with, where increasing intelligence on the population level comes at too high of a cost in other areas. One example of this is that we know that APOE4, a gene that drastically increases risk of Alzheimers, confers a significant memory and IQ advantage in youth.
Because I often feel that it's a combination of both. You need luck to get certain opportunities, but fully taking advantage of them or maintaining them requires putting in the work.
I am not sure if that is a tongue in cheek "yes", but yeah IIRC his answer (after some precursory modeling/scripting) was that yes it's both.
Something along the lines of: There is so many variables and so many people, so the person who is gonna be the next Gates/Jobs/Musk will have to hit the jackpot all of them in order to get there.
Nb. it has been some time since I watched that video, don't quote Derek on my tongue.
It's a bit of a cheeky answer, but such in the way that I apparently agree with the video in question. Dismissing the role luck plays in any endeavor is being obtuse. But so is ignoring the work that goes into being able to take advantage of the luck as well.
High IQ: Your brain perceive and process much more data than people with less IQ. If you don't filter and process them adequately you're prone to disorders.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 276 ms ] threadThere's a private Facebook group for members, which has some lively discussion from time to time, but that's about it. To be honest I just posted my earlier comment to stir the pot a little :)
Whereas, someone who is lonely, searching community, depressed, etc and _also_ has a high IQ would be more likely to apply and join.
The fact that you happen to be normal, healthy, and a Mensa member isn't particular important when speculating about the possible selection bias. Although, we are just speculating.
It's always interesting to read the general sentiment towards Mensa members — implying they join out of "loneliness" or "depression" is a hilariously unfounded assumption. I agree that Mensa is fairly pointless overall, but in my experience, its members are generally pretty representative of the general population.
- [...]
- Do you often fit poorly into a group?
- Do you sometimes feel desperate due to all those slow people around you?
- [...]
I think that says a lot.
[0] https://www.mensa.nl/hoogbegaafdheid
>I am normal, healthy, and a Mensa member What exactly do you mean by that?
This is not very high-IQ :)
What conclusions can you draw from the following sentence?
"I would posit that most normal, healthy, high-IQ folks never bother, and there's a selection bias at play."
Mensa is the most boring organization I ever joined and its members the most self-aggrandizing. I quickly dropped my membership after a year. The Chamber of Commerce was infinitely more interesting.
The insecure, the underachievers, the lonely, the narcissistic, etc, might be more likely to join.
The confident, the successful, the popular, etc, probably are less likely to join.
https://www.us.mensa.org/join/testscores/
The major change in 1994 was the allowance of calculators during the math portion. I don't know why MENSA couldn't make a similar score adjustment here.
https://web.archive.org/web/20161104152027/http://www.us.men...
There is so much correlation that the correlation of an aptitude test with an IQ test is basically equal to the correlation of one IQ test with another IQ test. (Around 0.8) By any definition other than "it can't be an IQ test unless that's part of its name", the aptitude tests are IQ tests. They do not differ in function.
Then show me some sources to support your argument, because repeating false statements doesn't further your point either.
https://www.theclassroom.com/intelligence-tests-vs-aptitude-...
>The many different kinds of IQ tests include a wide variety of item content. Some test items are visual, while many are verbal. Test items vary from being based on abstract-reasoning problems to concentrating on arithmetic, vocabulary, or general knowledge.
The SAT tests abstract reasoning (read a story and answer questions), arithmetic, vocabulary... It's an IQ test.
Not all standardized tests are IQ tests. Just as not all tests involving reasoning, arithmetic, and vocabulary are not IQ tests.
https://prepexpert.com/sat-to-iq/#
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/12/04/why-should-...
Mensa considers that scores from after January 31, 1994, "No longer correlate with an IQ test."
Second, and more substantially, here's an explicit clarification for one of them (LSAT):
"The LSAT is not an IQ test. It does not measure intelligence the way IQ tests are designed to measure innate ability. A person who is very smart can receive a low LSAT score."
You can find similar declarations for the others (non-IQ) tests listed.
The LSAT is not an IQ test. It does not measure intelligence the way IQ tests are designed to measure innate ability. A person who is very smart can receive a low LSAT score.
Maybe MENSA is a representative sample of smart people, but I have a lot of friends and colleagues I consider much smarter then me and none of us are in MENSA, so I'm skeptical.
I went to their meetings a couple times by invitation, and it never really "clicked" - for many of their members, their MENSA membership and related activities are a big part of their identity and their life, and I wasn't able to connect. I heard the same thing from a couple of friends who also met their entrance criteria, and there's certainly a lot of selection bias. Which is fine, but it's not representative by any means.
That's a bit too loose analogy. A more precise is like joining because one is tall.
While the principle still somewhat holds, the difference is in the consequences. One may join Mensa because they're likely to find people with similar tendencies/interests, as much as tall people may like certain sports.
The selection bias works the other way as well: people who are happy with their Mensa social group get their social contact from that and don't bother hanging out on HN.
But I thought membership was well worth it. Discussions about random arcane topics, meetings and conferences, contacts when traveling, dating, a fairly open and tolerant social circle, etc.
At least that was the only real benefit I remember seeing in my limited research years ago.
I used to go social dancing and the purpose of that group of people was to dance, and they would have various events all about dancing or improving your dancing. If you join a social justice or politically minded group, I imagine your purpose is to engage in activities to further your ideals. But to join a club where there are other smart people... your goal is to what? Share interesting puzzles with each other? :D Try to make other people smarter?
With smart people, I suppose any topic is on the table. It's not specific enough for me.
Most topics here might interest people for professional reasons. But they include things like "High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders" too. People love to debate politics. And "Is the Ship Still Stuck?"[1] is the top article right now.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26585282
I very rarely discuss IQ since so many people are hostile to it. A high IQ makes you different. Sometimes it's subtle, like as an adult you'll typically have different interests compared to a lot of peers, and other times it's far less subtle, like when you're a school aged kid and you're always made to feel different (FYI most school aged kids don't want to feel different).
That's the case for many people that join a club, though, be it chess, functional programming, golf, gardening, or what have you, and happens naturally if that's where you spend a good chunk of your free time.
Just as joining a sports team doesn't mean you only hang out with members of that team because they enjoy the same sport - the same holds true for people who join mensa or any other group I'd imagine.
At least they could stop calling themselves "scientific" american.
White people also invented "rolling coal", so we have both extremes.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-year-in-mensa/id149...
I think at least part of the conclusions can be attributed to selection bias.
Is Mensa really an "intellectual pursuit"? I'm not sure exactly what Mensa does, but maybe people insecure enough to join an IQ-restricted club are more likely to be those who suffer from setbacks in other parts of their lives.
The thing I don't get about that, or at least I obviously do get it but it lead to think, surely if you were hiring in volume you might be better off hiring women anyway since you can more precisely know what kind of candidates you want to hire?
And how to solve that perceived problem? Judge other academics on their gender, place them in a victimized group, and then compose your reference list with that in mind? The top 10 starts doing exactly that, because the guilt they feel is real. So they say nothing when privileged researchers can use the LatinX-in-AI, Women-in-AI, Black-in-AI, Gay-in-AI, Jewish-in-AI backdoors to get in a prestigious AI conference publication.
It is nice to talk to people who think well, I had few friends who were also eligible and it was really nice to talk to them even if their interests didn't exactly match mine.
If I were hiring, I would like to know every applicant's SAT score.
I recall reading somewhere that Google did a study on hires and found that the only thing that correlated with success at Google was SAT score.
Not GPA, not specific college attended, etc.
People could also just lie though. I can't imagine actually confirming an applicant's SAT score.
I was a Mensa associate, and participated to evening meetings in two countries (evening meetings are only part of the activities).
You're assuming, with "people insecure enough to join an IQ-restricted club", that associates sit on a high horse due to their IQ. It was quite the opposite; the clubs are very friendly, and what I remember is actually, fun nights playing board and social games (it's amusing to think that a significant part of a "high IQ" club is games :)). Definitely, nobody would recognize it was a Mensa meeeting if they didn't know it already.
In my personal view, joining the club because of (relatively) high IQ was no different than joining, say, a chess club - meeting people who have something in common.
Needless to say, there were lots of programmers :)
The difference with joining a chess club is you get to play chess.
So let's turn your proposal around: What do you get to do in a High IQ club that is different from any random collection of people?
Besides talk about how you are in MENSA?
Gender segregated groups in the year 2021 have just entered chat.
Nepotism has just entered chat.
You have left chat.
Perhaps people rub their temples or chins contemplatively.
But what topic are they of like mind about? "High IQ" individuals might be left-wing or right-wing, religious or secular, capitalist or communist, etc. The only theme likely to be in common among all Mensa members is a pride in their IQ.
I think most people in that category love having people to have intellectual conversations with. I've been in a space with people who are naturally incredibly high IQ, and there's a special kind of comraderie that comes from not having to go through the lonely exercise of scaffolding everything that you're deeply passionate about.
It's community. Pride in IQ != The main reason to be centric around an IQ.
I've tested well in that sphere. It's an incomplete measure, but it does measure something, and I like being around/with people at that caliber in the "IQ" arena.
I want to be challenged. I want to have community where my heart is in intellectual things. I don't want someone to just absorb my information-excited rants, I want someone to fight me on them and challenge me to grow.
Most of all, I don't want to feel isolated or lonely in my experiences. We all desire community around what makes us us. It's a fundamentally human thing, I think, and denying it because it's some measure that some people use to prop up their insecurity feels a bit hurtful and/or harmful to people really seeking community there.
Not currently a member of any sigma-type IQ-only organizations. Just my thoughts. I love other kinds of people too. But people who think in that level and way are my safe people, and I can feel seen and heard with them.
Note: there's EQ and a host of other things not mentioned here. I'm just talking about the above specific insight in general. :)
This is wrong in two ways. 1) IQ is not among the most discussed topics, not even close; so presumably other themes are in common. 2) Pride is not the prevalent emotion, generally or specifically with regards to the own IQ.
That can mean a lot - it's why meetup.com has always worked for me when I've tried it, even if the group has no official topic. (Of course I stopped after I'd gotten enough out of it.)
I've never heard it, and I don't think anybody, except people with incredibly poor social skills, would use it.
Hey, let's start a "people who wear blue shoes" society. We're all like minded, I bet the conversation will be fascinating.
Put another, less sarcastic way: there's no guarantee they will be interesting because there is literally nothing guranteed to be in common except we're smart. But a chess club will be, because everyone talks about chess. This is why I found MENSA dull.
But also, this isn't a subjective analysis: it is a logical deduction. I'm identifying sets and drawing conclusions. You know, rational Ayn Rand stuff.
I'd rather hang out with dumbasses who can woodwork, or dumbasses who can tune car engines, or dumbasses who can cook, or dumbasses who can run marathons, over smart people who have no other connection to me other than we all scored high on an arbitrary test.
But as you said, YMMV.
I was in an ultra-high IQ society called The Thousand. Not because my IQ is in the 99.9%, but because they weren't smart enough to figure out how to password protect their Ning group.
There was very little content, and the average poster was probably less intelligent than the average HN poster.
You've asked questions of whom you don't have interests in the answer (it's fairly easy to find correlations, in particular, reading the whole conversation), so this classifies as trolling in my opinion. If you had this attitude when you joined the club, I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't been treated friendly.
Mensa was one avenue where they could bond over those shared experiences with people of like-mind. It certainly wasn't perfect -- gifted children often struggle with loneliness and isolation, and don't have the easiest time with social interactions, hence the manifested social dysfunction in certain local chapters -- but sometimes it works out and they find a community of diverse individuals with whom they relate (as was my case).
I guess it feels weird to me because according to the scores page, I could join this club, but my brother would be excluded. We could both join a chess club.
That is exactly what I expected.
> [...] In my personal view, joining the club because of (relatively) high IQ was no different than joining, say, a chess club
Because in a certain sense, they attract the same people? Both seem a little bit competitive: One defines their members by IQ and the other by ELO.
I've indeed heard about many good experiences. In my country they weren't particularly active (maybe still aren't, it's been a long time I don't follow their news any more).
My experience wasn't good. I think it was the most heterogeneous group I've ever met. That's not bad by itself, but it was detrimental under the circumstances.
Besides, almost 100% of them were at least 20 years older than me, so our interests didn't match. I think that that might have played a role on my discomfort -- I had the high IQ but didn't had the repertoire and experience to hold constructive conversations with them. And being extremely socially awkward didn't help me either.
However, between them, there were many disputes over silly subjects, pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, a constant, extensive and aggressive use of irony, and other "unanticipated" stuff.
I only paid the first annuity and didn't want to participate any more.
I've never seen that at Mensa in Germany, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Malaysia, UK, US, or elsewhere, really.
In fact, the matter of IQ has rarely if ever come up at all (except in abstract discussions of testing, factor analysis, operationalisation, objectivity/reliability/validity, etc.).
Gives a mermbership certificate and a number that they think they brag about to socially naive, gullible and arrogant (but otherwise smart), people (I say "think they can brag about" because nobody will actually be impressed by it, and it just makes them appear as crude idiots - IQ is not an accomplishment by itself, and the proof of genius is in genius work).
If this reads harsh, I did not mean it, but you social guys think you understand better, but often you do not.
I never announced my iq because I’ve seen that the answer other people usually get is either “ooh that’s high” or “what are you bragging about, it’s a number” or “mine is N”. Never heard the one that I find actually interesting: “which test it was, and oh, how did you analyze Nth, because it has three patterns with similar fitness, but only two were available as an answer”. Never once.
It's not "do some genius work then we’ll talk" though.
It's more "Until you do some genius work don't brag to me about how smart you are in IQ points".
>It’s unlikely that I will do, but if I did, we wouldn’t talk, cause who cares.
It's actually the opposite: people do care about genius work others do, as it can be touching (e.g. in art), evolutionary (e.g. in science), impactful (in tech, etc).
Whereas people don't care for others' IQ scores or MENSA membership.
>Unsocial may do that for themselves, out of curiosity, for an idea, to fight with reality, because they can. But not to impress some guy out there.
Well, that's another thing, and we can respect that.
But MENSA members ofter are more annoying braggards than even vegans...
Someone who is great at sports will tend to focus on that. It's just natural to direct yourself towards pursuits that come easily.
The problem with this thing of course is that it's self-enforcing. Less experience with social interaction causes even less ability. In the end that can lead to psychological issues. It did for me too, but I was really helped by my therapists and put back on track <3
My FAANG experience is that people like outdoor sports and going to the gym too, I wonder where all the Linux con t-shirts and drinking Jolt cola people went…
In retrospect, you could definitely see that some people came from bad social backgrounds (and thus didn't wear the best clothes for instance) that were just there because they were so smart. But for instance there was also a guy from a very privileged background who went to private school (yes, clean clothes, confident and good at sports) who was actually a jerk. Anyways, there were also fairly average appearing people.
What I want to say is, I think the whole observation is very skewed. People from not so privileged backgrounds are usually not that visible, but just because of a high IQ might enter opportunities (university, job, social circles) that might be otherwise inaccessible und thus they get into the spotlight.
[1] - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-year-in-mensa/id149...
Yes, your comment seemed fair! I was referring to the podcast itself. However, instead of responding further, let me first listen to the podcast, rather than relying on second-hand assessments.
And obviously don't feel like you owe me any response after you listen or to even listen at all, I just recommend it for those interested in what Mensa can be like and the whole series is a relatively quick listen coming in at under 3 hours.
I'd always assumed they were called Mensees.
I'm indeed a bit insecure about my intelligence. But when I took the test I was actually surfing an overconfidence wave, getting extremely positive feedback on my first job and being considered a prodigy -- it turned out that I was suffering from a very bad case of illusion of competence and my coworkers weren't particularly strong on electronics. Well, but I didn't know that by then.
It turns out that, now looking back, I realize I sought Mensa because I was feeling extremely alone. I was always thinking or working on something alone, since my teenagehood, and I was getting tired, despite the admiration I sporadically sparked.
Unfortunately Mensa didn't help on that. I really disliked the experience. The people, its goals, everything. The only piece of advice I got regarding my loneliness issue happened right after I delivered my test to the psychotherapist. She only said that I should try to find friends regardless of their IQs, because life isn't only about that.
She was right.
I don't understand this sentiment. There are race/ethnicity-restricted clubs, men-only clubs, athletic clubs, equestrian clubs, farmers clubs, car ownership clubs. However, when it's about IQ (something which you say you hold in disdain), suddenly out come the insults. Insecure nerds, right? They only have their insignificant test scores, they must be a despicable lot!
Did you ever stop to consider that people might be seeking something different, that this is their attempt at finding other people with similar interests? There is nothing wrong with one valuing their own high IQ test score.
Disclaimer: I have never taken an IQ test, but if I did I probably wouldn't get into Mensa, extrapolating from previous test scores and grades.
I mean just look at all the negative sentiment going on in the rest of these comments. Guys, there’s nothing wrong about seeking out people similar to yourself.
You can get the Mensa experience without joining by having a Quora account - their AI always picks the oddest topics to send to you. For the longest time it would send me all the "what's it like to have a high IQ?" questions and I noticed 1. it wasn't really like anything, and 2. I didn't want to hang out with the people answering them.
You could also read rationalist-associated blogs, several of which are written by people who if you leave them alone for ten minutes try to reinvent eugenics.
e.g. I was linked this one yesterday: https://fantasticanachronism.com/2021/03/23/two-paths-to-the... and there is like no self-reflection on the concept that maybe optimizing babies for "IQ" will not get you what you want, and that maybe Singapore is not actually genetically better or worse than other places, and neither was John von Neumann.
To me it suggests someone who's more concerned with being something special than doing something interesting. It seems like a kind of narcissism, and suggests that they're probably pretty boring.
Then, the horror.
It turns out that the people who join Mensa and attend meetings are, on average, not successful titans of industry. They are instead – and I say this with great affection – huge losers. I was making $735 per month and I was like frickin’ Goldfinger in this crowd. We had a guy who was some sort of poet who hoped to one day start “writing some of them down.” We had people who were literally too smart to hold a job. The rest of the group dressed too much like street people to ever get past security for a job interview. And everyone was always available for meetings on weekend nights."
Scott Adams
https://woodrow.typepad.com/the_ponderings_of_woodrow/2006/1...
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-year-in-mensa/id149...
to me this reads similar to the old misconception that all bullies are insecure (it's often quite the opposite). what makes you think that people engaging in a group based on what they feel is a big part of their identity are insecure? Do you think gay people in pride parades, minorities in various race groups, etc are insecure? I'm not taking a position on mensa, gender, etc. I just don't agree with the idea that people joining mensa are necessarily insecure.
Well, uh, yeah, sort of.. I thought the whole point of gay/ethnic/etc pride events was to overcome the insecurity caused by marginalization in society. Is that not the case?
Overcoming shame is part of gay pride. But it was also a way to overcome marginalization. And lots of people go just to have fun now.
There was also the monthly national newsletter, in which members wrote in about their varied interests, from computers to chess to philosophy (this back in the early 90s when the Internet wasn't yet a thing). So many of my interests of that era came about from learning about new stuff through the newsletter. I remember having great fun corresponding via snail mail with people of like mind.
I can't vouch for the experience in every Mensa chapter (I have been in meetings which were full of hyper-rationalist types who were low in emotional intelligence), but the chapter I was part of during my formative years really left a mark on me. (in a good way)
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/867-my-year-in-mensa-55379945...
Probably no better piece on it, if you want to consider Mensa as a group of interacting people
I’ll tell you why. Smart people listen to experts. Dumb people listen to other dumb people based on feeling.
Case in point, the current pandemic. High-IQ people will get vaccinated. The people who won’t because of various conspiracy theories and misinformation are probably all low-IQ, so more of them will die.
I suspect that high IQ people are in fact more susceptible to conspiracy thinking than most. The randomness of the universe is scary. Sometimes bad things happen to good people for no reason. Much easier emotionally for some to live in a world where things happen for a reason, even if that reason is due to malevolent intent. At least a malevolent conspiracy can be fought or exposed or understood.
IQ measures pattern recognition. If one is mentally ill, or otherwise intent on finding explanations where none exist, one might see patterns where none exist. If you have a high IQ, the more plausible and internally consistent your narratives will be, and since you're generally right about a lot, all the more reason to believe that your theory isn't a theory at all, but reality.
Some things in communities take cooperation, you know?
You have no idea what the long-term risks of RNA therapy are. They are brand new. I might change my mind in 10 years. But right now, I'm not getting an mRNA therapy against a virus that both my parents have already survived in their 60s. I'm not getting an mRNA therapy against a 1 in a million chance of dying, in particular when the mRNA therapy itself isn't 100%. It's not going to save anyone's life and it's not prevent anyone from contracting Covid-19.
As for the rest of your complaints, I can’t manage to find the patience or empathy to respond in as productive of a manner as others[1] have already done in this same thread.
Good luck to you, wishing you good health. Glad your parents recovered well.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26573727
You have no idea if it causes cancer or Alzheimer's or any other complication down the road and you can't point me to a long term study that proves that because it hasn't been around long enough. As I said before, if in 10 years time there's a long track record of success in the odds of any long term complications are less than my odds of dying in a car wreck, I may change my mind. As it stands, already the AstraZeneca has been paused in numerous countries on account of blood clots. And I've already seen one person get Bells palsy from it.
It's not worth it to me. And I've had plenty of vaccines, but this is gene therapy, it's not a traditional vaccine.
The rates of re-infection (especially with new variants) in COVID-19 patients vs the protection via mRNA vaccines indicate otherwise - where is your data?
>>You have no idea what the long-term risks of RNA therapy are. They are brand new.
Pardon the language, but this is straight-up ignorance or bullshit
mRNA vaccines are NOT new (or they are only new to you because you are ignorant).
The first mRNA published studies were in 1989 [1][2] and in numerous human trials since 2011. Any substantial risks with this technology would have already shown up [5]. mRNA vaccines do not alter your DNA and are very specific, and likely safer than standard vaccines.
You act like simply another random grifter free-riding on the herd immunity maintained by those who are smarter and more ethical. Your clever self-important justifications may hide your deliberate ignorance from yourself, but they don't hide it from others, and your cleverness shows that you know how to do better, but choose not to.
Reconsider; you are not fooling anyone but perhaps yourself
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC297778/
[3] https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-mrna-vaccine-safety.h...
Actually, we know that getting vaccines (esp. flu shot) somehow improves your health even beyond not getting what they vaccinate for. Getting the covid vaccine appears to cure long-term effects of covid infection in patients.
We are specifically talking about the COVID-19 vaccine vs the virus itself.
Stop moving the goalposts of the discussion.
* Death is only a small part of the risk. COVID-19 is not just a respiratory disease, it is more of a blood disease, and can permanently damage many organs.
* Lung damage can be severe and permanent, as in worse Smokers' Lung than heavy long-term smokers, even for large numbers of asymptomatic cases. [1], [2]
* Extended long-COVID can occur even after very mild cases. Initial data shows that these are significantly reduced by the vaccine [6]
* it is not just about you, but about you not becoming a vector. Public health matters to a society, you enjoy the benefits of the society, and share it's duty to contribute. Don't shirk.
* mRNA vaccines are not new, having been first published in 1989 [3][4] and in numerous human trials since 2011. Any substantial risks with this technology would have already shown up [5]. mRNA vaccines do not alter your DNA and are very specific, and I'd say likely more safe than standard weakened- or dead-virus vaccines.
[1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...
[2] https://www.ibtimes.com/some-covid-19-survivors-lungs-worse-...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC297778/
[5] https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-mrna-vaccine-safety.h...
[6] https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021031...
Well, the mRNA vaccine only produces some parts of a whole virus, so it seems less risky. What makes it more risky, in your assessment?
What long-term risks are introduced by "RNA therapy" that we aren't bombarded with all day?
And if feeling like an outsider is classified as a type of poor mental health or anxiety, well...
It's open for debate though, whether the effect of depression (and other mental disorders) could have just as much influence as IQ when it comes to educational attainment.
Both factors can play their own part (though they may be correlated with each other as well)
I know from personal experience that one's mental wellbeing affects how well I can absorb information. I think it’s also pretty clear that being better-off financially, as comes with higher levels of education, lowers certain types of stressors in one’s life.
I've since realized that "herd mentality" is a totally functional survival mechanism, and as long as you don't think logically the other parts of the brain have no problem accepting that culture isn't just some made up game of pretend, or that popularity is a reasonable judgement of correctness.
I've met many another unique thinker who couldn't understand how so many people could be so blind to things right in front of their face. And it drives them a little bit crazy too.
Plus it's not always beneficial. For instance people like to heavily research before they vote in major elections but it's not like that's worth the effort.
Seriously: watch for smart “illogical” people and be prepared to have your mind blown by just how smart some people are at something you are likely subpar at (your comment fits a stereotype of mine).
It isn’t just the overanalysis of day to day occurrences, the worrying about tangibles and the ratifying possibilities of every decision, the playing out of realistic hypotheticals - there are vast categories of intangibles to mull over which will really get you down if you consider them deeply enough.
Most hyper-intelligent people I know are more or less consumed by existential dread. Some cope better than others - and that’s usually environmental.
I found building a business ultimately unfulfilling, as no matter what success we found, it all just felt like so much artifice, sand castles in a playpit - and in the meantime I’d worry about the collapse of civilisation (my god, it’s a razor’s edge we blunder blithely along), the insignificance of all human existence in an immense and dispassionate universe, whether anything is even real, anyway, and then, what does real even mean. Down the miserable fucking rabbit hole you go.
A change of scene was good. I dig holes, build things, cut and plant trees, sow seeds, and while the dread is still most definitely there, it’s bearable with a more direct connection to the here and now, the simplicity and challenges of the changing seasons, of just surviving in nature. Oh, and appreciating just how little control I actually have over my environment - my decisions don’t mean shit more often than not, as nature usually has other ideas, and a coin toss is just as good.
Which makes me wonder if perhaps the problem isn’t intelligence itself, but what the intelligent choose to do with it - typically some highly abstracted field, where it’s easy to feel disconnected from everything, and where the decisions to be made are complex and deeply interconnected in their inputs and outputs.
It’d be interesting to slice the Mensa survey by profession. It might be stronger than the IQ correlation.
Like watching someone take 5 seconds per keystroke because they have to hunt and peck on the keyboard while slowly and deliberately sounding out the letters they're typing?
You know that feeling of wanting to just push them out of the way because you could get whatever completely done by the time they finish the next step in the process?
You ever felt like grabbing someone's face and just point blank ask them why they don't "get it"? Because it's the simplest thing in the world to you?
Now imagine your entire life was that. Of essentially having to wait for people to catch up to where you were. Couple that with the nagging thought in the back of your mind that you could be the one that's wrong because so many people are on the other side of the issue. What do they see that you don't? And then when they finally do catch up, treat it like it was the most obvious thing ever.
I can see how that would wear on people. How that would make them depressed, how they would be difficult to relate to, how it would be difficult to communicate with them.
Sometimes I feel saying that intelligent people have difficulties relating to people or communicating with others is akin to saying it's difficult to run as fast as Usain Bolt. It's like "No shit, but it's not a problem on Bolt's end".
No, because you should shape your life differently in that case. The people I know who were both intelligent and depressed dramatically improved their life by doing less thinking.
Exercise, play a musical instrument, explore nature, help people in need, go after that girl/guy you like.
But no. Instead, those aforementioned people spent the majority of their time doing stuff that require intelligence: solving hard problems, debating others "for fun", philosophising. And then, at the end of the day, they felt sorry for themselves because they were oh so intelligent.
Luckily they fixed their issues, and I'm convinced that most people who fall in this category can do the same.
And why is it on the intelligent to "do less thinking" instead of the world to understand that they can't think on the same level?
We don't ask those with extreme physical gifts to sell themselves short in order to accommodate those less gifted. We don't ask those with virtuoso talents to "do less creativity".
Why must those with extreme intellectual gifts "think less"?
That does them and the world a disservice. Why can't we accept them as we accept every other category of people.
I clearly speak of people I know: "The people I know", "Those aforementioned people". Also, they often did do one, maybe two of these things, but their life wasn't balanced at all.
> why is it on the intelligent to "do less thinking"
The other alternative you offer is hoping that the world will change, which it obviously wont.
> Why must those with extreme intellectual gifts "think less"
Nobody should think too much.
> Why can't we accept them as we accept every other category of people.
Intelligent people are accepted. Understood? Not so much, but they are accepted.
When you're depressed due to your intelligence, you should fix your issues. Learn how to cope with things, talk to a therapist, spend more time doing and less time thinking, talk to people, stop feeling sorry for yourself, take responsibility for your life.
Accepted because you conform to a certain societal expectation is not really acceptance. And if they were truly understood
> I clearly speak of people I know: "The people I know", "Those aforementioned people". Also, they often did do one, maybe two of these things, but their life wasn't balanced at all.
So not just anecdotal data, but highly subjective anecdotal data. That's not convincing at all.
> Nobody should think too much.
Nobody should run too fast, lift too much, be too tall, be too short, be too good at anything. Don't ever risk making the average even the slightest bit uncomfortable.
Social acceptance heavily depends on conformity. Groups don't welcome you if you do not conform to group identity. This is why not every group works for every individual. Sure, sometimes groups should overcome prejudice or stigma, but when you're "difficult to relate to", or "difficult to communicate with" (your examples), then most groups won't be welcoming and I find that quite understandable. Luckily however, some groups (Mensa perhaps) will welcome you. That's usually also why such groups are founded in the first place.
> So not just anecdotal data
This was the entire structure of my first comment, and I never hid that one bit.
> but highly subjective anecdotal data
Those people were way happier after they lived more balanced lives, but happiness is an emotion and thus subjective, that's definitely true.
> Nobody should run too fast, lift too much, be too tall, be too short, be too good at anything. Don't ever risk making the average even the slightest bit uncomfortable.
This is just twisting my argument into an apagoge.
I mainly wrote my comments to offer a different view to the depressed intelligent people, as it often feels like there are quite a few here on HN. I've met very smart and depressed people, and they often felt very sorry for themselves and blamed the world. I tried to convince them that a different approach would help more, and they live way happier lives now. I know that's anecdotal, I know that's subjective. I never hid that, but just tried to offer my take on the issue.
That stands to reason, if we assume that evolution arrives at largely efficient (specifically locally optimal) solutions: any trait that comes in handy would be selected for until its negative consequences (on average) just compensate any further increase.
This would predict that higher intelligence is correlated with something detrimental, whether it be insanity or something else.
EDIT: Someone said it much better here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26573055
Most everything at the top and bottom ends of the distributions are problematic in some way. IQ seems no exception.
If that relationship is true, it might also explain a higher rate of mental and physical disorders, many of which can result from genetic mutations.
In essence, it is the same argument as to why it is harder for viruses to become more potent through mutations.
However, I am not a geneticist nor a virologist or anything remotely close so take my comment with a large grain of salt.
(Reverse causation: you don't notice that other people are smart, because they're well-dressed.)
I'm quite sure I could learn the techniques for choosing fashionable clothes or applying makeup, but the list of things I'd rather do with my time is extremely long. I won't have time to get to half of them as it is, even if I live 200 years.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
My initial assessment is that there isn’t any correlation between IQ and test scores, ergo the tests are measure of preparation and preference not merit or performance.
This is completely false - I'm not sure how you got that assessment.
Many test scores (e.g. ACT) are heavily IQ/g-predictive.
SAT used to be better at predicting IQ/g but it's still pretty good.
g-factor is the single largest predictor of academic success (which, these days, is mediated mostly by test scores).
Is there evidence of that? Many university recruiters at some of the most prestigious schools believe otherwise.
That's a bullshit guess.
More importantly that study did not account for performance disparities versus preparation.
You could also spend 5 seconds Googling the question and find that that this is not exactly an untrod ground in academic literature. The relationship is strong and well-established, far more so than almost any other result from the social sciences.
Also, yes, test results, can, in fact, be improved by studying (or other things!). This does not mean that they are not strongly correlated to IQ. Reality is generally not monocausal. I don't see how this contradicts the original claim.
It does not mean they are related or that they aren’t, which only suggests you are missing the point: selection bias.
> You could also spend 5 seconds Googling the question and find that that this is not exactly an untrod ground in academic literature.
It has been studied exhaustively. The relation between IQ and academic performance is poor according to research from the APA in addition to the personal opinions of people who perform college selection professionally. That correlation is better than a random guess but isn’t anything close to alignment.
People, despite the evidence, need this to be true. After all it is a money making industry. Standardized college selection tests are like tax preparation, an industry that can be easily eliminated by a more simplistic unbiased and more effective tool. With enough effort to the contrary the arguments begin to sound like a self-sustaining fraud built around a fictional necessity and a bunch of bandwagon fallacies.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/ps/Frey.pdf
I certainly don't "need" it to be true - things are either true or they aren't, and needing or wanting differently doesn't change that.
"That correlation is better than a random guess but isn’t anything close to alignment."
Do you want to make a more specific claim? Again, the original claim you're attempting to rebut is "Many test scores (e.g. ACT) are heavily IQ/g-predictive." How strong does the effect need to be? Since, again, nobody is claiming that it's 100% predictive, merely a significant factor. Do you want to give me an effect size? Keep in mind the typical social psychology effect size comes out to r usually between 0.15 and 0.3:
https://psyarxiv.com/2epc4/
https://jenni.uchicago.edu/Spencer_Conference/Representative...
What is the practical difference?
> I certainly don't "need" it to be true - things are either true or they aren't, and needing or wanting differently doesn't change that.
You are confusing truth for fact. Truth is where you hang your belief.
To be clear this is the basis of the APA's opinion on the matter: http://psych.colorado.edu/~carey/pdfFiles/IQ_Neisser2.pdf and the APA suggests there is only about a 81% alignment between IQ and academic/test performance. A 50% alignment, when there are only 2 items to compare, is random guess.
All opinions that test results correlate with performance are, either directly or indirectly, rooted in Lewis Terman's famous work on IQ which has been disqualified many times. His research wasn't even good and failed in his own assessment over a longitudinal study. Yet, people still follow this garbage.
EDIT: May this serve as some food for thought:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beautiful-minds/2009...
Is there evidence for that?
As has been pointed out, some national Mensas accept standardised tests as a substitute for an IQ test.
For references, see here eg.: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
Wikipedia:
Some measures of educational aptitude correlate highly with IQ tests – for instance, Frey & Detterman (2004) reported a correlation of 0.82 between g (general intelligence factor) and SAT scores; other research found a correlation of 0.81 between g and GCSE scores, with the explained variance ranging "from 58.6% in Mathematics and 48% in English to 18.1% in Art and Design".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_c...
> The correlation between IQ scores and grades is about .50. This means that the explained variance is 25%. Achieving good grades depends on many factors other than IQ, such as "persistence, interest in school, and willingness to study" (p. 81).
While that paragraph specifically mentions school grades instead a more narrow subset of certain specific tests the point still stands as affirmed by the APA. The numbers you quoted from the third paragraph allow are only about 80% aligned. That is a tiny bit better than half between perfection and a random guess.
The unfortunate reality is that performance on those tests is primarily a direct correlation of time and money spent on preparation specifically for those tests. A major differentiator between those standardized tests and many general IQ tests is centrality versus assessment distribution. You wouldn't for example test creativity with a multiple choice question with only one correct answer the same for everybody.
Look, most people who are from a higher income population want to believe that standardized tests are a fair reflection of intelligence, because with enough practice and preparation they can score higher and thus believe they are more intelligent than the population at large. If the population at large spent less effort preparing for the test then its value as a tool of performance compared to other people is less valid. That is selection bias.
"Mensa membership is associated with mental and physical disorders"
because the authors of the study base it on a survey of Mensa members.
Logically, it's likely there must be trade-offs for higher IQs or it would have been selected for more strongly.
Otherwise we would also all have more muscle mass. There doesn't seem to be much downside to that.
This is helpful because it means we can survive with unpredictable diets. But there might be other benefits like heart health or avoiding cancer.
Another big issue with huge brains is that your babies take longer to develop and are very hard to give birth to.
A significant portion of their development has to be moved outside the safety of the womb or their heads would get them stuck!
I have trouble understanding how people can make this point and still be big believers in (utility of?) IQs. If training for IQ tests destroys their validity they never had much in the first place.
But I think it stems also from being an outlier, never quite fitting in.
I want to do the test but I know I'll be disillusioned with the result.
Many people are tested w/o their knowledge in childhood, so there is no cost. If you ever get a chance to examine your grades and/or middle school records then you may find an IQ there.
They buried the lede: "It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ. For example, people preoccupied with intellectual pursuits may spend less time than the average person on physical exercise and social interaction, both of which have been shown to have broad benefits for psychological and physical health."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Nine_Society
Edit: I am not in the 99.9% society
Edit: /s
One is the overall concentration of rare mutations. The vast majority of mutations have a negative impact on fitness, so rare mutations (which haven't had enough time to be selected by evolution), almost always are bad across the board. This is why we see an association between IQ and facial symmetry. A random cosmic ray that flips a bit in the genome will lead to transcription errors which cause subtle but persistent problems across the phenotype. Individuals with a high mutagenic load are more likely to have a whole cluster of unambiguously bad outcomes.
The second force at work though are specific tradeoffs made by natural selection. Unlike rare mutations, an allele that's penetrated some fraction of the population comes with both advantages and disadvantages. Otherwise over time, it's penetration would either fall to zero if unambiguously bad, or rise to one if unambiguously good. You're more likely to see this allele have varying penetration for populations in different environments. For example Africans have high rates of sickle cell, because the advantage of malarial protection outweighs the disadvantages. Northern Europeans have high rates of hemochromatosis, because a very high dairy diet creates a high risk of anemia.
With that in mind, it's very hard to disentangle the relationship between phenotypical traits. To a first approximation, high IQ people are mostly those who won the genetic lottery and have low mutational load. You'd expect them to be healthier along virtually every metric.
However, that doesn't tell you if there's a fundamental evolutionary tradeoff. It very well could be the case that intelligence increases the risk of anxiety, schizophrenia or autism. There may be certain design constraints that evolution's working with, where increasing intelligence on the population level comes at too high of a cost in other areas. One example of this is that we know that APOE4, a gene that drastically increases risk of Alzheimers, confers a significant memory and IQ advantage in youth.
https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I
Because I often feel that it's a combination of both. You need luck to get certain opportunities, but fully taking advantage of them or maintaining them requires putting in the work.
Something along the lines of: There is so many variables and so many people, so the person who is gonna be the next Gates/Jobs/Musk will have to hit the jackpot all of them in order to get there.
Nb. it has been some time since I watched that video, don't quote Derek on my tongue.