July 24, 2012
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Speaking of Smart People…
Would you be interested in viewing a blogsite written and managed by members of one of the really high IQ societies?
Not MENSA – that’s too plebian for this bunch. Someone has suggested an “Open” high IQ site perhaps to attract more members.
What do you think? What would be the advantage of viewing such a site, which would be managed by people with IQs in the top one tenth of one percent?
Do you know of any such sites currently running?
Comments (17)
High IQ means doing stupid smarter, faster and more creatively than normal people. High IQ does not guarantee wisdom.
It depends on what they talk about. And how they talk about it. One problem with people who have high IQs, they have no conception of ever being wrong about anything.
No, because such a site would reek of pretentiousness.
@mtngirlsouth - That’s an odd stereotype. Maybe I’ve been lucky, but the smarter people I know are generally very aware that uncertainty abounds in a lot of different areas.
@PrisonerxOfxLove - I tend to agree with you. One thing I’ve noticed about high IQ kids (I used to teach them) is that they tend toward high-achieving autistic.
@mtngirlsouth - Your comment is well taken with this caviat: Really high IQ people are seldom wrong about much. One characteristic of this group is that they actually do process information very diffetrently from most of us.
@whataboutbahb - You make a very good point – perhaps going to the motivation of why someone would want to join such an organization – except that they want to associate with other bright people. In which case, why would they want to open themselves to the general population?
IQ is one way of identifying really smart people. Interestingly enough, very talented people – if their talent has any intellectual content at all, tend to score highly on IQ tests ( I would suppose athletic prowess would not take exceptional intelligence, but a number of world-class athletes are also pretty bright).
My experience with this group has been that they may vary in their views about things, but they tend to know a good deal more about why they have their opinions than the rest of us do.
A blogsite/website managed by such a group might be very interesting, but I am not sure it would have much of a following.
No. The very idea would probably scare off a lot of people that would consider themselves of average intelligence, or smart but not “genius”. If I knew of one I’d probably read but not participate.
Smart people will quickly realise they aren’t smart enough when pitted together with smarter people.
@lucylwrites - I’m with you. I probably wouldn’t contribute much, but I’d enjoy learning from exceptional minds.
@Socrates_Cafe -
There are plenty of very smart people who are wrong about a lot of things.
A high IQ is not some mutant power that it’s being made out to be in some of these comments. Intelligence is gauged on a spectrum–IQ tests are one of the ways to gauge intelligence (and a pretty flawed method–though it’s still probably one of the best available).
Also “smart people” who only want to associate with other “smart people” remind me of the most annoying, pretentious people that you encounter in law school. (And usually there’s no correlation between their awful attitude and how they end up performing grade-wise–I actually don’t know any douche bags who ended up being near the top of the class.)
Please define high IQ. Do you mean geniuses or people who are above the average (100) on the IQ tests. I seriously don’t think IQ scores says how smart you are just how much you can learn…I think…yeah.
But I have to wonder how many people ever taken IQ tests in the first place?
@summereque -
The group, some of whose members are proposing an “Open” blogsite managed by members of the organization, is comprised of members who’s IQs measure in the top one tenth of the top one percent of the population – on most IQ tests that around 147-150. The group pretty carefully selects those test results it accepts and has world-wide membership.
Most school children in developed countries (US, Canada, Europe,Japan, etc) have taken some sort of IQ test, but tests which measure the upper end of the spectrum well are fairly rare.
MENSA is the best known high IQ society – members must be in the top 2% of the population – IQ around 130-135 on most tests
@whataboutbahb - When I taught smart kids, I fpund that they did much better when paired with other smart kids (I also taught “Basic”kids – those who were either fairly stupid (to use a psychological term
) or had other problems) Both experiences were interesting.
Very smart students often have trouble in school – and college – when they are not challenged or feel that those teaching them don’t know as much or are frustrated at the slow pace of their education. Sometimes they become so frustrated that they exhibit bazaar behavior or go off the deep end.
A bright person thrown into the opposite situation – suddenly over his head with other brighter people, or subjected to challenges he is not used to can exhibit the same sort of “psychotic break”- this may account for James Holmes’s rampage in Aurora,CO
BTW – tooting their own horn and acting pretentious is not a characteristic of really smart people – at least not the ones I know. Annoying pretentious people – like some law students – are most likely not eligible to be members of the group mentioned. They probably would like to be though – and have a certificate to prove it
Its obvious by the replies you got, that those commenting are not smart or brilliant even. So, I would say a higher IQ site would be intriguing not only to the mind but to the matter. Because Einstein always said… its not about mind but matter. So for Mind over Matter.
@Socrates_Cafe - My professor said that Mensa were those who had IQ of 120 or higher and that made me so happy and thrilled. I guess I can’t participate in the group only cause my IQ is 120 and not the range you want for the open blogsite.
I meant by the comment, I wonder how many people (especially in the US) take the IQ and know what their results are.
@catstemplar2 -
You want evidence of how overrated tested intelligence can be?
Go to:
http://top-law-schools.com/latest.html
or
http://www.xoxohth.com/
Both sites are full of people who have scored 172+ on the LSAT, which should be right around the 99th percentile for those taking the test. (For the sake of comparison: Mensa takes people who score in the 95% percentile on the test, which is around a 167, since the population group is college graduates and not the general population.)And there are plenty of dumbasses on those sites who have gotten high scores (including people who scored in the 99.9% percentile). Doing well on any standardized test (or just being very smart in general) does not mean someone has superpowers. For the record: I think you could find “smart” dumbasses in all fields, it just so happens I’m most familiar with the legal one (and law school forums dominate other grad school forums in terms of number of users).
I haven’t been here for a long time. So long, that Tychecat is the only person I recognize. I think I would like to comment on this entry, though.
I am quite respectably intelligent. I often find it difficult to converse with other highly intelligent people, though, if they are very impressed with their own intelligence. I often think that such an attitude is proof that the person in question is not as bright as he/she thinks. I think Tychecat is quite correct when he says that really intelligent people do not flaunt their intelligence.
I wonder what a blog site of self-proclaimed intelligentsia would be like? Would they really deal in the exploration of thoughts and ideas? If they did, it would be interesting and stimulating. If they just wanted to exercise their intellectual egos, it would be very boring!
@Nance1 - Hi Nance
Here’s a link to a high IQ site which I think is more or less open: hiIQ
You do have to sign up for it I think. Actually, those discussion groups of really intelligent people, like the one I mentioned at the start, have a mixture of pretty advanced discussion subjects abd the quite trivial. That org actually has a site which bans political discussion.
@catstemplar2 - @summereque -
If you want an amusing and accurate discussion of all these high IQ societies I recommend A Short and Bloody History of High IQ Societies