My big deal about you and me and my IQ

[leftyguitarjoe]

I have an IQ a bit over 120, and I got nothing but mediocre grades in high school and I dropped out of college.

Dont trust IQ's. Actually, most serial killers have high IQ  

[dobbo996]

A high IQ is not a good indication of either intellect or usefulness.

[leonswan2000]

Im about as average as can be. I know most of the people on these forums are usually well educated and very smart. [Big difference] If we are only here for the blink of an eye why aspire at all to use your intelect to help the world unless you truly enjoy it?  Why not figure out how to best enjoy your time on earth regardless of what it is as long as it doesnt hurt anyone. Everything has its possitive and negative and that includes both dumb and smart. Glad I'm in the middle.

[Big Mac]

I've taken a few aptitude tests and apparently one stated my IQ was roughly 147. I'm no idiot but I think these tests are hokey and people who use them as an authority of their intelligence should probably actually work on that. And I agree with what others have said. Just because you're smart doesn't mean you have done anything worthwhile in your life. I've met all kinds of dumbasses who contribute a lot to their communities. I've known plenty of "geniuses" who are so lazy that they would have starved to death in any other country long ago.

[Big Mac]

I have an IQ a bit over 120, and I got nothing but mediocre grades in high school and I dropped out of college.

Dont trust IQ's. Actually, most serial killers have high IQ  

Most serial killers are also right-handed.....

[Tanker]

I have an IQ a bit over 120, and I got nothing but mediocre grades in high school and I dropped out of college.

Dont trust IQ's. Actually, most serial killers have high IQ  

Most serial killers are also right-handed.....

Most are also male, white, and between the ages of 18 and 30. So unless you believe corelation = causation I think those that fall into any of those criteria will be ok.

[John_Silver]

A big problem with IQ tests is that they only test for a few different types of intelligence. Those types that are easy to test for but not necessarily the most important types. You can't really blame those that make the tests, we always look for keys under the street light.  :borg:

Out of curiosity, what are the most important types? I had been tested since grade school (my parents thought I was going to turn out to be weird I think...so I made frequent trips to see the men in white coats as a youngster  :hide:

Edited for spelling: *weird...not wired (which is a different problem)

[Whitney]

I've known plenty of "geniuses" who are so lazy that they would have starved to death in any other country long ago.

I went to high school with a guy who was in Mensa (claims he scored so high the government pulled him in to some place to get tested for being criminally insane; he wasn't one to make up stories but he might have in this case because proactive measures like that seem odd esp since it was pre 9/11).  

Anyway, he worked as a ticket taker at a theater for quite a few years after high school.  I guess he finally decided that just a bit too boring went and got a pharmacy tech degree at a local community college.  This guy was really smart and probably should be working on a cure for cancer or figuring out string theory...but he just doesn't see a point in working that hard when in the end there is no point to it all.  Of course, I kinda agree with him on that one; I just can't stand working the mindless jobs because I get bored.

[Big Mac]

Yeah but you also make more money, enjoy a more secure life, and your contribution to society can benefit future generations. He wasted a gift because he didn't see that it wasn't his alone. What if Norman Borlag or Nikolai Tesla had that mentality? What if Buzz Aldrin, Louie Armstrong (I know you probably think I meant Neil but no, I meant the musician), Sean Connery, Beethoven, Voltaire, Stephen Hawking, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Dawkins, Thomas Jefferson and so on had decided that hard work had no merit?

The world would be much poorer, darker, and frankly sadder if more people thought like that.

I think those who think there is no point to life are too uncreative or self-absorbed to see the vast richness of it all around them.

No offense, but the person that you knew in high school seems a little self-centered.

Whoever has the power to do good and chooses not to has no room to complain about the evil and wrong around him.

[ShyFrog]

The problem with intelligence is that 80% of this country, it could just be high school, acts like they are an idiot because intelligence is "uncool".
      This thinking along with general conformity has taught me to just hate people in general, unless they show that they can hold a conversation without bringing up penis size or how much they can bench-press.

[Tanker]

The problem with intelligence is that 80% of this country, it could just be high school, acts like they are an idiot because intelligence is "uncool".
      This thinking along with general conformity has taught me to just hate people in general, unless they show that they can hold a conversation without bringing up penis size or how much they can bench-press.

I wouldn't have wanted to be raised where the reverse is true, like Japan. School for 8-10 hours a day 6 days a week with 3-5 hus of homework a night. Then the rediculous amount of stress they put on getting good grades and getting into a good college. I saw a documetary a few years about it, crazy. Thier suicide rate for trivial things like a B grade and not making honor roll is nuts.

[tergiversant]

I'm not so much concerned about the quantification of intelligence in the g-loaded traditional IQ sense, because it is fairly useless in practice, except perhaps by pedagogues and even then it is fairly a blunt instrument.  One might well sensibly group kids by demonstrable reading ability for their classes on reading, or demonstrable maths ability for their classes on maths, but grouping them by IQ (with the exception of enrichment and special education classes) is not going to help students to progress as their best pace.  The two exceptions I’ve mentioned lie in the tiny tails of the bell curve and are therefore probably worthy of special attention.

All that said, I'm more concerned about the stigma of intelligence in the general qualitative sense, regardless of any particular quantification.  Students can be ruthless about teasing the smart kids who use especially "grown-up" words and concepts, whereas they've nothing but praise for children who excel at, say, sports.  This was especially a problem where I grew up in Chicago, and I fear my children will face the same challenge.  

p.s. I've been a member of high-IQ societies before.  They are like clubs for people that lack real interests or hobbies, like atheism or non-stamp-collecting.

[Kylyssa]

Yeah but you also make more money, enjoy a more secure life, and your contribution to society can benefit future generations. He wasted a gift because he didn't see that it wasn't his alone. What if Norman Borlag or Nikolai Tesla had that mentality? What if Buzz Aldrin, Louie Armstrong (I know you probably think I meant Neil but no, I meant the musician), Sean Connery, Beethoven, Voltaire, Stephen Hawking, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Dawkins, Thomas Jefferson and so on had decided that hard work had no merit?

The world would be much poorer, darker, and frankly sadder if more people thought like that.

I think those who think there is no point to life are too uncreative or self-absorbed to see the vast richness of it all around them.

No offense, but the person that you knew in high school seems a little self-centered.

Whoever has the power to do good and chooses not to has no room to complain about the evil and wrong around him.

This is a common stereotype about high IQ people, that they should change the world or they are self-centered useless failures.

I got this a lot.  I got so much abuse for becoming a florist, a frequent volunteer, and a writer rather than curing cancer.  But guess what?  I'm autistic, my parents ran away from home and I, high fucking IQ and all, became homeless because the change was too traumatic.  I missed out on my National Merit full ride scholarship because I was too fucking stupid to figure out how to deal with my parents leaving me without notice.  And who's to say I would have accomplished anything earth-shaking with the biochemistry and physics degrees I had already begun to pursue?

Getting out of homelessness was hard enough regardless of the fact that I was reading Heinlein and whipping adults' asses at chess by age four.  Employers don't give a shit if you can do advanced math in your head, recite pi to a thousand decimal points, do a reverse phone look-up in under five minutes with just a phone book, or read a novel in half an hour if your clothes are wrinkled and you don't have an address.  And honestly, they don't give a shit about that kind of thing if you dress snappy and live in a house, either.  They care about how well you can feign normal human eye contact and how well you can deal with people.

IQ doesn't always come with great social skills, creative genius, or stunning charisma like the examples you gave were lucky enough to possess.  And even people with high IQ's need other people to help them along the way.

But you know what?  I'm not some selfish failure because I haven't shaken the earth with my brilliance.  I don't have that particular skill.  My intelligence has only been useful for parlor tricks, a bit of fun, and for occasionally writing a clever bit of something.  In my opinion, no one who is a decent human being is a failure.

[Tanker]

Yeah but you also make more money, enjoy a more secure life, and your contribution to society can benefit future generations. He wasted a gift because he didn't see that it wasn't his alone. What if Norman Borlag or Nikolai Tesla had that mentality? What if Buzz Aldrin, Louie Armstrong (I know you probably think I meant Neil but no, I meant the musician), Sean Connery, Beethoven, Voltaire, Stephen Hawking, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Dawkins, Thomas Jefferson and so on had decided that hard work had no merit?

The world would be much poorer, darker, and frankly sadder if more people thought like that.

I think those who think there is no point to life are too uncreative or self-absorbed to see the vast richness of it all around them.

No offense, but the person that you knew in high school seems a little self-centered.

Whoever has the power to do good and chooses not to has no room to complain about the evil and wrong around him.

This is a common stereotype about high IQ people, that they should change the world or they are self-centered useless failures.

I got this a lot.  I got so much abuse for becoming a florist, a frequent volunteer, and a writer rather than curing cancer.  But guess what?  I'm autistic, my parents ran away from home and I, high fucking IQ and all, became homeless because the change was too traumatic.  I missed out on my National Merit full ride scholarship because I was too fucking stupid to figure out how to deal with my parents leaving me without notice.  And who's to say I would have accomplished anything earth-shaking with the biochemistry and physics degrees I had already begun to pursue?

Getting out of homelessness was hard enough regardless of the fact that I was reading Heinlein and whipping adults' asses at chess by age four.  Employers don't give a shit if you can do advanced math in your head, recite pi to a thousand decimal points, do a reverse phone look-up in under five minutes with just a phone book, or read a novel in half an hour if your clothes are wrinkled and you don't have an address.  And honestly, they don't give a shit about that kind of thing if you dress snappy and live in a house, either.  They care about how well you can feign normal human eye contact and how well you can deal with people.

IQ doesn't always come with great social skills, creative genius, or stunning charisma like the examples you gave were lucky enough to possess.  And even people with high IQ's need other people to help them along the way.

But you know what?  I'm not some selfish failure because I haven't shaken the earth with my brilliance.  I don't have that particular skill.  My intelligence has only been useful for parlor tricks, a bit of fun, and for occasionally writing a clever bit of something.  In my opinion, no one who is a decent human being is a failure.

I agree 100%. I stood out at times when most of my comrades in the army didn't read for the joy of it, or enjoyed philisophical debat just for the fun of it, ect. My time in the army got me asked the questions "Why are you in the army?" or "Why are you a tanker?" (the tanker nick name is D.A.T pronounced Dat, meaning dumb ass tanker. Very sterotypical BTW). The answer was usually "Who else is gonna pay me to blow shit up?" Plus I now have the G.I. Bill.

People born with a arbitrarily higer I.Q. owe nothing to anyone but themselves. To society they owe nothing more then what everyone else owes, which is to be a normal member of their community.

[Kylyssa]

The answer was usually "Who else is gonna pay me to blow shit up?"

I would love to get paid to blow shit up.  I say that every time I watch MythBusters.