Something I learned viscerally while I was recovering from brain damage is that intelligence is fun. I suspect I’d want to enhance my intelligence in much the same way that I’d want to spend more time around puppies.
Context matters, I suspect. I don’t think that having a 140 IQ would be all that fun if everyone one interacted with on a daily basis was in the 90-100 range.
I have an IQ in the 140-ish range. (At least, that’s what the professionally administered test I had when I was a child said. Online IQ tests tell me I’ve lost 20 IQ points in the intervening years. Make of that what you will.)
I would estimate I regularly converse “in real life” with someone of above-average IQ a few times a year. This is just a guess, of course. One indicator of the accuracy of this assessment (granting that education as a proxy for intelligence isn’t perfect) is that no one in my circle of friends or family that I regularly communicate with has ever went to, or graduated from anything greater than high school.
You’re right it’s not fun.
The internet alleviates this issue to a large degree.
Context matters, I suspect. I don’t think that having a 140 IQ would be all that fun if everyone one interacted with on a daily basis was in the 90-100 range.
Unless you really enjoy winning or achieving social success and dominance (and don’t have an accompanying social disfunction to go with your IQ).
That’s certainly true. “If you’re routinely the smartest guy in the room, find a different room.”
And yeah, in a “post-Singularity” world that contained a lot of different ranges of intelligence I would probably tune my intelligence to whatever range I was interacting with regularly, which might involve variable intelligence levels, or even maintaining several different disjoint chains of experience.
And I’m perfectly prepared to believe that past a certain point the negative tradeoffs of marginal increases in intelligence outweigh the benefits.
But at least up to that threshold, I would likely choose to socialize with other people who tuned themselves up to that level. It’s admittedly an aesthetic preference, but it’s mine.
Something I learned viscerally while I was recovering from brain damage is that intelligence is fun. I suspect I’d want to enhance my intelligence in much the same way that I’d want to spend more time around puppies.
Context matters, I suspect. I don’t think that having a 140 IQ would be all that fun if everyone one interacted with on a daily basis was in the 90-100 range.
edited to depersonalize the pronoun.
I have an IQ in the 140-ish range. (At least, that’s what the professionally administered test I had when I was a child said. Online IQ tests tell me I’ve lost 20 IQ points in the intervening years. Make of that what you will.)
I would estimate I regularly converse “in real life” with someone of above-average IQ a few times a year. This is just a guess, of course. One indicator of the accuracy of this assessment (granting that education as a proxy for intelligence isn’t perfect) is that no one in my circle of friends or family that I regularly communicate with has ever went to, or graduated from anything greater than high school.
You’re right it’s not fun.
The internet alleviates this issue to a large degree.
Unless you really enjoy winning or achieving social success and dominance (and don’t have an accompanying social disfunction to go with your IQ).
I suspect that in the country of the stupid the moderately intelligent individual would be less successful and dominant than he might hope.
I would bet against you—with the aforementioned caveats that said individual is not socially handicapped and is ambitious.
I also wouldn’t call 90-100 IQ ‘stupid’ or 140 IQ ‘moderately intelligent’.
That’s certainly true. “If you’re routinely the smartest guy in the room, find a different room.”
And yeah, in a “post-Singularity” world that contained a lot of different ranges of intelligence I would probably tune my intelligence to whatever range I was interacting with regularly, which might involve variable intelligence levels, or even maintaining several different disjoint chains of experience.
And I’m perfectly prepared to believe that past a certain point the negative tradeoffs of marginal increases in intelligence outweigh the benefits.
But at least up to that threshold, I would likely choose to socialize with other people who tuned themselves up to that level. It’s admittedly an aesthetic preference, but it’s mine.