Earlier today, it occurred to me that the rationalist community might be accurately characterized as “a support group for high IQ people”. This seems concordant with your observations.
I’d like to emphasise that in this context, “high IQ” means higher than Mensa level (which is what most people would probably imagine when you say “high IQ”).
I used to regularly attend Mensa meetups, and now I regularly attend LW meetups, and seems to me that the difference between LW and Mensa is about the same as the difference between Mensa and the normies. This doesn’t mean the whole difference is about IQ, but there seems to be a significant intelligence component anyway.
Earlier today, it occurred to me that the rationalist community might be accurately characterized as “a support group for high IQ people”. This seems concordant with your observations.
I’d like to emphasise that in this context, “high IQ” means higher than Mensa level (which is what most people would probably imagine when you say “high IQ”).
I used to regularly attend Mensa meetups, and now I regularly attend LW meetups, and seems to me that the difference between LW and Mensa is about the same as the difference between Mensa and the normies. This doesn’t mean the whole difference is about IQ, but there seems to be a significant intelligence component anyway.