People tend to get suspicious if you claim IQs above 125, and start analyzing data and looking for reasons to believe that the actual numbers are less. But I feel like such people really overestimate what an IQ in the 120s or 130s look like. If you go on the Mensa Forums, you will likely find that most of the comments seem rather dumb, and that the community generally appears dumber than LW.
A large number of people who report scoring in the 130s on IQ tests are not lying. If the number seems off but isn’t, then what needs updating is the impression of what an IQ in the 130s look like. I suppose that people dislike that some high IQ people just aren’t doing very well in life, and prefer to think that they’re lying about their scores
Yes, exactly this. I am a Mensa member, and unfortunately, most debates in Mensa are pretty dumb. All LW and ACX meetups I have visited were much smarter by comparison.
There is an argument that the average IQ in Mensa is actually lower than the officially declared 130. The idea is that if the test gives you randomly plus or minus 5 or 10 IQ points, and there are much fewer people in population with the higher IQ values, then “actual IQ is 125 and got lucky at the test” is still more likely than “actual IQ is 130″. (Also, if you fail at the test, you can try again. But if you succeed at the test, you don’t have to test again to verify that it wasn’t a fluke. This also decreases the actual average IQ.)
But even if we assume that the average IQ in Mensa is actually maybe 120, still the rationalist community is obviously so much smarter that the average rationalist is plausibly at IQ 130 or higher.
I am seriously puzzled about this obsession to prove that rationalists aren’t actually that smart. As if IQ 130 or higher is something magically unreachable. Show me a population where 2% of people are potential rationalists. That would be a magical land where you could have a Less Wrong meetup on every street!
I have more reasons for believing that Mensa members are below 130, but also for believing that they’re above.
Below: Most online IQ tests are similar enough to the Mensa IQ test that the practice effect applies. And most people who obsess about their IQ scores probably take a lot of online IQ tests, memorizing most patterns (there’s a limit to the practice effect, but it can still give you at least 10 points)
Above: Mensa tests for pattern recognition abilities, which in my experience correlates worse with academic performance than verbal abilities. Pattern recognition abilities also select for people with autism (they tend to score about 20 points higher on RPM-like pattern recognition tests (matrices) than on other subtests). These people will be smarter than they sound, because their low verbal abilities makes them appear stupid, even though their pattern recognition might be 2 standard deviations higher. So you get intelligent people with poor social skills, who sound much dumber than they are, and who tend to have more diagnoses than just autism. It’s no wonder that these people go to forums like Mensa, or that they’re less successful in life than their IQ would suggest. These people are also incredibly easy targets by the kind of people who go to r/iamverysmart so it’s easy to build the public consensus that they’re actually stupid, even when it isn’t true.
However, in order for high intelligence to shine (and have worthy insights) even without formal education, IQs above 150 are likely needed. For in order to generate your own ideas and still be able to compete with the consensus (which is largely based off the theories of genuises like Tesla, Einstein, Neumann, Turing, Pavlov, etc.) you need to discover similar things yourself independently.
I think many rationalists are above 130. I don’t like rationalist mentalities very much though. They seem to think that everything needs to have a source or a proof (a projected lack of confidence in their own discernment). They also tend to overestimate the value of knowledge (even sometimes using it as a synonym of intelligence). If somebodies IQ is, say, 110, I don’t think they will ever have any great takes (even with years of studies) which a 140 IQ person couldn’t run circles around given a week or two of thoughts. Ever seen somebody invest their whole life into something that you could dismantle or do better in 5 minutes? You could look at this and go “Rapid feedback is better because you approximate reality and update your beliefs faster, makes sense, but why overcompl- right, it’s to make mone- to legitimize the only position in which they are thought to have value—because agile coaches are selling ideas/theory and rely on the illusion of substance of course”
People tend to get suspicious if you claim IQs above 125, and start analyzing data and looking for reasons to believe that the actual numbers are less. But I feel like such people really overestimate what an IQ in the 120s or 130s look like. If you go on the Mensa Forums, you will likely find that most of the comments seem rather dumb, and that the community generally appears dumber than LW.
A large number of people who report scoring in the 130s on IQ tests are not lying. If the number seems off but isn’t, then what needs updating is the impression of what an IQ in the 130s look like.
I suppose that people dislike that some high IQ people just aren’t doing very well in life, and prefer to think that they’re lying about their scores
Yes, exactly this. I am a Mensa member, and unfortunately, most debates in Mensa are pretty dumb. All LW and ACX meetups I have visited were much smarter by comparison.
There is an argument that the average IQ in Mensa is actually lower than the officially declared 130. The idea is that if the test gives you randomly plus or minus 5 or 10 IQ points, and there are much fewer people in population with the higher IQ values, then “actual IQ is 125 and got lucky at the test” is still more likely than “actual IQ is 130″. (Also, if you fail at the test, you can try again. But if you succeed at the test, you don’t have to test again to verify that it wasn’t a fluke. This also decreases the actual average IQ.)
But even if we assume that the average IQ in Mensa is actually maybe 120, still the rationalist community is obviously so much smarter that the average rationalist is plausibly at IQ 130 or higher.
I am seriously puzzled about this obsession to prove that rationalists aren’t actually that smart. As if IQ 130 or higher is something magically unreachable. Show me a population where 2% of people are potential rationalists. That would be a magical land where you could have a Less Wrong meetup on every street!
I have more reasons for believing that Mensa members are below 130, but also for believing that they’re above.
Below: Most online IQ tests are similar enough to the Mensa IQ test that the practice effect applies. And most people who obsess about their IQ scores probably take a lot of online IQ tests, memorizing most patterns (there’s a limit to the practice effect, but it can still give you at least 10 points)
Above: Mensa tests for pattern recognition abilities, which in my experience correlates worse with academic performance than verbal abilities. Pattern recognition abilities also select for people with autism (they tend to score about 20 points higher on RPM-like pattern recognition tests (matrices) than on other subtests). These people will be smarter than they sound, because their low verbal abilities makes them appear stupid, even though their pattern recognition might be 2 standard deviations higher. So you get intelligent people with poor social skills, who sound much dumber than they are, and who tend to have more diagnoses than just autism. It’s no wonder that these people go to forums like Mensa, or that they’re less successful in life than their IQ would suggest. These people are also incredibly easy targets by the kind of people who go to r/iamverysmart so it’s easy to build the public consensus that they’re actually stupid, even when it isn’t true.
However, in order for high intelligence to shine (and have worthy insights) even without formal education, IQs above 150 are likely needed. For in order to generate your own ideas and still be able to compete with the consensus (which is largely based off the theories of genuises like Tesla, Einstein, Neumann, Turing, Pavlov, etc.) you need to discover similar things yourself independently.
I think many rationalists are above 130. I don’t like rationalist mentalities very much though. They seem to think that everything needs to have a source or a proof (a projected lack of confidence in their own discernment). They also tend to overestimate the value of knowledge (even sometimes using it as a synonym of intelligence). If somebodies IQ is, say, 110, I don’t think they will ever have any great takes (even with years of studies) which a 140 IQ person couldn’t run circles around given a week or two of thoughts. Ever seen somebody invest their whole life into something that you could dismantle or do better in 5 minutes? You could look at this and go “Rapid feedback is better because you approximate reality and update your beliefs faster, makes sense, but why overcompl- right, it’s to make mone- to legitimize the only position in which they are thought to have value—because agile coaches are selling ideas/theory and rely on the illusion of substance of course”