As I read this post, I couldn’t help but feel like it crossed over from reasonable advice into elitism. I wouldn’t argue with the basic idea of surrounding yourself with smart, interesting people who will help stimulate you intellectually and push you to grow. But spending your time worrying about how many standard deviations above the mean everyone’s IQ is seems like it’s crossing a line from reasonable to excessive, particularly when you describe normal life as “living among the monkeys.”
So what I’d say to this is that yes, finding and befriending people who are smart is great. Same with people who are kind, people who are sincere, people who have a deep understanding of their emotions, people who make art, people who can build things with their hands, people who care for others, people who support their communities...
If you’re a smart kid in high school it can be especially frustrating to not feel like you have intellectual peers. I absolutely get that, but I want to caution against advice that deemphasizes all the other worthwhile things about people in response. People are good and valuable and can teach you in myriad ways.
When you say “a smart kid in high school”, what threshold or range of g are you referring to? (Insofar as “smart” refers to g.) A kid with a g two standard deviations below the mean isn’t smart. A kid four standard deviations above the mean is smart. Where do you draw the cutoff?
I don’t want to get too into the weeds here. But I think that someone in the top few percent of their school would be smart. The kind of kid who might be feeling without intellectual peers and posting here about it could be the smartest in their school or their town (or they could not). But I don’t think that really changes the conclusions.
You have used the word “feel(ing)” twice. The core question isn’t whether he feels he has intellectual peers he can talk to. It is whether he genuinely does or doesn’t have intellectual peers of his caliber. I believe this high school student when he implies he doesn’t have anyone near his intellect at his school and at other programs he has tried out. You do not. I think this is the crux of our disagreement.
I put so much effort into standard deviations because “smart” papers over a broad range of intelligences. Someone with an IQ of 115 is “smart”. Someone with an IQ of 175 is “smart”. The difference between someone with an IQ of 115 and someone with an IQ of 175 is four standard deviations. Four standard deviations is huge. It is equal to the difference between a PhD in science and someone hovering on the edge of an intellectual disability. It would be absurd for a PhD in science to look for intellectual peers in the same place as someone bordering on the edge of intellectual disability. The same goes for someone with an IQ of 115 verses someone with an IQ of 175.
The difference between someone with an IQ of 115 and someone with an IQ of 175 is four standard deviations. Four standard deviations is huge. It is equal to the difference between a PhD in science and someone hovering on the edge of an intellectual disability.
I’d be careful with this kind of comparison. IQ numbers and SDs may look like cardinal measurements, but they’re actually an ordinal hierarchical system. What one can say is that someone with IQ n+1 is “smarter than” someone with IQ n, who in turn is “smarter than” someone with IQ n-1. But there’s no way, for now, to convert that in a cardinality.
Hence, in an absolute sense of literal, actual intelligence, the difference in between an IQ 175 and an IQ 115 may be either greater or smaller than the difference in intelligence between an IQ 115 and an IQ 55. My personal hunch is that it’s much smaller, although, evidently, I have no way to back that up.
As I read this post, I couldn’t help but feel like it crossed over from reasonable advice into elitism. I wouldn’t argue with the basic idea of surrounding yourself with smart, interesting people who will help stimulate you intellectually and push you to grow. But spending your time worrying about how many standard deviations above the mean everyone’s IQ is seems like it’s crossing a line from reasonable to excessive, particularly when you describe normal life as “living among the monkeys.”
So what I’d say to this is that yes, finding and befriending people who are smart is great. Same with people who are kind, people who are sincere, people who have a deep understanding of their emotions, people who make art, people who can build things with their hands, people who care for others, people who support their communities...
If you’re a smart kid in high school it can be especially frustrating to not feel like you have intellectual peers. I absolutely get that, but I want to caution against advice that deemphasizes all the other worthwhile things about people in response. People are good and valuable and can teach you in myriad ways.
What, precisely, do you mean when you use the word “smart”?
I think of “smart” as (at least approximately) referring to g.
When you say “a smart kid in high school”, what threshold or range of g are you referring to? (Insofar as “smart” refers to g.) A kid with a g two standard deviations below the mean isn’t smart. A kid four standard deviations above the mean is smart. Where do you draw the cutoff?
I don’t want to get too into the weeds here. But I think that someone in the top few percent of their school would be smart. The kind of kid who might be feeling without intellectual peers and posting here about it could be the smartest in their school or their town (or they could not). But I don’t think that really changes the conclusions.
You have used the word “feel(ing)” twice. The core question isn’t whether he feels he has intellectual peers he can talk to. It is whether he genuinely does or doesn’t have intellectual peers of his caliber. I believe this high school student when he implies he doesn’t have anyone near his intellect at his school and at other programs he has tried out. You do not. I think this is the crux of our disagreement.
I put so much effort into standard deviations because “smart” papers over a broad range of intelligences. Someone with an IQ of 115 is “smart”. Someone with an IQ of 175 is “smart”. The difference between someone with an IQ of 115 and someone with an IQ of 175 is four standard deviations. Four standard deviations is huge. It is equal to the difference between a PhD in science and someone hovering on the edge of an intellectual disability. It would be absurd for a PhD in science to look for intellectual peers in the same place as someone bordering on the edge of intellectual disability. The same goes for someone with an IQ of 115 verses someone with an IQ of 175.
I’d be careful with this kind of comparison. IQ numbers and SDs may look like cardinal measurements, but they’re actually an ordinal hierarchical system. What one can say is that someone with IQ n+1 is “smarter than” someone with IQ n, who in turn is “smarter than” someone with IQ n-1. But there’s no way, for now, to convert that in a cardinality.
Hence, in an absolute sense of literal, actual intelligence, the difference in between an IQ 175 and an IQ 115 may be either greater or smaller than the difference in intelligence between an IQ 115 and an IQ 55. My personal hunch is that it’s much smaller, although, evidently, I have no way to back that up.