For statistical reasons, there are much more people with IQ 130 than with IQ 150 (or whatever is the LW average). So an organization of “IQ 130 or more” will turn out to be “IQ 130, and only rarely more”.
Not especially ambitious
I’d say that the less ambitious members are more visible in Mensa, because they don’t have alternatives. For example, one member of our local Mensa got currently into parliament. That seems ambitious enough to me. But he doesn’t spend nearly as much time in Mensa as the others.
Not a lot of specific strong intellectual interests
Again, I’d blame this on visibility. When a person with strong intellectual interests comes to a Mensa meetup, they are likely to be alone with that one specific interest. So they end up talking about something else, just to be able to join the group. Unfortunately, instead of educating each other, this results in the lowest common denominator. Seems like Mensa would benefit from having less debating and more lectures.
I think that you may overestimate the ability of people born with high IQ to find their place in the society. There was a research done by Terman a century ago, that I am too lazy to google now, essentially concluding that the fate of high-IQ people often depends on whether they come from an environment they can fit it, or whether they are alone in their environment.
The people coming from high-IQ families or studying at high-IQ school usually behave like you describe. They follow the strategies of smarter people around them, and those strategies work for them too.
Then you have high-IQ people who happen to live in an environment where the high IQ is rare, where they have no models to copy, and where people around them have really wrong ideas about how high IQ is supposed to work. Those people are fucked, unless they have a lot of luck. Helping these people should in my opinion be the #1 priority of Mensa, because that is where Mensa can do most good.
That’s my whole fucking point that some high-IQ people find it easy, and some high-IQ people find it difficult… and according to Terman’s research it depends a lot on the environment where they grew up.
For example, if your parents are quantum physicists, and your friends are quantum physicists, and you have high IQ, it is usually not a problem to make a career as a quantum physicist, because all you need is to copy what others do.
On the other hand, if you happen to be a high-IQ child born somewhere in a ghetto, and all you know about yourself is that you are “weird” even within that ghetto (and no one ever suspects that the reason for weirdness may be a random mutation that gave you IQ 150), and you even have problem in school because you are not that good in the majority language, and if the teachers give you bad grades anyway because they are racist… such people usually don’t create and test a hypothesis “oh, it’s probably because I am actually a genius; I should start studying quantum physics”.
My own impression is that when people talk about intelligence, there is usually a lot of middle/upper class snobbery. They mistake education for intelligence, or more precisely various certificates and signal of education. A rich child may be borderline retarded, but will study at an expensive university, and will think about themselves as a genius. A child from workers’ family may not study at university (because parents discourage them, because they don’t see a point), and may never realize they are actually highly intelligent, simply because their culture does not support this hypothesis.
People with high IQ find it easier to achieve life success and, in particular, social success than people with low IQ
Depends on the environment (I feel like I keep repeating myself).
High IQ gives you a boost to your skills, including social skills.
Depending on the environment, high IQ can also make you less compatible with everyone around you, thus making you play the social game on a higher level. Instead of “be social with people like you” that most people play, you play “be social with people unlike you”. Maybe you spend the formative years of your life without having an opportunity to significantly interact with people like you.
If the first point applies to you, and the second one does not, great for you!
If the first point applies to you, and the second one does too… now that’s a question of whether the boost in skills is enough to overcome the challenge of not getting the opportunity to play social games in the easy mode during your formative years.
To make it easier to imagine, consider this scenario:
You have two children with IQ 100. You let one child grow up among other children with IQ 100. You let the other child grow up exclusively among children with IQ 50 during the first 18 years of their life. Then the second child is allowed to freely choose their own environment.
Would you expect both of these children to have the same social skills, just because they both have the same IQ?
(In my analogy, the meaningful task for the “Mensa” of this alternative world would be to find the children of the second type and connect them with other people with IQ 100.)
Depends on the environment (I feel like I keep repeating myself).
Yes, because I can’t see the meaning in this repeating. In the trivial sense, everything depends on the environment. In the context of this discussion, my point is that IQ is a strong factor that will be able to overcome some (but not all) environmental barriers.
high IQ can also make you less compatible with everyone around you
Yes, sure, so? People “unlike you” are the majority of the society, so if you learned to play “be social with people unlike you” this is actually the right skill to have. I am assuming lack of other problems like autism.
the challenge of not getting the opportunity to play social games in the easy mode during your formative years.
You’re getting it in reverse. The social games should have been easier because you’re smarter than people around you. And again, the skills of social games with non-smart people are what you need.
I think you’re confusing self-perception issues (confidence, Maslowian self-actualisation, etc.) and nerdiness with getting ahead in life. People who are highly successful are often abnormally smart, even if they aren’t nerds. Not all smart people are nerds.
consider this scenario
Let’s change it a bit. You have two children with IQ 150. One goes to a special boarding school for kids with the same IQ of 150. The other one goes to a normal school with the normal kids of normal (100) IQ. After they both get out of school, which one will be better positioned to deal with real life and real society?
I think that “spending most of your youth mostly among people who have IQ 50 points less than you” is a very specific problem. Which happens to some high-IQ people. And doesn’t happen to the some others.
my point is that IQ is a strong factor that will be able to overcome some (but not all) environmental barriers.
Humans are social species. We learn the culture. High IQ is not magic. People learn a lot by copying people around them. You cannot effectively learn dealing with everyday problems by e.g. reading a book about Feynman.
People “unlike you” are the majority of the society
Doesn’t make the task of learning to interact with them easier. The usual scenario for average people is: 1. learn to interact with your parents; 2. learn to interact with your peers; 3. learn to interact with weird people. Skipping the step 2 makes the step 3 harder, because we cannot use the natural “what would I do in their situation” heuristic.
I am assuming lack of other problems like autism.
I assume it is two situations causing the same problem for two different reasons. Simply said, you can have problem understanding other people either because your detection mechanism is broken, or because they think and behave differently from how you would think and behave in the same situation.
Of course, for some people it can be both.
The social games should have been easier because you’re smarter than people around you.
As long as you don’t desire to do things or discuss topics that are beyond their reach. Like, never.
And again, the skills of social games with non-smart people are what you need.
Need for what? Winning a pissing contest? Or feeling like a member of the tribe?
People who are highly successful are often abnormally smart
As if I ever denied that. I am talking about “P(successful | smart)”, you reply with “P(smart | successful)”.
You have two children with IQ 150. One goes to a special boarding school for kids with the same IQ of 150. The other one goes to a normal school with the normal kids of normal (100) IQ. After they both get out of school, which one will be better positioned to deal with real life and real society?
Many people in “real life and real society” actually live in a bubble. When you e.g. study computer science, and then work as a programmer, you are usually not surrounded by people with IQ 100 most of the day. People even often choose their life partners with similar IQ. For some reasons this is considered natural for adults, but a horrible heresy when talking about children.
Assuming they both get into the same university, etc., I would bet on the child from the boarding school. But of course other factors can change that; for example if the child from the boarding school chooses a university where the average IQ is 100, and also loses all contacts with their former classmates, that can have a bad impact.
You cannot effectively learn dealing with everyday problems by e.g. reading a book about Feynman.
“Smart” and “nerd” are different things, overlapping but not the same. Note that it’s not smart to try to deal with everyday problems by reading books about Feynman.
Doesn’t make the task of learning to interact with them easier.
Sure, but you’re stuck with them anyway. It’s not like you have an option to move to some version of Galt’s Gulch where only the IQ elite are admitted.
Need for what?
For life. To be able to find friends, dates, jobs, business opportunities, allies, enemies. To be able to deal with whatever shit life throws at you. Yes, you may not be able to get the warm feeling of belonging, but no one promised you that. Go read Ecclesiastes: “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
Getting tired of this thread, but I randomly found this link:
This tendency to become isolated is one of the most important factors to be considered in guiding the development of personality in highly intelligent children, but it does not become a serious problem except at the very extreme degrees of intelligence. The majority of children between 130 and 150 find fairly easy adjustment, because neighborhoods and schools are selective, so that like-minded children tend to be located in the same schools and districts. Furthermore, the gifted child, being large and strong for his age, is acceptable to playmates a year or two older. Great difficulty arises only when a young child is above 160 IQ. At the extremely high levels of 180 or 190 IQ, the problem of friendships is difficult indeed, and the younger the person the more difficult it is.
These superior children are not unfriendly or ungregarious by nature. Typically they strive to play with others but their efforts are defeated by the difficulties of the case… Other children do not share their interests, their vocabulary, or their desire to organize activities. They try to reform their contemporaries but finally give up the struggle and play alone, since older children regard them as “babies,” and adults seldom play during hours when children are awake. As a result, forms of solitary play develop, and these, becoming fixed as habits, may explain the fact that many highly intellectual adults are shy, ungregarious, and unmindful of human relationships, or even misanthropic and uncomfortable in ordinary social intercourse.
For statistical reasons, there are much more people with IQ 130 than with IQ 150 (or whatever is the LW average). So an organization of “IQ 130 or more” will turn out to be “IQ 130, and only rarely more”.
I’d say that the less ambitious members are more visible in Mensa, because they don’t have alternatives. For example, one member of our local Mensa got currently into parliament. That seems ambitious enough to me. But he doesn’t spend nearly as much time in Mensa as the others.
Again, I’d blame this on visibility. When a person with strong intellectual interests comes to a Mensa meetup, they are likely to be alone with that one specific interest. So they end up talking about something else, just to be able to join the group. Unfortunately, instead of educating each other, this results in the lowest common denominator. Seems like Mensa would benefit from having less debating and more lectures.
I think that you may overestimate the ability of people born with high IQ to find their place in the society. There was a research done by Terman a century ago, that I am too lazy to google now, essentially concluding that the fate of high-IQ people often depends on whether they come from an environment they can fit it, or whether they are alone in their environment.
The people coming from high-IQ families or studying at high-IQ school usually behave like you describe. They follow the strategies of smarter people around them, and those strategies work for them too.
Then you have high-IQ people who happen to live in an environment where the high IQ is rare, where they have no models to copy, and where people around them have really wrong ideas about how high IQ is supposed to work. Those people are fucked, unless they have a lot of luck. Helping these people should in my opinion be the #1 priority of Mensa, because that is where Mensa can do most good.
I think opinions on this subject are very much coloured by the personal experience. Generalisation is risky.
That’s my whole fucking point that some high-IQ people find it easy, and some high-IQ people find it difficult… and according to Terman’s research it depends a lot on the environment where they grew up.
For example, if your parents are quantum physicists, and your friends are quantum physicists, and you have high IQ, it is usually not a problem to make a career as a quantum physicist, because all you need is to copy what others do.
On the other hand, if you happen to be a high-IQ child born somewhere in a ghetto, and all you know about yourself is that you are “weird” even within that ghetto (and no one ever suspects that the reason for weirdness may be a random mutation that gave you IQ 150), and you even have problem in school because you are not that good in the majority language, and if the teachers give you bad grades anyway because they are racist… such people usually don’t create and test a hypothesis “oh, it’s probably because I am actually a genius; I should start studying quantum physics”.
My own impression is that when people talk about intelligence, there is usually a lot of middle/upper class snobbery. They mistake education for intelligence, or more precisely various certificates and signal of education. A rich child may be borderline retarded, but will study at an expensive university, and will think about themselves as a genius. A child from workers’ family may not study at university (because parents discourage them, because they don’t see a point), and may never realize they are actually highly intelligent, simply because their culture does not support this hypothesis.
Sure, but that looks like a fully-general argument, true for pretty much any subset of the population.
I think you’re underestimating the advantages of general intelligence. But in any case, here are two propositions:
High IQ does not guarantee life success and, in particular, social success.
People with high IQ find it easier to achieve life success and, in particular, social success than people with low IQ
They seem to be non-controversial to me. You’re pushing the first one, but do you disagree with the second one?
Depends on the environment (I feel like I keep repeating myself).
High IQ gives you a boost to your skills, including social skills.
Depending on the environment, high IQ can also make you less compatible with everyone around you, thus making you play the social game on a higher level. Instead of “be social with people like you” that most people play, you play “be social with people unlike you”. Maybe you spend the formative years of your life without having an opportunity to significantly interact with people like you.
If the first point applies to you, and the second one does not, great for you!
If the first point applies to you, and the second one does too… now that’s a question of whether the boost in skills is enough to overcome the challenge of not getting the opportunity to play social games in the easy mode during your formative years.
To make it easier to imagine, consider this scenario:
You have two children with IQ 100. You let one child grow up among other children with IQ 100. You let the other child grow up exclusively among children with IQ 50 during the first 18 years of their life. Then the second child is allowed to freely choose their own environment.
Would you expect both of these children to have the same social skills, just because they both have the same IQ?
(In my analogy, the meaningful task for the “Mensa” of this alternative world would be to find the children of the second type and connect them with other people with IQ 100.)
Yes, because I can’t see the meaning in this repeating. In the trivial sense, everything depends on the environment. In the context of this discussion, my point is that IQ is a strong factor that will be able to overcome some (but not all) environmental barriers.
Yes, sure, so? People “unlike you” are the majority of the society, so if you learned to play “be social with people unlike you” this is actually the right skill to have. I am assuming lack of other problems like autism.
You’re getting it in reverse. The social games should have been easier because you’re smarter than people around you. And again, the skills of social games with non-smart people are what you need.
I think you’re confusing self-perception issues (confidence, Maslowian self-actualisation, etc.) and nerdiness with getting ahead in life. People who are highly successful are often abnormally smart, even if they aren’t nerds. Not all smart people are nerds.
Let’s change it a bit. You have two children with IQ 150. One goes to a special boarding school for kids with the same IQ of 150. The other one goes to a normal school with the normal kids of normal (100) IQ. After they both get out of school, which one will be better positioned to deal with real life and real society?
I think that “spending most of your youth mostly among people who have IQ 50 points less than you” is a very specific problem. Which happens to some high-IQ people. And doesn’t happen to the some others.
Humans are social species. We learn the culture. High IQ is not magic. People learn a lot by copying people around them. You cannot effectively learn dealing with everyday problems by e.g. reading a book about Feynman.
Doesn’t make the task of learning to interact with them easier. The usual scenario for average people is: 1. learn to interact with your parents; 2. learn to interact with your peers; 3. learn to interact with weird people. Skipping the step 2 makes the step 3 harder, because we cannot use the natural “what would I do in their situation” heuristic.
I assume it is two situations causing the same problem for two different reasons. Simply said, you can have problem understanding other people either because your detection mechanism is broken, or because they think and behave differently from how you would think and behave in the same situation.
Of course, for some people it can be both.
As long as you don’t desire to do things or discuss topics that are beyond their reach. Like, never.
Need for what? Winning a pissing contest? Or feeling like a member of the tribe?
As if I ever denied that. I am talking about “P(successful | smart)”, you reply with “P(smart | successful)”.
Many people in “real life and real society” actually live in a bubble. When you e.g. study computer science, and then work as a programmer, you are usually not surrounded by people with IQ 100 most of the day. People even often choose their life partners with similar IQ. For some reasons this is considered natural for adults, but a horrible heresy when talking about children.
Assuming they both get into the same university, etc., I would bet on the child from the boarding school. But of course other factors can change that; for example if the child from the boarding school chooses a university where the average IQ is 100, and also loses all contacts with their former classmates, that can have a bad impact.
“Smart” and “nerd” are different things, overlapping but not the same. Note that it’s not smart to try to deal with everyday problems by reading books about Feynman.
Sure, but you’re stuck with them anyway. It’s not like you have an option to move to some version of Galt’s Gulch where only the IQ elite are admitted.
For life. To be able to find friends, dates, jobs, business opportunities, allies, enemies. To be able to deal with whatever shit life throws at you. Yes, you may not be able to get the warm feeling of belonging, but no one promised you that. Go read Ecclesiastes: “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
Getting tired of this thread, but I randomly found this link: