And no, I'm not implying that the gorilla and the genius are analogous. Just saying that they're both outliers, comparable in that they could be possessing superficially desirable attributes that are rendered useless (or, worse, detrimental) by circumstance. Comparable in that regard; not analogous due to the fact that I'm implying superiority in the latter case but inferiority in the former case. 180 IQ is ostracized hero; gorilla is ostracized villain. So they're antitheses rather than analogues? Well, no, because the antithesis of the ostracized hero is the assimilated villiain (likewise, the antithesis of assimilated hero is the ostracized villain).

Could be because his French or because he wants French people to understand him.

That was my point.

It is dismissive hand-waving at the strategy of penis measuring, or iq testing as a decent strategy.

Gorillas have very small penises. Actually, I'm not sure how this is related. I think you tried to explain below.

I think you will find that the company of children can be quite enjoyable, even though they have trouble with the most simple of tasks. Having a factor of 10 greater ability, better understanding, greater intelligence, greater problem solving skills, greater accomplishments, etc. is not a detriment to finding comfort in the company of others.

Whether he should extend himself to discover the limits of his abilities is, of course, his business. However, if the extent of his accomplishment toward such self-knowledge on some Tuesday afternoon is "took an online fake IQ test made by some random person who thinks they understand what IQ is" has only demonstrated his credulity.

I do my best.

I've known a few very very clever people. None of which had any difficulty fitting in.

I've known many clever people (130-145 IQ, I'd guess) who had extreme difficulty fitting in, but that had nothing to do with them being clever. It was personality flaw, not intelligence that was the problem.

As far as the gorilla analogy goes, I'm not really sure of your point. Perhaps I'm not clever enough to understand it. I do get the gist, which is that you are claiming that being an outlier means ostracism, but that is plainly not the case.

It's pretty clear to me that if you need to create your own damn secret society to reassure yourself that you're intelligent.... you're probably not.

I found out about the mega society and saw this thread. I had a couple questions for the community about your perception of those in Mega Society (based on having a really high IQ). My first question is:

How do groups such as Mega Society earn your credibility as being legitimate in that much of internet opinion finds the IQ tests they administer as lacking credibility, as seen in this thread by those critical of Wittgenstein? I.e. would you like to see the test re-designed so that every question is unarguably impervious to internet criticism? If you fall in this camp, which question-numbers of the IQ test do you believe have the most legitimacy by themselves? Does the mega society and other high IQ societies need to cater to large internet audiences and design their tests in such a way that pleases most people? If so, what motivation is there for doing so, if you are in charge of the mega society? (or some other high IQ society like 999?)

My second question is regarding the behavior of Mega Society members and the club overall -- do you prefer the society and its members keeping a low profile and sticking to their own website and interacting amongst themselves? Or should they gamble and expose themselves more such as doing Reddit AMA's or doing tv interviews? Basically, what I'm asking is what is the right balance that the Mega Society and its members should strive for? Do you believe that they should get our more into the public eye and get more exposure? Or should they pull back a little bit more and not be so public/well-known?

Thanks 👍👍👍

You only need one question on the hardest IQ test.

1. Give an example of anything which is unarguably impervious to internet criticism.

If you can give such an example your IQ is 1 googolplex.


PairTheBoard

1.00 googolplex. IQ is three significant digits.

It's only right that my proposed "hardest IQ test" not be impervious to internet criticism.


PairTheBoard

the problem with this type of IQ test is the following:

take 2 people with 150 IQ's.

the one that is in mensa and is a puzzle hobbyist will score much higher on the IQ test than colleague who isn't (sorry poor grammar)

doesn't test innate IQ

the IQ vs. personality is party learned and partly genetic. i'm thinking more genetic.

in my opinion, many high IQ people are on the autism scale (minor) and most people with autism have behavioural issues.

the learnt aspect is always thinking you are correct (and you are probably usually correct but it doesn't lend itself to good graces)

this is definitional question i think,

in something like MIT engineering, what % of students have very high IQ? vs., above-average IQ's and great drive/focus?

you need to know who ludwig is to do an IQ test?.... maybe for qualifying for jeopardy?

I'd choose having a bigger dick over bigger IQ. Intelligence quotations are iffy. Having a big dick is cut and dried.

With complex behaviors, genetics or environment (which is far more than just learning) are causal of those behaviors in proportion to their variance. Put everyone in exactly the same box, and genetics dominates. In the real world, environment effects are much more varied than genetics.

Most autistic people are mentally ******ed and by definition they have behavioral issues. If you don't have behavioral issues, you cannot receive a psychiatric diagnosis even if you really would like one. It is rare for someone to be below average in basic communication skills (as autistic people invariably are) and be great at other cognitive tasks. The very few autistic people who have great skills (in one or more other cognitive realms) stick out like sore thumbs and this makes them seem far more common than they are.

I don't know what you mean by the last paragraph. I understand all of the words, but "always thinking you are right" is an extremely narrow personality issue and isn't related to your score on an IQ test.

Most of them don't have IQs at all. It is a test score and if you haven't taken one of the tests then you don't have one, and if you haven't taken the test recently you have an old score that is only loosely correlated with what you'd score today. It is, in these ways,* exactly the same as your bowling score.

If you are asking whether they are smart (a think that isn't at all the same as IQ) enough, then yes, but that isn't a rare trait. Sufficient drive and interest is far more rare and far more important if you would like a degree in engineering from MIT.

*and many other ways

What if you take the test but no-one ever looks at the score?

Still the same as bowling