Iām not sure what my official IQ is. When I was in college, I took a very unofficial computer test (I think it was some shareware my dad got a hold of), and it gave me a score of 140ā¦ but I doubt it was right. And while I was (and am) curious, I never cared enough to take the time and trouble to get officially tested. I already understood book-smarts werenāt everything, and I was pretty well acquainted with the cartoonās blue zone by then, so I just shrugged and moved on.
Thank you, but the person youāre congratulating was a little kid who ended up having different educational opportunities as a result. I donāt know that thereās a lot left from him. It certainly wasnāt intended as a brag, just an explanation for my perspective on the subject, which is very different than these egotistical grifters.
I didnāt think you were bragging. I wasnāt trying to brag myself, just sharing a bit of trivia from earlier days. And yeah, I think you and I have a healthier perspective about āintelligenceā than somebody like Musk, whoās desperately trying to prove heās someone special to mask his own insecurities.
(Iāve got plenty of insecurities of my own, so maybe I shouldnāt throw too many stones. But thereās healthy ways of dealing with doubts, and thereās what Musk is doing, which is malicious and downright dangerous to so many peopleā¦)
The social worker I saw weekly at the public high school was livid when I said I didnāt know my IQ. āThey never told you?!ā
She had a copy of my results the next week. It said Iām between 131 and 134, and that was when 130 was considered gifted.
I looked at it and said, āThat canāt be right.ā She looked at me like she was afraid Iād say it was too high, but I said, āWere it that low, Iād have an easier time finding people I can really talk to.ā
She smiled and said it would be much more accurate were I to take the test again as a teenager.
Iāve known people with 160+ IQs, and most of them were much more emotionally fucked up than I am. One of them was unimaginably cruel.
I think of it as a privilege more along the lines of symmetrical features, full breasts, height, a nice head of hair, being fast, etc.
Mixed blessings all.They convey some privileges: maybe something I figured out faster that saved my ass, maybe some one took pity on me because they thought I had a cute smile. But they arenāt miracles in and of themselves unless you truly believe every life is one in the first place.
At times people can be so envious of these things that they donāt even see their own advantages.
And holy shit life is a war of attrition against it all.
Also I think these individual factors diminish quickly in importance the more you look at the statistics.
Skill and diligence can compensate for a lot. Nutrition probably plays a greater factor at the global level.
Wealth takes all Nobody beats wealth. It is better to be dumb, ugly, and rich than damned near anything else.
And with enough momentum to drive a huge generator.
I started to write a little comment, but then found that two paragraphs from the Jimbopedia entry about Binet quite nicely address the points I wanted to make. Emphasisopodes are mine:
Binet and Simon were forthright about the limitations of their Binet-Simon Intelligence Test. They stressed the remarkable diversity of intelligence and the subsequent need to study it using qualitative, as opposed to quantitative, measures. They also stressed that intellectual development progressed at variable rates and could be influenced by the environment; therefore, intelligence was not based solely on genetics, was malleable rather than fixed, and could only be found in children with comparable backgrounds. Given Binet and Simonās stance that intelligence testing was subject to variability and was not generalizable, it is important to look at the metamorphosis that mental testing took on as it made its way to the U.S.
While Binet and Simon were developing their mental scale, the business, civic, and educational leaders in the U.S. were facing issues of how to accommodate the needs of a diversifying population, while continuing to meet the demands of society. There arose the call to form a society based on meritocracy while continuing to underline the ideals of the upper class.
In 1908, H.H. Goddard, a champion of the eugenics movement, found utility in mental testing as a way to evidence the superiority of the white race. After studying abroad, Goddard brought the Binet-Simon Scale to the United States and translated it into English.
Thank you for those highlights. Iām rather glad that Iāve never taken an IQ test (and if I ever did, that Iāve forgotten the results). I always twitch and grimace a bit when I hear about someoneās āIQ score.ā Usually, a whiff of classism and racism are part of the sudden bad smell that Iām detecting. Iāve been called āsmartā sometimes, but Iāve also been observant enough to see that many people, who most others would never label smart, can display far higher levels and forms of intelligence than my own.
Iāve also thought about what I label both concentration, and work, or effort. Much of what appears smart, as a result of high intelligence, is juat as much or more a result of being able to (and having the resources to, and the confidence to) put oneās nose to the grindstone (heh-- ouch!), with a lot of pressure for a long time.
By default, āunhingedā mode curses, insults, and belittles the user non-stop using vulgar language. Other modes include āStorytellerā (which does what it sounds like), āRomanticā (which stammers and speaks in a slow, uncertain, and insecure way), āMeditationā (which can guide you through a meditation-like experience), āConspiracyā (which likes to talk about conspiracy theories, UFOs, and bigfoot), āUnlicensed Therapistā (which plays the part of a talk psychologist), āGrok Docā (a doctor), āSexyā (marked as ā18+ā and acts almost like a 1-800 phone sex operator), and āProfessorā (which talks about science).
He is tanking the brand, and I am concerned that with all itās faults, the Tesla was groundbreaking in popularising EVs; is this going to set back the adoption of EVs and the climate movement?
And while I was (and am) curious, I never cared enough to take the time and trouble to get officially tested. I already understood book-smarts werenāt everything, and I was pretty well acquainted with the cartoonās blue zone by then, so I just shrugged and moved on.
One of them was unimaginably cruel.
Nobody beats wealth. It is better to be dumb, ugly, and rich than damned near anything else.
