Post: #1

http://www.mensa.org/prominent-mensans

Presented w/o commentary.

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Geena Davis: Academy-award winning actress, who has starred in The Long Kiss Goodnight, A League of Their Own, Thelma and Louise and Hero.

Donald Petersen: A former chairman of Ford Motor Company. While at Ford, Petersen was involved in the development of two of Ford's most successful cars--the Mustang and the Maverick.

Marilyn Vos Savant: Listed in the Guinness Hall of Fame for having the world's highest recorded IQ (228). Vos Savant writes "Ask Marilyn!", a weekly column in Parade magazine.

Sir Clive Sinclair: Inventor and chairman of British Mensa for 17 years.

Bobby Czyz: A former two-time World Boxing Association (WBA) Cruiserweight Champion. Czyz now commentates on many nationally-broadcasted fights.

Dr. Julie Peterson: A former Playboy "Playmate," Peterson is a graduate of Life School of Chiropractic.

Dr Lance L Ware: One of the two founders of Mensa.

Roland Berrill: An Australian, he met Lance Ware on a train in England and together they founded Mensa.

Alan Rachins: Portrayed Dharma's father, Larry, on the comedy series, "Dharma & Greg." Rachins, who left the Wharton School of Finance to pursue an acting career, also portrayed Douglas Brachman on the hit TV series, "L.A. Law."

Adrian Cronauer: Radio personality, lawyer and subject for the movie "Good Morning Vietnam."

Terance Black: Screenwriter of HBO's "Tales from the Crypt", syndicated series "Dark Justice" and the feature film Dead Heat.

Barry Nolan: Co-anchor of TV's syndicated tabloid program "Hard Copy."

Deborah Yates: Member of the world-famous Radio City Rockettes.

Bob Speca, Jr.: Professional domino toppler. Speca travels internationally doing domino shows and has appeared on TV programs and commercials.

John N. Moore: University of Virginia law professor who specializes in international law. Moore was hired by the U.S. ambassador to Kuwait to help the emirate recover damages inflicted during the August 2, 1990 invasion.

Jean Auel: Best-selling author of "Clan of the Cave Bear," "Valley of Horses," and "Plains of Passage."

Linda Warwick: Creator and producer of the billboard mega-hit childrens' videos, "Babymugs!," and the "Toddler TOGS" series--the fantasy video for highly creative tots.

Maurice Kanbar: Inventor and owner of Skyy Vodka.

Henry Milligan: A boxer and scholar, Milligan was the 1983 National Amateur Heavyweight champion.

Patricia P. Jennings: Pianist with the Pittsburgh Symphony. She is the symphony's first black member and has performed internationally.

Richard Lederer: A master of the "pun." Lederer has written dozens of books on word play and is a frequent guest on National Public Radio.

Judge Ellen Morphonios: Nicknamed "Maximum Morphonios" for her strict rulings in Florida. Morphonios is a former model and beauty queen who passed a Florida exam that allowed her to enter law school without an undergraduate degree.

Richard Bolles: Author of "What Color is Your Parachute?" which at one point had been on The New York Times Best-seller List for 228 weeks.

Velma Jeremiah: A retired attorney who graduated fourth in her law school class at the age of 47. She is a former chairwoman of Mensa International.

Dr. Abbie F. Salny: Author of the Mensa "Quiz-a-Day" books and calendars. Dr. Salny is a retired college professor and expert in intelligence who has served as Mensa's supervising psychologist.

Post: #2

Asia Carrera, retired adult film actress

Post: #3

I know raw intelligence is worshiped in the manosphere and can appreciate your post. Without smarts, you're not likely to succeed. But I keep seeing studies showing confidence might be more important to success than smarts and since this is a game blog, I think it's worth posting this link to an article about a study titled "Confidence Drives Mobility, Not Merit."

http://www.care2.com/causes/the-more-con...ssful.html

Anecdotally speaking, I tested far, far higher IQ-wise than my youngest brother, who was considered to be average. Yet his success far outweighs mine. He was always confident while I was always pensive. He acted while I mulled things over. He took charge while I waited for someone else to lead.

Seeing as how he was confident as hell since I knew him as a tiny kid (and I was always somewhat depressed about life) I'm developing a theory that confidence is genetically-inherited trait, like blue eyes. You can fake it, but some people have it naturally and you can't beat that. (Although I will say learning to fake it in high school after a near-death experience made all the difference --- shame I couldn't sustain that feeling of invincibility past 18 months.)

Post: #4

(05-12-2013 08:56 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  I know raw intelligence is worshiped in the manosphere and can appreciate your post. Without smarts, you're not likely to succeed. But I keep seeing studies showing confidence might be more important to success than smarts and since this is a game blog, I think it's worth posting this link to an article about a study titled "Confidence Drives Mobility, Not Merit."

http://www.care2.com/causes/the-more-con...ssful.html

Anecdotally speaking, I tested far, far higher IQ-wise than my youngest brother, who was considered to be average. Yet his success far outweighs mine. He was always confident while I was always pensive. He acted while I mulled things over. He took charge while I waited for someone else to lead.

Seeing as how he was confident as hell since I knew him as a tiny kid (and I was always somewhat depressed about life) I'm developing a theory that confidence is genetically-inherited trait, like blue eyes. You can fake it, but some people have it naturally and you can't beat that. (Although I will say learning to fake it in high school after a near-death experience made all the difference --- shame I couldn't sustain that feeling of invincibility past 18 months.)

I recall off-handedly that after IQs of 120 or so, extraversion becomes a better predictor of earnings than IQ. That is, the returns to IQ become sub-linear vis a vis extraversion after 120.

The below images are from a paper that uses data from the Terman study, which was done on men with IQs greater than 135. Steve Hsu's post on it.

Extraversion and conscientiousness were most strongly associated with life-time earnings among men with IQs > 135, even more so than IQ.

That being said, more IQ is still always better.

Even among the right tail (> 135 IQ), higher IQ is still robustly associated with higher earnings.




However, when it comes to STEM publications, and patent rates, IQ matters even more than when it comes to earnings (quote from Information Processing):

Quote:Compare the bottom right IQ graph with SMPY results which show the impact of ability (SAT-M measured before age 13) on publication and patent rates. Ability in the SMPY graph varies between 99th and 99.99th percentile in quartiles Q1-Q4. The variation in IQ between the bottom and top deciles of the Terman study covers a similar range. The Terman super-smarties (i.e., +4 SD) only earned slightly more (say, 15-20% over a lifetime) than the ordinary smarties (i.e., +2.5 SD), but the probability of earning a patent (SMPY) went up by about 4x over the corresponding ability range.

Post: #5

It's well known that Marylin Vos Savant gamed the test, as did a lot of the high scorers. There was a thread on this a while back.

However, the guy who made Dead Heat, that's cinematic brilliance right there.

Post: #6

(05-12-2013 09:25 PM)Hades Wrote:  It's well known that Marylin Vos Savant gamed the test, as did a lot of the high scorers. There was a thread on this a while back.

However, the guy who made Dead Heat, that's cinematic brilliance right there.

I imagine the measurement error on IQ tests grows increasingly larger after 160 or so, so it might not necessarily have anything to do with "gaming" the test.

Post: #7

How do you 'game' an IQ test???

Post: #8

(05-12-2013 09:28 PM)cardguy Wrote:  How do you 'game' an IQ test???

Keep doing it, or when you're doing it you notice patterns on which you can predict would be the best choice for best outcome.

Post: #9

If vos Savant has 228, why doesn't she do somehing of value instead of write a column?

Also, I was listening to some Pink Floyd. Which song was I listening to?



That's high IQ Asia Carrera



She hit every brick in the wall.

Post: #10

The only thing that IQ tests measure is your ability to do IQ tests.

Any supposed relationship between IQ and true intelligence is a pseudoscience.

Post: #11

(05-12-2013 09:28 PM)cardguy Wrote:  How do you 'game' an IQ test???

Thomas the Rhymer hopefully has the link, I searched for it and didn't find, but basically you get to be really good friends with the guy who made the Titan test and take it ten or twenty times over your lifetime.

Some of these high IQ society members are the biggest academic haters, Marilyn vos Savant being among them. She wrote a book called "The World's Most Famous Math Problem" where she shit all over Wiles' proof to Fermat's Last Theorem and was subsequently destroyed by the cumulative mathematical body of the time. She ended up changing her mind on the subject and offered no insight into the solution.

Post: #12

Agreeableness, extroversion, and conscientiousness are all more important than IQ for lifetime earnings.

Take away lesson - never let people know you're a scumbag?

Post: #13

Mensa members are idiots. They would get banned from here.

Post: #14

(05-12-2013 08:56 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  I know raw intelligence is worshiped in the manosphere and can appreciate your post.

They wouldn't appreciate my post - if they were smart. They would see that the most famous members of world's smartest groups have ho-hum achievements.

Look @ the achievements
- people who founded Mensa
- starred in some movies
- boxers
- screen writers and authors
- lawyers who aren't top jurists.

Is any of this NASA? Curing Cancer? Inventing the internet? Nuclear fusion?

Go through the accomplishments and think of people who have done the same. Those people are probably smart, but chances are they aren't MENSA smart.

In the case of boxers and actors, .... the top people in those fields are not Einsteins.

This is basically the same thing that Gladwell talked about in Outliers.
Someone with a 200+ IQ becomes a newspaper columnist.

WIA

Post: #15

Who cares about MENSA? They're just a bunch of no-talent nerds. Smart successful people are too busy doing shit to be wasting their time hanging out with the chess nerds all day. MENSA are where the losers of the high IQ world like to hang out. They lack agreeableness, extroversion, and conscientiousness.

Don't mix up MENSA for all high IQ people. Cool personalities and high IQ aren't mutually exclusive.

Post: #16

There is probably a significant self-selection effect. The people who join a group based on a high IQ are going to tend to be mediocrities whose main merit is a high IQ or whose accomplishments are in fields not closely related to intelligence (and so feel the need to say "No really, I'm smart"). I wouldn't expect high IQ people with significant intellectual accomplishments to have bothered to join the group. That's why you see actors, athletes and pop journalists but not serious academics or Bill Gates types.

Post: #17

You have to also remember most high IQ types don't have much social IQ.

Social IQ is absolutely necessary in this world.

When you have both down pat, you're ahead of everyone by a large margin.

People that say all IQ tests are shit are probably insecure about their intelligence.

Post: #18

(05-12-2013 10:03 PM)NY Digital Wrote:  You have to also remember most high IQ types don't have much social IQ.

Social IQ is absolutely necessary in this world.

When you have both down pat, you're ahead of everyone by a large margin.

People that say IQ tests are shit are obviously insecure about their intelligence.

I can put most guys I know in 2 categories:

1. Those that are super smart and don't get laid.

2. Fucking retards that pull all the time.

Luckily a few of us fall in between. The social test is known as the "notch count".

Post: #19

(05-12-2013 09:58 PM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:  

(05-12-2013 08:56 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  I know raw intelligence is worshiped in the manosphere and can appreciate your post.

They wouldn't appreciate my post - if they were smart. They would see that the most famous members of world's smartest groups have ho-hum achievements.

Look @ the achievements
- people who founded Mensa
- starred in some movies
- boxers
- screen writers and authors
- lawyers who aren't top jurists.

Is any of this NASA? Curing Cancer? Inventing the internet? Nuclear fusion?

Go through the accomplishments and think of people who have done the same. Those people are probably smart, but chances are they aren't MENSA smart.

In the case of boxers and actors, .... the top people in those fields are not Einsteins.

This is basically the same thing that Gladwell talked about in Outliers.
Someone with a 200+ IQ becomes a newspaper columnist.

WIA

According to their site, one needs only to be in the top 2% of intelligence to be in MENSA. That's not that elite at all.

You have the conditional probability question framed incorrectly.

The list of people and their accomplishments don't include stuff like "NASA? Curing Cancer? Inventing the internet? Nuclear fusion?" because most people don't accomplish anything close to that. Their accomplishments are already more impressive than that of most people.

And also the adverse selection effect, as Lemmo pointed out above.

The people who do make very impressive intellectual contributions are well to the right of the 98th percentile in terms of intelligence. High intelligence is a necessary condition, albeit not sufficient.

The Gladwellian notion of 10,000 hours is just a palliative for the ears of the PC masses.

Post: #20

(05-12-2013 10:08 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

(05-12-2013 10:03 PM)NY Digital Wrote:  You have to also remember most high IQ types don't have much social IQ.

Social IQ is absolutely necessary in this world.

When you have both down pat, you're ahead of everyone by a large margin.

People that say IQ tests are shit are obviously insecure about their intelligence.

I can put most guys I know in 2 categories:

1. Those that are super smart and don't get laid.

2. Fucking retards that pull all the time.

Luckily a few of us fall in between. The social test is known as the "notch count".

I could be in Mensa if I wanted to be.

What's the point?

Unless of course there are some hot nerdy broads at the meetings...

Post: #21

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/...ined-mensa

"How I Joined Mensa"

by Steve Martin 1997 New Yorker

Quote:I started with the phone book. Looking up "mensa" was not going to be easy, what with having to follow the strict alphabetizing rules that are so common nowadays. I prefer a softer, more fuzzy alphabetizing scheme, one that allows the mind to float free and "happen" upon the word. There is pride in that. The dictionary is a perfect example of over-alphabetization, with its harsh rules and every little words neatly in place. It almost makes me never want to eat again.

Joining Mensa means that you are a genius, and enables you to meet other members who will understand what the hell you are talking about when you say, for example, "That lamppost is tawdry." That's the kind of person they're after. Joining Mensa instills in one a courtly benevolence toward nonmembers, who would pretend to know what you know, think what you think, and stultify what you perambulate.

I worried about the arbitrary 132 cut-off point, until I met someone with an I.Q. of 131 and, honestly, he was a bit slow on the uptake.

I gave up on the phone book, which led me astray time and again with its complex passages, and then tried blind calling with no success. Next, 1-800-MENSA, which weirdly brought dead silence on the other end of the phone. A week later while volksvalking, I realized that "Mensa" didn't contain enough numerals to be a phone number, and knew it must be understood that any future member would be able to figure out the next two digits in the sequence. I tried dialling MENSANE, MENSAIL, MENSAFE, and MENSAAB, but got three rebuffs and a fax tone.

So it was neither rhyme nor reasone that I stumbled into a party in my building when I inverted my floor number and got off at 21 instead of 12. Entering the party, I flipped back the Oushak rug and counted the knots per square inch. These people had money. I heard snippets of conversation: words like "feldspar" and "euonym" filled the air. In the corner, a lone piper played a dirge. Instantly, I knew where I was. This was a Mensa party.

That's when I saw Lola. She had hair the color of rust and a body the shape of a Doric column - the earlier ones, pre-invasion. She walked across the room carrying one of those rum drinks, slid herself onto the blue velveteen sofa, and endearingly poked herself in the face with her straw when she missed her mouth. If she truly was Mensa, she would have no problem with my introduction: "Please don't relegate me to a faraway lea," I ventured.

"I can see you've read Goethe, the Snooky Lanson translations," she countered. "Lozenge?"

I was putting her at around 140. Her look told me she was pegging me in the low 120s. My goal was to elevate her assessment and wangle a Mensa membership from out of her. Taking a hint from the soap operas, I talked to her with my back turned while staring out a window: "Wouldn't you rather parse than do anything?"

"Hail Xiaoping, the Chinese Goddess of Song," she rejoined. Lola then engaged in some verbal sparring that left me reeling. "This is quite an impressive apartment," she offered.

I saw a dictionary on its stand. O, how I longed to run to it and look up "impressive"! How I wanted to retort in Mensa-ese! But it was my turn, and I spoke: "I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult." I threw my head back, laughing, coughed out my lozenge, and watched it nestle into the Oushak. She asked me my name. "Call me Dor," I said. Later, I realized I'd meant Rod.

Lola and I sat and talked through the night. After the party, I held her and whispered, "I love that you're in Mensa." She whispered back, "I love that you're in Mensa, too." My temperature dropped to arctic. She told me her phone number, but, since it was all sevens, I couldn't remember it.





Most things one wants in life come when they are no longer needed. My membership was awarded exactly one year later, when I applied and became an honorary mensa "plaything." I sold my refrigerator and with the money went on a Mensa love-boat trip to Bermuda. Embarking, I saw a woman standing aft, her back to me, slightly bent over a railing, looking very much the way a Doric column would look if it were bent over a railing. She turned and saw me, and I again saw my Lola. It was as though nothing had changed in a year, because we were both wearing the same things we wore on that night, still unwashed. She spoke: "Long time no see, Dor."

I corrected her, gaining the upper hand: "My name's not Dor."

"What is it?"

"It will come to me."

"Would you like to take a walk on the boatdeck?" she asked.

Boatdeck? Where is the damn dictionary when you need it.

She spoke: "I have only two years to live. Let's enjoy them while we slaver."

"Then slaver we shall, slaver we shall." I took her hand, and we turned eastward, toward the setting sun. "And, by the way, my name is Ord."

Post: #22

^ Holy smokes, that was devastatingly funny.

Post: #23

(01-19-2019 07:22 PM)Tactician Wrote:  ^ Holy smokes, that was devastatingly funny.

I know! I completely forgot Steve Martin was funny.

Post: #24

Professional domino toppler is my new dream job. I wonder if joining MENSA will help me achieve this goal?