

‘Record IQ is just another talent’ (2010) - danso
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20101006000616&cpv=0

======
bane
Ultra-intelligence reminds me of a conversation I had with friends years ago
about super humanity -- probably after a night of drinking and too much sci-fi
about genetically engineered superior humans.

We decided that a person capable of at least 10% above human maximum (or human
average, I can't really remember) in at least two or three areas or 25% in one
would count as "Super human". This excludes most hyper-specializers like
Olympic Sprinters, or professional chess players.

Here's a fun video of the kind of deltas we were thinking of with professional
American football players
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8tYqT9GDd8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8tYqT9GDd8)

10% isn't all that much, but we felt like a person who could run an under 9
second 100 meter _and_ had an Eidetic memory for example, would qualify as a
classic super human.

But IQ, IQ was hard. We couldn't decide about IQ. IQ is normalized at 100,
fussy to test, and has questionable meaning. But suspending all those
questions for a bit, given an "average" IQ of 100, a 10% or even 25% delta
isn't really all that impressive at 110 or 125, not even Mensa levels. But
let's take the top .1% of IQ, around 145, a 10% increase there is about 160
and a 25% increase is just north of 180 and now we're talking. Kim Ung-yong
definitely qualifies as a single ability super human.

Somebody with an IQ >160 should qualify for certain. After all a 60 point
delta from mean the other way leaves you with an IQ of 40 and we're talking
about pretty severe disability.

So somebody who could run a sub-9 second 100 meter and had an IQ of say...170
would be super human by this completely arbitrary thinking.

In the comics, people with these kinds of abilities, even as limited as this
definition suggests, wear oddball costumes with the underwear on the outside
and capes and either try to take over the world or try to save it.

But in the real world, what people with abilities even close to these kinds of
metrics end up doing is decidedly banal and often somewhat narcissistic.

Fast runners just...run fast against other fast runners...they don't generally
patrol cities and run down purse snatchers like the flash. Heavy lifters see
who can lift the heaviest thing, they don't generally crack open burning
buildings and fight thugs saving orphans like the Thing. People with both
talents get organized into groups and end up seeing who can move a ball
towards one end of a field over another. The really clever ones will parlay
their fame into side businesses and open a burger restaurant or a theme bar or
a line of sports oriented active wear.

These folks aren't curing cancer, or stopping Fascism, or ending poverty, or
worse, even trying to take over a moderate sized piece of real-estate and
become Emperor of the Bronx or something.

For the super smart, there's definitely work for them to do, but it's pretty
limited stuff and you really have to like physics or math to do it. And let's
be honest, Mensa and Mega aren't exactly wowing the world with a prolific
output of revolutionary world changing ideas.

I think partially because it's hard to go off and do the kinds of fantastic
exceptional things that the general populace thinks you _could_ do if you were
super powered. Running a little bit faster still doesn't absolve you vigilante
laws, but it can get you a Gold medal and some cereal advertising deals. Being
ultra-smart doesn't mean you don't have to deal with averagely smart people to
get anything more complex than tinkering done. Nobody so far is so smart than
they can hack their way through the rest of dim-witted humanity like
Ozymandias from the Watchmen.

History has shown that people with exceptional intelligence (at least as
measured by IQ) also go on to do rather hum-drum things.

\- Marilyn vos Savant writes a 2 inch high weekly column where she gives
advice and helps people solve Supermarket brain teasers and Freshman
probability problems.

\- Scott Adams created a mildly observant comic strip about working in a
professional office environment

\- Asia Carrera made a career of getting filmed while having sex and playing
videogames

\- and on and on, a look at some lists of known ultra-IQ folks shows a list of
comedians, some more porn actresses and models, actors, some pro-wrestlers, a
bunch of fiction writers etc.

There's very, painfully, few people who occupied their time with something
that really moved humanity up a notch and even most of those are debatable.

Hell, HN is full of people who I'd guess are in the 90+ percentile and most of
what we do here is pontificate and build chat apps so people can share
pictures of their cats.

~~~
ap22213
Maybe I don't understand evolution completely, but aren't we all born with the
same fitness level? Maybe high IQ makes one fractionally higher in fitness in
a particular aspect, but presumably there are lots and lots of other aspects
(running speed, etc.) which overall balance out.

Anecdotally, I grew up in a poor rural area, and of my gifted class (of kids
with 130+ IQ), 15% didn't even finish high school. And, I'll estimate that 50%
didn't go to college. In fact, of my immediate family (6), all have been
gauged as having high IQ. However, I'm the only one that had finished college
without help (by 90% luck). And, a couple of my other siblings have now
finished college with my financial help. In my experience, location and family
are much more important to potential achievement.

~~~
Jtsummers
We aren't all born with the same fitness level. Nature is not as well balanced
as modern MMORPG character classes.

EDIT: As a non-biologist, but someone who can't read enough about science, I
recommend the writings of either Richard Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould. Both,
actually, since they disagree on a number of points.

~~~
ap22213
Certainly there's enough genetic variation that some will have better fitness
within their given environment. But, that's after the fact. It would be
presumptuous to think that we can understand all biological and environmental
aspects beforehand. Right?

~~~
Jtsummers
It would be presumptuous to think we can understand all those aspects, yes.

That said, I want to clarify something. When I speak of evolutionary fitness
it is not a judgement of the individual regarding their actual value to the
species or society. Evolutionary fitness is, really, a cold thing. It only
matters whether the individual/species reproduces/survives. The dodo was an
evolutionary dead end, even though the cause of extinction was humans, a
pressure was applied that the species could not overcome. An individual that
does not reproduce is another dead end. We, as a society, may look upon a
Harrison Bergeron as the epitome of fitness (mental, physical), but if he's
shot down before he can reproduce evolution doesn't care about him, his
fitness is nil.

------
gopalv
I feel for this guy - people can't understand that what he wants is "Life his
way" and not to be a martyr to society burning his happiness to solve up
equations. The greater good and so forth.

But there is a fundamental angle that I find odd about people's perception of
intelligence. People expect intelligence to be always found alongside
ambition.

When I watched "Limitless", it did hit me in an odd way. If I suddenly could
out-think 99% of humanity, I wouldn't be running for president or becoming a
stock trader profiting off the market. Actually, I don't know because I'm not
that intelligent - but is that kind of ambition pasted over by Hollywood on
top of intelligence?

In comparison, everything from Thor, Dark Knight, Iron Man and even the new
Wall Street movie was about clean power - hell, even Inception has got the guy
with the windmills. That I felt like was an ambition that could occur with
genius (i.e "First thing you do, is find the biggest problem on your planet
and beat it").

But government official or company executive?

That feels odd.

~~~
derefr
> People expect intelligence to be always found alongside ambition.

The amusing thing is, ambition is seen as more "inherent" than intelligence--
part of your personality, rather than just a skill--and yet, improving general
intelligence (by more than 5-10 IQ points) is nearly impossible, while
improving ambition just requires taking some dopamine agonists.

I would think it would be rational, given extremely high intelligence, to
self-modify toward larger ambitions. I mean, if the ambitions you have are
basically cached thoughts that stick around due mostly to inertia, from the
limits you were unable to surmount while you were younger and had fewer
resources... then why not challenge them? Ask yourself what you'd truly want,
if you had every tool available? In fact, why not ask that _now_?

Of course, the answer you arrive at, after this self-awareness comes, _can_
still be an ambition that's limited in scope. But it'll be limited by choice
by your current self, rather than imposed on you by your limited past self.

~~~
jib
I am not sure why you feel it is rational to modify towards larger ambitions -
don't you think that is that a reflection of your own values rather than an
inherent truth?

I would possibly say that it is rational to modify towards having your own set
of goals, but whether those goals are ambitious or not I think depends on what
you value in life? As in - I think the "intelligence" part probably allows you
to realise that it is possible to have many different types of goal in life
and that working towards a set of goals that work for you personally is
important, but that those goals can be defined by what you yourself value.

The most intelligent guy I know wants to have a family, work on somewhat
interesting problems (in chemistry if it matters) but not work huge amount of
hours, so he has set himself up to have a regular consulting gig that he can
do from anywhere and still focus on spending time with his family.

~~~
derefr
Well, I was assuming that with greater intelligence comes a greater capacity
for empathy with less-similar others (e.g. other races, sexes, classes,
species), as seems to be _on average_ the case.

Thus, I'd expect an extremely intelligent, rational person to be very
concerned for the future welfare of humanity and earth-borne life in
general... and then all the goals that _come_ from that would just happen to
be extremely ambitious ones.

------
acchow
> When Kim decided to leave NASA [...] he wanted to get a job in Korea but to
> even do that he was told that he needed elementary, middle, and high school
> diplomas. “Since I had no official diploma ― I had to start all over from
> scratch,” Kim explained.

Highest IQ in the world, 10 years of experience at NASA, and he wasn't
drowning in job offers? South Korean companies need to think seriously about
what they're looking for in an employee.

~~~
girvo
South Korea's business culture is... Different, in my limited (lived there for
6mths and have a number of good friends from SK) experience, but also I think
a lot of businesses wouldn't know what to do with someone so smart?

~~~
acchow
> but also I think a lot of businesses wouldn't know what to do with someone
> so smart?

Figuring out what to do with him wasn't what was holding them back. He got a
job offer after completing his high school and college degree.

~~~
xerophtye
well maybe it helped the companies figure out what to do with him. He did a
business major so they put him in business dev.

------
danielharan
Shocking: a smart person not willing to use the measure of success created by
people that aren't as smart.

~~~
Ygg2
Reminds me of this quote from Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy:

    
    
       "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always 
        assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins
        because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York,
        wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done
        was muck about in the water having a good time. But 
        conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they
        were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same 
        reasons."

------
chroma
I realize this sentiment won't be popular, but I feel it must be said: I'm
glad he's happy, but it's sad that this man didn't live up to his potential.

There is an unimaginable amount of suffering in this world. Around 150,000
people die each day. About 5 million children die each year. Millions of
people are maimed or killed by accident, disease, and violence. Considering
this man's talents, I would much rather live in a world where he devoted
himself to solving important problems. I realize he wouldn't be as happy, but
the expected value in lives saved is quite high.

Before anyone accuses me of hypocrisy: I follow my own advice. I've chosen a
career geared toward maximizing my benefit to others, not my own happiness.
This quote from Circular Altruism[1] reflects my views:

 _You know what? This isn 't about your feelings. A human life, with all its
joys and all its pains, adding up over the course of decades, is worth far
more than your brain's feelings of comfort or discomfort with a plan. Does
computing the expected utility feel too cold-blooded for your taste? Well,
that feeling isn't even a feather in the scales, when a life is at stake. Just
shut up and multiply._

If enough people choose to do this, who knows what might happen? Maybe one day
humanity will have its shit together.

1\.
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/)

~~~
dan00
> There is an unimaginable amount of suffering in this world. Around 150,000
> people die each day. About 5 million children die each year. Millions of
> people are maimed or killed by accident, disease, and violence. Considering
> this man's talents, I would much rather live in a world where he devoted
> himself to solving important problems. I realize he wouldn't be as happy,
> but the expected value in lives saved is quite high.

Most human suffering isn't just solved by smart people thinking hard about
solving some problems. Most human suffering is caused by missing compassion
for people.

> I've chosen a career geared toward maximizing my benefit to others, not my
> own happiness.

Sorry, but I don't think that's the case. You're doing what you do, because it
feels right for you, so in a way you can't get happier by doing something
else.

You might not follow the hedonistic path, but you're still doing what makes
you most happy.

------
jey
Seems that having a more free/playful upbringing would have allowed him to
explore his interests more. Being turned into an equation-solving robot seems
to have crushed his soul.

~~~
xerophtye
Imagine.... at age 7, surrounded by old people. of COURSE he was lonely! What
did you expect? Now if he had a childhood, and entered NASA at the proper age,
he might have even enjoyed it

------
evunveot
HN commenters in general seem to be fairly dismissive when discussions about
IQ come up. (I imagine it comes from a place of humility, because many people
here know that they personally have high IQs.) I thought I understood what an
IQ was (it seems like a simple concept), but that was before a friend started
a graduate-level school psychology program. If you want to see how complex it
is, start here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_%28psychometrics%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_%28psychometrics%29)

If you're interested in the math, it's all about this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_analysis)

In simplified and imprecise terms, your IQ is a statistical construct, i.e.
not something that can be observed or measured directly, but an imagined
variable that (by definition) correlates with a bunch of things that can be
measured. See:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_stratum_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_stratum_theory)

Popular culture fixates on people with very high IQs, but the real importance
of intelligence testing in society is identifying people who qualify for
interventions or benefits due to low intelligence, usually IQ < 70 (two
standard deviations below the mean). There are literally regulations in some
jurisdictions that basically say "If you can produce an IQ score of 69 you
qualify for X, Y and Z; if you score a 71 you qualify for nothing."

Just saying: IQ is definitely fuzzy, but it's not meaningless or just a
measure of how good you are at puzzles. Intelligence testing involves actual
science and has real stakes in society.

------
rational_indian
>having a high IQ is just another element of human talent. If there is a long
spectrum of categories with many different talents, I would only be a part of
the spectrum.

I think this is spot on. Plus the scope of IQ tests seems to be limited to a
very small part of the intelligence spectrum forget about assessing talent in
general.

------
tokenadult
I missed this thread till just now. I wish I had jumped in earlier. The man
from Korea profiled in the article recounts, "I was famous for having a 210
IQ," and that's what generated all the publicity. But in fact, an IQ score
that high could not possibly be a validated IQ score from a currently normed
test. There must have been some mistake in administering or scoring the test,
back in the day, and the same is true of any other report you have ever seen
of an IQ score above 200. ( _No_ IQ score above 200 is a validated, currently
normed score comparable to other IQ scores. Not one, not any. Scores above 200
are bogus, at least insofar as they purport to be comparable to the scores
from IQ tests that most people hear about.)

Let's see which Wikipedia articles have been revised to fight the myths about
high IQ scores, and which merely perpetuate them. Let's see, "High IQ
society"[1] correctly reports that "The highest reported standard score for
most IQ tests is IQ 160, approximately the 99.997th percentile (leaving aside
the issue of the considerable error in measurement at that level of IQ on any
IQ test).[2] IQ scores above this level are dubious as there are insufficient
normative cases upon which to base a statistically justified rank-
ordering.[3][4] High IQ scores are less reliable than IQ scores nearer to the
population median.[5]" all of which is true. I can remember when that article
was much more misleading about how IQ scores work.

The Wikipedia article "Marilyn vos Savant"[2] correctly reports "Alan S.
Kaufman, a psychology professor and author of IQ tests, writes in IQ Testing
101 that "Miss Savant was given an old version of the Stanford-Binet (Terman &
Merrill 1937), which did, indeed, use the antiquated formula of MA/CA × 100.
But in the test manual's norms, the Binet does not permit IQs to rise above
170 at any age, child or adult. And the authors of the old Binet stated:
'Beyond fifteen the mental ages are entirely artificial and are to be thought
of as simply numerical scores.' (Terman & Merrill 1937). ...the psychologist
who came up with an IQ of 228 committed an extrapolation of a misconception,
thereby violating almost every rule imaginable concerning the meaning of
IQs."[12]

"The second test reported by Guinness was Hoeflin's Mega Test, taken in the
mid-1980s. The Mega Test yields IQ standard scores obtained by multiplying the
subject's normalized z-score, or the rarity of the raw test score, by a
constant standard deviation, and adding the product to 100, with Savant's raw
score reported by Hoeflin to be 46 out of a possible 48, with a 5.4 z-score,
and a standard deviation of 16, arriving at a 186 IQ. The Mega Test has been
criticized by professional psychologists as improperly designed and scored,
"nothing short of number pulverization."[13]"

But, yeah, if we get beyond the premise that the man in Korea ever had such a
high IQ score (he may have been told the number, but the person who told him
made some kind of mistake), then we can reflect on the issue of what we expect
from children after they are told they have high IQ scores. Is it a failure
simply to make an honest living and take care of a family? I think not. Very
high IQ or moderately high IQ, the path to genius also involves a lot of hard
work, opportunity, and not a little luck.[3] I think the man profiled in the
article has done just fine and has nothing to be ashamed of.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_IQ_society#Entry_requirem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_IQ_society#Entry_requirements)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant#Rise_to_fam...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant#Rise_to_fame_and_IQ_score)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius#IQ_and_genius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius#IQ_and_genius)

------
smrtinsert
Good for him. If only every list brilliant person could re-center and take
back their lives. I've seen too many bright stars burn out and fade away and
not realize why.

------
salemh
The headline is rather murky on the subject matters. It is a easy article on
intelligence (light), expectations and happiness (heavy).

From the article's introduction: _What will people think of 16-month-old
wonder child Jonathon Rader, able to play various musical instruments, if he
decides not to pursue a career as a musician?_

...

 _“I was famous for having a 210 IQ and being able to solve intricate math
equations at the age of four,” Kim said, adding, “Apparently, the media
belittled the fact that I chose to work in a business planning department at
Chungbuk Development Corporation.”_

 _Kim says the media denounced him as a “failed Genius” but he has no idea why
his life, which he considers a success, had to be called a failure._

~~~
interstitial
I'm always unimpressed with how these geniuses can solve all the math problems
posed to them in these hagiographies (whether Bill Gates or the flavor of the
month). Every math book past sophomore level is full of unsolved problems that
have bested the brightest minds for centuries or longer. I'm always curious
just how do these geniuses define a math problem?

~~~
salemh
Why is the problem being denigrated or juxtaposed or, broken down into syntax
"math" important?

------
jib
I think the article makes a true point well.

Intelligence of the type that is approximated by IQ (pattern identification,
relationship modeling and whatnot) is like most things just another ability.

It's a useful ability in that you can use it to mimic some other useful
abilities if you so choose, but it is just another ability. Any implications
of it being something else is just outside expectation applied by people who
want to further their own agenda, goals, world view or values etc.

Expecting someone with that type of intelligence to conform to any specific
set of values or goals is like expecting someone who is tall to conform to the
idea of being a sports star etc.

------
TheMagicHorsey
I suspect HN and r/programming have a lot of high IQ members who aren't doing
much with their lives.

~~~
asdfologist
True, minus the high IQ part.

------
jrs99
it's like quitting pro football. There are some people that think you're
crazy, because they can't understand another mind that doesn't want to play
pro football and throw a ball around professionally.

~~~
majormajor
Reminds me a bit of this from just a couple of months ago, about a guy who
quit pro baseball because he didn't enjoy doing it as a business. Just because
other people think you have to use a talent in a certain way doesn't mean
that's what's best for you.

"I quit because baseball was sacred to me until I started getting paid for it.
The more that “baseball” became synonymous with “business,” the less it meant
to me, and I saw less of myself in the game every time I got a check from the
Philadelphia Phillies Organization, the Oakland Athletic Company, or the
Chicago Cubs, L.L.C. To put it simply, other players were much better than I
was at separating the game of baseball from the job of baseball."

[http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/10/...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/10/why-
i-quit-major-league-baseball.html)

~~~
talles
I often see this happening... with programming.

------
tzs
Relevant song:
[http://www.broadjam.com/artists/songs.php?artistID=35045&med...](http://www.broadjam.com/artists/songs.php?artistID=35045&mediaID=271694&play=true)

