
So you’ve learned you’ve got a “pitifully” low IQ. How worried should you be? - telotortium
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/10/23/16516516/iq-tests-high-low-achievement-sat-anxiety-determinism
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invalidOrTaken
From the author's (funnier, better) blog post on the subject:

>Second, the people who get low IQ scores, are shocked, find their whole world
tumbling in on themselves, and desperately try to hold on to their dream of
being an intellectual – are not a representative sample of the people who get
low IQ scores. The average person who gets a low IQ score says “Yup, guess
that would explain why I’m failing all my classes”, and then goes back to
beating up nerds. When you see someone saying “Help, I got a low IQ score,
I’ve double-checked the standard deviation of all of my subscores and found
some slight discrepancy but I’m not sure if that counts as Bayesian evidence
that the global value is erroneous”, then, well – look, I wouldn’t be making
fun of these people if I didn’t constantly come across them. You know who you
are

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fjsolwmv
That doesn't look funny or better to me, that looks bitter and hateful for no
reason. This person thinks half the world spends their time beating up nerds?

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invalidOrTaken
I'll just give you the context and you can decide for yourself:
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-
iq-w...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-iq-worries/)

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eksemplar
IQ tests are a bit biased aren't they? I mean, I score around 140 because I'm
really good at spatial stuff, but I sucked socially. It took me into my
thirties to really catch up with other people, to the point where I could
truly fit the management role I wanted, and I'm still learning how to
diplomacy in upper management.

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cko
My friends joke that I'm a sociopath or autistic, and my decisions have been
called 'crazy' many times, and the only way I overcome social awkwardness is
to treat everything as a joke. I have close friends whom I rarely talk to, and
I'm not sure whether or not to blame a higher score for that. In a way, it's
nice to be able to retain information and to be good at words and numbers, to
be able to entertain myself (saves a lot of $$), but man, the first 25 years
of my life (I'm 31 now) were such a struggle socially. There's deep-rooted
feelings of anger at rejection, and I cling to a higher score as one of my
main source of pride. (Yes, I'm jealous of people who have even higher IQs.)

Then again, my mentor who is at least one standard deviation higher seemed to
have had few troubles socially.

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fjsolwmv
That's a dumb joke. You might have one of those conditions, and proper
diagnosis and understanding of how your mind works can be a gateway to therapy
that helps you achieve your life goals with less frustration.

High IQ doesn't make you have low EQ. Some people have both high or both low
or one of each.

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nitwit005
It feels a bit off to say that "IQ is real". It gives a false sense that
something fundamental is being measured. The tests are real, and the
correlations are real.

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festidious
One might argue that a more practically consequential question is what happens
when this same argument gets extended to achievement tests, or admission
tests, such as the SAT, GRE, MCAT, or LSAT?

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cko
Some high-IQ societies accept achievement test scores as IQ tests. For example
the Triple 9 Society accepts a pre-2005 SAT score of 1520 or higher as
equivalent to an IQ of 146 or something (if I remember correctly). And I think
some societies accept LSAT scores, though some have 'insufficient ceilings.'

I'm a bit ashamed to have wanted to join one of these societies. To be fair, I
just wanted to meet intelligent women. I looked at some of their pictures and
there were like 95% men over the age of 40.

At work my mind automatically tries to guess people's IQs. I'm probably really
bad at it, but I think I know when someone's REALLY below average. They ask
questions that don't make sense, sometimes it seems like it's their first day
on the job, etc. As frustrated as coworkers are in dealing with them, and as
much as people claim IQ doesn't matter, if they are at one standard deviation
below the mean, I can't help but feel society has to find a way to make sure
they are taken care of.

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sombremesa
Civilized society does indeed have to find a way to make sure everyone is
taken care of, including the "more intelligent" and less physically capable
people, even if they go around calling people stupid - which is something that
would certainly get them killed prior to the advent of civilization.

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pcurve
IQ topic is popular on hackernews. I wonder if people with well-above
intelligence have preoccupation with IQ more than others.

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confounded
I think the causality may be the other way around.

Having a preoccupation with IQ tests will get you a high IQ test score.
Because being very familiar with IQ tests violates the assumptions of IQ
tests.

I’ve always assumed that this is why people who talk about their high IQ
scores are insufferably dull.

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pcurve
How do you even get tested these days? I got tested when I was 13 in a
classroom setting many moons ago (not in the U.S.), and no one in the class
knew it was IQ test.

I moved to the U.S. shortly afterward and I don't recall being tested.

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beingmyself2
IQ discussion has always seemed to me a little like talking about how much
money you make with other people. The solid numbers as a mark of "who is
better or worse than you" can be uncomfortable. Taken to a statistical level
things become even more awkward, not something easy to discuss with most
people.

