Slashdot Mirror
MSN Sponsors Mensa
crankyspice writes "Fresh on the heels of Google courting members via GLAT advertisements in the Bulletin, Microsoft's MSN is now sponsoring American Mensa events, featuring Mensa questions on the MSN homepage, and Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage."
Look, I'm no shill for MS - I think their OS sucks dead bunnies through short straws, but frankly, who cares ? MS want to associate themselves with an organisation that likes to consider itself better than average, by their own definition. And the news is... what ?
I have no respect for Mensa, they like to position themselves as the "society of the intelligent", and yet most of the people I've interviewed who have claimed Mensa membership on their resume are less than attractive as candidates. It's almost a badge of dishonour... They don't fail on intelligence (but that's not normally where people I interview fail anyway), they fail on people skills - being able to recognise that someone else may know more about X than you do, and coping with that knowledge well.
Oh, I've not much respect for MS either (at least technically - I think their marketing is excellent), but that ought to be obvious from my tagline...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage.
That's not very smart.
my pet machine
Here's a quick link to the wikipedia entry on Mensa. Mensa Some info on what Mensa's goals are. Mensa has three stated purposes: to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity; to encourage research in the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence; and to promote stimulating intellectual and social opportunities for its members. (from wikipedia)
If there was ever a group of self-important dweebs who deserved each other more, I can't imagine it.
This will have what...zero effect?
People love Google. I actually saw Jay Leno mention Google as part of a related joke, and some in the audience began cheering and applauding.
Makes one think Mensa is rather...retarded.
To sum up everyone's responses to this:
1. No one respects Mensa since they base their membership on tests of dubious veracity and not on real world accomplishments.
2. And signing up with a deal with MSN kind of just drives the point home, doesn't it?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
featuring Mensa questions on the MSN homepage, and Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage.
Whatever, that's fine with me.
It's just really too bad they keep spelling it "Msna".
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Here's a quick link to the wikipedia entry on Karma Whore. Karma Whore Some info on what Karma Whore's goals are. Karma Whore has three stated purposes: to post information about a topic that everyone already knows; to link to wikipedia, because wikipedia pwns; and most importantly, to sell his/her brain to slashdot in order to whore karma. (from my cortex)
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
Nope. Why would anyone want to join a group dedicated to comparing mental dick size?
Call me cynical, but how many people will this affect in any way? I see Google or MSN search boxes on all sorts of pages, but I never use them. They seem like a strange relic, more of a "Look what I can add to my site!" element. If I want to search for something, I'll go to Google itself or the handy-dandy search box in my browser's toolbar.
On the other side of things, I can't ever find ANYTHING on the horribly busy and disorganized MSN homepage anyhow, so I'm not sure MENSA questions on there will even be noticed.
Given all of that... if MENSA has someone new to feed them money for events, more power to them. I don't think there's anything to really care about here.
Among many options, one only needs 1300 (out of 1600) on SAT. These days, MANY people easily get 1300. How many is many? 1300 ranks about 90%tile; which means, about 10% have 1300 or better...and that's only EACH test session. Even you can easily qualify for this so-called high IQ society, go to their parties to feed on your self-centered ego
"I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member." - Groucho Marx
Does anyone else see the irony here?
You know what, I didn't. I've never felt the need.
Frankly, I'm not the "worrier" type who needs the justification of a test to prove (s)he's as good as (s)he thinks (s)he is. I've done it and I'm proud of what I've done.
I'm a clever guy - I've excelled in every academic test I've ever taken. (14 'O' levels, 6 'A' levels, 2 'S' levels, a Physics degree from IC, London, and a PhD at KCL). I have more qualifications (in spades) than 99% of people I've met. I don't see the need to be an arrogant SOB because of that. I've set up, run for a few years and successfully sold a company at an excellent profit. I've pretty much done it all - I'm now working in a dream job for a cool company in California and enjoying every minute of it.
And, in case you were thinking along the lines of privileged education etc., my mother is an estate agent, my father a docker, and I was the first in my family to ever go to University. Everyone has, since.
I *do* value intelligence (hell, I require it of interviewees). I just don't value Mensa tests. They're about as useful a measure of basic intelligence as the colour of the sky is of tomorrow's weather. "Red sky at night" will get you so far, but it's only a weighted average. Point made, I think.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
The Actual Effect: "Man, we're not very smart! We wasted all that money on the search program nobody uses."
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
It makes sense. A mensa membership carries about the same degree of prestige as an MSCE cert.
(Read: none at all)
This is a direct response to the Google Aptitude Test.
Microsoft has been trying to coopt academia for years. Now I guess they're trying to coopt "smart people" before Google does.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
For some reason, as I read this story the thought of Count Dooku aligning with the Sith just sprung to mind.
Of course, I just finished watching all twenty Clone Wars cartoons for the first time...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Seriously, the top 2% isn't that special.
There are numerous other IQ societies that will only accept entrants with IQ's in the top 0.x%
Maybe Google will sponsor the triple-9 society or some other higher IQ society to counteract this? (people with IQ's in the 99.9 percentile)
No, they will continue to be smart losers and nothing more, which is why you will rarely find Nobel Prize winners, CEOs, or generally succesful people skulking in their midst.
Breaking news! Microsoft partners with Johnson and Hollings Advertising firm! This is important because Johnson just had a baby! Microsoft and babies!!! What next?
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
Not too long in the future we will become melded into computers. So the computer geeks are essentially practicing for their role as gods.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
But trivia questions do not equal intelligence.
My favorite I've seen is a Mensa sticker on a beat-up Honda with no rear-bumper. Yeah, probably a teacher or something, which is a great and noble profession, but whatever happened to spending 5 or 10 years and getting a nest-egg to live comfortably(at least to repair the car and make it street legal! this one was really bad!).
Ah well, Mensa is the most intelligent Trivia people I've ever met, some are amazing and intelligence and pure genius, most are doped-up idiots. Sorry, even the country club will have intelligent people and idiots, Mensa is no different, no gold though.
Think about this for a minute...a good score on the GRE which consists of basic reading comprehension and 9th grade algebra gets you into a special smart persons club?
I plan on using a variation of these bullet points for my presentation. If any of you slashdotters happen to be at MensAGumbo, please come and cheer me on, say hi, etc.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
But Mensa in fact means stupid or dumb in spanish...
So NO, I don't buy it!!!
Your Mensa are belong to us... get it? (not really but who cares)
Have a good one.
===== "Every head is a different world so don't invade mine you FREAK!" smartSAGA said
There's Mensas "Intelligence"
There's Microsofts "Intelligence"
Then there's plain good old fashioned Common Sense.
I know which one I'd rather aspire towards.
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
Throwing aside any accusations towards the organizations involved and looking purely at the people within them and the intentions of Mensa (if not the reality) there is a great irony. MSN User #121402: OMfG!11!!onehundredeleven! im so hpy - C U L8r GurlZ! The fact that the so called "Top 5% of the population" in terms of intelligence would want to be associated with that is delicious. The society that centres around the use of MSN consists mainly of 13 year olds who have just discovered that they can post blogs of their useless opinions and hopeless angst. Anyhow, can't say they don't deserve eachother. I suppose I can see how Mensa might want to advertise with MSN though. I mean, they've got to perpetuate their member-base somehow. "Angst-ridden kids" is actually a step up from "pompus, elitist old men with no practical skills (but a knack for IQ tests)".
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I have no personal experience with Mensa members. I remember being referred to the "practice exam" by a friend in high school, that's where I picked up some preliminary information on the group itself.
That said, my main problem with Mensa is not their stated goal of creating an environment in which intelligent discourse can flourish.
My problem is also not with the fact that, in order to accomplish such goals, they must exclude a certain (sizable) portion of the population from their "enlightened organization."
The issue that I personally have with Mensa is that their standards are established not to accept people with some acceptable level of genius and potential, but rather to accept people who are "better than 99% of the rest of humanity."
Thus, they are elitist in the purest sense of what I understand the term to mean. If their standards of admission were designed with the intent to merely keep the general body to a basic level of intelligence and competency, why index them against the average IQ of contemporary human beings? Bear in mind that, according to their admission testing, at no time can more than 2% of the population be members of Mensa (assuming universal application). The implicit assumption is that the vast majority of humanity is incapable of civil discourse and intelligent discussion (at least on the level that they would like), but I see no reason why this should be the case.
I see the sub-par intellectuality of humankind as a practical failure, the burden of which is borne by the entire race. To me there appear no deep reasons to believe that the population must be divided into the two subgroups of which we are so fond: the brains and the brawn. It is true that some people will always be smarter, wiser, and more capable than others. However, I see such considerations to be largely irrelevant except when one considers the scholarly pursuits of the natural and social sciences. And in such a case, I would argue that chance and circumstance (by the latter I mean the state of society and associated research at the time of advancement) play a role so important that they may overshadow small differences in individual ingenuity.
from a Google search result
Has MENSA even contributed anything to society? Ever? What's the last scientific breakthrough these fucking "geniuses" have had? I'm a college CSE student at __THE__ Ohio State Unviersity who's just had 17 Bud lights, yet I'm typing with perfect grammar. Let me in, MENSTtruation. I'm smarter than all those fuckers. Cocksuckers.
A stated goal of MENSA is creating an environment in which intelligent discourse can flourish.
Slashdot?
I just withdrew my membership from Mensa.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Mensa is the biggest group of Mental Masturbators ever.
:)
Seriously.
Accept their offer (cmon, anyone can score in the top 2% on a REAL iq test not those corny ass web ones) and go to one of their meetings.
It basically consists of "rah rah rah, we're smart and this is what smart people do". A few were genuinely interested in intelligence and brought some interesting puzzles--but for most of them its just mental masturbation to the extreme.
Most people there had no practical ability IMO. They were your typical college students and adults who had high GPA (I have a 4.0 and it means nothing IMO) but had no ability to apply it or do something useful. They memorized facts. Ask them something that they hadn't read and they'd be totally blown away and couldn't answer. It'd be fun watching them squirm
Real smart people don't join Mensa. People who want to be smart join Mensa.
.. because everybody knows anybody with the IQ over a mouse should run linux ;) .Albert
Microsoft's MSN is now sponsoring American Mensa events, featuring Mensa questions on the MSN homepage, and Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage in exchange for allowing Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates into their organization.
When asked of this peculiar action, Mr. Gates told reporters: "I tried the tests and the puzzles and stuff, but I couldn't really figure them out. Then I realized that I was the richest man in the world and I didn't have to deal with this crap."
Gates also spoke of creating a new organization tangential to Mensa, the Pecunia Society. "It has only one requirement -- just have more money than 99.998% of the world's population!"
"!"
There are a lot of comments along the lines of how ridiculous it is MS have anything to do with intelligence.
But in their defence, MS do produce some of the best commercial software there is. It's all well and good comparing software written by other companies, but the fact is it's a lot easier for a small company with a single application to get better staff. Compared with other large companies - any company with more than 3 major products - MS software is actually quite stable and reliable. A lot of software from other companies is seriously buggy, horribly slow, and behaves totally unexpectedly.
The other thing to consider is that they do have a policy of hiring intelligent staff based on more than academic qualifications. Their interviews are famous for questions like "How would you move mount fuji?"
Mensa's goals are (paraphrased): "To foster human intelligence, to research human intelligence, and provide a social forum for it's members" By and large, it's mainly only this last one that ever happens. By far and away the most popular regular Mensa meeting in London, England is the pub crawl.
Mensa is a Social Club. Members often have very little in common, but a common ability to think. While there is a qualification of a top 2% IQ score for entry, only a tiny percentage actually apply.
For the record, I'm not entirely comfortable with corporate sponsorship of Mensa. The fact that it's Microsoft is something I really don't like. But it's just my opinion - by policy, Mensa has no opinions
(disclaimer: the author is a member of British Mensa, and sits on the London organising committee (LocSec forum)(
... and today's pet project has
Almost every Mensa member I've met is an arrogent bastard who thinks they are better than other people; having spent a few years at Microsoft, I know they'll fit right in.
This isn't envy, when I took an IQ test I was literally off the scale. The highest standardised test score in the history of my school district was 176, I scored 212. I was disqualified from an 'intellectual' competition because I scored 98, when the second highest of over 100 others was 76, and I completed the quiz in 15 minutes of the alloted hour; they believed I must have cheated somehow.
But I'm smart enough to know that the value of a person has nothing to do with standard test scores.
While working at MS I treated the janitors with the same respect as my managers, because I knew that without eighter of them, the job wouldn't get done. One amusing moment was when the local grocery store clerk said she liked people like me, unlike those stuck up people who work at Microsoft, which was where I was working at the time.
I may be able to craft an exceptional peice of software, recall what portion of a page in a novel a sentance appeared on, and instantly remember 10 digit numbers backwards; but I can't draw worth a damn, can't sing, or play a musical instrument, am a terrible speller, and can't parellel park.
Everyone has different abilities, and just because someone is Rich, Smart, or Pretty; dosn't make them a good person.
Hurt your puny little intellect now, did he?
Cut him a little slack, the parent poster asked for it.
Uh, in order to have mental orgies?
... when you have Google?
:P
But then again, Mensa is just a place for people who cannot entertain themselves on their own...
At first glance I thought I read:
MSN Sponsors Menses
And I'm thinking: gee, what a NOVEL way attract female readership!
I'm gonna go visit my eye doctor tomorrow
--- fyredragon
Jill: Yes (laughing).
Anne: What's funny about that?
Jill: I'm a former member of Mensa.
Anne: Former member of Mensa.... did they throw you out?
Got the quote from here.
A few weeks ago I saw an interview with a reporter who got into Mensa, she passed the test with flying colours... got into the group and went to a few meetings... well.. in short.. she didn't fill the test in at all. A friend did it for her..
Seems they can't even tell when a "normal" person is among them, now they can't tell what a good source engine is. Next it'll turn out they were all frauds who had to make a gang incase someone wanted to take their pocket money..
I like muppets.
Testing proves that testing works.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
People overdevelop in a certain area to compensate for another area that doesn't work.
IQ tests test analytical skills because the modern social paradyme views those areas as being the important areas of intelligence, whereas large portions of a person's intelligence are left completely untested by IQ tests.
So what you get with an organization like Mensa are a pile of mild to moderate autistics who can do well on an IQ tests because much of their neurological development never happened, causing their brains to overdevelop in other areas to compensate for what they don't have. They may think they're smart, but overall they're often not any more intelligent than the average guy on the street, or perhaps less so. To be intelligent in one area means you're probably stunted in another, but to be intelligent in all areas is truly rare.
A new book on the way: Mensa for Dummies.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
They deserve each other. An overrated web service and a bunch of pathetic mental masturbators. Good match.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
ROTFL; mod parent up.
Eh? I'm not a Mensa member, but I am a member of a social sports club and an amateur astronomical society. They're called extra-curricular activities, and they're a very good way to meet interesting people with common interests and attitudes.
Both of my groups are full of people with whom I share common interests, and both are full of great contacts for other things in life if I ever want help. How is that different from Mensa, and how does that make any of these like an "old boy network"?
Just as my and many other people's interests happen to be in a certain area shouldn't mean that someone else's interests shouldn't be allowed to be in the realm of puzzle solving and so on, and whatever else Mensan's engage in.
and i thought mensa was full of smart people....
"I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."
--Groucho Marx
Great! I have thought about doing the Menza test. I mean - of course it would feel great to belong to the smartest 2% of the population! On the other hand I could fail... But as a seeker of knowledge and truth - is it acceptable not to take a test because the result can be a disappointment? Thats quite cowardly!
And are those people in Menza smart at all? Does the damn test really measure anything meaningful? Will I find nice friends there, or will I just be even more the geek and the nerd I already am?
So this was great news for me! I dont like MS, I dont like MSN. Frankly, MS is for Amateurs! Thus, now Menza is for Amateurs and wannabies as well! Good news, made my day!
Thanx and have a nice day!
By far and away the most popular regular Mensa meeting in London, England is the pub crawl.
Yes, but then again England isn't exactly the best place to do anything else, is it?
...you just dont cut it. Cope with it.
Go quote wikipedia, or grep "my theachers panties" or whatever... Groucho Marx's statement doesen't apply here. You are not invited.
ys
PaleMensaDude
My initial reaction to Mensa+Microsoft was more along the lines of, "is this Microsoft's answer to the fact that Google is renowned for hiring a lot of PhDs?"
You'd figure they would have done some basic research before settling on a organization's name...
What a bunch of mensos.
>> eighter of them
Apparently you aren't smart enough to learn good spelling. Which kinda puts you in the "arrogant bastard" category.
That's "the low self-esteem society' isn't it?
That was classic intercourse!
you owe me a new keyboard!! I just spit tequila all over this one.
Shit, how hard can it be to get into MSN? There must be security holes everywhere.
In reference to the ELO rating system chess grandmaster David Bronstein once said you can't put a number on a brain
I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life
You don't get social skills by socializing with your own nerdy kinds.
Social skills deal with EQ more than IQ. my IQ 144 on a scale of 150 (Netherlands), but the only friends I had in college were real nerds I couldn't relate to. Their narrow interests (technical, nothing social, political or whatever), their lack of motivation. I tried starting a business with them. They are completely useless. They prefer to sit home and watch reruns of Star Trek, or giggle over nerdy ideas of how the world could be, with nifty little gadgets.
Nerdclubs are not beneficial to people making sense of the world and participating in it effectively. I can see where they need the be mentally challenged by others on their own level to further their own knowledge, however, it is terribly one sided, as they also need to be challenged in their social skills and learn to relate to others who are not like them.. so they can understand social and political concerns and serve mankind optimally. Being smart is not an achievement. It's merely a potential, and means.
To generalize, any 'grouping' is harmful to social health, be it based on IQ, race, religion, wealth or whatever. Interaction among them is far more valuable. Because it helps become more concouss of the world we live in. And that I believe is a prerequisite to know right from wrong and be a good rather than bad influence to society.
Scientists who live in their own reality, and get drifted off in their own obsession in their own narrow field of interest, without understanding how it relates and affects the larger context of life and morality, deserves serious concern.
When you have the body of a fighter which tells you to kill and break things, and your brain is saying "Wait a minute, buddy."
this is just another example of microsoft innovating! it's a new way to bring smart people together, and to foster a richer environment for msn users.
it doesn't matter that google did something like it first, what matters is that microsoft is innovating!
I look at Mensa as I look at the "gifted" kids when I was in school.
Not very smart but able to memorize a chapter of a math text before a test. Ask them to use the information practically or to extrapolate from it...
I was in the gifted stream for half a semester in grade 8 [way back in the day]. We had todo indy projcts. I wrote a BBS in pascal. The average other student did a collage on something they read about....Basically little kiddy projects.
I've met a Mensa dude before [friend of family actually] and while he's a nice dude and all I don't particularly look at him as an above average intelligence person...
So go ahead MSFT, sponsor Mensa. Instead of actually ***doing*** crafty things you can sponsor people who just think highly of themselves...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I forget which book it was, but he satirised Mensan's as a bunch of balding sendentary sex-obsessed Men and middle aged women who laugh at their own spoonerisms.
Maybe I'll make a language where all the really common words of other languages are horrible horribly bad evil vile words.
"Dude, you can't say 'the', that means @#$%^&* in Zivlang!"
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
You have to be pretty dumb to use MSN for your web searching.
Improve at backgammon rapidly through addictive quickfire position quizzes: www.bgtrain.com
Contrary to conventional wisdom, intelligent people are more, not less, likely to be socially competent, well groomed, aware of what's going on in the world, etc.
That said, Mensa is a social club with highly self-selected membership. I'm not sure that its members are any weirder than members of Parents without Partners, a Sci-Fi Con, or an athletic club.
There's nothing wrong with a social club that draws together people with a common interest. It is just that in Mensa the common interest is one's own intelligence, with a tacit subtext of "only people who know how smart I am appreciate me, and I appreciate only people who are as smart as me."
I have never been a Mensa member; I have never been tempted to be a Mensa member for the reasons cited. I know some, but remarkably few, Mensa members. They haven't convinced me that Mensa members have enough genuine common interests to form a cohesive social club.
Every person I know gifted with high technical and mathematical intelligence is a Linux user. I'm a Mensa member and a Debianite and consider MS' principle of making almost all decisions for the user an insult to anyone's intelligence.
Being gifted is a terrible weight to carry for a child, because it shows and constantly expose you to jealous behaviours and sarcasms from other kids, their parents, not to speak of teachers. You spend years in schools trying to offer the smallest surface of yourself to the view of others - unsucessfuly, in general.
You think that it'll get better in college ? Nope, wrong. In adulthood ? Nope. Wherever you go, you are surrounded by the same poisoned atmosphere when people realise you think faster than they do. When you're that bright, yu soon understand what it was to be suspect of wichcraft.
Look at this thread : full of hatred against those folks, because they dare claim they're smart. Would they have claimed any other talent such as music or painting, there would be applauses of joy, but logical intelligence must be hidden.
So I understand those people like to gather, just to meet some of their kind. And I think there's a form of therapy in it. Bragging about it being part of the therapy, just like the AAs.
Being gifted is a curse most of the time.
Posting on Slashdot - Intellectual Masterbation
We're all just wankers, we just do it in different booths.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
people in mensa are retarded AND feminine.
Man, you'd have to be an idiot to use MSN search.
I guess some people just can't win or even draw with some other people. The guy's explaining that he doesn't give a shit about what he listed for clarity - if he hadn't listed it, someone else would have questioned him and called him a fraud instead. He didn't go on and on about it in several sentences, he put it aside in a parenthesis *because it wasn't the point* and because he had a real point to make.
Stop being so goddamned cynical, nit-picking and condemning and try to nail people for the smallest thing. I'm ashamed that people reckon this is Insightful.
You would think they would be smart enough to put Google search on the homepage?
? Why is this moderated over-rated , Over-rated is for things that are Moded up already .
Mod parent up-
Its a joke
As a Mensa member, I'd have to say you're wrong about most members.
Most Mensa members are quite ordinary people who happen to be able to perform logical thought faster and more accurately than average. While there are some arseholes, just as there are in any group, most recognise their ability for what it is. Most also recognise that IQ isn't what makes you a good person, or a particularly valuable member of society.
It might interest you to know that those who score the top 2% out of the population can gain entry to Mensa should they wish to. Know also that Mensa in the UK has only around 40,000 members out of a potential membership of 1,200,000 people. The US stats will probably be similar. That means that there are a *LOT* of equally smart people out there who frankly can't be arsed, haven't bothered or don't think they are smart enough to join.
In conclusion, your perception of Mensa isn't the reality of the organisation or most of the people in it. As I said, most of the people are quite ordinary, from all classes, political persuasions, cultures, races. They get together occasionally for a beer or coffee and a chat.
Finally, if you think you can practice for the test and ace it, on you go. You could then throw the result in their face when you pass and tell them their society isn't worth joining. More power to you.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
"Look at this thread : full of hatred against those folks, because they dare claim they're smart. "
The key word here is "claim". Why would they feel the need to announce their intelligence to the rest of the world? Usually to make up for some perceived inferiority in their lives.
It's interesting that often the TRULY brilliant people never really admit/realize how smart they are. Or they realize that there is always somebody smarter than them.
I've been reading a memoir by Richard Feynman, who by most people's measure was a genius. Yet he continually says things that show that he isn't terribly impressed with himself. I guess meeting people like Niels Bohr and Einstein would do that to you (but those guys probably thought they weren't the super geniuses they were, either).
But however these guys thought of themselves they DID something with their genius, not sit around and think about how smart they are.
Would anybody remember them if they hadn't? You never hear people saying stuff like, "yeah he never got much done, but that guy was freaking smart!"
I guess my point is that nobody cares how smart you are. It's what you do with it.
You don't need to be a super genius or even that far above average to accomplish something.
As for what have I accomplished? Well for today...you're looking at it. However smart I may be, it will never make up for the fact that I am lazy.
Of course not. Then why expect perfection from Mensa? Straight from their web page, "Membership in Mensa is open to persons who have attained a score within the upper two percent of the general population on an approved intelligence test that has been properly administered and supervised. There is no other qualification or disqualification for membership eligibility."
There's nothing in there about being good with people, trivia, cooking, art, blah blah.. They know exactly what they are and don't pretend to be more. Why get upset with them because your perception of their charter is incorrect? Look at Slashdot. "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." The top headline is "Firefox Continues to Bite into IE Usage." How much of the world population think "Firefox Continues to Bite into IE Usage" matters?
I'm sure there arrogant members within Mensa, just like any other group of people (just look at Slashdot, or the IT field). Do you think the arrogant members became arrogant when they joined Mensa? Of course not. They know they were "God's gift to the (insert any field/group/etc here)" from the very beginning.
Here in Germany, the Mensa is the place at a university where you can get cheap food. I've never heard of this l33t-club here, I think the idea is just wierd.
Being gifted is a terrible weight to carry for a child, because it shows and constantly expose you to jealous behaviors and sarcasms from other kids, their parents, not to speak of teachers. You spend years in schools trying to offer the smallest surface of yourself to the view of others - unsuccessfully, in general.
Being gifted is not a curse - failing to develop socially is. I know plenty of really smart people who were popular - mainly because being smart did not define them. They played sports, were into music, one did pyrotechnics effects for plays - all things that *were* of interest to others. They're all nice, well rounded people who happen to be smart - and are fun to be around because discussions center on things besides IQ and tests.
Yea, nobody wanted to be around the kid that bragged about a 100 on a test - and the really smart ones figured it out and developed other interests as well.
You think that it'll get better in college ? Nope, wrong. In adulthood ? Nope. Wherever you go, you are surrounded by the same poisoned atmosphere when people realize you think faster than they do. When you're that bright, you soon understand what it was to be suspect of witchcraft.
I don't know about your experiences, but my college experiences didn't involve poisoned atmospheres for bright people. My roommate, for example, was brilliant - nearly a 4.0 in Mech Eng / Nuke Eng, aced tests by simply reading 100 pages of a textbook the night before an exam, yet he was very well liked and respected member of my fraternity. Why? Because his intelligence did not define him. He had great social skills, and if you needed help in a course he'd take the time to explain things until you understood them.
Look at this thread : full of hatred against those folks, because they dare claim they're smart. Would they have claimed any other talent such as music or painting, there would be applauses of joy, but logical intelligence must be hidden.
No, the "hatred" is toward folks who seem to think intelligence is somehow valuable or makes someone better than another. IQ isn't a skill, nor is it particularly valuable - what is worth recognition is what you do with it.
We've all met bright people that exude the impression that because you're "not as bright" or didn't get as high a test score that you're not in their league. Any wonder people treat them like they're an ass?
You could replace Mensa with "people who think that living in a high rent zip code form closed social club" and you'd get many of the same responses. And you know what - many of the people who would meet that criteria are nice people who are well liked, and a few are pompous asses who think they're disliked because of where they live; never realizing that they would be pompous assess and treated as such no matter where they are.
Being gifted is a curse most of the time.
No, the curse is thinking being gifted is something you think others really care about.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I agree that you don't need to be intelligent to accomplish something. You just need to be very determined or lucky.
It's not that it must be hidden, it's that you must not flaunt it at the expense of others. Insulting the intelligence of others even in a catharic manner is unacceptable. Half of life is getting along with other people. With making sure others feel as though they are part of the process.
I absolutely agree that bright children have it hard. Does it suck that people of "average intelligence" engage in this behavior? Yes. Does it give a person based on thier intellect the right to return the favor? No. To put it in the terms of my grandmother (who only had an 8th grade education); Smart kids tend to have a lot of "book sense", but no "common sense". And trust me, growing up she tossed that one at me enough that it eventually stuck.
I don't think there's many people that use this forum that haven't been ostracized due to thier percieved intellect. And a fair number I can assure you, don't have that all important "common sense". In order to succeed socially, you have to be people savvy to an extent; and maintain an attitude of juggling the egos of others, not adding to or inflaming thier insecurities.
It's one thing to proclaim how bright you are, and to execute/apply that intellect at the expense of others. It is another simply to note that you are a person that knows a fair amount, but can always learn something else. Something new.
As for me, I've seen a lot of credentials tossed about in this conversation. I have some. Not that they mean much. I noted that long ago. It's not an accurate indicator of intellect.
I've also been the kid ostracized for being bright. Add on to that culturally ostracized for showing interest in things my peers considered 'white' (although I don't agree with his outlook on it, read John McWhorter's "Losing The Race: Self Sabotage In Black America" for more on that). I even remember thinking that indeed, I am brighter than most. But most of all, I remember my grandmother telling me that I may be bright, but I still don't know shit.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensa_International#T rivia
In a nutshell: they knew, but figured that mensa was more similar to the Spanish mesa (table) than menso (m) or mensa (f) meaning stupid.
People will never forgive you belonging to circle they can't.
have you ever heard of the freemasonry?
Anyone stupid enough to pay a fee to join MENSA deserves to be ridiculed. Please keep putting MENSA on your resume. It saves us the trouble of calling you in for an interview.
I would argue that it does get a bit better in college and adulthood, especially if you manage to find like-minded people, which would explain the purpose of Mensa. After all, one of the easily recognizable purposes of lower education is to build a social network, whereas it is assumed that you are capable of forming your own connections without help by college. However, I do see your point: Among their nongifted peers, the gifted are eschewed and ridiculed. At best, they're barely tolerated. The only roles which they seem to be accepted in are those that demand intelligence: Those such as professor and tutor. Even then, you're always approached as a pedagogue, never a peer.
I think those that offer jobs based upon the possesion of an MCSE certification are typically members of MENSA.
Mental masturbators can do it anytime, anywhere in public or private, without anybody else's knowledge and without making a mess. What's wrong with that?
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
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maybe this is just me not looking too deeply into the affairs of mensa but the only thing I find mensa really good for is for finding fun games and puzzles...like set and apples to apples... i really don't know anything else practical that they've done with thier intelligence but this seems like a pretty good idea. anyway this is just from like a boring average person
Some people believe 1-1=3 and for the sake of being politically correct, we should respect their differences
Both organizations exhibit many of the same characteristics.
They are just two of many anachronistic collections of persons with agenda defined by narrowly defined parameters chosen to enhance their own self engrandisement and the general perception in others that they are in some mannner superior to them.
I completely agree, time to meta mod again.
"it is not all that hard to ace the Mensa test if you prepare well enough for it - just spend a while solving puzzles and patterns, and it'll be a cakewalk." I have heard that a million times, and challenged as many. None have so far succeded! Go ahead!
.. what if Mensa were full of smart bunnies?
Whether they are intelligent or not does not change one simple fact, the adoption of MSN links proves that they are corrupt.
Not all intelligent people are corrupt.
But corrupt people may be intelligent.
(If you are following this logic you may still apply to be admitted to Mensa).
All I'm saying is that anyone who knows any history of computing knows Microsoft is a dominant monopoly that abuses its power by manipulating all efforts for common standards and ethical behavior.
Any significant system (such as a church, a political party, an intelligence club) is subject to corrupt behavior. Evidently Mensa has evolved to a stage where the great majority of the organisation is selfish and corrupt enough to have little in the way of moral values.
*sigh*
So stop debating if Mensa is intelligent or not. Address the real issue.. is Mensa corrupt or not?
Mensa is a club that lets its members pretend that they're somehow special. The *real* community of the intelligentisa is academia.
Does your succes ... and no-membership of Mensa make every Mensa member an "arrogant SOB"?
Does it make NAY Mensa member an "arrogant SOB"?
Or is it just you?
The entire first screenful of comments is people trying to be intellectual in the face of Mensa, and doing the whole it's-its, your-you're thing.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
"Almost every Mensa member I've met is an arrogent bastard who thinks they are better than other people." That's probably because the only people you have ever met are americans!
I am a member of Mensa in Europe - which is an organisation made out of ordinary people with a high IQ - and I am very displeased with what the american organisation has done! But what the heck! What else can you expect from americans! This is not a Mensa-thing. This is just another exampe of american behaviour!
Frankly, I'm not the "worrier" type who needs the justification of a test to prove (s)he's as good as (s)he thinks (s)he is. I've done it and I'm proud of what I've done.
I'm a clever guy
... but not clever enough to figure out your own gender?
There's more than a grain of truth to that. Even business and industry leaders cling to the academic community.
Most academics have enough sense to know that there are things more important than intelligence.
Being gifted is a curse most of the time.
Oh keyyyrist. Being gifted isn't a curse, being a socially inept boob is a curse. Many people on this thread brought up Richard Feynman -- do you think he found his genius to be a curse? No, as he didn't do what a majority of geeks do and that is flaunt their intelligence why making snarky comments that no one will accept them.
While you might think its perfectly acceptable to flaunt your IQ, what do you think of someone that constantly flaunts their money? Walks around with bling bling while driving his Benz? Do you admire him or pity him for trying to buy acceptance? Why are the rules changed when it comes to IQ?
Its like the old football quote of "acting like you've been there before" when scoring a touchdown. Those with true intelligence don't need to publically flaunt it, they are secure in themselves with their own powers.
My
Ego
Needs
Some
Attention
Isn't Mensa supposed to be smart?
hear hear; wonder how many people understood your comment?
GrimRC
If you have ever made the mistake of signing up for Mensa (I almost did, for the sake of getting brain-teasers in the mail), don't put it on your resume unless you're certain it will only be read by people who are members of Mensa.
I don't have hiring authority, but my boss does have me screen potential hires at job fairs and do interviews. I've seen a couple of resumes that mention Mensa. They are, without exception, from people who would fall into the 3rd quartile of the people at my company in terms of innate technical talent, but they strike me as the sort who would be mostly untrainable, dropping them into the 2nd quartile after our rather intense training process, and then due to unwillingness to pick up the skills we want them to have if they conflict with their own curiosities, down into the first quartile after six months on the job, because the people hired with them are now much more valuable to us.
That's not to say that I reject any resume that mentions Mensa, just that I have yet to put one in our fairly short call-back pile. I could definitely see a manager starting to form that association after a while.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
My opinion of Slashdot posters just plummeted. Seriously, a few years ago there were so many insightful comments regularly posted. After reading this article it seems like most people here are jealous script kiddies. A truly intelligent individual wouldn't resent others for being intelligent also. Only those lacking confidence in their own abilities would lash out so viciously.
>> MSN Sponsors Mensa
And in other news, Mensa is changing its name to MeSNa.
... are stupid enough to buy into the "microsoft way?"
i figure most of them are card-carrying members of the open source community if they're involved with computers at all... if they aren't, they're probably smart enough to realize that giving microsoft MORE money (by using windows, microsoft web properties, etc..) to further their monopolistic ways is BAD, and use competing or open source products anyway...
Many mensans are losers.
The truly intelligent are out there utilizing their intelligence rather than sitting around building up a false sense of ego.
Now let me ask this
If they are so damn intelligent
Oh wait, I'm sorry that requires being attached to the real world.
I suspect many of them (i'm being nice so I'll say probably not all) are only interested in getting credit and recognition for being "intelligent".
After all, when one hasn't actually accomplished anything useful there must be some way to compensate.
Also, if mensans were smart they would recognize the value in allowing "ordinary folk" into their organization. Especially if a member of ordinary folk is interested in what they do. There is always something to learn from everybody. Anyone who doesnt recognize that can't possibly be smart. Is mensa concerned that a "dummmy" will dumb down their own intelligence? They don't need to reduce the level of puzzles or whatever the hell mensans sit around doing. They can maintain solving the types of puzzles they currently work on (just make it clear to everyone joining that the puzzles are difficult and the topics spoken about are complex). Those who don't like it will leave.
So, I challenge the mensa societies of the world to do something useful rather than inflate their own egos.
and I love them, but believe you me, those people don't know how to get out of the rain.
The anti-intellectualism shown here is disturbing. There are people here who've had bad encounters with Mensans, and go on to claim that "Having a high IQ doesn't make you a good person!" Well, Mensa agrees with you! They aren't the "good person club", they are the high (well, top 2%) IQ club. I also wonder how many people who mod up the anti-Mensa posts have actually knowingly met a representative sample of Mensans?
And all this talk that "IQ is useless" is bullocks. IQ is (an attempt to measure) a resource (just one of many), and if a person is emotionally capable of exploiting that resource for their betterment, then their IQ has helped.
To attempt a (somewhat) lame analogy, IQ is like voltage--it's potential. Your personality is like the electronic circuitry, and the current is whether or not you apply your IQ. If your voltage is too low to power the electronics, you can use effort and hard work to make up for it (just as you can use circuitry to increase the voltage beyond that of the power supply), but it's better (or at least, easier) if you already have the potential at hand.
That isn't to say that intelligence is all you need to be a totally kick-ass person, just that it can help.
IQ is just one of many dimensions of a person, and it's certainly useful, when taken in context, in evaluating, in some ways, a person.
Or put another way, any talk of IQ always seems to degrade to, "having a high IQ doesn't make you a good person," which immediately leads to, "IQ is useless!" Well, being a good person doesn't make you able to learn 5 languages, or advanced calculus, etc, but that doesn't make being a good person useless, does it? So why should it be the other way around?
Finally, I'd like to address the issue of, "IQ tests don't measure 'intelligence', they measure one's ability to solve an IQ test." That's mostly true, and important to keep in mind, but if the tests didn't work, you'd expect 'idiots' to score high sometimes, and 'geniuses' to score low sometimes, beyond any level of statistical usefulness. This is obviously not the case.
Unfortunately, we don't really understand the workings of the mind in enough detail to measure (or even define) 'intelligence' like we can measure and define a length, or mass. That doesn't make the ideas of 'intelligence' or 'IQ' useless, it just limits the certainty of the conclusions we can draw from them.
I work in the medical field and I've had the opportunity to meet a few of medicine's really bright people.
And none of them seem to want or need other people patting them on the backs telling them how smart they are.
Yes, of course, there are some Mensa members who are arrogant. But arrogance and IQ are unrelated.
There seems to be an assumption by most people posting to this thread that anyone who joins Mensa does so to prove that they are intelligent.
There also seems to be an assumption that members of Mensa generally shout it to everyone who doesn't want to listen.
How many members do you know who don't shout it about?
I am a Mensan, and I joined to get access to people and activities which help stretch me - because I enjoy being stretched.
I'm very dissapointed in the reactions from most people on this thread, giving a label of arrogance to every Mensa member.
Only my close family know that I am a member, and I know I'm not the only member who does not have any interest in advertising it.
... just because you're smart doesn't mean you have common sense. Or taste, for that matter. I mean, come on... Would you normally hang around with some fat guy in a butterfly suit?
That is all.
If MSN were smart, they'd hire Information Professionals such as librarians with experience in online searching; individuals who are able to formulate an effective search strategy by identifying entities which describe a given subject; individuals
who understand how MSN indexes documents; individuals who are concerned with a database's precision and recall. High IQ alone does not make one an effective searcher. How many of Mensans have experience searching serious databases such as Dialog or Lexis/Nexis?
Precision = the ratio of relevant search results for a given input subject by the total number of search results returned.
Recall = the ratio of the number of relevant search results returned for a given input subject by the total number of relevant search results in the online database for that given subject.
I wonder if the members of MENSA refer to themselves as menses.
Mensa accepts a bunch of test scores for entry; ones that fall to the right of the bell curve. So pick your poison. If Mensa itself tests you, you're given two tests. The Wunderlic and the MAT, Mensa Acceptance (Aptitude?) Test. get in the top 2% on either of these and you're in. You can also take any administered IQ test and use those scores.
These tests are not all like the Mensa Quiz book puzzles - those are meant as brain teasers, not testers. Any test for entry into Mensa WILL test left AND right brain functioning. Spatial reasoning, pattern-recognition, language skills, vocabulary, reading comprehension, memory, and analogies are all used, too. Can anyone say that's not a round set by which to measure IQ?
These tests are also timed - anyone can get all of these problems if given enough time. These tests are designed to force you to learn the rules, and navigate by them in the time allotted. In other words, can your brain quickly adapt to a new environment?
Have trouble with English? take it in your own language with an International chapter.
These tests measure a lot of things, not just puzzle-solving ability. There are many brilliant people who don't do well on tests, that's for sure. But for catching most of them, these tests are the best we have.
IQ is no measure of a man or woman - everyone should know that. My IQ score is in the top 1% in the world. BFD! So I'm one of the smartest 60 MILLION people in the world - BFD! I don't look down on anyone, not while I've my own flaws to work out.
I just joined for the trivia competitions.
academia is a more legitimate candidate for "the community of the intelligentsia", but there's still a lot of bullshit even there
GrimRC
If you use MSN, you're automatically disqualified from being a member?
I'm not gifted, and I don't have any social skills...WHAT DO I DO NOW?!?!?!
whose IQ is "off the scale". He should be able to spell in no less than five different languages.
You think English is my native language? Think again.
If you were truly gifted you would acknowledge their frailty and weakness, and rely on your own strength of ability and reason to carry you through the slanderings of people more ignorant then yourself.
The problem comes is when you think eliminating or isolating your self and/or having contempt for ALL the "the lesser" beings whose abilities don't match your own. Instead of complaining about it you could be rationally arguing against the segments of people discriminating against you, getting articles in newspapers and raising awareness against bullying and discrimination of those who have gifts, but at the same time decrying the superiority complex and contempt those who have gifts have for everyone who isn't on the same plateua of ability or thought, you have to remember you may tbe the smartest person or most gifted person in the world, but on the scope of cosmological history you're intelligence and wisdom is tiny and weak by comparison of future generations.
The most important quality in a person is ethics in my opinion, intelligence without ethics and without love, compassion and concern for all human beings no matter their weakness or stature is insanity. A world without compassion is not a world any really intelligent person would want to live in.
I said being a gifted child is a curse, and nearly all of those who were (and are) gifted can tell the same horror stories ; afterward, we find ways to cope with our history - for some, Mensa is a way, among others.
If you want to understand what it is to be gifted, imagine how you were at, say, 18 years old : politicaly aware, understanding of basic economy, computer literate, and a mature hobby. Now, forget the sex and the beer, view yourself physicaly at 8,and put your 18 yo self into your 8 yo body. That's it. Doesn't mean you're creative or entrepreneur by nature.
Now tell me, how do you fancy doll playing ? That's no more contempt against others than the look of an adult toward a child : the league is not the same, so there's no point in imagining that the gifted should interact normaly with his or her school mates of the same physical age. They may look alike, but inside they're completely different.
I really don't like this idea everyone on this thread is repeating. It seems that there's some idea that people who do poorly on mensa tests, are disproportionately likely to have artistic or musical talent. I haven't found this to be the case at all. I don't think that people who excel at mensa tests have a propensity to suck at artist pursuits either. Some people are just smarter than others. I'm not just talking about acquired skills, either. What I mean is that some intelligent people are just more capable of learning and thinking about ANYTHING than other less intelligent people.
i nt elligence/cache/1198gottfred.html
Let's look at a couple of cases:
1)Leonardo Da Vinci
Here is a man who was arguably the greatest artist, engineer, and medical researcher of his age. He was a great painter, an inventor of siege weapons, and a visionary who imagined such things as helicopters hundreds of years before his time. In fact, much of Galileo's work on gravity stems from Da Vinci's earlier observations. Da Vinci's also widely credited as the author of the most accurate anatomy text of his time. Oh yeah, he was a hell of an athlete when he was young, too.
2) A boy in my high school named, "Ricky".
Ricky wasn't so bright. I have no idea where he is now, but at the age of 15 he had an awful lot of trouble reading. His drawing ability was on par with a normal 6 year old's, he had no musical talent, and he couldn't do long division yet either. Ricky was no master of social skills either. In fact, he was bossy, selfish and immature.
If you are going to try to argue that somehow these two individuals possess "different kinds" of intelligence, then please excuse me while I go puke. The truth is, EVERY "type" of intelligence has a positive correlation with every other type. Those in psychology research call it "g", or the General Intelligence Factor. It's not necessarily a pleasant fact. Maybe the world would be a fairer place if everyone was intellectually equal... but we aren't.
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~reingold/courses/
In a similar vein, those who are good looking and/or pretty are way more likely to become rich than are the ugly and stupid Beavises and Buttheads of the world. Life ain't fair.
I'm a gnu world man.
"Now tell me, how do you fancy doll playing ? That's no more contempt against others than the look of an adult toward a child : the league is not the same, so there's no point in imagining that the gifted should interact normaly with his or her school mates of the same physical age. They may look alike, but inside they're completely different."
I understand this perspective, that people of greater maturity and faster growth outgrow certain modes of thinking, thoughts and activities. But this is exactly why they shouldn't become sectarian or prejudice, or have contempt for meeting people on a level they understand. I'm not saying you should be forced to waste all your time engaging people frutlessly. Just realize it is in fact an ass backwards strategy to not meet people on the level they are at and help develop and grow them from there if you are to make the world a better place and saner environment for yourself and others like you. I know what you mean because I was assaulted for my intelligence constantly growing up as well, and couldn't understand the base nature and rituals of my peers of which I had no interest in.
It's like being in a world alien beings who are you're your 'inferiors' because you do not socially or intellectually mesh because the gap in ability and level of development is so wide in many areas. These contradictions though always exist to a greater or lesser degree, everywhere, the problem is with perception and focusing too much on the gaps and differences.
If we made everyone equally as intelligent as say you or similar to you, if you had to live with autonomous clones of yourself would you all get along or would there be natural divergences of the million you's that ended up tearing the society of apart just through occupying different time, space and set of motion and of atoms? It's a nice thought experiment but many intelligent people couldn't stand to live with mirror images of themselves.
I understand the reason for these societies, to find a people who are at your stage of development and who can act as peers and like family and a source of support and stimulation you can't find anywhere else. But you'd think that such a group would be doing everything in their power to recognize the realities of the world and to make the world a better place instead of just living their lives with like minded people of the same status of intellectual and emotional development.
As long as human beings are born and are dieing the same sets of gaps will always exist until we intervene in the evolution of our race.
The natural prejudice resulting from abilitiy gaps, cause you to disassociate from others because you're using the gaps in your abilities to justify disciriminating against association with others who are not at your level of development.
Just imagine if you had kids and but you abandoned associating with them because they may not turn out like you or may end up on the bottom 'bell curve', you're just completely different people.
There was a reason someone coined the phrase for their families "It's like we're strangers living under the same roof." It's these gaps and human differences that give rise to the want to disassociation, the fact is because you're more intellectually and emotionally developed as hard as it is for you at some level, you must engage and entertain the notion of coming down and meeting them on their level, or you're really not as gifted human being as you think you are.
There is a lot we gifted people can learn from simplicity of those who are allegedly on the bottom of the intellectual and emotional developmental pile. Some of the strongest and caring people I have ever met were the people many intellectual ethicists say we should discard. Which just goes to show gifts exist in everyone in different amounts, but because you have excessive amount of gifts you should realize that your responsiblity to use them wisely is necessary if you have any care or concern for the world and humanity as a whole and making a better future for everyone, you can't do it alone, but with your gifts you can certainly "piss in riff raffs proverbial pond", hoping another gifted person will take up the responsiblity sometime down the line of history.
Ha, if you ask me, Einstein didn't get it.
I'd have found out the girl's supplier for jellybeans and just dealt with them directly!
Cut out the middle man, that's what I always say!
...this almost turned into a PKB dog-eats-its-own-tail spiral of argument between who is more arrogant in their presumption of intelligence, Mensa or Slashdot geeks.
Meanwhile, yet another system administrator and proud Slashdot reader calls me at work to say that "his Internet" is "slow and broken" and then asks, "don't the routers have batteries? I unplugged my router and it stopped working." This followed by, "it must be a Windows problem. I knew we should have used Red Hat." (paraphrased composite of no less then seventeen such calls in the space of two months alone)
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
"It's" is a contraction of "it is", with the apostrophe showing where the omitted letter "t" would be.
"Its" is the possessive form form of the pronoun "it". Possessive forms of pronouns don't use the apostrophe. You write "hers", not "her's"; "his", not "him's", etc.
"Menses", not "Mensa".
I occasionally delve into "Spoonerisms", and my mind does it quite quickly. My stepmom is a masters or doctorate degree holder and is in mental health services. While he average person knows nothing of "Spoonerisms" and is perplexed when I whip out a few on them, some of which are not in the book on Spoonerisms, on her, she responds in great laughter, has fun, and now I've somehow "trained her", she said.
She thinks I am very intelligent (but I and we know I can go "off the deep end" into tangents, but, I dismiss it, self-deprecatingly.
In 1992, I knew a smart guy who was attempting to or was considering entering Mensa. I think he was pro-Wiccan, or something like that. I wonder what the existential or metaphysical/psycho-social makeup of Mensa members is. After all, we hear/heard of the New World Order (New Urled Worder), Skulls and Boness (bulls and Scones), and so on. I wonder how many of them read "A Sale of Two Ti..." umm, I mean "A Tale of Two Cities".
I've met some QUITE intelligent people who hold various degrees in various disciplines, yet who steadily have jokes fly RIGHT over their heads, totally dazed, as if their core program is being tampered with. It is very frightening to think that some of the so-called most enlightened people in the world are really en-darkened. They only know dollars, power, control, and suppression. They flourish only when their agenda-driven task list is steadily being tick-marked, and wretch when someone puts a damper on their activities.
Maybe that's why China and Russia purged a lot of their intellectuals some decades back (Big mistake? Y/N/MM?). Sort of like "Star Trek's" default reset button built into the script whenever the crew lives an obligatory time-travel episode.
Mensa, Menses, whatever. I supposed some or many of the Men and WOmen of MENsa (do they admit women?) would be aghast to hear that in 2001 I said over national radio as a caller, and wrote on the Interrnet on a now-defunct site, that I felt (and still feel)
rove- will get us 'roved over'
bush- will get us bushwhacked
cheney- will get us chainsawed
ashcroft- will get us ashened, due to internal insurrection if they go too far...
powell- will get us colon-ized; what ever happened to My Lai reports? Did those get straightened out. (Butt, umm, but, as it turned out, he resigned his post and turned it over to condasleeza... Hmm, maybe this is to pit her against Billary... Imagine that, the wanker up there sidelines the waffling, infidelity-oriented Powell and inserts/installs/promotes/toms-up condie so as to make sure the demicans/republicrats (both are two heads on the same draggoon's/dragon's body to me...) possible ticket female choice doesn't therminate/terminate "Ah-nohld" or cook/steam rice if she runs...
rumsfeld- is drunk on his war rum (some in the military call him Ronald DUMBSfeld; they don't like his condescending, dismissive attitude)
ridge- hmmm. couldn't think of or feel much to say about him, and to say that the ridgelines will be shorn off.... well, didn't he leave due to health reasons... They always have a medical reason to leave....
wolfowitz- the 'merikun werewolf un Baghdad (and to think this guy, a weaponeer, is to lead the world bank, sheesh; as said a world-known official in this matter, "This is not a job for amateurs..."
rice- is she brown rice or dirty rice? What's next? "Japan must open its doors to more US ric"e? In Japan, ounce for ounce, pound for pound, boneless breast of chicken costs less than beef. Who the hell does Amerika think it is pushing virtually untested beef onto a nation? Particularly when the target nation (purportedly) tests EVERY head of cattle that is under 20 months old when the US discourages testing even more three head per thousand. Some say Australian beef is better. "Beef: Australian for no-BSE BS..."
And, I referred to them, much as a talk show host did, as a "cadge" and a "cabal". We're probably in deep shit.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
It was just a little riff; I'm surprised someone moderated it up too (maybe he meant to click "Funny"). But I still don't see a difference between bragging about grades and degrees and bragging about IQ scores.
and while we're on this 'smart' people thing... i noticed while scrolling through comment postings that many people have the same story: "i qualified for mensa, but, you know, i didn't join...."
it makes me wonder how closely connected (within The Six Degrees, of course) these people are, and if they may all be the same person.
i choose to express my intelligence by thinking.
Funny or Insightful seem appropriate.
I think this post is sufficiently well written to deserve a couple mod points (I, sadly, do not have any to give at the moment).
Slashdotters think: "Mensans are all arrogant socially hopeless geeks."
Mensans think: "Slashdotters are all arrogant socially hopeless geeks."
Everyone else thinks: "Look at the arrogant socially crippled geeks getting a verbal slap fight. What a bunch of weenies!"
Wow, you guys seem to just join together to bash anything and everything MS related. This one topic has probably made thousands of people instantly hate MENSA. Mensa people are not as arrogant and egotistical as you make them seem. I also dont see you guys bashing the groups for those other "intelligent" types. I've met more arrogant artists and athletes than people with high IQ's. It seems like all you people do is find things that are connected to Microsoft and then find a small fault and snowball it into the worst thing in the world. I hope some of you feel ashamed.
As a member (30+ years standing) I have been saying for a long time: The people Mensa needs don't need Mensa. Corollaries are obvious.
Some of Einstein's collegues asked him why he spent time helping an 8-year-old girl with her math.
His answer was "I help her with her math, and she gives me jellybeans."
What a wonderful quote.
Something emailed to me a couple of weeks ago (I'm not Jewish):
Five Jews who have changed the way we see the world:
Moses: The law is everything
Jesus: Love is everything
Marx: Money is everything
Freud: Sex is everything
Einstein: Everything is relative
Here is the society's information page from their website:
What is Mensa?
Mensa was founded in England in 1946 by Roland Berrill, a barrister, and Dr. Lance Ware, a scientist and lawyer. They had the idea of forming a society for bright people, the only qualification for membership of which was a high IQ. The original aims were, as they are today, to create a society that is non-political and free from all racial or religious distinctions. The society welcomes people from every walk of life whose IQ is in the top 2% of the population, with the objective of enjoying each other's company and participating in a wide range of social and cultural activities.
What are Mensa's goals?
Mensa has three stated purposes: to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity, to encourage research in the nature, characteristics and uses of intelligence, and to promote stimulating intellectual and social opportunities for its members.
How many members does Mensa have?
Today there are some 100,000 Mensans in 100 countries throughout the world. There are active Mensa organizations in over 40 countries on every continent except Antarctica. Membership numbers are also available for specific National Groups.
What kind of people are Members of Mensa?
There is simply no one prevailing characteristic of Mensa members other than high IQ. There are Mensans for whom Mensa provides a sense of family, and others for whom it is a casual social activity. There have been many marriages made in Mensa, but for many people, it is simply a stimulating opportunity for the mind. Most Mensans have a good sense of humor, and they like to talk. And, usually, they have a lot to say.
Mensans range in age from 4 to 94, but most are between 20 and 60. In education they range from preschoolers to high school dropouts to people with multiple doctorates. There are Mensans on welfare and Mensans who are millionaires. As far as occupations, the range is staggering. Mensa has professors and truck drivers, scientists and firefighters, computer programmers and farmers, artists, military people, musicians, laborers, police officers, glassblowers--the diverse list goes on and on. There are famous Mensans and prize-winning Mensans, but there are many whose names you wouldn't know.
What does "Mensa" mean?
The word "Mensa" means "table" in Latin. The name stands for a round-table society, where race, color, creed, national origin, age, politics, educational or social background are irrelevant.
What opinions does Mensa have?
Mensa takes no stand on politics, religion or social issues. Mensa has members from so many different countries and cultures with differing points of view, that for Mensa to espouse a particular point of view would go against its role as a forum for all points of view. Of course, individual Mensa members often have strong opinions--and several of them. It is said that in a room with 12 Mensans you will find at least 13 differing opinions on any given subject.
How do I qualify for Mensa?
Membership in Mensa is open to persons who have attained a score within the upper two percent of the general population on an approved intelligence test that has been properly administered and supervised. There is no other qualification or disqualification for membership eligibility.
The term "IQ score" is widely used but poorly defined. There are a large number of tests with different scales. The result on one test of 132 can be the same as a score 148 on another test. Some intelligence tests don't use IQ scores at all. Mensa has set a percentile as cutoff to avoid this confusion. Candidates for membership in Mensa must achieve a score at or above the 98th percentile (a score that is greater than or equal to 98 percent of the general population taking the test) on a standard test of intelligence.
Generally, there are two ways to prove that you qualify for Mensa: either take the Mensa test, or submit a qualifying test score
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
Wherever you go, you are surrounded by the same poisoned atmosphere when people realize you think faster than they do. When you're that bright, you soon understand what it was to be suspect of witchcraft.
Surely the writer of the above is smrt enough to know that being intelligent has to be balanced with the ability to make friends and not be a snot. Maybe s/he needs to get out more or is 14 years old.
Why, post on Slashdot ofcourse!
How about THAT for a campaign slogan? Wonder if any of the geniuses at MSN have thought of that one yet. I suspect the ones at Mensa wouldn't -- too obvious for them.
Microsoft and Mensa...both great at screwing otherise intelligent people out of $50 and providing little or nothing in return (give or take an order of magnitude).
You fail to mention that Asimov joined, went to a couple meetings, and quit because he thought the people were pretentious. Quite an important fact, I believe.
I resigned from Mensa a number of months ago. I wrote to the then Int'l Chmn and told him I wanted *out*. I was instructed to turn in my card and was given a refund of my membership fees for the year together with a letter from Mensa Israel (the branch of Mensa I belonged to) that said "WITHOUT PREJUDICE" on it in capital letters to top off the threatening atmosphere of Mensa. Mensa was started by two barristers, Dr. Lance Ware and Mr. Roland Berrill, in Oxford. From its inception, Dr. Ware saw to it that he, Berrill and a few chosen members in his circle would dine lavishly and attend exclusive meetings, while the "plebes" in the organization would meet at a pub. Why the "plebes" acceded to this sort of treatment in an organization that was supposedly on of a "round table of peers" is beyond me. Perhaps they knew their chance to degrade other, newer, members would come. It is indeed the case that some of those same people who ate in pubs in Ware's and Berrill's time are the unreachable decision makers in Mensa today. I first joined Mensa ca. 1980 in Miami, FL. I went to one function, a meeting at a Sushi restaurant, which was one of the most boring experiences of my life. I never attended another Mensa meeting. I did not renew my membership until about a year-and-a-half ago here in Israel. I got the creeps immediately upon joining. Despite the fact that the branch was only a few months old, the core members of Mensa Israel had already been installed in the important positions in the organization. Clearly, the clique had been formed. The Israeli branch of Mensa is run by a junta of right-wing extremists - and I mean *extremists*. Some of the writings of the Chmn of Mensa Israel were so racist and war-like that I knew I had to get away from Mensa Israel in order not to expose myself and my family to the potential danger that such writings are liable to incite in equally extreme members of the other side of the Israeli-Arab conflict. I would not tow the Mensa Israel line and I was treated abysmally for daring to be my own person in Mensa Israel. One member would stoop so low as to try to humiliate me for living in the town that I do. As an organization, Mensa is characterized not only by cliquishness, but by a generalized atmosphere of extreme social pressure to conform. There has been a filtering out of independently-minded people. Most of those who remain in Mensa are social misfits and unfortunates who can find friends nowhere else. They hang on to one another desperately. There are buzzwords that are used to bring those who might express individualistic opinions in line, "arrogant" being the most common among them. Regional meetings are often held in people's private homes, so anyone who is not acceptable to the in clique is simply not invited and cannot make the most of their membership dues. There are virtually no democratic processes in Mensa today. It is not clear how the ever-growing list of "acts inimical" to Mensa is formulated and by whom. The commission of "acts inimical" within Mensa is punished by being brought up in front of kangaroo courts, the "verdict" of which is already determined. Punishment can range anywhere between admonition (humiliation) to expulsion from the Society. Cases are sometimes made against the former lovers of high ranking officers in Mensa when they want to get rid of them. The interrogations at those inquests often go on for many hours and there are a number of sessions. If after writing this report about Mensa I would attempt to return to the organization (a purely a theoretical notion. I assure you) I would be immediately brought up on charges of "acts inimical" and subjected to such an ordeal. In fact, on one of the Mensa Yahoo! Lists members discussed how they would try me when (not if but *when*!) I return. They are so desperate to belong to Mensa that they would undergo any humiliation to retain their membership. They assume everyone else is as well. There are indeed members who were tried and begged, yes begged to be allowed to stay or to return when they wer
My point was that if he hadn't brought the numerous grades up specifically, he would have gotten a lot of flak for thinking he's "special" - a lot of people can excel at every academic test they'll take, provided they'll take only one that they really know their stuff on.
I call bullshit. What difference is there between a guy who knows the engines of various makes and models of automobiles inside out, and some geek who knows operating system design of various computers inside out?
This is exactly what I was talking about. Computer geeks like to make themselves out to be God's gift to the earth. Try coaching a baseball team to victory or fixing an old Camaro. They take skills you don't have, and they take just as much logic and creativity to do successfully as it takes for you to know Linux inside out.
Have you ever sat around and listened to car guys talking with each other? The use of arcane terminology and knowledge is just the same as computer geeks sitting around talking.
Slashdotters ... you all are sad. Unbelievably sad. If Google had sponsored such an event, you would have saluted them.
Again, all of you are simply showing your idiotic bias against Microsoft. Get a life. Seriously.
In libraries is called the tant mafia, middle aged bitter women who let into any young male or female they can and steer the older males against the younger females. They'll peck directly, too, but prefer the above methods.
what a brilliant troll!? this ranks along with the "concentrate on your breathing; don't stop or you'll die" troll; sincerely, I do appreciate good trolls
have you set up a website linking to all your best trolls yet? if not, why not?
btw, that response from the physicist with the big-titted wife is fantastic; your troll worked delightfully; keep up the good work!
GrimRC
or rather, dishonour
GrimRC
regarding the "vocabulary" of this hangman game you're talking about, have you noticed the themes?
GrimRC
mensa is not about defining, or testing, real intelligence. that should be obvious to any normally intelligent being, and most posts in this discussion reflect that. if you believe that, do you also believe other advertising?
.. ouch .. working".
mensans bank on the illusion of creating an iq-society that, allegedly, contains the "top 2%" of the society. one real purpose is to run scams of all sorts. logically, you will also meet people there that have an interest in some exploitative aspects - and if that is what you expect, you will not be disappointed. "now that we are so intelligent and now that we can admit how intelligent we really are, we should not have to use these fingers and injure them while
mensa - as was allegedly published in a controversial article in some local mensa newsletter (was it los angeles?) - has one very serious focus on the "exploitation of the lower 98%".
with regard to technology, many mensans themselves fall into two broad categories: the ones that run latest technology, run their own meta search scripts, and use google, slashdot, citeseer et cetera to their advantage - and the ones that are not interested in any technology unless their grandkid runs it for them. none of them are in any way interesting for microsoft to invest in.
mensans by and large are probably not a really bright lot. they're not slow, admitted - but it took them until 2005 in order to get that search engine scam in place, and that's rather late. but they expect a lot, and they make sure they can run exploits. that's what you are looking for when you look at mensans.
i don't know many people who can get paid for simply putting a search engine on some web site. that's the true spirit of exploiting the lower 98. maybe they will have a little virtual oil lamp on their website that is sponsored by halliburton? and maybe they will support president bush, schwarzenegger and the republicans with paid advertising? don't be upset about that either - it's not about intelligence - it's about getting paid for it.
well done, mensa!