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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!
Exactly. I can't decide whether the point of this deal is for Mensa to drive MSN's reputation into the ground, or the other way around.
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!
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.
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.
*raises hand* Oooh! Oooh! I do!
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.
and yet jobs are offerred for MCSE's - never seen mensa on a job ad. It's easy to knock something you've never tried tho. Oh yeah - of course you wouldn't want to, can't be bothered wasting your time or (much more likely) don't really have a clue
and no - i don't have mcse - but after looking through the material I can acknowledge that it does have some depth
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.
Think about it again.
People have to pay to Google if they want to use Google's search engine in their website. But Microsoft has to pay to people to get them to use MSN's search on their website.
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.
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.
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.
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...