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."

Comments

So what ?

[Space cowboy]

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.

Re:So what ?

[bonch]

I've known people who were complete morons. Until you got them underneath a truck or at a baseball game, where they would know an engine inside out or remember the details of entire decades of team statistics. We've all got our specialties.

Just something to keep in mind...a lot of times, computer geeks think they're God's gift to the earth. There are lots of people smarter at you when it comes to things you know nothing about. I don't know a damn thing about making really good spaghetti or building a car engine. Variety and the collective versatility it creates is what makes society great.

Re:So what ?

[nbharatvarma]

I was involved in setting up a mensa chapter at where I live (Hyderabad,India). I am also in touch with mensans from Bangalore. I cannot comment on the general attitude of mensans in America, but I never felt a lack of social skills in the mensans I know of.

We shouldn't mix social skills and intelligence. IQ by itself doesn't mean anything anymore. That way if you were a 99.99999 percentile, doesn't mean shit. You need emotional maturity to carry you through life. That way, except for those who want to boost up their egos, being a Mensan doesn't prove anything.

I look at Mensa as more of a common grounds for people to meet. Mensans I know are willing to help other Mensans. I have known people who made CEOs, who were entrepreneurs, MBAs so on. What I get is contacts. So, if I need guidance or advice, they are more than willing to help.

When one slashdot user meets another, there is an instant recognition. An instant willingness to help. (In India, the number of people who read slashdot are few). Mensa is pretty much the same thing. Atleast thats what I look at it.

Re:So what ?

[metlin]

> So are you saying that IQ != intelligence?

No, I'm saying that IQ is not all that is there to intelligence.

You may get a fewer false positives, but you will get a lot of false negatives - lots of intelligent people who're good at other things might flunk the tests.

> What is intelligence, then, and how do you
> measure it?

There is no single measure, which was exactly my point.

Intelligence is not one thing, and you cannot have a single quantitative measure of it and label it as, "If you do well in these these tests, you'll fall under the top 1-2% of the intelligent folks in the world".

That is absolute bullshit. Solving mathematical and logical problems is just one facet of intelligence, there are several others - many, many more.

What about folks who cook amazingly well? Or paint amazingly well? Or who have a skill for language? There are a million other things - these could be people who'd not touch math or logic with a 10 foot pole, but could probably be extremely intelligent, in their own way.

I mean, would you say Michelangelo is dumb if he flunked a few multiple choice questions you threw at him? I think not. That was just my point.

> (For what it's worth, I think IQ, intelligence,
> and Mensa are all overrated).

Yup, you're spot on.

Re:So what ?

[metlin]

See, if you consider artistic talents to be skills, then so are mathematical or logical abilities. Intelligence by that definition could also be construed as a gift of sorts, no different from someone who can draw.

I'm a sciences guy - I feel extremely comfortable under quantitative stuff, and do quite well in stuff related to that, too.

However, I know for a fact that I suck at qualitative stuff - and I've seen lots of people for whom those qualitative abilities are second nature. And some of these people lack the mathematical and logical skills that I do not find all that extraordinary.

Inherently, I've always known that I'll be in the sciences. And some of those folks have always known that they'd be in the arts.

The difference is, the society considers my abilities to be intelligence for the simple reason that it has easy, tangible, real world application. And perhaps because I fall under the minority of folks who are enjoy doing this stuff.

However, that does not necessarily make me smarter than them, atleast in my book. I know for a fact that I couldn't draw for nuts, even if I took lessons my entire life. Or for that matter, analyze and come up with designs. Or a lot of other things. These people can, and that is just no different from the way I do a math problem.

It is all the same, we're just using different abilities that each of us has been gifted with, that is all.

While I would agree that it is overrated, I would also add that its definition is being skewed by a handful few.

Re:So what ?

[RWerp]

So Mensa is an "old boy network"? The worse for it. People will never forgive you belonging to circle they can't.

Re:So what ?

[Joe Tie.]

People will never forgive you belonging to circle they can't.

I agree. Scrolling through the list of negative comments about mensa so far, more and more it's beginning to smell a bit like sour grapes.

Re:So what ?

[metlin]

> I'm trying to understand what the real crux of your argument is.

Mensa claims to have the top 1-2% of the intelligentsia of the human population, but establishes the standard for this intelligence on the mere ability to solve mathematical and logical problems.

That would imply that they measure intelligence solely as a function of one's ability to solve these kinda problems, and anyone who does not fit the bill isn't smart enough for them.

They can go ahead and do all that they want, but the fact that they club the rest of the world into a "you're not smart enough to join us" lump does grate on me.

How would you react to a worldwide club of intelligentsia who say that only those who paint Spunky (as another reader put it) will be considered intelligent?

That's how Mensa sounds to me - quite ridiculous. Their basis of what they consider intelligence is amusing, that's all.

Re:So what ?

[isometrick]

Both my father and I qualified for Mensa. Even though we disagree on many important life issues and qualified at times more than 20 years apart, we both found the membership of our local chapters to be filled with extremely misguided and, frankly, annoyingly pompous people.

That's not to say everyone in Mensa is that way, but we both chose not to associate with a group that seemed to base its membership requirements on ideals that commonly (though not always) predicate extreme arrogance.

Re:So what ?

[HawkingMattress]

Most computer geeks are good at logical stuff, yes. That doesn't make them more intelligent. You talk about books. Well take your average computer geek, and your average literacy geek, have them read a novel, then sum it up for you. You'll find that the computer geek generally didn't understood what was important in the book. He can sum it up, sure, but the way he sums it shows that he didn't understood what was important and what wasn't. More importantly, He didn't get the message behind the book, at all.
In fact, when the literacy geek will explain him what the book was really about, he'll laugh a lot and tell him to quit smoking pot. If the author wanted to mean that, he would have clearly written it !
The literacy geek won't care, he knows most scientists can only understand what has been clearly explained at them, and that their logical mind comes short in any situation where logic is not the key (that is, 95% of real world situations).

The literacy geeks accepts that the world, and the people around him are infinitely complex, and that every action or word can be understood when looked at in the right light. Them computer geeks just thinks that everybody is dumber than him, because their logic can't fit in their little categorizing mind. They don't even try to understand others. In other words, if the document doesn't parse, it's because the document is badly structured. It can't be my parser which needs adjustments, because i know i have the finest parser on earth !

Re:To sum up:

[eln]

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.

Re:Ah. You tried to get into mensa....

[Space cowboy]

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

Mensa Members

[Kaenneth]

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.

Not at all

[jesterzog]

So Mensa is an "old boy network"? The worse for it.

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.

Re:Ah. You tried to get into mensa....

[Registered Coward v2]

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.