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MSN Sponsors Mensa

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the get-smarter dept.

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."

4 of 492 comments (clear)

  1. So what ? by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful


    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!
    1. Re:So what ? by nbharatvarma · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      --
      ... and I shall strike upon thee with great vegeance, furious anger and a slightly positive karma.
    2. Re:So what ? by RWerp · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      --
      "Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
  2. Mensa Members by Kaenneth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.