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 ?

[metlin]

I couldn't agree more.

What irritates me about Mensa is the fact that they consider intelligence to be purely a function of a few odd tests.

Hmm, how weird.

I've known some incredibly intelligent people who'd probably flunk these tests - folks that can play music so amazingly well and reproduce exact notes after hearing them just once.

The point is, intelligence is not a function of how well you can do in a few puzzles. And more importantly, 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.

It's almost like a self-righteous organization of sorts - hey, lookie! We can solve all these cool puzzles, therefore we'll pretend that we are smarter more than you all are.

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 ?

[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 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

From The Center for an Informed America.

...
For those who don't know, Mensa is, in its own words, "an international society in which the sole requirement for qualification for membership is a score at or above the 98th percentile on any of a number of standardized intelligence tests." It is, in other words, an organization that fancies itself to be a collection of the brightest minds from around the world -- who amuse themselves primarily by indulging in such intellectual pursuits as eating to grotesque excess.

Now I happen to have a, uhmm, 'friend' who is currently a member of this organization. He first joined the group several years ago, "out of curiosity," or so he claims. He was decidedly unimpressed with his limited exposure to the Mensa organization, and so he did not renew his membership beyond the first couple of years.

But early this year he decided to rejoin, primarily to see how the group's publications were dealing with the September 11 attacks and everything that has come in their wake: the steep rise in U.S. militarism; the vast erosion of civil liberties; the pursuit of reactionary social policies; and the exposure of the rampant corruption of corporate America.

And what my friend found was that the allegedly best and brightest minds in the country were operating comfortably within the parameters established by academia and the American media: the official story of what happened last September 11 is unquestioned, as is the fact that any real investigation into the events of that day has been officially blocked; unprovoked U.S. military actions are given the same superficial level of debate that can be heard on any cable news broadcast; the frontal assaults on civil liberties are either not discussed at all or are justified as a legitimate response to what supposedly happened last September, with, you know, maybe a few instances where the government has, with all good intentions, of course, maybe overstepped just a bit; the social agenda of Team Bush receives barely a mention; and the corporate scandals, and the direct connections of various members of the Bush cabal to those scandals, are apparently old news.

After reading such drivel for several months now (my 'friend' passes them on to me after he's read them, you see), I still wasn't prepared for what I was to find in the September 2002 issue of the Mensa Bulletin, the slick monthly publication of American Mensa. Featured in a new survey column therein were the results of the first query posed to members: "Who are your heroes?"

And who do you suppose ended up in the #1 position on that list? Who do the 'intellectually gifted' among us look up to as a hero? Who, above everyone else, does the Mensa community place on a pedestal? None other than George W. Bush, of course.
...

has to be said

[no reason to be here]

Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage.

That's not very smart.

The power of MSN and Mensa

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was ever a group of self-important dweebs who deserved each other more, I can't imagine it.

To sum up:

[Glowing Fish]

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?

Karma Whore

[mtrisk]

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)

make sense

[prockcore]

It makes sense. A mensa membership carries about the same degree of prestige as an MSCE cert.

(Read: none at all)

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.