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Chinese Company Seeks US Workers With 125 IQ

CWmike writes "A Chinese IT outsourcing company that has started hiring new US computer science graduates to work in Shanghai requires prospective job candidates to demonstrate an IQ of 125 or above on a test it administers to sort out job applicants. In doing so, Bleum Inc. is following a hiring practice it applies to college recruits in China. But a new Chinese college graduate must score an IQ of 140 on the company's test. The lower IQ threshold for new US graduates reflects the fact that the pool of US talent available to the company is smaller than the pool of Chinese talent, Bleum said."

553 comments

  1. World is changing by SquarePixel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's quite interesting how you can already predict how the world will change in the upcoming 10-20 years. The Chinese have the workforce (and hence more persons with high IQ), they're used to work hard for a living, and realistic economy. They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment. That is how US has been doing for many many years and loaning more and more money along the way.

    1. Re:World is changing by EmagGeek · · Score: 5, Informative

      Percentage of people with an IQ higher than 140: 0.31349%

      Percentage of people with an IQ higher than 125: 4.15182%

      (Based on Wechsler)

    2. Re:World is changing by lorenlal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe, the the high poverty rate, a government that pretty much decides what the truth is, and a bunch of human rights violations will certainly not help them get there.

      Yes, China does have a large population/workforce resource... But they got where they are today because that resource was really cheap. China's getting more expensive, and with the issues that the rest of the world has with their government, I don't think it's such a guarantee.

    3. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think a person with an IQ of 140 has pretty good human rights where ever he/she goes.

    4. Re:World is changing by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      Take your rose colored glassed off and do your own research about their banking system, the results will surprise you. Just don't drink any of their milk while doing that research. Just watch out for the Chinese security services while doing that research, don't want you to go to jail for 8+ years for reveling state secrets.

    5. Re:World is changing by digitig · · Score: 1

      If they're allowed to survive. High IQ doesn't necessarily correlate with political shrewdness, and can be seen as a threat.

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    6. Re:World is changing by mjwalshe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Persons who score more that 140 on a IQ test you meaan not people who are actulay at that point on the bell urve. The trouble using a IQ test is that IQ tests are gameable and are culture dependant.

      >> "realistic economy"

      Soory you need to know a lot more about economics to stop making an fool of your self, the chinease economy has an artificialy manipulated curency and a corupt stockmarket all the major funds investing in china prefer the HK exchange as its less risky.

    7. Re:World is changing by Jedi+Alec · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Transparent government and democracy do not make a superpower, no matter what we enlightened westerners may think.

      A dictatorship that controls the flow of information, doesn't skim too much off the top and cracks down on corruption in the lower ranks is a quite efficient way of governing a nation. We may not like it, and it goes against everything we in the west believe in, but that doesn't mean it can't work. No electoral circuses or free press that get in your hair.

      As to what extent china will be able to maintain an iron fist when economic prosperity grows is another question, but then he has the guns makes the rules. Heck, a pretty big chunk of the planet isn't quite enamored with the US either and we're still doing business with them.

      As for getting where they are because resources are cheap...isn't that pretty much how all current and past superpowers came to be? They either had resources on their own turf to exploit or went elsewhere to do so.

      --

      People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
    8. Re:World is changing by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, they also have the same proportion (therefore higher absolute number) of cheaters, Madoff-wanabees, frauds... They also had financial crisis and bubble bursts in Asia. They will have them again.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    9. Re:World is changing by blackraven14250 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That leaves China with over 4 million with an IQ greater than 140. The US then has just under one million.

    10. Re:World is changing by jamesh · · Score: 1

      A dictatorship that controls the flow of information, doesn't skim too much off the top and cracks down on corruption in the lower ranks is a quite efficient way of governing a nation. We may not like it, and it goes against everything we in the west believe in, but that doesn't mean it can't work. No electoral circuses or free press that get in your hair.

      So basically, as long as the people at the top have the interests of the nation in mind rather than their own, things will probably go okay?

    11. Re:World is changing by dlt074 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      their economy is based on making said non-important things. so with out our unrealistic economy they'd be in a different boat.

      also, the banks where only doing what Congress told them to. then, when that went horribly wrong, as most of the "good ideas" Congress has tend to do, they took the money Congress "offered". don't get pissed at the banks. get pissed at the people causing the problem. CONGRESS.

    12. Re:World is changing by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think a person with an IQ of 140 has pretty good human rights where ever he/she goes.

      Ever heard of the Khmer Rouge? A 140 IQ would be enough to have you shot.

    13. Re:World is changing by kj_kabaje · · Score: 1

      Please cite your sources on the cultural bias of the IQ. Also, which measure of IQ has bias? There are some more "culture neutral" versions of the quantitative reasoning and other forms of intelligence (non-language dependant and reviewed by multiple language groups for potential bias). See the PISA and TIMSS assessments for a large-scale multi-cultural/multi-lingual assessment.

    14. Re:World is changing by hedwards · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not necessarily. Environmental contamination, particularly with heavy metals has an IQ lowering effect on the populace. Additionally since IQ is set relatively early, and brain damage later on will take off the total score. But more than that having a high IQ really isn't all it's cracked up to be. When you hit a point around 120 or so you more or less maximize it, there isn't really any particular reason to require more than that, and realistically you then have to deal with other problems. It's really hard at times for those of us up in the 140s to conceive of why a lot of this stuff isn't common sense. And hence end up spending a lot of time being misunderstood or explaining what ought to be perfectly obvious.

    15. Re:World is changing by Dorkmaster+Flek · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Although considering 1 in 5 Americans thinks the sun revolves around the Earth, it should be noted that your country's percentages may vary.

      --
      I like to think of online DRM as something akin to a college -- you pay for lessons until you learn something.
    16. Re:World is changing by tverbeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The ghost of Alan Turing is here; he begs to differ. I'm with him.

      I live in the US, where human rights are in fact Pretty Damn Good. But it wasn't that long ago that I was guilty of countless felonies for having sex with my boyfriend (before those laws were finally struck down by the Supremes), and I can still be fired in my state for simply having a boyfriend. Having an IQ of 140 hasn't changed that, and I can't imagine it makes much difference at all in countries where human rights are Pretty Damn Bad.

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    17. Re:World is changing by hedwards · · Score: 1

      IQ isn't culturally dependent. To be valid the test is supposed to be normed to the population to which it is being given. As in it isn't a valid score if it doesn't place the individual at the correct place on the bell curve, well, excluding cheating. This is the sort of bullshit that social darwinists and progressives argue about, without any clue as to what they're talking about.

    18. Re:World is changing by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment.

      Lol. Just because you aren't aware of the problems doesn't mean they don't exist. For example, the housing market in China has tripled prices over the last 5 years. The details aren't identical to the US (and European) problems, but they've still got problems. Plus, you can expect the one-child policy to have a massive impact as their workforce ages and there are only half as many people in the next generation to support them - think US social-security's problems to the 10th.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    19. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the US can hire away the better part of those 4 million.

      Actually the US only has to hire away a part of the IQ > 140 crowd (the ones that go for the change to live in the USA) from China and India to become one of the smartest countries in the world.

    20. Re:World is changing by ortholattice · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's really hard at times for those of us up in the 140s to conceive of why a lot of this stuff isn't common sense. And hence end up spending a lot of time being misunderstood or explaining what ought to be perfectly obvious.

      Perhaps your IQ isn't quite high enough then, since it is hard for you to conceive that. Some of the most accomplished scientists are often also the best teachers, since they are intelligent enough not only to understand the material but also to understand their audience.

    21. Re:World is changing by nopainogain · · Score: 1

      when i first read about economics (long ago) i read how our system of unbacked paper-money or Fiat-Currency was first tried in china like thousands of years ago and failed miserably. I wondered how long ours had. I kinda hoped it wouldnt fail in my lifetime though.

    22. Re:World is changing by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe but the funny thing is 2 of the worst professors I had in university were amongst the most intelligent people I've ever met. Admittedly one knew he was kind of bad, largely because his english was pretty bad and gave everybody a break. They other guy was obviously super smart and wrote "the" book in his field but couldn't teach at all. (Unfortunately other professors at the school only knew him by his reputation and would say stupid things like "he's really good isn't he?" This guy was so bad he couldn't tell you how he determined your grade. The reason he couldn't tell you is because he didn't even know how he was going to do it. Yes, that's literally true.)

      --
      Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
    23. Re:World is changing by DJRumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I tend to think that most Americans, with an IQ higher than 140 would probably find little interest in going to China to work in an IT shop.

    24. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Kind of one-sided. The Chinese government is authoritarian and increasingly brittle on account of it; they have a huge pollution and environmental degradation problem, not to mention encroaching deserts that periodically whip up sand for Beijing to enjoy. And on the economic front, more Chinese workers are now demanding higher wages as the country develops; and they're becoming more materialistic; and the Chinese government keeps its currency artificially low, which is a long-term losing solution.

    25. Re:World is changing by jgtg32a · · Score: 1

      Those numbers are theoretical though, or more accurately what an ideal IQ test will deliver; there are a lot of complaints about the current IQ tests.

    26. Re:World is changing by oldspewey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      intelligent enough not only to understand the material but also to understand their audience

      It takes a whole lot more than raw intelligence to understand people. I have met plenty of folks who are wickedly smart but couldn't read body language or a facial expression if their life depended on it.

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
    27. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The main trouble with the Khmer Rouge was Pol Pot's not following his own beliefs and ensuring he was executed too.

      I would welcome a consistent version of such a regime with open heart, even though I know I'm well educated with a privileged background and would be considered deserving of death. For a man who uses his superior intelligence for his own benefit, rather than hiding it until he is in an environment where every man strives to ensure equality for every other man, does deserve death.

      To destroy inequality is worth dying for.

    28. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would you care to share your source?

    29. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      All I see are Chinese bureaucrats developing a middle class that they'll eventually suppress by force.

      The citizens of the US can worry themselves with HDTVs and debt because they don't have to worry about a tank wandering through their living room for being a threat to the state.

      No matter how powerful China becomes, it's still hobbled with a failed experiment in government. If they manage to turn that around in some sort of coup or civil war, then maybe your
      scenario will play out. Otherwise, I don't think so.

    30. Re:World is changing by SpongeBob+Hitler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe but the funny thing is 2 of the worst professors I had in university were amongst the most intelligent people I've ever met. Admittedly one knew he was kind of bad, largely because his english was pretty bad and gave everybody a break. They other guy was obviously super smart and wrote "the" book in his field but couldn't teach at all. (Unfortunately other professors at the school only knew him by his reputation and would say stupid things like "he's really good isn't he?" This guy was so bad he couldn't tell you how he determined your grade. The reason he couldn't tell you is because he didn't even know how he was going to do it. Yes, that's literally true.)

      Sounds like my circuits professor. He wrote the book. The students had to buy the book. He also taught the Circuits I class, and he taught straight from the book. It all sucked massively. My Circuits II professor said the book was "good" but politely suggested that we all go out and find a "supplemental" textbook to help us in the course.

      I doubt the professors who said "he's really good, isn't he?" didn't know that your professor sucked. They just didn't want to openly bad-mouth one of their colleagues. In fact, "he's really good, isn't he?" sounds more to me like "yeah, we know he sucks, but we can't do anything about it."

      --
      Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?
    31. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Professors aren't teachers. They're lecturers. You know who the teacher is in a university? I mean, a proper one, not a hand-holding University of Huge State, Main Campus.

      It's the student.

      If the student wants to succeed, he or she has to teach him- or herself. To do this, the university provides a number of resources the student can use: lectures, teaching assistants, textbooks, libraries, etc.

      Ultimately, though, it's the student's job. And that's the main difference between high school and college.

      So it doesn't matter if your professors are "bad" at teaching. That's not even remotely their job. Presenting material during lecture hours and holding office hours for undergrads? That's a minuscule obligation compared to their real work for the university.

    32. Re:World is changing by Beyond_GoodandEvil · · Score: 1

      they're used to work hard for a living, and realistic economy. They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment
      Google Chinese Real Estate boom then get back to me.

      --
      I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
    33. Re:World is changing by Random+Feature · · Score: 1, Troll

      Those numbers are theoretical though, or more accurately what an ideal IQ test will deliver; there are a lot of complaints about the current IQ tests.

      Usually coming from people who score low but are absolutely convinced they are smarter than the average bear.

      --
      I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
    34. Re:World is changing by iinlane · · Score: 1

      IQ is normalized on population. Chinese IQ100 != American IQ100. Also I'm yet to see anyone who has got less than 100 points on an online IQ test.

    35. Re:World is changing by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      The higher IQ standard for Chinese has another reason, like the summary already indicates: the much higher pool of available candidates. The important part here is "available".

      Being too lazy to look up numbers, hereby some general statements without numbers to back them up. There are lots of university graduates in both countries - though the % of uni grads in the US is much higher than that in China. It may even be that there are more fresh grads every year in the US than in China, maybe China has caught up already, that I'm not sure of. I think the US is still ahead in that field. The US is certainly way ahead when it comes to research, it's not just because that there are some many Chinese (and other foreign) Ph.D. students working at US universities.

      Now to the available part. The US has a mature, knowledge based economy with lots of jobs for high educated people. Most uni grads will have no problem finding jobs that actually require their skills. So getting a uni grade to apply for a job in Shanghai isn't easy - the pool of people willing to go work overseas isn't that big.

      China on the other hand is an emerging economy, based around manufacturing mainly. There are jobs for high educated people, but not many. Finding a job is a real problem for uni grads in China. There are regular job fairs for graduates even, something I had never heard of before back home in Europe. And still it's hard to find a job for a uni grad. There have been fights (literal, as in punching and kicking) between fresh grads fighting for a job as a toll booth worker. You know, sitting in a small booth at the highway collecting toll from passing motorists. That's how bad the situation is there. There are simply not enough jobs for higher educated people. So companies will go for the cream of the crop - simply because they can. Even the cream of the crop is plentiful enough to have a nice pool of candidates left. For every position that requires uni level education and skills there are ten people available.

      In developed economies, having a university degree is more or less a guarantee that you will land a good job. You may have to search for a while but within a year most have a job, and the rest doesn't have a job because they're doing something else such as continued study or travelling. China of course is trying to develop an economy like that, and is rapidly increasing the size of their universities (currently iirc some 20 million students at China's universities) as that's a prerequisite for a knowledge based economy. For the jobs to be created however it will take a bit longer, causing this kind of problems and allows companies to require such ridiculously high IQs. All in all I think the number of IQ>125 and IQ>140 will be roughly the same in both US and China, as proportion of the population. However it will be a while before China needs those people (as in: has jobs that require those people).

    36. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I think at least one in five Americans likes to have fun with silly surveys.

    37. Re:World is changing by colinrichardday · · Score: 1

      For a man who uses his superior intelligence for his own benefit, rather than hiding it until he is in an environment where every man strives to ensure equality for every other man, does deserve death.

      And people wonder why Atlas Shrugged is still selling. Indeed, what kind of equality can one achieve in the first place?

      To destroy inequality is worth dying for.

      Worth it to whom? I would not consider destroying inequality worth dying for. And even if it were worth dying for, would it be worth killing for?

    38. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Its indeed changing and its hard to grasp the size of countries like China and India. One interesting fact that I heard in the new a couple of weeks ago is the rate of urbanization in China that gives a good view of how big that country is, at the current rate, in 2025 (or if it was 2020) China will have 219 cities with more than 1 million people, compare to Europe that have around 40 and the US that have 9

    39. Re:World is changing by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      In those countries you have to use more of your points. Where as here, you can just watch TV and go shopping.

    40. Re:World is changing by Aboroth · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't know, I'm sure they work hard and all, but it is a completely different culture. "Working hard" has a completely different definition, that doesn't always involve "work". They are more used to memorizing mountains of information than focusing on the concepts. For the physics GRE exam, for example, I know for a *fact* that all of the Chinese students cheat like crazy on it. After taking the exam they write down every problem they can remember and add it to a huge compilation. They don't re-write the exam often, and there are only so many different exams they give out. So if you memorize enough questions, you will have most of any possible exam memorized.

      When you take the exam, you have to write down that you promise not to disclose anything about it to anyone else. If they found out that you cheated or gave answers to others, you might have something bad happen, like have your score revoked. But my colleague said in China, "everyone does it".

      And it shows too, since grad committees won't even consider a Chinese applicant unless they have a near-perfect score, since they know they all cheat. In a sick way, though, if the Chinese student doesn't have a high score they aren't considered at all because they didn't even bother to try cheating.

      One of my Chinese peers showed me the Chinese website that compiled questions as well as the pile of questions they used to study for the exam. It kind of pissed me off because I studied for months and months for hours a day to do well, while they just studied for a couple weeks, and got a much better score.

    41. Re:World is changing by COMON$ · · Score: 1
      Oh Ive seen it happen, and am not surprised....As my wife is recently discovering, the general population is really really dumb. She has always been in academics, then decided to do pharmacy and while working as a retail pharmacy tech she has no end of stories that constantly leave me wondering about the future of humanity.

      That being said, online IQ tests are ridiculously easy but I think that is so people will pay to see their results or whatnot. No one wants to pay to see the results they know they did poorly on.However, I would love to take a real IQ test some day just to know.

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    42. Re:World is changing by Dravik · · Score: 1

      Considering the amount of money the student is paying to be there, it is the job of the professor to teach. The professor would only be absolved from responsibility to teach if the university was paying the student to be there.

      --
      The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
    43. Re:World is changing by PiSkyHi · · Score: 1

      Ideas that are described as 'hard to concieve' in relation to the level of paradox inherent to them are not hard as a product of the person concieving in any way.

      IQ is certainly not the best measure of ability in disparate fields of knowledge either.

    44. Re:World is changing by santiagodraco · · Score: 1

      A few things you are missing in your "analysis".

      1. Per capita, their population has a lower percentage of skilled workers than the US, hence a lower average IQ.
      2. Per capita, Chinese citizens are poorer, by far, than those in the US and cannot afford that new HDTV or car. They'd all like to have them, but can't.
      3. A significant percentage of Chinese exports come from sales to the US, those same citizens you would imply are a problem. Without the US China's economy would be in serious trouble.

    45. Re:World is changing by TheLink · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you just want the learn, don't pay. Just watch the lectures on Youtube :). MIT, Stanford, etc... Even lectures from the Indian Institute of Technology are there (if you want to compare approaches :) ).

      If you want a certificate, then you have to pay.

      --
    46. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worth it to whom? I would not consider destroying inequality worth dying for.

      All those who are suffering because they have less than you.

      And even if it were worth dying for, would it be worth killing for?

      Why wouldn't it be? If a man was raping your daughter, would you make a half-arsed attempt to remove him then just let him get on with it? Or is it worth saving the victim even if it means destroying the perpetrator?

      It is far more honest to kill a man than to deny him things and let him die a miserable life.

    47. Re:World is changing by tophermeyer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      True, but the WAIS tests are typically considered very reliable IQ tests. This company is using their own test, claiming it is an IQ test. If this test was developed within the company, it is very probably biased toward the industry and company culture. People on the "inside" probably score quiet highly on that test, they know all the right lingo and are more familiar with the problems that company faces. Personally, I would be surprised if this test produced anything close to a normal distribution.

    48. Re:World is changing by readin · · Score: 1

      IQ tests usually measure a kind of intelligence that has little to do with teaching and little to do with becoming an "accomplished scientist". Edison didn't just invent stuff - he organized and lead a large staff of inventors. I always point out to kids that Einstein didn't become famous when he came up with theory of relativity - he became famous when he wrote a paper about it and persuaded large numbers of fellow scientists to believe him.

      Having a high IQ that allows you to come up with great ideas for humanity is useless if you can't persuade anyone to listen. All get from that is later being able to say "I told you so" to people who still aren't listening.

      IQ and accomplishment are not the same thing.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    49. Re:World is changing by lowrydr310 · · Score: 1

      That problem with everyone needing the latest gadgets, big cars, and spending money isn't just limited to the USA. There's an increasing number of people in China who are doing the same exact thing.

    50. Re:World is changing by binkzz · · Score: 0, Troll

      I live in the US, where human rights are in fact Pretty Damn Good.

      I would call them pretty damn okayish myself. Certainly not in the worldly top 10.

      --
      'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
    51. Re:World is changing by TheLink · · Score: 1

      > Plus, you can expect the one-child policy to have a massive impact as their workforce ages

      Not if lots of them die before they are very old. From stuff like smoking, toxins in the environment or food... Hmmm, so maybe they have thought of that :).

      --
    52. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I completely agree. Just look at how green North Korean is! They're the leader in reducing the use of energy.

    53. Re:World is changing by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      "...they're used to work hard for a living, and realistic economy. They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment. That is how US has been doing for many many years and loaning more and more money along the way."

      You have no idea what you're talking about. You just open your mouth and let it all come pouring out, don't you? 1) The Chinese economy is planned, and the Yuan is floated by the government. This makes it the LEAST realistic economy in the world. The Chinese are able to float the yuan because there is a trade imbalance due to all the manufacturing going on in China because Chinese workers are paid LESS than their counterparts in the Western World. 2) People and organizations commit crimes, even in China; last year Chinese powdered baby milk was an issue, but you don't remember that do you? Yes, banks commit fraud, your going to tell me that given the opportunity Chinese bankers wouldn't? Your dreamin' kid. The banks that were causing problems were found out, even though, some were bailed out; this is something that would happen in a state-controlled bank in China. In a realistic system that bank would be left to fail. 3) American workers work more hours than just about any other workforce in the world, they take less vacations, and put in more hours, than any workforce in Europe, the only other workforce that surpasses them are the Japanese. This is why although the economy has been shrinking in the last few years productivity has actually increased. This is why they have the hdtvs and whatever else you were complaining about. You think they are given those things? Do some research before you open your uninformed, rediculous mouth.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    54. Re:World is changing by kz45 · · Score: 2, Informative

      "They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment. That is how US has been doing for many many years and loaning more and more money along the way."

      Except they allow the government to put them in jail for practicing free speech, organized religion, or anything against the best interest of the top members. The government has been known to "acquire" private property as they see fit and there is a one-child rule where you need to get a license from the government to have more than one.

      Have you ever been to China? The people in the big cities (IE: making a living that is as much as or more than people in the US) buy just as many "useless" gadgets. The rest don't because they are more worried about getting enough food to eat.

    55. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lemme guess,

      As you are guided by your emotions and extremely liberal, you cannot manage to make a statement without digressing into a non-related diatribe of liberal dogma.

      First it's the government that forced banks to make loans to those who couldnt afford them and WTF does flat screen TV purchaces have to do with the topic?

       

    56. Re:World is changing by colinrichardday · · Score: 1

      Are people suffering simply because they have less than me? Am I suffering simply because I less than other people? And less what? Money? Intelligence? Anything?

      Are you saying that not having as much (money?) as someone else is equivalent to being raped? Or that killing people will "solve" the "problem" of inequality? As for killing the rapist, that depends on what means I have to stop the rape. If I'm several hundred yards with a rifle (and I'm a good enough shot), then yes, I might kill him. If I can intervene effectively

      Is having something that someone else doesn't have denying it to someone else? Is not having above-mean (above-median) wealth that much of problem as to lead to a miserable life?

    57. Re:World is changing by ginbot462 · · Score: 1

      Damn, I am out of mod points. My dad taught me that very early in life - you're working for that piece of paper. That paper is just a way of saying: "Yea, I can do this crap by hand if I wanted/needed to."

      He also had a huge directory full of video/audio lectures (some of the MIT ones you mentioned as well).

      So, I am more of a self taught person, with a minor in B.S. for my M.S.

      --
      Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story :: Battlefield Earth : Organized Religion
    58. Re:World is changing by gfreeman · · Score: 1

      Maybe, the the high poverty rate, a government that pretty much decides what the truth is, and a bunch of human rights violations will certainly not help them get there.

      Agreed, but what about China?

      --
      Ceci n'est pas un sig.
    59. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a falacy. A high IQ doesn't mean high "people skills" or "high empathy", it's quite often the contrary.
      "Some of the most accomplished scientists" -> emphasis on "Some"... You didn't say "All", because you know that High IQ != good teacher.

    60. Re:World is changing by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      They do have trouble going low enough. I had a professor notorious for failing or causing to drop 85% of his classes. I asked him, "what is a *trivial* example ? He gstarted teaching that way and at least that semester 90% of us passed with Cs or better (I got an "A").

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    61. Re:World is changing by ubermiester · · Score: 1

      The Chinese have the workforce (and hence more persons with high IQ)

      They simply have a larger population. By definition, an IQ is a measure of one's intelligence in relation to the whole population, i.e., a distribution or bell curve. Hence a 100 IQ is right at the top of the bell curve and is the median IQ for that population. Because there are more people living inside the borders of the place we call China, there are of course more of everything a person can be - smart, stupid, crazy, tall, short, etc.

      So if you are suggesting that more high-IQ people under one flag gives the Chinese some comparative advantage, you are forgetting that they also have a great deal more people at the lower end of the scale as well. And everyone needs to eat.

    62. Re:World is changing by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Which is amazingly similar to democracy as well. And I think we have lost a lot of that over th last 30 years.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    63. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't get it; are you underage, or gay?

    64. Re:World is changing by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      They have an even larger problem relative to their large workforce. It is aging without a replacement cadre following it. The Chinese "Baby Boomers" are slightly younger than those of the West (since it didn't really start until after the Revolution was complete in about 1949), but they are followed by a relatively even smaller replacement generation. This problem is compounded by the fact that because of the "one child" policy their workforce is disproportionately male.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    65. Re:World is changing by MaWeiTao · · Score: 2, Informative

      You clearly don't know what you're talking about. Chinese banks can get away with being quite a bit more abusive than American banks. Get into debt and collectors will start calling your family, friends and employer in order to intimidate you into paying. Debtors have been known to have their homes defaced. That's when they don't hire a thug to physically rough you up. It's like dealing with gangsters.

      There have long been concerns about various economic bubbles there. Either the Chinese government has done an impressive job of keeping their economy in check or they've managed to hide the cracks from the west. There's a crazy real estate bubble growing there and banks have generally been loose with lending standards, although the government has kept that in check to some extent.

      Chinese are just as materialistic as the rest of us and I'd argue that they love to flaunt their wealth even more than most Americans outside of Hollywood. Everyone's got to have Louis Vuitton bags, wear rolex watches and drive around in a black S-class Mercedes.

      Of course, what the hell do Americans know about how the average person lives in China when news gets filtered through the perspective of wealthy Chinese or politicians?

      I don't understand why some many Americans have this stupid tendency to place foreigners on this pedestal, like they're somehow more noble and enlightened than we are and that we're the source of all evil in the world.

    66. Re:World is changing by TyrainDreams · · Score: 0

      From the Earth's point of reference it does...

    67. Re:World is changing by tonywong · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you're short a few IQ points, since you need to realize that teaching ability also require a good EQ score.

    68. Re:World is changing by MaWeiTao · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Haha! I guess you buy the crap the Chinese government feeds you. You don't know what corruption is until you've gone to China. That's one of the biggest problems, hands down, with doing business in China. And if you're friends with government officials then you've got it made in the shade.

      In principle a dictatorship should be able to keep these problems under control, but it reality it almost never works out that way. Usually it's the government and anyone tied to them raping the nation for their own gain. The big difference between a dictatorship and democracy or republic is that a dictatorship is far more effective in controlling the flow of information and thus hiding how bad things actually are.

    69. Re:World is changing by hoggoth · · Score: 1

      Look up Alan Turing.

      --
      - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
    70. Re:World is changing by quanticle · · Score: 1

      If the student wants to succeed, he or she has to teach him- or herself. To do this, the university provides a number of resources the student can use: lectures, teaching assistants, textbooks, libraries, etc.

      That is the reality, but that isn't how it should be. Universities should teach. After all, if they're not teaching, then why are we paying them such enormous amounts of money in tuition? That awesome research professor the administrators hire does me no good if I can't understand his lectures.

      --
      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    71. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's really hard at times for those of us up in the 140s to conceive of why a lot of this stuff isn't common sense.

      I know, it's INCONCEIVABLE!

    72. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess this counts out all the BLACK applicants then...

    73. Re:World is changing by bl8n8r · · Score: 1

      so to use the car analogy...

      if there were 1,324,655,000 cars in china and by law your car needed to get 140mpg, and only .31349% of all the cars actually got 140mpg, then:

      - 4,152,660 cars are drivable in china (echo '1324655000*0.0031349'|bc)
      - 962,434 in USA
      - 400,339 in Japan
      - 444,999 in Russia (where cars actually drive *you*)

      --
      boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
    74. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shure... but you also have to consider that the majority of good paid jobs and positions are definitely not filled by the most intelligent people (sometimes it is the other way around).

      Therefore, in this crisis economic time, people that cannot find a job in their home country will look for other countries.

    75. Re:World is changing by lwsimon · · Score: 1

      I'm sure everyone here can attest - if you want to be socially accepted as a nerd, you have to be able to translate the jargon that goes with our industries to non-technical speech. I spend so much of my time "switching levels", and looking for abstract ways to make complex ideas make sense (without provided extraneous information), that when I meet someone with the same level of knowledge and intelligence, it is difficult for me to speak on that level again at times.

      --
      Learn about Photography Basics.
    76. Re:World is changing by Skreems · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A dictatorship that controls the flow of information, doesn't skim too much off the top and cracks down on corruption in the lower ranks is a quite efficient way of governing a nation.

      I know a couple Chinese expats who would disagree with you. They left China for the US because corruption at the local level of government has become institutionalized to a ridiculous extent in the current Chinese culture. If you want to play within the system and become one of the people who benefit from corruption, sure, it's a pretty sweet gig. If you want to live somewhere that acts as something close to a true meritocracy, where corruption in business and government is actually seen as a problem and occasionally fixed, you're going to have to look somewhere else (for example, the US).

      --
      Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
      The Urban Hippie
    77. Re:World is changing by ultranova · · Score: 1

      I always point out to kids that Einstein didn't become famous when he came up with theory of relativity - he became famous when he wrote a paper about it and persuaded large numbers of fellow scientists to believe him.

      Actually, Einstein became famous for explaining the photoelectric effect. Yeah, Einstein was the kind of guy who won a Nobel for his warm-up act :).

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    78. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have an IQ higher than 140, and I can confirm this statement. In fact, it keeps me

    79. Re:World is changing by qbzzt · · Score: 1

      A dictatorship that controls the flow of information, doesn't skim too much off the top and cracks down on corruption in the lower ranks is a quite efficient way of governing a nation. We may not like it, and it goes against everything we in the west believe in, but that doesn't mean it can't work. No electoral circuses or free press that get in your hair.

      True. A honest dictatorship works great. The problem is that there's no mechanism to keep the rulers honest, and plenty of temptations for them not to be.

      If you can find angels to run the government, this would work. Until then, I'll take our system.

      --
      -- Support a free market in the field of government
    80. Re:World is changing by arekusu_ou · · Score: 1

      Not the interest of the nation, though that would be great in ideal.

      An ambitious totalitarian wants a legacy, wants to build a dynasty, wants the heir to carry on and continue the work to make the greatest dynasty in history.

      They're going to care about corruption in the lower ranks. Going to care if the country isn't optimal or efficient. Going to care if the dynasty isn't being fulfilled.

      There is selfish and self-centered. The self-centered internalizes one's priority, one's interests, one's thoughts. However a self-centered does not have to step on others, steal, harm, to get what they want if they have honor and their own sense of morals. A selfish is someone who is self-centered but varying degrees of lack of morals. They'd take from others to feed their own desires. That's where greed and sociopathy comes into place.

      So yeah, a dictator, who's merely self-centered and the interests of the nation's growth fulfills his self-interest. Things would probably go okay.

    81. Re:World is changing by russotto · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's quite interesting how you can already predict how the world will change in the upcoming 10-20 years. The Chinese have the workforce (and hence more persons with high IQ), they're used to work hard for a living, and realistic economy. They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment.

      Preferring the Chinese factory worker lifestyle (work 12-16 hours, return to small dormitory, go back to work, ad infinitum) to an American lifestyle might just be taking the old Protestant work ethic a bit too far.

    82. Re:World is changing by russotto · · Score: 1

      And people wonder why Atlas Shrugged is still selling.

      BTU per BTU, it's cheaper than firewood.

    83. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One of those online places scored me with an IQ above 160. I know me, and I'm not that smart (plus in school I never got higher than 140).

      I am guessing it must be to avoid making potential "customers" feel bad about their scores.

      I'm not sure I'd be interested in taking a real test. I thought the new consensus was IQ isn't really a good measure of intelligence.

    84. Re:World is changing by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Ooh goody! Two people terminal but mutually incompatible strains of self righteous entitlement are fighting. This is what I love about the Internet.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    85. Re:World is changing by Rasperin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Thank you to you and the GP, this is exactly it. You learn on your own, but if you want to get the certificate that says I've studied at location X then you have to pay for it. I'm a second semester drop out because of this dawning point, yet I'm still considered one of the best in my field because I'm ready to learn. I'm always staying at the top of my game by studying. There isn't a thing I cannot do in my field that would require me to go to a university. Off/On topic, it's part of the reason I've set my course to retire in a few years, I've averaged $80/hr@60hr/wk pay for the last 4 years. I've paid off my house, assured my child future, I have saved 280,000 aside and when the economy collapsed I invested it (so without doing calculations it has grown almost 5 fold). A couple more years and I'm going back to school for start-to-finish Drs in aerospace engineering. There are certain resources I cannot obtain on my own.

      --
      WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
    86. Re:World is changing by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      Perhaps your IQ isn't quite high enough then, since it is hard for you to conceive that.

      Perhaps you haven't thought this through (heh). My IQ is absurd, and there are a lot of things that are obvious to me that I get to explain to others. Trying to think like someone who's merely smart is near impossible (no reference point), and talking about it often comes off as arrogant, so the only thing to do is deal with it as best you can.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    87. Re:World is changing by Securityemo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      When your GPU hardware is lacking, emulation only goes so far, no matter what your processor speed is. You can concieve that someome can be born without an arm or a leg, but not with a crippled/rearranged brain such that intellect is preserved, but a lot of other things is missing or subtly warped?

      --
      Emotions! In your brain!
    88. Re:World is changing by duffbeer703 · · Score: 1

      You're smoking crack. Chinese banks are actually worse than many US banks. And once they make enough, the Chinese people are buying lots of cars and HDTVs.

      --
      Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
    89. Re:World is changing by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      Everquest? That BS emotional IQ thing? Why not stop being clever and just say that teachers need to connect with their students?

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    90. Re:World is changing by Securityemo · · Score: 1

      On a related note, dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence.

      --
      Emotions! In your brain!
    91. Re:World is changing by FlopEJoe · · Score: 1

      intelligent enough not only to understand the material but also to understand their audience

      It takes a whole lot more than raw intelligence to understand people. I have met plenty of folks who are wickedly smart but couldn't read body language or a facial expression if their life depended on it.

      Maybe we just don't care to read your dumb ass body language or facial expressions :o

    92. Re:World is changing by duffbeer703 · · Score: 1

      Totalitarian governments breed corruption, because the only way for folks to get resources or attention from the government is to influence the dictator or some government functionary. Democracies become more corrupt as they become more dictatorial.

      Without pesky "electoral circuses" and a free press, nobody ever asks those inconvenient questions that bring down politicians.

      --
      Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
    93. Re:World is changing by ultranova · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And people wonder why Atlas Shrugged is still selling.

      Atlas Shrugged is selling for the same reason superhero comics do: people like power fantasies. I'd imagine that it would sell even more in times like this, when people have their helplessness in the face of "market forces" clearly demonstrated once again.

      Indeed, what kind of equality can one achieve in the first place?

      Maybe we shouldn't be striving for equality, but for elevating the lowest? That is, rather than trying to make everyone equal, simply ensure that even those who are at the bottom of the pile have food, water, clothes, shelter, and generally acceptable standard of living; and, most important of all, have the means to participate in society and improve themselves, which nowadays pretty much requires an Internet connection.

      IMHO the best way to do this would be to pay everyone a certain sum per month, enough to live on. One of the many problems with social security systems of today is that they are designed to prevent abuse, which results in them being tremendously complicated and pretty arbitrary. Make sure that people have a certain amount of income they can count on, and you empower them: they can make long-range plans and take whatever opportunity they happen to come by rather than worrying about losing their eligibility for SS. Also, knowing that you'll survive even if you'll become unemployed would cut down a lot on both abuses and stress of working life. Finally, getting an automatic payment with no strings attached would remove the necessity of any bureuecrat to go through your finances to decide whether you're eligible for it.

      And even if it were worth dying for, would it be worth killing for?

      This, actually, is a very good question, and one which I wish more people would ponder before starting their glorious revolutions for whatever goal.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    94. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the 1st question is: who is uncle Mao?

    95. Re:World is changing by The+Clockwork+Troll · · Score: 1

      Think of something that's hard for you to do.

      Maybe it's having a fully engaged conversation about a topic you have no interest in, or changing your daily routine to accommodate an unexpected external interruption, or simply putting yourself in someone else's "shoes" for a moment.

      That frustration ... that's what it's like for many of the rest of us, when it comes to very high level intellectual pursuits, the same ones that come so easy to you.

      --

      There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
    96. Re:World is changing by guruevi · · Score: 1

      Yes, the US, where the 20th century was riddled with SUPREME court cases (not just shot down in lower courts) around religious freedom, lifestyle choices and institutionalized discrimination. The 21st century isn't much better but seems to revolve more around resisting innovation while considering human rights and the constitution ancient history, out of date or just quaint.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    97. Re:World is changing by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Persons who score more that 140 on a IQ test you meaan not people who are actulay at that point on the bell urve.

      This is either a troll or epic irony.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    98. Re:World is changing by dpilot · · Score: 1

      The other respondents went after other parts of your post. I'll go after this:

      > Not necessarily. Environmental contamination, particularly with heavy metals has an IQ lowering effect
      > on the populace. Additionally since IQ is set relatively early, and brain damage later on will take off
      > the total score.

      I'm trying to figure out who you're trying to knock, here. Certainly the US has had its share of environmental issues, and continues to do so. But China is hardly clean on this, either. In fact, in a way China is worse, because they've seen the bad examples in the US, and in many cases are starting off on the wrong foot. They could have learned from our mistakes and avoided baking some of them into their society, only to have them resistant to removal later. They didn't.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    99. Re:World is changing by spiffmastercow · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your goal is admirable, however every attempt at direct redistribution of wealth seems to fail. There are just too many who are willing to live on nothing rather than work. More success has been had with programs to ensure other basic needs, such as medical care, child care, etc. that allow people to improve their lives without being burdened by illnesses or family obligations.

    100. Re:World is changing by bunabeans · · Score: 1

      Handful of things often asked or expressed - dozen/multiples a month. - "Man where do you get your acid? Can I buy some from you?" - "You're too deep." Pull the mirror over the face and stare back. || Don't correct a fool. || - "Are you sure you there isn't some mental illness?" - Top rated with a nuclear parental or doubting love. - "I like you man, I don't get you, but I like you." A big ruddy hand slaps you on the back and pushes cold libations under your snoused countenance. - (Big wide knowing smile) - ecstatic power will ensue within the coming 24 hours and it will make all that previous bull well worth wading through.

    101. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't that called Asperger's Syndrome?

    102. Re:World is changing by dpilot · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I heard a report on NPR last week about China and their One Child policy, a generation later. They started it, "Imagine no sister or brother... not only that, but no cousins, no aunts, no uncles... just you, your parents, and maybe your grandparents." Then they went on to talk about life for the children, since each family has only one. Those kids are PUSHED. Their cited example was a girl, taking her Saturday off of regular school to go to tutoring school - she was going to wind up eating supper there, because the off-day classes lasted that long. Play, what play? I know play isn't everything, but it isn't just fun. Social interactions? What happens when the only social interactions a child gets with peers are in the highly structured environments of classrooms or school lunchrooms? (I would expect that Chinese school lunchrooms are highly structured, unlike their US counterparts.)

      Then I thought about an entire generation of an entire population, pushed to achieve most of their lives, spending that time of their lives as the only focus of their parents hopes and affections. Next I put that together with a report on the US, about how "Children being raised with a higher focus on self-esteem wind up being bratty, sociopathic adults." I'm wondering what will happen when this generation is running the country, having had this kind of childhood. They'll clearly be equipped for dominance, have the ability to deliver, and feel that they deserve everything they get. I'm just wondering how this will impinge on the rest of the world.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    103. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And apparently having an IQ of 140/2 still allows access to the internet in many countries.

    104. Re:World is changing by bunabeans · · Score: 1

      Buying up world power structure debts- Eastern wisdom and memory do it.

    105. Re:World is changing by a_nonamiss · · Score: 1

      Percentage of people with an IQ higher than 140: 0.31349%

      Percentage of people claiming to have an IQ higher than 140: 37.68717%

      (Based on numbers I just made up)

      --
      -Arthur
      Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
    106. Re:World is changing by jayme0227 · · Score: 1

      Will Hunting? Is that you?

      --
      But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
    107. Re:World is changing by bunabeans · · Score: 1

      Fluoridation of drinking water has repeatedly shown increases in add, adhd, mental deficiencies, lower IQ. Good consumers don't think though.

    108. Re:World is changing by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Your goal is admirable, however every attempt at direct redistribution of wealth seems to fail.

      Which is precisely why I defined the goal as ensuring a minimum standard of living, rather than redistributing wealth exactly or even approximately equally.

      There are just too many who are willing to live on nothing rather than work.

      I wonder if that would still be true in a world where work wasn't a necessity for survival, thought. More and more of menial labour is being done by robots; with advances in artificial intelligence we are fast approaching a point where no job has to be done by humans.

      Doing nothing all day long is, in reality, pretty damn boring.

      More success has been had with programs to ensure other basic needs, such as medical care, child care, etc. that allow people to improve their lives without being burdened by illnesses or family obligations.

      That is kind of the point of "citizen pay".

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    109. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not the way universities work. Colleges maybe, but at any major university the number one job of the professor is to win grant money. Number two is to get papers accepted into top journals, and in the hierarchy of tasks teaching undergrads might make it into slot six or so if the professor is teaching a class at that time. Professors at research universities often regard teaching duties as extra duties. They tend to work about 60 hours a week (based off my observations) when they're not teaching. Add in one course and they'll cut back say 10ish hours on their regular work and then the class adds on 20-30 hours, so then they're working 70-80 hours a week.

      If you want to change that, then write your State and Federal representatives about the importance of higher education and how the universities lack the manpower to devote to the education of undergraduates. Tell them you want University of State University to expand the professor ranks by X%, and that these positions should not be indentured servitude adjunct professor positions which degrade both the education and the university as a whole. Demand that your representative push aggressively to raise taxes by the necessary amount to fund these positions and properly fund the university, and be sure to note that the last time State support was adequate was over 30 years ago.

    110. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do they have less because something was taken from them? Or because successful people have made something from nothing? In your world there would be no successful people, in other words, no jobs and little food. You would create greater poverty in the name of making things "even", so that those who do succeed at making a better life for themselves and their family have nothing to fear from even the guy selling produce in the market. There is no food in the market. There is no technology. There is nothing but poverty and famine.

      Those that do not find personal gain motivation enough for the work they must put into it, how will they find motivation to work when it must be shared equally with going on 7 billion people? You've already eliminated everyone who has the ability and motivation for personal gain. Now you are left with the unmotivated and in-able masses.

      What's more is that you think killing a man who has worked for his reward, taking it from him to share equally with the world is justice. You think that you and your massive family of unproductive eaters are more worthy of his prosperity than he is.

      Prosperity has created a world unlike any other, where food is cheaper than it has ever been and reaches more mouths easier than ever. You want to destroy that because someone has a yacht?

      You, sir, are an imbecile, a monster, and probably one of the laziest fools on earth.

    111. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been told (by a relevant professor) that's new consensus is that there's an IQ and EQ (emotional). EQ can compensate IQ if it's low.

    112. Re:World is changing by dogmatixpsych · · Score: 1

      As someone who gives IQ tests nearly every week, brain damage has to be pretty bad before it affects a person's IQ. IQ is very stable. You can get slight reductions if you have speed of processing slowing but other than that, your brain damage has to be bad (and affecting specific areas of the brain) in order to decrease IQ.

    113. Re:World is changing by level_headed_midwest · · Score: 1

      The real #1 job of the professor is to write grant proposals and get research money. The #2 job is to run the lab and manage the grad students effectively enough that enough papers get written. Job #3, and it is usually waaaay down on the totem pole, is to give the occasional lecture. Grad students (as TAs) do much of the actual teaching.

      --
      Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
    114. Re:World is changing by SteeldrivingJon · · Score: 1

      Hey, China will have more people who can get a column in Parade magazine (or local equivalent) answering stupid peoples' stupid questions.

      --
      September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
    115. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And a democracy is just as good in giving apathetic people (approximately half of you) the illusion that things are great. Jedi_Alec is right from a logical standpoint, although you might disagree with him morally.

    116. Re:World is changing by oldspewey · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't go so far as to diagnose these people with Asperger's. Maybe Asperger's Lite? They just live in a world of self-absorbed analytical thinking.

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
    117. Re:World is changing by level_headed_midwest · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The only problem is that certificate is what's needed to get a job in most cases. It's the equivalent of "pics or it didn't happen" in the business world.

      .

      --
      Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
    118. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I personally talked to all 4 of them and you're right they aren't interested.

    119. Re:World is changing by AndersOSU · · Score: 1

      Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.

      Authoritarian governments always collapse under their own weight either when the despot gets too greedy, when they lose their grip on the nobles, or in a succession crisis. Even if China can navigate those waters (and I'm not optimistic) they've still got demographic problems that will make the US's Social Security Trust fund look like exemplary foresight.

    120. Re:World is changing by travisco_nabisco · · Score: 1

      Very interesting, as someone who had to relearn how to balance after a sever head/brain injury at the age of 10, I have often wondered how this affected my general intelligence. According to my parents I was somewhat better at school and what not before the accident, though at the age of 10 it is hard to compare with anything. Even in spite of my brain trauma my IQ is above 125 and I like to blame my accident for not having over 130.

    121. Re:World is changing by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      My signature is false.

      Yes, yes it is.

      --
      Qxe4
    122. Re:World is changing by AndersOSU · · Score: 1

      If it is necessary to norm IQ population to which it's being given, the there are two possibilities: Either, the IQ of someone in China is equivalent to the IQ of someone in the US, or IQ tests are culturally biased.

    123. Re:World is changing by Gilmoure · · Score: 1

      No Piled higher and Deeper?

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    124. Re:World is changing by rwa2 · · Score: 1

      Nice advice... I'll be sure to pass it on to my kids as well.

      Teachers / professors are more of a guide to your independent studies.

      If there's one thing I learned from the well-respected and actually somewhat decent teacher of my AP Chem class in HS, it was to learn everything from the book in advance, and use the classroom time to reaffirm / crosscheck my knowledge.

      Prior to that, I had been squeaking by, figuring things out at the last possible moment (sometimes during the test!). And that worked great for me until I got to the college-level material.

    125. Re:World is changing by AndersOSU · · Score: 1

      All I see are Chinese bureaucrats developing a middle class that they'll eventually suppress by force.

      Couple of interesting points, first, the current middle class in china probably contains a majority of bureaucrats, are they going to suppress themselves?
      Second, middle classes are much harder to suppress than lower classes unless you can find some way to other them (ethnicity is the unusual tool, but that won't work in homogeneous China).

      China isn't likely to turn around in a coup. It's the capitalism that's leaking out of Hong Kong is going to continue to slowly change it over time. At least until they run into the demographic wall of their own making.

    126. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Correct! As any D&D player can (or should be able to) tell you, wisdom and intelligence are not the same thing.

    127. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I don't get it; are you underage, or gay?

      Look up Alan Turing.

      I don't get it; are you underage, an artificial intelligence, or gay?

    128. Re:World is changing by MakinBacon · · Score: 1

      That leaves China with over 4 million with an IQ greater than 140. The US then has just under one million.

      Considering that they have roughly 4 times as many people as the US, I'd say that leaves us about even.

    129. Re:World is changing by TheLink · · Score: 1

      1) At least with the videos out there you have a better idea of what the lectures are going to be like for a particular course and university (assuming the lecturer doesn't change), before you start giving them money.

      2) In my experience the university cert is only useful for the first job, after that first job, the other companies were more interested about other stuff- e.g. What you actually did in your job, and can do.

      Some certifications like CCIE might be useful in certain fields - and if you have a CCIE, people in those fields don't really care whether you have a degree or not. You wouldn't want to work for a company that's somehow bothered about your high school and kindergarten grades when you've already got a decent university degree.

      If you're staying in roughly the same field, it's sometimes a "small world", your future jobs can come from people who know you or have heard of you. So if you haven't been too much of an asshole and can actually do stuff, they wouldn't really care about the certificate stuff.

      So you can get decent jobs without a degree, it's not that important in the business world where I am, maybe it is where you are.

      That said, the degree/certificate can still be important when it comes to stuff like dealing with certain Immigration Departments and Rules/Laws... ;).

      --
    130. Re:World is changing by MakinBacon · · Score: 1

      I just realized that was a poorly worded post. What I mean to say is that, because there are 1.3 billion people in china versus 3 billion in America, their total population is roughly 4 times that of our total population; thus for us to have 1/4 as many people with an IQ of 140 or greater as they do would mean that the same portion of Americans have IQ's greater than or equal to 140.

      In fact, we're actually a little ahead because the population of China is actually about 4.33 times greater than ours.

    131. Re:World is changing by Khyber · · Score: 1

      I guess that's why I get modded troll quite often for explaining facts. Low IQ of the masses versus high IQ of the explainer.

      Plus I *AM* an arrogant douchebag, and I really make no qualms about it, either.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    132. Re:World is changing by COMON$ · · Score: 1
      Ya, I am not the brightest either and I routinely score between 140 and 160 playing around with the online tests.

      It would be interesting to see a more comprehensive exam that balances intelligence and emotion. Probably would be something better handled by an individual well versed in game theory. For instance, in strategy games I routinely beat my wife, however, trivia she pretty much owns me. I think it is an accurate description of the difference between us, her a straight A student and professor, me a C student but highly regarded in the IT world.

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    133. Re:World is changing by COMON$ · · Score: 1

      As an aside, it would be interesting in a job review for the interviewer to whip out Axis and Allies. "This is the interview, you will be judged by your choices during war" :)

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    134. Re:World is changing by endymion.nz · · Score: 1

      If you are a person of above-average intelligence you should be able to use your intelligence in the form of charisma to make yourself and your thoughts appealing to others. If you have no social skills and you are good at math, then perhaps you aren't as smart as you think you are.

      --
      mediocrity rules, man
    135. Re:World is changing by colinrichardday · · Score: 1

      Rand does mention professors burning the books of their libraries for fuel.

    136. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rolla? Sounds exactly like their ECE department.

    137. Re:World is changing by SpongeBob+Hitler · · Score: 1

      People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.

      Well, stop changing it all the time! Then, maybe people will ignore it.

      Fucker.

      --
      Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?
    138. Re:World is changing by colinrichardday · · Score: 1

      Atlas Shrugged is selling for the same reason superhero comics do: people like power fantasies.

      Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, the Khmer Rouge, etc hardly needed Rand or comic books to achieve their power "fantasies".

      Maybe we shouldn't be striving for equality, but for elevating the lowest?

      Fair enough, but that isn't the parent of my post wanted.

    139. Re:World is changing by fyngyrz · · Score: 3, Funny

      assured my child future

      Impressive. Still... all that, and you still haven't mastered the possessive tense.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    140. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you're being overly generous.

    141. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Congratulations! You have achieved today's illiteracy high score!
      13 misspellings (meaan, actulay, urve, dependant, soory, an, "your self", chinease, artificialy, curency, corupt, stockmarket, its) in only 3 sentences. Impressive! And bonus points for not capitalizing "exchange" and the run-on third sentence (which could have optionally been separated with a semicolon).

      No, really, your command of the English language is terrible. You speech is little better than that of a grunting pygmy. No doubt your arms wildly articulate your expressions as you writhe and fling them about as you speak. Do you write with feces or is that beyond your grasp?

      You should be in school instead of sitting here getting schooled. Adult education classes are available. If you're a child, your future is indeed bleak. Please do not reproduce.

    142. Re:World is changing by mjwalshe · · Score: 1

      I thought this was slashdot not wikipedia :-)

      http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/biased.html

      and some cultures have diferent world views some dont even have the same views of say 3d space or number theory.

      and as a dyslexic I am suposed to underperform by around 20 points on some IQ tests so add that to my IQ and I am around 150 - so does that make me a genius.

    143. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is assuming that petty corruption (direct bribes, favors, pollution, etc) is worse than the systemic corruption of the west (Military-industrial complex, world bank, the Fed, etc), not to mention that petty corruption is becoming as common in the US as anywhere in the wold these days (oil rig inspectors filing out penciled in reports, entire police precincts behaving worse than the gangs they are suppose to be protecting us from, paid for politicians using industry "research" to make policy instead of the scientific consensus, etc). The kind of corruption we are seeing here in the west is no less dangerous than China. The difference is China knows it has a problem (they made an anti-corruption video game) and when you are caught you can very well get a bullet there. But here in the west the more often than not the worst that can happen is someone gets a golden parachute, or very very rarely the rich will do some federal time in minimal security (I am not saying minimal is fun but its a lot better than Folsom where you can end up for selling weed).

    144. Re:World is changing by mjwalshe · · Score: 1

      Why your selecting people who can pass tests my CCNA lecturer commented that there a lot of people who can pass the “CCNA” but would be unable to connect up a pc to a router and debug simple network problems. Just passing the test doesn’t always buy you a lot.

      Especially when your selecting people to go and work in a very different culture I would have said softer skills might be more useful.

    145. Re:World is changing by mjwalshe · · Score: 1

      FUCK YOU

    146. Re:World is changing by mjwalshe · · Score: 1

      i'me going with irony

    147. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "If you just want the learn"

      I always wanted to me an engineer - and now I are one.

    148. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OMG this is too funny i spilled my drink

    149. Re:World is changing by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      There's a slight problem with your analysis: the Chinese economy is currently built on making all the latest HDTVs and non-important items that American (and European) consumers buy. If the Western economies collapse, the Chinese no longer have any work. Of course, I'm sure they're working to make themselves more self-sufficient, but they're not there yet.

      You're right about the Chinese not letting companies cheat, however. Chinese companies have cheated, and when they're caught, their executives at taken to an open pit and get rifle bullets in their brains. Here in the US, when companies cheat, their executives get slaps on the wrist and are allowed to keep their $20 million mansions in Florida.

    150. Re:World is changing by steelfood · · Score: 1

      since they are intelligent enough not only to understand the material but also to understand their audience.

      Quite the straw man you've set up there.

      You should know that there are several types of intelligence, each combination of which produces aptitude in different sets of skills. Communications relies on a completely different set of intelligences than mathematical problem solving.

      Granted, a person intelligent enough should be able to solve the problem of communications, but that solution may ultimately be to leave the communication to somebody better suited for the task.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    151. Re:World is changing by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is the whole problem with the idea of "intelligence", or someone being "smart". Smart at what?

      Different people are smart at different things. Some people are musical geniuses, but they wouldn't have the first clue about partial differential equations no matter how hard they tried. Some people are brilliant at understanding other people and relating to them, but have a hard time working with a computer. Some people are brilliant theoretical physicists, but are basically retards when it comes to social mores and dealing with other people.

      I'm not sure if it's true, but I've read that Thomas Edison couldn't even do long division, and had to hire a mathematician to do math for him. He could invent brilliant mechanical contraptions, but couldn't understand higher math. This would explain why his rival Tesla was able to invent so many things involving AC power (transformers, generators, motors, etc.), since that relied on understanding Maxwell's equations well.

    152. Re:World is changing by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      With the way the American economy is going, don't be so sure.

      Just because they have an IQ of 140 doesn't mean they're good at lying and bullshitting and schmoozing, the qualities you need in America to be successful.

    153. Re:World is changing by aliquis · · Score: 1

      They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment.

      They most likely will / do, as soon as they can.

      Unless their government will regulate it. I assume foreign banks will be more than willing to lend them money ..

      So, you're people saying their society works? =P

      Damn, Bush must have burned you well :D

      Budget:
      revenues: $2.104 trillion
      expenditures: $3.52 trillion (2009 est.)

      Current account balance:
      -$419.9 billion (2009 est.)

      Defense Budget: $515,400,000,000 [2009]

      So with less military spending you could have loaned 1/3 less money .. Or covered up your whole negative account balance.

      Public debt:
      52.9% of GDP (2009 est.)
      country comparison to the world: 47
      39.7% of GDP (2008 est.)
      Debt - external:
      $13.45 trillion (30 June 2009)

    154. Re:World is changing by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

      Plot a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15

    155. Re:World is changing by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Interesting

      More success has been had with programs to ensure other basic needs, such as medical care, child care, etc. that allow people to improve their lives without being burdened by illnesses or family obligations.

      That is kind of the point of "citizen pay".

      The problem with your "citizen pay" is that it relies on people to spend their money wisely (since it is limited, and only enough to sustain a minimum standard of living as you say).

      What would really happen would be many of the non-workers would go to the casino and spend their citizen pay, and then be broke, and their children would go hungry. There was a report about this recently in California with the welfare recipients there. Obviously, many of these people simply can't be trusted to raise their own children properly, which is why it's generally better, if you're going to provide free services, to give out free medical and child care, and not just a prepaid debit card that can be spent on booze and cigarettes.

    156. Re:World is changing by chameleon3 · · Score: 1

      the WAIS tests are typically considered very reliable IQ tests

      Reliable? Absolutely.

      Valid? Well, that's a whole different story...

    157. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have to ask: How many Chinese people have you worked with? Especially in a software related field?

      I have worked with people that were supposed to be geniuses, and they could barely solve a problem most US coders would have no problem with. I may only be a matter of the education system, but unless that changes drastically the US will not have much to fear in certain areas at least.

    158. Re:World is changing by tophermeyer · · Score: 1

      Ha! Thank you for calling me on that. That was an error on my part.

    159. Re:World is changing by spazdor · · Score: 1

      *coughautismcough*

      --
      DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
    160. Re:World is changing by spazdor · · Score: 1

      the only question about our children that matters is "is they learning?"

      --
      DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
    161. Re:World is changing by TikiTDO · · Score: 1

      Some black guys are also presidents of the US, however that seems to not be the norm for that genetic and social group. Sure, you can find examples of really smart people that are able to communicate, but I assure you those are the exception and not the norm.

      What more, those people probably have invested a significant amount of time using the full extent of their intellect to figure out how to explain the material in question. I mean if you are a genius, this should not be that much of a challenge. That said, the GP's point still remains, if you are significantly smarter than the average, and do not take the time to carefully consider how to explain a concept you may completely lose your audience simply because you consider amazingly complex concepts to be absolutely trivial.

      Oh the other hand, because you find things so trivial if you DO put in the extra time, your explanations will be all that much more concise and clear.

    162. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Resources actually slow down development of a developing country, contrary to intuition it might seem. The resulting quarrel and monopolizing of such resources actually hurt the society and economy. I actually think that the growth of china should be attributed to the government and the industry of the people.

    163. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1 sad but true

    164. Re:World is changing by inflamed · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, one with a high IQ might be capable of applying that intelligence to behaving charismatically - but may choose not to do so. Who are we mere sub-140s to question the ways of genius?

    165. Re:World is changing by Miseph · · Score: 1

      IQ is not the same as intelligence or knowledge, and certainly not the same thing as common sense. It is primarily a measure of how quickly one can process data to acquire discreet solutions. It's certainly a valuable trait, but absolutely not the be-all and end-all of quantifying what we call intelligence.

      Also, this may not seem like common sense to you 9as evidenced by your apparently not knowing it...), but bragging about your high IQ and insinuating that it is hard for you too deal with lesser beings because they "just don't get" obvious things is a thoroughly unlikable habit to be. It makes you sound like somebody who, early on in lafe, started going to special schools where everybody told you how gifted and smart you were, that other children would hold back your accelerated development, and that you should be patient and understanding with people who were not fortunate to have your level of genius. In layman's terms, a condescending twat.

      I suggest you work on developing the social skills to avoid fostering such negative perceptions.

      --
      Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
    166. Re:World is changing by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      In some states, we heteros are guilty of crimes if we have sex in any position other than the missionary, or if we have sex with the lights on. Those laws are still on the books.

    167. Re:World is changing by Kittenman · · Score: 1
      My thoughts too - conspiracy theorists would say that the Chinese are after the smarter Americans to assassinate/brainwash them, then they'll move in and take over the country from the remaining low-IQ peons ...

      Now, will this be modded "funny" or "insightful" ...

      --
      "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
    168. Re:World is changing by ultranova · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem with your "citizen pay" is that it relies on people to spend their money wisely (since it is limited, and only enough to sustain a minimum standard of living as you say).

      This is the assumption behind giving people any amount of liberty. If you don't think they can be trusted to make rational choices, vote for communism.

      What would really happen would be many of the non-workers would go to the casino and spend their citizen pay, and then be broke, and their children would go hungry.

      To put it bluntly, this can't be prevented no matter what you do, and if someone really does this, the children need to be taken away from them.

      Obviously, many of these people simply can't be trusted to raise their own children properly, which is why it's generally better, if you're going to provide free services, to give out free medical and child care, and not just a prepaid debit card that can be spent on booze and cigarettes.

      I call bullshit. Most poor people won't, in fact, use the money they receive on booze and cigarettes while their children starve. If some do, the children need to be taken away and placed into orphanages.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    169. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would anyone work in a corporate environment if that would be true? If I didn't have to work to get enough money to live, then I'd rather play guitar and code stupid games than work on supporting financial databases as I do now.
      Why would anyone work as a janitor, burger-flipper or farmhand, for that matter?

      This feels like the practice I saw in the old USSR where anyone would be offered a job with a livable salary, even if you'd skip half of the time and come up drunk the other time; resulting in a horribly poor productivity.

      I t feel that an economy where people aren't forced to work for a living would not create enough goods&services to support everyone at this 'minimum' level.

    170. Re:World is changing by Fieryphoenix · · Score: 1

      The mental faculty measured by IQ is not the one that leads to excellent teachers who understand their students, believe me.

    171. Re:World is changing by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      But the corruption is purposeful. A government employee can make more from the bribes than salary. But that's ok, because they do what the government wants anyway, and for a reduced cost to the government. If the government doesn't like something he did, then he's arrested and shot for bribery. Everyone knows that bribery is illegal but expected. You don't worry about getting caught. But it's what's stated when they find someone doing something they don't like and want them executed.

    172. Re:World is changing by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 1

      At least in a dictatorship when the new guy takes over the last bunch are shot. Wish we'd do that with some of our corrupt officials. And in western style democracy the same people pulling on the (purse) strings of the politicians are often involved in controlling the flow of information, they just look more impartial because they can put a new guy in from time to time.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    173. Re:World is changing by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Or, you could state that China and the US are both meritocracies, but that the actions of "merit" are different. In the US, "hard work" isn't valued. The harder you work, the less you are valued (blue collar anything). And the less you work, the more you are valued (see Paris Hilton). You may be assigned merit based on creativity or such, but obviously nepotism is valued in the US because George W Bush wouldn't have become president if his father hadn't entered politics. So what's valued in the US isn't hard work. It is as much an artificial system of hoops as China, it's just that the hoops are different, so some people in China who don't like the Chinese hoops would obviously enjoy a change of hoops.

    174. Re:World is changing by jyx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To put it bluntly, this can't be prevented no matter what you do, and if someone really does this, the children need to be taken away from them.

      And this is were your idea suddenly turns into the bureaucratic mess that it was trying to solve. When is it time to take the children away? Who makes that call? where do they go? Who deals with the legal and social problems that this causes? Maybe its better to do everything we can not to take the children away, introduce some conditions on the payments.. but ONLY for these circumstances...oh, what about those disabled people.. and the criminals... and that single young person shouldn't be getting the same as a mother of 3...

      A big big reason why governments are so full of rules and regulations is because they are (for the most part) OLD, and during their lifetime they have had to deal with exception after exception and what initially started out as a simple rule 'Everyone is entitled to health care' turns into several encyclopaedias of terms and conditions.

      Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that in a lot of cases we have ended up with to much bureaucracy, especially in government but the large private corporations are getting there as well, and a lot of it self generating. But to think that the solution is to get rid of it all is not going to work either.

      Oh, and people are dicks who will game any system they can.

    175. Re:World is changing by Zencyde · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, those numbers aren't very useful. Due to the wide range of IQ tests and the lack of standards, "140" on their test could be 90th percentile. You simply can't be sure. The test you bring up differs from Stanford Binet. Marginally, but it's still there. Percentile would have been more appropriate (and has always been) to show.

      --
      What day is it? Could you please tell me?
    176. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm guessing it's actually

      Percentage of new Chinese college graduates with an IQ higher than 140 ~ Percentage of US computer science graduates with an IQ higher than 125

      IQ is based on average UK nuts in the early 1900s. The average IQ in many Asian countries is around 110 now. Even the UK average is now 102 or sth.

    177. Re:World is changing by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Soory you need to know a lot more about economics to stop making an fool of your self, the chinease economy has an artificialy manipulated curency and a corupt stockmarket all the major funds investing in china prefer the HK exchange as its less risky.

      For one, massive systemic spelling and grammar mistakes make you sound like an idiot. I'm not a grammar nazi, but a person that has trouble taking someone seriously that types below where I was in the 6th grade. And secondly, the US has artificially manipulated currency and a corrupt stock market. You'll have to show their broken system is more broken than our broken system to prove a point, not just assert that their broken system is broken, which applies to the US equally.

    178. Re:World is changing by Adrian+Lopez · · Score: 1

      Usually coming from people who score low but are absolutely convinced they are smarter than the average bear.

      "Yesterday my boyfriend said to me: 'You are, without a doubt, the most beautiful and intelligent woman in the world.' I love my husband so much. He is so perceptive!"

      --
      "In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
    179. Re:World is changing by Adrian+Lopez · · Score: 1

      "Yesterday my boyfriend said to me: 'You are, without a doubt, the most beautiful and intelligent woman in the world.' I love my husband so much. He is so perceptive!"

      Let's all pretend the above quote says "husband" instead of "boyfriend", so the joke makes sense.

      --
      "In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
    180. Re:World is changing by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      +2:

      +1 sad, +1 true

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    181. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We won't ask anymore if you promise to never tell ever again.

      OK?

    182. Re:World is changing by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      Sheldon, is that you?

    183. Re:World is changing by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      [citation needed] ..actual peer reviewed scientific evidence, not wacky blogs anybody can put up.

    184. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can score 130 without trying too hard. And I used to be able to score 140. Unfortunately IQ does decrease with age.

      Mental athletic accomplishments takes a lot of work. And I am a clinically depressed unipolar.

    185. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe they just choose not to respond to your body language and facial expression, as they are poor indicators for making informed, rational decisions with.

      While some people may argue that it's just psuedo-science, it's fairly well-established in the MBTI that Sensing and Feeling personality types have a hard time coping with the general impassivity of iNtuitive Thinkers, who tend to be the intellectuals.

    186. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Don't ask, don't tell"? Yeah, because that's a policy that worked so well for the military.... :rolleyes:

    187. Re:World is changing by tverbeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not aware of any test cases, but the legal reasoning outlined in the majority opinion in "Lawrence v. Texas" (the case that legalized "sodomy") would also apply to statutes like the ones you cite, so you can consider yourself free to engage in lights-on non-missionary heterosex without fear of prosecution, regardless of which U.S. state you're in. As with so many civil rights battles, it wasn't just the obvious victim who benefited from the win.

      You're welcome. :)

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    188. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Learning is social. You need to interact with the professor, TA, other students, be forced to explain what you think you understand to another human being to discover you don't really understand what you think you understand.

    189. Re:World is changing by Valdrax · · Score: 1

      If you are a person of above-average intelligence you should be able to use your intelligence in the form of charisma to make yourself and your thoughts appealing to others. If you have no social skills and you are good at math, then perhaps you aren't as smart as you think you are.

      What does being smart enough to understand people have to do with IQ? Standardized IQ tests simply do not test for social adaptability. Intelligence isn't one linear set of abilities that can be measured by a number on a sheet. Charisma, empathy, and clarity of speech all each distinct abilities much like memory, spatial reasoning, intuition, creativity, alertness, speed of calculation, and other abilities generally thought of as signs of intelligence.

      In that sense, intelligence is like physical ability. An Olympic boxer is probably better at running than a couch potato, but is nowhere near as good as triathlete. Both are "above average" in terms of physical ability, but being "better than average" doesn't mean being good at everything.

      --
      If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
    190. Re:World is changing by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      also, the banks where only doing what Congress told them to. then, when that went horribly wrong, as most of the "good ideas" Congress has tend to do, they took the money Congress "offered". don't get pissed at the banks. get pissed at the people causing the problem. CONGRESS.

      The banks said "we can self regulate." And so, Congress believed the lying banks. When Congress lifts restrictions the banks begged for and lied to get, then that's Congress's fault for allowing them to not only make loans, but sell bundles of loans they made as securities.

      And you do know what the financial crisis was, right? It was the banks and lenders fraudulently overvalued the securities. They made loans to "subprime" people. These subprime loans default sometimes. But that's to be expected. It's happened since the first issuance of loans thousands of years ago (or longer). So it's not a surprise. But the banks not only sold the loans, but sold the securities. So they'd bundle loans that had high risk, lie about the risk to make the investment sound better, then sell them to unsuspecting people who were defrauded because of the lying actions of the bank. And the stupid part is banks doing this would buy the bundles from others, thinking that they didn't do the same underhanded practices they did themselves.

      When the subprime loans, which had been defaulting a historically low rates because of increasing house prices corrected back to expected rates when the houses started falling in value (note, subprime loan recipients didn't default more than expected, so there should have been no problem, and the problem wasn't caused by them defaulting more than expected, but by the fraud from selling their higher risk loans as lower risk loans), then people noticed the securities weren't worth the asserted value. But banks borrowed money based on the value of these, so they had insufficient collateral once this happened. And a house of cards came crashing down.

      Also note, this wasn't related to the racist whiners asserting that it was HUD loans or small business loans to blacks. If the risks, high or low, were accurately represented in the loans, then there wouldn't have been an issue. But the banks, lending appropriately, then packaged these loans in a fraudulent manner and sold them.

      But yes, it was Congress's fault for believing anyone that testifies before them. If they called in "industry experts" and did the opposite, they'd have a better track record than listening to the industry shills who don't mind getting in front of Congress and lying. Congress allowed the deregulation that made the banking fraud easy. But it wasn't Congress that lied when inventing securities and selling the fraudulent securities. It's just Congress that deregulated the banks that let the banks cause the mess themselves. The banks have proven, repeatedly, that they are not capable of self-regulation. Yet every generation or so, we try and see what happens. S&L scandal. Great Depression. Subprime scandal. It's never worked out, but we keep trying.

    191. Re:World is changing by russotto · · Score: 1

      Maybe we shouldn't be striving for equality, but for elevating the lowest? That is, rather than trying to make everyone equal, simply ensure that even those who are at the bottom of the pile have food, water, clothes, shelter, and generally acceptable standard of living;

      It doesn't work. Alvin Lee wrote "Tax the rich to feed the poor/until there are rich no more", but that's how it always works out -- you always run out of rich before you run out of poor.

    192. Re:World is changing by blackraven14250 · · Score: 1

      It's because he only studied his field.

    193. Re:World is changing by PingPongBoy · · Score: 1

      They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment.

      But when you look around, don't you think the world has somehow become a more friendly and peaceful place? If people buy their toys, this leads to jobs for manufacturers and retailers as well as career-oriented teenagers who might otherwise wander aimlessly and seek destructive and violent outlets because of boredom.

      Jobs, jobs, jobs. Why isn't government able to improve employment? The people of the developed world ought to dream more and collectively reach for the ultimate toys and goals that only rich nations can think of.

      Decades ago, generations ago, individuals could find a living easily. Not so today - competition and mature products are forcing many people out of work. Even many of the "non-important items" have become affordable and marginalized.

      The problem is that individuals cannot collectively attain a higher economic plateau if they continue to aspire as individuals. An individual's consumption, even Gordon Gecko, touches only a limited number of other individuals - this cannot lead to enough demand to employ everyone.

      Corollary: It only makes sense that China wants to hire the best. Proof: Jobs are limited. Q.E.D. I live in a place where people are scarce - at times, teenagers used to be hired to do sophisticated work. With demand falling off in the last couple of years, competition for jobs has become more arduous.

      Cutting to the chase - what kind of toys and goals are at a national level?

      • health care, curing diseases
      • renewable energy, reducing the dependence for nonrenewable energy
      • space travel
      • raising the economic potential of all citizens - education, knowledge bases, publicly accessible laboratories

      National level goals are things that can stay in the mind of a populace. For the last decade, a major national level goal has been war on terror, fat lot of good that is doing. This sort of goal did not demand the highest IQ, and that may be the reason for fears of a double dip recession. Now, people each and every one needs to put themselves into the frame of mind of a more challenging goal - pick something, no one is going to tell you that you have to pick anything, and try to make an advancement or at the very least a profit.

      --
      Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
    194. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So Americans with high IQs don't like to travel or experience foreign cultures?

      It's not the smart ones that wouldn't be interested, but the ones with kids and families.

    195. Re:World is changing by billcopc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Imagine how hard it is for us crazies above 150 to conceive of why the sub-150s are even allowed to leave the testing room alive.

      The interesting (scary for norms) thing about this Chinese hiring practice is I think it is self-defeating. People will find ways to cheat on the test, and then what ? "You can't fire me, I have over 9000 IQ". A more far-fetched idea is that IQ discrimination could soften the public up to the idea of eugenics. Just like 9/11 opened the door for Americans to get repeatedly assfucked by their own government, having an explicit IQ requirement for a job may eventually spill over to an IQ requirement for subsidized hospital care, or the often-mused birth permit. In the immediate it does imply that higher IQ translates to higher paying jobs, thus segmenting society both financially and intellectually.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    196. Re:World is changing by Altima(BoB) · · Score: 1

      The fact that you can't tell means he passed the test.

      --
      Yup...
    197. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They would not have free access to information, and China isn't exactly top of their class in the technology industry. Sure they love to travel, but there are far more attractive destinations than China.

    198. Re:World is changing by kj_kabaje · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the link--same quality as Wikipedia... ;-)

      I think there are probably very good arguments to be made about bias on any test. However, bias and impact are two very different things. If the impact of the decisions made from said tests "does no harm", as the link you point to indicates, than I'd say it's okay to acknowledge, but it's time to move on. What troubles me more is that people don't necessarily know enough about using test scores and their appropriate usage (e.g., the point of this article). Tests are so often co-opted into uses for which they were never intended.

      With respect to your dyslexia comment, I'd argue that the tests I pointed to (PISA, especially) would be a better fit for someone with dyslexia. Looking at this: http://www.iqtestexperts.com/dyslexic-geniuses.php, would seem to indicate that a properly designed test would be a more visual one. If you took a test that had 20 points of negative bias for your subgroup, then yes--you are probably a genius on the Wechsler scale.

      Cheers.

    199. Re:World is changing by endymion.nz · · Score: 1

      If they've chosen not to do so it's because they have another way to achieve their goal that requires less effort.

      --
      mediocrity rules, man
    200. Re:World is changing by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately history disagrees with you. You can pretty much sum up the superpowers in the world and notice that they are the most open economies. Even China, as evil as they are painted, is not nearly as much of a dictatorship as the likes or Iran, Iraq, etc. Those are the places that can't feed their people and are under the constant threat of war.

      In theory, a dictatorship could be more efficient. A perfectly enlightened dictator would distribute money and power in just the right way to maximize the economy, creating a superpower. Indeed, for small periods of time this has happened (Rome) but inevitably, dictatorships suffer from "power corrupts" and that corruption spans the economy.

      At least transparency and democracy result in constant shifts in power, that help to minimize the impact of the corruption.

      As for getting where they are because resources are cheap...isn't that pretty much how all current and past superpowers came to be?

      Is that the case for the US? Yeah... I guess so: slavery, then industrial revolution. Hmmmmm.... Can't argue with that.

    201. Re:World is changing by arb+phd+slp · · Score: 1

      If you are a person of above-average intelligence you should be able to use your intelligence in the form of charisma to make yourself and your thoughts appealing to others.

      What you are arguing is a huge debate in many aspects of neuroscience--are our skills and proclivities domain-specific or domain-general? Can you really apply brain structures evolved for one thing to do something else (such as using your spatial reasoning part of the brain for social reasoning)?

      My whole field (speech-language therapy) depends on the ability of the brain to do this. I work with people whose brains aren't wired right (either by genetic endowment, environmental effects on development, or trauma to the brain). However, I've never seen neuroplasticity that leads to excellence or genius, just functional competence (although, to be fair, that's all we ever shoot for in rehabilitation).

      In computer terms, you always take a performance hit when you're emulating.

      --
      There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
    202. Re:World is changing by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 1

      Is that a new cola?

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
    203. Re:World is changing by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 1

      They can also tell you that either can be increased by wearing a cloak and wielding a mace.

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
    204. Re:World is changing by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 1

      Go flick on your TV and tune in to a reality TV programme. There...those guys, they're the ones dragging the average down - not the ones at your wine and cheese night for physics graduates.

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
    205. Re:World is changing by endymion.nz · · Score: 1

      Have you ever worked with people whose brains are wired typically? Your field is very interesting, a close friend of mine is involved in it but I don't really know a lot about it.

      --
      mediocrity rules, man
    206. Re:World is changing by martyros · · Score: 1

      Some of the most accomplished scientists are often also the best teachers

      And some of the most accomplished scientists are often also the worst teachers. And some of the best teachers are lousy scientists. The two abilities are pretty much independent.

      --

      TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.

    207. Re:World is changing by oldspewey · · Score: 1

      GP's point was that raw intelligence helps people be good teachers. In my experience, people who can't sense a ripple of confusion spreading through the classroom, or who can't detect a thoughtful look on the face of a listener, are not good teachers.

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
    208. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmmmm.

      "... They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US ..."

      What makes this enormously funny is that the banking system in China is completely controlled by the government ... which in turn uses it's political muscle to force said banks to give non-performing loans to companies, individuals and organizations that in turn give a rake-off to senior government officials.

      How far in the hole is the Chinese banking system? Trillions of dollars at least but nobody really knows because the banking system in China is completely controlled by the government.

      Amusingly enough now the Chinese are trying to get foreigners to buy into the banking system to offset the money they've stolen over the years.

    209. Re:World is changing by mjwalshe · · Score: 1
      Isn’t saying “I am not a grammar Nazi like saying “some of my best friends are black”? I am of course doing a quick informal post and not writing my fracking Tripos dissertation

      but I do have a high IQ sort of kinda making my point about IQ eh?

      in what sense is the US stock market institutionally corrupt compared to China do they force citizens to buy different classes of stock? Are the rights of minority share holders respected? And do major investment houses warn people off direct investments in the USA and mention preferring companies listed on the Canadian exchange this in their annual reports? They do about China.

    210. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having an IQ of 140 is good and all but, lose some goddamn weight!

    211. Re:World is changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't need to pay for the privilege of interacting with the professor.

      This is the internet age, you can interact with others online.

    212. Re:World is changing by arb+phd+slp · · Score: 1

      Right now I'm doing some research that involves me looking at typically developing kids and tracking what kind of language they use. I'm hoping to transfer that language over to kids who can't use speech.

      In clinical practice, to have a basis of comparison, I try to spend time with "typical" children as much as possible to keep my expectations from slipping too low.

      --
      There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
    213. Re:World is changing by endymion.nz · · Score: 1

      I guess what I'm asking is whether there are any programmes to enhance the cognitive abilities of people who just want to be more capable in some way? Or is the research and practice focused on those with genetic/environmental/psychological setbacks?

      --
      mediocrity rules, man
    214. Re:World is changing by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Isn't saying "I am not a grammar Nazi like saying "some of my best friends are black"?

      Nope. You miss the point 100%. Probably because you think you are smart. When you have so many errors in such a small place, it means that you either care so little about what you are saying that we shouldn't care either, or that you are an idiot.

      I am of course doing a quick informal post and not writing my fracking Tripos dissertation but I do have a high IQ sort of kinda making my point about IQ eh?

      You are too stupid/lazy to install a spell checker. Too stupid/lazy to use it. You are too stupid/lazy to proofread. When you add them all up, it makes people dismiss your posts because you are proving that your opinion isn't worth listening to.

      in what sense is the US stock market institutionally corrupt compared to China do they force citizens to buy different classes of stock?

      Is that one question or two? Should there be a comma in that run-on or a question mark? When your grammar errors make your post unparsable, it's not worth my time to try to guess what you mean then respond to that when I could just as easily be wrong and taking the wrong meaning. So let me know when you are willing to put forth effort into communicating with me, and I'll try again. Until then, your run on sentences, sentence fragments, spelling errors, grammar and punctuation issues will prevent me from taking your ideas seriously. You obviously don't take them seriously.

    215. Re:World is changing by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      It is as much an artificial system of hoops as China, it's just that the hoops are different,

      HERETIC !
      Burn the cultural relativist heretic!

      (Actually, I strongly suspect that you're closer to the truth than most people would be comfortable with. But being right won't keep you off the pile of firewood. Did it ever?)

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    216. Re:World is changing by mahadiga · · Score: 1

      Economic mobility ( http://to./brr ) != Social mobility ( http://to./68j )
      And China & India have to fix their serious social problems before they can become a 1st world nation ( http://to./4nny )

      --
      I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
    217. Re:World is changing by veeren76 · · Score: 1

      I guess you got your numbers wrong.
      1.3 people in china--> true
      3 billion people in US --> NOT true
      i guess you meant 0.3 billion OR say 300 million people.

      --
      Common sense is not common
    218. Re:World is changing by MakinBacon · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I meant 0.3 billion, not 3 billion. But apart from that, my point about how we have the same proportion of people with IQ's above 125 is true.

  2. Feynman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    with barely 120 points wouldn't have a chance in that company.

    1. Re:Feynman by kj_kabaje · · Score: 1

      One of the larger problems with tests that last as long as some of these IQ type tests is what is termed "scale drift". This has happened to the SAT (see their website for numerous studies on the topic) and requires a re-norming every so often. Thus, if the test hadn't been equated properly (a psychometric/statistical link), there's a good chance that comparing these numbers from that long ago would be more or less meaningless. Likely, it is more valid, and less prone to measurement error, to compare people of a more similar and recent population. All this of course depends on which assessment of IQ we're talking about, what methods of equating and norming were used, and a lot of other factors that can lead to additional measurement error.

    2. Re:Feynman by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      Proof via ad-absurdium that IQ does not properly reflect one's intelligence
      Feynman: IQ = 120
      GWB: IQ = 135

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    3. Re:Feynman by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 1

      Proof via ad-absurdium that IQ does not properly reflect one's intelligence
      Feynman: IQ = 120
      GWB: IQ = 135

      Just because you disagree with someone's actions doesn't mean that person isn't intelligent.

      --
      Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
  3. Ok, this is stupid by JamesP · · Score: 3, Interesting

    IQ is highly overrated

    In practice, it's almost useless...

    Google tests are (way) better than IQ, but guess what Google found out: the best performers are the ones who have the lowest scores on their interviews.

    IQ is not concerned with
    - the candidate knows about the job
    - the candidate has good (enough) people skills
    - the candidate showers, shaves, etc

    Guess they shouldn't bother and go straight here then http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/famous-people.html

    --
    how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
    1. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, shaving is absolutely critical to getting the job done. Those beards really get in the way of thinking sometimes.

    2. Re:Ok, this is stupid by jbb1003 · · Score: 1

      Shaves? What has that got to do with anything?

    3. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Re the Google tests. Interesting, but your sources would be even more so.

    4. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Dan667 · · Score: 1

      and most important, IQ does not consider if they get stuff done.

    5. Re:Ok, this is stupid by lorenlal · · Score: 1

      Disagree: You think this guy isn't going to kick some corporate ass for you?

      Well... When he's in the office he will.

    6. Re:Ok, this is stupid by JamesP · · Score: 3, Interesting

      http://gawker.com/5392947/googles-broken-hiring-process

      And I quote Peter Norvig

      One of the interesting things we've found, when trying to predict how well somebody we've hired is going to perform when we evaluate them a year or two later, is one of the best indicators of success within the company was getting the worst possible score on one of your interviews. We rank people from one to four, and if you got a one on one of your interviews, that was a really good indicator of success.

      --
      how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
    7. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Firethorn · · Score: 1

      It's a chinese company; they're still trying to figure some of this stuff out. Besides, with the number of applicants they have they can afford to be picky even beyound the 140 requirement.

      I mean, here in the USA you'll get bad sorting processes as well.

      Remember google's experience? Good performance in a job interview != good performance in the job.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    8. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Kjella · · Score: 1

      IQ is not concerned with
      - the candidate knows about the job
      - the candidate has good (enough) people skills
      - the candidate showers, shaves, etc

      To understand computers, being able to think in abstract logic is far more important than your EQ so for an IT outsourcing company it's almost "knowing" your job. Now we'd all like perfect employees, but it's much, much easier to find someone to look good in a suit and talk nice to your customers than to find someone competent to do the work. It does not matter how good your "people skills" are, if you take a week to do what should have taken a day.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    9. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Yvanhoe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Google tests are (way) better than IQ, but guess what Google found out: the best performers are the ones who have the lowest scores on their interviews.

      Then maybe Google tests are not that good then. IQ tests show a correlation with income and with education level. Correlation is not causation, but if a company wants someone with good education, IQ is not such a bad instrument.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    10. Re:Ok, this is stupid by kj_kabaje · · Score: 1

      Please do cite your sources on the Google tests. As a professional in psychometrics, I'd be very curious to know what evidence they provide for the efficacy of their tests. I'm also very curious as to what outcome they are looking for--e.g., most creative, but also compliant employees? Most loyal?

      If their test looks like this: http://cruftbox.com/blog/archives/001031.html#001031, the psychometric reliability of a 20ish item test is probably not all that high.

    11. Re:Ok, this is stupid by at_slashdot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Google found out: the best performers are the ones who have the lowest scores on their interviews." [citation needed]

      --
      "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
    12. Re:Ok, this is stupid by digitig · · Score: 1

      So when they want their projects to be fucked, they'll be in touch.

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    13. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Eivind+Eklund · · Score: 3, Informative

      IQ is highly overrated

      In practice, it's almost useless...

      Google tests are (way) better than IQ, but guess what Google found out: the best performers are the ones who have the lowest scores on their interviews.

      I'll quote the original source of that claim, Peter Norvig, and his refuting of that interpretation:

      What do you know? Valleywag got everything wrong. Google is hiring, not laying off. Also, our interview scores actually correlate very well with on-the-job performance. Peter Seibel asked me if there was anything counterintuitive about the process and I said that people who got one low score but were hired anyway did well on-the-job. To me, that means the interview process is doing very well, not that it is broken. It means that we don't let one bad interview blackball a candidate. We'll keep interviewing, keep hiring, and keep analyzing the results to improve the process. And I guess Valleywag will keep doing what they do...

      (emphasis mine)

      Eivind.

      --
      Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
    14. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Krahar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IQ is highly overrated

      In practice, it's almost useless...

      It's true that it's not all you need to do well. Citation needed on it being almost useless, in the same way that citation is needed on water not being wet.

      Google tests are (way) better than IQ, but guess what Google found out: the best performers are the ones who have the lowest scores on their interviews.

      The best performers are those that were hired in spite of having a low score in one interview out of several. These are people that are so impressive for some reason or other that even a low score in an interview does not rule them out. Citation needed on Google tests being way better than just an IQ test - I only know that they are more laborious, not that they outperform 100 years of research into IQ. If they do I expect it's because they include either an actual IQ test or an IQ test by proxy such as riddles or hard subject-specific questions you can't just memorize ahead of time. In any case, citation needed.

      IQ is not concerned with - the candidate knows about the job - the candidate has good (enough) people skills - the candidate showers, shaves, etc

      ... and yet IQ tests still predict performance very well in many jobs. It's both fantastic and fantastically politically unacceptable.

      If you are up in arms about IQ, then just wait till you read about the general fitness factor. This is the first link I found on google: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ698164&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ698164

    15. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Krahar · · Score: 2, Informative
      Here's another quote from Peter Norvig:

      What do you know? Valleywag got everything wrong. Google is hiring, not laying off. Also, our interview scores actually correlate very well with on-the-job performance. Peter Seibel asked me if there was anything counterintuitive about the process and I said that people who got one low score but were hired anyway did well on-the-job. To me, that means the interview process is doing very well, not that it is broken. It means that we don't let one bad interview blackball a candidate. We'll keep interviewing, keep hiring, and keep analyzing the results to improve the process. And I guess Valleywag will keep doing what they do... - Peter Norvig from Bookmarklet

      http://friendfeed.com/peternorvig/7a110005/google-broken-hiring-process-gawker?embed=1

    16. Re:Ok, this is stupid by nnnnnnn · · Score: 0

      The Google tests in no way measured IQ. Here's some sample Google interview question

      "How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?"
      "How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?"
      "How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?"

      Those are not IQ questions. Please get your facts straight.

    17. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Ecuador · · Score: 1

      Guess they shouldn't bother and go straight here then http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/famous-people.html

      Great source:

      George W. Bush
      IQ Score 125

      *cough*Is that in octal?*caugh*

      And other gems like Tarrantino == Stephen Hawking etc.
      I am not saying IQ tests are accurate depictions of anything, but, come on...

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    18. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure if IQ tests themselves are permissible anymore in the U.S. as a part of a job interview.

    19. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Eivind+Eklund · · Score: 5, Informative

      (Repeat of similar post above, where you made this misinterpretation too.)

      http://gawker.com/5392947/googles-broken-hiring-process

      And I quote Peter Norvig

      One of the interesting things we've found, when trying to predict how well somebody we've hired is going to perform when we evaluate them a year or two later, is one of the best indicators of success within the company was getting the worst possible score on one of your interviews. We rank people from one to four, and if you got a one on one of your interviews, that was a really good indicator of success.

      I'll quote the original source of that claim, Peter Norvig, and his refuting of that interpretation:

      What do you know? Valleywag got everything wrong. Google is hiring, not laying off. Also, our interview scores actually correlate very well with on-the-job performance. Peter Seibel asked me if there was anything counterintuitive about the process and I said that people who got one low score but were hired anyway did well on-the-job. To me, that means the interview process is doing very well, not that it is broken. It means that we don't let one bad interview blackball a candidate. We'll keep interviewing, keep hiring, and keep analyzing the results to improve the process. And I guess Valleywag will keep doing what they do...

      (emphasis mine)

      Eivind.

      --
      Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
    20. Re:Ok, this is stupid by mdwh2 · · Score: 1

      Whilst IQ in general is a poor test of general intelligence, I don't see it's stupid as an interview process. IQ tests may only test a specific set of problem solving skills rather than general intelligence, but those are still skills plausibly useful for jobs like programming. Yes, you can get better at problem solving, which is just what the company wants - it's like saying exams aren't relevant, because you can study and do better.

      (At one software company in the UK, I was set a test with questions basically very similar to those in IQ tests I've done, and in that context it made perfect sense. Was the test a perfect way of judging candidates? Sure, it wasn't, but the same could be said of all tests and processes in the interview - there's no perfect method.)

      IQ is not concerned with
      - the candidate knows about the job
      - the candidate has good (enough) people skills
      - the candidate showers, shaves, etc

      Who says they're only using these tests to hire people? By that logic, I could say the same about your criteria - knowing about the job isn't concerned with whether they can do it; whether the candidate showers/shaves tells you nothing if they have good enough people skills, etc. If you're criticising the relevance of IQ tests, I'd criticise the relevance of your examples just as much.

    21. Re:Ok, this is stupid by elrous0 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but this guy was his proctor for the test.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    22. Re:Ok, this is stupid by mdwh2 · · Score: 1

      I find this odd - it's okay (presumably) for companies to set candidates tests, but they're banned from including questions that test problem solving? How is it decided if a test counts as an "IQ test"?

    23. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is this one of those trick tests where all the answers are 42??

    24. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is why interviews exist...

      1. Seek out people with high IQs
      2. Filter this group down to those who don't smell and can hold their own in a conversation
      3. Offer them a lot of money because they're worth their weight in gold (unless they're malnourished and missing some limbs)
      4. Profit

      As some other posters have said, in the US step one is normally done by proxy: recruiting from the best colleges, or companies known to be selective in their hiring. The colleges, for example, have already filtered their students from the general population (IQ of 100) by looking at their standardized test scores, extracurricular activities, and high school GPAs and then applying their own collegiate standards to them.

      This is process explains why the average IQ of a PhD recipient is 125 while a typical high school graduate has an IQ of 105 (http://www.assessmentpsychology.com/iq.htm). One would expect that companies that actually hire PhDs would have such an employee possess an IQ slightly higher than 125 because they're selecting the "best" from a pool where an average is 125.

    25. Re:Ok, this is stupid by ebuck · · Score: 1

      While that might be true to understanding computers, a good EQ score will allow you to have a good understanding of how to accomplish tasks that require more than just your own two hands. I've seen scant few development teams of one these days; probably, because the dreams of what the programs are meant to accomplish are getting broader.

      The good thing is that anyone with a sense of history would realize that EQ is just manners in a new fashionable garb. That means it can be learned.

    26. Re:Ok, this is stupid by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      I think they are legal. However you will need to prove that you IQ Test is bias on Race, Gender or Religion. Many of these tests are, thus could get you in trouble. Also Must companies don't use IQ because it isn't a good measurement for business. IQ tests are good for judging development of people threw-out their life, and if they have a very Low IQ or a very High IQ it may show. However we tend to use it as an excuse on how smart we are, which really isn't the case.

      I have seen people with Low IQ perform better then people with high IQ on mental tasks because they know to work hard at it while the high IQ person who just thinks they are all that expects it to come easy and doesn't put the effort the project deserves.

      Except for the IQ Score you should really be getting the standard deviation from the average. As the actual score can very based on the questions and the experience.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    27. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems to me that every time IQ gets brought up on this or any other forum there are more people talking about it's faults than it's merits, so I tend to disagree that it's overrated. If my experiences on the Internet are any indication, it's underrated.
      Of course most people don't have high IQs so I guess it makes sense that most people think the tests are faulty.

    28. Re:Ok, this is stupid by JamesP · · Score: 1

      Thanks for that

      It's really interesting, and actually, VW quoted correctly but put the wrong spin on it.

      As he said in the first quote (and he repeats that on his remarks after) is a low score on ONE interview.

      But I disagree with him on saying it's not broken (but it's ok since he's not going to badmouth his employer)

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    29. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Not sure why you think the second quote refutes the forst one. Both extracts say a bad performance on ONE interview seemed to correlate with good later performance.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    30. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1

      I think they are legal. However you will need to prove that you IQ Test is bias on Race, Gender or Religion.

      Low IQs tend to be more religious : https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence#Studies_comparing_religious_belief_and_I.Q.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    31. Re:Ok, this is stupid by mabhatter654 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      McDonald's had a training model "green is growing" and that's probably the effect Google is seeing. If you ace every single area, then you might be really smart and motivated... but you're probably not reaching far ENOUGH for challenging work. From an employment point of view, somebody reaching "over their head" is more likely to TRY harder to make themselves better. It would be like paying somebody good in the 100 yd dash to walk your dog.... they could probably DO the job quite well, but they wouldn't better themselves with the job and shortly after boredom would set in and they would do worse than hiring a chubby girl that really likes dogs and benefits from the daily exercise.

    32. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pias'to avgo kai kourefto...

    33. Re:Ok, this is stupid by JamesP · · Score: 1

      Then go and hire Theodore Kazinski, or maybe Bobby Fischer, their IQ is off the charts.

      [quote]Citation needed on Google tests being way better than just an IQ test [/quote]

      Maybe because one has to do with skills related to the job and the other doesn't. Do you even know what kind of questions google asks? Well, I do.

      [quote]and yet IQ tests still predict performance very well in many jobs. It's both fantastic [/quote]

      Depends on the job. Get out of the lab and onto the real world.

      But it's ok you can start your own software company and hire people with the highest IQs and see what happens.

      Google had every reason to use IQ for hiring and still it doesn't. It's about 70% 'knowing stuff'.

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    34. Re:Ok, this is stupid by JamesP · · Score: 1

      They don't ask that (or at least, this i 5% of questions)

      if you'd googled 'google interview questions' you get a better match

      These are a better match even if it looks similar http://www.techinterviews.com/google-interview-questions

      http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html

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    35. Re:Ok, this is stupid by JamesP · · Score: 1

      this is great insight, makes sense!

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    36. Re:Ok, this is stupid by bunratty · · Score: 1

      IQ is highly correlated to job performance, especially for skilled jobs. I wish it were a standard part of resumes, instead of the usual X years of experience with language Y. I'd get interviews on all jobs I applied for, instead of being weeded out by HR immediately because I don't specifically have 3 years experience with Python or 5 years experience with SQL.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    37. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IQ isn't overrated, it's misused.

      Is the interview for a scientific or engineering job, involving high level abstract concept such as physics, algorithm, maths, etc...?
      Then a IQ test is usefule.

      Is the interview for a management, PR, or commercial job? Then you need people skills, good relational, etc...
      IQ test isn't useful then. EQ is somewhat better.

      Companies began to use IQ test for everything because they needed a "first-pass" filter for the amount of appliants they had, so they put IQ tests everywhere regardless of its actual relevance.

      So now we have people that say "IQ is irrelevant to good performance" because people who scored high on a test irrelevant to their job contents in the first place performs poorly.

    38. Re:Ok, this is stupid by JamesP · · Score: 1

      I'd take IQ over 'years of experience' any time

      But sometimes knowing something is more important. Not because people don't learn on the job, but somethings need time to learn.

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    39. Re:Ok, this is stupid by shipbrick · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Some studies suggest that what is called Emotional intelligence (or sometimes 'EQ') is a better predictor of success in life.

    40. Re:Ok, this is stupid by mikael · · Score: 1

      That simply means, they hadn't practised that particular interview technique before. Much like those for-fun IQ tests that you can find online - some are simply word-matching (A is to B as C is to [D E F]? Others are tests of mental rotation/flipping of shapes and path prediction. More complex ones are deductive logic with arithmetic and remainders. Software development houses have their own tests which usually concentrate on list management, memory allocation as well as languages such as C, C++, C# and Visual Basic.

      Between the time you do one and a handful, your score will improve. No different from the pop quiz's you would do in high school or college.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    41. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Both extracts say a bad performance on ONE interview seemed to correlate with good later performance.

      Careful, there's selection bias there: OF THOSE HIRED, bad performance on one interview correlated with good later performance. Those not hired were (obviously) not measured. One possible explanation would be that the problem was with the interviewer rather than the candidate. In those cases, a candidate would have to be exceptionally good to get hired despite the unwarranted bad score from the interviewer.

    42. Re:Ok, this is stupid by bunratty · · Score: 1

      Yes, for a short contract position, you would want someone who knows the exact skills involved in the position. For full-time jobs where you would expect employees to stay for a year or more, the exact skill set is much less important. You also wouldn't want to hire a really smart guy with no programming experience at all for a programming position, because it takes years to become a decent programmer. It takes only weeks to months to become proficient at a new programming language, though.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    43. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are no safety nets in China like there are in the western world. You either get done or you starve.

    44. Re:Ok, this is stupid by bzipitidoo · · Score: 0, Troll

      America has a love-hate relationship with intelligence. We admire smart people from a distance, but up close, we hate them. Classmates hate the geek for "spoiling the curve" on tests, and making everyone else look dumb. School is all about intelligence, and too easily becomes a contest. The attitude problems nearly everyone has with intelligent people don't end after high school, as shown by job hiring criteria and the constant questioning and doubting of the real value of intelligence. Seems everyone has a few stories about PhDs who did something really stupid or had some glaring failing. Many people, perhaps out of jealousy, aren't above playing dirty to make a smart person look stupid.

      George W. Bush should never have been a presidential candidate, but at the time people were entertaining the idea that his less than stellar intelligence didn't matter, particularly if he has a strong team, and he had a lot of impressive names on the ticket, such as Colin Powell. Well, we found out. It does matter. Cheney couldn't rise above the irresponsibility that being able to operate somewhat undercover engenders in most people. He shamelessly manipulated Bush into making quite a few dumb moves. When he wasn't being handled, Bush made many horrendous and embarrassing gaffes, like the time he gave a speech in support of teaching Creationism in science class. The attitudes over the justifications for the "War of Choice" were telling. It became clear we'd gotten the intelligence wrong, and that the outright contempt for facts displayed by the administration was the primary cause of that. Poor Mr. Powell looked very stupid indeed for his words to the UN. They sold him down the river. Then there was the business of denying that there was Climate Change, especially in the person of an unqualified, foolish liar set above NASA's top climate scientist, James Hanson. Bush Administration officials routinely ignored scientists, or, worse, tried to paint them as perpetrators of various liberal conspiracies, or competitors in the dissemination of disinformation as if scientists were no different than they about feeding bull to the public. Quite confounding the way their extremely weak arguments and reasoning got such traction. A smarter president would not have populated his administration with such obvious fools.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
    45. Re:Ok, this is stupid by DinDaddy · · Score: 1

      In practice, it's almost useless...

      http://www.dilbert.com/fast/1992-02-03/

    46. Re:Ok, this is stupid by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      I wasn't asked anything like that when I interviewed at Google, all of the questions were technical and related (albeit vaguely in some cases) to real-world problems. Actually, I should apply again. I don't really want to work there, but the interview process was a lot of fun, and I managed to write a journal paper based on an idea that I had in the interview last time (which might be part of the reason why I wasn't offered a job - I wasn't really thinking about the problem that I was asked).

      The questions were far less abstract than a typical IQ test question.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    47. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Krahar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Citation needed on Google tests being way better than just an IQ test

      Maybe because one has to do with skills related to the job and the other doesn't. Do you even know what kind of questions google asks? Well, I do.

      IQ tests can sometimes outperform subject-specific tests even for determining future performance in that specific subject. This occurs especially when everyone tested is known to already posses the basic knowledge of a field.

      It's surprising until you think about it for a bit. People can increase their knowledge if they have a high IQ, but people cannot increase their IQ no matter how much they know of their subject.

      and yet IQ tests still predict performance very well in many jobs. It's both fantastic

      Depends on the job. Get out of the lab and onto the real world.

      Yes, it is generally the case that each job has a certain level of IQ beyond which further IQ doesn't help you very much. There is a limit to how much sweeping the street can be improved with brainpower. I don't have a number for programming, but it is a complicated technical field where productivity differs wildly among individuals. That's exactly the kind of thing that lends itself to IQ mattering into very high levels. It's true that high IQ doesn't help if the guy then doesn't show up for work at all or spends all his time at work playing World of Warcraft, but that is true of anyone so it isn't something specific to people with a high IQ.

      Telling me to get onto the real world does nothing for your argument. I could tell you that knowledge of IQ would probably increase your ability to talk about it, but that would equally do nothing for my argument.

      Google had every reason to use IQ for hiring and still it doesn't. It's about 70% 'knowing stuff'.

      You seem to think that a question about "knowing stuff" cannot have an IQ loading. It doesn't work that way and the more so the harder the questions are. The way to know if the Google hiring process is highly IQ loaded is to measure people's IQ and compare that to their interview score. If you think IQ isn't relevant I think you'd be surprised.

    48. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a reason companies as a general rule do not use IQ tests in interviews. There is little or no correlation between a high IQ and a quality employee. Mostly, a high IQ score indicates a person who is good at taking IQ tests. Not much else.

    49. Re:Ok, this is stupid by JamesP · · Score: 1

      IQ tests can sometimes outperform subject-specific tests even for determining future performance in that specific subject. This occurs especially when everyone tested is known to already posses the basic knowledge of a field.

      You seem to think that a question about "knowing stuff" cannot have an IQ loading. It doesn't work that way and the more so the harder the questions are. The way to know if the Google hiring process is highly IQ loaded is to measure people's IQ and compare that to their interview score. If you think IQ isn't relevant I think you'd be surprised.

      I'm not saying Google's test is not IQ loaded, on the contrary, it's very loaded. Maybe google will let someone test it, but still...

      But the main problem is that, to get to the point in the interview where only IQ matters you need to know A LOT of things. Think of it like doing a test in a foreign language.

      And I may have come across being too 'IQ is irrelevant', as I answered to someone else, I'd take IQ over experience for example.

      People can increase their knowledge if they have a high IQ, but people cannot increase their IQ no matter how much they know of their subject.

      True! But sometimes for short term projects you need the person that knows something NOW. For most of the time, not really.

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    50. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Krahar · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying Google's test is not IQ loaded, on the contrary, it's very loaded. Maybe google will let someone test it, but still...

      But the main problem is that, to get to the point in the interview where only IQ matters you need to know A LOT of things. Think of it like doing a test in a foreign language.

      I'd say that having a high IQ also increases your ability to get to know all those things, but that's a detail. I agree with what you are saying here.

    51. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guess they shouldn't bother and go straight here then http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/famous-people.html

      A pity the person who designed that page didn't have the intelligence to create thumbnails of the images, instead wasting my bandwidth downloading a much higher resolution than needed.

    52. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, it were the people that had the lowest mark in exactly one of their interviews...

    53. Re:Ok, this is stupid by JohnFluxx · · Score: 1

      > IQ tests show a correlation with income and with education level.

      Income, kinda, but wealth, not at all.

      I found this highly interesting: http://www.iapsych.com/articles/zagorsky2007ip.pdf

    54. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      However you will need to prove that you IQ Test is bias on Race, Gender or Religion.

      One, you missed out a "not" somewhere.

      Two, better hope it doesn't test you ability too right with proper grammer.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    55. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1

      That is why I chose my words carefully :-)
      I read this article (or one that is close enough) and it is IMHO one of the best arguments against heritage : it creates dumb wealthy people.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    56. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Fair point. Presumably, then, those people did very well in the other interviews. That might be because those other interviews test other skills, or just down to personality clashes - maybe people with strong personalities are likely to succeed, but are also more likely to piss off people who don't like their type of personality.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    57. Re:Ok, this is stupid by Eivind+Eklund · · Score: 1

      Thanks for that

      It's really interesting, and actually, VW quoted correctly but put the wrong spin on it.

      Yeah, that was what I was attempting to communicate. (I'm slightly limited by what I can say based on being on the inside of that interview process; Peter is presumably cleared to reveal whatever he does reveal, but I have to be really careful so I don't reveal anything more.)

      As he said in the first quote (and he repeats that on his remarks after) is a low score on ONE interview.

      But I disagree with him on saying it's not broken (but it's ok since he's not going to badmouth his employer)

      I'd be interested in hearing why you think it's broken. I unfortunately probably can't comment on it, but I can if convinced try to influence the process.

      Eivind.

      --
      Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
    58. Re:Ok, this is stupid by JamesP · · Score: 1

      I'd be interested in hearing why you think it's broken. I unfortunately probably can't comment on it, but I can if convinced try to influence the process.

      Eivind.

      What I'd say:

      - The threshold is high ( I guess you have to get 90% of the questions right, or something)
      - The process is very long and involved
      - Some questions are factual and can be looked up in 2 seconds
      - Your CV is worth nothing (it's probably just the
        'admission', still)

      And even though the process is involved, it's spotty, meaning that different interviews will get different results, for the same person.

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  4. Misleading IQ label by PIC16F628 · · Score: 1

    This is just another entrance test to sort out candidates. It is not an "IQ" test unless we us the term "IQ" as a general test.

  5. IQ isn't everything by TwiztidK · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Basing emplyment on IQ is pointless as it doesn't actually predict "real-world" performance. This is similar to college only accepting students with a score in the top 1% on the ACT/SAT - they can do well on a test, but that doesn't mean they are a good student.

    --
    Sent from my iPhone 5
    1. Re:IQ isn't everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you would read the fucking article you would see that it doesn't get you hired, it is merely the first step.

    2. Re:IQ isn't everything by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

      Any test is only going to test a narrow range of things. In the case of an IQ test it is similar to most academic tests in that it tests your logical-mathematical abilities (quantitative computation in particular) and often, depending on the form, your linguistic abilities. Doesn't tend to test much else. Now, while those are useful traits in many ways, there are others that are also useful. One would be interpersonal skills/intelligence. While many smart geek types, generally those with bad interpersonal skills, look down on it and say "That doesn't mean you are smart, it just means you know how to be social," that is not at all the case. Some people are incredibly gifted in that area, the can tell what others think and feel and handle their emotions. Likewise some are rather bad at it, like said geeks, and while they might pass it off as "I could if I wanted do," that's not true.

      And of course IQ does not test any sort of actual concrete knowledge or skill. That isn't always necessary, many jobs aren't about accumulated knowledge and skill, but on the other hand many are. Also many are a mix. Tech support would be a good example. The most important thing is the ability to solve problems. You need to be able to logically work your way through an unfamiliar problem. Ok, fine. However especially at higher levels a large accumulated base of knowledge is important. To quickly solve problems you cannot be starting from scratch and researching everything. You need to be able to look at something, quickly categorize what it might be, draw up optimal ways of testing and so on. You rely on a large base of proper experience to do that well.

      Tests are fine and all, but people need to keep a clear eye on what it is the test actually measures. No test measures everything. Figure out what it measures and how it does, and them make sure yo don't over apply it.

      Your SAT analogy is a good one. The SAT is a very useful test in academics because it is a good predictor of academic success. The reason is it tests three things:

      1) Your mathematics skills. Up about a precalc level, the test will determine pretty well how good you are at solving math problems of various types, and how far your math knowledge goes. Calc is where university math tends to peak in terms of starting classes, so that's useful. Most degrees require at least some math, and many of them you need to have a good grasp of precalc to start out in.

      2) Your written linguistic skills. Reading comprehension, vocabulary, apparently writing now (I took my SAT long before the third section). If you do well it indicates you will be able to handle the kind of reading required in academics.

      3) Most importantly, it tests your ability to analyze and take tests. Since academics is heavily about testing, your ability to do well at those tests is important. The SAT has patterns, rules, that can be analyzed and used to your favour if you are good at it. So, scoring highly also indicates you are good at tests and thus shouldn't have a problem with that part of university.

      However beyond that? It has very little application. So it is useful for its primary purpose, but to try to apply it to other things would be a mistake.

    3. Re:IQ isn't everything by Krahar · · Score: 3, Informative

      Basing emplyment on IQ is pointless as it doesn't actually predict "real-world" performance.

      Citation needed in the same way that citation is needed for water not being wet.

      This is similar to college only accepting students with a score in the top 1% on the ACT/SAT - they can do well on a test, but that doesn't mean they are a good student.

      That's true, though it also does not mean that they won't do well. It's a correlation - it doesn't automatically imply any specific outcome, just makes it more likely.

    4. Re:IQ isn't everything by hedwards · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yes, but only because those with excessively high IQs are punished. At least in the US, if you perform ahead of your grade level, there's basically no chance of being skipped ahead. And unless you score into special classes when you're six or seven good luck getting into them later on. Nevermind that it's too early to make those determinations as it's common for people to not hit their stride for a few years into education. Chances are that you'll be stuck doing the work that the teacher is supposed to do by way of group work. And good luck actually getting to do anything interesting because you'll be too busy with homework or failing to get the grades necessary to go on to a first rates college.

      I remember being bored out of my mind for most of the last 6 years or so of my pre-college schooling. I'd almost certainly have dropped out if I didn't get to go to college a couple years early. Had I not been milking the funding I would've been able to graduate by 20 easily. Even taking a year off and losing a couple quarters due to illness, I still made it out by 22.

    5. Re:IQ isn't everything by NearlyHeadless · · Score: 4, Informative

      > Basing emplyment on IQ is pointless as it doesn't actually predict "real-world" performance.

      IQ does correlate with job performance, especially for higher-complexity jobs.

      See, for example:

      http://faculty.washington.edu/mdj3/MGMT580/Readings/Week%202/Schmidt.pdf

    6. Re:IQ isn't everything by mdwh2 · · Score: 1

      This is similar to college

      On the one hand we have a job where problem solving skills and logical thinking are likely to be useful. On the other hand, we have college where people may be studying any kind of subject. Clearly they're similar, and yes, obviously an IQ test that is basically testing logical thinking, spotting patterns etc, is useless for both cases.

    7. Re:IQ isn't everything by bjourne · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Basing emplyment on IQ is pointless as it doesn't actually predict "real-world" performance. Citation needed in the same way that citation is needed for water not being wet.

      See Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It references several studies and anecdotes in which no connection between high iq and success is found. The smartest man in the world works as a bouncer.

    8. Re:IQ isn't everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The IQ test was invalidated the moment I purposefully answered one of the questions wrong.

      Next?

    9. Re:IQ isn't everything by tophermeyer · · Score: 1

      Agreed. IQ on its own is not a reliable indicator of "success", anyone with a social sciences background or has read an Intro Psychology textbook can tell you that.

      Citation needed...

      Curious why the GP would challenge that assertion and request citation without providing citations for their own assertion, specifically that IQ is an indicator of real-world performance. Come on, this is the internet. We've all got access to the same Google (mostly). Citations are for papers.

      Seriously now, "IQ" isn't a measure of anything real. It is an arbitrary number that is generated by an individuals performance on a series of abstract tests. Historically, it comes from the study of childhood intelligence. Back in the day it was calculated by dividing the child's estimated mental age by their actual age. Now it is done by comparing an individuals performance on these abstract tests with the populations performance. The process is more scientific now, but who knows what it really means.

      Determining a single rating of intelligence is attractive for a lot of reasons, and modern tests do produce these beautifully normal distributions, but nobody really knows what they measure. "Intelligence" is an incredibly complex and ill defined concept, as is the definition of "real world success". Using IQ alone as a predictor of success is ridiculous. Its really nice in theory, but grossly incomplete.

    10. Re:IQ isn't everything by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Not smartest, merely highest IQ ... we don't really know if he's smart since as far as (pseudo-)science is concerned he only really applied his intelligence to circle jerking ... which I personally think is pretty stupid.

    11. Re:IQ isn't everything by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, the SAT is a very good predicter of how well a student will do in college (not sure about the ACT). http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2008/10/by_peter_salins_one_of.html http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WhosCounting/story?id=98373&page=2 http://collegeapps.about.com/b/2009/09/19/the-sats-ability-to-predict-college-success-revisited.htm I actually wasn't sure if it still held true, but every study I have ever heard of that compares either first year grades within the same school or college graduation rates has shown that a higher SAT score correlates with higher grades and a higher graduation rate.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    12. Re:IQ isn't everything by Krahar · · Score: 1
      That book is primarily based on interesting anecdotes that don't aggregate to data. Doesn't mean he is wrong, but even if he is right, his contention is that success requires luck. His contention is not that IQ is irrelevant. On top of that, his book is about outliers, people whose outcomes are not the norm. His book is not about the great, vast majority of people.

      The smartest man in the world works as a bouncer.

      The oldest person to ever live smoked till she was 115.

    13. Re:IQ isn't everything by Krahar · · Score: 1

      [IQ] is an arbitrary number that is generated by an individuals performance on a series of abstract tests.

      Hard puzzles as found in IQ tests are a very quick and convenient way to measure IQ, and that is why they are used. You could have IQ tests with not a single mathematical or logical question in it, asking questions about botany and duck hunting and all kinds of different things. In the end the test would measure the same thing and have the same results, it's just that it would require many more questions to do it that way and so that's not the way it's done.

      If IQ is an arbitrary then why does it correlate positively with so many desirable outcomes? I'll give you an arbitrary number: 23. I guarantee you that IQ is going to be more useful in predicting your performance than my arbitrary number is.

    14. Re:IQ isn't everything by tophermeyer · · Score: 1

      If IQ is an arbitrary then why does it correlate positively with so many desirable outcomes?

      I suggest you read that article more closely. All of the items listed suggest that IQ is moderately to strongly correlated with performance, but almost all of them couch that by saying the correlations are weak, or that there are other influencing factors. Correlations with other tests, such as SAT/ACT, are thought to be in part due to the similarities in the tests themselves. Similar and identical items, and similar formats provide a kind of practice effect for people that routinely take these kinds of tests (namely the kinds of people that enjoy a western style education system).

      The point is that IQ along as a single measure is not a reliable indicator if success. Highly correlated to be sure, but as is oft stated here, correlation != causation. IQ is also correlated with parents income level and level of education, we would never claim that a persons IQ caused their parents to go to school and make money.

      You could have IQ tests with not a single mathematical or logical question in it, asking questions about botany and duck hunting and all kinds of different things. In the end the test would measure the same thing and have the same results,

      I don't mean to be rude, but that is factually incorrect. Full Scale IQ scores are the product of scales that evaluate Verbal and Non-Verbal working memory. Both of these scales are informed by more specific sub-scales below them. Think of it like a pyramid with IQ sitting at the top; you cannot arrive at an IQ score without assessing the many different types of intelligence. The Mathematical and logical questions are not interchangeable, both of these types (and others) are required to arrive at anything like a reliable IQ score.

      asking questions about botany and duck hunting and all kinds of different things. In the end the test would measure the same thing and have the same results,

      I know I already quoted this bit but I want to hit on it again. One of the classic criticism of any form of standardized testing are the biases of the test writers. If I know nothing about duck hunting, and you give me an IQ test that consists largely of questions about duck hunting, I am going to score very low. This will not be a valid measure of my IQ. This is why determining an accurate IQ score is so difficult.

      If IQ is an arbitrary...

      Sorry, I just want to clarify my statement. Intelligence is not arbitrary. Intelligence is something that is inherently difficult to define and measure, but is very real. The numeric score that we assign to intelligence is arbitrary.

      My post is long winded so I'll boil it down for anyone just skimming. Intelligence is likely a reliable indicator of real world success. IQ scores are often unreliable and incomplete assessments of all the different components of Intelligence. Thus IQ scores on their own are not a reliable indicator of success.

    15. Re:IQ isn't everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IQ won't tell you if a person is evil.

      It won't tell you if a person is lazy.

      It won't tell you if a person pathological.

      It won't tell you if a person is a hater.

      It won't tell you if a person is a gambling/sex/drug addict.

      It won't tell you if a person is racially prejudiced.

      It won't tell you if a person is a narcissist.

      It won't tell you if a person has a minuscule attention span, and never finishes projects.

      It won't tell you if a person is anti-social, or socially inept, awkward.

      perhaps you could give a battery of tests, including an iq test, a briggs meyers type evaluation, a polygraph, plus various other exams. the problem with that is there are very few people who can do anything useful with the data.

      give me 5 minutes with a person, and I can tell you if they are in the fat part of the iq bell curve, PLUS give you a hint as to whether or not they know anything about the position they are applying for, and whether they might have any problems meshing with the team.

    16. Re:IQ isn't everything by bjourne · · Score: 1

      Read the book. He actually references a large study in which the careers of children with high iq were tracked. It was found that the high iq children didn't have more success in real-life (personal or professional) than the average person. I have forgotten the details, but you can surely find the study online if you look hard.

    17. Re:IQ isn't everything by Krahar · · Score: 1

      All of the items listed suggest that IQ is moderately to strongly correlated with performance, but almost all of them couch that by saying the correlations are weak, or that there are other influencing factors.

      So we agree that IQ does indeed correlate moderately or strongly with performance in many jobs, but not all. Right?

      Full Scale IQ scores are the product of scales that evaluate Verbal and Non-Verbal working memory. Both of these scales are informed by more specific sub-scales below them. Think of it like a pyramid with IQ sitting at the top; you cannot arrive at an IQ score without assessing the many different types of intelligence. The Mathematical and logical questions are not interchangeable, both of these types (and others) are required to arrive at anything like a reliable IQ score.

      I don't doubt that many IQ tests are constructed that way, and I imagine it is a fine way to structure an IQ test. That the tests you know about are structured that way does not imply that it is necessary to do it that way to measure IQ.

      I myself have taken the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices test which contains only questions of the type "pick the missing shape". I didn't notice any mathematical themes in the questions. You can read about it here.

      I maintain that if you give people a huge battery of diverse questions about all manner of things, you'll have a good measurement of IQ. I have this straight out of the g factor, though I don't have the book handy to give a quote. There is no need to measure sub-components - in fact you need more questions to be able to do so.

      I know I already quoted this bit but I want to hit on it again. One of the classic criticism of any form of standardized testing are the biases of the test writers. If I know nothing about duck hunting, and you give me an IQ test that consists largely of questions about duck hunting, I am going to score very low. This will not be a valid measure of my IQ. This is why determining an accurate IQ score is so difficult.

      I didn't mean to suggest that a test just about duck hunting would measure IQ well. What you are pointing out is exactly the problem with asking a duck hunting question in an IQ test. Your ability to answer the question does correlate with your IQ, but it does so weakly because lots of people just happen to be uninterested in duck hunting and so they have little chance to know the right answer regardless of their IQ. So if you are going to ask questions like that, you are going to have to ask hundreds or thousands of questions about all kinds of things (certainly not just about duck hunting) to get a reliable indicator. The point is that IQ tests look the way they do not because IQ is just about logical puzzles or something like that (I know that you have not stated that it is), but because logical puzzles happen to be the fastest way to get a reliable measurement. IQ tests could look completely different from the IQ tests that we know, it's just that then they would consist of a much larger number of questions that would take longer to answer and grade, and they would probably also be more culturally dependent.

    18. Re:IQ isn't everything by Krahar · · Score: 1

      I humbly suggest that you might want to re-read that section of the book. His point was that these children did not do exceptionally well - that they were not the kind of outliers his book was about. He then argues that if IQ was all you needed for astounding, astonishing success (=outlier), then some of these children should have been the kind of outliers he was writing about. Yet they weren't so IQ on its own isn't enough to be an outlier as defined by Malcolm Gladwell. That certainly does not imply that these children did no better on average than the average person.

    19. Re:IQ isn't everything by bjourne · · Score: 1
      No really, read the book. Here is a direct quote:

      [page 90]: In a devastating critique [of the study], the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin once showed that if Terman had simply put together a randomly selected group of children from the same kinds of family backgrounds as the Termites - and dispensed with IQs altogether - he would have ended up with a group doing almost as many impressive things as his painstakingly selected group of geniuses.

      The study failed to find a statistically significant correlation between IQ and "real-world" performance. There is your quote for "citation needed," the water is not wet.

    20. Re:IQ isn't everything by Krahar · · Score: 1
      I don't have the book handy for references. Your continued contention that I have not read the book is at this point insulting.

      [page 90]: In a devastating critique [of the study], the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin once showed that if Terman had simply put together a randomly selected group of children from the same kinds of family backgrounds as the Termites - and dispensed with IQs altogether - he would have ended up with a group doing almost as many impressive things as his painstakingly selected group of geniuses.

      The study failed to find a statistically significant correlation between IQ and "real-world" performance.

      Your conclusion at the end does not at all follow from your quote, and this is for many reasons. It said that random people would have done "almost as many impressive things". but this is meaningless until we define "almost" and "impressive". The quote says nothing about "statistically significant", in fact the use of the word "almost" does imply a difference. But this is all pointless, because there is a much deeper problem: he was not comparing to ordinary people, he was comparing to people of the same family background. Since a large amount of the variance in IQ is inherited, this will of course act to reduce the effect of IQ that you see. This has been borne out in adoption studies of identical twins reared apart. And yet according to the quote there was still a difference implied by the word "almost".

      Apart from that, on Pitirim Sorokin:

      His unorthodox theories contributed to the social cycle theory and inspired (or alienated) many sociologists.

      I see no indication from this Wikipedia page that his field was IQ. In fact the quote paints him as a person whose research was controversial.

      All of this is besides the point. One guy at some point publishing something that the two of us don't have a clear idea of what it is does nothing to refute the vast amount of research into IQ that has gone on for the last 100 years. Look up the Wikipedia page on IQ and it is stated pretty plainly - which is quite shocking to me given that I would have thought that the giant political shit storm against the findings (not methods) of IQ theory would have made the Wikipedia page a parody. It might still be a parody, I'm not in the field so I can't tell, but even then it is at least not to a degree so that it is apparent to me.

    21. Re:IQ isn't everything by AK+Marc · · Score: 0, Troll

      If IQ is an arbitrary then why does it correlate positively with so many desirable outcomes? I'll give you an arbitrary number: 23. I guarantee you that IQ is going to be more useful in predicting your performance than my arbitrary number is.

      Arbitrary isn't random. The letter "a" is arbitrary. You could decide to write it differently, and if everyone agreed, it would be different. That's arbitrary. That's not random. IQ is defined as a normal curve centered on 100 with a standard deviation of 7.5 or 14 or whatever it is. You could define it to be a normal curve centered on 1000 or change the standard deviation or such. That will change the arbitrary number. But that's not random, and you asserted it's random.

      It's also "arbitrary" in that tests used to be skewed so that white males scored higher. Turns out that the "trivia" asked was more likely to be known by a white male, and that the problems were more likely to be previously studied by white males. When they shifted the questions to ones skewed towards women, they changed the IQ of women. Arbitrary. Not meaningless, but not necessarily meaning what people thought it should mean.

      "Monday" is arbitrary, but correlates well with the first day of work for that week. Remember, arbitrary has nothing to do with random.

    22. Re:IQ isn't everything by Krahar · · Score: 1

      My number was not random because I didn't choose it randomly. I choose whatever I wanted. That's why it was arbitrary and not random. Arbitrary isn't random. Your IQ isn't arbitrary because you don't get to choose it. Weight does not become arbitrary even if you choose a skewed weight, and once you get a real weight the number is not arbitrary either, even if your choice of unit is. This is exactly the way it is for IQ.

    23. Re:IQ isn't everything by AK+Marc · · Score: 0, Troll

      Weight is not arbitrary because it's real. Units representing it are arbitrary. IQ is arbitrary. If everyone agreed to change the scale to 1000 from 100, then it would change the actual IQ. If everyone agreed to change from pounds to grams (or stone or ounces or whatever) then the number would change, but the weight wouldn't. IQ is arbitrary. Weight isn't. IQ is defined by nothing other than agreement of people, thus arbitrary. Weight is a real thing that will never change no matter what people agree to, though a particular representation of it can be changed.

      Your IQ isn't arbitrary because you don't get to choose it.

      It is arbitrary because it can be anything, as long as the definition of IQ is changed.

      Weight does not become arbitrary even if you choose a skewed weight, and once you get a real weight the number is not arbitrary either, even if your choice of unit is.

      There is nothing you could decide that would change my weight. Thus my weight is not arbitrary.

      This is exactly the way it is for IQ.

      No, someone could redefine IQ and my IQ would change. No one could change my actual weight by decision, thus my weight is not arbitrary, even if grams, pounds, stones, ounces, etc. are all arbitrary.

    24. Re:IQ isn't everything by Krahar · · Score: 1

      Weight is not arbitrary because it's real. Units representing it are arbitrary. IQ is arbitrary. If everyone agreed to change the scale to 1000 from 100, then it would change the actual IQ.

      I don't know why you believe that. Why do you? In some sense the natural unit for IQ is fractions of a standard deviation from the mean. People might find it confusing and insulting if they get their intelligence measured to be zero or even negative, so it was decided to multiply the number with X and add 100 to the result. Actually different X'es are in use in different countries, so an IQ score doesn't mean anything until you know how many points you need to make up one standard deviation. The numbers 100 and X certainly are arbitrary, but that is because they represent units. Just like the difference between Kelvin And Celsius is a question of multiplying and adding a number. Why do you believe that IQ is arbitrary? It is as true of weight as of IQ that: "There is nothing you could decide that would change my weight. Thus my weight is not arbitrary."

    25. Re:IQ isn't everything by AK+Marc · · Score: 0, Troll

      Why is it arbitrary? Because IQ is an artificial creation. IQ tests don't measure intelligence. It measures an arbitrary "intelligence quotient" invented by convention. Intelligence isn't even fully defined, so how could you measure that which you can't define? So instead, someone arbitrarily defined some IQ which IQ tests measure.

  6. 125 IQ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a bunch of maroons!!

  7. rent smart white people by Darth+Sdlavrot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06/29/china.rent.white.people/index.html

    What's next -- tall, smart, white people?

    blond, slender, blue eyes, and so on.

    1. Re:rent smart white people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I really wouldn't mind. But then I have a 134 IQ and I'm tall, blonde, blue-eyed and fairly skinny.

    2. Re:rent smart white people by at_slashdot · · Score: 1

      IQ is correlated with height from what I've heard.

      --
      "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
    3. Re:rent smart white people by bunratty · · Score: 1

      Tall people already receive higher salaries than short people. It's probably easier for them to get a job, too.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    4. Re:rent smart white people by LloydPickering · · Score: 1

      Well...the tall bit might be closer to the mark than you think. There is actually a statistically significant correlation between height and job status (measured by seniority/management) one paper where this is demonstrated is (paywall) - http://www.springerlink.com/content/j886735267666r8p/ Also CEO salary has a correlation to attractiveness (irrespective of company performance) - http://www.hrmreport.com/news/corporate-salary-depends-on-attractiveness/

  8. I pass the IQ test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I pass the IQ test ... but I'm not white :(

  9. URL by dimethylxanthine · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wait, they didn't give the link to the test for instant IQ verification...

    1. Re:URL by CTalkobt · · Score: 1

      Wait, they didn't give the link to the test for instant IQ verification...

      http://127.0.0.1/ is it... Let me know if you can connect - I think it got slashdotted.

      --
      There's a gorilla from Manilla whose a fella that stinks of vanilla and has salmonella.
    2. Re:URL by th3rmite · · Score: 1

      Hey man, that link keeps saying "Unable to connect"

    3. Re:URL by The+Archon+V2.0 · · Score: 1

      Hey man, that link keeps saying "Unable to connect"

      LOL n00b! I h4x0red 127.0.0.1 easy with my 1337 sk1llz! You should see all the sick pr0n this guy has! What a freak!

  10. outsource to myself? by AffidavitDonda · · Score: 1

    So they hire people in the US to outsource work from the US? I always thought outsourcing works, because people in China (or wherever) get paid less than in the countries the work comes from. To bad the article doesn't state, how much they pay...

    1. Re:outsource to myself? by CRCulver · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because cost of living is much lower in China than in, say, Silicon Valley, American employees working there can still be paid less than if they were based in the US.

  11. Search for Intelligent Americans. by MRe_nl · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe the CIA and SETI should merge.
    S.I.A.

    CYA

    --
    "Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
    1. Re:Search for Intelligent Americans. by steelfood · · Score: 1

      I guess it's better than the agencies that constitute the DHS: FEMA, USCIS, CBP, TSA

      Or for that matter, DOD, IRS, ATF, and FBI

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    2. Re:Search for Intelligent Americans. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "S.I.A." Is that the "Searching for Intelligence Agency"?

      Hah. GOOD LUCK GUYS!

  12. Someone's hiring smartly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The usual notion in the US is that US workers are more innovative, smart, and are worth significantly more than workers in other countries. Slashdotters constantly seem to think that a $80K developer in the US is much better the $10K developer in India for example. This is especially surprising because the average slashdotter is doing the same crap that the average developer in India is doing.

    In some cases (where IQ's much higher), the worker may come up with solutions radically faster. But otherwise, it is all incremental. Hence it makes sense to link pay to IQ (at the start) and pay to IQ and results as time passes.

    This is also true in other fields, banking, medicine etc. Hopefully, the internet will help reduce the disparity in wages.

    1. Re:Someone's hiring smartly! by twoshortplanks · · Score: 1

      Slashdotters constantly seem to think that a $80K developer in the US is much better the $10K developer in India

      I think most slashdotters actually think that that a $80K local developer is much better the $10K developer in place with different time zone outside of the normal management chain and support system.

      I personally suspect (though I admit that I have no evidence to back it up) that projects originating in India oprobably are equally good as those originating in the US.

      --
      -- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
    2. Re:Someone's hiring smartly! by FuckingNickName · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is especially surprising because the average slashdotter is doing the same crap that the average developer in India is doing.

      Everything built today is short-term throw-away crap, often because the cultural, organisational, specification and documentation requirements won't translate (and the people involved in outsourcing don't care anyway).

      Try discussing a real-world requirement with a well-spoken Englishman who has lived in the same area as you and experienced the same social and workplace culture and worked with you in the company on similar projects, then try communicating it to a man living in India who has experienced none of the above. Sit down with that man in a quiet room and prepare, say, an API together; now do the same with Bob from Bangalore over MSN. If you don't experience /any/ barrier then your need is so simple you'd be better off spending the next hour fulfilling it yourself.

      Outsourcing is often used because the guy who got the bonus from apparently saving money in the short term knows that he'll be long gone by the time the shit hits the fan. Sometimes it works really well, but just as often it's a cruel joke. Its essential premise is: let's move work to an area with a greater supply of desperate workers and fewer workers protections because that'd be cheaper. It assumes that saving, say, $500,000 on the salary line of the budget for some project is not going to be offset by the disadvantages of not having someone with a local understanding. Communication takes longer, requests are more likely to be misinterpreted, there is no link between robustness of output and long-term advancement of the worker so his code is likely to suffer worse engineering practice, etc.

      In some cases (where IQ's much higher), the worker may come up with solutions radically faster.

      Or mull around over-engineering. Or not make much difference because the IQ test didn't identify skills applicable to the problem.

      Hence it makes sense to link pay to IQ (at the start) and pay to IQ and results as time passes.

      Why don't we link pay to colour? And any other number of immutable measures of an individual which have some correlation with intellectual performance.

    3. Re:Someone's hiring smartly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are missing a significant point. Being "bright" is of no use if you can't apply all your brainpower, and doing something *innovative* you have to challenge what was know before and the current authorites on the topic. I have a very hard time seeing anything of that happening or being encouraged in China to a meaningful degree. When did you last see anything innovative come from China? It's been a while since they came up with paper and gunpowder, as great innovations as they are.

    4. Re:Someone's hiring smartly! by andy1307 · · Score: 1

      Try discussing a real-world requirement with a well-spoken Englishman who has lived in the same area as you and experienced the same social and workplace culture and worked with you in the company on similar projects

      How do you explain hundreds of government projects that are epic failures and massively over budget. Bob from Bangalore isn't working on those project. You are(and the Englishman)

      an API together

      Could it be that the value of the API you are writing doesn't justify the cost of having you and the Englishman sitting in a room in the US?

    5. Re:Someone's hiring smartly! by FuckingNickName · · Score: 1

      How do you explain hundreds of government projects that are epic failures

      In England, much government IT work is outsourced. There's your first problem.

      Second IME is that a government department's main missions are:
      (1) Preserve budget for next year;
      (2) PPP kickbacks;
      (3) Political fad-following for management reward.

      Could it be that the value of the API you are writing doesn't justify the cost of having you and the Englishman sitting in a room in the US?

      Occasionally so: I implied that some outsourcing demonstrates a degree of success. Western management currently tries to imply far greater success (lest they be outsourced too).

    6. Re:Someone's hiring smartly! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Slashdotters constantly seem to think that a $80K developer in the US is much better the $10K developer in India for example

      Nope, people think that it's much easier to judge the quality of a developer when you hire him if you actually get to meet him first. If you hire a $10K guy in India, how do you tell him apart from other applicants? By his CV (do you verify everything on it)? By his telephone interview (do you even know the person you interviewed on the phone is really the guy who will be doing the work)? By getting a local recruiter to vet him (so you get the one who pays the recruiter the biggest bribe)? If you hire someone locally, you can bring them in, ask them questions, see how they fit in with the team, see if they understand the problem domain, and so on.

      There may be 100 people who are a better fit for the job in Bangalore, who will do it for $10K instead of $80K, but there are also a few hundred thousand who aren't that you have to sift through to find them.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  13. Article missing it's mark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think the article missed the reason they are hiring US people. "To speak English"

    They aren't hiring people from the US to do CS jobs, they are hiring them to train their mainland China employees on how to communicate in English on the specific topic (computer science) that otherwise would be completely lost on regular "GREAT ENGLISH JOBS IN CHINA TESOL" type of people who may know English but know little about computer science.

    1. Re:Article missing it's mark by Monkey-Man2000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think the article missed the reason they are hiring US people. "To speak English"

      They aren't hiring people from the US to do CS jobs, they are hiring them to train their mainland China employees on how to communicate in English on the specific topic (computer science) that otherwise would be completely lost on regular "GREAT ENGLISH JOBS IN CHINA TESOL" type of people who may know English but know little about computer science.

      That's surprising because I would think that there are far more English-speaking Chinese, than Mandarin (or whatever)-speaking Americans.

      --
      This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
    2. Re:Article missing it's mark by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Teachers in the UK are being hired in China to teach Chinese students English. It doesn't matter what they teach over here; Science, Religion, History, Maths... If they can speak English and have a PGCE, they can go to China and earn a Western wage teaching English in a Chinese school.

      To give you an idea of why the "Western" part of that sentence is important, a teacher in the UK will be on £25,000 per year on average. The Chinese average wage is roughly £5200 per year. You'll be earning 5 x a regular person, while paying Chinese prices for consumer goods and services.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    3. Re:Article missing it's mark by blackraven14250 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just because there are more English-speaking Chinese does not mean there are more highly fluent English-speaking Chinese with specialization in CS.

    4. Re:Article missing it's mark by John+Jamieson · · Score: 1

      You are missing the point, you realize most English teachers in China have very limited Mandarin?

      "English Speaking" is a relative term. I have worked with about a hundred Chinese on contracts up in Canada(Toronto and Vancouver), with the exception of a couple, their English is Terrible.

      I have not worked with any other group that seems to have as much difficulty transitioning to the English language. Thus, it is going to be beneficial for an outsourcer to have some "Americans" on board to make the customers feel at home, whether the "Americans" can speak Mandrin, Cantonese or whatever.

    5. Re:Article missing it's mark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the article missed the reason they are hiring US people. "To speak English"

      "Oh, you meant ENGLISH! Sorry, I was sure you guys said 'Engrish' during the interview. Damn shame, wish I had realised that before the semester was over"

    6. Re:Article missing it's mark by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      The problem is that many Chinese only learn how to read/write English in school, because their teachers barely know how to speak English and they barely if ever hear English in daily life (such as on TV).

      I often experienced that communicating by e-mail goes fine, very well actually: proper English, decent grammar, correct spelling - but when you try to get them on the phone you can barely understand what they are saying, and they can hardly understand you. And that is with years of hearing Chinese accents on my side, making me understand their English while your average American or Brit wouldn't be able to figure out what they are trying to say, simply for not being used to Chinese accents.

    7. Re:Article missing it's mark by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      Usually they make in China way more than they can make back home, in real terms, otherwise they wouldn't want to go there in the first place.

    8. Re:Article missing it's mark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah but you have to live in China.

    9. Re:Article missing it's mark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'll be earning 5 x a regular person, while paying Chinese prices for consumer goods and services.

      Yeah, but on the downside, you'll be living in China, with all the lack of freedom etc. that entails.

      I don't want to claim I wouldn't sell out for enough money, but I wouldn't ignore these matters just because the pay was better and I could save a little more for when I'd move back home, either.

    10. Re:Article missing it's mark by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 1

      What freedoms that matter to you exist in the U.S. or Great Britain, but not China?

    11. Re:Article missing it's mark by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Who cares? Unless you want to criticize the government or practice Falun Gong, they're probably not going to restrict any of the freedoms you actually care about. You're free to dress the way you want and go about your normal business there.

      This is different from, say, Saudi Arabia, where if you're a female you'll be restricted from many freedoms you take for granted in the West: dressing in a Western manner, driving a car, reading a paper, being without a male escort, etc. Even if you're male, you have to watch your behavior in the Islamic countries, and even then you'll probably get all kinds of nasty comments and rude treatment there from people who hate Westerners. In China, you don't have these problems.

      Criticizing the lack of freedoms in China is laughable coming from what I assume to be an American. In America, you can't even photograph an Amtrak train without being attacked by police.

      If I ever took a job in China, I'm sure I could keep my mouth shut about the government for the time I'm there (which wouldn't be permanent, obviously, just enough to save some money for a while). I'm also sure I'd have more complaints about the pollution there than the lack of freedoms.

    12. Re:Article missing it's mark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Actually, this isn't just localized to China.

      Japan has the JET program which just requires you to be a college graduate with decent English skills. You don't even need to speak the language, although you'd probably want to. They pay 3.6 million yen which works out to $40,700 dollars (or around £27,000).

      There's also the Korean version, the EPIK. Again you don't need to know the Korean language, and you get paid varying amounts based on how long you've been at the program/how educated you are. You get 1.3 million won in the first month to get you settled, then anywhere from 1.8-2.7 million won a month. 2 million won a month = 24 a year + 1.3 = 25.3 million won, which translates to about $21,000 US (or £13,800).

      Before you get all uppity about how much less that is, the Korean one supplies free furnished housing (although utilities must be paid out of your own pocket). On the off chance they can't get you free housing, they tack on an additional 400,000 a month for rent. ($330 US or £220 British)

      Still less than the Japanese one, but it really depends on how much rent is. Asian countries really seem to want to pull in English speakers.

  14. Feynman had an "attitude" by Latent+Heat · · Score: 1

    I am saying that the only reason Feynman scored that low is that he brought his smart-alec attitude into the test. Kinda like the guy who fails the eye test because the letters he is reading are from the fine-print company address below the last line on the chart.

    1. Re:Feynman had an "attitude" by Moraelin · · Score: 1

      As someone who took more than a fair share of IQ tests back in the day, I'd say that any test where it's even possible to bring any attitude into it, is a broken test anyway.

      A count-the-blocks problem -- useless as it is to predict performance for anything other than counting blocks in isometric 2d -- only gets a number as a result, for example. You get the right number, you pass, you don't, you don't. If it's possible to interpret the picture or the question to truthfully answer any other number, then the test is broken. Ditto for other kinds of IQ questions.

      This isn't stuff where you're asked to write an essay, or anything. Answering 14 instead of 15 isn't sassy or attitude, it's just answering wrong. And frankly anyone whose idea of being sassy and witty is answering the wrong number... well, let's just say they're more like quirky in the head than anything else.

      --
      A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    2. Re:Feynman had an "attitude" by ebuck · · Score: 1

      Bullshit. The test is related to what grade you should be in compared to what grade you are actually in. Feynman took the test (as did most people) as a child. History has proved time and again that the only thing an IQ test does well at is whether you take tests well. That's a kind of intelligence, but if you read enough of Feynman's works, you realize that his intelligence excels in how inter-related things interact, and how to express ideas without corrupting them. There's no "explain this to me" section of the IQ test.

    3. Re:Feynman had an "attitude" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm curious! Does it take a genious with an IQ 140+ to write a test to test those with an IQ of 140+? Or is the IQ test written by us dumbasses below 125 to make us look dumb and others look like smartasses? If it is the dumb people who can think up the genius questions to ask and also to provide the expected answer for it, is it really an IQ test then since this means the dumb ones are already smart.... Maybe this question should be on the IQ test to find out the answer!!!!

  15. Now that we know how they measure us... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about they provide us with the entry salary so we in turn know how to measure them?

  16. Re:Countdown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because it's true. IQ is an interesting measure but research into correlation with ability to perform at certain jobs is appropriately lacking.

    I'm fairly surprised China would do something like this. You'd expect it from management-consultant-obsessed America or northern Europe where everything has so many irrelevant levels of indirection, measurement and arbitrary targeting that no-one actually produces anything. But I'd seen China as interested in people who could get the job done. Perhaps this is an aberration.

  17. the cult of the iq test by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Interesting

    the iq test tests very narrow ranges of iq, such as topological intelligence, the ability to manipulate 3D shapes in your head

    but it has zero ability to measure something like social intelligence, the ability to manipulate people

    i don't know that the ability to play 12 games of chess at the same time in your head is as valuable as the bedrock ability to communicate well, especially in the realm of business. the iq test certainly has its uses, but i think people ascribe way too much significance to it when determining someone's worth. someone with a very high traditional iq score can be quite useless in a business sense. the idea of something being useful is a relative term of course: you can be quite useful to an asocial pursuit that could very well be important to mankind in abstract ways with a traditional high iq

    however, in your average business environment, the ability to simply and effectively communicate is a basic need, and pretty much trumps every other area of intelligence, since a business is nothing more than an efficient social organization. the more efficient a business is socially, the more efficient a business is economically, all else being equal. someone who gets well below 100 on a traditional iq test can be quite charismatic, persuasive, and capable of leading people. while someone who scores well above 100 on a traditional iq test can be unresponsive, aloof, distant, and confusing. so for the specific case of a business environment, a high traditional iq would seem not very useful at all

    the ability to lead people is perhaps the most important iq of all possible areas of human intelligence, especially in business, but there is no test for it

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:the cult of the iq test by at_slashdot · · Score: 2, Funny

      "but it has zero ability to measure something like social intelligence, the ability to manipulate people" -- that's what low IQ people say, they are full of social intelligence and are good at manipulating people, they usually end up working in HR.

      --
      "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
    2. Re:the cult of the iq test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      High IQ - how to be able to play 12 games of chess in your head while doing a Mclaurin transformation, and still be unable to tie your shoelaces and comprehend why girls won't date you.

    3. Re:the cult of the iq test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Charismatic as someone may be, if their IQ is below 100 (below the mean), they probably won't be leading anyone anywhere important. Presidents, for example, are often charismatic, but they also have above-average IQs.

    4. Re:the cult of the iq test by VisiX · · Score: 1

      I score well on IQ tests (between 135 and 145) and I also believe I have high social intelligence. I can tell you that people that only have high social intelligence are relatively useless in real world business, as their sole function when they are assigned a problem is to try to contact someone else who can fix it for them. My department is comprised of 4 people who can solve problems, 6 people who have no problem solving ability (but are quite friendly and likeable for most) and 2 people who have basically given up but won't just quit. 2/3 of my department (information technology for a 5 plant nuclear fleet) have never solved a difficult technical problem. Since no one here ever gets fired, I am actually hoping the useless people with "good social IQ" eventually get promoted or transfer to another department.

      Frankly, I believe someone with a high IQ will almost always be better at a job than someone with an average IQ as long as the person has the bare minimum level of social skills (don't sexually harass people, don't yell at people, common courtesy really). Communication is great but at some point you need people who can actually solve the problem.

    5. Re:the cult of the iq test by winterchapo · · Score: 1

      Awesome, next interview I have I'll let them know that I can't do shit, but I sure as hell can talk to people. You need both, intelligence and social skill (can we call it that, instead of social intelligence?) to be effective at work. How about HR depts. everywhere kindly get to work and find a hiring process that effectively take both into account.

      --
      Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. -Mark
    6. Re:the cult of the iq test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Both skills are useful. If you are unable to see that then you are one of the 'high iq' snobs. I have a 'slightly above average' IQ everyone wants to think they are WAY above average. Just like everyone thinks they are an excellent driver. Maybe you have been tested and have a decent number? However your response shows you are missing the value of social skills. Do not dismiss them. These people are the ones who cut the deals. Who shmooze that million dollar contract. Who know the guy who can get your car fixed. They are the glue of our society.

      I know people in the 70-80ss (yes they are a bit slow), and people in their 150s (yes they are way smart). But some of the 'lower end' ones can run circles around the 150s in a social situation. Not every task you do is problem solving. There is room, NO a need, for shmoozing. Yes 99% of the time is useless idle chit chat. But that 1% of the time...

      I have also meet 150s who can do both. They are a force to be reckoned with. They are also extremely rare. I asked them about it. They straight up told me 'I taught myself how to shmooze'. Why would they do that? They recognized if they want to be a productive member of society they need to talk to others. Then also do it in a way that does not come off as arrogant and people recognize them as someone 'fun' to be around. They also recognized the limits of their intelligence. They recognized if they do not bring in new ideas they will stagnate. Shmoozing is the idea magnet. How would you know what to work on if you all you did was hole yourself up in your room? Literally they are amplifying their intelligence by talking to others.

    7. Re:the cult of the iq test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Communication is great but at some point you need people who can actually solve the problem.

      Of course, there are many problems, especially in the modern world, that are beyond the ability for one person to implement the solution by themselves, even if they can think of an effective solution by themselves. This can be caused by situations like the total amount of effort is beyond what a single person can achieve in a reasonable time period; multiple locations involved; or other people controlling necessary information, expertise, and/or resources required to implement the solution. In those cases, lack of decent communication skills can make the fact that a person has a solution rather moot.*shrug*

    8. Re:the cult of the iq test by trickyD1ck · · Score: 1
      Social intelligence, also known as "conscientiousness" is positively correlated with IQ: The heritability of conscientiousness facets and their relationship to IQ and academic achievement

      So, IQ in fact can measure something like social intelligence, the ability to manipulate people. Therefore, other things being equal, you would want to hire the person with higher IQ.

    9. Re:the cult of the iq test by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Well, the truth lies somewhere in-between.

      If you're hiring a CEO, you need almost no ability to do any kind of real work, but you need HUGE communications and leadership skills. However, a company made up 100% of ideal CEOs would fail rather quickly.

      If you're hiring a direct contributor, then you really only need communication skills sufficient to follow orders and inform others of the status of your work and the problems you need help resolving. You also need to be able to get along with people well enough that everybody doesn't go postal. By far the ability to actual perform some particular job activity (preferably more than one) is the most essential skill.

      I think a big mistake organizations make is trying to have a one-size-fits-all competency model. They get rid of anybody who might not make VP, and that means they get rid of lots of direct contributors, or they make their VPs people who are good direct contributors, which leads to task management rather than people management.

      All jobs are different, and all jobs have different requirements. The requirements for a good trench digger are different than the requirements for a good surgeon. There is no real hierarchy of jobs, either, although there might be degrees of proficiency within a single job (a senior engineer and a junior engineer really do the same jobs, but to different levels of proficiency, except to the degree that a senior manager really holds an engineering and a management job - which makes it an entirely different job and not just a position for a really good junior engineer).

      Most companies do not operate in this fashion, and this is why we all read Dilbert...

    10. Re:the cult of the iq test by rdnetto · · Score: 1

      but it has zero ability to measure something like social intelligence, the ability to manipulate people

      The term you are looking for is EQ/EI

      --
      Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
  18. 'most popular' storIEs, emailed etc...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    so you don't have to even decide what 'stuff that matters' really is. we've never seen reality so far distanced/invisible from the mainstream media(hhaha). just as well, some of it (reality) may be upsetting, possibly interfering with our randoidian lazyisfair mindset(up).

    the corepirate nazi illuminati is always hunting that patch of red on almost everyones' neck. if they cannot find yours (greed, fear ego etc...) then you can go starve. that's their (slippery/slimy) 'platform' now. see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder

    never a better time to consult with/trust in our creators. the lights are coming up rapidly all over now. see you there?

    greed, fear & ego (in any order) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of our dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children. not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one, & the terminal damage to our atmosphere (see also: manufactured 'weather', hot etc...). see you on the other side of it? the lights are coming up all over now. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be your guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. we now have some choices. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on your brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.

    "The current rate of extinction is around 10 to 100 times the usual background level, and has been elevated above the background level since the Pleistocene. The current extinction rate is more rapid than in any other extinction event in earth history, and 50% of species could be extinct by the end of this century. While the role of humans is unclear in the longer-term extinction pattern, it is clear that factors such as deforestation, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native species, pollution and climate change have reduced biodiversity profoundly.' (wiki)

    "I think the bottom line is, what kind of a world do you want to leave for your children," Andrew Smith, a professor in the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences, said in a telephone interview. "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report. "Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live," added Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN director general. "We must now set clear targets for the future to reverse this trend to ensure that our enduring legacy is not to wipe out many of our closest relatives."--

    "The wealth of the universe is for me. Every thing is explicable and practical for me .... I am defeated all the time; yet to victory I am born." --emerson

    no need to confuse 'religion' with being a spiritual being. our soul purpose here is to care for one another. failing that, we're simply passing through (excess baggage) being distracted/consumed by the guaranteed to fail illusionary trappings of man'kind'. & recently (about 10,000 years ago) it was determined that hoarding & excess by a few, resulted in negative consequences for all.

    consult with/trust in your creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?

    "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." )one does not need to agree whois in charge to grasp the notion that there may be some assistance available to us(

    boeing, boeing, gone.

  19. Re:Not fully thought out plan. by BangaIorean · · Score: 1

    Intelligence != General Knowledge and awareness

  20. Re:Not fully thought out plan. by alexhard · · Score: 1

    By the same principle, no person with an IQ over 100 would be willing to work in the United States, which is obviously not true. Maybe you overestimate the prevalence of humanists..

    --
    Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
  21. Their banks don't cheat? by sirwired · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Their banking industry is largely (if not all the way) corrupt. They take the savings of the people (who do indeed have a high savings rate), and then loan them out to largely state-owned enterprises. Who gets the money is largely politically directed, and has little to do with how likely it is the loan will be paid back.

    Eventually those savers are going to want their money back, and it won't be there. So, it would be accurate to say that Chinese banks haven't collapsed their economy yet.

    So, in the US, all the wasteful spending and foolish loans go to consumers. In China, they go towards state-owned businesses. I'm not sure one way or the other is better.

    SirWired

    1. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They also manipulate their currency, direct spending and production at a high level, completely ignoring environmental concerns (to the point pollution is effecting industry) and generally function as a command economy in many ways. Well ok, but I will point out that history shows those don't work in the end. The problems catch up and fuck you over. Will China be different? Maybe, they do have different conditions and their system is an interesting hybrid. However I don't know that I'd bet on it. As I said, history does not have a good track record of what happens in places like that.

      The US? Well for all its faults, the system seems to work well. For 200 or so years, it has over all lead to a great economy. It's had rocky spots but that doesn't mean anything. EVERYTHING has problems, the question is how you recover. So far throughout history, the US has always bounced back and grown ever stronger. Could it be changing now? Sure, again things are different. However historical evidence is on the US's side.

      So, unless you've an extremely good understanding of the situation (and it is clear the GP does not), and can show how you think indeed things are different and why the results will be different, It think it silly to bet against history. Saying "I don't understand the situation very well but I think it'll turn out way different than the past," is not a very compelling argument.

    2. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by csrjjsmp · · Score: 1

      Actually, they did have their own banking crisis several years before the US did, and they dealt with it quickly and efficiently (a lot easier with a more powerful central government). When the American banks were having troubles, a lot of people were talking about how the ideas the Chinese used (bad banks, etc) could be applied.

    3. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by Courageous · · Score: 1

      The Chinese "manipulate" their currency by buying trading currency on the open currency market. Mostly dollars. Which they then use to buy US bonds. Which is to say, every time the US wants to increase its debt, the Chinese are there to help us. Their currency is basically floated, otherwise, mon. I think they ceased legal-fiat control of their currency in 2005. You can read about this on Wikipedia if you wish.

      C//

    4. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      China has been a superpower for the last couple of millenia, sure they had a rough trot through most of the 20th century but they're back now and doing things on a grand scale. Some of those thing are pretty shitty but others such as the restoration of the loess plateau are the exact opposite.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    5. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by AndersOSU · · Score: 1

      It's disingenuous to equate the political and the economic history of the US. Politically the US has been around for 200 years. Economically, the founders wouldn't be able to recognize the place.

      Economically, the US has roughly been through the following half dozen of so systems.

      *Colonial (1500-1775)
      *Northern proto-Industrial (1776- ~1880)
      *Southern agrarian (1600- ~1910)
      *Western expansion (boom/bust gold rushes, ghost towns etc. 1800-1880)
      *Gilded age and it's associated bust (1880-1940)
      *Post WWII expansion (1945-1973)
      *The "modern" service based economy (1973-present)

      We've done everything from almost complete laissez faire during the gilded age to damn near a control economy during WWII. The reason we've survived as a political entity is because we've been flexible ... something China seems to be getting right so far.

    6. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China has been around for four thousand years. Get back to me when any other nation has that kind of a track record.

    7. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Huh? Are you kidding or something? China hasn't been a superpower for the last 500-1000 years. In earlier times, they definitely were, but at some point they turned inward and had little contact with the outside world.

    8. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      Their currency is floated? Then why do articles like this http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/world/asia/05diplo.html show up saying (according to Obama in this case) that their currency "is kept at an artificially low level to give China an unfair advantage in selling its exports."

      I think there was a later article where China did make some kind of change, but I can't find it in a quick search.

    9. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by khallow · · Score: 1

      Egypt has been around for 6,000 years. The current US government has been around as long as several of the shorter Chinese dynasties have and is still a going concern.

    10. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by martyros · · Score: 1

      For 200 or so years, it has over all lead to a great economy.

      Unfortunately, on the grand scale of things, 200 years isn't really that long. There are a myriad of civilizations that grew and flourished and lasted twice as long, but then collapsed and exist only as artifacts discovered by archeologists. I wouldn't say the US economic strategy (i.e., the use and organization of its people and natural resources) was effective until it had been sustained for 1000 years.

      --

      TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.

    11. Re:Their banks don't cheat? by Courageous · · Score: 1

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_exchange_rate

      The mechanism the Chinese use now to control the exchange rate is by trading yuan for dollars, and then buying US bonds on the open market. This does indeed control the exchange rate. But what else does it tell you?

      While this is merely a rhetorical question, do you want them to stop buying our bonds?

      C//

  22. Re:Not fully thought out plan. by Firethorn · · Score: 1

    If you are dumb enough not to know better I understand, but an intelligent person can surely see past the paycheck.

    Or maybe they're smart enough to realize that as long as they follow the rules they'll be fine and don't care about the human rights violations otherwise?

    Or perhaps they're hoping to do their own little bit to change the way things work by actually going there. See the issues for themselves, while earning a paycheck so they don't screw up their finances or have to do the tourist thing.

    Smart doesn't automatically equal ethical, or even 'progressive'.

    --
    I don't read AC A human right
  23. "attitude", or the test does not work well... by FriendlyLurker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Or on the other hand, one of the most intelligent people of his day only scored 120 because the test does not reflect intelligence, not in any meaningful/comparative sense. You can quite easily study for an IQ test, repeat a lot of the same types of problems before the test for a while and you easily score much better than if you walked in unprepared.

    1. Re:"attitude", or the test does not work well... by AnonymousClown · · Score: 1

      Or on the other hand, one of the most intelligent people of his day only scored 120 because the test does not reflect intelligence, not in any meaningful/comparative sense. You can quite easily study for an IQ test, repeat a lot of the same types of problems before the test for a while and you easily score much better than if you walked in unprepared.

      Yes. From your link:

      Binet had designed the Binet-Simon intelligence scale in order to identify students who needed special help in coping with the school curriculum. He argued that with proper remedial education programs, most students regardless of background could catch up and perform quite well in school. He did not believe that intelligence was a measurable fixed entity.

      It was never intended to be used as a measuring stick. Unfortunately, that's something that's missed by the majority of people and what really sucks is that many of those people are in positions that affect many people's lives.

      --
      RIP America

      July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001

    2. Re:"attitude", or the test does not work well... by kj_kabaje · · Score: 1

      Yes. Test-wiseness is always a factor. This is the whole aptitude vs. achievement debate in psychometrics. Which is it that you wish to measure? The SAT used to be known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test and then the Scholastic Assessment Test--not so anymore. It is simply "the SAT", sometimes with "Reasoning Test" thrown in as well. Test-wiseness does not always help with some measures of reasoning (e.g., some tests use non-language dependent items). Some times, the effect of test-wiseness is simply evidence of something you wanted to measure in the first place--e.g., the ability to learn. In this case, it seems they are just simply using the test as a first pass to cull a large applicant pool--a potentially useful but likely invalid use (read psychometrically ill-advised usage) of whichever IQ test they are using.

    3. Re:"attitude", or the test does not work well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We will never be able to separate and distinguish fully between intelligence, education and plain hard work. Why should we? Whatever works, works.

      If you want to hire an engineer you look at a couple of their work samples. If they can't produce a couple of work samples then they probably can't do the job. Tell them to come back when they have something to show. On the second interview you either give them a case, or a bunch of problems that test for skills that are relevant to the job. When you have filter out the incompetent applicants (many of whom will be smooth talkers) you can rank the remaining persons, the potentially competent ones, by their social skills and their personal hygiene and whatnot.

      This is the scientific way to go about hiring people. Traditional HR is basically woo woo. You might as well look at the applicant's horoscopes.

  24. What a load of crap by stevegee58 · · Score: 1

    IQ is not a measure of ability. Period.

    The higher IQ scores in China just show that Chinese are better test-takers, nothing more.

    1. Re:What a load of crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You dont have an high IQ don't you ;)

      The higher IQ scores in China just show that Chinese are better test-takers, nothing more.

      the test result only shows that there is more people in china....

    2. Re:What a load of crap by maxume · · Score: 1

      I think you may misunderstand. The line is higher for the Chinese workers because it leaves them with millions of candidates, they lowered it for the U.S. in order to get more candidates (not just because of U.S. test scores, but because not every American is going to be interested in working in China).

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    3. Re:What a load of crap by stevegee58 · · Score: 1

      Clearly I was filled with nerd rage LOL.

    4. Re:What a load of crap by kj_kabaje · · Score: 1

      Um... yeah. That's why it's purportedly a test of innate aptitude. Not an assessment of achievement. See Gattica http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca for how people can overcome aptitude with effort.

  25. psychometrics and testing for employment by kj_kabaje · · Score: 1

    As a psychometrician, I can only say that any mental measurement professional would certainly argue that a single measurement is rarely enough evidence to make a high stakes decision. That is the reason that most college admissions are based on multiple criteria (e.g., weighted grades based on your school, etc.). For hiring decisions, it's probably safe to assume that most employers use certain minimum criteria for a large pool of applicants, but other factors such as experience (past performance), references and personal interview(s) are used to cull that pool further.

    1. Re:psychometrics and testing for employment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "As a psychometrician,"

      Say, wasn't that what Hari Seldon (of Asimov's Foundation) was?

  26. Probably done by people with a higher IQ than you by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or at least the ability to write more interesting and useful posts. Seriously, what is with shit like this and why does it get moderated up? Are you trying to make a statement of some kind? Then make it, don't sit there and be obtuse about it. Or are you just trying to make yourself appear smart by "predicting" something that is quite obvious?

    Seriously, this is worthless. You have something to say on using IQ tests, say it. Don't try and be obtuse as though that somehow makes your post more interesting.

  27. Re:let creation of a new nigger begin by GottMitUns · · Score: 1

    What nonsense! Races will never disappear. There are blacks, whites and yellow. It's a fact. There are stupid people and smart people. It's a fact. Live with it.

  28. Relax, it's just an marketing move. by jbssm · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Naa, it's just an marketing move, they know those 2 conditions are impossible to conciliate: US citizen and IQ over 125 ... pleeeese.

  29. IQ Test for the Submitter by smack.addict · · Score: 1

    Country A has a population of x.

    Country B has a population of x*4.

    Which country will have a larger pool of job applicants with an IQ above 140?

    1. Re:IQ Test for the Submitter by quenda · · Score: 1

      Trick question: A is South Korea and B is Nigeria.
      The smaller country many times the number of +140 IQs even if emigration is ignored.

  30. Awesome by th3rmite · · Score: 1

    My IQ is 126, which makes me happy to be a part of the new overlords! Bow down before me you inferior clods!

    1. Re:Awesome by bberens · · Score: 1

      My IQ is 124, so I'm a looser. :(

      --
      Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
    2. Re:Awesome by soppsa · · Score: 1

      A looser? Good thing basic spelling and IQ aren't correlated...

  31. Smart enough to cheat and steal by Bayoudegradeable · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is your IQ over 125? Good! You have shown sufficient intelligence that can help you pilfer company secrets, embezzle funds, lie to us about why you missed work, lie to us about what you did with your expense account and in general cause us trouble because you are so darned smart! IQ will never measure - character, honesty, motivation, drive, creativity and countless other attributes.

    --
    Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
    1. Re:Smart enough to cheat and steal by th3rmite · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey, don't blame me because I figured out the system!

  32. Finally! by mdarksbane · · Score: 3, Funny

    Affirmative action for white dudes! Where can I sign up?

    1. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pfft, you wish. It's actually affirmative action for Asian Americans and Jews the honorary Asians. Face it, you guys are second best at most.

    2. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you mean Asian Americans and Jews are more intelligent than white dudes?

  33. Re:let creation of a new nigger begin by FuckingNickName · · Score: 1

    Races will never disappear.

    Erm, okay. I assume you misinterpreted "division by race" rather obtusely as "existence of races" rather than discrimination due to race. But you're fairly wrong anyway: we're interbreeding more than ever; to the extent that distinct races can be defined, they're disappearing.

    There are stupid people and smart people. It's a fact.

    The error is fixing people on a line, or fixing people in any way by some small set of parameters. There's nothing wrong with asserting, say, "my daughter has severe mental retardation" (which is another way of saying "my daughter is stupid") or "Feynman, despite his low IQ score, was smart".

    0/2. And simplistic attitudes as you've expressed emphasise the danger.

  34. US has a smaller pool... by Silly+Man · · Score: 1

    I suspect that the number of US applicants is smaller because: a much smaller percentage of US citizens want to work in Shanghai than Chinese nationals. Given that they lowered the qualifying score for Americans means they want Americans. Sorta says something positive about Americans in general.

    1. Re:US has a smaller pool... by JSombra · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      "Sorta says something positive about Americans in general." Yep that Americans are so bad with dealing with people of others cultures, especially Asian ones, that it’s handy to have a few of the more adaptable ones in your company if you want to do business with America Like was only about a week ago there was an article about Chinese company's hireing white americans for the day to pretend to be the boss when interacting with potencial american customers

  35. Re:let creation of a new nigger begin by Chrisq · · Score: 2, Informative

    Maybe not so new, the old ones will still be in the same place.

  36. Re:Countdown by Krahar · · Score: 1

    IQ is an interesting measure but research into correlation with ability to perform at certain jobs is appropriately lacking.

    What makes you believe this? IQ research has been ongoing for 100 years.

  37. Good news for us! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "They're looking in the wrong place!" Indiana Jones

    One of our competitive advantages is our ability to innovate. Chinese cultural and business practices tend to stamp out innovation. Grading applicants by IQ is an example of this.

    Having more than the minimum qualifications for a job is no advantage and can be a disadvantage. People with high IQ or with advanced degrees do no better than those who just squeaked through their BSc.

    I've read a bunch of papers that examine the correlation between job success and IQ or education. There is no correlation. The only predictor of success is interpersonal relationships. The guys hanging around the water cooler almost always did better than the genius with his nose stuck to the grindstone.

    The latest writing to get me excited is an article about the Harvard Longitudinal Study of Adult Development and its current head, George Vaillant, in The Atlantic. link

    The study started in the 1940s with a group of Harvard students and still follows their lives. Vaillant has looked at the (very extensive) data from every angle. He is very clear that the only predictor of job status, satisfaction, marital status, wealth, social status or almost anything else, is relationships. IQ is no predictor of success.

    It makes me very happy to hear that the Chinese are insisting on high IQs. That means they aren't taking the best employees away from America.

    1. Re:Good news for us! by TheKidWho · · Score: 1

      Thanks for that link, that was a very interesting article.

    2. Re:Good news for us! by inflamed · · Score: 1

      The study to which you refer does did not use a representative sample of the general population.

  38. Re:Not fully thought out plan. by digitig · · Score: 1

    It would seem to me, that anybody from Western Cultures that has an IQ over 100 would not want to live/work in a country like China because of its history of Human Rights violations and general intolerance for anti-state viewpoints.

    If you are dumb enough not to know better I understand, but an intelligent person can surely see past the paycheck.

    Why do you assume that all intelligent people are against human rights violations? The existence of the Evil Genius is at least credible. High IQ doesn't automatically make you a nice person.

    --
    Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  39. Wh.. wha.. what is IQ? :D by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    :)

    1. Re:Wh.. wha.. what is IQ? :D by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Misspelled ICQ.

  40. But that's the point really by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Feynman was an unconventional thinker is so very many ways. That was where a large part of his brilliance came from. He did not work in the world of numbers and equations, despite being a theoretical physicist. He was an examples kind of guy. He always had to have a physical example running in his head of a theory, and was always challenging people to provide them for him. As such he often found errors they could not, as he was mapping the problem in a completely different way.

    It was his unconventional methods that made him so very brilliant, that lead him to his Nobel research. It was also part of why he was so good at teaching. He could explain things to undergrads that most people could only explain to others with advanced knowledge. He could do that because he saw through all the equations and such to the real essence of what the theory was, and he could come up with examples because that was what he did anyhow.

    That an IQ test can't measure that well is a failing of the test, not of Feynman. The IQ test is one mold for how people can be smart, one particular way. He didn't fit that. So while the test rated him above average, because he was just so smart overall, it could not truly measure the depths of his genius.

    It is a good lesson: Don't put too much stock in a single test. Tests test for particular things, they are not generalizable to everything.

    As an analog, take a blood test for liver function. A simple test can be done to determine if your liver works right (just takes blood now, they don't need urine anymore as well). It does so reliably and well. However, that's all it does. Passing a LFT doesn't mean you are in good health, it means your liver is doing its job. It doesn't even mean your liver is undamaged, it just means that to whatever extent it has been damaged, it is still currently capable of filtering as needed.

    The test is useful, but you must understand its limits for it to be so.

  41. x and y axes by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Insightful

    there are people with

    1. high traditional iq, high social iq,
    2. high traditional iq, low social iq,
    3. low traditional iq, high social iq,
    4. low traditional iq, low social iq

    your inability to conceptualize more than one axis in the formulation of your comment doesn't speak very well for your iq, any iq

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:x and y axes by at_slashdot · · Score: 1, Funny

      Your inability to understand a joke place you in the second or forth category, probably the forth.

      --
      "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
    2. Re:x and y axes by at_slashdot · · Score: 1

      you are in the category that needs emoticons ;) to understand when a joke has been made.

      --
      "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
    3. Re:x and y axes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, a lot of humorless mods today...

    4. Re:x and y axes by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Humorless mods to go with the humorless jokes...

  42. Well I guess that rules out Richard P. Feynman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, I'm dead serious. I think he only tested at 127, not 140. These tests have always been bullshit, and they will probably continue to be bullshit because they cannot measure the ability to think in a creative way that is required for doing any new type of scientific discovery or technological innovation.

  43. Spot the missing word by petes_PoV · · Score: 1

    work hard for a living, and realistic economy. They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country

    Yet.

    Less than half a century ago China was essentially an agrarian economy. It relied on rice harvests to determine whether the population survived or starved (and they did sometimes starve). It is only since Mao's death that they have started to develop. Give them another half century and they'll be just as dumb, fat and happy as the average american is today - complete with all the problems, corruption, consumption and bullying foreign policy backed by their massive economic and military might.

    However, in 50 years the world will be a far hungrier place - not necessarily in terms of food, but raw materials, water, energy (9+billion to share it between). So this all presumes they don't nuke themselves back to the stone age with a civil war

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    1. Re:Spot the missing word by ultranova · · Score: 1

      However, in 50 years the world will be a far hungrier place - not necessarily in terms of food, but raw materials, water, energy (9+billion to share it between).

      You are assuming that 50 years from now we'll have neither fusion nor an armada of solar power satellites beaming power to Earth. Any other resource can be acquired once there's enough energy.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  44. IQ problem solving by capsteve · · Score: 1

    as the article states, the company that is using the IQ test is using it as a primary screening test before moving to other test which include skill tests. unfortunately IQ test results doesn't measure intelligence as much as it does measure the ability to take/pass a test. true intelligence, creative problem solving, innovative solutions, and the ability to work under stress can't be measured in a test, it can only be determined in the field over a period of time.

    outsourcing IT to china is attractive because of the high number of motivated chinese competing for a small pool of jobs means the ability to pick the cream of the crop(and pay low wages), however chinese culture does not necessarily stimulate those things that are important to develop innovative mental growth: individuality, self importance, creativity expression... these are very western ideals, and it's very likely that the hiring of US workers by an IT offshore company is multi-faceted: native english speaker for call escalation, cultural and language exchange for chinese workers, and the access to out of the box thinking(culturally a very american thing).

    --
    three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
  45. IQ != success by assertation · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the Chinese company is screening on other things than just IQ. I've met plenty of people over the years who claim to be geniuses, but you don't see it reflected anywhere in their lives. Intelligence alone doesn't make a good worker.

  46. Re:Countdown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because it's true. IQ is an interesting measure but research into correlation with ability to perform at certain jobs is appropriately lacking.

    Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.

  47. Accent by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 1

    The Chinese don't want to learn to speak English, they want to learn to speak American.

    Try LinkedIN for an example, see just how foreigners, like me, speak English but use it "wrong" to blend in. There is more to learning a language then learning the words.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:Accent by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      I think you meant, 'use it "wrongly"'.

    2. Re:Accent by tophermeyer · · Score: 1

      If I hadn't already posted, I would have modded you insightful. Learning a language involves understanding the culture, the customs, the slang, and so forth. There are probably plenty of Chinese that could teach grammatically correct English exactly as it is written in a textbook, unfortunately that is just not the style of English that most English speakers actually speak.

  48. Link has bogis information by AnonymousClown · · Score: 1
    Aside from the folks who are members of Mensa (Woods, Sharon Stone, Martin, Davis), those tests of famous people are mostly bogus. Lundgren himself has said that his IQ isn't 160 - he's smart for sure: MS Chem E and other intellectual feats.

    No one has ever measured Einstein's IQ or many of those people on that list. Also, IQs over 140 are nonsense - meaningless. Also, it doesn't say what test or scale was used.

    --
    RIP America

    July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001

  49. Mine is 132 by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 1

    This is my ass, you may kiss it.

    It also proves just how silly IQ is, because I know for certain I am not among the elite. How did I score so high? I like puzzles. I do IQ tests for fun... hey, this is slashdot, what did you expect. A hobby of collecting race cars or scoring chicks?

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  50. IQ is not everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I sit at last IQ test at 127. I do not consider myself to be any 'smarter' than fellow co-workers but I do notice I tend to grasp new concepts a lot quicker. I have read lots and do read lots - not just novels but technical books, manuals, scientific journals, medical journals, etc. Most things I read are outside the scope of what any normal person would consider reading on a normal basis and the fact that I read such a wide cross section tends to give me an advantage in my knowledge base - hence Higher IQ on the test. I do score spectacular on math sections and about average or slightly below on the communications sections (I guess that makes me typical nerd profile).

    I do enjoy the fun Google employee test I find on-line. I personally love the challenge they offer and I hate to give up on any problem.

    Now where do I apply for the job?

  51. Foolish by JSombra · · Score: 1

    Rather foolish of them, IQ just measures baseline brain power, not knowledge nor real ability to apply it

    Met more than a few members of MENSA that most of us would describe as “idiots” and failures at life

    And conversely many people with just average (or even slightly below average IQ) who are some of the most “intelligent” people you will ever meet

  52. pop quiz: by circletimessquare · · Score: 2, Insightful

    how many presidents have we had with a PhD?

    answer:

    one. Woodrow Wilson

    yes, Barack Obama is someone with a high traditional iq and a high social iq

    but as GW Bush demonstrates that you can be well below 100 on both social iq and traditional iq and still become president. you just need to score high on the nepotism iq test and the oil money iq test

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  53. IQ doesn't measure drive.. by spiffmastercow · · Score: 1

    IQ has very little to do with success.. Take me, for instance. I tested at 156 at age 16, scored in the top 1% for all the standardized tests, and my peers basically assumed I'd be a billionaire today. Turns out though that I'm lazy and have a bad attitude, which prevents me from getting ahead.

    I really oppose IQ tests. They gives kids with high scores unrealistic expectations and a sense of entitlement. I would have probably been a lot better off if I had grown up thinking I have to work hard just like everybody else.

    1. Re:IQ doesn't measure drive.. by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

      I tested at 156 at age 16, scored in the top 1% for all the standardized tests, and my peers basically assumed I'd be a billionaire today. Turns out though that I'm lazy and have a bad attitude, which prevents me from getting ahead.

      Actually, your real problem is that you don't understand what anecdotal evidence is.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:IQ doesn't measure drive.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IQ has a huge correlation with success. If you're as smart as you say you are, you would know that in statistics the outliers do not describe the mean.

    3. Re:IQ doesn't measure drive.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IQ test is just a pre-internet buzz word. it does not show much in any direction, except if you get a score under 100 you're probably a bit dumb. if you get between 100 and 180 you're a regular person, one might be more educated than the other, or more passionate to take the test but it doesn't mean anything.
      Power of will usually determines a lot in the success. Knowledge as well. Being able to make rapid or complex calculations does not bring either.

      There are certain types of caculations i make quickly and others slowly. there are some logical thinkings that are natural to me and do not even require "thinking" while for others, it sounds like hard stuff. The opposite is also true.

      At the end of the day, i've not scored 156 IQ test (something around 130, rather regular) but i was performing well everywhere, everyone though i'd be a billionaire yet i'm not. I favorized lazyness in some fields, knowledge, learning, social skills (or the lack thereof!) instead. Oh and we just all are puny humans on a tiny planet, anyways.

    4. Re:IQ doesn't measure drive.. by FuckingNickName · · Score: 1

      Exceptions to some assumed rule are good to begin picking apart prejudices.

      In this case, what's important to observe is the lack of evidence that a competent, creative workforce can be formed when all people with not-high IQ are eliminated.

      spiffmastercow has hinted at what might happen when you start making a habit of filling firms solely with people with high IQs. We don't know what is likely to happen until we have widespread evidence. All we can say for certain from spiffmastercow's post is that we can't assert that we'll have a bunch of creative geniuses all producing a continuous stream of brilliance.

    5. Re:IQ doesn't measure drive.. by spiffmastercow · · Score: 1

      Well, if you look carefully, I never claimed to be smart, only that I have a high IQ score. But yes, I understand that success (at least in school) often correlates with a high IQ. I've not seen many studies on how well it correlates with success in the business world, however. I suppose I could look it up, but then I get back to the original problem I described -- I'm lazy.

    6. Re:IQ doesn't measure drive.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like you, I had one of the highest IQ scores in my class (one gal scored better than I). For me, it didn't give me a sense of entitlement. As I aged, it created a sense that I've never lived up (and will never live up) to my full potential.

    7. Re:IQ doesn't measure drive.. by XSpud · · Score: 1

      IQ has a huge correlation with success".

      Is this true in societies where success is not at least partially dependent on the ability to pass tests?

    8. Re:IQ doesn't measure drive.. by TheSync · · Score: 1

      Is this true in societies where success is not at least partially dependent on the ability to pass tests?

      Your question is a good one if you are asking whether the "signaling" of high test achievement is more important in personal economic achievement than the actual possession of higher IQ itself (in which case, "cheaters" on signaling tests with lower IQ would tend to do as well in life as those with higher IQ who legitimately scored the same on the tests used for signaling, such as SAT/GRE/finals/etc.) This would be an interesting analysis, but probably tough to do.

      Meanwhile, there is some evidence that GDP correlates with national average IQ, and also correlates with higher Human Development Index, Gender-related Development Index, and Economic Freedom ratings. But it does not correlate with measures of human happiness and life satisfaction.

      The body of research supports that: (1) IQ appears to be a "real thing" (2) Many IQ tests do seem to measure it (3) it is correlated with life economic success and (4) it rises in countries as their levels of development rise but (5) despite that, IQ has a high genetic component.

    9. Re:IQ doesn't measure drive.. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      IQ doesn't correlate with success very well at all, except perhaps that very low IQs generally correlate with failure. "Emotional intelligence" is a much better indicator, as it shows how well someone works with (and manipulates) people. People who are good at manipulating others are the ones who do really well in society. Just look at the people in government. They're no geniuses, but they're good at fooling morons into voting for them, and unlike you, they all have Wikipedia pages about them and are financially well-off.

  54. Re:Countdown by mdwh2 · · Score: 1

    It may be true, but it's also irrelevant. Just because IQ tests aren't a general test of irrelevant, doesn't mean that they are therefore completely useless tests that test nothing.

    They certainly test some logical skills. The criticism is that this isn't the be all and end all of "intelligence". That doesn't mean the test can't be used by a company wanting to test a candidate's logical skills.

    Consider, a job interview is hardly a good test of "intelligence". Does that make job interviews useless as a means of assessing potential employees?

  55. Lower You IQ With Toxins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Remember you'll have to keep your religion or atheism to yourself. "Freedom of religion" in China is only between your ears. Also, no freedom of speech, assembly, association, press, etc. Just as important is the fact that you'll come back home with a lower IQ after ingesting Shanghai's toxins.

  56. Personality tests vs IQ test by lorg · · Score: 1

    So they (the chinese) want to do IQ tests, big deal. I guess it's just the way they do things over there. I'm fine with that since I'm good at seeing patterns and filling in missing numbers. But that and $5 gets me a burger at McWhatever.

    But here in the "west" we are now scared of IQ for some reason, I guess we dont want to hurt the feelings of people that do badly, so instead we do personality tests such as variations of Myers-Briggs instead. I can't belive I'm the only person forced to fill in a few of those as you have applied for various jobs. I have been given these for the last two or three jobs I had and applied for. Your basic "rate yourself on a scale bollocks" tests and then we (me and the HR queen) talk abit about it later on. So it's this instead of "complete the following sequence", "fill in the missing gaps" or "how many squares are there in this picture".

    Are personality tests really that much or even better then some old fashion IQ test (a very diluted term)? I think the HR department just wants a piece of paper that you didn't send them that they can somehow use to quantify things into a little number.

    1. Re:Personality tests vs IQ test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IQ tests for employment were another victim of political correctness. They went out of fashion in the west when it became painfully obvious IQ scores had a rather high correlation with race. In fact, an employer giving an IQ test is illegal in the US unless they can demonstrate that the test is somehow relevant to the job. I'm surprised this employer is getting away with giving them in this country. I'm waiting for the discrimination suits to start flying.

    2. Re:Personality tests vs IQ test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's probably another reason why they're shipping them off to China for a year.

  57. Re:let creation of a new nigger begin by chichilalescu · · Score: 1

    mod parent insightful.
    this is exactly what this company is doing: test people for IQ, and hire or not hire based on IQ. the parent says that this is a stupid strategy, and he is right.
    If you are hiring people to do a specific job, you test their ability to do that specific job, and the IQ is not a good replacement.

    and the danger is that the IQ might be turned into a general way of categorising people, when it doesn't actually say that much about a person.

    --
    new sig
  58. Pretty Girl by danielobvt · · Score: 1

    For once (and based on most of my CS colleagues this will be a one time thing) these guys will learn what it is like to be the "pretty girl." Hired on their looks (American), expected to be there, act as eye candy and overall not be expected to perform as well as the guys who were hired for their brains....

  59. Money as Debt by mrops · · Score: 1

    Not sure about china, however in US, each real dollar (as in someone's savings) can be loaned up to a thousand folds. As in if you save 1$, banks get to loan 1000$ of money out of thin air.

    There is an interesting documentary on youtube, Money as Debt that explains this in more detail http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8

    1. Re:Money as Debt by Courageous · · Score: 1

      Sorry. Not quite accurate. There are legal limits (established by the Federal Reserve) that prevent a bank from loaning out each dollar it gets on deposit more than a certain number of times. I think the number was 17X the last time I looked. Almost certainly happens in China, also, and most banks around the world.

      C//

    2. Re:Money as Debt by nelsonal · · Score: 1

      Fractional reserve banking is used in every nation's banks in the world. Capital is just too rare otherwise. Think of the difference between muxed signals vs unshared signals. Yes there's a real risk of very catestrophic problems, but since it's development every society that learned of it has decided to take that risk (even under the gold standard banking was still fractional reserve).

      --
      Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
    3. Re:Money as Debt by teg · · Score: 1

      Not sure about china, however in US, each real dollar (as in someone's savings) can be loaned up to a thousand folds. As in if you save 1$, banks get to loan 1000$ of money out of thin air.

      That's just a misunderstanding. A bank can't lend more money than it has. People misunderstand two effects, and then make up something weird to compensate.

      • A bank can't lend more than a certain multiple of the money the owners have put into the company and accumulated there. Often around 6-10%. As a result of this, if you increase the equity (or other forms of "special" capital, which the bank can use to cover losses if needed) the bank can solicit more deposits (or borrow money elsewhere) and then lend it multiplied by 10-15 times. Note that no money burst into existence by this.
      • Fractional banking. You deposit 100 USD. If the bank aren't over its limit (see above), it can then lend this money to someone else. Who can then deposit it again, etc. Still, see above. This effect increases the supply of money
    4. Re:Money as Debt by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Wasn't eliminating the statutory limit on the reserve ratio one of the provisions of the bailout legislation back in 2008? I think it was buried somewhere in the middle of the 1000 page bill...

    5. Re:Money as Debt by s73v3r · · Score: 1

      Unless you have an actual citation for something like that, just quit with the fear mongering.

    6. Re:Money as Debt by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      No idea if it made it into the final law, but it might be moot as it would become effective next year under previous legislation anyway. This site, albeit biased, has a decent description.

      Basically in 2006 legislation was passed which allows the federal reserve discretion to set any reserve ratio between zero and an upper limit. That legislation was due to become effective in 2011, but the date was possibly moved up as part of the bailout.

      So, the sky doesn't fall unless the federal reserve actually lowers the ratio, but there is no legislative control over this (well, short of repealing the law).

    7. Re:Money as Debt by Courageous · · Score: 1

      Expanding the ratio has two consequences: 1) it is inflationary by expanding the money supply, and 2) it exposes depositors to increase risk.

      Permitting the Federal Reserve to deliberately cause inflation isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. #2, however, does raise eyebrows.

      If the Fed "lowers" the ratio, as you say, there will be deflationary pressure. I doubt they will do that. As per the 1H2010, there has been no inflation at all, and deflation is actually a possibility. No one really wants that, especially because if we enter a sustained deflationary period during an economic downturn, that is the textbook economics definition of a "Depression".

      The Fed wouldn't want their fingers on that.

      C//

    8. Re:Money as Debt by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      As in if you save 1$, banks get to loan 1000$ of money out of thin air.

      So what? The functional effect is that we have a larger economy than the amount of currency would dictate. If we expanded our available currency 1000 times and eliminate fractional banking, you'd have the same effect, except that there'd be a restructuring of banking fees and such to make up for the changes.

      So fractional banking is not a bad thing. It makes fiat currency more fiat-ish, but it's already 100% fiat, so there's no difference. As far as I know, 100% of countries are on fiat currency systems, so anything that "encourages" fiat has no effect. Thus, fractional banking is banks inventing money per tightly controlled rules of the federal government, which isn't substantively different from the government doing it themselves. Again, so uninteresting and common, it isn't worth an objection on your part, unless you don't actually understand the system.

      Well, you could be one of the gold standard nutters, but in that case, your post is worthless as well, but because of other reasons.

    9. Re:Money as Debt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a documentary, it's a rant by gold worshippers.

    10. Re:Money as Debt by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Define "lower" - a ratio is one item over another, so changing either both raises or lowers the ratio depending on which way you look at it.

      The legislation allows the Fed to expand the money supply without limit. It leaves a cap on contracting the money supply.

      As written in that legislation, the value that is being (potentially) lowered is the percentage of funds that must be held in reserve. That is an increase in the multiple of funds that can be loaned out.

      As long as the Fed is responsible none of this is a problem - after all, it is a grant of authority that congress already has.

      The thing that concerns me about reserve ratios in general is that as you say they do put depositors at risk. I'm fine with the bank not having every dollar sitting in a vault. I'm not sure that I like the idea that they can be leveraged to the tune of 94%, unless there are very hard limits on what that 94% can be invested in.

    11. Re:Money as Debt by Courageous · · Score: 1

      The Federal Reserve Ratio, expressed as 1:N, is the number of dollars held in reserve by the bank per dollar loaned.

      Back in the conservative days it was 1:5. As you've noticed it's moving past 1:20 now.

      A large ratio is fine if inflation is low, except when people run the banks. That's not so good. The FDIC kicks in then, but God Help Us if there is a US-wide run.

      C//

    12. Re:Money as Debt by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Right. My point was that basically congress gave the Fed the power to set the ratio arbitrarily high, or even to eliminate it altogether (which would give banks the power to essentially print money without limit).

      Now, the Fed hasn't done that, but the legislation allows them to.

    13. Re:Money as Debt by Courageous · · Score: 1

      (which would give banks the power to essentially print money without limit).

      Well. Not quite. They could only create money without limit to the degree people are willing to borrow from them at rates the banks set. A subtle, but important difference.

      (And as you know all this, you must also be aware that this is quite similar to the relationship between the Fed and the US itself, where money is created by fiat at times when the US deficit spends).

      Anyway, I agree with you that it seems like a strangely foolhardy thing to do.

      I can give some credence to the notion, possibility, that looser ratios may tend to work more and more as we transition to a fully electronic currency economy. Even saying this, I wonder if setting no legislative limit on the Fed isn't throwing caution to the winds.

      C//

    14. Re:Money as Debt by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Well. Not quite. They could only create money without limit to the degree people are willing to borrow from them at rates the banks set. A subtle, but important difference.

      What keeps banks from lending money out at 0.1% interest? Basically, opportunity cost due to scarcity. If they lend a dollar to you at 0.1%, then can't lend it to somebody else at 5%. Also, if rates go low enough they could instead invest that money elsewhere, although this probably does not happen much, since banks have limited investment options for deposits, and their supply of strings-free money is much more limited since they can't print that kind of money (up to the limit of the reserve ratio).

      However, set the reserve percentage to zero, and all this goes out the window. They can loan person x $1M at 5%, and person y $1M at 0.001%. Their only incentive to raise rates is to cover their costs and maybe to try to avoid self-competition (but with many banks out there, I don't see how this would work without an illegal trust).

      The bank doesn't even have to worry about showing a profit. Interest they collect goes into their pockets, losses on loans just get made up for by making more loans, since there is no limit on how much they can loan out. If I loan out $10M and the loan defaults having paid back $5 of principal and $100 of interest, then I come out ahead, since the principal came on the backs of the US currency holder.

      Obviously it would never get this out of hand, since the economy would start to melt down well before this point and the Fed would quickly set a finite cap on lending.

      The bottom line is that "zero" is a REALLY small number. There is more impact on the economy between interest rates dropping from 0.0001% to 0% than from it dropping from 75% to 5% (though obviously the economy wouldn't work at any of these extremes).

    15. Re:Money as Debt by Courageous · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I knew you would say that. It's obviously true. Although I've wondered. With a ratio of nearly 1:20 right now, why is it things like mortgages aren't better than 4% right now. To me, this is a puzzle, because I wouldn't think the risks are really that high, considering, and the total return on a dollar only has to be 20%-ish to justify an ROI in an area with even some risk. 20% return should be pretty easy when you loan the dollar out 20 times.

      Anyway, I suspect that the Fed would never release the limit. One would hope they are not that dumb. The question is: how dumb are they? I think even 30 would be a dumb number. But who knows?

      As I said previously, there are really only two good reasons to keep it cranked in. 1) inflation control, and 2) depositor risk. If #2 is evaporating due to a switch to an electronic currency economy, then #1 is the only thing to worry about. Have you checked CPI figures lately? So for 0.004 so far this year. And the CPI slightly overstates inflation, so there is some chance we've actually deflated some.

      I'm with the school of economists that say that means the money supply needs to be expanded when the above is true.

      Did you happen to read any of the articles about the Economists recommending the Bank of the United States? I'm with them, too.

      C//

    16. Re:Money as Debt by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      To be honest I don't know all the details about how the reserve system works. If a bank wants to use deposits to buy treasury bills, can it leverage the ratio to do so, or does it need to be dollar-for-dollar?

      If it can leverage the ratio then mortgages will never go lower than treasuries. If it can't leverage those investments then mortgages only need to have 1/20th the return to be a good investment.

      Maybe the issue is just that a lot more people borrow money than save it, even at 20:1.

    17. Re:Money as Debt by Courageous · · Score: 1

      Maybe the issue is just that a lot more people borrow money than save it, even at 20:1.

      Hmm. Well. If it were 20:1, it would only require $1 of investor to loan $20 to debtors. That would allow 20 debtors per investor, insofar as you could find willing debtors.

      Truthfully, I really wish I understood this better! I've looked online before for succinct descriptions of all this, but I think I don't know the right google words. :-)

    18. Re:Money as Debt by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Well, how many people have $10k in the bank, and a $250k mortgage, a $15k car loan, and $20k on their credit cards? They each have almost a 30:1 ratio, so for each person like that you need several people with a more modest 10:1 ratio.

      The average american is WAY in debt. That means that even at 20:1 there is plenty of demand for loans to go around.

    19. Re:Money as Debt by Courageous · · Score: 1

      Interesting way of looking at it. Never thought about it from that perspective. I keep $5K-10K in the "bank," have sizable investments in stocks (which don't count towards reserves), but truthfully have well more than 20:1 in loans from just my mortgage alone.

      As an aside, I read about this some more over the weekend. Apparently there are special rules for things like CD's, where they cannot be withdrawn except on a fixed timeline. Kinda makes sense.

      Article here:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement

      C//

    20. Re:Money as Debt by Courageous · · Score: 1

      Thought about what you said a bit. It may be true that due to my mortgage alone, I have more than 20:1 borrowed than saved. But when I borrowed that money, I spent it. It went to the former home owner. Following the trail a bit more, some portion will go to stocks and bonds eventually, which of course don't count as reserves. Some other portion will come back to the banks as checking, savings, CD's, and so for th.

      I read about this some more over the weekend. Apparently there are special rules for things like CD's, where they cannot be withdrawn except on a fixed timeline. Kinda makes sense.

      Article here:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement [wikipedia.org]

      C//

  60. OR ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IQ != IQ as in cheating on iq results, cultural biases

    or

    IQ is only part of a person's effectiveness.

  61. with no worker safety / people being worked to dea by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 1

    with no worker safety / people being worked to death. People being worked over china working time limits. People being killed and having the factory make it look like it was a suicide. Sounds like the old days in the usa.

  62. Re:Not fully thought out plan. by ibsteve2u · · Score: 1

    The existence of the Evil Genius is at least credible. High IQ doesn't automatically make you a nice person.

    I give you Karl Rove...Dick Cheney...Roger Ailes...etc. etc. etc.

    --
    Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
  63. Not buying it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    SAT is Scholastic Aptitude Test. It is refined year after year to be a good predictor
    of how well a student will do in college. The SAT isn't an IQ test exactly, so you
    are mixing apples and oranges.

  64. Sound like the MS tests / certification by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 1

    Sound like the MS tests / certification.

    You can pass the test and not be able to do the work while some who did not take the test / fails the test can do the work real well.

  65. On Iq and other nebulous concepts by anupokritos · · Score: 1

    IQ didn't use to be so nebulous. I can remember when it was a simple formula: knowledge / chronological age = your intelligence quotient. Using such a rudimentary formula IQ was simple the measure of your rate of learning, which was assumed to be directly proportional to your potential learning rate.

    Now IQ is measured in many different ways and qualified with numerous adjectives so that we know what type of smarts we're trying to measure or that we're good at. Social IQ, or Spacial IQ for example. Now if you tell someone you have an IQ of 146 you might be telling them any number of things and without further qualifications they might think you more or less capable than you really are.

    Now, if the Chinese business here is using the first and simplest IQ test I mentioned they may just be trying to determine how fast the individual being questioned can learn. That seems like a reasonable criterion for a foreign company to asses international employees on given the learning curve associated with the changes inevitable in cross-cultural employment. Not the only criteria mind, but an important one.

    All the comments about IQ not being directly related to success or job performance may well be true, for careers and jobs that don't require high intelligence. But there jobs that require high intelligence to be successful, and what I mean by that is there are jobs where the work environment changes rapidly and one needs to be able to process these changes and adapt quickly and excellently to be able to thrive. This trend towards accelerated change and adaption in the workplace will continue to develop and be in-part an ongoing challenge to employers looking to remain agile and competitive in markets where they have to compete against lumbering large corporations.

  66. Stupid work performance tests by Kim0 · · Score: 1
    If IQ correlates negatively with work performance, then work performance is likely tested wrongly, like believing the number of code lines is a performance indicator, or number of stitches used in surgery, or number of patients operated each day, or amount of water used to stop a fire, or amount of stocks traded for a trader.

    Intelligent people see through these false measures, and gets punished by mob and bosses for doing so, and thus registered as unproductive.

    Programming and surgery is better when it is short and correct. Surgery is better if the patient gets better. Putting water on fires is better the better it stops the fire. The amount earned versus risk is the performance for a trader.

    And the company is better if the bosses understand this, but they seldom do.

    Kim0+

  67. There is no such thing as intelligence, ... by Qbertino · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There is no such thing as intelligence, only interest. - Richard Feynman (IIRC)

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  68. Mensa is packed with idiots by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The biggest idiots I know are in Mensa. Just a bunch of incompetent morons who like taking IQ tests.

    --
    If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
    1. Re:Mensa is packed with idiots by IrquiM · · Score: 1

      Yeah! Let's all take their test drunk, and then refuse to join!

      --
      This is blinging
    2. Re:Mensa is packed with idiots by khallow · · Score: 1

      The biggest idiots I know are in Mensa.

      You actually know idiots in Mensa? I will shun you and you will feel the sting of my shunning. It still won't keep you from receiving my (to a superficial observer, of course) less than brilliant replies, but you will see why when you fully comprehend the subtlety of my shunning.

  69. Why their history majors test so low by paiute · · Score: 1

    I would think that any Chinese citizen who knew their country's recent history would keep the fact that they had a high IQ to themselves.

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
  70. Chinese Company Seeks US Workers With 125 IQ by Chrisq · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Chinese Company Seeks US Workers With 125 IQ

    Did it find any?

  71. What is intelligence? by kernelcache · · Score: 1

    Do premier athletes have higher IQ's than regular athletes? Does a great composer have a higher IQ than a regular composer? Does a kid who fits the cylindrical block into the round hole have a higher IQ than the kid who uses his dad's saw to make the round hole into a square in order to fit the cube through it? The point is that when you have a bunch of geniouses together you need to have an incredibly good manager to keep the egos' in line. Just look at Xerox; they arguably had one of the best collections of top-knotch CS talent in the 70's, but it was their manager who kept everything humming along. Also it's interesting to note that Xerox didn't capitalize on much if anything that came out of their little experiment; though their work laid the foundation for much of modern computing. The point is that everyone has ideas, and there are always people smart enough to realize those ideas...just maybe not the person with the idea. I would argue that being humble, persistent, exploring, and smiling denote intelligence more than a known subset of the moment.

  72. Re:Not fully thought out plan. by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

    Why do you assume that all intelligent people are against human rights violations?

    My rule of thumb is, if the highly intelligent person is applying for a job, they're probably against human rights violations. If they are offering a job, they're probably for human rights violations.

    It comes down to whether you're the violator or the violatee.

    --
    Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  73. Complaints by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

    Probably few complain about being accorded too high a score.

  74. Re:let creation of a new nigger begin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wikipedia begs to differ

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

    (But is there a the cultural bias of the test, Is is worded so one race would do better than another?)

  75. Why is this surpsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure the pool of US workers willing to work in Shanghai is quite small. Despite the whining and hand-wringing of some people on /., if you have decent enough skills, you CAN get a job in the US

  76. Fantastic...and non-PC by bradley13 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As the parent says: "IQ tests still predict performance very well in many jobs. It's both fantastic and fantastically politically unacceptable". This is so well known as to be beyond any credible dispute. As an overall predictor of success, IQ is known to be quite good. Here's a nice summary. Note that the correlation between IQ and professional success is even stronger than the correlation in height between parents and children.

    If China uses this policy widely, over a long period of time, it will be interesting to watch the media try to spin it. Such a test must somehow be evil, because there will undoubtedly be disparities in the gender and/or race and/or background of the people who pass the test. Yet everyone will know - whether or not they dare say it - that the test is purely economic: get the best people for the money.

    The elephant in the room: what everyone knows but no one will admit. Shades of The Bell Curve.

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
  77. As many honor students as we have students! by King+Coopa · · Score: 1

    My strategic management professor showed us some random statistics on the first day and one I saw was the number of honor students China claimed greatly outnumbered the total number of students the US has altogether.

    Kind of a downer to think about but I like to think the typical chinese tends to have a little more devotion to the greater good of all people where the west has a fuck-'em-got-mine attitude. I just hope they apply their knowledge to curing cancer or building my flying car rather than coming up with new and innovative ways of screwing people over.

  78. Economies are not static by zogger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    China developed an exchange with the US because way back nixon and kissinger decided that helping china develop would be an effective counter to them working with the USSR. they exploited the differences to keep those two nations divided. The offshoot was that to do that they allowed the destruction of manufacturing in the US and transferred it to china, industry by industry. China needed that at the time to develop, because the currency they received they plowed back into the US (and europe) to buy stuff like machine tools, etc, all the things they needed to develop a manufacturing industry.

    That's *done* now, it is past tense. Times are changing. They can build anything, in mass quantities, cheap. Hence, they no longer "need" the US market, and they are gradually shifting to their internal billion and half people market and to nations where they get raw materials and energy sources from. It's not an overnight change deal, but that is the basic trend.

    1. Re:Economies are not static by santiagodraco · · Score: 1

      China's domestic gdp is not comprised of the same products as it's exports. Certainly they consume a huge amount domestically, they have 1.3 billion people, but that does not mean that exports are less important.

      If you want evidence of this just take a look at what happened last year when China's exports dropped 26%. They saw a significant downturn in the economy prompting a nearly 600 million dollar stimulus package.

      China produces products cheap now, because they keep their citizens in the dark and essentially control what they can and cannot do and how to think. That will change, and when it does they will see demands for increased payroll, benefits and all the other things that we see outside of China.

      So don't expect things to continue as they are.

    2. Re:Economies are not static by inflamed · · Score: 1

      $600m is an insignificant amount in the world of stimulus packages.

  79. Maybe ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People in the US that score 140 or above don't want to work for them ...

  80. That's true by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Of course I wish I knew before I went to university. Of course it made me appreciate what my uncle said about colleges. Since you're doing the teaching yourself anyway the differences between universities isn't the education, it's the name. (For what it's worth the only university who he though had a good enough name to be worth the money over a state school was Harvard.)

    --
    Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
  81. Kiddo, gonna clue you into the REAL world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I would have probably been a lot better off if I had grown up thinking I have to work hard just like everybody else." - by spiffmastercow (1001386) on Thursday July 08, @09:16AM (#32838624)

    Per my subject-line above: Those that "make it big" in the real world out there are usually (mostly) crooks that are good at 3 things:

    --

    1.) Joining & kissing ass to the "ring masters" in cliques ("strength in numbers", & the holy dollar, because they're inadequate & money is their equalizer, they can't do it on their own. They have to use numbers/gangs & in doing so, they rip off companies BLIND!) who are FAR from good leaders (see below).

    2.) Ripping off the system & others, like mad (per the above, & of course, things like ENRON + more)

    3.) Cheating their way to the top (including academia, where they use tests in their "Frats" (the start of their "gang mentality" in fact) saved from many semesters from instructors with tenure that are not going anywhere soon, OR, paying others to do their work (yes, I have seen this as well in my time in academia) - because they know their "affiliations" & family connections will take them where they want to be anyhow, & schooling? Just a formality!).

    --

    People who are truly educated & are also intelligent (the types that actually get productive things done because they actually have useful skills, not just "management" ones (an idiot is capable of babysitting others after all, & I know - I was one decades ago & led a chain of 218 LARGE stores in loss prevention, & there? I truly realized I had to learn more & educate, because I was short selling myself this way in only doing that for a living))? Those truly skilled folks really only end up being used to rip off millions from others by those types who do exactly the above.

    I've seen it way too many times. I am sure you have as well.

    So, please: Don't fool yourself into thinking they "work hard", because most of those types make it big off of the sweat of others and they often came into the game with "old family money" and connections behind them.

    (Anyone over the age of 30 figures this out pretty fast once they get out into the "working world" and especially the white collar world, the "province of cliquey scumbags" who usually aren't very intelligent at all, only at being good crooks!)

    Above all else:

    IF "our fearless leaders" (crooks) were SO "good" at leadership and were actually intelligent, then why the hell is the planet in such a fucking mess I ask you?

    That's the REAL "bottom-line" here. I do submit their results because that's exactly what they do to you while they give you crap in the real world, but they themselves do shit. I know this from having been a programmer-analyst/software engineer for the past 17 yrs. now, and most of my "managers"?? Couldn't code a decent program to save their own lives... and yet, they lead folks like myself?

    Yea... lol, "right". What EXACTLY qualifies them for it? A B.S. or MBA in Business?? I have one of those and I will tell anyone this point-blank - that sheepskin does FAR from that.

    Sure, you may be told you have a "bad attitude", but what are you supposed to have when leadership is nothing but a pack of thieves (does the world economic climate show us all any differently, especially in the USA where we are "for sale" & easy to beat on those grounds alone by buying us up & mismanaging the corporation of the USA)?

    Leadership reflects attitude and all I see is a pack of thieving scumbags that have driven a once beautiful nation into the dirt due to their scumbaggery and that's ALL OVER THE PLACE out here for the past decade now (do I have to state that?)

    Makes me sick.

    Anyone that doesn't like this? Too bad - Go argue with the results that are the USA today especially, & especially economically, & tell me I am incorrect.

    These morons don't even realize that when you o

    1. Re:Kiddo, gonna clue you into the REAL world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      tl;dr

      diaf

    2. Re:Kiddo, gonna clue you into the REAL world by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      You're looking at things from the wrong angle, and using the wrong metric for "success".

      Our leaders are highly successful. It doesn't matter that things are a mess, because that's irrelevant. What matters is how successful the leaders are. Since they have lots of money and power, they're successful.

      The same goes for Microsoft (from your follow-up post, complaining about their products being crap). It doesn't matter how good or bad their products are. Microsoft's leaders are millionaires and even billionaires. Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world, and Steve Ballmer is way up there too. Why would they care if the stuff they make is garbage? As long as people buy it, and they're billionaires, and they're still a dominant company with the power and prestige that entails, they don't care. Only engineers care about how good products are.

      Sociopaths that lead us now? They have no shame and no problem with their means, methods, and worst of all, results.

      Exactly. Sociopaths make successful leaders, because they only care about themselves and don't mind lying or cheating to become successful. The people below them are too dumb to recognize them as such, and happily elect them or buy their crappy products, which in turn makes the sociopaths successful.

  82. Re:IQ problem solving by Courageous · · Score: 1

    unfortunately IQ test results doesn't measure intelligence

    Surely I'm not the only one to notice the irony of this remark.

    C//

  83. couldnt find anything nontrivial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    actually in the areas of mathematics, physics, chemistry and other hard sciences i have been quite frustrated with the offerings by mit. standford did have some interesting material but it was very specialised, like robotics as opposed to core theory such as a proof based pdes course. the indian institute actually had alot more material than mit but it was of a lower quality relative to what mit offered in the basic 1st year subjects available. the comments on youtube would mock the mistakes made by the junior indian profs and then these valid observations would be subject to tall poppy syndrome by people insisting that they should show respect. now ive done undergraduate science and a little tutoring and know that it is all too easy to make a trivial mistake in differentiation, but i would think that these videos could be checked and rechecked and after that, comments that are valid corrections should be accepted, refining the original video (time for take 2).

    All considered it would be nice to have the range of the indian institute (and more) and the quality of the mit lecturers. actually mit go on about how revolutionary their idea was initially, that people thought it was crazy to give away their core value, but when you go an look at what they have it is just the 1st year subjects and is very much there to entice people to take the next step and enrol.

  84. what MicroSoft and Google did by peter303 · · Score: 1

    They hired tons of ivy graduates and PhDs for jobs that didnt necessarily require that level education. They dont give explicit IQ tests, but the silly job interviews are sort of like that.

  85. Re:Not fully thought out plan. by digitig · · Score: 1

    "So tell me: what unique qualities do you think you can bring to the job of torturer?"

    --
    Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  86. Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdot should require thes same for comments

  87. YHBT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here's another woefully obvious statement for you Sycraft-fu:

    You have been trolled.

    Good job on the karma-whoring reply though.

  88. 125? ...that's kinda low. by InsaneLampshade · · Score: 1

    I guess those people are the cleaners?

  89. Dear China, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You will be lucky to find anyone in the US with an IQ higher than 0125.

  90. IQ is linked to who wrote the test vs who's taking by smaddox · · Score: 1

    The lower IQ threshold for new US graduates reflects the fact that the pool of US talent available to the company is smaller than the pool of Chinese talent, Bleum said.

    Or the fact that the IQ test is intrinsically linked to culture, which is very different in China vs US.

  91. Chinese Company Seeks US Workers With 125 IQ by agustkara · · Score: 1

    Good luck with that!! Hahaha! Stupid Americans...

  92. cliche-based sophistry, oh wonderful. by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

    Oh oh oh. Let me try it too... hmmmm, err... ok...here it goes... what would Jesus do???

    1. Re:cliche-based sophistry, oh wonderful. by colinrichardday · · Score: 1

      Are you saying that my post is cliché-based sophistry?

  93. why? by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

    The young and bright are trying to get the fuck out of China? Why would anyone (other than a corp) go there for a job, specially an engineer with a good education and higher-than-average IQ?

    1. Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      money and adventure.

  94. PhD or MD by ponraul · · Score: 1

    How is this, in practice, any different from having qualifications that are strongly correlated to IQ? The average median IQ of an MD is above 120.

    The only benefit that I can see is that someone with such qualifications would cost more. It's cheaper to just give an IQ test to a large pool of people, and hope you find a few candidates who have the measured intelligence that you want yet cannot demand the salaries that are typically correlated with a higher IQ.

  95. ... in Shanghai by ToasterMonkey · · Score: 1

    The lower IQ threshold for new US graduates reflects the fact that the pool of US talent available to the company is smaller than the pool of Chinese talent, Bleum said.

    ... in Shanghai. Is this surprising?

  96. Autism spectrum by base_chakra · · Score: 1

    There is a big difference between missing nonverbal signals, and being incapable of apprehending nonverbal communication. It's a grossly untrue stereotype that people of great cognitive ability lack emotional intelligence and street smarts (social intelligence). Such a discrepancy, savantism, is rare. That many autistic people are savants is another untrue stereotype. Asperger syndrome, one of the autism spectrum disorders, is more common. Like all ASDs, Asperger syndrome is a developmental disorder, not a proclivity.

    We live in an age in which incidence of pervasive developmental disorders such as autism (including Asperger syndrome) is on a troubling rise. To help put it into perspective, the autistic population is greater than the population of people with IQs higher than 140. It's much easier to accept Asperger symptoms as "normal" when they occur in so many people.

    So why are autism spectrum disorders more prevalent now? The prevailing theory is that autistic people have one of various genetic weaknesses that make them more susceptible to environmental toxins (such as mercury) that impair brain development. Industrialization exposes people to much higher levels of these toxins than in pre-industrial society. Bigger picture: this is sociobiological evolution in action. Social evolution precedes biological evolution. This is just one way in which the industrial lifestyle is affecting our species.

  97. Payscale to match? by guspasho · · Score: 1

    Will the starting pay and payscale be 125% of competing companies' to match?

  98. 125 is wae to hight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    for me, we shud su them at WTO

  99. Can you write English please? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First, see subject-line above! Second, it seems that Microsofties today (due to the massive layoffs there, 15% of their nearly 90,000 strong workforce (not from mgt. either, "oddly")) seem to agree with my points (on crooked or incompetent "leadership" (shoe salesmen running a tech company, lol, hilarious), on nepotism & cronyism/cliques, & FAR more):

    https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7555958&postID=6168054658946624967

    Some "choice quotes" to that very effect:

    ---

    I'm not sure how senior managerment (SteveB) can be allowed to remain in office when his response to the billion-dollar KIN failure is to layoff hardworking employees. Baffles the mind.

    ---

    If Ballmer could figure out a way to move software development to China and India to save money, he would.

    Wednesday, July 07, 2010 7:28:00 PM

    ---

    "I love Microsoft. Microsoft has clothed and fed my family, directly or indirectly for almost twenty years. I owe so much to this company. I come in, I give 110%, but I see no direction, I see no recognition, I see no future, I see no leadership.

    "Microsoft has become its own worst enemy, the leadership team is ineffective, and there is a huge need for house cleaning from the 64 to 68 level. I wish Bill Gates would come back. I wish a lot of bad decisions were never made. I feel that there is no way to change the negative course we are on, and Microsoft is incurably on a path to be only a shell of the company it once was.

    ---

    I tend to think that most people who works at Microsoft are either idiots or a crooks. The quality of the company's products tends to confirm that theory. Anything labeled as a Microsoft product is garbage.

    ---

    "Look at the Linkedin profile of Matt Bencke This dude has degrees in Political Science, and still is a GM in a technological company"

    WOW. Degree in political science, and still leading a technology product/team. Only in Microsoft can this happen.

    To top incompetence with lack of integrity, he is the kind of person who would ask someone on his team to pay for a $1000+ Ferragamo coat (after Bencke left his on a plane) with the corporate card and expense it.

    ---

    You people need to wake up. While you kids are busy "playing games" your competitors are building products and services that customers want and need.

    The "games" will continue until the printing presses called Windows and Office run out of ink. Then good luck finding another place where sociopathic behavior is tolerated like it is at MS.

    ---

    Wait, so the MS managers ranked their pre-existing employees as stronger and better than the new arrivals from an external acquisition? I am shocked! Shocked! If this tells us anything it MUST be that the Danger employees were the suckzorz!! Thank god we kept them busy building the Kin!

    ---

    THIS IN PARTICULAR SEEMS TO HAVE SHOWN HIS POINT FROM ACTUAL PSYCHE PROS:

    Researchers Paul Babiak and Robert Hare have long studied psychopaths. Hare, the author of Without Conscience, is a world-renowned expert on psychopathy, and Babiak is an industrial-organizational psychologist. Recently the two came together to study how psychopaths operate in corporations, and the results were surprising. They found that it's exactly the modern, open, more flexible corporate world, in which high risks can equal high profits, that attracts psychopaths. They may enter as rising stars and corporate saviors, but all too soon they're abusing the trust of colleagues, manipulating supervisors, and leaving the workplace in shambles.

    How to Spot a Snake

    According to the authors, psychopaths tend to be more predatory in nature. This applies to the corporate psychopath, who will do anything from laying on the charm to threatening and bullying a coworker in order to get whatever he or she wants.

    Babiak and Hare warn: "Psychopaths are skilled at social manip

  100. I GOTS STREET SMRTS! by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    :p

    Also since when do jobs go to the smartest most qualified people?

  101. Overall, it has been the same thing by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

    What I mean is the fundamental of the US economy is a capitalist system, where value is determined by the market, people are free to price as they like, and personal profit is not only allowed but encouraged.

    The details, yes, there have been many changes. The way the currency works has changed (though that is true the world over), the banking system, the amount and type of regulation, etc. However, fundamentally, it is a capitalist system and fundamentally it is a free country. Those seem to work well.

    Command economies, not so much. They can work for a time, please remember the Soviet Union was a superpower. However the do not seem to work in the long term. They always break down.

    Maybe China will be different, since they don't have a true command economy these days. However I'm just saying history shows that their system overall doesn't work, it fails at some point, and the US's system does. So saying "China will do great the US will crumble," is s stupid assertion to make unless you have detailed understanding of both systems and can build a logical argument as to why that is the case. History says you are wrong, so you need to be able to show what is different this time around.

    The original poster clearly did not have such an understanding. It was just basic "US bad, other countries good," shit you see on /. from time to time.

    1. Re:Overall, it has been the same thing by AndersOSU · · Score: 1

      Capitalism is the cornerstone of the US economy today but that is not the reason we've survived 200 years, in fact it's a recent development.

      The US was a command economy during WWII.

      The US was socialist between the depression and WWII.

      Capitalism arrived in the south only after WWII, before that it was feudalism.

      There is nothing in the US constitution that enshrines capitalism.

      The soviet union failed because inflexible idealism isn't adaptive. The US has it's ideals, but they're rather more aspirational than practical. We want freedom, not "each according to his ability..." Had the US been inflexibly capitalist, we would have ceased to exist as a political unit probably around the time Andrew Jackson took office, but definitely before WWII.

  102. Who would pay? by mangu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    IMHO the best way to do this would be to pay everyone a certain sum per month, enough to live on

    Then who would work to create all the stuff everyone needs?

    If everyone got paid the minimum needed to live on, no one would want to work for minimum wage. Which means that wages would have to be raised even for the simplest jobs. But that would make it more expensive to live on, so everybody would need to be paid more. And wages would have to be raised again...

    A socially benevolent government works for rich countries because they import low cost raw materials and export high priced products and services. It wouldn't work worldwide, at least not until artificial intelligence has advanced enough to let machines do all the jobs that people find uninteresting.

  103. No, not $1000-fold, and not a surprise by sirwired · · Score: 1

    I remember them covering how the banking system works in 8th-grade civics class. Did you miss that day?

    Summary: Bank takes in deposit. Bank retains X% (currently 10% for a bank of more than a microscopic size) of the deposit, as required by their regulatory agency. Bank loans out remaining 90%. Which in turn is deposited by somebody else into another bank, rinse, repeat.

    If the banks had 100% reserve requirements, exactly why would they ever want deposits? Because if they had 100% reserve, they'd have to recover their costs to maintain your account through fees, since they sure couldn't collect any interest.

    And you could kiss CD's, Money Market accts., etc. goodbye. And when there is inflation, too bad if you want interest to help you keep up.

    In addition, they'd have to raise all loaned amounts from private capital, which would make capital more scarce and expensive, leading to gravely stunted economic growth due to restricted capital flows. I can't imagine how high interest would be for say, a car loan, if my bank didn't have deposits to draw from.

    Through the genius innovation of deposit insurance (which is funded by the banks themselves) runs on the bank caused by running out of reserves are prevented.

    This is not some super-secret conspiracy by "the man". It's the very bedrock of modern banking and is only a secret to the uneducated and/or ignorant.

    SirWired

  104. My IQ is below average by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is not a troll, but my IQ is below average. I was occasionally put into "special" classes during grade school. However, I was at the top of my electrical engineering class at a university with a well known engineering department. I have a PhD in Electrical Engineering now. Now, I'm considered one of the top experts at the company I worked for. I learned a long time ago that a number doesn't define what you can and can't do in life. It's a shame someone like me wouldn't make it in China.

  105. I have worked with Bleum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have spent time working with this company, and my experience was that some employees were sharp and some were average. Also, the "extra" IQ points were largely used up to over-come the language barrier which is significant.

    IQ aside, the Bleum severely over-worked (and stressed in other ways) its employees which caused burn-out and turnover which completely negated any strengths they may have had.

  106. George W. Bush has IQ of 129 by stanjo74 · · Score: 1

    This doesn't mean anything. G.W. Bush has IQ of 129.

  107. Re:Probably done by people with a higher IQ than y by steelfood · · Score: 1

    be obtuse about it ... Don't try and be obtuse

    You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

    But seriously, perhaps the word you're looking for is oblique, obscure, opaque, or my personal suggestion regarding GP's comment: douchy.

    --
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
  108. Adding to that by nu1x · · Score: 1

    Most of the "famous people" IQ tests are bogus, and it only takes a "small bit" of intelligence to see that.

    --
    I have nothing to lose but my bindings.
  109. hm by ifeelswine · · Score: 1

    i'm retarded. can i has?

  110. Must arso by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 1

    Appricants must arso have a 9 inch crock.

    --
    Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
  111. And by mahadiga · · Score: 1

    IQ != EQ

    --
    I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
  112. Re:with no worker safety / people being worked to by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the libertards are moving there in droves!

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  113. Spitroast or chocolate sandwich? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    Lucky you posted the correction, I was trying to work out what the trick was.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  114. Be careful with wishes like that. by XnR'rn · · Score: 1

    Many a PHB was made that way.

    Also, it is one of the reasons that USSR crumbled [citation needed?]. ;->

  115. Re:Probably done by people with a higher IQ than y by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

    No I'm pretty sure I know what it means. It has multiple meanings, as do most words, but in the context I'm using it it means something that has linguistic ambiguity and is lacking in sensibility.

  116. Isn't this just.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IQs have often been debated as to whether or not they hold any merit, and someone with a high IQ isn't necessarily highly intelligent. Having a high IQ doesn't make you a better worker either.

    This reminds me of those sham websites offering IQ tests (in return for cheap advertising and spam submission). What's next? In order to get the job we must determine whether or not you use your left brain or your right brain?

    IQ testing as circumstantial and useless as SAT testing. Genius comes with experience, creativity, ingenuity, and skill... not with determining if Dog is to Cat as Squirrel is to Nut.

  117. YOU have a FUCKED UP viewpoint man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "You're looking at things from the wrong angle, and using the wrong metric for "success"." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Thursday July 08, @06:27PM (#32845380)

    I am looking at this from the perspective of the good of ALL people in the USA, not just for a select few ripoff artists (which is where YOU seem to be looking at it from).

    ---

    "Our leaders are highly successful." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Thursday July 08, @06:27PM (#32845380)

    LOL - No, they're not: Look at the economy! That's been MY premise the entire time... you're trying to say "it's OK we have thieves @ the helm" apparently...

    ---

    "It doesn't matter that things are a mess, because that's irrelevant." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Thursday July 08, @06:27PM (#32845380)

    WTF? Are you insane??

    ---

    "What matters is how successful the leaders are. Since they have lots of money and power, they're successful." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Thursday July 08, @06:27PM (#32845380)

    Yes, as I suspected: You ARE saying "it's OK for shysters to step in and ruin things by ripping off the system and it's OK for them to do so at everyone else's expense"...

    ---

    "The same goes for Microsoft (from your follow-up post, complaining about their products being crap)." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Thursday July 08, @06:27PM (#32845380)

    Those were the views of their employees quoted... not my own.

    ---

    "It doesn't matter how good or bad their products are. Microsoft's leaders are millionaires and even billionaires." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Thursday July 08, @06:27PM (#32845380)

    It matters, because sooner or later? Folks stop buying crap: Look at the automotive industry of the 1970's that did in the US Auto Industry - they built shit, and folks stopped buying (yes, I was around then, & I remember junk like Chrysler's "K-Car" etc./et al).

    Not that this matters, long term success of a corporation OR NATION even, to today's short-term thinking hit & run ripoff artists types in mgt. out there today, which is EXACTLY whom the employees @ MS were complaining about.

    ---

    "Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world, and Steve Ballmer is way up there too." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Thursday July 08, @06:27PM (#32845380)

    Bill Gates IS a "geek" techie type (he has actual skills in computing)... Ballmer, by way of comparison? An illiterate car salesmen... period! He doesn't understand his product because he is NOT part of the people that make or like them... bad leader to have, & the results MS is seeing SHOWS it!

    (Argue with the numbers & driving up stock value by firing folks? Not success... that's putting a bandaid on a bulletwound only - a Short-Term fix!)

    ---

    "Why would they care if the stuff they make is garbage? As long as people buy it, and they're billionaires, and they're still a dominant company with the power and prestige that entails, they don't care. Only engineers care about how good products are." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Thursday July 08, @06:27PM (#32845380)

    You've hit upon the cause of a HUGE problem, & it's the type that ruins nations... a lack of caring!

    ---

    "Exactly. Sociopaths make successful leaders, because they only care about themselves and don't mind lying or cheating to become successful." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Thursday July 08, @06:27PM (#32845380)

    WTF? AHEM - I have to say this: YOU have a FUCKED UP WAY of looking at things buddy... ruining a company is NOT 'successfully leading it'...

    ---

    "The people below them are too dumb to recognize them as such, and happily elect them or buy their crappy products, which in turn makes the sociopaths successful." - by

    1. Re:YOU have a FUCKED UP viewpoint man by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Ever heard of sarcasm? Talk about "whoosh!"...

  118. You should've indicated sarcasm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Ever heard of sarcasm? Talk about "whoosh!"..." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Friday July 09, @07:30PM (#32856582)

    Per my subject line: You should have indicated that you were being sarcastic, because you actually came off as anything BUT sarcastic, imo @ least... So, in any event now that you have indicated you were only using sarcasm?

    Fair enough...

    (Only problem is, I do think that those that "burn out companies" actually DO espouse the viewpoint you were being sarcastic about).

    APK

    1. Re:You should've indicated sarcasm by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Dude, that was completely obvious. I am not a master of subtle sarcasm. If your sarcasm detector is that broken, I can't help you.

      (Only problem is, I do think that those that "burn out companies" actually DO espouse the viewpoint you were being sarcastic about).

      That's my entire point. The way CEOs work these days, they build up the stock price as much as they can in the short term, cash out their stock options, and when the shit hits the fan they bail out with their golden parachutes. Home Depot under Nardelli is a case study in this. If the company's lucky (or just plain big enough to persist by inertia), it'll survive, and perhaps rise again, but there's zero stability in this, with tons of employees getting laid off in every downturn of the cycle of boom and bust.

  119. I'm not a sarcastic person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Dude, that was completely obvious. I am not a master of subtle sarcasm. If your sarcasm detector is that broken, I can't help you." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Saturday July 10, @07:33PM (#32862974)

    See subject-line: Not really, & usually? Well, I expect straight talk out of people. You seem to think that sarcasm in written form is easily detected - clue: It's not!

    Imo @ least? Well - you should convey it better IF you're trying to be 'sarcastic' in written speech!

    (USUALLY, it's quite obvious, @ least in spoken language - easily, via tone used for example)

    But in WRITTEN form on forums boards? Hey... there's no "real way" to do that in written language, other than perhaps saying "I am being sarcastic here" or using quotes to 'stress' something etc. I suppose... you did none of that, so, I took you QUITE seriously in fact!

    ---

    "That's my entire point. The way CEOs work these days, they build up the stock price as much as they can in the short term, cash out their stock options, and when the shit hits the fan they bail out with their golden parachutes. Home Depot under Nardelli is a case study in this. If the company's lucky (or just plain big enough to persist by inertia), it'll survive, and perhaps rise again, but there's zero stability in this, with tons of employees getting laid off in every downturn of the cycle of boom and bust." - by Grishnakh (216268) on Saturday July 10, @07:33PM (#32862974)

    I won't argue with you here, because you're probably being straight this time... &, I've also seem the same general b.s. myself... & what's the "easiest cost center to control"? You guessed it - payrolls!

    (Which is the game Ballmer is playing now in fact, to drive up a short-term gain in stock value, which of course he & other senior mgt. figures @ MS get given to them FREE as part of their contracts (useless bastards imo, most mgt. is, & especially to us coders/techs/engineers types, unless said mgt. person has been in my shoes for years & yes, I have been in theirs & QUITE successfully for years no less, but I did not play the game as they do - dirty, & being unqualified largely in leading those they lead no less!)).

    LOL, I love it when these morons/dolts TRY to tell me about "leadership", well fuckers? You CANNOT really 'teach' that... either you have it & are a "type A/dominant type" with good vision OR not (which only comes after experience as a designer/creator, AND USER combined)...

    Also, on this note? Hell - NOBODY can tell me differently either, as I have BEEN on BOTH SIDES of this fence @ many levels in my nearly 46 yrs. on this planet & yes, in the Fortune 100-500 levels...

    Sadly though? I am seeing what I call "the NOT MEN" taking over & yes, they practice EXACTLY the crap you noted, what the MS folks noted, & what I noted in my initial + subsequent posts... it makes me sad!

    (This is basically the shit that killed the Roman Empire, & history dorks LOVE to say "those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it" well... why in HELL do our "fearless leaders" (unqualified rats is more like it) keep repeating it then?)

    APK

    P.S.=> Sad as it makes me to say this? Perhaps it's time the USA took a dive... just to "weed out" these scumbags that led us to this ruin so we can all HANG THEM BY THEIR FUCKING BALLS! Yes, that's right... I am DEAD UP ANGRY about "their kind" (swine)... apk