Saturday, June 14, 2014

Outstanding Podcast on Your IQ

Molyneaux has a very good podcast (the first caller) about how having a high IQ serves as a handicap towards integrating with the rest of society.  His mockery of people looking for gold on the beach is also hilarious.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's Stefan Molyneux, not Molyneaux.

Unknown said...


Not a terrible podcast, do think the sort of "you are an elite IQ, let's form a circular firing squad how we are misunderstood" approach is unwise.

A double digit IQ advantage and there is no way to wring value out of the situation?

Anonymous said...

Oh, here's a few irritating gems spoken by Stefan early on:

"You have the joy and challenge of being surrounded by idiots in life."
"140 is Einstein caliber, I believe. So you're going to be surrounded by idiots."
"You cannot understand the world unless you look at it through the lens of IQ."
"Most people are idiots compared to you, right?"
"The soul is the ultimate socialism of the species."
"People who are average are like a different species from you."

He does improve later to make a few points about the importance of intelligence, the scientific reality of differences in intelligence, and a few re-frames of reality for the caller (~55 minutes long).

Anonymous said...

I take the approach that someone always knows something that I do not know weather they have an IQ of 100 or 140. I may not get hours of discussion on a topic but they may have deep knowledge on one subject ie beer,linens etc. or may even have a travel idea I have not thought of. I find high IQ people circle the wagons on thought and are not always open minded to those who have lower IQ's. I would rather take a gold nugget here and there from average IQ people than nothing at all. You will also find you get along better with them when talking about their interest.

Kristophr said...

Learn social skills.

If you have a high IQ, you are smart enough to bloody damned well learn how to interact with people.

You probably already have Grammar and Logic down, so now you need to learn the third leg of the Trivium: Rhetoric.

Jones said...

Eventually you learn how to hide in plain sight ...

A few people wind up being clued in that you're different because of high intelligence, but seriously, how many people figure this out during everyday "banter"?

"Gifted programmes" should teach students how to fake IQ tests, as in how to score between 100 and 140 (16 SD) on IQ tests. Not only does this provide ample reflection for how great the difference is between "the above average" and the superlatively intelligent, but also it demonstrates a useful survival skill in being able to hide among them.

Given the fact that many occupations provide little to no reward for being more intelligent or more efficient at doing things, why not take a cue from Chris Langan and "enjoy the decline" by not working so bloody hard?

If you're successful at faking it, only the most clued-in will ever figure out when you're truly gobsmacked.

Oh, you say you couldn't function at your thought-heavy job while loaded to the gills? That's what I thought until I met a guy who kept a day job as an engineer, in addition to keeping a little paper sack hidden in his desk ...

Don't just "enjoy the decline", have a fucken Lazy Bloody Mary with it:

40 ml aquavit
2 squirts of Tabasco from a regular-sized bottle
330 ml can of chilled tomato juice, V8, etc.
Pinch of table salt (to taste)

Mix the lot and pretend you're only having tomato juice among the "normals". :-)