Anyone interested in taking the Mensa IQ test in Tampere?

[Niall Shaky]

The mediocre dropouts who are Mensa members KNOW they are bright. They KNOW what they wasted. I have a sneaking suspicion that many who knock Mensa and similar organisations are either people who took and failed preliminary tests, or who think they would not be able to join.

Or they think it's pathetic, elitest and quasi-fascistic and the whole thing gives them the creeps

Not if they are members they would not.

BTW, where does the semi-fascist epithet come from?

We're the brightest.
We're the best.
We deserve to rule.
You must follow.
Or be terminated...

From MENSA to eugenics. It's a slippery slope.

[dusty_bin]

Niall, can you give me the name of your drug supplier?

I think I could use whatever it is you're taking!

I'd better not ever join a football team then eh!

[Niall Shaky]

Niall, can you give me the name of your drug supplier?

Insomnia. It's 1am. Time for me to stop buullsheeting and go to bed.

PS I don't really equate MENSA with fascism...

[Hank W.]

Dunno, I've been to several IQ tests but I never wrote down what I had so I don't know. I tend to forget insignificant numbers and facts. I don't know my office phone number - I don't call myself - i have a card for that. I don't know what the law or tax rules are, I know how they are formed and where to *find* them - but they change yearly so what is the use to memorize stuff by heart. Getting into an University in Finland requires memorizing 10 books by heart. Not for me. of the GPA, in the polytechnic the 1st 1 1/2 years i crammed even 3 courses simultaneously, with a "pass" just to get enough credits to get a job and then concentrate on the advanced courses. Does hell on the grades, but I competed with a guy who graduated in 2 years. (Streak of luck finding work he had). I've been working as a "missing link between monkey and man" with really intelligent but socially unpresentable coders and really intelligent but clueless of how things work clients for some 5 years, so I know the old Vikings were right in saying "fortunate is a man who is middle-wise".

Recently I've been reading on concrete and composting and been calculating material costs. It seems the intelligence I require now is between the "do it yourself from scratch" vs. "use prefab elements and improvise" in correlation with time. I am *not* paying 500 euros for a !"#¤% can if its just double buckets and a hose...

[dusty_bin]

The numbers per se are not really important. There are also, I believe that there are different forms of intelligence, IQ is just one. I do not bother to remember the scores from different tests although I was interested to know the relative score. It was that which changed MY life. It is perfectly possible to be antisocial and intelligent, just as it is to be dumb and antisocial, so what?

Also, if one does badly in an IQ test, one is not going to brag about that, surely?

On the whole, I would tend to agree with the position that Hank posits that it is better to be ordinary... (middle-wise) In many circumstances, it is the tall daisies that first get cut when the grass is mowed! The world is designed, often by the intelligent, for the average to live in.

[Tiia]

You can not IIRC use old IQ test results, I think they have to be something like less than two years old and the alternatives, including psychological assesment usually cost money and usually much more than 30 Euro

I'm not sure about this system because in Finland people are rarely tested except as adults for some specific jobs or as children if someone thinks there's something terribly wrong with them. So it's not common for people to be tested with other tests, but if someone has done an IQ test and wants to join Mensa, our psychologist decides on each case individually. I think you can join even with an older test if it has been done while a person has been an adult.

As I said, had I not gone to university and possibly even the university I ended up at, my life would have been different, I might have joined Mensa.

I guess most people tend to be around people on the same intelligence level. I think in that sense the people I meet daily at the university aren't significantly different from my friends in Mensa. Except that I think it would be harder to get them to play My Little Pony game with me. I also prefer Mensa because of the wider variety of people from different age groups and professions and less drinking & women. But intelligence doesn't make anyone an expert on everything. So I still prefer talking about the things I study with other people on the same field.

[Nathan Lillie]

If someone has space on their CV for Mensa, that's a bad sign.

I mean, I've got a challenge keeping my CV to 4 pages (academic CVs are long!), and if I were a Mensa member, which I am not, it wouldn't be important enough, relative to other achievements, to mention on my CV. I look over each and every word of my CV to make sure it is "pulling its weight," and extraneous material gets cut.

Most people in most professions have 1 or 2 page CVs. If you can find space for Mensa on there, that's a strong indication that you haven't got much else to brag about. The question I'd be asking myself as a potential employer looking at a CV is "If Mensa means you're so smart, how come you haven't done something worthwhile with your time, and put that on your CV instead of Mensa membership?"

As far as it being a social club, isn't it better to select your friends by their actions, and by how well you get along with them, than to select them by examination? If you want smart and interesting friends, you should be able to judge their intelligence by talking to them, or doing things with them. If they are witty and fun, and/or do interesting things, then they are smart. No need for an IQ test to figure that out - and in any case, if the test tells you differently than your own judgement then the test is wrong.

[Hank W.]

On the whole, I would tend to agree with the position that Hank posits that it is better to be ordinary... (middle-wise) In many circumstances, it is the tall daisies that first get cut when the grass is mowed! The world is designed, often by the intelligent, for the average to live in.

Finnish school system for one is notorious for "level-heading" the children. Intelligent kids get bored - don't pay attention - get bad grades - whereas those who sit and learn by their butts and memorise things get the good grades. Like language teaching. Guys tend to have a 5 or 6 and girls a 10, but when it is speaking time, only those who have no inhibitions on having a bad grammar babble on and learn phrases...


Little a sand-grain, little a dew drop,
Little the minds of men
All men are not equal in wisdom,
The half-wise are everywhere.

It is best for man to be middle-wise,
Not over cunning and clever:
The fairest life is led by those
Who are deft at all they do.

It is best for man to be middle-wise,
Not over cunning and clever:
No man is able to know his future,
So let him sleep in peace.

It is best for man to be middle-wise,
Not over cunning and clever:
The learned man whose lore is deep
Is seldom happy at heart.

[Hank W.]

I'm not sure about this system because in Finland people are rarely tested except as adults

In the military you have the P-test where one part is filling in the missing box; and polytechnic entrances have the same. With the "do you have a ring around your head" part too.