MSN Sponsors Mensa 492
crankyspice writes "Fresh on the heels of Google courting members via GLAT advertisements in the Bulletin, Microsoft's MSN is now sponsoring American Mensa events, featuring Mensa questions on the MSN homepage, and Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage."
So what ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, I'm no shill for MS - I think their OS sucks dead bunnies through short straws, but frankly, who cares ? MS want to associate themselves with an organisation that likes to consider itself better than average, by their own definition. And the news is... what ?
I have no respect for Mensa, they like to position themselves as the "society of the intelligent", and yet most of the people I've interviewed who have claimed Mensa membership on their resume are less than attractive as candidates. It's almost a badge of dishonour... They don't fail on intelligence (but that's not normally where people I interview fail anyway), they fail on people skills - being able to recognise that someone else may know more about X than you do, and coping with that knowledge well.
Oh, I've not much respect for MS either (at least technically - I think their marketing is excellent), but that ought to be obvious from my tagline...
Simon.
Re:So what ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So what ? (Score:5, Interesting)
For those who don't know, Mensa is, in its own words, "an international society in which the sole requirement for qualification for membership is a score at or above the 98th percentile on any of a number of standardized intelligence tests." It is, in other words, an organization that fancies itself to be a collection of the brightest minds from around the world -- who amuse themselves primarily by indulging in such intellectual pursuits as eating to grotesque excess.
Now I happen to have a, uhmm, 'friend' who is currently a member of this organization. He first joined the group several years ago, "out of curiosity," or so he claims. He was decidedly unimpressed with his limited exposure to the Mensa organization, and so he did not renew his membership beyond the first couple of years.
But early this year he decided to rejoin, primarily to see how the group's publications were dealing with the September 11 attacks and everything that has come in their wake: the steep rise in U.S. militarism; the vast erosion of civil liberties; the pursuit of reactionary social policies; and the exposure of the rampant corruption of corporate America.
And what my friend found was that the allegedly best and brightest minds in the country were operating comfortably within the parameters established by academia and the American media: the official story of what happened last September 11 is unquestioned, as is the fact that any real investigation into the events of that day has been officially blocked; unprovoked U.S. military actions are given the same superficial level of debate that can be heard on any cable news broadcast; the frontal assaults on civil liberties are either not discussed at all or are justified as a legitimate response to what supposedly happened last September, with, you know, maybe a few instances where the government has, with all good intentions, of course, maybe overstepped just a bit; the social agenda of Team Bush receives barely a mention; and the corporate scandals, and the direct connections of various members of the Bush cabal to those scandals, are apparently old news.
After reading such drivel for several months now (my 'friend' passes them on to me after he's read them, you see), I still wasn't prepared for what I was to find in the September 2002 issue of the Mensa Bulletin, the slick monthly publication of American Mensa. Featured in a new survey column therein were the results of the first query posed to members: "Who are your heroes?"
And who do you suppose ended up in the #1 position on that list? Who do the 'intellectually gifted' among us look up to as a hero? Who, above everyone else, does the Mensa community place on a pedestal? None other than George W. Bush, of course.
Re:So what ? (Score:3, Informative)
As a former member of Mensa (who does not put it on his resumes, nor the fact that I am a published author either--it just sounds too pretentious), I would just like to clarify one point:
Almost half of Mensa members are spouses of those with 98%+ IQs. You couldn'
Re:So what ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Further, many of the questions on IQ tests tend to be what are known as "trick" questions. The only way that most mortals can do well on such a test is to blindly memorize the answers. After that, it's a piece of cake. If one pays attention at Mensa meetings,
Mensa? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So what ? (Score:5, Interesting)
What irritates me about Mensa is the fact that they consider intelligence to be purely a function of a few odd tests.
Hmm, how weird.
I've known some incredibly intelligent people who'd probably flunk these tests - folks that can play music so amazingly well and reproduce exact notes after hearing them just once.
The point is, intelligence is not a function of how well you can do in a few puzzles. And more importantly, it is not all that hard to ace the Mensa test if you prepare well enough for it - just spend a while solving puzzles and patterns, and it'll be a cakewalk.
It's almost like a self-righteous organization of sorts - hey, lookie! We can solve all these cool puzzles, therefore we'll pretend that we are smarter more than you all are.
Re:So what ? (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean like gauging someone's artistic talents by "Can you draw Spunky?"
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
And the worst part is, calling yourself as one of the world's top 1-2% of artists just because you can draw Spunkys. Bah.
Re:So what ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just something to keep in mind...a lot of times, computer geeks think they're God's gift to the earth. There are lots of people smarter at you when it comes to things you know nothing about. I don't know a damn thing about making really good spaghetti or building a car engine. Variety and the collective versatility it creates is what makes society great.
Re:So what ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So what ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Likewise when flavouring things I know where to stop adding the pepper, but there's no magic formula to work out how much pepper you need.
Some things just have to come from instinct.
You can live with poor food just as well as you can live with bad food. You can live with a good PC, a poor PC, or no PC.
Personally, I'd learn to cook.
Re:So what ? (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, when the literacy geek will explain him what the book was really about, he'll laugh a lot and tell him to quit smoking pot. If the author wanted to mean that, he would have clearly written it !
The literacy geek won't care, he knows most scientists can only understand what has been clearly explained at them, and that their logical mind comes short in any situation where logic is not the key (that is, 95% of real world situations).
The literacy geeks accepts that the world, and the people around him are infinitely complex, and that every action or word can be understood when looked at in the right light. Them computer geeks just thinks that everybody is dumber than him, because their logic can't fit in their little categorizing mind. They don't even try to understand others. In other words, if the document doesn't parse, it's because the document is badly structured. It can't be my parser which needs adjustments, because i know i have the finest parser on earth !
Re:So what ? (Score:5, Insightful)
We shouldn't mix social skills and intelligence. IQ by itself doesn't mean anything anymore. That way if you were a 99.99999 percentile, doesn't mean shit. You need emotional maturity to carry you through life. That way, except for those who want to boost up their egos, being a Mensan doesn't prove anything.
I look at Mensa as more of a common grounds for people to meet. Mensans I know are willing to help other Mensans. I have known people who made CEOs, who were entrepreneurs, MBAs so on. What I get is contacts. So, if I need guidance or advice, they are more than willing to help.
When one slashdot user meets another, there is an instant recognition. An instant willingness to help. (In India, the number of people who read slashdot are few). Mensa is pretty much the same thing. Atleast thats what I look at it.
Re:So what ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what ? (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. Scrolling through the list of negative comments about mensa so far, more and more it's beginning to smell a bit like sour grapes.
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
Re:So what ? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not to say everyone in Mensa is that way, but we both chose not to associate with a group that seemed to base its membership requirements on ideals that commonly (though not always) predicate extreme arrogance.
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
It's a club for people who are really, really good at the tests (I faked it, they are trivial to study for) but not really that good at talking to others. So, when they meet, at least they can talk about the tests. All in all, it is really boring. I just signed up with a friend to prove that the tests are easy to beat. Using a fake name, even.
But if the members of Mensa like it, hey, more powe
Not at all (Score:4, Insightful)
Eh? I'm not a Mensa member, but I am a member of a social sports club and an amateur astronomical society. They're called extra-curricular activities, and they're a very good way to meet interesting people with common interests and attitudes.
Both of my groups are full of people with whom I share common interests, and both are full of great contacts for other things in life if I ever want help. How is that different from Mensa, and how does that make any of these like an "old boy network"?
Just as my and many other people's interests happen to be in a certain area shouldn't mean that someone else's interests shouldn't be allowed to be in the realm of puzzle solving and so on, and whatever else Mensan's engage in.
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
Untill you prove other wise you're an average person who I couldn't careless for. I don't care if you read Slashdot, Fark, Somethingawful or can draw goatse in a photo-r
Re:So what ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've known some incredibly intelligent people who'd probably flunk these tests - folks that can play music so amazingly well and reproduce exact notes after hearing them just once.
Depending on what part of the world they hail from, this ability is not at all unusual. Identifying a note like that is called perfect pitch [wikipedia.org] and it's extremely prominent among people that were raised learning tonal languages like Chinese and has a
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
Your comment brings up something else to mind, though - if such abilities are related to one's upbringing and origin, the same could be said of what Mensa considers to be "intelligence", too.
For all you know, you may have the ability (whatever - musical, mathematical etc) and not know it at all. Or you might have the ability and do well otherwise, but not in test conditions.
Either way, Mensa amuses me.
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
All we had when we were growing up was a crappy Casio 5 or 6-octave keyboard with somewhere around 10-note polyphony. The fact that my parents had put stick
Your perception of Mensa is coloured. (Score:3, Informative)
Most Mensa members are quite ordinary people who happen to be able to perform logical thought faster and more accurately than average. While there are some arseholes, just as there are in any group, most recognise their ability for what it is. Most also recognise that IQ isn't what makes you a good person, or a particularly valuable member of society.
It might interest you to know that those who score the top 2% out of the population can ga
Re:So what ? (Score:3, Informative)
That seems to be by design. Many questions on Mensa tests are designed to penalize educated intelligence. Here's an example that I saw several years ago (and stewed about ever since):
Q: Which is the odd one out?
Now, anyone with even minimal mathematics behind them would choose (e), because it's the only prime number in the bunch. But, they would be wrong: The correct an
Re:So what ? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I'm saying that IQ is not all that is there to intelligence.
You may get a fewer false positives, but you will get a lot of false negatives - lots of intelligent people who're good at other things might flunk the tests.
> What is intelligence, then, and how do you
> measure it?
There is no single measure, which was exactly my point.
Intelligence is not one thing, and you cannot have a single quantitative measure of it and label it as, "If you do well in these these tests, you'll fall under the top 1-2% of the intelligent folks in the world".
That is absolute bullshit. Solving mathematical and logical problems is just one facet of intelligence, there are several others - many, many more.
What about folks who cook amazingly well? Or paint amazingly well? Or who have a skill for language? There are a million other things - these could be people who'd not touch math or logic with a 10 foot pole, but could probably be extremely intelligent, in their own way.
I mean, would you say Michelangelo is dumb if he flunked a few multiple choice questions you threw at him? I think not. That was just my point.
> (For what it's worth, I think IQ, intelligence,
> and Mensa are all overrated).
Yup, you're spot on.
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
I don't see how the existence of such people implies that mensa is a worthless organization. By the same token, language clubs, painting clubs, or cooking clubs should not exist either, because they do not take into
Re:So what ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Mensa claims to have the top 1-2% of the intelligentsia of the human population, but establishes the standard for this intelligence on the mere ability to solve mathematical and logical problems.
That would imply that they measure intelligence solely as a function of one's ability to solve these kinda problems, and anyone who does not fit the bill isn't smart enough for them.
They can go ahead and do all that they want, but the fact that they club the rest of the world into a "you're not smart enough to join us" lump does grate on me.
How would you react to a worldwide club of intelligentsia who say that only those who paint Spunky (as another reader put it) will be considered intelligent?
That's how Mensa sounds to me - quite ridiculous. Their basis of what they consider intelligence is amusing, that's all.
Re:So what ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
The point of the Intelligence Quotient test is to quantify someone's ability to develop understanding.
I think an accurate finding would indeed reflect the intelligence of a person.
However, the tests are flawed. Testing is in a logical, calcuable way in order to arrive at a result. This significally narrows the scope of testing. For example; someone with creative intelligence may not arrive at a solution to a logical question simply because of the
Re:So what ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Intelligence tests are written as a best effort to quantify a person's logical problem-solving ability. They are not perfect metrics, but they do give a pretty good indication.
Artistic expression and similar crafts, such as cooking, do not really utilize these sorts of skills very much, with the possible exception (to a limited extent) of composition or improvisation, where creativity demands use of applied knowledge.
The thing to remember is that IQ has nothing at all to do with your value as a human being. (Unless you are one of those tiresome fucks who read a few too many Ayn Rand novels in college.) MENSA people just want to have a social club which includes people like themselves. The fact that they have created a somewhat arbitrary obstacle to joining is not so unusual, a lot of clubs to that sort of thing. You have to win at The Masters if you want one of those ugly yellow jackets.
All that said, I have no interest in joining MENSA. I have enough friends without joining crap like that, thank you.
Re:So what ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a sciences guy - I feel extremely comfortable under quantitative stuff, and do quite well in stuff related to that, too.
However, I know for a fact that I suck at qualitative stuff - and I've seen lots of people for whom those qualitative abilities are second nature. And some of these people lack the mathematical and logical skills that I do not find all that extraordinary.
Inherently, I've always known that I'll be in the sciences. And some of those folks have always known that they'd be in the arts.
The difference is, the society considers my abilities to be intelligence for the simple reason that it has easy, tangible, real world application. And perhaps because I fall under the minority of folks who are enjoy doing this stuff.
However, that does not necessarily make me smarter than them, atleast in my book. I know for a fact that I couldn't draw for nuts, even if I took lessons my entire life. Or for that matter, analyze and come up with designs. Or a lot of other things. These people can, and that is just no different from the way I do a math problem.
It is all the same, we're just using different abilities that each of us has been gifted with, that is all.
While I would agree that it is overrated, I would also add that its definition is being skewed by a handful few.
Re:So what ? (Score:2, Insightful)
A favorite quotation of mine may say it better:
"Genius consists in nothing but love;
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
My experience exactly. They seem to define IQ as knowing lots and lots of words that you can use to be less understood by other english speakers. I was last reminded of this when someone bought me a calendar for Christmas with a mensa problem for every day of the year. It was nearly all vocab problems, the kind that require
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
Hmmm. Not math quizes? Strange. In my area of the world, "IQ tests" concentrate on puzzles, logical quizzes and the like. Mostly measure analytical thinking. I didn't know it was different in the USA. Maybe they had to introduce vocabulary tests because Americans are so weak in mathematics...
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
Not just that, what about those who were raised in a different language? Mensa clubbing them all into one big group of "non-intelligentsia" because they couldn't ace a few puzzles is quite amusing, to say the least.
I do not know if Mensa made a mistake or not, but I do know that MS (and MSR) has some smart folks - more smart folks than I've met at the loca
I couldn't agree more... (Score:2)
"I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member." - Groucho Marx
I guess you can buy genius... (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft's MSN is now sponsoring American Mensa events, featuring Mensa questions on the MSN homepage, and Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage in exchange for allowing Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates into their organization.
When asked of this peculiar action, Mr. Gates told reporters: "I tried the tests and the puzzles and stuff, but I couldn't really figure them out. Then I realized that I was the richest man in the world and I didn't have to deal with this crap."
Gates also spoke of creating a new organization tangential to Mensa, the Pecunia Society. "It has only one requirement -- just have more money than 99.998% of the world's population!"
Re:So what ? (Score:2)
They don't fail on intelligence (but that's not normally where people I interview fail anyway), they fail on people skills - being able to recognise that someone else may know more about X than you do, and coping with that knowledge well.
Or failing to recognize that allowing yourself to be sponsored by a huge viciously competitive monopoly could compromise your integrity, freedom, and eventually your very existence.
Being "book smart" and yet gullible enough to trust those who can't be trusted isn't goin
Re:Ah. You tried to get into mensa.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, I'm not the "worrier" type who needs the justification of a test to prove (s)he's as good as (s)he thinks (s)he is. I've done it and I'm proud of what I've done.
I'm a clever guy - I've excelled in every academic test I've ever taken. (14 'O' levels, 6 'A' levels, 2 'S' levels, a Physics degree from IC, London, and a PhD at KCL). I have more qualifications (in spades) than 99% of people I've met. I don't see the need to be an arrogant SOB because o
Re:Ah. You tried to get into mensa.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ah. You tried to get into mensa.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Being gifted is a terrible weight to carry for a child, because it shows and constantly expose you to jealous behaviours and sarcasms from other kids, their parents, not to speak of teachers. You spend years in schools trying to offer the smallest surface of yourself to
Re:Ah. You tried to get into mensa.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Being gifted is not a curse - failing to develop socially is. I know plenty of really smart people who were popular - mainly because being smart did not define them. They played sports, were into music, one did pyrotechnics effects for plays - all things that *were* of interest to others. They're all nice, well rounded people who happen to be smart - and are fun to be around because discussions center on things besides IQ and tests.
Yea, nobody wanted to be around the kid that bragged about a 100 on a test - and the really smart ones figured it out and developed other interests as well.
You think that it'll get better in college ? Nope, wrong. In adulthood ? Nope. Wherever you go, you are surrounded by the same poisoned atmosphere when people realize you think faster than they do. When you're that bright, you soon understand what it was to be suspect of witchcraft.
I don't know about your experiences, but my college experiences didn't involve poisoned atmospheres for bright people. My roommate, for example, was brilliant - nearly a 4.0 in Mech Eng / Nuke Eng, aced tests by simply reading 100 pages of a textbook the night before an exam, yet he was very well liked and respected member of my fraternity. Why? Because his intelligence did not define him. He had great social skills, and if you needed help in a course he'd take the time to explain things until you understood them.
Look at this thread : full of hatred against those folks, because they dare claim they're smart. Would they have claimed any other talent such as music or painting, there would be applauses of joy, but logical intelligence must be hidden.
No, the "hatred" is toward folks who seem to think intelligence is somehow valuable or makes someone better than another. IQ isn't a skill, nor is it particularly valuable - what is worth recognition is what you do with it.
We've all met bright people that exude the impression that because you're "not as bright" or didn't get as high a test score that you're not in their league. Any wonder people treat them like they're an ass?
You could replace Mensa with "people who think that living in a high rent zip code form closed social club" and you'd get many of the same responses. And you know what - many of the people who would meet that criteria are nice people who are well liked, and a few are pompous asses who think they're disliked because of where they live; never realizing that they would be pompous assess and treated as such no matter where they are.
Being gifted is a curse most of the time.
No, the curse is thinking being gifted is something you think others really care about.
Re:Ah. You tried to get into mensa.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Or maybe they do fail on intelligence (Score:2)
There are plenty of really smart people out there. They're not the ones in Mensa. They're too smart to fall into a shallow, navel-contemplating self-congratulatory group like that.
Marilyn vos Savant, "smartest person in the world," writes a fluff column. What an idiotic waste if she's so smart. What an idiotic waste for the whole lot of them. Why not work on puzzles that have some productive end?
I tell my students that to become a scientist requires brain power, but it's only part
has to be said (Score:5, Funny)
That's not very smart.
The power of MSN and Mensa (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The power of MSN and Mensa (Score:2, Funny)
Go right ahead (Score:3, Interesting)
People love Google. I actually saw Jay Leno mention Google as part of a related joke, and some in the audience began cheering and applauding.
Makes one think Mensa is rather...retarded.
Re:Go right ahead (Score:2, Interesting)
Americans always cheer and applaud over everything! I've often wondered why this is. Americans: why do you feel the need to clap or shout 'yee-eah!' or 'woooo!' when you agree with something someone is saying?
Two examples: Most recently I was listening to an address made by a respected journalist, can't remember the name. It was a serious kind of speech but people kept clapping whenever he made a point. It was lame. I felt like the audience was despa
Re:Go right ahead (Score:2)
To sum up: (Score:5, Funny)
1. No one respects Mensa since they base their membership on tests of dubious veracity and not on real world accomplishments.
2. And signing up with a deal with MSN kind of just drives the point home, doesn't it?
Re:To sum up: (Score:4, Insightful)
Too bad.... (Score:5, Funny)
Whatever, that's fine with me.
It's just really too bad they keep spelling it "Msna".
Re:Too bad.... (Score:2)
My god, could you imagine the horrid creation that would be?
Mensa and Microsoft fused together to... yikes.
Re:Too bad.... (Score:2)
Does this actually matter? (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other side of things, I can't ever find ANYTHING on the horribly busy and disorganized MSN homepage anyhow, so I'm not sure MENSA questions on there will even
The intended effect vs. the actual effect (Score:2)
The Actual Effect: "Man, we're not very smart! We wasted all that money on the search program nobody uses."
make sense (Score:5, Funny)
(Read: none at all)
Star-Wars free association (Score:2)
Of course, I just finished watching all twenty Clone Wars cartoons for the first time...
Re:Star-Wars free association (Score:2)
Nothing more sad than MENSA (Score:2, Troll)
No, they will continue to be smart losers and nothing more, which is why you will rarely find Nobel Prize winners, CEOs, or generally succesful people skulking in their midst.
Re:Nothing more sad than MENSA (Score:2)
Re:Nothing more sad than MENSA (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, losers like Scott Adams, Isaac Asimov and (my favourite) pr0n star Asia Carrera. Like always on Slashdot, you got modded up for not knowing anything at all about the subject under discussion... [retch] MSN [/retch] link to famous members:
http://encarta.msn.com/list_famousmensamembers/Fam ous_Mensa_Members.html [msn.com]
Next week on slashdot... (Score:3, Funny)
Mensa is great (Score:3, Insightful)
My favorite I've seen is a Mensa sticker on a beat-up Honda with no rear-bumper. Yeah, probably a teacher or something, which is a great and noble profession, but whatever happened to spending 5 or 10 years and getting a nest-egg to live comfortably(at least to repair the car and make it street legal! this one was really bad!).
Ah well, Mensa is the most intelligent Trivia people I've ever met, some are amazing and intelligence and pure genius, most are doped-up idiots. Sorry, even the country club will have intelligent people and idiots, Mensa is no different, no gold though.
Mensa, eh (Score:3, Interesting)
Think about this for a minute...a good score on the GRE which consists of basic reading comprehension and 9th grade algebra gets you into a special smart persons club?
Linux evangelization at Mensa in New Orleans (Score:4, Informative)
I plan on using a variation of these bullet points [kellynetco...rvices.com] for my presentation. If any of you slashdotters happen to be at MensAGumbo, please come and cheer me on, say hi, etc.
Fuck 'em (Score:3, Insightful)
My problem with Mensa's standards... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have no personal experience with Mensa members. I remember being referred to the "practice exam" by a friend in high school, that's where I picked up some preliminary information on the group itself.
That said, my main problem with Mensa is not their stated goal of creating an environment in which intelligent discourse can flourish.
My problem is also not with the fact that, in order to accomplish such goals, they must exclude a certain (sizable) portion of the population from their "enlightened organization."
The issue that I personally have with Mensa is that their standards are established not to accept people with some acceptable level of genius and potential, but rather to accept people who are "better than 99% of the rest of humanity."
Thus, they are elitist in the purest sense of what I understand the term to mean. If their standards of admission were designed with the intent to merely keep the general body to a basic level of intelligence and competency, why index them against the average IQ of contemporary human beings? Bear in mind that, according to their admission testing, at no time can more than 2% of the population be members of Mensa (assuming universal application). The implicit assumption is that the vast majority of humanity is incapable of civil discourse and intelligent discussion (at least on the level that they would like), but I see no reason why this should be the case.
I see the sub-par intellectuality of humankind as a practical failure, the burden of which is borne by the entire race. To me there appear no deep reasons to believe that the population must be divided into the two subgroups of which we are so fond: the brains and the brawn. It is true that some people will always be smarter, wiser, and more capable than others. However, I see such considerations to be largely irrelevant except when one considers the scholarly pursuits of the natural and social sciences. And in such a case, I would argue that chance and circumstance (by the latter I mean the state of society and associated research at the time of advancement) play a role so important that they may overshadow small differences in individual ingenuity.
Re:My problem with Mensa's standards... (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously you've never worked in any sort of call center (tech support or otherwise).
(kidding!
Re:My problem with Mensa's standards... (Score:4, Funny)
MSN is sponsering Mensa. Get in Mensa easily! (Score:5, Interesting)
from a Google search result [google.ca]
What're they worth? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What're they worth? (Score:2)
They make good bedfellows... (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously.
Accept their offer (cmon, anyone can score in the top 2% on a REAL iq test not those corny ass web ones) and go to one of their meetings.
It basically consists of "rah rah rah, we're smart and this is what smart people do". A few were genuinely interested in intelligence and brought some interesting puzzles--but for most of them its just mental masturbation to the extreme.
Most people there had no practical ability IMO. They were your typi
Re:They make good bedfellows... (Score:3, Funny)
Except for the 98% who don't.
It's a perfect target for ms... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It's a perfect target for ms... (Score:2)
Returning fire (Score:4, Informative)
Mensa's goals are (paraphrased): "To foster human intelligence, to research human intelligence, and provide a social forum for it's members" By and large, it's mainly only this last one that ever happens. By far and away the most popular regular Mensa meeting in London, England is the pub crawl.
Mensa is a Social Club. Members often have very little in common, but a common ability to think. While there is a qualification of a top 2% IQ score for entry, only a tiny percentage actually apply.
For the record, I'm not entirely comfortable with corporate sponsorship of Mensa. The fact that it's Microsoft is something I really don't like. But it's just my opinion - by policy, Mensa has no opinions
(disclaimer: the author is a member of British Mensa, and sits on the London organising committee (LocSec forum)(
Mensa Members (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't envy, when I took an IQ test I was literally off the scale. The highest standardised test score in the history of my school district was 176, I scored 212. I was disqualified from an 'intellectual' competition because I scored 98, when the second highest of over 100 others was 76, and I completed the quiz in 15 minutes of the alloted hour; they believed I must have cheated somehow.
But I'm smart enough to know that the value of a person has nothing to do with standard test scores.
While working at MS I treated the janitors with the same respect as my managers, because I knew that without eighter of them, the job wouldn't get done. One amusing moment was when the local grocery store clerk said she liked people like me, unlike those stuck up people who work at Microsoft, which was where I was working at the time.
I may be able to craft an exceptional peice of software, recall what portion of a page in a novel a sentance appeared on, and instantly remember 10 digit numbers backwards; but I can't draw worth a damn, can't sing, or play a musical instrument, am a terrible speller, and can't parellel park.
Everyone has different abilities, and just because someone is Rich, Smart, or Pretty; dosn't make them a good person.
Not very 'intelligent' to use MSN Search... (Score:2)
But then again, Mensa is just a place for people who cannot entertain themselves on their own...
First look... (Score:3, Funny)
MSN Sponsors Menses
And I'm thinking: gee, what a NOVEL way attract female readership!
I'm gonna go visit my eye doctor tomorrow
Obligatory The Weakest Link Quote (Score:2, Interesting)
Jill: Yes (laughing).
Anne: What's funny about that?
Jill: I'm a former member of Mensa.
Anne: Former member of Mensa.... did they throw you out?
Got the quote from here [marnin.com].
How amusing (Score:2)
Seems they can't even tell when a "normal" person is among them, now they can't tell what a good source engine is. Next it'll turn out they were all frauds who had to make a gang incase someone wanted to take their pocket money..
I can see it now. (Score:2)
Hah! (Score:3, Funny)
Has to be said... (Score:2)
--Groucho Marx
Mensa and Myths about Nerds (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, Mensa is a social club with highly self-selected membership. I'm not sure that its members are any weirder than members of Parents without Partners, a Sci-Fi Con, or an athletic club.
There's nothing wrong with a social club that draws together people with a common interest. It is just that in Mensa the common interest is one's own intelligence, with a tacit subtext of "only people who know how smart I am appreciate me, and I appreciate only people who are as smart as me."
I have never been a Mensa member; I have never been tempted to be a Mensa member for the reasons cited. I know some, but remarkably few, Mensa members. They haven't convinced me that Mensa members have enough genuine common interests to form a cohesive social club.
MENSA is an acronym for ... (Score:3, Funny)
Ego
Needs
Some
Attention
Karma Whore (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MENSA is not THAT smart.. (Score:3, Informative)
Mensa is not really a society of smart people, it is a society of insecure people...who happened to pass a puzzle test.
Re:MENSA is not THAT smart.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:MENSA is not THAT smart.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The tests for IQ have been changing a lot over the last few decades. Groups like Mensa pretend there's only one score and admit based on that value. If you were to get a proper psychological work-up the doctors would actually conduct several different IQ tests (to measure verbal, performance and average IQ) and then list specific IQ values for each portion of each test. They can then compare, say, your "math IQ" to your "logic IQ" to make determinations about your personality and actual skills. In particular, they look at the variances to determine where a person is gifted and where they are developmentally delayed. You could have a verbal IQ of 140 and a performance IQ of 60 and a traditional test would say you were "normal" (your IQ was 100) when you're actually autistic....
The other thing that has changed about the IQ tests is the method and rating scale. Older IQ tests (even from the 80's) were biased in favour of a bell-curve result so that two people of similar near-average intelligence would be significantly contrasted while the difference between the "bright" and the "super genius" was compacted. Anyone who scores more than about 140 on a general IQ test should get re-tested using a more modern (more linear and usually open-ended scale) test designed to measure accurately at higher levels.
Re:MENSA is not THAT smart.. (Score:3, Informative)
You don't get a qualifying Mensa reading comprehension score with this statement. You need a >1300 if you took test before 9/30/74, back when it was hard. They clearly state that they haven't considered the SAT to correlate with IQ for over ten years now; 1994 was the last year they accepted those scores.
Re:Top 2% of the population? (Score:2)
"You got SERVED!" -- random uber-dork wearing Harry Potter glasses and cape
Re:I had to say it..... [sorry] (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:IQ Tests (Score:2)