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Ask HN: Are you, your spouse or your children gifted?

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Ask HN: Are you, your spouse or your children gifted?

#1
I'm curious what the gifted population is at HN.

I myself went to a gifted high school but never had my IQ measured. My wife is profoundly gifted and our children are both gifted, with our daughter's IQ highly gifted and our son profoundly gifted, even more so than my wife. I'm in tech and my wife is in finance.

Re: Ask HN: Are you, your spouse or your children gifted?

#6
It's probably more accurate to think of giftedness on a spectrum (not that spectrum), rather than a binary "have it or don't have it".

For example, I've noticed in myself and others that in an area where I have a particular knack or an outsized "giftedness", it also comes with a corresponding lack or void somewhere else. This is not to mean that anyone is "less than", but rather, no one is good at everything all the time. We need each other, and where I may have weaknesses, you have may have strengths. I can either appreciate the difference that you're better at something than me, be humble, and ask for your help. Or I can hate you and degrade you and belittle you for being better than me, and spend my days trying to be equal or better than you at something you likely didn't "try" to be good at in the first place. You just are. So what?

In your definition, "giftedness" comes with the added responsibility of not being demeaning to those around you. Sometimes "intellectual giftedness" comes at the cost of "social giftedness". That's not bad. It's just different gifts.

Re: Ask HN: Are you, your spouse or your children gifted?

#7
High IQ = gotta work hard and hope for luck to realize your dreams

Low IQ = gotta work hard and hope for luck to realize your dreams

Low or high doesn't give you any new actionable piece of information, but it is true that an official piece of paper claiming high IQ will open the door to some institutions, it remains to be seen how long it takes to fall out of love with such institutions.

Re: Ask HN: Are you, your spouse or your children gifted?

#8
post #4

Honestly it sounds like a joke to me. Is that a genuine question? I feel like a more serious/interesting question could be: do you think that IQ measures anything meaningful at all? Or not, I do believe that IQ is complete bullshit.

It's actually quite a good metric, not of intelligence but of gullibility.

Re: Ask HN: Are you, your spouse or your children gifted?

#10
post #4

Honestly it sounds like a joke to me. Is that a genuine question? I feel like a more serious/interesting question could be: do you think that IQ measures anything meaningful at all? Or not, I do believe that IQ is complete bullshit.

As books such as the Bell Curve have documented, IQ is as predictive of life outcomes as almost any other metric, although there is still a lot of unexplained variance in outcomes, of course.
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