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210 IQ Is Not Enough

taylor.town

91–100 of 284 posts

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#91

A really good litmus test of individual perspective and maturity, here. Already seeing comments nitpick specific arguments or points, which is itself the trap to shine a light on those individuals more obsessed with arbitrary external measures of their personal definition of success, rather than self-reflecting on said definition and asking whether or not this definition fits who they are or want to be as a person, o…

Dunno - I think it's hard for a lot of us who rolled the dice on our interests early on, picked the winning combo of CS + Finance, and then just raced ahead in the career ladder over our peers as software work consumed the world. Now it's ten years later, those ladders have disappeared, many of us seeing the writing on the wall, and wondering whether we were anything special at all. (The answer of course is no, but i…

As a former gifted kid who has had their fair share of struggles around identity, competency, and success, having to redefine each multiple times as the world shifts around me and ladders are either yanked up or burned down just as I arrive to climb them:

It sucks. It sucks ass. It has lead to many a night shouting in rage, anger, depression, and malaise. It continues to incense me as I see reprehensible actions receive phenomenal rewards in the short term for inflicting harm, and ignorance of their consequences of the long-term. It sucks.

You’re not alone, at least, and acknowledging that reality helped me rally around more social causes as I accepted that individual success was more luck than talent or effort, at least at present. It doesn’t really get easier to accept that reality either, even as I work to create a better one that’s built more around objectivity than individuality. Still, I’ve been far calmer, more productive, and even happier as I acknowledge the reality around me instead of reject it out of some notion of “specialness” or exceptionalism.

Acknowledging the reality around you is, in its own way, quite liberating, even if it’s also frustrating and lonely at present.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#92

A really good litmus test of individual perspective and maturity, here. Already seeing comments nitpick specific arguments or points, which is itself the trap to shine a light on those individuals more obsessed with arbitrary external measures of their personal definition of success, rather than self-reflecting on said definition and asking whether or not this definition fits who they are or want to be as a person, o…

Dunno - I think it's hard for a lot of us who rolled the dice on our interests early on, picked the winning combo of CS + Finance, and then just raced ahead in the career ladder over our peers as software work consumed the world. Now it's ten years later, those ladders have disappeared, many of us seeing the writing on the wall, and wondering whether we were anything special at all. (The answer of course is no, but i…

I sort of relate. I suspect the misplaced confidence one can develop from early successes in one's career eventually manifests as a lot of beliefs needing to be unlearned later in life (especially when facing challenges requiring resilience). I think I am a better person for it (and that is the point).

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#93
post #19
post #4

The "world's smartest man" very recently predicted on X that Bitcoin would hit $220k by the end of the year. [1] Here's the thing: IQ probably doesn't mean much of anything. But it is one of only a handful of ways we have to benchmark intelligence. The training of AI systems critically requires benchmarks to understand gain/loss in training and determine if minute changes in the system is actually winging more intell…

> IQ probably doesn't mean much of anything. But it is one of only a handful of ways we have to benchmark intelligence. IQ means a lot of things (higher IQ people are measurably better at making associations and generating original ideas, are more perceptive, learn faster, have better spatial awareness). It doesn't give them the power to predict the future.

How would you measure these?

- making associations

- generating original ideas

- more perceptive

...

"spatial awareness" I can see though

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really how statistics works. It is not impossible to roll two sixes on a single roll of two dies because it is more likely you won't.

That's right. If the event has a 1 in 390B chance, and there are 8B tries, you would expect to observe the event 2% of the time you conduct the 8B tries. So if you did 8B tries 50 times you would expect it to happen once. And its something higher than 8B - current population isn't the correct sample size.

That's assuming that the distribution is purely gaussian and nothing weird happens at the tails.

I agree 276 is unlikely (and how would you even test/norm such a thing?)

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#95
post #41

With age and experience I learned that intelligence has a lot of axis, IQ test is only one of them, it is meaningful but narrow. My favorites questions I like to ask people I know or I don't see often are: what are you passions, what do you like in life? It's often much more interesting about what it reveals of the person, than their ability of solving logic puzzles.

I like to think that Robin Williams was as intelligent as Stephen Hawking, but they both excelled at very different types of information to process and express insight on. Also some of the best athletes in the world are processing information and making decisions in ways those 2 never could.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#96
People think of intelligence as some sort of magic. They ascribe all sorts of ability to intelligence, as if being smart should make you influential.

But why should that be? If you're a scientist, you are dependent on getting funding to do experiments, and the experiment showing something interesting. Neither of these things is very connected to intelligence, beyond that low IQ people will not be likely to get to the start line.

If you're an entrepreneur, you also have to do a bunch of things that are more social than smarts. Basically your life is going around meeting people and getting them to either invest or build something or buy something. Is it useful to be smart? Sure. But it isn't as useful as, say, having the right connections from school, or a family with a sensible budget so you can concentrate on building rather than finding food.

Pretty much the only area where being super smart works is pure maths, and even there you really want to be born in the parts of the world where the economy can support a young person on that path.

Then there's the transmission to suit your engine. A super smart person still needs to be mature enough to consume the intellectual royal jelly that develops them towards where they will make the greatest contribution. You won't just know what to do just because you're smart, you need to be shown what the interesting problems are. You need to have motivation, and motivation is often what you actually see when you meet someone impressive.

The way I think of it, the smart and useful people are plenty. Courses are taught so that universities can get a sensible number of people through some amount of content. Being smarter than your average student at a prestigious college is nice, but it mostly buys you some free time. Being at the cutoff is terribly stressful, but that guy is still pretty accomplished and useful for most things that we consider elite.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#97

> According to Yoo, by the time he was 1, her son learned both the Korean alphabet and 1,000 Chinese characters by studying the Thousand Character Classic, a sixth-century Chinese poem.[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Ung-yong Is that true? How is that even possible? Like, biologically.

Bullshit detectors are blaring. Asian parent embellish the intelligence of their child without any verification. From what I understand Kim Ung-yong himself said many of the stories about him when he was young were misunderstood or exaggerated.

I guess it's not clear what they mean by learned the alphabet. Could point to the character and say the sound I guess? Know their meaning (you couldn't verify this easily if they cant talk)?

It's considered prodigious to be able to read at 3. I guess recognizing characters is short of that, but barely. And at 1? Im open to more information but I see no reason to think its true.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#98
post #12

if IQ tests are designed by people with lower IQ what does it say about high IQ scores?

Part of the test is the speed at which you get the answers.

So while one may not be able to solve the entire suite of questions within 10 minutes, we can know that someone who can is smarter than someone who can't.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#99
post #69

IQ and EQ are two different things often not found in the same individual. IQ is being smart enough to know that something is happening. EQ is being smart enough to be able to convince other humans to do something about it. High IQ low EQ folks often struggle in careers and life because they’re “right” but can’t get anything done. The most successful tend to be high-ish IQ but with enough EQ to get things done. Those…

IQ and EQ are different things that we have labeled.

There are probably a very large number of skills along other vectors that we haven’t identified/labeled that are equally, more or less important.

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