Based on my experience with Mensa members, being obsessed with your own intelligence is seemingly the primary criterion for joining Mensa. A long, boring test was probably exactly the selection filter they're looking for.
Editing for the skimmer who will not read the implicit: it's about an interest in meta-skills, transversal, exportable.
The basic problem a lot of bright people had -- in the days before telecommunications -- was that the only people you had access to lived on your own street. If you were a nerd, most were boring.
A lot of work went into finding interesting people, be that through ham radio, organizations like Mensa, universities (at the time, about 5% of people went to university), gifted programs, or other places nerds could congregate.
I don't see much point to Mensa in 2022, but I think the cynicism is unwarranted. What do you do when you have a social club which is suddenly obsoleted by cars, phones, air planes, and the internet?
"Let's create an wannabe intellectual elite club based on a controversial and not really representative test, milking suckers with paid tests, and giving them a false sense of achievement and superiority"
(and I score in the high range, it's not about sour grapes)
Prior to standardized testing, college admissions was literally based on belonging to a club. Rich parents would send you to a prep school, and admissions was based on admissions officers knowing the prep school (and grades, recommendations, etc. there-from). It was introduced to allow anyone from any socioeconomic background, and more demographic backgrounds, to be admitted based on ability rather than wealth. At the time, admissions rates to elite schools weren't nearly as cut-throat. A poor kid could study hard, take a test, and go to Harvard.
They didn't make the world equal, but they made it /more/ equal.
I really don't think the cynicism is warranted. Institutions go obsolete.
I've found that there are people with whom I can share many thoughts and concepts as they pop into my head, and they will "get" it, maybe not agree, but they have the capacity to entertain my idea, bad as it may be. I find that kind of socializing very pleasant, and I much prefer it to "talking about weather and current events in sports and popculture" which also have it's place, but which can be discussed with a much broader selection of people.
And that's just me, and I'm not one of the smart ones, but if I can feel like that, I can only imagine that someone in the top 1 percentile would feel something similar, if stronger, and thus would need to make an extra effort to find such company.
If you don't feel like this, it's just very likely that you already have this need met from someone around you, and you've just never noticed?
Maybe that last line is a bit harsh, but I presume MENSA has never negatively impacted your life - certainly not tangibly. This is my experience, and I have no interest in joining. Assuming the worst, and denigrating those that haven’t done anything to deserve it is immature at best, yet it’s something that we seem to be getting more comfortable with. It frustrates me.
> If you were a nerd, most were boring.
Is either of those strongly linked to IQ? Anecdotally and in my experience not really.
You can get pretty far on this by implicitly grouping a certain set of interests into "nerdy" or whatever but that is highly culturally mediated. A generation ago video games and sci-fi would have been a core of that set, but those are just the culture now.
The most nerd energy I've ever run across outside of my own interests is in people who follow auto racing and sports. Fiber arts and baking too. Not typically considered or even recognized as valid nerdery but very similar kind and degree of interest.
I'd argue that people who want to be in a group of other high IQ people probably do feel superior to people who can't be in that group. Now, and in the past too. Whether that's a useful grouping or a warranted superiority I don't want to get into. But it's really not more complicated than that, sorry.
In 2022, it's awfully easy to find people into whatever you're into, and you can talk to them around the world. In 1946, if you were a physics nerd and you ran into a chemistry nerd or biology nerd, you'd be excited to have a friend who shared your interest in /science/.
As a footnote: Performance on a test like Mensa's is strongly culturally-mediated. I suspect most people can score decently with a bit of practice and training. I think the major question was:
- Do you want to talk about football and sports?
- Dating and gossip?
- Intellectual stuff
A lot of this also had to do with how people spend their time. It's a lot easier to be an intellectual / nerd in 2022 than in 1946. I have the world's information at my fingertips.
To connect people who might have something to exchange. Not differently from HN, really.
> To qualify for Mensa, you must have scored in the top 2 percent of the general population on any one of more than 200 accepted, standardized intelligence tests — including our Mensa Admission tests — at any point in your life. An estimated six million Americans are eligible for membership.
I've met some members. Their personalities are not what I would associate with the most intelligent people I've otherwise met. People who memorize digits of Pi come to mind.
Hey, I feel attacked. What's wrong with memorizing digits of Pi?
In fact, if we use base-π representation then π=1 and memorisation is trivial. QED.
> An estimated six million Americans are eligible for membership.
That's not how it works. 6 million Americans is about 2%. It means that in order to have such a filter, you only have one chance on a single test. Not, "1 of more than 200 at any point in your life"
Out of 200 tests, even among those of the highest standards, you are bound to find one where you are particularly good at, and then you can try again several times, because you are unlikely to be at the exact same position every time. Furthermore, the "general population" includes people who are not in their best shape and yet, "any point in your life" tests your peak performance. And there is training of course.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than 10% in reality. By that I mean "pick a random person and give him a huge incentive (ex. millions of dollars) to pass". If we restrict to people who really want to join without further incentive, it may be way higher.
I don't want to be biased before even going, though.
You're going to be disappointed.
Seriously though, you can find incredibly intelligent people in the strangest of places. And you find less than you might think in the most obvious of places. Once you learn what to look for, I think it becomes easier to find people to have interesting conversations with. Personally, I find that curiosity about the world around you is a very good indicator of someone I would enjoy speaking with.
Cryptozoology enthusiast groups are way more fun for me. I may not agree with most people there on whether Mothman exists, but we are 100% agreed that Mothman is awesome and we would like to spend more time talking about the story and what it means to people.
I used to be a regular at a Ruby meetup on similar grounds. I don't actually like the programming language itself very much, but I love Rubyists.
In my experience, interesting conversations involve people with interests (and navel-gazing is antithetical to that).
My experience with Mensa is from 20 years ago with the group in Chicago. I was in my twenties and my guess is that the average age of members was late-fifties. In theory, they were interested in recruiting younger people, in practice they were not interested in changing the activities in a way that would attract younger members, like focusing efforts to solve real-world problems. I felt they were more interested in showcasing depth in various atypical hobbies, or to simply talk about how smart they were. I was never in awe of anyone’s intellect. Pretty much just normal people. I don’t think I came across anyone that was exceptionally accomplished at anything.
edit: would recommend if you live nearby and treat it as a board gaming club.
edit2: also, if I remember correctly you could bring two guests to meetings, so you're not stuck with only Mensa members.
I feel like that could be the Yelp review for every Mensa club.
The parent says that scoring like an average person means they "really suck" or are "just dumb," so I think they have the right mentality for Mensa, even if their performance fell short.
We don't do this with any other measure though. The difference being that most other measures can be measured. They run up against reality rather quickly. Am I tall? No. No shame in saying that. No shame in saying I'm around the average. Am I fast? Slow? Strong? Weak? Thin? Fat? How big are my feet? My hands? etc.
All can be measured and seen. All have physical manifestations I cannot argue against.
Intelligence. Well. That's a little more abstract. Abstract to a degree that we don't always recognize that Jeopardy is not really a "smart" game. It's a trivia game. You have to know things. That's not intelligence, that's knowledge.
I joined mensa in two countries; I was involved in one, while in the other, I went only to one meeting.
The first had mostly regular table/social game events, and cultural events (e.g. chess competitions, museums, literature etc.).
I couldn't tell I was at a Mensa club, if not for the orientation of the cultural events, but especially... for the quantity of engineers :)
I remember there was at least one teenager at the social events, and I wouldn't even exclude that they just allowed them in because he was a friend of somebody - the atmosphere was relaxed and playful.
I'd totally join again a club like the first: 1. it was fun 2. the cultural activities were actually interesting 3. I'd network with SWEs. Which is, in some way, the attractive of Mensa - it definitely attracts nerds :)
Regarding me as a member of Mensa. I wouldn't qualify me obsessed with it; intelligence is a tool for me. And definitely I didn't enroll in college at 13 like some other HN readers :)
You are describing a type in the context of a club of people interested in the opposites of the type. It could suggest you that the deviation may remain the interesting part.
> the primary criterion for joining
Improper formulation. Not that important, but.