Hacker News Reader

Comment by 101008 | Hacker News Reader

I took the test to be part of Mensa when I was 17. It was a one hour or two hours test? I think. I remember I got very bored by the end and I stopped paying attention to the questions and I started to answer without doing all the analysis it was required.

I passed it and I was part of the the society. I found it quite weird because the rest of the people didn't look like "smart" or "intelligent" or whatever you could think of Mensa people.

At the end I just decided that they (we) were good at identifying patterns. I stopped paying after one or two years.

View on HN

I think Mensa is on the lower end of high IQ societies. IIRC. I think they accept people who test in the 135 range, which is uncommon, but not horribly so. Like in the 2% range. So, 1 in 50 people. There's another group called the Triple-9 society which only takes people who test in the 99.9% percentile (hence the clever name).

Mensa and other high IQ societies consist of people who have enough time to dedicate to being in a high IQ society.

That should tell you enough about the motivation and mindset of the people in it.

Like everyone there was probably technically intelligent, but they've convinced themselves that that alone was enough to lead them to the land of milk and honey. Like they say, hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. Being intelligent isn't enough, you have to acquire knowledge and you have to apply that knowledge.

>Mensa and other high IQ societies consist of people who have enough time to dedicate to being in a high IQ society.

They also consist of people who (stupidly) attribute a lot more value to IQ than it deserves. I got a 135 on this test, I am not smarter than Richard Feynman.

I bet that IMO/IPhO medalists are a LOT smarter than Triple-9 people.

(Yes, I know that Feynman underwent an actual physical examination, and his score was probably lowered by his poor English skills, but my point still stands: smart people typically don't have extremely high IQs.)

> his poor English skills

C'mon, Brooklyn is an accent not a disability!

Most career data shows that once you reach 125-130 IQ or so, it stops really being a factor in career success, and other things matter more: grit, interpersonal skills, etc.

Being at the 99.9% level is impressive to be sure, but it doesn't seem to translate to much tangible benefit in our current society.

Close. The data said that at the 125-130 range, there's nothing that you cannot do, mentally.

Basically, they tested people from all walks of life and they found that the skill with the highest threshold was about 125-130.

People with higher IQs may be able to do or learn things better or faster, but it's possible for anyone to achieve that level if they put in the work. IQ just tells you basically how much work it will take.

there is no time commitment at all unless someone wants to be involved in the organization or attend meeting

Reply on news.ycombinator.com