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Comment by wtbdbrrr | Hacker News Reader

Nope. Not necessarily.

a) fuck IQ. But since you are using it as a benchmark (here, at least). What is your IQ? How did you gain most of it?

b) How much are you smoking? Are you getting sub-level espresso effects from nicotine? (If you don't drink coffee, got anything to compare it with?)

c) How's your breathing? How often are you sick(ly)?

d) Where do you see yourself under the Bell curve? Professionally and or any other way you might believe is relevant.

Just think high frequency, max amplitude bell curves under bell curves. And then ... yeah, who says you didn't?

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a) I think I have a (a bit under?)average IQ but I have no idea. I have done ok in school but I have always needed more time, I am pretty slow. My chess ELO is between 1350-1450 but I learned the moves when I was 8 and started playing casually everyday for 3 years now.

b) 1 cigarette a day or none depending on the period. But rises significantly when drinking and partying

c) I am in good health and overheating is generally a problem that arises sooner that breath issues when exercising Almost never sick. I get between 0 to 2 illnesses a year depending on how much I find myself with lots of people in a room

d) Hard to tell. I feel smarter than a lot of people but I only feel it's because I am much more curious. On the other hand, I am pretty slow. I have self-confidence/laziness issues that prevent me to actually look for a dev job.

Started smoking at 19, first occasionally, then regularly, now occasionally again What do you say, doc ?

Well, considering you are telling the truth:

a) you never trained your IQ using methods designed to increase IQ, meaning your self-assessed avg IQ would increase significantly within 150 hours of IQ practice

b) 1 cigarette is irrelevant, which makes c) irrelevant in context.

d) It's common to feel smarter than the rest. Especially if you surround yourself with people who tend to keep their intelligence back for the sake of recreation and fun OR they never really tried for reasons.

Chess is cool, ELO 1350 - 1450 after 3 years of regular playing is also cool and shows that chess is something where you actually are trying, pointing at the fact that your self-confidence issues are merely the result of lack of practice aka consistent increases of mastery in subjects you care for (or want to care for).

Bottom line: You (most likely, > 0.97) did not lose any IQ points due to smoking. :D

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