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Comment by michaelochurch | Hacker News Reader

The good news: there seems to be no well-documented correlation between upper-tier IQ and mental illness. At a measured IQ of 150, you're no more or less likely to have mental health issues than at 100. You can rest easy now (sort of). Technically speaking, your high IQ is not going to make you crazy or depressed.

The bad news: beyond about a 125 IQ, it's the CCCP (courage, creativity, curiosity, passion) that actually matter as predictors of creative achievement, and those correlate slightly positively with biological mental illness[0], and very strongly with induced mental illness due to social adversity.

Society makes sure that the best people have fucked-up lives. That's well-documented. Fucked-up lives lead to mental illness. Also well-documented.

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Your second paragraph is freaking me out a bit. I don't want to believe it, but it makes sense, and history seems to support it. My theory, though, is that the smart, courageous, creative, curious, passionate people with a strong "EQ" aren't as subject to mental illness. It's one thing to be a recluse who scorns "normal, social people" and stays in his cave doing pretentious, so-so, slightly-creative intellectual work just to spite others, perpetually repeating to himself, "I am smarter than those people," and it's another thing to be a genuine, smart, creative, curious, passionate dude who can actually deal with being isolated from others when he needs to be, and who has the social skills and empathy to socialize when he wants to. I think it also matters whether you're a natural introvert or extrovert, because I theorize that introverts can better cope with the inherent solitude in a creative process. But to be relatively safe from mental illness, you've got to be one of those introverts who could, with some effort, fake it as an extrovert -- one with exceptionally acute social awareness. You need some serious emotional capacity and social understanding to distance yourself from depression if you're a bright, passionate, creative powerhouse, unless you're on the other side of the fence: a natural extrovert who possesses these qualities. In that case, you just have to fight the urge to socialize in order to get your creative work done (or perhaps you are creative while socializing).

>> "It's one thing to be a recluse who scorns 'normal, social people'"

This is not a stigmatizing statement at all. tone = {sarcasm: "implied"};

Perhaps people who would feel the urge to be reclusive would be more social if people like you kept your mouths shut every once in a while and didn't say pathetically pretentious things like "us normal, social people".

Sorry, didn't mean to come across like that. I'm an introvert myself. I just respect people who are comfortable with themselves more than I respect those who hold envious contempt for others and make excuses like "I'm just above everyone else. That's why I don't hang out with them." Really, that was something of a self-critique: I am certain that some people I know once thought I was that guy who thinks he's just too good for everyone else, so I can relate either way.

"I'm just above everyone else. That's why I don't hang out with them."

Who says this?

Nobody, ever. Pretty sure OP is projecting his own insecurities here. Not social with you != thinks he is superior to you.

In the voice of the late Don LaFontaine:

Two strawmen battle it out to see who will become the One. True. Scotsman.

Your point seems to be that some people aren't subject to mental illnes, and that some of those people are smart, courageous, etc. Sure, and vice versa.

It's not a zero-sum game where you decide you have 12% of this quality and 73% of this one one, so that means you should be compensating for (or naturally adept at) depression by focussing 38% of your energy and intelligence on...social things or whatever.

Secondly, there is no choice in faring better in solitary confinement, whether imposed or elective, nor in social situations because people simply do what they do and follow their emotions and reasoning, for the most part. Would you say Grigori Perelman is mentally ill?

> Two strawmen battle it out to see who will become the One. True. Scotsman.

Thanks, this is going in my "keepers" file ;)

Well that makes sense because IQ is dependent on a wide variety of factors in addition to genetics. The nutrition of the mother as well as exposure to certain chemicals during the pregnancy plus actions/drugs used during the birth can play as large if not greater part in the IQ of a child as genetics.

The child's treatment during formative years 0-7 will have an immense impact on whether certain predispositions (I.E. psychopathic tendencies) are expressed later in life.

Dr. James Fallon, who was part of a documentary I saw a while back, was describing how he was shocked to discover that he had the brain of a psychopath, but his life turned out very differently because (and I'm paraphrasing) "when I look back at picture albums of my childhood, I'm always seeing smiles".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Fallon

The nutrition of the mother as well as exposure to certain chemicals during the pregnancy plus actions/drugs used during the birth can play as large if not greater part in the IQ of a child as genetics.

Interesting. Identical twins raised separately have a correlation of .76, while fraternal twins raised together have a correlation of just .55 and non-twin siblings raised together have a correlation of .47[0]. To me that suggests a strong genetic (though not necessarily heritable) component. And perhaps the .08 difference between fraternal twins and non-twin siblings is explained by differences in the mother's nutrition.

How do you measure the effect of nutrition? What studies are you looking at?

[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Correlations...

Here you go :

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20937654

This is one of my favorite comments. As I've always said, "Society: what a dumb concept."

Citation please?

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