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  • It's tough having a high IQ. Most people don't understand the world and the flaws of humans, at least at the level I do. As such, I find it hard to connect to other people. Most people are morons. I feel deep sorrow in knowing the direction the world is going and that the inhabitants of the world are mostly idiots.

    ...

    Why do so many people (in this thread) unironically feel this way? "Intelligence" is a socially constructed and often useless idea that includes and excludes many things seemingly at random. For example, chess is often thought of as something that's very intelligent, but skill at chess is (just like nearly anything else) based on practice & experience. Just because you're good at chess and did well in school doesn't mean that you alone can understand the problems in the world at a deeper level than an average Jo.

    Everyone should read "What Is Intelligence, Anyway?", a short excerpt from Isaac Asimov.

    I'll paste the part I think is most important, but the whole thing is worth reading:

    Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

    • Related to tests and skills, What if we just didn't mark students?, a short talk from a university course runner and educator in general.

      It makes some points that are already familiar or easy to notice, but it's also an interesting exploration of academia, tests and skills. I know some students who learn under that lecturer and what they're taling about clearly comes through in the course structure. One notable part is that one tutorial class is responsible for making notes for each week of lectures, and the whole cohort is allowed to bring those collaborative notes into the exam, like a semi-open book test. I heard they just decided one class to have a lesson on rhetoric instead of cybersecurity because it's a pretty nerdy industry and one involving invisible risks, and there's no point being an expert if you can't convince your boss to let you fix the problems.

  • It's a mixed bag.

    Growing up was made difficult because school is so slow that I'd rather be getting into trouble than sitting in class. By the start of middle school I'd already read the entire high school honors reading list, I had to walk to the high school from my middle school in 7th grade to take math classes. I rarely had regular school work in high school, nearly all of my academic teachers designed a different curriculum for me, which was nice but probably mostly to keep me from acting up in class. I never studied or did a shred of homework, but got good grades.

    Social interactions were tough, I'm not much of an empath, not that I don't experience empathy but emotions just aren't intuitive, actually they often are the opposite of what you'd expect to be helpful, especially among young people. I had to concentrate to read people's faces and mannerisms to understand the emotional and social subtexts of most interactions. I self medicated with alcohol a lot in high school.

    All of my academic classes in high school were honors, and my final 2 years were all AP, while lettering in 3 varsity sports (4 total, but you can only play 3 each academic year). It wasn't until my second year in uni that I ran into a class for which I actually had to study (nuclear chemistry), and boy was that an awful surprise. A handful of classes were like this for me, most I just showed up 3 times and got a good grade: the first day of class so I wouldn't get dropped, the midterm, and the final.

    I read quickly, think systematically, and information just sticks in my head. It was very difficult to understand why this wasn't how most people were. Everything I do I analyze for improvement, and remember to do it better the next time. My wife calls me a skill collector because people seem to think I'm super good at everything, but to me it's just logical that if you're going to take time do something you might as well do it as well as possible.

    After uni things started getting easier. Being forced to closely analyze social interactions and systematically give the "right" reactions is extremely useful in professional life. I wear this mask in all my interactions with all but my closest friends. It's a bit psychopathic, but I don't do it to anyone's detriment, it's mostly to get along and fit in.

    I've self selected for highly intelligent friends, and I'm exhilarated to meet new people who can communicate with the kind of bandwidth that our brains run at, if that makes sense. I'm still close with most of my friends from high school, who have had varying levels of success, but I still have to be guarded when it comes to activities or conversation to make sure I don't stick out too much.

    In general I have a very pessimistic view of people and the world. The average person isn't very sharp, and half of all people are dumber than that. However many smart people do evil things, most of the time for no reason at all. It's exhausting to keep up with it all, so I just focus on my path and my family, and do what I can to directly improve my community.

    It would be nice to fit in a little easier, but I wouldn't trade my experience for anything else.

    • This is relatable.

    • The section about pessimism is relatable. I spent a few months in my teen years in a chatroom with the topic of being outcasts in some way or another, before realizing it was a self-prophecising kind of toxic the same way that incel culture is, but there were some people ranting about how stupid people are and woe is me, I'm Cassandra! And my impression at the time was thinking they're probably an egotistical prick who thinks they're better than everyone else. But on the other hand, it is frustrating to see, less how 'dumb' people are but how ignorant people are. It's hard not to get a bit of ego at times. And this isn't about IQ for the most part, these issues are often caused or compounded by other problems with education, social values, propaganda/indoctrination and the lot. I guess I feel the activist frustrated enough to yell "why don't you care?" when obviously, rationally it's more complex than that.

      This is a big issue in tech communities as it becomes more accessible, people are entering who aren't used to the DIY culture, who don't understand unsaid (or said) rules like asking smart questions to not waste everyone's time. The world is at your fingertips! Fucking put that question in a search engine first before you waste my time, my life has value goddammit! When I occasionally whine about reddit culture, that's a part of it. People who are curious (and that's perfect!) but don't realize they're asking questions they can learn the answer to themselves. It's like if we're talking about cooking and someone jumps in to ask "what is a herb?", it's a valid question, an important question, but for fucks sake you can learn that without asking us all! Or at least go to ELI5 & NoStupidQuestions where those questions are appropriate.

      Keep in mind, that rant is specific to online questions, where you have the resources you need. It's more acceptable in a conversation, and I certainly don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable learning things.

      Honestly, a community learning how to effectively direct people to an FAQ to onboard uninformed newcomers on answers and community expectations is the difference between a welcoming community and burned-out babysitters becoming toxic.

  • My IQ was tested several times back in school and I usually clocked in at 148 or 149. That said I don't think IQ tests are very useful. They also test for very spefic types of thinking. Those traits that people considered smart have. It's kind of circular.

    I think it's like a physical fitness test that just measures bicep thickness. It tells you something but not as much as it claims.

    I'm very good a understanding systems and understanding how changes effect them. I also pick up concepts very easy but struggle with remembering the details.

    Presumably that's because I learned it quickly and didn't have the repetition to cement the details. Because I know the concept I'm board trying to memorize the details.

    I know what J K reproduction types are but don't remember which is which. Same with baryonic particles I can't remember if they are half integer spin or not and or if they obey the Pauli exclusion principle. But I understand what those concepts are.

    I'm ok with people and general social interaction but I don't read people well and stick to the social rules for a situation. I've totally misread interactions more than most people but usually keep it civil.

    I do a lot of cooking and am very good at getting the effect I want. I know what protiens and starches do at various temps and how to calculate the right amounts of salt, acid, and sugar. I'm not good at winging it or being creative with flavors.

  • I have a high IQ as well as ADHD and Autism.

    Out of context, scoring as high as I did really meant next to nothing. In the context of the diagnoses I received later in life, definitely made sense, and helped color a picture painted in two solid days with a psychologist.

    Somehow, I think it's important that the IQ test I took was not called an IQ test to me until after. Like, I knew I was in for tests, but more broadly told what things were about.

    As a student, I had a science teacher who had been teaching many years, tell my mother he had never seen a student think in the manner I did. I was doing exceptionally well in class, but did not exceed in the fashion that would get me into an ivy league school, which at the time was supposed to be a goal. My father graduated MIT.

    There are times when it's great. When I can focus on something, I can learn a lot and get very good at it. However, I spent decades with two obstacles I could never get myself past: the inability to keep that focus or control it, and the inability to even understand other people enough to try to get along with them long-term.

    The result is I am just now, at 41, starting to figure out what I want to do with my life after way too long in a profession I should never have entered, and burned out of twice. And by burn out I do not mean tired and sad, I mean hospitalization.

    In summary, it can be pretty great, but in my case it's fraught with difficulty as well.

    • Thanks for your response.

      It's interesting to see your story in relation to other stories I've heard or people I've met.

      Before I describe them, it's important to say that you don't strike me as unkind. I wouldn't want you to compare yourself to the people I'll mention and conclude that you're somehow bad. I'm taking the time to say this because I don't know if the difficulties you've mentioned are a sore spot.

      Alright. The people I've met. I've met people whose identity was tied to their IQ and it became painful for me to wonder what I meant to them. For sure I was not close to their IQ; they needed to take multiple tests because they were off the charts. But I always wondered if they liked me as a person, based on my values and how I did things.

      I've also met very relaxed and kind people who went on to study at the schools that were supposed to be a goal, people who made me realize it's possible to be wicked smart and simultaneously kind.

      When you mention that it was important that you weren't told that the test you took was an IQ test, I think about teenage me. Back then, I learned that people could judge me based on my IQ. I made the mistake of reading white supremacist bigotry, and read that they evaluated whether people were worthy of living based on things like IQ. I knew the whole white supremacy discourse was pseudoscience and bigotry, but I was scared of bigots in power evaluating my existence. I became terrified. I became very distrustful of people who I should've trusted, wonderful people who would've never had such narrow and mistaken views. That has changed, now that I have a clearer sense of self and more perspective. But I can't help but wonder what would've happened if I wouldn't have mistrusted wonderful people. I guess the discourse around IQ can really change the way you look at the world and what you do.

      Is it too nosy to ask a couple of follow up questions? If not, here they are: you mentioned ADHD and the obstacle you could never get yourself past, the inability to keep your focus and control it. Is the diagnosis recent? Could medication help? Could any treatment help with the ADHD? As to difficulties understanding other people, do you know about relational frame theory, the self component of ACT, and the PEAK and AIM programs?

      • As far as medication, I have not decided yet. This is all recent, within the last year. Therapy has been helping a lot for my current state, but ADHD isn't the focus. Recovering from burnout is.

        I haven't looked into anything you've mentioned.

        I have been described as, and willing describe myself as, a good person with a capacity for kindness. I am not nice in much of what that means.

        I think my political stances sometimes highlight that. I will willingly punch nazis given the chance. No, that's not hyperbole. I have no tolerance for bigotry. I lost a good friend who became a cop, and then said some questionable but not outright hateful things in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder.

        A flawed but not altogether useless analogy is I am not the guy who waves someone on at a stop sign when it is that person who is supposed to yield. I have no patience for it, nor do I have patience for it happening the other way around.

        When I recognized that a now good friend wasn't so harsh to me out of spite or hate but out of personal struggle, I wanted to know more, and now we not only became good friends, but we are to each other among the very few people we talk openly with about therapy and how it's really going. We both understand and respect the need to break down the stigma of seeking help with mental health. We had both peered into the void.

        But in public, I wind up ignoring a lot of people simply from wearing headphones and wanting nothing to do with any of it.

        "How does this (dress, shirt, whatever) look on me?" My wife gets the truth, like it or not.

        I could go on, and am willing to try to answer any questions.

  • I had my IQ tested when I was 12 and it was high, but alas, not high enough to understand Rick and Morty

    Jokes aside, I've been told that I catch onto things quicker and I'm good at solving things in creative ways!

  • I'm 128, it's up to you to decide whether it's high enough or not.

    Generally, I am successful in my studies and pursue career in science. I am not a high earner, and doing mental work still drains me heavily. I take a few hours of dumb physical work every week to reset. I am more or less satisfied with my life, I do have a romantic partner and generally find it easy to navigate social situations, but I'm introverted and need to recharge. So, you can say I have a high burst productivity all-round, but I'm not good at a long game.

    This is just me though, and one thing to remember is that there is no objective metric for intelligence, and it can be divided in many different ways. Some people are great at solving math problems, but are dead stupid in social situations. Some go vice versa. Some have a gift for certain areas of knowledge or skills where they are way above average, while having underwhelming performance with the rest.

    For example, I excel at disciplines that require me to connect many diverse data points (my area of interest is microbiology), but I'm not that good at following logic through many layers of calculations and linking it back to source (as in physics/math; I'm still able to carry out calculations I need for my work, but it's exhausting). I acquire language skills quite readily, and have good auditory perception overall, but have high reaction time and struggle driving or doing competitive sports/gaming (no, higher intelligence doesn't mean faster reaction).

    Overall, I'm just a normal human, fairly smart, fairly capable, but nothing supernatural and sometimes straight up underwhelming.

  • It vastly depends on everything else.

    You can be a dude with a normal life, who just makes conclusions faster and you've learned that everyone likes how smart you are and you enjoy this.

    You can be a restless mess, because you've known all your life that there's nothing to compete with and it's difficult enough to find someone to even have a somewhat decent conversation on your level with. These people come with or without the arrogance you're thinking of right now. Some are just genuinely kind and thoughtful, but always a step ahead without even really appreciating their ability much.

    You can be an absolute underachiever, because being smart was never rewarded in your life. Maybe you even learned that "You're not special" so much so, that you punished others for not being able to draw the same conclusions as you in the same time, because you always thought they were just being lazy on purpose.

    You can be entirely unaware and may say funny things like "I don't think we're all that many really smart people in $techplacewithclearlysmartpeople. I talked to most of them and I don't struggle at all".

    Source: High IQ myself, working with other people who increasingly talk to me openly about this and their overall situation. So much of who we become is about what our parents do to us and if there's understanding and love and support on that end.

    Obviously there's the whole spectrum thing as well. I don't think a higher IQ means "more autism", as someone suggested. I think it increases your chances of struggling with a regular (neurotypical) kind of life, for example because you are supposed to be interested in 1 subject (to make a career), but - similar to people with ADHD - may care for all the subjects.
    If you think about what is neurotypical though, you can classify people with a particularly high IQ or people with particularly high sensitivity as neurodiverse in just the same way you do that for people with Autism or ADHD. Now if you think about humanity as a whole, we may all to some degree be diverging from the norm in any or all of these ways, but still be more or less free of struggle, because it's not by much, while for the more extreme cases, they stand out for better or worse.

  • Frustrating.

    The rate at which I absorb information is disgusting. Yes please finish your sentence I already have a response why are you taking so long. How did I learn that? I picked up the manual and did it. Developing new skills? Learning Rust right now and its going well, failed out of highschool because I learned too easily and didn't need the homework to learn (so it didn't get done).

    It comes with imposter syndrome: I knew the problem, I had the pattern figured out, why did I still fuck everything up (plot twist I probably didn't).

    It comes with a superiority complex: I learned this in 10 minutes from looking at a Sci Journal, why has it been hours and yallvstill don't get it? 🙄

    It comes with accidentally hurting people: frequently I say things thinking something hould be obvious when it is not, while unintended, it often hurts my partner who is usually in the line of fire when I let some dumb shit outta my mouth and insult someone's intelligence.

    Anyway I hate it I'd rather be dumbsauce ignorance is bliss

    • You wouldn't.

      I've considered what it would be like to be more "normal".

      Even with all the issues that come with the extra abilities. They are the good kind of problems.

      If you want to put a dent in your superiority complex. Go spend a day in a mechanical workshop, try to something that can only be learned by feel and sound....

  • Probably the thing it's get a little mad because you need to explain multiple times things you think are really easy or stop hearing some people when start explaining things because you know you can catch what they are saying anytime. It's really shitty, I dont whant to be this way. Also people treat you different because "you can so it better", no I can't.

  • You get to impress the worst people in the world by giving them a number which generally indicates the quality of your education. Other than that, it's pretty useless.

  • I'm comfortably above average but comfortably below genius, not entirely sure whether that fits your personal definition of high so it felt worth clarifying.

    In school, it meant that learning was something I could do with no actual effort. Without studying and without doing homework aside from what I did at my desk to pass the time before class started, I had as strong a grasp on the subject as the students who did and comfortable grades. Then when I started college, that passivity suddenly didn't work anymore and I had no idea how to cope with it. I never actually learned how to learn, formally speaking.

    Emotionally speaking, that whole thing was awful. It sucked when it was easy because I was so bored, it sucked when it was hard because I was so frustrated. I actually failed out of high school due to low attendance at the very end, then tested into the local college without a diploma because I still knew the material even with the problematic attendance, then got suspended from college due to now-for-the-opposite-reason low attendance and never went back. There was also unrelated shit going on, to be clear, but this that I'm describing was not a small part of my overall psychological state.

    As an adult, it doesn't mean much of anything. While it's a bit easier for me to learn things than it is for the average person, the ease with which I learn things doesn't matter anymore because it's largely happening without other people's direct involvement or on any kind of schedule. On the occasion there needs to be an actual work training lesson I attend, it's something that only happens for a day and enduring a single day of tedious education is so very achievable compared to it being my entire life.

    The biggest impact these days is that it makes me hate Aaron Sorkin.

  • People with High IQ are dumb.

    They lack intelligence in everything except what they love and are narzisstic about.

    People with high IQ and high EQ and many others might be awesome, as you can pull out lots of social patterns, wisdoms, etc. But only for those who had good experiences in Life and are a bit older.

    What am I? Idk. I think I have a high IQ because of various diagnoses, but lots of mental issues are blocking any motivation to understand Math as fast like other People in University. There are incredible fast learners, but I see in them no experience or memory of pain, suffering, etc. Like, its the "fun" that steers us to learn. Becoming distracted pretty fast like me is pain. Its like I have only a High IQ when the Moon shines perfectly.

    I believe that I have a good amount of EQ, because I too often only think about lives of other people and even wasted money to help a broken new friend, just to see the money never again and him either. I suffer just from the imagination of a friend who suffered. I could be the smartest person by being the dumbest Person. Meaning that when I would only see the world centered around me like an egoist/narzissist, I would be happy, because I would lack the intelligence to simulate another World of another Person. I would only know what I need like a dumb Person. I would lack a lot of intelligences.

    Having an High IQ without anything else, makes you a very dumb Person is my Opinion. I feel like the word "IQ" is wrongly labeled, because you dont really measure "Intelligence" by it.

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