Match.com, Mensa Create Dating Site For Geniuses 561
mpicpp writes in with news about a new dating opportunity for Mensa members. It takes a special person to join Mensa. For one, the elite society only takes individuals with IQ scores in the 98th percentile, meaning just 1 in 50 Americans is eligible. This exclusivity — some might say snobbery — is part of Mensa's lore. Early Mensans in Britain walked around with yellow buttons, organizational publications once referred to non-Mensa members as "Densans," and last year, a top Mensa member and tester called anyone with an IQ of 60 a "carrot." In short, you don't always join Mensa because you think you're smart. You join to be set apart from most people, who are, as one member put it: "mundane." But a new partnership between American Mensa and online dating giant Match.com offers a new, enticing reason to join the society of geniuses: true love. Beginning this week, members of the brainiac group can connect through a separate, exclusive dating service called Mensa Match. In addition, Match.com members can add a special Mensa badge to their profiles, signaling a specific interest in connecting with a single person with a confirmed genius-level IQ score.
Re:IF.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not particularly good among "groups", either.
The idea that you would join a society dedicated to separating you from "regular people" based on your supposed superior intelligence is a pretty strange notion. Most of the people who I know are Mensa members are the type that couldn't get accepted to any other club.
Inflation of the word 'genius' (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Before someone asks, yes, I am "Mensa material". I do IQ tests as a pastime. It's fun to watch shrinks stare in awe. So I could join them. As could, I'm certain, most people around here. Being in the 2% bracket isn't THAT difficult when you look at it. There are actually clubs out there with far tighter joining criteria. Also not really something I'd consider joining.
I mean, let's be honest, why should I? Yes, it's fun to have a discussion with people who can think beyond next breakfast but it's no fun having them with people who consider themselves so "smart" and aloof to join a club that selects its members by intelligence. I mean, imagine you're good looking, would you want to join a club that only lets beautiful people join? Ponder what kind of self absorbed, shallow cunts such criteria attract. And then ponder whether you want to be part of that.
And even more, ponder whether you want to spend at least part of your life with someone like that. And now let's imagine the worst case, just think that kids would be the results of such a union. What kind of person do you think such a child would become? Either you'll have a completely broken person who snapped under the pressure of being the expected "pinnacle of intelligence", or you get the ultimate self-absorbed asshole, or a combination of both.
Re: why would I want to hang with a buncha cunts (Score:5, Insightful)
Me too! But in 2000.
I went to a few gatherings and it was mostly fat libertarian dudes.
Then I realized only a fuckhead would join mensa for intellectual validation.
Then I realized I was one of those fuckheads and promptly re-examined my life.
I joined the triple nine society and am much happier. /s
Re:why would I want to hang with a buncha cunts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why would I want to hang with a buncha cunts (Score:5, Insightful)
so that they can converse with other people with similar mental character and interests
It's a fair point, but what exactly is being shared? Having a shared high IQ is no guarantee at all of the shared or compatible interests, personality, life aims or values. All the kind of stuff that helps in a social club, and relationship most definitely needs.
The only thing they have in common is an interest in knowing how smart they, and other people are, by one particular yardstick. As interest go, that's pretty shallow.
Re:why would I want to hang with a buncha cunts (Score:4, Insightful)
They'd probably be a little surprised if I didn't have a bike or a stamp collection, but they'd encourage me to get one and not look down their nose at me if I didn't have one.
Probably true in the case of the stamp collection, in basically all cases. But a lot of motorcyclists will look down on you for driving a 'cage' down the road.
I personally enjoy a cage when it is a roll cage, but different strokes [across a cheese grater] for different folks.
Re:But people forget what MENSA concluded (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: why would I want to hang with a buncha cunts (Score:5, Insightful)
We're discussing high intelligence and you admit to believing what an advert says?
Re:But people forget what MENSA concluded (Score:4, Insightful)
Want success? Learn how to SCHMOOZE and be a salesman.
CEO's are stupid as boxes of rocks, but they can sell themselves and talk others into doing things and convince people they know what they are doing.
Corporate success is 90% bullshit and 10% smarts.
On a side note, if you have an IQ of 150-170 and are not doing your own research or tinkering to come up with something new, you are wasting your brain. Start tinkering, start building, there HAS to be something you know you can do better or build better.
I have several patents under my belt, no I'm not making buttloads of money off of them but I created something that makes the world better. I also build and do things that others can not do. I can modify and reprogram Car ECM systems in my sleep, 90% of the automotive engineers at GM cant do what I can do. (Note: I did work for GM for a short time, 100% of their management is populated with raging low IQ assholes so I quit in less than 30 days) And I learned all this by hacking and tinkering.
So get off your ass and start doing. Smart people do not become CEO unless daddy had billions already (Elon Musk for example) Build things, hack things, modify things. I know a lot of high IQ people and they all have one thing in common. Being lazy. Smartest guy I know wastes most of every day playing Xbox and smoking pot.
Your failures are your own, and your success is also your own. What do you want more of?
Re:But people forget what MENSA concluded (Score:3, Insightful)
On a side note, if you have an IQ of 150-170 and are not doing your own research or tinkering to come up with something new, you are wasting your brain. ... Your failures are your own, and your success is also your own. What do you want more of?
Spending time with my family. Much better use of my high IQ brain than just about anything else.
Re:But people forget what MENSA concluded (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:IF.. (Score:2, Insightful)
It is because of this reason that I do not take the IQ test seriously. If you are an intelligent person you may notice several patterns, but the test only accepts as valid the specific pattern that the authors want. The test is too biased to be usefull.
Obligatory Douglas Adams Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
> I know a lot of high IQ people and they all have one thing in common. Being lazy. Smartest guy I know wastes most of every day playing Xbox and smoking pot.
âoeFor instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so muchâ"the wheel, New York, wars and so onâ"whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than manâ"for precisely the same reasons.â
â Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Re:But people forget what MENSA concluded (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no idea what my IQ is. I'm definitely very smart, but also very lazy and don't want to struggle on a test. I also have good days and slow days and I've let my brain vacation too much over the years (IQ is most definitely not a constant). I only had one IQ type test but it was when I was a kid and I never learned the score but some people seemed quite impressed.
Overall though the intelligence helps but I'd much rather get rid of it and replace it with a strong work ethic and ambition. Intelligence meant that I could slide through a lot without too much effort, school was easy, college was easy, and I never had to study. Whereas keeping my nose to the grindstone is hard, stepping up and taking charge is hard, keeping organized is hard, managing my personal affairs is hard, and so forth. In the big overall pictures, I am very much below average I think except for that one thing.