What does it mean to be a member of Mensa?
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I may have poor sample, but it seems to me that it means your IQ is in the upper 1.95% - 2.0% of the population.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
I may have poor sample
:-D
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
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I have a colleague who is a member of this organization. However, I think the ID cards got mixed up because this person is actually retarded. So I ask of you members of the project that is code, what does it mean to be a member of Mensa? In case you haven't heard of it[^]
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
It means you passed a test to qualify for membership. This test supposedly tells you your IQ. I'm a member, for the record. I looked through the membership directory at one point long ago and saw that Piers Anthony[^] was also a member. Of course, the people that have posted insults probably consider him a loser too, despite his dozens of best selling novels. I'd be willing to bet there are many respectable geeks that are members. The best thing about membership is being able to talk to other intelligent people that don't feel important by insulting people on message boards.
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it means you did well on their qualification test (a multi-hour logic, puzzle, reading, vocabulary and math test) and then you thought it would be fun to join a group of other people who likewise did well on that test. i took the test, because i like those kind of tests, and did well enough to get in. but i couldn't see the point of joining such a group.
I was fascinated by Mensa when I was a teenager and qualified to be a member by my scores on other tests, but then I thought, "Why would I pay money to be a member of this group?"
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I have a colleague who is a member of this organization. However, I think the ID cards got mixed up because this person is actually retarded. So I ask of you members of the project that is code, what does it mean to be a member of Mensa? In case you haven't heard of it[^]
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
It's like a drivers license. (It has absolutely nothing to do with how well you can drive.)
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It means you passed a test to qualify for membership. This test supposedly tells you your IQ. I'm a member, for the record. I looked through the membership directory at one point long ago and saw that Piers Anthony[^] was also a member. Of course, the people that have posted insults probably consider him a loser too, despite his dozens of best selling novels. I'd be willing to bet there are many respectable geeks that are members. The best thing about membership is being able to talk to other intelligent people that don't feel important by insulting people on message boards.
I would guess that you are a regular member that is posting under a sock puppet account. Of course, I could be wrong...I usually am.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
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I have a colleague who is a member of this organization. However, I think the ID cards got mixed up because this person is actually retarded. So I ask of you members of the project that is code, what does it mean to be a member of Mensa? In case you haven't heard of it[^]
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
It means you've spent a lot of time doing silly puzzles in puzzle books, because they equate intelligence with proficiency with that kind of silly puzzle. It doesn't take a genius to recognise that if a couple of hours practice with silly puzzle books before taking a mensa test can miraculously increase your intelligence, then there's something seriously wrong with the measuring system. Most of the mensa types I've met have been thick as bricks, and incapable of handling anything unexpected (a true measure of intelligence is to do with associative ability, which allows genuinely clever people to handle new situations by quickly and abstractedly cross-referring the new with the known to find possibilities), but they can finish silly puzzle books before their third spoonful of breakfast.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I have a colleague who is a member of this organization. However, I think the ID cards got mixed up because this person is actually retarded. So I ask of you members of the project that is code, what does it mean to be a member of Mensa? In case you haven't heard of it[^]
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
Narf.
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I have a colleague who is a member of this organization. However, I think the ID cards got mixed up because this person is actually retarded. So I ask of you members of the project that is code, what does it mean to be a member of Mensa? In case you haven't heard of it[^]
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
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I have a colleague who is a member of this organization. However, I think the ID cards got mixed up because this person is actually retarded. So I ask of you members of the project that is code, what does it mean to be a member of Mensa? In case you haven't heard of it[^]
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
It just means you scored in the top 2% on an IQ test. It doesn't have to be a Mensa test; they accept the results of other tests that measure IQ, such as the Graduate Record Exam to get into grad school. Once you're in, there are a lot of subgroups for special interests that you can join.
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I have a colleague who is a member of this organization. However, I think the ID cards got mixed up because this person is actually retarded. So I ask of you members of the project that is code, what does it mean to be a member of Mensa? In case you haven't heard of it[^]
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
I almost joined them, even drove over an hour to the nearest place they had the test (back when I had too much free time) Got there and waited along with the other testees to be told that the examiner (a member of mensa) had crashed her car into a wall while ringing the test center to tell us she would be late) I decided that if that was the level of intelligence of the members I didn't really need to be one!!.
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Scored the exact same figure when I was in school. Joined (well it was very cheap if you were a student.) Some nice folks and some nerds and some real tossers. Unjoined about 20 years ago! Rich
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it means you did well on their qualification test (a multi-hour logic, puzzle, reading, vocabulary and math test) and then you thought it would be fun to join a group of other people who likewise did well on that test. i took the test, because i like those kind of tests, and did well enough to get in. but i couldn't see the point of joining such a group.
I'd consider that Mensa membership/participation might put you in touch with people who have similar interests. However, Mensa membership is spread over a large array of people and job types. Some people like to use their intellect at work, others don't. When I think of Mensa I always remember the episode of Bob Newhart where Emily is going to a hi-IQ gathering and Bob mentions that his IQ is 130. Emily replies with, "Why, Bob, that's almost gifted." I love to use that line on my roommate.
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
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I have a colleague who is a member of this organization. However, I think the ID cards got mixed up because this person is actually retarded. So I ask of you members of the project that is code, what does it mean to be a member of Mensa? In case you haven't heard of it[^]
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
It means you've scored in the top 2% on one or more of a number of standardized tests or achieved a high enough score on e their proctored tests. To equate that with intelligence is incorrect; I happen to have scored in the top 1% nationwide on college and graduate school entrance exams, which means: a) I qualify to be (and am) a member of Mensa b) I take standardized tests well neither of which suggest I'm in the top 2% (or even close) in intellengence. I have my moments, and am certainly above average, but I'm no genius. That being said, it's not my belief that Mensa has ever made statements to that affect. Their literature says pretty much what I say above; the rest of the world has interpreted "scoring high on tests" to be "a group of really smart people." From a personal standpoint, it's a social group. While I'm pretty inactive, my local group meets for a monthly dinner, and there are occasional other get-togethers for games, movies, et cetera. Generally pretty geeky sorts, but they're fun too.
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Each national organization has their own tests, and qualifying tests can be very different. About seven years ago, I took the American Mensa proctored test rather than a "standard" IQ test. It started out with a passage being read to us, then several tests that measured our ability to decypher patterns, perform basic computational skills, work logic puzzles and the like, then a final test about what we remembered from the read passage we heard about an hour and a half earlier.
I'm not sure that memory should be a part of IQ metrics although I don't reject the importance of memory. My IQ is about 20 points higher than my boss' but he has a better memory. It seems to serve him well enough since he makes more money than me. On the other hand I used to have a roommate who claimed 170 and I make more money than she does. It's not an indicator of ability to succeed. IMS, IQ tests were developed in France as a means to cull out the lower class from being able to attend public schools. Some people pooh-pooh the idea of IQ tests as being culturally slanted but I'm not so sure that holds in a society where television tends to flatten the cultural barriers. I do question exposure to the use, and subsequent understanding of their meaning, of some words in conversations within sub-cultures but everyone certainly has access to the same exposure in today's technologically oriented world.
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
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It means they can pass some IQ tests which generally mean nothing; having a high IQ does not make people intelligent.
Unrequited desire is character building. OriginalGriff
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I am a member of American Mensa. All it "means" to be a member is that I have a qualifying test score (national organizations have varying lists; here is the US list[^]) that places me in the 98th or 99th percentile. In general, Mensans have a kind of intellectual ADD: if you listen to a group of us talking, the conversation might well start out about cars, then move to the theory of interstellar space travel, to cosmology, to stellar physics, to nuclear power, to global warming and back to cars, all in about ten minutes time. It is a given that sex and food will be mentioned several times during that same ten minutes. This doesn't mean we're "retarded", just that our discussions are given more lead to wander where they will. A lot of people find such conversations difficult to follow; to be honest, we feel just as frustrated talking you. The result is that many high IQ people (Mensans and not) tend to be socially maladjusted: we don't get the kind of practice and positive feedback that you get for being social. That is why Mensa exists, to be a social organization that makes it easier for us to meet one another and engage people at our level.
Gregory.Gadow wrote:
A lot of people find such conversations difficult to follow; to be honest, we feel just as frustrated talking you
I'll have to agree with that. Despite having a 155 score (but never joined) I get into conversations with one of my co-workers who's mental processes seem to work on more than one level at a time. Conversing with him is difficult because he can't focus on the conversation we're having without interjecting his thoughts on whatever else is occupying his thoughts.
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
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Gregory.Gadow wrote:
A lot of people find such conversations difficult to follow; to be honest, we feel just as frustrated talking you
I'll have to agree with that. Despite having a 155 score (but never joined) I get into conversations with one of my co-workers who's mental processes seem to work on more than one level at a time. Conversing with him is difficult because he can't focus on the conversation we're having without interjecting his thoughts on whatever else is occupying his thoughts.
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
The mind often finds solutions to the problem at hand by wandering in totally unrelated fields... How many times have you gone to bed only to think of a solution to some problem you had during the day? I think the same happens on a lower scale. If I try to concentrate on the problem, I can make logical conclusions towards a solution. But if I let my mind poke around, I can be creative and invent new solutions that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Or I might just waste a few hours thinking about how generalized anesthesia works (it's quite interesting actually).
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Apparently, you only have to be in the top 2% to be in Mensa. I'd like to chat with some of the members of Mega Society. High IQ societies. Mega Society.
Somebody in an online forum wrote:
INTJs never really joke. They make a point. The joke is just a gift wrapper.
So for a group of 1-in-1000000 people, they can't produce anything better than the most basic of websites? This always intrigues me...
Don't forget to rate my post if it helped! ;) "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." "His mother should have thrown him away, and kept the stork." "There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." "He loves nature, in spite of what it did to him."
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I'm not sure that memory should be a part of IQ metrics although I don't reject the importance of memory. My IQ is about 20 points higher than my boss' but he has a better memory. It seems to serve him well enough since he makes more money than me. On the other hand I used to have a roommate who claimed 170 and I make more money than she does. It's not an indicator of ability to succeed. IMS, IQ tests were developed in France as a means to cull out the lower class from being able to attend public schools. Some people pooh-pooh the idea of IQ tests as being culturally slanted but I'm not so sure that holds in a society where television tends to flatten the cultural barriers. I do question exposure to the use, and subsequent understanding of their meaning, of some words in conversations within sub-cultures but everyone certainly has access to the same exposure in today's technologically oriented world.
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
"Intelligence" is pretty nebulous: even experts in the field cannot agree on what they are actually studying. Most definitions include the ability to learn and process new information, so many IQ tests have a memory portion. As for history, modern IQ tests were developed on the then novel theory that there were inherent differences in people's intellectual capacity. The idea wasn't to prevent the lower classes from being able to attend public school; the idea was to create a meritocratic society where people better able to learn got an education regardless of class, and where people less able to learn were directed into vocational training better suited to their abilities. This approach remains to this day, in the form tests like the SAT, ACT and other standardized tests. It was in the United States, during the very popular eugenics movement of the early 1900s, that IQ scores were used to cull the population; thousands of people, mostly poor African Americans, were sterilized against their will solely on the basis of test scores in a horrifically misguided attempt to "purge" mental retardation from society.
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Gregory.Gadow wrote:
A lot of people find such conversations difficult to follow; to be honest, we feel just as frustrated talking you
I'll have to agree with that. Despite having a 155 score (but never joined) I get into conversations with one of my co-workers who's mental processes seem to work on more than one level at a time. Conversing with him is difficult because he can't focus on the conversation we're having without interjecting his thoughts on whatever else is occupying his thoughts.
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
Like I said, intellectual ADD :laugh: It gets annoyi... SQUIRREL!! ... annoying at time for us, too.