SHI: You said in the past that you have an IQ of 147. Considering your advancing age, there is also a crystallized intelligence to account for.
Which means according to this chart, you are at 99.8345580959%, smarter than about 600-1100 people that you’ll ever meet. That must be quite taxing.
https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx
So how do you get along with the average, slow-witted person who doesn’t read books? Do you have to dumb yourself down to their level? Where do you go around finding a network of people smarter than you?
I’m at 1.5σ below your score (~127) and I have a hard time getting along with the average dunce in a conversation. The only questions that they want to discuss “How much money he makes”, “What is the next meal going to be for them?” and other repetitive stuff.
At this moment, I’ve really no one to talk to. And that’s not bragging.
Bill Gates has an IQ of 160-170 (he achieved an SAT score of 1590/1600). But unlike so many others, he monetized his genius.
I don’t go around finding a network of people smarter than I am. I almost never meet or know anyone who is smarter than I am. Some are around my level, but they are usually not above it. But I can converse very well with people all the way down to 125 IQ. They all seem very smart to me. Even some people down to 117-122 IQ’s are very smart and seem to be on my level, but others seem to be a bit below my level, although they are still smart enough to talk to.
I can even get along quite well with 115 level people. Are few are serious geniuses and seem to be right at my level. Some are very educated and seem to be around my level. Others are bright, but I end up explaining things a lot. On the other hand, it sort of turns into this university lecturer (me) and rabidly fascinated student (115 IQ person) type thing.
Once you get down below 115, you never know anyone’s IQ. You have to figure that most people you deal with every day have IQ’s of 90-110. What’s interesting that apparently my brain works very fast, even when I am dealing with someone at the other side of a counter. What’s interesting is that a lot of people pick up on my fast brain and they speed up their brain a lot too, possibly because they are mirroring me. They have to be somewhat fast (100+) to even speed up in the first place, but it’s very interesting to watch people accelerate their brains like that. A lot of normal IQ people are a lot smarter than you think.
I find that down around 90 IQ, I start running into some real problems. I meet people who don’t know what Latin is, have never heard of artificial respiration, don’t know what a labor union is, think Salinas is right next to San Diego (they are 400 miles apart). It’s not real easy to have a conversation with someone like that.
The average Hispanic IQ is 90 and a lot of Hispanics around here fit into the examples above. You are looking around for something to say, and even basic stuff is getting shot down as wrong or incomprehensible, and you start wondering how low you have to dumb this conversation down to get anywhere. Now keep in mind that a 90 IQ is almost 4 Standard Deviations below me. I am amazed I can even talk with them at all.
I had a 106 IQ commenter on this site at one time though, and he seemed to be about on my level. The scores are funny. Some people with normal or high normal IQ’s can seem to be about as smart as I am. Some have stuffed their heads with knowledge their whole lives. Others might have learning disabilities that slow them down.
At the end of the day, the numbers don’t really matter. I don’t give a damn what your numbers are. If you are 94-106 and you can still keep up with me, what do I care about your numbers?
There are 330,000 Americans at my IQ level. That’s actually pretty sobering and it makes me feel like a major loser to be such an outlier and not having much to show for it.
In case you are going to get mad at me for using the word genius, that IQ up there is a Genius level IQ. Now before you can angry, keep in mind that 3.3 million Americans have Genius IQ’s. Now it’s suddenly not such a big deal, right? I mean, Genius IQ’s are as common as weeds.
I’ve been dumbing myself down forever. Actually, older people, especially older White women, are quite smart, far smarter than their IQ’s. The reason is that crystallized intelligence you spoke of. Most older White women have become quite intelligent in a crystallized sense far above what you might expect given their IQ’s. So I can actually connect with a lot of older women. I can also connect with smarter young women. The last two women I dated were young women, IQ’s of 115 and 121. I was able to get along quite well with both of them.
The 115 IQ woman seemed a lot smarter than the 121 IQ woman for some odd reason, but the 115 IQ woman seemed to be testing too low for some reason. I thought there was maybe an ADD problem or something along those lines.
My best friends when I was growing up had IQ’s of ~100, so I am used to operating at that level. It does get a little boring, but people like that can be very interesting too, and a lot of them are a lot smarter than you think. They are just operating on a different level is all. They’re not dumb. They’re just smart on a different level.
And some of them were blazingly funny. We would just sit around, take bong hits, get wasted and crack stupid jokes. You just go into “laughing your fucking ass off and telling dumb jokes and not giving a damn mode” and it’s a pretty fun way to live at least part of your life. The whole room would be in uproarious laughter for most of the evening. This one friend of mine who had a 100-110 IQ at best, was one of the funniest people I have ever met, literally.
One of my best friends has an IQ of 94, but he is extremely well read, so he makes up for it.
If someone is not on my level intellectually at all, I simply do not deal with them on my level. I will drop down to a much lower level to engage with them. People are interesting. Even a lot of pretty average intelligence people have a lot of interesting things to say about all sorts of aspects of life and the human condition.
Now when you get down towards 80-85 IQ, it’s really pushing it. These people bore my head off. Some of them are pretty damn funny. Quite a few of them are almost stand-up comics and some even have some understanding of psychology and basic truths about humans.
People who are not compatible with me simply don’t deal with me. The only people who associate with me at all are people who find me interesting and are able to keep up with me.
I know how to talk about somewhat intellectual of deep subjects on a level that a lot of more average people will connect to. Mostly these are deep truths about life and especially psychology and the human condition. A lot of even average intelligence people are quite smart when it comes to things like that and when you spout off these little truths and aphorisms, they perk up right away and nod their heads.
Human psychology especially works pretty well.
Even a lot of pretty average intelligence people have a surprisingly intelligent understanding of human psychology. Also try “truths of the human condition” or “wise sayings.” If you are smart, you hopefully have accumulated lots of these, and you can whip them out and charm people with them, especially women.
Most people have a far deeper intelligence of “common wisdom of the human experience” especially regarding human psychology, than you think. And the older they are, the more you can click on this matter. Also they tend to think you are more interesting than the average person they run into as most folks to go about spouting aphorisms of wisdom everywhere they go. So you are communicating well with them at the same time you are charming or even a bit awing them because you are “smart but understandable” and much more interesting than the average person.
