Anyone in Mensa?

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orko60

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Just wondering if any CAGs here were also Mensans. I wonder if membership in this hallowed group even has any validity, as I've often heard people scoff at "IQ" tests as irrelevant and antiquated. Any opinions?

I know that the test I took to get into Mensa was the most difficult exam I've ever had to take, from timed math, extremely odd pictographic associations, recall of very specific details from an hour before, and counting change in different ways. I really didn't think I had passed until I got the letter from them. The home test was easy, and did nothing to prepare me for the real thing. Is this kind of thing useful in the real world, though? I took an Anatomy and Phisiology course in college, which involved a ridiculous amount of memorization, which is much simpler than having to actually work your mind (but not easy in the least..that was my most difficult college course).

Just wanted to see if there were any opinions about what "real" intelligence is, and if anyone here is a member of two of the most exclusive groups out there, Mensa and CAG!
 
Mensa is one of those groups that it's just kind of assumed that members are among the biggest douchebags on the planet. It's not something you cop to.

Intelligence seems like a relative skill to me, like being able to throw a ball 98mph. Impressive, but not particularly useful 99% of the time, especially given the baggage that typically comes with it.

Application is where the value is added.
 
autaux
 
This thread was starting to look a lot like high school: you smart douchebag! What good is your smarts if I kick you in the balls?!

This is how it works for me: I remember conversations I had with friends weeks ago and it impresses the hell out of them. I thought I was just a good listener and had a respectable attention span, until I realized how detailed the memory remains a year or more down the road and how little others remember. Not much use, to some, but my friends appreciate it.

I'm also able to problem solve like mad; mostly because the problem solving is a seemingly universal skill set.
Say what you will, but it comes in handy.
That said, boss doesn't like it when I solve a problem in a day that he/she hasn't been able to solve for over a year. Or when I remember EXACTLY what my girlfriend said.
Etc. Etc.

It's good and bad. Sometimes practical, sometimes not. Sometimes it complicates things and sometimes it simplifies and solves a complicated problem.
 
[quote name='heironymous']This thread was starting to look a lot like high school: you smart douchebag! What good is your smarts if I kick you in the balls?! [/quote]

Not really. No one is ripping on the intelligent for being gifted. People are ripping on Mensa mostly because it's filled with highly intelligent people who squander their gifts on puzzle (not problem) solving and whiling away their hours on worthless hobbies. Although I cannot just now find the article, I distinctly remember reading how one of Mensa's founders regrets what it has become.
 
[quote name='heironymous']This thread was starting to look a lot like high school: you smart douchebag! What good is your smarts if I kick you in the balls?![/QUOTE]That's because people are idiots.

Congrats.

I don't think I'd ever bother Mensa, but good for you. What does being in it entail?
 
When I lived in Louisiana there was a local chess club that required you pass the MENSA exam... imo Mensa's only worth it for stuff like that, MENSA-exclusive clubs. Otherwise it's completely pointless. Mensa only gets respect from idiots, disdain from everyone else. Like, the only thing it really says to anyone intelligent is "I like to pat myself on the back for being above average" which is pretty sad.

If you put it on any job/college application you'll look like a complete tool, because your test scores / grades / accomplishments should speak for themselves.
 
[quote name='Koggit']When I lived in Louisiana there was a local chess club that required you pass the MENSA exam... imo Mensa's only worth it for stuff like that, MENSA-exclusive clubs. Otherwise it's completely pointless. Mensa only gets respect from idiots, disdain from everyone else. Like, the only thing it really says to anyone intelligent is "I like to pat myself on the back for being above average" which is pretty sad.

If you put it on any job/college application you'll look like a complete tool, because your test scores / grades / accomplishments should speak for themselves.[/quote]


Wait, so what you're saying is I should remove "Active Fox Kids Club member for 2 years" from my resume?
 
[quote name='ananag112']Is the MENSA exam really hard or is it like a normal IQ test?

EDIT: Is this what the MENSA exam is really like?

http://www.mensa.org/workout2.php[/QUOTE]

I've never taken the Mensa test because I'm not a prick, but the style of those questions is actually pretty similar to a real IQ test.
 
[quote name='cochesecochese']Not really. No one is ripping on the intelligent for being gifted. People are ripping on Mensa mostly because it's filled with highly intelligent people who squander their gifts on puzzle (not problem) solving and whiling away their hours on worthless hobbies. Although I cannot just now find the article, I distinctly remember reading how one of Mensa's founders regrets what it has become.[/QUOTE]

Squander their gifts, huh?
So a Mensa member should be doing what exactly, according to you? Be a CEO? Build a new weapon? Create a working spaceship that looks exactly like the USS Enterprise (how cool would that be)? How about judging other people for joining Mensa?
I agree with Mensa being mostly pointless, but most clubs are pretty pointless to everyone but their members.
Anyway, kudos to those that have high I.Q.s. Kudos to those who join, or don't join Mensa. And kudos to those who don't care one way or the other about their I.Q.
 
I have several thoughts on this thread/topic:

1. Alright, I'll admit to it. I was a member of Mensa for a few years. I dropped the membership years ago but they still send me "renewal" cards every year. I guess they figure, even though I have a high IQ, I will forget I am not a member anymore and pay the renewal fee. Once approved for membership always approved for membership I suppose.

2. Since dropping my membership I started work on my second master's degree [insert nerd joke here]. This one is in counseling and I'm all studied up IQ tests. I don't think they are socially valid and they shouldn't be used in the way Mensa uses them. However, you can get into Mensa by proving your are in the top percentage of any intelligence. So, if you can find a statically valid test of video game intelligence several cags may be able to join. In truth, though, there is a list of tests you can take on their websites -- it's not just the official exam that gets you in.

3. My advice for the OP: Go ahead and join for a year so you can say you did. Then drop it unless you really enjoy the local groups (or the annual conference). The magazines are exactly what you would expect: people write about how if the world would only listen to smart people's ideas then everything would be perfect. Then they give asinine ideas. Then someone responds with an article talking about how the last idea was asinine but this new asinine idea was better. This pattern goes on for a while.

4. You should know that people in Mensa like to make numbered lists.

5. You should also know that people in Mensa don't know when to stop telling you their opinions.

edit: Here is the list of tests.
 
"4. You should know that people in Mensa like to make numbered lists."

I use to know a guy in Mensa and this sentence describes him perfectly. He was also annoyingly arrogant. Maybe because he was in Mensa.
 
[quote name='cletus']"4. You should know that people in Mensa like to make numbered lists."

I use to know a guy in Mensa and this sentence describes him perfectly. He was also annoyingly arrogant. Maybe because he was in Mensa.[/QUOTE]

It's far more likely that he was in Mensa because he was arrogant than arrogant because he was in Mensa.
 
[quote name='JJSP']Wait...you have to pay to join?[/quote]
It's just like college. You pay a bunch of elitist jackoffs to give you a piece of paper saying you're smart.
 
[quote name='heironymous']Squander their gifts, huh?
So a Mensa member should be doing what exactly, according to you? Be a CEO? Build a new weapon? Create a working spaceship that looks exactly like the USS Enterprise (how cool would that be)? How about judging other people for joining Mensa?[/quote]

Should a Mensan spend his or her time judging other people? No. The Pissing and Moaning on the Internet position has already been filled by Me. A Mensa member should spend their time building straw men. Tee hee.

...O.K. I'll bite. From the website:

Mensa has three stated purposes: to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity, to encourage research in the nature, characteristics and uses of intelligence, and to promote stimulating intellectual and social opportunities for its members.
Click to expand...
I was holding out for 'to code an even remotely usable website' but I guess I set myself up for a letdown. What, exactly, do Blokus and B.O. have to do with any of the aforementioned tenets?

[quote name='heironymous']I agree with Mensa being mostly pointless, but most clubs are pretty pointless to everyone but their members.
Anyway, kudos to those that have high I.Q.s. Kudos to those who join, or don't join Mensa. And kudos to those who don't care one way or the other about their I.Q.[/quote]

Lad, don't meekly undercut your own argument simply because you wish to avoid confrontation on the 'tubes. I promise I won't bite; I'll just cackle and go back to prowling deals. I haven't got any problems with people joining a club or having a good time but I very much take issue with a group being simultaneously smug and hypocritical and am in no way afraid to be vocal about it.
 
[quote name='cochesecochese']What, exactly, do Blokus and B.O. have to do with any of the aforementioned tenets?[/quote]

I could tell you the answer to this, but you wouldn't understand. One of Mensa's best PR moves is to choose games to be Mensa approved during the annual conference. This works out well because for some people the games part of the conference is the only reason they go.
 
[quote name='VioletArrows']It's just like college. You pay a bunch of elitist jackoffs to give you a piece of paper saying you're smart.[/QUOTE]

No.
 
[quote name='umcthomas']I could tell you the answer to this, but you wouldn't understand.[/quote]

Please. Again, with the unwarranted self-flattery. You went ahead and set yourself up for this. Go ahead. Explain. What do Blokus and B.O. have to do with any of Mensa's official goals?
 
I was a member. But I was too cheap to keep paying dues. There's really no point in it.

At first I thought it'd be a nice way to network with like-minded people. Then I realized that I should just stop being an arrogant jackass and be friends with everyone no matter what their IQ may be.

I'm certainly not condemning Mensa nor its members for their community ("arrogant jackass" was purely self-referential) but I realized that it wasn't something I needed after all.
 
[quote name='guinaevere']I am. I think marten tore up his card ages ago if I understood him correctly.[/quote]

More like can't find it.

Chances are my closet ate it.

With my diploma.
 
[quote name='cochesecochese']Please. Again, with the unwarranted self-flattery. You went ahead and set yourself up for this. Go ahead. Explain. What do Blokus and B.O. have to do with any of Mensa's official goals?[/quote]


I suppose I should have used the [sarcasm] tag on that. The explanation following it is what I consider the "real" reason for the Blockus inclusion in Mensa. It's both for PR and just for fun. If you would like to see all the games that have won the Mensa Select award go here.

But despite the fact that I was being sarcastic...I'll take your challenge with the proviso that I do not know what B.O. is, but I'll assume it is a game of some kind:

[puts on Mensa hat]
The goal of Mensa I choose to examine for my argument is:

"to promote stimulating intellectual and social opportunities for its members."

First I need to point out that there are two parts to this goal, either of which would satisfy the goal: 1) to promote stimulating intellectual opportunities for its members and 2) to promote stimulating social opportunities for its members.

I choose to go step further and show that Blockus fulfills both these requirements by providing a stimulating intellectual social opportunity for members.
American Mensa holds a conference every year called the Annual Gathering. This conference is one way to get Mensa members in the same place (i.e., a social opportunity). But, not all social opportunities are intellectually stimulating so Mensa had to do things at the Annual Gathering to get all these people to be stimulated....intellectually that is. One of the things that Mensa does at the Annual Gathering (doesn't that name sound like it belongs in a fantasy role playing game?) is they get a bunch of members to play games (they call this event Mind Games). The members then feel intellectually stimulated during social interaction while playing the games (coches can stop reading now, I've completed his request). Except some games tend to be more intellectually stimulating than others so Mensa decided to let the people at Mind Games decide which games are the most intellectually stimulating and give them the Mensa Select seal to put on their game boxes. The seal itself is intellectually stimulating, but not usually in a social way. The games inside the boxes, however, usually require some brain activity and level of social interaction to play according to the rules. Technically I suppose that anyone (even people like you who are "not" in Mensa) could benefit from knowing that a game is intellectually stimulating and social because of the Mensa Select sticker on Blockus boxes; this point is a failure on Mensa's part because they are supposed to promote these things for members (the goal quoted above implies that they will only promote these things for members, however I will not concede the point because the goal is not specifically exclusionary).
 
[quote name='rapsodist']I was a member. But I was too cheap to keep paying dues. There's really no point in it.

At first I thought it'd be a nice way to network with like-minded people. Then I realized that I should just stop being an arrogant jackass and be friends with everyone no matter what their IQ may be.

I'm certainly not condemning Mensa nor its members for their community ("arrogant jackass" was purely self-referential) but I realized that it wasn't something I needed after all.[/quote]

I didn't think that starting this thread would bring up such a shitstorm!

I agree with you Rapsodist; I joined Mensa to get together with like-minded people, but I have yet to go to a meeting. I post in their forums every once in a while, but don't find it as stimulating as I had hoped. I just don't seem to care. Maybe I did take the test and join just for self-flattery.

I will try out the meetings in the Los Angeles area when I move out there for school.

All of you people who are decrying it as a bunch of elitist snobs are being silly, though. Their forums don't seem to be anything like that, and the people seem very nice. I just don't care to hang out with a bunch of old lame-o's (as evidenced by pictures of a local Inland Empire gathering in the newsletter). There was a very cute girl at my testing appointment...I wonder if she passed....
 
[quote name='umcthomas']I have several thoughts on this thread/topic:


3. My advice for the OP: Go ahead and join for a year so you can say you did. Then drop it unless you really enjoy the local groups (or the annual conference). The magazines are exactly what you would expect: people write about how if the world would only listen to smart people's ideas then everything would be perfect. Then they give asinine ideas. Then someone responds with an article talking about how the last idea was asinine but this new asinine idea was better. This pattern goes on for a while.

4. You should know that people in Mensa like to make numbered lists.

5. You should also know that people in Mensa don't know when to stop telling you their opinions.

edit: Here is the list of tests.[/quote]

#3 is probably what I will end up doing. I don't think I can bring myself to send them another check next year.
 
[quote name='JJSP']Wait...you have to pay to join?[/QUOTE]They're called club dues.

Maybe you've read about them in a book.

[quote name='VioletArrows']It's just like college. You pay a bunch of elitist jackoffs to give you a piece of paper saying you're smart.[/QUOTE]

Ahahahaha. Shut up.

[quote name='marten']More like can't find it.

Chances are my closet ate it.

With my diploma. [/QUOTE]:lol:
 
What is more impressive: beating Braid while riding a unicycle and juggling midgets or the ability to discern a clothing brand by nibbling on their lint? Hmm, I think I'll just add both to my petition to join Mensa. Heck, I might as well toss in my knowledge of five different languages. Sure, they're all languages I thought up one night after I Bonk-ed my head against the Hachiko statue, but hey, languages are languages.
 
I've always disagreed with what most people classify as "intelligence". Most of the time, if a person knows large amounts of random trivia, people will say "that guy is really intelligent". Really? He has a great memory; that doesn't mean he is necessarily intelligent.

For me, intelligence is tied up in how you think: your ability to think outside the box, to see details that no one else sees, to be insightful, to think "big picture", to see the future consequences of your present actions and adjust accordingly. For me, these qualities mark an intelligent person.

Also, I find it hard to view someone as intelligent when they have poor grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and if they are horrible with money. That's just me, though.
 
I didn't want you to think I forgot about you. Rest assured this is going to be pretty anticlimactic.

[quote name='umcthomas']But despite the fact that I was being sarcastic...I'll take your challenge with the proviso that I do not know what B.O. is, but I'll assume it is a game of some kind:[/quote]

Two part answer: 'body odor' and 'it can be.'

[quote name='umcthomas']*snip*[/quote]

Uncle. I'm not going to play battle the magical moving argument here so I will concede that your Blokus example satisfies one of Mensa's primary tenets.
 
[quote name='Ender']I've always disagreed with what most people classify as "intelligence". Most of the time, if a person knows large amounts of random trivia, people will say "that guy is really intelligent". Really? He has a great memory; that doesn't mean he is necessarily intelligent.

For me, intelligence is tied up in how you think: your ability to think outside the box, to see details that no one else sees, to be insightful, to think "big picture", to see the future consequences of your present actions and adjust accordingly. For me, these qualities mark an intelligent person.

Also, I find it hard to view someone as intelligent when they have poor grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and if they are horrible with money. That's just me, though.[/QUOTE]

That trivia type of knowledge is tested in IQ tests as well. When I took the WISC there was a ton of that stuff. Just random, random questions from a wide variety of subjects. "Which direction is Uganda from Kenya? Who is Vladimir Putin? How many periods are in a hockey game? Which animal does Veal come from?" They weren't all that easy, just giving an example of the variety.

Supposedly people with higher IQs pick up the information around them more readily, so the idea is everyone is exposed to about the same amount of info but the smarter people will retain more of it. I don't really agree with that, but that's why it's a factor in most IQ tests.
 
[quote name='Ender']I've always disagreed with what most people classify as "intelligence". [/quote]When I was admitted, it was based on IQ results and lateral thinking tests. But my memory is terrible and when I'm not focusing (which is 99% of the time), I'll say or do or ask really really dumb things.
example: last night I ask in conversation, "what are those snakes with the little shakey rattles on the end?" answer: "you mean rattlesnakes?" me: "oh yeah."
Also, I find it hard to view someone as intelligent when they have poor grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and if they are horrible with money. That's just me, though.
Click to expand...
:rofl: Wow, you must love reading my posts.

To be serious though, my Dad (who was a brilliant mathmatician) couldn't spell to save his life. My Mum who isn't very intelligent is a spelling phenom. So there are always exceptions to the rules.
 
[quote name='guinaevere']When I was admitted, it was based on IQ results and lateral thinking tests. But my memory is terrible and when I'm not focusing (which is 99% of the time), I'll say or do or ask really really dumb things.
example: last night I ask in conversation, "what are those snakes with the little shakey rattles on the end?" answer: "you mean rattlesnakes?" me: "oh yeah."
:rofl: Wow, you must love reading my posts.

To be serious though, my Dad (who was a brilliant mathmatician) couldn't spell to save his life. My Mum who isn't very intelligent is a spelling phenom. So there are always exceptions to the rules.[/quote]

Our test had a lot of quantitative reasoning and mathematics, memory, word puzzles/anagrams, with some vocab thrown in. There wasn't any "trivia" that I can remember offhand. The toughest part was the "similar pictures" part, wherein they showed three pictures and asked you to pick a fourth that went with the others. This sounds easy, but they had some really out-there shit on this test. Bread and milk, a man's dress shirt, and a blender had to be matched with a similar picture, all of which didn't seem to go. Things like that, just to test how you think, are part of the test. Very odd. I passed, though, so I must have been doing SOMETHING right.

I agree that the type of person who amasses a ton of "trivia" in their head is either A. Intellectually curious enough to bother seeking out and remembering things or B. has a good enough memory that they can remember things whether they want to or not. I think I have a pretty good memory for mostly useless knowledge, for better or worse. Hopefully it will serve me well in Law school.
 
ahm a meber of mesna.

makes no difference in your life and has no bearing on your total intelligence.

The fact is, your educational life is 99% determined by your numbers these days. Your extracurriculars, those 1000s of hours of feeding homeless people, and well, your mensa membership, will only help in the rare tie breaker situation. Schools say "oh, we look at the WHOLE person" for good PR.

Then the job pool you have access to after Grad school or professional program often has to do with your class ranking and connections. Then after that first job, it's all about your connections, references, and motivation.

In other words, an Edge card is more useful than a mensa card.


Though I bet you could get some pretty rad connections at a mensa meeting.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']She has the highest score on the video game, Cock Goblin.[/quote]

Nope I'm pretty sure Billy Mitchell is the biggest Cock Gobbler on the planet.
 
[quote name='keithp']How could OP have gotten into Mensa but misspelled physiology? :whistle2:?[/quote]

Apparently he's not smart enough to use Firefox.
 
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