Isn’t mensa sort of a con itself?
Comment on mensa
echodot@feddit.uk 4 days ago
I wish I could remember the story but there was a guy that joined Mensa so he could con people. It worked too which rather seems to suggest that the entry requirements are not all that stringent.
Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 3 days ago
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 3 days ago
IQ testing, argualy. Mensa is a social club that wants nerds to fuck nerds and make nerd babies
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
I think their entry requirements are doing exactly what they’re supposed to.
The problem is that intelligence, even if we could measure it correctly, doesn’t and shouldn’t imply what a person knows, nor their experiences and the wisdom that they carry.
Someone can be learned with a low IQ. Someone can be wise and similarly low IQ. In the same way, someone with a high IQ can be unwise.
The problem with having only one individual metric for a group which believes themselves to compose the smartest people, is that they’re arrogant. I know plenty of people who are so extremely intelligent that I am certain that they could be a part of Mensa; yet, they are not. When they looked into it, they decided it would be unwise to become a member, given the requirements and the attitudes of, and about, the group.
Hell, there’s a decent chance I could get in. I’ve never tried and I don’t care to, for all the same reasons, so I would never know if I could “make it” or not.
Their arrogance and hubris is their undoing.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Mensa is for people who grew up in gifted programs being told that they will achieve greatness just because of the one test they scored hight on, and then they amounted to nothing, so they need a place where they can tell each other that they are unsuccessful only because they are so much smarter than everyone else around them.
High IQ people who manage to do something with their life usually have more to be proud of than an IQ test they took decades ago.
hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
Do you remember how that con was supposed to work?
echodot@feddit.uk 3 days ago
It was in an article about the real life incidents that influenced Terry Pratchett in the discworld series. So the con itself probably took place in the '80s or '90s, so quite a while ago. I can’t really remember if the article itself went into any details but I ended up looking into it myself because I thought it was funny that people in Mensa had been conned.
I think it was some sort of timeshare scheme. The guy managed to sell timeshares in a property he didn’t in fact own, not a very sophisticated con really. The utter geniuses didn’t demand evidence that he actually owned the property before handing over cash.
hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
I took a trip down the rabbit hole and tried to find any evidence - there is none. Even though this was happening before the www really took off there should be evidence on the net. A story hilarious as that would never die and would also be used as a warning against timeshare scams.
I don’t think mensa members are immune to scams, but timeshare? Even the legit ones are scammy IMO.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
Or IQ is a useless measure
morphballganon@mtgzone.com 4 days ago
Or computational intelligence isn’t the same thing as skepticism
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
… Or wisdom.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 4 days ago
Or everyone is vulnerable to con games
outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
And over-identifying woth it is something arrogant shit heads who are easy to con do.
Not me though. I’m better.
Feathercrown@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Wpuld you like to join my new society of people who are two smart to show off their IQ? You get a cool badge you can show people
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 days ago
Im in!
outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Obviously.
buttnugget@lemmy.world 3 days ago
IQ is absolute nonsense that tells you literally nothing about intelligence or anything of the like.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s a very good measure if you want to predict how well people will do on IQ tests.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 days ago
It gives you a good indication of their mental speed and memory.
It is poor at measuring specific abilities or wisdom.
Feathercrown@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Don’t let you convince yourself of something just because you want to believe it’s true. IQ is not an objective measurement of intelligence, but it isn’t completely useless either.
buttnugget@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s worse than useless. It tells you literally nothing about anything, plus idiots think it’s meaningful.