Eugene writes
> Lee, iirc you claim you can gauge the IQ of a person if given a few
> minutes talk. I guess a few years of online comm, even if not truly
> directed at each other during most of the time would seem to suffice.
Actually, I only rejoined extropians in March, and so have only seen
you in action for five months.
> So, what is your informal estimate of old 'gene here?
There are several good reasons not to go into publicly discussing
someone's IQ---it's rather inappropriate and undignified for one
thing. For another, the entire area is very controversial and
great uncertainty would attend such estimates. For yet another,
I know that people would naturally be very sensitive about
discussing a quality which, after all, has far too much mystique
about it as it is. At age 30, for example, I would have felt most
uncomfortable having a group of people begin to publicly argue
about what my IQ was (it doesn't matter so much anymore since I
don't care nearly so much: I've known many, many very good judges
of such things who have very high regard for my intelligence, although
I've also known twenty or thirty very bright people in my life who
thought that I was a complete idiot--- and worse, while I can
dismiss most of those opinions for one reason or another, it does
seem like five or six of them were really onto something. So
several more opinions about me either way just wouldn't matter.
But I'd guess your age to be even closer to 30 than mine is to
55--and so there would be a concern about your sensitivity.
Still the Extropian list isn't for the faint-hearted, and also I
hardly want to back down from such an interesting challenge, if
possible. By the way, can you think of any reason that your I.Q.
would have been seven or eight points lower in May? Anyway, I've
omitted the May data; the rest of my analysis puts your I.Q. between
153 and 155, that is, between 3.31 and 3.34 standard deviations (16
points per sd). Note: I have not taken into account any unfamiliarity
on your part with the English language even though from your name and
your email address I assume that you're German---your command of
English is quite excellent, but you might want to add one or two
points if it does seem to you that you are less comfortable or
can't express yourself quite so clearly in English.
Incidentally, if anyone else is interested in having me perform a similar
analysis based upon their (hopefully voluminous) postings, I'd be very
happy to, but I'd prefer to do it privately. Please send me email at
lcorbin@ tsoft. com. The price is $24.95, I accept Visa, MasterCharge,
Discover, and American Express, and I'll accept personal checks from
people on this list who I've come to know. (Normally, I'd put in
an apology for being such a mercenary American, but I have been
informed by a very reliable source that such an observation itself is
heavily loaded with ideology---in a way quite invisible to Americans,
it turns out, unless they are able to read Noam Chomsky---and I probably
should avoid further controversy about it until I've made some progress
in finding out what's up with that.)
Lee
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