"If you’re reading this and think something might apply to you, please understand that is not a signal to decide that you are an unconventional thinker or exceptionally intelligent and share that fascinating observation with everyone. That very reaction is a pretty reliable indicator that you’re not. If you can’t fathom that, go ask a very tall person how excited he was this morning about discovering that he was tall".
Tho much attention is paid to the admirable and perhaps enviable characteristics of a Sigma, I think Vox's truly powerful secret "weapon" is the fact that he knows himself well and is very much at peace with himself, warts and all. (This does not, obviously, mean he is no longer pursuing excellence or trying to improve himself or considers all his failings as features not bugs.)
Not everyone can be a Sigma or Tom-Cruise-level Alpha or UHF or whatever, but self-knowledge is within everyone's grasp.
I remember back at university when I was driving with my GF who on paper was "very smart" and we were looking for a parking space in the extremely full car park. We got to one row and I said yay there's a free space here. She said "how can you tell you can't see all the cars due to the angle".. "yes but you can see all the shadows on the ground and one is missing"... She literally would not stop pestering me wondering who had taught me such a trick. Apparently there's no way I could have come up with that myself. I thought that was just obvious.
I don't know if I am VHIQ or UH but I definitely struggle on a daily basis with communication as concepts that I just assume people know as a kind of innate knowledge are so foreign to even relatively smart people. I get called retarded a lot 😄.
You taught a woman that men are generally good at locating and tracking objects in three-dimensional space and women are not. This is ground-breaking stuff to a female university student assuming being equally gifted like a man.
I have worked with a wide variety of people over the decades, some who makes you wonder who ties their shoes in morning to some who are scarily frighteningly smart. The truly smart are different. When dealing with them I felt like a kindergartner whom someone was trying to explain calculus. One boss, a Phd. In Engineering with JD and member of the patent bar once told me about a crypto patent that was granted, he stated: I have no idea what it does but the USPTO granted.
I met the inventor, felt sorry for him as he was so brilliant but surrounded by so many intellectual inferiors, including myself, that it was hard for him to dumb down his concepts and ideas to us, let alone relate to mere mortals.
I commend Vox for his willingness to expose himself to the inane comments from those of us on this site. I trust he gets some insight on how to reach down to our levels and help breach that IQ gap.
No idea what my IQ score is. It is not important to me; it is definitely not important to you.
While I do enjoy some wry amusement seeing people IQ-joust on twitter and elsewhere on occasion, I believe that the fascination with IQ in our society is a sign of its deep sickness. "Smart" is not one of the seven virtues.
Perhaps this is an example of my own time-bias, but I personally noticed this becoming a real thing in the 1990s during the Clinton administration. They would do something observably immoral, illegal or unjust and his spokes-creatures would justify that act on the basis of its cleverness. This has only grown worse since.
People in general love smart guys - to a point. Mensa guy who has all the cool opinions and f'ing loves science? Sure, he's cool. Guy who blows the bell curve in every class while barely seeming to try? Nope, they loathe that guy with the heat of a thousand suns. Especially if his observations don't flatter their opinions.
Once it makes them look bad by comparison, it isn't fun anymore.
Thank you, reading your comment and VD's comment in tandem makes sense. I don't particularly care if a UHIQ individual considers me the equivalent of a talking pet; however, most people despise being made to feel or shown to be less intelligent.
My very limited experience with a UHIQ person was very enjoyable. Some of the things he came up with were -- well, best described as similar to stage magic. While I could never have thought those thoughts, once I had seen the how the "trick" was done, I largely understood.
[Yes, I'm one of those people who always likes to see the how the magic trick is works.]
"It can be extremely difficult to bite one’s tongue and remain silent whenever one is informed that one has somehow failed to understand something so simple that a brain-damaged chimpanzee would grasp it without difficulty."
This community is smarter than the npc world at large. There are midwits in this community, myself included. But it can be maddening trying to have a conversation out in the world after be exposed to this community. Vox has ruined the world for us. Once you come here you can’t go back to narrative thinking.
After years of reading Vox, I would not speak to pattern recognition specifically, or to visual spatial reasoning...he has said he's no damn good at packing trunks, IIRC...though my experience is that a lot of IQ test batteries lean toward verbal reasoning and pattern recognition, he is obviously sharp there.
I think his true gifts are in the verbal reasoning constellation: observing and distilling concepts down in a way that can bridge the IQ communications chasm, coining terms to cover specificity gaps in language, the written product of generating simplicity on the other side of complexity. All fruits of gifts in that area.
To my 6'5" friend everyone is either shorter than them or taller. Whether 5'9", 5'4 or even 7' they don't quibble about specific amounts at all. It's either "woah that guy's tall" or a neutral non-reaction to anyone shorter across the board. On the other hand flatlanders, me included, count compare and cheat out every inch.
I imagine it's the same for UHIQ. Everyone's either below or above with the similar reaction with no need to measure specifics.
This reminds me of a principal's contempt of low-status protestors. The gist of his wit was how if you are somebody, then you're not protesting on that Friday for respect and understanding. Decent students aren't protesting with losers on that Friday, by definition. Decent students have a hobby, a gig for cash, a dog to walk, a girlfriend to date, a book to read, a game to play, a party to go to, a chore at home, or friends to talk with. Why would you be there on Friday, why?! Even the criminals, the junkies, and those from broken homes have things to do.
This is my take-away pearl from the entire article:
"...the unarticulated thought does not exist."
That tolls like a bell.
Curious about the psychological itch that’s scratched by waxing descriptively about one’s intelligence as a text box on a comment page.
OK, maybe not EVERYone, but I have no way of knowing who can & who can’t. Also not everyone wants to.
"If you’re reading this and think something might apply to you, please understand that is not a signal to decide that you are an unconventional thinker or exceptionally intelligent and share that fascinating observation with everyone. That very reaction is a pretty reliable indicator that you’re not. If you can’t fathom that, go ask a very tall person how excited he was this morning about discovering that he was tall".
Very profound and timely.
Tho much attention is paid to the admirable and perhaps enviable characteristics of a Sigma, I think Vox's truly powerful secret "weapon" is the fact that he knows himself well and is very much at peace with himself, warts and all. (This does not, obviously, mean he is no longer pursuing excellence or trying to improve himself or considers all his failings as features not bugs.)
Not everyone can be a Sigma or Tom-Cruise-level Alpha or UHF or whatever, but self-knowledge is within everyone's grasp.
"self-knowledge is within everyone's grasp"
Oh, you sweet, innocent. If only that were true!
Is "I'm a retard who should not be trusted with anything" truly out of everyone's grasp?
Look around. Does it look to you as if the retards are doing that? Now just admit it, I'm right and you're a... (fill in the blank). MUAHAHHAHA
I've known delightful retards who had no problems understanding they were slower than the rest.
That those who aren't genetically crippled cannot grasp their measly estate illustrates the tragedy of the human condition.
There goes my coffee again!
Paraphrasing Norm Macdonald, "I think slow and carefully"
I remember back at university when I was driving with my GF who on paper was "very smart" and we were looking for a parking space in the extremely full car park. We got to one row and I said yay there's a free space here. She said "how can you tell you can't see all the cars due to the angle".. "yes but you can see all the shadows on the ground and one is missing"... She literally would not stop pestering me wondering who had taught me such a trick. Apparently there's no way I could have come up with that myself. I thought that was just obvious.
I don't know if I am VHIQ or UH but I definitely struggle on a daily basis with communication as concepts that I just assume people know as a kind of innate knowledge are so foreign to even relatively smart people. I get called retarded a lot 😄.
You taught a woman that men are generally good at locating and tracking objects in three-dimensional space and women are not. This is ground-breaking stuff to a female university student assuming being equally gifted like a man.
it isn't even that. It is figuring out that no shadow = no car.
"How can you possibly be this intelligent?"
- Guy following an explicitly marked path in the woods.
On the other hand, not even UHIQ will save you from being unable to find the milk carton right in the middle of the fridge I recon, so...
yeah I still have perfect vision but can't see stuff right in front of my face.
I have worked with a wide variety of people over the decades, some who makes you wonder who ties their shoes in morning to some who are scarily frighteningly smart. The truly smart are different. When dealing with them I felt like a kindergartner whom someone was trying to explain calculus. One boss, a Phd. In Engineering with JD and member of the patent bar once told me about a crypto patent that was granted, he stated: I have no idea what it does but the USPTO granted.
I met the inventor, felt sorry for him as he was so brilliant but surrounded by so many intellectual inferiors, including myself, that it was hard for him to dumb down his concepts and ideas to us, let alone relate to mere mortals.
I commend Vox for his willingness to expose himself to the inane comments from those of us on this site. I trust he gets some insight on how to reach down to our levels and help breach that IQ gap.
Look forward to his newest book.
No idea what my IQ score is. It is not important to me; it is definitely not important to you.
While I do enjoy some wry amusement seeing people IQ-joust on twitter and elsewhere on occasion, I believe that the fascination with IQ in our society is a sign of its deep sickness. "Smart" is not one of the seven virtues.
Perhaps this is an example of my own time-bias, but I personally noticed this becoming a real thing in the 1990s during the Clinton administration. They would do something observably immoral, illegal or unjust and his spokes-creatures would justify that act on the basis of its cleverness. This has only grown worse since.
You have it entirely backwards. Intelligence is literally persecuted in modern society because truth is illegal.
People in general love smart guys - to a point. Mensa guy who has all the cool opinions and f'ing loves science? Sure, he's cool. Guy who blows the bell curve in every class while barely seeming to try? Nope, they loathe that guy with the heat of a thousand suns. Especially if his observations don't flatter their opinions.
Once it makes them look bad by comparison, it isn't fun anymore.
Thank you, reading your comment and VD's comment in tandem makes sense. I don't particularly care if a UHIQ individual considers me the equivalent of a talking pet; however, most people despise being made to feel or shown to be less intelligent.
My very limited experience with a UHIQ person was very enjoyable. Some of the things he came up with were -- well, best described as similar to stage magic. While I could never have thought those thoughts, once I had seen the how the "trick" was done, I largely understood.
[Yes, I'm one of those people who always likes to see the how the magic trick is works.]
A little, but not as much as you'd think.
"It can be extremely difficult to bite one’s tongue and remain silent whenever one is informed that one has somehow failed to understand something so simple that a brain-damaged chimpanzee would grasp it without difficulty."
From a great height, all things look small.
This community is smarter than the npc world at large. There are midwits in this community, myself included. But it can be maddening trying to have a conversation out in the world after be exposed to this community. Vox has ruined the world for us. Once you come here you can’t go back to narrative thinking.
join us in the pit of despair, friend! MUAHAHAHAHAH
I was 16 when I re-worked a popular poem to:
*idiots, idiots, idiots everywhere; and not a brain to think!*
The song about the mermaids deserves to be set to metal.
If I may suggest one small change: the alliteration in "oCean SHore" in the second line is cumbersome. I suggest replacing it with "foamy shore".
I understand what you're thinking based on a read, but "ocean shore" flows fine when you hear it. It's more "Ohhh-shun shore" with no strong emphasis.
Fascinating, but are UHIQs funny? Oh, yes they are.
"I fail to see any need to square anything."
That's because you live your life on your terms.
I swear, the effort expended here on disputation and navel gazing would be so much more profitably spent on self-reflection.
State-improvement has a much greater ROI than trying to "gotcha" our host.
Here's my contribution to the growth of you Gamma trolls out there...and you know who you are.
Before critiquing one more thing on this site, go out and (consensually) kiss a girl.
Not a peck on the cheek, full on the lips; pursed, tongued, and moan.
Then begin your next post with a one sentence description of how you accomplished that.
Only then are you free to try and "gotcha" Vox, taking satisfaction in your new-found credibility.
Prediction: You will quickly lose interest in doing so.
I enjoy the SSH content. What is your IQ score?
I believe Vox mentioned it was around 150, but he scored around 180 in pattern recognition. Something along those lines.
After years of reading Vox, I would not speak to pattern recognition specifically, or to visual spatial reasoning...he has said he's no damn good at packing trunks, IIRC...though my experience is that a lot of IQ test batteries lean toward verbal reasoning and pattern recognition, he is obviously sharp there.
I think his true gifts are in the verbal reasoning constellation: observing and distilling concepts down in a way that can bridge the IQ communications chasm, coining terms to cover specificity gaps in language, the written product of generating simplicity on the other side of complexity. All fruits of gifts in that area.
He got dinged on the fit-everything-in-the-trunk/boot part.
> “You just don’t understand!”
> “You know where we stand relative to each other. So what are the chances of that?”
Related to that height analogy ...
"You can't see what I see!"
*crouches down*
"I can see it just fine. You know you can't see what I see."
To my 6'5" friend everyone is either shorter than them or taller. Whether 5'9", 5'4 or even 7' they don't quibble about specific amounts at all. It's either "woah that guy's tall" or a neutral non-reaction to anyone shorter across the board. On the other hand flatlanders, me included, count compare and cheat out every inch.
I imagine it's the same for UHIQ. Everyone's either below or above with the similar reaction with no need to measure specifics.
This reminds me of a principal's contempt of low-status protestors. The gist of his wit was how if you are somebody, then you're not protesting on that Friday for respect and understanding. Decent students aren't protesting with losers on that Friday, by definition. Decent students have a hobby, a gig for cash, a dog to walk, a girlfriend to date, a book to read, a game to play, a party to go to, a chore at home, or friends to talk with. Why would you be there on Friday, why?! Even the criminals, the junkies, and those from broken homes have things to do.