Ask A Genius (or Two): Conversation with Erik Haereid and Rick Rosner on Genius (Part Seven)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/03/22

Abstract

Rick Rosner and I conduct a conversational series entitled Ask A Genius on a variety of subjects through In-Sight Publishing on the personal and professional website for Rick. According to some semi-reputable sources gathered in a listing here, Rick G. Rosner may have among America’s, North America’s, and the world’s highest measured IQs at or above 190 (S.D. 15)/196 (S.D. 16) based on several high range test performances created by Christopher Harding, Jason Betts, Paul Cooijmans, and Ronald Hoeflin. He earned 12 years of college credit in less than a year and graduated with the equivalent of 8 majors. Erik Haereid earned a score at 185, on the N-VRA80. Both scores on a standard deviation of 15. A sigma of 6.00+ (or ~6.13 or 6.20) for Rick – a general intelligence rarity of 1 in 1,009,976,678+ (with some at rarities of 1 in 2,314,980,850 or 1 in 3,527,693,270) – and ~5.67 for Erik – a general intelligence rarity of 1 in 136,975,305. Of course, if a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population. This amounts to a joint interview or conversation with Erik Haereid, Rick Rosner, and myself.

Keywords: America, Erik Haereid, genius, intelligence, Norway, Rick Rosner, Scott Douglas Jacobsen, standard deviation.

Ask A Genius (or Two): Conversation with Erik Haereid and Rick Rosner on Genius (Part Seven)[1]^,[2]*

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We come back after a hiatus due to schedules and – well – life. Let’s continue forwards, shall we? The next topic in our selection is the true meaning of and metrics of genius. I like the layout in the previous session. On the one hand, the more controlled and precise layout of Mr. Haereid; on the other hand, the experiential and, at the end, motivational components of high-range tests (HRTs), i.e., for Mr. Rosner, the roots in relationship desires, instinctual drives.

Another facet of this comes in the form of the higher ranges of intelligence test scores with “genius” as a category. A moniker denoting some mixture of elements, or the labelling of some productions as in a “work of genius.” I want to focus today on the concept of genius in the context of some of the world’s top scorers on alternative/non-mainstream tests.

As an important note for the general public or prospective test-takers, high range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

Let’s focus today on genius, in particular, in a scientific setting, no unnecessary premises in definitions, even if in the ‘soft’ sciences, then the proper constructs with the appropriate empirical premises inhere in them. For example, some may look at aspects or factorizations of intelligence tests into general intelligence as statistical artifacts, as noted by the late Dr. Stephen Jay Gould. However, if predictions and empirical results follow from the construct, then a construct appears tentatively, scientifically valid.

To start, on a first pass, in a concrete colloquial sense, what comes to mind about extreme human achievements/productions and extraordinary human talents – mental or physical? In a more precise sense, what seems like the core of genius, as a scientific question? Furthermore, if we look at the petals on this flower, what derivatives come out of this core of genius? Again, in an empirical sense without unnecessary assumptions, what are the outgrowths in talents/productions exhibiting “genius”?

What do you consider great works of genius in the 20th century? Who do you consider the great geniuses within the empirical limits laid out before?

Rick Rosner: The strongest cultural meaning of genius is somebody who changes the course of humanity via a correct original idea. So, we’re talking Darwin, Newton, and Einstein. More recently, people will say, “Hawking,” maybe, “Steve Jobs.” Then you ask those people, “What did those people come up with?” Those people will not be able to tell you and will be presented as geniuses in the media.

Someone who is changing the idea with a correct, original idea is the main idea. That’s it in a nutshell. You can extend this to art. Of course, that’s more subjective. But still! That’s my main answer. The metric of the true cultural meaning of genius is whether the idea survives. You look at Newton. He came up with Universal Gravitation. He was co-discoverer of Calculus.

Has that survived since the 1660s and flourished? Yes! Any reasonable person looks at the biological world through the lens of evolution. Ditto for Einstein, though, most people don’t know what Einstein’s stuff means. Scientists who do. They know it has been confirmed probably a million times.

There are cartoons, particularly in the New Yorker. They take a common situation, cartoon situation, and give it different punchlines over time, like the guy in the desert situation is a common joke situation. When I was a kid, a common joke situation was a guy in the loony bin wearing a Napoleon hat. The guy who thinks he is Napoleon! Delusions of grandeur are, I guess, not uncommon.

I would assume Bipolar and Schizophrenia can give you that. Maybe, modern culture can give you that because modern culture can give you that through the proper use of social media. There’s a whole history of people proclaiming themselves to being very important in various ways. I just got the book about Keith Raniere, a fellow Mega Society member, who formed his own cult to very ill effect and who is now in prison. I guess for life, right?

He swindled people out of money. The people who own the Seagrum’s liquor fortune. They own a media empire too. He victimized a couple of the daughters of the Seagrum’s billionaires. He talked them into giving him $100 million to invest, which he lost. He made sex slaves out of a bunch of women, including a bunch of women who were under-aged.

I run around saying that I have the world’s 2nd highest IQ on Twitter based on my IQ scores. Yet, all I do is tweet all day. But there’s no metric for your potential to change the world. Your only metric for changing the world is actually changing the world. Elon Musk was on Twitter today talking about how panicking over coronavirus is dumb. And I think that’s dumb, because it is going to be a big deal.

Erik Haereid: To appear as a genius, you have to be able to translate, convey, an insight that only you have/receive and no one else can derive logically from other knowledge, so to speak. Deductive and inductive processes have to have a dash of flash, something totally new, unexpected, breathtaking, to be genius. It has to change the way we perceive things.

I consider the ability to communicate as part of the genius; to make the incompatible and complicated understandable to others. After all, IQ-problems contain this, and especially the most complex problems represented by HRT. You discover a pattern that after revelation is understandable to most people, but that only a few manage to uncover. Once uncovered, it’s easy for everyone. But IQ-problems are constructed by another human being. One knows that there is a solution. IQ-problems are hide-and-seek. Ingenuity (genius) is based on the uncertainty of whether there is anything of significance, context and utility in the chaos. It can, strictly speaking, just be chaos. This is how ingenuity comes to see the possible in the impossible.

In order for us to call it ingenious, it must contain utility; it must have a meaning for most people. It can be a pattern that is in nature or in the world of concepts, and that you see a connection in as the only one. The connection, the work, does not have to be rational, but it must enlighten us; such as for example “Mona Lisa” illuminates us in a way we cannot simply explain, as Rembrandt’s distorted and everyday people awaken something in us that balances brilliantly on the border between the attractive and repulsive. Rembrandt gives us something we need; that we cannot obtain otherwise.

In order to call something genius, it must be exempt from the average trait of development; a lot becomes brilliant when we skip all the steps a development has, for example in medical science. It is the many small advances that create something new. But this I would not call ingenuity per se. When Copernicus turned our view of the Earth’s position in relation to the sun, it happened “instantly” and inside his head, as was the case with Einstein’s theories of relativity. Or with Freud’s subconscious and the displacement mechanisms. It was not, apparently, part of slow development and change in consciousness. Concerning consciousness, it was more like an explosion. Superb literature and art have the same immanence; the ingenuity of art is about the degree of consciousness change and change of direction for mankind.

I regard life as a process of freedom. We instinctively seek freedom, opportunities, open space. Therefore, I also believe that the condition of genius is freedom, not the absence of freedom. Reality is something that opens up. This also applies to illnesses, accidents, terrible experiences and incidents. If a genius finds that the world is going down in X days, then freedom exists in something else than this apocalypse, even if it is obvious. The ingenuity must then be to open up knowledge that causes us to change course in the direction of freedom. Viewing death as unfreedom is a limited view of life and not brilliant. There are no such things as “Evil geniuses”, only very intelligent humans being evil.

Ingenuity is therefore about realizing what reality we need to open up to. It’s less about uncovering everything that exists regardless of the consequences. Everything that exists is no matter, too much. We cannot understand everything. One could say that the engineers behind the atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project created unfreedom for humans, but the technology within the atomic bomb is also the reason why there is relatively more peace on earth now than before.

A genius probably has better access than others to this kind of insight that people need. I don’t say that for example Andrew Wiles, who found complete proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, is not a genius because most people don’t understand the evidence or that this can be useless. Few people understand the mathematics of general relativity. But for me, the public utility and insight become crucial to the definition of genius.

You can solve countless complex HRT-problems without being a genius. You are intelligent, but not a genius. That being the case, I probably consider WGD as 90% oxymoron, myself included. The name is misleading. It should be WID, World Intelligent Directory or something like that.

I think some very intelligent people want to be declared a genius because they have inferiority complexes; it’s not sufficient being highly intelligent. By putting an adequate name in one’s own position, one gains an identity to bask in. “Genius” is the incarnation and manifestation of their intelligence. The problem is that you cannot call yourself a genius even if you are very intelligent, yes, more intelligent than many geniuses. In order to use the term “genius”, one must have done something brilliant. It’s not even enough to be the world’s most intelligent human being. But it does not undermine the value of being extremely intelligent. It is rather the case that very intelligent people should work to be brilliant, not to brag about that they are.

Ingenuity is about improvement, promoting humanity in a balance with nature and the environment, strengthening the individual, through deeper insights and discoveries that can be communicated to the people; an original insight expressed as science, art or other forms of expression.

If a process, such as this one, consisting of elements that can be diffuse and abstract, leads to a sublimation/refinement of thoughts and a higher understanding of whatever it should be, and that this leads to a long-term gain for the people, either directly or indirectly by others using it as a motivation, I would say that this scenario lives up to its name (Ask a Genius (or Two)). Ingenuity is not necessarily limited to a moment of insight and discovery made by a person. It may well be collaboration and a process over time. I see that this can be difficult to distinguish from ordinary collaborative processes where results can also seem brilliant. But it’s about seizing something no one else has seen, i.e. an instinct, an intuition that, more than based on knowledge and ditto logic, paves the way for something axiomatic.

Brilliant inventions, events and expressions in the 20th century? Spontaneously, I would like to mention the efficient use of energy in the industry and the development of vehicles, such as the internal combustion engine.

The automotive industry. Henry Ford. Conveyor. I do not know whether it is right to call Ford a genius, but he did at least exploit an invention, put the pieces together and created a pattern for mass production.

A better understanding of consciousness and the subconscious; our ability to suppress discomfort, mentally. The division into id, ego and superego (Freud).

Our understanding of time and space (Spacetime) (Einstein) and a logical description of the evolution of the Universe. Deficiency: No explanation of singularity, genesis.

The invention of the computer (Charles Babbage/Alan Turing), and based on the transistor and integrated circuits (microchip) was crucial in the 20th century. The computer and software, including this technology in combination with communications (Internet), smaller devices and efficiency (manageable and economically acceptable). I would say that Bill Gates is a genius.

2. Jacobsen: Rick, I’ll start with you. Your response covered infamous criminal, abuser, con man, and profoundly gifted member of the American populace, Keith Raniere, who went by the cult leader title Vanguard in the organization NXIVM – and, as you noted, held at least one substantially rare high IQ society membership. We see this throughout all communities, e.g., cults, quasi-cults, claiming supernatural powers, claiming special knowledge from or to speak on behalf of God (or some higher being or power) – even claiming to somehow be God or a direct representative of it, falsely proclaiming IQs/inflating IQs, being strong adherents to non-scientific views including creationism, geological catastrophism, and the like. Indeed, even Mensa International, its special interest groups in 2005 once held a creationist special interest group. I like the definition given to Rick Alan Ross [Ed. Founder of the Cult Education Institute] by a friend, as he reports, on cults as differing from con men/cons only insofar as cons bilk for a period, and then go away, while cults are cons that are continual cons, potentially indefinitely. Raniere would have been indefinite, if permitted. You spoke about Newton, who, famously, was vindictive against competitors, and a certifiable genius and an all-around jerk throughout life until death. He believed in Alchemy, turning base metals into gold, etc. Why?

Rosner: Because Newton lived in an incompletely scientific world. I have read that science, the way we understand it, and the scientific understanding of the world didn’t begin until Newton’s century in the coffee houses of London. Coffee was a new product brought back from the new world. So, you had a bunch of guys. It was largely guys getting coffee’d up on this new drug and enthusiastically trying to be scientific. Science was a niche activity. Newton, we know, spent more time, according to one source at least, searching for hidden messages and meanings in the Bible than he spent on mathematics and physics. Science hadn’t won, yet. Unfortunately, now, in America, religious arguments are made by charlatans and idiots. So, it is pretty easy for someone who is not dumb to find much of religion to be bullshit. 360 years ago, there were a bunch of good people, most people, who believed in some form of Christianity. Most of the people in England for sure believed in some form of Christianity. There were smart and authoritative people making arguments in favour of Christianity or, at least, contributing to the intellectual infrastructure. It was the winning set of beliefs at the time. Newton spent a lot of time thinking about the prevailing belief system, which most people thought about when they thought about any belief system at all. I don’t know if Newton had a globally applicable idea of science to fully account for the world. I doubt it because he spent so much time on the Bible. But that’s what people did back then, including even the very smartest people.

3. Jacobsen: Darwin withheld his findings, the common story goes, to save the faith of his wife in a manner of speaking. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, more directly. Even though, he trained to become a religious leader/scholar before discovering Evolutionary Theory or the mechanisms by which biological life grows, develops, and speciates.

Rosner: What you’re claiming is that Darwin, among other reasons, sat on evolution because he didn’t want to hurt his wife, I heard that he spent years scribbling to make the most persuasive and voluminous set of arguments. Darwin lived with his wife. Darwin, I don’t know that much about him. He seemed like the opposite of a prick. He lived with his family and quietly observed the world. He would go out into the world, watch the worms, and do calculations about how long it would take for certain things to happen in the natural world. Darwin is the one who brought the idea of deep, deep time into the world. That the processes that formed the world took many, many tens of millions of years to form. He would make calculations based on what the worms were doing based on how much dirt the worms turned over. He seemed like a quiet, considerate, thinky guy. I think he suffered from some chronic pain. Something that we would have trouble diagnosing now, nebulous, let alone in the 1800s. When he brought his theory into the world, not just his theory, Alfred Russell Wallace, there were people who came close earlier. It was floating around, anyway. Is the general comment that smart people can be jerks and/or nice people?

4. Jacobsen: I would move the dial on the niceness to extremely compassionate and the same in the opposite direction.

Rosner: I think the general idea might be that smart people of the type that we’re talking about think about a bunch of stuff fairly deeply.

5. Jacobsen: Do you think deep thinking tends to come along with deep feeling, or the extreme opposite? It is almost like their capacities are amplifiers for whatever their base emotions are.

Rosner: There are three frameworks that you can work within. One, “I am entitled to do what I fucking please because I am a colossus who strides the world. I am bringing this into the world. So, whatever I want to do, it is a small price to pay for what you are getting from me.” It is the Bill Clinton thing, “I am the most powerful person in the world. It is not a big deal if I jizz around an intern. If I need that to reduce my stress because I am running the world, then okay, I am going to do it.” That’s more the Newton thing. There’s the other thing, which is the Spider-Man deal, which is “with great power comes great responsibility.” It is, “I have the ability to do all this shit. But given that my brain can do like 300 pushups without stopping, I should be able to use that brainpower to control my actions in the world because I have this powerful fucking brain.” I think you see people on both extremes and people who are in the middle who are like, “I am good at thinking at shit. But when other stuff happens in my life, whatever happens, happens, I am only on the clock for a certain number of hours of the day. If I, after hours, if I engage in all sorts of hookups, that’s just part of the rich panoply of life.” Picasso. He liked to do art and he liked to fuck.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Rosner: People can have various reactions to their own abilities as they impinge on their personal behaviour, including no reaction and just doing their shit, whether it is thinking smart shit or going on Grindr or some shit.

6. Jacobsen: What about Feynman?

Rosner: Feynman may be the greatest physicist of the middle of the 20^th century. As a young man, he had a tragic love story. While he is working on the atom bomb in Los Alamos, his wife or fiancé is dying of tuberculosis in a sanitorium 90 miles away in Albuquerque. She dies! For the rest or much of the rest of his life, Feynman felt free to be a pussyhound, during the 50s through the 70s, 80s, 90s, I guess. Long before MeToo and being a pussyhound was more acceptable than it is today, Feynman liked to apply thought to everything. As a kid, as a 10-year-old, he was known in his neighbourhood as the boy who fixes everything by thinking. Someone brings him a busted radio. He would sit and look at it, and think about it for a long time, then he would just dive right in, not have to tinker, and then would go right for the repair.

7. Jacobsen: That reminds me of Glenn Gould, where he would not practice much or at all, but would just do that in his mind. There’s one commentator, Bruno Monsaingeon, who comments that it was something of the mind, “Causa mentale.”

Rosner: Feynman applied his analytic skills to picking up women. I don’t know all the principles. One of his principles is don’t buy a woman a drink. This was the era of something call B-Girls or bar girls. These were bar girls who hung around in bars who got you to buy them expensive drinks. Then the bar would overcharge you. They were working with the bar. They’d split the take at the end of the night. Feynman would run into a girl, a woman, and, in practice, she’d be like, “You buy me a drink.” He’d be like, “No, you buy me a drink.” It is an early pick-up artist principle. You knock the woman off her pins by not just being another mark. According to the principles of being a pickup artist, you never tell a pretty woman that she is pretty. It just establishes you as another sap who she can ignore. Instead, according to pick-up artists, you start with a neg. You look at her. She looks at you looking at her. She is waiting for a compliment, “I have never seen someone with eyes like yours.” Instead, you say, “Do you notice that your smile does this thing?” This shit is almost as old as Feynman shit. Feynman did that shit. In the 70s, there was a strip club close to Cal Tech. He would sit in the strip joint and do equations on napkins and, maybe, sketch an occasional stripper.

8. Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Rosner: Somewhere, he got married in the 70s, probably. I would assume that his wife was aware. Before he got married, he may have slept with 100 women, including the wives of a lot of his graduate students. I haven’t seen a biographical detailing of it, but there was a lot of fucking. It didn’t really hurt that he was a fun, bongo-playing guy with great hair. He would have been less successful if he had been Edward Teller trying to get laid.

9. Jacobsen: [Laughing] Einstein gave a big picture view and a fast flicker film perspective of the world. We can see the big and the fast in different ways in which Newton didn’t. Yet, he had some escapades on the side. In short, why are some human personality problems, even neuroses, amplified by intelligence? How can this go completely off the rails into delusional thinking?

Rosner: Einstein, it has been, I guess, documented that he had roughly 5 affairs, which, if someone wanted to bang him, he’d be like, “Sure! Let’s do it.” I am not sure that he actively pursued extracurricular sex. But as the most famous genius in the world, he would have opportunities and then take advantage of them. His first wife, he had a volatile relationship with: Mileva Einstein. She may have been as smart as he was. I don’t know if she had a doctorate in physics, but she was highly trained in physics and probably went through the theories with him. He was smart but didn’t know a lot of math. He and his friends did a lot of math. Same with his wife. He knocked her up before they were married. They had a volatile marriage and got divorced. Then he married a second cousin, who was like a hausfrau, who accepted her role as his house caretaker. I don’t know if he would stay out all night banging somebody. But she probably went along with the whole thing as a wife of this great man. Was Einstein a bastard? I don’t know. He took advantage of sexual opportunities. I don’t think there’s any documentation that he felt guilty about it. He may just have been pragmatic about it, “Here is an opportunity I am getting as a famous guy. My wife is aware, at least tacitly, of our respective roles. She is okay and resigned to it.” Maybe, he didn’t worry his pretty little head about it and just went about doing what he did. He did, to some extent, massage his public image. He did know what Einstein the public figure was and would play into that. But I don’t know how much ethical agonizing he did over his personal behaviour. He wasn’t a total prick. He and Mileva had a child. Mileva gave birth to a child that was, maybe, crippled. Maybe, they gave her up for adoption? I don’t remember the whole deal. There was a secret Einstein offspring somewhere. That would be kind of prick-ish. But I don’t know.

Feynman, was he a prick? If he is banging his graduate students’ wives, kind of, he is leaving a trail of marital destruction behind him? At the same time, he was a whimsical guy and thought everything was fine. But I don’t know. The deal is really smart people can take varying degrees of responsibility for their personal behaviour. That leads to the argument that smart people might be psychopaths. That if you think about everything and question everything, then, maybe, you end up questioning the rightness of decent human behaviour. Maybe, you end up reaching the conclusion that extreme decency or common decency is not that big of a deal. I would think that a lot of really smart people would run the risk of being ethically agnostic. But then, there’s a step two, which is not being a stupid psychopath. The psychopaths that you see on T.V. will engage in gratuitous cruelty because they can do it. They have no ethical limits.

But I would postulate that there are rational psychopaths who may be freed from normal ethical restraints or may have freed themselves from ideas or from being constrained from good and evil and have decided to not behave like regular psychopaths. 1) It is not fun. What is the fun of being a serial killer? It is just weird and gross. 2) Your life works more smoothly if you’re not a fucking psychopath or not doing psychopathic shit. You can be a psychopath. In that, you are free from ethical restraints, but you restrain yourself anyway because not behaving according to these common restraints wrecks your life and wrecks other people’s lives unnecessarily. It is more reasonable and efficient to not be a psycho-killer. I have a more commonplace example. To some extent, there are people who are monsters who are successful because most people behave normally and ethically. When somebody doesn’t, it is unexpected and somebody can get away with stuff for his entire life and even become president by being a psychopath, who goes full psycho. Someone who just decides to bullshit everyone all of the time. There’s room for a limited number of those people.

If 20% of the population were like that, we would evolve protections against that. But when only 1 person in 1,000 or 10,000 does it; it becomes surprising. My friend J.D. Mata is the piano player and choir director at his church. During a service, he’s sitting on his bench in front of the piano and playing when it is appropriate. This woman comes down and sits down on his bench next to him with her kid. She just starts talking loudly to her kid during the whole service. J.D. finds this distracting because he has to play piano and the woman keeps talking. J.D. asks, “Can you stop talking, please? I am trying to do my job.” The lady goes crazy on him, “I have a special needs child. I have to talk to my special needs child.” I talked to J.D. after it, the day after. He was reeling from it, still, because most people do not do that. Because when you run into someone who is a 3+ sigma, 4-sigma say, dick head, it leads you to question your own judgment because it is just weird that you’ve had a situation turn into that level of confrontation. So, somebody who is 4-sigma dick-ish can get away with a lot of shit because you win over people who are used to dealing with people using the normal amount of respect. It boggles you. It confuses you. Geniuses, being smart, may be able to figure out, “You can be an asshole all the time and get away with shit.” Or a genius may never figure this out because this is not the field a genius is interested in. A genius may just be very smart and think, “If I act like a normal person, then my life will run very smoothly, like Einstein! His first marriage was volatile to a smart physics lady. His second marriage, and this could all be luck or love or convenience, is to a woman who served him, who viewed him as a great man and took care of all of his shit.”

You could argue Einstein being smart is in having a wife is what he wanted and simply to have someone who would take care of him as opposed to having an intellectual equal who he had to fight with all the time. There is a bit of psychopathology if he coldly calculated this as what he needed out of a relationship all of the time – if he simply needed someone to be his butler or something.

10. Jacobsen: Erik, why is clarity key in the explanations of the ideas held by true geniuses?

Haereid: To understand you need intelligence, to make it visible you need ingenuity.

It’s a matter of definition. It’s my subjective view. To be defined as a genius device it must have a benefit; and at that moment people percept it.

It’s not the math behind, for example, the general relativity that should be understood in general, few experts does, but the package, the idea, the consequences, and through such an insight people, in general, will experience it, feel it, like when they look into “Mona Lisa”‘s eyes.

Sometimes, as with a painting, there is no need for explanations. Other times one needs a simple story to gain the idea and reveal the feeling.

Of course, this is my subjective view. Others define genius differently. But the idea is to claim something more, put more into it, to deserve the label genius than “only” developing some complex patterns or understand something that few do; that’s intelligence. It’s about the impact on humans in general. Great impacts are understandable for most people; the outcome. When someone solves the energy-problem by let’s say the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium, using water, with lower energy input than the output, copying the process in the sun, on earth, the general public doesn’t need to understand the math. The outcome is obvious. If you find a key to control human aggression in a suitable way without making us into apathetic sloths, and through that prevent wars and violence, you certainly are a genius. If you deny potential future happenings because you can’t see it happens, you are less intelligent and far from genius because you then rely on our knowledge so far; you don’t anticipate new and groundbreaking knowledge that can change your view.

To understand a complex problem, like the math behind the general relativity, you need experience (e.g. math skills) and intelligence. To create art like Michelangelo and Rembrandt you need skills and intelligence. But to make the art or math-piece come through, into everyone’s mind and heart so to say, you need ingenuity.

11. Jacobsen: With the prominent story of Hypatia’s murder by a Christian mob who hacked her to death, how many women geniuses have we simply lost the brilliance and insights of now?

Haereid: Men have historically in our culture felt threatened by intelligent women. It’s archetypical. It’s in our genes. We have to use effort to reorganize it in our minds. And we do! There has been a huge development in the last century. This will hopefully continue. We have missed a lot of female geniuses’ presence, unfortunately.

12. Jacobsen: In terms of the truly groundbreaking and new discoveries in science, the big theories, have we, possibly, reached some limit in terms of human genius, where the complexity and chaotic mess of the modern world limits the possible grand unifying human theories to the shorter in scales? Are we left to the slow drip of discovery based on mere mortal science hitting some soft or not-so cushy limits?

Haereid: That’s a really good question. I don’t know. It’s impossible to tell. Suddenly we know if this is the case, but we’ll never know if that sudden event is the last one. I don’t think that increasing the amount of information, processing of information, and associated complexity leads to chaos in the end. I believe in freedom, in clarity, in essences, in the end. Before peace there is war, before control there is chaos. That there is more chaos could also be part of the development towards clarity. And why shouldn’t a bright moment of one or several brilliant brains see what no one else sees? Still. Maybe Einstein was the last one. We don’t know yet.

13. Jacobsen: With these HRT directories or listings, people can be paid off to have their names placed on them. There can be issues with only the highest scores claimed. If an organization with fellows, board members, or if friends of the founder, then there can be issues with conflicts of interest, potential or actual, in the front-facing appearance of it. Frauds exist. Some HRT tests, obviously, produce a blip score, much higher than true IQ for a variety of reasons. Some can see this with a single test at some of the highest scores in the world, legendary in the HRT world (a very small planet). Any warnings for the general public, in general terms?

Haereid: You mention “True IQ.” I think that’s the best solution to the potential fraud-issue (and the issue of scoring actual, honest, ultra-high on one single test). It seems like that the wish for an astronomic high score on one or two tests is more important to some than taking many tests and estimate one’s IQ based on an average of the best tests in the market. There are good, mediocre and not so good tests in the HRT-environment. There should be a weight depending on a test’s value. But that is, of course, controversial since all test creators try their best. Some parameters are important though; the number of testees, the credibility of the norm, the ceiling of the test, the survival of the test (how many years it has been there)…

I think one should take every single ultra-high score with a grain of salt, even though 99% of them are honest and fair scores. To decide a person’s estimated IQ-level one should claim more than one test, at least three or even six to ten. Rick, Evangelos Katsioulis and Mislav Predavec are examples of persons that have proved their level by scoring high on several tests, not only one.

Some initiators try to establish true IQs by gathering members based on their scores on several different tests concerning the type of test (verbal, spatial, numeric) and test creators. This reduces the fraud problem, and it removes the one-test-impressive-genius factor. And if you spread it over time, you get closer to a true IQ-estimation. I think Domagoj Kutles VeNuS Society is a good example of establishing a list of member’s true IQ. It’s a start.

When it comes to the frauds, I suggest a democratic process where the ones one think is cooperating on certain tests are confronted with that, and that the proofs are transparent, as in a court. An even bigger problem than the fraud itself is the mistrust that appears inside the environment based on that anyone can cheat; find companions to collaborate with. It’s based on trust, and as long as there is no justice, no court to punish the cheaters, no evidence, only claims, no one can trust anyone. Then the whole HRT-environment becomes toxic.

But, I believe that most of the scores are real and clean, still. If you want to take tests, do so! There are a lot of nice tests out there. And don’t take tests because you want to prove that you are smart. Forget the IQ-measure and concentrate on doing the job, solving the interesting problems, feeling good when you have reached your potential, when you have revealed a logic pattern that was not obvious. Don’t take tests because you want to read that “NN has 150 in IQ”.

14. Jacobsen: Obviously, these are the stronger or among the strongest scores of the test-takers placed on these lists – and self-selected. That is, if I take the listings – all of them or in the future – on face value without critical questions about scores, sample sizes, norming timings, test content, and the test designs themselves, or conflicts of interest and the like, then there are a number of other issues, too. Nonetheless, the idea or concept of intelligence provides, in addition to tests of various mental aptitudes with apparent positive correlations with one another and reasonable effect sizes, a basis for a psychological construct. One with predictions. Something having validity in predictions, and repeatable ones. In that, a valid and reliable measure, over a population and so not with any given/every given individual, found in intelligence for a psychological construct. The question about sample sizes for the highest ranges of intelligence are murkier given fewer cases, statistically and in those properly tested, remains a valid scientific question. Thus, HRT is a valid endeavour based on a psychological construct while, apparently, undeveloped for a variety of reasons. In sum, intelligence can be studied, empirically, and in its highest ranges, validly. Of those more valid HRT tests and ongoing research, what size of samples or controls of confounds at the highest ranges of intelligence would permit reliable and accurate discrimination rather than this standard deviation, standard deviation-and-a-half, or two standard deviation gaps in various tests taken by people who take a lot of HRT tests?

Haereid: Let’s say every human being living today took one perfect valid IQ-test, normally distributed, and did their best such that their scores measured their intelligence. I made a spreadsheet that calculates this:

People:	7,500,000,000
S.D. 15:		# people >
IQ 190	1,009,976,678	7.4
IQ 185	136,975,305	54.8
IQ 180	20,696,863	362.4
IQ 175	3,483,046	2,153.3
IQ 170	652,598	11,492.5
IQ 165	136,074	55,117.1
IQ 160	31,560	237,642.6

Then we would have 362 persons with IQ>180 S.D.15, and we would for sure discriminate accurately up to 185 (approximately 5.7 standard deviation).

Let’s say the sample is one million:

People:	1,000,000
S.D. 15:		# people >
IQ 190	1,009,976,678	0.0
IQ 185	136,975,305	0.0
IQ 180	20,696,863	0.0
IQ 175	3,483,046	0.3
IQ 170	652,598	1.5
IQ 165	136,074	7.3
IQ 160	31,560	31.7

As you can see, it’s difficult to discriminate accurately IQs over 160 with less than a million testees. You need a billion to create a test that measures IQ accurately up to 5-5.3 S.D.

If you want to measure accurately in the high range, you also need a lot of very difficult and valid problems with increasing difficulty. A valid IQ-test discriminating accurately in the top area (160-190; S.D. 4 to 6) should have let’s say at least 30 items that no one of the <160-testees solve; theoretically. A test of a thousand items, and one hundred of them in the >160-difficulty-area, would be proper and a step to discriminate accurately in the high range. Then you would still have let’s say 50 items that no one with <170 solved, and 10 items that no one <185 solved. Intuitively.

So, we need many more testees and (valid) items in the high range area to discriminate more accurately.

15. Jacobsen: Do inferiority complexes infect some of the HRT community?

Haereid: There are a lot of good intentions; many persons in the HRT-environment wish to gather and exploit the sum of ingenuity and cleverness through the many high IQ Societies and groups, like WIN.

But there is some noise in the environment, some activity and mentality based on inferiority complexes.

I respect those who take part in HRT because of the tests, and only that. It’s like a chess- or bridge-club. But many are too concerned about the norms and if the IQ-scores are inflated, too high or low or whatever. Forget it. Take the tests because you like the mental challenge. Forget the IQ-thing; don’t identify with your estimated IQ.

And the “genius” identification. Why not “intelligent”? It’s sufficient.

And all the personal attacks, the ad hominem-arguments and tactics to gain power inside this tiny environment. What’s that? Are they kids? Are they playing? I don’t know, but it smells of inferiority complexes all the way.

With a few exceptions, the environment lacks self-irony. I miss more of that.

16. Jacobsen: You typed in Norwegian and then translated into English, “If a process, such as this one, consisting of elements that can be diffuse and abstract, leads to a sublimation/refinement of thoughts and a higher understanding of whatever it should be, and that this leads to a long-term gain for the people, either directly or indirectly by others using it as a motivation, I would say that this scenario lives up to its name (Ask a Genius (or Two)).” My life is complete. That’s a lovely compliment! Akin (similar, related) to the question for Rick, do psychological ‘issues’ follow genius more often than not, based on observation and reflection on the issue?

Haereid: You’re welcome!

The thing with geniuses/very intelligent persons is that they think a lot! That’s not a problem per se, but without some contact with the ground; you can easily get mad. Our thoughts are an auxiliary tool developed so that we can make plans and act better and more effective than we could with pure instincts and intuition. Thoughts are maps. The real world meets us through our senses; to gain mental control we have to live through our senses too. Thinkers, very intelligent persons and geniuses use their mind power excessively; forget eating, running, walking and sleeping so to say, forget smelling flowers and watching birds, forget listen to music and sing in a choir or play in a band. It’s natural though; it’s easier to use your talents and abilities than do something “odd”. Many with high intelligence are afraid of their emotional expressions, and suppress them, I think.

17. Jacobsen: Erik, who do you consider the most intelligent person in history? Who do you consider amongst the greatest geniuses in history? Who do you consider both among the most intelligent and the greatest geniuses in history? Something akin to the tripartite theory of genius/creativity of Paul Cooijmans with the width of the associative horizon, conscientiousness, and general intelligence exhibited to their highest levels – referencing the last question.

Haereid: The first question is difficult to answer, because we do know about the geniuses but not the most intelligent ones. I could standardize my answer and say Goethe or da Vinci. But they are also geniuses. I guess the most intelligent person who ever lived is unknown; only known to his family and close relations at that time. His or her potential ended at the landfill. Being a genius is also about being known, and being known is about making expressions that impress.

Among the greatest geniuses? Mozart, definitely. Shakespeare, yes. Rembrandt, ok.

Among the most intelligent and greatest geniuses; persons that have done something right for people, that was introvert and intelligent? da Vinci, Galilei and Goethe have to be considered among the greatest geniuses and most intelligent through history. I don’t know about the conscientiousness, though. I should say Einstein, but everyone claims that. He is the modern incarnation of a genius, but maybe not the greatest one in history.

18. Jacobsen: Who have been the women geniuses of the past? Rick and Erik, what kind of geniuses do we need now?

Rosner: The quick and easy answer is that we need collaborative geniuses. This is a collaborative era. When you look at superhero movies and then they roll the credits and thousands of people working on the movie, it is clear that we live in a collaborative era. Not just a collaboration among people, but collaboration as we move into the future between people and A.I. Not robot A.I., but devices that make human intelligence more intelligent. By “collaborative,” it means willing to work with other people and not being a dick. This is also the era of MeToo. It means being able to work with people without being an asshole in a number of different ways, including sexual harassment. We have increasing means of hooking up with other people.

For the next year, or so, we are in the first week of the lockdown of the planet because of the coronavirus. Although, this means the end of in-person collaboration for a lot of people for the next year or so. It may mean new inroads into teleconferencing, telecommuting. Right now, everyone is stir crazy. Eventually, everyone will calm down because the deaths will keep getting worse and hospitals around the world become overwhelmed. I think a big number of people will be able to escape the problem by generating work. My wife thinks there will be a renaissance of product creation and creativity. We will have 6 to 9 months of staying at home. People will make stuff. I contradicted myself a little bit. Most of the stuff will be lonely products. I will uncontradict myself because there will be a glut of pitches and new stuff because most of this stuff will not make it into production until it has been vetted by dozens and dozens of people with the edges knocked up, being punched up, and re-written.

The era of production, people still read books. But the products that people pay the most attention to, the intellectual products. The products consumed most readily like T.V. and video games. These modes of discourse rest of hundreds of thousands of people each. Look there, it is collaborative geniuses. Take Quentin Tarantino, he is very enthusiastic about whatever he does. He is able to infect other people with his enthusiasm and then make movies. Your genius does no good. Unless, you can pitch it and sell it – these days. Ron Hoeflin is like the classic lone wolf genius. He has been working on this opus or catalogue of all forms of human thought for like 50 years. All by himself. Eventually, it will get published. I think that it will be a magnificent work. But 1/100th of 1% or 1/1,000th of 1% of people will see Ron’s work as who see Bojack Horseman on Netflix, which is, itself, a work of collaborative genius.

You’ve got Raphael Bob-Waksberg. He plus Lisa Hanawalt came up with the idea of a depressed horse. Hanawalt, before this, had created a whole world of people animals. She is the visuals. Together, plus their whole crew of people, they came up with one of the most moving animated products ever made, which everyone should see.

Haereid: The lack of female geniuses is not lack of intelligent women, but that intelligent women with the perseverance and drive needed have been suppressed in disciplines that men have controlled. If men succeeded they were awesome, if women did, they were witches. That’s history and far away, but anyway.

To be politically correct I would mention Marie Curie. To be modern it’s appropriate to say Ada Lovelace, and to be up to date it’s convenient with Florence Nightingale.

We need geniuses that can find practical solutions and answers to what can unite instead of split us, in general. It’s strange, because these days we are faced with such a phenomenon. COVID-19 seems to unite more than separate us. That’s an important experience. Historically, we are familiar with things that separate us. It’s like the nature gives us a hint because we are too stupid to let the solutions in.

Digression: There are people who nurture the idea of splitting up, by claiming that people who talk about or work in favour of altruism or related either are morons or megalomaniacs. That’s creating conflicts. Such ideas should be addressed and discussed. That’s the democratic way of trying to solve it.

I think the human power and goodness, humanity as we like to define it, will be nurtured through a common problem or goal. I also think that our production of everything from clean and cheap energy to suitable political systems and new inventions will explode if we manage to gather.

19. Jacobsen: Erik, what do you make of smart people, even highly intelligent people, who may claim by themselves they’re a genius and then inflate their IQs? Based on reading, membership in a wide range of societies, and conversations, how are these people, mentioned in the previous question, viewed by the various societies and individuals within the HRT communities? How do they poison the HRT environment?

Haereid: To hold back crucial information in any situation creates conflicts. Transparency is a keyword.

What is most dangerous to the HRT-environment is when the ongoing personal processes are not transparent. Every one has the right to know if one is a mark for whatever, and on what ground, to defend oneself and be a part of the process. What are unfortunate because of the long-term internal environmental problems it causes are hidden processes, like Kafka-processes, where the accused ones may have clues but don’t know exactly what’s going on. This is independent of whatever the case and problem is. If someone claims that someone poisons the environment, the accused has to be put on a kind of democratic trial. Otherwise, the environment is based on mistrust and polarizations based on who you like and dislike. That will destroy the environment. A healthy HRT-environment is defined by being open-minded.

If someone means that some are cheating or cooperating or in any way poison the HRT-environment, then this has to be dealt with through a fair trial, let’s call it that. We have to address the problem to solve it; we can’t just decide that he, she or they poison without making clear what is poisoning and how to deal with it. One of the main problems, as I see it, is that the most trusted and popular ones get a dictatorial right; if such a person dislikes another person, for whatever reason, he or she can easily spread lies and rumours that compromise that mark’s status and integrity in the environment, removing that person or those persons from the environment, but also creating a dictatorship, because people ask themselves: What if I become the next mark, the person that Mr. and Ms. Trusted/Popular don’t like?

To your specific question: They want attention. Some are young and want opportunities. Some have low self-esteem and want to identify with a high IQ. Some think they can achieve that with the attention that such a profile gives them. But this is a small environment. Even though some are on national TV’s and in newspapers, it doesn’t mean that this is a complete picture. Measuring IQ is complex. It’s a lot of uncertainty to it. Loosen up. The puzzles are games; it should be funny and mentally challenging. Find your peers with the same interests inside the environment. Take every extreme high level of estimated IQ with a grain of salt. That’s healthy.

20. Jacobsen: What aspects of a culture most facilitate genius?

Haereid: Forced conformity kills ingenuity and creativity. I lay stress on this: It’s not about making people equal, but respecting and accepting that we are different. A premise for this is that every person feels adequate, good enough, as he and she is, with their inborn and other qualities. The misunderstanding, as I see it, arises because we want to adapt; we want people to like us, and since most don’t, we have to focus on adapting; compromising ourselves, working against our dreams, wishes and needs.

Think about it: If you knew that every person, or at least the heart of the culture, accepted you unconditionally as you are, from birth to death, wouldn’t that be relaxing and motivating, bringing your creativity to birth? It certainly would with me.

We need common goals and destinies; something essential which we share and are conscious about that we all share. This will link us together in a brotherhood, so to speak.

For god’s sake, don’t squeeze every child into one classroom. Let the smart kids, or the creative kids, or the playful kids, do smart, creative and funny things. Don’t strangle creativity and motivation. We are different, and we will flourish if we gain respect for our individuality.

We will start to accept our differences when we become more conscious and emotional about what we have in common. Then we can grow individually and together. Then we will explore and create.

21. Jacobsen: What do you mean by belief in “essences” in the end?

Haereid: It’s a hunch. Everything is based on simple facts, obvious cores, axiomatic truths, and harmonic aha.

If you painted your house your neighbours wouldn’t say “Wow!”, and neither would they if you proved the Riemann hypothesis (I guess). But if you showed a practical way to copy the sun’s fusion process with hydrogen and helium, creating more energy than invested, on earth, most people would say “Wow!”.

I think complex structures, in general, should be seen as maps to simplicity, similar to IQ-problems; it’s about revealing a simple and obvious truth; essences of expressions, and geniuses are the best to draw such maps and translate them. In the end, everyone will benefit from the drawings because the result will be visible, enlightening and needed; “Was that it? What a beautiful experience! I couldn’t anticipate this at any time.”

22. Jacobsen: What HRT tests have the most stringent standards and reliable estimations of true IQ (or true IQ range, only varying marginally by all or most relevant external factors considered impactful on IQ) for those with an interest in finding out in one or a small number of tests, e.g., the Titan Test of Dr. Ronald Hoeflin has been claimed as harder than the Mega Test and among the most highly rigorous (if not the most)?

Haereid:I have to relate this question to the tests I am familiar with, and I stick to the older ones, except T. Prousalis’ newer tests which I find especially good. I would say Jonathan Wai’s SLSE1 and Prousalis’ INSC19 (numerical) before some (idiots) cooperated and destroyed the tests and norms. I think many of Paul Laurent Miranda’s tests had some high quality; x&y (numerical), Asit and Simplex (spatial), to mention a few. unfortunately, he has shut down his IQ-test-operation.

The legendary LS-tests (spatial) of Robert Lato have to be mentioned, and SLSE48 (spatial) (Wai). And most of Paul Cooijman’s and Jason Betts’ tests. Ivan Ivec and Mislav Predavec have made some nice tests too. There are a lot of good, relatively new tests too, that I haven’t mentioned.

23. Jacobsen: How can the community bring more self-irony?

Haereid: The leaders, the most popular and those with most power inside the HRT-environment have to be in front concerning self-irony. It’s pleasantly relaxing watching a “superman” looking at his own position with some humour. Life can actually be a joke now and then, especially because we tend to interpret our own lives as extremely serious. There is too much pain to overlook the importance of looking at life from the “wrong” angle, like Monty Python did in Life of Brian. When you hang on the cross singing “Always look at the bright side of life”, you kind of understand what I imply.

Everyone can take responsibility being less too serious about the IQ-thing, the measures, and have fun, find peers and motivating topics, being nice and respectful to each other. I guess that will work.

24. Jacobsen: How can those of the air come down to the earth, be a Goethe or a Shakespeare in love, and tune into the importance of the embodied self, emotions and such?

Haereid: It is kind of difficult for highly intelligent people to let the thoughts take a pause, and just drink your coffee or tea, watching the birds and listening to Bach, Uriah Heep or whatever. But I think that’s one key to avoid getting crazy. You have to rest. You have to find the ultimate combination of body and mind. But I don’t know how. I am not an expert.

I try to distract myself, cut off, sort of force me to relax, and manage, maybe because I am convinced; I have experienced being close to insane because of my ongoing thoughts and philosophical (and mathematical…) inquiry. This was when I was much younger.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Erik Haereid has been a member of Mensa since 2013, and is among the top scorers on several of the most credible IQ-tests in the unstandardized HRT-environment. He is listed in the World Genius Directory. He is also a member of several other high IQ Societies.

Erik, born in 1963, grew up in Oslo, Norway, in a middle class home at Grefsen nearby the forest, and started early running and cross country skiing. After finishing schools he studied mathematics, statistics and actuarial science at the University of Oslo. One of his first glimpses of math-skills appeared after he got a perfect score as the only student on a five hour math exam in high school.

He did his military duty in His Majesty The King’s Guard (Drilltroppen)).

Impatient as he is, he couldn’t sit still and only studying, so among many things he worked as a freelance journalist in a small news agency.  In that period, he did some environmental volunteerism with Norges Naturvernforbund (Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature), where he was an activist, freelance journalist and arranged ‘Sykkeldagen i Oslo’ twice (1989 and 1990) as well as environmental issues lectures. He also wrote some crime short stories in A-Magasinet (Aftenposten (one of the main newspapers in Norway), the same paper where he earned his runner up (second place) in a nationwide writing contest in 1985. He also wrote several articles in different newspapers, magazines and so on in the 1980s and early 1990s.

He earned an M.Sc. degree in Statistics and Actuarial Sciences in 1991, and worked as an actuary novice/actuary from 1987 to 1995 in several Norwegian Insurance companies. He was the Academic Director (1998-2000) of insurance at the BI Norwegian Business School (1998-2000), Manager (1997-1998) of business insurance, life insurance, and pensions and formerly Actuary (1996-1997) at Nordea in Oslo Area, Norway, a self-employed Actuary Consultant (1996-1997), an Insurance Broker (1995-1996) at Assurance Centeret, Actuary (1991-1995) at Alfa Livsforsikring, novice Actuary (1987-1990) at UNI Forsikring.

In 1989 he worked in a project in Dallas with a Texas computer company for a month incorporating a Norwegian pension product into a data system. Erik is specialized in life insurance and pensions, both private and business insurances. From 1991 to 1995 he was a main part of developing new life insurance saving products adapted to bank business (Sparebanken NOR), and he developed the mathematics behind the premiums and premium reserves.

He has industry experience in accounting, insurance, and insurance as a broker. He writes in his IQ-blog the online newspaper Nettavisen. He has personal interests among other things in history, philosophy and social psychology.

In 1995, he moved to Aalborg in Denmark because of a Danish girl he met. He worked as an insurance broker for one year, and took advantage of this experience later when he developed his own consultant company.

In Aalborg, he taught himself some programming (Visual Basic), and developed an insurance calculation software program which he sold to a Norwegian Insurance Company. After moving to Oslo with his girlfriend, he was hired as consultant by the same company to a project that lasted one year.

After this, he became the Manager of business insurance in the insurance company Norske Liv. At that time he had developed and nurtured his idea of establishing an actuarial consulting company, and he did this after some years on a full-time basis with his actuarial colleague. In the beginning, the company was small. He had to gain money, and worked for almost two years as an Academic Director of insurance at the BI Norwegian Business School.

Then the consultant company started to grow, and he quitted BI and used his full time in NIA (Nordic Insurance Administration). This was in 1998/99, and he has been there since.

NIA provides actuarial consulting services within the pension and life insurance area, especially towards the business market. They was one of the leading actuarial consulting companies in Norway through many years when Defined Benefit Pension Plans were on its peak and companies needed evaluations and calculations concerning their pension schemes and accountings. With the less complex, and cheaper, Defined Contribution Pension Plans entering Norway the last 10-15 years, the need of actuaries is less concerning business pension schemes.

Erik’s book from 2011, Benektelse og Verdighet, contains some thoughts about our superficial, often discriminating societies, where the virtue seems to be egocentrism without thoughts about the whole. Empathy is lacking, and existential division into “us” and “them” is a mental challenge with major consequences. One of the obstacles is when people with power – mind, scientific, money, political, popularity – defend this kind of mind as “necessary” and “survival of the fittest” without understanding that such thoughts make the democracies much more volatile and threatened. When people do not understand the genesis of extreme violence like school killings, suicide or sociopathy, asking “how can this happen?” repeatedly, one can wonder how smart man really is. The responsibility is not limited to let’s say the parents. The responsibility is everyone’s. The day we can survive, mentally, being honest about our lives and existence, we will take huge leaps into the future of mankind.

Rick G. Rosner, according to some semi-reputable sources gathered in a listing here, may have among America’s, North America’s, and the world’s highest measured IQs at or above 190 (S.D. 15)/196 (S.D. 16) based on several high range test performances created by Christopher Harding, Jason Betts, Paul Cooijmans, and Ronald Hoeflin. He earned 12 years of college credit in less than a year and graduated with the equivalent of 8 majors. He has received 8 Writers Guild Awards and Emmy nominations, and was titled 2013 North American Genius of the Year by The World Genius Directory with the main “Genius” listing here.

He has written for Remote Control, Crank Yankers, The Man Show, The Emmys, The Grammys, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He worked as a bouncer, a nude art model, a roller-skating waiter, and a stripper. In a television commercial, Domino’s Pizza named him the “World’s Smartest Man.” The commercial was taken off the air after Subway sandwiches issued a cease-and-desist. He was named “Best Bouncer” in the Denver Area, Colorado, by Westwood Magazine.

Rosner spent much of the late Disco Era as an undercover high school student. In addition, he spent 25 years as a bar bouncer and American fake ID-catcher, and 25+ years as a stripper, and nearly 30 years as a writer for more than 2,500 hours of network television. Errol Morris featured Rosner in the interview series entitled First Person, where some of this history was covered by Morris. He came in second, or lost, on Jeopardy!, sued Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? over a flawed question and lost the lawsuit. He won one game and lost one game on Are You Smarter Than a Drunk Person? (He was drunk). Finally, he spent 37+ years working on a time-invariant variation of the Big Bang Theory.

Currently, Rosner sits tweeting in a bathrobe (winter) or a towel (summer). He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, dog, and goldfish. He and his wife have a daughter. You can send him money or questions at LanceVersusRick@Gmail.Com, or a direct message via Twitter, or find him on LinkedIn, or see him on YouTube.”

[2] Individual Publication Date: March 22, 2020: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/haereid-rosner-seven; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2020: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

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