Conversation with Anas El Husseini on Private Forums, Email Newsletters, Journals, Common Elements, Apps, Megalomaniacs, Thoth, and Balanced Intelligence: Member, Glia Society (3)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

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

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/10/01

Abstract

Anas El-Husseini is a Member of the Glia Society. He discusses: private forums; the email newsletters; the journals for the high-IQ societies; some common elements; private forums, email newsletters, and journals; apps for communication; long-term online platforms; “Die silently”; some intents of society founders and administrators; a reasonable and coherent society; the alternative tests; historical cases of high-IQ societies becoming particularly acrimonious and destructive; the Glia society; the reason for taking the test in the first place; some first impressions of the tests; the general impression of the content of Thoth; the general contents and reasons for submitting to Thoth; some of the sources of humour found in megalomaniacs; the source of the emotional, verbal, and logical deficits in megalomaniacs; the loss of interest in I.Q. tests; balanced intelligence; and efforts to bring everything under the same roof.

Keywords: Anas El Husseini, Glia Society, IQ, megalomaniacs, Paul Cooijmans, Thoth.

Conversation with Anas El Husseini on Private Forums, Email Newsletters, Journals, Common Elements, Apps, Megalomaniacs, Thoth, and Balanced Intelligence: Member, Glia Society (3)

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

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How do the private forums work in the high-IQ communities?

Anas El Husseini[1],[2]*: They are more or less like public forums, but with different types of topics sometimes, and with less traffic (due to the usually low membership). The communications there are rather high in quality, not only in the content’s side, but also in the presentation and the verbal ability.

Jacobsen: What tends to be the content of the email newsletters?

El Husseini: They vary from I.Q.-related tests/contests/articles to more common topics like personal choices of music. They contain sometimes articles or stories written by society members and published in I.Q. journals or elsewhere. Philosophical discussions occasionally take place there. They are also generally open to all kinds of intellectual communications, whether trivial or major.

Jacobsen: How common are the journals for the high-IQ societies?

El Husseini: They seem like a tradition for high I.Q. societies. If you find such a society without a dedicated journal, or with a journal that does not publish new issues any more, you will be right to assume that that society has become defunct.

Jacobsen: What tend to be some common elements of them?

El Husseini: Basically, there are articles authored by society members looking for a place that allows them to be published verbatim. However, some journals like Thoth accept copy from non-members too, so you get to see some bizarre content (since I.Q. societies tend to attract megalomaniacs and other types of people). Other people like to write about their personal achievements, memories and life experiences and publish it there.

Jacobsen: What could make the private forums, email newsletters, and journals more engaging?

El Husseini: Modernization and rules. First, people have been preferring live chat and social apps over email lately, since the latter usually requires more formality in communications. Second, it is my opinion that the stricter the rules of the forum, the less people become inclined to participate. However, rules are very essential in such forums, since they are there to regulate and not to restrict freedoms. One should set a balance between forum rules and the allowed behavior in order to avoid compromising the principles of the society and the freedom of its members.

Jacobsen: Could the creation of apps for communication bridge the generations of individual members who exist within the high-IQ societies?

El Husseini: I think so, as I explained in an earlier answer.

Jacobsen: Not only member cognitive rarity cutoff for entry, there seems to be the facet of longevity and a long-term growth trajectory of a society for communication. Mensa International started a long time ago and continue to grow past 130,000+ members. It’s a feat. In fact, with online availability and access, could long-term online platforms provide a basis for sufficient membership, trust, and will to move into “physical events” and “meetings”?

El Husseini: No doubt that online presence has increased the outreach of high I.Q. societies, but those seem to have reach their limits in terms of increasing members nowadays. Talking about the higher range of I.Q. societies, they tend to either decrease in new membership because they became dormant, or they increase at an almost fixed rate every year for the last decade.

Jacobsen: I like the phrase, “Die silently.” It seems true. Based on some preliminary analyses of the landscape of the high-IQ, we can note the trend there. Many listings of societies lead to dead links, i.e., likely defunct societies. Any suggestions to memberships on prodding the administrators to maintain focus and energy on the society, so as not to “die silently”?

El Husseini: In brief, the administrator must be fully involved, dedicate a good amount of his own time for this role, and manages to keep the other members engaged and interested in activities and discussions.

Jacobsen: What are some intents of society founders and administrators that can lead them inevitably into oblivion without a change of course?

El Husseini: I do not think there are any intents within society admins that lead to that result. It is usually inaction and passiveness that are the main culprits.

Jacobsen: What cutoff seems most conducive to a reasonable and coherent society without restricting the growth and access of the society?

El Husseini: A good compromise between freedom and regulations seems like a good basic conduct, although not trivial to achieve.

Jacobsen: Why do so many societies focus on the aspects of the alternative tests as opposed to mainstream intelligence tests?

El Husseini: Mainstream intelligence tests have their weak points. They are so common that their patterns are found in almost every online I.Q. test, so people can learn or get trained to memorize those patterns and achieve an I.Q. score higher than their real I.Q. Furthermore, many of those tests have a low cut-offs, i.e. they cannot measure I.Q. higher than 140 or 150 on a standard deviation of 15.

Jacobsen: Any historical cases of high-IQ societies becoming particularly acrimonious and destructive based on personality conflicts?

El Husseini: None that I know of.

Jacobsen: Why decide to join the Glia society in December of 2012?

El Husseini: I was looking into joining Mensa first, but it had no branches in my country and it required supervised I.Q. tests. I found the alternative in online I.Q. societies, many of which admit members based on the scores of recognized unsupervised I.Q. tests.

Jacobsen: With “an I.Q. score of 149 (S.D. 15) on the ‘Psychometrically Activated Grids Acerbate Neuroticism’ test,” what was the reason for taking the test in the first place?

El Husseini: Part of the reason was to solve the extraordinary puzzles in there. The other part was to get admitted to Glia Society.

Jacobsen: What were some first impressions of the tests?

El Husseini: I have tried some of Paul Cooijmans tests before. My opinion is that they were always top-quality. Their questions are unique, very challenging, and give a great satisfaction when one manages to solve them.

Jacobsen: What is the general impression of the content of Thoth to you?

El Husseini: I almost always find something of interest in Thoth, sometimes even an image or just a line. Although, most members seldom send content to be published there nowadays, there are other members who still keep at publishing steadily.

Jacobsen: What were the general contents and reasons for submitting to Thoth several years ago twice?

El Husseini: I had joined the society recently then, so I wanted to see the impact of my writings in the journal. One of the contents I published was a call for engaging society members in some group action. It didn’t get any response or feedback, so I let it go.

Jacobsen: What are some of the sources of humour found in megalomaniacs?

El Husseini: They threaten you sometimes with things they obviously cannot do, or things they can do but it will only hurt them back. They tend to be illogical and contradictory too. They cannot think that they can be wrong in any way. All of that make them say things or in act in ways that render them as objects of humor to me.

Jacobsen: What seems like the source of the emotional, verbal, and logical deficits in megalomaniacs?

El Husseini: It is mainly their failure at assessing their own abilities, and overestimating them, that make them think that they are perfect at their current level and that they don’t need to learn more nor to add any more skills to their arsenal.

Jacobsen: You stated, “I was also fond *at the time* of I.Q. tests, and high I.Q. communities were a source of tests and puzzles of a rare and high quality.” [Emphasis added.] Why the loss of interest in I.Q. tests?

El Husseini: Excellent I.Q. tests are rare. There exist few that show up now and then, which I usually participate in. Otherwise, I try to find interesting and new challenges elsewhere.

Jacobsen: Balanced intelligence seems probably most important for a satisfying life of the highly intelligent person. Community or a social circle is one facet of balance. How do you get the sense of balance out of the Glia Society? Does this seem similar for most others in the communities inasmuch as these exist?

El Husseini: A balance exists between opposites. Highly intelligent people are not necessarily anti-social, but many of them may not find a lot of people that they can befriend. I.Q. societies exist to bring such people closer to each other. The funny thing is that in such societies, there exists a diversity in philosophies and views which may oppose each other, requiring therefore a new kind of balance between them.

Jacobsen: Some efforts exist to bring everything under the same roof, as networked or associative efforts to unify the entire front of the high-IQ. In some ways, this makes sense. In another sense, a diverse ecosystem of independently evolving communities can make a more interesting and variegated tapestry of the highly intelligent. In fact, this may make more sense, as these individuals seem more prone to independence of thought and small collectives may be the trade-off between individualism implied by independence of thought, in general, and collectivistic impulses with an instinct to socialize. What do you think about these efforts?

El Husseini: I have seen a couple of those attempts, none of which seems to achieve its goal, most likely due to the owner(s) of such groups or the participating societies. I personally think that intelligent people who just want to socialize do not need a private group to do so. One may find a good companion or partner with people who have very different levels of intelligence. Some other people get attracted to their opposites. For those reasons, I do not see that collective communities were a success.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Member, Glia Society.

[2] Individual Publication Date: October 1, 2020: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/husseini-3; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2021: 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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