Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 1: Tor Arne Jørgensen, Hindemburg Melão Jr., Tim Roberts, Rick Rosner, David Udbjørg, Garth Zietsman, and Tianxi Yu (余天曦) on the State of the High-I.Q.
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/07/01
Abstract
Tor Arne Jørgensen is a member of 50+ high-I.Q. societies. Hindemburg Melão Jr. founded the Sigma Society and the Sigma Test. Tim Roberts is the Founder/Administrator of Unsolved Problems. Rick Rosner is a member of the Mega Society and the Giga Society. David Udbjørg was the Founder of High IQ Society for Humanity. Garth Zietsman is a member of the Mega Society. Tianxi Yu (余天曦) is a member of God’s Power. They discuss: state of the high-I.Q.; other regions’ high-I.Q. communities; the issues in the high-I.Q. communities; the positive aspects of the high-I.Q. communities; and the newest projects and upcoming developments in the high-I.Q. communities.
Keywords: Africa, Asia, David Udbjørg, Europe, Garth Zietsman, Hindemburg Melão Jr., I.Q., Latin America, North America, Oceania, Rick Rosner, Tianxi Yu, Tim Roberts, Tor Arne Jørgensen.
Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 1: Tor Arne Jørgensen, Hindemburg Melão Jr., Tim Roberts, Rick Rosner, David Udbjørg, Garth Zietsman, and Tianxi Yu (余天曦) on the State of the High-I.Q.
*Please see the references, footnotes, and citations, after the interview, respectively.*
*After internal discussion by, and with, the group, two representatives for Africa this round.*
*Interviews completed throughout June, 2022.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: This first session will set a tone about the high-I.Q. communities around the world to some degree. Obviously, there are limitations in conducting a group discussion such as this. Regardless, it’s a start. A previous attempt focused, mainly, on North America and Europe with participants and observers in 2020:
This will depart from structure with an elimination of observers and strictly limit to participants, and consider an international focus with individuals consenting to representation. This does not mean carrying some proverbial regional flag by the individual. Yet, their experience within this region of the world does permit an experiential perspective richer than other participants, so legitimizes it to some modest level. Everyone is aware of the ground rules. Fundamentally, and most importantly, this exists as an experiment as an educational group discussion. So, let’s begin, what is the state of the high-I.Q. in your region of the world?
Tor Arne Jørgensen[1]* (Europe): Initially, my experience as to the present-day status within the high IQ community, is marked by a steady flow of positive mindfulness and forward-thinking. Also, to add, the creativeness whereas new innovative initiatives are significant protruded exponentially, through the willfulness of a unified and resolute commitment towards a more global awareness of what the high IQ community is all about. This done by way of informative directives addressed by and for the average percipient both inside and outside of the high IQ community.
Hindemburg Melão Jr.[2]* (Latin America): Low activity.
Tim Roberts[3]* (Oceania): Almost non-existent in any meaningful sense. So, I shall pad with answering an alternative, primary-school, geography-based question instead. What the hell is Oceania, the region I’m purported to represent? Well, basically, it’s Australia, and New Zealand, and literally thousands of small islands in the Pacific. It’s the largest, but second-least populated (after Antarctica), of all the continents. That much may be widely known. But it is generally not known that the islands include Hawaii. So, Hawaii, while part of the US, is actually in Oceania. Any high-IQ individuals in Hawaii would, I am sure, self-identify as being from the US, rather than from the continent of Oceania….thus making their identification rather problematical.
Rick Rosner[4]* (North America): Disclaimer is, everybody else has the good manners to submit written answers. You’re doing me the favour of letting me talk the answers to you and transcribing. So, my answers are going to sound a little stupider than everybody else’s.
So, for the vast majority of Americans, I.Q. is something that just doesn’t occupy even the tiniest sliver of concern or awareness. Nobody gives a crap. Although, there are some fringe people who are way into it. But you can see that the fall of aptitude testing, in the abandonment of the S.A.T., as a necessary component of your college application package. People don’t buy it. There are plenty of other ways to get the measure of a person besides giving them a test that is supposed to gauge their mental acuity.
David Udbjørg[5]* (Africa): It’s an honor to participate in these discussions, and I am especially honored that my long-time friend Melaõ, finds that my thoughts on Africa might be of value to the discussion.
I lived for almost eight years in South Africa. During this time, I only had little interaction with people from the local or international intelligence community, and hence, I don’t have anything to offer in this direction.
To have perspectives from all continents, and not, as is the case with most IQ societies, mostly from an American point of view, is indeed very appealing to me.
I was hoping that the questions would go in a different direction than towards the state of intelligence in Africa, and maybe more in line with what I was once fought for through the organization High IQ for Humanity.
High IQ for Humanity (HIQH) dates back to the early zero’s and was an attempt to have the High IQ World come together and create something besides just having high level conversations on bulletin boards. HIQH had two main issues they wanted to follow, the first, and to me the most important, was to create an organization that would be able to find and support highly intelligent children in developing countries, and the second topic was to inform about the dangers of brain drain from the developing countries. We formed the legal base for the organization, and got registered as an NGO in a handful of countries. All efforts were unpaid and on spare time.
Our daily lives took off in all directions, we didn’t have the time needed, and the efforts slowly fizzled out without new people taking over. The organization was closed down in 2005.
We didn’t manage to do any sort of impact; we didn’t manage to raise any financing. Part of the reason for not getting financing, was that many people found it directly offensive only to focus on the children with high intelligence, and not the rest. The best thing, which came out of it, was that we, who worked on the project, found a lot of good and long lasting highly intelligent friends, and Melaõ is certainly one of them. Melaõ, thanks for your support then, and now again.
I am extremely happy that Garth Zeitsman, is joining us, he will be so much better to answer the questions at hand, as he has been deeply embedded in the intelligence community in South Africa, and hence knows the current state, seen from this particular angle, but also from living in South Africa and being a statistician, he will be able to contribute in so many ways.
Even though I feel like the cat sneaking along the walls in the saloons of The League of Exceptional Gentlemen, the odd one out, I have a few comments and questions to add from the shadows. They will not relate to the posed questions, but are thought of, based on my extensive traveling and confrontations with all sorts of cultures, which people in general do not have the opportunity or the will to meet.
I have spent a lot of time talking with people living and working on garbage dumps in Africa, and I have visited quite a few indigenous tribes, both in Africa, but also in South East Asia.
I wonder what the level of intelligence is in these populations, those who live on the flipside of the modern World, those who often have to balance their traditions and the surrounding modern society. Is there a fair and doable way to measure their intelligence and other cognitive skills?
It is claimed that people from the African continent have a lesser average intelligence, than on any other continent. I find it hard to believe, could it be that the context of the testing is faulty? Could it be that the tests are not suitable for all cultures, even though some are Culture Fair? Some of you probably have an idea about how tests are performed in Africa, to reach these results? It seems that we are trying to fit everyone to the testing systems, and not design the tests for specific targets. A Cinderella approach, so to speak.
If we want to test the intelligence of people and be able to compare the results afterwards, the subjects must have a somewhat similar background, which includes daily mental challenges, life stability, nourishments etc.
It could be interesting to have a testing system, particularly authored for measuring and comparing intelligence, at low social levels, for instance, among street children in Dhaka, Bangladesh on the one side and street children in New Delhi, India on the other. Maybe the children from poor areas in the US and Brazil could also be part of the evaluation.
Measuring the intelligence of adults living off garbage in Sao Paulo in comparison with those working on the landfill sites in Pretoria, South Africa? Would also be interesting in fact, we would be able to come up with many similar pairings across social levels, cultures, nations, continents. If it is possible to make these kinds of testing pairs across the social spectrum, we might be able to get a more precise idea about the actual level of intelligence in each region.
It would be equally interesting to do testing among various kinds of indigenous tribes, who are still living their ancestral lifestyle; it could for instance be the SAN in Kalahari and the Dani tribe in the highland of West Papua or the Baduy tribe in West Java. Each of these cultures is struggling to maintain their cultures, and some of them are more successful than others.
I hope the above might bring some new thoughts to the discussions ahead.
Garth Zietsman[6]* (Africa): From its origins in the 70s Mensa SA increased membership up until mid 2000 and then declined. The reasons are 2 fold. Firstly since the end of Apartheid and the beginning of ANC government there has been an increase in emigration from SA and I have to say Mensa has been disproportionately affected. The second reason has been a random change in the quality and popularity of leadership – which hopefully will change in the future. Some local regions are vibrant while others are rapidly declining. About a decade ago I was instrumental in starting a new local region – which unfortunately folded after a few years. This was in a heavily Afrikaaner area and apparently Mensa is seen as more of an English thing. Another new area – which has become the best local Mensa in SA – is in a very English biased area of the Cape Province. Mensa SA has endeavored to find members among non-white groups but there has been a profound lack of interest from that quarter. That said we do have non-white members – especially from the Asian (both Southern and Eastern) and mixed race communities. Most of our black members are not local but immigrants from other African countries (mostly Zimbabwe.)
I once calculated that we were reaching only 1-2% of our potential membership at our peak so there is still plenty of room to grow.
Tianxi Yu (余天曦)[7],[8]* (Asia): The Asian region is mainly represented by the Chinese and Japanese communities, and I will elaborate on each of them in four parts: social environment, societies’ situation, tests’ style, and main people. Since I know China better, I prefer to elaborate in a way that China is the main focus and Japan is the supplement. a) Social environment: China is not tolerant of people with high IQ, although the whole world is, but China is more demanding. I have heard that Mensa members in some countries enjoy some benefits because of their Mensa status, but in China, presenting a high-IQ association may be exchanged for more tasks, even contempt. There is another interesting phenomenon, I have carefully observed the Japanese and international well-known associations, people with high IQ tend to be highly educated, I have done a statistic before, the most educated people in China tend to have an IQ of only 130~140, within the group of IQ 170 or above, there are few people with higher education; b) Societies’ situation: The development of the world’s intellectual communities can be described as a shift from a corporate system (Mensa) to an alliance system (WIN). The intellectual community in the Chinese region developed later, but followed this same route, from Shenghan to GFIS. But with the establishment of God’s power, it may enter the third stage – the elite system: the social elite who have both high IQ scores as the leader. Although the current intellectual community inside, high IQ people are often not less educated, but none of them use their ability as an attraction to make members want to become better. In a positive society, the leader has a leadership role to the group, and the kind of leadership used also determines the attributes of the society. With intellectual leadership, members will just indulge in doing IQ test, with achievement leadership, members will use their intellect to change the world and will become more useful to the world. This decision is based on the current situation of the Chinese society and the social situation. The Japanese association is led by Mensa Japan, and the local association Metiq also does a better job; c) Tests’ style: Chinese tests are mainly in the form of numerical tests, with a more innovative style and deeper ideas (such as Death Numbers and MIT), and the amount of spatial tests is relatively little, but there are also very innovative works (such as CAT and CAT2). Japanese tests feel more traditional to me, and the ideas and styles are closer to the traditional LS and SLSE, etc. However, I was impressed by a author called Takuma Oishi, which is very artistic, but he is reluctant to call it a “test” and intentionally avoids IQ estimation; d) Main people: The main people of the Chinese intellectual community are more difficult to define because of the unification and the establishment of a new hegemony have not yet been completed, and now should be me and Fengzhi Wu (IQ ranking: http://www.chinahighiq.com/col.jsp?id=105 ). The main person in Japan is Naoki Kouda (IQ ranking: https://kanji-love.wixsite.com/metiq/score-list).
Jacobsen: From the internal perspective of members of your region, how do other regions’ high-I.Q. communities look to you?
Jørgensen (Europe): I would want to think, that those continents beyond our own, talking about; Latin America, Oceania; North America, Africa, and Asia, do consider us as an active part as to the whole. Considering that the high IQ community by reference to Europe’s involvement is to be perceived as a collectively active unit, which in turn provides a lot of return, not only narrative to the European members per se, but also in a global member perspective.
I feel the need to mention some of the most honorable and famous names that contribute both by and for the high IQ communities and their respective countries that have their base of origin in Europe, people such as: Domagoj Kutle, Evangelos Katsioulis, Iakovos Koukas, the Chairman of Mensa International Bjørn Lilljeqvist, also to add Norway’s own brilliant and creative intellectuals like; Erik Hæreid, Glenn Alden, Arne Andre Gangvik, Olav Hoel Dørum and lastly but humble so, myself.
Here one could include many more contributors to the above list of names, which in total means that The High IQ community is flourishing more now today than ever before. Will also permit myself, by presenting my absolute admiration to all of you who are both mentioned here in this context and to you who are not mentioned here, by proclaiming a profound and heartfelt thank you for all your efforts and hard work within the high IQ society!!
Melão Jr. (Latin America): I believe that Mensa USA and Mensa UK are large, active and well-organized groups. The groups created by Iakovos and Evangelos, which try to unify several different societies, seem to me to be very promising ideas. The good organization and the large number of participants are two attributes that I consider positive and important.
Roberts (Oceania): Very much more populated, certainly. I suspect, without any real evidence, that the great bulk of activity takes place in North America and Europe. However, on Jason Betts’ World Genius Directory, thirteen high-IQ individuals (“geniuses”) are identifiable as being from Oceania: Tim Roberts, Peter Rodgers, Paul Moroz, Jason Betts, Zeljko Zahtila, Anthony Lawson, Anthony Xu, Wayne Cooper, Ivan Zelich, Stephen Murray, Kristi Beams, and Ian Ajzenszmidt, all from Australia, and Richard Sheen, from New Zealand.
Rosner (North America): I’d assume Europe is pretty much like America. Everyone is pretty much over it. Asia, especially East Asia, countries like Taiwan and South Korea still, I think, has a certain amount of testing mania. Where, people feel they have to get tested if they want to apply to American colleges. It is a high stakes thing. I assume it is fading somewhat as more and more U.S. colleges abandon aptitude testing. But I would think that it is holding on longer and longer in East Asian countries.
Udbjørg (Africa): [See first response.]
Zietsman (Africa): The only other high IQ regions we are aware of to any significant degree are the USA and UK. We think the UK way of doing things is a bit disappointing, i.e., they tend to just have informal socials whereas in SA we have formal meetings with an expert speaker before we go off and socialize. I understand the US is much more varied in how they conduct things. Other regions – mostly the USA – have societies with above Mensa level qualifications. There are probably less than 10 SA members of the ISPE or 999, Prometheus/Mega and only 1 (the late Philip Bateman – multiple world Creativity Champion) was particularly active in any of these.
Yu (Asia): I know very little about other regions.
Jacobsen: What are the issues in the high-I.Q. communities in your region of the world?
Jørgensen (Europe): I will hereby take use of this opportunity, to point out the consequent notation in the pressing sense for a strong brothering bond between all high IQ societies for an overall value base that has a common goal of improving of our common future endeavors.
What is meant by this, is referred to what Mensa International must do by breaking down many of its preconceived notions and ill views towards what the High IQ communities represents regarding its core values. I have on previous occasions, talked about a “fraternization” of all societies for the collective strengthening and the common good.
Mensa Norway and its International big brother Mensa International referenced to its recognized reputation, must in my view change, at least in some way, its now dogmatic attitudes towards the high IQ societies by a more general acceptance as previous mentioned, i.e., a more mutual beneficial understanding and acceptance per se. Today, the individual high IQ societies do not have their unifying imprint as regards of a general acceptance of each other.
This is for me what should be addressed in the future and drastically changed. Now in order for this to take place, the most recognized and overall respected society presidents outside of Mensa, should then assemble a comprehensive and jointly accepted system that will enable for the possibility of opening the door ajar. This done in the hope of mutual reconcilement of what Mensa International legislations bestows upon them, which in turn can enable a general acceptance through unification of all the high IQ societies.
A carefully select panel should be elected, that in turn can organize the development through careful and prudent planning for what may turn this idea into a reliable and thus possible implementation towards an overall unified community that again will serve back to its members interests on a global scale. When a desire for a national constitution by the new nation’s founding fathers is put into motion and whereby community nations prosperity is then established, then we may bring upon a general acceptance between Mensa International and the rest of high IQ community. What is of absolute certainty, is that if we all sit on our asses, then nothing will ever happen. By starting a global revolution, where we within the high IQ community can now produce a general acceptance externally to the general population on an equal footing with Mensa International then the mission is clear for me, let make this a reality by any means possible.
Melão Jr. (Latin America): I see that Mensa chapters in some countries interact harmoniously with other groups, promoting some joint activities. Unfortunately, Mensa Brasil is different. For example: in 2000 and 2001, friends from Finland, Belgium, USA published the Sigma Test in ComMensal, Mensalainen, Gift of Fire, Papyrus etc., while Mensa Brasil tried to hide the existence of Sigma Society and Sigma Test from its members. These boycott attempts are pernicious and petty, such conduct should bring shame on serious and reputable members of high IQ societies. I estimate that at that time perhaps 80% of Mensa Brasil members were unaware of the existence of other high-IQ societies (currently perhaps 50% still do not). A similar problem is also observed in the overwhelming majority of youtubers who claim to be “scientific dissemination” act exactly like this.
Another problem is that the focus of high-IQ societies, in my view, should be on bringing smart people together to solve scientific, technological, social, educational, environmental and other problems to make the world a better place. However, what I observe are vain people, with Dunning-Kruger syndrome , vying for who has the bigger ego. I am also vain and I have an inflated ego, but life is more than that and the potential of the smartest people should be better directed and better used. This isn’t a problem unique to my region, but I think it’s more serious in my region. Solving puzzles can be fun, but there are people dying in war, disease and starvation. I enjoy solving and creating puzzles, but I also try to work on relevant real-world problems. When David created the High IQ Society for Humanity, I thought it was an excellent project and absolutely necessary. In my interview, I commented on the plight of exceptionally gifted children who are not properly engaged in compatible activities in the US. This type of problem is much more frequent and more serious in my region. The absence of efficient mechanisms to identify and support talented children and young people is one of the most serious problems.
Another problem that is present not only in my region, but in the world, is the way “outsiders” view high-IQ societies and their members. Universities like Harvard or Cambridge are basically high IQ societies that receive financial support from the government and private companies, these institutions work for the common good, they are respected, admired, sponsored, joining them is a goal pursued by outsiders, who strive to get in. These universities bring together high-IQ people and use entrance exams that are strongly correlated with IQ tests. So they can be classified as high IQ societies or “hybrid high IQ societies”. In 2000, Kevin Langdon “declassified” Sigma Society as a “ pure high IQ Society” because some criteria for admission are not based solely on IQ tests, but also accept Chess ratings, medals in Mathematics Olympiads, etc. However Mega Society also used, for some time, the real-world problem solving criterion as a criterion for admission, Prometheus had discussions by the psychometric committee about accepting scores in the Think game Fast as criteria for admission and other results that are not exclusively IQ tests, and all societies that adopt SAT, GRE, ACT as criteria are accepting exams that are not, strictly speaking, IQ tests. In addition, several universities accept SAT, GRE, ACT, which makes the classification of an entity as a “high IQ society” something not as well defined as it was at the time when only Mensa existed and the only criterion was clinical tests. . In fact, the clinical tests themselves vary more from each other (weaker correlation) than SAT and GRE compared to some of the major clinical tests. Therefore, the classification “clinical trial” is more a matter of nomenclature than true statistical similarity. In this context, a well-trained neural network would objectively classify universities as high-IQ societies.
The crux of this is: why do people on the outside respect, value, and desire to enter universities, and virtually all potentially qualified people (or at least the overwhelming majority of them) are interested and striving to enter universities, while only a very small fraction of the people who qualify for high IQ societies are interested in participating? There are 160,000,000 people potentially eligible for Mensa, Sigma, High Potential Society, etc., yet only less than 150,000 are affiliated with one of these entities. I believe this is a fundamental issue that needs to be discussed and needs to be better understood, to try to eliminate the problems that make high-IQ societies not attractive, respected or valued by the general population. Correctly enumerating these problems in order of importance and planning efficient and feasible solutions seems to me to be one of the main objectives, if not the main one, of high-IQ societies for a short, medium and long term future. I don’t think the objective should be to “imitate” the universities, but to try to complement and harmonize with the objectives of the universities. In this sense, I see two important and low-cost preliminary paths:
- To perform the role of monitoring and evaluating the quality of professionals, entities, etc., issuing quality seals, rankings of competence, etc.
- Acting in the connection between highly qualified professionals and companies, and/or between talented entrepreneurs and investors.
Universities themselves also play these two roles, but not their main focus, and the criteria they use are not always the most appropriate. So there is a serious gap there that could and should be filled, and high-IQ societies may be equipped for that. As a result, high IQ societies can earn the respect and admiration of the community, gain greater visibility and attract the interest of notable members, large numbers of other members, investors/sponsors, the media, etc.
Roberts (Oceania): I’m not aware of any groups based in Oceania that are not international by nature, rather than being locally-focused. Limited numbers and huge distances restrict any face-to-face meetings. If there are any online meetings, I regret, I have not been invited (which could be for many reasons, of course – but seriously, I doubt their existence).
Rosner (North America): The issues for high-I.Q. people based on me and the people I met is how to get a fucking girlfriend. Movies of the ’80s about high school tended to follow the formula that there’s a sensitive, smart, nice guy who just wants to get a girlfriend, but the girl or girls that he wants are all hooked up with thuggish high school athletes. But by the end, somebody has realized the worth of the sensitive guy and became his girlfriend. I think this was the formula for Revenge of the Nerds.
There was another movie called Lucas that broke the formula. A girl, who had her jock boyfriend, began to value Lucas. This on the spectrum-ish awkward kid. She valued him. She wasn’t going to hook up with him. She was going to hook up with her jock boyfriend, who was going to prove himself by not being a dick to Lucas. The dynamic was the same. That’s how I felt in the ’70s and ’80s. Can’t somebody be my girlfriend? I have all this shit going for me. I am smart, sensitive, and funny. Eventually, I did the work to get a girlfriend. It involved a lot of stuff that wasn’t dependent on focusing on my I.Q.
I would say that in organizations like Mensa. There’s a certain incel factor and has been, and was, 50 years before the word incel came to exist, which is short for involuntary celibate. Guys who lean on their I.Q. as a point of pride, probably, lack the social cues and social skills to do really well with girls.
Udbjørg (Africa): [See first response.]
Zietsman (Africa): The biggest current issue is with the financial management and general administration of Mensa. We used to be a lot more observant of best practice than we are now.
We also had many problems around testing. Firstly international Mensa phased out the Ravens because of the Flynn Effect – although I did raise our cut-off to keep it at the 2% level – and then replaced it with a similar German test that had a woefully inadequate ceiling. Secondly, one particular former National Chairman wants to do away with our verbal test on the grounds that it is biased, even though the non-verbal test is at least as biased. Thirdly, this same person ended our practice of telling people their estimated IQ, or even keeping records of actual scores, claiming that lots of people don’t want to know their IQ and that knowledge of differences within Mensa are divisive. I’m pretty sure that the “lots of people” is just her. In other words I think we have a problem with decent tests and issues around testing (and that there are more attacks coming.)
We also had fights over an online discussion forum, e.g., over whether it is limited to paid up members and just how pro free speech it was. Basically politics.
Yu (Asia): a) a late start (Shenghan was founded in 2012.6), resulting in the absence of much infrastructure, and the association’s connection with its members staying only in online chat groups and certificates; b) an absence in the world intellectual community, without Mensa China, and probably not in the future, it is difficult for tests by Chinese authors to circulate internationally, despite the very high quality of their questions (Mahir Wu, Junlong Li, Fengzhi Wu, etc.); c) there is no standardized and stable system, no recognition in Chinese society, no outside support, and these high IQs cannot be recognized, supported and guaranteed through the community; d) the leading association (Shenghan, GFIS) does not play a role in developing the IQ community, and Shenghan is very dedicated in charging fees, and has been charging for 10 years, enriching millions of RMB. GFIS is relatively free of frivolous fees, and although it has made many attempts at positive publicity (self-promotion, TV programs), they have all failed, ultimately due to the lack of capacity of the president; e) the phenomenon of climbing in IQ scores is more serious in Asia, and it is a disaster area for cheating, where people will do anything to get high scores; f) the community has become less active, with fewer activities than before. There are barriers and divisions between different associations, which are not conducive to unification.
Comparatively speaking, the Japanese high IQ community is doing the best in the Asian region, in line with international standards (the World Intellectual Forum is very active and well known), with good organization and social support (https://www.hiqa.or.jp/), but there is a lack of good authors and tests. I think each country’s IQ community should give priority to promoting their own country’s excellent work, if they do not embrace their own country’s IQ community tests, then who else will?
Jacobsen: What are the positive aspects of the high-I.Q. communities in your region of the world?
Jørgensen (Europe): As mentioned earlier, Europe’s high IQ community is a highly active one, with innovative initiatives constantly being implemented by the intent for pure blissfulness for its communities’ members. Detailed laid out as follows, whereby; the steady creation of new and existing high range IQ-tests is being added to the various test sites, furthered by the establishment of new high IQ communities with a more various and exiting content for even the most delicate of pallets. Finally, the publication of community social engaging articles followed up by YouTube streams purposely laid out for the distributing of information of high intelligence assets for all its community members.
Melão Jr. (Latin America): Compared to other regions, I don’t think there is anything particularly positive about South America. We have some positives that are also typical of high IQ societies in all other regions, we have some problems that are perhaps also common in Africa (perhaps more severe there), and we have the language disadvantage compared to South Africa. , as only a small fraction of the best books and best scientific channels are available in Portuguese. Most people in all non -English- speaking countries in the world learn English as a second language, this has a growing need and maybe it will continue to be so, but maybe this paradigm will change in the coming decades, with the growth of China, India. Maybe this change won’t happen, because the English language has already established itself as a very strong tradition and maybe a few decades won’t change that, even if China surpasses the US or even if there was an economic collapse of the US, as happened with the USSR in 1991. And this is very unlikely over a 50-year time horizon, because the US has an important advantage that no other country has ever had: the dollar is used as an international reserve currency, and this gives the US excessive power in cases like the 2008 subprime crisis, in which the US should have “broken” as in the 1929 crisis and gone through 5 to 10 years of recovery, however they “patched” the problem simply by printing money. No other country in the world would have a similar resource available. If the USSR of 1991 had a similar power, even with all the management mistakes made, they wouldn’t have broken either. This immunity from punishment for serious errors can pose a very great danger, in addition to promoting unfair competition. Even if China manages to produce more, better and cheaper than the US, they would still need to overcome other barriers. So maybe the world language will still be English for more than a century, maybe several centuries. And countries where a large part of the population is not fluent in English, access to cutting-edge knowledge and good quality knowledge is severely hampered. The rapid evolution of automatic translation systems should greatly alleviate this problem in just 10 years, but the path these translation systems are taking fails at critical points for high-level translations, which require rigor and accuracy in detail. Translations are fine for typical communication if the person orders food over the Internet and doesn’t know the language, but in a complex debate or rigorous formal logical demonstration, automatic traction is contaminated with many imprecise details.
Another problem is abusive import fees, abusive taxes, etc. When taxes are high, but the money raised is reverted to the benefit of the population, although it can generate a feeling of injustice in some people who produced more than they received, there is a relief to know that other people who need it more are receiving support from the State to prevent them from lacking the minimum resources for a dignified and healthy life. The problem is when a significant fraction of those taxes are diverted into the pockets of politicians. This has been a common problem in South America and Africa. A car in Brazil costs ~3x more than the same car in the US, but the per capita income in Brazil is 1/7 of the per capita income in the US. So you pay ~20x more. When one considers that the Gini index in Brazil is around 50, this is particularly serious, because as income distribution is very unequal, only a small part of the population has access to basic technological resources. It is completely absurd, because in addition to the country not producing essential items with acceptable quality, it also makes importation difficult, leaving a large part of the population trapped in Prehistory, eventually reaching the Middle Ages. Only a small fraction of the population has access to contemporary technology, contemporary medical treatments, etc. This applies to many technology products. If you try to import by buying on eBay or Amazon, for example, an import tax of 60% + IMCS + COFINS + IPI + other taxes is applied, in cascade, which are applied to the value of the product + the value of shipping. In 2016 I paid 2.8 times the advertised price for a Celestron 102 GT telescope and in 2019 I paid 4.4 times for a Meade 10” LX 200 (due to higher freight by weight). In addition to not having good quality products produced in the region, there is a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of financial abuse to import products from other countries, including scientific and educational products.
In some Latin American countries, some of these problems do not exist, or they do exist, but they are not so serious. In Paraguay, import taxes are lower. In Uruguay, Chile, Argentina there is a more cultural environment than in Brazil. But on average in South America, the situation is similar or worse than in Brazil. These scientific, educational, economic and cultural problems contaminate all other sectors, and high-IQ societies are not immune. The waste of young talent that occurs in these regions is regrettable. In 2004, I had a dramatic conversation with Edmilson Motta, who was training Brazil’s representatives for the International Mathematical Olympiads, about a boy named Renato Francisco Lopes Mello, who was champion of the Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad. He lived in a very poor region, in a city called Lagoa do Carro, and we were trying to find a solution so that he could stay studying in São Paulo, but we couldn’t. He must have had an IQ of over 170, maybe over 180. Even without training and with access to little material, he had some impressive results. It would be important that there were mechanisms for people like him to receive support from the government so that he and his family could move to urban centers where they could have access to good training, under the guidance of trained educators. I believe that other regions are also affected by similar problems, but in the poorest and least developed countries this problem is more serious. In the USA, the Hollingworth Institute has an interesting theoretical proposal, but in practice it seems that the scope is not very large and the number of children who receive it is small. Perhaps China is the country that has been treating this issue with the greatest seriousness and competence in recent decades, and achieving compatible results.
I ended up using the question where I should talk about advantages to point out more disadvantages, but this is inevitable, as efforts to try to identify some advantage would produce biased results, distorting reality.
Roberts (Oceania): There are zero such communities, so far as I am aware…
Rosner (North America): My friend, Chris Cole, used ultra-high-I.Q. tests as a talent search to find smart people who may have been overlooked. I was one of those people. He helped me along. He has helped other people along to successful lives that they may not have otherwise had. That seems like a reasonable use of I.Q. But we’re probably kind of past that window of just taking an I.Q. test and somebody discovering you.
Although, I think we’re entering a similar window given that the internet and your devices and the world of machine learning is increasingly able to build a profile of you based on the droppings you leave via your activities and social media postings. I would expect some people to get recruited based on their social media presence or their presence across not just social media, but use of other apps and stuff.
I know of several people who got hired to write for late night comedy shows and T.V. comedies based on their tweets. When God shuts the I.Q. window, she opens up the post a lot of shit window, and, maybe, somebody will notice.
Udbjørg (Africa): [See first response.]
Zietsman (Africa): Just having a convenient way of meeting, talking to, and socializing with, other high IQ people is a major plus. The formal meeting with speaker aspect of Mensa SA is also a positive in my view. It keeps us abreast of things and also helps market Mensa.
Yu (Asia): a) What makes me happier about the Chinese community is the high level of support for domestic authors, and these authors live up to expectations, and are among the international leaders in terms of question quality, scale and data, especially in numerical tests, which I have not yet seen any country’s authors to match; b) The youth of the Asian intellectual community is also an advantage compared to the European and American intellectual communities. The average age of the members of the European and American communities is generally older, which is related to their earlier development, while the youthfulness of the members of the Asian community also provides more possibilities for the intellectual community; c) the quality of tests in the Asian intellectual community is generally high, I have previously analyzed well-known tests, such as SLSE, Ivan’s, there are more loopholes in their tests, and in the past well-known authors, such as Coojimans, Betts, these authors with high recognition, the items are also more subjective, tending to screen for high IQs that meet their own criteria, rather than objectively screening for high IQs in particula. But in today’s Asian community, Japan and China both have what I consider to be very talented authors whose items are not only rigorous, but also have their own ideas and creativity, which is very rare. The future also needs more deep thinking tests as the main recognition criteria, these tests mainly win in the depth of thinking, not by piling up logic to increase the difficulty; d) Asian community members have a stronger sense of belonging, allowing more lonely people to come together.
Jacobsen: What are the newest projects and upcoming developments in the high-I.Q. communities in your region of the world?
Jørgensen (Europe): I will make the following statement by a fervent hope; that a continuation of these interviews will be extended further with reference to me and you (Scott Jacobsen), in the same format as to the previous individual/group interviews. Furthermore, I will try to expand my promotional initiatives by a more hands-on interactive interview setting and hopefully with your help, establish these interviews into a book format someday soon, fingers crossed. What I also feel obligated to add, is as my previous stated desire proclaimed, the dire need for a unified consolidation between general the high IQ community and Mensa International community.
Melão Jr. (Latin America): I recently founded the Immortal Society, a group that aims to bring together intellectual exponents interested in solving the problem of death. https://www.sigmasociety.net/homeimmortal.
Roberts (Oceania): None that I am aware of. It may appear from my answers that I am totally ignorant of any happenings in Oceania, or that they are non-existent. Both of these alternatives are possible, of course.
Rosner (North America): I don’t know. I would assume not much. I would assume some societies like Mensa are scrambling to stay relevant. I haven’t read of any projects. Every once in a while, you’ll read about the youngest person to ever qualify for Mensa, which is a stab at getting some PR having found a 3-year-old who can test well. I’m not aware of any big push. There is the push by Mega, the Mega Society, to come up with a test that could measure up to the Mega level and wouldn’t be a fucking ordeal to take because the original Mega Test. I spent 100-110 hours on it. That’s a bad recruitment tool because nobody is going to spend that much time.
There is a push within Mega to come up with a test that takes less time and also can’t be cheated on because it gives each person taking the test a different set of problems. The problems are similar in principle, but they have variables messed around with. So, knowing the answer to one version of a test problem won’t necessarily help you figure out the answer to your version of the problem, the people working on this have been working on this for more than a decade with some results.
But I don’t know if they will have the widespread exposure that the Mega Test got when it was published in Omni Magazine and more than 4,000 people took the test via Omni.
Udbjørg (Africa): [See first response.]
Zietsman (Africa): I can’t really answer this now because I have been relatively uninvolved for a number of years. I hope there are some good plans afoot but I rather suspect that we can expect further negative moves from the current leadership.
None that I am aware of. It may appear from my answers that I am totally ignorant of any happenings in Oceania, or that they are non-existent. Both of these alternatives are possible, of course.
Yu (Asia): The Chinese intellectual community may lead to a big reform, God’s power (GSP) will welcome Chen-Ning Yang’s joining in 6.20, this step is the first step of the Chinese intellectual community to elite system, later there will be more people with high social influence to join GSP, we will make the Chinese intellectual community and society highly connected, for example, we intend to use the name of GSP to publish papers in international journals, etc., so that GSP can become an elite group, leading high IQ people to give full play to their talents, and more to promote social development. For example, we intend to publish papers in international journals under the name of GSP and so on, so that GSP can become an elite group, leading people with high IQ to give full play to their talents and promote social development more.
Footnotes
[1] Tor Arne Jørgensen is a member of 50+ high IQ societies, including World Genius Directory, NOUS High IQ Society, 6N High IQ Society just to name a few. Tor Arne was also in 2019, nominated for the World Genius Directory 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe. He is also the designer of the high range test site; www.toriqtests.com.
[2] Hindemburg Melão Jr. is the author of solutions to scientific and mathematical problems that have remained unsolved for decades or centuries, including improvements on works by 5 Nobel laureates, holder of a world record in longest announced checkmate in blindfold simultaneous chess games, registered in the Guinness Book 1998, author of the Sigma Test Extended and founder of some high IQ societies.
[3] Tim Roberts self-describes in “A Brief and Almost True Biography” as follows: I was definitely born lower-middle class. Britain was (and probably still is) so stratified that one’s status could be easily classified. You were only working class if you lived in Scotland or Wales, or in the north of England, or had a really physical job like dustbin-man. You were only middle class if you lived in the south, had a decent-sized house, probably with a mortgage, and at work you had to use your brain, at least a little. My mother was at the upper end of lower-middle class, my father at the lower. After suffering through the first twenty years of my life because of various deleterious genetically-acquired traits, which resulted in my being very small and very sickly, and a regular visitor to hospitals, I became almost normal in my 20s, and found work in the computer industry. I was never very good, but demand in those days was so high for anyone who knew what a computer was that I turned freelance, specializing in large IBM mainframe operating systems, and could often choose from a range of job opportunities. As far away as possible sounded good, so I went to Australia, where I met my wife, and have lived all the latter half of my life. Being inherently lazy, I discovered academia, and spent 30 years as a lecturer, at three different universities. Whether I actually managed to teach anyone anything is a matter of some debate. The maxim “publish or perish” ruled, so I spent an inordinate amount of time writing crap papers on online education, which required almost no effort. My thoughts, however, were always centred on such pretentious topics as quantum theory and consciousness and the nature of reality. These remain my over-riding interest today, some five years after retirement. I have a reliance on steroids and Shiraz, and possess an IQ the size of a small planet, because I am quite good at solving puzzles of no importance, but I have no useful real-world skills whatsoever. I used to know a few things, but I have forgotten most of them.”
[4] 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.
[5] David Udbjørg, self-described as follows, “Danish/American, Norwegian in my childhood. Married, 4 kids, and a similar amount of grandkids. Master in Architecture from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Lived in seven countries, worked in 30+ and traveled, what equals 36 times around the globe. Fairly OK with Scandinavian languages, English, German and French, other languages less so. Worked, with architecture, sustainability, energy efficiency, 3D visualizations and auto destructible syringes, competition design and lots of other things. Currently, working as an Architect at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, taking good care of the Danish embassies around the World. Made a few inventions; a foot operated pointing device and an auto destructible syringe (none of them went into productions). I have stared many different projects, where the most important ones are co-instigator of ‘Architects Without Borders’, still in action, Instigator of a public contemporary art gallery, which has been running for 40 + years and ‘High IQ for Humanity’ (HIQH), which is now defunct. As an artist, I have exhibited in several countries, but mostly in Denmark. I make paintings, both portraits and contemporary. Stained glass, bronze, furniture’s, deconstructions and mixed medias, as well. I have written a couple of books and composed a few pieces of music. I am board member, at the Art club of the Danish Ministry of Foreign affairs, and I like to consider myself a skilled photographer and videographer. I have sold my work to ‘Un Explained’ and ‘Ancient Aliens’ and I have been features on CNN ‘Inside Africa’ with my visits to garbage dumps in Africa. As an adventurer, I am mostly focusing on indigenous tribes, garbage dumps, ship breaking places, funerals, medicine men and oracles, but I also like to visit schools and kindergartens in developing countries, occasionally I visit volcanos and caves as well. I’m one of the very few Scandinavian members of ‘Los Angeles Adventurers Club’.”
[6] Garth Zietsman is a member of the Mega Society with experience in Africa, particularly South Africa.
[7] Tianxi Yu (余天曦) is a Member of God’s Power, CatholIQ, Chinese Genius Directory, EsoterIQ Society, Nano Society, and World Genius Directory.
[8] Individual Publication Date: July 1, 2022: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-1; Full Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2022: 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.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 