Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/08/01
Abstract
This is a high-I.Q. community international discussion with Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen. They discuss: integration of the high-I.Q. societies; incentivize high-I.Q. communities to retain their unique identities and missions while connecting to the larger international communities; missing from the global high-I.Q. communities in the past; missing from the global high-I.Q. communities now; high-I.Q. communities use their mental and financial resources to focus on more real-world problems; major economic, educational, social, and scientific, problems; and contributing their talents.
Keywords: Dany Provost, David Udbjørg, Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, high-I.Q. communities, Hindemburg Melão Jr., intelligence, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, Tianxi Yu, Tim Roberts, Tor Arne Jorgensen.
Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution
*Please see the references, footnotes, and citations, after the interview, respectively.*
*Interviews completed throughout July, 2022. One missing set of responses added August 3, 2022.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen (Moderator): The precedence in compartmentalizing for categorical investigation of the high-I.Q. communities is not new. The first round of experiments went forth with a generic high-range test community with foci on North America and Europe, as noted in the previous session:
This has been done with the women of the high-range, too, as the males as men dominance in membership and in presentation within the communities seems explicit and clear:
Similarly, with the aforementioned focus on North America and Europe (further on Western Europe, not bad, but narrow, so unrepresentative), there has been a preliminary effort at some focus on another area, e.g., China:
This session will have an expanded representation in different continents. Thank you to each of the participants for entering this second session and to those of the first, or June, session for providing candidates and their votes, this will help give a better idea of general identities, organizations, and relations in the respective continents. How can the high-I.Q. communities within continents, whether continental, national, local, or international connected to the continent, nation, or locality, become more integrated?
Hindemburg Melão Jr. (Latin America)[1]*: First of all, I want to congratulate you on the excellent questions. I think you touched on several very important points.
Regarding the integration of the various societies, apparently there are some people very interested in this, others interested in a separation, others roughly indifferent. I am more inclined to support integration, but respecting separations in cases where harmonious integration is not possible. I think I have good relations with almost all the people in the high-IQ societies that I have interacted with, with less than 1% exceptions. And for me it would be very unpleasant to have to interact ostensibly with some of these people. In such cases, I find the separation of groups with good internal harmony to be preferable to a union with internal conflicts. I find differences of opinion important and positive, but conflicts of personalities on fundamental issues (ethics, religion, etc.) can be very difficult to get around. In the case of disagreements between X and Y, for example, about religion, I like X and don’t know Y. So, in principle, I support X. I don’t know this case deeply enough to give an opinion, but I have read Y’s interview that was interpreted by X as offensive. I think Y really made unnecessarily aggressive comments, and part of the comments are objectively incorrect (or at least do not agree with the historical version documented so far). Since this is a very sensitive topic, I find it difficult that X and Y could live together harmoniously. There are other cases of conflicts for more serious reasons, others less serious, perhaps some can be resolved, but perhaps most are very difficult and costly to resolve.
As we have talked privately, just before Evangelos created WIN, I was thinking of doing something similar, but I thought that Sigma still needed to “mature” some things before putting them into practice. So he took concrete action, while I was still “planning”, and his work worked very well. Since I thought his work was well done, I preferred not to continue my project, because that would have a fragmenting effect on two groups. As far as I was able to follow the development of WIN, before I moved away from the high-IQ societies (~2007), my evaluation was positive, I think he did a good job. Recently I saw that Iakovos is also doing a very good job, with some different features than what Evangelos did. Generally speaking, I am more sympathetic to Iakovos’ work, and I would like to reinforce my suggestion for him to be one of the European representatives in this Forum. Of all the people I have met in high-IQ societies, I think he is the one who has managed to gather the most people per unit of time. He has some rare and valuable contributing personality traits that are not found in the general population, and even less so in high-IQ societies. He is very diplomatic and he is not afraid to act with humility, an uncommon trait among some people in high-IQ societies. Other people that I consider very important in this Forum, as I have already commented, are Tamara and Julia, besides David and others I have already mentioned, for different reasons. Tamara has many peculiar, interesting and often correct views on different subjects that need to be discussed. Julia, in my view, has a much more cooperative personality than competitive, which is an unusual trait in the high-IQ and positive for a unification process. Tor also has this trait, which I think is extremely important. David has a humanitarian outlook enriched by a very wide and diverse experience.
I think Tor, Iakovos, David, Julia are some people who can give excellent answers to that question. Julia is founder of Colloquy, which had no ambitions to expand and “dominate” the world, like WIN, but the atmosphere in Colloquy is particularly nice, as a macrocosmic reflection of Julia’s personality. So I think it would be interesting, perhaps, if some of these people are present in the future, that they have the opportunity to answer that question as well.
In the specific case of Iakovos, based on the concrete results he has achieved, I think he is one of the most qualified people to give a feasible and well-founded answer to this question about how to promote efficient, lasting, healthy, and synergistic integration among high-IQ communities. In the case of Mensa, in some countries (brazil, for example) I think it is almost the opposite. Apparently mensa brasil is afraid that members know that there are other high-IQ societies. Apparently in some other countries this also happens, but maybe in brazil is the place where this effect is more marked.
Recently, YoungHoon Kim is leading a process that seems to me to be a unification of Giga, Mega, Prometheus, TNS/ISPE etc. I see that Iakovos is participating, but it seems that Kim is driving the whole thing. At least the invitations I have received have been from him. I don’t have a formed opinion about this conglomeration of groups yet, because it is not clear how this will evolve in the coming days, months etc. I like some of Kim’s ideas and opinions. USIA, for example, seems extremely interesting to me, and in conversations with him, Kim has conveyed a positive image to me. But in my opinion, the social relations part should perhaps be left to Iakovos. Another point is that I have seen some “conflicting” names (people who, as far as I know, hate each other) in some groups that are being formed by Kim, and I am not sure how these people will get along and the impact this may have on the integrity of these groups. I think that the strategy you adopt in this Forum, of consulting people before inviting others who may eventually harbor some enmity, is very good and even necessary, also because we already know many precedents in the high societies that resulted in splits, some of which split tens or hundreds of people motivated by the conflict of only 2 people, but perhaps these tens or hundreds would remain united in the same group if they did not have to witness and “choose” in an internal dispute involving 2 people who were the protagonists of the split. So the split may be inevitable, but the size of each cluster can be controlled by the decisions of the people running the clusters. A cluster with 100 people might split into 2 of 50 or something like 35 and 65. Or 99 with only 1 out. I think there may be some reasons to prefer 50 x 50, such as avoiding the formation of “monopolies”. But with 50 x 50 there is also a greater risk of “wars”. If there is 99 x 1, the group of 99 may be more productive, with greater synergy, than if there is 50 x 50, even though these 50 and 50 work on common goals. So from the point of view of the people in the 99 group, it may be better for them than if there were two groups with 50 each. But for that 1 person left alone it can be very bad, like a form of ostracism. In this case, since group 99 would generally be “stronger” (although not necessarily), it would be important that there is a greater receptivity and tolerance of the stronger group to receive the one left out, as long as he accepts some basic conditions so as not to harm the harmony of the group. The doors should be open to him, as long as he doesn’t want to enter to conspire against the harmony of the group and promote a breakup (although he can do this from outside the group as well). Anyway, there are many complications and there would be no way to analyze everything. If I were inside a group, I would rather have 99 than 50, but if I were person 1 outside the group, maybe I would rather have 50 and 50 or something. So from an unbiased perspective it’s very hard to judge, but from the point of view of the person coordinating the group, it seems clear to me that having 99 in your group with harmony and stability is better than having 100 with the risk of 2 people in the group causing a split by taking tens to another group.
Kim asked about Sigma VI joining the Giga network and I have yet to consult with Petri and Peter Bentley about this. I have noticed that some names that are “hostile” to most of the members of the high-IQ societies, who have had conflicts with many people, are not in Giga. This is good. However in GM Society and P 2.0 I saw some names that might cause problems. But if that happens, I think Kim will take quick and forceful action, not letting any problems escalate. As I commented, it is still too early to form an opinion. I am watching and following. If I eventually feel that I can make a useful suggestion or intervene positively, I will, as always. In general, I am optimistic about this new unification venture.
When we talk about psychometric testing, Statistics, Logic, Ethics, Epistemology, Scientific Method, Econometrics, Philosophy of Science, Astronomy/Astrophysics/Cosmology, Cognitive Science, Science in general, some branches of Mathematics, Philosophy of Education, among other topics, I feel comfortable to give an opinion with reasonable confidence, but on the subject of this question I think other people could give more useful opinions than mine. Maybe I can give some guesses about what I think might work, but I don’t have many practical experiences to share. So I think it would be very interesting to have some people participate. Besides the names I mentioned above, all the others I suggested (Joao, Petri, Wagner, Renato, André, Dieguez, Eduardo, Mario, Domagoj, Veronica, Jason etc.), I think they would have a lot to contribute, for different reasons. But for this specific topic about unification of high-IQ societies, I think Iakovos, Kim and Jason are especially important names.
Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego (Latin America)[2]*: To answer this is important to look at the motivations of the people that found high I.Q. societies. Thinking about this I believe that the solution would be if each of the societies shared common goals and principles.
Tim Roberts (Oceania)[3]*: There are an absurd number of high IQ societies. Regrettably, the vast majority of these are nothing but money-making opportunities for their founders, or just blatant ego trips and contribute nothing whatsoever to intellectual life.
The first step in making them more integrated, and therefore of some purpose, would be to reduce the number of societies devoted to particular IQ ranges (such as 170+, 150+, 130+, etc).
Dany Provost (North America)[4]*: I think that, first, high-IQ societies should stop spinning off and reduce their number. Leaders should talk to each other, putting side their ego for the greater good, and admit that other people can also be right in their own views. A committee, composed of leaders from all continents could be formed. This committee would have the task of determining the various criteria for admission and selecting (developing) tests. As long as increasingly new societies and tests are created, integration is impossible. Discussions with MENSA, if they are open to it, could lead to a “Mensa plus” division that could benefit from this integration… just saying.
Rick Rosner (North America)[5]*: Let me start my responses by saying, “I don’t know what anyone else is saying, but they are likely to be a little dumber than everybody else’s.” I have a kidney stone. I was put on Flomax, which is a muscle relaxant. It might make it easier to pass the stone, but it also makes you very lethargic. I assume my mental processes are not quite what they would be.
For high-I.Q. societies to do anything, I think more members would have to give a shit. The benefits of belonging to a high-I.Q. society are generally not meriting giving that much of a shit. Through Mega, where I’ve probably been the most active, I joined it 30 years ago. I’ve got friends in it. We talk from time to time. We get together. They are in Southern California. But any other high-I.Q. society that I’ve joined or who have joined for me. I was added to membership of some societies somewhere. There is not a whole lot of benefit to belonging to most high-I.Q. societies.
I joined Mensa in the mid-80s, hoping Playgirl would do what Playboy did, which is the women of Mensa. I could get in naked as a man of Mensa and then get a girlfriend. My thinking in the mid-to-late-80s was focused on getting a girlfriend. Most of my plans were ridiculous. That’s partly, mostly, my fault for having an autistic type of focus. People who are on the spectrum. I have never been officially diagnosed. But some people who are on the spectrum have a tight focus on something. It could be collecting. It could be Disney movies.
In my case, it was making myself socially adept enough to be able to talk to girls. That, in itself, is not ridiculous, but a lot of the things I did to service that focus were ridiculous, including joining Mensa. I went to some Mensa stuff. It didn’t offer a lot. It was 90% awkward guys like me. That’s not helpful, at least with what I wanted to do, which was to meet girls. So, it is a roundabout way of asking you a question back, “Do high-I.Q. societies deserve to have more active memberships?” I would say, “Not so much, until they can offer their members more stuff that they can use.”
I’m on Twitter. I check Twitter dozens of times a day. The benefits Twitter offers me is immediate interaction with people, the news, jokes (because I follow a lot of people who are funny), feedback (that teaches me what is or is not okay to say in the current discourse). Now, I am not always afraid to say stuff that isn’t okay. I don’t have a lot of fear of being cancelled. But it is interesting to see what might get you in trouble with people. I wrote a joke using the term “Karen,” which is the term for a white lady who falsely claims aggression by minority people to get the minority people in trouble because she is bothered by their presence. Somebody wrote me, “I don’t think it is divisive. You are playing into Trump’s and Putin’s hands by using the term ‘Karen.’”
I wrote back, “I don’t think so. I am fine with using it. My wife’s name is Carole, which is one step from Karen. We see Karen used in T.V. and movies for a bland 50-ish white lady. I’m not helping Putin by using ‘Karen.’” A bunch of people came to my defense. That kind of interaction, which happens pretty fast, is instructive. I find it interesting and helpful. I shouldn’t admit this, but I used to look at news aggregator websites more than I do. I find Twitter more and more sufficient in telling me the news I want to know. This is all in comparison to high-I.Q. societies, which don’t do any of this.
Shalom Dickson (Africa)[6]*: To begin, I want to sell you the idea that high intelligence research has a distinct role to play in the advancement of Africa’s developing nations. Thus, African high-IQ organizations should adopt peculiar responsibilities to their respective communities. There may be more opportunities to discuss this later in the interview, but I hope this suggests the context in which I might be approaching some of the questions.
The notion of integration pertains to facts about the forms of the entities to be integrated, and facts about emergent features of their integration. The status of high-IQ societies in Africa is this: In general, they do not quite exist. For instance, I started the first society “for highly intelligent, highly creative, and highly resourceful individuals” in Nigeria known as Novus Mentis. The “intelligent” train was to admit members via IQ tests. While I knew many people who should have qualifying scores, none had actually taken ‘certified’ IQ tests. This, involving the second such organization I started, was several years ago (2015 and after), and I know many people who have tried high-range IQ tests, some through my referral. It is easier to run “IQ clubs” now. Mensa Nigeria kicked off some years later and my experience with that is shared here: https://qr.ae/pvkXhf.
Organizations interested in the subject should primarily commit to improving the penetration of intelligence tests. Integration between them can be enhanced through public events such as seminars and competitions, and project collaborations.
David Udbjorg (Africa)[7]*: My knowledge about the High-IQ communities derives from internet-based activities, which are international and not local by nature. Hence, I have no clue as to what is already done on any other level to become integrated.
The only way, the High-IQ communities can become more integrated with the surrounding community, is by having something to offer, which will benefit the community in a notable way.
Many other communities such as Rotary and Lions clubs are based on local activities and members meeting up “in person” to plan and implement physical activities to raise money for their causes, hence it becomes local, but at the same time, their goals are often of international character. All the societies who are based on “in person” meetings, are losing members these days, probably because people do not have the time for voluntary projects anymore and probably also because the need to meet up physically is not needed to the same extent as before.
The High-IQ communities must focus on becoming active on the international level and find a way to funnel the many ideas into active products, which can form the basis for others to bring them into reality on local levels.
Maybe we should form an international “Think Tank”, a system which can formulate projects into various areas, present them to the various existing High-IQ communities to get responses and subsequently formulate them into “papers” which can be published, brought to the attention of the medias or handed over to specific interest groups, which will be able to use the knowledge in their work. A system which goal it is to harvest thoughts and bring them into play with reality.
Tianxi Yu (Asia)[8]*: a) Patriotism is the enemy of pacifism. If we want to integrate more deeply, we first have to put aside our sense of honor to our own country, not that we are not patriotic, and other people’s improper remarks about our motherland should be countered even if they are, but patriotism at this point will hinder deeper communication with other countries. b) Various regional representative tests need to be exchanged. In the high range tests I have done, there is a big gap in focus between the foreign tests and the Chinese tests, so I feel the need to see different representative tests from each country to get a deeper understanding of the culture and thinking habits of their IQ communities; c) Remove authority. Some authors are very vocal in the high-IQ community and claim that their tests are the most standard and rigorous. The idea that there is no such thing as a rigorous, standardized test is just plain wrong.
Tor Arne Jorgensen (Europe)[9],[10]*: If you look at this within the frame of the individual, something that I think fits best in this case, is thereby to remove the alienating stamp that these high-I.Q. societies have received from our surrounding holdings. As a world where there is no room for those who do not in their own eyes at least, have what it takes to make it in today’s society, a world where to show one’s weaknesses is not publicly accepted and the risk of exposing one’s true self-worth is therefore exposed to the risk of being ridiculed by all. For example. I was going to hold a two-hour info course some time ago at my own workplace, whereby I was going to present “this world”, as in our world within the high I.Q. community, if you can call it that. Where the course was to talk about myself, some of my high I.Q. friends, various high range tests that I had developed and the various high I.Q. communities and some of their content. Summarized, what this is all about. Out of 100 employees, only 3 employees came, luckily for me though, they thought this seemed very exciting, and completely harmless as to the course content.
The other 97 employees thought that they would have their intellects exposed for all to see as to what they themselves said “risk showing how stupid they were in front of all the other employees.” I said in return that “this was not my intention at all, quit the opposite in fact”, the course’s purpose was solely to inform as what the information sheet showed, in alignment with what the school’s management requested from me. In other words, completely harmless, no intelligence tests were to be taken, just general information about what the high I.Q community is all about was to be addressed. The lack of participants made me curious as to ask them; “why not attend the course?”, general reply back was based on the fear of being portrayed as stupid. I then said; “what about when you don’t do so well in sports, sports like: Running, football, and handball, etc., what then?” The general reply back was now: No, that wasn’t a problem, one said; “I’d much rather be crap on the football field, than to show everyone that I don’t understand anything of what you’re talking about or are going to test us on.”
Conclusion: To be labeled a fool in physical activities is in most cases not a problem as to your self-esteem, but to be labeled a fool in mental activities becomes for most people prohibitive as to their perception of self-esteem.
These are the barriers that must be broken before any general acceptance is to be established.
This does not mean that everyone can qualify for any of these high I.Q. communities, but a more in-depth acceptance and notability will thus be established among most people. One clearly sees those mental activities, harmlessly so, activities like: Crosswords puzzles, Sudoku, Rubik’s cube etc. are absolutely loved and accepted by any outside bustling community, but soon as people get an I.Q. score attached to their names, then their mental self-image starts to crumble, as they are slowly suffocated by their stifling self-inflicted limitations. Some, not all, manage still to live well with what they are told of what their abilities extends to, but many more collapse into themselves and struggle to find their way out of the maze of Misérables, finally free as to be ones again a meaningful and productive member of society filled with the lust for both longevity and rejuvenation for life.
But we the members within the high I.Q. community have a mountain to climb as to be able to achieve this, for now viewed by me, as a futile utopianism notion towards the establishing directives for public acceptance…
Jacobsen (Moderator): What might sufficiently incentivize high-I.Q. communities to retain their unique identities and missions while connecting to the larger international communities?
Melão Jr. (Latin America): As long as there is no imposition to change the individual bylaws (in the cases of groups that have some internal bylaws), I don’t think there is any risk of loss of identity. In the USA, as far as I know, each state has its own laws, and all are submitted to the federal laws. In Brazil there is not the same level of independence among the states, a single federal constitution regulates the whole country. Abortion, for example, or the death penalty, are determined equally for the whole country. I like it better the way it is in the USA, because as the territory is very vast and covers a very large cultural variety, as well as climatic variety, topographic variety, etc., laws that might be good in certain regions might not be so good in others. In the cases of high-IQ societies, as they are spread over many parts of the world, I think respect for cultural diversities needs to be considered even more carefully. But at the same time I think it is important that there is a concise set of norms that are equally applicable to all groups, just to establish standards of conduct that aim to ensure a friendly coexistence among all. This may not be as easy or as simple as it sounds. In 1991, when the world junior chess championship was held in Guarapuava, the organizer of the event was kind enough to invite all the participants of the delegations from all the countries to have lunch with him. Guarapuava has a strong tradition of barbecue, and he took them to a rotisserie. When lunch started to be served, and the members of the Indian delegation saw what the lunch was, several of them started to cry. It was a tragic scene, because the organizer was well-meaning, but he made a terrible mistake that caused a very embarrassing situation for everyone. It was a primary mistake that was easy to avoid, provided that the organizer of the event knew the most important elements about the cultures of all the participants. This is why I believe that when formulating the general rules for everyone, it would be important to have at least one representative from each group to ensure that similar gaffes are not committed.
Pliego (Latin America): Probably working together on common subjects, let’s say for example that three high I.Q. societies agreed to publish research on Biology or any other shared interest.
Roberts (Oceania): I can’t think of anything that would achieve this.
Provost (North America): More recognition from other societies.
Rosner (North America): One incentive would be, for high-I.Q. societies to thrive, is creating opportunities for members. Early on, I was mentored by another member of the Mega Society who was using the Mega Society as a talent search to find people whose talents weren’t being used sufficiently. If belonging to these societies created opportunities like that, that would be helpful for the societies. I haven’t seen a whole lot of that. What I am saying in general, if high-I.Q. societies function more like social media, or there are these thriving social media ecosystems, where people can accomplish lots of stuff, they can get recognition, fame, understanding what’s happening in the culture by being on Insta or watching a lot of TikTok or being on Twitter.
There are a lot of negatives by being targeted by bullshit on Facebook. You need more information through high-I.Q. societies for them to function like social media. Social media is about being flooded with personally relevant information. The high-I.Q. societies don’t do that. Could they? I don’t know. It seems unlikely because social media is not exclusive. There’s not a lot of stopping people from joining, commenting, and following on social media. Yet, by their nature, high-I.Q. societies are very selective. You don’t have the high flow of information via millions of people posting on Instagram every hour.
Dickson (Africa): When multiple sub-entities come together, it is natural for their union to reflect the things they have in common. However, the process, with some effort, can be re-engineered to ensure that their distinct features are highlighted instead. There are various high-IQ societies with exotic themes like poetry, music, and mathematics. They should be encouraged to attract befitting members and promote ideas in their respective areas of interest.
The core problem of mission-based IQ societies is that there is a question of whether the IQ tag is necessary at all. Could not just drop the IQ stuff and say, oh well, this is a club for hobbyist astronomers? So, the question persists, of whether there is a genuine case for IQ societies in general to have distinct identities outside intelligence research, which is self-justified. On the other hand, to not claim such a theme might seem, for those who do not think intelligence research is a worthy end, like the society in question is a club for people to discuss how much smarter they are than anyone else.
Udbjørg (Africa): No comments.
Yu (Asia): This depends on the ability of the core members of the association in non-intellectual areas. God’s Power’s success in interviewing Chen Ning Yang on 7.11 and subsequently inviting more top scholars to join the association is the best example of this.
Jorgensen (Europe): Hopefully through a desire for a better community established on principles such as: Sincerity, honesty, fraternity and finally a general agreement on affiliation with the population’s governing units. These is for me the fundamental pillars onto which the future of these communities will thrive or not.
Jacobsen (Moderator): What was missing from the global high-I.Q. communities in the past?
Melão Jr. (Latin America): I had my first contact with high-IQ societies in 1999, so I didn’t get to know what it was like before the Internet was accessible to the general public. But I suppose for the older folks, the advent of the Internet has revolutionized the high-IQ realm. Sure, it revolutionized the whole world, but since high-IQ people are rare, you’re less likely to have a few neighbors with similar interests, or even to have people in the same city to talk to about certain subjects. So for people in general the impact of the Internet must have been much smaller than it was for high-IQ people.
Pliego (Latin America): They didn’t have the tools we have today to connect with other high I.Q. people around the world as we do today.
Roberts (Oceania): Any real sense of purpose, apart from money-making and ego-tripping.
Provost (North America): I think that lack of communication has been an issue, especially before the Internet.
Rosner (North America): You just didn’t get a lot of benefits from membership. Mensa has been the most successful high-I.Q. society. In the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, people enjoyed their Mensa memberships because it allowed them to interact at gatherings, for the most part, or through pen pal kind of deals, with other people who shared their interests and who were intelligent and/or interested in intelligence. But now, you can do this kind of interaction times a million via social media. The advent of social media has been not great news for these societies. If I were trying to juice up a high-I.Q. society, I would do whatever I could to piggyback on social media. I would create some kind of high-I.Q. Insta account that did its best to provide the kind of content that Insta users like. There could be some room for high-I.Q. stuff. Social media people don’t mind an occasional brain teaser, puzzle. There could be room to juice a society via a savvy social media person.
Dickson (Africa): In the spirit of my responses so far, good picks are societies based in Africa, those with many African members, and high-range tests by African psychometric experimenters.
Udbjørg (Africa): No comments.
Yu (Asia): a) lack of shared values, although high IQ people have a variety of ideas, these ideas rarely work to advance the IQ community; b) lack of standardized regulations, such as standards for scale creation, standards for question setting, etc.; c) lack of violent authorities, the cost of cheating is too low and the cost of maintenance is too high.
Jorgensen (Europe): Since my “historical imprint” does not extend further back than seven years past, I will let this one lie in anticipation, of what might emerge as to what is written by my so brilliant co-writers of historical informative descriptions.
Jacobsen (Moderator): What is missing from the global high-I.Q. communities now?
Melão Jr. (Latin America): Accepting a large number of different tests as criteria for admission, even if all the tests were well standardized, greatly increases the probability of getting a sufficient score on at least one of the tests. Grady Towers has already written about this many years ago, so what I bring here is nothing new, but it is a problem that has never been solved and has only become worse with the increase in the total number of existing tests. It is great that there are many tests, and it is also good that every society has more than one alternative as a criterion for admission. On the other hand, it is important that the tests contribute to selecting correctly at a real level compatible with the nominal level declared in these groups, but this is not happening. One way to deal with this is to make combined use of several tests. So 4 tests with a 190 ceiling might produce a combined ceiling close to 198 or so, as well as diversifying the content, covering a wider variety of latent traits, and coming closer to measuring something that might be more g-factor saturated. But this has also been done incorrectly.
If a person takes the Power Test, he has probability P of reaching the score needed to enter Mega. But if the person takes 20 different tests, with an appropriate ceiling each, the probability that he or she will score 176+ on at least one of those tests is much higher than P, and will depend on several factors, including the correlation between those tests, the ceiling effect on each, the uncertainties in each score, how inflated each norm is, etc. Although the calculation of P is not trivial, it is clear that P becomes much larger. As a consequence, groups with a given cut-off become more inclusive as more tests are created and more tests are accepted as criteria for admission.
I don’t see a problem with a group being inclusive, this can even be considered positive in certain respects, however it is necessary to correct the numbers that are announced on the site. Obviously the real rarity level in Giga or Sigma VI is not 10^-9, in fact, it barely reaches 10^-6, as I have already demonstrated in some articles and commented in my interview, and the reason is not only the acceptance of many tests and the inflated norms, but also the presence of some errors in the axioms assumed in the norming process. This error is also present in groups like Mega, Omega, Pi, Pars, Sigma V, OlympIQ etc.
Currently there must easily be 1000 people potentially qualified for Giga or Sigma VI, and even though most of them are not interested in the high IQ societies, there are still dozens of members in the +6σ groups. In the less high cut-off groups, the inconsistency is less obvious because it does not come up against the ceiling of the world population of 7.9 billion or the number of people ever born – perhaps 100 billion. Of course, nothing prevents the smartest person in history from being alive today, or even the 10 smartest people from being alive today, but the probability of that is low, and when you look at the questions on the high range IQ tests, while some may actually be very difficult, it is questionable whether the latent trait they are measuring is in fact an adequate representation for intelligence at that level that the test is intended to measure. In fact, it is an understatement to say that it is “questionable”. The more correct would be to explicitly admit that it is not intelligence that is being measured. I won’t repeat several comments that I have made about this in articles and in my interview, but I would like to cite an episode involving Richard Feynman as an example: https://www.ecb.torontomu.ca/~elf/abacus/feynman.html.
The article in the link above talks about abacus, but since the boy was oriental, I suppose the term should be “soroban”. In any case, this is an irrelevant detail. The fact is that a well-trained sorobanist can solve elementary arithmetic questions much faster than a true genius like Feynman. In addition and subtraction, the Sorobanist wins by joking. In multiplications and divisions, Feynman starts to narrow the gap. When the sorobanist tried cubic root, Feynman won easily, partly by “luck”. But the gist of the idea is that if you were to increase the complexity, more and more Feynman’s intellectual supremacy would stand out from the mechanical ability of the mental speedster. If they went on to calculations with logarithms, integrals, algebraic topology, transfinite set theories, propositional calculations in paraconsistent logic, soon the sorobanker would no longer even understand the concepts they were talking about, nor the processes applied in the solutions, much less be able to deduce or create offhand a method to solve something new. This is basically one of the big problems I see with the use of very elementary problems being used to try to measure IQs at the rarity level of 1 in 1 million and even 1 in 1 billion, which comes across as a joke.
It is not just a problem that they are not difficult enough to measure correctly above a certain point (135 for most IQ tests and 170 for most high range IQ tests). In addition to inadequate difficulty, the tests begin to measure a variable that correlates more and more weakly with intelligence as the level of IQ being measured becomes higher. I have already commented extensively on this in my interview, so I will try not to be repetitive.
So my opinion about what is currently missing (among other things, of course), I would say that something like “Philosophy of intelligence testing” is missing, to better conceptualize what one wants to measure and how it should be measured. I see a sad regression compared to the 1980s, because Hoeflin’s tests were a good example of content, construct validity and rigor in standardization. There are problems, like the ones I already commented on in the interview, but in general terms they are better than the vast majority of the current tests. This is kind of scary, because we have a lot more technological resources now, to do a proper job. It seems that some people have realized this problem and agree with it, at least on some points. But for some reason, there doesn’t seem to be any commitment/interest in fixing it. In conversations with Tianxi, I could see that we share many views on this issue, although we also have some disagreements. Kim also seems to agree on some fundamental points. There is a very dangerous bias in this, because people are more inclined to defend a test that they have scored highly on than a test that they actually believe measures a latent trait that is a good representation of general intelligence.
The fact is that to correctly measure intelligence at levels above 170 (σ=16), a test needs to meet a number of non-trivial requirements, but tests which meet these requirements are very rare. A few months ago a TV program in Brazil started a show called “little geniuses”, in which children do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division operations, spell words, memorize some data about flags or capitals of countries and repeat. It is very sad that they sell this as “genius”, but “that’s okay”, it is a TV show for the general public, that needs to sell ads and have a large audience among an audience that would not know how to appreciate the beauty of the Kasparov-Topalov match, Wijk aan Zee 1999, for example, or how Ramanujan’s sum can result in -1/12. For this audience, if TV producers tried to discuss in depth the concept of genius, they would have losses in viewership, losses with sponsors, etc. But it is not acceptable that a similar mistake (with a little more sophistication) is made within high-IQ societies. There needs to be a critical analysis of whether the tests are in fact measuring something that reflects well the intelligence across the range that the test is intended to measure.
When Kim asked me to suggest tests for admission into United Giga Society, I indicated Power and Eureka. Although the number of questions in Eureka is very small and the uncertainty in scores is large, the other accepted tests present similar problems. There are few questions in the Power Test that are really useful for discriminating at the ~196 level, so in practice it is as if Power has only 1 or 2 questions contributing 70% or more of the discriminating power at the 196 level, while Eureka perhaps has 2 or 3 at that level, which might make Eureka less accurate than Power for all IQs below 190 or 180, but for the level that Giga intends to measure, perhaps Eureka is as good or even a little better than Power.
I also commented on the Sigma Test Extended, and other people had also recommended the STE, a I told Kim about Mahir Wu’s tests. Here I need to make a detailed clarification, because I am against tests that measure a very narrow latent trait (A) being used to measure a broad set of latent traits (B), many of which are not strongly correlated with the one measured by the test. In this case, “A” is number sequences and “B” is intelligence. A test based solely on questions with numerical sequences will not comprehensively measure intelligence.
Since I consider Mahir Wu’s Death Numbers more appropriate to measure correctly at the ~196 level than some of the tests accepted in Giga, but at the same time I have some reservations, such as the one I mentioned above, I suggested to Kim to talk to Tianxi about this, because Tianxi is an enthusiast of Mahir Wu’s tests and would have a way to defend the use of these tests with better arguments than I could.
Very briefly, my objection is that a person might have a talent for solving numerical sequences at the +7σ level, but have general intelligence at the +4σ or +4.5σ level, for example. It would be necessary for the person to demonstrate performances on a wider variety of difficult and complex cognitive challenges before one could interpret the result as representative of general intelligence. On the other hand, in some conversations with Tianxi he made a very good case for Mahir Wu’s tests as being better than other number series tests, requiring more creativity and ingenuity, with increased difficulty because they require structurally different cognitive processes, rather than just adding up steps in the process of discovering the underlying law governing the formation of the sequence. Also, there is one attribute in Mahir Wu’s tests that I find a key differentiator for measuring correctly at the ~196 level: the Death Numbers has 30 questions, requiring 25/30 to score 196+. So there are somewhere between 7 and 10 items useful to discriminate correctly at the 196 level, which is very rare. In the case of the Power Test, if you get 1 wrong, you fail. So it is almost as if the “pass/fail” result depends almost exclusively on only 1 question.
So while I am not sympathetic to tests that measure a narrow latent trait being used to estimate a very broad trait, since there are very few appropriate tests to measure at this level, I estimate Power, Eureka and Death Numbers to be partially appropriate. Power and Eureka are appropriate in construct validity, but the uncertainty in the result is large. Death Numbers is much more accurate, but not necessarily more accurate, because construct validity has the problems I mentioned.
So I couldn’t quite defend the use of this test because I don’t believe it is very appropriate, although I consider it at least as good as Power and Eureka for the 196 level, keeping in mind the set of positive and negative aspects in it. That’s why I recommended that Kim take up this issue with Tianxi, who could justify the use of DN with more motivation.
One detail that I think is important to make clear is that the fact that I recommend Power, Eureka and DN does not mean that I consider them appropriate for the 196 level. It just means that compared to other tests accepted for admission, these 3 are at least as good as the average of the others. So there would be no degradation in the criteria that were already being adopted.
I also think it is important to clarify that I consider the criteria for admission into United Giga to be more appropriate than those for Giga.
I also suggested to Kim to change “99.9999999 percentile” to “theoretical 99.9999999 percentile”, since the true percentile is very different from the theoretical one, and the number quoted (in all societies, not only in Giga) is the theoretical one.
So basically two items that I think need to be changed in high IQ societies are to maintain credibility and consistency:
- Initially make it clear that the nominal cut-offs are very different from the actual ones, in all high-IQ groups, with the disparity being greater in the more exclusive groups.
- To try to adopt criteria for admission that are compatible with the group’s proposal, that is, tests capable of measuring a broad set of latent traits strongly correlated with intelligence at the level that society is selecting.
There are good articles on test standardization by Grady Towers, Kevin Langdon, Garth Zietsman and others, from a time when there was no Wikipedia or Google, computers were slow, there were few Python libraries, yet the articles were careful and rigorous. Nowadays everything is easier, but for some mysterious reason, I see some bizarre things like tests with a 250 sd=15 ceiling, where the most difficult items have difficulty levels close to 170. The number of tests with this feature is multiplying. There would be no problem with a test with a 250 ceiling, provided that some of the questions required a demonstration of the Riemann hypothesis, the Collatz conjecture or a Unification Theory of forces. The problem is to believe that if a person figures out the rules underlying a few dozen series of figures, he has an IQ similar to that of Newton, Archimedes, Gauss or Aristotle.
This is one of the reasons why I find Kim’s idea about USIA interesting. But the path he took was to separate people with outstanding achievements on really difficult, complex, deep problems from people with high test scores on simple problems. I don’t think that should be the way. I think the right thing is to try to develop tests that can measure abilities similar to those in real-world problems, that are more faithful representations of the intellectual level at the higher levels. This is basically what I tried to do in STE, and it seems to me that this is what Hoeflin tried to do in Mega, Titan and especially Power. But there are few similar attempts.
Another topic that I think is important to comment on is the integration of high IQ societies with the general population, business, government, political, social, environmental, scientific problems, etc. I believe that this should be one of the main motivations for the meeting of this forum. But I also think that it is not something that can be solved only “internally”. It would need to have representatives from the government (in different sectors, especially Education, Science and Technology, Environment, Economy), from companies (different sectors), etc., because what we can do on our part is very limited if it is not adopted and implemented. It will help little if we come up with important solutions to environmental problems, for example, but our solutions are not implemented.
These problems need to be examined bilaterally. In the first round of questions, I emphasized some points about how members of high-IQ societies can and should contribute to the common good. But this needs to be a two-way street. Rick Rosner cited a very important problem which is the lack of recognition, of respect, of consideration, of appreciation of high-IQ people by society. Why is a rock star idolized, while a person with more valuable attributes (including high IQ) is marginalized? If members of high-IQ societies are not admired and valued, what is the motivation to work for the common good or strive to save the world, so that people in general applaud rock stars or soccer players who produce nothing useful for the collective? There needs to be a balanced mechanism of reciprocity in which contributions are recognized, valued, rewarded.
When I read Rick’s complaints about the girlfriend issue, I initially had a bad impression and thought that this topic would not be appropriate for such an event. But after reflecting more on it, I concluded that it is a necessary addition to the topics I had suggested, in order to have a symbiotic relationship. If high-IQ people work for the common good, but there is no community recognition, it will be a parasitic relationship in which the general population will suck the blood of the high-IQ people without giving anything in return. It would be abusive and unfair. So I stand by my opinion that high-IQ people should strive to contribute to the common good, while people in general (including media and government) should willingly and spontaneously reciprocate this with gratitude, appreciation, admiration, etc.
Pliego (Latin America): Less individuality and more team work.
Roberts (Oceania): Any real sense of purpose, apart from money-making and ego-tripping.
Provost (North America): Willingness from the leaders to cooperate.
Rosner (North America): Pace of interaction. People are compelled to maximize the amount of personalized information that they exchange and absorb. We look for relevant information as mental generalists. As the apex thinkers on the planet, we have evolved to be – and our survival and success has been based on being – better at finding regularities in the world than any other species. We kind of love it. Even if it is junk information, if it pertains to us, we love it the way that we love salty, fatty, sweet foods. Those foods gave us an advantage.
Now, we are in the middle of a civilization, where fatty foods no longer give us an advantage. Where, before, you had to take down a bison 80,000 years ago to get some fat. It is our nature to want to flood ourselves with information, which social media – I keep bringing it up – and streaming movies, and T.V., are good at doing. You just don’t get that by belonging to high-I.Q. societies. If some rich tech hundred-millionaire wanted to create some informationally attractive website for high-I.Q. people, and people who are interested in the same shit high-I.Q. people are interested in, you could build a website or an app that could be attractive because of the amount and the type of information. Now, there are no high-I.Q. apps or websites that do this.
Dickson (Africa): Generally, there haven’t been ways to effectively concentrate the efforts and intellectual resources of society members. These series of publications by In-Sight Publishing are good contributions to this end. Today’s technology can be leveraged to facilitate deep collaboration among highly intelligent individuals. In such a system, it gets increasingly beneficial (computationally) as well as costly (psychometrically) to network agents of higher and higher intelligence ranges. A practical application of this, let’s call it, Technologically Enhanced High-Intelligence Hyper-Network is that it can form one-half of a human-machine intelligence super-system. On the other half is, of course, some artificial intelligence network.
Yu (Asia): Relative to the past, did we progress? lol
Jorgensen (Europe): To the extent of what we must be able to do, is to raise our presence out to the general population, far beyond what Mensa has achieved for its humble beginnings in -46. The general public today knows almost exclusively of Mensa. Done so, to get the proper recognition, we deserve, the main focus as to the high IQ community, must then to be how to reach out to the general population? Solidified as follows, whereby a sober and purposeful policy directive, promoted to a certain extent that of what the highly acclaimed academic institutions have achieved, universities such as: Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale and many more. Must add to that; the use of public media for promotion should also be included as, YouTube, various online medias, Podcasts, hardcopies, E-books, online articles and streamlined commercial. Membership should be cherished and present itself through a feeling of proudness, not of shamefulness, like something to hide away. We (the high IQ members) must be able to equate the respective in the same way as a football supporter equates with his favorite team.
A football supporter who wears the football club’s jersey as proudly as one of us should wear our memberships.
It should be said that a lot of great effort is being done today, done by people with love for the community, people with drive, people who turn their watchful gaze towards the general awareness. But sadly, this is not the case with Mensa Norway. Currently Mensa Norway has around 1800-2000 members, the full potential is as high as 150,000 members in Norway alone, so clearly a lot is being done wrong as to gather new members. An example of what I mean, noted, not the best example but still it gets the point across: If I ran a grocery store with a potential to reach150,000 customers, but my general manager only managed to get 2,000 customers, heads would roll to put it mildly, so something drastic must be done. Wish for the future, that jocks and geeks should be equally respected and acclaimed for their achievements.
Jacobsen (Moderator): How could high-I.Q. communities use their mental and financial resources to focus on more real-world problems in your area?
Melão Jr. (Latin America): As I commented in the previous item, I believe that there needs to be integration with different entities, each of which contributes with something that it has in abundance. High-level societies can contribute with ideas, with problem solving at the theoretical level. Companies and the government can contribute with money, equipment, personnel to put the solutions into practice. The media can contribute by spreading the word, so as to attract collaborators (from the population in general, the government, from companies) and to promote the recognition of those involved. One of the reasons that Rosner is not “pursued” by women the way they pursue rock stars is because the media has constructed the world that way. If the media wanted women, businessmen/investors, etc. to run after the exceptionally intelligent people, the media could produce that effect. The media can elect presidents, or bring down presidents, they can make an entire group into heroes or villains, and in fact they do this. In the cases of very intelligent people, the media don’t turn them into a villain, but into a bizarre and devalued caricature, far removed from reality. It is a form of veiled boycott.
Pliego (Latin America): Just to clarify many high I.Q. societies don’t rely on any money to have an internet presence for example the Hall of Sophia uses Facebook or other free services. Now let’s say that we have money probably it could be used to give scholarships to high talented individuals around the world something that would automatically transfer to the real world.
Roberts (Oceania): Any real sense of purpose, apart from money-making and ego-tripping.
Provost (North America): I think that high-IQ communities could use their financial resources (when they have) for “opening the valves” and recruiting a maximum number of people. This could be of great value. I believe that most of the smartest people in the world (universal or “targeted” intelligence) are not members of any high-IQ. People with targeted intelligence often think out of the box for solving problems, “real-world” ones included. So, recruiting and communicating would be the first step.
Rosner (North America): As you know, one of the objectives of Mensa by the people who formed Mensa – Mensa is Latin for “table” – was to sit down the world’s smartest people, as determined by I.Q. scores, and have them come up with solutions to the world’s problems. Mensa has been around for decades. I don’t know a single solution to a real-world problem that has come out of Mensa or any other high-I.Q. society. It doesn’t mean that you couldn’t do it. Anybody can come up with a solution. The actor Kevin Costner came up with a simple, elegant way to clean up oil slicks. You stick a hose into the ocean where the slick is. The hose has a hose sticking out of the water that is fairly long. You have some mechanism that whips around the end of the hose. It whips around above the water. It creates a siphon if you operate it right. Because oil is less dense. That’s Kevin Costner! A freakin’ actor!
Anybody can come up with anything. But the high-I.Q. societies have a track record, as far as I know, of not. It doesn’t mean somebody couldn’t set up some kind of system. As you know, there are various scientific prizes out there that are open to anybody that is willing to take on the challenge. There was a flight prize offered 30 or 40 years ago for $100,000 for the first person who managed to stay aloft flying via a human-powered flying machine. Not a blimp, that’s cheating, but an airplane only powered by some really good bicyclist pedalling away like a maniac. I think somebody won that prize in the ‘80s. There is an X-Prize for doubling mouse lifespans funded by people who are interested in humans living longer and longer. It’s probably a whole series of prizes. You win one prize and the next objective kicks in.
Somebody could aggregate all the prizes out there in the world and communicate them to high-I.Q. societies. That might be a way to grease the skids a little bit. The Methusaleh Foundation is one that think of that comes up with prizes for making a 4-year mouse or a 6-year mouse. They might award you a million bucks or something.
Dickson (Africa): Basically, invest in early-stage intelligence evaluation and enhancement, and start talent programs. High-IQ society members can serve as mentors for the ‘gifted’ kids. Everyone smiles happily. In other regions, students who were selected for gifted programs seem to be more likely caught doing research at some point in the future. And the principal point of potential impact on Africa’s socioeconomic story is research.
In short, they should help incentivize intellectual curiosity. I suggested a guideline here: https://qr.ae/pvMoaI.
Udbjørg (Africa): We are all getting lots of ideas, and thoughts on how and why, but it seems that all these wonderful ideas doesn’t lead to anything… but more ideas and more discussions.
It is this loop, we have to break… have the brainstorm, let it materialize into a concept paper, take this to the next level and develop it into a project description, which can be elaborated further into an actual project proposal, targeted towards the relevant interest groups, be it a business, an international donor, the medias or others. We need to have products, which the World can benefit from.
Yu (Asia): Increase your real-world influence, expand your resources, and allocate them wisely to the regional community
Jorgensen (Europe): I think that a lot of what you point out here is happening today in terms of the mental aspect. But when it comes to the financial aspect, it is experienced by me to be of varying engagement, whether or not if it is poured into the deficient. Mainly, it is due to lack of personal commitment, time, family relationships, work relationships etc. We talk a lot like just now, we have many brilliant ideas roaming around in our heads, on paper we can accomplish almost everything, but in practice not so much, by what I have so far experience within the high IQ community, as to the issue of addressing these real-world problems. But as a most welcomed refreshment, Mr. Melao is probably the first I see has a clear model that is directly aimed at what you are talking about here.
I will say I look very much forward to seeing what emerges next from Mr. Melao most brilliant mind.
According to Europe, well, little, based on what I initially referred to. My own contribution is carried forward through my regular job, so for me the conditions are something completely different.
Here it is not me personally who fork out from my own pocket regarding a big personal financial risk, as this rests solely onto the shoulders of the municipal management; and whether or not they want to invest in the offer presented by C. June Maker, Ph.D., Litt.D., Professor Emerita and her team of (https://www.globalcooperativesynergygroup.org/), regarding gifted students’ program. Furthermore, the time strain is limited as to my own family commitments, even more so than it does today from previous. I am already well acquainted with the topic of “gifted students”, as I am a teacher who works daily with these students, and as mentioned, I do not bear any financial risk, which in turn does not put further stress on the family finances.
I’m not someone who takes unnecessary risks both familiarly and financially, I like to have a complete overall layout of what I am about to embark on, never take unnecessary risks that can bite me in the ass later on. This is just how I am programmed, anything and everything is being analyzes down to the smallest minute detail even thou it does not always seem so, done so, to ensure me and my loved ones against all eventualities that may come my way through the social media. But that’s how it is for all of us, I guess. Of what other engagement directed towards the current theme in question is not known by me, but no one know what tomorrow will bring…
Jacobsen (Moderator): How could high-I.Q. societies be used to solve major economic, educational, social, and scientific, problems?
Melão Jr. (Latin America): I think my previous answer covers this point, with the detail that the term “used” might not be the most appropriate.
Pliego (Latin America): Major corporations and governments should be open to work hand in hand with the high I.Q. individuals that conform such societies.
Roberts (Oceania): I have never known of any high-IQ communities which devote their resources to solving real-world problems. And I am not optimistic that any will attempt this in the future, partly for the reasons mentioned below.
Provost (North America): See my previous answer. It also applies. Let’s try to find the geniuses in all areas (even if they don’t score high on a standard IQ test) so that their creative input could be used in other fields.
Rosner (North America): Through incentivization and by facilitating partnerships among high-I.Q. society members, and not just among members, but between members and experts in the field, like, you and I have been talking about our theory of the computational universe, IC. Informational Cosmology, which is the idea that the universe is a giant information processor, the way our brain is an information processor, but way more like there’s a basic mathematics behind both – which is unavoidable. To me, it strongly implies the universe is much older and less strictly Big Bang-y than it appears to be because a big bang ‘exploding’ from a single point and keeping going as a 3-dimensional manifold doesn’t seem like the same kind of information processing, even if the universe is made out of information that your brain is doing over its lifespan or your mind is doing is over its lifespan.
My mind at, say, 19 doesn’t seem much more ‘collapsed’ or much smaller if you were to mathematicize my brain at 19 compared to my brain now at 62. Whatever mathematical model really describes this wouldn’t have the 3-dimensional manifold of my mind now, which is my moment-to-moment consciousness, I don’t believe that my moment-to-moment consciousness is that much more information-packed that it would be a 3-dimensional manifold that is 3 times the size of the manifold that describes my mind at age 19. It seems like the information content of my thoughts on a daily basis stays fairly uniform from year-to-year. A Big Bang universe is not spatially uniform…
Anyway, I have been thinking about this stuff forever. Occasionally, somebody will try to hook me up with somebody who can talk about this shit with me from the standpoint of somebody who is a post-doc. in Relatavistic Cosmology. Yet, those kind of interactions tend to go pretty badly. The amateur who thinks they’re smart says, “What about this? What about this? What about this?” The expert says, “Nah, nah, nah, for this reason, this reason, this reason.” I was reading this week about revisiting how dark matter is pretty much invisible to the visible universe. Its interaction is super limited. It is limited, for the most part, to gross gravitational effects, gravitational clumping, the rotation speed of arms of galaxies, the lack of falloff in the rotational speed of galaxy arms (which suggests there is a bunch of matter that is invisible and exists in a halo around every galaxy).
The deal is, visible matter takes up space, has friction, interacts. When two galaxies pass through each other, they disturb each other because stuff can run into each other. They can absorb radiation. There are a lot of ways for visible matter in two colliding galaxies for that matter to be disturbed by the other matter. But less so, much less so, for dark matter. In my mind, it makes me think the universe is way fucking older than it appears to be, the dark matter could be a bunch of collapsed normal matter that started off in stars, and collapsed down in brown dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, because all the matter is down a gravity well. Also, it is teeny as shit. So, the gravitational force of this matter has not evaporated.
All these other tells that visible matter has, has all these collapsed matter things. It would be nice to talk to a post-doc. Say the universe is a trillion years old rather than 14-billion-years-old, you have a bunch of collapsed matter that is on the outskirts on the galaxies orbiting along and not colliding into anything. I’d talk to somebody, but I don’t want to get the “nah.” Both because I don’t want to feel like a dumb-shit or have my hopes of a new cosmology dashed when the guy or girl lists 10 reasons why it can’t be so. I would have to tap dance around those reasons or admit I’m wrong. Somebody, you have all these smart people in high-I.Q. societies. L.A. has more homeless people than any other city in the U.S. One reason is homeless people aren’t stupid. It is better to be homeless in L.A. in the Winter than Columbus, Ohio. I was on a neighbourhood council for a couple of years. I still participate.
The homeless problem is a hard problem to solve. One thing that I have learned is that the most effective way to deal with a homeless person and to get them moving out of their bad situation into a better situation is individual concierge level service. You take one person. 1/3rd of homeless might be mentally ill. 1/3rd might have a substance abuse issue. 1/3rd may be down on their luck. They are all individuals and need to be approached one-on-one and have uniqaue pasts and behaviours that keep them homeless. Each homeless person needs a concierge. One thing that makes it hard is that you can’t have an individual concierge for every homeless person.
The deal with individual high-I.Q. people is similar. You have all these quirky people. You would need a concierge to smooth the way to make introductions to convince the experts that talking to this smart person that doesn’t have a doctorate is worthwhile. You need to take the high-I.Q. lunatic and work with them, so they don’t immediately alienate the expert. If you want to maximize the utility of smart, quirky people, you need to facilitate the interactions between them and the world.
Dickson (Africa): The idea of high-IQ society members serving as mentors to high-ability kids can be extended globally, although the need typically declines as the regions get more developed.
The idea of using technology to enhance the collaborative effects of highly intelligent individuals is generic. The system can adapt to problems relevant to each region. For instance, such a network can be used to generate and define scientific and socioeconomic problems. It can also be used to develop educational blueprints for younger individuals (one’s Wikipedia history, for instance, is a primitive idea of what this might look like).
More generally, high-IQ organizations can be think tanks.
Udbjørg (Africa): Bring them into the pool of ideas as described above.
Yu (Asia): It’s hard to solve, and even though we advertise ourselves as highly intelligent people, not many of us can actually reach the level of experts. I understand that some people think their results are superior to what is already available, but if we choose to serve the community, it is the masses we should be addressing and let the masses choose. Some solutions are indeed better in some ways than the popular methods of the day, but this is not necessarily true, for example, is there any technological innovation in short videos? Not really, but it succeeded in taking up people’s fragmented time, and this has nothing to do with your expertise.
Jorgensen (Europe): These high I.Q. societies comes across as being box with regards to the human intellect. Sectioning who belongs where, meaning, that people with 130 sd15 IQ belong in that section and those with 160 sd15 belong in that section. Today’s division comes forth as somewhat disturbing to me, knowing full well that many are members of Mensa, where everyone from IQ 131-180 is a member. But all the different high IQ societies is filled with a never-ending sense of pride the higher one climbs on the intelligence ladder.
People ask me, what is your highest IQ score, instantly followed up by how many are members there in that specific society, one can then say, about 10-15 members, or perhaps only 4-5 members, it then comes back, “no more? what’s the point of that.”
For my own part, I would remove all division of these societies, and drastically reduce their current status. No, rather build towards the majority, remove the gradation, and rather focus on teamwork, where interactive measures should be the main focus. I would further like that this collaboration of intellectuals must focus on community bridging from within first between the communities and then proceed with the outside bridging regarding the communities and the universities etc. If you look again at what the broad sports has established, where everyone focuses on unity and recognition by and for all. It is recognized as something that unifies each and every one, inclusive and safe, with a clear goal for a healthier lifestyle for all people for a strengthened tomorrow.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we are widely perceived, at least in Norway, as a somewhat lugubrious collection of weirdos who mostly waste their time on nonsense that in no way contributes to an improved world system. As Mr. Melao has mentioned earlier, the seriousness towards the mainstream must firstly be addressed, the universities must be connected, the rating system must be professionalized a lot, and lastly, the image outwardly must ooze of; seriousness, professionalism, security, visible framework conditions, a targeted agenda aimed towards innovation and renewal. All this with a direct connection to schools, companies, and finally governing authorities. I also know very well that this with intelligence tests has been aimed at what someone here has been pointing out for a long time of varying acceptance globality regarding academics etc. But, before we can talk about what can high I.Q. society can do, as by the determine from the initiative formulations, then this mountain must first and foremost be overcome at any cost, only then can a serious debate be addressed.
Jacobsen (Moderator): Personally, what have you done to contribute your talents to the high-I.Q. communities and outside of them to general society?
Melão Jr. (Latin America): I’m not sure I would be able to separate well which contributions were exclusively for high-IQ societies and which were for society in general. Maybe the Sigma Test and the later versions, especially the Sigma Test Extended, have more impact inside high-IQ societies than outside, I’m not sure yet, because maybe if there were more people outside high-IQ societies who learned about the STE, it could have a greater impact outside than inside, as well as promoting a broader connection, bringing more qualified people from outside in.
Many people reject IQ tests for the reasons I commented above. Why don’t Perelman, Tao, Witten, Thorne participate in high IQ societies? I think one reason is because they don’t find it stimulating to spend months working on solving sequences of figures, but maybe some of them find it interesting to work on solving problems like those in Gardner’s or Gamow’s books. So the STE could be a vehicle to bring together great intellectuals who are currently estranged from high-IQ societies, as well as to revise some negative views that many people outside high-IQ societies have about our groups.
The norming method I described in 2000 and applied from 2003 on may also be a more relevant contribution within high-IQ societies than outside, because although the same method is also applicable to any psychometric test, the main advantage lies in the correction of scores much above 3 or 4 standard deviations above the mean. For scores below +2σ there is practically no advantage.
Outside of high IQ societies, I think some of my most relevant contributions are the correction of the formula for BMI (not for difficulty, but for comprehensiveness) and Melao_index as a risk-adjusted performance measure for investments. I find it difficult to enumerate which ones are more important, as well as to measure the importance. In the case of BMI, for example, it reaches hundreds of millions of people, but how many of them learned about it? So basically I did my part, but the media and the entities responsible for disseminating the correction did not do their part, boycotting humanity and reducing the effective impact. So the latent potential impact is to benefit about 400 million people, provided that these people learn about it.
In the case of Melao_index, the largest investment consulting company in Brazil, with 350,000 subscribers, published an article by Bruno Mérola comparing my Melao_index with William Sharpe’s index (1990 Nobel Prize), and showing that my index solves several problems that were present in Sharpe’s index. They also incorporated the Melao_index in their platform. But the conduct of this company is a rare case, because it depends on the ability of the people connected to these companies, in this case Bruno Mérola, who recognized the importance and the differentials of Melao_index compared to other existing indexes. Most of the time this is not the case. CEOs, CTOs, CIOs of large companies are not very capable of identifying and correctly judging these things. It is much easier to simply keep inadvertently repeating the use of the Sharpe ratio, which all the big banks in the world use, than to scrutinize the various existing ratios and rank them according to the efficiency of each one, to identify which are in fact the best, because this is a job that requires time, effort, competence, which are rare attributes. That is why other of my works, which could also help people in different areas, end up being less known. There is a short list here https://www.saturnov.org/autor and a more detailed list here https://www.sigmasociety.net/hm
Besides these large-scale and wide-reaching works (as long as each institution does its part), I have also been involved in some smaller welfare works. Brazil is a relatively poor country, with a fair number of people living on the streets. That is why in the winter (not during the pandemic) I used to take blankets to distribute among the homeless. My mother and I took sweets to children in orphanages. After my mom passed away, I continued taking sweets with my girlfriend to orphanages and hospitals. I coordinated some projects to support the victims of landslides in Santa Catarina, the victims of the tsunami in Indonesia in 2004, among other things.
One detail that I think is important to comment on is a “lesson” that I received from my parents and that maybe many other people also received from their parents. My mother used to say that philanthropy is something you do, but you don’t publicize it. There is a culture strongly oriented to support this “prohibition”, but this is a mistake with several negative effects, among which I will mention two: the first is that if a person is admired by other people, his attitudes are usually imitated, and if he hides the good he does, this reduces the dissemination of the practice of good. The second problem is that living organisms are driven by incentives (this premise is thoroughly analyzed by Steven Levitt in Freakonomics), so if a person does a good deed, but there is no reward for it, he is less motivated to repeat it. The reward can be the very well-being that he feels after doing the good deed, or the look of gratitude from the people or animals that receive the good deed. But there are many cases where person “A” does a good deed systematically, but nobody sees it and nobody knows about it, while another person “B” just does a calculated “good deed” strategically in the presence of another person “C” to get a reward, and gets it. The person rewarded is the one who had it less meritorious, but who advertised it ostensibly. People who know “A” and “B” realize that “B” was rewarded for doing a good deed that “A” does constantly, while “A” received nothing. This will encourage people to imitate “B” instead of imitating “A”. In addition, “A” will be less likely to survive because he will receive fewer incentives, less recognition, etc. The conduct of “B” to do calculated good with the primordial goal of receiving a reward is a serious ethical misconduct. However, if “A” does good with the primary goal of the good in itself, I see no problem with “A” not concealing the good he has done. In fact, it is positive that “A” does not hide it, for the reasons I mentioned above.
Pliego (Latin America): I founded the Hall of Sophia in 2019, I have designed several high range I.Q. tests, through the Hall of Sophia Facebook I have promoted some of his history and I think some of this has draw a lot of attention into the community from the real world.
Roberts (Oceania): I don’t believe, with one exception, that this is possible. If you look at microbiology, or endocrinology, or aerospace engineering, or quantum physics, these all require a concentrated training in the discipline. Advances come from those with a very lengthy period of either academic pursuits, or on-the-job training, or both. Just a high IQ will not cut it.
The one possible exception is the area of number theory, where detailed real-world knowledge may not be required. Many unsolved problems are very simple to understand, such as the Goldbach Conjecture, and Grimm’s Conjecture, and the Legendre Conjecture, and the Collatz Conjecture. All of these can be Googled, and should be able to be easily understood by those with a high IQ within an hour or two at most.
So, some twenty years ago, I set up the Unsolved Problems web site, where twenty-three such problems are described, all on a single page. I have in that time regularly advertised the site within high IQ societies, and to high IQ individuals. But alas, in tems of results, all efforts haveso far been in vain. So it appears in the area of number theory too, a high IQ is insufficient.
Provost (North America): Unfortunately, my schedule is quite full and I can’t say that I have contributed to the high-IQ communities so far. As for the general society, it’s mainly within my work that I contributed, especially by developing sophisticated financial planning and optimization tools.
Rosner (North America): Ugh, not a lot. I edited Noesis. The journal of the Mega Society, I was a very sloppy editor. If somebody sent something, I stuck it in there. Except for one guy who was a retired shop teacher or math teacher, he sent 12 pages a month disproving Einstein. That shit got tiresome pretty fast. Everyone but him, I would stick their shit in there. If you wanted to reach a little bit, I would say I have contributed to high-I.Q. people by being a T.V. writer. It is a tough job. You need to have good writing skills and good social skills because it is collaborative. The best smoozers move to L.A. to get into show biz. When you are working on a show with higher functioning autistic crappy social skills, you are dealing with people who have reverse autism. Their social skills are just dead on. You hear about ruthless people in show biz. You hear about them because they have to be in some cases. There are a lot of nice people in L.A. But there are some pricks. They can be because they have a) power in many cases and their b) reverse autism. Their extreme sociability. Their ability to talk their into and out of shit lets them.
In my family, there are two types of people. The people who have good social skills and high self-esteem and are pretty casual about dumping at romantic partners because they know with their skills and hotness that they can get somebody really fast if they want. Then there are people with low self-esteem and worse social skills, like myself, who work at it. My wife and I have been married for 31 years and in couple’s counsellnig for 28 years. Not yelling or that often, but relationship maintenance with a counsellor. That’s the two extremes. The person who has no game and works to hold onto relationships and the perso0n who has super lots of game and games everybody.
For me, as someone with not great social skills, to be great on T.V., is a “fuck you” to the non-high-I.Q. world, “I did it, fuckers.” I would hope someone with bad social skills and a high-I.Q. would be inspired by that. I’ve done four pilots for shows. I’ve been frustrated by there being no reality shows focusing on high-I.Q. people. I’ve done my part. I’ve done a lot of pilots. I’ve pitched a lot of reality shows that have focused on smart people. Nobody will buy these shows. I think mostly because most people don’t buy most of everything. I talked to a very experineced producer at the gym, “Before you give money to a pilot, what is the average number of pitch meetings you need to go to?” He said, “100.”
The average person who takes pitches at a network might take a 1,000 pitch ideas in a year and greenlight a pilot for a dozen, two dozen, of them. Maybe, two of those get to series. So, probably, a reason that my high-I.Q. shit hasn’t made it to series is because most don’t. I pitched one to one motherfucker who was slouched in his chair. He didn’t even get out of his chair to 12 ideas, which happened to two or three guys with this guy. He barely woke himself up and said, “Give me Cops that isn’t Cops.” Which is a show that is sending a camera crew out with cops, he wanted something super easy that you could keep on the air for 15 years. So, anyway, I tried to do my part.
My principle of that is that reality shows are, for the most part, about finding a bunch of assholes and following them around. My big idea is that smart people can be assholes too. You can find a bunch of smart assholes and follow them around. You can do more with them because they are smart. It can be assholes doing puzzles. If they don’t solve the genius house, you put 8 so-called geniuses in a house and to get anything – clothing, food, bedding, blankets, a T.V., communication with loved ones – they have to solve puzzles. They are naked and afraid in this house until they solve these brain teasers. If they fail, where there’s all these puzzle boxers, they explode and they get covered in glitter or flour, so they’re naked, afraid, and covered in glitter. That’s a great show. So, there you go.
Dickson (Africa): I am able to identify critical ideas and convince people that something is important.
I have convinced a number of people to try high-range IQ tests, had some useful discussions within high-IQ societies, and involved some members in personal projects. Other activities include introducing some peculiar problems, sharing ideas on developing tests, and creating some logic material that members tend to enjoy.
A major block of my research has been a decades-long investigation into the nature of Nigeria and eventually Africa’s socioeconomic predicament. I continue to write about my thoughts in this area, which tend to include precisely defined problems and specific solutions. Among these is noting the role of research and its dependence on “talent configuration”. One of the writings on this subject is here: https://shalomdickson.com/banking-on-knowledge-nigerias-path-to-prosperity/.
Udbjørg (Africa): I have provided very little to the High- IQ communities beside instigating the now defunct organization “High IQ for Humanity”, who set out to unite several High IQ communities and persons towards the common goal of finding and assisting highly intelligent children in developing countries and to find and provide information on brain drain from developing countries. It is still valid issues, however, lesson learned was, that it would not be possible to do on a solemnly voluntary basis, as people will burn out in their efforts after a few years. Financing has to be part of the game.
As a professional, I have been privilege to work with many different types of projects in developing countries. Outsourcing from Denmark in relation to 3D visualizations, assisting others to do the same, and liaising between partners in setting up factories for auto destructible syringes… I actually designed a destructible syringe, but it never materialized.
I have made Solar PV projects in Zambia, and Energy Efficiency projects in South Africa, Indonesia, Botswana and other places. As part of this, I designed Energy Efficiency competitions between schools and public companies in Botswana, and did the same between schools and private homes in Jakarta, Indonesian.
I was co- instigating “Architects without Borders”, back in 2002 and it is still working as an organization, who provide Architectural knowledge to developing countries.
As side projects, I have investigated, numerous different topics; Ship breaking, The supply chain for pineapple farmers in Chittagong Hill Tracks, the burned tile industry in and around Dhaka, A solar driven “EE knowledge” catamaran for the Indonesian archipelago, life and products from garbage dumps in South Africa, installation of a “micro household waste, biogas digester, at a poor community school outside Pretoria. And investigations to make a local digester based on common “shelf” components.
I have ideas, which could help the people living in illegal settlements and squatter camps in Africa and other poor communities, they could be dusted of an become the type of projects, that could be handed over to relevant NGOs and others for implementations.
Yu (Asia): Personally, I am currently working on a new revolution for the Chinese IQ community: a) spreading new ideas (web 3.0) and technologies to the community (blockchain) at this stage, because I think it fits very well with the identity of the high IQ community; b) branding the IQ community 3.0 as a high-end mystery. In the past IQ community 2.0/1.0, representatives of the Chinese IQ community pushed high IQ people into variety shows. But now it’s proving that this path doesn’t work and destroys the mystique people have about high IQ people. It may be cruel to say so, but high IQ people and ordinary people are not the same species, and may once be able to get along amicably, but now ordinary people are too malicious to high IQ people, so it is most important to keep the mystery and strengthen the high-end construction; c) Make the Chinese IQ community more international, once because of some negative factors, which caused Mensa China to permanently withdraw from this stage in China. Even today, the Chinese IQ community does not have much exposure in the world. Now is the chance to bring the Chinese community back into the world view.
Jorgensen (Europe): In the time that I have had knowledge about the various online communities within high intelligence, my focus has been directed towards promoting these various communities to people outside of these communities, aka the general population.
My way of engagement is done through various mediums, collectively presented in, newspaper interviews, local radio interview and a YouTube interview, lastly, lots of online interviews have also been conducted. All these interviews are then being broadcasted through mediums, mediums like, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram among others. Also, as I initially mentioned, in local newspapers and local radio shows, purposely initiated, so people in my workplace and my local community would be able to form a better image of what the high IQ world is all about.
I have also focused on creating awareness of gifted students with regards to the Norwegian educational institutions. My personal commitment is mainly to do with the fact that I am a schoolteacher, and that I see the dire need for an elevated attention towards this lack of focus by the municipalities, not just in my own hometown, but across the nation regarding this above-mentioned issue of, pupils with extraordinary learning-potential and the lack of directive initiatives by the Norwegian municipalities to propagate correctness of these students’ educational rights.
Current status:
The willingness for facilitate proper attention and the willingness to propagated corrective measurements as to above-mentioned issue is not on the agenda of the municipalities today.
This has now “hopefully”, accumulated into a collaboration underway with Professor June Maker and her brilliant team, and my hometown’s schools’ municipality.
The objective is to try to facilitate from here my homebase, a nationwide referendum regarding these gifted students and their need for a better and more properly adapted educational directive. As all students have the right to a properly adapted education within the public schools across the nation, that again makes it possible for these students to reach for their own inherent qualities.
My engagements take up a lot of my time, as well as these interviews with Scott Jacobsen and In-Sight Journal, both assignments are very exciting as to learn from and to evolve within.
Footnotes
[1] 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.
[2] Inspired by the M-Classification devised by Nikos Lygeros and the myths of the high I.Q. community Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego founded the Hall of Sophia in January 16 of 2019 which is conceived as a center of intellectual inquiry whose principal goals are to encourage and promote, the study of extreme intelligence**, the recognition of extreme intelligence as a driver of humanity, the recognition of individuals with extreme cognitive abilities, the creation of generic cognitive models by mathematics*, the creation of paradigms by linguistic formalizations (in the sense of Kuhn)*, the production of intellectual works on the field of mathematics, the production of intellectual works on the field of sciences, the production of intellectual works on the field of theology, the production of intellectual works on the field of philosophy, the production of intellectual works on the field of art, his existence is a meta-proof of the existence of the g-factor.**
*Points 6.4.8, 6.4.9 of the M-Classification
**Points 6.4.1, 6.6 of the M-Classification
http://www.lygeros.org/mclassi.html
[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] Dany Provost is a member of a few high IQ societies including Giga Society of Paul Cooijmans, Mega and Sigma V. Having a degree in music, he played in various bands for many years. Formally educated as an actuary and a tax specialist, he is known in the province of Quebec, Canada, for being one of the top experts in the field of financial planning. He wrote two books on the subject and has been a columnist for 12 years in business publications. Wanting to have the broadest model for the Universe, he does not believe in materialism. Curious in a variety of fields, his main interests range from physics to records of all kinds, especially in athletic achievements. Father of four and grand-father of three, he is unable to remain serious for too long because, as he likes to say: “It’s best to laugh, we won’t get out of it alive, anyway”.
[5] 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.
[6] Shalom Dickson is a fundamental thinker with interests in cognition, philosophy, sociology, innovation-powered entrepreneurship, and ethical science. His friends regard him as a visionary with a knack for purpose-driven leadership. He is the founder of internovent, Nigeria’s first social innovation company designing solutions for developing nations to attain a balanced global socioeconomic advancement. One of these is Paperloops, Nigeria’s first FinTech company offering holistic financial management and literacy for teens. He is also the founding president of Novus Mentis, Nigeria’s first high-intelligence network with a mission to Map-out Nigeria’s Brain for optimized creative output. Novus Mentis has launched the Sound Mind Project to optimize cognitive ability and stimulate intellectual interest in Africa. Shalom is Nigeria’s first member of the exclusive Glia Society and an alumnus of Nigeria’s first cohort of the Founder Institute.
[7] 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’.”
[8] Tianxi Yu (余天曦) is a Member of God’s Power, CatholIQ, Chinese Genius Directory, EsoterIQ Society, Nano Society, and World Genius Directory.
[9] 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.
[10] Individual Publication Date: August 1, 2022: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-2; 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.
Citations
American Medical Association (AMA): Jacobsen S. Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution[Online]. August 2022; 30(D). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-2.
American Psychological Association (APA, 6th Edition, 2010): Jacobsen, S.D. (2022, August 1). Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution. Retrieved from http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-2.
Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution. In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 30.D, August. 2022. <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-2>.
Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2022. “Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 30.D. http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-2.
Chicago/Turabian, Humanities (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott “Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 30.D (August 2022). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-2.
Harvard: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 30.D. Available from: <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-2>.
Harvard, Australian: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 30.D., http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-2.
Modern Language Association (MLA, 7th Edition, 2009): Scott D. Jacobsen. “Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 30.D (2022): August. 2022. Web. <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-2>.
Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. Intercontinental High-I.Q. Forum 2: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Guillermo Alejandro Escárcega Pliego, Tim Roberts, Dany Provost, Rick Rosner, Shalom Dickson, David Udbjørg, Tianxi Yu, and Tor Arne Jorgensen on Integration and Contribution [Internet]. (2022, August 30(D). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/iq-forum-2.
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 