In-Sight Publishing

Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Numbering: Issue 23.A, Idea: Outliers & Outsiders (Part Nineteen)

Place of Publication: Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Title: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Web Domain: http://www.in-sightjournal.com

Individual Publication Date: July 8, 2020

Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2020

Name of Publisher: In-Sight Publishing

Frequency: Three Times Per Year

Words: 5,927

ISSN 2369-6885

Abstract

Arturo Escorza Pedraza scored 154 (S.D.15) on WIT and is a member of the World Genius Directory. He is an MSPE member of the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry. He discusses: the nature of the relationship between the historical ownership of land of Mexicans and outright annexation by Americans for the formation of modern America, the peoples’ (Native American, Mexican, etc.) descendants of the land stolen and the mostly European Christian individuals who annexed the land, and the modern incarnation of American leadership in the Trump Administration; an extended self or a sense of the family legacy; heart for this homeland; the family background; the memories of domestic violence; an absent father; the experience with peers and schoolmates as a child and an adolescent; seeing things differently; ethnic slurs; the purpose of intelligence tests; a healthy perspective; high intelligence discovered; the geniuses of the past have either been mocked, vilified, and condemned if not killed, or praised, flattered, platformed, and revered; the greatest geniuses in history; a genius from a profoundly intelligent person; societies treated women polymaths and women geniuses; some work experiences and educational certifications; hobbies; more important aspects of the idea of the gifted and geniuses; the tropes and stereotypes in American film about individuals with Mexican heritage; the core identity of Mexican culture; the gender role of men in Mexico; the gender role of women in Mexico; some social and political views; some of the sociopolitical discourse out of this singular dimensionality of thought; widely considered bright social and political commentators who are simply poseurs, even idiots, regardless of certifications and pedigree of qualifications; thoughts on the God concept or gods idea; atheists portrayed and treated in societies, e.g., Mexico or America; science; me of the tests taken and scores earned (with standard deviations); the range of the scores; and ethical philosophy.

Keywords: America, Arturo Escorza Pedraza, background, intelligence, Mexico.

An Interview with Arturo Escorza Pedraza on Background, America, Mexico, and Intelligence (Part One)[1]^,[2]*

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

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When you were growing up, what were some of the prominent family stories being told over time?

Arturo Escorza Pedraza: There are a couple of them: The first is that I owe my name to a boy who died hit by a car at age 12: my mother’s brother. She decided to pay tribute to him, a gifted boy with a talent for drawing, and who at an early age helped his father organize newspaper shipments throughout Mexico.

The second and perhaps more important was the notion that Spanish blood ran through our veins, from my mother’s side, anecdotally and without any document confirming it. I grew up longing for that distant and vilified homeland by most Mexicans. That forbidden love cost me many blows, insults, and ostracization throughout my life. Later, I dedicated many years of my life to my family tree and confirmed those anecdotes from both my mother’s and father’s sides.

2. Jacobsen: What is the nature of the relationship between the historical ownership of land of Mexicans and outright annexation by Americans for the formation of modern America, the peoples’ (Native American, Mexican, etc.) descendants of the land stolen and the mostly European Christian individuals who annexed the land, and the modern incarnation of American leadership in the Trump Administration? How are these tensions playing out in real time?

Escorza: To speak of the history of Mexico is to speak of a succession of misfortune after misfortune, sometimes by external causes but most of it by internal causes. Mexico has blamed Spain and the United States for its underdevelopment for almost two centuries, especially now with the populist who serves as the president of Mexico, without accepting any historical responsibilities.

European colonization and its consequences were different in each region, depending on the Imperial power that sponsored it.

The black legend against Spanish colonization is repeated to the point of satiety from elementary education in Mexico, but what is certain is that, as early as the year 1500, Queen Isabella the Catholic prohibited enslaving indigenous people and orders to give them back the land they before owned and if their work is to be used, they should be paid a fair wage; in 1503 she ordered mixed marriages to be encouraged “which are legitimate and recommended because the Indians are free vassals of the Spanish Crown”. In 1512, Ferdinand II the Laws of Burgos, in which it was reiterated that the natives were free and legitimate owners of houses and estates, and their rights and obligations were detailed as subjects of the Crown.

For three centuries, Spain built cities, the first colleges, and universities in the New World for indigenous people, hospitals, and convents.

All these laws, debates, rights and considerations before nations considered uncivilized, were a very unique case for the 16th century, obviously, not something that other powers, such as England, France or Belgium, would emulate.

The United States learned the British Empire’s way and after its independence, continued to conquer and subdue other nations.

The Mexican-American War confronted the powerful American army against the weak and poorly armed Mexican irregular army, (based on the practice of the levy).

During the Mexican-American War, the Mexican Liberal Party advocated in Congress to continue the war until the invader was expelled, however, their true plans were for the United States to annex the whole territory, as the only effective way to convert to Mexico in a developed country.

On January 29, 1848, four months after the Mexican defeat, the Mexican Liberal Party, ruling at the time, offered a banquet to the Commanding General of the occupation forces, Winfield Scott and his staff, in a former Augustinian convent on the outskirts of Mexico City, in the national park “Desierto de los Leones”.

Among the many toasts that took place, Francisco Suarez Iriarte, president of the Municipal Assembly, toasted the triumph of American arms, and Minister Miguel Lerdo de Tejada asked for the entire annexation of the country and for English to become the official language.

This was not in the plans of the United States. A part of the American politicians was inclined by the total annexation of Mexico, but another part, among which was the 7th vice-president of the United States, John Caldwell Calhoun, the idea was terrible: “The great misfortunes of Spanish America are to be traced to the fatal error of placing these colored races on an equality with the white race…”

In the end, it was decided only to annex the northern part of the country, with very little population density.

Nicholas Trist, the American diplomat, sent by the United States to sign the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty that stripped Mexico of more than half of its territory, later commented in a letter “My feeling of shame as an American was far stronger than the Mexicans’ could be.” Regarding the treaty.

In that treaty it was specified that the Mexican inhabitants of the annexed areas could obtain American nationality, however, between 1929 and 1936, between 400 thousand and 2 million Mexican-Americans descendants of those Mexicans “crossed by the border”, born in the United States were “voluntarily repatriated” to Mexico, amid racist feelings and the notion that they had something to do with the Great Depression of 1929 and the same old song “they take our jobs”.

The United States has made tremendous advances in civil rights in recent decades, not without opposition from the more conservative sectors, and it would be foolish to deny the improvement in relations between different ethnic groups, and the opportunities associated, despite many retrograde minds anchored in the 19th century.

I agree with many of President Trump’s policies, with others, don’t.

It doesn’t matter how the United States acquired the territories that belonged to Mexico in the 19th century, now we are in the 21st century and countries need borders. Also, if those territories were part of Mexico until today, they would surely be sterile deserts ruled by narco mafias and corruption, just like the rest of the country, so it’s not worth crying for what was lost without turning to see what is being lost now.

Mexico has to stop putting its economic hopes in the money that migrants send, both legal and illegal, and to fix its institutions and laws taking full responsibility.

While it’s true that the good and cheap labor of Mexican migrants is important for the type of capitalist economy that the United States has, there is no country that can accept an unlimited number of migrants, and not because they “take the jobs of Americans” (If there were no American employers offering low-paying jobs to illegal migrants, I assure you, there would be no illegal migrants.)

However, I think that addressing the issue could be more practical and simple, without the hasty generalization fallacy suggesting that all those born in a given country are criminals, and without inciting racism against people whose virtues or vices are not codified in their skin color.

I also agree that all people should comply with the laws, regardless of their skin color, and I also believe that the American laws are impartial and that with each new case the jurisprudence is updated.

But unlike Mr. Trump, I am more of practical thinking than a symbolist.

3. Jacobsen: Have these stories helped provide a sense of an extended self or a sense of the family legacy?

Escorza: They have. I always considered myself a citizen of an ethereal homeland that no longer exists, but only in my mind and heart. A homeland that I try to revive through the intangible musical notes of its centuries-old cathedrals. Absolutely not compatible with modern mariachi bands or music of praise to drug traffickers.

4. Jacobsen: What is in your heart for this homeland?

Escorza: It is my personal and romantic representation of the perfect nation, forged on the basis of all virtues and without flaws. It’s a utopian homeland that never existed in any present or past place, although it has many features of the Mexican viceregal past it’s basically almost the opposite of what modern Mexico represents. That’s why I say that it only exists in my mind and in my heart.

5. Jacobsen: What was the family background, e.g., geography, culture, language, and religion or lack thereof?

Escorza: My parents were born in Mexico City, and I have two siblings, I was the youngest of them, (13 years younger than my brother and 11 younger than my sister).

A dysfunctional family, where domestic violence and fear were the daily bread.

My father was the founder and CEO of a medium-sized pipes, valves, and fittings firm. He was a gifted man, with an eidetic memory that could remember all the streets, names, and details of each place he visited only once. He only finished High-School, but he offered consultation to engineers on the design of facilities.

My father’s alcoholism, my brother’s envy towards me, shaped much of what I am (and also what I’m not) in this life.

My father was a fervent enemy of religion, but in the last years of his life, it was just the opposite: He went to religious services every Sunday and sang praise and prayers at the top of his lungs.

My mother has been the only support, the only protection, and understanding that I have always had in my life. A religious-but-not-fanatic woman who believed that an atheistic son would condemn her to hell but who is now a critic of the religious institution thanks to me.

6. Jacobsen: Do the memories of domestic violence still impact you?

Escorza: That’s right, in fact, it is one of the reasons why I migrated from my country to Russia. Although it is true that physical violence was only against my mother on behalf of my father, psychological violence was against everyone, and when my father died, my brother was the continuator of that psychological violence, against my mother and me especially.

I have many painful memories of my worst enemy, my brother, but among all the pain, I practice what I call the “reverse revenge”. If people were bad with me, I have to be twice as good with them and I must not repeat the hate pattern with the people around me.

And if I can’t be good to my brother, because I haven’t healed yet, at least I’m far from him.

7. Jacobsen: How does an absent father in the sense of “no one’s home” with an alcoholic father impact a son? How does the other side of the coin – the alcoholic self of the father – impact you?

Escorza: In fact, in the first years of my life, my father was absent. He had another family to which he dedicated all his time and money. For us, all the bad things. When he came home, my whole being trembled with fear, and I didn’t know what to speak or what to answer. All I wanted was him to leave as soon as possible.

Over the years, he changed a little and became more accessible, and he came to profess great respect and love for me, which I also reciprocated, and I know I was his favorite son because I never reproached him for anything or I never dared to judge him.

8. Jacobsen: How was the experience with peers and schoolmates as a child and an adolescent?

Escorza: I was always very bullied, beaten, for being different, for my strange way of seeing life, and even for my complexion.

I even suffered harassment and even insults from teachers during elementary and junior high school.

In childhood and adolescence, I liked the company of people much older than me.

I even asked my mother to be homeschooled, and years later in High School, I asked her to be allowed to study at distance, so I could get my certificate based on exams and studying on my own, but since all this came out of the standards imposed by my father, I had to continue to endure harassment and the slow pace of teachers and classmates.

9. Jacobsen: How did they ‘harass and beat’ you for seeing things differently?

Escorza: I loved studying, I loved learning new things, I hated wasting my time (to this day) without doing something useful or without learning something new. An anecdote comes to mind that is an example of the kind of things I was bullied for:

I was 9 years old when I began fourth grade. My new teacher was a lovely old lady whom all the children loved. She was some months away from her retirement and her “lessons” were nothing more than anecdotes about her life, how she loved her grandsons, about the soap operas she watched and how she was skilled knitting with crochet.

I felt disappointed, I felt that I wasting my time and not learning anything. All my classmates were happy, not needing books or exams.

Many times I had the audacity to face her and ask her: “Mrs. Theresa, when are we going to have real lessons? and the sweet old lady would change her lovely face and turn the crowd against me: “These are precious lessons too, but Arturo thinks they’re not, so let’s please him: everyone, take a blank sheet, we’re having a surprise exam.”

You can imagine the face of my schoolmates and how scared I was because I knew what would happen to me after school. Yes, that day my schoolmates beat me again, and the next day, when the teacher appeared with the results of our surprise test and everyone failed except me, they beat me even harder.

10. Jacobsen: Were there ethnic slurs hurled based on the skin color? How alive are these issues to this day?

Escorza: They but in the opposite way.

My family tree let me know that my father and mother’s family were wealthy Spanish landowners and landlords and slave owners during the 16th and 18th centuries. They were not noble but followed the royal tradition of marrying between members of related families to preserve wealth within the family. Several centuries of identical surnames changing places and generations.

This minority ethnic group is called historically in Mexico “Criollo” (creole), and my family descends from them. In my whole school, I was the only “creole”, among mestizo children.

They made fun of my skin, my wavy and somewhat blond hair, my broad forehead (they thought it was baldness), but everything worsened when as part of a school project, we had to represent the conquest of the Aztec Empire. One of my favorite books, which I read with no little effort, but had a glossary of disused words from the 16th century, was Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s “True History of the Conquest of New Spain”, which we had at home. I used to read enraptured the adventures of Hernán Cortés and other conquerors.

So, the day came to give roles and since my grades were the highest in the class, they gave me the role of “the high priest”, but I wanted to be Hernán Cortés because he was my hero.

And the teachers listed for me the reasons why I shouldn’t choose Cortés: “He was evil!” “He was a genocide!” “It’s a greater honor to play the high priest” … no argument made me change my mind.

I was born for that role! My maternal family was descended from one of the conquerors who arrived with Cortés! don Diego de Pedraza, although at that time neither I nor my family knew it.

Nothing mattered, they decided that I would be the Aztec high priest and that was the end of our conversation.

My classmates heard the whole discussion and until the end of my time in elementary school, they called me: “gachupin” (despective slur against the Spanish), “malinche” (one of the worst insults against anyone in Mexico, semantically meaning: “traitor”. It’s the name of a very talented woman given to Hernán Cortés who served as a translator as she spoke Maya, Nahuatl, and quickly learned Spanish, but the Mexicans equate her with Judas’ betrayal) and many more names, for defending Hernán Cortés and my Iberian heritage.

11. Jacobsen: What is the purpose of intelligence tests to you?

Escorza: They are one more attempt to translate into numbers what makes us human and differentiates us from other human beings on this earth.

12. Jacobsen: Does this make them interesting while not everything as a healthy perspective?

Escorza: I recognize the importance of tests and their correlation with people’s abilities, but I also know of many people who base their happiness or sadness on the scores they obtain on such tests.

13. Jacobsen: When was high intelligence discovered for you?

Escorza: When I was 9 months old, I already had a respectable repertoire of single words for any kid of my age, and around that time my mother watched “The Exorcist”, so her reaction when I began to speak my first words was to cross herself and to pray some prayer. She thought that it was the devil’s work! “no child speaks at such an early age”.

When I was three, I learned to read by myself, and one year later I began attending kindergarten. We had at home a new encyclopedia – comics style – about the adventures of a scientist called Professor Hubertus and his shape-shifting android Proteus. At the end of each volume, there were definitions of every single scientific term. That was the first time I had contact with physics, strong AI, rockets, and computers.

At the age of 5, something that would change my life forever happened.

One day to my kindergarten came a small group of people that I never saw before, with puzzles and began asking questions, and playing games. I don’t remember a lot, but what I do remember is that several days later the principal of the kindergarten called my mother. I wanted to talk to my parents next week. My father failed to attend, as he was very distant at that time, having time only for his mistress and her sons.

It was early in the morning when my mother entered the principal’s office, someone was waiting for her. She was welcomed by the principal and a man who introduced himself as a psychologist sent by the Secretariat of Public Education. “During the last days, we have conducted a series of tests with children to determine their level of intelligence (…) Congratulations Ma’am, your son is exceptionally gifted, it’s the highest IQ ever found in this kindergarten”. “He’s a very special child, please love him, understand him, and protect him. He will need to be enrolled in a school for gifted children. We’re giving you a closed envelope with all this information so you can find the best school for him, and, for the kid’s sake, don’t let him know that he is gifted, it would be prejudicial for him. ”

Finally, in adolescence, my mother told me about this matter.

14. Jacobsen: When you think of the ways in which the geniuses of the past have either been mocked, vilified, and condemned if not killed, or praised, flattered, platformed, and revered, what seems like the reason for the extreme reactions to and treatment of geniuses? Many alive today seem camera shy – many, not all.

Escorza: Most people fear the unknown, and despise the different. Most people defend the most deeply rooted traditions, passed down from father to son, even the most illogical, and irrational, and consider anyone who proposes a new way of doing things as an aggressor, a heretic, an anti-patriot that has to be destroyed. Intelligence is a powerful weapon against the status quo and injustice.

15. Jacobsen: Who seem like the greatest geniuses in history to you?

Escorza: Since I was 8 years old, I started reading the volumes of the encyclopedia “Colossi of History”

I remember reading in ecstasy about the life of Leonardo da Vinci, his many talents, so much that, like any child says “I want to be a fireman”, “I want to be an astronaut”, I repeated, “I want to be like Leonardo da Vinci” and that has been one of the purposes of my life and of my studies, to this day.

Albert Einstein changed the way we understand the Universe, so, to me, he’s one of the greatest too, Nikola Tesla is also one of my favorites, and another one, from my country, is the nun Juana Ines de la Cruz from the 17th century: polymath, poet, dramatist, philosopher, composer, mathematician, owner of the largest library in the New Spain, the first feminist who suffered threats of the Holy Inquisition for her intelligence and work, which finally made her give away her library and her musical instruments and die of a typhus epidemic at age 46, nursing her sisters, the nuns of the Convent of St Jerome in Mexico City.

16. Jacobsen: What differentiates a genius from a profoundly intelligent person?

Escorza: Both would be similar to two race cars, however, one of them running on the roads and the other inside a garage.

A genius is one whose mind and ideas allow him to address problems in an alternative way, out of the box, and those ideas create changes.

17. Jacobsen: How have societies treated women polymaths and women geniuses? One obvious case is Hypatia.

Escorza: In most times, in the countries of Judeo-Christian tradition with a religious majority, they have been censored and relegated to the background.

The independent woman is insulted and vilified, the intelligent woman is feared. The gift of superior intelligence in a woman is not seen as something divine, but as influenced by the devil.

18. Jacobsen: What have been some work experiences and educational certifications for you?

Escorza: I am a person who suffers from several phobias, the most important: agoraphobia and telephone phobia, which are a perfect ingredient to ruin anyone’s career and that’s why I have been working on my own for years.

I studied at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico, and 3 years ago I also studied at the National School of Anthropology and History of Mexico.

At 19 I became the youngest tenor of the Choir of the Symphonic Orchestra of the State of Mexico, and at 22, the youngest tenor and Petty Officer in the Choir of the Navy of Mexico, after more than 300 tenors who auditioned in 5 years.

19. Jacobsen: What are your hobbies?

Escorza: Listen to baroque music, especially French and Italian. I like to create 3D illustrations and learn languages. Although it is true that now I consider myself less active and bitter, in 2009 I learned Romanian in 2 months on my own and this helped me to communicate without problems during my visit to Romania and now, I’m learning modern Hebrew.

20. Jacobsen: What are some of the more important aspects of the idea of the gifted and geniuses? Those myths that pervade the cultures of the world. What are those myths? What truths dispel them?

Escorza: Something that strikes me most is that in my native country (Mexico), the idea is only seen as a subject of American films and not as a reality of the country, only a very short time ago. That same representation in the movies is what shapes people’s expectations of gifted and great people: strange people, sometimes unbearable, who know everything without even studying it, without knowing that behind each great idea there are thousands of hours of dedication, tears of blood, bullying. Some cultures will call them gifts from God, others, monstrosities against the goodness of God.

21. Jacobsen: What are the tropes and stereotypes in American film about individuals with Mexican heritage?

Escorza: Always the same: mindless, noisy people, without the capacity for deep feelings but lovers of partying and illegality. A caste born for manual labor, gardening, working the fields, servants, housekeepers. And even worse, are always represented as a monolithic ethnic group without differences. On my visits to other countries, when people know where I come from, they think that “You don’t look Mexican” is a compliment. Rather I don’t look like the stereotype they have in their minds.

22. Jacobsen: What is the core identity of Mexican culture?

Escorza: Victimism, a fake alternative national history, and the celebration of the notion of “we almost made it”.

Mexican official history celebrates losses and losers, names cities and states after them, and removes the names of great people from history books.

23. Jacobsen: What is the gender role of men in Mexico?

Escorza: Mexican culture is based on male chauvinism (what we call in Spanish “machismo”). The man has to be tough, womanizer, aggressive, anything short of that makes you an effeminate, a capital sin for Mexican machos.

Something similar to Dmitry Belyayev’s domesticated foxes experiment occurs with the Mexican male population, but in the opposite direction: each generation is more aggressive than the previous one.

24. Jacobsen: What is the gender role of women in Mexico?

Escorza: To submit to the will their fathers, brothers, boyfriends, or husbands. To be a good wife, to bear the husband, no matter how bad or unfaithful he is, that “he’s finally a man they are like that” and to stay at home.

Something terrible happens, in the face of the alarming numbers of women murdered every year, each case that makes it to the news unleashes comments by both men and women alike accusing the woman of her own death: “well deserved”, “she asked for it”, “If she had been in her house and not in the club, she would not have been murdered”

25. Jacobsen: What are some social and political views for you? Why hold them?

Escorza: I note with dismay that most people around the world is divided into the old “left” and “right”. I am not married to any ideologies and I consider them very harmful and belonging to other outdated times in human history.

I am also against the meddling of religion in state affairs, they should be well away from each other.

I am against the caste division of people, I find the color classification of people and systematic discrimination due to religions or sexual preferences unbearable.

I am against dictatorships and autocratic regimes with eternal leaders or leaders dividing the people into “good” and “bad”, “ours” and “not ours”, “with us” and “against us”.

The basis of everything should be: Everyone should be happy, feel protected, useful, with the same opportunities, within the law. Do not live in poverty or persecution.

26. Jacobsen: What can get some of the sociopolitical discourse out of this singular dimensionality of thought?

Escorza: The logical analysis of the premises. Be critical of all information, not believe in anything, or anyone unconditionally.

27. Jacobsen: Who are widely considered bright social and political commentators who are simply poseurs, even idiots, regardless of certifications and pedigree of qualifications?

Escorza: I am somewhat disconnected from that topic. For own mental health. The number of logical fallacies used by each commentator, each candidate, each politician in different countries, makes me feel that we now live in the world described by George Orwell in “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. Truth, history, common sense no longer have a meaning, but only what the party decides to give it.

28. Jacobsen: Any thoughts on the God concept or gods idea and philosophy, theology, and religion?

Escorza: In ancient times, the shaman was the healer, the one who had contact with spirits from other dimensions, the one who offered the first explanation of the phenomena of nature.

Religion was institutionalized and was the first that, based on its moral conception, dictated laws of coexistence, food consumption, cleanliness.

Today, many religions serve their own monetary interests, and large numbers of parishioners zealously pursue rituals, but not the main teachings. For many people, it is essential to light a candle on certain days, say the same prayer 100 times or whip their backs in a procession, instead of the really important thing, which in most religions is the same: “Love your neighbor as you you love yourself”.

I am more inspired by someone who feeds the poor and showers the dirty, than someone who candles the churches or knows by heart all the verses of any given holy book.

On the other hand, as an atheist, since I was 11 years old, I consider that religion has a very important role to play in the modern world. While the reasonable man conducts himself on the basis of morality, empathy and goodness, a large number of people who believe in gods, try to behave morally and empathic, only because of the fear they have of a deity or the desire to be rewarded by it, so, without that fear, it seems to me that the world would be an even more dangerous and difficult place to live in.

The concept of God is the simplest wildcard response of many people to absolutely everything we do not know, and this eliminates the need to look further, so it seems obsolete to me.

For me, I would turn all the beautiful religious buildings into philosophical and scientific temples, to eradicate all kinds of superstitions from people’s minds, to teach them to think for themselves, logically, and I’d also use them as a beautiful setting for musical concerts.

29. Jacobsen: Typically, how are atheists portrayed and treated in societies, e.g., Mexico or America?

Escorza: As misfits. How can one not believe in God? “if it were not for him we would not exist.”

30. Jacobsen: How much does science play into the worldview for you?

Escorza: Science is the best tool we have to try to reach the truth. It has taken us out of caves, has made us build cities, navigate the seas, has lengthened our life expectancy and has opened a hole in Plato’s cave, to see beyond. I have great respect for science, and I marvel at every little or great new discovery.

31. Jacobsen: What have been some of the tests taken and scores earned (with standard deviations) for you?

Escorza: The one they did to me at 5 years old, although I don’t know the score.

During the treatment of a terrible depression that almost cost me my life, a psychiatrist gave me the WAIS test, 13 years ago, when I was 25 years old. My result was 160 sd-15.

32. Jacobsen: What is the range of the scores for you? The scores earned on alternative intelligence tests tend to produce a wide smattering of data points rather than clusters, typically.

Escorza: In alternative tests without time limits, from different test creators on the internet, I have obtained scores close to that of 13 years ago and others in the range of 150-154 and in some cases, up to 124. In many cases it depends on I am not a native speaker of English and that some nuances of the language are unknown to me.

33. Jacobsen: What ethical philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?

Escorza: As an atheist that I am, and without having concrete evidence of a life after this, I consider death the end of everything, which is why it’s not worth living life in hardship, in penance, in suffering, waiting for the reward of an eternal life of happiness and absence of pain and suffering. So, a mixture of hedonism and the Golden Mean would be my ethical philosophy.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Member, World Genius Directory.

[2] Individual Publication Date: July 8, 2020: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/pedraza-one; Full Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2020: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

Appendix II: Citation Style Listing

American Medical Association (AMA): Jacobsen S. An Interview with Arturo Escorza Pedraza on Background, America, Mexico, and Intelligence (Part One) [Online].July 2020; 23(A). Available from: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/pedraza-one.

American Psychological Association (APA, 6^th Edition, 2010): Jacobsen, S.D. (2020, July 8). An Interview with Arturo Escorza Pedraza on Background, America, Mexico, and Intelligence (Part One). Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/pedraza-one.

Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. An Interview with Arturo Escorza Pedraza on Background, America, Mexico, and Intelligence (Part One). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 23.A, July. 2020. <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/pedraza-one>.

Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (16^th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2020. “An Interview with Arturo Escorza Pedraza on Background, America, Mexico, and Intelligence (Part One).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 23.A. http://www.in-sightjournal.com/pedraza-one.

Chicago/Turabian, Humanities (16^th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott “An Interview with Arturo Escorza Pedraza on Background, America, Mexico, and Intelligence (Part One).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 23.A (July 2020). http://www.in-sightjournal.com/pedraza-one.

Harvard: Jacobsen, S. 2020, ‘An Interview with Arturo Escorza Pedraza on Background, America, Mexico, and Intelligence (Part One)‘, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 23.A. Available from: <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/pedraza-one>.

Harvard, Australian: Jacobsen, S. 2020, ‘An Interview with Arturo Escorza Pedraza on Background, America, Mexico, and Intelligence (Part One)‘, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 23.A., http://www.in-sightjournal.com/pedraza-one.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 7^th Edition, 2009): Scott D. Jacobsen. “An Interview with Arturo Escorza Pedraza on Background, America, Mexico, and Intelligence (Part One).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 23.A (2020):July. 2020. Web. <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/pedraza-one>.

Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. An Interview with Arturo Escorza Pedraza on Background, America, Mexico, and Intelligence (Part One) [Internet]. (2020, June 23(A). Available from: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/pedraza-one.

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