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The topics and the community are both a filter and forcing a requirement. From my own observation I would wager that a majority here are in that top 10% . Peop

The topics and the community are both a filter and forcing a requirement. From my own observation I would wager that a majority here are in that top 10% . People are not just randomly assigned to reading and commenting on Hacker News. It's an intellectual community that would naturally attract those who have such skills.

mhurron 10y ago
> People are not just randomly assigned to reading and commenting on Hacker News No they randomly show up being either directly or tangentially associated with either technology or startup culture. That's it. And while those people really do love to think of themselves as more intelligent than the general population, I don't see it.
- Practicality 10y ago
  The most recent data I can find on that is 20 years old so it's hard to say: http://sq.4mg.com/IQ-jobs.htm http://sq.4mg.com/IQ-jobs.htm If you go by the "engineering" part of that, then average would be 125, if you go by "computer occupations" then average is a little over 110. Regarding entrepreneurs, there isn't much data. I found this quote "A more recent working paper by Simeon Djankov of the World Bank, Yingyi Qian of the University of California at Berkeley, Gérard Roland of the University of California at Berkeley, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya of the Center for Economic and Policy Research examined “400 entrepreneurs and 540 non-entrepreneurs of the same age, gender, education and location in 7 Brazilian cities” and found that the “entrepreneurs scored quite higher on cognitive scores…” http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/10/how-smart-is-the-average-entrepreneur-2.html http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/10/how-smart-is-the-average-e... Either way, the data does seem to agree that people on HN should be higher than average. I would also argue that the community here will tend to dissuade people who make nonsensical arguments from sticking around, which would filter out people as well.
  - mhurron 10y ago
    That intelligence can be distilled down to a single number is bullshit. IQ score is meaningless. http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(12)00584-3 http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(12)00584-3
    - Practicality 10y ago
      That may or may not be true, but it's not what we were talking about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Logical_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Logical_f...
      - mhurron 10y ago
        Except it is, you are trying to put forward that IQ among engineers is high as some proof that HN must be of a higher general intelligence than the rest of the population. I said IQ is bullshit, the implication being it can not be used to prove your position. For IQ to support your position, it must be a valid measurement of intelligence. I am attacking the validity of your data.
        SamReidHughes 10y ago
        IQ is a valid measure of intelligence. Individuals' outcomes on different intelligence tests are positively correlated with one another, you see. And they're correlated with external metrics of ability, of course.
        Practicality 10y ago
        My original post was all about the distribution and rarity of people with different IQ results and how the article confuses the three different cohorts. Those three cohorts are defined by IQ. The terms "above average," "gifted" and "genius" all refer to IQ scores. I agree with you that using these terms in the colloquial sense is undefined, and therefore useless to discuss. Hence, why I wasn't using that meaning of the word "intelligent." If my argument was that HN commenters had higher intelligence and I was referring to an amorphous concept, then yes, my position would not be possible to defend. However, my position was that the majority of commenters on here would be in the top 10%, as defined by IQ tests, since that is what the original article was talking about. [Edit: I mean, what would I even be saying to say someone is in the top 10%, 1% or .01% of a subjective, poorly defined quality? It would be nonsense. I would have to be referring to something measurable to even try to divide people into cohorts by such measure. Unless you actually think I am sitting there looking at people and saying hmm, I think, yes, you are better than 99 out of 100 people I know in terms of intelligence. And you, yes, you, you are better than 9,999 out of 10,000 people. You are just that smart. That's just silly. And come to think of it, if I was referring to a subjective quality, then I could decide who is the best, and I could just declare that HN commentators are in the top 10%, because well, that's the the way I feel about it]
- SamReidHughes 10y ago
  Of the users of this site with top 100 karma there's at least two people that are unquestionably in the top 0.01% of math ability. (They'd both pass the 0.001% cutoff, too.) And there'd be a third if we went to the top 150 karma (basing this off how karma tails off on https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders). That would be very unlikely if HN was a random assortment of the population, or a random assortment of the top 25%.
  - Practicality 10y ago
    "at least two people that are unquestionably in the top 0.01% of math ability." To whom are you referring to, if I may ask, and what do they do? (I would just like to learn about them)
    - SamReidHughes 10y ago
      cperciva and michaelochurch (not listed on /leaders because he hasn't posted in a while), and it's easy enough to look up what they do.
      - serge2k 10y ago
        > cperciva He won the putnam once right? > michaelochurch banned for calling Marissa Meyer a nasty name. I'm sure he thinks he is 0.01% in most abilities.
        SamReidHughes 10y ago
        He is in math, see the results of the 1999 USAMO. He's a fantastic writer, too.
        srtjstjsj 10y ago
        What am I looking for? http://www.maa.org/math-competitions/usamo-1999-winners http://www.maa.org/math-competitions/usamo-1999-winners s of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO) held on April 27, 1999 are as follows: Reid W. Barton - Arlington, MA Gabriel D. Carroll - Oakland, CA Lawrence O. Detlor - New York, NY Stephen E. Haas - Sunnyvale, CA Po-Shen Loh - Madison, WI Alexander B. Schwartz - Bryn Mawr, PA Paul A. Valiant - Belmont, MA Melanie E. Wood - Indianapolis, IN

mhurron 10y ago

> People are not just randomly assigned to reading and commenting on Hacker News No they randomly show up being either directly or tangentially associated with either technology or startup culture. That's it. And while those people really do love to think of themselves as more intelligent than the general population, I don't see it.

Practicality 10y ago
The most recent data I can find on that is 20 years old so it's hard to say: http://sq.4mg.com/IQ-jobs.htm http://sq.4mg.com/IQ-jobs.htm If you go by the "engineering" part of that, then average would be 125, if you go by "computer occupations" then average is a little over 110. Regarding entrepreneurs, there isn't much data. I found this quote "A more recent working paper by Simeon Djankov of the World Bank, Yingyi Qian of the University of California at Berkeley, Gérard Roland of the University of California at Berkeley, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya of the Center for Economic and Policy Research examined “400 entrepreneurs and 540 non-entrepreneurs of the same age, gender, education and location in 7 Brazilian cities” and found that the “entrepreneurs scored quite higher on cognitive scores…” http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/10/how-smart-is-the-average-entrepreneur-2.html http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/10/how-smart-is-the-average-e... Either way, the data does seem to agree that people on HN should be higher than average. I would also argue that the community here will tend to dissuade people who make nonsensical arguments from sticking around, which would filter out people as well.
- mhurron 10y ago
  That intelligence can be distilled down to a single number is bullshit. IQ score is meaningless. http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(12)00584-3 http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(12)00584-3
  - Practicality 10y ago
    That may or may not be true, but it's not what we were talking about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Logical_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Logical_f...
    - mhurron 10y ago
      Except it is, you are trying to put forward that IQ among engineers is high as some proof that HN must be of a higher general intelligence than the rest of the population. I said IQ is bullshit, the implication being it can not be used to prove your position. For IQ to support your position, it must be a valid measurement of intelligence. I am attacking the validity of your data.
      - SamReidHughes 10y ago
        IQ is a valid measure of intelligence. Individuals' outcomes on different intelligence tests are positively correlated with one another, you see. And they're correlated with external metrics of ability, of course.
      - Practicality 10y ago
        My original post was all about the distribution and rarity of people with different IQ results and how the article confuses the three different cohorts. Those three cohorts are defined by IQ. The terms "above average," "gifted" and "genius" all refer to IQ scores. I agree with you that using these terms in the colloquial sense is undefined, and therefore useless to discuss. Hence, why I wasn't using that meaning of the word "intelligent." If my argument was that HN commenters had higher intelligence and I was referring to an amorphous concept, then yes, my position would not be possible to defend. However, my position was that the majority of commenters on here would be in the top 10%, as defined by IQ tests, since that is what the original article was talking about. [Edit: I mean, what would I even be saying to say someone is in the top 10%, 1% or .01% of a subjective, poorly defined quality? It would be nonsense. I would have to be referring to something measurable to even try to divide people into cohorts by such measure. Unless you actually think I am sitting there looking at people and saying hmm, I think, yes, you are better than 99 out of 100 people I know in terms of intelligence. And you, yes, you, you are better than 9,999 out of 10,000 people. You are just that smart. That's just silly. And come to think of it, if I was referring to a subjective quality, then I could decide who is the best, and I could just declare that HN commentators are in the top 10%, because well, that's the the way I feel about it]
SamReidHughes 10y ago
Of the users of this site with top 100 karma there's at least two people that are unquestionably in the top 0.01% of math ability. (They'd both pass the 0.001% cutoff, too.) And there'd be a third if we went to the top 150 karma (basing this off how karma tails off on https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders). That would be very unlikely if HN was a random assortment of the population, or a random assortment of the top 25%.
- Practicality 10y ago
  "at least two people that are unquestionably in the top 0.01% of math ability." To whom are you referring to, if I may ask, and what do they do? (I would just like to learn about them)
  - SamReidHughes 10y ago
    cperciva and michaelochurch (not listed on /leaders because he hasn't posted in a while), and it's easy enough to look up what they do.
    - serge2k 10y ago
      > cperciva He won the putnam once right? > michaelochurch banned for calling Marissa Meyer a nasty name. I'm sure he thinks he is 0.01% in most abilities.
      - SamReidHughes 10y ago
        He is in math, see the results of the 1999 USAMO. He's a fantastic writer, too.
        srtjstjsj 10y ago
        What am I looking for? http://www.maa.org/math-competitions/usamo-1999-winners http://www.maa.org/math-competitions/usamo-1999-winners s of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO) held on April 27, 1999 are as follows: Reid W. Barton - Arlington, MA Gabriel D. Carroll - Oakland, CA Lawrence O. Detlor - New York, NY Stephen E. Haas - Sunnyvale, CA Po-Shen Loh - Madison, WI Alexander B. Schwartz - Bryn Mawr, PA Paul A. Valiant - Belmont, MA Melanie E. Wood - Indianapolis, IN