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> Even when participants imagined that they could take a magic pill guaranteeing eternal youth, their ideal life expectancy increased by only a few decades, to

> Even when participants imagined that they could take a magic pill guaranteeing eternal youth, their ideal life expectancy increased by only a few decades, to a median of 120 years old. And when people were invited to choose their ideal IQ, the median score was about 130 – a score that would classify someone as smart, but not a genius. Medians? The distributions would be more interesting.

dogma1138 8y ago
130 would put them in the top 2% while that’s technically not some luminary super genius level that is for all intents and purposes “genius” as far as every day life and normal expectations go. If your IQ is 130-135 statistically you are “smarter” than nearly anyone you meet in your life, in fact considering that 140-145 is at the 0.1% statistically you are unlikely to meet anyone smarter by a distribution point even at places that skew towards a higher IQ due to selection bias.
- yorwba 8y ago
  It's also close to the cutoff for Mensa membership (Wikipedia says they require 98th percentile or higher), so it seems to align pretty well with common ideas about what IQ qualifies as exceptional. That surprises me actually, since I'd expect most people to be unfamiliar with the meaning of IQ beyond "higher is better".
  - ataturk 8y ago
    Having a high IQ has never helped me write awesome Java code. I get hired because employers find out I have a PhD and am “smart” only to find out that I’m really just average at coding. Drives me crazy! I know I need a differeng career but not sure what would evwn work.
- eutectic 8y ago
  If you have a high IQ then you will probably mostly hang out with other high-IQ people.
  - cm2012 8y ago
    Yeah. The majority of people in elite colleges are probqbly in that range (since SAT scores are a reasonable IQ proxy).
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      Last time I’ve chdcked in the US Ivy League was only slightly above the “normal” IQ upper limit which is currently set at 115. 85-115 is considered “normal” with 85 being the lower limit for what one would consider a functional adult and 115 is the upper limit around which most of the successful professionals will be hanging around. Scoring in the top 2% of correctly normalized and clinically evaluated IQ tests is quite exceptional.
      - cm2012 8y ago
        Check here: http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/koening2008.pdf http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/koening2008.pdf Page 4 has a graph. Since harvard and other elites average applicant math + reading is at least 64, probably closer to 70, IQ ia likely to be 125-130.
        dogma1138 8y ago
        SAT scores do not actually correlate well to IQ scores directly and the higher you go the larger the actual distribution and variance is. In fact if we take your study then the 120-130 IQ range correlates to an ACT score range of between ~20 and ~70. If we take the ACT numbers they had for “study 2” which was conducted on 150 psychology students in a private university which is a highly selective group already you have an IQ range of 100-120 with the majority being between 105 and 115. A normalized average IQ across the three main domains (verbal, spatial and math) of 130 or higher is unlikely even for Harvard, the only real good study we have for Harvard is the Carson study which used psychometric tests to measure IQ and it got an average of 122 amongst PHD graduates in exact sciences. For all intents and purposes a clinical psychometric IQ score of 130 is exceptional even for elite school, STEM PHD graduates.
- Jack000 8y ago
  > a small group of participants recorded very high ideal IQ scores (> 1,000) for the purposes of the survey it seems like some respondents didn't know how the IQ scale works, they probably assumed 130 is just above average.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > considering that 140-145 is at the 0.1% statistically you are unlikely to meet anyone smarter by a distribution point even at places that skew towards a higher IQ due to selection bias. Two points: - +3 sd puts you at the 99.7th percentile, not the 99.9th. 140 would be much less rare than that. - The places that select for high IQ contain many, many people with IQs over 145. Princeton admits 6% of those who apply, not 6% of those aged 15-20. With 350,000,000 people in the US, applying a 0.1% filter will leave you with 350,000 people. With 20,000,000 people aged 15-19, that filter will leave 20,000. Princeton admitted ~1,300 last year. If you never meet anyone with an IQ above 145, you're not in an environment that selects for high IQ people.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    145 is 99.8650032777% (SD scale of 15 points) sorry for rounding up. Even universities that select for higher IQ are not considerably higher than the normal upper limit look at the ACT IQ correlation study that was linked here or the Carson study. There are 472,489 people in the US which have an IQ of 145 or higher when you count for the portion of those who will be students say age 18-35 you get about 100,000 now spread those around the best 50 schools in the country and you still get a pretty low percentage even if all of them enroll into higher education.
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      Using those numbers, it is extremely unlikely that you will fail to meet anyone of >145 IQ if you attend any of those top 50 schools. Compare your earlier claim, "statistically you are unlikely to meet anyone smarter". That is the opposite of the truth. If you are at a place that selects for high IQs, you are very likely to meet multiple people with IQs greater than 145. You are very unlikely to manage to avoid those people. > sorry for rounding up You were closer than I was, so touché. That said, the accurate figure is still quite far from your rounded estimate; while it may look like 99.86% is close to 99.9%, a 0.14% cutoff selects 40% more people than a 0.1% cutoff would.
      - dogma1138 8y ago
still_grokking 8y ago
If I had to choose my ideal IQ I wouldn't go as high as 130. It's very frustrating when most of the people you meet are dumb (out of your perspective). Something about 110 IQ would be much better.
- alfredallan1 8y ago
  Carry a pack of your favorite poison at all times. With practice, you can calibrate the amount you need to consume to acheive a desired iq level. Anytime you feel you’re getting smarter, take a dose of the magic potion. Of course, you’ll need to practice to attain perfection in basic motor skills at a slight level of inebriation, but that’s quite doable.
  - pehtis 8y ago
    That is how most smart people cope.
Havoc 8y ago
Plus how do you even factor in one "immortal" answer into your average?

dogma1138 8y ago

130 would put them in the top 2% while that’s technically not some luminary super genius level that is for all intents and purposes “genius” as far as every day life and normal expectations go. If your IQ is 130-135 statistically you are “smarter” than nearly anyone you meet in your life, in fact considering that 140-145 is at the 0.1% statistically you are unlikely to meet anyone smarter by a distribution point even at places that skew towards a higher IQ due to selection bias.

yorwba 8y ago
It's also close to the cutoff for Mensa membership (Wikipedia says they require 98th percentile or higher), so it seems to align pretty well with common ideas about what IQ qualifies as exceptional. That surprises me actually, since I'd expect most people to be unfamiliar with the meaning of IQ beyond "higher is better".
- ataturk 8y ago
  Having a high IQ has never helped me write awesome Java code. I get hired because employers find out I have a PhD and am “smart” only to find out that I’m really just average at coding. Drives me crazy! I know I need a differeng career but not sure what would evwn work.
eutectic 8y ago
If you have a high IQ then you will probably mostly hang out with other high-IQ people.
- cm2012 8y ago
  Yeah. The majority of people in elite colleges are probqbly in that range (since SAT scores are a reasonable IQ proxy).
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Last time I’ve chdcked in the US Ivy League was only slightly above the “normal” IQ upper limit which is currently set at 115. 85-115 is considered “normal” with 85 being the lower limit for what one would consider a functional adult and 115 is the upper limit around which most of the successful professionals will be hanging around. Scoring in the top 2% of correctly normalized and clinically evaluated IQ tests is quite exceptional.
    - cm2012 8y ago
      Check here: http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/koening2008.pdf http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/koening2008.pdf Page 4 has a graph. Since harvard and other elites average applicant math + reading is at least 64, probably closer to 70, IQ ia likely to be 125-130.
      - dogma1138 8y ago
        SAT scores do not actually correlate well to IQ scores directly and the higher you go the larger the actual distribution and variance is. In fact if we take your study then the 120-130 IQ range correlates to an ACT score range of between ~20 and ~70. If we take the ACT numbers they had for “study 2” which was conducted on 150 psychology students in a private university which is a highly selective group already you have an IQ range of 100-120 with the majority being between 105 and 115. A normalized average IQ across the three main domains (verbal, spatial and math) of 130 or higher is unlikely even for Harvard, the only real good study we have for Harvard is the Carson study which used psychometric tests to measure IQ and it got an average of 122 amongst PHD graduates in exact sciences. For all intents and purposes a clinical psychometric IQ score of 130 is exceptional even for elite school, STEM PHD graduates.
Jack000 8y ago
> a small group of participants recorded very high ideal IQ scores (> 1,000) for the purposes of the survey it seems like some respondents didn't know how the IQ scale works, they probably assumed 130 is just above average.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
> considering that 140-145 is at the 0.1% statistically you are unlikely to meet anyone smarter by a distribution point even at places that skew towards a higher IQ due to selection bias. Two points: - +3 sd puts you at the 99.7th percentile, not the 99.9th. 140 would be much less rare than that. - The places that select for high IQ contain many, many people with IQs over 145. Princeton admits 6% of those who apply, not 6% of those aged 15-20. With 350,000,000 people in the US, applying a 0.1% filter will leave you with 350,000 people. With 20,000,000 people aged 15-19, that filter will leave 20,000. Princeton admitted ~1,300 last year. If you never meet anyone with an IQ above 145, you're not in an environment that selects for high IQ people.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  145 is 99.8650032777% (SD scale of 15 points) sorry for rounding up. Even universities that select for higher IQ are not considerably higher than the normal upper limit look at the ACT IQ correlation study that was linked here or the Carson study. There are 472,489 people in the US which have an IQ of 145 or higher when you count for the portion of those who will be students say age 18-35 you get about 100,000 now spread those around the best 50 schools in the country and you still get a pretty low percentage even if all of them enroll into higher education.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    Using those numbers, it is extremely unlikely that you will fail to meet anyone of >145 IQ if you attend any of those top 50 schools. Compare your earlier claim, "statistically you are unlikely to meet anyone smarter". That is the opposite of the truth. If you are at a place that selects for high IQs, you are very likely to meet multiple people with IQs greater than 145. You are very unlikely to manage to avoid those people. > sorry for rounding up You were closer than I was, so touché. That said, the accurate figure is still quite far from your rounded estimate; while it may look like 99.86% is close to 99.9%, a 0.14% cutoff selects 40% more people than a 0.1% cutoff would.
    - dogma1138 8y ago

still_grokking 8y ago

If I had to choose my ideal IQ I wouldn't go as high as 130. It's very frustrating when most of the people you meet are dumb (out of your perspective). Something about 110 IQ would be much better.

alfredallan1 8y ago
Carry a pack of your favorite poison at all times. With practice, you can calibrate the amount you need to consume to acheive a desired iq level. Anytime you feel you’re getting smarter, take a dose of the magic potion. Of course, you’ll need to practice to attain perfection in basic motor skills at a slight level of inebriation, but that’s quite doable.
- pehtis 8y ago
  That is how most smart people cope.

Havoc 8y ago

Plus how do you even factor in one "immortal" answer into your average?