I took an IQ test once, when I was 17. It was a sunny day in February, I was well rested, had nice breakfast and even managed to get a sneaky toke while my moth

I took an IQ test once, when I was 17. It was a sunny day in February, I was well rested, had nice breakfast and even managed to get a sneaky toke while my mother was in the shower. I prepared by singing to the radio in the car. It took a few hours and I got the results on another day, so it was a "real IQ test", though I'd have to look up the exact type. But it doesn't matter anyway. I scored 142 that day, and there is no way I'll ever take an intelligence test again. It made me kind of an asshole for a while, too, I found it hilarious to respond to stuff like "it's cold outside, don't you want to take a jacket" with "I have an IQ of 142, don't you think I'd know when I need to take a jacket?". But even then I knew I was feeling really good that day, and answered quickly, and what I didn't know I maybe sometimes guessed correctly. I didn't take it serious serious. But it also wasn't just a joke to me, either. When I as a little kid, I was reading a comic with the neighbour's kid who was 2 years older, and I remember coming to the end of a page and waiting for him to turn to the next one any moment, and being surprised at how long it took for him to do that. I was excited for a second becuse I thought "I read faster than this guy and I only just learned it!", then I scolded myself and thought "no, he's probably just taking time to actually look at the images in detail". Knowing that there's at least some fuzzy objective-ish substantation for actually being above average in some areas offered some closure to that kind of stuff, and from then on out allowed me to not have to prove myself when someone who I felt wasn't that bright insulted my intelligence. But it's good I didn't take a test with such a result at age 12, that would have been a social disaster I'm sure. Ultimately, I didn't make myself, nobody made themselves, so at best intelligence still only gift, and even more importantly a responsibility. Honesty and kindness are much more valuable in a person than any amount of intelligence, IMO. Intelligence often just allows us to deceive ourselves and others better, and I think many of the major problems in the world we ascribe to stupidity are in large part so big due to intelligent people either not pulling their weight, or actively exploiting and molding people more simple than them. > Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction. -- Albert Einstein, who had a very high IQ, so. Screw intelligence, let's strive to be wise and kind. Intelligence is just a bonus, a nice to have, like being a bit more agile, or like a computer having more RAM, less latency etc. -- but it doesn't make a bad application something entirely different.