If You Start a Comment With Your IQ Score, I’ll Conclude You Are an Idiot

Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

2873

Abstract

ction on my part.</p><p id="8eef">They are either so head in the clouds impressed by their own importance or more likely, they are so insecure that throwing their IQ scores around as a debate tactic seems like a good idea to them. Believe me, it really is not.</p><p id="d063">I remember several years ago being at a friend’s wedding and a man asked me to dance. We chatted as we boogied and as part of the conversation, I asked him what he did. He told me that he was literally a rocket scientist. Ok, cool… but he was visibly taken aback when I failed to be completely blown away by that. To me, that sounds like interesting work, but it’s no more impressive than the jobs of all sorts of other people I know.</p><p id="8541">Now, if you were Katherine Johnson, who was born a Black woman in 1918 and still went on to become one of the “rocket scientists” who calculated complex equations by hand related to space flight for NASA, then I might be impressed. When NASA switched over to having computers do the calculations, John Glenn still wanted Johnson to check the numbers. Now that’s impressive!</p><blockquote id="980f"><p>The computers had been programmed with the orbital equations that would control the trajectory of the capsule in Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission from liftoff to splashdown, but the astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl” — Johnson — to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand, on her desktop mechanical calculating machine. “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space.</p></blockquote><p id="a1f6">If you’re a young white man in 1997, it’s still a cool job, but I’m not going to fall over myself in awe that you are a real “rocket scientist.” Just like I’m not going to fall all over myself because you say you have a high IQ as part of a comment on my story. First off, I don’t know you, and maybe that’s your debate catfish to try to badger other people into deferring to you. And even if it’s true, how pathetic do you have to be to lead with that? It doesn’t mean squat.</p><p id="9a2e"><i>I’m smart, they promised me that I’m smart, look at me, I’m smart and the rest of my life is a mess, but I can still wave my IQ around and maybe someone will be impressed.</i></p><p id="0c69">Dude…</p><p id="6140">Do you know who impresses me? Guys who say that they didn’t think they were going to like this story but they gained a new perspective. Guys who are open-minded and open-hearted, just trying to do their best

Options

in the world. Guys who can say they see where you are coming from even if they still don’t agree. Those sorts of men are rare, but so impressive because they aren’t driven by the constant need to reflexively dominate someone else. They don’t automatically assume that women are not as intelligent or not as well-informed and that simply because they are men, they must know better. They debate in good faith.</p><p id="a1f9">In my experience, guys who are telling you all about whatever…. how smart they are, how nice they are, what a good lover they are, what a good feminist or racial equality ally they are — those guys are the complete opposite. I’ve seen it happen time and time again, from Joss Whedon to more than a couple of my personal friends and acquaintances. I’m sure women do this to some extent as well, but it’s just rampant with men — it’s like the ultimate <i>tell</i>.</p><p id="b5f7">The more they insist that being gay is disgusting, the more likely you are to find them in the well-known trolling spot. The more they insist that Black men ought to take responsibility for their children, the more likely they are to have 4 kids out of wedlock who they never see and don’t support. The more they go on and on about <i>family values</i>, the more likely it is that they’ve paid for their mistress to have two abortions. Etc., etc., etc.</p><p id="a538">Guys who want to tell you all about their high IQ as if that is an actual rebuttal need to get a grip. I think it makes them look like a complete idiot and I’m guessing that most people — of all genders — agree.</p><p id="01ea">© Copyright Elle Beau 2023</p><div id="4864" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/are-men-really-the-natural-risk-takers-5f2fa2db8b1e"> <div> <div> <h2>Are Men Really the ‘Natural’ Risk Takers?</h2> <div><h3>Deconstructing another cultural myth</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*E6JlQYimMuVPKedqWYlu0A.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="cea9" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/debunking-evolutionary-psychology-8be754cc5334"> <div> <div> <h2>Debunking Evolutionary Psychology</h2> <div><h3>Because the past 5 thousand years aren’t a template for all of human history</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*TjbKB0EhjOCY6WYXLPnQ6Q.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

And so will most other people

Licensed from Adobe Stock

Twice during the past month, a man has opened up his comment on one of my stories by telling me about his IQ score. Apparently, I’m supposed to be so impressed with this that I look right past the fact that his comment doesn’t make a lot of sense, or is just plain wrong. I’ll just roll right over and retract my entire story because someone with a (supposedly) high IQ didn’t agree with me. Yeah, right…

First off, having a high IQ doesn’t mean you know everything about everything. It basically means that you test well on an IQ test. Secondly, the assumption that my IQ must be lower is a pretty big assumption, given that you don’t know anything about me. I don’t actually know what my IQ is, and I don’t really care, but that assumption that mine must be lower is pretty bold. Third and most importantly, even if my IQ is much lower than yours, that’s not an automatic negation of what I’ve written. You have to do the actual work to point out where I’ve said something in error. Blanket assertions of “I’m smarter than you” are not enough.

One of these guys, when I failed to be impressed by his IQ score because he accused me of saying something that I didn’t actually say, next tried to impress me with the fact that he was a Christian minister. Talk about trying too hard to seem important… In general, unless I know something about how you walk that path, being a Christian minister is largely not a plus in my book. It certainly doesn’t engender reflexive deference — and again, it’s not an automatic negation of my well-made points.

I always welcome new information, spirited debate, and even corrections if I’ve said something in error, but that has to be presented in some kind of substantive way. I win because I’ve got a higher IQ — even though I can’t actually speak to the points you’ve made is just the stupidest kind of dominance hierarchy flexing imaginable. I get men asserting that they know more about a topic I’m speaking on all of the time, but most of them aren’t so blatant as to say it quite that bluntly. Those who do are even bigger idiots than the rest, in my estimation.

Typically, they’re armed with the same erroneous “everyone knows” narratives that I’m specifically debunking, but sometimes they can’t even properly address the topic and go off on mental tangents that are incidental to it. This goes double for the two “stable geniuses” who were sure that telling me about their status as such would cause an immediate retraction on my part.

They are either so head in the clouds impressed by their own importance or more likely, they are so insecure that throwing their IQ scores around as a debate tactic seems like a good idea to them. Believe me, it really is not.

I remember several years ago being at a friend’s wedding and a man asked me to dance. We chatted as we boogied and as part of the conversation, I asked him what he did. He told me that he was literally a rocket scientist. Ok, cool… but he was visibly taken aback when I failed to be completely blown away by that. To me, that sounds like interesting work, but it’s no more impressive than the jobs of all sorts of other people I know.

Now, if you were Katherine Johnson, who was born a Black woman in 1918 and still went on to become one of the “rocket scientists” who calculated complex equations by hand related to space flight for NASA, then I might be impressed. When NASA switched over to having computers do the calculations, John Glenn still wanted Johnson to check the numbers. Now that’s impressive!

The computers had been programmed with the orbital equations that would control the trajectory of the capsule in Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission from liftoff to splashdown, but the astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl” — Johnson — to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand, on her desktop mechanical calculating machine. “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space.

If you’re a young white man in 1997, it’s still a cool job, but I’m not going to fall over myself in awe that you are a real “rocket scientist.” Just like I’m not going to fall all over myself because you say you have a high IQ as part of a comment on my story. First off, I don’t know you, and maybe that’s your debate catfish to try to badger other people into deferring to you. And even if it’s true, how pathetic do you have to be to lead with that? It doesn’t mean squat.

I’m smart, they promised me that I’m smart, look at me, I’m smart and the rest of my life is a mess, but I can still wave my IQ around and maybe someone will be impressed.

Dude…

Do you know who impresses me? Guys who say that they didn’t think they were going to like this story but they gained a new perspective. Guys who are open-minded and open-hearted, just trying to do their best in the world. Guys who can say they see where you are coming from even if they still don’t agree. Those sorts of men are rare, but so impressive because they aren’t driven by the constant need to reflexively dominate someone else. They don’t automatically assume that women are not as intelligent or not as well-informed and that simply because they are men, they must know better. They debate in good faith.

In my experience, guys who are telling you all about whatever…. how smart they are, how nice they are, what a good lover they are, what a good feminist or racial equality ally they are — those guys are the complete opposite. I’ve seen it happen time and time again, from Joss Whedon to more than a couple of my personal friends and acquaintances. I’m sure women do this to some extent as well, but it’s just rampant with men — it’s like the ultimate tell.

The more they insist that being gay is disgusting, the more likely you are to find them in the well-known trolling spot. The more they insist that Black men ought to take responsibility for their children, the more likely they are to have 4 kids out of wedlock who they never see and don’t support. The more they go on and on about family values, the more likely it is that they’ve paid for their mistress to have two abortions. Etc., etc., etc.

Guys who want to tell you all about their high IQ as if that is an actual rebuttal need to get a grip. I think it makes them look like a complete idiot and I’m guessing that most people — of all genders — agree.