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4Aug00 :Today I ran across a group called Colloquy, "the first high-IQ society based entirely on the Internet. It is created as a forum for the collegial sharing of thoughts, experiences, and creative expression among people of superior intelligence." [1] :That reminded me of my disastrous interactions with rude, arrogant atheists in Mensa several years ago. (Maybe I'll write about it in more detail sometime.) :I'm ambivalent about such groups. I delight in the company of intelligent people, but how can they avoid elitism? In fact, I was reading just today: "Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position." [Rom 12:16]. On the other hand, I completely sympathize with a yearning to find a community where one can belong and be oneself. Therein lies my ambivalence. 21Jul00 :A comprehensive list of societies using intelligence criteria for membership is at [2]. :The criteria for the Prometheus Society, for instance, is the 99.997 percentile (1-in-30,000) [3]. That is, by the way, evidence that one can be in the 99.997 percentile of intelligence and still be an incompetent Web designer, IMHO. I always though it was strange that people find it more acceptable to judge people on intelligence than, say, physical ability or beauty. They seem equally shallow to me: they're all mostly genetic though they can be improved upon by hard work somewhat. Moral values, on the other hand, are almost entirely a matter of personal choice (if largely influenced by culture); so judging someone's character is entirely fair, but that seems to have fallen out of fashion these days as well. --LDC |
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