this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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IQ has been discredited as a measure of capacity for intelligence anyway. The real insult is having a serious belief in that pseudoscientific bullcrap (as opposed to just the colloquial use).
Sincerely, A >175 IQ former MENSA member from England.
Who discredited it?
Scientists
You can't just say scientists and not name any or cite any sources
IQs are for losers.
S Hawkings
I thought you were the grammar police, not the sources police.
What's mensa like? What do you do there? I've always been curious. Surely there will be some interesting conversations/ideas?
Joining was fun. I hit the ceiling on the test so they invited me down south for an invigilated test. Then I sat another one because I hit the ceiling on that one too. My final score was high 170s, which made me feel really good about myself.
After that, it was downhill. I only ever went to one annual meeting. It was predominantly white men who think scoring in an abnormal range on certain standardised tests makes them somehow better than everyone else - the sense of entitlement was through the roof. I came home early.
I stayed in the society, I subscribed to a couple of special interest group mailing lists for a few years. Then I cancelled.
I occasionally got letters for a few years afterwards inviting me to rejoin, saying I don't need to take a test again, then they gave up.
mensa always sounded like it was just a scam for people who think they're smart
It was started as a eugenics dating club. There's a reason that Mensa and Σ4 are primarily white dudes.
i never joined mensa, though i had the option to. and yeah you just confirmed all the reasons why i hadn't lol. entitled dudes who believe so hard that results of a test make them better than others that they are approaching actual delusions of superiority, having to sit among people like that would make my blood boil
well, i suppose it's a logic puzzle skills test, not an emotional intelligence test.
i despise how IQ is almost revered by the overall society, and i hate how, despite everything, that stupid result does make me feel good about myself, tempting me to feel better than others
Bridge and tea on Wednesdays.
My mother told me the murder of the intelligentsia is one of the first steps of a fascist regime and that the Mensa roster is a hit list. Then ten years later she voted for trump.
Given that IQ is profoundly racist and white people score much higher than any other race (not because white people are smarter but because the tests are racist), I very much doubt it'd ever be used as a hit list.
Maybe a shit list.
to those downvoting this comment -
your IQ test results might as well be your zip code
for a proper explanation, check out Bell Curve by Shaun
for a personal interpretation & in large part summary of the above material:
IQ tests are not a general smartness tests, that is impossible to measure. IQ testes measure your ability to solve logic puzzles, and that supposedly measures your logic itself (at least the tests that have no cultural bits, the ones that include cultures also have some testing of your memory based largely on your country's school curriculum. more on why that's a problem later)
can someone be naturally amazing at logic? of course, they can, but that skill needs to be nurtured, or at least allowed to flurish. and this is supposed to happen in schools.
now what happens when a person with the potential to score high in an IQ test doesn't enjoy the privilege of peaceful learning? what happens when their family life is difficult? what happens when during their schooling years they have to focus on surviving, instead of learning and nurturing their skills? well, they score lower, of course. their potential doesn't disappear, but it gets used in a different direction, to help them survive in life. and logic puzzles don't play a big role in survival so that particular skill is not tended to and therefore doesn't develop as well as it could in ideal circumstances.
now let's look at racism. we're not talking about day to day racism, though that also plays a part, but institutionalised racism - the one that keeps pushing minorities into poverty, and keeps them there harder than white people, because as we know, poverty is a trap that's difficult to get out of even for those not pushed into it with institutional racism.
add the two together - IQ tests measure your logic puzzle solving skills, which develop only if you have access to decent schools & you're allowed to learn without interruptions, without having to worry for yourself or your family. institutionalised racism pushes minorities into poverty, which means they lose access to good schooling, and have to worry for themselves and their families from an early age.
this in turn results in minorities scoring lower on those tests, but not because they are stupid, but because their intelligence has to be used for surviving, and they are not allowed to comfortably indulge in solving logic puzzles to develop the skills that IQ tests look at to "measure intelligence"
A lot of what you're describing isn't related to IQ or IQ tests. What I think you may be referring to are some IQ test scams from facebook. Not exactly sure.
First of all, while I personally can't definitely judge whether IQ is a perfectly accurate measure of intelligence or not, it is one of the best documented and fundamental parts of psychology. It's covered in great detail in any psychology textbook or class.
There are different types of intelligence, meaning five people with the exact same IQ score may or may not have similar capabilities. Some are great at 'logic puzzles', while others excel at more literary puzzles such as debates. Fundamentally pretty much the same concept, but for one reason or another there's a divide there. It does not appear to be directly influenced by personal background or upbringing.
IQ tests are supposed to be designed in a way that is accessible to everyone, regardless of ethnicity or culture. That's why they usually consist of very simple concepts, such as general shapes. A square is a square, whether you're from Europe or Africa, and doesn't require any significant knowledge to be distinguished from a circle. If a test relies on any outside knowledge (e.g., you need to know what a cat is vs what a dog is) - it's not an IQ test, or it's a very poor one.
The core issue here is not about 'nurturing skills', because as countless studies have shown, it does not appear at all possible to raise your IQ (i.e. become more intelligent). All attempts at training people to get more intelligent either brought no results, or turned out to be false.
What's happening in the situation you described is mostly access to healthy food, healthcare, etc. The biggest predictors of IQ are general health and nourishment. This is basically why poor people score lower. A brain can only utilize all of its capabilities when it's supplied with sufficient nutrients and is not significantly impaired by sickness.
Of course, as many different traits, IQ can and is being used for eugenics. Basically what you said about poorer groups. It's nothing inherently to do with IQ itself, but the result is the same.
Also, as already mentioned by some commenters, Mensa is just a degenerate group of soft, wannabe Nazis.
People can downvote my posts all they like, I can't see them because my instance doesn't have downvotes. My post's on +6, and yours is +1 (+2 now)
it was at -1 when i saw it, which is what prompted me to attempt to give a step by step process leading to the conclusion you gave as it seemed to me folks just lacked context
Nuance? On the Internet? How optimistic :)
T–T
if even one person learnt something new today i'll consider that a win
I don't think people using the phrase as an insult need to believe in IQ.