Mensa is 98 percentile, meaning in terms of test-taking (I’m not really sure it measures IQ) it is 1 in 50 of the general adult population. It’s easier to get into Mensa than law school and there are some truly dumb lawyers out there. I joined Mensa maybe 30 years ago. I attended meetings for a time, attendance was sparse. Annual meetings were exceedingly boring, mostly populated by autists and those obsessed with puzzles and games. I really hate games. After a decade of being bored I noticed that every gathering was becoming dominated by middle aged women who had no interest in discussing anything except recipes. After the third time this happened I said Enough. I could not find anyone to discuss anything of the slightest significance except cooking so I canceled my membership. I really hate cooking.
In 2023, I rejoined Mensa. I often attend the local lunch group. I’ve met lots of interesting people since I rejoined but not everything has gone smoothly. The lunch group is mostly men. Sometimes women show up. A few women prefer to talk to other women while the men usually prefer talking to other men, situation normal IOW. One woman recently showed n loudly denounced one of the men, saying “I know you will just talk about your usual conspiracy theories!” He didn’t reply n she soon exited in a self-righteous huff. She will never sit at the same table as him without loudly abusing him. There are several right-of-center men at the lunch group, including me. There are several men who try to ride the fence politically, only stating their opinions quietly when few can hear them; their opinions are sometimes right, sometimes left, I guess depending on what they ate for breakfast. There are more far left men. One of them was a Democrat precinct chairman. Since I was a Republican precinct chair, this fellow never will sit close to me or exchange a single word, or acknowledge my existence in any way. C’est la vie. This fellow once said something quite odd IMO. I made a comment that people whose IQ is below around 80 have difficulty learning new job skills if they are laid off. To me this is well documented n easily demonstrated. To my surprise, this fellow said NO! He replied that there is no such thing as low IQ. I thought: how could someone join a high IQ society if they did not believe that anyone in the world has a low IQ? He said that when he was in the military many years ago he found out that everyone could learn any task at all if only they were taught by a good teacher. Well, this person is not a teacher but an engineer. Therefore, in his opinion, any person in the world can become an engineer if he is only taught with the right method n the problem with today’s public schools has nothing to do with the students but is due only to bad teachers who are using wrong teaching methods. When I said that just about every method had already been tried but the schools are continuing to get worse, he turned away n has refused to acknowledge my existence since then. I should have mentioned that the military does not accept recruits with IQs under 83 because they cannot be trained to do anything without endangering other soldiers, so his experience was not relevant to my comment, but I did not think of it. I have heard similar statements from other Mensans, who I thought were actually a bit smarter than that. The issue, I have concluded, is with what I call JFK Boomers. That is, people in their 70s whose intellectual outlook was formulated in 1961 n who assume that nothing has changed since. JFK Boomers for the most part have learned nothing since that date. With people like that, even Mensans, one must approach them as if it the date were still 1961 n speak to them in that language. Only then does communication become possible. To understand our CinC Joe Biden, for example, one must mentally return to 1961. Then his utterances begin to make some sense. Many Mensans are engineers or have other technical professions. I have nothing against that, n I know plenty who are quite informed, but others seem not to know anything beyond their profession, n moreover, seem to think that having a technical skill translates into knowing just about everything. All I can say is, they don’t know what they don’t know. STEM degrees are like PhDs: it means knowing a lot about a little. I myself fall rather more on the professional dilettante side. i know a lot about a lot, but not a lot of STEM. I belong to several IQ societies. One is less exclusive than Mensa n requires only 95 percentile to join, or one in 47.5 of the general population. Not much difference really. Called the International Hi IQ Society, or IHIQS for short, it has a lively website with lots of friendly people, more friendly than Mensans. When I suggested to one Mensan that we get together for lunch with members of IHIQS, he said: “No, that would be slumming!” I mentioned that my recorded IQ is higher than 98 percentile so therefore I must be slumming when I attend Mensa. He got upset n stopped talking to me. Mensans do seem to be touchy n rather defensive about their “high” IQs. I must talk too much. Now there are several Mensans who refuse to talk to me. More IQ stuff later. . .
Most Mensans, as I said before, are friendly n willing to engage in conversation to an extent, provided one listens more than talks. One fellow recently, a brighter one IMHO, was talking to me about diverse n sundry topics n we got on the subject of religion. Always a touchy subject, even for ultra-touchy Mensans. Things went back n forth in friendly fashion for a time over lunch, then he happened to mention that he was raised as a Christian. I mentioned that I was not. I asked him if he was a Christian now. He said No, now he is a Buddhist. I commented that I had noticed that many Christians become Buddhists when they lose their Christian faith. Well, I’m not sure why but apparently he took offense at this comment n I have now had to add him to the growing list of Mensans who will no longer talk to me. Maybe I should learn to tell jokes instead of discuss important topics. Another Mensan, one of the less touchy ones, likes to talk about his libertarianism n how conservative he is, even to some other Mensans whom I know regard libertarianism n conservatism as akin to fascism. Recently he saw that movie Civil War. I said I was not interested in propaganda but he told me all about it anyway. He got more n more excited n started saying the US is actually on the verge of a genuine civil war n that Trump was going to seize power, start a dictatorship, n the military would have to intervene to stop him. No, I didn’t laugh out loud, tho I was tempted to. I just said I didn’t think so. I knew lots of Never Trumpers when I was a Republican precinct chair, in fact just about all Harris County Republicans were Never Trumpers n many voted for Hillary in 2016 with the encouragement of my own Repub Party superiors, which is why I resigned from being a precinct chair n from the Repub Party. Another Mensan, the one who used to be a Dem precinct chair: one day suddenly without asking launched into a speech to someone else, saying that there was no election fraud anywhere in the US, that the election of 2020 was completely fair n free of any kind of fraud, n that it is impossible to commit election fraud in the US, n he knew this was true because he had been a Demo precinct chair. I did not reply since I knew that a Dem Party operative who believes that there is no such thing as a person with an IQ of 80 would not likely be open to discussion on the validity of elections. He wasn’t talking to me anyway, simply yelling loud enough that I would be sure to hear. I also did not mention how when I was a precinct chair, other chairs told me about all the election fraud they had seen in Harris County in Democratic precincts, mostly because of turning a blind eye to rampant ID fraud n how it was not possible to stop it because there were not enough Republicans willing to serve as election judges, so some Demo precincts had zero outside supervision. I was an election judge too, but only in my own precinct. Which brings me back to my other friend who saw the Civil War movie. In his excited anti-Trump monologue when he called for the military to “stop Trump”, I commented that 2020 may have actually had some election fraud. (I have never said this to the gentleman mentioned above since he has never asked.) My friend replied that fraud in 2020 was impossible since all the courts had rejected Trump’s lawsuits n this meant that his lawsuits had no validity at all. My friend, of course, is not a lawyer so he has never been to law school or studied Constitutional law. As it happens, I have, n I have also argued Constitutional law in federal court. Time ran out for our lunch so I did not have the chance to tell my friend that Article III denies jurisdiction to federal courts on matters pertaining to Articles I & II, which means federal courts cannot hear any political question. That is why the federal courts cannot adjudicate claims of election fraud. They cannot even look at the evidence. But, as I said in a previous post: people don’t know what they don’t know. If they are going to listen to the likes of CNN or MSNBC they will always remain misinformed. The reception of most Mensans to my book Confessions of a CIA Agent in the Soviet Union, OTOH, has been very positive. Many bought copies of the book n actually read them (a rarity these days). Outsiders I see often have the impression of Mensans as people who have no accomplishments in their life n join Mensa just to feel good about themselves n show off to others. But I have met medical doctors, lawyers, engineers, writers, teachers, in addition to many other types. Not exactly people who are just trying to show off. Usually it’s people who just want to talk with someone interested in delving into abstruse subjects, subjects besides recipes or the latest movie. I’ll try to talk some about other IQ societies next time. . .
Back to IQ societies. These little posts can be time consuming, not because of the thought involved but because I type too fast for my keyboard n FB to keep up. I often must go back to correct or pause to wait. Last time I talked about Mensa. It’s a bit of a surprise to me how many people get emotional about Mensa. It’s just a social club. And not very sociable at that. I think the emotion comes from the fact that in America people worship physical sports because that’s something they can see n immediately understand with their own eyes. It requires no thought. But intelligence is something they cannot see n do not understand because it is not visual. Americans in particular are hyper-conscious about class. In our ideology of ‘everyone is the same’, they get offended when they see someone who may know something they don’t. They hate n fear eggheads n professors n lawyers n PhDs, yet they worship Olympic athletes which virtually no one could ever equal! So it makes no sense. But then not much in America does. The society IHIQS, or International High IQ Society, accepts people with scores at the 95 percentile. That means 1 in 47.5 adults in the general public, which is only a couple less than the 1 in 50 that Mensa accepts. Yet my Mensan friends won’t socialize with IHIQS because that would be “slumming”! Ridiculous. I’m used to socializing even with homeless people with mental issues, so my company makes little difference to me unless I want to discuss something abstruse that very few people in the world could possibly know, which, since I am not a professor n am too old to become one, is why I join these societies. I’ve had many friendly n positive conversations with IHIQS people. This society has many fewer than Mensa so you can’t meet anyone for lunch unless you take a plane trip! I know cause I tried it. I posted in IHIQS an announcement of a lunch meeting. I also posted it in Mensa n in another place. I went to the lunch spot at the announced day n time – n no one showed up. Twice. Not an issue for me because I always bring a book to read so I managed to make good progress reading the sociology of Pareto. It’s what I expected anyway. IHIQS people are scattered around the world. As one posted: “Wish I could be there for lunch but Houston is just a bit too far to drive from Atlanta.” Understood. Recently I posted a series of long posts on IHIQS about the history of the US Constitution. As a lawyer who has argued Constitutional law in federal court, I know just a bit about the subject. The series received positive feedback. Almost no one knows anything at all about the Constitution unless they attended law school. And even most lawyers who took the obligatory course in Constitutional law forgot it after they took the Bar Exam, so even most lawyers no longer know anything about the subject. But I write papers about the Constitution, so I keep abreast. IHIQS has the same sprinkling of wacky n extreme politicos as Mensa. Apparently a high IQ does not save people from ignorance n extreme emotions as anyone else. I posted something moderately political which mentioned the Constitution. Immediately another member rattled off an angry hyperbolic n lengthy email all about Trump, whom I had never mentioned, while ignoring every point I had said about the Constitution. Since an intelligent exchange was clearly not possible, I simply replied “I knew this would happen” n dropped the conversation. IHIQS still has the best-run IQ society website n is the friendliest society of those I have seen. I am also a member of another society called TOPS, or the Top One Percent Society. This one requires a test score at or above the 99 percentile level, one point higher than Mensa. TOPS is thus 1 out of 100 adults in the general public. This society is much less sociable than either Mensa or IHIQS. Few people ever post anything n when they do few ever respond. I suppose there are just too few people who are members of this society to sustain a conversation. I did post a few things. For example, I said that I found it comforting when I think about the fact that the Earth has billions of years left in its existence n that 30-40 million years from now almost all evidence of humanity will have vanished n a whole new world with new species will exist. Seemed reasonable to me. But I soon got several replies to the effect that the world was only a few thousand years old n the Apocalypse was on the way, accompanied by Biblical quotes. I thought: “One in a hundred?” Another potentially interesting conversation shot out of the sky by fanatics who were not open to contradictory facts. I also found that posting anything personal gets no response on the TOPS website, but posting nice pictures of art gets many positive responses. I guess I will restrict my future posts to art. The website itself may be partly responsible for the lack of interaction, it is clumsy n not well designed like the IHIQS website. I belong to several more high IQ societies. I will discuss them next time. . .
Recently I decided to branch out n try joining some other high IQ societies besides Mensa, which sets 132 IQ as a minimum. As I mentioned earlier I also joined The One Percent Society (TOPS). As the name implies, one must have a score at or above the 99 percentile of a recognized test to gain admittance, or 1 in 100 of the general population, or around 137 IQ. I think I mentioned that TOPS doesn’t have an active website but that IHIQS does. IHIQS requires only 1 in 47.5, or 95 percentile, or around 124 IQ. I also joined the AtlantIQ Society run by the very warm n friendly Beatrice Rescazzi, also 95 percentile, or 124 IQ. This org is largely Italian. The AtlantIQ website, recently upgraded, is not as active as IHIQS but puts out the remarkable Leonardo magazine. Maybe I am smart enough to eventually contribute something to Leonardo. Or maybe not. Another 99 percentile org I recently joined is Intertel. They say 99 percentile corresponds to 135 \ 137 IQ, meaning by Wechsler 135 IQ with standard deviations of 15, or by Stanford-Binet 137 with standard deviations of 16. I’m not sure I understand all that gobbledy-gook, n I really don’t care. Intertel seems to be one of the more active societies higher than Mensa. They have annual face to face meetings, which is the only society matching Mensa in this regard. But of course Intertel is much smaller. Still, one can join up to 20 different FB pages associated with Intertel, including one in UK. When I joined the UK page I was instantly welcomed with open arms. There is also a local Texas Intertel page. For some reason, perhaps having to do with local Texas culture, I was welcomed but with something less than ‘open arms’. Why does that not surprise me given what I know about the (un)sociability of my fellow Texans? Intertel has FB pages called Gifted IQ Network, n Genius High IQ Network. Many posts seem shared between these pages. Not a whole lot of activity but they do have interesting things like psychological surveys of participants which include investigation why so many highly intelligent persons have so little support from society at large. I can certainly attest to that, being a high school dropout who found high school simply too boring to waste my time with. So I am active with Intertel, IHIQS, n Mensa. But less so with TOPS, Atlantiq, n some of the less busy Intertel FB pages. Not done, I then joined the IIS, or Infinity IQ Society, which requires IQ 140 sd15 \ 143 sd16. They state the percentile as 99.63, or about 1 out of 250 general population. At this level one finds that some of the officers’ names are familiar, having encountered them elsewhere. There does seem to be a club of the very highest IQ persons, where they all know each other n even spend a lot of time creating new intelligence tests to test each other. Not my cup of tea, I’m just commenting on what I have learned. The number of members is too small to attempt anything face to face, but the people seem friendly enough. IIS does not have a very active website. IIS recently launched a new forum. So far I can access n read the forum, but I am not yet cleared to post anything. Maybe eventually. Then I joined the “Extreme High IQ Society” or ePIQ. This requires 99.8 percentile, or IQ 143 sd15 \ 146 sd16, or about one in 500 general public. It has more or less the same officers as IIS. ePIQ also shares the same new forum, which I can read but not post to. People seem quite friendly tho of course the number of participants lessens each time one goes up the IQ ladder. Joining is more for bragging rights than anything else, I suppose, n my name is displayed on the Members pages of both IIS n ePIQ. I applied to the Poetic Genius IQ Society which requires only 99.5, n at first the membership officer was enthusiastic about my joining–then he suddenly went silent. He never replied after that, altho I certainly meet their stated qualifications. Well, the guy describes himself as a “childless monk” devoted to Nature-worship n Wokeness in Norway, so I suppose he freaked out when he saw my Equus Publishing page where I mock people like him. So Poetic Genius Society is too Woke to allow heretics like me to join. Wot a pity. A couple of other IQ societies I also applied to but never responded, like Colloquy. I believe Colloquy no longer exists. A few others have dusty websites n I believe have been simply abandoned. Some are Woke, meaning they are in effect religious organizations n judge potential members by their Woke religious criteria. I don’t bother trying to join them because I do not belong to the Woke cult. In that regard I am most definitely a heretic. I have little tolerance for Wokees. Most IQ societies do not charge any $ to join, but some do. Since I could not get into Poetic Genius, I set up a new IQ site called www.hiscifi.org, or Hi Sci-Fi Society, requiring only 99.5 to match Poetic Genius. But so far no one has joined except me, either because there is no one else at 99.5 who writes sci-fi (that cannot be possible, can it?) or because they just can’t be bothered or don’t know about it, altho I advertise it in the Mensa journal. I would rather not have Woke types join anyway, n that likely applies to most sci-fi writers of today. You can read my commentary about this at www.equuspublishing.com. There was an issue with my scores when I looked at the Triple Nine Society. They advertise that one must be 99.9 IQ, or one in a thousand, to join them, which they say is 146 sd15 \ 151 sd16 . Well, my scores are in fact above 99.9 but not in the proper subcategories to satisfy Triple Nine. So I did not apply to Triple Nine. Some higher IQ societies require 99.9 in not just one type of test, but in several types, n in some societies 99.9 is required in each of multiple categories! That’s not for me. So instead I joined the ISI-Society, or the “151” Society. They require evidence of IQ 151 or higher in order to be admitted. They state this as 99.92 (148 sd15) \ 99.93 (152 sd16), or about one in 1400 of the general adult population. Plus ISIS has a special requirement of high creativity, something that no other IQ society requires that I have found. I am in fact just a couple of points shy of meeting their scoring requirement but they liked my creativity so much, especially my sci-fi novel Quantum Marlowe, which contains extensive treatment of quantum mechanics, that I was admitted to ISIS. Unlike ePIQ n IIS, ISIS does not have a public members list so it is not possible to verify my membership, but I can report that some very interesting n perhaps well-known people are members. I won’t violate their privacy by mentioning names. The ISIS members list is “secret” for perhaps good reason which is not my place to question. They have a limited forum where I can post. My investigation of IQ societies led me to assemble two interesting lists: the first list is of all living high IQ societies. The second list is of all dead high IQ societies. Each of the lists is quite large n I included the membership requirements of each society. You can view the lists for free at https://www.hiscifi.org/ So that’s my little adventure with IQ societies. My qualifying test was the Graduate Record Exam taken in 1983, so there is zero chance that I will ever bother to try to replicate my intellectual accomplishments from my college youth. That’s long gone. I discuss my scores at hiscifi.org. What’s clear is in the world of high IQ scorers, my score is really not very impressive n I am simply “bush league”, or an “also-ran”. As ISIS puts it, 151 “is not astronomical” so my scores don’t really impress them. But they also point out that there is more to intelligence than an IQ score which is why they want to see creativity. That is also a measure of intelligence. If Triple Nine were to look at creativity, perhaps I could join that one. But I’m not sitting on the edge of my seat waiting. I have better things to do.