It's hard. I always knew I was different but I didn't know why until I was 14 when I took an IQ test and found out I had an IQ of 73. At first I was in denial but overtime I came to terms with my learning disabilities and started to understand what was wrong with me. It's affects you in a lot of ways. You learn slower than everyone else. Things that come easy for everyone else take you forever to get a grasp of and I get overwhelmed with information very easily.
It's held me down my whole life. It gives me a massive a inferiority complex and it limits my opportunities. I really wish I had a normal IQ like everyone else.
You get to lead the most powerful nation in the world
You're always playing catchup when in a conversation with others; they're racing ahead on the topic, already knowing both sides of the discussion and throwing their own spin on it, and you're just sitting there staring at them mouth-agape as you try to process what is being said in realtime, but can't quite grasp even the base concepts nor the terminology of what they're talking about because their shop talk is so far removed from the baseline that it's practically a whole subject in itself.
The smart thing to do is to just interject quickly with simple questions to highlight your supposed ignorance, and get some quick definitions to keep you at least somewhat up-to-date in the conversation.
But you don't... either too ashamed of your own ignorance to draw attention to it, or rejecting it outright instead of facing the humiliation and telling yourself that you're not that interested in the topic anyway.
That's how it feels to me, anyhow
Honestly, that’s a nuanced take on the nature of conversation. I’m sure you’ve got a good head, you’re just not a nerd like them.
For what it's worth, I'm very familiar with that feeling too, despite excelling academically and a high score on IQ tests. Ignorance is not a lack of intelligence, it's more likely a lack of experience. And every culture, job and hobby will have their own terminology and assumed knowledge, so not even the Einsteins could pretend to already know it all.
I listen to music all the time, I've composed amateur music myself, and enjoy occasionally reading wikipedia for trivia of music theory, but if two musicians start talking about basic stuff like major and minor chords I'm already out of my depth. Do I do the smart thing and ask them to explain? Or do I just nod until they talk about something I know, or tell myself I don't actually care about music theory?
I also apparently have high IQ according to online tests and my mind still glazes over conversations even when it's a topic that I'm supposedly an expert on. I know all the words. If you were then down and I read them, I'll be able to make perfect sense of them. But a real time conversation? Forget it.
This is simply a symptom of not being experienced in or knowledgeable in the topic of the conversation.
Not being knowledgeable, or not being smart, is unrelated to IQ. Knowing a great deal about a topic or field is not the same as having a high IQ.
Thank you.
There was a guy on youtube once who uploaded a video talking about this who has the channel name "crazydumbsick".
Unfortunately I can't seem to find the video as it looks like he regularly deletes content, and it currently only goes back about a month on his channel at present.
Take everything below with a block of salt because this is from memory, and it was a few years back where I watched his video once, so I could be misremembering one or more things here.
If I recall correctly he has Schizophrenia, Crohns, and an IQ of ~45, hence his channel name. He talked a lot about how hard it was to live, particularly pertaining to his IQ. He said that he has a hard time with remembering things and therefore most of his meals are made from pre-made microwaveable packages as he is capable of operating the microwave without too much difficulty, and he found it generally easy to follow the instructional lists on the packaging.
He made note that operating any kind of machine much beyond a microwave or TV remote was largely beyond him, except his computer and camera which he had recently figured out well enough to be able to record and upload content - but outside of those actions, he really had no idea how to use them.
I believe he also said that due to one or more of his conditions, he could not drive, which largely compounded the difficulties of his life.
He talked about how finding work for someone in his situation is basically impossible and just as impossible to hold onto for very long. I believe he talked about a couple jobs he had been fired from and why, and while I don't recall the specifics, I believe he had talked about how he was not even entirely certain why he had been fired. I think he said that he had done some things incorrectly, and at the time, had some vague concept of them being incorrect, but despite this, he was unsure why he had gone ahead and done them anyway.
Overall, he seemed very sad in the video; he was terribly aware of how hard it is to live life being himself, and knew that there were basically no solutions to it.
Having said all of that, he continued to upload videos and there were some good events and some bad events. I believe at one or more times he discussed having tried to take his own life. Other times he seemed fairly upbeat and was trying to better himself - trying to read through a textbook on auto work for example.
Anyway, I think the original video I spoke about is one of the better videos I've seen uploaded to the internet. It was somewhat sad, but it was highly enlightening and certainly one of the most honest videos I've ever seen someone upload.
In my experience, people are generally unaware of current events and history. They don't understand basic math. They are very poor at critical reasoning and don't comprehend things like evidence or facts, so they're easily convinced by hunches or baseless claims prominent people make.
I bet it’s fucking awesome.
Some idiot says “this is how things work” (and explains things in a way that aren’t true at all)
And then I’d be like “yeah that’s good enough for me.”
And I’d watch sports and not be worrying all the time.
As it is, I unfortunately see through most bullshit and realize im surrounded by people who don’t.
I am the scientist at the beginning of every disaster movie. Ignored until it is too late. Then blamed.
If you’re using IQ as a measure of intelligence, you probably already know.
They didn't ask about intelligence, they asked about IQ.
Low IQ is a type of singling people out who are not what society wants people to be. A form of subtle eugenics, make the "dumb" people not be able to do things because a "test" says there IQ is low, for instance someone who speaks another language could mis understand the "test" and people think there idiots when in fact they just wasn't good at English. This also goes for people who are absolutely horrible at English reading and comprehension of "tests" when they could be brilliant in other aspects of life.
So remember there is no way to "test" how smart or dumb someone is.
Unless you're saying other metrics on people are also somehow eugenics like height, weight, or speed, IQ is not eugenics. Eugenics is the belief that one's genes affects one's life, and certain genes will lead to a better life in expectation. (This is in fact a true belief, since there are some genes which are known to cause horrible painful short lives.)
IQ is just a measure of how well you do on an IQ test, which is known to correlate (maybe causally, maybe not) with various things such as income.
How do you know there is no way to test how smart or dumb somebody is? Even if IQ tests aren't to your standard, you can't be sure there isn't another test possible.
I don't understand.
Too highbrow, gtfo smarty smart man.
What.
IQ is pseudoscience
Only if you're naïve about IQ and worship it like God. Here is wikipedia's second paragraph on IQ:
Scores from intelligence tests are estimates of intelligence. Unlike, for example, distance and mass, a concrete measure of intelligence cannot be achieved given the abstract nature of the concept of "intelligence". IQ scores have been shown to be associated with such factors as nutrition, parental socioeconomic status, morbidity and mortality, parental social status, and perinatal environment. While the heritability of IQ has been investigated for nearly a century, there is still debate about the significance of heritability estimates and the mechanisms of inheritance. Current best estimates for heritability range from 40 to 60% of the variance between individuals in IQ being explained by genetics.
None of that stands out to me as particularly controversial, certainly not pseudoscience. Emphasis on second sentence -- it's not a concrete measure of intelligence.
Great response.
The assertion that IQ is pseudoscience, is denying reality. While not an exact measure, it correlates with a lot of other measures of flourishing.
But higher IQ doesn't necessarily mean happier, or better in any way.
I know some extremely (academically) intelligent people. Some are arrogant pricks, others are really pleasant, others still are really awkward and difficult to talk to outside their specific interests.
ChatGDT said I had a 135 IQ, does that mean I’m also a pseudoscientist?
Long Covid with ME has made me increasingly dumber. It sucks bad. I have difficulty finding words, following conversations, understanding long texts and just plain remembering things. It's devastating to be more stupid but knowing that you could do better.
Just a few minutes ago I said I couldn't play Leisure Suit Larry 7 because it's too hard. Sucks ass.
Depends on what you mean by "low." At a certain level low enough IQ is associated with intellectual disability, and a difficulty functioning in society. IQ is normalized so half of people have, by definition, an IQ lower than 100, and half have an IQ above 100. 15 points is a standard deviation, so about 68% of people fall between 85 and 115, and the remaining 32% fall within the "tails". I assume by "Low IQ" you would mean the ~16% of the population below 85 IQ, and probably the ~13.5% that fall in the range of 70-85, as below 70 is getting into intellectual disability territory.
Statistically, people in this band do worse in just about every metric for social success. Lower income, higher crime rates, higher rates of drug addiction, poorer health outcomes, etc. However, it is difficult to disentangle these impacts from poverty. Populations' IQs raise when they become less poor, and people regardless of income tend to be less poor if they have higher IQs. The cycle of poverty is deeply intertwined with IQ, and poverty causes a lot of the social issues associated with low IQ. There is a lot of evidence that as access to education and a more "intellectually rich" upbringing increase IQ, and such things are less available to poor people for a variety of reasons.
As for what it's like, from my understanding speaking to people I suspect are in this band the main things are a non-inquisitive world view, a sense of resignation around not understanding abstract concepts, and low self esteem associated with these perceived shortcomings. Society does not treat these people kindly as a whole, and I think that we could all stand to be kinder to one another. I also think that our economic system is geared in such a way that not only are low IQ people punished for that, but they are also made to feel that it is a personal shortcoming even though these things are defined statistically such that there is always a group of people at the bottom who are going to be left behind.
I'm not stupid stupid, but I'm a lot less intelligent now than I was as a child. Not sure if that's standard growing-up stuff or other factors. I think I'm average now, but I used to be really quite smart.
Whatevers to blame, it sucks. I struggle to remember names of people/things/processes, or things to do today. I go through the day based on vibes. I look at a page of information, or a tedious form to fill in, and it's physically uncomfortable to slog through it. I can feel my brain groaning, there's tension and anxiety in my body. Frustration that this should be so easy and instead I'm having to actually concentrate.
I'll be honest man, this doesn't sound like "Low IQ", it sounds like maybe a mental disorder that you haven't been able to treat yet (ADHD is the first one to come to mind.)
I say that because I can relate a bit, but I have been formally diagnosed with ADHD. I would maybe look into the symptoms of that and others and you might be surprised to find that you relate to it.
You're not stupid because you can't concentrate, just my two cents 🤙
(I would also argue that a "Low IQ" individual wouldn't necessarily be able to recognize the issues you describe.)
Why are you asking us? You're the expert.
nyuk nyuk nyuk
if you believe in IQ tests you're already an expert
It's great! You always have full confidence in yourself, your actions and your convictions.
What do you mean with "IQ"?
Intelligence quotient. A bunch of people take a test and they’re compared to each other. Your result is your intelligence quotient.
Its origins were noble, because it was designed to identify students who needed extra help in school. The creator of the test knew that people could change their results with good instruction. However, that noble origin story was besmirched by what happened later. Eventually, IQ tests were used as a way to classify people in more brutal and rigid ways. The USA military used it as a cutoff for aspiring cadets. USA colleges use tests that effectively are IQ tests to let people in or not. The worst part is that bigots around the world injected pseudoscience into IQ and used it to decide who they think are worthy of life and who aren’t. It’s as awful as it sounds.
You may notice that helping struggling students sounds wonderful, and you may think that we should go back to that.
However, some people believe that tests aren’t useful at all to tell us something about anything. They believe IQ tests should be banished and never used.
Others people believe IQ tests are a snapshot of how a person answered the questions to a test in a given day. Additionally, these people notice that, in research, IQ scores are robustly associated with other things, such as quality of relationships, happiness, income, and other measures. These results suggest that learning to solve problems helps humans solve problems!
If the noble origins of the test are a guide, poor performers would receive help. More people would get the benefits of a higher IQ, not because of the fear of being classified in a brutal and rigid way, but because a good education makes the mind curious, nimble, and open.
dunno
if it gets low enough that you dont understand how bad off you are, its apparently not that bad.
Ask Trump?
I don't know, every time I drink that much I forget.
When you have a low IQ, you are more prone to naive solutions to every problem.
E.g. there are people who have less money than others? No problem, let's print more money and give it to them.
Or there are people with no homes to live at? No problem, let's steal some homes from the rich and squat there.
In general, you are going to be manipulated by the leftists telling you they can solve all the world's problems just like that.
They will never get past the join lemmy page when it starts talking about federation. So there is no point asking that here.
