this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
248 points (98.8% liked)

LinkedinLunatics

5052 readers
12 users here now

A place to post ridiculous posts from linkedIn.com

(Full transparency.. a mod for this sub happens to work there.. but that doesn't influence his moderation or laughter at a lot of posts.)

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

as someone who likes the puzzles of iq tests:

IQ tests are all bullshit.

[–] HenryDorsett@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I was tested as a child, as part of a battery of other tests.

According to that, I'm a genius.

Its obvious its bullshit.

[–] bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It has its use. Comparing numbers? Not so much, unless you are working on a patient with your team as part of your job and all

it's original use was actually clever.

the idea was to compare students by their mental development rather than are to allocate classes.

but it was quickly picked up by race "scientists" to promote eugenics.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Object@sh.itjust.works 58 points 4 days ago (2 children)
[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 41 points 4 days ago (2 children)

"Answer sheet for all 29 questions."

So for only $45 you can have a certified 200 iq I guess.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago

39 questions, that must be very serious IQ testing going on there ... /s

[–] crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Being charitable I assume this is after you complete the test, but you can just look up the answers for free!

[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 20 points 4 days ago

The extra $20 is for taking the test again with the answer sheet next to you

[–] LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago

The real part of the test that determines whether or not you’re an idiot

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 75 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (6 children)

I got 135 once as a kid, and then as an older kid, younger adult, studied up on and learned many of the flaws with IQ testing, one of many being that... you can study for them, and perform better.

That's not supposed to be possible if it is measuring some kind of fundamental, inherent quality about you that cannot meaningfully change.

[–] HalifaxJones@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I think most intelligence tests are flawed to that degree. Memorizing facts is far from true intelligence. For one, they never consider emotional intelligence in the equation. Which to me should be one of the highest standards. Empathy, for example, should be considered in intelligence tests.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

My view would be that the abilility to memorize and retain a number of facts is a kind of intelligence, to me the most obvious example would be in say, reading comprehension: If you read a chapter of a fiction novel, but then cannot recall new characters, important actions, etc, thats a problem...

But at the same time, yes, EQ, empathy, emotional intelligence does seem to be another important, multidimensional component to human cognitive abilities... but it is unclear to me how one could really make some kind of metric to truly measure the say, relative capacity for empathy.

Further, if your definition is closer to 'emotional intelligence'... well again, speaking as an autist, this is something that gets wildly misunderstood and mis-assessed by neurotypicals just all the time, in my experience.

I have a great deal of capacity for empathy, I have consistently demonstrated this via action and words throughout my life... but most of the time, neurotypicals will conclude the exact opposite about me, because of a single instance where my tone or expressions or verbiage were slightly 'off' from what they evidently wanted, and then they'll say I was disingenuous, cruel, callous, etc... despite the two of us having had a years long history of me being emotionally available for them, supoortive of them.

If you know of an existing, or have a proposal for some kind of EQ metric/test, I'd be interested in seeing it, ... and again, I agree that in concept, EQ is an important aspect of human cognition... but I am skeptical that any kind of useful metric or test for it could exist, beyond doing like a full psych eval of someone over the course of months.

The whole concept of a metric like this is that it would be objective, intercomparable... and presumably, indicate something that is to at least a significant degree, relatively fixed throughout time.

The nature of emotion seems to me to be diametrically opposed to both of these... people can often be quite emotionally stable as a baseline, but then act erratic after or during a period of significant stress or trauma... or joy and pampering... and many people and cultures have different baselines for what they even view as something like 'emotionally welcoming/understanding.'

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It is actually worse.

it is known that areas which got access to a formal education (schools), would get quickly much better average IQ score than before.

If just visiting school increases your IQ (some measurements suggest 14 points), then it is clearly not a fundamentale quality.

So even without specifically learning for the test, you can learn for the test.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] binarytobis@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Studying to ace an IQ test shows you’re not debilitatingly mentally challenged, though. I think that’s all the test is really good for.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I did an online one in the early days of the Internet, and scored a 137. I have zero faith it has any accuracy. My buddy also did it and got a 145, I believe his is above mine but still, no faith that the numbers are correct.

IQ tests are deeply and inherently flawed, usually based on the fact that you can both quickly read, understand the intent of the question, and respond with whatever the writer of the test feels is correct in a timely fashion.

And if you don't realize how much of what I just wrote is subjective based on lived experience, and specific parameters about you that have nothing to do with how intelligent you are, then congratulations, you're probably above average.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah a lot of online ones were and still are BS, my parents put me through an actual, go to a place, sit and do a test for multiple hours kind of thing.

I am not sure that they actually needed to, but the explanation they gave me was that it was needed to get into the 'gifted' program in Elementary School...

Always stood out as weird to me, most of the other kids in it never did a whole ass IQ test, they just had really good grades and their parents asked the school nicely... ... ???

EDIT: Also uh, IQs are supposed to be noralized at 100... so... by standard deviations...

If I really am 135, then I'm in roughly the top 2% of the population.

If your friend is really above 145... they'd be in roughly the top tenth of a percent of all humans.

???

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

Yeah. That last bit of your edit is the entire reason why I doubt any of the numbers .... Him scoring higher than me, that's kind of expected.

Bluntly, if I'm actually in the top 2%, then I don't want to live on this planet anymore... Because I'm downright goddamned removed at times.

I don't mean removed as a slur, I mean, I exhibit traits of someone who is mentally held back (aka mentally removed).

Don't at me.

Edit. Dunno why that word is now "removed" ... Some automod thing I'm sure; I'll let you all fill in the gaps.

As they say, there's two kinds of people in the world, those that can extrapolate from incomplete data.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Yeah, I know what you mean... I also have wished to not live on this planet for a long time now... a whole lot of my life has been... extrapolating from incomplete data, then forming my own theory, then finding actual academic papers that have done the same line of reasoning but actually got funding to properly study it...

...and then most of the people in my life acting like I am a crazy person... and then about 90% of the time, 5 to 10 years later, sometimes even more quickly, what I concluded was likely to happen just does actually happen, and all the people in my life just don't mention or care or apologize.

But also, at the same time, in many important life aspects, as I've described in other comments in this thread... I've been uh, deficient in, and had to put in an abnormal amount of time and effort into getting those skills/abilities up to a functional level.

And yeah, a number of either comms or whole instances on lemmy have automod for the r-word, and it is annoying, because the term does have a literal, medical/psychological meaning and usage that isn't just a derogatory insult, as wll as other contextual, domain specific, non derogatory meanings.

Somewhat ironically, I bet I can here say 'lobotomite', and that won't be automodded.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I've taken several thoughout my life and as a kid I always got >130. At 14 I did one and got 127 so I did exactly what you described and trained for the parts I hadn't succeeded at. Next test was >130 again. I'm not sure if I got smarter through studying or just better at taking the test though. Especially since the difference between the results is pretty small honestly.

[–] reliv3@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Good point. Ultimately this leads me to question the existence of some fixed quality of intelligence. People are growing, adapting, and learning through their lives, so a fixed number defining general intelligence is likely a moot concept.

On top of the prior point lies another major issue with any sort of "general intelligence" test: defining "general intelligence". Intelligence comes in many forms: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential intelligence, and more. The IQ test does not test all forms of intelligence.

This being said, It is likely impossible to test all forms of intelligence in one test; and even if we could create this test, how would this test handle differently abled people. For example, a completely blind person would fail the visual intelligence portion every time (for obvious reasons).

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago (4 children)

IQ is highly correlated with life outcomes like income, life expectancy, employment, and crime. Maybe it doesn’t measure “intelligence,” but it measures something which appears to be very important for modern society. There are undoubtedly different forms of intelligence which are not measured by an IQ test.

[–] reliv3@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

This is a good point to bring up, but this correlation is still being debated: the causal connection between the IQ test and the correlation is unclear, and there is debate on whether the correlation is being constructed through bad data or analysis techniques. Because of this, no one can confidently claim whether IQ tests predicts good job performance, employment, etc.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4557354/

[Skip to the conclusion at the end to get the tldr, since this is a long scientific publication]

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

Thanks for the study. I agree on all points. This is the challenge with sociological research: it is unethical to conduct controlled studies. We will never have controlled IQ research. The study suggests we continue to perform better quality primary research, and I fully agree. Until then, as per the data in the study, the correlative evidence remains compelling. At least as far as sociological research goes.

I tend to think this research is more compelling and useful at the macro level. We should bear in mind that the correlative coefficient between IQ and income is only between 0.2 and 0.4. There are many other factors which also impact outcomes.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

On top of the prior point lies another major issue with any sort of "general intelligence" test: defining "general intelligence". Intelligence comes in many forms: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential intelligence, and more. The IQ test does not test all forms of intelligence.

This, a million times this.

Intelligence is not simply a thing like an INT stat in an rpg game that just generally makes you more cognitively capable and/or knowledgeable with just consistently broad applicability.

Theres a ton of research that's gone into how to actually teach children and people things that suggests... sure, there is to some extent a broad cognitive ability, but there is also a huge multidimensional component, more domain specific element to different levels of aptitude with different kinds of thinking.

...

Like, me, I'm autistic.... innately good at clear cut and logical things, innately terrible at anything approaching fuzzy logic, like socializing.

I had to put a massive amount of effort into learning that... people often don't literally mean what they literally say, how intonation works, how context works in social situations...

... whereas I excelled at learning how to read and write and do math, how to do logic and critical thinking, apply frameworks of thinking across different fields of knowledge, memorize knowledge sets from books or what not.

Kinesis intelligence? Eh, I'd say I'm decent at it naturally, but that's been greatly augmented by 10+ years of Karate, a bit of shooting range practice, learning the basics of a few instruments... but I'm no where near as 'body' or 'dexterity' intelligent as many others I've met.

...

Anyway, yeah, theres a lot of interesting empirical research nowadays that shows different areas of the brain being more or less engaged in certain kinds of activities, and then trying to basically reverse engineer how all that works, but its enormously complicated.

Also: Epigenetics is a thing.

Nature gives you your DNA... but Nurture changes which parts of it are more used, more activated.

Its all enormously more complex than reducing a person down to a single number.

Oh right and the other big one: implicit cultural bias in the IQ tests themselves. I think this is (somewhat?) less of a problem in actual legit IQ tests these days, but for a very, very long time, it was a huge problem that just resulted in basically scientific racism.

...

tl:dr;

anyone who is boasting about their IQ without a gazillion caveats is doing the dunning-krueger thing, overestimating their actual cognitive abilities.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 81 points 4 days ago (3 children)

If he was rational, he would understand that companies like this have a huge incentive to inflate the score of anyone participating.

If he had got an 87, do you think that he would have posted his score?

Absolutely not, then the company would not get free advertising, costing them business.

I don't believe it is fully fake, but I would not be surprised to see them rounding up any edge cases, this goes for the entire industry

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 34 points 4 days ago (3 children)

The first time I took an online IQ test was when I was about 12 years old, around 2001. Even then, when I got back high results, I thought, “They probably make everyone’s score high, to encourage them to share the test. I’m going to take this result with a grain of salt.”

I never shared it, because I didn’t trust it. I soon learned that IQ tests are culturally biased anyway, and later on learned about the more up-to-date multiple-intelligence tests.

Seeing a grown adult taking and sharing an online IQ test in this day and age, my inner 12-year-old is rolling her eyes. It seems like someone is desperate for validation.

[–] besmtt@lemmy.world 38 points 4 days ago

2001 is a really high IQ..

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

IQ tests are only useful for comparing population groups with the same shared culture. Think two Midwest towns, but the one that has a chemical plant is 20 points lower. You can't use it to compare different groups that have different skill sets for survival. You can not use it for individuals at all.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Zwiebel@feddit.org 12 points 4 days ago (6 children)

I tried some free test once and got something like 90 lol

[–] Fecundpossum@lemmy.world 19 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I’m pretty sure being of average intelligence (as far a test with its own flaws and limitations can tell) is nothing to be ashamed of, just like being of average height is nothing to be ashamed of.

I took one when I was a kid and got a 136, and I feel like an idiot fairly regularly. I don’t think these tests a definitive measures of intellectual “superiority”

It what you do with what you've got that counts.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I have taken free tests when I have been bored, I have got results within the range of 80 to 120, safe to say, I don't have a lot of trust in them...

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ferrule@sh.itjust.works 34 points 4 days ago (3 children)

By posting this to boast, it demonstrates that his IQ is much lower as he is unable to read the room.

[–] breecher@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 days ago

By taking a paid IQ test he failed the test.

[–] Ledivin@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

The room is LinkedIn, though, they love this shit

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

That's QE though right?

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 33 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Rookie. I'm on a wholly different intelligence power level, as this completely factual certificate certifies!

[–] LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Is this metric or imperial?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] catty@lemmy.world 33 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (8 children)

I never did understand why so-called smart people pay money to be told they're smart.

Edit: Probably the reverse of the reason people are paid to tell others, people like you, that you're a no-good waste of space and you don't deserve me even addressing lifeforms as low as you; you disgusting piece of human excrement. That'll be £50, maggot.

[–] essell@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Absolutely.

As a genuinely smart person I can do that for myself for free. 😏

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 8 points 4 days ago (6 children)

I worked for 40 years at a company that made most of NASA's rocket engines, and a host of other impressive technology. There were many, many geniuses there - lots of literal rocket scientists, and leaders in fields like materials science and chemical engineering. One thing I learned early on was that most of the true geniuses looked down on people who mentioned being members of Mensa. It was like a red flag that the person cares too much about being perceived as smart. People who care so much about that put more energy into fostering the image than actually contributing.

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] lol_idk@lemmy.ml 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

As a kid, I got a high score. As an adult, I don't remember what it was. I'm an idiot now

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 16 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Hah, Superior! I'm on Huron level, babie!

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 days ago

Ya, well I'm Huron/Michigan/Georgian Bay!

[–] kat_angstrom@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

Well done! I'm still Eerie :/

[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 13 points 4 days ago
load more comments
view more: next ›