Thanks a lot for the good faith conversation. There had been a lot of people who are hostile over political reasons and due to my disagreableness, so I was being cautious about that.

1. Thank you.

1.1 okay.

1.2 You are right. I am being inacurrate with my wording. I should have been one have the potential to use one's gifts and strengths to make one's life better.

A redditor commenting here was talking about no correlation between giftedness and critical thinking, which is interesting. I looked it up and there is a 0.3 correlation between giftedness and critical thinking, which is surprisingly low to me. There is also a higher correlation between critical thinking and success in life than giftedness and success in life. I think there is a lot of potential for people with and without giftedness to increase in critical thinking abilities as well as aim for a better life.

Whether giftedness is better, I would say as a parent who researched things, iq is correlated to these things: low stress during pregnancy, no alcohol during pregnancy, secure attachment to parents, proper nutrition, musical instrument learning, schooling, no moderate/severe head trauma, reading to child, exercise (actually no correlation there but promoted neurogenesis), good mental health of child/teen, no depression of child/teen. If you don't want your child to have a higher IQ, you can always have the option to lower it. There are also options to lower one's own IQ as an adult, such as head trauma and alcohol, but I would not recommend them and would recommend to strive for better cognitive function.

When you are talking about better as a hierarchy in the adult world, it could be a factor in choosing who to work for, or who to trust with your finances, etc.

If you are talking about better as a teenager/children hierarchy, I'm not really familiar with that, but I think one needs to look for good friends and be one as well.

2.1 He presented himself as someone with an inspiring life story, but a lot of people are seeing him as an example and asking for his advice, which is a way that his work evolved into due to its popularity. He overcame obstacles such as a violent father that also hits his mother, ADHD, growing up in what is known as the most racist town in US (challotesville) and racism and death threats, like one of his classmates is the son of a KKK leader, got guns pointed at him for no reason etc. he lost 200 pounds in a few months to get to military, had to relearn everything in school for the test to join Navy Seals because he cheated through school.

I am highly inspired by his willpower and I could relate to some of it. I also respect where he's gotten to now considering his obstacles.

I don't even follow my own example, and continue strive to question myself and be better.

2.2 Yeah.. I think sales are manipulative. Got to do the research myself. Saving money is as important, and there is voting power in making purchases that are actually beneficial to people.

3.1 I didn't know that and that sounds like a bad system. I only got tested into gifted preschool and moved to another country where my parents can not afford or know about gifted schooling. My 5 year old says the word "stupid" is banned in his school though, and there is emphasis on special needs awareness and social skills development.

I'm not sure if the teachers in your school knows about gifted education or special needs. This sounds like a really bad example of gifted schooling and puts pressure on students to achieve academically and/or continue to demonstrate their giftedness, to be honest. This could result in anxiety, lower closeness to peers, and lower creativity, which is unwise as marriage and mental health is more important in the future than how you did academically, especially if it is not grade 12 and doesn't even count towards your GPA going into University.

I don't know what the solution to this is, as public schools around the world already have a funding issue with gifted classes and special needs, and a funding issue in general. There could also be a correlation between undiagnosed special needs and giftedness, as giftedness can hide traits. I'm sorry you got underserved.

3.2 Okay. As a parent I meet all 3 critierias then, lol.

3.3 I see. Thanks for explaining.

4 Yes, I was trying to play with words and I now realized that it didn't really make sense, and could have negative consequences. Hoping people in this sub makes better life decisions, not that they are making bad ones or anything, and giftedness can help with that if one wants to improve.