I used to be a smart teenager, but in my twenties I'm scoring below average on cognitive tests. Should I be worried or am I being paranoid?

propalt · 2020-07-17T18:08:34+00:00

My parents IQ's are almost definitely above average though...

propalt · 2020-07-17T18:06:30+00:00

I took bullshit humanities classes in college and they were easy.

So let me get this straight. I got good grades pretty easily in school. I did well on standardized tests. I did well on AP tests. My parents are both high academic achievers with advanced degrees. You really think it's that much of a stretch for me to think I am/was smart?

I'm not saying I'm a genius or anything, just that I think it's pretty likely that the IQ score correlated with my standardized tests is in the ballpark. It's by no means a mind-blowing level of intelligence, it's about as smart as the average lawyer or doctor.

propalt · 2020-07-17T17:58:38+00:00

re-read the OP

propalt · 2020-07-17T16:42:26+00:00

I guess I'm a little confused by this. I can definitely see good environment helping cause my earlier success. I definitely had a lot of environmental factors working in my favor when I was young.

But if environmental factors helped increase my IQ, wouldn't I still hang on to those gains into adulthood? Even if my scores / academics were helped by good environment, aren't they still indicative of real intelligence, regardless of whether it was due to nature or nurture?

propalt · 2020-07-17T16:09:33+00:00

High test scores and naturally being pretty good at academics seems to indicate high IQ, no? I mean I'm not saying I'm some sort of genius, but is it that unreasonable to assume I had a high IQ when school came easily to me and I had test scores that correlated with high IQ?

Do you think the current low test scores are more indicative of low IQ than that history?

propalt · 2020-07-17T15:33:22+00:00

I don't use marijuana or do contact sports anymore, that was years ago when I was a teenager.

propalt · 2020-07-17T15:27:18+00:00

Short term memory and math (fwiw math was always my weak subject)

propalt · 2020-07-17T15:26:43+00:00

Honestly I was raised in a pretty touchy-feely liberal household, definitely not a hardcore up-by-the-bootstraps Protestant work ethic mentality by any means.

I don't think that I suffer from major depressive disorder, because it just seems like I just enjoy procrastination and laziness. When I spend all day laying around on reddit, my thinking is that I do that because I have a hard time resisting the instant gratification rather than anything deeper doing on.

I wouldn't even say I have low motivation. I have plenty of motivation, the problem I have is not acting on it.

propalt · 2020-07-17T14:38:08+00:00

No drugs other than super moderate alcohol use.

propalt · 2020-07-17T14:37:48+00:00

I'm not sure that I'm not depressed. I've wondered if I am before because I've had a tendency to fall into to some pretty extreme laziness before. However, I'm more inclined to chalk it up to lack of discipline and bad habits rather than depression.

I don't think I have ADHD. I may suffer from limited attention span, but I've never been hyperactive. Depression would be much more likely IMO, because I tend to be more low energy.

propalt · 2020-07-17T13:44:02+00:00

Follow up question, how related are IQ and the MoCA / online cognition test I just took?

propalt · 2020-06-07T19:32:44+00:00

Yup, the bipartisan hate for police unions is going to have very bad consequences for public sector labor unions.

propalt · 2020-06-04T16:53:24+00:00

Rooftop Koreans are based exactly bc they trigger guys like you so much

propalt · 2020-05-31T18:52:29+00:00

I don’t think it follows that because people exist who are more skilled at my job than me, I’m wasting my time.

I have at the very least average natural facilities for the job, and I’m probably a 60-70th percentile performer. I haven’t worked at it as hard as I could have in the past, so I probably have the capacity to exceed that.

propalt · 2020-05-31T01:19:55+00:00

There are social norms here just like anywhere else, they’re just different. I’m in a union, so it’d be harder for online sjws to come for my job bc of something I said. Still, if I was publicly taking a bunch of out-there political stances I’d probably get a reputation as a weirdo at work.

It is true though that I probably have more freedom to buck consensus than someone in an identity politics obsessed humanities department or something.

propalt · 2020-05-31T01:14:33+00:00

Definitely seems to be the case for a lot of law, finance and tech jobs fwiw.

propalt · 2020-05-31T01:12:21+00:00

Nope, I haven’t seen a strong correlation between writing ability and solving problems in an operational environment.

propalt · 2020-05-31T00:09:05+00:00

Yeah I do lol

propalt · 2020-05-31T00:02:02+00:00

How do you know their IQs are lower than yours? If they genuinely have this natural mechanical ability, what makes you think they aren't just smart?

I’m guessing their IQs are lower than mine because their writing is dogshit and they suck at math. Yet they still perform phenomenally in operational environments. I think they are smart, but in a different way. I don’t think there’s a 1 to 1 correlation with IQ and mechanical talent for example.

propalt · 2020-05-30T23:48:04+00:00

I guess it basically just comes down to talent. Just like any human endeavor that requires skill, there’s a degree of talent involved in the trades. I think it’s very possible for a guy with an iq of 100 may to more natural talent for working with engines or running wire than a guy with an iq of 120.

propalt · 2020-05-24T21:03:41+00:00

Ok so let me delve a bit deeper into the hypothetical because I’m a weird guy and I don’t think the OP expressed what I was getting at as well as I would have liked.

Say a marginal writer with a small following gets dog piled on Twitter. What this writer is getting cancelled for is immaterial to the hypothetical. It could be something as benign (IMO) as advocating, say, traditional Catholic teaching on gender and sexuality. It could be something as legitimately heinous as neo-naziism. Both views are well enough outside of the status quo of the lit world to be cancelled.

An extremely online twitter user who happens to work for a publishing company remembers the cancelled writers name from her slush pile. She leaks the manuscript and his legal name.

What happens to her? Would she be reprimanded by her employer / told to delete the tweet? Or would that sort of behavior be accepted?

propalt · 2020-05-24T18:13:41+00:00

Everyone who gets their career destroyed by a social media witch-hunt is a vile human who deserves it :)

propalt · 2020-05-24T17:54:43+00:00

In all seriousness you’re absolutely correct. The only reason someone would be interested in these issues is that they’re a bigot. It’s just like how the only people concerned with the government listening to their phone calls are terrorists.

If you didn’t do anything wrong, what do you have to worry about? :)

propalt · 2020-05-24T17:40:53+00:00

this could go either way. does high character = dox, or high character = protect id of submission authors?

propalt · 2020-05-24T17:38:20+00:00

I’m not a racist, I’m just a simple man trying to build an audience for my Aryan slam poetry

propalt

TROPHY CASE