I totally buy the "complex ideas" as explanation because so much right-wing thought is so simple, like ABORTION BAD. They'll vote for a child rapist as a moral choice.
I find the biggest difference between conservatives and liberals is the ability to grasp abstract concepts.
Conservatives take things very literally. Thinking beyond what’s immediately in front of them, and reason out abstract possibilities of what might happen or under lying causes is something they cannot do.
I could do very well in an IQ test comprised of questions like this:
"What word is missing from this sentence?" A) EPSTEIN!
"Donald Trump announced (__________) for what reason?" A) EPSTEIN!
"The Vietnam War lasted so long because of which party?" a) The French. It's always the French. b) The US military brass. c) North Vietnam. d) South Vietnam. e) US administrations. f) All of them.
If you chose "f" then to the front of the class. In this case, the answer wasn't EPSTEIN! as much as most of you wanted to pencil it in. And some of you did anyway, which got you half credit in case the Nam is also in the Epstein files.
Isn't the most common critique of IQ tests (so-called) is that the questions actually test cleverness?
You know -- exam questions that propose highly unlikely scenarios, reverse-designed to see which test-takers can "figure out" that trivial solution that only the "intelligent" can reason out in the short exam time provided?
Remember that Colombo episode with Theodore Bikel? The one where he was so fucking impressed with himself that he was goaded into proudly demonstrating he committed The Perfect Murder®. There's a real critique of IQ testing and questioning whether cleverness and intelligence are two separate things.
Here's the 'IQ test" question Bikel asked Colombo:
The Highly Unlikely Scenario® you only find in IQ test questions:
• You are presented with three bags of identical gold pieces
• One bag contains fake gold
The Weird Key Facts® you only find in IQ test questions:
• Each gold piece weighs 16 ounces
• Fake fake piece weighs 17 ounces
The Weird Constraints® you only find in IQ test questions:
• You have just one opportunity to use a scale
• And that scale only gives total weight
Of course, the answer isn't to take the bags to certified assay office, or to use a handheld X-ray assayer, or even to use the time-honored acid or touchstone tests. Those would only give you a precise, verifiable answer. No, you must use intelligence (ie, cleverness) as your only tool.
The Clever Answer® you only find in IQ test questions is to:
1. Take 1 coin from the first bag, 2 from the second, 3 from the third
2. Weigh all the collected coins at once.
3. Note the excess weight:
• If all coins are actual gold, the total weight will be in whole pounds
• Ounces in excess of a 6 pounds indicate which bag contains fakes.
6 lb 1 ounce puts the fake gold in bag 1, 6 lb 2 ounces implicates bag 2, 6 lb 3 ounces implicates bag 3, and so on
So, it is 'intelligence' to reason out the answer from the carefully crafted parameters? Is it intelligence to be able to visualize the carefully crafted parameters in the first place (research indicates that the ability to visualize is not universal, some people don't have 'pictures' in their heads)? Or, is intelligence the ability to be clever, to conceive of "cut the red tape solutions" just from a textual prompt?
Or is intelligence none of that? All good questions, none of which is likely to be answered with any assuredness by an "IQ test."
The genius Trump answer: Tell everybody they're all solid 24K gold, paste a sticker of your likeness on the fake ones and sell them at a speculative future (higher) market rate. If anyone asks for change, give them bitcoins. Sue whoever gave you the three bags.
I would not have figured it out, and I'm afraid I would have asked, "Can I count the coins?" I've never been good at thought puzzles like that....even though, when I was young, my IQ tested at 120, as far as I remember, and my Mom has been gone a long time, so I can't ask her. I don't know what it is now, that my brains are leaking out of my ears.
I only vaguely remember that episode and didn't like it, because I didn't like Bikel as a villain. LOL I think I should try to find it and watch it again.
Your request would be very logical, as the test does not specify that the bags all have the same number of coins, only that the coins are identical. The answer supplied assumes that each bag has the same number of coins.
I wasn’t a major in it, just took it because it’s a common course for freshmen. Sociology studies society. That’s where I learned I.Q. test only measure learning, not intelligence. I took several Psych courses, and it was never mentioned once.
This sounds more like the scene on the airplane when the kid asks if he can try some of whatever it in that Tupperware container Hannibal smuggled aboard.
My question is, is a lower IQ positively correlated with a lower moral character? Because I'm thinking it's not so much about intelligence as about decency and an ability to empathise. A lot of psychopaths have high IQs. (Of course, that doesn't seem too evident in the Trump regime.)
I will never accept that a low IQ makes you a moron. What makes you a moron is an inability to empathise.
I chose my donor for baby-eggs to get me pregnant more on her character than her likeness to me or much of anything else. Yes, she had talents and smarts but her empathetic character and integrity was the most important issue, after familial health. I am unsure if it has any inheritability (I don't think it does), but I couldn't help it. How "smart" is that? 🥰
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
- Stephen Colbert, 2006
THE DOW IS UNDER 50,000 SOME MORE AGAIN! THE DOW IS UNDER 50,000 SOME MORE AGAIN!! THE DOW IS UNDER 50,000 SOME MORE AGAIN!!!
I guess Bondi can start investigating all of the co-conspirators in the Epstein files now.
Of course conservative men are less intelligent you can tell by the shape of their heads
I still firmly believe that Donnie saw his test results and exclaimed, "99? That's almost a hundred percent! I'm so smrt!"
99 in his dreams
I totally buy the "complex ideas" as explanation because so much right-wing thought is so simple, like ABORTION BAD. They'll vote for a child rapist as a moral choice.
I find the biggest difference between conservatives and liberals is the ability to grasp abstract concepts.
Conservatives take things very literally. Thinking beyond what’s immediately in front of them, and reason out abstract possibilities of what might happen or under lying causes is something they cannot do.
I could do very well in an IQ test comprised of questions like this:
"What word is missing from this sentence?" A) EPSTEIN!
"Donald Trump announced (__________) for what reason?" A) EPSTEIN!
"The Vietnam War lasted so long because of which party?" a) The French. It's always the French. b) The US military brass. c) North Vietnam. d) South Vietnam. e) US administrations. f) All of them.
If you chose "f" then to the front of the class. In this case, the answer wasn't EPSTEIN! as much as most of you wanted to pencil it in. And some of you did anyway, which got you half credit in case the Nam is also in the Epstein files.
I'm just saying, the answer to #3 is "Henry Kissinger".
Talking of low IQ people.
Andrew looking shell shocked. Good.
======
Andrew has been pictured leaving a police station in the back seat of a car.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c70kjr9wjw0t?post=asset%3A7deaf7d9-6faa-4be6-a382-5ba003392661#post
Sandringham may start looking better to him in this light.
Sandringham is beautiful, I could live with permanent residence there.
Looks to be certainly, but the ex-prince apparently whined endlessly about it: so small and remote and no room for proper staff.
And he wonders why the family was more than happy to throw him to the wolves.
He's never understood that he lives a life of privilege, he is walking entitlement.
Isn't it cool how it only took 250 years for the US to be monarchical than the UK? Awesome sauce.
"What do you mean that you don't have sparkling?"
Dude looks more like Peter Pettigrew every day.
Who said "man in the only species with 2 brains. Just the male. With one in his head, and
one in his penis."
I also like Robin Williams' line "God gave man a brain and a penis, but only enough blood to run one at a time".
Isn't the most common critique of IQ tests (so-called) is that the questions actually test cleverness?
You know -- exam questions that propose highly unlikely scenarios, reverse-designed to see which test-takers can "figure out" that trivial solution that only the "intelligent" can reason out in the short exam time provided?
Remember that Colombo episode with Theodore Bikel? The one where he was so fucking impressed with himself that he was goaded into proudly demonstrating he committed The Perfect Murder®. There's a real critique of IQ testing and questioning whether cleverness and intelligence are two separate things.
Here's the 'IQ test" question Bikel asked Colombo:
The Highly Unlikely Scenario® you only find in IQ test questions:
• You are presented with three bags of identical gold pieces
• One bag contains fake gold
The Weird Key Facts® you only find in IQ test questions:
• Each gold piece weighs 16 ounces
• Fake fake piece weighs 17 ounces
The Weird Constraints® you only find in IQ test questions:
• You have just one opportunity to use a scale
• And that scale only gives total weight
Of course, the answer isn't to take the bags to certified assay office, or to use a handheld X-ray assayer, or even to use the time-honored acid or touchstone tests. Those would only give you a precise, verifiable answer. No, you must use intelligence (ie, cleverness) as your only tool.
The Clever Answer® you only find in IQ test questions is to:
1. Take 1 coin from the first bag, 2 from the second, 3 from the third
2. Weigh all the collected coins at once.
3. Note the excess weight:
• If all coins are actual gold, the total weight will be in whole pounds
• Ounces in excess of a 6 pounds indicate which bag contains fakes.
6 lb 1 ounce puts the fake gold in bag 1, 6 lb 2 ounces implicates bag 2, 6 lb 3 ounces implicates bag 3, and so on
So, it is 'intelligence' to reason out the answer from the carefully crafted parameters? Is it intelligence to be able to visualize the carefully crafted parameters in the first place (research indicates that the ability to visualize is not universal, some people don't have 'pictures' in their heads)? Or, is intelligence the ability to be clever, to conceive of "cut the red tape solutions" just from a textual prompt?
Or is intelligence none of that? All good questions, none of which is likely to be answered with any assuredness by an "IQ test."
The genius Trump answer: Tell everybody they're all solid 24K gold, paste a sticker of your likeness on the fake ones and sell them at a speculative future (higher) market rate. If anyone asks for change, give them bitcoins. Sue whoever gave you the three bags.
Oh, for godsake, I'd rather just be stupid.
Come sit by me!
I would not have figured it out, and I'm afraid I would have asked, "Can I count the coins?" I've never been good at thought puzzles like that....even though, when I was young, my IQ tested at 120, as far as I remember, and my Mom has been gone a long time, so I can't ask her. I don't know what it is now, that my brains are leaking out of my ears.
I only vaguely remember that episode and didn't like it, because I didn't like Bikel as a villain. LOL I think I should try to find it and watch it again.
Your request would be very logical, as the test does not specify that the bags all have the same number of coins, only that the coins are identical. The answer supplied assumes that each bag has the same number of coins.
Do people have the impression that IQ tests haven't been discredited for many decades due to cultural bias?
Red-pilled white male conservatives do.
Anyone who's actually been to college and taken Sociology 101 knows this.
Psychology 101, please. We don't talk to Sociology majors.
I wasn’t a major in it, just took it because it’s a common course for freshmen. Sociology studies society. That’s where I learned I.Q. test only measure learning, not intelligence. I took several Psych courses, and it was never mentioned once.
Yes. Thus the term "dickbrain."
Guys, we have to go to war in Iran to destroy their nuclear program, which Donnie "totally and completely destroyed" in June, but it got better.
Netanyahu yanking on his chain again
kILlEr kaMaLa wOuLD HAvE uS iN WAr aLrEAdY.
Boy, that was quick.
OT:
In Nantucket, Massachusetts, everybody's high on coke.
Maybe we can get RFK to drink the wastewater. He's gone swimming in it before.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/19/cocaine-nantucket-massachusetts-wastewater
Cocaine gives some ridiculous self-confidence and delusions, so that might explain the Man from that locale.
Well sure, only the wealthy can afford to do that much coke.
Including the whales?
All the fishes swim so fast by Nantucket.
I told my college graduate grand daughter that the older I live, the more
I don't know. Someday I'll need GPS to find the bathroom.
She, unconvinced, said "I think you will always find that."
I said thanks for the confidence.
"The more I know, the less I understand." -- Don Henley, "The Heart of the Matter"
Shout out to the podcast "My Year in MENSA" by Jamie Loftus
What would I do with a brain if I had one?
Probably sauté it with butter, garlic, and shallots. I would try a dry riesling to pair it with.
And some fava beans
This sounds more like the scene on the airplane when the kid asks if he can try some of whatever it in that Tupperware container Hannibal smuggled aboard.
(funny sucking sound with mouth)
My question is, is a lower IQ positively correlated with a lower moral character? Because I'm thinking it's not so much about intelligence as about decency and an ability to empathise. A lot of psychopaths have high IQs. (Of course, that doesn't seem too evident in the Trump regime.)
I will never accept that a low IQ makes you a moron. What makes you a moron is an inability to empathise.
Yes, that's "EQ" (emotional quotient) and I've seen discussion before that it's a better metric.
I agree
I chose my donor for baby-eggs to get me pregnant more on her character than her likeness to me or much of anything else. Yes, she had talents and smarts but her empathetic character and integrity was the most important issue, after familial health. I am unsure if it has any inheritability (I don't think it does), but I couldn't help it. How "smart" is that? 🥰
I don't really know if there is an empathy gene, (though psychopaths make me wonder) but you chose wisely and well. Kudos. 🥰 Smart!
There are a WICKED bunch of smart people that are horrible bad low down no good dirty rotten scoundrels...
High EQ is a nice coupling with high IQ. It may not make you rich, but it should make life a bit more fulfilling.
A good point.
True