My parents told me it's a hit list for when the fascists take over ...but then they voted for the fascists.
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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I joined 20 years ago out of curiousity if I could pass. I did and paid for a membership for a year because why not, but i never did anything with it and never renewed it.
The one thing I might have liked is the local meetings. Our local chapter had a website where they talked about the meetings. They were informal, just dinner and chatting in a private room at a restaurant, and you could learn a little about the people from the website too. It seemed to be heavy on scientists and engineers. This is near a national labratory so that made sense. I would have liked to have more friends like that, still would. But, for all I know, mensa scientists and engineers might be the worst scientists and engineers. They also appeared to be mostly over 60 and I was 20 at the time.
There are discounts on certain things according to their website https://www.us.mensa.org/shop/benefits-and-services/
I remember when I grew tall, 6'6" or almost 2 meters, I had moments when I was aware of being a full head above everyone else in a crowd.
Does that sort of thing happen when you're very smart? Times when you realize you have abilities others don't?
I wouldn't know. I just passed the mensa test because I've always been good with tests, but I don't think I'm smarter than anybody in terms of brain horsepower.
However, I'm curious about how things work and retain information like crazy. I've come to realize not everybody does that. Some people think I'm really smart but it's more like I have experience or interest that they don't have in the thing they think I'm smart at.
Not MENSA, but came to the unfortunate realization that I'm on the skinny side of the intelligence bell curve late in life. For me, I was frustrated that I could not easily relate my thoughts and ideas to others. I'd just get a blank stare or worse. I figured that I was dumb and everybody else knew something that I didn't. So I kept quiet and kept all my thoughts to myself.
Many years later, I tried again to voice my thoughts and ideas, but would use lots of examples and references to areas where my listener may be familiar. That seemed to work.
It was only when I started talking about my feelings to others when I realized that things in my head work differently. I'm able to absorb information faster and deeper but also extrapolate those learnings to other unrelated areas.
MENSA is a big con. my mother humoured me when i was around 14 or so and i posted back the mini iq test from some paper or magazine or other. of course they replied wow you're a genius, you better come and get tested in a strict testing environment for real qualified geniuses. they scored me well on their test of words, maths, and square patterns with dots where you have to pick if the next dots should be up or down or whatever. all multiple choice of course.
did alright on the vocab stuff because i read a lot. put my best guess for everything else. big surprise then they gave me an OFFICIAL cert that said you are mega clever why don't you pay to join up? being a naive child of course i wanted to. mum said something to the effect of do you think they are playing you? i thought she was shitting me and just didn't want to pay the sub. obviously i'm a fuckin genius. but i knew she didn't have the spare cash so said yeah nevermind fuck em
dossed the rest of school thinking i didn't need it, why bother when i am a certified genius? never occurred to me that spending all my sunday job money going half on twenty fags and an eighth of soap bar wasnt genius level decison making
i'm doing alright these days but still fuck mensa
mum said something to the effect of do you think they are playing you?
If MENSA tests you and says you're a genius, you might be a genius.
If you join MENSA then you aren't as smart as they say you are.
Jamie Lofus did a podcast: (My Year In Mensa)[https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-my-year-in-mensa-55379945/]
I just started listening to this thanks to your comment and it does not disappoint, even if it's not terribly surprising so far.
Genuinely donβt know if I qualify. I tend to score pretty high on the tests because my brain βgetsβ the exact kind of logic they usually test. What is more important though is that the tests suck in so many ways that it makes the results basically useless. Also I have yet to meet anyone who brags about their IQ score who happens to be anyone worth knowing.
Theyβd need to pay me a lot of money to get me to even consider joining Mensa.
Its funny to qualify and not go after it. After exploration I found the same things. Whats the point? Only thing I could find was hey you can hang out with smart people.
Its lonely being SMRT so this seems like it might be a good thing, but you know what... you put a bunch of smart people in a room and they are all used to being the smartest in a group and its insufferable.
Better to not bring it up, and just find people that share your hobbies tbh.
I mean, it also selects for people that have something to prove.
Mensa membership is directly correlated to taking online IQ tests.
Truly intelligent people don't.
Monthly emails about gathering with members, a useless plastic card and your ego filled to the brim. Donβt waste your time and money, weed is better.
I know someone who joined on a bet that he couldn't get in, and he said the exact same thing.
Itβs capitalism, itβs always that. How come YOU are looking for smart people, I pass your stupid test and I have to pay YOU ?!?! Itβs like pretending a michelin star restaurant pays you for eating at their place just because you found them.
Bitch Iβm the genius, where my money at? π€« /s
Itβs like buying a knighthood from an organization that claims to have rights to grant such things. Even though the title is meaningless.
Mensa is the same.
IOW itβs an organization designed to take your money for a title. They get money, you get a meaningless membership.
Hey my knighthood came with a certificate and everything! It's easily given me $100 worth of joy, anything that's not survival is bullshit. Lean into stupid if you can afford it and it makes you happy.
I see one key difference, in social value:
Someone tells me they bought a meaningless knighthood: hearty laugh and a high five.
Someone tells me they're in MENSA: Awkward silence and maybe a mental note to check how they're doing more often.
Hah, yes. This is a good take.
the mensa paradox.
people smart enough to get in, are smart enough to know it's not worth it
Also, "smart" and high IQ are different things.
There's no way to objectively measure how "smart" someone is, but if you think the bogus test and bogus score developed by eugenic pseudoscientists looking for an excuse to prevent the untermensch from breeding is the objective measure, you are in fact stupid.
i think IQ tests were originally developed to see which school students never to go to the next class, or stay behind, it was meant to see if a student tests as his peers or as his next/previous class peers. the inventor never intended it to be used as a way to measure an intrinsic immutable trait on adults.
https://share.google/TOOJM3X81hSIP0PvP
it was seriously bastardised by racist pseudoscience.
And yet it exists. Ego might seem like a pretty useless motivator, but it doesn't seems to anticorrelate with intelligence. If anything, it correlates, probably because when you're "the smart one" it becomes a vicious cycle pretty easily.
it exist, but it's like really small.
I'm theory, 2% of the world population is eligible (not that exclusive) yet they only have 50,000 members in the US, ie, 1.4 in every 10,000 people.
so the vast majority of "smart" people think the idea is cringe
I mean, it is cringe. There's strong norms about modesty when it comes to intelligence for a reason.
So that comes out to 0.7% of eligible people. Honestly that's pitiful if it comes with discounts like other people are suggesting. Those meetings must be really obnoxious.
I want to believe, that the eligible people who join are mostly doing it because there's no way anyone would join, so they just want to know what tf is going on, then discover that everyone there had the same reason, then they go for a pint to talk how stupid and comical it is.
maybe there's a perfect point where you're smart enough to hit that 15% hotel discount
Yeah, I'm reconsidering now that someone mentioned that. I'm not going to the meets, though, they get bad reviews for exactly this reason.
Edit: Uhh, looks like it's only the US Mensa? Maybe some of the other Mensa-like things have benefits beyond the "pleasure" of their company, I don't know.
Groucho Marx couldn't have said it better. Oh .. wait.
saying it with his voice is much better
however,
some things are better said in Groucho's voice the rest are better said in Harpo's voice.
It was actually a (too oblique) reference to his: I wouldn't join a club that would have me as a member quotation. It was too oblique; my bad.
Bingo. What's more insufferable than a person whose life revolves around lauding their own achievements? A room full of them.
In Spanish, mensa means stupid. You'd think geniuses would've chosen a better acronym
Blame the Romans.
Both words are derived from late Latin mentalis, from Latin mens, ment- βmindβ.
There used to be a discount on condoms but it never got used.
This type of humor is paramount.
Look up Jaime Loftusβ excellent podcast βMy Year in MENSAβ for an in-depth look at the organization.
For anyone else wondering what a "MENSA" member is:
Mensa International is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world.[3][4][5] It is a non-profit organization open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test.
I was already questioning why school/university cafeteria staff should get any benefits that aren't present in other jobs.
Thinking one step further: Even if I somehow got into MENSA (unlikely), I can't imagine ever saying, "I see you have a MENSA discount..." ugh.
If there's any discounts they probably take the form of a link on a website that gets you 10% off (clicking the link installs a cookie that increases your prices on that website by 10%)
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