Room Temperature IQ
If you’re the brightest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.
To put that in perspective
- You’ve only just scraped a ‘genius’ categorisation with an IQ of 130 — the door didn’t simply hit you hard on the arse as you slipped into the room in which you are the dimmest person there, it was all but shut already as you squeezed through the gap (you barely made it by even the skin of your teeth).
- The median IQ of a PhD is 125 — you may have a ‘doctorate’ but you’re really not that bright … not even as bright as the least bright ‘genius’.
- IQ is not linearly scaled but ordinally and intelligence quite possibly/probably logarithmic — 5 points might not sound a lot, but they’re actually pretty significant.
No, IQ isn’t all there is to intelligence, it’s just by way of illustrating a point: just as a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing by encouraging people to think they are more knowledgable than they are, so too can an above average intelligence — it encourages people to think they’re smarter than they are.
Be wary of idolising people who appear more knowledgable and more intelligent than yourself. They might well be so, but that doesn’t make them a genius any more than your being faster than your friend makes you Usain Bolt — and their alluring self-confidence may not be as well-founded as either you or they believe.
By all means, have respect for them, hang out with them, learn from them — after all, if you’re not the brightest person in the room then, whilst you may not be talking to the right person, you might still be in the right room.
But don’t fawn over them — it’s not good for you, them or the rest of us: ̶Z̶a̶p̶h̶o̶d̶’̶s̶ Elon’s just this guy, you know.
