On Aug 15, 5:49 am, "El Maximo" wrote:
"Mxsmanic" wrote in message

...

Given what many Mensa members are like, it is perhaps best not to show the
card. The organization is famous for attracting intelligent but socially
dysfunctional individuals. About 120 million people worldwide qualify for
Mensa, but only 70,000 have joined, and they are a self-selected group
that is
not representative of intelligent people as a whole.

Sounds just like your description of pilots as a population.

Things that make you go hmmm........

It's a very common response to exclusion from a group based on an
ability. You notice that there's a tinge of jealousy in his reaction,
which he has towards both pilots and mensa members (and probably
women; see also breast feeding). Next thing he'll say is "just
because you're smart doesn't mean you have commmon sense" (which is
true in a way but I digress). Besides, he complains about the
intelligence of people posting, and the point wasn't whether I am
socially dysfunctional or not (my pshrink seems to think i'll be over
THAT very soon now g), the point is that I can demonstrate
concretely my intelligence level by virtue of the fact that I have the
card at all. Take that into consideration along with what I do, and
what I studied in school. A sane person may conclude that I actually
might know about that which I am speaking. Mx demonstrates the
psychological compulsion of an excluded individual who just NEEDS to
be a member of the club at all costs (whether it be Mensa, APOA, or
breast feeders), because he feels left out of the group. Children
exhibit this behaviour (basically "jump up and down while yelling
'look at me...look at me'"), but they normally outgrow this by the
time they reach puberty.

Aside:
*All* groupings based on a demonstrable ability are "self-selected,"
from Mensans to pilots to NFL players. If he actually QUALIFIED for
Mensa, he would know that the only thing he would have to do to obtain
membership would be to 1) demonstrate the ability (via submission of
proof of test score) and 2) pay the membership dues. Aside from the
IQ test portion (demonstration of ability), there's nothing more to
do. No interview, NOTHING. In other words, it isn't because those
other 119,930,000 people haven't joined because they were denied, it
was because they CHOSE not to join. AFAIK, there are no secret
meetings where Mensans get together and have orgies or discuss social
dysfunctions. In fact, my only contact with them since I've joined was
to pay my dues every couple of years and read the magazine that gets
sent to my house every month. I do not know of any study that
examined the psychological makeups of the people that qualify that
join versus that who don't join. Hmm, that may be interesting, and I
wonder how that would compare to the psychological makeup of those
that become pilots (which is not quite the same, because piloting is a
learned skill, while intelligence is not, but they both involve
joining a "group" based on an ability).