Poll: How smart do you think you are?

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meticadpa

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Jul 8, 2010
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Illusory superiority tells us that intelligent people tend to underestimate their own intelligence, whilst people who are of below average intelligence will think they're more intelligent than they actually are.

If we were to go by that, the vast majority of The Escapist would be of average or below average intelligence! However, that is only a theory.

How intelligent I consider myself to be depends on how I'm feeling; there are times when I'm immensely confident in my intelligence, when I feel like I can do anything, and there are others when I feel the opposite. I'm 16-years-old, so it's really too soon to tell whether I'll be the next Isaac Newton or whatever, but my grades would suggest that I'm of above average intelligence (relative to my peers, at least), as would my ability to grasp new concepts more quickly than others I know.

I didn't vote, because I'm not sure how intelligent I consider myself to be.
 

dyre

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Mar 30, 2011
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lol@poll results

I haven't bothered to take an IQ test, but I generally grasp new concepts pretty quickly. I have a 3.9 GPA at college and scored 2370 on my SATs.

Still, there are people who I wouldn't consider as "smart" as me who've nonetheless achieved more.

PS: Also, I got 99th percentile on all my middle school/ high school standardized tests, but so did everyone else >_>
 

pppppppppppppppppp

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Jun 23, 2011
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Communist partisan said:
Glass Joe the Champ said:
It's the ego that makes the human believe that, that's why everybody think they are over average.

Personally I'm playing dumb, and I'm really good in school and I'm really "street smart" but if you're asking me a test on school level can't tell you if you're smart or dumb, it's life experience, how you act in different situations how you handle life, the truth and pure chaos.

Being skilled on a educated level is intelligence but not in the same way as knowing how to think freely, come up with new ideas and inventions and being a really wise man with a lot of experience. A educated man can still be blind and dumb if he don't know how to think outside the frames, by free will and is possibly manipulated by a system made for controlling.

A man who lives in the forest like a savage nearly doesn't even know how to count to ten (probably) and is probably technically retarded on a educated scale but he knows how to solve every dilemma he comes across and got a real skill for making up new functions on different objects and surviving.

So if you only have one of the sides you're dumb, you gotta have both to be able to function properly in the regular society in most countries, but I still think the educated knowledge is less needed than the common knowledge and basic intelligence if i need to pick one of them.

Do you see what I'm trying to say?
Yeah, I get you. I think what's interesting about this poll is I bet if I picked a specific intellectual definition (How good at math are you? How much common sense do you have? How good are you at memorizing things?) then answers would be more average.

It seems that because intelligence can be defined many ways, people are using whatever definition puts them above average. I bet that savage thinks he's smart for his hunting skills as much as people like me think they're smart for acing tests.

I guess we're all a bit arrogant, nothing wrong with that.
 

meticadpa

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I don't think memory anything is a particularly good indicator of intelligence. Look at Kim Peek (more commonly known as 'the Rain Man') - his memory was basically unparalleled, yet his IQ would suggest that he's of below average intelligence. If you want to be good at tests in high school, all you need to be able to do is regurgitate information, for the most part. There are exceptions, of course, like in mathematics, where you must be able to think logical and apply what you've learned.
 

Beautiful End

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Feb 15, 2011
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I would say I'm REGIONALLY above average. I know more stuff about everything compared to the people who live here in this city.

However, I like to watch Cash Cab, which takes place in New York, and I would have to say that compared to some of the contestants, I would be average or below average.
And there's also the fact that I'm too lazy...

I want to say I would have been smarter if perhaps I would have done thing differently when I was a kid. I was a surprisingly smart kid and now I'm neither one of those. But if I am smart at some degree, I don't like to brag about it. Saying that I was always top ten at school or that I know three languages or that I can play two instruments and stuff doesn't mean a thing because there is always someone who can do better than that and happens to be more humble than I can usually be. And that just proves I'm a retard for pretending otherwise. So no.

If you ask me, IQ doesn't mean you're a genius. It means you're smart, yes, but there's more in life than tests. If someone tells me they have an IQ of 1 million but they don't even know how to change a diaper, I won't be surprised. If someone tells me they have an IQ of over 9000 and also teaches me how to fix my car, I will be so surprised, I won't be able to poop for days, maybe.
 

TheLaofKazi

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Mar 20, 2010
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Intelligence is a dynamic and diverse thing. I don't think it's possible to measure it on a singular scale.

Am I above average intelligence? I don't know, what is average? What's normal? I don't think there is an objective definition of that, and it's a question I try not to concern myself with. A lot of IQ tests, I've found, just seem to test for memory and speed, and one's performance on them is based on them having previous knowledge (such as with mathematics and language). Speed in mathematics and knowing a lot of fancy words doesn't mean one is intelligent, and just because one may be intelligent in the conventional sense doesn't mean they are more valuable then other people. An intelligent person can still be ignorant, stubborn, lazy, malicious, can lack curiosity, be dysfunctional, and many other things. Everything depends on the situation and the perspective. In one circumstance, one type of person might be better then another, and according to another perspective, it may even be the opposite. We can't think of intelligence like something that can be measured with a ruler, it's more complicated then that.

I like to think I'm more capable then most people when it comes to creative, divergent thinking that takes into account multiple, conflicting perspectives. I'm also terrible at math, and have often been too stubborn to conform in academic settings to do well. Is that my fault or the education system's? It depends on where you are coming from, and it's probably both.
 

Flailing Escapist

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Apr 13, 2011
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I think I'm slightly above average because I got a 28/36 on my ACT two years ago and I believe the national average that year was 20/36. But that's just the U.S. we're not as smart as other countries.
 

Flunk

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Feb 17, 2008
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The dumbest people I know are all convinced that they're geniuses. Just a heads up for all you "geniuses".

I graduated college with honours on a BSc in computer science. That just means I'm good at school. Smart is a highly subjective topic. What is "smart" really?
 
Sep 14, 2009
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it honestly depends on what you define intelligence, i have seen some of the most smartest "common sense" people get fucking 17-19's on act's and can barely pass some college classes while some of the smartest people (as in they got 36's on the act with a breeze) do some of the most retarded shit i have ever facepalmed at.


personal example, my dad, a year or so of college, always had C's or D's in school, is fucking absolutely brilliant at sales/marketing/advertising, he puts in half the hours and ranks super high in the leaderboards at his company region/nationwide, and i've asked him to explain it to me sometimes on what he does exactly and it goes right the fuck over my head when he shows me what he does and how he only has to put in half the hours because of his remanaging skills.


oh and hes a fucking ridiculous genius at the rubix cube, he's one of those people who can solve that damn thing in less than a minute without ever messing with that combination before.

ANYWAYS

tl;dr I'd consider myself personally slightly above average, as i breezed my way through school and got a 31 on the act, and msto of the "smart" people i know, booksmart at least, are fucking retarded compared to me when it comes to common sense and every day things, so yeah i'd consider myself above average by a bit but who knows..there are so many ways to define "intelligence"
 

KarlMonster

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Mar 10, 2009
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3AM said:
I can honestly say I'm an average smartass.
I am a wise ass. You will kindly refer to me as: Wise Ass.
Do not call me "Sir Wise Ass" or Wise Ass, sir", I'm not a knight yet.
I spent years being a smart ass, and they finally promoted me to Wise Ass.
Now I get to use a brush when I clean the toilets at my janitorial job.

But seriously, I'm fairly smart. I'm a member of MENSA.
The funny thing is, they never actually told me the results of the admission testing. That leaves me to wonder if they didn't just let me in because my score was 'close enough.' See, I have to wonder if some exclusive groups like this aren't hurting for warm bodies in their ranks and...

OK, just stop that.
Adrian, you were just thinking that I was "fulla shit."

Yeah, yeah, I know - you don't like me reading your mind.
Well you shouldn't be thinking such mean things about me.
 
Sep 14, 2009
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Beautiful End said:
I would say I'm REGIONALLY above average. I know more stuff about everything compared to the people who live here in this city.

However, I like to watch Cash Cab, which takes place in New York, and I would have to say that compared to some of the contestants, I would be average or below average.
And there's also the fact that I'm too lazy...

I want to say I would have been smarter if perhaps I would have done thing differently when I was a kid. I was a surprisingly smart kid and now I'm neither one of those. But if I am smart at some degree, I don't like to brag about it. Saying that I was always top ten at school or that I know three languages or that I can play two instruments and stuff doesn't mean a thing because there is always someone who can do better than that and happens to be more humble than I can usually be. And that just proves I'm a retard for pretending otherwise. So no.

If you ask me, IQ doesn't mean you're a genius. It means you're smart, yes, but there's more in life than tests. If someone tells me they have an IQ of 1 million but they don't even know how to change a diaper, I won't be surprised. If someone tells me they have an IQ of over 9000 and also teaches me how to fix my car, I will be so surprised, I won't be able to poop for days, maybe.
i also like to watch that show, and i would say quite a few of the questions are era/regional based questions, because some of the questions i have seen on there are ridiculous and not a single person in my area would know what the hell it was, and if they did it was because it was a very "era" specific question, depending on your age, so while i love cash cab and do quite well alot of the time, sometimes those questions are "what the fuck..who...*person with missing bucked teeth and trashy answers immediately* o_O "
 

Hasido

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Jun 20, 2011
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i probably have a skewed opinion of my intellegence. i apparently score high on things, but all of my friends are way smarter than me when it comes to academics, so i feel subpar in that respect. when it comes to relationships and sanity, i fly past them. My arguably smartest friend has a very poor opinion of himself, so about once every two weeks i have to spend a half hour cheering him up. Another of my friends is very smart, but just doesn't get things that are outside of the box. so to totally nerd off, i would say i have about a 12-13 intellegence score, and a 16-17 wisdom score.
 

Freeze_L

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Feb 17, 2010
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Got an IQ test when I was tested for a learning disability. My IQ is 183.
So yes a bit above average. I am academically well off, though i have a tendency to lose focus on subjects I find dull (Chemistry and pure Math), I am study physics. Critical thinking I am not nearly as good as my friends going into engineering in practical problems, but am well above the normal person. Creatively I like to write and am pretty decent at it, above average but not super skilled I suppose; you have to have a great imagination to study physics. Common sense, well, uh um, hmm, lets see, above the level of most of my friends, but a tad less than the average person.