It's still arguably pretty arrogant to extrapolate from scoring highly/doing well in/being good at one thing that you're "intelligent". But yea a lot of problems stem from the word intelligence.
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"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
I'd say I'm smarter than average, went to a fancy pants "smart" high school, got the tuition of said high school back in scholarships for college. I severely doubt I'm anything more intelligent than mildly above average though.
I use the Duels Of The Planeswalkers layout, though I'm right-handed and keep my deck and GY to the left. I dare you to ask me how tempting it is to hold flying creatures in a floating pattern over the table.
I'd say I'm smarter than average, went to a fancy pants "smart" high school, got the tuition of said high school back in scholarships for college. I severely doubt I'm anything more intelligent than mildly above average though.
Say a little prayer for Mr. Fancy Pants
The whole world knows
They're only clothes
And deep inside
He's sad
Mr. Fancy Pants!
Infraction for Spamming Issued. Don't post random meaningless statements like these without at least something substantive. - Jay13x
Found it amusing that about 26% of voters (As of August 17th 2013) have chosen the "top 2%" category. As well about 57% of voters have chosen categories in the 20% or higher. Obviously, the math can't be right on that.
Aside from that I declined from voting because I would really honestly be guessing based off of "how I think of myself" & "the average person I've gone against" in Magic. Problem with that is that, just because I go against someone doesn't mean they are, or are not, as smart as they may, or may not come off.
Out of the smaller handful of people I can say that I know more personally however, I would imagine the majority of us would put ourselves around similar levels overall. Though I am aware that's still pretty vague.
Found it amusing that about 26% of voters (As of August 17th 2013) have chosen the "top 2%" category. As well about 57% of voters have chosen categories in the 20% or higher. Obviously, the math can't be right on that.
Aside from that I declined from voting because I would really honestly be guessing based off of "how I think of myself" & "the average person I've gone against" in Magic. Problem with that is that, just because I go against someone doesn't mean they are, or are not, as smart as they may, or may not come off.
Out of the smaller handful of people I can say that I know more personally however, I would imagine the majority of us would put ourselves around similar levels overall. Though I am aware that's still pretty vague.
When does the poll end? I find this interesting.
It could be right, technically. Not everyone answered. For all we know, there's some unknown correlation between being intelligent and responding to polls, viewing this board, or logging onto MTGS frequently enough that you're more likely to end up here. Probably not, though. If you ever pay attention to the news or politics, it's pretty obvious that a much larger percentage of the population thinks they're intelligent than the percentage that actually is intelligent (regardless of how you define it).
The top 2% of a population is contained within the top 5%, the top 5% of the population is contained within the top 10%, and so on and so forth.
The only people who can produce an exclusive answer to this question as it is written are those who believe they are in the lowest category and therefore not in any higher category. For all others, multiple answers are valid.
It could be right, technically. Not everyone answered. For all we know, there's some unknown correlation between being intelligent and responding to polls, viewing this board, or logging onto MTGS frequently enough that you're more likely to end up here. Probably not, though. If you ever pay attention to the news or politics, it's pretty obvious that a much larger percentage of the population thinks they're intelligent than the percentage that actually is intelligent (regardless of how you define it).
Yes, it's called illusory superiority or more colorfully the "Lake Wobegon effect".
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I am not as intelligent as many other users here. I hate math, I cannot build robots or recite full texts in length from memory. No, sadly, my intelligence deals more with people and words than anything. This is normally a great pairing, except that I suck at writing things that catch the interest of my readers, and I generally dislike most people I don't get to know.
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Currently Running:
Nothing, I have just gotten back after a long hiatus, and am just now starting to rebuild my collection.
I know that on standardized testing I've scored, in tandem with a number of untreated emotional and cognitive disabilities( ADHD, ASD, depression, extreme anxiety, etc. ; I'm pretty screwed up), in the 99.76th percentile on a test specifically designed to measure within the the top 2%, but, since I really don't know the standing of other individuals on the forum, I have decided to abstain from participating in the poll. Were I to give an estimate, I would be tempted to place myself in the top 2%, but, given again that I don't have enough information regarding mtg player's iqs to make an accurate assessment, I would estimate a little lower to be safe.
Were I to comment on the thought process of not just the upper 2%, but the majority of posters, I would say that, as demonstrated by an earlier graph, self estimation of intelligence without any objective validation is almost never going to pose accurate results, and when you pose the question, not regarding the general population, but a select demographic whose norms have not even been calculated, you might as well be asking how many angels can dance on the head of a needle; the answers convey nothing more than the personality of the poster. Granted, I would probably say that, of the people who did answer, that the upper mid-range of answers are likely to be the most intelligent, if simply for the fact that simlar objections probably occurred to them and that, given this, they wanted to make a safe estimate, but that only holds true in a general sense, so any judgment of any poster based on their answer is just as meaningless as their own self estimation.
I also saw a brief discussion earlier in the thread about people's view on the iq test, and I might as well convey mine. I would not say that, if even due simply to the number of variables that occur with any performance-based test, iq definitively represents an indivdual's intelligence, and the ACTs/SATs even less so(in fact, i could probably go on a huge rant on the absurdity of using SATs and ACTs as a proxy for iq, let alone intelligence). That being said I think that iq serves as a reasonable estimate of an individual's intelligence, with, as with any estimation, varying degrees of accuracy; with such mainly declining the further a subject is from a "neurotypical". But all in all, if your aim in life is to be happy, the closer to average the better, and if you want to be succesful, 115-125 seems to me to be the sweet spot. Genius level intelligence often leads to little more than misery, and, for every famous, succesful genius, there is one that has gone mad and two that have simply gone nowhere. If your aim in life is to be happy or succesful then, unless you are a glaring exception, high intelligence would just get in the way of this, but, if your aim is, not happiness or succes, but to understand and learn as much about the world you can before your inevitable demise, intelligence is the single most important trait you can possess; it all depends on what you want. Just know that, if your aim is to learn, that will bring you nothing but misery.
2) Also a good point. I think you articulated this far better than I did
I still can't prove that any of these phenomenon occurred, but it seems more compelling than attributing the distribution to "arrogance."
I really do believe that 25% of MTGS board members could score two sigma above the general population on at least one standardized test.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
I'd say I'm smarter than average, went to a fancy pants "smart" high school, got the tuition of said high school back in scholarships for college. I severely doubt I'm anything more intelligent than mildly above average though.
Say a little prayer for Mr. Fancy Pants
The whole world knows
They're only clothes
And deep inside
He's sad
Mr. Fancy Pants!
Infraction for Spamming Issued. Don't post random meaningless statements like these without at least something substantive. - Jay13x
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
Aside from that I declined from voting because I would really honestly be guessing based off of "how I think of myself" & "the average person I've gone against" in Magic. Problem with that is that, just because I go against someone doesn't mean they are, or are not, as smart as they may, or may not come off.
Out of the smaller handful of people I can say that I know more personally however, I would imagine the majority of us would put ourselves around similar levels overall. Though I am aware that's still pretty vague.
When does the poll end? I find this interesting.
It could be right, technically. Not everyone answered. For all we know, there's some unknown correlation between being intelligent and responding to polls, viewing this board, or logging onto MTGS frequently enough that you're more likely to end up here. Probably not, though. If you ever pay attention to the news or politics, it's pretty obvious that a much larger percentage of the population thinks they're intelligent than the percentage that actually is intelligent (regardless of how you define it).
The top 2% of a population is contained within the top 5%, the top 5% of the population is contained within the top 10%, and so on and so forth.
The only people who can produce an exclusive answer to this question as it is written are those who believe they are in the lowest category and therefore not in any higher category. For all others, multiple answers are valid.
Yes, it's called illusory superiority or more colorfully the "Lake Wobegon effect".
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Currently Running:
Nothing, I have just gotten back after a long hiatus, and am just now starting to rebuild my collection.
Were I to comment on the thought process of not just the upper 2%, but the majority of posters, I would say that, as demonstrated by an earlier graph, self estimation of intelligence without any objective validation is almost never going to pose accurate results, and when you pose the question, not regarding the general population, but a select demographic whose norms have not even been calculated, you might as well be asking how many angels can dance on the head of a needle; the answers convey nothing more than the personality of the poster. Granted, I would probably say that, of the people who did answer, that the upper mid-range of answers are likely to be the most intelligent, if simply for the fact that simlar objections probably occurred to them and that, given this, they wanted to make a safe estimate, but that only holds true in a general sense, so any judgment of any poster based on their answer is just as meaningless as their own self estimation.
I also saw a brief discussion earlier in the thread about people's view on the iq test, and I might as well convey mine. I would not say that, if even due simply to the number of variables that occur with any performance-based test, iq definitively represents an indivdual's intelligence, and the ACTs/SATs even less so(in fact, i could probably go on a huge rant on the absurdity of using SATs and ACTs as a proxy for iq, let alone intelligence). That being said I think that iq serves as a reasonable estimate of an individual's intelligence, with, as with any estimation, varying degrees of accuracy; with such mainly declining the further a subject is from a "neurotypical". But all in all, if your aim in life is to be happy, the closer to average the better, and if you want to be succesful, 115-125 seems to me to be the sweet spot. Genius level intelligence often leads to little more than misery, and, for every famous, succesful genius, there is one that has gone mad and two that have simply gone nowhere. If your aim in life is to be happy or succesful then, unless you are a glaring exception, high intelligence would just get in the way of this, but, if your aim is, not happiness or succes, but to understand and learn as much about the world you can before your inevitable demise, intelligence is the single most important trait you can possess; it all depends on what you want. Just know that, if your aim is to learn, that will bring you nothing but misery.