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  • How did you find out about Lemmy? It seems it's mostly a niche place for tech nerds and commies and you don't seem to be either? Also what keeps you here? Wouldn't the NPD push you towards more popular platforms?

    Sorry for asking so many questions - your experience sounds very unique and you actually seem very eloquent and thoughtful.

    • "How did you find out about Lemmy?"

      I looked up Reddit alternatives and it came up. Reddit has a bad reputation and it's got too many rules. It's impossible to post anywhere cuz you never have enough karma.

      "It seems it’s mostly a niche place for tech nerds and commies and you don’t seem to be either?"

      Well, I was pretty interested in programming a few years ago because of game modding.

      "Also what keeps you here?"

      Same things that keep me anywhere. Interacting with others and the interesting communities.

      "Wouldn’t the NPD push you towards more popular platforms?"

      It has been proven that people with NPD use social media more. I'm no exception I have accounts on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, twitter and SnapChat.

      "Sorry for asking so many questions"

      It's no problem that's what I'm here for.

      "your experience sounds very unique and you actually seem very eloquent and thoughtful."

      Isn't everyone's? And thank you I've worked on words and spelling for a while now.

  • what kind of iq test did you take? was it recent and have you only taken the one?

    • "kind"? Isn't it just one IQ test that everyone takes? It was 5 years ago when I was 19. I did another one when I was 14 and I scored 73 on that one.

      • There's a bunch of different ways to test IQ, and most if not all tests are known to be pretty flawed. The concept of intelligence being something that can be compared on a single numeric scale is in itself pretty much bullshit - there are different types of intelligence, and the tests tend to focus on random things like pattern matching.

        A bunch of "high IQ" people are barely functional on a day to day basis. Basically low scores on an IQ test indicates that you lack the skills to do that exact test - I wouldn't read too much into it.

        Edit: Read another comment where you elaborate and don't want to come across as dismissing your experience at all, I can see that it's frustrating when people keep insisting it doesn't matter. But having completed my PhD and having met a lot of people that would do incredibly well in IQ tests, I can safely say many of them too face significant challenges in lives deriving from their lack of situational awareness and understanding of for example social situations.

      • Not to discount your struggles or anything, but...just so you know...IQ tests are biased against neurodivergent people. I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Level 1) last summer, and one of the tests in the battery they administered to me was an IQ test (WAIS).

        About a month after the tests, I went back to get my results. The doctor went into lots of details, but a couple thay stood out were that I had autism and that they clocked my IQ at about 124. The IQ score shocked me as I was a member of American Mensa after scoring well into the 99th percentile on both of their intelligence tests. The doctor clarified that I shouldn't hold any stock in IQ tests as an autistic person because they aren't well designed for neurodivergent people since our strengths aren't usually as balanced as they are for neurotypical people.

        I thought I'd mention this since you have ADHD!

  • What do you do for work? What level of education have you completed? Were the results a surprise? And most importantly, has it affected your self-esteem at all, or do you know how little an IQ test actually means? (As an example, I've taken a few for fun and got about double your score each time, but I haven't finished college and was a B- student at best).

    • "What do you do for work?"

      I'm a burger flipper at Burger King.

      "What level of education have you completed?"

      I was a super senior at high school graduating at age 20 and I never went to university or college although I would like to.

      "Were the results a surprise?"

      Yes they were.

      "And most importantly, has it affected your self-esteem at all"

      I'm not capable of low self esteem. It's more like I feel shame and anger for it.

      "or do you know how little an IQ test actually means?"

      I hate people saying this. It's like if you were blind and everyone who could see told you that vision doesn't mean anything. I have seen first hand how IQ affects you. I remember how different I was to the other kids in my school. The way they could just learn things I couldn't. I've experienced how my IQ has singled me out from everyone else. Do you know what it's like to come to terms with the fact that no matter how hard you try you'll always be slower then everyone else? Do you know what it's like to come to terms with the fact that you'll never be a nurse, programmer or go to university/college no matter how hard you try? Do you know what it's like to come to terms with the fact that you'll never develop over the mental age of a teenager? No, you won't so fuck off with this corny bullshit about trying your hardest. Real life is not some cheesy sports movie where you really put your mind to something and overcome all the odds. That doesn't happen in the real world. Kid.

      • It’s like if you were blind and everyone who could see told you that vision doesn’t mean anything.

        It's more like if you were blind, tested your running speed, performed poorly, attribute all your problems to being a bad runner, then everyone tells you that running speed doesn’t mean anything.

        I acknowledge that there's things that are more difficult for you and that negatively affects your quality of life, but it doesn't sound like those problems are the same ones that IQ tests are measuring. If you care to work on improving your situation, it's important to know what the actual problems are before you can even start trying to address them.

      • I didn't mean to upset you. I'm autistic and much older than you, so yeah, I do actually know what it's like to have to come to terms with my own limitations. I know exactly what you mean about being angry and ashamed of those limitations. Every time I fail to extract myself from a situation and have a meltdown, screaming and hitting myself in the head - sometimes in public - and having to face that, what everyone saw, once I'm calm and quiet and lucid again. Every time I look gullible because I fall for some obvious bullshit (satire or parody news, for example). Knowing I could be more if I could just understand people, and get them to understand me.

        That's what I mean when I say IQ tests don't really mean anything, they measure just a few aspects of intelligence and it doesn't tell you anything meaningful about a whole person. My partner has been told by people she thought were friends that she's dumb and she doesn't bring anything to the table, and it destroyed her self esteem, but it was absolutely not true or fair and I've spent years undoing that damage. I was hoping you don't suffer that too, that's all.

        I didn't once say anything about trying your hardest, but if you really want to expand that last half of my last question into a whole point, then it should be this: you are perfectly capable of living a good life, being happy, and making others happy, regardless of a score on a test.

      • Even if the IQ tests you took were accurate (probably weren’t), they test a very specific type of problem solving intelligence. That type of intelligence may be required for abstract reasoning like physics and maths, but it’s not necessary for being a successful human.

        There are many other types of intelligence that are not tested for in that test. Other types of intelligence that can have a much bigger impact on one’s success.

        One example is physical or spatial intelligence. My brother for example is just good with his hands, taking things apart, putting them back together. He’s a mechanic now, but this trait was apparent before he could talk - he used a screwdriver to take apart a chair, and he would pull out drawers to use them as a ladder to get up on the kitchen counter.

        Another type of intelligence is social or emotional intelligence. Some very high IQ individuals would test very very low if this one had a test. But this can have a bigger impact on your relationships, on your life, and even on your career than the IQ type of intelligence.

        Artistic and creative intelligence, athletic intelligence. There are many other kinds. Some people are really good at gardening or farming.

        You can read and write, which would make you a genius scholar a few hundred years ago. Don’t worry about a number on a test. Just like your grades in school they don’t matter. It absolutely does not indicate that you won’t mature or that you’re inferior to anybody.

      • Right on - are there any jobs you'd rather be doing? I've been thinking of retraining to become an animal handler, lately 😆 I think you might be able to do that with a low IQ! Maybe that's more satisfying than flipping burgers.. Though I got a craving for a whopper now.

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