Mr. Jeeves - Former Mensa member (25 years ago..)
Nailed it. One loser seriously contended the world needed to put MENSA in charge and then get out of the way. He absolutely refused to understand that he and I, both MENSA members, were utterly opposed, not just on tactics, but even more on the goals. He didn't think this made a difference!
Intelligence, in the sense of raw IQ, is greatly over-rated.
Got to read my definition to inderstand the topic.
M E N S A
*Massive Extreme Neural Synapses Abuse*
This causes repeated instances of *Massive Extreme Neural Synapses Abuse* by those seeking to act on this unprovable, even dangerous, doctrine. Those who become infected create disonnance in their thinking patterns by becoming so overconfidant in their own abilities that they rationalize virtually everything they THINK to conform with what they BELIEVE and they can never once accept they might be wrong about anything, ever. Even the mere suggestion of fallibility to an infected person often results in outbursts of uncontrolled verbal rage and quite possibly, violence.
Prolonged exposure of the mind to this bombardment of illogical thought processes results in brain’s inability to distinguish rational from irrational, reality from fantasy, truth from lies.
A lot of people remain in Mensa, thankful that insufferable snobs like Mr. Jeeves have left. On a side note, I wish you had named your syndrome Degenerative Extreme Neural Synapses Abuse (DENSA) to avoid unintentionally maligning a group of pretty decent folks who belong to Mensa.
Well, that answers my question about whether any actual smart people are in MENSA. The only MENSAs I ever met made a really, really, really big deal about how they were in MENSA, and yet they didn't seem all that smart to me. It struck me that it was very important to these people that they were in MENSA because it "proved" to the world (and themselves) how smart they were, and it seemed to me that these people were actually somewhat pathetic. Thus, I wondered if MENSA was actually made up entirely of pathetic people who were not actually very bright.
In my own experience, really smart people have no need whatsoever to prove to anyone else how smart they are. The world either recognizes that fact or not, and they don't particularly care one way or the other. If they happen to meet another very smart person, then they may have found a new friend. Everyone else falls into one of two categories: teachable and non-teachable. Teachable people are deserving of their attention; non-teachable ones are not.
Since I always wondered why any really smart person would need to join an organization to prove they were smart, I've also always wondered if any actual smart people were in MENSA. Now I know. Thanks for the insiders point of view, namely that MENSA is in fact a good discriminator for intelligence: any intelligent person who joins MESA thinking it is an organization of intelligent people quickly discovers otherwise and quits, leaving only not-so-intelligent people as members. In fact, MENSA perfectly selects for those who remain members: not-so-bright and unaccomplished people who desperately wish the world would see them otherwise.
Parallels my experience.
With less crazy...