At 11:40 PM 7/9/97 -0500, you wrote:
>        Mensa membership is only slightly impressive.  Once you start
>hanging around 130-160 IQ people you realize that they:
>
>1.) Have no interest in their own "potential for the good of humanity"
>(Average IQ of an MD is about 120).
>
>2.) Have no interest in neatness.
>
>3.) Have no interest in you.

I vaguely resemble those remarks... I have an IQ somewhere around 140, but
have absolutely NO interest in joining Mensa.  I have more productive uses
of my time, like hanging around the house working on my Textiles web page
and watching B-5.

I _might_ have an interest in you if you're interested in the things I'm
interested in... otherwise, I'm lousy at small talk.  Know anything about
medieval to early modern costuming?  Harleys?  Shelties?  Celtic studies or
music?  Wooden sailboats?

>        If everyone was in that range, society would grind to a halt.
>Everyone would be watching Babylon Five and reading books.  As long as we
>are discussing paleolithic people, people with real-high IQ's probably
>wouldn't survive that well.  If the difference between Forest Gump and
>normal is 80 vs. 100, imagine what 180 is in real terms.

I disagree.  I think it's modern society that hurts people with very high
IQs; they get stifled and made fun of by the less-intelligent people.  I
think I deliberately 'dumb down' at work so as not to threaten my boss; she
gets very offended when I get frustrated with her inability to operate even
the simplest of tasks on her computer.

>(My IQ is @130, slightly below the Mensa cut off, due to low spelling
>skills always messing up the test.  Factoring out spelling and
>diget-symbol I rate about 145).

Most of the very creative and productive people I know seem to be on the
same level of intelligence as me.  (Well, that could just be my perception.
 I'm probably biased.)  They have a much wider span of interests than the
average joe who couldn't care less about anything that doesn't directly
affect him/her.  I think that's what I value most in my friends: a wide
variety of interests.  My friends are all 'information junkies.'

FWIW, My husband, Kevin, doesn't have a college degree (I do).  He is
certainly as smart as I am in most areas, though he can't spell.  (His math
skills are much better than mine.)  I think Kevin's intelligence and
creativity are channeled into his woodworking and mechanical skills.

Cheers,
Corbie