Meet Steven Finkelstein, "an unlikely 'Casanova' who used the smarty-pants club Mensa to meet women and bully them into giving him free digs." Is that a crime? And if he's so smart how come he's going to prison for it? And aren't the Mensa women supposed to be smart too?
Anyway, I love the writing in The Daily News. "The smarty-pants club Mensa" -- that kills me.
June 23, 2006
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16 comments:
Bah. Mensa will take anybody in the 98th percentile. That's hardly "genius".
I've always wondered what kind of idiot would join a club like that. Now I know.
Steven Finkelstein, meet Ayn Rand. Real human behavior was her downfall, too.
His reference to "willing vicitms" is the chilling sign of a true sociopath. Thank heavens his goals were so minor. High intelligence that lacks a conscience means Big Trouble for the rest of us. Stalin was a good example of how the right circumstances can turn Steven Finkelstein into a murderer of millions.
Too bad I don't have a spare Voigt-Kampff empathy test laying around to lend to the smarty pants club.
Let me be the first to confess that I joined "the smarty-pants club Mensa" to meet women.
I went to a few meetings to find (surprise, surprise) you can put me in a room full of people who all did well on a standardized test and I still won't introduce myself to anyone.
Oh, no! Did I just confide in strangers? Ann, you are truly devious. You've become a werecat!
Not in the top 2% eh, Ann?
Bummer.
Smarty-pants club Mensa - HA! you're simply the best.....
Years ago, Jerry Adler wrote a humorous bit about "The Bell Curve" in Newsweek. It's behind a subscription wall, but here's the text. Missing from the original bit is a photo of Dostoevsky next to a photo of Claudia Schiffer with a compare/contrast of the lives they lead. The message, as I recall, was clear: If you're ever given the choice of who you want to be when you grow up, choose Claudia.
Did she go to law school?
This shows, once again, that smartness doesn't always mean the person has common sense. Neither of my parents finished high school, but they had lots of common sense. Of course, I may be prejudiced there.
The only MENSA member I've had significant exposure to is, well, not as bad as this guy but largely cut from the same cloth. We even started referring to him as "The Genius", and didn't mean it as a compliment.
"it's better to have little and know what to do with it; than a lot and have no idea what it's for"
If someone has no idea what to do with the knowledge they have, do they really qualify as intelligent?
"Let me be the first to confess that I joined "the smarty-pants club Mensa" to meet women"
What were the women there like? Not female versions of this lowlife, hopefully. Is the fact that MENSA members need the validation of a club like this indicative of a problem?
J asked: "What were the women there like?"
So far as I could tell? Pretty much like the other women from that geographic region, except they scored well on a standardized IQ test. I never thought that counted for very much. Anyway, I only went to two or three meetings and I think Mensa changed to admit people with high scores on tests like the SAT and LSAT and such. I don't think that counts for very much, either. I value kindness and humor over "intelligence," by orders of magnitude. The kind of mental skills the IQ test measured was like horsepower in a car engine. It tells you something but there's a whole lot more to know.
I only joined because I thought it might be fun like that episode of "The Bob Newhart Show" where Emily qualifies and Bob doesn't. That episode was a stitch! The Mensa meetings I attended were absolutely tedious.
Professor Althouse attracts a much better crowd, IMHO. (Though not everyone is so very kind.)
Mensa members invite the question, "If you're so smart...?" about any error they ever make, along with observations about doing the superior dance regarding one aspect of human intellect. Regardless, the connotations are not good.
If I qualify for membership, must I also paint my fingernails bright red?
Jeff: Yeah, why not limit it to the top 1%... or the top .5%? As it is, I think half the Mensa folk are thinking, I'm top 1% and I'll bet that guy's only top 2%.
Pogo: Yeah, once someone says they're in Mensa, they open themselves up to constant razzing along the lines of I thought you were the big genius... It's one thing to have a job that exposes you to the endless you're a law professor! lines that I get, but a job also gives you money and something to do. It's not mainly a label you seek to prove that you're smart.
There was a guy on "The Apprentice" this season who was in Mensa, and Trump was constantly attacking him for not acting smart when he's supposed to be the "genius." How did Ann Althouse get to be a law professor when she watches those crappy TV shows like "The Apprentice"?
Jeff: Yeah, why not limit it to the top 1%... or the top .5%? As it is, I think half the Mensa folk are thinking, I'm top 1% and I'll bet that guy's only top 2%.
Pogo: Yeah, once someone says they're in Mensa, they open themselves up to constant razzing along the lines of I thought you were the big genius... It's one thing to have a job that exposes you to the endless you're a law professor! lines that I get, but a job also gives you money and something to do. It's not mainly a label you seek to prove that you're smart.
There was a guy on "The Apprentice" this season who was in Mensa, and Trump was constantly attacking him for not acting smart when he's supposed to be the "genius." How did Ann Althouse get to be a law professor when she watches those crappy TV shows like "The Apprentice"?
Miked0268: It might be worse than that. From thier creepy published materials (especially letters to the editor) I suspected Mensa was some kind of weird crypto-eugenicist organization. (As opposed to all those non-weird crypto-eugenicist organizations!)
Again, the disclaimer: This was 20 years ago. Maybe things have changed and they're all kind and humorous and they throw kick-ass parties the same as in that episode of "The Bob Newhart Show."
I'm finding it interesting--and amusing, and even ironic--that the Mensa Hall of Fame consists entirely of individuals who all died before Mensa's establishment. Instead, they were selected as "individuals who have demonstrated their genius through remarkable vision and accomplishments."
Well, what about actual Mensa members who've demonstrated neither remarkable vision nor accomplishments? What about those who miss qualifying based on the test but "have demonstrated their genius" through their actions or achievements?
Not that I'm questioning the genius of the deceased people included in the Hall of Fame; that's not really the point of my comment.
It looks like this thread has joined the choir invisible. Still, I'd like to make a correction to a prior comment, as follows:
I said I joined Mensa "to meet women." That was consistent with the article and Ann's post. However, it was inaccurate. Better I should have said "hoping to find a girlfriend."
There now. That's all better.
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