Does SL Have an Intelligentsia?

[Seicher Rae]

3 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

They are selecting for a particular kind of intelligence. Among other things, they look for people who handle standard tests well.

Exactly. Apparently I test well.  Apparently I took a test in high school and didn't realize it. YEARS later, when going through old paperwork I found the test scores. I looked up the meaning and LAUGHED. I still do. If I mention the number, people then assume I can do a Rubik's cube in 3 seconds (nope, not even 3 hours), am a chess whiz (I know how the pieces move), and am a quantum physicist... which of course I am. (that would be a joke folks) I sometimes remind others of my # right after I've done something monumentally stupid, but I have to throttle that urge back or else I'd be saying it all of the time and so it would lose its impact.

I agree with the folks (everyone) who is saying: If you have to walk around with a sign declaring, "I iz smart" then there's at least one or two things wrong with the situation.

Also, Murphy's Law (and it happened to me in this thread), every time I try to assert "I iz smart" I will automatically do something dumber than dirt. In this thread, I couldn't copy/paste right (AGAIN) so the post would have messed up people using the Dark theme, and I had to delete a post and start over. Doh!

So, again to your point Rolig, there are lots of ways of determining intelligence. I hope typing skillz isn't one. But I did get a 2 in Wordle today and another 3 in Nerdle, does that count???? Pls pls pls

[Rolig Loon]

10 minutes ago, Seicher Rae said:

But I did get a 2 in Wordle today and another 3 in Nerdle, does that count???? Pls pls pls

I'm having a slow day. It took me four tries in each. So, no, they don't count. 

[kali Wylder]

39 minutes ago, Seicher Rae said:

Kinda like I have thought about applying to Daughters of Am. Revolution and citing Benedict Arnold as a direct ancestor. (tis true)   I decided, "Nah..." (but it still makes me laugh)

I could have belonged to the DAR as well (no relation to Benedict Arnold though) but decided, like Groucho, that I "didn't want to belong to any organization who would allow people like me to be a member".

[Madelaine McMasters]

29 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

As I recall, membership involves getting "acceptable" scores on a battery of IQ tests, like Stanford-Binet. They are selecting for a particular kind of intelligence. Among other things, they look for people who handle standard tests well. That's as good a way of managing membership as any, I suppose, but it's not a universal way of defining "smart".

I can't help watching my mind drift to Groucho Marx: 

Yep, all three of us passed and I was pretty excited about it. Dad refused to reveal his scores because "Once people know, they'll wonder why I haven't done more with my life." Emotional IQ is pretty damned important, as is diversity. You never know just what kind of smarts will be needed to get you out of your next pickle, nor whether you'll have them.

I'm quite fond of Groucho's quote, but his motivations are as suspect as my own.

[Arielle Popstar]

12 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

If SL doesn't have an intelligentsia, does it need one?

Looking up the word "intelligentsia" I came across this:

Quote

The term refers to all sorts of educated people, but it’s now used to describe those who are messianic and moral high-ground champions. While many praise the intelligentsia as society’s conscience, others despise them for being detached from reality; and yet others, such as Vladimir Lenin, have called them ‘sh*t’. https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/330344-who-are-russian-intelligentsia

From the article I gather that it has little to do with intellectualism or IQ but rather what we in the west might call a social justice warrior. I think S/L has them yes but whether we need them is a good question.

[Seicher Rae]

6 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Looking up the word "intelligentsia" I came across this:

From the article I gather that it has little to do with intellectualism or IQ but rather what we in the west might call a social justice warrior. I think S/L has them yes but whether we need them is a good question.

That's why I prefer to call myself of the Illuminati.

[Seicher Rae]

PS. SL Illuminati meeting at 3 AM SLT behind the bar at the Forum Cartel, after the sekrect handshakes. You're so smart, you figure out the date.

[Arielle Popstar]

2 minutes ago, Seicher Rae said:

That's why I prefer to call myself of the Illuminati.

Of the Bavarian variety? ie from the Wiki:

Quote

Historically, the name usually refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on 1 May 1776 in Bavaria, today part of Germany. The society's goals were to oppose superstition, obscurantism, religious influence over public life and abuses of state power. "The order of the day," they wrote in their general statutes, "is to put an end to the machinations of the purveyors of injustice, to control them without dominating them.

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

14 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Looking up the word "intelligentsia" I came across this:

From the article I gather that it has little to do with intellectualism or IQ but rather what we in the west might call a social justice warrior. I think S/L has them yes but whether we need them is a good question.

This is . . . highly debatable.

[Seicher Rae]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Of the Bavarian variety? ie from the Wiki:

 

There are many chapters. The Bavarians had a wild night in a biergarten and got outed. They weren't our brightest bulbs but their antics served our greater purposes.

[Katherine Heartsong]

Why, yes. Yes, it does.

[Arielle Popstar]

5 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

This is . . . highly debatable.

Well further down in that article it is said:

Quote

With their pro-European values, the Russian intelligentsia was something very close to those who are today ironically called ‘snowflakes,’ or ‘bleeding-heart liberals’. Looked upon with suspicion under the tsars, they also didn’t have much success under the Soviet regime.

So at least to the writer, they appear to be synonymous.

[Sid Nagy]

IQ alone says very little.
I once had a boy in my class with a high tested IQ, but his only interest was the old tractor he and his dad would drive for the fun in the evenings.
In the end he became a car mechanic and owns a repair shop now.
There are high IQ bus drivers and garbage men.
Social capacities are very important as well.

BTW I had an invitation from Mensa, but I rejected too.
 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Scylla Rhiadra]

8 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

Just read the forums.
😇

There's something to this, actually. And to @Qie Niangao's point.

I don't think that "intelligentsia" simply means "smart people." It is a kind of class designation, more than it is a descriptive category applied to individuals. A scattering of intelligent people working separately and in a disconnected fashion in isolated rooms does not constitute an intelligentsia, because there is no discourse, no exchange of views, associated with them. For an intelligentsia to exist, a first requirement is a networked means of communication and exchange that 1) connects a wide and disparate group of people and ideas, and 2) has at least a functional potential for having an impact of some kind on the culture with which it is associated.

The network needs to be disparate and varied in its views, or you can't have a real back-and-forth and testing of ideas. Without diversity of ideas, you have at best a "think tank," and at worst an echo chamber or propaganda machine.

I don't think we have anything in SL that corresponds to both of those conditions. But the forums, and most especially the GD forum, are the closest thing we probably have to something that fulfills the first requirement.

[Madelaine McMasters]

Some years ago, I published the following diagrammatic explanation of my nefarious plan for world domination, using Facebook as my tool. I am, of course, so nefarious that revealing the plan cannot stop it.

In Step 1, I infect a small, isolated group of minions (you here in the forum) with some absurd ideology I've made up.

In Step 2, I send you all out into Facebook, to spread the news far and wide.

The most important part of all this is that I would never join a club that would have me as a member, so I observe the resulting chaos from a great distance.

If you look closely, you'll several small "islands" of nonconformity that survive the conversion. That's my admission of imperfection, without which you'd think I was delusional. Feel free to imagine you're one of those nonconformists. Self delusion is an equal opportunity employer.

[Seicher Rae]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

There's something to this, actually. And to @Qie Niangao's point.

I don't think that "intelligentsia" simply means "smart people." It is a kind of class designation, more than it is a descriptive category applied to individuals. A scattering of intelligent people working separately and in a disconnected fashion in isolated rooms does not constitute an intelligentsia, because there is no discourse, no exchange of views, associated with them. For an intelligentsia to exist, a first requirement is a networked means of communication and exchange that 1) connects a wide and disparate group of people and ideas, and 2) has at least a functional potential for having an impact of some kind on the culture with which it is associated.

The network needs to be disparate and varied in its views, or you can't have a real back-and-forth and testing of ideas. Without diversity of ideas, you have at best a "think tank," and at worst an echo chamber or propaganda machine.

I don't think we have anything in SL that corresponds to both of those conditions. But the forums, and most especially the GD forum, are the closest thing we probably have to something that fulfills the first requirement.

Yebbit, if you do that then I turn out to be stupid! I vote for IQ #s and today's Wordle + Nerdle scores and reject spelling and typing tests!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Well further down in that article it is said:

So at least to the writer, they appear to be synonymous.

You are citing from a Russian government-controlled organ, RBTH, run by a Russian government agency, TV-Novosti.

Of course it's going to say that.

[Seicher Rae]

2 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Some years ago, I published the following diagrammatic explanation of my nefarious plan for world domination, using Facebook as my tool. I am, of course, so nefarious that revealing the plan cannot stop it.

In Step 1, I infect a small, isolated group of minions (you here in the forum) with some absurd ideology I've made up.

In Step 2, I send you all out into Facebook, to spread the news far and wide.

The most important part of all this is that I would never join a club that would have me as a member, so I observe the resulting chaos from a great distance.

If you look closely, you'll several small "islands" of nonconformity that survive the conversion. That's my admission of imperfection, without which you'd think I was delusional. Feel free to imagine you're one of those nonconformists. Self delusion is an equal opportunity employer.

/me sees pretty colors! oooh! candy!

[Arielle Popstar]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

You are citing from a Russian government-controlled organ, RBTH, run by a Russian government agency, TV-Novosti.

Of course it's going to say that.

Why "of course"? The parallels are really not so hard to see.

[Sid Nagy]

6 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

There's something to this, actually.

A joke is always based on some reality.

 

[Seicher Rae]

/me watching Scylla vs Arielle and words like "snowflake" and smiles, feeling like "finally, the world is spinning correctly again! whew!" and applauding Maddy for "colors" ahhh
 

 

ETA: This is how an IQ #1xx posts.

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Seicher Rae

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Why "of course"? The parallels are really not so hard to see.

Not doing it, Arielle! Sorry. You figure it out.

[Rolig Loon]

10 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

BTW I had an invitation from Mensa, but I rejected too.

Based on a purely non-scientific, non-random reading of the tea leaves, I suspect that there are many others here who could say the same.  But won't.  😎

[Seicher Rae]

1 minute ago, Rolig Loon said:

Based on a purely non-scientific, non-random reading of the tea leaves, I suspect that there are many others here who could say the same.  But won't.  😎

Unlike the mouthy (insecure or ego maniacs) who do/have/will!

[Theresa Tennyson]

13 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Sometimes it is described as the difference between "those who know" and "those who understand." But an intelligentsia can have scientists as well as poets. Usually they think about their world on a plane above the fray of everyday life and preoccupations and try to draw meaning out of it.

What's the name of the cohort made up of those who don't understand?