I don't like IQ tests and I wish they didn't exist and that society would simply be more acceptant toward people as they are. Without trying to create standards and put people in competition against each others.

I see some people answering about the help IQ tests brings to people about understanding themselves.

Yeah. I still wish it didn't exist and that people wouldn't need society to acknowledge that their "capacity of logical reasoning" is superior to the mean to feel good.

It helps understand things.

Yet I've thought about it for years and there are so many bad things with IQ that I wish it didn't exist.

It exists, and if it helps people, it's ok. Yet it also hurts many, and proves that society is shitty in more than a way.

@Morgane How does the IQ test help people understand anything about themselves?

"Oh, I now see that I sit at this point on a sliding scale which uses ableist and racist measures. I guess I understand that now!"

No. Just no. And it's why fewer and fewer professionals use it. Anyone who claims this test helps people understand things about themselves are mis-educated.

@ayachan @Morgane it's worse than MBTI at telling people anything about themselves.

@a_breakin_glass @ayachan @Morgane

IQ tests are a blessing for capitalists as they provide a convenient way to classify large numbers of people.

They're a curse to everybody else, especially if your score is more than a standard deviation from the mean.

I was tested when I was 8 years old, and managed a score of 156 because I was a precocious and voracious reader, and that damned number still haunts me today.

@starbreaker @Morgane @a_breakin_glass You make a fantastic point!! The test was originally designed by people who had racist means in mind and was designed to benefit society as a whole, so it being a boon to capitalists doesn't surprise me much. :/

@ayachan @a_breakin_glass @Morgane

It's also child abuse when children are subjected to IQ testing and the results shared with their parents.

If the kid being tested turns out to be an outlier, it warps everybody's expectations of what they can do.

If a kid's IQ is especially low, their parents assume they're disabled.

If a kid's IQ is especially high, they doesn't get to have a childhood because their parents think the kid's "too smart" for that.

@starbreaker @Morgane @a_breakin_glass

You know, I'm not sure I have anything to add to this outside of "wow, you make an amazing point that I've never thought of before!!"

Keep on being amazing. ^_^

@ayachan @a_breakin_glass @Morgane

Thanks. I'm talking from personal experience here. My parents thought I'd be the second coming of Albert Einstein.

Instead, I'm just a long-haired metalhead with delusions of eruditon.

"If only he'd apply himself," they said. But none of them ever asked me what I wanted.

Probably just as well. They wouldn't have liked the answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRwrg0db_zY

@starbreaker @ayachan @Morgane the phase 'apply themself' seems rather...capitalist.

@Morgane @ayachan @starbreaker every person has to have an application, to make themselves useful, or else they're worthless.

@starbreaker @ayachan @Morgane this idea is implicit in the hate of welfare recipients, the homeless, the unemployed, and anyone else who cannot make themselves employable or 'productive' within the system of capitalism for whatever reason

@a_breakin_glass @starbreaker @Morgane Precisely!! And these are the people who are targeted by the IQ test the most...and (surprise, surprise) the ones who get the lowest scores aren't white. -_-

@ayachan @a_breakin_glass @starbreaker @Morgane But the same criticism isn't levelled at the idle rich, who don't "apply themselves" but since they have money don't have to in a capitalist system. It's a double standard.