Whether Mensa is worth joining is sometimes asked on this board. Maybe in-person or online discussion groups for intellectual topics are more worthwhile. People who show up for discussions of literature or philosophy will tend to be high-IQ. The Rationalist community of
Slate Star Codex looks interesting.
Mensa�s Debate: Deep Thinking or Games and Drinking?By Ira Iosebashvili
Wall Street Journal
January 1, 2019
At a hotel on the outskirts of Cincinnati, members of a closed society dedicated to the highly intelligent gathered for their yearly meeting. On the agenda was a test for fresh aspirants and a discussion of submarine warfare techniques. There were also hours spent playing the game Exploding Kittens and consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol.
Despite Mensa�s reputation as a club for brainiacs, some are increasingly worried that discussions of highfalutin subjects are giving way to frivolity such as gaming sessions, cheese samplings and craft beers.
�They are wonderful, loving, playful people,� said Chris Harrison, a 38-year-old project manager and opera singer, of the North Texas chapter he joined several years ago. �They also drink more than anyone I�ve ever seen.�
Plenty of members are fine with the booze and board games, which have become as much of the seven-decade-old organization�s identity as its difficult admissions exam and the �hug dot� stickers Mensans sport at gatherings to indicate their hugging preference (Green = hug me! Red = don�t hug me! Yellow = ask first).
Others, however, grouse that the partying deviates from the group�s mission to �foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity.� While being a part of Mensa has never exactly been cool, some worry the organization is losing the cultural cachet that made it a household name when membership exploded in the 1970s and �80s. Membership in American Mensa fell to a 15-year low of 52,364 in 2018. Millennials make up around 13% of the club. Only a third of its members are women.
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Timi Olotu, a 30-year-old growth marketer from London, has also found a divide on frivolity in the U.K., where the organization was founded. He joined Mensa last year hoping to meet other technology entrepreneurs but found a roster that appeared to be full of �old folks from the countryside� discussing chess, backgammon and Go. He did meet a fellow techie in the organization a few months later, however, and the two soon founded a startup.
Lately, Mr. Olotu has warmed to the organization and enjoys online discussions on technology and cognitive function with his fellow Mensans.
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