The potential of society to allow its’ brightest to flourish, then reap the benefits.
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With all due respect to your friendship with Rick, I listened to the interview and as a woman was intensely creeped out by the notion that high school couldn’t be completed without “scoring” and he had to keep going until he felt he was successful.
I’m sure he’s a bright guy, but as others have mentioned it probably isn’t wise to attach too much significance to IQ tests.
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yeah, srsly. repeating high school until you’re satisfied with the results is why they invented Williamsburg.
ba-dum-pish!
Monkey’s paw. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want my life or my brain, IQ or no. But to be perfectly fair, I probably would be dead if I hadn’t been quick enough mentally at critical times.
I don’t know, some people’s suicide is a mercy to everyone around them, frankly. It’s not a nice thing to say, but some people really are so horrible to everyone around them that whatever “potential” they had was probably worse than any grief the unfortunate folks who know them will face. Everyone has “potential” so much so that it’s kind of a meaningless thing to say. Anyway, no, actually… no one owes you their life lived or not, and it’s not really up to me to say what anyone’s potential is. It’s sad if a person was miserable enough to kill themselves, but it doesn’t really mean anything other than that the people around them may suffer pain. It’s definitely sad to make other people go through that pain, but it isn’t the same as not living up to your “potential” really. It certainly isn’t going to bother the dead person, so it’s not like they are going to be sitting around thinking about how much of a better life they could have had. I really don’t buy into that positive thinking stuff, besides what does it say then when people’s “potential” is cut off? If they have an accident and their body is damaged to such an extent that they can’t move, is their former potential now wasted, just changed, does it matter less now? How about a stroke… is that sad because of potential or because it causes pain and suffering. Me, I’d go with pain and suffering. It’s sad because it causes pain and suffering. So does worrying about one’s potential. It’s entirely shitty to suggest the rest of the person’s life is just a wash compared to their “potential” after all.
As for suicide again, it’s entirely possible a suicidal person’s life really is only full of more misery and pain. It’s not impossible that it’s untrue either, but in my experience, to stay alive through a suicidal period you have to be willing to be very uncertain. Death, after all, is at least certain.
As for the idea of potential itself, unless you are talking about your own potential, typically what people are really talking about utility: how much use can be derived from this person. You’re basically saying “people could have used you more!” Which is not exactly cruel, since society functions because people serve each other… but it isn’t much of an argument for making people do anything, since no one can actually determine what another person’s potential really is apart from some whinging when they think some one hasn’t done enough to deserve… whatever it is (their own life, I guess?) No one else knows your own potential. So it’s up to no one but one’s self to decide that.
Put another way: would you say that some one who is intellectually challenged has less potential? If so, why? Does that make their actual life worth less? I can’t make myself ok with that thought, or any of the thoughts that seem to come from this ranking of value based on some abstract externally determined estimation of worth.
Your genius friend Rick Rosner wrote for Remote Control when I was a contestant. That’s hilarious.
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I’m not sure but I think you’re just about to invent the Scouts.
And sometimes its the incredibly tragic death of well loved young adults with their whole lives ahead of them. Not sure what your point is here, but its coming across as pretty fucking cold.
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I recommend people look up the non-conventional IQ tests that this guy has taken. They are kind of hilarious.
My favorite on that page is called “Gödel”, and under the grading part, it says: “Will be graded after 30 entries. This is because the answers will be derived from the submissions!” It also says, “Sometimes the answer is not directly related to the clues, sometimes it is.”
Hahahahahaha!
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Very creepy. If he had really wanted the ‘high school experience’ to continue after his first graduation, he should’ve just gone to his local community college, or followed the biggest chunk of his classmates to whatever university they went to and joined a frat. Blech.
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Count me in the group that kind of feels sorry for your friend. I can understand wanting to do high school over–I’ve thought about what I’d do differently myself, knowing what I know–but that’s a far cry from voluntarily spending an extra decade or so in it, which to me sounds like a working definition of hell (or at least purgatory). And the thing with the IQ tests… look, I did very well on one when I was a kid, but that didn’t tell me what I should do with all that potential, and to find out the answer to that question, I had to go out and live my life, by which I don’t mean a) stay in high school until the other kids probably all thought I was the resident narc, b) spend another several years of my life in a vendetta against a quiz show, or c) keep taking obscure IQ tests until I scored really high on one and then base my personal identity around it. I know that this sounds really negative; just trying to be honest here.
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Probably too late, but I’d dearly love to get a look at the list of those supplements he takes.
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