IQ, while not unimportant, is kind of overrated.

Some claim that IQ correlates positively with certain life outcomes like salaries, health, even happiness. I doubt it. Geniuses of the past, whose IQs most likely would have been quite high—websites claiming to know the IQ of Goethe et al are lying—often enough were not healthy, died rather young. Certainly, they lived during times where living standards were lower, yet old age existed back then, too. Such men, true geniuses, are very rare anyway. Anecdotal evidence is all we have here; today, no geniuses exist anymore.

When it comes to both salary and happiness, Nils M. Holm already called that into question, writing about people with IQs above 145 who struggle in life.

Christopher Langan did so as well. In his interview with Curt Jaimungal (around 2:00:20), Chris Langan said that there is more to intelligence than IQ alone, also citing Feynman’s IQ of around 125. In older interviews, too, he said he is more interested in someone’s work, his depth as a thinker and so on than IQ alone.

Further, and this is the point I wanted to write about, it does not mean one is always right and correct. While Vox Day indeed said that we ought to question his views, too, that he does not agree one hundred percent with people he values either and so on, he does highlight his 150 IQ quite often.

Though what does this mean? When it comes to marriage and procreation, Langan, who has an IQ of around 195-210, would not accept Vox Day’s over-the-top rhetoric either. After all, Langan does not have children, did not have much money, and is in favor of eugenics, a topic too hot to handle for Vox Day (even though he knows it is true.)

Gómez Dávila is not impressed:

A high “intelligence quotient” is indication of distinguished mediocrity.

It is fine to demand that the imbecile respect arts, letters, philosophy, the sciences, but let him respect them in silence.