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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

I realized that "Mensa" didn't contain enough numerals to be a phone number, and knew it must be understood that any future member would be able to figure out the next two digits in the sequence. I tried dialling MENSANE, MENSAIL, MENSAFE, and MENSAAB, but got three rebuffs and a fax tone.

From "How I Joined MENSA" by Steve Martin

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[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 23 hours ago

And yet it exists. Ego might seem like a pretty useless motivator, but it doesn't seems to anticorrelate with intelligence. If anything, it correlates, probably because when you're "the smart one" it becomes a vicious cycle pretty easily.

[-] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 2 points 18 hours ago

it exist, but it's like really small.

I'm theory, 2% of the world population is eligible (not that exclusive) yet they only have 50,000 members in the US, ie, 1.4 in every 10,000 people.

so the vast majority of "smart" people think the idea is cringe

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 hour ago

I mean, it is cringe. There's strong norms about modesty when it comes to intelligence for a reason.

So that comes out to 0.7% of eligible people. Honestly that's pitiful if it comes with discounts like other people are suggesting. Those meetings must be really obnoxious.

[-] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I want to believe, that the eligible people who join are mostly doing it because there's no way anyone would join, so they just want to know what tf is going on, then discover that everyone there had the same reason, then they go for a pint to talk how stupid and comical it is.

[-] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 2 points 22 hours ago

maybe there's a perfect point where you're smart enough to hit that 15% hotel discount

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Yeah, I'm reconsidering now that someone mentioned that. I'm not going to the meets, though, they get bad reviews for exactly this reason.

Edit: Uhh, looks like it's only the US Mensa? Maybe some of the other Mensa-like things have benefits beyond the "pleasure" of their company, I don't know.

this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
73 points (92.0% liked)

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