Trump

[Sid Belzberg]

Re: Trump

Oh dear....I think you mean libel, lol! More silly work......

Interestingly Ben also used the term slander incorrectly earlier in this thread, you know, the guy with the perfect score in LSATs who apparently is now starting his career as a lawyer for the oppressed in Kansas. Looks like his LSAT score and his law degree and .50 cents might buy you a cup of coffee.

[Fred Harvey]

Re: Trump

All he's done is increase his culpability for slander.

Oh dear....I think you mean libel, lol! More silly work......

[Mavros Whissell]

Re: Trump

As a disinterested observer, I would say he's done a pretty good job of calling you out as a rather nasty racist!

All he's done is increase his culpability for slander.

[Sid Belzberg]

Re: Trump

...says the guy who was goaded into wasting an hour writing online IQ tests.

Whatever, you said you were going to write them also when I told you it took me twenty maybe twenty five minutes, not an hour, shit for brains. :)

[Fred Harvey]

Re: Trump

Hilarious!

There is an even bigger waste of time lurking on this site: clicking on the name "Ben Daswani" in any thread.

As a disinterested observer, I would say he's done a pretty good job of calling you out as a rather nasty racist!

[Mavros Whissell]

Re: Trump

Hilarious!

There is an even bigger waste of time lurking on this site: clicking on the name "Ben Daswani" in any thread.

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Trump

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gop-cong...o-health-care/

"Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care." -- some conservative "thinker"

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Trump

Get a life man!

...says the guy who was goaded into wasting an hour writing online IQ tests.

[Sid Belzberg]

Re: Trump

First of all, I will second your opinion Sid that an ability to see patterns outside the norm isn't a definitive measure of intelligence, although it is a good quality to have. It can certainly lead to great success in many fields, even technical fields.

But secondly, I have news for you about the specific question you mention above. Both you and Mensa apparently have it wrong.

You see, the capital letter K in most fonts is NOT vertically symmetrical. If you flip it upside down in most fonts, it does NOT look the same. That breaks the whole question.

( The question read:

What letter is in the two cells marked * ?

M I X A Y O *
D C O X K I *

The choices were A, H, C, D, E, F or "I don't know". The correct answer, as evidenced by Sid getting 30/30, is "H". But the logic is faulty and makes the whole question faulty.

And by the way, the whole test is also faulty because one isn't told whether an answer of "I don't know" can be the correct answer, or is in fact any different from answering with a wrong choice. )

I took a screen shot of this post as I was writing it, because in the font used here, the capital letter K looks vertically symmetrical. But I pasted it into a paint program, isolate the letter K, enlarged it many times, and.... it is not vertically symmetrical. It appears to be so on the screen at normal size, but when enlarged, there is a very slight discrepancy. I did the same thing with the font used in the online Mensa test. Same result: vertically asymmetrical, even more noticeable than with the font used here.

Mensa didn't think about this. I did think about it as soon as I saw the letter K used in the question.

So does that make me "more intelligent" because I noticed it? No, that's not my point. My point is that even Mensa can distort the meaning of intelligence.

And in another aspect of the same topic, I don't think chess comes close to completely measuring intelligence. Poker involves many skills that don't even come into play in chess, and those skills are also part of overall intelligence.

Everyone talks about getting chess into school programs because of its benefits in developing young minds.... true enough. But poker can also teach skills that chess falls woefully short on.... skills that have much importance in the business world. Life is full of probabilities, and chess teaches virtually nothing on that, but poker is all about managing probabilities and risks with limited resources in a world where every move or play has very uncertain results.

Despite this, I don't think we will ever see poker as part of a school program. And yet if we did, I would bet.... indeed, I'd go "all in".... that we would produce more and better entrepreneurs as a result.


Addendum: I just realized that in the Mensa question I've mentioned, the capital letter Y is not horizontally symmetrical in many fonts. Here in this font, it looks like it may be, but in many fonts, capital Y is using a slanted upwards line met by a slanted downwards line -- not horizontally symmetrical.

I wrote two online tests in an attempt to get a good sample of where I stood on this type of test before considering Ben's challenge. The question above was not on the Mensa Workout Quiz so that had nothing to do with getting 30 out of 30 on their quiz. The question was on the other test I sampled (that I am very sure I also got 100 percent on) and was the only question on that test that I found even remotely interesting. So Mensa did not get anything wrong. I gave fair warning to Ben that he would be wasting a thousand dollars with this stupid challenge. The only test I would do for Ben's challenge would be the IQ test that Mensa has its new member applicants take. I would not take the LSATs GMAT's or any other test. The fact that you had to magnify the font to see if it is truly symmetrical is a ridiculous exercise in splitting hairs. Get a life man!

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Trump

On the Mensa Test about 1/3 of my time was spent finding the word Banalities. That was about the only thing in that test that was really hard. The other test had two rows of letters where the top row of letters shared an attribute that if you turned the letters around sideways they looked the same and the bottom row of letters had an attribute that if you turned the letters upside down they were the same. You were then asked to find the next letter that would work for both rows. That question took me a while and then I noticed that the choice H shared both these attributes. I suspect that would be the only one you would have got wrong. About the only thing the tests prove is one's ability to look for patterns that might be outside of the norm. In my view that does not signify much at all.
...

First of all, I will second your opinion Sid that an ability to see patterns outside the norm isn't a definitive measure of intelligence, although it is a good quality to have. It can certainly lead to great success in many fields, even technical fields.

But secondly, I have news for you about the specific question you mention above. Both you and Mensa apparently have it wrong.

You see, the capital letter K in most fonts is NOT vertically symmetrical. If you flip it upside down in most fonts, it does NOT look the same. That breaks the whole question.

( The question read:

What letter is in the two cells marked * ?

M I X A Y O *
D C O X K I *

The choices were A, H, C, D, E, F or "I don't know". The correct answer, as evidenced by Sid getting 30/30, is "H". But the logic is faulty and makes the whole question faulty.

And by the way, the whole test is also faulty because one isn't told whether an answer of "I don't know" can be the correct answer, or is in fact any different from answering with a wrong choice. )

I took a screen shot of this post as I was writing it, because in the font used here, the capital letter K looks vertically symmetrical. But I pasted it into a paint program, isolate the letter K, enlarged it many times, and.... it is not vertically symmetrical. It appears to be so on the screen at normal size, but when enlarged, there is a very slight discrepancy. I did the same thing with the font used in the online Mensa test. Same result: vertically asymmetrical, even more noticeable than with the font used here.

Mensa didn't think about this. I did think about it as soon as I saw the letter K used in the question.

So does that make me "more intelligent" because I noticed it? No, that's not my point. My point is that even Mensa can distort the meaning of intelligence.

And in another aspect of the same topic, I don't think chess comes close to completely measuring intelligence. Poker involves many skills that don't even come into play in chess, and those skills are also part of overall intelligence.

Everyone talks about getting chess into school programs because of its benefits in developing young minds.... true enough. But poker can also teach skills that chess falls woefully short on.... skills that have much importance in the business world. Life is full of probabilities, and chess teaches virtually nothing on that, but poker is all about managing probabilities and risks with limited resources in a world where every move or play has very uncertain results.

Despite this, I don't think we will ever see poker as part of a school program. And yet if we did, I would bet.... indeed, I'd go "all in".... that we would produce more and better entrepreneurs as a result.


Addendum: I just realized that in the Mensa question I've mentioned, the capital letter Y is not horizontally symmetrical in many fonts. Here in this font, it looks like it may be, but in many fonts, capital Y is using a slanted upwards line met by a slanted downwards line -- not horizontally symmetrical.

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Trump

Good luck in Chicago.

Thanks! I'm actually about to move to Kansas City for a job with a wrongful convictions non-profit. Very excited. Thrilled to finally have the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is and start fighting for social justice.

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Trump

Before proceeding down this path of his choosing it would probably make sense to insist that he rewrite these tests as they only provide a standardized score to compare the pool of current test takers.

Of course I'd rewrite the test. That's the whole premise of the bet. We'll write the exact same test. That means we'd both sit for, say, the June LSAT. We'd write the exact same test.

Did any of the non-dummies have trouble gathering that or was it just these two conservative "scholars" over here.

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Trump

In today's edition of "Belzberg Can't Read"...

All well and good except that you gave me this long story about the GMAT and LSAT being a better test and that testing facilities were more widely available for this particular test.This was simply an attempt to con me into entering an unwinnable bet.

No, I said the LSAT was a better test than the GMAT. I said nothing about the quality of the tests relative to other IQ tests.

Additionally, I said the only tests I know of where they issue the same test in multiple testing sites are the LSAT and the GMAT. This is simply a fact. Those are the only two I know of. Are there others? You haven't mentioned any. Understand that I'm talking about writing the exact same test simultaneously in different cities, not simply writing the same type of test simultaneously in different cities.

But most importantly, trying to con you? I admitted my bias up front.

I'm admittedly biased

Sorry that I only passively mentioned my bias and didn't spell it out for you like you were a stupid child. In the future I'll treat you how I would a stupid child. Happy now?

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Trump

Don't bother with the sample IQ tests, I have no interest into entering into a wager with a con artist.

OPR. Only now, at the end, do you understand ...

He says in love and war all is fair
But he's got cards he ain't showing- ISLEY BROTHERS "Sunshine"

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Trump

I know a young woman in New York who scored perfect on her GMAT's and she now makes a very nice living tutoring kids in practicing this test who did not do well on it. All of the kids she tutored scored near perfect on these tests so it shows that with practice one can do well on these tests and again does not signify anything at all.

I recall studying how to take multiple choice tests particularly standardized tests where the various sub-variant question types were analyzed. At the time it was possible to use a variety of these techniques to reduce questions to a fifty percent probability even where you had no idea about the subject matter. I recall testing these assertions against questions about books I had not read for example and found that these techniques did in fact work. For a test like the GMAT there is almost no excuse with adequate prep time to not be familiar with the subject matter of the tests and types of questions.

Recent research has shown that almost any skill can be achieved with "mindful learning" and practice. The idea of inate talent is baloney.

I would respectfully disagree though possibly innate talent is not as important as the ability for deliberate practice.

One of the more famous experiments was where a student was selected at random in a population of volunteers for the following test. He was asked to repeat back seven digits rapidly spoken out. The number was then increased to eight. If he was successful in that then nine were spoken out. When the subject was out of his comfort zone (say nine digits) they then went back to eight digits and only went back to nine when ti was clear he was ok with eight. After a year of this process he could repeat back 82(!) digits spoken to him. He did not display any particular talent for this before the test and they also later on found that anyone could do this.

People are certainly capable of many things with the right practice and by utilizing altered states of consciousness.

The same is true of chess, with proper techniques in mindful learning one can indeed improve.

I think it is probably possible to reach 2400 without any reference to innate talent if you study the right things. Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) techniques promise as much. NLP itself simply appropriates the ideas from many different disciplines including the techniques of world class therapists and educators. I do think that talent does play some role. There is something more going on in the people who reach 2800 FIDE versus those who reach 2400 FIDE.

So a higher rating simply proves that you have more patterns that you have stored away. Basically ten minutes of mindful practice is more important then two hours of mindless practice. So for example if i were to attempt Ben's challenge of the GMAT i would probably enlist the young women in New York to train me.

I would also suggest investing in some practice test books which you can find in every bookstore.

I would assume Ben's score was perfect ( he chided Vlad for having a less then perfect score)

Trolls have been known to be less than truthful. I tend to be agnostic when people ask me to believe without evidence that they are the second coming of Albert Einstein without any evidence and particularly when their writings and logical leaps indicate some deficits in their reasoning ability and confused thinking possibly attributable to toxoplasma gondii. He reminds me a great deal of a person who I once knew, a very sad case.

so the bet would be a complete waste of time as the best outcome is break even.

Why would you with all your accomplishments need to waste the time to prove anything to a Chesstalk troll? Even if you were willing to accept the premise that his hardware was superior as you seem to be implying clearly the software he is running is nowhere close to yours.

I suspect that is why he wanted GMAT or LSAT instead of an IQ test.

He is seeking advantage from his sunk costs. Before proceeding down this path of his choosing it would probably make sense to insist that he rewrite these tests as they only provide a standardized score to compare the pool of current test takers. Obviously it is easier today to stand out from the fuzzy thinkers today in comparison to those who would have written the tests a generation or two ago. Educational standards have certainly fallen in the interim.

The IQ test would also be a waste of time albeit I would be interested to know what score I would need to beat before considering such a bet. Information that Ben has not yet disclosed. In any event Ben has been claiming how he is so much smarter then the rest of us and I find that to be obnoxious.

That is precisely his intent, to be obnoxious. If you want to understand him you could have spent years on usenet battling trolls or you could spend a few minutes watching this season of South Park which has a running theme about internet trolls.

I also find his statement that he is an Atheist but "he does not believe in the non existance of a God" to fall under the definition of agnostic.

Its hard to use words that he does not understand.

In my opinion if the only value one place's on someone is how well they have learned to write a test or play a game of chess then they have missed the boat when it comes to life.

The big point of being a chess player, is that you realize that life is pretty pointless. It doesn’t have a purpose. - Nigel Short