Not to dispute the veracity of that claim, but that I find terrifying. I work almost exclusively with scientists, programmers and engineers, and the idea that on average they make up the top 2% of the population in terms of (whatever it is that is measured by) IQ... If that's true I have to work much harder to stretch downward what I think of as "normal" human intellect.
Yes, indeed!
there is a tendency among high-IQ folks to underestimate how rare their abilities are. The way they do this is not by underestimating their own cognitive skills, but instead by overestimating those of most people.
In other words, what it feels like to be a genius is not that you're really smart, but rather that everyone else is really dumb.
Just a reminder that the July 12th Overcoming Bias / Less Wrong meetup in Santa Clara, CA @7pm will feature Robin Hanson, Michael Vassar, and the Singularity Institute summer interns. This meetup will also take place in a larger house - there should be plenty of room to mingle.