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OrphanWilde comments on Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK? - Less Wrong
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Individual intelligence differences are NOT thought of as okay. Try introducing yourself on a random message board with each of these and see what happens:
Joe with the IQ of 170 will be called arrogant, a liar, an elitist, treated like a scam artist, or told he has no social skills. That's not telling Joe he's okay. That's telling Joe not to talk about his difference. Let's explore what it means to be told you can't talk about your difference for a moment. Imagine going into a room and saying each of the following:
^ This comment will surely be interpreted as racism.
^ This comment will be interpreted as an extremely rude or even oppressive comment. Making judgments about whether artists are "good" or "bad" is taboo and considered, by many, to be oppressive to self-expression.
^ This comment prejudges the person. It assumes that they're an elitist when they're just talking about an intellectual difference that doesn't prove anything about your personality.
So, why doesn't Joe get to have the same freedom to express himself without society oppressing that? Why doesn't he get to talk about his difference without expecting prejudiced remarks that jump to conclusions about who he is?
We have a million excuses for this. "People feel threatened by intellect." Well, they used to feel threatened by black people, but that doesn't excuse society from working on removing their prejudices about black people and it doesn't excuse them from working on removing their prejudices about gifted people.
"That's just not polite." <- This is an interesting excuse. I'll explain why:
Imagine you go into a room and say "Hi, I'm white." (I realize that people of any race may read this comment, I am asking you to humor my hypothetical situation for a moment.)
Your race is evident. This is a neutral statement of fact.
If someone tells you "That's just not polite." why are they saying that? They're probably confusing it with an expression of the white pride attitude that is associated with the KKK. They're assuming that you're prejudiced.
What if you went up to a bunch of random white people and accused them of hating black people? Since this doesn't happen frequently, they'd probably be mostly bewildered. But imagine if random people did that to them every day.
Prejudice is a very serious offense to be accused of. It would stress them out. They'd wonder what kinds of social and career opportunities they might be missing out on. They might become more cautious to guard their physical safety - after all, prejudice is the kind of thing people get really heated about and some people get violent when they're upset. They'd start to hide hints that they're white on things like resumes. They would be oppressed by an assumption that they're prejudiced, just the same way that they'd be oppressed by an assumption that they're all criminals.
Accusing a person of prejudice simply for being part of a certain group is, in and of itself, prejudiced. That's prejudging them based on some trait that they can't control, not on their behavior. Yet, if you claim to have a high IQ, you are very likely to be accused of elitism. People act like this prejudice against people with a high IQ is okay and that gifted people should behave like an oppressed minority by hiding their difference.
I'm glad you think it's okay with the rest of the world for people to talk about their intelligence differences, I think that's okay. But a looooooot of people don't!
The issue is more the circumstances that lead to talking about your IQ. In an argument about something else, it is almost certainly an appeal to authority, and should be avoided. Brought up out of the blue it -is- socially inept. A discussion which turns to IQ might be an appropriate place to bring it up. (I bring up my own exceptional IQ as an argument against elitism or eugenics, such as people who think low-IQ people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. "Do you want me applying the same standard you're applying to other people to you?" is a pretty effective argument when you're more standard deviations above the other person than they are over the people they think are too stupid to reproduce/make their own decisions.)
I agree that using IQ as an appeal to authority will draw negative attention, and that bringing it up in order to use yourself as an example of a smart person who isn't elitist would probably go over very well. But those examples are black and white. You're not making distinctions outside the black and white "easy to interpret" areas where people begin to behave funny, so, in effect, you're ignoring the problem I presented.
As for your "out of nowhere" comment, what would they do if I said "I'm a woman." out of nowhere? What if I said "I'm African-American." If they don't react in a negative way to those, but they DO react in a negative way when IQ is brought up, that says something. Why do they react to it negatively, instead of neutrally, when there is no context in which to interpret?
They would assume you have a reason for bringing those things up. (Or, if they couldn't find one, assume you were a bit daft.)
What reason would you have, in their model of you, for bringing up your IQ? None of them are good.
Judgments often made about IQ statements:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/kk/why_are_individual_iq_differences_ok/76x6
I think you were asking "What do I think they think?" - your wording felt a bit tricky to interpret.
It's worse then that: What do you think they think you are thinking?
People generally assume purpose, correctly or incorrectly. If you bring up your IQ, your audience is going to ask themselves -why- you are bringing up your IQ. And they're unlikely to find any good reasons, which leave only the bad.
(Not to mention that most people who bring up IQ -are- socially inept, precisely because of social policies against bringing up IQ. It's unfortunately a stable equilibrium. You'd need a popular movement to change the social mores there, and I don't think most people are going to care enough to get involved in it, compared to the other social problems our society faces.)