>For what it's worth, I don't actually think IQ is a canonical measure of intelligence, and the narrative people have of "being stupid" is often driven by society valuing certain kinds of intelligence more than others.
Not only IQ is correlated with every positive prosocial behavior we, in general, value but every seemingly disparate form of intelligence is correlated to the others so we can, in fact, talk about a single form of intelligence that manifest in different form (generally named "g factor"). This is just the inherent unfairness of life. I wish it wasn't true and only your hard-work would matter, but it doesn't.
This is actually what made it so disturbing to me. I think people with high g factor are innately advantaged by no merit of their own. According to my personal philosophy, I’d say these people (assuming they experience inordinate success in life in a career which leverages features of high g factor) are obligated to some degree to use that ability to uplift other people who struggle due to low g factor.
After some consideration I was left with the sense that I’d squandered something because I was too busy mired in egoism, navel gazing, insecurity, and helplessness driven by the sense that I’m less fortunate. And yet I’ve had a lot of good fortune which clearly stemmed from mental characteristics I believed I didn’t have.
I suppose I always felt like such an imposter. As though I was only ever hours or days away from being found out, then being relegated to a life more suited to someone as incompetent as I was.
Now I try to be less self absorbed and think more about what I can do for other people — people who can’t thrive in a technology-driven world due to innate disabilities, for example. Statistically it’s known that this is a staggering portion of our population, and these people deserve to get as much out of life as anyone. Living in poverty because you can’t understand how to apply for a job online, perform many basic jobs, navigate state or provincial websites to obtain disability assistance, or manage personal finances and so on is such an egregious offence to humanity in my mind.
In summary, I should have spent less time feeling sorry for myself and more time helping people with real problems.
I suspect I will never manage to meaningfully help people more than I would have when I thought I was stupid. I believed in pro social behaviour before the test. For that reason I’m not sure it helped me to see the IQ score.
Not only IQ is correlated with every positive prosocial behavior we, in general, value but every seemingly disparate form of intelligence is correlated to the others so we can, in fact, talk about a single form of intelligence that manifest in different form (generally named "g factor"). This is just the inherent unfairness of life. I wish it wasn't true and only your hard-work would matter, but it doesn't.