Here's an interesting question:
If there are a pill that will increase your IQ by 100 points, will you take it?
That would push your IQ into 200-300 range, making you the smartest human alive.
I would take it in a heartbeat, and I think most people will do the same.
What's not to like?
Upon some more thinking, I found that the cost might outweigh the benefit.
The Good:
You will have a much deeper understanding of the world. You will breeze through most of the stuff that normal people finds difficult.
The Bad:
You will lead a very abnormal life (by normal people standard.) It will be hard to find someone that has the same interest as you do. Most people will not understand you and might label you a madman.
The Ugly:
You can't talk to anyone openly. Being much smarter than the rest of the society, it's like you're living among chimpanzees.
People are social animal. We need to communicate. We need to be understood. We need to feel that we belong somewhere. And When we can't do that, we become a very unhappy person.
Here are some examples that support my point.
-
William James Sidis, an american child prodigy with 200+ IQ. He first became famous for his precociousness, and later got shunned from the public media. He avoided mathematics entirely in later life, and would only take work running adding machines
or other fairly menial tasks. Sidis died penniless
in Boston at the age of 46.
-
Theodore Kaczynski, A.K.A. "The Unabomber", is a Harvard graduates turned serial murderer
who carried out a campaign of
mail bombings that killed three and wounded 23. He sent bombs to several universities and airlines from the late 1970s through early 1990s. It is said that he has IQ in the range of 160-170.
There are also some movies and literature that reinforce my belief.
The famous ones are
Flower for Algernon and
Phenomenon.
However, there are also a lot of counter evidences. Many of the 180+ IQ individual seems to live very well in the normal society.(
See the Termites.) Another famous high-IQ person,
Marilyn Vos Savant, live a very normal (almost boring) life writing weekly magazine column.
After all these evidence, I would summarize as this:
Having extremely high IQ will not make you mad, but there is a extremely high chance that it will.
Update:
This article has some intriguing analysis of the 180+ IQ individuals [specifically the termites] and their social (mal-)adjustment.
Interesting Note: I noticed that there are no "genius" or nobel prize winner that has 180+ IQ. (only in 120-150 range) Why so?
