Once you hit about a 20-point IQ gap, communication starts to completely break down.
It's not that the lower IQ person is "stupid" (although that can often be the case) or the higher one is arrogant, it's that you're literally operating on different systems.
A 20 point difference (roughly 1.3 standard deviations) means:
Vocabulary and abstraction levels diverge sharply. What feels like crystal clear logic to one side sounds like vague, pretentious word salad to the other. Jokes land flat. Metaphors get taken literally. Complex cause and effect chains get simplified into "this good, that bad."
Different time horizons and pattern recognition. One person thinks in months or years and sees systems, the other is locked into days or immediate rewards. Trying to explain second order effects feels like speaking another language.
Also, processing speed and working memory gaps. The higher IQ person is already three steps ahead, getting impatient. The lower IQ person feels talked down to or overwhelmed.
Both walk away frustrated.
Both have wasted each others time.
Corrígeme si me equivoco, pero este año cumplo 38 y me he dado cuenta de que, como hombre, a nadie le importas. Ni a tu esposa. Ni a tu familia. Ni a tus amigos. Ni a tus compañeros de trabajo. A nadie. La gente actúa como si les importara, pero en el fondo, no es así. Estás solo. Siempre solo.
JACK KEROUAC died hating the beatniks, supporting NIXON and America. His legacy has been hijacked by leftist professors who try to paint him as an anti-American hippie. Read ALL of his work, ALL of his interviews.
@davidmarcus I left PayPal in 2014, too. Was fun while it lasted.
The BML “reverse-acquisition”, as the BML people liked to call it, was the beginning of the end.