Mensa 75th anniversary special issue

and possibly much more. There are 39
countries with 20 members per million.
This does not include the really big countries
like Brazil, Pakistan, India, and others
with huge populations and relatively small
Mensa groups. If these 39 well established
Mensa groups alone were to have the same
number of members per capita as Hungary,
there would be close to half a million
members in the world. If they reach Swedish
density, that‘s 900 000 members. Add
the big countries, and two million members
does not seem so outlandish. In that light, a
meager 300 000 is certainly within the realm
of the possible.
And all these people will want to meet
across borders. Among our top priorities
right now is the creation of a unified international
member database, something
you‘d be surprised to learn does not currently
exist. Data privacy laws, inadequate
technology and organisational inertia has
made this necessity harder to achieve than
it should be. Getting an easy and automatic
way of verifying membership internationally
will speed up a lot of things.
Remote future:
three core themes
The purpose of Mensa is becoming clearer
too. Why should there be Mensa at all? The
social club is our base, but the voice of Mensa
advocating support for gifted children
and indeed highlighting the value of intelligence
itself gives a deeper layer of meaning.
This is what we must build on to last another
75 years.
For our long-term future, there are three
key factors to watch:
The first and most crucial is how intelligence
and IQ research will progress. The
scientific consensus on how intelligence
should be measured sets the boundaries
for Mensa. We don‘t have our own definitions,
that is why we work with psychologists
to ensure proper testing standards. These
standards have to work in a greater context,
however. Will society treat intelligence as a
fact of nature, to be explored by scientists –
or will it become a social taboo to be avoided
in polite conversation?
Mensa is famously non-political but what
should we do if our defining topic is itself
politicized? We should stick to our plan, is
my answer. Mensa should keep supporting
quality research and shout loudly from the
rooftops why intelligence matters. If larger
forces of society are at play here then maybe
they will shape Mensa more than we can
hope to shape them. Still we should try, for
it is one of our constitutional purposes: to
support research into the nature and characteristics
of intelligence.
The second key factor to watch is how human
social interactions will evolve as virtual
and actual reality blurs into a strange
new digital metaverse. Facebook has already
changed the world and Mensa along with
it; that was only the start. Will people still
want to go through the hassle of joining a
club with entrance criteria in the future?
After all, if one can find stimulating environments
online and hang out with smart
people without taking a test, why bother?
Because the best meetings still take place
in select circles. Mensa does not compete
against the social media companies – instead
we build on them to offer something
that isn‘t that easy to find elsewhere after
all. Speaking personally, I once joined Mensa
so I could have high quality conversations
with unusual people. What Mensa offers
is the experience of feeling understood
even when going off on obscure tangents.
My favorite PR slogan: „Join Mensa, we get
your jokes.”
24 | mind magazin sonderheft 75 jahre mensa | oktober 2021