Essentially, the problem here is that there's no single definition of IQ. Every individual IQ test produces a raw score, which is then normed according to a particular population to yield the bell-curved IQ score; for example, every couple decades they release a new edition of the Wechsler test, calibrated against a large sample of Americans chosen to resemble the American population statistically according to the census. Theoretically, this test can be used anywhere in the world, and has been, but the norming is considered statistically valid only for Americans; it gets adapted for use in other countries, and, for general within-nation measurement purposes, those adaptations would be normed to the target population. There's even a Canadian adaptation of the WAIS-4, but seemingly not one of 5 yet as far as I could tell. So, every individual test has its own IQ scores and IQ scores are not really even comparable between tests, just correlated. There are, then, individual national tests with scores normed to a reference sample for that nation, as well as international tests with scores normed to some reference sample meant for everyone. Meanwhile, "national IQ scores" generally aren't even real test results, just estimates based on proxies, like rusty said.WhiteShark wrote: ↑ April 22nd, 2026, 00:33If it were defined per population, how could Nigeria have recently found its average IQ to be sub-70?
Atlantico's mistake is thinking that the tests are getting normed per population every time they're used, so he thinks that, if you gave an IQ test to RPGHQ users, the average IQ on RPGHQ would be 100 and if you shot the dumbest members, everyone else's scores would have to go down to make the mean 100 again. That's simply not how it works.
Now, you could make an RPGHQ test normed to RPGHQ if you really wanted for some reason, but then it would stay normed. They don't keep re-adjusting it every time new results come in. Now, if you kept that up long enough to administer a second edition of the test to the next generation of RPGHQ, you would have a Flynn effect caused by shooting all the dumbest members, so the 2nd edition reference population would have higher raw scores and each given raw score would be normed to a lower IQ score to maintain the bell curve... but that also means the test would no longer be considered statistically valid on the older cohort.
More likely, of course, you wouldn't bother making an RPGHQ test and would just give everyone an international test like Raven's. (Or you could give everyone a standard American test, since all members are legally American.) Then you would get scores according to that test's norm and the RPGHQ results would most likely diverge from the standard mean of 100 and SD of 15, since RPGHQ is a highly specific subpopulation.
So, Atlantico is right that IQ is "not an INT score", setting aside how gay a thing to say that is; but he's so waist-deep in his smug self-satisfaction that he doesn't even realize that nobody said it was. I wouldn't even be surprised if he actually knows that IQ test aren't continuously normed like he implied, and didn't realize that's what he said. IMO it's probably just midwit "ackshully" behavior: he wants to feel like he knows something other people don't, so he pattern-matches what everyone else said to the "common misconception" he assumes he's fighting against, without bothering to check.
In summary: yes, obviously, as much as I hate the annoying crispy guy, if you gave RPGHQ members any existing IQ test, which already has a definite norm, and then blocked all the lowest-performing members, the average IQ score of RPGHQ according to that test would rise. Autistico only thinks otherwise because he's too far up his own ***.
You're the kind of tiresome poster who keeps having knee-jerk reactions to posts because you are offended. 
