Quote of the Day
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.
Jøhnathan @Heavenly_Race_
Posted on X May 25, 2026
While interesting I’m not convinced it is entirely true.
I would have expected the disconnect depending as much or more on where people are on the curve than the difference in IQ between the two. A conversation between 90 / 110 IQ people would not have the same type of disconnections as one between a 140 / 160 pair. Am I wrong?
… Later
I had this in the queue to be published and later decided to ask some AI’s.
I got universal agreement:
That’s… significant overstatement. That level of difficulty is more like 40-60 points, in my experience.
Somewhere around… I don’t know, 80-100 points or so, it actually gets easier. It feels like talking to a child, where it’s easier to remember to keep low expectations and treat them kindly. At least as long as they aren’t violent.
Before the question even has relevance, you have to figure out whether IQ is a meaningful number, and if so, what that meaning is. There’s been a lot written over the past 30 years debunking IQ as a measure of cognitive function. Most of that has centered around studies regarding how people think differently. This had already been recognized – back in the 80’s, there were different tests organized around spatial vs. verbal thinking. Turns out, measuring intelligence is tricky.
You might also want to see where 90, 110, 140, and 160 are located on the bell curve of human intelligence. Note the difference along the “intelligence” axis. I don’t know if this tells you anything, because I don’t know whether IQ numbers are supposedly linear.
Both Mensa and Intertel ignore the IQ numbers. The standard they use is, “at or above the nth percentile”, n = 98th and 99th, respectively, on an IQ test. Even that measure isn’t quite right, as IQ tests are normalized against specific populations. Some use what is thought to be very general, while others, e.g. Miller’s Analogy (if I’m remembering correctly), are standardized against a higher intelligence cohort. I don’t know whether, or how, Mensa or Intertel make adjustments in their acceptance criteria, based on which test is used. IIRC, they don’t accept any / all IQ test results.
I was a member of both Mensa and Intertel, and between those two groups, interacted with a fairly broad range. It was pretty obvious to me that some had just barely squeeked in, while others were way out there on the top end. But I never had any trouble conversing with any of them, especially as compared against the general population. I therefore agree, in principle, with Deoxy – it’d take a larger difference.
But, there are other factors to consider when it comes to ability to carry on a useful conversation, so I wouldn’t pin it solely on IQ.
I saw a bumber sticker yesterday stating that autism is a different operating system.
” There’s been a lot written over the past 30 years debunking IQ as a measure of cognitive function.”
IQ is clearly and obviously a measure of cognitive function. In what way would you possibly say it isn’t? What else would you call it?
Now, that’s not to say that it’s a PERFECT measure of cognitive function, or a sufficient measure, or a thorough measure, or even a good measure.
From what I’ve seen, it does measure some significant portions of cognitive function, AND the parts it measures are particularly useful in certain parts of our society. As such, it’s a fairly useful measure in several ways.
“Most of that has centered around studies regarding how people think differently. … Turns out, measuring intelligence is tricky.”
Both of those things are true and very good points. IQ measurement is imperfect AND even if it was perfect at measuring what it seeks to measure, what it seeks to measure is not all there is to intelligence.
It is still quite useful for many things… as long as it is not overemphasized (which people do easily, of course).
The ability to communicate between disparate intellects depends to a large extent on the ability of the high IQ person to “step down” and work in the world of the low IQ person since it’s simply not possible for it to happen the other way. Some people can and some can’t. And not all concepts can be discussed between the two levels.
That’s exactly right. I don’t doubt it is a bit more difficult to communicate well in such situations, but it is absolutely possible. I learned this from my father, a university professor who talked all the time with people of all levels. My wife commented about how he got along with a brother in law of hers who she viewed as quite dumb. And my mother was always amazed (or annoyed, she wasn’t as open minded) when my father talked to blue collar staff as equals, or to our housekeeper, or people like that.
By the way, the observation in the “claim” was expressed more succinctly by Robert Heinlein, probably in “Starship Troopers”, as an observation about soldiers and sergeants.
Ability AND willingness to adapt their speech until there is communication. If the HighIQ person just wants to bloviate and lecture it will be noise on the other side, but the speaker doesn’t care, they just want to run their mouth. Now, sometimes the concepts being communicated are absolutely foreign to the listener but that is a cultural issue as much as an IQ mismatch.
The studies I’ve seen put communication as impossible at 2SD difference (about 30 points). It correlates well with the average Fortune 500 CEO being in the 125-135 range, because they can talk to most of the experts AND the 105 midwits that run management, and the midwit can do management because they can communicate effectively with the lower skill double digit folks.
Yes, I’ve heard a lot more about the 30-pt com gap than a 20-pt.
And your reference to CEO IQs is similar to what I’ve heard about the average IQ for university profs; reach most students, also the really big-brain egg-heads.
As a teacher, I see and have to communicate with all types. When they start getting much below what I’d estimate the 90-IQ range or so, it gets really hard to communicate anything more than simple ideas, which can be frustrating when trying to teach algebra and every day you have to explain, again, “yes, area is pi*r^2, not pi*r*2. Squaring and multiplying by two are different operations.”
Most of the communication difficulties I’ve seen and experienced have little to do with IQ and a lot to do with what each party in the conversation believes to be the “Truth” about what is being discussed. The closer their beliefs about the subjec align, the easier their communication will be. The further apart it is, the more likely the communication will fail. There is also a relationship to how central the particular “Truth” is to a person’s world view. The more central, the harder it is for them to discuss anything that contradicts it.
Part of the problem may be that people with very different IQs will have a very different concept of truth and related nuance, because low IQ doesn’t handle subtle concepts and variations well. Communism is attractive to low-IQ sorts for a reason.
How do you explain the prevalence of communism among the professors? There are a lot of very smart people whothink differently from other very smart people. IQ difference is not the MAIN problem.
This is speculation on my part, but professors’ products do not have to compete in the marketplace like electricians, truck drivers, clerks, and others in the real world. If their ideas fail when confronted with reality, they don’t pay a price. The comfort of the communist vision is more attractive than the competition of reality.
No, it isn’t, but think of it this way:
Socialism in general SHOULD be seductive in its claims – it basically claims every good thing that anyone could possibly want for the world.
Those who are unable to think very deeply about it will be tempted by it.
But also, those who don’t have to deal with the real world, who spend their lives living in theory, can also be easily tempted by it.
It fails for reasons that are easily understandable… when you stop and think about things it doesn’t talk about at all… like basic human nature.
Hmmm…
Anyone have *reliable and verifiable* data on IQ distribution among members of political parties?
I asked Grok (least likely to be biased):
I think that the higher IQ person can, easily, adopt the language of the lower IQ person.
But citing the language issue is a matter of education not intelligence.
Thinking in the abstract is a skill, and not everyone has a natural talent for it.
And there’s different kinds of abstract thinking. I know people who can differential equations in their head, but cannot follow a wiring diagram or a subway map.
I’m 20 above my wife and while she’s not making the connections as fast as I am, she can hold her own in the conversation. It’s not wasted time. She CAN understand, just not as quickly.
Taking that time is important.
I agree with Joe on this one, but I’ll add that it can be very context dependent. Flip side: eons ago, I worked my way through engineering school doing heavy construction over the summers. I probably had the highest IQ on the job site(s), but I also had the least experience. While I could always quickly find a decent way to do whatever was required, I was also frequently humbled at being shown a better, faster, easier, safer, simpler way of doing it by someone who had been doing it for years. Experience matters. I had plenty of grizzled old timers shaking their heads at the ‘college boy’, but for my part: they seldom had to show me twice. I respected their wisdom, and they respected my willingness/desire to learn. Communication was never an issue.
The real hard gap begins around 2SD, 30 IQ points. It doesn’t matter where on the curve you are, 2SD is 2SD. But it does matter what you’re talking about – relationship problems are universal, but discussions of science and math are not. Things the +2SD person takes for granted as obvious have to be carefully, slowly, and repeatedly explained to the -2SD person. Even then, they might not ever understand.
The 45 IQ man can dress and feed himself.
The 60 IQ man can sweep and mop the floor.
The 85 IQ man can drive a car.
The 100 IQ man can run a checklist after it has been explained to him.
The 115 IQ man supervises the 100 IQ man, explaining the meaning of each item on the list, and the importance of doing them in order.
The 130 IQ man creates the checklist.
The 145 IQ man creates the process the checklist is for.
The 160 IQ man creates the science the process utilizes.
The 175 IQ man creates the theoretical framework for the science.
But none of them will ever understand women.