Government want to look at disability bank accounts to see what we are spending on: this is not good for us autistic.

Don't EVER stop using cash.

DO NOT ADOPT CBDC's "for the convenience". 

FFS stop using direct debits, and paying "interest" on everything you own! The first takes all control away from you under the guise of helping you manage, and the second is financially speaking like voluntarily submitting to having leeches attached to your financial (metaphorcal) body.

Learn the difference between your annual turnover of money and your net cashflow, and (if you can of course, according to some members and people I meet in real life, some concepts I find obvious and "basic" are too difficult to follow) work out just HOW MUCH of you weekly income directly benefits you and your family.

I think you will all find (as I did) how incredibly unselfish with your money you all are. You literally throw it into the hands of rich strangers at every turn, who in exchange enact rules to further restrict and tax your activities, using those taxes to do what exactly?

Once they get you hooked on digital money, it'll be worth whatever (((they))) say it is on any given day, and your access to it will depend on a dazziling variety of ever changing factors completely outside of YOUR control. And the amount of financial fleas will multiply...

Sorry, I'll keep using direct debits and contactless payments because otherwise I would never remember to pay everything and I abhor touching things too many people have touched.

For me increasingly digital systems are a massive benefit, the less I have to interact with people and physical things to do things the better.

To each their own, the option to have the choice is the happy medium.

I can see your reasoning, and for those people who's income exceeds their expenditure by a moderate amount consistently, and who have enough self control to keep a wary eye on their own consumption and expenditure our modern "conveniences" are wonderful.

As to your last line, providing we have the option to have a choice between cash and digital, that will be fine by me.

Believe it or not, the nationalists are proposing what is called “Sterlingisation”.

This means unofficially using Sterling as the currency. There’s nothing the UK could do to stop this (we could equally use the US dollar or the Indian Rupee).

But it comes with massive disadvantages - no control of the money supply, interest rates being set by what would be a foreign country to us, no lender of last resort to bail us out if there was a financial crisis or another pandemic, and disqualification from joining the EU.

All things which the SNP have acknowledged at one time or another, but they truly can believe six impossible things before breakfast.

BeckyThump said:

Perhaps they call your views right wing because they are. If you support a party like the Tories, as you have in other threads, then you are supporting a right wing party. That is unavoidable.

i support no party, i support direct democracy and single voting events.
but if the tories were to do something like lower my tax id agree with them that my tax needs to be lowered.... and id expect labour voters should have agreed on them when they lowered the entry level for the upper tax band as that made more people  pay upper tax band but apparently labour voters dont like socialist policies when the tories do them. showing again its a cult as you said in another comment, rather than policy voting.

my direct vote on single issues is a direct democracy voting that gets rid of party cults

The average when not clarified if the mean, mode or median, is generally the mean, which is calculated by dividing the sum of the values in the set by their number. So all of the IQ values added together divided by the number of people. Which would mean (no pun intended) that yes, half of the population would be under the average mean value. Unless there were significantly more  exceptionally low IQ scores than exceptionally high IQ scores that would skew the bell curve.

Hmm. Well if 50% have below average and google says below average is under 70 and above average is above 130. so 50% have a score of 70 or higher and the percent of above 130 must be very small, yet alot of people on here have a IQ about that high (I saw on the twice exceptional thread)

i get accused of being right wing by the left wing, and being a communist by the right wing lmao

im in that special place were i annoy both sides... although perhaps im always just that way, perhaps i like to argue. i can list every single view in existence on a topic if needed, and people will think they are my views instead of a example of views. but my views can change and be fluid, or can be expansive and cover a wide range, like hot hot isnt just hot, its varying temperatures and any temperature is ok anyway although some can burn.

No, IQ distribution across the whole population is a Bell curve around the mean (although  curiously this is not true of the autistic population). Very few people would happen to have exactly the mean IQ.

id be for that, at least its a better change from the current system anyway that way you can vote on policy rather than popularity contest that was inbred into people.

but then are the people all too dumb to vote on that though yet as you both said?
in that case why dont we just allow people who are rich to vote as surely the rich are smart enough? lol
or perhaps people are too dumb to vote that means we need a dictatorship?

in response to a disapeared comment;

scotland has already been told by the uk government it isnt keeping the pound Stirling and would indeed have to make its own currency. so it will at least check list its own currency and bank as its already been told its not having the pound.... i mean it will be seperate and the uk cant risk another entity tied to the pound which could tank the pounds value. so it will have to be cut off if it leaves.... but thats up to the scottish people. we english have always been this way... if you want to go, vote on it, and the peoples will shall be absolute... if you all vote no then dont argue at the english for it as it was your own peoples choice.. we gave you a choice, you all voted no already.

also if you previously said you lived through the brexit referendums i guess that means you are perhaps young? because to me those events didnt happen so far back for me to speak of them historically as a past thing, and so therefore by age and perception by your own logic youd be excluded from votes by your ideas as if brexit was so far back to be so historical and long away for you then it shows lack of life experience to vote in a educated fashion.

Amerantin (former member) said:

50% of the population have a below average IQ

How is that possible? an average IQ is based on the average score of the population, so majority people have the average otherwise it wouldnt be an average

I once worked with someone who thought you could see the fish through the Channel tunnel, and that albinos came from Albania.

Without going out of your way to find out about political issues and party agendas, most people don't have a clue what each party is actually campaigning on other than a few hot topic issues. The various different media sources put their spin on those, creating an echo chamber for the people who access them.

So yes, Amerantin is right, most people don't have a clue.

Personally, I'm in favour of a condensed version of the campaign promises being put on the polling slip without any indication of who it's for, and all campaigns have to be done anonymously, like the Masked Singer. Take the personality cult out of politics, make it about the issues instead.

Well said 

If I was ever accused of being right wing I'd stand up for myself and my own beliefs.  No one ever accuses me of being right wing though.

There's a lot to unpack there.

Your idea for how we should be governed is unworkable. Even given advances in technology for voting, there would need to be an organisation in place to create policy to be voted on by the public, which would need to be appointed somehow, perhaps by being voted for by the public since their role would be instrumental in advocating policy. There would then be different people, with different stances to select from who wanted that role, which isn't any different from what we have now. Some form of government is unavoidable for a large society. History has proven that over and again, regardless of technology. What that government should look like is the issue.

Perhaps they call your views right wing because they are. If you support a party like the Tories, as you have in other threads, then you are supporting a right wing party. That is unavoidable.

You're painting the middle class as some sort of devious, manipulative cohesive entity that are all out to get you. Can you not see that how you're talking about them is exactly the same as you're accusing them of talking about you? I'll be honest, most of the people I know in the nominal middle class, myself included, aren't that concerned about people from any class more than another, they're more concerned about their daily lives and trying to do the best they can with what they've got. The same as everyone else.

The people who are being manipulative are the press, the politicians, and the prominent people in society, because it's their job to do it and they get paid well for it. Some do it to a larger extent than others so some are more to blame than most. And some walk an exceedingly fine line between truth and lies, fact and fiction, spinning and twisting things to suit their narrative.

Labour's hands aren't clean by any means, but the Tories win the prize for two faced platitudes for the masses. Using everything they can to try to convince the people that they're truly looking out for the best interests of everyone, when that couldn't be furthest from the truth. Look at the COVID debacle, "Let them due" they said behind closed doors whilst giving money for contracts to their mates who then did nothing.

I'll take occasionally misguided socialists over elitist billionaires any day.

i do but even the left wing working class would be accused of being right wing with how they talk and the words they use.... and theyd all be accused of being too thick to be allowed a vote buy so called "left wing" middle classers... which then claim we dont know what socialism is despite the fact they just said working class shouldnt be allowed any political voice because we are too dumb? and yet we dont know what socialism is and they just broke the very core concept of socialism by those words lol

Do you realise that people from all different classes have all different kind of views? There are right wing posh people, right wing middle class people and right wing working class people.  There are also Left wing posh people, left wing middle class people and left wing working class people.

It doesn't seem to me that you understand that.

and what does IQ mean? lol
a person with a so called low iq is probably smarter and more respectable than a arrogant egotistical person with a high iq... and either way no one does those tests anyway. they are not mandated and mass done for you to say that. the IQ thing is often more used by so called right wingers, but it makes no sense because who has done a real recorded iq test? ... a handful of people? ...it cant be used unless it becomes a mandatory recorded thing, like a gcse result. but yeah probably later because gcse results are a bit flawed and probably done too young and not a real indicator themselves which in themselves prove a failure of society to judge intellect.

but either way, another point.. why should we bar people from voting just because we deem them below intelligence? it shouldnt matter, the peoples combined will should form the absolute unified being.... ok what if someone came along and arrested you right now and said your too stupid to be allowed freedom and to make your own decisions so they will arrest you now and make all your decisions for you?

50% of the population have a below average IQ, a fact confirmed by what I witnessed during the independence and brexit referendums.

see there ya go, you call the will of the people as thick and ignorant...

you have already lost to the rich elite then.... as if your people, your working class masses are too thick and ignorant to trust to a direct democracy voting system... then you are saying the only people that should be allowed a vote are the rich elite, the top 1% ... you see how you have been manipulated by them and are in their pocket? like i said they control you without knowing and thats a perfect example of what i was telling you all about right there.

Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t won’t society to collapse nor do I want its direction to be set by thick ignorant  people who are fed most of their opinions by social media.

how would it?
the people would all get what they want in such a system, they cant complain as they would have majority voted on everything and it would reflect what they want.... if it collapses then they cant complain, because its what they wanted. this system gets rid of the toxic constant complaining about politics... you can no longer complain when you all voted for each thing by majority.... or perhaps people want to just complain about it all the time? lol

how would it?
the people would all get what they want in such a system, they cant complain as they would have majority voted on everything and it would reflect what they want.... if it collapses then they cant complain, because its what they wanted. this system gets rid of the toxic constant complaining about politics... you can no longer complain when you all voted for each thing by majority.... or perhaps people want to just complain about it all the time? lol

Of course not.

If you are genuinely nice as well as of high intelligence, the world can be your playground. 

I Sperg said:

138 is just 7 points shy of official genius. You get all the problems and difficulty with down converting to dumb people language, but none of the recognition or opportunity that true genius brings...

i dunno i think most people wont actually understand what anyone means if they tell someone they have a iq of 138, it would go over most peoples heads.... infact it would go over my head too because i simply dont measure intellect that way and each iq test will give you a different result for sure, which means its a flawed measurement anyway and doesnt actually mean anything.

Not everyone is feared and distrusted for being intelligent.  It might feel like that at times and that might be your personal experience.  It's not Pol Pot's Cambodia where we are about to be killed for being intellectuals.

I'm sorry, but putting a Mensa sticker in the back of your Mini Metro car is the most attractive thing you could ever do to the wrong sort of person, perhaps a "jerk" on a motorcycle such as myself back in the nineteen eighties...

If you guys are pulling the bigger numbers, my recommendation (and practice) FWIW based on over a half century of knowing my own number is; "keep it to yourselves". 

138 is just 7 points shy of official genius. You get all the problems and difficulty with down converting to dumb people language, but none of the recognition or opportunity that true genius brings...

Those 121 people in the other thread are close enough to Joe Normal to be able to be unnoticed down the pub and take advantage of their gifts unnoticed but YOU stick out just enough to be feared and distrusted.. 

But all those problems must pale into insignificance on the some motorcyclist pulls you over to a stop, gets you to wind down your window and before riding off laughing maniacallly looks down and asks you with a deadpan expression:

"If you are in mensa and that's the intelligent peoples association, how come you drive such a *** car??"

The test I did had elements of arithmetic but no maths as such. It did have

• working memory tests where you have to repeat increasingly long string of digits, then repeat them backwards then repeat them in numerical order
• various shape manipulation tasks to test if you could rotate shapes in two and three dimensions in your head or construct a shape in a picture using a set of tiles (while timed)
• write a very long string of abstract symbols using a mapping from numbers and letters to those symbols
• explain why groups of words were similar or different 
• a short general knowledge test (I freaked her out by getting them all correct. Two of the questions were what’s the circumference of the Earth and how long does it take light to reach the Earth from the sun. I answered both exactly. She said they usually have a tolerance of 25% error. I then pointed out that astronomy is one of my special interests).

There was more but I can’t remember it all. It took about two hours.

*Dances*

maths is too big a element in them... most iq tests just seem to be purely maths tests... but not basic maths, super complicated all over the place maths questions.... if i see a maths question in anything id just rip the entire paper up and leave.

basic working maths though i can do as i worked on a old fashioned till that doesnt do any calculating for you so i had to do the quick maths there and then to calculate the change in my head myself while having no gaps in serving the customer. but iq maths tests are unrealistic and not used in the real world anyway.

I now have the Bee Gees playing in the back of my head

I am also concerned with staying alive. Funnily enough.

I have an IQ of 133 and you are probably smarter than me.

Bless. That's a  nice comment  

We will never know the answer. 

Our priorities change as we get older anyway.

I am less concerned nowadays with IQ than with staying alive!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I_izvAbhExY

I have an IQ of 133 and you are probably smarter than me.

Amerantin (former member) said:

My “full scale IQ” was 138 which they said was greater than 98% of the population.

Out of a max of 155 that's impressive.

I did just find that test online and started it but I got to about question 10 and realised there were another 50 and am too tired.

Also, I wondered if I was doing it under the correct conditions.

Thanks for all this.

Food for thought.

I tried a few online IQ tests before my assessment but they were all 20-30 questions and took minutes. The Wechsler test took nearly two hours and parts of it were timed so I think you’d only be able to get it if it was administered by a psychologist.

It also has a maximum IQ score of 155 so I’m not sure how it relates to tests that tell us people like Newton had IQs of 180 or whatever.

All my numbers were higher than expected with the exception of processing speed for which I got 114, which is still above average I suppose. My “full scale IQ” was 138 which they said was greater than 98% of the population.

I have since tried the Mensa sample tests and got a much higher score <shrugs>

Amerantin (former member) said:

One of the common characteristics of autistic people is a spiky profile - so for example you might be mathematically gifted but have terrible verbal comprehension. This test is apparently quite good at revealing these gifts and deficits.

If that's available online I may take a look.

I was with my autistic friend the other day who told me that he only did a test once, 40 years ago, and has an IQ of 150.

He also told me that he perceives me as highly intelligent - however, I don't think that would show on an ordinary IQ test and, in fact, I find the evaluation of my own intelligence impossible as I am not a high achiever either academically or career wise.

Also, he is mathematically gifted and doesn't have the best verbal comprehension.

You have me intrigued.

The test they did on me was called the Wechsler adult intelligence scale and as well as an overall IQ figure you get other numbers for things like vocabulary, arithmetic, working memory, visual processing and processing speed.

One of the common characteristics of autistic people is a spiky profile - so for example you might be mathematically gifted but have terrible verbal comprehension. This test is apparently quite good at revealing these gifts and deficits.

Amerantin (former member) said:

To rule out any kind of learning or intellectual disability which might otherwise explain my problems, apparently.

Ah. I see.

So not to see if you have a high IQ, but rather to check you don't have a low one.

IQ tests are something that bother me actually.

I think I have dyscalculia and maths is an element of them.

I've tried to do one or two but anything involving figures foxes me.

To rule out any kind of learning or intellectual disability which might otherwise explain my problems, apparently.

Amerantin (former member) said:

I had to do one as part of my autism assessment.

Why?

I'm really surprised by this

Yeah but those who live at the edge of the IQ  bellcurve tend to lack EQ so it all evens out...

Unless you believe that having a higher intelligence automatically elevates one, over other people.

That Idea of course is pure racism amongst it's other failures, based on even the most cursory viewing of the IQ statistics by country...  

You're only looking at what you see as Labour's lies. You're not mentioning the Tory ones at all. And they're just as destructive and targeted, if not more so.

So more education all round will lead to a more informed voter who can make an informed choice. Personally, I'd hope that more people would then vote for policies that support the whole of society rather than just their specific subset but I tend hope for the best in people.

Also, trickle down economics has been categorically proven to be a failure in terms of spreading the wealth through society. Instead it leaves a small number of individuals with a massively disproportionate amount of money. Money which they don't pay tax on because they have ways to completely avoid it. So that's rubbish.

And yes, austerity, and other economic policies are obviously universal, it's the implementation of them that is questionable. As theories they have their uses, but it's how and when that is often the problem.