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.

Hey, I won't knock it, mine is birds and philosophy. Yours can at least be useful.

There's too many headlines about record profits then, even the energy companies, although perhaps that's multinationals.

Most UK companies really aren’t passing on much in the way of value to shareholders and profits are generally not high. Shareholders won’t invest in companies if there are better rewards elsewhere. These are just financial realities.

(I speak as someone who has the very dull special interest of finance and investing in stocks and funds).

Increasing minimum wage to a living wage could easily be covered by the vast majority of companies without it impacting the cost of the product/service if the higher ups and shareholders didn't expect quite so much in terms of bonuses, dividends and profits. As an example, a friend worked in a local shop that served food and drink, she worked out how much it cost them to make a cup of tea, it was 5p. Take a guess at how much they charged the customers for that cup of tea.

Prices have been inflated by years of companies wringing as much profit as they can out of even the simplest things. That's capitalism that's caused that, not socialism.

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.

id rather keep more of my money at the moment, especially if they want to combat the cost of living crisis then they need to allow us to keep more of our money. 

increasing minimum wage all the time doesnt fix it as by increasing minimum wage the companies and productions have to add all the extra wage costs onto the products, and this is what causes inflation.... keep increasing minimum wage and you will keep increasing inflation. this again is another thing people should be educated on to understand. like a basic food chain but economics.

the gov then needs to prove it can spend efficiently with the less tax it gets... and when it proves it and has learned to make more use out of less tax then and only then can a tax increase actually be effective so long as they dont fail to use it efficiently when it raises. 

yeah education on politics is perhaps needed if everyones gonna stick their hand into it anyway.

it swings both ways though... do people think the tories created austerity? if they learned politics they realise its just a thing thats always existed in every single country, eu nations enact austerity right now... its a balancing of the books, it isnt a tory creation... it dates back as far as rome and its a needed thing at times.

this education can destroy the fanaticism and hate and wrong cult hatred ideas.

people can see things for what it is... take tax, if you cut tax on businesses your not just giving mates a back hander as labour voters say.... the goal of tax easing on the wealth is a goal to steal high end tax payers from other countries so they pay tax here instead... so there shouldnt be anger in these things but understanding of why these things are a thing... its not cheating or giving themselves a hand job, its another purpose to try raise funds and attract more higher end people over to increase the amount of tax revenue in the end.

education on politics as you see might end up destroying alot of the labour spread hatred as i just pointed out here. not that im supporting the tories, but the labour party have done this alot where they want to be elected so badly that they have spread all this fake stuff and outrage over social media that with education youd see it for what it is and youd see the policy for its real intent..... although i dont get the cut on inheritance tax... that one is a bit sketchy, but perhaps i need a explanation on that one, is it to keep our dying rich people from just leaving to spain or andorra before they die to avoid inheritance tax here?

I had to do one as part of my autism assessment. Wechsler Intelligence Scale actually, a variant of IQ test that tops out at 155.

I would, it'd be funny as hell. Although the saying is "You can't argue with stupid".

Who accused you of being a communist and when? I'm not sure I'd like to meet that person.

I think you'll find that a lot of Labour voters would agree with a tax increase if it meant education, healthcare and the social support systems were adequately funded. I absolutely would. You only have to look at the socialist democratic systems in Scandinavia to see how it works, higher taxes, better quality of life.

I don't want to pay less tax, I want the tax I pay to be used appropriately.

No, that way they'd be forced to actually look at what they're voting for. Informed voting is the ideal, not diminishing who can vote.

The current problem is the disinformation, party politics and apathy of a large number of potential voters. More education on politics in school would be good. A legal requirement to vote would be another, like Australia. Proportional representation so we can get away from basically a two party system. More options create more opportunities for a broader spectrum of political views to be represented.

Oof Americans are dumb lol (light hearted. I can make fun of them cause I am american)

Caelus said:

the average iq of europe is said to be 100.... and 100 is actually the average anyway so europe is very average.

america on the other hand has a average iq of 98.... this is all google by the way.

No, the mean IQ is 100 or thereabouts and 50% have IQs below that and 50% above. Although even if the mean was 70 or 250, it would still hold that 50% would be below averages and 50% above. That’s what the average is all about.

the average iq of europe is said to be 100.... and 100 is actually the average anyway so europe is very average.

america on the other hand has a average iq of 98.... this is all google by the way.

but as i said its nonsense because no one does iq tests lol

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.

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.

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

I had to do one as part of my autism assessment. Wechsler Intelligence Scale actually, a variant of IQ test that tops out at 155.

Oof Americans are dumb lol (light hearted. I can make fun of them cause I am american)

Caelus said:

the average iq of europe is said to be 100.... and 100 is actually the average anyway so europe is very average.

america on the other hand has a average iq of 98.... this is all google by the way.