This post blew up, and the replies perfectly illustrate the exact point I was making.
The most common pushback is some version of:
โNuh-uh, intelligent people can still communicate with lower-IQ individuals just fine.โ
I shouldnโt have to spell this out, but here we go.
Nobody is claiming you canโt have a basic transactional conversation with a grocery store clerk, order food, or make small talk with your neighbor. Surface level communication works across moderate gaps. You point, you smile, you use simple sentences, it gets the job done.
The real breakdown happens when you move beyond scripts and start exchanging actual ideas.
Thatโs where the 20-point gap becomes a chasm:
- One person is thinking in systems, incentives, second and third order consequences.
- The other is stuck at first order, immediate, concrete terms.
What feels like a crystal clear, logical argument to the higher IQ person sounds like confusing, overly complicated nonsense to the other.
Youโre not speaking the same conceptual language anymore.
This is why high IQ people often feel chronically alienated in normal social or professional environments, and why average people can find very bright individuals exhausting, โweird,โ or arrogant.
Itโs also why throwing together teams, friendships, marriages, or institutions with massive cognitive mismatches creates persistent friction that โjust be niceโ rhetoric canโt magically dissolve.
Basic communication? Usually possible.
Deep, accurate exchange of complex ideas? Often not.