I’m an IT professional.
Most stereotypes about us are probably true. 
Single speed bike like this?
That the American South is filled with rednecks who have more tattoos than teeth.
That strippers and prostitutes all have Daddy Issues.
That the “good little cute college girl working her way through college as a stripper” IS a myth.
That, per capita, Blacks do far far more crime than Whites.
That Mexicans really ARE trying to “take back” the American Southwest by breeding at amazing rates and coming here in droves illegally every single week. That the oft-quoted “ten million illegals” in the USA is such an under-statement so as to be patently laughable.
Nerds have no social skills. They might be able to extend pi to fourteen million digits or tweak your computer to make it run faster than Big Blue, but they couldn’t walk up to a woman in a bar and begin a convo if their nerd lives depended on it.
Most fat women really ARE angry.
Lesbians WILL bring a U-Haul on the second date.
Most shrinks have psychiatric issues themselves.
Mexicans (and maybe other Latins) always make beautiful ornate hand-drawn signs, such as price tags i n the market. Very artistic, and lovely calligraphy, and well balanced
I’m from the South of England, it’s true of us too.
And you know all this how exactly?
How does one know ANYthing, amigo?
Experience, man.
Experience and direct observation. And in some cases, repeated first-hand information from trusted and credible friends and/or colleagues.
I also read a shit-ton of books. History, culture, biographies, memoirs, personal observations.
But isn’t that a bit tautological? Nerds, by definition, lack social graces, don’t they? Those who can recite pi to a upteen places and have social skills don’t generally get called “nerds.” (Although the word has undergone a good bit of semantic shift, where it’s not necessarily the pejorative it was in the 80s and 90s.)
Hoosiers have an uncanny knack of knowing which way north is, even in the middle of nowhere, at night, when it’s overcast.
I wonder when he was tested. If he was a precocious reader, he might have had that IQ at age 7.
My tested IQ at some point around the 5th grade was 142. That was a result of taking my highest achievement on a standardized test, and dividing by my chronological age. My score was probably very high, because I liked standardized tests, and didn’t get nervous. I was a good reader, who breezed through them, and always had 100% completion, and probably have very high numbers of correct answers, because my reading comprehension was precocious, and like I said, I was relaxed and not at all nervous. I also am very good at standardized tests. I once took a test the entire point of which was merely to measure one’s skill at taking standardized tests, and I scored 49/50. Mean score something like 35/50, mode a little lower.
Here’s the thing: it is not possible for me to get that score now. It was based on how I performed relative to an 18-year-old. Any high score for an adult is extrapolated.
What’s more, there are two tests used for schools: one had 140 as the highest score, and one had 150. Anyone who claims to have scored higher is either lying, or had a privately administered test. Schools don’t pay for those unless they suspect a problem, so no one who isn’t tested privately (say, to get into a private school g&t program) has a score that high.
Now, some people have “exceeds parameters of the test,” meaning their IQ is higher than what the test measures, so it is 140+, or 150+, but exactly what it is, is unknown.
So, this guy must have 1) been privately tested 2) as an adult and 3) had an extrapolated score, for an “IQ of 160” to have any meaning.
My 142 IQ at age 10 is meaningless now. For me to go around saying “My IQ is 142” would be a lie. What is interesting is that using the SAT IQ estimator, my IQ is also right about 142, but that is still something I took at 15, just 5 years later. I am 50 now.
Maybe this acquaintance is using the SAT to estimate his IQ. He better have scored about a 1530, though.
I still don’t think I have an IQ of 142, because I took the SAT when I was 15, had just finished my freshman year, and barely passed freshman algebra. I scored a 640 math. It’s all about psyching out the test. I scored a 720 verbal, some of which was legitimate, because I was unusually well-read, but still, good at tests.
When I hear “High IQ,” I think “good at multiple choice tests.” Or liar. Depends.
This kind of thread comes up, and gets bashed back and forth, because a lot of people don’t know the difference between noticing commonalities, and developing prejudices.
Lots of people are so bad at critical thinking and observation, that they note commonalities, develop stereotypes, and never take the necessary next step to investigate WHY the stereotype might appear to be true. They end up linking common behaviors to ETHNICITY or to RACE, instead of recognizing that the functions of HOW THEY CAME TO BE IN CONTACT WITH THOSE PEOPLE was the real determining factor.
Lots of people who end up declaring that stereotyping is not a bad thing to do after all, and argue in favor of it, aren’t stereotyping. They’re just scrambling to disguise what they know is plain old prejudice.
Most important, is what you do with the inevitable exceptions. All stereotypes have exceptions. If you gloss over them, that’s a fail. You aren’t observing and deducing, you are just categorizing and oppressing (or worshiping, as the case may be). If you over-praise them, you are a virulent whateverist. If you think that they prove that the stereotype is entirely false, you probably don’t have any skill with math or statistics at all.
Aren’t IQ tests recalibrate every year to account for generally increasing intelligence to keep 100 the average?
Nah, just to hit more beer and less vodka than the Russians.
Top 1% (which isn’t all that high once you think about it - 1 out of every 100 people you know are in it, more if most of the people you know are college-educated), and I’d bet Benjamins against frozen peas he was rounding up the “156 or higher” which happens to be the highest possible result in several common IQ tests.
How do you know Toxgoddess is Mexican?
Or that it’s “amiga”? And most importantly, how does he not know that they aren’t friends?
By experience, you know whatever your own experience is. One individual’s experience is not total reality. That’s called anecdotal evidence and confirmation bias. You used the words “all” and “most” and I am pretty sure you have not met most strippers, prostitutes, overweight women, or psychiatrists. I am also not sure what book could possibly prove to you any of the things you listed, with the possibly exception of crime rates[sup]1[/sup]. But what you are implying with it is racist.
You have given some pseudo-facts here with no cites. In particular, your claim about illegal immigration is baseless. How do you claim to know more about this than anyone who has seriously researched and published on the topic? Someone living in a Texas border town is going to have a much different worldview on this topic than someone in Minnesota. That’s why we have science. The people who have studied this with discipline agree.
- Even if your crime statistic is true, and I don’t know if it is, it doesn’t mean anything on its face. It is statistics used as “damn lies,” to paraphrase Mark Twain.
Well, as for living up to stereotypes, I can say I am Puerto Rican and yes I do carrya knife 
Well, then, I’ll admit that I have a big nose. However, I am also very prompt, so that’s only 1 in 2. ETA: Oh, and I’m not miserly. Not rich enough to be.
Black people are lucky enough to have stereotypes that contradict with one another, thereby making it very difficult to not fulfill one of them.
For instance, there’s the stereotype that black people are loud, garrulous, and comical.
But there’s also the stereotype that black people lack a sense of humor and are perpetually simmering over some perceived injustice or disrespect.
You can’t win.
Like Schrödinger’s immigrant, who lazes around and lives off benefits while taking everyone’s jobs.
I did notice a few stereotypes in favourite drinks, while working at an airport coffee shop; almost all Dutch customers bought espresso or a small black coffee, Eastern Europeans never wanted milk with their tea, New Zealanders mostly bought a flat white, almost all the soya chai I sold was to women in hijab, and Americans were by far the most likely to ask for something complicated that wasn’t listed on the menu.
I get an overwhelming sense that many want to post what is on their minds to this thread, but can’t out of fear of retribution/getting banned for wording something “incorrectly”.