Talk:Tnuctip

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Do I remember right that "The Soft Weapon" mentions, among other things found in stasis boxes, a live tnuctip? —Tamfang 00:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually it's "There Is a Tide" which states "Once a stasis box had disgorged a small, tarsierlike sentient being, still alive. That former slave had lived a strange life before the aging process claimed her, the last of her species." I guessed that referred to the same species as the "little racarliw slave" which Kzanol put into his second spacesuit, in World of Ptavvs (p. 13), but in the Ringworld Companion, supplement to the Ringworld Role-Playing Game, John Hewitt describes the Tnuctip as tarsier-like, so perhaps it's so.--Lensman003 15:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK the only description in the actual stories is that they are "compact", with six fingers and two thumbs on each hand. So I'd very much like to know where this article gets details such as "their eyes opened laterally".--Lensman003 15:49, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

In the Hall of the Mountain King, a short story from the Man Kzin Wars series, gives a detailed description of the tnuctipun. This includes many details of the race and their technology, including their IQ.

Yes I thought that the IQ number was a bit low considering their reputation; but on the other hand, if you multiply an entire population by that number you get some crazy results. Humans have an average IQ of 100 with a standard deviation of 15, so the intellectual elite (less than 1% of the population) have IQ's of 145+. The average tnuctip is this smart. Their intelligensia (the people who are spies, scientists, strategists, etc) have IQ's around 180+ if we assume a similar standard deviation to humans.

Many of the great ideas and advancements of human history came from people who measure up to the average tnuctip. Jack Brennan might be smarter than any given tnuctip, but quantity has a quality all its own. Two thirds of the tnuctipun race can handle the merely genius ideas that we lean on our top 1% for. Plus they're evolved for high intelligence and would lack the social or psychological abnormalities some high-IQ humans display. They're geniuses are freed up to work on far more interesting problems. Plus their personalities and ways of thinking may give them advantages as well. Durvash was psychologically hammered by the shock of what happened to him, but even then he displayed a chilling ruthlessness and cleverness, combined with advanced social cooperation skills.

As a side note, as I write this I start to realize that average IQ of a population is worth way more than training up the people at the extreme right side of the bell curve. A human supergenius is likely to be a match for a tnuctip supergenius because of the way probability works. The competitive advantage emerges when the whole society has a sustainable advantage.

Wellspring 16:26, 28 October 2007 (UTC)