Billions. IQ is normally distributed, so it's easy math. Lots of cynics think people are dumb or we don't have enough smart ones, but the truth is that we quite literally have more brains than we know what to do with. We are a species of bored underachievers trapped in a gravity well with nothing much to do and no future, so we spend our time fighting and drugging and making pointless doodads as townies trapped in some nowheresville often do.

> IQ is normally distributed, [...]

But only by definition. IQ tests are graded on a scale.

Humanity is ~7B, and "billons" implies >= 2B which is >= 30% of humanity.

I'd define "great" to be the top 1% of minds, which is ~70 million people. So, yes, tens of millions of great minds are certainly wasted, but not billions. (Not that that's much consolation).

Apparently 107 billion humans have ever lived. 1% of that is greater than a billion.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16870579

> here are currently seven billion people alive today and the Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived.

That said, merely being in the top 1% of intelligence doesn't seem to be worthy of the genius title.

If you are in the top 1% or even 5% you are probably capable of genius things if given the opportunity. The majority never are.

Genius is much more common than opportunity.

How do i up vote this. I have the genius but lacking the opportunity i think

> That said, merely being in the top 1% of intelligence doesn't seem to be worthy of the genius title.

Especially considering that the population average in many places and times is far below the current population averages normed in the USA and UK and Western Europe. If you asked how many people throughout history or globally would be in the top 1% of the USA/UK/WE population, the answer will be much smaller than a billion. (Thin tails strike again.)

I believe IQ is actually logrythmically distributed.

Or not even geniuses, just talented individuals. A very small percentage of people have the luxury to do 1) what they enjoy and are motivated by or 2) what they are good at. We are all, as a society, worse off when we keep massive swaths of people living on the margin.

that's why awhile ago I proposed the high-IQ basic income. It's like a government Mensa that pays its members. But it would also be very un-egalitarian